Dear Editor
DEAR EDITOR ZENGAKUREN When faced with the array of historical inaccuracies and political misinterpretations in Lewis S. Feuer's "A Talk, with the Zengakuren" (NL, May 1), one hardly knows...
...They aimed to influence national policy and change the Prime Minister...
...Is this what Feuer refers to as a "recrudescence of authoritarianism...
...Kishi was not a Hitler, they did regard the true intent of the Kishi government and the mainstream faction of the Liberal-Democratic party led by Mr...
...During the largest popular action recorded in Japanese history, in an atmosphere of anxiety and provocation, not a single policeman was killed...
...They achieved a large measure of their goals, and gave the Japanese people a sense of democratic consciousness...
...A more democratic outlook has since emerged in Japanese politics...
...When, on June 18, 6.5 million people demonstrated throughout the country and 330,000 marched to the Diet, "all was orderly," notes Professor Fukuda, despite the tense atmosphere...
...I attended the judicial hearings of several of the student leaders arrested in the demonstrations...
...More important, however, are Feuer's remarks about strengthening democracy...
...or, in a. more Japanese vein, "Kishi, kill yourself...
...Feuer's suggestion that the Zengakuren "intervention" was largely responsible for the agreement not to have snap votes and not to mar the Chamber with violence is most disingenuously worded...
...cratic country where the government, conservalive or Socialist, would have acted differently under the circumstances...
...Kishi as being to obtain ratification ?f the treaty at all costs, even though this meant destroying 'democracy in Japan' as charged by the progressive elements...
...The violence which ensued on June 15, when the students trespassed on the Diet grounds, took place only after Right-wing hoodlums assailed members of the women's associations...
...They used violence in barricading the American Ambassador and President Eisenhower's personal representative outside Haneda Airport...
...In addition, eighty per cent of the professors at Tokyo University had endorsed declaration in the previous month calling for the dissolution of the Diet...
...DEAR EDITOR ZENGAKUREN When faced with the array of historical inaccuracies and political misinterpretations in Lewis S. Feuer's "A Talk, with the Zengakuren" (NL, May 1), one hardly knows where to start in setting the record straight...
...I attended election rallies, students' and workers' demonstrations, and spoke to such diverse groups as the John Dewey Society, the Science of Thought Association and the International House Association...
...their denial is the sign of an authoritarian government...
...Under the circumstances the Government party had a perfect right according to democratic procedure to put the outstanding issue to the vote...
...In this respect the Japanese peasant of, say, the Ashikaga Period differed not one jot from his counterpart in England...
...No charge was made that any "nailstudded poles" were used, and in the numerous photographs which were exhibited on the screen by the prosecutor, there was no evidence of such...
...Has Feuer never heard of the recurrent peasant revolts during the Tokugawa Period or the great rice riots 40 years ago...
...The televised debates in the last election between Prime Minister Ikeda and the leaders of the Socialist and Social Democratic Parties, Saburo Eda and Suehiro Nishio, were remarkable for their common unity in behalf of Parliamentary democracy...
...Everyone remembered that Kishi was Minister of Industry in the Tojo Cabinet of 1941, and was purged from political life by the American Occupation...
...John Dewey, who witnessed the gestation of the Chinese student movement, pleaded at the time for Americans to understand the new phenomenon...
...The demonstrations of 1960, by contrast, were neither local nor self-destructive...
...To describe the demonstrators as a "minority" should not require justification, but since Feuer does not mention any election figures (or even the fact that there are free, and frequent, elections in Japan), it is worth recalling that in the general elections last November (following the demonstrations and the assassination of the Socialist leader Inejiro Asanuma) the conservative party actually increased its number of seats in the Diet from 283 to 296...
...The evidence indicates, however, that the demonstrations against the Kishi government were predominantly peaceful, lawful and representative of the majority of the Japanese people...
...while the Socialist parties remained at exactly 162...
