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What are the limits of political violence? Ebihara Toshio’s murder and the Umemoto-Kuroda controversy in 1970s Japan

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 May 2024

Ferran de Vargas Open the ORCID record for Ferran de Vargas [Opens in a new window]
Ferran de Vargas*
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Arts and Humanities Department, Open University of Catalonia, Barcelona, Spain
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Email: f_vargas@uoc.edu
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Abstract

On 3 August 1970, a student activist belonging to the Kakumaru-ha (Revolutionary Marxist Faction) was beaten to death by members of the rival Chūkaku-ha (Central Core Faction) at Hosei University, Tokyo. This incident sparked an intense war between Japanese New Left factions that stretched into the 1980s and resulted in dozens of deaths, making Japan a unique case among industrialized nations for its extremely high level of left-wing interfactional violence. Of particular importance in understanding the ideological factors surrounding such an escalation of violence was the debate triggered between Umemoto Katsumi, one of the intellectual founders of the Japanese New Left, and members of the Kakumaru-ha led by Kuroda Kan’ichi around the limits of political violence. This article explores the theoretical confrontation between these two opposing sides that was of such critical importance to the logic of war between Japanese New Left factions in the 1970s and 1980s.

Keywords

Japanese MarxismKuroda Kan’ichiUmemoto KatsumiNew Leftpolitical violence

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Type
Research Article
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Modern Asian Studies , Volume 58 , Issue 3 , May 2024 , pp. 912 - 937
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© The Author(s), 2024. Published by Cambridge University Press.

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References

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5 Ibid., p. 30.

6 Ibid., p. 33.

7 According to Nakanishi, Masahiro, ‘Kakumaru—Portrait of an ultra-radical group’, in Zengakuren. Japan’s revolutionary students, (ed.) Dowsey, Stuart J. (Tokyo: The Ishi Press, 1970), p. Google Scholar, the word ‘geba’ derives from the German word ‘gewalt’, which is pronounced ‘gebaruto’ in Japanese, and means power, authority, or violence as associated with an ‘act of God’. Its student meaning is violence in the revolutionary struggle. Internal fighting between factions is called ‘inner-geba’ or uchigeba.

8 Oguma, 1968, p. 296. The Second Bund was a reconstitution of the Bund that had disintegrated in the early 1960s. See later in the article for an explanation of the Bund.

9 This is the account by Andrews, Dissenting Japan, p. 153, and Ara, Shin Sayoku to wa nani datta no ka, pp. 193–194. According to Mizutani and Kishi, Kakukyōdō seijikyoku no haiboku 1975–2014, p. 416, however, Ebihara had not been directly involved in the attack.

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14 Tachibana, Chūkaku tai Kakumaru, pp. 166–167.

15 Ibid.

16 Ibid., p. 165.

17 Ibid.

18 Mizutani and Kishi, Kakukyōdō seijikyoku no haiboku 1975–2014, pp. 417–418.

19 Oguma, 1968, p. 299.

20 Mizutani and Kishi, Kakukyōdō seijikyoku no haiboku 1975–2014, p. 421.

21 Ibid., pp. 253–256.

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26 Abridgement of Kyōsanshugisha Dōmei.

27 Abridgement of Kakumeiteki Kyōsanshugisha Dōmei.

28 Kan’ichi Kuroda, Praxiology. Philosophy of inter-human subjectivity (Tokyo: Kobushi Shobō, [1975] 1998), p. 246.

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34 Ibid., p. 131.

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36 Abridgement of Zen Nihon Gakusei Jichikai Sō Rengō: All-Japan Federation of Student Self-Government Associations.

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39 Mizutani and Kishi, Kakukyōdō seijikyoku no haiboku 1975–2014, pp. 256–257.

40 Kuroda, ‘For the creation of a vanguard organization’, p. 232.

41 Kuroda, What is revolutionary Marxism?, pp. 210–211.

42 Tachibana, Chūkaku tai Kakumaru, p. 137.

43 Oguma, 1968, p. 296.

44 Ibid.

45 Ibid.

46 Sō Kōchi, ‘Umemoto shutaisei-ron to Kuroda no shisō tenkō [Umemoto’s theory of subjectivity and Kuroda’s turn of thought]’, in Kuroda Kan’ichi wo dō toraeruka [How to grasp Kuroda Kan’ichi?], (eds) Soriya Ōkubo et al. (Tokyo: Haga Shoten, 1971), pp. 46–47.

47 Momo Iida, 21 seiki no ‘ima-koko’: Umemoto Katsumi no shōgai to shisōteki isan [The ‘here and now’ of the twentieth century: Umemoto Katsumi’s life and legacy] (Tokyo: Kobushi Shōbo, 2003), p. 120.

48 Ebihara himself, like many other New Left activists, had read Umemoto, despite his conflicting ideological positions. Tōkyō Kyōiku Daigaku Zengaku Gakusei Kyōtō Kaigi, ‘Ebihara Toshio-kun no koto [On Ebihara Toshio]’, in Kakumeiteki bōryoku towa nanika, (ed.) Zen-Nihon Gakusei Jichikai Sōrengō Jō-senbu, p. 35.

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52 This definition of the logic of politics came from Haniya Yutaka (1909–1997).

