Hi Chair of Infinite Knowledge,
Spartacus detailed German resistance to the Nazis in episode 6 of the WAH series. Was there any Japanese resistance to imperial Japan?
P.S. Tell whomever is seated on you that they’re doing a great job.
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From what I understand that was the Communist Party of Japan, but they were banned and heavily persecuted.
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Soka Gakkai ( A bhuddist organisation) was anti-war and it’s leader died in prison as a result. Its anti-war stance helped it gain followers post-war as the “official” organisations were discredited.
There were also anti-war (or at least anti-Tojo) politicians as well. Recent PM Shinzo Abe’s grandfather was elected to the diet in 1942 on anti-war platform (but of course a few anti war elected politicians didn’t have much chance getting their platform advanced in the diet at that point).
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That was after the war right?
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That’s actually an extremely interesting question.
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See page 263 of this American study on the "rebuilding of Japan. After the war the Communists were more popular than they should be and the Allied occupation force viewed them as a problem. This study has a LOT on contemporary Japan!
" The Japan Communist Party
The greatest single political group as a medium of potential trouble for the Occupation was the Japan Communist Party (JCP), with its varied and persistent attempts to discredit and nullify the program of democratization. From the outset, it was recognized that this group’s activities and methods made it less a political party and more a fifth column introducing alien ideologies into Japan. This factor became a prime concern of Counter Intelligence.87
Early in the Occupation, it was realized that the release of all political prisoners, a completely laudable political gesture, was also opening the doors to a group of well-trained, fully indoctrinated obstructionists. The Communists were quick to reorganize their Party and to start its program of anti-democratic activities, which sometimes found unexpected support from disorganized sections of the post surrender population.
As in every other non-Communist country, the Party in Japan proved to be a menace to all duly constituted authority. Its members, imbued with the philosophy that any means are justifiable as long as they promote the Party’s aims, continually resorted to illegal, subversive, and undercover methods to attain their ends.
The JCP devoted its well-correlated energies to interfering with the vital food production, shipbuilding, merchant shipping, democratic organization of labor, and the collection of taxes-to name a few of the methods by which it maneuvered stumbling blocks in the path of Japan’s democratization. It sponsored or took over many “front” organizations and put on a comprehensive propaganda program designed to create spiritual confusion among the populace and to promote an alien ideology.
In spite of the essentially conservative character of the Japanese people, the JCP achieved a relative degree of success in penetrating the higher echelons of organized labor during the first two and one-half years of the Occupation. Capitalizing on the confusion and readjustment which characterized the first postwar months, the Communist Party, repeating its tried methods of operation, infiltrated the countless labor unions which were springing up all over Japan as a part of the new democratization program.
The radical complexion of the National Congress of Industrial Unions (NCIU) and its wide control of the workers in Japan’s key industries made it a major target for CIS as its activities became more and more openly threatening to the Occupation’s goals. Communist infiltration had reached such proportions by August 1946 that the Party’s Central Committee was able to instruct the Communist Party faction in the NCIU to incite the member unions to plan a general strike on 15 September 1946, coordinated with a threatened twenty-four hour strike of government railway workers.88
CIS, alerted by CIC and CCD reports,"
Chapter 8: Occupation Security and Intelligence Measures (army.mil)
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