...The demonstrations in June 1960 were carried out by a violent, lawless, Left-wing minority, and they were directed against the parliamentary institution and specifically against the decision of a government freely elected by universal suffrage according to normal democratic procedure...
...Is he trying to suggest that for two thousand years the subject classes in Japan have derived pleasure from "being humiliated or from denying themselves...
...When they address him, they either squat or kneel" The peasant uprisings which often took place during the Tokugawa Period after crop failures usually had masochist overtones...
...They used violence in storming the Diet and in making normal parliamentary activity impossible for some time...
...As a result of free democratic elections in 1958, in which one of the major issues was the question of relations with the United States, the Government commanded a majority of 283 out of 467 seats...
...Morris' account of the Kishi government's actions contrast sharply with that given by Matsumoto Shigeharu, the respected Director of the International House of Japan, in a recent issue of Japan Quarterly...
...with Parliamentary leaders and representatives of all parties...
...The police were finally ordered to use tear-gas...
...The vast majority of the demonstrators, moreover, felt they were acting to defend Parliamentary democracy...
...Again it is necessary to recall the facts...
...Once before in Asian history a student movement suddenly captured the world's attention...
...The outcome of last November's elections in Japan was, as expected, a Liberal Democratic victory...
...Undeterred, by this appeal, the demonstrators tore down the railings of Kishi's house and things really got out of hand...
...When the leaders of all the parties joined in common national mourning at the bier of the assassinated Asanuma, and when the Government on the one hand undertook to enact no measure in a rump Parliament and the Socialists on the other agreed to respect the peace and procedure of the Parliamentary chamber, there was evidence of a deeper awareness of the meaning of democracy...
...but that is very different matter indeed...
...What stood out throughout was the self-discipline which the millions of Japanese demonstrators showed...
...Moved by sheer hunger and the visible exploitation of tax collectors and village officials, the peasants in isolated localities would finally rise in desperation, and demand that some particular grievances be rectified...
...The article could be seriously misleading for readers with no detailed knowledge of Japan, and I think that a few of the more egregious misstatements should be brought to light...
...In June 1960, the Japanese intellectuals felt themselves fighting the battle they should have fought against the militarists and bureaucrats of 20 years ago...
...Please leave quietly...
...His removal from the Premiership by mass protest was a belated affirmation of the people's desire for a Cabinet that respects both the spirit and the letter of the Constitution...
...his Parliamentary tacticts were always likened to Pearl Harbor surprises...
...I find that my conclusions correspond with those drawn by able political scientists who used their own research methods and sources...
...They used violence in attacking the residences of the Prime Minister and other government leaders...
...Professor Morris says that the demonstrations were riots "by a violent, lawless Leftwing minority...
...Like most other people in the world, the Japanese have until modern times been obliged to obey their rulers and to show them the accepted marks of respect...
...My characterization of the Japanese historical tradition as one of masochistic self-denial was based on well-known sources...
...First, we are confronted with a blatant inaccuracy...
...Thus, he is capable of making a statement such as the following: the bases of Japanese democracy were strengthened by last spring's demonstrations...
...But before doing so, they announced over their loud-speakers: "Dear students, we are now going to explode tear-gas bombs...
...The Government was obliged to call in the police to restore order and to rescue the Speaker from the indignity (not to say danger) of physical assault...
...29.2 per cent said they were protesting specifically against the Kishi Cabinet...
...Japan, which has never known a popular revolution against the established order, for the first time made its democratic will felt against a recrudescence of authoritarianism, and the resultant agreement of the Parliamentary parties not to have snap votes while any group is absent, and not to mar the Chamber with violence, is, in large measure, the consequence of the Zengakuren intervention...
...On May 19, 1960, the revision of the Security Treaty had been under exhaustive debate in the Diet for 107 days during which every possible objection and quibble had been thoroughly discussed...
...As to the violence within the Diet, this was deliberately and unilaterally started by the Socialists in their efforts to· prevent a crucial session in which they knew that they would be outvoted...
