was a Japanese writer, editor, labor organizer, communist agent, politician, and university professor and the founder of the
Japanese Communist Party
The is a Left-wing politics, left-wing to Far-left politics, far-left List of political parties in Japan, political party in Japan. With approximately 270,000 members belonging to 18,000 branches, it is one of the largest non-governing Communis ...
(JCP). He was the son of a wealthy Japanese merchant, and attended the prestigious
Keio University. While in university, Nosaka became interested in social movements, and joined a moderate labor organization after graduation, working as a research staff member, and as a writer and editor of the organization's magazine. He traveled to Britain in 1919 to study
political economy
Political economy is the study of how economic systems (e.g. markets and national economies) and political systems (e.g. law, institutions, government) are linked. Widely studied phenomena within the discipline are systems such as labour ...
, where he deepened his studies of
Marxism
Marxism is a left-wing to far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand class relations and social conflict and a dialectical ...
and became a confirmed
communist. Nosaka was a founding member of the
Communist Party of Great Britain, but his activity within British communist circles led to him being deported from Britain in 1921.
After leaving Britain, Nosaka traveled through the
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...
(USSR). He returned to Japan in 1922, where he co-founded the
Japanese Communist Party
The is a Left-wing politics, left-wing to Far-left politics, far-left List of political parties in Japan, political party in Japan. With approximately 270,000 members belonging to 18,000 branches, it is one of the largest non-governing Communis ...
(JCP).
Nosaka became a labor organizer, but was arrested twice by the Japanese government for his activities. After being released from prison a second time, Nosaka secretly returned to the USSR in 1931, where he became an agent of the
Comintern. He traveled to the
West Coast of the United States
The West Coast of the United States, also known as the Pacific Coast, Pacific states, and the western seaboard, is the coastline along which the Western United States meets the North Pacific Ocean. The term typically refers to the contiguous U.S ...
, where he worked as a spy from 1934 to 1938.
After leaving the United States, Nosaka worked in China from 1940 to 1945, supporting the
Chinese Communist Party
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP), officially the Communist Party of China (CPC), is the founding and sole ruling party of the People's Republic of China (PRC). Under the leadership of Mao Zedong, the CCP emerged victorious in the Chinese Civil ...
(CCP) by encouraging and recruiting captured Japanese soldiers to support and fight for the Chinese communists against the
Imperial Japanese Army
The was the official ground-based armed force of the Empire of Japan from 1868 to 1945. It was controlled by the Imperial Japanese Army General Staff Office and the Ministry of the Army, both of which were nominally subordinate to the Emperor o ...
, and coordinating a spy network that operated throughout
Japanese-occupied China. After the
surrender of Japan in 1945, Nosaka returned to Japan with hundreds of other Japanese communists, where he led the Japanese Communist Party during the
occupation of Japan.
Nosaka attempted to brand the JCP as a "lovable" populist party supporting Japan's peaceful transition to
socialism
Socialism is a left-wing Economic ideology, economic philosophy and Political movement, movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to Private prop ...
, but his strategy was criticized within the party and within the Soviet Union. During the
Korean War
, date = {{Ubl, 25 June 1950 – 27 July 1953 (''de facto'')({{Age in years, months, weeks and days, month1=6, day1=25, year1=1950, month2=7, day2=27, year2=1953), 25 June 1950 – present (''de jure'')({{Age in years, months, weeks a ...
the JCP temporarily endorsed violence, and Nosaka disappeared from public life and went underground. He re-emerged to lead the JCP again in 1955, after which he attempted to disrupt the
US-Japan Security Treaty by organizing public demonstrations, but he generally supported the JCP's role as a peaceful party. In 1958 Nosaka became Chairman of the JCP, a position he held until retirement at the age of 90, after which he was declared Honorary Chairman. Nosaka joined the faculty of
Keio University, and he was widely idolized among left-wing intellectuals until shortly before his death, when the fall of the
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...
exposed controversial aspects of his relationship with
Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secretar ...
's Communist regime.
Biography
Early life
Sanzō Nosaka was the son of a prosperous Japanese merchant and was raised in a
bourgeois environment. As a young man Nosaka was known for his fashionable taste in clothing and for the large dog that often accompanied him in public. He was quiet, serious, studious, introverted, and more comfortable in libraries than at public demonstrations. After his secondary education, Nosaka attended
Keio University, which was then considered a "rich boys school". At Keio, Nosaka became interested in the international labor movement, an interest that was largely supported by one of his professors, Kiichi Horie. Nosaka decided to write his senior thesis on the moderate labor organization founded by
Bunji Suzuki, "''Yuaikai''" ("The Friendly Society"). To research his thesis, Nosaka contacted ''Yuaikais head office, and acquainted himself with its senior leaders: Suzuki initially mistook Nosaka for a salesman the first time they met, but eventually grew fond of Nosaka. When Nosaka graduated from Keio, in 1915, he joined ''Yuaikai'' and worked for the organization as a research staff member and as an editor of the organization's journal, ''Rodo Oyobi Sangyo'' (''Labour and Industry'').
