The Japanese Anarchists Part 1

We're joined by Margaret Killjoy, host of the new podcast Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff, to talk about the history of anarchism in Japan.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hello, welcome to it could happen here the podcast that
is my podcast. Now. I'm your host, Margaret Kiljoy, and
with me is the Webby Award winning Sophie Lichterman as
our producer, as well as the actual hosts of the show,
who go without mentioning because I don't see any reason
to include them. Can that just be the intro to

(00:29):
every episode from now? This is better than our all
of our regular intros. Oh I loved that. Um yeah,
so what are we talking about today? Also on podcast,
Garrison Davis and Christopher Wong. Hello, yes, so so today
we are we are talking about the sort of long

(00:52):
and incredibly tragic history of Japanese anarchism. Well, okay, actually
Japanese anarchism before World War two, because after we were
two is an entirely different story. And as much as
I love people in construction helmets just like beating the
ship out of cops with large sticks, Uh, that story
is extremely complicated if you want to hear read, Uh,
talk more about that story a little bit. Uh. The

(01:14):
third part of my Nobasikikishi episode has a lot of
people in construction help us with sticks. But you know
this is you know Okay said that the history of
anarchism generally is the history of tragedy, but even by
by anarchist standards, the the history of Japanese anarchism is
just an absolute welter of heartbreak and loss. Um. Out

(01:35):
of all of the people that we're going to talk
about today, exactly one of the non Russian anarchist is
going to live to see world the end of World
War two, and he's Korean. Every single other person is
either going to be executed by the state, assassinated, killed themselves,
drink themselves to death. So this is uh, this is
this is an ex bleak story in a lot of ways.

(01:55):
Good to have one of those optimistic episodes every once
in a while. Yeah, you know, I mean I think
the gets thrown down a well. Uh well, okay, it's
it's unclear whether anyone got thrown down away. I'm sorry,
I'm skipping ahead and I don't actually know. Well, we will,
we will get to the wells uh yeah. I also okay,

(02:18):
so there's a lot of Japanese anarchists and we don't
have that much time. So if you're like in a
sawa u sakataro, stand um, I'm sorry. We can't cover
all of them. Do you ever think about the history
of anarchists in Japan. That is weird is that the
beginning of the story pre dates they're actually being anarchists

(02:40):
in Japan, or specifically they're being Japanese anarchists. Um. There's
this huge degree of sort of like cultural exchange and
influence running between Japan and Russia by riche of the
fact that they are, you know, next to each other, um,
and especially in the seventies and eighties, this is one
of the sort of this is important again because Russia

(03:04):
in this period is like this is like the hotbed
of anarchism, right, Like they're they're killing, they're killing those
are they're they're they're doing all the things. They're going
to the countryside there. The Russian anarchists are sort of
on the move, and a lot of things the Russian
anarchists wind up Like in Japan, baccun In is there
for like he like he has some extremely complicated arrangement
who like he like sneaks on a boat and he

(03:26):
like gets out and he beats one of the sort
of like samurai like Beiji Restoration revolutionaries, and they chat
for a bit and then he leaves, so he he
you know, but you did, It's not this is when
he was escaping Siberia. Yeah, well I think, yeah, he's
escaping Siberia. And then he somehow convinces like the American

(03:46):
embassy or something to like let him on a boat
to Japan. It's it's a very weird story. It's like
all things Baccunan are, but the most problem in anarchists
to spend time in Japan is Lev ah Nikov. Um
Mashnikov is like he's like a pretty big deal in
Russian revolutionary circles. Like he's he's considered like okay, so

(04:08):
the big sort of like anarchists left wing moving to
Japan is the populist right. It's called the road nicks
Um and there there's two big figures in it. There's
uh Nikolai Turnachevski and this guy uh Lev Menschikov. And
you know, he's like he knows everyone he knows, like

(04:31):
he's friends. Was just like every single person and we
will get too more of his friends later. But like
he's a kind of part of bakun in um he
he has he has a very similar career in Beacuoni
in a lot of ways where he just sort of
like runs, especially like Eastern Europe. He's like runs around
the world being in revolutions um, which is good work
if he can get it. Yeah, yeah, it's it's pretty exciting.

(04:51):
And he doesn't die, which is sort of incredible. Well,
I love that for him. So he's still around. Yes,
it's very sad, you know, I mean he look, look,
this is this is the goal of Russian cosmism. No,
is it actually cosmism? I have no idea. Yeah, the

(05:12):
cosmonaut people, yeah, yeah, they would bring back all the
dead people. Oh no, I don't know about this. I
only know a weird thing where there was like anarchist
cosmonauts in like nineteen twenties Russia. Yeah. Yeah, so the
their their whole thing was like, okay, so they thought
that the anarchists had been defeating in the revolution because
they were insufficiently committed to bringing the dead back to life,

(05:34):
and that that that, you know, the whole thing was
like they like, they're there's some the people who were
involved in the Soviet like rocket programs, and they're doing
this because they want to colonize the Moon and Mars
so they can fit all of the dead Poleteraria, They're
gonna bring back to life. Wait, are you telling the
truth to me? This is this is all true. This
is amazing. I've been trying to fight for the Anarchist

(05:57):
Necromancer League for so long. Which are slogan is um
raised the dead to fight like hell for the living.
That's that's It's incredible. But yeah, no, like the Russian cosmism,
it's a weird one cosmism. It's like a weird mix
of like like natural philosophy quote unquote, which is just

