A Brief Review of the Labour Movement in Japan/Part 2/Chapter 4
CHAPTER IV.
Toward Solidarity. (1920–1921).
1. Poor crop of the Unions.
Under such a state of conditions, the mushroom growth of Trade Unions which had prevailed in the preyious year suddenly came to a standstill in 1920. As far as new Unions are concerned, only a few are of importance. A teachers' Union, „The Keimei-kai“, ;ed by socialists, came into existence in Tokyo. January, and in the next few months several seamen's organisations were formed in all important ports, as a result of troubles occured from the election of Labour Delegate et the International Labour Conference at Genoa, which has been always playing a cynical part in the Japanese labour movement, arousing hostility against itself and awakening the combination spirit of workers.
2. Aims of Organised Workers, and Political Action.
It is interesting to trace the changing demands of the workers. Up to the summer of 1919, almost all labour disputes originatad from the demand for increased wages or improvement of working conditions. But after the printers' general strike of July, the eight hours day began to be claimed, Especially the acquisition of eight hours by the great sabotage of Kobe on September incited this movement.
In the year 1920 another new demand was put foward, that is, the election of foremen in the workshop by the workers themselves, by which measure they meant, the first step to the control of industry by themselves. For this purpose the Yuai-kai challenged the Sonoike Metal Works, Tokyo, January. Met by a lock-out, it fought for three weeks with the support of other fellow organisations and at last won the whole demand. Soon this was followed by others.
In this month the Japanese labour movement made a sharp turn. Beaten on the industrial field, the organised workers turned their eyes towards the political side, demanding universal suffrage and abolition of the „Police Law“. For the time being, they acted in concert with some of the middle class politicians of the Opposition. Huge demonstrations were carried out in the important. cities. A petition was signed by ten thousands of peoples, and lodged in the House. But before any discussion had taken place on the issue, the Diet was unexpeetedly dissolved in February. Then came a General Election, at which all the „democratic“ politicians and the „popular“ parties slipped off the workers' claims from their programmes.
Betrayed and deceived, disappointed and disentranced, the workers acquired a serious lesson—the fallacy of Parliamentarism and the mistake in joining hands with the bourgeois Liberals. Without delay they returned on their field.
3. Defeat after Defeat.
But their own field, too, was then by no means good for them. Trade which had been on the wane since the summer of the previous year grew suddenly worse. Bankruptcy of numerous firms, closure of the workshops, and tens of thouzands of unemployments grimly faced them. Moreover, the merciless class never lost the opportunity of cutting down wages to the starvation lines and crushing out the Trade Unions by the means of discharging the leading members from the shops. The demand of the poorest. was answered by a threat of dismissal, strike by lockout, injunction and arrest; and revolt by violent suppression.
February, a bitter conflict broke out at the Vawata (government) Iron Foundry, Kyushu, one of the biggest factories in the Far East. Arising out of a wage demand, 15000 men led by two Unions—Yuai-kai and Labour Society—carried on sabotage and soon converted this into strike action. The situation became more serious when the authority summoned a mass of police, gendarms, and at last troops. This went on for nearly a month, and was finally closed with arrest of 29 leaders and the discharge ot 240 strikers.
In the same month, the Transport Workers' Union conducted a sabotage on the whole lines of Tokyo municipal tramway for the improvement of allowance system. The Union fought well, and won in this dispute. But in April again the Union called to combat for increased wages and an eight hours day. It was refused. Sabotage and then a strike began; the city transportation stood still a short while. Against this the municipal authority tried all subtle measures—hiring black-legs, bribe, threat of arrest, provocation of the „citizen“ against the strikers, propaganda on papers, etc. The end was far more miserable than that of Yawata; 83 strikers were thrown to goal and 200 discharged.
In July another big strike occured in the Metropolis against the discharge of members of the Yuai-kai at the Osbiage Cotton Mill. Among strikers 1600 were working girls and 400 men. The employer, Dy locking up all the girls into the dormitory and guarding the factory with police force, thoroughly cut communication between the girls and the men outside. The Yuai-kai mobilised all branches and, with voluntary help from other Unions, fought for two weeks. But it was then at the height of economic slackness and unemploymenf. By threat of dismissal the unity went to pieces. The Yuai-kai lost at one time an important section of textile workers and a large proportion of organised woman labour.