...So much for the implication that the students and their Socialist allies were in some way representing the democratic will of the people...
...For example, when guarding the Prime Minister's residence against a vast mob, armed with nail-studded poles and screaming, "Kill the traitor Kishi...
...Of the large group of participating students who were adherents to Kishi's Liberal Democratic party, 38.2 per cent said they were demonstrating for the protection of Parliamentary institutions...
...No doubt they were representing what they felt should be the will of the people...
...Despite the students' violence, he felt that if their spirit prevailed, "then the fourth of May, nineteen hundred and nineteen, will be marked as the dawn of a new day...
...Clearly, Professor Feuer has chosen to swallow the orthodox Left-wing point of view in describing last June's anti-American demonstrations in Japan...
...Unfortunately, America remained blind at that time to the significance of the Chinese students' revolt...
...Several women demonstrators, however, were still under medical treatment while I was in Tokyo for wounds they had received from Right-wing terrorists using precisely such weapons...
...During the entire course of these demonstrations the police exercised a degree of restraint that would, I think, be quite inconceivable in this country or in England under similar circumstances...
...Overcome by a feeling of futility, the peasants acted in despair, not in hope...
...The events of May 4, 1919 in Peking were not unlike those of June 15, 1960 in Tokyo...
...This does not affect the validity of the opinion poll findings against the Kishi Cabinet: Prime Minister Hayato Ikeda promised in the election campaign that he would not follow in Kishi's footsteps...
...New York City I. I. Morris Professor of Japanese history, Columbia University Lewis S. Feuer replies: My article was based on talks with several hundred Japanese in Tokyo, Kyoto and Hiroshima: with students, textile workers, farmers, postal workers, miners...
...These events, televised throughout Japan, finally led to Kishi's downfall...
...Germany or Spain...
...We should not make the same mistake twice...
...Is there any other demoThe New Leader welcomes comment and criticism on any of its features, but letters should not exceed 300 words...
...The early Han chronicles, for instance, a trustworthy contemporary report of Japan in the third century A.D., tell: "When men of the lower class meet man of rank, they leave the road, and retire to the grass...
...Peaceful demonstration and petition are compatible with democratic government...
...The police violence, which then extended to an attack on the university instructors gathered outside the Diet grounds, far exceeded any legitimate warrant...
...19.2 per cent were protesting police actions, while only 10.6 per cent were demonstrating against the Security Treaty...
...Professor Robert A. Scalapino of the University of California and four political scientists of Tokyo University, in a study published in Far Eastern Survey (October, 1960), wrote: "In fact, it was a movement which for at least the moment incorporated individuals and groups covering a broader political range than any political action group ever established in modern Japan...
...the police put up signs saying, "Dear students (Gakuseisan), please do not enter these premises...
...The most precious fruit of the movement, he said, was the awakening of China from its passive state...
...Everywhere we discussed the significance of last June's demonstrations for the future of Japanese democracy...
...The Socialists, realizing that they would be outvoted, showed their profound respect for the democratic system by boycotting the Diet session and trying to disrupt the proceedings by kidnapping the Speaker...
...A national public opinion sample on June 3, 1960, indicated that 58 per cent of the people favored the resignation of the Kishi Cabinet while only 12 per cent supported its continuance...
...What they could not achieve peacefully and legally at the polls they had determined to achieve by the direct and illegal use of force within the Parliament building itself...
...Matsumoto writes: "Although the great majority of the people were fully aware that Mr...
...In his final paragraph Feuer, apparently equating the Zengakuren with the entire youth of Japan, says "This young generation has undertaken to undermine a two thousand years' tradition of masochist self-denial, and one cannot but wish them well...
...The demonstrators used violence in resisting the police in the legal execution of its duties...
...These disconnected local uprisings were not directed against the feudal social system, but looked, at most, for a correction of "minor injustices...
Vol. 44 • July 1961 • No. 27