(06:18):
like different films of like folk magic or whatever, and
like religion and spiritual stuff. But also it's like a
predecessor to like the modern transhumanism. Um, it's a it's
an interesting little collection of ideas that was popular at
the very beginning of the twentieth century. It's it's part
of my thesis that no one normal has ever been
involved in the production of a rocket, like I mean,

(06:41):
yeahs the send and then there's just like the Nazis
and it's like, oh, zero normal people. I have no
counter argument. There was that because there was the guy
who did all the multi stage rocketry, the nihilist who
killed the czar who built the bomb that killed the tzar.
He like when I talked about this in my podcast,

(07:03):
probably already listened to this. You have a podcast? WHOA, yeah,
I really just I'm here. I'm gonna plug this every
like five minutes. On this episode, um, you can learn
about the bomb maker who killed the czar and his
what he brought to the world in terms of rocketry
and manned rocket travel. Anyway, please continue, and what on

(07:27):
what show? Margaret? Well, okay, is this podcast that I'm
recording on right now? When does it come out? When
are you listening to it, dear readers? Okay, well, then
next Monday you can listen to cool people who did
cool stuff, which is my podcast. Yeah, I'm so good
at my job. Anyway, My job is to interrupt you
with please tell me more about the cosmos and how

(07:48):
they relate to Japan. The cols was actually nothing to
do with this, unfortunately, but yeah, but I live, uh
live Meshnikov like he also he like fights with Garibaldi
to reunify Italy. He's just like all over the place.
But he's an interesting guy because okay, so there's like

(08:08):
a lot of foreigners who go to Japan, but he
like makes Japanese friends and like learns Japanese before he
goes there, which makes him like utterly different than like
the people who are writing like Westerners who are writing
Abu Japan in this period, who like don't speak very
good Japanese and never leave their houses. So nothing has changed. Yeah, yeah,

(08:32):
well like it, except weirdly this one guy is doing better.
Oh no, I mean nothing has changed from nowhere, no where.
No Westerners. Actually they just pretend to care about Japan. Okay, yeah,
it's it's it's time, there's actually that's one of the
borning themes of these two episodes is like there's a
lot of stuff about this, about anarchism and about Japan

(08:52):
just like don't change. But you know, so one of
the things that winds up doing is he winds up
spending two years teaching at this thing called the Tokyo
School of Foreign Languages. And this this is a bunch
of major impacts, one of which is on Meshnikov himself,
who he becomes heavily influenced by by the major restoration,

(09:13):
which he thinks of as like this like but he
looks at it this is like as a revolution, like
this is an anti feudal revolution. This is the most
successful social revolution of the century. It's like he thinks
that it's like destroyed the sort of stratified class system
and creates this like possibility of like mass social mobility
for commoners. And Okay, so this is like not the

(09:34):
best interpretation of what's going on with with the Major Restoration.
Where I mean, so the Major Restoration sort of ends
the field system in Japan, it does a lot of
other bad things. What is it? Like, I don't know
that much about this, yea, so maybe the audience. Okay,
so the Major Restoration is a thing that happens where so,

(09:55):
so Japan has been ruled by a shogun for like
a long time, and the show and runs the field system.
It's very elaborate. Everyone has at least sort of minted
hard proadcasts. But eventually there's this kind of um like
that there's there's this sort of it's complicated. It's this

(10:18):
kind of nationalist movements by a bunch of um like
a bunch of the Samurai clans who this is this
is having in the six season they mobilized to overthrow
like the shogunate and basically like restore the emperor a power.
The emperor has been like a puppet head like figurehead
guy for like two years and they bring it back
to power because I'm a hack about fraud and a fraud.

(10:41):
I'm forgetting their exact slogan. It's something it's something like
it's Revere the Emperor, and I can't remember what the
other part of the slogan is. It's very similar to
the to the box rebellion slogan. It's it's this sort
of I mean, there's a lot of things going on here.
It's kind of a reaction to so in the in
the sies, like Japan is sort of forcibly opened to

(11:02):
the world by like Comma our Paris showing up with
a bunch of like the largest gunboats anyone has ever
seen um and this like this forces Japan to sort
of like abandon its isolation dispositions and yeah, and you know,
and you get this sort of classic intellectuals you're looking
at this and they're going like, Okay, if we don't
do something like we're gonna get colonized. And so they do.

(11:26):
And the thing that they do is that they do
this revolution and they overthrow um. They overthrow the shogunate,
there's all this like there's there's like a trillion anime
set in this period because there's like that, there's there's
like like there there are there are squads of samurai
swordsmen like running around like stabbing each other in Tokyo
with like Kyoto and like it's it's wild, it is
it is a it is a time and and this

(11:46):
sort of this is what sort of consolidates the modern
Japanese nation state. Um. You know, I've talked about this
in my Kishi episodes, but like it sets off this
wave of colonialism. They like they conquer I know, they
conquered the islands, they do all this horrible colonialism stuff.
But there's there's it's really unclear what the revolution is

(12:09):
actually going to mean because like there has been a revolution, right,
like the sort of like feudal like class system has
been swept away. There's all of this sort of there's
all this this energy and the masses. There's like one
of one of the things that Meshikov finds is like
he so he gets to Japan in like the in
the eighteenth seventies, um, and he's seeing like the first

(12:31):
size of discontentment with with the sort of the major
restoration um, which is the restoration of the emperor Um.
Because there's a lot of people who look at this
and we're like, oh, hey, we're gonna we finally like
defeated the sort of olig Art class that like rules
all of us. And then there's a do olig Art
class and they're like wait, hold on. And so there's
there's like there's a series of like ex samurai rebellions.

