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Japan's New Left Movements

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First published 2014 by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
First issued in paperback 2016
Copyright © 2014 Takemasa Ando
The right of Takemasa Ando to be identified as author of this work has
been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any
information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the
publishers.
Notice:
Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and
are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Ando, Takemasa.
Japan's new left movements: legacies for civil society / Takemasa Ando.
pages cm. (Routledge/Asian Studies Association of Australia (ASAA)
East Asia series; 15)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Social movements-Japan-History. 2. Civil society-Japan-History.
I. Title.
HN723.5A685 2013
303.48'40952-dc23
2013010019
ISBN 978-1-138-65803-5 (pbk)
ISBN 978-0-415-81219-1 (bbk)
ISBN 978-0-203-06955-4 (ebk)
Typeset in Times New Roman
by Wearset Ltd, Boldon, Tyne and Wear
Contents
Acknowledgements
Introduction
I.1 The New Left and "disciplinisation" 6
1.2 Transforming "everydayness" 10
1.3 The rapid decline of New Left movements 15
1.4 Research method and features of the book 19
1 Before the emergence of "everydayness”: people's
movements for democratisation in the early postwar period
1.1 “The postwar progressives” and the Anpo protests of 1960 27
1.2 The spread of protests for democratisation to rural areas 36
1.3 Transforming relations with the hometown 42
27
2
Transforming "everydayness": the formation and
development of New Left movements in the 1960s
2.1 Organising young people 50
2.2 Transforming the way individuals live 56
2.3 Direct action as a symbol of self-transformation 68
3 The decline of the New Left from the 1960s into the 1970s:
the changing characteristics of self-revolution in
"everydayness”
3.1 Dissent from the community 81
3.2 Policing protest based on communities 87
3.3 Police officers as servants to the public 91
3.4 New Leftists in deadlock 96
80
80
50
ix
1

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viii
Contents
4
The Japanese New Left in the 1970s: the development of
self-transformation in "everydayness"
110
4.1 The reflection of New Leftists on their activism in the
1960s 110
4.2 Learning from people's lives 116
4.3 Asian people as a mirror of personal transformation 125
5
The lack of "new politics” in Japan in the 1970s
5.1 The possibilities of new politics in Japan 139
5.2 The JSP's failure to transform 146
5.3 Women's vote for women: the Upper House election in
1977 153
5.4 Local protests and party politics 162
Conclusion
C.1 The shift of discourses in the New Left 172
C.2 The legacy of the Japanese New Left 174
C.3 The future of activism: after 11 March 2011 178
Bibliography
Index
139
Acknowledgements
172
182
191
This book was initially written when I was a Ph.D. student in the College of Asia
and Pacific at the Australian National University. I am indebted to people who I
met in Canberra including supervisors, administrative and academic staff, col-
leagues, and others. My Ph.D. days would have been more difficult without their
support in everyday things, as well as research. Canberra is a town rich in nature.
I have great memories of the days when I was taken by my friends in local com-
munities to sites in and around Canberra to go camping, bush-walking, or bird-
watching. They were rare experiences to me, as I grew up in a concrete-covered
city close to Tokyo. Some of them, who found a fun in nature on weekends,
worked in local political bodies to make Canberra a more ecological town on
weekdays. I came to realise how everyday politics is associated with parlia-
mentary politics in this town. This helped me to argue about new politics in
Japan, which was discussed in Chapter 5 of this book.
The ideas of this book originate from my exchange with many Japanese activ-
ists during and after my Ph.D. days. I am impressed by their sincerity and
passion to make the world better. The exchange helps me to have an understand-
ing of the "new left culture," which, I argue, characterises the features of Jap-
anese civil society. I would also like to thank people who worked and work with
me when I was affiliated with Waseda University and Musashi University in
Tokyo. I was often inspired by them in particular during discussions in voluntary
organised reading groups. Finally, let me mention my parents. I guess that they
were concerned about me, as I had no stable job until the middle of my thirties.
Due to deteriorating working conditions, this is not unusual among Japanese
young people today, but it must not have been easy for them to understand. I
received great support from many people other than those mentioned above and
I am pleased to publish this book with their help.

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Transforming "everydayness"
The formation and development of
New Left movements in the 1960s
This chapter discusses the character of Japanese New Left movements, which con-
sisted mainly of antiwar activists, radical students, and young unionists. Tracing
the history of how the movements were formed in the late 1960s, I first seek to
explore a key idea of Japanese New Left movements: "self-revolution"; that is, the
idea of questioning the way individuals live. While Japan achieved rapid economic
growth in the late 1960s, at the same time it gave support to the USA for its
inter-
vention in the Vietnam War. In this situation, New Leftists looked critically at
many Japanese people who were being depoliticised in their minds. They high-
lighted increasing social control over people's daily lives, and advocated that
social and political change would not occur without examining the way they lived.
This is exemplified in how student activists of Tokyo University raised the slogan
"self-negation (jiko hitei)" and questioned their own elitism. I also argue that
the
word "everydayness (nichijôsei)" was frequently used in the discourse of the
movements in order to illustrate obstructions to self-revolution.
Second, Japanese New Left movements were known for confrontational
direct action called "gewalt (gebaruto)" or "counter-violence (taikô bôryoku)”.
Many of the activists were willing to clash with armed police officers, though
they were at risk of being seriously wounded. Why were they so passionate
about taking direct action? I look at the meanings of gewalt from the perspective
of New Leftists. The primary focus of this chapter is on the discourse of
Zenkyôtô (the All-campus Struggle Committee), a loosely linked network of stu-
dents that was formed on campuses in the late 1960s. However, in order to com-
plement my analysis, I also examine documents of other New Left groups, such
as the Antiwar Youth Committees (Hansen Seinen Iinkai) and Beheiren (the
Citizens' Federation for Peace in Vietnam), which shared the New Left dis-
course with student groups.
1 Organising young people
The Vietnam War and its implications for Japanese people
In the 1960s, many Japanese people experienced a transformation in their lives
resulting from rapid economic growth. During this period, Japan recorded an
New Left movements in the 1960s 51
annual growth rate of over 10 per cent. Prime Minister Ikeda Hayato, who took
office in July 1960, announced the Income Doubling Plan (shotoku baizô
keikaku). This Plan played a role in distracting people's attention from political
issues such as the revision of the Japan-U.S. Security Treaty. The real GNP
doubled between 1960 and 1966, even earlier than originally planned. The
annual growth rate of the workers' wages reached about 10 per cent. The real
income of people also increased in spite of rising prices. Japan was becoming
rapidly urbanised in the course of the economic boom. While only 30 per cent of
the population had lived in “cities", defined by the government, immediately
after the Second World War this figure had increased to 70 per cent by 1970
(Yasuba and Inoki 1989).
As discussed in the Introduction, workers were incorporated into the com-
petitive system in their factories or offices during the period of economic growth.
The economic boom affected Japanese people's consciousness. According to the
White Paper on National Life (Kokumin Seikatsu Hakusho), about 90 per cent
of the population identified themselves as middle stratum (chûryu) in the mid-
1960s. In the 1950s, "the postwar progressives" had organised national move-
ments for democratisation mainly for the defence of people's livelihoods
(Shimizu 1966, pp. 22-23). In the 1960s, when the state declared that it would
guarantee people's economic welfare, what could be raised as a new issue
instead of the poverty problem? "The postwar progressives" had trouble mobil-
ising people living peaceful but organised everyday lives.
During this period, the memories of the Second World War were not as
effective in mobilising people as before. In the 1950s, the memories of loss and
devastation during the war, which were widely shared by Japanese people,
helped "the postwar progressives" to gain widespread support from the public.
These memories faded away during the course of the economic boom in the
1960s. It was during this period that the United States became heavily involved
in the Vietnam War. Muro Kenji, a student of Meiji Gakuin University and a
young member of Beheiren, stated that he did not have any memories of the
Second World War. He had heard about the war, but it had occurred before he
was born. He had neither experienced the war nor suffered the miseries caused
by the war. For most Japanese people, the Vietnam War was someone else's
problem. Muro Kenji stated:
The dead are Vietnamese and the people fighting are American. We do not
suffer……… I believe that I, myself, have to inherit experiences of the
Second World War from older generations, but that is not all. We cannot
inherit all of the experiences [from the older generation]. We need to
admit this. We learned the war as knowledge after the fact. We do not
need to have an inferiority complex. We have to begin with the assump-
tion that we do not have experiences of the war. I think that our current
younger generation cannot be empowered without building new morals
and the ways of thinking based on our situation where the memories of the
war are not clear.²

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Its in the 1960s
The majority of the Japanese responded to the Vietnam War differently than to
the Second World War. The Vietnam War caused little direct damage to their
livelihood. Some companies even increased their contracts for maintenance and
repair of American ships, aircrafts, and vehicles. Visiting soldiers spent money
in the hotel and entertainment industries (Havens 1987, p. 101). Military
procurement was only one factor in the economic boom in Japan during this
period, and its scale was much smaller than that of the Korean War in 1950 to
1953, but the Vietnam War was obviously integrated into Japanese people's
affluent lives. In this way, antiwar activists faced difficulties in mobilising
people without relying on their memories as victims of the Second World War.
University students in the midst of economic growth
University students, as well as the rest of the Japanese people, faced a drastic
change in their lives caused by rapid economic growth. One of the most obvious
changes was their clothes. In the early and mid-1960s, many male students wore
black school uniforms, but by the later 1960s they were beginning to wear jeans,
which were popular with American students. The number of university students
increased quickly. According to Gakkō Kihon Chôsa (the Basic Survey of
Schools) published by the Education Ministry, the university entrance rate was
10.1 per cent in 1955, but this increased to 38.4 per cent in 1975, and half of all
men and one-third of women were attending universities and two-year colleges
by the mid-1970s (Mizogami 2004, pp. 40-50). Since many students who gradu-
ated from universities or colleges worked in companies, the number of
employees increased while the number of people who ran an independent busi-
ness and worked in family businesses dropped sharply. According to the White
Paper on National Life, the rate of employees increased to 39.3 per cent of all
those who were engaged in income-producing work in 1950 to 64.2 per cent in
1970 and to 69.1 per cent in 1975 (Kôdôseichôki o Kangaerukai 1985, p. 7).
This means that after graduating, students had little choice but to work in
companies.
Since university landscapes became dominated by concrete buildings, erected
to accommodate growing numbers of students, the lives of university students
were similarly transformed by the introduction of the mass-production system.
During this period, factories and offices needed a large number of administrative
or technical staff to control the mass-produced goods. Many companies modern-
ised their facilities and organisations during this period, so their employees were
required to do scientific research, obtain information, and have basic knowledge
of economics in sales, marketing, and accounting (Ozaki 1967, p. 124).
A good academic background (gakureki) was a must for workers who wanted
to be employed by big companies, be promoted, and earn higher wages. Young
people were involved in tough competition to pass university entrance examina-
tions as a step towards getting a "good" job. University students were no longer
automatically promoted to executive level in companies. When private busi-
nesses had been rapidly developed during the post-First World War period, the
New Left movements in the 1960s 53
number of people who worked in companies after finishing school increased.
These workers had good prospects of being promoted to executives in the future
(Ozaki 1967, p. 92). Entering a company, people who graduated from university
were usually assigned to the bottom rank of low-ranking administrative or tech-
nical staff. They had to compete with their colleagues in order to forge a suc-
cessful career. In this sense, not all university students were assured of becoming
members of the elite class.
In the late 1950s and early 1960s, the newly spreading way of working as a
"salaryman (corporate employee)" was highlighted in the media. This generated
numerous publications. Sararîman Kyoshitsu (lessons for salarymen) written by
Sugaya Jûhei became popular at that time. It described salarymen's lives: in the
mornings they are in "severe competition" to catch a crowded train without any
concerns about other people; they finally get off the train at their destination.
As
soon as they get to their office, in a bustling room, they receive calls, welcome
the visits of customers, and start a meeting with their colleagues (Sugaya 1957,
pp. 10-11).
The work itself was depicted by Sugaya as monotonous. He contrasted school
lives with work lives. In schools, students are provided with diverse courses such
as English, maths, and history in order to prevent them from being bored; in
workplaces, jobs are "very monotonous, workers are a part of companies which
seek to make profits and process figures from 0 to 9, and do plus, minus, times,
and division again and again from morning till night” (Sugaya 1957, p. 11).
Sugaya added that workers are exhausted by human relations in the work-
place: they have to see to their colleagues and bosses to make them feel comfort-
able; people with "heaps of desires, selfish minds, and lies" struggle to push
others aside and get ahead of them; if they are off their guard, they would be
taken advantage of; if they relax their alertness, they would be cheated (Sugaya
1957, p. 13). Sugaya's description shows that working in companies was thus
understood as depressing.
How did young people feel in this transformation? First, they had an anti-
pathy towards increased academic competition, but they found it difficult to
reject the competition. Ôtsuka Akira, who entered the College of Engineering of
Nihon University in 1968 and then participated in student movements, looked
back on his teens:
In the years of my junior high school, high school, preparatory school, and
university, I felt alienated under the regime of the "entrance examination-
first principle (juken shijō shugi)" and suffered from the pressure of exami-
nations. My only resistance was to skip classes and hang out in cafes. The
more I resisted, the worse my grades got, and it was I that was eventually
worried about this. It was as if I was living with handcuffs which put my
hands under restraint, and the cuffs became tighter as I resisted. I hated the
authorities, that is to say, teachers and the school system. I finally entered
university, but the classes were more boring than those of high school and
many students were crowded into small rooms.³

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54
New Left movements in the 1960s
Second, young people were worried by identity crises. They were expected to
conform to the labour force when working in companies. This meant that they
could be replaced by someone else. Because they felt that they had lost their dis-
tinctive personalities, they experienced identity crises. Saitô Susumu, then a
student who entered the Faculty of Agriculture of Tokyo Education University
in 1968, was disgusted with society in which "people have to learn and work
like a robot for the benefit of a few rulers". He wrote a poem.4
I want to live/without fights without crying aloud/Without laughing deeply/
Steadily/I study without any purpose/I'm fed up with such a life/My life is
like a paper painted/With blue and gray colour/With plenty of water/I do not
live/I am made to live/I want to live humanly/Humanly/Human/Not a
monkey but human/Not a machine but human/I don't know/But/For human
beings/Living used to be joyful/Human beings are domesticated/Why on
earth/Is everyday life/So gloomy?
Student movements in a slump
The unaccustomed pressures of new labour markets and an expanded higher
education system thus weighed heavily on many young people, and this provided
student activists with great opportunities to mobilise more and more students to
student associations on campus; but the student movements had been in a
lengthy slump since the Anpo protests of 1960. Student activists at that time
lacked empathy in responding to young people's worries. They failed to mobilise
a wide range of students to join protests against the University Management
Law (Daigaku Kanri Hô) in 1962 and the Japan-Korea Normalisation Treaty'
(Nikkan Kihon Jôyaku) in 1965.
Student movements lost support from students who did not belong to political
groups because of conflicts and splits in the movements. Following the Anpo
protests of 1960, each of the tôha, that is, New Left factions which competed
with the JCP-affiliated groups over the leadership of Zengakuren (the National
Federation of Student Associations), repeatedly experienced its internal conflicts
and splits, and many other leftist factions were newly formed and soon dis-
appeared. Kakumaru-ha (the Revolutionary Marxist Faction of the Revolution-
ary Communist League of Japan) had a majority in the leadership of Zengakuren
in the 1960s. However, the "Coalition of Three Factions (sanpa Zengakuren)"
sought to expand their influence. This coalition comprised Chûkaku-ha (the
National Committee of the Federation of Revolutionary Communists); the Com-
munist League which was dissolved after people's protests against the revision
of the Japan-U.S. Security Treaty signed in 1960 (the Anpo protests) and rebuilt
later; and the Liberation Group of the Socialist Youth League (Shaseidô
Kaihô-ha).
Each of the tôha had their own student groups on campus. There were many
billboards (tatekan) erected by the tôha's activists on campus in order to convey
their political statements. The activists often made political speeches in front of
New Left movements in the 1960s 55
their billboards and competed with other factions. In Japan, each university
authority collected a student association fee together with tuition fees from stu-
dents. From the student association fee, the authorities provided the leaders of
its
student association with funds intended for the administration of student associ-
ation buildings. The tôha sought to win the leadership of the associations in
order to make use of part of the fees for their activities. Many university
students
were full of apathy because of the political conflicts between student groups, and
while greater numbers of them began to be committed to student movements or
anti-Vietnam War movements in the late 1960s, they were not so political in the
early 1960s as in 1960.
Contests over organising young people
In the 1960s, old leftist groups and new religious groups were active in organ-
ising young people who were worried about their involvement in academic com-
petition or identity crises which resulted from their conformity to the labour
force. The membership of Minshushugi Seinen Dômei (the Democratic Youth
League, hereafter Minsei), the youth organisation of the JCP, totalled 10,000 in
1958, but Minsei proudly announced that its membership had increased to
between 80,000 and 100,000 in 1963.7 A new religious group, Sôka Gakkai,³
also remarked that the membership of its youth sector had increased by about
200,000 in only nine months between October 1962 and July 1963. While
student groups faced difficulties in mobilising young people, both Minsei and
the Sôka Gakkai rapidly expanded their influence over them.⁹
Minsei and the Sõka Gakkai were relatively successful in attracting young
people because they addressed the worries of young people regarding academic
competition or identity crises. As discussed in Chapter 1, in the late 1950s the
JCP lost much of the support which the party had gained during the early
postwar period. In particular, many young people left the JCP after the party
changed its radical strategies, such as guerrilla fighting in rural areas, in the
Sixth
National Council of the JCP (rokuzenkyo) in 1955. The Communist League, one
of the tōha which was known for its confrontational actions, increased its influ-
ence in Zengakuren during the Anpo protests.
Some of the JCP's leaders were concerned about this slump, and claimed in
the Ninth General Assembly of the Central Committee of the JCP in March 1960
that "the revolution in Japan will not be able to be realised without organising
young people who will play a central role in the new era". Because Minsei began
to organise cultural activities, such as choirs, dances, games, or hikes, in order
to
attract young people to the party, it was called "singing and dancing Minseidô
(uta to odori no Minseido)". Minsei provided many young people, who were
concerned about loneliness and isolation, with opportunities to make friends and
forget their gloomy lives (Hirotsu 1964, p. 78).
The Sôka Gakkai also discovered a specific way of organising young people.
After Ikeda Daisaku took the office of president in 1960, the Sôka Gakkai
changed its strong-arm style of "shakubuku (a Buddhist way of persuasion: in