[Scalapino p. 4]
Nosaka became interested in communism after the 1917
Bolshevik Revolution
The October Revolution,. officially known as the Great October Socialist Revolution. in the Soviet Union, also known as the Bolshevik Revolution, was a revolution in Russia led by the Bolshevik Party of Vladimir Lenin that was a key moment ...
.
[''Encyclopædia Britannica''] As a greater volume of leftist literature entered Japan from the West, Nosaka's political orientation moved farther from the center. The first Western texts on revolutionary social theory available in Japan were mostly on
anarchism, but Nosaka also enjoyed
Edward Bellamy
Edward Bellamy (March 26, 1850 – May 22, 1898) was an American author, journalist, and political activist most famous for his utopian novel ''Looking Backward''. Bellamy's vision of a harmonious future world inspired the formation of numerou ...
's utopian novel, ''
Looking Backward
''Looking Backward: 2000–1887'' is a utopian science fiction novel by Edward Bellamy, a journalist and writer from Chicopee Falls, Massachusetts; it was first published in 1888.
The book was translated into several languages, and in short o ...
''. In 1918-1919 Nosaka read an English copy of ''
The Communist Manifesto
''The Communist Manifesto'', originally the ''Manifesto of the Communist Party'' (german: Manifest der Kommunistischen Partei), is a political pamphlet written by German philosophers Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Commissioned by the Commu ...
'' brought to Japan by his friend, Shinzo Koizumi. After reading ''The Communist Manifesto'', Nosaka embraced the theories of
Marxism
Marxism is a left-wing to far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand class relations and social conflict and a dialectical ...
.
[Scalapino pp. 4-5]
Nosaka announced his intentions to go abroad to study social theory in the November 1918 issue of ''Rodo Oyobi Sangyo''. He sailed out of
Kobe harbor on July 7, 1919, and arrived in London on August 27. After his arrival, Nosaka studied
political economy
Political economy is the study of how economic systems (e.g. markets and national economies) and political systems (e.g. law, institutions, government) are linked. Widely studied phenomena within the discipline are systems such as labour ...
at
London University
The University of London (UoL; abbreviated as Lond or more rarely Londin in post-nominals) is a federal public research university located in London, England, United Kingdom. The university was established by royal charter in 1836 as a degree- ...
. Like many British intellectuals at the time, Nosaka deepened his studies of Marxism, and became a confirmed communist at the university. While in London Nosaka became active in communist circles. He affiliated himself with notable trade union leaders active in London, and attended the September 8–13, 1919 Glasgow Trade Union Congress as a correspondent for ''Rodo Oyobi Sangyo''.
[Scalapino p. 5] Nosaka was a founding member of the
Communist Party of Great Britain in 1920,
[Pace] and attended the Party's first session as a representative from London. Nosaka's activities within the Communist Party brought him to the attention of
Scotland Yard,
and Nosaka was deported from Britain in 1921. After he left Britain, Nosaka traveled through Europe to the newly formed
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...
. In Russia, with the help of friendly contacts in the communist hierarchy, Nosaka became influential within the Communist Party. Nosaka was suspected of being either a British or Japanese agent; but, because of his contacts among high-ranking Finnish and Russian leaders, Nosaka was never
purged
In history, religion and political science, a purge is a position removal or execution of people who are considered undesirable by those in power from a government, another organization, their team leaders, or society as a whole. A group undertak ...
. Nosaka wrote A Brief Review of the Labour Movement in Japan. It was published by the International Council of Trade and Industrial Unions in 1921
After attending the Far Eastern People's Conference in the Soviet Union, Nosaka returned to Japan in 1922,
and helped found the
Japanese Communist Party
The is a Left-wing politics, left-wing to Far-left politics, far-left List of political parties in Japan, political party in Japan. With approximately 270,000 members belonging to 18,000 branches, it is one of the largest non-governing Communis ...
(JCP) that same year.
Nosaka was more secretive about his relationship with the Communist Party than he had been in Britain, and kept his membership a secret from Bunji Suzuki and other moderate labour leaders.
After his return, Nosaka worked as a trade unionist and editor of the JCP's official newspaper, ''Musansha Shimbun''.
