Labour-Farmer Party
Encyclopedia
The was a political party
in the Empire of Japan
. It represented the left wing sector of the legal proletarian movement at the time. Oyama Ikuo was the chairman of the party. At the time the party was banned by the government in 1928, it was estimated to have around 90,000 members in 131 local organizations. The party was supported by the Hyōgikai
trade union
federation and the Japan Peasant Union.
.
Three members of the Central Committee
of the party, Matsuda Kiichi, Ueda Onshi and Saiko Bankichi, were also leaders in the Suiheisha movement.
and re-distribution of production. According to the party platform the established political parties represented the interests of the privileged classes, and that the Rōdōnōmintō sought their overthrow and reform of the parliamentary system. Other demands raised in the platform included universal suffrage (for all persons above 20 years of age), right to form trade union
s and to organize strikes, collective bargaining
, minimum wages, 8-hour working day, women's rights
, free education, increased legal rights to tenant farmer
s, progressive taxation and the democratization of the military leadership.
At the time of its foundation, a party by-law was passed stating that only members of the constituent organizations of the party could acquire party membership. This was done to prevent communists and other leftwing elements to gain influence inside the organization. The anti-communist sectors wanted to block members of leftwing groups like Hyōgikai, the Proletarian Youth League and the Society for Political Studies from joining the party. However, large sections of the party considered this by-law as impeding the formation of a single, unified party of the proletarian movement. The by-law was hotly debated within the party leadership. Oyama Ikuo and other younger militants of the Japan Peasant Union demanded that the by-law be scrapped. The result was a compromise, that membership was open for those individuals who were approved by the party branch in question.
The compromise did however not prevent splits in the party. The extreme rightwing faction inside the party (represented by section of older Japan Peasant Union leaders such as Okabe Kansuke and Hirano Rikizo) was the first dissident group to desert the party. In October 1926 they formed the Japan Farmers Party
. On October 24, 1926 Sodomei and other trade unions withdrew from the party. The party leadership was now in the hands of Oyama Ikuo, Mizutani Chozaburo and Hososako Kanemitsu, and all restrictions on party membership were scrapped. Sodomei and other moderate sectors founded the founded the Social Democratic Party
in December 1926.
In September 1926 the Rōdōnōmintō and Hyōgikai started a campaign to demand the introduction of five pieces of legislation; a minimum wage
law, an 8-hour working day law, a health insurance law, a working women's protection law and an law for unemployment benefits.
On December 12, 1926 the Rōdōnōmintō held its first convention. The convention elected Oyama Ikuo as party chairman and Hososako general secretary.
The revolutionary left was also divided within own ranks. After the disbanding of the first Communist Party of Japan in 1924, leftwing cadres had joined the Labour-Farmer Party. One sector (the Fukumoto group) wanted to reconstitute the Communist Party and concentrated their work on underground organizing, whilst Sakai Toshihiko, Yamakawa Kikue, Yamakawa Hitoshi and their sympathizers focused on building the legal Labour-Farmer Party. By the end of 1926, the Fukomoto group dominated both the reconstituted Communist Party and the Labour-Farmer Party, holding key strategic positions inside the latter.
In March 1927, the Communist International intervened. A meeting was held in Moscow
, in which Bukharin, M.N. Roy, J. T. Murphy
and Béla Kun
participated, along with Fukumoto and other Japanese communist leaders. Both Yamakawa and Fukumoto were condemned in the thesis issued by the Communist International. Yamakawa was denounced as a 'liquidationist
', while Fukumoto was branded as 'sectarian'. The Communist Party of Japan was instructed to organize itself as a vanguard party, working with and within mass organizations like the Labour-Farmer Party. In December 1927, the Yamakawa group began publishing the monthly journal Rōnō, borrowing the name of the Labour-Farmer Party for their factional organ.
In the midst of financial crisis that hit Japan in the spring of 1927, the party stepped up its propaganda work, launching a campaign to call for early elections.