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New Left movements in the 1960s
recruiting non-members, members first listened to the non-members' personal
concerns, such as poverty or health, and then convinced the non-members of the
righteousness of the Soka Gakkai's doctrine)" into two-way roundtable commu-
nication. Some members of the Sôka Gakkai chatted with other members about
their health problems, anxieties, and concerns about the future. This helped them
to solve their isolation and loneliness. According to James White, a sociologist
of religion, the Sôka Gakkai increased its members in the 1960s by enabling
rank-and-file members' voices to be heard in the decision-making of the organ-
isation (White 1970, ch. 5). The Sôka Gakkai was different from religious organ-
isations which urged believers to live an ascetic life. It was not necessarily.
hostile to emerging affluent lives, so its members were encouraged by the Sôka
Gakkai to realise their desires, such as luxuries or career success (Tsurumi et al.
1963, p. 135).
While Minsei and the Sôka Gakkai had a certain degree of success in organ-
ising young people, conservative groups sought to recover from setbacks in
struggles over mobilisation of the young generation. Ishihara Shintarô was one
of the politicians in the LDP who responded well to voices of young people
worrying about academic competition or identity crises. Ishihara, a famous
fiction writer, ran for the Upper House election in 1968, gained three million
votes, and won a seat. He used the slogans "young liberals" and "the country for
the younger generation", and warned that maihômu shugi (family-centred
society) would lead to a drain on young people's imagination. 10 Ishihara
attempted to strengthen young people's loyalty to the state by making use of
their growing anxiety and dissatisfaction.
Minsei, the Sôka Gakkai, and conservatives, in spite of the differences in their
style and purpose, shared a common aim in seeking to organise young people
who were worried about academic competition and identity crises.
2 Transforming the way individuals live
The Haneda and Sasebo incidents
The difficult situation of student movements began to change in the years 1965
to 1967. Large numbers of students protested over issues including tuition fee
increases and corruption within university authorities, as well as opposing
attempts to curb their autonomy within student association buildings and dormi-
tories. Previously, only a few activists inside the student associations had been
engaged in such causes and most university students were depoliticised. In 1965
to 1967, however, a struggle committee was formed in each class, and by joining
this committee an increasing number of students were committed to activism. It
was the Haneda and Sasebo incidents in the end of 1967 and early 1968,
however, that characterised the discourse of the New Left.
The Haneda incidents comprised clashes between student activists and police
officers near Haneda Airport on 8 October and 22 November 1967. The media,
especially some leading newspapers such as Asahi Shimbun, criticised America
New Left movements in the 1960s 57
for getting involved in the Vietnam War and Japan for cooperating with America.
In newspaper articles, their correspondents, who were stationed in Vietnam,
revealed the violent realities of the American bombing of North Vietnam (Havens
1987, pp. 35–39). These reports produced discourses which were critical of the
war. Prime Minister Satô Eisaku planned to visit South Vietnam and the USA in
October and November 1967 in order to have summit meetings on solutions to
the Vietnam War with their political leaders, but he was suspected by the media
as well as New Leftists of visiting Vietnam to discuss Japan's further support for
the war. Thousands of workers and student activists, particularly the Coalition of
Three Factions (sanpa Zengakuren, discussed earlier), took radical action against
Satô's visit. On 8 October1967, about 2,500 activists joined blockades and
clashed with riot police near Haneda Airport. Yamazaki Hiroaki, a student from
Kyoto University, was killed in the clashes.
The Sasebo incident was another key event for student movements during this
period. This incident was a protest by students, antiwar activists, and others
against the USA's nuclear aircraft-carrier USS Enterprise's visit to Sasebo port
near Nagasaki in January 1968 (Hirai 1995). A large number of aircraft took off
from the Enterprise to bomb North Vietnam after the Vietnam War broke out, so
many antiwar groups, including those which were affiliated with the Japan
Socialist Party and the JCP, were concerned about its visit to the port. The visit
of the Enterprise was also a sensitive issue for some Japanese people who were
victims of the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945. On
17 January 1968, hundreds of student activists wearing helmets confronted
heavily armed police officers, and many of the activists were injured and
arrested. On the following day, 50,000 people joined a rally at a baseball
stadium. Some New Leftists joined the rally hosted by the JSP and the JCP, but
others took confrontational direct action, and sometimes clashed with the riot
police.
The events at Haneda and Sasebo became an important turning point in char-
acterising the discourse of the New Left, particularly student movements. These
incidents were influential, partly because direct action was widely recognised by
the activists as an effective way to break through the difficult situation and
partly
because the issue of questioning the way individuals live was addressed by the
movements. These two issues were deeply interconnected. Many students had
been concerned that they could not find a connection between everyday life and
political issues discussed in the mass media such as Prime Minister Satô's visit
to the USA. Many Japanese people who felt isolated from decision-making in
large-scale organisations, such as companies or schools, had regarded them-
selves as politically powerless. An increasing number of young people were
involved in severe competition, felt isolated, and found it difficult to express
their discontent. The Haneda and Sasebo incidents encouraged such individuals
to feel that they could break through this deadlock in their lives. The student
activists who joined the actions believed that their visit to the sites of conflict
enabled them to bridge the division between everyday life and politics, and to
affect political decisions such as the Enterprise visit to Sasebo port. In this
way,

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58 New Left movements in the 1960s
the activists showed many people a way of overcoming their powerlessness
(Mishima and Akuta 2000, p. 51).
A student who participated in the Haneda incidents stated:
The point is whether to be satisfied with restricted freedom. If we give up
[challenging the power of the state], this will mean that we accept the
current situation. In order to avoid this, we have to recognise and remake
our mentality by confronting the authorities again and again. In no sense,
will we give way to the power of the state, which is armed every day and
always urges us to be subordinate to it.¹¹
11
The student activists questioned "restricted freedom" in their affluent lives by
physically clashing with the authorities; from their perspective, while the Jap-
anese state might afford them freedom of speech and thought, this freedom was
actually restricted given increased social control. Many Japanese people were
aware of the fact that Japan gave the USA strong support for the Vietnam War.
Are you ignoring the facts? was the question addressed by the student activists.
Although the radical actions in Haneda and Sasebo were mainly taken by the
Coalition of Three Factions, that is, a group of the tôha, as is shown in the shock
felt by many students at Yamazaki Hiroaki's death (discussed later), that large
numbers of young people who were not affiliated with the tôha, but who shared
worries of isolation, alienation, and identity crises, asked the question. The
Haneda and Sasebo incidents provided the activists with a great opportunity to
break through the deadlock of the movements.
Radical actions of students supported
In Sasebo and Haneda, the student activists were committed to social justice, but
the mainstream media responded harshly to their radical actions. On the day fol-
lowing the first Haneda incident in late 1967, Asahi Shimbun criticised the
student activists for their "organised violence", and depicted these actions as the
"abnormal state of student movements". In a lead article, Asahi stated, "if radical
students see taking violent actions to influence society and attract public atten-
tion as 'revolutionary', they, as students, are relying too much on society,
abusing freedom of expression, and digging a hole for themselves". ¹² This view
did not change even when the Sasebo incident occurred in early 1968. The
article, reporting on clashes between student activists of Hôsei University and
riot police on 15 January, noted that students should attend classes rather than
join actions against the visit of the Enterprise. 13
12
However, this view changed slightly on 17 January, when the police attacked
many student activists who came to Sasebo to join the actions with water canons,
tear gas, and truncheons. Even some local people, who watched the attack, and
several reporters on Asahi, NHK, etc., were involved in the attack and were
badly injured. While the policing was criticised by the mainstream media for
being too strict, some local people began to give support to the activists who
New Left movements in the 1960s 59
were going to join the major actions on the following day. It was reported by an
observer of the Sasebo incident that 700,000 yen was donated for students in
Sasebo in a single day." Some local people served meals to the radical student
activists, others were willing to provide accommodation for them, and sex-
workers for American military personnel gave medical treatment to wounded
students. An observer also wrote:
At night on 17 January, I heard a worker complain in tears that “police offic-
ers are awful. Zengakuren will undoubtedly win in the end" over a beer in a
pub on a street corner, which surprised me. The citizens surrounded Sasebo
Bridge from the morning on the following day. From that day, they stepped
forward to the bridge and called out "Fuck the police!" and "Students, go
for it!" on the wooden parapet of the bridge. The citizens did not give way
to repeated warnings from the police to move back through a loud speaker,
or to tear gas grenades, against which they could not open their eyes for a
moment. Finally, they hid student activists who escaped from truncheon-
wielding police. A riot trooper, who brandished his truncheon and did not
know what to do, walked away with a parting shot, "I'll arrest you for
obstructing the performance of my duty”.
15
Even the student activists had not expected to gain strong support from ordinary
people. They hardly ever cared about whether their actions were supported by
other people. Their radical actions were based on their sense of justice rather
than rational calculations and strategic considerations.
How were these radical actions during the Sasebo incident reported in the
mainstream media? Even Asahi Shimbun, which was more sympathetic to left-
ists than other newspapers, did not support the actions. However, the newspaper
provided a couple of articles on local people's support for the activists and
criti-
cism of strict policing, so Asahi's view was obviously moving to a more impar-
tial position than before.
The confrontational action at Haneda and Sasebo was incompatible with the
more centralised style of progressive parties and labour unions. Many leaders of
the parties, particularly the JCP, were irritated by the student activists' beha-
viour. The JCP labelled the tôha "Trotskyists" and depicted them as betrayers of
revolution. On the day following the first Haneda incident, on the campus of
Waseda University, a number of Minsei students criticised the tôha for their
radical direct action taken in Haneda (Nakajima 1968, pp. 11-13). However,
these spontaneous actions were accepted by a wide range of young people who
faced academic competition and had lost their identity.
Resistance against the controlled society
The Haneda and Sasebo incidents fuelled "campus disputes (gakuen funsó)” in
various parts of Japan in 1968 and 1969. Large numbers of students who had
previously not been interested in political activism joined student movements. In

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60 New Left movements in the 1960s
1968, 165 universities, 80 per cent of the all universities in Japan, were involved
in disputes, and 70 universities were barricaded (Takagi 1985, p. 113). It should
be emphasised that the focus of the movements changed at this time. The move-
ments were different from "the postwar progressives" in that they no longer
focused on changing national policies and political institutions. Rather, they
questioned increased control over everyday life in the affluent society, what
Peter Wagner called "disciplinisation". This "disciplinising" society was dubbed
as "the controlled society (kanri shakai)". Beheiren, the people's networks.
against the Vietnam War, and the Antiwar Youth Committee, and young
workers' groups against the war were formed during this period. As will be seen
later, although Beheiren and the Antiwar Youth Committee focused on issues
that were slightly different from student movements, the goal of these move-
ments was common in overcoming "disciplinisation" in the controlled society.
In this way, the network of Japanese New Left movements was formed and
developed following the Haneda and Sasebo incidents.
As discussed in the Introduction, Herbert Marcuse pointed out that economic
rationality turned into capitalist rationality. Many New Leftists also warned that
the
logic of efficiency for money making was being dominant in all parts of the
control-
led society. They realised that even universities were not free from the influence
of
this logic. For example, student activists of Tokyo Education University opposed a
planned relocation of its campus during this period. The national university was
founded in 1949 to foster teachers, but the Japanese government decided to reor-
ganise it into a research institute for science and technology in the early 1960s.
The
business sector required the government and university to meet a growing demand
for facilitating scientific research due to the expansion of the economic boom. The
administration of Tokyo Education University planned to shift its campus from the
centre of Tokyo to Tsukuba, Ibaraki prefecture, in 1963 to gain much greater space
for scientific and technological research. In the earlier stage of their protests,
the
student activists had opposed the relocation in order to defend the independence of
scientists from the government. However, the student activists realised that
scient-
ific research would contribute to further innovation by companies to increase their
profits, and began to focus on questioning the academic-industrial partnership
(sangaku kyôdô rosen) (Nihon Hyôron sha Henshûbu 1969).
In this way, New Left students claimed that universities played an important
role in reproducing the productivity-first society through scientific research.
They insisted, in short, that universities were a tool to make corporate profits.
They came up with slogans such as "Dismantle Universities (daigaku kaitai)"
and "Dismantle the Imperial Universities (teikoku daigaku kaitai)". Research
assistants and students who specialised in science and technology had not been
so active in previous student movements, but in the late 1960s many were angry
with the fact that scientific research conducted at universities was subcontracted
by private companies, lamented that universities were not independent from cor-
porations, and joined actions to change the universities.
As New Leftists became wary of the value of scientific research, they ques-
tioned the roles of intellectuals in progressive movements. In the Anpo protests
New Left movements in the 1960s 61
of 1960, progressive intellectuals played a key role in identifying political and
social problems and giving people guidance about which direction to take. In the
early 1960s, university students studying the humanities were usually advised to
read works written by Maruyama Masao, one of the most well-known intellectu-
als in movements for democratisation during the postwar period. However, since
progressive intellectuals were discredited in the late 1960s, New Leftists criti-
cised these intellectuals for closing their eyes to the hierarchical relationship
on
campus. Each of the departments at Japanese universities consisted of research/
teaching groups (kenkyûshitsu) moderated by professors. Each group usually
comprised a professor, an associate professor, a research associate, postgraduate
students, and undergraduate students. There was a hierarchical relationship in
these groups; professors had official and unofficial power over other members of
the groups. New Leftists claimed that progressive intellectuals ignored the hier-
archical relationship on campus. The slogan "Dismantle Universities" chanted
by New Left students meant that the activists aimed to remove the hierarchical
relationship and the university system, which produced the relationship, as well
as to liberate university students from their subordination to capitalism.
The focus of the New Left on everyday life
How did New Leftists look at the "disciplinising" society? For example, Yosh-
ioka Shinobu, an activist of Beheiren, stated:
There are so many goods which stand between rulers and ruled that we
cannot identify the rulers from our side, and our freedom is currently
restricted by the goods. We can also enjoy leisure activities and maihômu
shugi (my-home-ism; i.e. family-centred society). Leisure activities and
homes are certainly among the things we should defend. However, it is a
fact that maihômu is now so integrated into the dominant regime that it is
not worth while defending it. I support the pursuit of true individualism, so
I want to defend maihômu. However, we cannot help feeling gloomy,
because we find it difficult to discuss social issues with maihômu-oriented
people. In the controlled society, a large number of goods, homes, leisure
activities, and restricted freedom are inserted as a lubricant between rulers
and ruled. We are now living in the society in which people are invisibly
controlled. 16
I argued in the Introduction that some political and social theorists on
industrial-
ised society, like Herbert Marcuse, were critical of consumerism. Most Japanese
New Leftists did not develop the criticism of consumerism as strongly as these
intellectuals, because consumer goods, like washing machines and TVs, were
expected to facilitate individualism and encourage marginalised Japanese people,
such as women or youth, to become more liberated from society. Unlike these
activists, Yoshioka pointed out that people's adherence to consumer goods,
known as maihômu shugi, risked producing new forms of domination.

Page 10
62
New Left movements in the 1960s
Yoshioka's critique of the controlled society ultimately led him to oppose the
Vietnam War. He claimed that “who ruled whom” was very obscure in the con-
trolled society, so Japanese people had difficulties in identifying victimisers and
victims in the Vietnam War. Although Japan was deeply involved in the Vietnam
War, most Japanese people saw themselves as unconnected to it. He claimed,
however, that if rulers and ruled are identified, Japanese people would be aware
that they were a part of the ruling group, and would reflect on their position and
relations with Vietnamese people. Antiwar activists thus combined their criti-
cism of the controlled society with opposition to the Vietnam War.17
In this way, New Leftists sought to initiate a change in their daily lives, in
which material affluence was being achieved but social control intensified. What
did they want to change more concretely? This is shown in the statement of a
19-year-old woman, who was a university student in 1968. She began her com-
mitment to student movements following the Haneda incidents. When leaving
her home to go to Sasebo to join protests against the Enterprise's visit, she faced
strong opposition from her parents to her participation in activism. She stated.
that "we need to be enormously courageous to say yes or no straight to the
reality we are facing". She emphasised that she wished only to "live truly and
honestly", but various constraints, such as the risk of damaging their academic
prospects or family relationships, prevented these activists from living truly and
honestly. Her comments show that New Leftists wished to be released from
these constraints and "live truly and honestly". In this way, New Leftists, par-
ticularly student activists, sought to implement self-revolution; that is, change
the way they live.
18
Based on his survey on ecologists, feminists, and young activists, sociologist
Alberto Melucci suggests that contemporary social movements express their
ideas not through political action but through "cultural challenges to the
dominant language, to the codes that organise information and shape social prac-
tices" (Melucci 1996, p. 8). Japanese New Leftists also focused primarily on
changing cultures rather than politics. Here we need further explanation of the
word "culture". The American New Left also took on the characteristics of cul-
tural movements, but its activists tended to reject the seriousness and sombre
mood and enjoyed themselves by staging funny actions. This is illustrated by
Yippies, members of the Youth International Party, who often worked together
with New Left groups. They protested against the Democratic Party Convention
held in Chicago in 1968, and nominated a pig for President of the USA with a
satirical note (Stephens 1998, p. 35). Both the Japanese and American New Left
may be considered as cultural movements, but an aspect of personal ethics was
more powerful in the former than in the latter.
It should be added that Japanese New Leftists believed that examining their
daily lives and creating new ways of living would lead inevitably to social and
political change. This is shown in their discussions about the Japan-U.S.
Security Treaty. The Japan-U.S. Security Treaty allowed the US military to use
military bases on Japanese territory. While some local people had their land
expropriated to provide sites for military bases, others were disturbed by damage
New Left movements in the 1960s 63
to their farming or fishing activities, and by violence from the US military per-
sonnel. A number of Japanese people joined protests against the Anpo Treaty in
order to defend their livelihood from the American military in the 1950s. When
the Japanese state, which worked in close alliance with the USA, promised to
assure its people of a livelihood and provide them with an affluent life in the
1960s, New Leftists maintained that their own activism would lose relevance
unless it also questioned this new approach to "defending the people's liveli-
hood”. They realised that the Anpo protests were ill-founded because their pro-
testers did not question Japanese people's affluent lives. In this way, the New
Leftists came to view self-revolution as an indispensable step towards address-
ing larger political issues. This shows that cultural change (that is, transforming
the way individuals live) was regarded as part and parcel of political and social
change in the New Left movements.
The memories of dead colleagues
Many New Left students found it difficult to change their consciousness and
behaviour, but the memories of their colleagues who were committed to the
movements and who died in the protests impelled them to transform their way of
living. Kanba Michiko, Yamazaki Hiroaki, Oku Kôhei,¹ Waida Shirô,20 and
other activists had died during or after the Anpo protests, and thousands of
people were badly injured in the protests. They represented a kind of mirror
which propelled New Leftists to overcome their weakness and act strongly for
self-revolution. The discursive space of New Left movements was not as wide as
that of people's movements for democratisation, but the representation of dead
colleagues was nevertheless shared through the New Left media, particularly
among young people.
As was discussed in Chapter 1, the memories of Japanese victims during the
Second World War led to the formation and development of a sense of solidarity
in people's movements for democratisation during the early period of postwar
Japan. When the memories began to be forgotten and solidarity was waning in
the midst of rapid economic growth, the memories of people who died as a result
of their commitment to activism helped New Leftists to construct a new solid-
arity. New Leftists saw people who died in the movements as a mirror, a way to
overcome their own weakness of mind and to become committed to transform-
ing the way they lived. The solidarity in the New Left did not spread as widely
as the national solidarity of people's movements for democratisation. In spite of
this, it was shared in the discourse of the New Left media.
Kanba Michiko, an activist of Tokyo University, was born in 1937. She
entered the JCP in 1957, soon left the party, and became a member of the Com-
munist League. She participated in various people's movements in the late
1950s, such as protests against the Police Duties Bill (Keisatsukan Shokumu
Shikkkô Hô), and was arrested during a demonstration at Haneda Airport against
Prime Minister Kishi's visit to the USA in January 1960. After that, she became
more passionate about being involved in the series of Anpo protests, and was