(12:54):
There's this whole sort of like like he he like
Mashikov literally like gets there in the middle of an
uprising and he's just like in this reason, he has
nobody what's going on, because the guy he'd been talking
to winds up being in the uprising, and you know,
so he gets there and but what what what he
sees also is he sees his upheaval, but he sees
that this enormous networker of like cooperative movements. I mean,

(13:14):
he's a bunch of mutual aid groups. He sees like
villages who are like pooling all of the resources they
can send kids to like school in the cities. He
sees like he sees the government failing to provide services
for people because there's an uprising going on, and also
the governments and so people are sort of people taking
care of each other, and this has an enormous influence
on him. Um, and he starts to, you know, like

(13:38):
the way he thinks about anarchism changes, and he sees
like he starts to think about sort of like anarchism
as cooperation, like mutual cooperation between people who like mutual
aid enters the sort of lexicon and Okay, so there's
a there's a modern historian named show Kota she who
writes this book called Anarchist mcdar Anarchist Majornity Cooperatism. Wait,

(14:02):
hold on, yeah, Anarchist Majornity cooperatism and Japanese Russian intellectual
relationship Modern Japan. And he makes the argument basics, yeah,
there's there's two there. They're there. It's a it's a
better title than I'm reading it, because there's there's two.
There's like a heading and like a subheading straight because
I'm flound But he's making the argument that this, this

(14:26):
is like this is actually like something that's very important
to development of Marco communism. Because this guy, he knows
everyone liked the anarchist geographer, like at least Rick LuSE.
I can't pronounce his name. I think it's Lue. Yeah,
I think so, but I can't not with a gun
to my head, I'm not sure anyway. Yeah, like their
roommates like they're like they're like they lived together for

(14:46):
like a while, and like he he he writes the
Japan Entry, and like the Encyclopedia, he's friends with Coropotkin.
And after after his his sort of like thoughts starts
to change about mutual aid, you start to see a
lot of the same stuff, like you know, like this
is like he's he's there before Kopakin writes mutual aid,
and then you see you see all the sort of
mutual ad stuff popping up with Kropotkin, And you know,

(15:07):
I don't know how seriously to take the argument that
like you're sort of seeing like that that a lot
of this theory is sort of a rebound of reflection
of what they were seeing in Japanese society. But it's interesting,
and I think I should mention it because I don't know,
like there's there's this whole sort of intellectual sphere of
people who are like associated with anarchists and the other

(15:29):
thing that happens in this period is that like, um,
so there's a bunch of like Mashnikov like has a
bunch of friends in Russia who all got arrested because
they were in like terrorist groups, and he's able to
get like a whole bunch of these people too, Like
he's able to get them like exiled, and their exile

(15:49):
is they go to Japan, they teach with him, and
so suddenly there's like there's like a bunch of people
who are now like these people, these populist are like
writing stories about like the stuff they were doing, and
like all the people who are still fighting in Russia.
So there's suddenly there's all these people who are like
reading about the Russian populists uh in Japan and and

(16:10):
you know, and this is that there's there's this kind
of like anarchist cultural sphere that exists in Japan, like
before there's anarchists, um like other examples as yeah, yeah
for Japan as anarchists. They'll be like one like yeah,
there's like a couple of Russian anarchists and like yeah,
but like Mashikov leaves at one of the other big

(16:31):
thing with this is Tolstoy, who is like Tolstoy in
like nineties, like early nights. He's like he's the like
he I think he's like the most translated author like
on earth in Japan. And it's they're not just reading
his like literary work, they're reading his like theology is
political work, which is important because Tolstoy is like a

(16:52):
Christian and reco pacifist right and and this influences this.
There's this kind of like there's there's a lot of
sort of left wing anti imperial strains of Christianity that
pop up in Japan. And this is one of the
reasons for us, because everyone's reading Tolstoy, and so you
get the seeds of this anarchist movements that eventually sprout

(17:13):
into a man named God. This guy's name is actually
hard Kotuku Shoosi. I'm butchering the last part of it.
I'm sorry my Japanese does not extend to this many
years and eyes in a row. But Kotaku kodak he's
an interesting god because so he doesn't so he has

(17:35):
like a whole career before it becomes an anarchist. He's
he's like he's a very premp min journalist intellectual, like
he writes a newspaper. It's very famous. Everyone reads it,
and he's the heir apparent to this other like very
famous sort of liberal journalist. Who again, because Lev Meshnikov
knows literally everyone was like a friend of Left Mashnikov.
I don't. He knows every single person on earth. It's incredible.

(17:59):
You know that rules you know, unless you ever turned,
if you ever snitched to be terrible apparently never did
so yeah yeah, I mean it's still around, so I
mean he still could snitch. He's still around still as
the chance. Oh I guess everyone he was snitched on
his dead so um makes it harder. The ethics Scipilari area. Yeah,

(18:23):
so Kodaku is like he's kind of like a standard
liver bowal, but he gets involved with with the anti
war movements. Um specifically this is this is the the
anti uh well is it does anti a lot of
wars because the Jet Japan is fighting an enormous series
of wars and like the early nine hundreds. Um, yeah,
they kicked Russia's ass at that point. Yeah. Yeah, they
fight Japan, they fight Japans. Sorry, they fight China. Yeah,

(18:48):
and you do you know who else is fighting China?
I don't know. I'm afraid to know the products and
services support the show. Are we supported by American nationalism?
Apparently yes, question mark, and we're back first Rush the

