The Labor Movement in Japan

Front matter

THE LABOR MOVEMENT IN JAPAN

For the Cause of Socialism

Sen Katayama

Introduction

Introduction.

At the moment when reaction is ascendant in Japan, when its Imperialism is aggressively triumphant and its proletariat apparently crushed and silent, at this moment, more than any other, is a book on the Japanese Labor Movement of great value. It is of value in picturing a militant proletariat in action and by emphasizing our international spirit without which Socialism cannot conquer.

This book, appearing at this particular time, is, moreover, a symbol to the world of Socialism and Revolution. It is a symbol of the great role that the Japanese proletariat is destined to play in the days to come; it is even more a symbol of the momentous fact washed upon the shores of Time by the Great War—that Labor, and Labor alone, in spite of momentary collapse and a swerving from its historic mission, is the force that must preserve civilization from total ruin by creating the new civilization of Socialism.

Japan is to-day dominantly reactionary. It is preparing itself to extend the power and influence of its ruling class. As a capitalist nation, Japan is part and parcel of the general imperialistic interests and ambitions that plunged the world into disaster. And in Japan, as in other imperialistic nations, all classes are reactionary, all classes are eager for the spoils of exploitation, all classes are willing to sell humanity and civilization for the mess of pottage of imperialistic aggrandizement. All classes, that is to say, except the proletariat, which is silent under the oppression of a malevolent tyranny, but which has within itself the latent power and inspiration for great deeds, as is amply proven by Comrade Katayama’s sketch of the rise of the Labor and Socialist movement in Japan under the most discouraging conditions.

The Japanese government is increasing its repressive measures against the prole . Recently, Comrade T. Sakai was imprisoned for propaganda in favor “of an extension of the suffrage.” And in its reactionary sweep, the Japanese government is destroying a peculiar instrument it forged for the deception of the workers—the Yu-Ai-Kai. The Yu-Ai-Kai was a “union” organized under government auspices, including in its membership capitalists, professors and officials of the government, its chief activity being the publication of a paper to deceive the workers. Employers often brutally coerced their workers to join this “union,” and it became a means of destroying the legitimate organizations of the proletariat. But now the Imperial government itself is persecuting the Yu-Ai-Kai, against the protests of Baron Shibusawa and other magnates of capital, while the workers are rapidly deserting it entirely. This is significant equally of the stupidity of the government and the awakening of the workers.

I have said that Japan is part and parcel of the general imperialistic forces and ambitions that plunged the world into disaster; and this Imperialism is determinant in the recent history and development of Japan.

The Japanese people emerged definitely into the world of modern production and exchange at a time when Capitalism had developed into a new stage of its existence,—the stage of Imperialism. Normally, the development of Capitalism would have produced a bourgeois, democratic revolution in Japan; but the existence of Imperialism altered the course of events. Imperialism is the negation of democracy; It means, historically, the end of bourgeois democracy and the re-introduction of autocracy under a variety of political forms. In nations which completed their bourgeois democratic revolution, as England and France, imperialism develops a reaction against democracy and establishes the autocracy of imperialistic State Cap

in nations which had not completed their bourgeois revolution, as Germany, or which never had the beginnings of one, as Japan, Imperialism prevents the appearance of the institutions of bourgeois democracy. The feudal class is not destroyed; it becomes capitalistic and is put into the service of Imperialism; autocracy is not abolished, but bent to the uses of Imperialism. This was precisely the development in Japan, as in Germany. Imperialistic Capitalism was developed on the basis of still prevailing feudal conditions and ideology, a situation excellent for the profitmad ruling class, but simply murderous to the workers and peasants, and disastrous to the rise of democratic ideas and institutions. Instead of comprehensively developing the internal market and its corresponding normal conditions of production, the Japanese ruling class embarked upon a policy of export trade and Imperialism, because it was more profitable, and because the develop

of the internal market would have meant the end of low wages and the appearance of a homogeneous, aggressive proletariat.

