Saturday, August 9, 1919 THE REVOLUTIONARY AGE The Hara Ministry and the Bolsheviki RECENT reports on the social conditions By Sen Katayama pense, and have to get their living under very difficult conditions.
in Japan are misleading. The real facts will some day destroy the present bureaucratic are either concealed or misrepresented, espeEverything favors the coming of social revgovernment. The government feels this, the volution, and all the camouflaged works of the cially regarding the Socialist movement. rerulers only accelerate the event. The Hara port printed recently in The New York Call ruling classes feel it and the working masses to the effect tat a Socialist Party has been are becoming daily more conscious of the ministry wants Socialism tamed in Japan by pressure of their burdens and are looking for discriminating between revolutionary Socialists formed and that Socialists have discontinued a chance to get rid of them.
and moderates. But things will result contrary their underground work and are now functionto their wishes.
ing in the open is entirely misleading. The talk It is true that the study of Marxian Socialabout the formation of a Socialist Party is of ism recently became very popular. The study Now a days the Japs are most unpopular the same nature as the report printed in the of Das Kapital has been taken up by the press people in the eyes of the world, on account Heimin, published in New York, that a Royal of the country. Several persons and groups of the Japanese government brutal policy in Socialist Party was to be formed by the tacit have announced their intention of translating Korea, its militaristic avariciousness in the understanding of the present Hara ministry.
Kapital, and several monthlies have appeared matter of Shantung and the Siberian invasion.
It is true that many attempts have been made which are devoted to the study of Socialism, In the latter adventure Japan is foolishly acting as the hangman for Allied capitalists. In order since the great rice riots in August, 1918, by though mostly confining themselves to the the government and the ruling classes to academic and theoretical side of the subject to conceal the worst phases of the Paris treaty institute schemes for social betterment. But and not venturing into the field of its applic the capitalist press of the entire world is endeavoring to paint the Shantung crime of they have proved to be simply camouflage ation to present day conditions. The governwhile in reality the government has been tight ment fear of the spread of Socialism and of Japan as blacker and worse than any other.
ening its brutal grip on the Marxian Socialists. the Socialists has changed recently to fear of Japan is now painted as the worst enemy of On this point a good comrade wrote me reBolshevism and the Bolsheviki. Theoretical humanity; brutal. aggressive and imperialistic cently that Socialists who have not come to Socialism is freely discussed in the press, transin its foreign policy in the Far East, the Prusterms with the government, as national or lations from books and foreign magazine arsia of Asia, by intelligent Chinese gentlemen patriotic Socialists, are hounded down and op ticles are plentiful, but any discussion of Japa and their friends in America. The writer is pressed. All their acts are closely followed, nese social conditions is sternly prohibited.
not in the least concerned with whether or not their telephone calls are watched and their mail The government and the ruling classes fear these attacks are deserved. But am firmly is opened, all of which is contrary to the conthat the people may awaken and begin to act convinced that the Japanese workers will soon stitutional guarantees. Public meetings are from a Socialist standpoint.
realize the true situation they are placed in, forbidden, in fact, they are not allowed to carry especially bearing in mind the example of the Present day conditions cause many dangers German workers who are now saddled with on any form of propaganda whatever.
to the bourgeoisie. The prices of food are the responsibility for Prussian militarism, the From the reports in the bourgeois press it ever on the increase; far higher than those of Kaiser and the war of 1914!
from an autocratic bureaucracy to liberal. In armistice and the coming of peace brought and themselves is to adopt the method of the would seem that the government has changed last August, when the rice riots occurred. The They will see that the best way to save Japan reality it is becoming more and more autocratic much unemployment while rent and other exRussian workers: Bolshevism and the Soviet though perhaps in a little more civilized or penses are increasing enormously. The wages form of government. No wonder that the camouflaged manner than formerly. To the of those who are employed are being cut down Marxian Socialists there is no liberty. There on account of the prevalence of unemployment.