(19:18):
first actual Japanese anarchist. So in nteen, Cuckoo writes this
book called Imperialism, Monster of the twentieth Century, which is
like good, yeah, yeah, And this certificate for a number
of reasons, one of which is that, like, this is
one of the first major like books about imperialism. Like

(19:40):
there there are some other Western writers who stuff like
predates this, but like, this is not Hunter. This is
before Lenin has written about imperialism. This is before like Hobson.
This is before Luxembourg. And I'm just gonna read it
a little bit from it because it rules. So this
is from the first section. It's called imperialism of wildfire
in an open field. In imperialism spreads like a wildfire

(20:02):
in an open field. All nations bow down to worship
this new god, sing hymns to praise it, and have
created a cult to pay to pay it adoration. Look
at the world that surrounds us In England's both governments
and citizens have become fervent acolytes of imperialism. In Germany,
the war loving emperor never loses a chance to extol
his virtues. As for Russia, the regime has long practiced

(20:24):
to policy of imperialism. France, Austria, and Italy are all
delighted to join the fray. Even a young country like
the United States has recently shown his eagerness to master
this new skill. And finally, this trend has reached Japan.
Ever since our great victory in the Sino Japanese War,
Japanese of all classes burned with fervor to join the
race for an empire, like a wild horse freed from

(20:44):
its harness. So you know, the one thing that he
got incorrect, as as I understand by spending a lot
of time on Twitter, is that actually only the United
States is imperialist and any actions, especially by Russia. I
was very confused that he included Russia as the finished
the sentence of the straight face. Um, what Russia would be? Also,

(21:05):
how could it be imperialism if Lenin hadn't yet defined
the term for this is? Okay, this is the whole thing. Okay. So,
so Kutico gets like a lot of ship from this book,
because for like from later on, for having his leftis
because it like he's insufficiently materialist. It's like, yeah, he
is mostly just talking, like the books mostly about like
how patriotism and nationalism like create this stuff. It doesn't
look at economics much. But like, okay, there's a whole

(21:28):
problem here, which is that if you try to apply
Lenin's definition of imperialism to Japan, it doesn't work because
like like what would Japan is invading China, they have
like I think it's like fifty total factories. Yeah, like that,
the everything is completely backwards, Like it's like yeah, and
like you know, it's like like like Lettin's imperialism is

(21:48):
supposed to be like the highest stage of capitalism, but
then you go to Japan, Japan's like barely started the
tradition to capitalism. Like Lettin's imperialism is supposed to be
about like debt exports, right, but Japan is just conquering
countries while they're just literally like borrowing massively from whether
states of funder industrialzations. Everything does nothing, None of it works,
And Kodaku gets like again he has he has like

(22:10):
a lot of ship for this, but it's like no,
she's right, like letting is Letting is wrong, like Lettings analysis,
if you try to apply in Japan does not work
and does so. Yeah, and you know, Cutko, I think
like he's keyed into things that the Marxists aren't, but

(22:31):
like specifically about like about the power of nationalism because
you know, I mean like obviously if you if you
go a bit later, it's like, well, all of these
people who are like, oh, imperialism is the highest age
of capitalism, and then all of their parties vote to
go to war with each other in World War One,
Like you know, Okay, Critico I think like gets this
because his relationship with socialists and anti imperialism are like

(22:53):
backward from the Marxist right where the Marxists arrive at
eti imperialism, like from their Marxism. But Cudico like comes
a socialist because he sees it as a way to
stop wars. Like that's like his big thing is he's
in the anti war move when he want he's wars
to stop. And that's the right direction to do. Ship.
You should do ship because like you don't pick the
label because what's cool. You pick You figure out what

(23:16):
you believe, and then you pick the label that fits
what you believe and so of the other way around,
you know, yeah, and and you know it means that
he's less sort of like he's less dogmatic than like
his successors, because you know, I mean because because he's
he's working off of his actual principles versus sort of
like this like dictation stuff, and I mean he's he's

(23:38):
he initial three. He publishes the es as a Socialism,
which is like this is like the first like socialist
like book written by Japanese person. It's like one of
the I think there's maybe like one or two other
ones that are before this is this is like the
first big one. And he's he's also like he's involved
in founding the Japanese Socialist Party and then he gets
like arrested and sent to the US and something happens

(24:01):
when he's in you. I don't know, there's I've seen
like sis conflicting accounts, Like I've seen accounts to say
he joins he joins the I w W. I I
don't know. I've seen other people said he lived, he
lived in a commune, like he definitely read pocket, he
like becomes an anarchist. Let's decide he did all of
these things. Yeah, lived in a commune and tried to
organize the commedy with the I WW but you know,
I mean he he this guy is enormously influential in

(24:22):
history of Japanese left. Like he's the guy with when
he comes back and actually know six, he's the guy
who introduced the concept of the general strike Japan. Like
he's the first guy to write about it. He's very cool.
He he also like yeah, you know, he's he starts
pushing this and started this. He starts pushing anarchism in
sort of direct action as like instead of like doing
parliamentary stuff. And he translates like Corpocket's work in the

(24:44):
Japanese he translates the like the comedy's manifesto. He says,
labor organizing. He's sort of like all over the place,
and you know, like labor and the anti war movement
are like two of the big currents are proucing anarchists.
But the the other like big current that's making anarchists
this period is feminism. Because okay, so I stop me

