Behind the Japanese Riots

...SOHYO also claimed that 5,600,000 people participated in the strike, the largest ever staged in Japan...

...From the beginning the Democratic Socialists categorically refused to join them...

...The traditionally Opposition-minded press is somewhat lenient to the Opposition's violence though very sensitive to the "violence of the majority...

...Akira Iwai, SOHYO Secretary General, said in a press interview that he didn't think the Government could disregard the people's "resentment...

...More than 20 times he tried over the loudspeaker to persuade both parties to behave, but in vain...

...Though Japanese public opinion is still divided on this point, it will have to examine the role and the limits of the minority in the Diet and the problems that face parliamentary democracy when extra-parliamentary means are used to influence and coerce it...

...He judged that the strike, which had intended to whip up strong political pressure against the Government, had failed...

...But Kishi remained adamant and declined to resign or dissolve the Diet, refusing to be influenced by extra-parliamentary pressures...

...When the police reached the spot, Kiyose, carried on the backs of Diet guards and Liberal-Democratic members, broke through the Socialist barricade and entered the Chamber at midnight...

...To strike a decisive blow at the Kishi regime, SOHYO called a nation-wide strike chiefly affecting communication and transportation, and to make it more effective the Socialist executive council made a sensational announcement of its mass resignation from the lower house...

...The fundamental differences between the regime and the Opposition were exacerbated and the political uproar brought to a crisis by the events of May 19, and the grounds of the two-year-long bitter argument between the opposing camps over the new U.S.-Japanese security treaty suddenly shifted to a controversy over parliamentary government and democracy...

...Prime targets for these were the motormen and engineers, most of whom were forcibly detained by the picketers in restaurants until 7 AM...

...The only means left was to force dissolution of the Diet in the interim...

...However, his press and radio statements brought on a new surge of accusations and he was blamed for lacking "self-evaluation" or "repentance" for his past sins...

...Japan's Socialist party, however, seems to think it is entitled not only to oppose any bill or decision it does not like, but also to block it by all means including violence...

...In his speech at the special convention, Asanuma attacked the visit as "an interference in Japan's internal affairs," declaring that the President was coming to Japan not to promote friendship but to bolster Kishi's regime...

...The Socialists had thus introduced anti-Americanism to cement their anti-Kishi and anti-pact campaign...

...Voices against Socialist and student excesses rose and the Socialist mass exodus from the lower house came under increasingly heavy criticism...

...New York Times correspondent Robert Trumbull reported from Tokyo that "the anti-Kishi aspects of the current demonstrations, apart from the slogans raised against the treaty, are a different matter...

...Press, radio and television branded the Kishi cabinet undemocratic and protested against its "destruction of democracy...

...But the momentum which carried the anti-Kishi movement from May 19 had been worn down in the June 4 strike...

...And their amazing success in forcing the cancellation of Eisenhower's visit points up the true danger of the whole campaign...

...On the same assumption the Socialists justify extra-parliamentary action, mass demonstrations and political strikes to bring pressure to bear on the Government...

...To do so, the Socialists' special convention, convened in Tokyo on June 6, decided to stage another nation-wide demonstration on June 11 and also demonstrations, including workers' walkouts, on June 17 and 18...

...his warnings about introducing the police remained unheeded...

...Editorials have already criticized the Socialists for turning the anti-Kishi movement into an anti-American campaign, warning the Socialists that if they continued on that course they were sure to be isolated from the nation...

...Of course, these separate issues have become so intertwined that Mr...

...Otherwise, the strike was peaceful and orderly and SOHYO called it a "victory," since the absence of confusion and violence confirmed the fact that the general public had given the strikers "strong support or cooperation...

...Embassy and asked Ambassador Douglas MacArthur Jr...

...Thus, one letter writer cynically commented: "It is parliamentary for members of a parliamentary body to use force to seize the seat of the chairman of the parliamentary committee," or "to kidnap the presiding officer of a parliamentary body and hold him by force for several hours to prevent him from performing his parliamentary function," but "it is extremely unparliamentary for him to ask the police to free him from his predicament...

...On the other hand, Chief Cabinet Secretary Etsusaburo Shiina said that the strike was quieter than anticipated because the general public—with "good common sense"—did not take the side of the strikers...