The role to which Japan aspires, and conspires for, is that of arbiter of the Far East. Its imperialistic interests dictate the establishment of Japanese hegemony on the Asiatic continent, and particularly in succulently-rich and helpless China. Japan has already promulgated a sort of “Monroe Doctrine,” which insists upon priority of interest and consideration for Japan in the Far West, just as the American Monroe Doctrine has been perverted into a similar claim for the United States in Central and South America.

The war has definitely converted Japan into a dominant imperialistic nation. From a debtor nation, Japan has become a creditor nation, with large masses of capital that must be exported for investment. In January, 1918, Finance Minister in his budget speech said that imports since the beginning of the war had aggregated 2,623,000,000 yen (a yen is equivalent to almost half a dollar), and exports, 3,799,000,000 yen, the resulting favorable balance of 1,175,000,000 yen being increased by 700,000,000 yen “from other sources.” The accumulation of capital from this favorable balance of trade is increasing rapidly as the months go by. Moreover, industry has expanded to gigantic proportions, including the shipping industry. Industry and trade are increasing, not in mathematical, but in geometrical progression. Japanese Capitalism is entrenching itself firmly in all sections of Asia, and particularly in China, where economic and political “penetration” proceed simultaneously. Japan’s great need until recently was the import of raw materials, including iron and cotton; the enormous expansion of industry has made this need still more imperative, and it has been supplemented by the urgent need for investment markets to which Japanese Capitalism can export its surplus capital. All this means a feverish impetus to Imperialism; and the field for Japanese Imperialism is Asia.

It is just at this point that antagonism develops between Japan and the other imperialistic powers in general, between Japan and the United States in particular, an antagonism latent with the threat of war, a war that would ultimately involve all the other great powers to protect their own Imperialism. Economically and financially, the United States is being affected by the war in precisely the same way as Japan, only more so. The Far East, and particularly China, is a great, capitalistically-untapped reservoir; it can do two things indispensable to an imperialistic nation,—provide practically unlimited sources of raw materials and absorb vast amounts of investment capital. This import of raw material and the export of capital are the nerve-centers of Capitalism to-day, and the source of the great antagonisms which may again produce a catastrophe,—unless the proletariat acts decisively in the performance of its historic mission.

In this situation latent with catastrophe, the workers of the two nations must understand each other, must assist each other, must unite to avert the impending menace.

For the workers of the two nations alone and decisively, in co-operation with the workers of the world, can prevent a conflict. No dependence can be placed upon the words of the representatives of the ruling classes; understandings and agreements are converted into scraps of paper when they clash with dominant imperialistic interests. The proletariat alone can act; and it is the function of the New International now in process of becoming to prepare the revolutionary proletariat to act when the crisis comes, aye, to prevent the coming of the crisis.

The fomenting of race prejudice and hatred is exactly what the ruling classes desire. Hatreds of race against race con the ideologic dynamo of Imperialism. It is the task of the Socialist to break down these hatreds. And when the American Federation of Labor foments racial hatred against the Japanese, it is betraying the interests of the workers. The Japanese workers in this country are part and parcel of our proletariat; they have proven that they are organizable, that they can fight the industrial oppressors, that they are excellent material for the militant proletarian movement. It is sheer suicide for the American proletariat to indulge in race hatred against the Japanese, or against any other racial element of our people.

The American proletariat, moreover, must understand precisely what are the real forces of labor and progress in Japan. It must not play into the hands of the Imperial government. Some years ago, the Yu-Ai-Kai sent a fraternal delegate to a convention of the American Federation of Labor, a Mr. Susuki, secretary of Baron Shibusawa. Mr. Susuki was accepted as a bona-fide representative of the Japanese workers, Messrs. Gompers and Scharrenberg solemnly accepting the invitation to go to Japan to “teach” the workers there how to organize. Operabouffe! Many Socialists also made this gross error, in spite of Comrade Katayama’s expose in the New York Call of the real character of Susuki and his “labor” organization.