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64 New Left movements in the 1960s
killed in clashes between demonstrators and police officers on 15 June 1960. An
anonymous poem written for her and placed beside the altar in the place where
she was killed said: "We will never forget the people with black hands who beat
you. Our friend, watch over us. We will struggle". The poem was memorialised
as a tribute to her later in the 1960s (Nakajima 1968, p. 81).
Many young people were shocked by the death of Yamazaki Hiroaki in the
first Haneda incident. Andô Konpachi was a third-year student of Nihon Univer-
sity in 1968. He enjoyed hanging out and looking for girls in high school. After
he entered the university, he spent his days drinking, looking for girls, dressing
up to go out, and playing mah-jong and pachinko. However, he was deeply
shocked when he realised that Yamazaki had "something which he risked his life
to confront".21 He then looked for and read articles on Zengakuren in newspapers
and weekly magazines, and was moved to tears by the pure hearts of the stu-
dents. Andô wanted to know how Yamazaki felt when "his bones cracked under
truncheons and he died". 22 After that, he took a seminar on Marxist economics
and stood as a delegate of his class in the student association. He joined student
movements at Nihon University and tried hard to “make himself catch up with
Yamazaki as much as possible".
The memories of activists who committed themselves to activism and eventu-
ally died or were injured drove many New Leftists to question the way they
lived. Kimura Kazutoshi was a 23-year-old student in early 1968. He hesitated to
participate in protests at Sasebo in January 1968. Later, he regretted this:
I wanted to go to Sasebo, too. The blood which students shed is ours, and it
is young people's hot blood. I should have shed my blood with them. I was
constrained by the travel cost of 10,000 yen, my family, and year-end
exams. Social constraints were stricter, but were these all real reasons [why
I did not go to Sasebo]? Did the reasons really prevent me from going to
Sasebo? Did I run away? I may have run away. I did escape I have not
shed my blood yet.23
...
Kimura's comment shows how New Left students idealised those who were
committed to activism at the risk of getting injured, those who damaged their
academic prospects or family relationships, and those who died. Many New
Leftists were obliged by the representation of these self-sacrificing activists to
be
committed to self-transformation without making any compromises. The austere
ideas of New Leftists made it possible for them to harshly criticise the controlled
society.
In his argument about how ideologies are incalucated, French philosopher
Louis Althusser shed light on the role of "the Subject"; that is, the single and
absolute being such as God in Christianity. Individuals, hearing "the Subject"
call and responding to it, incalucate values, and are transformed into a "subject":
"the Subject" is like a "mirror" to subjects (Althusser 1984). His argument is
instructive in examining how Japanese New Leftists were committed to activ-
ism. While people who died in the movements functioned as "the Subject",
New Left movements in the 1960s 65
which Althusser discussed, New Leftists, seeing the dead as a mirror to become
a self-sacrificing activist, were transformed into "subjects". "Subjectivity" was
one of the most controversial issues in the discourse of intellectuals in postwar
Japan. Reflecting on their bitter experiences in the Second World War, they
argued how they were able to act independently from the state, the vanguard
party, and world history (Koschmann 1996). It should be emphasised that the
New Leftists, seriously addressing this puzzle, found a unique answer to this
issue.
The shadow of the Anpo protests
The memories of the Anpo protests of 1960 were very influential in shaping
these austere ethics during the late 1960s. The negative views on the Anpo pro-
tests were shared among New Left movements. This may be discerned from an
article in a student newspaper Bunri Sensen (Humanities Front), published by
New Left students in the College of Humanities of Nihon University. It clearly
shows how New Leftists understood their protests:
The Anpo protests were literally struggles by all the people, and their scale
was symbolised in the protest actions surrounding the Diet day after day.
However, the slogans of "Defend Parliamentary Politics” or “Oust the Kishi
Cabinet" and the outcome of their [the Anpo protests'] final failure showed
that we [New Left students] had to go beyond the limitations of the Anpo
protests, which were influenced by the framework of "Potsdam democracy"
[democracy which was facilitated by the Allies based on the Potsdam Dec-
laration and developed in the postwar period], and develop the class struggle
further under this framework.24
It is worthwhile noting that "democracy” was a crucial issue to New Leftists.
"Parliamentary politics" - representative democracy - was seen by New Leftists.
as a symbol of defects in the Anpo protests of 1960. To university students, rep-
resentative democracy presented itself as decision-making in student associ-
ations on campus. As was illustrated in Chapter 1, Japanese universities were
usually composed of certain faculties (gakubu) which each contained several
departments (gakka). The departments held classes to which students belonged.
As discussed earlier, all students automatically became members of student asso-
ciations (jichikai) when entering university. In the associations under Zen-
gakuren, students usually debated political issues in and selected a representative
from their class, and the representative joined the meetings of each department
and of the whole campus; thus the student associations were run by the principle
of representative democracy.
Many university students were frustrated, because they did not get a sense of
participation in decision-making. These students formed Zenkyôtô (a contraction
of Zengaku Kyôtô Kaigi - the All-campus Struggle Committee), a network of
student activists on campus. Direct democracy was introduced into this network

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66 New Left movements in the 1960s
when deciding on their policies of activism: decisions were made not from the
top down but by consensus among members. If someone did not agree on a deci-
sion, he or she did not need to abide by it. In this way, many New Leftists found
it necessary to go beyond representative democracy and actively promote indi-
viduals' spontaneous participation.
In this way, New Leftists obligated themselves to overcome the failure of the
Anpo protests in the late 1960s. These activists advocated transforming their
own consciousness before attempting to change national policies or political
regimes. The view of the Anpo protests as a failure was widely shared through
the New Left media, even by those who did not actually participate in the pro-
tests. The student activists learned this view from conversations or discussions
with their seniors in club rooms (bushitsu), cafés, student dormitories, and on the
streets.
Old Left as "fake"
New Leftists often claimed that the problems of the Anpo protests were embod-
ied in Old Leftists, progressive parties, and labour unions. In particular, they
criticised the JCP for acting without any concern for their daily lives. New Left-
ists regarded the JCP as a target to be overcome and distanced themselves from
it. On 20 January 1968, many labour unions joined the rally in the Hibiya
Concert Hall of Tokyo against the visit of the American nuclear aircraft-carrier
to Sasebo port. One of the leaders of Sôhyô (the General Council of Trade
Unions of Japan) said to the workers, "Return to the workplace with your
passion which you have in the rally of today, and direct it to the spring offen-
sive" (Nakajima 1968, p. 35). This comment shows why unionists were criti-
cised by New Leftists. The leader saw the visit of the aircraft-carrier to Sasebo
port as a secondary issue. More important for him was shuntô (the spring offen-
sive) a few months ahead, which had already been fitted into the schedule of
Sôhyô. After the Miike strike, Sôhyô shifted their focus to shuntô, the annual
joint action taken by labour unions in various parts of Japan. Shuntô made it pos-
sible to improve many Japanese people's working conditions, but it tended to
limit its focus primarily to wage rises. New Leftists maintained that union activ-
ists were interested only in their wages and did not tackle the antiwar issue ser-
iously. They distinguished themselves from the Old Leftists by being committed
to actions for social justice and risking death or injury in the name of those
causes.
A major difference between New and Old Leftists was how they looked at
technology. During the period immediately after the Second World War, “the
postwar progressives", particularly the JCP, believed that science would help.
them to be liberated from the poverty problem, which many Japanese people
faced at that time. They also claimed that progressive intellectuals would play
an important role in facilitating science. This view was shared by a wide range
of Japanese people when modernisation was seen as their national goal.
However, as is shown in the case of Tokyo Education University, in the late
New Left movements in the 1960s 67
1960s scientific research was criticised by New Leftists for helping companies
to make profits and develop dangerous technologies. The activists also ques-
tioned the privileged position of intellectuals at universities. In the Anpo pro-
tests of 1960, many progressive intellectuals, such as Shimizu Ikutarô 25 or
Maruyama Masao, adopted a leadership role in the protests against the LDP and
the Kishi cabinet, but in the late 1960s New Leftists no longer paid their
respects to the intellectuals. This is shown by the fact that Maruyama's office
on the campus of Tokyo University was occupied by several New Leftists in
December 1968, when the activists blockaded the campus. They trusted small
numbers of intellectuals who were independent from universities, such as
Yoshimoto Takaaki or Hani Gorô, and who justified the activists' radical
action.26
Kashiwazaki Chieko's experiences show how much antipathy New Leftists
had towards the JCP. She was born in 1943 from "a typical bourgeois family",
entered Tokyo University in 1962, got married in 1967, and commenced her
Ph.D. programme on Russia and Eastern Europe in 1968. She was busy research-
ing, doing some part-time work, and doing housework. However, she was
greatly shocked by the death of Yamazaki Hiroaki in 1967. Comparing herself to
Yamazaki, who acted for solidarity with the Vietnamese people at risk of his
life, she regretted that she had not done anything to stop the Vietnam War
(Kashiwazaki 1969, p. 93). After that, she was determined to remove the blink-
ers from her eyes and take serious action.
When she and other New Left students locked down the Hongô campus of
Tokyo University on 9 January 1969 and were escaping from riot police officers,
some activists of Minsei threw stones and bottles at her and her colleagues from
the top of the building in order to help the police to arrest the New Left
students.
Kashiwazaki felt that Minsei and the JCP, which cooperated with the riot police
while calling themselves the vanguard of revolution, were “fakes" and "deceiv-
ers". She wrote:
The reason we do not trust the JCP and Minsei is that they "struggle" from
the absolutely objective standpoint and separate themselves from their own
internal conflicts. They do not understand that the mentality produced in the
history of Japanese revolutionary movements -- the movements that assume
that only they are "good people” while the evil is the state - is arrogant.
(Kashiwazaki 1969, p. 268)
Likewise, many New Left students were disgusted by Old Leftists who joined
political activism without reflecting on the way of living. As evidenced from the
statement above, although the students expressed their feelings through Marxist
jargon, it was evident that they kept a distance from traditional leftist move-
ments. In the late 1960s, tension between New and Old Leftists was found in
other industrialised countries as well as in Japan. However, Japanese New Left-
ists, especially student activists, felt obligated to commit themselves to overcom-
ing the failure of the Anpo protests of 1960, and differentiating themselves from

Page 13
68 New Left movements in the 1960s
Old Leftists, by transforming the way they lived. In this way, the introspective
idea of New Left movements was a cause of heated conflicts between Old and
New Leftists in Japan.27
3 Direct action as a symbol of self-transformation
Self-liberation: Nichidai Tôsô
The components of the idea of self-revolution may be classified into two parts:
self-liberation and self-reflection. Each is found in the student movements of
Nihon University and Tokyo University. These were well known as protests
which mobilised a large number of students. Students of the two universities dif-
fered in their social position, which resulted in subtle differences in their ideas
and slogans. However, the idea of targeting their daily lives for change and ques-
tioning the way individuals live was shared by both universities.
The key idea of Nichidai Tôsó (the Nihon University struggle) was self-
liberation. Nihon University was a large-scale private university whose students
would be usually employed after graduation in companies as low-ranking admin-
istrative workers. The students held grievances about overcrowded classrooms
and boring lectures. They were opposed by Furuta Jûjirô, the president of the
administrative board, who was a dominant and autocratic figure and ordered a
strict watch on all spontaneous student activities; the students were not even
allowed to hand out leaflets on campus (Takagi 1985, pp. 118–121).
Taiikukai members (that is, students of sports departments who were gener-
ally politically conservative) violently attacked students' political actions
against
the university authorities. For example, the student association planned to invite
historian Hani Gorô and sociologist Hidaka Rokurô, well-known progressive
intellectuals, to speak at the reception party for new students on 20 April 1967.
However, this was obstructed by taiikukai members, and the university adminis-
tration ordered the student association to withdraw the invitation. On the day,
about 200 taiikukai members hit student activists with baseball bats while some
professors looked on. After that, the campus was virtually under martial law.
The administration ordered students to ban discussions in each class and dissolve
the student association. Some student activists were punished by the university
authorities. 28 Most students of Nihon University felt so threatened by taiikukai
members that they could not help but obey the university authorities.
In April 1968, the mass media reported corruption by the Nihon University
authorities, including 2 billion yen illegal payments, which triggered protests by
students. They stopped being subordinate and began to express their anger
through their political actions. On 11 May, student representatives who were
selected by each class held a meeting on the corruption issue, though the univer-
sity ordered them to cancel it. After that day, hundreds of student activists began
to organise rallies or meetings without permission. On 23 May, many of them
held the "great 200-metre demonstration" on campus while taiikukai members
obstructed it forcibly. This was the first demonstration on the campus of Nihon
New Left movements in the 1960s 69
University. The demonstrators chanted the school song of the university rather
than such songs as the International which were popular among leftists at that
time. This episode suggests that many students who had previously not been
involved in political activism participated in the demonstration. When the mobil-
isation of students to the struggle was successful, the "enemy" which they con-
fronted was dubbed the "regime (taisei)", and the confrontation against the
"regime" was dubbed "rebellion (hangyaku)". A student who joined in the dem-
onstration stated:
The fundamental cause of our struggle was that we entered Nihon Univer-
sity in order to study and learn truth as human beings, but the university
deals with us not as human beings but as commodities, makes use of us as
tools, and sends us off into bourgeois society, though university should be
the most humanistic place. We had an overwhelming feeling of isolation
and resentment, which triggered the radical struggles.
(Nihon Daigaku Bunri Gakubu Tôsô Iinnkai Shokikyoku 1969, p. 347)
Around 20,000 students were mobilised in Nichidai Tôsô (the Nihon University
struggle). Student activists were fearful of violence from taiikukai members (that
is, students of sports departments), who were on the side of the university
authorities, but they tried to overcome their fear and transform their weakness
into strength. Seimiya Makoto, an older activist of Nichidai Tôsó who worked
mainly on giving support to student activists who were arrested and in jail,
claimed that the basic idea of young activists in Nichidai Tôsó was “self-
transformation (jiko henkaku)":
Self-transformation is an underlying idea of this struggle [Nichidai Tôsô],
and we are required to face some issues [addressed by the activists]. The
idea [of self-transformation] is based on permanent self-negation. It may
sound far-fetched to say that what I am today is different from what I was
yesterday, but this is the experience of many if not most students in Nichidai
Zenkyôtô. Furthermore, activists of Nihon University shoulder the heavy
burden of military issues, like how they will confront rightists, as well as of
theoretical issues concerning student movements, and they have to answer
these issues every day. But unlike our generation who were gloomy about
the "burden”, the activists act as if it was something easy."
29
In order to "live truly and honestly", student activists sought to overcome their
fear, and not to ignore corruption on campus; rather, to question it. The primary
aim of Nichidai Tôsô concerned personal transformation, but this became associ-
ated with aspirations for larger social and political change. When they joined
demonstrations to highlight corruption on campus, the student authority asked
the police to strictly limit what they could do and even clashed with them; Prime
Minister Satô Eisaku intervened in the struggle and gave strong support to Board
President Furuta and the university authorities. Through these experiences the

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70 New Left movements in the 1960s
student activists became aware of the reality of political power and the necessity
to transform politics and society as well as their own mentality and the
university.
It should be emphasised that many activists found Nichidai Tôsô an enjoyable
rather than painful experience. Sakai Akio, a student who was president of the
Struggle Committee of the College of Law, expressed his excitement about the
struggle:
Nichidai Zenkyôtô acted without forgetting to smile. If I am asked "what
did you gain on 30 September [1968, the day when the public negotiation of
student activists with the university authorities was held]?” I will reply “it
was fun". In our isolated campus life, we could shout “you bastard (kono-
yaro)” at Furuta whom we saw as the most evil, and forced him to say “I am
sorry". When we had demonstrations which about 10,000 people joined, it
was often said that we “demonstrated with a big smile on our face".30
The basic idea of Nichidai Tôso was characterised as self-liberation. For
example, a student activist who majored in philosophy stated in early 1969 that
although the struggle had not yet ended, he and his colleagues at Nihon Univer-
sity had already gained many things through their commitment to the struggle.
He, among others, emphasised that they had gained "autonomy": before the
struggle they had been subject to rulers such as university authorities, but after
joining the struggle they were liberated from the rulers, arguing how they would
like to live and create another Nihon University which would be based on the
principles of justice.31 This comment shows that the protest actions made it pos-
sible for the student activists to escape from the gloomy days when they were
forced to conform to rules imposed by the university authorities. They no longer
felt lonely in the struggle, because they could spend time with their colleagues
and discuss their lives or society. Nichidai Tôsô gave the student activists
pleasure.
Self-reflection: Tôdai Tôsô
Tôdai Tôsó (the Tokyo University struggle) began in the Medical School in
January 1968. During this period, the Ministry of Health and Welfare sought to
introduce a bill to oblige graduates of medical schools to be registered as intern
doctors. This meant that after graduating from university and passing the
national examination for medical practitioners, graduates of medical schools
would be forced to work in bad conditions as intern doctors for several years and
be involved in the hierarchical relationship in the research/teaching groups
(kenkyûshitsu) headed by professors. Many medical students joined a lockdown
against the bill to stop reproducing the hierarchical relationships on campus and
tightening control over their training (Takagi 1985, pp. 114-116). Tôdai Tôsô
also originated from antipathy towards increasing social control among young
people.
New Left movements in the 1960s 71
Since some of the medical students, who had not joined the lockdown, were
unfairly punished by the university authorities, 32 an increasing number of
medical students, who were angry with the unjust treatment, blockaded the
campus again. On 15 June, the authorities required the police to expel the student
activists from the campus by force. This led not only medical students but also
other students who had not been interested in the issue to become angry with the
university authorities and join the lockdown. Eventually, they occupied the
Yasuda Auditorium, the symbol of the university. Some of the student activists
stayed in tents in front of the Auditorium, playing guitars and singing together,
and debating university and social problems.
The student activists went far beyond the issue of increasing control by the
university authorities over students to such broader issues as the social role of
the university. As with the student activists of Tokyo Education University who
pointed out the problems of academic-industry cooperation, the Tokyo Univer-
sity activists advocated that universities helped private companies to make
profits. In particular, they criticised university professors for obstructing their
protests to “defend academic freedom”. Adachi Kazuhiro, a research assistant at
the College of Arts and Science, urged those who were afraid that further lock-
downs would ruin the university to continue the lockdowns. He wrote:
Who are the people who will be in trouble when Tokyo University is
scrapped? They are the teachers who are assured of public respect (how
inane!) and status with the title of professor or associate professor; they are
the shameless netoraiki students [people who do not join the lockdowns and
stay at home for their duration] and rightists who find pleasure in getting the
graduation certificate of Tokyo University, getting into the fast track,
becoming high officials or elite engineers, and acting as agents of the
regime; they are members of the JCP and Minsei who are afraid that their
colleagues will be purged in academic councils in the Departments, act only
for the political hegemony on campus, and do not care about Tôdai Tôsô.
(Adachi 1969, p. 115)
The student activists involved in the struggle found it crucial to reflect on their
privileged position. Students at Tokyo University were expected to become
high-ranking officials or elite engineers after they graduated from the university.
The student activists were very critical of the university system which repro-
duced the hierarchical relationship in the research/teaching groups, but they real-
ised that it was they who would take advantage of the system in the future. The
activists who faced this fact argued that they had to transform their own elitism.
This meant that their reflection on elitism led inevitably to larger social and
political change; that is, transforming the university system. Adachi Kazuhiro
continued:
However, I was shocked after criticising these people. The critique was
immediately turned on myself. Was it I who should be criticised? Was it I