Because of his activities within the Communist Party (which was illegal in Japan), Nosaka, like many communists in Japan, was arrested (twice in his case), interrogated, and tortured by the
Kenpeitai
The , also known as Kempeitai, was the military police arm of the Imperial Japanese Army from 1881 to 1945 that also served as a secret police force. In addition, in Japanese-occupied territories, the Kenpeitai arrested or killed those suspecte ...
, but he was released after short periods both times. Nosaka was first arrested in 1923, and released within a year. After his release, Nosaka became more active within the Japanese labor movement.
In March 1928, the Japanese police began a campaign to harass and destroy the JCP, beginning with the
May 15 Incident.
After his second arrest in 1929, Nosaka spent two years in jail. He was released in 1931 on the grounds of illness.
[''The Japan Times Online''] The short lengths of Nosaka's arrests aroused suspicion among other Japanese communists that Nosaka had given important information to the Japanese secret police, but these suspicions were never acted upon.
Comintern agent
Upon his release, Nosaka secretly returned to the Soviet Union, arriving in
Moscow
Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 millio ...
in March 1931.
[Scalapino p. 42] While there, Nosaka served as a representative of the JCP,
and worked as an executive member of the
Comintern. While in Moscow Nosaka helped to draft the "1932 Thesis", which became the guiding document of the JCP until 1946. Most of his colleagues active in the JCP, who were not able to go abroad, were subsequently arrested by the kempeitai by the fall of 1932.
One of Nosaka's friends was Kenzo Yamamoto, a legendary Japanese communist who had been in the Soviet Union with his common-law wife, Matsu, since 1928.
Yamamoto had a reputation as a great womanizer; and, when rumors circulated that Yamamoto was engaged in an affair with Nosaka's wife, Ryu, Nosaka wrote a confidential letter to the
NKVD
The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (russian: Наро́дный комиссариа́т вну́тренних дел, Naródnyy komissariát vnútrennikh del, ), abbreviated NKVD ( ), was the interior ministry of the Soviet Union.
...
(dated February 22, 1939) indicating that he believed Yamamoto and his wife were likely Japanese spies in the pay of the
Kenpeitai
The , also known as Kempeitai, was the military police arm of the Imperial Japanese Army from 1881 to 1945 that also served as a secret police force. In addition, in Japanese-occupied territories, the Kenpeitai arrested or killed those suspecte ...
. On Stalin's orders, both Yamamoto and Matsu were arrested as spies. A firing squad executed Yamamoto, and Matsu died in a
gulag
The Gulag, an acronym for , , "chief administration of the camps". The original name given to the system of camps controlled by the GPU was the Main Administration of Corrective Labor Camps (, )., name=, group= was the government agency in ...
. Both Yamamoto and his wife were formally rehabilitated after their deaths by
Nikita Khrushchev
Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev (– 11 September 1971) was the First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964 and chairman of the country's Council of Ministers from 1958 to 1964. During his rule, Khrushchev s ...
on May 23, 1956, recognizing the lack of any evidence that the two were actually spies. In his autobiography, Nosaka later wrote that he had tried to save Yamamoto's life.
In 1934, Nosaka secretly traveled to the
West Coast of the United States
The West Coast of the United States, also known as the Pacific Coast, Pacific states, and the western seaboard, is the coastline along which the Western United States meets the North Pacific Ocean. The term typically refers to the contiguous U.S ...
, where he became involved in
intelligence
Intelligence has been defined in many ways: the capacity for abstraction, logic, understanding, self-awareness, learning, emotional knowledge, reasoning, planning, creativity, critical thinking, and problem-solving. More generally, it can be des ...
work on behalf of the
International Liaison Department of the
Comintern against the
Imperial Japan
The also known as the Japanese Empire or Imperial Japan, was a historical nation-state and great power that existed from the Meiji Restoration in 1868 until the enactment of the post-World War II 1947 constitution and subsequent forma ...
ese government. Nosaka's activities included disseminating information to communists still active in Japan, infiltrating and making contact with the Japanese communities active in the United States, and establishing a number of communist front organizations in
Seattle
Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...
,
Los Angeles
Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, largest city in the U.S. state, state of California and the List of United States cities by population, sec ...
, and other cities on the West Coast. Nosaka worked to gain funding from the Comintern for his activities, and attempted to have other Japanese Communists secretly relocated to America. He planned to recruit American and Japanese agents to send to
Yokohama
is the second-largest city in Japan by population and the most populous municipality of Japan. It is the capital city and the most populous city in Kanagawa Prefecture, with a 2020 population of 3.8 million. It lies on Tokyo Bay, south of T ...
to establish a cell that would operate as a communist front organization. Because the records from this period are incomplete, historians cannot be certain to what extent Nosaka's efforts in America were successful. Nosaka worked as a Comintern agent in America until 1938, when he returned to Moscow. In 1940, the Comintern ordered Nosaka to aid communist forces in China.