In the coming great work of reconstruction, the Socialist Party should recognize and emphasize the vital importance of the Japanese-American issue, and make it a central feature of its agitational and educational propaganda. Indeed, this is all the more necessary considering the temporary weakness of the Japanese movement, a weakness due to definite historical circumstances. Why could not the Party make an appropriation to assist our Comrades in Japan? Why not more intimate contact between the two movements? And, surely, the Party could make use of an ap for special propaganda among the Japanese in this country, could avail itself of the services of a Sen Katayama.

Comrade Sen Katayama is an interesting personality. At sixty years of age, he retains the enthusiasm and idealism of youth; forced to make a living for himself and his daughter, as an ordinary worker, he devotes all his spare time to the Cause to which he has dedicated his life. Katayama is unpretentious and democratic; the fan-fare of heroics makes no appeal to him. He is a worker in the workers’ movement, accepting the worker’s lot—that is all; but that is all a man can do.

It was at the Amsterdam Socialist Congress in 1904 that Katayama participated in a symbolic act. Japan and Russia, the Russian and Japanese autocracy, were at war. The chairman of the Congress was speaking, when Katayama and Plekhanov arose, and in full view of the audience, shook hands,—symbol of that international proletarian solidarity which will yet prove mightier than cannon and chauvinism.

Sen Katayama was born December 7, 1858, of peasant parentage, and the story of his life is the story of the Japanese labor and Socialist movement. He worked on a farm, studying at home, with only short intervals of school education. In 1882 Katayama went to Tokyo, working in a printing plant ten hours a day at 7 1-2 cents a day; by working overtime, he could earn $2.50 a month. The ordeal of these days made Katayama a permanent proletarian with the aspirations of the militant proletariat.

For a time, Katayama worked as a janitor in a Chinese university, and studied the Chinese classics in his spare time; then he came to the United States to study—not subsidized by the Imperial government, as so many Japanese students are, but entirely upon his own resources, which consisted of exactly one dollar upon his ar in California in 1884. Katayama studied English in a Chinese Mission in Alameda, entered John Hopkins Academy at Oakland, from there went to Maryville College, Tennessee, and in 1889 entered Grinnell College, graduating in 1892. Two years at Andover and one year at Yale were spent in the study of social problems. And during all these years Katayama had to work for his living and his tuition, the ordeal of it all preparing him for the activity of a militant rebel.

About this time, Katayama began to study Socialism, starting with Ferdinand Lassalle, who inspired him with a love for the practical work of organization. After a short stay in England studying social problems, Katayama returned to the United States on his way to Japan, where he immediately became active in the developing labor movement, and soon became its central figure. In 1904 he went as a delegate to the Amsterdam Congress, and after a tour of the United States returned to Japan, to find the movement dominated by petit bourgeois intellectuals and persecuted bitterly by the authorities. His activity in a big strike in Tokyo caused his arrest and nine months’ imprisonment, which greatly impaired his health; and upon his release, his every move was interfered with, detectives were always with him wherever he went, and he was compelled to leave Japan, again coming to the United States. This persecution was largely due to the intrepid attitude against the war with Russia adopted by the Japanese Socialists.

But in America the Japanese Consuls and detectives, upon instructions from the Imperial government, persecuted Katayama, making his life unpleasant and his organizing work impossible. His friends were intimidated by the Consuls, who possess great power. The Japanese Day Laborers’ Union, of which Katayama was an officer, was compelled to denounce him; one of his friends was actually kidnapped, sent to Japan, and imprisoned for eighteen months. Katayama was compelled to leave California and come to New York, where he has since been publishing a paper in Japanese and English, The Heimin.

The central characteristics of Katayama’s activity and personality are an uncompromising class consciousness and internationalism. He greeted with joy the proletarian revolution in Russia, as did his comrades in Japan; and he is firmly convinced that the revolutionary Socialism of the Bolsheviki must become the basis of the New International. At sixty years of age, Sen Katayama looks to the future, and not to the past—to the immediate future of the Third International, the International of revolutionary Socialism, of the final, unconquerable struggle against Capitalism, initiated by the proletarian revolution in Russia.