The Kantō Women's League, a women's organization connected to the party, was founded on July 3, 1927. The Kantō Wome's League was dissolved in March 1928, after the party had issued a directive against the existence of a separate organization for women. The change of position regarding the women's organization was a side-effect of the factional battle inside the party.
Regarding the Chinese question, the party opposed the Japanese government policy and ran a 'Hands off China' campaign. The party was supportive of the leftist Wuhan
government. The party aided the foundation of the Taiwan Peasant Union and supported its struggles against the agricultural policies of the Japanese governor-general on the island
.
, Niigata
, Akita
and Hyogo. The combined vote of the candidates of the party stood at 119,169.
Ahead of the 1928 national Diet elections the Labour-Farmer Party issued a list of radical demands, calling for the abolition of all forms of discrimination of subject races and reductions of the size of the armed forces. Slogans such as "Establish a Worker-Peasant Government" and "Long live the dictatorship of the proletariat
" were raised in the election campaign.
However, there was considerable government interference against the electoral campaigns of the Labour-Farmer Party. Electoral meetings were interrupted by police and election campaign workers were often arbitrarily arrested. Night after night, police forces interrupted the campaign speeches of Oyama Ikuo. His campaign headquarters in the Kagawa Prefecture
constituency (where he stood as candidate, facing the incumbent finance minister) were raided by police.
Amongst the candidates of the party were eleven communists. Kyuichi Tokuda, who later became the general secretary of the Communist Party, stood as a candidate of the party. Another communist, the trade union organizer Kenzo Yamamoto, was a Labour-Farmer Party candidate in Hokkaido
.
All in all the party supported 40 candidates in the elections, whom together mustered 181,141 votes (1.9% of the nationwide vote). Banno, however, states that the combined vote of the 40 Labour-Farmer Party candidates was 193,047. According to Banno's account, 77% of the votes for the party came from rural areas (the party had launched 32 rural and 8 urban candidates). Two of the candidates of the party were elected, Yamamoto Senji and Mizutani Chozaburo.
Following the election the three proletarian parties in the assembly (the Labour-Farmer Party, the Japan Labour-Farmer Party and the Social Democratic Party) managed to form a joint parliamentary committee, in spite of their political contradictions.
, a wave of repression was directed against the leftwing in Japan. Around 1,600 persons were arrested and accused of being communist activists. The Labour-Farmer Party was banned by the Home Ministry on April 11, 1928, after accusations arose of links to the communists. Hyōgikai was banned on the same day.
After the Labour-Farmer Party had been banned, the government attempted to expel its representatives from the Lower House of the Diet of Japan
. However they lacked any legal basis to do so, and the two Labour-Farmer Party continued in their parliamentary functions. Yamamoto Senji was assassinated on February 29, on the same day as he had presented testified in the Diet regarding torture of prisoners.
There would be several different attempts by leftists to recreate a party representing the Labour-Farmer Party legacy. Immediately after the disbanding of the Labour-Farmer Party, the Communist Party instructed its cadres to rebuild the party. The goal to achieve unification with the Japan Labour-Farmer Party was retained. A reorganization committee was formed (named the 'Committee for the Rebuilding of the Labour-Farmer Party and Preparation for New Party'). Oyama Ikou served as the chairman of the committee and Hososako as the general secretary. The committee was quickly banned by the government, but continued to function illegally. In July 1928 the Rōnō faction broke away from the committee and founded the Proletarian Masses Party
. In December 1928 the Proletarian Masses Party merged with the Japan Labour-Farmer Party
, forming the Japan Masses Party. In the same month the Oyama Ikuo group held a refoundation conference of the Labour-Farmer Party, but the party was again banned swiftly. In January 1929 Mizutani Chozaburo denounced his former comraders of the Labour-Farmer Party as 'too communistic', thus ending the continuity of the Labour-Farmer Party parliamentary faction. In November 1929 Oyama Ikuo and his followers founded the New Labour-Farmer Party. After having formed this party a final break between Oyama Ikuo and the communists occurred, and the communists began labelling him as a 'traitor'.