In May 1943, Nosaka was the representative of the JCP in the case of the dissolution of the Comintern.
Activities in China
From March 1940 to the end of 1945, during the
Second Sino-Japanese War
The Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945) or War of Resistance (Chinese term) was a military conflict that was primarily waged between the Republic of China and the Empire of Japan. The war made up the Chinese theater of the wider Pacific Th ...
, Nosaka resided at the
Chinese Red Army
The Chinese Workers' and Peasants' Red Army or Chinese Workers' and Peasants' Revolutionary Army, commonly known as the Chinese Red Army or simply the Red Army, are the armed forces of the Chinese Communist Party. It was formed when Communis ...
base in
Yan'an
Yan'an (; ), alternatively spelled as Yenan is a prefecture-level city in the Shaanbei region of Shaanxi province, China, bordering Shanxi to the east and Gansu to the west. It administers several counties, including Zhidan (formerly Bao'an) ...
, in
Shaanxi
Shaanxi (alternatively Shensi, see § Name) is a landlocked province of China. Officially part of Northwest China, it borders the province-level divisions of Shanxi (NE, E), Henan (E), Hubei (SE), Chongqing (S), Sichuan (SW), Gansu (W), N ...
Province, where he headed the
Japanese People's Emancipation League (JPEL). The JPEL engaged in the "
re-education" of numerous Japanese
prisoners of war (POWs) and created
propaganda on behalf of the Chinese Communists. Japanese troops captured by the Communists were then used by the Communists in various civilian and military roles, and were especially valued because their level of technical expertise was generally greater than that of most Chinese soldiers. "Re-educated" Japanese troops were instrumental in a number of Communist victories after World War II, including the 1949
Pingjin Campaign, in which most of the artillery fielded by the Communists was manned by Japanese gunners. In general, the method of "re-education" devised and employed by Nosaka was highly effective.
Initially, the Red Army was a purely
guerrilla force without the facilities to imprison POWs. The policy of the
Eighth Route Army, the main communist force active during World War II, was to interrogate prisoners and then release them. After reports surfaced that the Japanese were punishing Japanese prisoners after they returned, the Red Army's policy gradually changed to one of retraining POWs, and the communists began to implement this policy after Nosaka arrived in Yan'an.
[Inoue] By the time of its war with China, the Japanese army was educating its officers and common soldiers to die rather than surrender. Injured soldiers were easily captured, and made up the bulk of Japanese POWs. Captured Japanese believed that they would be killed, but were instead fed and clothed, and began to develop a rapport with their captors.
Besides Nosaka's regimen of psychological indoctrination, there were several reasons that Japanese POWs chose to join the Chinese communists. Communist guerrillas took care to develop an early rapport with their prisoners by treating them well. Captured Japanese soldiers were generally moved when they learned of the terrible conditions the war inflicted on the Chinese people, a perspective that they had not been exposed to before their capture. Closer to the end of the war, the growing possibility of defeat created anxiety among the Japanese army. Because of the Japanese military's policy to never surrender, Japanese soldiers never received any training about how to act as POWs: upon returning to Japanese ranks, many would face disgrace, punishment, and starvation. Many Japanese soldiers committed suicide after their capture, but those who chose to live generally came to sympathize with the Chinese. The Japanese army was aware of the existence of Nosaka's Communist Japanese soldiers, and feared the phenomena out of proportion to their actual threat.
Koji Ariyoshi
(1914–1976) was a Nisei labor activist and a Sergeant in the United States Army during the Second World War.
Early life
Ariyoshi was born in Hawaii in 1914 to Japanese immigrant parents. Ariyoshi grew up helping his family make a living on a ...
, an American who met Nosaka in Yan'an wrote that Nosaka was "the Japanese national who undoubtedly contributed the most in the war against Japanese militarism". The Japanese army attempted to use numerous spies and assassins in order to eliminate Nosaka (who used the name "Okano Susumu" for the duration of the war), but were unsuccessful. Nosaka maintained a network of agents throughout Japanese-occupied China, which he used to gather information about events within the Japanese Empire and about the war.