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72 New Left movements in the 1960s
that should be negated and smashed? Was it I that was unconsciously com-
plicit in vicious authoritarianism and elitism without careful consideration,
without criticising the negative roles of Tokyo University, or questioning
my own egoism?... I could not help saying yes. I negated myself with anger
and self-antipathy to myself. I think that I became able to join the struggle
in the true sense of the term once I negated myself.
(Adachi 1969, p. 116)
The fundamental idea of Tôdai Tôsô was thus to transform elitism immersed
in their minds. Here "living truly and honestly" meant that they tried not to close
their eyes to "injustice". Both Nichidai Tôsô and Tôdai Tôsô concentrated on
their commitment to social justice, but their focus was different between the two.
Student activists of Tokyo University focused primarily on the issue of their
being in the ruling position in the university system rather than of their being
unjustly treated by university authorities. The activists were resentful of the
fact
that they victimised someone else and reflected on their position. This reflection
was clearly shown in the slogan “self-negation". The activists were obliged by
this word to reflect on their own elitism. In this way, the underlying idea of
Tôdai Tôsó was characterised as self-reflection.
Since the social positions of students of Nihon University and those of Tokyo
University were different, the underlying ideas were not the same. However,
both self-reflection and self-liberation were two different sides of the same coin
that was the idea of self-revolution.
The emergence of “everydayness"
In early 1969, when student protests at Nihon and Tokyo universities were
driven into a difficult situation by intervention by the university authorities and
the police (discussed in the next chapter), the word "everydayness (nichijōsei)"
came to be frequently used in the discourse space of New Left movements. What
did "everydayness" mean? The slogan of the campus festival of Tokyo Educa-
tion University in 1965 was "Re-examining Everydayness: Pull out Peace Con-
sciousness (nichijôsei no saikakunin o: heiwaishiki o kumiagero)". This was one
of the earliest examples of using "everydayness" in the discourse of the New
Left. Its student activists came to know that they could no longer ignore depoliti-
cised consciousness in people's affluent lives. In an article in Kyôiku Daigaku
Shimbun, “everydayness" was illustrated as “a rut, conformism, and apathy,
which we have to overcome". The article continued by stating that Japanese
people were indulged in a "glamorous consumer-driven civilisation" produced
by the economic boom and were losing the "mind critical of current society”,
and such "everydayness" led to Japan's support for the USA's involvement in
the Vietnam War. While this article looked negatively at "everydayness", it also
emphasised the positive aspects, such as "naïve humanism, antiwar conscious-
ness, and various desires in everyday life", and made a suggestion to take
advantage of the latter aspect.33
New Left movements in the 1960s 73
The negative understanding of "everydayness" was dominant in the late
1960s. In a roundtable talk of student activists at Tokyo University held in early
1969, a question was posed to them: what did the popular slogan "everydayness"
mean to the movements? An activist who studied economics stated that “every-
dayness" was "the dominant way of thinking - everything ranging from people's
art of living better to the congnitive system academically discussed by intellectu-
als": the politics of "representative democracy", the economics of "rapid
growth", and people's expectations that "some day their hopes will be realised".
Being suspicious of these things and unveiling them is “getting out of everyday-
ness".34 In this way, "everydayness" was viewed in this roundtable talk as a
target to be overcome.
The other example of the use of "everydayness” was a statement by a woman
living in Nerima ward who had a three-year-old child. She was reluctant to join
action against the Vietnam War because she did not want to sacrifice her time. In
July 1968 she saw American wounded soldiers transported to the Asaka field
hospital in Saitama prefecture. This strongly persuaded her to be involved in a
local group of Ôizumi city. She took various actions, such as distributing antiwar
leaflets to American soldiers, collecting signatures to remove the field hospital,
joining regular demonstrations, applying for permission for demonstrations to
the police, interviewing the governor of Tokyo and the mayor of Asaka city, and
printing newsletters. She stated how she felt at that time:
I, who live while defending everydayness, am a person who upholds the
reality of Japan. It is necessary to act beyond everydayness even if the
action is small-scale. This is a proof that I am a human being.35
Her comments show that "everydayness" was used to question their peaceful
lives and transform the way they live. As was mentioned before, "the controlled
society" was also a term addressing problems caused by "disciplinisation". But
the word "everydayness" illustrated more clearly than "the controlled society"
that the contest of daily lives was at stake in the movements. Before the emer-
gence of "everydayness", the primary concern of New Left movements was to
bring about a change in the way of living. Around 1969, “everydayness" was
located in a word expressing constraints which made it difficult for activists to
implement the idea of self-revolution; that is, transforming the way they live. As
was discussed in the last section, self-revolution was composed of “liberation”
from rising social control in daily lives and “reflection” upon affluent daily
lives.
But the balance of liberation and reflection was off, and was oriented towards
reflection. Such a change in discourses was brought about during this period.
Gewalt for personal transformation
Many New Left students found it difficult to transform their daily consciousness
and behaviour, because they could not identify a target to be changed. As was
discussed earlier, Yoshioka Shinobu, a young activist of Beheiren, advocated

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74 New Left movements in the 1960s
that because many Japanese people were distracted by increasing numbers of
consumer goods like TVs, they could not identify "who ruled whom” in the con-
trolled society. He went on to say that therefore, although Japan was deeply
involved in the Vietnam War, most Japanese people saw themselves as uncon-
nected to it.36 Writer Matsugi Nobuhiko, hearing a story from a student of
Zenkyôtô, stated that New Leftists want to fight the enemy with their whole
being, but they are disturbed by the lack of a "visible enemy”. “Their enemy is
ultimately not people but the system, so only destroying the wall in a bank is not
really productive".37 New Left students did not usually feel they were facing the
enemy or the authorities when they sought to transform "everydayness", so they
seldom gained a sense of accomplishment or fulfilment through their actions.
Matsugi implied that New Leftists desired to confront the enemy in order to gain
the visible results of changing "everydayness".
Many New Leftists felt uneasy about the lack of a benchmark to show to what
extent they had achieved self-transformation in "everydayness". This made it
difficult for the activists to feel a sense of accomplishment or fulfilment. Taking
direct action labelled "gewalt (gebaruto)" or "counter-violence (taikô bôryoku)”
helped them to gain such a sense. In order to understand why the lack of a
benchmark led the activists to more direct action, it is necessary to explore its
meaning. They were very creative in developing various repertoires of direct
action: the zigzag or snake-dancing demonstration; occupation of a symbolic
space such as Haneda Airport; confrontations with the riot police by demonstra-
tors wearing colour-coded helmets and carrying wooden fighting staves; distri-
bution of flowers to passers-by on the streets, and so on (Steinhoff 1999,
pp. 3-4).
New Leftists sought to distinguish "violence for emancipation" from "viol-
ence for oppression". Nomura Osamu, a philosopher who worked vigorously on
the theorisation of "violence for emancipation", wrote:
As compared to overwhelming violence from rulers, students' violence in
demonstrations is obviously trivial. Demonstrations must be protected, but
if violence or non-violence is judged only by the quantitative scale, it seems
strange. I also regard students' demonstrations or lockdowns on campus as
non-violent, not because their violence is small but because they are aimed
to eliminate violence. In short, their actions are non-violent. It is undeniable
that the students' violence includes the moments of [real] violence, but the
moments are much tinier than those of the authorities' violence. This is the
moments of counter-violence against the authorities.38
According to Nomura, the aim of direct action called "gewalt" or "counter-
violence" was to reclaim violence, which was monopolised by the state, for the
people, and to bring an end to the violence of the state. This distinction of
“viol-
ence" was shared by a wide range of New Leftists. New Leftists saw gewalt as
violence for social justice. They gave legitimacy to people's direct action or
counter-violence against the state or the university authorities.
New Left movements in the 1960s 75
It should be emphasised that direct action was aimed to produce symbolic
effects. At a roundtable of student activists on direct action, Egusa Fukuji, a
student member of Tôdai Zenkyôtô who specialised in science, stated:
I think that the issue of violence is concerned with criticism of the ideas of
modern bourgeois society. Ideologically, when we have gebabó [a wooden
stick which New Leftists carried in their confrontations with the police] and
a helmet, it is nothing else but symbolic action. Because various indirect
rules are certainly built into current society, identifying the power is almost
impossible. The power dogs us somehow, and does not reveal itself when
we try to find it. Violence is actually a symbol to reveal that the indirect
rules are themselves a violent system.
39
New Left students were “armed" with a helmet and gebabô following the
Haneda incident, but they were obviously powerless against heavily armed riot
police. The activists thought that direct action was different from armed strug-
gles, because the purpose of their action was only to produce symbolic effects
rather than to harm someone.
Why did some New Leftists feel a need to clash with the riot police, taiikukai
members, or Minsei? The activists were disturbed by the lack of a visible enemy,
but the clash gave them a sense of fulfilment or accomplishment at transforming
"everydayness”. Their wooden staves were seen not as arms but rather as the
symbol of confrontation with the controlled society. Kashiwazaki Chieko, the
student activist mentioned earlier, wrote:
Why do we do gewalt? We are weak. We, human beings, have unavoid-
able weakness. Morally corrupted teachers, Minsei, and rightists, as
negative examples, illustrate to us that to be a student of Tokyo Univer-
sity, which has cozy relations with the power structure, is to become an
oppressor or criminal against ordinary people, but we are attracted by dull
and comfortable lives. We feel that we may go toward the easy direction,
so we resort to gewalt to accuse and negate ourselves.... Gewalt is aimed
to purify our ideas to the last drop. In order to place ourselves on the edge
of the cliff, to drive ourselves into the place of no escape, to make our
words "genuine", and never to escape from the struggle, we use gebabô
against "our ugly selves" which are revealed in Minsei, rightists, and the
riot police. We take on a large burden by using gebabô against the objec-
tified enemy. "Are we really ethical enough to beat them? Are they and we
just two of a kind?” Only when we continue to address these questions
drastically will our "gewalt" be purified and our ideas will be deepened.
We cannot resort to "gewalt" without the process of firmly believing that
our ideas are absolutely superior to theirs. It is through such a strict self-
examination before we use gebabô that we will become genuinely trained
and enhanced.
(Kashiwazaki 1969, pp. 201-203)

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76 New Left movements in the 1960s
Kashiwazaki's comment shows how New Leftists regarded direct action. Gewalt
was seen as a benchmark of their commitment. The activists felt that they were
"living truly and honestly" when taking direct action. In a roundtable talk by
several
new leftists of Tokyo University, they discussed why they committed "violence".
An activist stated that he expressed his "faith in the righteousness of his way of
living and his ideas" through direct action. He went on to say that "the only
option I
have is to risk my life in order to fulfil my way of living” (Tôdai Zengaku Joshu
Kyôtô Kaigi 1969, pp. 201-202). His comments show that by taking confronta-
tional direct action the activists became confident in their righteousness and came
to
realise that they were committed to transforming "everydayness”.
Many New Leftists also felt more alive by taking direct action. Direct action
enabled New Leftists to feel as if they were liberated from the controlled society
and to get a sense of fulfilment or accomplishment. They clashed with the authori-
ties with their helmets and gebabô, and felt scared and sometimes got injured, but
this
gave them a sense of living. A student of Nihon University stated:
I have never felt that I am alive, because I do not know why I live, so I do
not care when I will die. I have no prospects in the future and no meaning in
my life. When facing death with a helmet and a wooden stave, I feel alive
somehow. I can be aware of being alive.
(Sawanobori 1997, p. 96)
A similar view on direct action may be found in Haneda Motoko's comments.
She was a young New Leftist who had difficulty adjusting to the rules of schools
and finally dropped out of school at 17. She was willing to join confrontational
actions such as demonstrations near Haneda Airport against Prime Minister
Sato's visit to the USA in October 1967. The experience of clashing with armed
police officers in demonstrations on the streets shocked her into a realisation of
the reality of political power. She learned lessons about the reality of political
powers like the state. She became able to feel that she was alive when joining
these confrontational actions.40
In this way, direct action aimed to produce symbolic effects. In order to
achieve a sense of accomplishment and being alive, more and more New Left
students identified the riot police, taiikukai students, and Minsei as the enemy,
and clashed violently with them. As Kashiwazaki suggested, the activists recog-
nised some of the ugly side of the enemy within themselves; thus the perform-
ance of confrontation with the controlled society through direct action showed
their resolve to distance themselves from the enemy. In this sense, New Leftists
took inward-looking symbolic action to achieve a sense of fulfilling self-
transformation in "everydayness" rather than to enhance political influence or
achieve military success. Direct action was thus increasingly radical, and the
number of people who were arrested increased. For example, 345 activists were
arrested in the second Haneda incident in early November 1967. The figure sur-
passed that of the entire Anpo protests in 1960. In 1968 alone, more than 6,000
students were arrested during protest actions (Steinhoff 1999, pp. 4–5).
Notes
New Left movements in the 1960s 77
1 Matsubara Shinichi, Kamitsubo Hideko, and Muro Kenji, “Sensô o Shiranai Sedai no
Sensôkan: Shinkyû Sedaikan no Danzetsu o Umerutameni" in Asahi Jânaru, 13
August 1967, p. 72.
2 Ibid., pp. 75-77.
3 Ôtsuka Akira, “Jinminha Uyoku' no Tatakai” in Nihon Daigaku Zengaku Kyôtô
Kaigi and Ishida Ikuo (eds), Nichidai Zenkyôtô: Kyoken ni Kakushitsu o Kamosu
Kokorozashi. Tokyo: Shiira Shobô, 1969, pp. 152–153.
4 Saitô Susumu, “Semipori no Shisô” in Chôbun sha Henshûbu (ed.), Gakusei wa Hat-
sugen suru: Jidai no Shôgen Seishun no Akashi. Tokyo: Chôbunsha, 1969, pp. 66–68.
5 Prime Minister Ikeda Hayato declared in 1962 that he would seek to amend the Uni-
versity Management Law. Many student activists were concerned that the amendment
aimed to strengthen control over the activists. They organised rallies and
demonstra-
tions against the Law and the Ikeda cabinet.
6 The Japanese government began to discuss the Normalisation Treaty in 1951, but
the
negotiation did not progress owing to several difficult issues, such as war
reparations.
South Korean President Park Chung-Hee took office in 1963. Because he was inter-
ested in strengthening economic ties with Japan, he was passionate about ratifying
the
Treaty. However, many South Korean people, who had been colonised by Japan in
the Second World War, were afraid that Japanese companies would increase their
influence in Korea. As a result they developed protest actions to prevent the
ratifica-
tion. Some Japanese student activists gave support to the Korean people and organ-
ised protest actions against the Treaty in Japan.
7 “Seinenzô no Bunki to Kôsaku' in Asahi Jânaru, 14 July 1963, p. 16.
8 The Sôka Gakkai is a new religious group. Its beliefs derive from Nichiren
Buddhism
and it was founded in 1930. In the 1950s and 1960s the Sôka Gakkai focused on
organising poor people living in urban areas and quickly increased its membership.
9 "Seinenzô no Bunki to Kôsaku” in Asahi Jânaru, 14 July 1963, p. 18.
10 Ishihara Shintarô, “Gendai Seinen eno Teigen" in Bungei Shunjû, May 1967,
pp. 133-134.
11 “Gakusei Katsudôka no libun” in Shisô no Kagaku, January 1968, p. 29.
12 Asahi Shimbun, 9 October 1967, p. 2.
13 Asahi Shimbun, 15 January 1968, p. 3.
14 “Soshi Kôdô no Unda Rentai to Danzetsu: 'Gunshû' o 'Shimin' ni Seichô Saseta
Nanokakan" in Asahi Janaru, 4 February 1968, p. 10.
15 Ibid., pp. 9-10.
16 Yoshioka Shinobu, “Gojyû gô o Mukaete Shimatta Beheiren Nyûsu no Koto" in
Beheiren Nyusu, November 1969, pp. 4–5.
17 Ibid., p. 4.
18 Shibata Michiko, “Sannin no Josei no Shôzô”, in Shisô no Kagaku, June 1968, p.
26.
19 Oku was an activist who was affiliated with one of the tôha. He was so moved by
the
death of Kanba Michiko that he participated in demonstrations against the Anpo
Treaty
in June 1960. After he entered Yokohama City University in 1963, he became involved
in student movements. He was a passionate and stoic activist. Oku was badly injured
in
the clashes with the police in February 1965. In the following month, he worried so
ser-
iously about his life, love affairs, and activism that he committed suicide.
20 Waida was a student activist who was affiliated with one of the tôha at Nihon
Univer-
sity. In June 1966, he participated in actions against the Japan-Korea
Normalisation
Treaty, confronted the police, and was seriously injured. He finally died from his
inju-
ries a month later.
21 Andô Konpachi, “Uchinaru Yamazaki Kun tono Taiwa" in Nihon Daigaku Zengaku
Kyôtô Kaigi, and Ishida Ikuo (eds), Nichidai Zenkyôtô: Kyoken ni Kakushitsu o
Kamosu Kokorozashi. Tokyo: Shiira Shobô, 1969, p. 169.

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78 New Left movements in the 1960s
22 Ibid., p. 170.
23 Kimura Katsutoshi, “Sasebo kara no Tegami” in Asahi Jânaru, 4 February 1968, p.
6.
24 Bunri Sensen, April 1969, p. 1.
25 Following the Anpo protests of 1960 Shimizu remained distant from progressive
movements, shifted to state-centred nationalism, and supported nuclear armament
after the 1970s.
26 Minsei and the JCP claimed that Japanese young people were victimised by the
Emperor System (tennôsei) during wartime and by the USA during the postwar
period. They believed that scientific research would help Japanese people to be
liber-
ated from the oppressive Japanese and American states. In the late 1960s, some
activ-
ists of Minsei and the JCP were shocked by New Leftists' claim that the Japanese
government gave support to the USA in victimising the Vietnamese people.
Kawakami Tôru, who was a leader of the JCP-affiliated student associations in the
early 1960s and then worked in Minsei, looked back on this: "This might be my per-
sonal problem, but people in the JCP did not overall have a viewpoint of self-
negation, so they did not see themselves as victimiser. Hence, I was surprised when
non-sect radicals addressed the issue of self-negation later. Then, for the first
time, I
came to think seriously about how to respond to the issue” (Kawakami and Ôkubo
2007, p. 144). Some young activists of Minsei, who treated the issue of self-
negation
seriously, worked with their colleagues in the JCP who were concerned about bureau-
cratisation in the party and formed an informal group, and discussed the internal
reforms of the party. Although they were finally punished by the party's leaders in
the
early 1970s (shin hiyorimishugi jiken), this shows that the ideas of New Left move-
ments had an impact on some activists in the JCP.
27 The heated confrontation between Old and New Leftists was a characteristic of
Jap-
anese civil society during this period. In the USA, communism was excluded from
the official political arena in the 1950s, so American New Leftists did not need to
specify their differences from Old Leftists, but rather they were affected by
commu-
nists in their views of social injustice. For example, SDS (Students for a
Democratic
Society) eliminated its anti-communist exclusion principle for members when it
organised the first major national demonstration against the Vietnam War in 1965
(Gitlin 1980, p. 21). In Italy, the PCI (the Communist Party of Italy) was one of
the
most powerful parties in the 1960s and 1970s. In this political situation, Italian
New
Leftists often took joint actions with PCI activists and labour unionists on
housing
conditions and the price of transport. This alliance lasted until the PCI began to
support the conservative Christian Democratic Party in 1978, became a part of the
national government, and was looked upon as an enemy by the New Leftists (della
Porta 1995, pp. 27–33).
28 Akita Akehiro and Fukuda Yoshihiro, "Taidan Gakusei Hanran kara Sô Hanran e:
Nichidai Tôsô wa Uttaeru" in Zenkyôtô o Yomu. Tokyo: Jôkyô Shuppan, 1997, p. 58
(first published in Jôkyô, March 1969).
29 Oda Makoto, Sakura Reiji, Seimiya Makoto, Fukutomi Setsuo, Sakai Akio, Torigoe
Toshio, Honma Masahiro, Mamiya Shin, and Yamamoto Yoshiyuki, “Nihon Shakai
no Shukuzu' eno Hangyaku: Nichidai Tôsô ga Mezasu Mono" in Oda Makoto, Taka-
hashi Kazumi, and Matsugi Nobuhiko (eds), Henkaku no Shisô o Tou. Tokyo:
Chikuma Shobô, 1969, p. 18.
30 Yazaki Kaoru, Tateno Toshiharu, and Sakai Akio, “Zadankai Akumade Taishû Tôsô
toshite" in Asahi Jânaru, 1 June 1969, p. 20.
31 K.K., "Gakuyû eno Apîru", in Bunri Sensen, 25 March 1969, p. 2.
32 Some of the medical students locked out a senior medical staff's office to
protest
against the bill to obligate graduates of medical schools to be registered as
intern
doctors on 19 February 1968. In March the university authorities made a decision to
punish 17 students for the lockdown (it was quickly revealed that one of the 17
stu-
dents was not in Tokyo and did not join the lockdowns). This decision made many
New Left movements in the 1960s 79
student activists at Tokyo University angry with the undemocratic decision-making
by the university authorities, and their protests were radicalised.
33 “Nichijôsei no Saikakunin: Heiwa Ishiki o Kumiagero!” in Kyôiku Daigaku Shimbun,
25 May 1965,
p.
3.
34 Suzuki Yûichi, Ozawa Seiji, Seto Shûsuke, Gotô Shinsuke, Okayasu Shigehiro, and
Kobayashi Ryôichi, “Tôdai Tôsô Ichi Ten Ichi Hachi Ikô: 'Tôdai Kaitai' towa
Nanika" in Tenbô, April 1969,
p. 80.
35 Wada Akiko, "Nichijôsei eno Dangai o Komete" in Asahi Jánaru, 22 June 1969,
p. 43.
36 Yoshioka, "Gojyû gô o Mukaete Shimatta Beheiren Nyûsu no Koto", pp. 4-5.
37 "Watashitachi no Kiseki to ‘Ima': Sakka Matsugi Nobuhiko san ni Kiku" in
Beheiren
Nyusu, 1 February 1969, p. 2.
38 Nomura Osamu, “Bôryokuron: Kenryoku to Han Kenryoku no Taiwa” in Gendai no
Me, April 1969, p. 140.
39 Matsugi Nobuhiko, Iida Keisuke, Egusa Fukuji, Kusakasa Yasuhiro, Hasegawa
Hiroshi, Masumoto Ume, and Murata Hideki, "Daigaku Henkaku kara Shakai
Henkaku e: Tôdai Zenkyôtô no Kadai” in Oda Makoto, Takahashi Kazumi, and
Matsugi Nobuhiko (eds), Henkaku no Shisô o Tou. Tokyo: Chikuma Shobô, 1969,
p. 148.
40 Haneda Motoko, “Hankenryoku Kôdô no Konkyo: Watashi no Nôto kara” in Shisô no
Kagaku, May 1968, pp. 32–33.