Japanese government is greatly exercised over the rapid spread of Bolshevik ideas among is of course a certain bourgeois freedom, like the democratic freedom of the United States; Among the middle classes also there is much the people. It is not so difficult for the Japaunrest. In Japan the middle classes are numer nese workers to learn from Russia and partithose who are in favor of the government and the ruling classes have to a certain extent free ically dominant. They comprise petty army cularly from Siberia. It is no theory placed before them, but the facts of Russian life; endom of press and assembly, but even they have countless small merchants and farmers. These joyed by the workers and peasants during the no real liberty. For instance no reports of the uprisings in Korea were printed in the press, middle classes are suffering more and more past twenty months. The Japanese workers and except the official dispatches given out by the on account of the high cost of living and the peasants will soon learn to put the same ideas into practice. Bolshevism translated into the are bound and gagged, not by any law but by and grammar school teachers are among the everyday life of the workers can be understood government.
The liberal papers and magazines pressure from the big capitalists. Policemen the arbitrary acts of the government.
poorest paid workers, while the lower ranks by the people much more easily that the theory of military and naval officers, whose incomes of Bolshevism.
At the beginning of the present year a move have not risen in proportion to the cost of ment for the extension of the franchise became the necessities of living, are badly hit by the It is reported that Hungarian war prisoners who studied for four months in Petrograd very strong. It grew, at one time into a big rise in prices.
night schools are better scholars than children national movement. By force of circumstances The lowest strata of society shows many who studied for ten years in Hungarian the government was unable to suppress it and Socialists seized the opportunity presented at signs of awakening. The industrial proletariat Russia, who studied only a few months in schools. Of the common soldier prisoners in some of the meetings to make speeches. To is fast absorbing the ideas of Bolshevism and check this movement the government introsocial revolution. The workers are learning Petrograd, sixteen are now professors in Hungarian universities, while two hundred are duced a bill to reduce the tax qualification from the soldiers who have been in Siberia grammar school teachers. Education under from 10 yen to yen. This means that the and from the news in the daily press. Between Bolshevik rule must have been very much million and a half voters will be increased to thirty and forty thousand soldiers who have simplified in its methods. And not only edusomewhere between two and two and a half returned from Siberia have become Bolshevik cation, but all other things have been greatly million out of a population of over sixty five propagandists. They are all reservists and, millions, so even under the new electoral law from all parts of the country, on their return simplified, for the artificial and wasteful in iife has been done away with in Russia: Capitalism the vast majority of the people, the workers, to civilian life they mingle with the workers.
and its exploitation of labor is no more. The are entirely excluded from participation in the It is often reported with terror that Bolshevism elaborate system of national economy and inelections. This bill was hastily prepared and is spreading in the Japanese army.
dusty may be very complicated to outsiders still more hastily passed by both houses of the Such are the conditions in Japan just now, but the Russian workers and peasants are Imperial Diet. It should be explained here that and the Hara ministry is attempting in a part of the system, not like the workers in the the franchise qualification tax is a national tax and does not include local taxation.
Japan vism throughout the country. The government production and distributioncapitalistic national and industrial system of thousand ways to stop the spread of Bolsheis a country of indirect taxation, more than 70 and the ruling classes terror striken at There are very good prospects for the early per cent of the budget being raised by indirect the spread of Bolshevism; they think that com acceptance and practice of Bolshevism by the taxation.
pared with Bolshevism, Socialism is tame and Japanese workers and peasants. Governmental There is a great unrest among the Japanese that its study can be allowed without danger. fear and the consequent suppression and opppeople at present. The many attempts by the But real Marxian Socialists like Comrades ression will not stop the spread of Bolshevism ruling classes to pacify the workers are proving Sakai and Yamakava are closely, watched, in Japan; it is coming there as a concrete to be added fuel to the fire of discontent that they are practically prisoners at their own ex fact, out of the living history of Russia.