Political party
A political party is a political organization that typically seeks to influence government policy, usually by nominating their own candidates and trying to seat them in political office. Parties participate in electoral campaigns, educational outreach or protest actions...
in the Empire of Japan
Empire of Japan
The Empire of Japan is the name of the state of Japan that existed from the Meiji Restoration on 3 January 1868 to the enactment of the post-World War II Constitution of...
. It represented the left wing sector of the legal proletarian movement at the time. Oyama Ikuo was the chairman of the party. At the time the party was banned by the government in 1928, it was estimated to have around 90,000 members in 131 local organizations. The party was supported by the Hyōgikai
Hyōgikai
was a trade union centre in Japan which operated from 1920.Hyōgikai was founded at a conference in Kobe on May 24–27, 1925. As of late 1925, Hyōgikai had 59 affiliated trade unions and around 35,000 members. The organization was affiliated with the Pan Pacific Trade Union Secretariat...
trade union
Trade union
A trade union, trades union or labor union is an organization of workers that have banded together to achieve common goals such as better working conditions. The trade union, through its leadership, bargains with the employer on behalf of union members and negotiates labour contracts with...
federation and the Japan Peasant Union.
Foundation
The Rōdōnōmintō was founded in March 1926, as a continuation of the Farmer-Labour Party (which had been founded in December 1925, but banned after only two hours of existence). The party was founded by the Sodomei trade union centre, the Japan Labour Union Federation (a Sodomei splinter-group), the Japan Peasant Union, the Seamen's Union and the Federation of Government Employees. The Japan Peasant Union leader Motojirō Sugiyama became the chairman of the party, Nagawa, Abe, Aso and Nishio were included in its Central CommitteeCentral Committee
Central Committee was the common designation of a standing administrative body of communist parties, analogous to a board of directors, whether ruling or non-ruling in the twentieth century and of the surviving, mostly Trotskyist, states in the early twenty first. In such party organizations the...
.
Three members of the Central Committee
Central Committee
Central Committee was the common designation of a standing administrative body of communist parties, analogous to a board of directors, whether ruling or non-ruling in the twentieth century and of the surviving, mostly Trotskyist, states in the early twenty first. In such party organizations the...
of the party, Matsuda Kiichi, Ueda Onshi and Saiko Bankichi, were also leaders in the Suiheisha movement.
Party platforms
The platform of the Rōdōnōmintō stated that the goal of the organization was the political, social and economic emancipation of the proletarian class, and through legal means work advocate agrarian reformAgrarian reform
Agrarian reform can refer either, narrowly, to government-initiated or government-backed redistribution of agricultural land or, broadly, to an overall redirection of the agrarian system of the country, which often includes land reform measures. Agrarian reform can include credit measures,...
and re-distribution of production. According to the party platform the established political parties represented the interests of the privileged classes, and that the Rōdōnōmintō sought their overthrow and reform of the parliamentary system. Other demands raised in the platform included universal suffrage (for all persons above 20 years of age), right to form trade union
Trade union
A trade union, trades union or labor union is an organization of workers that have banded together to achieve common goals such as better working conditions. The trade union, through its leadership, bargains with the employer on behalf of union members and negotiates labour contracts with...
s and to organize strikes, collective bargaining
Collective bargaining
Collective bargaining is a process of negotiations between employers and the representatives of a unit of employees aimed at reaching agreements that regulate working conditions...
, minimum wages, 8-hour working day, women's rights
Women's rights
Women's rights are entitlements and freedoms claimed for women and girls of all ages in many societies.In some places these rights are institutionalized or supported by law, local custom, and behaviour, whereas in others they may be ignored or suppressed...