53 Katsumi Umemoto, ‘Nani wo kakumei suru no ka—Tōha no ronri to kakumei no ronri [What is to be revolutionized? The logic of party and the logic of revolution]’, in Kakumeiteki bōryoku towa nanika [What is revolutionary violence?], (ed.) Zen-Nihon Gakusei Jichikai Sōrengō Jō-senbu (Tokyo: Kobushi Shobō [1970] 1971), pp. 114–115.

54 Ibid., p. 119.

55 Ibid., pp. 118–119.

56 Ibid., p. 120.

57 Ibid., p. 122.

58 Ibid., p. 120.

59 Ibid., pp. 121–122.

60 Ibid., p. 123.

61 Sō Kōchi, Fumio Asakura and Waseda Daigaku Shinbunkai—Henshūbu, ‘Umemoto Katsumi-san ni kiku [Asking Umemoto Katsumi]’, in Kakumeiteki bōryoku towa nanika, (ed.) Zen-Nihon Gakusei Jichikai Sōrengō Jō-senbu, p. 141.

62 Ibid., pp. 134–135.

63 Ibid., p. 141.

64 Ibid., pp. 137–138.

65 Ibid., pp. 141–142.

66 Ibid., p. 143. Soka Gakkai is a Buddhist religious movement, the largest of Japan’s new religions, based on the teachings of the thirteenth-century priest Nichiren (1222–1282).

67 Ibid., pp. 149–152.

68 Ibid., p. 160.

69 Sō Kōchi, ‘Umemoto Katsumi ni okeru jiko kaitai no genjitsu [The reality of self-dissolution in Umemoto Katsumi]’, in Kakumeiteki bōryoku towa nanika [What is revolutionary violence?], (ed.) Zen-Nihon Gakusei Jichikai Sōrengō Jō-senbu (Tokyo: Kobushi Shobō, [1970] 1971), pp. 177–178.

70 Kakukyōdō—Chūō Gakusei Soshiki Iinkai, ‘Bukuro = Chūkaku-ha wo kakumeiteki ni kaitai seyo [For the revolutionary dismantling of the Bukuro = Chūkaku-ha]’, in Kakumeiteki bōryoku towa nanika, (ed.) Zen-Nihon Gakusei Jichikai Sōrengō Jō-senbu, p. 79.

71 Ibid., p. 83.

72 Sō Kōchi, ‘Seiji to bōryoku-ron nōto [Notes on the theory of politics and violence]’, in Kakumeiteki bōryoku towa nanika, (ed.) Zen-Nihon Gakusei Jichikai Sōrengō Jō-senbu, pp. 197–198.

73 Tachibana, Chūkaku tai Kakumaru, p. 173.

74 Masaomi Kojima, ‘Gyakusatsusha shūdan wo menzai suru Umemoto Katsumi [Umemoto Katsumi’s exoneration of the group of murderers]’, in Kakumeiteki bōryoku towa nanika, (ed.) Zen-Nihon Gakusei Jichikai Sōrengō Jō-senbu, p. 107.

75 Ibid., p. 108.

76 Kakukyōdō—Chūō Gakusei Soshiki Iinkai, ‘Bukuro = Chūkaku-ha wo kakumeiteki ni kaitai seyo’, p. 78.

77 Tachibana, Chūkaku tai Kakumaru, p. 71.

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79 Blai Guarné and Ferran de Vargas define the ‘Japanese long 1968’ as a period of political revolts led by the student movement from 1966 to 1972. The main areas of activism that made up this historical phenomenon were the anti-Vietnam War protests, the occupation of university campuses by the Zenkyōtō student movement, the Sanrizuka struggle against the construction of the Narita International Airport, the demonstrations for the return of Okinawa to Japanese sovereignty, and the campaign against the second renewal of the Anpo. Blai Guarné and Ferran de Vargas, ‘Japan’s long 1968 cinema: Resistance, struggle, revolt’, The Sixties, vol. 14, no. 2, 2022, pp. 121–125.

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83 Nakanishi, ‘Kakumaru—Portrait of an Ultra-Radical Group’, p. 203. While prominent figures of other New Left groups, such as Honda in the Chūkaku-ha, wrote extensively about current affairs, history, and political theory, Kuroda was a philosopher in the sense that he also dealt with issues such as human subjectivity, alienation, epistemology, ontology, the relationship between substance and functions, Hegelianism, etc.

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94 Ibid., p. 60.

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99 Ibid., p. 55.

100 Ibid., pp. 93–94.

101 Ibid., p. 63.

102 Ibid., pp. 95–96.

103 Ibid., p. 74.

104 Ibid., p. 88.

105 Ibid., p. 94.

106 Soriya Ōkubo, ‘Puroretaria undō ni okeru shutaisei no kakuritsu towa nanika [What does the establishment of subjectivity in the proletarian movement consist of?]’, in Kuroda Kan’ichi wo dō toraeruka, (ed.) Ōkubo et al., p. 19.

107 Kuroda, Dialectics of praxis, p. 119.

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112 Steinhoff, ‘Death by defeatism and other fables’, p. 223.

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114 Umemoto, ‘Nani wo kakumei suru no ka’, pp. 118–120.

115 For insight into the general disdain for intellectualism and even for words, see Ferran de Vargas, ‘Throwing ideology away: Yoshimoto Takaaki’s theory of taishū and Terayama Shūji’s film parody of the people’, Japan Forum (2023), online.

116 Akira Asada, ‘A Left within the place of nothingness’, New Left Review, no. 5, Sep/Oct 2000, p. 19.

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