Chikuho was one of Japan's major coal-producing areas. During the immediate post-war years and into the 1950s and 1960s Chikuho's coalmines produced between 35 and 50 per cent of Japan's total coal output. When the coal industry went into decline in the late 1950s and early 1960s, Chikuho, which was almost completely dominated by the production of coal and secondary related industries, was left with few economic alternatives. The domination of the coal industry was such that there was a monopoly of the local industrial workforce. When the coal companies started to rationalise operations in the 1950s and 1960s, in response to the first of many Coal Rationalisation Plans, there was widespread unemployment, poverty and general discontent, which culminated in a series of national strikes and protest movements, all of which proved to be of little use in reversing the trend away from coal and towards oil.

In describing this process, I shall first look at the national level. I shall then focus on Chikuho itself, drawing on the accounts of informants from a cross-section of local society. There are significant divergences between the ‘official’ history and that remembered by the people of Chikuho today, and these differences provide fertile grounds for reinterpreting events in the region over the past 40 years.

Prior to the Second World War: The discovery and use of coal

Coal was first discovered in Chikuho in the early sixteenth century and was exploited at that time by the daimyō (feudal lords) of the area. The ‘mines’ were confined to producing small amounts of domestic coal for the purposes of heating and lighting the homes of the lords.