History, says Trotzky, is a mighty engine promoting our ideals. And con history is preparing the way feverishly and swiftly for our final struggle. In this struggle the international solidarity of the proletariat is an indispensable requirement. May Sen Katayama’s book on the Japanese Labor Movement prove a factor in promoting this solidarity! May Sen Katayma’s revolutionary conception of Socialism prove a factor in the revolutionary reconstruction of Socialism!

Louis C. Fraina.

New York, July 4, 1918.

Section 1

The Labor Movement in Japan.

I.

Its Background.

Foreigners who visit Japan often claim that Japan’s recent progress, however remarkable, is a superficial one, is skindeep, a mere adoption of western civilization. They say there is no real development and progress, but merely an imitation of the West.

Thus saying, they tried to discredit the present achievements of the Japanese and reached the conclusion that the Japanese are inferior to the western peoples, stimulating in this way the anti-Japanese movement among the white peoples.

To understand the real character and feelings of a present-day Japanese worker, however, it is necessary to know something about his past, the background leading into feudal times. Feudalism in Japan would be a most interesting study in itself, because Japanese feudalism has a unique history of many centuries ending after the time of the American Civil war. It enjoyed a peaceful life of activities and developments for three centuries. During these years Japan shut herself off from all outside influences and civilizations.

Hers was an independent life and she created a unique and a genuine Japanese civilization. Class lines were drawn quite sharply and distinctly. Farmers, artisans and merchants, each enjoyed life in peaceful development. The study of these classes is illuminating, but our aim is to show that some of the good qualities possessed by the Japanese workers were developed during feudal times. Here we will speak only of the artisan class of that period in order to illustrate that the present working classes have their roots and history in the past however much they may appear to differ from the Japanese working class of to-day.

During the days of Japanese feudalism the artisan class made very good progress. Their products are of great value to the present generations and beautify not only the civilization and life of Japan, but museums and art galleries in the West.

In some of the old crafts, organized into guilds, our artisans have devised ingenious means to protect their interests against the masters and also against outsiders. One of the most interesting guilds is that of the wood sawyers. The Woodsawyers’ Guild of Tokyo includes master sawyers, journeymen and apprentices. All the journeymen must serve first as an apprentice, regardless of his skill. Wages were dependent upon and regulated by the prices of rice.

Rice has been, and is still, the chief food of the Japanese. Its price regulated all the other necessities of life in the past. Another requirement of the guild was that each member should pay to his employer a small percentage of his wages, for the use of the lumber yard. This nominal payment gave him an exclusive right to work in the lumber yard and the owner could not employ any outsider. Thus the sawyers’ guild attained a perfect closed shop, in the modern sense; also a wage scale based on the price of rice.

The miners’ guild is far more extensive and thoroughgoing in its organization. It was communistic and it included miners of all Japan and of all kinds of mines. After a miner worked for three years the guild issued to him a membership card or scroll and this membership entitled him to seek a job in any mine in the country. And this institution still holds at the present day.

Wherever the miner goes he is treated as a comrade and a guest by the working miners. He may work, if there is work, at any mine, or he may remain in the hope of securing work. If he prefers to try his luck at other places he receives a sufficient allowance from his fellow miners to reach the next mine.

When an old miner quits his job on account of his age, or when a miner is crippled in some accident, he is authorized by the guild to collect from all the miners throughout the country. Each mine is an independent and self-governing unit of the one great guild.

The miner thus authorized in one mine will be allowed by all other mines to collect benefits amounting today to from one to two thousand yen, according to his standing. For this institution still holds at the present day.

During the feudal period our miners had entire underground as their exclusive jurisdiction and their own territories. None but miners might enter there. Besides the miners received the best wages, which is shown by a Japanese idiom—Kanayama Shotai—to describe their pay. This phrase means luxurious living or Epicureanism.