From 1940 to 1943, Nosaka's presence in China was kept a secret. Under a Chinese name, Lin Zhe, he directed the work of the Research Office of the Japanese Problem. His work with the Research Office in Yan'an brought Yan'an's intelligence information about Japan up to date. Nosaka collected newspapers and other publications from Japan. To research the enemy, Nosaka and his crew took care to analyze current events in Japan and China, which they did by stocking Japanese newspapers, magazines, journals, and diaries that were purchased or seized on the battlefield.
Nosaka's Japanese "prisoner converts" fought freely for the Chinese communists once their re-education was complete. In Yan'an, the Japanese lived normal lives without guards, owned a cooperative store, and printed their own news bulletins and propaganda. Visiting American officers used Nosaka's Japanese soldiers to critique and improve their own methods of anti-Japanese psychological warfare. Shortly after Japan's surrender in 1945, Nosaka began to march with approximately 200 other Japanese Communists across northern China. They arrived at the coast after picking up hundreds of other Japanese along the way. Demanding immediate repatriation from the first Americans they found, they declared their intention to return and work "for the democratization of Japan and the establishment of peace in the Far East". Although there are no records of the exact number of Japanese "re-educated" by Nosaka who elected to remain in Communist-occupied China after 1945, it is estimated that "the number must have been considerable".
Nosaka's contributions to the eventual victory of the Red Army were not forgotten by the leaders he had worked with in China. In 1965, on the twentieth anniversary of Japan's defeat, Nosaka was publicly praised by name by the highest-ranking general in China at the time,
Lin Biao
)
, serviceyears = 1925–1971
, branch = People's Liberation Army
, rank = Marshal of the People's Republic of China Lieutenant general of the National Revolutionary Army, Republic of China
, commands ...
.
Postwar
Japanese political career
After the World War II, Nosaka's return to Japan was facilitated by
E. Herbert Norman, the Canadian representative to the
Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers
was the title held by General Douglas MacArthur during the United States-led Allied occupation of Japan following World War II. It issued SCAP Directives (alias SCAPIN, SCAP Index Number) to the Japanese government, aiming to suppress its "milit ...
, who may also have been a Soviet spy. Before returning to Japan, Nosaka gained Stalin's endorsement for the leadership of the Japanese Communist Party. Nosaka's re-entry to Japan was also aided by the American diplomat
John S. Service, who had a history of being friendly to Chinese Communists. Before returning to Japan, Nosaka advised
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secretar ...
to retain the position of the
Japanese Emperor
The Emperor of Japan is the monarch and the head of the Imperial Family of Japan. Under the Constitution of Japan, he is defined as the symbol of the Japanese state and the unity of the Japanese people, and his position is derived from "the w ...
, but to replace Emperor
Hirohito with Crown Prince
Akihito
is a member of the Imperial House of Japan who reigned as the 125th emperor of Japan from 7 January 1989 until his abdication on 30 April 2019. He presided over the Heisei era, ''Heisei'' being an expression of achieving peace worldwide.
B ...
if the Communists ever gained control of Japan.
Nosaka returned to Japan in January 1946, and received a hero's welcome by the JCP.
[Taylor p. 3] He returned to China as a recognized protege of
Mao Zedong
Mao Zedong pronounced ; also romanised traditionally as Mao Tse-tung. (26 December 1893 – 9 September 1976), also known as Chairman Mao, was a Chinese communist revolutionary who was the founder of the People's Republic of China (PRC) ...
, and enjoyed the informal recognition as a "roving ambassador" for Japanese communism. After his return to Japan, Nosaka worked to organize Japanese communists. Nosaka's strategy was to foster what he called a “lovable” image for the JCP, seeking to take advantage of the seemingly pro-labor American-led Occupation to bring about a peaceful socialist revolution in Japan. This strategy was highly successful at first, attracting for the party a large following within the student and labor movements and among intellectuals. In the
general elections of 1946, Nosaka and four other members of the JCP were elected to the
Diet
Diet may refer to:
Food
* Diet (nutrition), the sum of the food consumed by an organism or group
* Dieting, the deliberate selection of food to control body weight or nutrient intake
** Diet food, foods that aid in creating a diet for weight loss ...
, and the party received 4% of the popular vote.
[Taylor p. 3] Thereafter, the JCP made further progress infiltrating Japanese labor associations and socialist parties, and in the
general elections of 1949, the JCP gained 10% of the popular vote.
However, with the fall of China in 1949 and increasing
Cold War tensions around the world, the United States initiated the so-called "
Reverse Course
The is the name commonly given to a shift in the policies of the U.S. government and the U.S.-led Allied occupation of Japan as they sought to reform and rebuild Japan after World War II. The Reverse Course began in 1947, at a time of rising Co ...