(25:05):
if this isn't any way surprising, but the late eighteen
hundreds and early neteen hunters are not a time to
be a woman in Japan. Really. Yeah, it's not a
good time like anywhere, but it's not not even now,
it's not the best. Yeah, I mean I will be improved.
I will say it's it's it's better than this. This
is like sure, like the major regime is sort of

(25:29):
like consultating self as just consultating itself. It gets like
progressively more like patriarchal, misogynist. I'm gonna I'm gonna read
from the book Reflections on the Way to the Gallows,
which is this. It's a great book. It's it's an
awesome a collection of Yeah, well so that that's uh,
how god, I forget one of the Japanese anarchists who's

(25:51):
about to die, Like that's the title of like a
piece that she wrote. Um, and they this book is
like a collection of of Japanese feminist writings, mostly from
people who get killed by the state, because that's what
happens when your feminist Japan this period. Um oh yeah,
it's bad, okay, So I'm gonna read the quote from this.
In two the government forbid women to make political speeches,

(26:14):
and in eighteen ninety made it illegal for women to
participate in political activities whatsoever. Women were forbidden to even
listen to political speeches. The Police Security Regulations of reinforced
these strictures. Article five of the regulations prohibited women from
forming any political organization whatsoever. Jesus. Yeah, it's like that's

(26:34):
like a level of restriction that like I'm not sure
I've ever seen like that explicit level of no, you
can't do this. Yeah, I feel like it's usually implicit
in a lot of Western tries. And then also, like
one of the things that really strikes sticks out to
me about that is that I'm so used to thinking
about I think people tend to think about like this

(26:56):
like linear progress model, where like you go back really far,
like all women and all other oppressed categories had it
terrible and then it just slowly gets better or whatever.
But if they're passing these laws in nine hundred, there's
an implicit it was a little better before. Yeah, yeah,
it's very specifically gets worse on them. Like so one
of the things with the eighteen ninety legal coaches that

(27:18):
didn't like it literally just legally enshrines like patriarch control
the households and this this is this is a massive
reactionary shift in jack in Sert of Jeoparanese like domestic
and political culture like this, like that that kind of
patriarchal control. The household was like a thing in some
Samurai families, but like it wasn't a thing for there's
a huge number of popular classes like just that didn't

(27:38):
exist and they just legislated into existence. And like you know,
I mean like the things that the things that they're
applying here, like women need consent of their father to marry.
Um is for another quote for the book, one of
the provisions held that quote cripples and disabled persons and
wives cannot undertake any legal action. Fucking huh. Yeah. So

(28:00):
this is this is this is an incredibly reactionary state.
And there's also like there's a lot of sex trafficking
going on, like like actual like there's a lot of
people just being grabbed off the street. Um. It's a
it's a it is a disaster, and it is into
this patriarchal mess that like several generations of Japanese ARCA
feminists step into. Um. The most famous of the first

(28:22):
round is Kano Sugako, who's she She's a socialist author
who conversed to She's originally Scius listen and she conversed anarchism,
which is like a thing that happens a lot in
this period. And she she's working as a journalist and
you know she she's she's like she's a very sort
of controversial figure in the government like hates her. So

(28:42):
she meets Kotuku and they have an affair. And this
is like one of the other things that keeps happening
here is there's a lot of like free love stuff
going around the Japanese anarchist circle at this time. And
this this has two consect which is one is a
lot of men use it to be really shitty and
means there was like there is a again this is
this is this is the big like nothing has ever
changed the anchist movement. There are so many relationship drama

(29:05):
things nothing. There are so many times this last circle,
like like there are two different times when the most
famous Japanese anchist man and the most famous Japanese anecists
women wind up in a relationship. It ends with it
with them explaining the movement and then both dying in prison.
Like this happens twice. Exact sequence happens twice. It's nuts,

(29:30):
like they're they're just they're just doing polyquel ship like
it's oh, they just need better mediators. Yeah, well, I
mean this is this is the thing with like the
Japanese like the Japanese anchist movement like has a huge
feminist wing, but like the men still suck, like you
just keep being bad. And so you know when you

(29:54):
ever thing about this is that Kano Sukako is like
enormously more militant than like almost every other any other
anarchists that's alive in Japan at this point. And so
in the nineteen ten she gets involved with the plan
to assassinate the emperor um and this becomes known as
the High Treason incidents, and the state like gets wind
of this, they arrest her, They arrest uh Go Taku,

(30:18):
and they arrest like twenty two other twenty two yeah,
twenty two other anarchists. Um. Now like five of these
people are like even tangentially involved in this plot. Um,
but they this is okay, So I can't say that
that the Japanese government only does this to anarchists because

(30:40):
they do this a fascist like once, but like they
do this thing where okay, So they have a bunch
of people that they want to execute, right, so they
find one person who's like an ideological figure, and they're like, Okay,
you're now in the middle of this, and you're the
link between like this group and this other group want
to kill. This other grouple want to kill the other
grouple want to kill. And so they convict uh like

(31:04):
jo Um and uh like they they all get convicted
and they all get executed. Yeah, And so this case
is also interesting because there's a bunch of people who
the state like wanted to kill but they couldn't because
they'd already arrested. They'd already they like this is like
two years after like a mass arrest of like half
of the Japanese anarchist movement, and so they have all

(31:24):
these people who are in prison, and it's like, even
by like the standards of the Japanese state, it's like, Okay,
how are we going to convict all of these people
who have been in prison for two years of trying
to of like being a part of this plot to
kill the emperor that was like organized outside of the jail.
And so this this is the thing that saves like
a huge portion of the Japanese anarchist movements, that saves

