A Brief Review of the Labour Movement in Japan/Part 2/Chapter 2
CHAPTER II.
Prologue of the Social and Industrial Upheaval, and
Unorganised Strikes.
(1917–1918).
1917 and the following years mark the turning point in the world history, not only because the Workers' Republic was for the first time established in Russia, but also because the enslaved classes in the Far Eastern countries have begun to awake from their long sleep. In Egypt, in India, in China, in Korea, we have seen the open rebellions of the toiling masses against the exploiting classes, both foreign and at home at first in the form of riot and then organised mass action.
In Japan this tide of proletarian revolt and organising movement synchronises with (1) extraordinary development of industrial capitalism, (2) increase of industrial workers in number, (8) amazing advancement of prices, and (4) also with revolutionary ferments in Russia and Europe.
1. Development of Industrial Capitalism.
Without doubt the „European War“ gave Japanese capitalists a golden opportunity for their expansion and adventure, while to European Capitalists it meant a sword for their suicide. During the War Japanese bourgeois triumphantly invaded the huge markets of the Eastern countries, seized upon navigation on the western part of Pacific and the Indian Sea, robbed the former German flash-houses in the South Sea for future large-scale piracy, and succeeded to lay with the sanction of the English government their avaricious hands on rich coal and iron fields in China, Everywhere Japanese and American robbers have knocked heads together and grappled together, leading both into another bloodthirsty War.
At home, economic gravity transfered from agriculture to commerce and industry. Also the iron and steel industry rose to the rank next to the textile. Financially, Capitalism has largely shaked itself free from British and American gold. The following figure tells us the uncommon increase of the „Productive Power“ in a last few years. (Also see the Appendix).
| 1914 | £ | 25 | millions |
| 1915 | " | 30 | " |
| 1916 | " | 65 | " |
| 1917 | " | 156 | " |
| 1918 | " | 267 | " |
| 1919 | " | 406 | " |
This extraordinary growth of economic power profoundly reflected on every directions of the political and social life. The „heimin“ (plebeian, bourgeois, or democratic) Cabinet (based on a political Party—tho „Seiyu-kai“—of the commercial and agricultural Capitalists) took in 1918 the reins of the government, throwing aside the Emperor and the aristocrats from the political sphere, and depriving the militalists of their mighty power. The franchise was more and more extended in the poor middle class. The Principle of „Democracy“ and „Liberty“ has been noisily advocated by bourgeois Liberals.
Thus „Bourgeois Japan“ was completely established.
2. Increase of Proletariat in number and power.
It is an inevitable result that such a capitalist development has been accompanied with no less rapidity by the increase in number and power of its mortal enemy—the proletariat and semi-proletariat, whose social position is naturally bringing up class-consciousness, class-antagonism in their minds. The following table clearly shows the fact. (Also see the Appendix.)
| Year | No. of Factories | No. of Workers |
| 1905 | 9,776 | 689,750 |
| 1914 | 17,062 | 911,453 |
| 1916 | 19,299 | 1,157,540 |
| 1918 | 22,391 | 1,504,761 |
(Factories quoted here are those which employ over ten workers).
3. High Prices.
The economic prosperity caused extremely high prices of life necessities (particularly of rice prices), resulting in the reduction of real wages. The next table indicates the heavy pressure which „War prosperity“ brought upon the life of the producing classes.
| Year. | Index of Prices. | Among above Prices. | Index of Wages. | Differences. | |
| Rice. | Cotton. | ||||
| 1900 | 100 | 100 | 100 | 100 | 0 |
| 1914 | 126 | 140 | 119 | 141 | +15 |
| 1915 | 117 | 106 | 103 | 139 | +22 |
| 1916 | 136 | 108 | 129 | 146 | +10 |
| 1917 | 191 | 170 | 268 | 168 | —23 |
| 1918 | 277 | 280 | 318 | 208 | —69 |
| 1919 | 294 | 372 | 506 | 267 | —27 |
4. Revolutionary ferments abroad.
Every events produced by the Western workers are keenly responded and soon followed by the Japanese workers. Above all, the proletarian Revolution in Russia aroused a stormy enthusiasm, awakened in them a great hope, and drew them into the vortex of the worldwide revolutionary ferments.
But tho influence of the Russian Revolution over the Japanese a proletariats should not be overestimated. Because the Japanese workers not only felt a great difficulty in getting the true news on Soviet Russia, but also they had been never well educated by the Socialist ideas.
5. Social and Industrial Unrest.
Now, Japan entered upon a period of great social and industrial-unrests which she had never seen in any of the foregoing periods. The following figures will show the astonishing increase of strikes since 1917.
| Year. | No. of Strikes, | Members directly affected. |
| 1900 | 11 | 3,316 |
| 1914 | 50 | 7,904 |
| 1915 | 64 | 7,413 |
| 1916 | 108 | 8,413 |
| 1917 | 398 | 57,309 |
| 1918 | 417 | 66,457 |
| 1919 | 497 | 63,137 |
| 1920 | 185 | 162,366 |
6. „Rice Riot“.
In August 1918 this unrest burst out as the notorious „Rice Riot“, first in a hamlet and then spreading all over the country. Everywhere rice-merchants were raided by hungry peoples; beautiful show-windows along the busy streets were smashed down. In Kobe and Osaka a street fighting took place between rioters and military forces. The price of rice suddenly went down. But these wild risings were mercilessly suppressed by summoning armies and by the arrests of hundreds and the mania faded away at the end of month.
It should be remembered that this event is not any sort of social as es revolutionary movement in character at all, but an unconscious and unorganised rebellion of the poorest masses against artificially high prices of rice particularly and against the rich people generally. Not only the majority of industrial and organised workers did not take part in the „Riot“, but it entirely lacked revolutionary ideas and leaders! By saying so I do not imply that the Riot ended without any effect. But, on the contrary, it has left a profound lesson to the Japanese working classes—by demonstrating the might power of mass action or violent force against which the rich class was pitifully powerless, and by unmasking the real nature of the soldiers who were ordered to level their rifles against their starving „brothers and sisters“ instead of the foreign enemy.