" in Occupation policy, shifting away from demilitarization and democratization to remilitarization, suppressing leftists, and strengthening Japan's conservative elements in support of U.S. Cold War objectives in Asia. At the Occupation's urging, the Japanese state and private corporations carried out a sweeping "
Red Purge
The Red Purge (Japanese: レッドパージ; ''reddo pāji'') was an anticommunist movement in occupied Japan from the late 1940s to the early 1950s.: "From 1947, the Japanese government, supported by MacArthur, unleashed a Red Purge that targeted ...
", firing tens of thousands of communists and suspected communists from their jobs in both government and the private sector.
In January 1950, in response to the Occupation-backed Red Purge and at the behest of Stalin, the Soviet-led
Cominform
The Information Bureau of the Communist and Workers' Parties (), commonly known as Cominform (), was a co-ordination body of Marxist-Leninist communist parties in Europe during the early Cold War that was formed in part as a replacement of the ...
published a tract harshly criticizing the JCP’s peaceful line as “opportunism” and “glorifying American imperialism” and demanding that the JCP take steps to pursue immediate violent revolution in Japan. Competition between JCP factions to win Cominform approval in the wake of this devastating “Cominform Criticism” ultimately led by the summer of 1951 to a complete reversal in JCP tactics from the peaceful pursuit of revolution within democratic institutions to an embrace of immediate and violent revolution along Maoist lines. This resulted in a campaign of terror in which JCP activists threw
Molotov cocktail
A Molotov cocktail (among several other names – ''see other names'') is a hand thrown incendiary weapon constructed from a frangible container filled with flammable substances equipped with a fuse (typically a glass bottle filled with fla ...
s at police boxes across Japan and cadres were sent into the countryside with instructions to organize oppressed farmers into “
mountain village guerrilla units” (''sanson kōsakutai''). As punishment for his advocacy of the "lovable" image, Nosaka was temporarily driven out of the party and forced to go underground.
After Nosaka went underground, the U.S.
Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...
reported that he temporarily returned to China. Meanwhile, the JCP's new militant line was a disaster. A full-blown communist revolution failed to emerge in Japan, the JCP activists were rapidly arrested and imprisoned, and in the
1952 general election, the JCP was wiped out in the polls, losing every one of the 35 seats it held in the Lower House of the
Japanese Diet
The is the national legislature of Japan. It is composed of a lower house, called the House of Representatives (, ''Shūgiin''), and an upper house, the House of Councillors (, '' Sangiin''). Both houses are directly elected under a parall ...
. The JCP spent the next three years gradually backing down from the militant line, finally renouncing it fully in 1955, which paved the way for Nosaka's return to power. Nosaka re-emerged in Japan in 1955 as the First Secretary of the JCP. Nosaka was briefly arrested after he resurfaced, but quickly released.
In 1958, Nosaka became the chairman of the JCP's Central Committee. He played a part in organizing the
Anpo protests in 1960 against the revised
US-Japan Security Treaty. In May 1960, as the protests were reaching their height, Nosaka published a lengthy essay in the Communist journal ''Zen'ei'' titled "We Will Not Accept the New Security Treaty." These massive demonstrations forced the American president,
Dwight Eisenhower, to cancel a visit to Japan, and forced the Japanese Premier,
Nobusuke Kishi, to resign, but failed to achieve their main goal of preventing passage of the revised Security Treaty, which Kishi ruthlessly rammed through the Diet in spite of the popular opposition. In Japanese public opinion, the demonstrations were received as a national embarrassment, and the JCP received only 3% of the popular vote in the
1960 elections.
The Anpo protests outraged and energized the Japanese right wing. On October 12, during a televised election debate,
Inejirō Asanuma, the chairman of the
Japanese Socialist Party
The was a socialist and progressive political party in Japan that existed from 1945 to 1996. The party was founded as the Social Democratic Party of Japan by members of several proletarian parties that existed before World War II, including ...
, was assassinated by a 17-year-old right-wing youth,
Otoya Yamaguchi
was a Japanese right-wing ultranationalist youth who assassinated Inejirō Asanuma, chairman of the Japan Socialist Party, on 12 October 1960. Yamaguchi rushed the stage and stabbed Asanuma with a wakizashi short sword while Asanuma was partic ...
, who rushed onto the stage and fatally stabbed him twice in the stomach with a
wakizashi
The is one of the traditionally made Japanese swords (''nihontō'') worn by the samurai in feudal Japan.
History and use
The production of swords in Japan is divided into specific time periods: . After his arrest, Yamaguchi told police that he had hoped to assassinate Nosaka as well. On November 13, 1963, Nosaka survived an assassination attempt while making a speech in Osaka. The perpetrator was 22-year-old Masahiro Nakao, a member of the rightist group Dai Nippon Gokuku Dan. Nakao, armed with a dagger, leaped on a platform where Nosaka was giving his speech. Nakao was subdued by Party members who turned him over to the police.