, free education, increased legal rights to tenant farmer
Tenant farmer
A tenant farmer is one who resides on and farms land owned by a landlord. Tenant farming is an agricultural production system in which landowners contribute their land and often a measure of operating capital and management; while tenant farmers contribute their labor along with at times varying...
s, progressive taxation and the democratization of the military leadership.
At the time of its foundation, a party by-law was passed stating that only members of the constituent organizations of the party could acquire party membership. This was done to prevent communists and other leftwing elements to gain influence inside the organization. The anti-communist sectors wanted to block members of leftwing groups like Hyōgikai, the Proletarian Youth League and the Society for Political Studies from joining the party. However, large sections of the party considered this by-law as impeding the formation of a single, unified party of the proletarian movement. The by-law was hotly debated within the party leadership. Oyama Ikuo and other younger militants of the Japan Peasant Union demanded that the by-law be scrapped. The result was a compromise, that membership was open for those individuals who were approved by the party branch in question.
The compromise did however not prevent splits in the party. The extreme rightwing faction inside the party (represented by section of older Japan Peasant Union leaders such as Okabe Kansuke and Hirano Rikizo) was the first dissident group to desert the party. In October 1926 they formed the Japan Farmers Party
Japan Farmers Party
The Japan Farmers Party was a political party in Japan between 1926 and 1928. It represented a rightist tendency amongst the proletarian parties in the country at the time. The party had a nationalist orientation.-Split from the Labour-Farmer Party:...
. On October 24, 1926 Sodomei and other trade unions withdrew from the party. The party leadership was now in the hands of Oyama Ikuo, Mizutani Chozaburo and Hososako Kanemitsu, and all restrictions on party membership were scrapped. Sodomei and other moderate sectors founded the founded the Social Democratic Party
Social Democratic Party (Japan, 1926)
The Social Democratic Party was a political party in Japan between 1926 and 1932...
in December 1926.
In September 1926 the Rōdōnōmintō and Hyōgikai started a campaign to demand the introduction of five pieces of legislation; a minimum wage
Minimum wage
A minimum wage is the lowest hourly, daily or monthly remuneration that employers may legally pay to workers. Equivalently, it is the lowest wage at which workers may sell their labour. Although minimum wage laws are in effect in a great many jurisdictions, there are differences of opinion about...
law, an 8-hour working day law, a health insurance law, a working women's protection law and an law for unemployment benefits.
On December 12, 1926 the Rōdōnōmintō held its first convention. The convention elected Oyama Ikuo as party chairman and Hososako general secretary.
The revolutionary left was also divided within own ranks. After the disbanding of the first Communist Party of Japan in 1924, leftwing cadres had joined the Labour-Farmer Party. One sector (the Fukumoto group) wanted to reconstitute the Communist Party and concentrated their work on underground organizing, whilst Sakai Toshihiko, Yamakawa Kikue, Yamakawa Hitoshi and their sympathizers focused on building the legal Labour-Farmer Party. By the end of 1926, the Fukomoto group dominated both the reconstituted Communist Party and the Labour-Farmer Party, holding key strategic positions inside the latter.
In March 1927, the Communist International intervened. A meeting was held in Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
, in which Bukharin, M.N. Roy, J. T. Murphy
J. T. Murphy
J.T. "Jack" Murphy was an English trade union organiser and Communist.-Early years:J.T. Murphy, best known by his nickname of "Jack," was born in 1888 and grew up near Sheffield and became a metal-worker...
and Béla Kun
Béla Kun
Béla Kun , born Béla Kohn, was a Hungarian Communist politician and a Bolshevik Revolutionary who led the Hungarian Soviet Republic in 1919.- Early life :...
participated, along with Fukumoto and other Japanese communist leaders. Both Yamakawa and Fukumoto were condemned in the thesis issued by the Communist International. Yamakawa was denounced as a 'liquidationist
Liquidationism
Liquidationism is a term in Marxist theory which refers to the ideological liquidation of the revolutionary party program by party members. According to the Russian revolutionary Vladimir Lenin, liquidationism "consists ideologically in negation of the revolutionary class struggle of the socialist...