The miners called each other “brother.” Their mutual relations were most warm and cordial. All the bachelors, or single men, lived a communistic life. They could travel all over Japan without any difficulty. Of course, they possessed defects and shortcomings, being the products of their own age, but theirs was a strong and well-regulated guild. Each and all miners benefited by it.

But the miners of feudal times were considered, in the eyes of the public, to be the most rough and dangerous members of society. No doubt they were outcasts in the public mind, for the mines were considered a refuge for criminals and outlaws. It is said in Japan that if a man is degraded enough to enter a mine, he is absolutely free from the grip of the law. It is true that in the feudal days there existed neither social intercourse nor sympathy between the miners and the people of Japan. But the miners of the old days were an orderly group.

The stone masons’ guild is one of the most highly developed and best regulated of the Japanese labor organizations. They possessed a technical monopoly and were considered the most trustworthy artisans in the country. They always received the highest wages.

These are only a few examples. Each trade has had its own guild and a history of struggles common to all the working classes of the world. Each protected its own interest to the best of its own ability, but most of them were broken up by the coming industrial system under modern capitalism. Yet we can trace many good features existing today to the old organizations, particularly in the metal industries, in shipbuilding and in factories using the modern machine processes. The best Japanese workers today are the old blacksmiths who forged and wrought swords and plows, or those trained by them.

The very first Japanese factory was started by the feudal government and managed by the English. Those who went to work in the factory were the blacksmiths of that time. It was so with other industries.

Such is the background of our modern Japanese industry in which over one million factory workers are now employed. Fifty years ago there was no cotton mill in Japan; now there are one hundred and sixty-two cotton spinning factories, with nearly three million spindles and several hundred thousand young girls are working in the mills day and night.

Beginning of the Labor Movement.

The modern labor movement in Japan may be said to have begun in the summer of 1897 after the war with China. For the first time in the history of Japan the industries had been prosperous on account of the war indemnity taken from China. The working class seemed to awaken. The workers were demanding an increase in wages owing to the increased cost of living. Many strikes were reported with varied successes and failures. The modern indus system was a new experience in Japan so there was no legal restriction upon the labor movement or upon strikes.

This was shown by the fact that in six months we gained over two thousand members for the Rodo-Kumiai Kiseikai, a labor association organized for the purpose of forming trade unions. A majority of them were iron workers employed in the government’s arsenal and the railway workshop at Shimbashi, Tokyo, and at the Yokohama dock and the Tokosuka navy yard.

Labor meetings were well attended and the topics discussed were the power of the unions, the strike and boycott, and above all we urged the necessity of organizing the working class. Our work was most pleasant during this period. The men from different factories talked to their fellow workers on the labor movement during meal time. Each week our membership increased. Each successive meeting was held with a larger attendance than be . Soon the labor meetings were arranged by the workers themselves. Three of us, Takano, a journalist, Sawada, a tailor and I often went to speak at these meetings and we found new speakers among the workers who were able to address these gatherings of their fellow workers.

Iron Workers’ Union and the Labor World.

On the 1st of December, 1897, the Iron Workers’ Union was organized in Tokyo, with over one thousand members. This was the first trades union in Japan. Its constitution and by-laws were copied from those of the American trades unions. On the same day the first number of the Labor World was published, this being the sole organ of the labor movement. I was one of the secretaries of the Iron Workers’ Union and editor of the Labor World.

This little journal had played a very important part in the Japanese labor move . It contained one full page of labor news in English for the benefit of the foreign exchanges. The last number appeared December 21, in 1901, making just one hundred issues that had been published. It was enlarged to a daily on January 1, 1902. The tone and spirit of the labor movement at that time can be illustrated by a quotation from the Labor World:

“The people are silent. I will be the advocate of this silence. I will speak for the dumb; I will speak for the despairing silent ones; I will interpret their stammerings; I will interpret the grumblings, murmurings, the tumults of the crowds, the complaints, the cries of men who have been so degraded by suffering and ignorance that they have no strength to voice their wrongs. I will be the word of the people. I will be the bleeding mouth from which the gag has been snatched. I will say everything.”