Nosaka attempted to keep the JCP neutral during the
Sino-Soviet Split
The Sino-Soviet split was the breaking of political relations between the China, People's Republic of China and the Soviet Union caused by Doctrine, doctrinal divergences that arose from their different interpretations and practical applications ...
of the 1960s, though the CIA interpreted that Nosaka's party remained somewhat more friendly with the Chinese. On Nosaka's seventieth birthday party in 1962, Nosaka received extravagant praise from Beijing.
Deng Xiaoping
Deng Xiaoping (22 August 1904 – 19 February 1997) was a Chinese revolutionary leader, military commander and statesman who served as the paramount leader of the People's Republic of China (PRC) from December 1978 to November 1989. After CCP ...
praised Nosaka as an "outstanding fighter of the Japanese people and comrade-in-arms of the Chinese people". The Soviets sent Nosaka a matter-of-fact confirmation of his status within the JCP, and within a month sent the JCP another letter scolding the Party for not adequately supporting Soviet positions. The Soviets' measured praise of Nosaka was consistent with earlier
Cominform
The Information Bureau of the Communist and Workers' Parties (), commonly known as Cominform (), was a co-ordination body of Marxist-Leninist communist parties in Europe during the early Cold War that was formed in part as a replacement of the ...
criticism of Nosaka's political theories, which advocated a peaceful transition into communism.
After his re-entry into public life in 1955, Nosaka was elected to the
House of Councillors
The is the upper house of the National Diet of Japan. The House of Representatives is the lower house. The House of Councillors is the successor to the pre-war House of Peers. If the two houses disagree on matters of the budget, treaties, or ...
, a post that he held until 1977.
Nosaka joined the faculty of
Keio University, and was one of many prominent communist intellectuals active in Japanese academic institutions in his time. Nosaka remained the JCP's chairman from 1958 to 1982, when he stepped down at the age of 90 and took the role of "Honorary Chairman".
Scandal
On September 27, 1992, two Journalists working for the magazine ''
Shukan Bunshun
A week is a unit of time equal to seven days. It is the standard time period used for short cycles of days in most parts of the world. The days are often used to indicate common work days and rest days, as well as days of worship. Weeks are oft ...
'', Akira Kato and Shun'ichi Kobayashi, publicly revealed evidence of Nosaka's involvement in the deaths of Kenzo Yamamoto and his wife. On a trip to Moscow, Kobayashi and Kato had managed to purchase a number of KGB documents, which had been kept secret since the
Stalinist era
Stalinism is the means of governing and Marxist-Leninist policies implemented in the Soviet Union from 1927 to 1953 by Joseph Stalin. It included the creation of a one-party totalitarian police state, rapid industrialization, the theory o ...
. Among these documents was the letter that Nosaka had written in 1939 denouncing Yamamoto and his wife.
The revelations of Nosaka's involvement in Yamamoto's death shocked the JCP, already reduced to six seats in the
Diet
Diet may refer to:
Food
* Diet (nutrition), the sum of the food consumed by an organism or group
* Dieting, the deliberate selection of food to control body weight or nutrient intake
** Diet food, foods that aid in creating a diet for weight loss ...
after the 1991 elections.
''Akahata'' ("Red Flag"), a prominent communist newspaper, sent a team of journalists to Moscow to investigate the allegations, and they confirmed the authenticity of the documents.
After the allegations against Nosaka became widely known, he checked himself into Yoyogi Hospital in Tokyo (a common tactic of Japanese politicians facing scandal). When a team of investigators sent by the JCP visited him, Nosaka confessed that the letter was his, but refused to discuss the matter further. The JCP ordered Nosaka to be present for a general Party meeting on December 27, 1992. After some deliberation, the party that Nosaka helped found expelled him by unanimous vote. The Party newspaper
reported that Nosaka, when asked if he had any reply to the charges against him, would only state: "I have nothing to say".
One year after being expelled from the Japanese Communist Party, Sanzō Nosaka died in his home of old age. Outside the JCP, Nosaka was remembered for his gentle demeanor, good manners, and conservative sense of style, "just like a British gentleman". He was 101 years old.
Legacy
The Chinese Documentary series "Today In The History Of Anti-Japanese War" dedicated an episode to Sanzō Nosaka.
Sanzō Nosaka was featured in the "International Friends during the Anti-Japanese War". A show organized by the Beijing People's Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries. The show "features 160 pictures of 39 foreign friends who worked together with the Chinese people and made contributions to China's independence and freedom."