Page 19
3
The decline of the New Left from
the 1960s into the 1970s
The changing characteristics of
self-revolution in "everydayness"
The New Left's success in mobilising supporters came to an end around 1970.
An increasing number of activists gave up their commitment to activism. This
chapter examines problems within New Left movements and challenges from
without to show what prevented New Leftists from spreading their values to a
wide range of people.
This chapter, first of all, argues how the police controlled New Left move-
ments. Due to the massive arrest of the activists, the movements demobilised
rapidly. Some activists were armed, visibly showing the extent to which they
had achieved self-transformation in "everydayness". This counter-violence
sometimes inflicted damage upon local residents, who had not participated in the
movements but had given them implicit support. As an increasing number of
community people developed an antipathy to the New Left, the police sought to
gain support from people in communities by working with them and creating a
positive image of the police in the media.
Second, this chapter explores how New Leftists, while the police had suc-
ceeded in controlling them, found it difficult to continue their commitment to
activism. Strategies by the police resulted in transforming the characteristics of
self-revolution in "everydayness"; while the aspect of self-liberation was
eclipsed, that of self-reflection came to the fore. Due to this change in the dis-
course, New Leftists, in transforming "everydayness", increased the risk of being
too harsh on their colleagues and causing troubles or conflicts between the activ-
ists (inter- or intra-group conflicts called uchigeba). Since New Leftists were
obliged to transform "everydayness" without any compromises, they were ser-
iously disturbed by a sense of failure after they gave up their commitment; the
sense of failure prevented them from passing on their experiences of activism to
the next generation. I argue that many activists were propelled by these dif-
ficulties entailed by self-transformation in "everydayness" to leave the move-
ments. These difficulties further aggravated the initial decline of the movements
which had resulted from mass arrests.
1 Dissent from the community
Escalation of counter-violence
New Left decline, 1960s into the 1970s 81
As was discussed in Chapter 2, since New Leftists did not have clear criteria by
which to measure the extent to which they had achieved self-transformation in
"everydayness", "gewalt" or "counter-violence" was seen as the criterion. New
Leftists felt pain in their clashes with the riot police. This pain made it
possible
for the activists to recognise that they sought to transform their consciousness
and behaviour. The activists were propelled by the lack of visible criteria to take
further direct action.
As gewalt escalated, the police authorities boosted the number of police offic-
ers in order to control protesters. In the fiscal year of 1969, 5,000 new police
officers were recruited; 2,500 of these officers were assigned to the riot police,
and 1,000 were assigned as security police officers (Hironaka 1973, p. 308). The
police focused in particular on controlling radical student activists. In August
1969, the Diet enacted the University Operations Temporary Measures Law
(Daigaku Unei Rinji Sochi Hô); this law gave the police the power to intervene
in campus disputes. On 21 October 1969, when large numbers of people were
predicted to participate in the International Antiwar Day demonstration, 25,000
police officers of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department (hereafter TMPD)
and 75,000 officers in various parts of Japan were mobilised to control
demonstrators.¹
For example, student activists at Tokyo University who occupied a number of
buildings on campus including the Yasuda Auditorium were arrested by the
police. On 18 and 19 January 1969, 8,500 riot police sealed off the Hongô
campus, tore down barricades, and cleared the occupied buildings: 819 students
were finally arrested in the two days of conflict (Steinhoff 1999, p. 206). More
than 600 activists were prosecuted, and their trial lasted several years. As a
result, 15 occupants in the Yasuda Auditorium were given a two-year prison sen-
tence (Takagi 1985, p. 128).
The number of activists who were arrested increased during this period: 1,400
in demonstrations on the International Antiwar Day in October 1968; 1,940 in
confrontation with the police near Haneda Airport on 16 November 1968; 697 in
strikes against the Anpo Treaty on 23 June 1969; and more than 1,700 in actions
against the reversion of Okinawa to Japan on 19 November 1971 (Kôan Shiryô
Chôsakai 1972, pp. 1-8). In 1969, 14,728 were arrested (85 per cent of whom
were student activists) (Steinhoff 1991, p. 88). In some cases the government
allowed the police to control protests beyond the law based on the Antisubver-
sive Activities Law (Hakai Katsudô Bôshihô), enacted in 1952 to maintain
public order. Even in more routine cases, activists were forced to observe rules
by which the police were able to regulate protest actions in public spaces: for
example, by limiting the number of people in a column to six during street dem-
onstrations. These rules made it possible for the police to accuse demonstrators
of violating the rules and arrest them. Since many New Leftists worried about

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82 New Left decline, 1960s into the 1970s
this mass arrest and prosecution, the movements were rapidly demobilised
around 1970.
New Leftists were increasingly driven by the tightened security into an unfa-
vourable position. In this situation, a small number of them began guerrilla
action with petrol bombs; some radical groups whose members came from New
Leftist groups shifted strategy and sought to achieve military success. This shift
was clearly shown in Takita Osamu's argument. He had been an activist of
Zenkyôtô at Kyoto University in the late 1960s, but began to support militarisa-
tion of the movements around 1970. In an essay written in 1969, he emphasised
that Zenkyôtô aimed at "self-negation" and it was time to shift to the next phase.
According to him, a problem of Zenkyôtô was that its tactics and organisations
were too narrowly constrained as they were based on campuses of each univer-
sity. Zenkyôtô had aimed to "Dismantle Imperial Universities", but it would be
unable to achieve this goal without transforming its tacitics and organisations
(Takita 1969, pp. 164-166). He emphasised that student actvists would need to
obtain the support of all people, including public servants, workers in small fac-
tories, high school students, and ethinic minorities, in order to dismantle the
imperial universities (Takita 1969, pp. 172–173).
In doing this, Takita claimed that Zenkyôtô needed to organise a powerful
leadership group; that is, a "provisional revolutionary government (rinji kakumei
seifu)”, to achieve the goal (Takita 1969, p. 180). He went on to say that the
leadership group would not work without being armed. "We must firmly and
vigorously arm ourselves”. In this way, he advocated that the activists should
form a guerrilla force: a "partisan quintet (paruchizan goningumi)". They had
held demonstrations and formed blockades with wooden staves, stones, and
bottles, but they would take on a more militaristic repertoire of protests.
Takita's
argument clearly shows how New Leftists were militarised. In the late 1960s,
when New Left movements were supported by a wide range of people, military
success was not compatible with the principle of the movements, but as New
Leftists faced difficulties around 1970, some of them became sufficiently milita-
rised to break through the difficult situation. It is true that the logic of
justifying
arming by activists from the tôha originated from the idea of self-transformation
in "everydayness". But as was shown in how they gave priority to military
success, this logic should be distinguished from the discourse of the New Left,
in which individuals were obliged to focus exclusively on "live truly and
honestly".
The pursuit of direct action for military success changed New Left groups. In
order to maximise the effects of military actions, the activists gave legitimacy to
division of labour by gender role in the groups: while men, as the more physic-
ally dominant, fought on the front, women, as the less physically dominant,
cooked on the home front. This division of labour was strengthened, especially
in situations such as when New Leftists clashed with police officers.
Tokuyama Haruko questioned this division of labour in New Left move-
ments. She entered Waseda University in 1964. When she returned from her
family home in January 1966, some students began to conduct sit-in strikes on
New Left decline, 1960s into the 1970s 83
campus for the autonomy of the student association building. In a debate session
hosted by the student association, she was so impressed by the lively discussions
among her classmates about the strikes that she became more involved in the
lockdowns in the area behind the barricades. The university authorities ordered
the police to remove the student activists from the university campus.
In fighting with the authorities and the police, she became frustrated with the
division of labour by gender role:
Women students were covertly assigned to “rescue missions" and were seen
as "porters" in demonstrations. We were so irritated by this. Although I was
physically less strong than men, I wanted to join demonstrations instead of
carrying luggage and to make a speech at rallies instead of cooking rice
balls for demonstrators. I did what I wanted to do, but this was tiring to me,
because the division of labour by gender role was taken for granted [by
other activists] at that time.
(Tokuyama 1996, p. 88)
These women activists were dissatisfied with the division of labour reproduced
in New Left movements, though the movements aimed to create an alternative
space based on social justice. In due course, many of them finally left the
movements.
The loss of popular support
The militarisation of New Left groups had another negative effect for the move-
ments: the isolation of radical activists. This gradually changed the view of
bystanders outside the New Left movements who had given implicit support to
the movements or regarded them from a neutral standpoint. The bystanders.
became afraid of gewalt which took place so erratically that they could not
predict when and where it would occur. Some residents suffered physical injury
or damage to their property from armed conflicts between protesters and police
officers. For example, on 17 June 1971, radical New Leftists clashed heavily
with the riot police in a demonstration in Meiji Park against the reversion of
Okinawa to Japan.² Some residents who lived near the Park were wounded in the
clashes. Mononobe Nagaoki, an antiwar activist who watched the demonstration,
reported on the suffering of residents:
Meiji Park is in front of the Olympic street. Residents live quietly with their
small-scale workplaces on the opposite side of the Park. They suffered
damage from the fierce fighting between demonstrators and the riot police.
It was a carpenter's shop that was the most heavily damaged. He is an old-
fashioned carpenter who makes joinery with chisels and hammers on the dirt
floor of his house. New timber and goods in the making were used to set up
barricades. Another person works as an electronic technician at his shop. He
had a batch of pipes for the wiring taken out and stolen. Not only that, one

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84 New Left decline, 1960s into the 1970s
resident after another complained; stones were thrown at their houses; they
could not sleep from fear.³
In the late 1960s, many New Leftists claimed that direct action was legitimate,
because gewalt aimed to correct injustices caused by the state or university
authorities. However, residents and police officers sometimes suffered physical
damage from the violence. What did New Leftists think about this? In April
1969, when the problems of gewalt had not yet been highlighted, student activ-
ists at Kyoto University discussed counter-violence at a roundtable. Ôta Shizuo,
a Zenkyôtô student in the Faculty of Letters, had already addressed a question:
For example, many people say that student activists' violence is inevitably
defensive, and neither murderous nor offensive. Fortunately or unfortu-
nately, no one has been killed in the struggles, but this shows that our ethics
are not enough... the riot police may be, as a phenomenon, a representation
of the authorities and may support it at the grassroots level, though I think
that they are just the lowest-ranked officers. If we look at them individually,
the police suffer a sense of alienation. Those who work as the police, natur-
ally, suffered the class contradiction more heavily than us. We have to build
up advanced theories or actions gradually in order to liberate them from the
contradiction.4
He could not illustrate it clearly, but he implied that the idea of counter-
violence
gave radical New Leftists an implicit consensus that any form of gewalt was per-
missible. But was counter-violence still legitimate if people outside the move-
ments, including the police, suffered damage, were injured, or killed by it? At
the roundtable, the reply of another student was that "I am indifferent to ethical
issues [concerning the outcomes of gewalt]", and other students nodded sympa-
thetically. This shows that many New Leftists did not think seriously about the
negative outcomes of counter-violence in the 1960s.
Around 1970, New Left movements were losing popularity, but most New
Leftists did not care about popular support very much. This attitude derived from
the principle of the movements; that is, transforming "everydayness". The prin-
ciple is shown in a student activist's comment in the middle of the blockade of
the Yasuda Auditorium of Tokyo University in 1968:
The blockade of the main campus represents our principle: we challenge our
existence itself, and build and develop the struggle. Immediately before the
blockade, it was said that we had no choice but to be isolated if we did this.
Can we not get anything unless we transform ourselves together with
ordinary people in our actions? We thought that we could build a beautiful
popular movement by sticking to the principle of our actions.³
The activists felt it was secondary to gain popular support from the public; more
significant for them was living faithfully by their principles. Their actions had
New Left decline, 1960s into the 1970s 85
been supported by some bystanders outside the movements after the Sasebo inci-
dent. However, they did not think seriously about what would happen if they
adhered to their principles.
The emergence of vigilante groups
Many New Leftists were also shocked by the reactions of local residents in
cities. Some residents who were concerned about damage from confrontational
actions organised vigilante groups to protect themselves from the actions. For
example, vigilante groups in Tokyo began to announce that they would expel
"violent students” from their cities after the end of 1968 (Hironaka 1973, p. 307).
Before the International Antiwar Day on 21 October 1969, about 40 private self-
protection groups were formed in some districts of Tokyo, such as Shinjuku,
Kanda, Yotsuya, and Shibuya.
Many young people of Beheiren sang folk-songs and conducted debating ses-
sions in the square at the western gate of Shinjuku Station. In July 1969, the
local government of Shinjuku changed the "square" into a "walkway", and all
rallies were banned. Shopkeepers in the street helped the police to monitor
young people who gathered together in the "square". A director of the chamber
of commerce on the shopping street near the station explained why they had
formed a vigilante group in the district: when "violent students" held demonstra-
tions and the riot police sought to control demonstrators, pedestrians suffered,
signboards of shops were broken, and customers felt threatened due to the
clashes between demonstrators and the police. Department stores and other small
shops closed earlier than usual to avoid trouble, and this caused major damage to
local businesses; as a result, local people who were concerned about the damage
began to organise their own security group."
In November 1969, Asahi Shimbun reported on a vigilante group around
Kamata station, the station near Haneda Airport. The group tried to hunt down
demonstrators around Haneda Airport who protested against Prime Minister
Sato's visit to the USA. Prime Minister Satô was due to discuss the reversion of
Okinawa to Japan with the American president:
In a restaurant street near Kamata station, owners of fish shops stood
wearing headbands, rubber boots, and carried wooden swords. At 4:15pm,
five activists wearing helmets escaping from the riot police threw five or six
petrol bombs. A young vigilante clashed with an activist wearing a white
helmet. "You bastard!" A wooden sword hit the man wearing a white
helmet, just as the vigilante was struck by an iron pipe. Both shed blood.
The other three vigilantes quickly ran to help, and the man wearing a white
helmet still held his head."
The emergence of vigilante groups shows that New Leftists were beginning to
lose the implicit support of local people. In the Sasebo incident of January 1968,
students' confrontational actions were supported by some local residents referred

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86 New Left decline, 1960s into the 1970s
to as "the crowd" by the media. The crowds emerged again in the demonstration
against the field hospital for the US military in Ôji, Tokyo in March 1968.
Because an increasing number of American military personnel were wounded in
Vietnam, there was a plan to build a hospital in Ôji. Many local residents pro-
tested against this, and New Leftists, particularly many of the tôha activists,
worked together with the residents. On 8 March, many student activists, sporting
helmets and gebabô, clashed with armed police officers. While Asahi Shimbun
criticised the clashes for destroying local people's property, it also reported
that
thousands of members of "the crowd", who opposed the field hospital, chanted
"Police, go home!" and shouted "Don't cooperate in the Vietnam War".⁹
"The crowd" gave support to New Leftists' confrontational actions on the
International Antiwar Day of 21 October 1968. A large number of demonstrators
blockaded public facilities in all parts of Tokyo, including Shinjuku station, and
many of them were arrested for rioting. On the following day, Asahi Shimbun
ran several comments by citizens who were angry with the destruction of trains
and stations. A 23-year-old woman said, "Do they [radical New Leftists] really
believe that they can gain support from people by protesting against the Vietnam
War in such a destructive way?"10
By the end of 1968, "the crowd" was being replaced by local residents who
were concerned about damage from direct action. In an action against the Prime
Minister's visit to the USA in November 1969, community residents formed
vigilante groups to protect themselves from direct action taken by some student
activists. On 17 November, the day after 77 citizens of Kamata were injured by
the activists' fire-bombs, Asahi Shimbun wrote, "Many people want to complain
about and protest against Prime Minister Satô's visit to the USA, but extremist
groups, which adopted indiscriminate guerrilla strategies, were excluded by resi-
dents from the main battle field on the day".11
The Sasebo incident slightly changed the media's view of direct action. The
media might still be critical of New Leftists' direct action, but they also ques-
tioned the government's policies and the police violence by publishing several
articles on the emergence of crowds who gave support to New Leftists. When
"the crowd" thinned and vigilante groups materialised, the media began to criti-
cise New Leftists of radical action without any reservations.
Many confrontational New Leftists were so shocked by the emergence of
vigilante groups that they were forced to rethink their optimistic belief that
bystanders outside the movements were their supporters. In the Haneda incident,
hundreds of New Leftists took direct action, called counter-violence or gewalt,
in late 1967. The action gained support from some local residents of Sasebo in
January 1968, not only because the visit of the American nuclear aircraft-carrier
Enterprise reminded the residents of their bitter memories of the Second World
War, but also because the residents were impressed by students' commitment to
actions for social justice. The support spread to a wide range of Japanese people
who were also dissatisfied with the increasing social control that accompanied
rapid economic growth. However, the emergence of vigilante groups shows that
the ties between counter-violence and popular support were being eroded. In the
New Left decline, 1960s into the 1970s 87
Sasebo incident and thereafter, many New Leftists believed optimistically that
their radical actions would be supported by a wide range of Japanese people. In
facing the emergence of vigilante groups in local areas of cities, however, they
were aware that the ties were fragile.
2 Policing protest based on communities
The police in the 1970s
In this section, I move to the issue of how the police sought to control New Left
movements. Before the movements became popular in the late 1960s, the police
force rationalised its organisation by establishing a division of labour and
assign-
ing police officers to each specialised department, such as criminal affairs,
traffic, or security. Furthermore, the chief of the security bureau in the National
Police Agency (hereafter the NPA) ordered that kôban12 (police boxes) should
be amalgamated under the slogan of modernisation or rationalisation. These
organisational reforms aimed to deal with crime over a wider area which resulted
from the expansion of urban traffic networks (Watanabe 1980, pp. 242-245).
In the late 1960s, a larger number of riot police were mobilised to strictly
control New Left movements. In 1969, the government increased the number of
riot police across the country: from 5,700 in 1967, to 9,700 in 1969 (Hironaka
1973, p. 309). The idea of “self-government at universities (daigaku no jichi)”
had prevented the police from intervening in students' protests, but the police
became active in dissolving blockades on campus during this period. A large
number of activists were charged with the crimes of taking offensive weapons to
rallies (kyôki jûnbi shugôzai) or interfering with the police's duties in
demonstra-
tions (komu shikkô bôgai), and were arrested on streets and on campus.
However, it soon became clear that this strategy was not necessarily effective.
On International Antiwar Day in October 1968, Shinjuku station was thrown into
chaos: student activists clashed with riot police and a fire broke out, and the
Self-
Defence Forces were finally deployed and prepared to control the protests in
order to maintain public order. 13 In addition, extremely strict policing created a
bad impression of the police among people outside the movements. Police offic-
ers injured several news reporters when they clashed with student activists in the
Sasebo incident of January 1968. For this reason, the media were sceptical of
and sometimes hostile to the police. The media helped the public to be wary of
the police (Hironaka 1973, pp. 299–303). The police finally controlled New
Leftists by force, but they did not gain support from a broad range of people.
Around 1970, the police reviewed the way of controlling New Left move-
ments. For this purpose, the General Task Force of the Police Administration
(Keisatsu Unei ni Kansuru Sôgô Taisaku Iinkai), a committee on police adminis-
tration, was formed by the NPA and the Cabinet in 1970. Senior officers of NPA
and the Cabinet began a debate about policing strategies in September 1969.
From August 1970, the Task Force was led by Takahashi Mikio who had been
deputy director of the NPA. The Task Force submitted its final report, 70 nendai

