Asanuma Inejirō

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Inejirō Asanuma

Asanuma Inejirō ( Japanese. 浅沼 稲 次郎 ; * December 27, 1898 in Miyake on the island of Miyake-jima , Tokyo Prefecture ; † October 12, 1960 in Tokyo ) was a Japanese politician and from March 1960 chairman of the Socialist Party of Japan (SPJ).

Asanuma Inejirō was an illegitimate child. His mother died giving birth, which is why Asanuma was raised by his father. He died of cancer at the age of 42. Asanuma graduated from the Faculty of Politics and Economics at Waseda University in Tokyo . He was a member of the miners 'union from 1923 and also worked in the Japanese farmers' union. He later held the position of General Secretary of the Peasant and Workers' Party, which was banned in 1925. After he belonged to the city parliament of Tokyo from 1933, he was also a member of parliament in 1936. In 1945 he was a co-founder of the SPJ, in which he subsequently held leadership positions and of which he became general secretary in 1948. Between 1946 and 1958 he was a member of the Japanese House of Commons. When the party split between 1951 and 1955 due to different orientations, Asanuma was a member of the left wing of the party. From 1955, after the reunification of the party wings, he was again active in the office of General Secretary.

Asanuma was known to speak publicly about socialism and its economic and cultural opportunities, which made the right-wing government camp feel provoked.

Asanuma became known worldwide through his death: on October 12, 1960, he was stabbed to death with a wakizashi by the 17-year-old right-wing extremist and ultra-nationalist Yamaguchi Otoya during a televised election speech in Tokyo’s Hibiya Hall . The shock resulting from this previously unthinkable action in Japan deepened the differences between the left and right politicians against the background of the large demonstrations and strikes in the summer of 1960 against the security treaty with the USA .

Although the murder was not broadcast live by NHK , the incident gained international prominence through a subsequent broadcast. A photo by the hitherto unknown photographer Yasushi Nagao shows Yamaguchi pulling back his sword a few seconds after the fatal attack. The picture was named Press Photo of the Year by World Press Photo in 1960 and won the Pulitzer Prize in the photography category in 1961 .

literature

  • Renate Ruttkowski in Biographies on World History , VEB Deutscher Verlag der Wissenschaften, Berlin 1989, p. 49f

Web links

Commons : Asanuma Inejirō  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Christoph Gunkel: The old Japan: teeth and claws of the emperor. In: Spiegel Online . September 27, 2011, accessed June 10, 2018 .
Japanese name: As is common in Japan, the family name comes before the first name in this article . Thus, Asanuma is the family name, Inejirō the first name.
personal data
SURNAME Asanuma Inejirō
ALTERNATIVE NAMES 浅沼 稲 次郎 (Japanese)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Japanese socialist politician
DATE OF BIRTH December 27, 1898
PLACE OF BIRTH Miyake (Tokyo) , Tokyo Prefecture
DATE OF DEATH October 12, 1960
Place of death Tokyo