The time for beginning the labor move was auspicious, as is shown by the government report on strikes from June 20 to November 19, 1897.

Big Railway Strike.

The year 1898 began with a great strike in the Nippon Railway Company, at that time the largest railway company in Japan. Its lines extend from Tokyo to Amori, a distance of over five hundred miles, forming two large circles. The company employed over ten thousand persons. Engineers and firemen numbered about 1,000. They were harshly dealt with by the company so they were dissatisfied with conditions. The company was ever watchful to prevent any one from organizing for better conditions. It promptly picked out the rebels and sent them to distant stations, often to a poorer climate and an isolated point. This was called “exile.”

Between Morioka and Amori on the line there are two locomotive stations which are considered the worst points. At this time there were two or three dozen “exilers” at these stations. Every day they met and discussed the situation. On January, 1898, one of them addressed a letter to firemen and engineers of the entire lines. This letter stated their common grievances and demanded remedies.

The exiled firemen and engineers started to organize secretly, but some one be the cause. At this the company immediately dismissed them. But already the letter had accomplished its intended aim and the dismissal of these ringleaders was the signal for a strike, which began on the 24th of February, 1898.

It lasted only a few days. The company complied with all the demands and the strike was a complete success to the workers, who had conducted the strike very skillfully, using a telegraphic code previously arranged. They accomplished the end sought without a leak. Encouraged by the success of this strike the railroad men formed a union and compelled the company to recognize it, establishing the closed shop.

The Labor World gives a record of fifteen strikes beside the one occurring on the Nippon Railroad during the year of 1898. In thirteen of these strikes 6,762 persons, including 150 girls, were involved. Besides the railroad workers 1,000 printers, 70 dyers and 65 furniture makers were organized and sixteen workingmens’ co-operative distributive unions were organized, each with its own store.

These were mostly managed by iron workers and railroad workers who were members of the union. One productive, co-operative union was started by iron workers at Tokyo. In a few years the organization grew into a strong union of over a thousand members with about ten thousand yen in funds.

An indirect result of our labor movement so far, we had at least revived and reorganized two old guilds into a modern union, i. e., the ship carpenters’ and wood sawyers’ union. One had 1,500 members and the other 2,200. Both had conducted a successful strike during the year. The president of the ship carpenters’ union, Mr. F. Saito, has joined the labor association and later became a good Socialist. I have often addressed the meetings of the Ship Carpenters’ Union.

In the course of a few years all the unions gained more members than ever before. For instance, the Nippon Railroad Workers’ Union accumulated 50,000 yen for a strike fund and 20,000 yen for benefit funds. It published its own monthly organ.

The Iron Workers’ Union had enrolled 5,400 members at the end of four years and spent 8,000 yen for the sick and death benefits of members. The I. W. U. bought a house for their headquarters and the Labor World was used as the official organ of the union. If we include the unions revived and reorganized from the old guilds, we had at one time nearly twenty thousand union members.

This was before there were legal obstructions to labor organizations and we had a free hand in the labor movement. We were not, however, left much longer free to grow and to build up our movement. We soon felt the pressure of the government, although there were as yet no laws to directly suppress the labor move . The first movement against us occurred in the spring of 1898 upon the occasion of the Iron Workers’ Union Cherry Blossom picnic, when the police authorities prohibited us from marching through the streets of Tokyo and enjoying ourselves at the Uyeno park like other people.

There was another event which we may look upon as an indirect result of the labor movement. The government prepared a factory bill with the intention of introducing it at the coming session of the Imperial Diet. The bill was sent to all the chambers of commerce of the land to get opinions on it. Then the bill was discussed at the meeting of the higher commercial and industrial commissions appointed by the government from a group of prominent persons in the country.

They discussed the bill and finally passed it in almost worthless amended skeleton form. But even in this form of so little use to labor, the bill was not introduced at the next Diet, because of the opposition of the big capitalists, including Baron Shibusswa, the present patron of the Yu-Ai-Kai Friendly Society; and it was laid on the table many years to come.