Peasant Movement in Japan
The peasant movement in Japan ( Japanese 農民 運動 , Nōmin undō) to reduce the tax burden and rent developed nationwide and politically after the Meiji Restoration in 1868.
prehistory
Before the Meiji Restoration in 1868, the land belonged predominantly to the local princes, i.e. the daimyo , or the shogunate. The income went to the samurai class. In the later Edo period there were increasing uprisings by the peasants against the high taxation, which went down in history as "Ikki" (一 揆). They were directed against the respective rulers, the daimyo, so they were rarely large-scale uprisings.
Development since 1868
After the Meiji Restoration, there was a tax reform in July 1873. 3% of the country's monetary value was set as tax and had to be paid annually to the state in cash. Later another 1% was added for the local authorities and the villages. Fierce opposition led to the central tax being reduced to 2.5% and the local tax to 0.5% in 1877. Matsukata Masayoshi's fiscal deflationary policy led to the depression and major revolts in rural areas in the early 1880s. An example of this is the uprising in Chichibu in 1884, in which 7 to 10,000 farmers devastated offices of the local administration, offices of moneylenders and briefly controlled the city and county.
The rapid increase in the share of leases meant that from 1900 the lease problem became an important part of the protest movement. The protests increased, especially after World War I. So founded Kagawa Toyohiko (1888-1960) and Sugiyama Motojiro (杉山 元 治郎; 1885-1964) in 1922 the first association of farmers in Japan, the "Nihon Nōmin Kumiai" (日本 農民 組合), with the aim of coordinating the protests and improve the welfare of farmers. The association grew rapidly and played a major role in the disputes, but increasingly suffered from content-related and personal disputes, spurred on by the left-wing movements of the time. Overall, only a few percent of the agricultural working population joined the trade union movement. Small disputes in connection with the lease remained numerous in the 1930s, but coordination at the national level failed to materialize, although right-wing elements, led by Hirano Rikizō (平野 力 三; 1898–1981), formed a kind of national organization until the Pacific War .
After the war, the Japan Farmer's Union was re-established in 1946. The protests were directed primarily against taxes and cultivation quotas, but with the land reform of 1948 (農 地 改革, Nōchi kaikaku) - an important measure with American participation during the occupation - the biggest problems were solved and the activities of the farmers declined. In addition, the united front of the farmers did not last long: after 1947 it suffered from the divided leadership. Increasing prosperity then also took the momentum out of the movement.
In 1961, the activist of the peasant movement and writer Aoki Keiichirō (青木 恵 一郎; 1905–1988) was awarded the Mainichi Culture Prize for his "History of the Peasant Movement of Japan" (日本 農民 運動 史, Nihon nōmin undōshi) .
Remarks
- ↑ The Chichibu uprising (秩 父 事件, Chichibu jiken) was put down after a few days. In 1886 four of the leaders were executed and 3,000 others were sentenced to prison or fines.
literature
- S. Noma (Ed.): Farmer's movement . In: Japan. An Illustrated Encyclopedia. Kodansha, 1993, ISBN 4-06-205938-X
- Hunter, Janet: Farmer's Movement . In: Concise Dictionary of Modern Japanese History. Kodansha International, 1984. ISBN 4-7700-1193-8 .