Family
Yonago Nosaka was the foster daughter of Sanzō Nosaka. She attended the 60th anniversary of the victory of the War against Fascism. She received a medal as a daughter of Sanzō Nosaka.
Names
Nosaka used the pen names of Okano and Lin Zhe.
See also
*
Japanese dissidence during the Shōwa period
Political dissidence in the Empire of Japan covers individual Japanese dissidents against the policies of the Empire of Japan.
Dissidence in the Meiji and Taishō eras High Treason Incident
Shūsui Kōtoku, a Japanese anarchist, was critical ...
*
Japanese in the Chinese resistance to the Empire of Japan
Throughout the Second Sino-Japanese war (1937–1945), Japanese dissidents and Japanese prisoners of war (POWs) joined the Chinese in the war against the Empire of Japan.
An IJNAF A5M fighter pilot who was shot down on 26 September 1937, had a ...
*
Wataru Kaji
or (1901–1982) was the nom de guerre for Mitsugi Seguchi (瀬口 貢 ''Seguchi Mitsugi''), a Japanese writer, literary critic, and political activist.
Biography
Wataru Kaji was born in Kyushu in 1903. He became involved with activism. Kaji wa ...
*
Hideo Noda
, also known as Hideo Benjamin Noda and Benjamin Hideo Noda, was a Japanese-American modernist painter and muralist, member of the movement in Japan, student of Arnold Blanch, and uncle of Japanese printmaker Tetsuya Noda, as well as alleged co ...
*
Hotsumi Ozaki
was a Japanese journalist working for the ''Asahi Shimbun'' newspaper, communist, Soviet intelligence agent, and advisor to Prime Minister Fumimaro Konoe. The only Japanese person to be hanged for treason (under the provisions of the Peace Pr ...
Works
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References
Citations
Sources Cited
* Ariyoshi, Koji, Alice M. Beechert, and Edward D. Beechert
''From Kona to Yenan: The Political Memoirs of Koji Ariyoshi'' United States of America: Biography Research Center. 2000. . Retrieved on August 14, 2011.
* Associated Press
"Obituaries: Sanzo Nosaka; Japanese Communist" ''Los Angeles Times''. November 17, 1993. Retrieved August 14, 2011.
"Sanzo Nosaka Ousted Communist" ''The Baltimore Sun.'' November 15, 1993. Retrieved September 25, 2011.
"Nosaka Sanzo" ''Encyclopædia Britannica Online''. 2011. Retrieved August 14, 2011.
* Gillin, Donald G. and Etter, Charles
"Staying On: Japanese Soldiers and Civilians in China, 1945-1949."''The Journal of Asian Studies''. Vol. 42, No. 3, May 1983. Retrieved on February 23, 2011.
* Inoue, Prof. Hisashi
''Harvard University''. June 2002. Retrieved August 17, 2011.
''The Japan Times Online''. October 22, 2000. Retrieved August 16, 2011.
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* Kifner, John
''The New York Times''. February 4, 1999. Retrieved December 7, 2011.
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* Lin Biao
''Long Live the Victory of People’s War!'' Foreign Languages Press. September 3, 1965. Retrieved August 17, 2011.
* Lucas, Dean
"By the Sword" ''Famous Pictures: The Magazine''. July 7, 2010. Retrieved June 1, 2013.
*Miwa, Yoshiro & Ramseyer, J. Mar
"The Good Occupation" ''Harvard: John M. Olin Center for Law, Economics, and Business''. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Law School. May 2005. Retrieved December 7, 2011.
* Pace, Eric
''The New York Times''. November 15, 1993. Retrieved August 14, 2011.
* Scalapino, Robert A
''The Japanese Communist Movement: 1920-1966'' London, England: Cambridge University Press. 1967. Retrieved December 8, 2011.
* Taylor, John
''The Japanese Communist Party: 1955-1963'' CIA/RSS. March 20, 1964. Retrieved August 16, 2011.
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Further reading
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Nosaka, Sanzo
1892 births
1993 deaths
Comintern people
Japanese centenarians
Men centenarians
Japanese Communist Party politicians
Japanese revolutionaries
Keio University alumni
Keio University faculty
Members of the House of Councillors (Japan)
Members of the House of Representatives (Empire of Japan)
Members of the House of Representatives (Japan)
Politicians from Yamaguchi Prefecture
People of the Second Sino-Japanese War
Japanese spies for the Soviet Union
Japanese expatriates in the Soviet Union
Political party founders
Japanese anti-fascists
Communist Party of Great Britain members