(31:46):
it from literally so like this. The hydrogen incident kills
like most of the famous anarchists in Japan, but it
leaves like like a couple alive. And that's why they're
alive because they were all in prison. Wait, how are
they going to kill the emperor? The plan didn't get
very far. I think they were trying to use a bomb,
but the police got wind of it very very early,

(32:09):
not classes so that they never really got much like
past the planning stage. Um, this is a shame. Yeah yeah,
and do do you know what else never gets very
far plass past the planning stage when they're trying to
assassinate the Emperor of Japan? Is it the ads because
they don't know how to do direct action because they're

(32:32):
too investion in capitalism. That that is, that is actually
exactly what we were talking about. Margaret, Thank you so much,
and we're back. I was genuinely trying to see if

(32:52):
I could like to think of a of a company
that had like tried to kill the Japanese emperor, and
I couldn't think of one. And I was like, hmmm,
this says something to society. This does This is a real,
real solid critique we have here. I really hope that
ten years from now this all seems very dated. You're like,
of course someone's major company has tried to never mind

(33:16):
one one can dream, so kinda, Sugaku is dead, Kotaku
is also dead, and this this means that it's time
for sort of like another generation of of anarchists to
try to fill in the gaps. So they're executed. Yeah, yeah,
they're dead, Like they just die and they kill, they kill,
they kill like twenty two of the anarchists or something.

(33:38):
And I mean this is a this is a huge purge.
I mean they don't wind up executing just like there's
just like a like a sympathetic like Buddhist priest. It's executed. Um,
I when is this? This is nice? And eleven? Sorry yeah,
this is nice un eleven um, And actually there's nothing
to think about this kind of Saku becaus the first

(34:00):
woman ever executed by the Japanese state. She will not
be the last. Like oh boy, um feminist, Yeah, I
mean equal rights, equal fights. There's another like very influential
market feminist who's emergence slightly after like just like in

(34:24):
like nineteen four and nine is each on No way,
she's an egoist, anarchist who eventually, last, finally, finally we
bring it up. That's all I have to say about
That's like almost all I had to say. She she
she takes over the editorial position of this, uh, this
magazine called Blue Stocking Magazine, which is like Japan's I

(34:46):
think it's It's like, this is like the most important
feminist magazine in Japan, and she takes over the editorial
staff about it. And her work is really interesting in
a lot of ways because it just it just straight
up is contemporary feminism in a way that like a
lot of the stuff in this period isn't. Like if
if you go and read the arguments she's having, she's

(35:06):
arguing that sex work should be legal and that everyone
should be should be able to get abortions because women
should have autonomy over their bodies. Yeah, it's like, yeah,
this is this is not going to end well for her,
but you know what, it doesn't end well for any
of us in a long enough timeline. You know, like

(35:27):
all that matters is the time of what we do.
At this time, we are bad. Okay, fine, yeah, so yeah,
I think so she's able to do this for like
a year in the Japanese state looks at this, it
is like absolutely not and shust the magazine down. Um,
And so she she gets forced to move on to
other things. And the other thing she moved on she

(35:48):
moves on to is being extremely heavily involved in the
free love movement of course, yeah yeah, and and but
also and this is the thing that's that's interesting about
the sort of period of Japanese anarchism is that like
the egoists are all also syndicalists. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah
yeah yeah. And she's so she she's like heavily involved
in labor organizing. And this is how she comes into

(36:09):
contact with her partner, who she's like cheating on her
imprisoned husband, who will later form the Japanese Communist Party.
That's a lot of stuff happening. There's there, there's so much,
there's so much beef. It's incredible. There's there's this like

(36:30):
we haven't even gotten to the wild part of this
relationship yet, okay, which is so so okay. So she
she comes to contact with her partner or person who
would become her partner, Saki Sakai, who is like dating
another very famous Japanese arca feminist who she stabs him
in the neck over the fact that she's in multiple
relationships at once. So this isn't from her, Yeah, this

(36:52):
is this is the thing that keeps happening with free
love of this period. It's like, you gotta like, you
gotta lay down, You got to make sure everyone's okay
with everything. Sure seemed to the right things in theory,
but then in practice they sure, yeah, sure do fall apart?
Huh yeah, And this two divides the Japanese anicy. But
does she win, did she succeed? Did she kill him

(37:12):
or did he survive that? Nod? Okay, Yeah, I'm just
I have there's a special place in my heart for
split slit throats of patriarchal man anyway. So most like
Kai is also very heavily involved in labor organizing, and
he he's one of the guys who like turns anarchist

(37:34):
labor into like a serious political force, which is maybe
it's good that they survived, Yeah, like it's probably net good.
But all of the guys in this story like suck
except do I haven't except here? What about the Korean
guy who? Um, oh yeah, we get to him. Yeah,

(37:57):
he's he's kind of like I think he's actually one. Yeah,
I think maybe the end of his story gets weird. Yeah,
we'll we'll we'll get to that in a second. Um.
But yeah, so Saya Sakai has like he has he
has this like fusion of like egoism and syndicalism, where
like the individual ego will be liberated through collective action,
but the goal of the workers movement is not to
just like end poverty, it's to like liberate the individual

(38:18):
and give themselves developments. And he's also this like incredibly fierce,
like like one of his big thing is that like
he does not want intellectuals anywhen you're the workers movement,
like does absolutely not. Yeah, and this is because like
again he's been around for ages, Like he becomes an
anarchist around the time when um Kotaku doesn't like that's no. Six,