...Both Socialists and Democratic Socialists refused to accept the vote and declared it invalid, because the Liberal-Democrats had taken the vote after the Socialists had been removed from the Diet building by the police while staging a sit-down protest in the corridors of the lower house...

...They organized almost daily protest demonstrations around the Diet building and Kishi's residence, and on May 26, the People's Council Against the Security Treaty, sponsored by SOHYO, Socialists and Communists, staged record-breaking anti-pact rallies and parades...

...The streets around the Diet building were jammed and Kishi was confined there for more than eight hours as 7,000 leftist students battled the police with stones...

...The June 11 demonstration included parades to the Diet and the American Embassy and a resolution for the resignation of the 125 Socialist lower house representatives was adopted to keep spirits high in the interim...

...According to the Council, 175,000 people demonstrated in Tokyo alone, although police estimates put the number at around 60,000...

...More than 100 Socialist Dietmen stormed Kishi's private residence to demand his resignation...

...each time the issue was extension of the Diet's sessions and each time the Opposition used force to block the extension...

...The Japanese Trade Union Congress (ZENRO) and the Democratic Socialists opposed such a political strike, which they felt might bring about social upheavals and endanger the very foundations of democracy...

...This was the third time the police had been sent to the Diet...

...The strike was called by SOHYO for June 4 during two hours in the early morning and the railway workers' walkout halted a total of 759 trains...

...as crystallized in the strike, and declared that SOHYO would fight on until the Kishi Administration was ousted, the lower house dissolved and ratification of the security pact halted...

...to forward a letter to the White House urging the President to postpone his visit because it might intensify Japanese domestic conflicts and hurt relations between the two countries...

...For the Socialists and SOHYO only a dozen days were left to block the security pact before it automatically went into effect on June 19...

...In exploiting the anti-Kishi sentiment, the Socialists and the SOHYO leadership also twisted and blurred the issue of national security in favor of the Socialist argument under cover of anti-Kishi agitation...

...Comments calling for Kishi's resignation and for dissolution of the Diet were rife and even the opposition groups within the Government party joined the general chorus...

...In combination with Kishi's lack of personal popularity (unlike Tanzan Ishibashi and Shi-geru Yoshida), this incident touched off a sudden outburst of anti-Kishi feeling...

...Behind the Japanese Riots Kishi is the symbol of an unpopular militarism and a controversy over democracy TOKYO ALTHOUGH THE U.S.-Japanese mutual security pact has been automatically ratified in the Diet and the anti-pact riots seem to have quieted down, the regime of Premier Nobusuke Kishi still faces serious problems...

...Kishi has come to be a symbol of unwanted militarism, and the treaty has been made a symbol of the unpopular Kishi Government in the public mind...

...Failing to block the treaty in the Diet, the Socialists determined to achieve their goals by continued extra-parliamentary pressure...

...Those in the corridors made barricades of desks and chairs...

...They occupied the committee rooms, sat down in the corridors and confined committee chairmen to their offices to make committee meetings or the session impossible...

...Subsequently, Asanuma changed his line and insisted on cancelling the visit because it amounted to interference in Japan's internal affairs...

...On that day the Liberal-Democratic regime rammed through a 50-day extension of the Diet and approval of the security treaty...

...Discontent with its policies is still widespread and Socialist party Chairman Inejiro Asanuma has indicated that the Opposition is now moving into a "long-range struggle" against the security treaty and the Kishi Government...

...In the corridors and outside the building revolutionary songs were sung...

...Aware of the changing climate...

...At the end of May, Asanuma had visited the U.S...

...The melee lasted more than six hours with Speaker Ichiro Kiyose confined to his office...

...The initiative in the anti-Kishi and anti-pact movement was in the hands of the Socialist party and SOHYO...

...Kivose then called the police...

...At major stations in and around Tokyo, 1,000 to 2,000 trade unionists and Zengakuren students had formed picket lines late the night before...

...The sit-down had led to a skirmish between Socialists and Liberal-Democrats who tried to remove them from the chamber...

...Socialist and SOHYO leaders injected the issue of Eisenhower's visit into the political picture...

...Socialists and the General Council of Japanese Trade Unions (SOHYO) lost no time in turning the anti-Kishi outburst to their account and tried to make the ratification of the security treaty invalid by every available means...

...But all the anti-Kishi elements are by no means anti-pact or anti-American...