', while Fukumoto was branded as 'sectarian'. The Communist Party of Japan was instructed to organize itself as a vanguard party, working with and within mass organizations like the Labour-Farmer Party. In December 1927, the Yamakawa group began publishing the monthly journal Rōnō, borrowing the name of the Labour-Farmer Party for their factional organ.
In the midst of financial crisis that hit Japan in the spring of 1927, the party stepped up its propaganda work, launching a campaign to call for early elections.
The Kantō Women's League, a women's organization connected to the party, was founded on July 3, 1927. The Kantō Wome's League was dissolved in March 1928, after the party had issued a directive against the existence of a separate organization for women. The change of position regarding the women's organization was a side-effect of the factional battle inside the party.
Regarding the Chinese question, the party opposed the Japanese government policy and ran a 'Hands off China' campaign. The party was supportive of the leftist Wuhan
Wuhan
Wuhan is the capital of Hubei province, People's Republic of China, and is the most populous city in Central China. It lies at the east of the Jianghan Plain, and the intersection of the middle reaches of the Yangtze and Han rivers...
government. The party aided the foundation of the Taiwan Peasant Union and supported its struggles against the agricultural policies of the Japanese governor-general on the island
Governor-General of Taiwan
The position of Governor-General of Taiwan existed when Taiwan and the Pescadores were part of the Empire of Japan, from 1895 to 1945.The Japanese Governors-General were members of the Diet, civilian officials, Japanese nobles or generals...
.
Electoral activity
The party launched 108 candidates in the 1927 prefectural elections, out of whom 13 were elected (nine from rural areas, four from urban areas). The bulk of the votes for the party came from areas where its Japan Peasant Union was more active; KagawaKagawa Prefecture
is a prefecture of Japan located on Shikoku island. The capital is Takamatsu.- History :Kagawa was formerly known as Sanuki Province.For a brief period between August 1876 and December 1888, Kagawa was made a part of Ehime Prefecture.-Battle of Yashima:...
, Niigata
Niigata Prefecture
is a prefecture of Japan located on the island of Honshū on the coast of the Sea of Japan. The capital is the city of Niigata. The name "Niigata" literally means "new lagoon".- History :...
, Akita
Akita Prefecture
is a prefecture of Japan located in the Tōhoku Region of northern Honshu, the main island of Japan. The capital is the city of Akita.- History :The area of Akita has been created from the ancient provinces of Dewa and Mutsu....
and Hyogo. The combined vote of the candidates of the party stood at 119,169.
Ahead of the 1928 national Diet elections the Labour-Farmer Party issued a list of radical demands, calling for the abolition of all forms of discrimination of subject races and reductions of the size of the armed forces. Slogans such as "Establish a Worker-Peasant Government" and "Long live the dictatorship of the proletariat
Dictatorship of the proletariat
In Marxist socio-political thought, the dictatorship of the proletariat refers to a socialist state in which the proletariat, or the working class, have control of political power. The term, coined by Joseph Weydemeyer, was adopted by the founders of Marxism, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, in the...
" were raised in the election campaign.
However, there was considerable government interference against the electoral campaigns of the Labour-Farmer Party. Electoral meetings were interrupted by police and election campaign workers were often arbitrarily arrested. Night after night, police forces interrupted the campaign speeches of Oyama Ikuo. His campaign headquarters in the Kagawa Prefecture
Kagawa Prefecture
is a prefecture of Japan located on Shikoku island. The capital is Takamatsu.- History :Kagawa was formerly known as Sanuki Province.For a brief period between August 1876 and December 1888, Kagawa was made a part of Ehime Prefecture.-Battle of Yashima:...
constituency (where he stood as candidate, facing the incumbent finance minister) were raided by police.