(38:40):
So he's been like arounded. He's one of the guys
who survives the High Trees in the incident because he
was already in prison, Okay, all right, and he like
he's one of the people who like keeps the sort
of flame of anarchism alive after like they're fussion nineteen eleven.
But unfortunately for him, Um and for eacho no way,
they get caught up in the Canto earthquake, of which
is just like this earthquake between Yokohama and Tokyo alone

(39:05):
kills two hundred thousand people. It is like it is
like it is one of the worst like natural disasters.
It's it's really bad and in immediately gets worse. The
state wouldn't use a natural disaster to try and further
its aims through extra legal means. Yeah, so, okay, I'm
gonna start with. One of the ways that the genocide

(39:28):
of Korean people in Japan at this time starts is
so there's a bunch of Korean workers in a long
turre union that's been organized by this builitin like left
his union guy named Yamaguchi Sakan And okay, so like
they're in this long shore union, there's this disaster. They
start doing vitual a, they start going out, they started
taking care of so if iver start giving people food.

(39:48):
But you know, they're they're like waving red flags and stuff,
and the Japanese police lose their minds and are like,
oh my god, there the jet the Koreans are doing
socialism and they just start killing them and they there's
this whole thing about like there's these rumors start that
like Koreans are raping Japanese women and it turns into
this thing about like looting, and then like Korean malcontents

(40:10):
are supposed to be like overrunning police stations and the
lynch mobs. The lists are mostly targeting Koreans, but they're
also tart, like if you're Chinese, if you're from Baku Islands,
like they're killing you. Two um, they kill two thousand
Koreans in Tokyo and another two thousand in Yokohama, and
like two thousand Koreans in Yokohama that is half the

(40:30):
Korean population of the city. And these people die like horribly,
like because it's not like so that the polices are
actively hunting them down. Like the entirety of Japanese society
like remembers that they really like killing people and they
really like fighting, and like you have people like taking
their like ceremonial swords from like their ancestors who are

(40:52):
in the major Revolution, Like they're taking their katanas, going
industry and murdering people with them, like people just like
have fish hooks and they're just murdering people the street
and this goes on for like, this goes on for days,
and one of the things that happens in this is um, well, okay,
so the one of the other things happens in this
period that the Javits government just starts like arresting Brandon
left Iss and executing them. Yeah, and that's what was

(41:17):
supposed to happen to know to Echo no A and
Osaka Saikai. But they get arrested by squad and military
police led by mashachikom Akasu who just she just murders them. Um.
There's like conflicting stories of how this happened. There's there's
one version of it where like he kills them and

(41:38):
like their six year old nephew and throws their bodies
out a well, there's another version of it where they
get strangled and that he strangles have been prison and
this is like a huge outrage, but it's not huge
at range because he murdered them as the huge outrage
because he's supposed to wait for the trial, h I
mean and yeah, and this is one of the things

(41:59):
that like this is this is part of how like
fascism comes to Japan, is that like he becomes a
hero for the fascist right, Like he goes to prison
for ten years supposedly, but he only serves three, and
then he gets out he becomes a hero, and then
he becomes basically the head of like the sort of
fascist secret police in the like Maenturian puppet state. But
on the upside, he when would Japan loses to war,

(42:19):
he kills himself. So when I with the story I
had heard was that the Throne in the Well story,
and I remember it. It's stuck with me so much
because the first time I met anarchists from Japan, they
gave me a zine and it was like Japanese anarchist martyrs,
you know, like the martyrs of our movement or whatever.

(42:39):
And I was like looking through it and we're all
of these children, and it just like really emotionally affected
me that I was like, oh, y'all's martyrs include all
of these like literally not like like literal like like
six year olds and stuff, because you know they came
and killed not just the grown up anarchists, but the

(42:59):
baby anarchists or whatever as well. Um. I know that
this has happened lots of places, but it just it
really stuck with me so whether it's true or not,
the story I heard was this story about the well
and then it's stuck with me. Yeah, I mean, like
the level of repression in Japan, like it's it's unlike

(43:22):
anything I've ever seen that's not in a country that's
literally in the middle of the civil war. M Like,
they just they just like murder people like constantly. Yeah.
And then this is one of the other things, like
one of the things that starts the right wing like
turn in Japanese society is when is when the three
happens and the government is like like they're like the

(43:43):
police are being like, it's the Koreans. You need to
go fight the Koreans, and so they do, and like
I mean yeah, like wait, they like blame the earthquake
on the Koreans. Yeah. Well, so everything is there's this fire,
the fire kills like sixty people, like it consumes they're
like they're they're the urban horror of uh what's the
name of that city. Ah, the urban core of Yokohama

(44:07):
just goes up in flames, like sixty people burned to death,
and that's the government needs some explanation for you. It's horrible.
But like the government is an explation for it. They're like, oh,
we'll blame the Koreans. And then suddenly all of these
people are just like like the whole of Japanese society
just goes into this total mobilization like kill mode thing
and they just murder enormous members of people and this

(44:29):
and like that this has this enormous sort of like
like cultural affection, shifting people back to the right and
shifting people back towards militarism because now they've like you know,
like they've they've tasted blood, they've like they've gotten this
sort of sense of it. Yeah, it is brutal, um
And before we go, we're gonna kill off one more
anarchist the team. Can we kill off the other team instead? Unfortunately, no,

(44:52):
none of them die in this story. It's the worst.
All of the assassination attempts fail. It's so sad. Yeah,
all right, I forgot how depressing this because I was
I was remembering part two of this, which is just
like absolutely hilarious, kind of pointless like ideological battle over
like things that are kind of dumb, and then I