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88 New Left decline, 1960s into the 1970s
no Keisatsu: Gekidô to Henka eno Taiô (The Police in the 1970s: Responding to
Turbulence and Changes). The report, written by security elites, affected legisla-
tion and operations by the police in the 1970s. For example, soon after the final
report was released, Gotôda Masaharu, Director-General of NPA, made a speech
in front of 124 senior police officers across the country at the national conven-
tion of chief police (zenkoku keisatsu honbuchô kaigi) held in Tokyo. He advoc-
ated that 70 nendai no Keisatsu was to be the guiding principle of policing in
"peacetime" in the 1970s.14
In its introduction, the report warned that many negative impacts caused by
rapid modernisation, such as environmental pollution or social alienation, pro-
pelled Japanese people who felt dissatisfied with their society to join radical
social movements (Keisatsu Unei ni Kansuru Sôgô Taisaku Iinkai 1972,
pp. 1–2). The report then quoted Newsweek's appreciation of the Japanese police
and lauded the police's achievements. However, it was also concerned that the
"safest city in the world" could face a crisis in the near future because of
drastic
social change caused by rapid economic growth, such as urbanisation, motorisa-
tion, the coming of the information society, and lifestyle changes.
The CR strategies in urban areas
The report offered two proposals for policing strategies in the 1970s: “building
closer connection with the people" and "grasping people's demands". The former
strategy aimed to build mutual surveillance communities under the leadership of
the police by way of community relations (CR). CR was based on communities
which comprised homes, workplaces, neighbourhood associations, shopkeepers’
associations, PTAs, and clubs. According to the committee, CR made it possible
for police officers to respond to local residents' demands and ask them to cooper-
ate in the security of local areas by creating closer communication with the resi-
dents (Keisatsu Unei ni Kansuru Sôgô Taisaku Iinkai 1972, p. 25).15
70 nendai no Keisatsu advocated that the police should revitalise local com-
munities to keep public order. CR was promoted in local areas under slogans such
as "the echo campaign makes your towns brighter (machi o akaruku suru yama-
biko undo)" in Yamagata prefecture, and "the campaign to solve troubles in local
areas (chiiki no komarigoto o kaiketsu suru undo)" in Saitama prefecture (Keisat-
suchô 1976, p. 102). This policing strategy, which was based on local com-
munities, had been developed in interwar Japan. After the First World War the
police had trouble controlling newly emerging labour movements. The police
sought the support of local communities in controlling labour unionists,
socialists,
and communists (Ôbinata 1993, pp. 121–167). In 70 nendai no Keisatsu the senior
officers did not refer to the policing strategies introduced during the interwar
period, but their community strategies clearly show that they were influenced by
the strategies of building ties with local communities for public order.
However, rapid urbanisation during this period made it more difficult for the
police to understand the actual situation in local areas compared to the interwar
and immediate postwar periods. From the interwar period onwards, Japanese
New Left decline, 1960s into the 1970s 89
police officers visited all the houses of an area for which they were responsible,
gained pieces of information in the neighbourhood, and made use of it for crimi-
nal investigations. According to Keisatsu Hakusho (The Police White Paper)
published in 1975, police officers' interviews with neighbourhoods helped them
to apprehend 23.6 per cent of all “serious criminals (kyôaku hanzai)” in cities
and 39.4 per cent of those in villages in 1966, but the figure dropped to 13.8 per
cent in cities and 18.1 per cent in villages in 1974. This shows that as large
numbers of people flowed to and from communities and residents were not
familiar with each other, the interviews became less and less effective in under-
standing the situation of local areas.
In this situation, the police sought to work together with public relations agen-
cies in collecting information about local communities. Hakuhôdô, one of the
largest public relations companies, helped the police to make CR maps, the data-
base about human relations in communities. Companies also indicated the leaders
or key members of these organisations. Public relations companies provided
similar community relations maps to other corporations. For example, Hakuhôdô
provided one power company with CR maps, and the company made use of them
to target key figures of a local area in which the company planned to construct a
new power station and convince these people to support its construction.16
Hakuhôdô built close ties with the police by awarding certain retired senior
police officers executive positions in the company. In 1973, Machida Kinichi,
who had formerly been in charge of CR in the Tokyo Metropolitan Police
Department, was invited to join Hakuhôdô as a consultant. Machida played an
important role both in instructing how the police should practise CR strategies
and in spreading the strategies to police officers working in local areas. 17 In
the
1970s, senior police officers sought to reconstruct and modify their traditional
policing strategies in the context of rapid urbanisation. PR companies played a
complementary role in gathering information on local communities to promote
CR strategies.
The police working in communities
70 nendai no Keisatsu also highlighted the important role of “gaikin keisatsu”,
police officers working in kôban in local areas. They used to be called "scare-
crows (kakashi)” in a contemptuous sense, but "gaikin keisatsu" were viewed as
the main force of the police in the new policing strategies discussed in the 1970s
(Keisatsu Unei ni Kansuru Sôgô Taisaku Iinkai 1972, p. 37). In particular, the
writers of 70 nendai no Keisatsu emphasised the importance of the local foot
patrol, which enabled each police officer to build closer ties with local
residents.
Gaikin keisatsu was again seen as a key figure in policing in local areas. Their
patrol of every home and office became an essential part of police cooperation
with local communities.
Senior police officers noted that they needed to suspend the rationalisation
policies in the 1960s which had aimed to abolish and amalgamate kóban. 70
nendai no Keisatsu wrote the following about the rationalisation policies:

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90 New Left decline, 1960s into the 1970s
The close relationship between people and the police is built on the process
of mutual communication. However the police are gradually becoming
estranged from residents. For instance, the introduction of patrol cars
deprives the police of opportunities to communicate with the public, even
though this communication is very useful and essential for police activities.
The important role of communication with the people should not be under-
estimated even when we seek to rationalise our organisations. We have to
make efforts to contact and exchange information with people to build a
cooperative relationship.
(Keisatsu Unei ni Kansuru Sôgô Taisaku Iinkai 1972, pp. 22–23)
In this way, the police decided to stop rationalising their organisations. The
number of kóban was 20,142 in 1968,18 but drastically decreased to about 16,000
in the early 1970s. The police did not withdraw the policy of amalgamating
kôban, but the sharp decline of kóban stopped in the 1970s. According to the
Police White Paper, the number of kôban in various parts of Japan was 16,112
in 1972. It was 15,517 in 1980, a small decline.
Needless to say, the police did not give up aggressive and forcible policing.
This may be seen in the increase in the number of police officers, from 178,000
in 1969 to 246,000 in 1979, mainly in order to suppress social movements
(Odanaka 1980, pp. 68-72). The Public Security Division (kôan) of NPA
founded a new division working on controlling "extreme, violent leftists
(kyokusa bôryoku shûdan)" in May 1972.19 Nevertheless, the 1970s was a major
turning point in police administration, because policing strategies shifted their
focus from forcible oppression to "persuasion" to get residents to work for public
order. For example, senior police officers proposed that the departments of "the
civil police", such as gaikin keisatsu or the traffic police, should be reinforced
in
order to meet people's demands. In the late 1960s, the number of riot police in
TMPD increased rapidly, but some of the newly employed officers were reposi-
tioned to the rescue service, policing of gangsters, traffic control, and the
like.20
The construction of surveillance communities
The emergence of vigilante groups encouraged the police to construct mutual
surveillance communities. It was during this period that the Association for the
Prevention of Crime (Bôhan Kyôkai), an organisation which provides informa-
tion to the police, was formed to collect information on crime in local areas and
inform residents of it. The numbers of Offices for the Prevention of Crime
(Bôhan Renrakujo), local branches of the Association, rose sharply in the 1970s,
and about 30,000 offices were newly established in 1974 (Keisatsuchô 1975,
p. 55). More than 570,000 offices in various parts of Japan worked in order to
inform the police about troubles or accidents which occurred in the neighbour-
hood and pass on information from the police about criminals on to residents.
"The Campaign of Rolling Out Detention in Apartments (apăto rôrâ
sakusen)" was a successful case of the cooperation between the police and
New Left decline, 1960s into the 1970s 91
communities. In October 1973, the Public Security Division (kôan) of NPA
worked intensely on collecting information on "the suspicious" living in apart-
ments. The police had succeeded in gaining information on about 2,300 people
from 430,000 citizen collaborators in this campaign. Three-quarters of informa-
tion concerned "the suspicious", and the police also obtained information on
wanted criminals and their dens.2
21
A notice from the police in Ueno, Tokyo during this period clearly shows
how the police tried to control New Leftists. The notice, entitled "A call for the
prevention of damage from collective violence", asked residents to watch out for
violence by student activists and to work with the police. They were asked to
call the emergency number 110 if "violent students" visited timber shops, iron
shops, gasoline stations, and pharmacies to buy wooden sticks, bamboo, gaso-
line, and dangerous drugs, which students were seen as likely to use as weapons,
give their family and salespeople (or employees) a warning every day to follow
police instructions when in the danger zone, and in particular not to follow
curious bystanders. They were encouraged to obtain warnings through neigh-
bourhood associations in order to prevent damage and to avoid being attacked by
violent students or having their windows broken by stones. 22 The notice referred
to the emergency number 110 when residents discovered suspicious people in
their communities. Most Japanese people are now familiar with the emergency
call 110, but that was not so in the 1970s. The police worked hard during this
period to make it familiar to residents for earlier and more effective initial
inves-
tigations on crime. In this fashion, the police attempted to make use of the resi-
dents' worries about violent protests and to work with local residents to control
New Left movements.
3 Police officers as servants to the public
The police "serving the people"
70 nendai no Keisatsu also suggested that police officers should be disciplined
as servants to the public. This implied that each police officer was trained
similar
to a worker in the service industries. In December 1972, the General Administra-
tive Agency of Cabinet (Sôrifu) conducted a large-scale and wide-ranging poll
of how people viewed the police. The police became interested in making use of
the poll as an important way of understanding people's needs. The poll enquired
about the public's impression of "extremist groups" as well as of the police.
Some senior officers of the NPA, who had failed to control the movements
effectively in the late 1960s and who had tried to learn from this failure, came to
believe that successful public security was no longer possible without respond-
ing to people's demands. They insisted that police officers should provide the
kind of service demanded by residents. Based on some public opinion surveys
and public hearings, the following activities were seen as important police
duties: patrolling for the prevention of crime, the regulation of pollution pro-
duced by companies, policing yakuza, and the control of the sex industry.

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92 New Left decline, 1960s into the 1970s
Under the slogan of meeting people's demands, the police were not afraid of
being criticised for excessively intervening in people's everyday lives as before.
An article in Asahi Shimbun published on 14 May 1976 noted that, in the mid-
1970s, the Hyogo Prefectural Police launched a campaign to control local prob-
lems: men urinating outdoors, unconfined dogs, illegal dumping of household
garbage, dropping of cigarettes, and fighting by drunken people.23 At almost the
same time, the TMPD set up a telephone counselling hotline for people to call
about their concerns in everyday life, such as family troubles or love affairs.
Jap-
anese police officers in rural areas had played the role of a kind of counsellor to
local people from the 1920s. In the 1970s, police officers were once more to be
assigned to this role by making use of techonology: the telephone.
It was when a new production-consumer system known as "Toyotism" began
to spread to various parts of Japan that senior police officers suggested that
police officers should be trained as "servants of the public". This management
strategy, which was named after Toyota Motor Corporation, was based on the
principle that it was important for companies to research precise information on
market demands and feed it back into their decisions about what kinds of goods
should be produced. During the economic boom in the 1950s and 1960s, a wide
range of Japanese people had already purchased mass-produced and cheap,
durable goods. This resulted in the 1970s in saturation of the market for basic
goods such as washing machines and refrigerators. Some Japanese companies
responded by developing a new market strategy - “limited production of diversi-
fied goods" to overcome the saturation. They attempted to trigger people's
desires by providing a small number of specialised goods rather than a large
quantity of standardised products. This strategy, which aimed to fulfil consum-
ers' aspirations and change the production system to one which was more flex-
ible, was introduced in various service industries as well as in manufacturing
industries.
After the 1980s, Toyotism had a great impact on consumer consciousness
(Ozawa 1985). However, as Japanese consumers became accustomed to good-
quality service supplied by private companies which researched the needs of
the market, consumers began to feel dissatisfied with the service from public
offices and demanded a better quality service. In order to satisfy the people with
their service, senior police officers advocated that they needed to make an in-
depth investigation of information on market demand and channel back the
information into the level of service. For example, Kanagawa Prefectural Police
launched CR activities in January 1973 with the slogan, "Democratising service
over the window (madoguchi o minshuka suru)". It was aimed to "provide
thoughtful and considerate service" to citizens in the window of police offices
"no less than that of in the bank". 24 In the 1970s, at the beginning of Toyotism,
the senior officers came to recognise that a good image of the police among
residents was crucial to promoting local residents' cooperation in public
security, just as sales of goods depended on promoting a brand image to con-
sumers. 70 nendai no Keisatsu recommended that each police officer should
inform households about children's safety or publish community information in
New Left decline, 1960s into the 1970s 93
local newsletters to create a good impression of the police in communities. The
report, though it did not refer directly to Toyotism, had a deep understanding of
the essence of the strategy.
Creating positive images of the police
In order to create positive images, the police also sought to build friendly rela-
tions with the media. The Sasebo incident in January 1968, in which police offic-
ers assaulted some news reporters, showed that the police did not see the media
as influential. On 16 May 1970, the riot police assaulted some camerapersons
again during a demonstration organised by foreign members of Beheiren. When
a demonstrator handed their statement to an official of the American Embassy in
Tokyo on the day, a cameraperson from the Sankei Shimbun and other people
who tried to take pictures were obstructed, hit on the head, and kicked in the
abdomen by riot police officers.25
The police were disturbed by the lack of support from the public for their
policing. In his 1969 New Year greeting published in Nikkan Keisatsu, a news-
paper for the police, Kawashima Hiromori, then head of the Security Bureau of
the NPA, was dissatisfied with the media's comparison of policing which aimed
to "maintain safety and public security" with "unlawful acts" by "extremist
groups". He wrote,
Our colleagues, we may still be a long way off from making the public
aware that violent actions taken by "radical groups" to challenge society are
futile. However, if the way is long and tough, we shall keep walking to pro-
gress the order of the state again this year.
26
In the 1970s, however, the police began to change their strategies; they saw
the media as a powerful group, and paid careful attention to the way the police
were being reported. For instance, during this period they provided journalists
with media briefings containing more detailed information about criminal cases.
This propelled the news media to make use of the information from the brief-
ings. Most journalists of the Japanese mainstream media belonged to the kisha
club, an association of reporters, in the National Police Agency, and the police
communicated with and conveyed information to journalists through the kisha
club. According to Nishiyama Takenori's book on news reports, the police began
to improve PR activities after the Olympics were held in Tokyo in 1964. This
changed the way reporters wrote news articles in the 1970s: when an accident
occurred, the PR office of the police promptly gave out to the kisha club papers
providing on outline of the accident. Nishiyama claimed that reporters, writing
news stories, increased their reliance on the police (Nishiyama 1992,
pp. 104-106). Likewise, a journalist from Sankei Shimbun stated that many jour-
nalists came to rely too much on the police as an important news source and to
believe the source to be accurate (Nishio 1979, p. 44). News stories using this
source helped the police to gain trust from people.