In September, again, the citizens of Tokyo were startled with a threat of general stoppage of daily papers by the Seishin-kai, which demanded to all the employers an eight hours day and the minimum wages. But the dispute had ended in a pitiful fiasco, before a general strike came in operation.
All Unions, one after another, were hardly hit and beaten.
Figures of the unemployed over the country (from an unofficial record):
| 1920 | April. | 5,800 |
| " | May | 52,600 |
| " | June | 35,000 |
| " | July | 32,000 |
| " | Aug. | 30,600 |
| " | Sept. | 16,300 |
| " | Oct. | 7,000 |
| " | Nov. | 10,500 |
| " | Dec. | 42,500 |
| 1921 | Jan. | 5,800 |
4. Toward Solidainty.
Now, the time of trial of the strength of trade Unions came.
It is true that almost all Unions, except non-fighting ones, experienced a big drop in membership and more or less a crippling of their fighting capacity, owing to the incessant arrests of able leaders, and economically exhausted scanty funds. However, it is equally true that even an armed suppression can not root out the spirit of combination and revolt from the oppressed masses. On the contrary, the more bitter the attacks upon them, the stronger their solidarity and class-consciousness becomes. Instead of raising a white flag, they turned, under the shower of bullets, from the offensive to the defensive, and commenced to combine all their powers against the triumphant enemy,—to federate or amalgamate several Unions. At the same time, from the inside of their. camp rushed out a squadron of daring vanguards of the class war,—the „Left Wing“ section on which I shall narrate in the next chapter. That is to say, the Japanese labour moyement has, through the hardest experiments, gained spiritually or qualitatively, while it lost numerically or quantitatively.
The new movement for the amalgamation or federation of separate Unions can be traced back to September 1919 when a dozen Unions of different industries temporally combined in Tokyo against the Labour Delegation of the Washington International Labour Conference. Since that time onwards, the important Unions took a co-operative action; they worked shoulder to shoulder and helped each other in every emergency.
Then in January 1920, they acted jointly for their common claim—Universal suffrage and the repeal of the Police Law. Again in May, they carried on a May Day Demonstration in Tokyo which was the first May Day held in Japan. The time became ripe for uniting them in a concrete form. In the next month, the former Joint Committee of May Day, including leading Unions led by the Yuai-kai and the Shinyu-kai (see the Appendix), was decided to come into a permanent organisation, called the „Federation of Trade Unions“. This is not a Federation in a narrow sense, but a joint committee for common purposes, industrial and political, consisting of the most advanced section of Unions in several trades and industries (metal, printing, transport, mining, tailouring, teachers, etc.,) in and near Tokyo. At any rate, it is the first appearance of a body expressing the whole organised workers' minds, at least, in the eastern half of the country.
In December, a similar body was formed by 14 Unions in Osaka, called „The Western Federation of Trade Unions“, (also see the Appendix).
So far I have spoken of the federation of Unions in the different industries. It is of no less importance that the amalgamation of Unions of the same trade or industry has been swiftly in progress. For instance, the Jujo-kai and the Royu-kai were amalgamated in March, called „The Koyu-kai“ (Workers' Fraternal Society), mainly composed of the employees in one of the Ordnance Factories in Tokyo. In July, a grave fusion took place in the mining industry; three big bodies—the Miners' Department of Yuai-kai, the Miners' Federation of Japan and the National Miners' Union—were strongly incorporated in a single unit, the „All Japanese Miners' Federation“, which directly affiliates to the Yuai-kai. Later, a federation was effected between various Seamen's Unions, led by the Yuai-kai; a similar attempt was successfully made in the printing industry by the Shinyu-kai and the Seishin-kai.
As a matter of course, the above mentioned consolidations are not in a position to represent the whole of the working class all over the country. Such a body, however, is paramountly necessary. So a scheme was planned by the Yuai-kai at its Conference of 1920 to hold annually a big Congress of all existing Unions for the purpose of consulting on common problems. When this plan will be carried out in practice, the Congress should become a good school-room of revolutionary education for the masses.