(45:13):
forgot about the first part of the story, which is
everyone gets executed. So the last person who we're talking
about he gets executed is is Fumiko Konako, who is Fumkokko.
So she she she's a nihilist anarchist, but she's different
from like everyone else we've talked about today so far
because when she's a kid, she gets sent to live
in Japanese occupied Korea, and so she goes there and

(45:36):
she gets like horribly abused by her family, which leads
to become like leaves of her becoming a nihilist, but
it means to like okay, so like like a lot
of the anarchists like in Japan talk a big game
again about anti like imperialism, right, and like they will
do things like yeah, like they will go fight police
to try to stop a war for happening, but they
don't really talk to people in Korea very much. And

(45:59):
food kind of Coope was like the exception to that,
because you know, she she lived there for a long time. Um,
and she she winds up marrying Paciol who is a
very influential Korean anarchist, and they they do a bunch
of organizing the specifically like that their their thing is
they're trying to like get there, trying to enter the
Japanese occupation and you know, they're they're doing great work.

(46:21):
And then unfortunately after the earthquake, Uh, she and pak
Yo are and uh stop me if you've heard this
one before, they are sentenced to death for a supposed
plot to kill the emperor. Wait wait now, yeah, we
already did this part. You're just repeating, Yeah, yeah, they
do it again. This is the second time. Like they
just keep doing this and this one it's unclear if

(46:41):
there was actually a plot, and if there was a plot,
it's unclear to what extent form kan Code was like
involved with it. But while she's getting get arrogated, she's like,
oh yeah, no, like I hate the emperor. I was
absolutely involved in a plot to kill him, Like I
was making a bomb to kill him. Uh. Also, I'm
an anarchist. And here's like an incredibly detailed sketch of
like all of the appreshiative Japanese society. But I'm just
gonna tell you, like the person she's like like the

(47:03):
court examiner who's like and and you know, there's there's
anything that happens where she and Pacuole are like are
handed pardons as like the sort of like mercy of
the Emperor thing and Paciol like takes it but go
kind of co like they hander the paper and she
cheers it to shreds in front of them, and it's
so embarrassing that like the record of what happened is

(47:25):
like sealed until after World War Two because it was
a big like, um, it was like a big media scandal,
all of the stuff with them being arrested, right, and
I'm basically I don't actually know more, but I watched
a movie once. There's a great movie about this called
Anarchists from Colony. This part of it, yeah yeah, and
she yeah, and like yeah, it's just the whole thing,

(47:46):
and like that. The government also kind of doesn't want
to assassinate them because it looks really bad that. I mean,
they've they've they've picked, they've they've arrested to random people
who like have done nothing, and they're just gonna kill them,
but for mechanicals like no, like, I believe in the
things that I believe in, and I will literally like
tear up this parted and die for it. And so

(48:06):
she tears out the pardon and so she goes to prison,
and she lives long enough to write like the greatest
entry in the in the genre of an archi feminist
a Japanese narchi feminist prison memoirs, which is an entire genre.
There's like multiple books because this keeps happening and these
people get arrested and set the prison. It's called the
Prison Memoirs of a Japanese Woman. It's great, everyone should

(48:29):
go read it. It's it's also extremely depressing because her
life sucks. But yeah, it's it's it's good. Um. Yeah.
And so now having killed off the leading intellectuals of
anarchism again for the second time in a generation, Uh,
you would think that this would this would kill the movement,
Like I think, I think like movements like if if

(48:52):
you kill they're leading intellectuals, like all of them, like
twice in like twelve years, like the woman collapses. Yeah
that but at the very beginning, there was the guy
who said keep the intellectuals away from the labor organizing.
Maybe he is right, well, but this, this is this. Yeah.
The incredible thing about this is no, it doesn't it

(49:13):
doesn't kill them. They keep going like and they have
they have one last glorious, glorious and absolutely baffling hurrah.
Okay of like infighting, extremely weird and funny in fighting.
So yeah, that that's what we're gonna be talking about
next episode. All right, yeah, is it time for the

(49:35):
plug of the plug? Yes? Oh oh, Margaret, you who
have a new podcast about that. It's on this very network,
Cool Zone Media, on this very network. I have my
own podcast. Is it called cool People Who Did Cool Stuff?
And doesn't? So? Does it come out on May second?
And is it produced by the webby award winning Sophie

(49:57):
lich German? Uh? Perhaps? And two episodes drop every Monday
and Wednesday. I think they do. Uh. That is super
super exciting. And you can find that wherever you get
your podcasts, remember quickly anywhere you get them, like if
there's a peddler on the corner who sells you podcasts,

(50:20):
your pain, get your podcast, get your podcast. It's half
off today to two for one exactly. And where and
where can people follow you on the interwebs? Uh? Well,
for now, you can follow me on Twitter before the
mass exodus h at Magpie killed Roy And you can

(50:43):
follow me on Instagram, which we've all known for a
very long time is owned by evil people and that
is Magpie. No, Margaret killed Roy because I wasn't clever
enough to get my own name in both places. I
don't know why I'm explaining this to you, but you
can follow me on social media and that's where I am,
and I post pictures of my dog that keeps barking

(51:04):
in the background while I'm trying to record this episode.
But but if you, if you follow Margaret, you'll see
her dog and you'll understand that it is worth it
because he is handsome, very nice and agrees. Well, I'm
very excited to start listening to cp w DC as
just the best Oh is that the episode episode? It

(51:39):
Could Happen Here is a production of cool Zone Media.
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