Page 26
94 New Left decline, 1960s into the 1970s
It should be noted that gaikin keisatsu were regarded as a focal point in the
role of police as servants, because gaikin keisatsu had face-to-face relations with
residents in local communities. When the operation rules of the gaikin keisatsu
changed in 1969, "active service for the public" was included as a duty of gaikin
keisatsu in Article 2 of the new rules. In 1970, when the Working Rules of
Gaikin Keisatsu (Gaikin Keisatsukan Kinmu Yôsoku), enacted in 1955, were
revised for the first time in 15 years, the duty of service for people was seen as
"the basic idea of the new rule". The change in these rules played a role in
spreading to the entire police organisation the idea of police officers as being in
service to the public. 70 nendai no Keisatsu described gaikin keisatsu duties as
follows:
Gaikin keisatsu activities on streets should be naturally evaluated from the
standpoint of the public. However, people's evaluation of the police depends
significantly on police officers' friendly words or behaviour and kind
regards rather than their legally accurate or swift actions. While a little act
of kindness leads people to appreciating all the police, a little rude word
causes people's antipathy to the police. Hence, police officers should
become aware that their acts or words affect the evaluation of the police by
the people.
(Keisatsu Unei ni Kansuru Sôgô Taisaku Iinkai 1972, pp. 46–47)
Likewise, Nakai Seiichi, a senior police officer in the department of gaikin kei-
satsu, claimed that police officers should be educated in their small actions or
words used in everyday life: he saw it as important for police officers on the
streets to draw the attention of the public. Nakai called this "visible activities
(miseru katsudo)", and cited some examples: a police officer who contacted a
repair plant on behalf of a person with a flat tyre on his car; police officers who
looked around for dry ice together with people whose parents had suddenly died
during the night (the Police White Paper published during this period was full of
these kinds of stories). Nakai stressed that residents' impression of the police
was influenced by to the extent to which gaikin keisatsu could go beyond their
legal duties and meet the demands of the people (Nakai 1972, p. 98).
Nakai, who regarded police activities as a service, urged police officers to pay
attention to their daily actions and words all the time. On the one hand, police
officers needed to carry out their duties in a warm-hearted way, so as not to be
seen by residents as arrogant and unfriendly. On the other hand, they were
required to conduct their duties with confidence in order to be seen as reliable
figures. He believed that gaikin keisatsu had to combine a warm heart with con-
fidence on the streets. "A friendly police officer, who was doing his duties of
traffic control on streets, washed his friendly face and then put his black glasses
back on. Then his face quickly changed into a dignified one". Nakai claimed that
this was an ideal image of police officers (Nakai 1972, p. 110).
Female police officers played a key role in creating a positive image of the
police. For example, the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department stationed 12
New Left decline, 1960s into the 1970s 95
female police officers in kôban of Tsukiji, Shibuya, Shinjuku, and Ueno.27 In
Osaka, 75 women police officials were stationed in kôban to help citizens
become familiar with the activities of the police. It was reported in a news
article
that residents welcomed the women police officers.2
28
In July 1970, the NPA began a year-long campaign of "humour and police
officers (yûmoa to keisatsukan)". During the campaign, police officers were
encouraged to improve their daily relations and verbal interactions with the
public. After these reforms, even an activist who was critical of the police noted
that the "behaviour and words of gaikin keisatsu became so polite that I was
confused by it".29
The police as protectors of citizens from "extremists"
Did the police gain the support of the public? Examining the media's view of the
police is one way of gauging this. The mass media did not completely shift to
full support for the police during this period. They were harsh regarding repeated
scandals involving police officers. The headlines in Asahi Shimbun in the late
1970s were full of scandals: "The former chiefs and others in the Hyogo Prefec-
tural Police were punished for suspicious connections"; "A drunken sergeant
stole someone's luggage during the daytime in Osaka"; "An assistant inspector
choked a woman and robbed her of 160,000 yen"; "A rookie policeman who
drank heavily and urinated in a train told a person who scolded him that ‘I will
arrest you””; “A police officer killed a female university student"; "A drunken
policeman assaulted a housewife".
On the other hand, the media reported on those critical of direct action taken
by New Leftists. Around 1970, they began to label groups which took confronta-
tional actions as "extremists” (kagehika). Asahi Shimbun seldom dubbed Jap-
anese radical activists as "extremists" until 1968. However, this changed in
November 1969, when a parcel bomb was delivered to the American Cultural
Centre (Amerika Bunka Senta) in Tokyo and certain New Leftists were identified
as suspects (they were finally declared not guilty). Asahi Shimbun began to fre-
quently use the word "extremists", and more than a hundred articles used the
word in November and December 1969. The word "extremists" was more often
found in articles in the newspaper in the 1970s.
In this way, New Leftists were described negatively in the 1970s. For
example, some activists of the tôha threw fire-bombs in Shibuya, Tokyo when
protesting against the reversion of Okinawa to Japan on 19 November 1971. A
police officer was fatally injured, and five passengers on a train who were caught
up in the incident were badly wounded. The actions were severely criticised by
reporters in Yomiuri Shimbun, one of the leading newspapers. The headlines
were sensational: Citizens in Tokyo are engaged in "riots on Sunday"; "Fighting
through ‘suicidal attacks""; "Extremists on the rampage"; "Set fire indiscrimi-
nately in Tokyo". "Don't let 'citizens' enemies' get away with it". Asahi
Shimbun also ran photos entitled "Traces of extremist typhoon" showing public
facilities and private property destroyed by activists.30

Page 27
96 New Left decline, 1960s into the 1970s
Yomiuri Shimbun also stressed the contrast between "extremists" and
"citizens" by covering stories on the latter who suffered damage from violent
actions: an old woman who was forced to stop pachinko [pinball] said, “I don't
know those students, but they are not welcome. I was about to hit the jackpot.
The violent groups should be exiled to islands"; an owner of a sushi restaurant,
who lost customers because of the turmoil of the actions taken by New Leftists,
said, “I will fight the students at any cost and beat at least one of them if they
come into my shop". In December 1971, when the wife of a chief police officer
in the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department was killed in her home by terrorist
bombs, a selfish and brutal image of New Leftists spread widely, most notably
as a result of the abduction at Asama Sansô by the United Red Army in 1972
(discussed in more detail below). It is worth noting that the media, on the other
hand, characterised police officers as protecting citizens from the actions of
extremists.
31
The Public Relations Office of the Cabinet Secretary (Naikaku Sôridaijin
Kanbô Kôhôshitsu) published an Opinion Survey on the Police every few years. In
July 1974 and November 1978, 605 and 430 people respectively from all regions
of Japan participated in the interviews. In response to the question, "how have the
police improved?", 49 per cent of the interviewees in 1974 and 43 per cent in 1978
answered, "the police have become friendly", and 45 per cent in 1974 and 36 per
cent in 1978 said, "the police have come to behave and speak gently", though only
about 20 per cent of the interviewees replied that their general impression of the
police had improved. It may be true that the success did not stem only from the
police's new strategies, but the NPA's efforts to build ties with the media, pay
careful attention to the way the police were being reported, and promote the image
of the police as protecting citizens from extremists were successful to some
extent.
In other words, it helped disseminate the image of New Leftists as brutal and
selfish "extremists". They worked to isolate the activists from the public.
In the early 1970s, the police were aware that they needed to elicit more
support from residents to control New Left movements. Whereas the police tried
to reinforce ties with local communities and train gaikin keisatsu to serve the
public, most New Leftists saw self-transformation as more important than
popular support, and a number of them, especially student activists, resorted to
counter-violence as a symbol of self-transformation in "everydayness". In this
way, New Left movements were driven into an increasingly difficult situation.
4 New Leftists in deadlock
The changing characteristics of the discourse
As New Leftists lost popular support, their financial situation deteriorated. New
Leftists depended on donations. When support for students was growing around
the time of the Sasebo incident, collecting donations on the streets from the
public was highly effective. But as the public came to look critically at the New
Left, the activists found it difficult to collect contributions.
New Left decline, 1960s into the 1970s
97
As New Leftists lost the support of the people, the characteristics of the dis-
course in the movements changed. This may be seen in comments by Mr T, a
student who had joined Tôdai Tôsô and subsequently left university to become a
day worker in Sanya, 32 a town located in the eastern part of Tokyo. At a round-
table after barricades were dissolved on campus, he stated:
We will be unable to present a vision by engaging in macro-politics [pol-
icies, institutions, or regime] at this time. I would like to persist in changing
micro-politics [power relations in everyday life] in Sanya, so I will devote
myself to becoming a fully-fledged day worker and my life to activities in
Sanya.33
Two changes which occurred among the members of the New Left may be seen
in this statement. First, the self-liberative aspect of the movements was disap-
pearing. After the comments cited above, Mr T moved on to detailed discussions
about how he, from outside of Sanya, was involved in community activities.
While he learned a lot from his efforts to adjust to people's lives in Sanya, the
aspect of self-liberation could not be found there. As was discussed in Chapter 2,
when the activists were successful in mobilising people, self-liberation and self-
reflection were well balanced; New Leftists were able to gain a sense of libera-
tion from "disciplinisation" as well as reflect on their daily lives. But the
balance
was lost during this period. The feature of self-liberation derived from direct
action on the streets, but due to the success of policing and the negative repres-
entation of direct action in the media, the activists found it difficult to take
action. As a result of this, only the aspect of self-reflection remained, and the
idea of transforming "everydayness" eventually became more a question of
ethics.
The other change in discourse may also be seen in how expectations for social
change had been lost. Personal change had combined with social change in the
late 1960s; but as New Leftists lost popular support, expectations for social
change became unrealistic. In this way, New Leftists tended to limit their interest
to personal change, which led to the idea of transforming "everydayness” to
being more ethical than action based. In the late 1960s, New Leftists believed
that they could bring about radical social and political change. This belief may
have been an illusion, but large numbers of people were encouraged by this illu-
sion. In the early 1970s, this illusion had almost disappeared in New Left
movements.
When the idea turned into personal change, New Leftists found it difficult to
practise the idea of self-transformation in "everydayness". The difficulties they
faced may be classified into three issues: the potential risk of intra- or inter-
group violence, the spread of a feeling of failure, and discontinuity in their
experiences. In the next chapter, we shall examine how some New Leftists
attempted to continue and develop their activism in the 1970s, but here we will
examine some of the forces that persuaded many New Leftists to abandon activ-
ism altogether.

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98 New Left decline, 1960s into the 1970s
Obviously one of the major reasons for demobilisation of the movements was
the threat of the overwhelmingly superior force of the state: as discussed earlier,
the police developed a policy of mass arrest and preventive detention; a large
number of activists decided to avoid confronting the police on streets and on
campus. However, mass arrests alone do not provide a full reason for the rapid
decline of the movements. It does not explain why many New Leftists gave up
altogether and never returned to activism. In order to explore this, we need to
consider not only the power of the police but also the difficulties arising from
the
effects of self-transformation in "everydayness".
No compromise is allowed in examining "everydayness"
The first difficulty concerned the goal which New Leftists were trying to achieve.
The activists had to examine all parts of everyday life if they were to be faithful
to the principle of self-revolution in "everydayness". As discussed in Chapter 2,
Japanese New Leftists sought to transform their consciousness and behaviour in
everyday life in order to overcome the failure of the Anpo protests of 1960. The
idea of self-transformation in "everydayness" made it possible for New Leftists
to expand the arena of political struggles, to identify what had led to people's
depoliticised consciousness, and to radically criticise the system of the control-
led society. On the other hand, the activists were driven into a difficult
situation,
because they were not allowed to make a compromise in transforming all aspects
of their lives.
Some New Leftists who were faithful to the principle of the movements
examined their colleagues' consciousness and behaviour. They required their
colleagues to be committed to transforming "everydayness", which often caused
conflicts and trouble between them. This reminds us of the murder case involv-
ing the United Red Army (Rengô Sekigun), a military group which had been
formed by New Leftists. In February 1972, several activists of the United Red
Army kidnapped an old couple who were looking after a summer cottage
(Asama Sansô) in Karuizawa, Nagano prefecture. After the kidnappers were
arrested, it was revealed that they had killed 14 of their colleagues under the
name of "purges (shukusei)" in their military-style training in mountainous areas.
What impact did this case have on activists? A 20-year-old university student
had supported the United Red Army's military actions at Asama Sansô but
changed his mind, and stated that he "cannot understand why they lynched their
colleagues to death" and he "lost his motivation to defend them".34 Many groups
of tôha did only condemn the United Red Army.35 Because they aimed only to
justify their political standpoint without reflecting upon themselves and their
actions, they did not gain the support of people who were not affiliated with the
same tôha, particularly young people who were disturbued by the murder case.
While there were very few references to the murder case in the New Left
media, newspapers and journals in the mainstream media were full of articles
on atrocious acts by activists of the United Red Army. Its leaders were outraged
by the way their colleagues were committed to activism which triggered the
New Left decline, 1960s into the 1970s 99
lynching, making statements such as: "they are not enthusiastic about the strug-
gle", "they are greedy for material things", "they had sex in the middle of the
struggle", "they acted on their own in working for the group", and "they are not
revolutionary, but male chauvinistic in their relations with their wives”.36 It was
reported that a seemingly trivial matter, such as a woman activist having a ring
on her ear, resulted in her death by lynching.
In addition, the distribution of funds, entanglements of relations between men
and women, insane acts by a group which was driven into a corner, defects of
leaders' personalities, and problems of discipline at home and school were
ascribed as contributing factors in the murder case. Since the New Left media
remained silent on the murder case, it is not easy to see how New Leftists, par-
ticularly activists who were not affiliated with tôha, viewed its causes. However,
the argument that the activists came to see the murder case as having been the
result of transforming "everydayness" is not necessarily unreasonable. Around
1970, the goals of social change and self-liberation were no longer viable and
ethical reflection by individual activists came to the fore. As discussed in
Chapter 2, figures such as Yamazaki Hiroaki, activists who had been committed
to the movements and died for them, were seen as a model which the activists
were recommended to follow. The image of the dead was inclined to be ideal-
ised. Compared to the idealised image of the dead, New Leftists were frustrated
with their colleagues for their lack of engagement with activism. They were
sometimes irritated by their colleagues' “everydayness", accused them of insuf-
ficient self-transformation, and at worst even attacked them.
It was already found in the "self-criticism (jiko hihan)" debate in the late
1960s that New Leftists accused their collegues of "everydayness". Student
activists often criticised each other for the way they were committed to activism.
For example, in the debate between student activists in Zenkyôtô of Tokyo Uni-
versity and “rebelling teachers" who supported the activists, the students criti-
cised the teachers very harshly:
It is nonsense that professors at Tokyo University, which guarantees their
status, analyse and criticise us. They are criminals, because they are indif-
ferent to workers' suffering, retain their privilege, analyse, observe, and
publish books, and make money. Professors, what does Tôdai Tôsô mean to
you? Is it just a subject to be studied, criticised, and observed? Do you feel
inclined to share the suffering with us?³7
This comment illustrates that their high ethical standards led New Leftists to
criticise their colleagues; New Leftists were obliged to reflect on the way they
lived and practised their activism.
It was pointed out in reports in newspapers and journals at that time that the
murder case resulted from deteriorating living conditions in the camp in a moun-
tainous area and the activists' fear of "purging (shukusei)". More important to
the argument of this chapter is not the true cause of the case, but the discourse
connecting the murder case and transforming "everydayness" that was formed.

Page 29
100 New Left decline, 1960s into the 1970s
This link was to some extent convincing to many New Leftists. I do not claim
that all New Leftists fell into the trap of intra- or inter-group violence. It is
true
that the practice of transforming "everydayness" did not necessarily lead to viol-
ence. But considering that the "self-criticism" debate was repeated, it was natural
for New Leftists to conclude that the idea of transforming "everydayness" was a
cause behind their aggressiveness against their colleagues.
In this way, many New Leftists who would never have dreamed of joining the
United Red Army themselves felt that even they were not divorced from intra-
or inter-group violence and were disturbed by the murder case. They were so
shocked by the case that they despaired of the New Left. On the day when bodies
of people who were killed by their colleagues in the United Red Army were
found, Asahi Shimbun captured the voices of young people who were shocked
by the murder case. 38 "I cannot understand why they lynched their colleagues to
death. I am unable to be on their side any more", "They have gone to a world far
away from us"; one person commented that "their minds were wrecked; they
further degenerated by killing their colleagues".
Difficulties in open-ended personal transformation
The second difficulty concerned problems coming from the idea of open-ended
personal transformation. New Leftists, who followed the principles of the
movements, were obligated to examine and transform "everydayness" perman-
ently. If their goals were to change policies or political institutions, they may
have been able to end their campaign when achieving their goals or winning
certain concessions from the bureaucracy or Diet. However, New Leftists tried
to achieve very obscure goals and results, so they did not know when to stop
their actions.
As early as Tôdai Tôsó (the Tokyo University struggle), many New Left-
ists were already finding the endless struggle difficult to cope with. In early
1969, some students of Tokyo University, who had been boycotting classes
and examinations since the middle of 1968, faced the difficult decision of
whether to stop boycotting. Some of them, who lived faithfully by the prin-
ciple of self-transformation, continued to boycott the mid-term examinations
in June 1969. These student activists were forced to fail the class and repeat
the same year if they continued the strike against classes and examinations.
This meant that they had to take on a large financial and mental burden. Many
of them thought seriously about their decision on the strike and decided to
take the examinations, finally giving up their commitment to the movements.
At a roundtable of student activists in Shingeki, a journal published by Tôdai
Zenkyôtô, a student explained why some people had given up their commit-
ment completely:
It seemed that “sect" [the tôha] activists get a clear direction, but "non-sect"
[Zenkyôtô] activists reflect on all of their decisions [of whether to stop boy-
cotting examinations], because "non-sect" people associated the Tokyo
New Left decline, 1960s into the 1970s 101
University struggle with their personal problems for better or worse. In the
case of the boycott struggle, those who decided to take examinations, though
they would be able to play a role in supporting activism in the future, said "I
took exams, so I am a rightist” and escaped [from their future role]. These
people ended up not even joining workshops in their class and meetings
organised by the anti-Vietnam War Coalition [an antiwar group on the
campus of Tokyo University], which had previously helped to mobilise stu-
dents to the struggle. I think that the boycott struggle had some big
problems.39
Watanabe Takayuki, a student of the College of Engineering of Nihon Univer-
sity, graduated from a prestigious high school and enjoyed his university life as
well as playing mah-jong, driving, skiing, and dates with his girlfriends. When
he had almost completed his course credits, he encountered the 200-metre dem-
onstration (many students protested about corruption by the university authori-
ties on 23 May 1968). After he became involved in Nichidai Tôsó, he gained the
"pleasure of emancipation" from the struggle. Before that, he had accepted
things which came from the top without questioning them, and learning had been
rarely active, joyful, and painful. But he experienced "real learning" in the
strug-
gle, by which he "struggled with questions, and validated and established theo-
ries through actions”.40
However, he was disturbed by the decision he had to make of whether to con-
tinue or give up the strike during the period of the final exams. If he continued,
it
would mean staying in university one more year and imposing a heavy financial
burden on his parents who had to pay for their two other children's education.
It is not obvious when I began to feel disgusted with myself: I was irritated
with evacuation classes [classes held outside the blockaded campus] of the
College of Law and the College of Economics; I felt empty when escaping
from the riot police chasing after us and from the students of Minsei [the
youth group of the JCP] who threw stones at us; students of the College of
Engineering were also upset with the resumption of classes; the gloomy
atmosphere began to spread to our family. I am about to give in to these
mixed feelings. I hate myself...
Now I do not know what to do. It is obvious that Nichidai Tôsô has not
progressed. Although I decided to graduate from university after the strug-
gle progressed, I cannot overcome myself and make a decision [of continu-
ing to be committed to the struggle] at the moment.*
41
Watanabe's comments show that the problem derived from the ambiguity of
benchmarks in gauging to what extent the activists had transformed their depo-
liticised consiousness. If he participated in the strike, he would be able to gain
a
sense of achievement in transforming “everydayness". It might be better to say
that his participation was just a brief escape from the suffocating mood. Here he
was forced to choose between the two: whether to join the strike or give up