Amongst the candidates of the party were eleven communists. Kyuichi Tokuda, who later became the general secretary of the Communist Party, stood as a candidate of the party. Another communist, the trade union organizer Kenzo Yamamoto, was a Labour-Farmer Party candidate in Hokkaido
Hokkaido
, formerly known as Ezo, Yezo, Yeso, or Yesso, is Japan's second largest island; it is also the largest and northernmost of Japan's 47 prefectural-level subdivisions. The Tsugaru Strait separates Hokkaido from Honshu, although the two islands are connected by the underwater railway Seikan Tunnel...
.
All in all the party supported 40 candidates in the elections, whom together mustered 181,141 votes (1.9% of the nationwide vote). Banno, however, states that the combined vote of the 40 Labour-Farmer Party candidates was 193,047. According to Banno's account, 77% of the votes for the party came from rural areas (the party had launched 32 rural and 8 urban candidates). Two of the candidates of the party were elected, Yamamoto Senji and Mizutani Chozaburo.
Following the election the three proletarian parties in the assembly (the Labour-Farmer Party, the Japan Labour-Farmer Party and the Social Democratic Party) managed to form a joint parliamentary committee, in spite of their political contradictions.
Dissolution
With the March 15 incidentMarch 15 incident
was a crackdown on socialists and communists by the Japanese government in 1928. Among those who were arrested in the incident was Marxist economist Kawakami Hajime.-Background:...
, a wave of repression was directed against the leftwing in Japan. Around 1,600 persons were arrested and accused of being communist activists. The Labour-Farmer Party was banned by the Home Ministry on April 11, 1928, after accusations arose of links to the communists. Hyōgikai was banned on the same day.
After the Labour-Farmer Party had been banned, the government attempted to expel its representatives from the Lower House of the Diet of Japan
Diet of Japan
The is Japan's bicameral legislature. It is composed of a lower house, called the House of Representatives, and an upper house, called the House of Councillors. Both houses of the Diet are directly elected under a parallel voting system. In addition to passing laws, the Diet is formally...
. However they lacked any legal basis to do so, and the two Labour-Farmer Party continued in their parliamentary functions. Yamamoto Senji was assassinated on February 29, on the same day as he had presented testified in the Diet regarding torture of prisoners.
There would be several different attempts by leftists to recreate a party representing the Labour-Farmer Party legacy. Immediately after the disbanding of the Labour-Farmer Party, the Communist Party instructed its cadres to rebuild the party. The goal to achieve unification with the Japan Labour-Farmer Party was retained. A reorganization committee was formed (named the 'Committee for the Rebuilding of the Labour-Farmer Party and Preparation for New Party'). Oyama Ikou served as the chairman of the committee and Hososako as the general secretary. The committee was quickly banned by the government, but continued to function illegally. In July 1928 the Rōnō faction broke away from the committee and founded the Proletarian Masses Party
Proletarian Masses Party
The Proletarian Masses Party was a short-lived political party in Japan. It was founded on July 22, 1928 by the Rōnō faction . Suzuki Mosaburō became the general secretary of the party. Yamakawa and Sakai Toshihiko functioned as 'elder' advisors in the party...
. In December 1928 the Proletarian Masses Party merged with the Japan Labour-Farmer Party
Japan Labour-Farmer Party
The was a socialist political party in Japan between December 1926 and December 1928. During its existence, it occupied a centrist position in the divided socialist movement.-Foundation:...
, forming the Japan Masses Party. In the same month the Oyama Ikuo group held a refoundation conference of the Labour-Farmer Party, but the party was again banned swiftly. In January 1929 Mizutani Chozaburo denounced his former comraders of the Labour-Farmer Party as 'too communistic', thus ending the continuity of the Labour-Farmer Party parliamentary faction. In November 1929 Oyama Ikuo and his followers founded the New Labour-Farmer Party. After having formed this party a final break between Oyama Ikuo and the communists occurred, and the communists began labelling him as a 'traitor'.