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102 New Left decline, 1960s into the 1970s
everything. In addition, transforming "everydayness” did not have a foreseeable
end, so they could not but continue the strike forever. This was an unintentional
effect produced by the idea of self-revolution in "everydayness". As the ethical
aspect of self-reflection was stressed, it was not easy to remain committed to
New Left movements.
The psychological pressures of activism
Many serious New Leftists were obligated to transform "everydayness" continu-
ously, but the obligation turned slowly due to strong pressure. Some of the activ-
ists were worried by the pressure, gave up their commitment, and were haunted
by a sense of failure which discouraged them from referring to their experiences.
A roundtable of Zenkyôtô students in late 1969, when barricades on campus had
come down, shows that some students suffered from the strong pressure experi-
enced in New Left movements.
A student of Chûô University stated that students were seriously distressed
when they made a decision on (non-)participation in boycotting classes and
examinations:
An overwhelming majority of students in the evening course who boycotted
exams were non-sect radicals. They saw it as a personal problem. What does
it mean if I take exams? Does it mean betrayal [of the ideas and actions of
the struggle]? One student considered the boycott for three days, finally
reached a decision not to take the exams, and collapsed. In this way, we
actually face very difficult issues.42
He stressed that Zenkyôtô activists were more disturbed at making a decision to
continue the strikes than the tôha members, but many New Leftists, who sought
to associate the strikes with their personal issue of self-transformation in
"every-
dayness", could not avoid facing these worries regardless of whether they were
"non-sects" or tôha.
In the late 1960s, the idea of self-transformation in "everydayness" made it
possible for New Leftists to address the problems of the controlled society.
Around 1970, the activists were in turn disturbed by the idea. At the end of the
roundtable, a student of Nihon University stated:
When my friends and I gathered together, we said that we had been very
happy in the past. In the struggles with the authorities and rightists, we ran
the risk of being blinded or disabled for life. Because we were involved in
such struggles, we strengthened our solidarity. We were very happy in this
sense. We, ourselves, do not understand why we were happy at that time
and why we are now struggling only out of a sense of obligation.43
He remarked that initially their participation in New Left movements gave him
and his colleagues a feeling of emancipation from the controlled society and
New Left decline, 1960s into the 1970s 103
closer relations with other activists. However, around the time when barricades
on campus were taken down, the activists could not embrace their activism but
rather were disturbed by it.
Giving up the commitment
Many New Leftists, who lived faithfully according to the principle of self-
transformation in “everydayness", faced a deadlock. Some of them took further
direct action in order to break through the situation. During this period, New
Leftists were being framed as brutal extremists, so the activists came to know
that they were increasingly losing support from people. The most despairing
time for the activists was intra- or inter-group violence: some activists attacked
their colleagues, and injured or even killed them. Since the principle of the
movements did not allow New Leftists to make a compromise, the activists who
finally decided to give up their commitment were traumatised. A former activist,
who gave up his commitment to student movements and got a job with a small
publisher, expressed his concerns at a roundtable entitled "Conversion after
getting a job (shûshoku tenko)” in Asahi Jânaru in April 1969.
We cannot realise the pure ideal, what we have acquired during the strug-
gles on campus, in everyday life. Because we joined the struggles, we will
be much more isolated from everyday life and greyer than other people who
did not join them.44
Following this comment, Mr C, another former activist who had left his univer-
sity and worked in a delivery company, also stated:
I do not feel a sense of tragedy but feel very anxious. I will be distrustful
with myself, because I left my university even though the struggles were in
a difficult situation, and because my own commitment to the struggles on
campus was so opportunistic.
It is worth noting that a sense of failure produced in New Left movements pre-
vented these former activists from passing on their experiences to the next gen-
eration. This is the third difficulty which New Leftists faced. At another
roundtable among former student activists, a student of Tokyo University, who
joined the struggles and was arrested in 1969, referred to former activists
(including himself) who gave up their commitment to the movements and started
working in a company, as follows:
We are viewed as those who gave in, but the view may be one-sided. None-
theless, many of us feel reluctant to talk [about our experiences], because
we are disturbed by a feeling that we made a compromise in getting a job,
though we should not have done it, and we are now just a part of the current
regime. In this gloomy situation, we cannot say anything without cheating

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104 New Left decline, 1960s into the 1970s
ourselves. I do not know what I should say. It is also painful that I cannot
say anything though I have something to say.45
The mental trauma arising from giving up their commitment to the movements
made it difficult for the activists to advise other people, because they could not
describe their experiences. They found it self-deceiving to put any words to the
experiences.
At a roundtable of several activists of Nichidai Tôsô published in Asahi
Jânaru in 1970, participants stated that they could not convey their experiences
to newer student activists. Mr O, an activist of Nichidai Zenkyôtô in Kôriyama,
was concerned that new students were unable to obtain information on Nichidai
Tôsô except from the media. He remarked: "I think that we need to tell new stu-
dents about the quality of Nichidai Tôsô”. Mr M, another activist of Nichidai
Zenkyôtô in the College of Economics, also stated:
There is a new student who makes and gives out leaflets alone. We gave
him technical advice, such as places where he will be in trouble if he gives
them out, but the problem is that I can only build such relations with him.
One of the reasons why we cannot contact new students is that we are pro-
hibited from entering onto the campus freely, but that is not all, and we have
not been able to find the reasons yet. If we come to clearly realise them, we
will be able to easily revitalise Nichidai Tôsô.4
His comment shows that around 1970, many New Leftists faced difficulties in
conveying their successful and unsuccessful experiences to younger students.
In this situation, New Leftists found it difficult to recruit young people. This
was partly because they were stigmatised as brutal and selfish “extremists" and
partly because there was a high risk of being arrested by the police. Many New
Leftists, apart from some radical groups, were reluctant to take direct action on
streets and on campus; it was strictly controlled by the police; it was an unpopu-
lar repertoire in the media. The loss of direct action deprived New Leftists of a
sense of self-liberation in activism. This was another cause which prevented the
activists from recruiting young people who were dissatisfied with increasing
"disciplinisation".
Mental trauma and "conversion (tenkô)”
Many passionate New Leftists were forced to pay a high price. About 1,600 stu-
dents who were arrested during Nichidai Tôsô and a number of other students
who were expelled from the university or who dropped out voluntarily could not
get a graduation diploma. They had trouble in getting jobs in companies. Akita
Akehiro, a former convener of Nichidai Zenkyôtô, began to work as a repair
person in an automobile factory in Hiroshima, his hometown, several years after
Nichidai Tôsô. According to Takagi Masayuki, a journalist who wrote many
articles about student activists, Akita talked very little about the struggles
after
New Left decline, 1960s into the 1970s
105
he returned to his hometown. He obviously suffered great psychological damage.
All the people who knew his past felt it a pity that he had been robbed of his
sparkle (Takagi 1985, p. 134). Yamamoto Yoshitaka, a former convener of
Tôdai Zenkyôtô, became a physics teacher in a famous preparatory school.
Because he was very passionate about his teaching he was popular among the
students. However, his psychological damage was evident in the fact that he
avoided talking about political issues (Takagi 1985, p. 135).
After their frustrating experiences, many other New Leftists also gave up
their commitment to the movements and left their universities. Some of them
were fortunately successful in getting jobs in companies. Mr O was a radical
student activist who had worn a helmet and carried a gebabô, and had thrown
fire-bombs at the police on the streets. He graduated from the Faculty of Eco-
nomics of Tokyo University in 1971 and worked in Nissan Motor Company. In
an interview, he stated of his past and present:
After getting practical training in the company, I felt that I had been an
idealist during my college days. In the training, I saw the entire process of
automotive manufacture including soldering in a factory. I feel that there is
an implicit consensus in the company which orders all people to go in one
direction. This is capitalism itself. If a dissident is in the company, he will
soon be banished. I think that the company is so huge that it is beyond my
reach.47
47
Mr N, who graduated from the Faculty of Economics of Kyoto University and
got a job at the Tôyô Trust Banking Company in 1969, was a famous activist of
Zenkyôtô in his university days. Once employed, he wore a navy blue suit and
talked politely, the same as other bankers:
I am ashamed of my old self though it is a little too late. Yes, I was imma-
ture, so it will be scandalous if the fact that I [a former student activist] work
in the banking institution is disclosed. The trust of society is important for
the banking institution. 48
Have Japanese companies integrated New Leftists?
Japanese companies were so wary about former student activists that many of
the activists found it difficult to obtain employment. Many companies feared that
the activists, once employed in their companies, would work hard for political or
union activities and cause confusion. On the other hand, some companies
attempted to make use of former activists' energy to revitalise their organisa-
tions. In 1969, at a roundtable of business managers on university disputes,
Tanaka Shinichi, a vice-president of Jujô Paper, stated:
[P]eople who resorted to gebabô will not continue in the same way after
entering companies. From the viewpoint of private businesses, these people

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106 New Left decline, 1960s into the 1970s
have possibilities to become highly motivated in their work if we make good
use of them. An interesting story says that current business leaders do not
usually come from among high-achieving students of Tokyo University -
such students work in the Ministry of Finance, the Bank of Japan, or in other
bureaucratic jobs. Many of the business leaders are required to be energetic.
We cannot generalise, but we can perceive this trend. From this viewpoint,
at least I do not want to condemn their whole life if the former activists did
wrong things in their young days. However, it is certainly dangerous to
accept them without any conditions. It will cause trouble if suspect people
get into our company. In this sense, I am cautious about them, but I am not
too concerned about their presence.
49
In an interview with managers of big businesses about whether to employ former
student activists, Yuasa Yûchi, a president of Yuasa Battery, answered the ques-
tion “How much do you think that activity and energy are important in recruiting
students?" as follows:
I think an ability to get things done is important.... Extremely radical stu-
dents are not welcome, but those who are interested in social issues, have
healthy ideas, and are willing to act, can be accepted. Young people are
likely to be passionate, very sensitive, idealistic, and progressive.... We will
reject feckless, indifferent, and apathetic people (sanmu shugi). Workers
who are not interested in the problems of their companies, labour unions,
and social issues are not reliable at all. They are satisfied only with their
salary. They correspond to non-political students and netoraiki students
[students who did not join any demonstrations, rallies, and lockdowns] on
campus. Such workers lack passion about their job, creativity for develop-
ment, and, not to mention, spirit to work seriously with rationalisation of
management.50
Gotô Noboru, a president of Tôkyû Corporation, also stated:
Netoraiki students are the worst. I can understand that non-sect students
become a little active in the bad conditions of current universities. Rather,
pure students who are committed to the reform of their university may be
better than earlier generations. I do not think that the quality of students is
worse than before. How many hours students study in a classroom on
campus does not determine whether they are good or bad.51
As the economic boom ended in the early 1970s, Japanese companies found it
necessary to reform their organisations in order to win tough international com-
petition. However, administrative or technical workers as well as blue-collar
workers were robbed of opportunities to promote their wisdom and knowledge
in the workplace by the mass-production system. Many workers just performed
their routines in the workplace as instructed. They were forced into being more
New Left decline, 1960s into the 1970s 107
subordinate to the control of labour management. The workers, who were
unhappy in their simple and boring jobs, became passionless and self-absorbed
(Kumazawa 1993, pp. 167-169).
Some big companies began to encourage workers to form small groups in
their workplace, to cooperate with their workmates, and to consider how to do
their work effectively (represented by the quality control movement known as
QC, which was often adopted in the automobile industry). The key to this labour
management was to encourage workers to be actively involved in their jobs
(Kumazawa 1993, pp. 169–172). As discussed above, some big companies'
managers noted that they expected former student activists to play a key role in
reforming their companies. The managers believed that they could make good
use of the activists' passion and energy if they were able to convert the activists
into businesspeople.
Some of the New Leftists who got jobs in companies accepted this implicit
offer from businesses. Miyazaki Kunio examined how Japanese companies
sought to integrate former student activists. His informant, Mr S, was a council
member of the student association of Hitotsubashi University and was gradually
involved in New Left movements. He graduated from the university in 1970, got
a job with a precision machine maker, and was soon assigned to its local corpo-
ration in Hong Kong. He described his experiences as follows:
One and a half years after I entered the company, I was ordered to work in
Hong Kong and was charged with some duties as “a frontline soldier". The
duties included the export of clocks and their parts. I actually made a deal
with "black marketeers", that is to say, outlaws from Asian countries, and
watched them so that they did not send goods into the black market. It was
exciting, because I, who had antipathy toward the state and the regime, was
quite delighted at making a deal with black marketeers who deviated from
the state and the regime. I did not feel uncomfortable and ambivalent.
Rather, I was saved [by my busy day working in Hong Kong].
(Miyazaki 2001, p. 25)
Okuyama Reiko, who entered the Osaka College of Foreign Languages in 1965,
was influenced by leaflets she was given every day at the entrance gate of the
campus. She believed that the leaflets told her she should be more interested in
social problems rather than devoting herself to studying. She read all the leaflets
and went to student rallies. After graduating from college she was employed in
the Osaka branch of the Bank of Tokyo. She was assigned to the export division
and charged with the purchase of export bills. She recalled:
I received the latest information on various countries by fax from overseas
every day. The information was necessary for the purchase of export bills,
and I received information on the exchange rate, which changed every day
after the introduction of the floating rate system. The devaluation of the
dollar and the oil shock made work at the bank, which had been busy before,

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108
New Left decline, 1960s into the 1970s
much busier, but the busy work gave me energy, I felt a sense of where the
world was going, and I enjoyed the days very much. I almost forgot that I
had been criticised for "working in the bank, a vanguard of capitalism". In
line with my expectation, I was liberated from student movements and
social problems.
(Okuyama 1996, p. 129)
This chapter has argued that as New Left movements declined around 1970, the
idea of transforming “everydayness" came to the fore and activists suffered from
its effects. The next chapter argues how activists, facing this suffering,
developed
the idea and practised it in the difficult situation in which they found
themselves.
Notes
1 "Hijô Taisei' ka no 10 gatsu 21 nichi Hansen Dei" in Asahi Jânaru, 2 November
1969, p. 5.
2 Okinawa was occupied by the USA after the Second World War, but it reverted to
Japan in 1972. The reversion of Okinawa was seen as a part of both states' security
strategies to strength the Anpo Treaty. In fact, the number of American military
bases
did not decrease following the reversion. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, when
the
Japanese and American governments discussed the reversion, some New Leftists
acted to eliminate the bases from Okinawa.
3 Mutô Ichiyô and Mononobe Nagaoki, “Seiji Kûkan no Nijûsei: Jikeidan eno Tenkai
Katei o Megutte" in Shiso no Kagaku, October 1971, p. 14.
4 Takahashi Kazumi, Ôta Shizuo, Kurushima Setsu, Kita Ichirô, Kojima Hiroshi,
Yamada Sayuri, Miyazaki Nobuo, Takase Tarô, Kakumae Shinji, Mitsugi Shigeharu,
Kobayashi Tadashi, and Yoshida Tomio, "Sonzai Henkaku eno Shitsuyô na Toi:
Kyôdai Eru (Bungakubu) Kyôtô no Mosaku” in Oda Makoto, Takahashi Kazumi, and
Matsugi Nobuhiko (eds), Henkaku no Shisô o Tou. Tokyo: Chikuma Shobô, 1969,
pp. 91–92.
5 "Ware Ware wa Naze, Yasuda Kôdô o Senkyo Suruka” in Asahi Jânaru, 4 August
1968, p. 5.
6 Asahi Shimbun, 21 October 1969.
7 Sekine Hiroshi, "Sôran Shinjuku: Jiei Sakusen no Zenbô” in Gendai no Me, April
1972, p. 125.
8 Asahi Shimbun, 17 November 1969, p. 15.
9 Asahi Shimbun, 9 March 1968, p. 15.
10 Asahi Shimbun, 22 October 1968, p. 11.
11 Asahi Shimbun, 17 November 1969, p. 15.
12 Kôban (police station) is the small neighbourhood police station in Japan and
the
smallest organisational unit in the Japanese police system. In small towns or
villages,
kôban are linked to chûzaisho, a police residence attached to the office. Police
officers
live in chûzaisho with their family. Kôban are thus located in local areas for com-
munity policing.
13 "Wakai Chikara ga Enjita Shinjuku Hapuningu: 70 Nen ga Tsukitsuketa Yokkyû
Fuman" in Asahi Jánaru, 3 November 1968, p. 4.
14 Nikkan Keisatsu, 18 May 1968, p. 2.
15 The CR strategies were originally invented in the USA to control black people's
pro-
tests. In 1969, Crowd Control and Riot Prevention (written by Raymond Momboisse),
which was seen as a bible of the CR, was translated into Japanese by an officer of
the
NPA to make use of the strategies in policing Japanese New Leftists.
New Left decline, 1960s into the 1970s 109
16 Kigyô Senryaku Kenkyûkai, “Nihon Shihonshugi no Kigyô Senryaku” in Gendai no
Me, July 1975, pp. 250–251.
17 Ibid.
18 Nikkan Keisatsu, 25 November 1968, p. 1.
19 Nikkan Keisatsu, 9 May 1972, p. 1.
20 Asahi Shimbun, 30 August 1972, p. 9.
21 Nikkan Keisatsu, 17 November 1973, p. 5.
22 Muro Kenji, “Chônaikai Jikeidan no Fukkatsu” in Shisô no Kagaku, February 1972,
p. 64.
23 Asahi Shimbun, 14 May 1976, p. 10.
24 Nikkan Keisatsu, 19 March 1973, p. 3.
25 Asahi Shimbun, 17 May 1970, p. 22.
26 Nikkan Keisatsu, 1 January 1969, p. 3.
27 Nikkan Keisatsu, 19 February, p. 3.
28 Nikkan Keisatsu, 1 December 1971, p. 5.
29 Ogawa Hajime, “Keisatsu no CR Sakusen to Fureimu Appu” in Jôkyô, October 1974,
p. 228.
30 Asahi Shimbun, 20 November 1971,
p.
3.
31 Yomiuri Shimbun, 20 November 1971, p. 13.
32 Sanya is the largest place in several Tokyo yoseba, gathering places for casual
labour-
ers. The workers live in the cheap accommodation of the doyagai (lodging house dis-
trict), a densely populated area. A large number of discriminated minorities, such
as
Koreans, Chinese, other Asians, Okinawans, Ainu, and outcasts (hisabetsu buraku-
min), live in Sanya. The majority of the workers are employed by the construction
industry. Because some companies work together with yakuza (Japanese gangsters),
the workers have had to confront the yakuza in order to improve their working con-
ditions (Fowler 1996, ch.1).
33 “Zadankai Kyanpasu o Misutete" in Asahi Jânaru, 5 February 1971, p. 17.
34 Asahi Shimbun, 11 March 1972 (evening edition), p. 10.
35 Asahi Shimbun, 16 March 1972, p. 3.
36 Mainichi Shimbun, 11 March 1972, p. 19.
37 "Shiryô Tokyo Daigaku 3.10 Tôron Shûkai” in Jiyû, September 1969, p. 142.
38 Asahi Shimbun, 11 March 1972 (evening edition), p. 10.
39 “Tenkanki ni Tatsu Komaba Kyôtô” in Shingeki, 9 July 1969, p. 4.
40 Watanabe Takayuki, "Nichidai Zenkyôtô kara no Shuppatsu" in Zenkyôtô o Yomu.
Tokyo: Jôkyô Shuppan, 1997, p. 90 (first published in Jokyo, March 1969).
41 Ibid., p. 91.
42 "Gakusei Zadankai Shiko Shiko Yatte ikô: Yon Daigaku (Chûdai, Tôdai, Tôkyôdai,
Nichidai) Zenkyôtô Gakusei wa Kataru” in Asahi Jânaru, 23 November 1969,
43 Ibid., p. 18.
P. 15.
44 “Gebabô Kara Shûshoku eno Dôtei: Kakutoku Shita Mono o Do Ikasu” in Asahi
Jánaru, 6 April 1969, p. 10.
45 "Zadankai 60 nen to 70 nen no ‘Sonogo”” in Asahi Jânaru, 21 May 1971,
p. 36.
46 Seimiya Makoto, “Zenkyôtô Nante Shiranaiyo” in Asahi Jánaru, 12 July 1970, p.
88.
47 “Shakai ni Tokekonda Shin Sayoku Gakusei no Tsuiseki” in Shûkan Shinchô, 16
September 1972, p. 32.
48 Ibid., p. 36.
49 Abe Minoru, Tanaka Shinichirô, Nagano Tokumitsu, and Ozaki Morimitsu, "Gendai
Gakusei wa 'Shôhin' ni Naruka” in Bessatsu Chûó Kôron, March 1969, p. 273.
50 Yuasa Yûichi, “Hitei no Tetsugaku Kôtei no Tetsugaku” in Bessatsu Chûô Kôron,
March 1969, pp.
288-289.
51 Gotô Noboru, “Atsuryoku Gama no Anzenben o Tsukure” in Bessatsu Chúô Kôron,
March 1969, p. 283.