Shakai Taishūtō


Shakai Taishūtō
社会大衆党
Socialist Mass [es] Party or Social Mass [es] Party
Parteivorsitz (shikkō iinchō)	Abe Isoo


founding	July 24, 1932
resolution	July 6, 1940
Headquarters	Tokyo
Colours)	orange

The Shakai Taishūtō ( Japanese 社会大衆党 , English Socialist Mass [es] Party or Social Mass [es] Party ) was a moderate left political party in Japan in the Shōwa period .

The Shakai Taishūtō was founded in July 1932 by Abe Isoo as a merger of the Shakai Minshū-tō (Socialist People's / Mass Party, English partly "Social Democratic Party") with the Zenkoku Rōnō Taishūtō (National Workers 'and Peasants' Party). At a time of growing extremism in politics, the new party tried to maintain a moderate approach, which inevitably led to confused politics.

On the one hand, the Shakai Taishūtō supported the agrarian reforms and pushed for improved opportunities for the peasants by cutting the military budget, on the other hand they cultivated relations with the political faction Tōsei-ha within the imperial Japanese army and supported the Japanese aggression in Manchuria . The Shakai Taishūtō pleaded for increased international cooperation and rejected Japan's withdrawal from the League of Nations , but at the same time supported the Japanese invasion of China in 1937 .

It was the only left-wing party that was able to work in the 1930s, making it the third largest party in the House of Representatives , the lower house of the Reichstag . In the general election of 1937 she was able to increase the number of seats from 18 to 36 seats. The party received support from a wide cross-section of the electorate, including middle-class shopkeepers who were angry with the zaibatsu , white-collar workers and a few petty bureaucrats. The fundamental split within the Shakai Taishūtō party between supporters of Social Democracy and National Socialism came to a climax after the vote on the exclusion of Saitō Takao from the Japanese parliament. This had sharply criticized the behavior of the Imperial Japanese Army and its actions on the Asian mainland. Members of the party who had abstained from the motion to purge Saitō were expelled because of `` unpatriotic feelings '', so that Chairman Abe Isoo resigned. The rest of the party became more and more nationalistic and militaristic. As a result of this radicalization, the party was finally accepted into the Taisei Yokusankai in 1940 .

Individual evidence

^ Robert A. Scalapino: Democracy and the Party in Prewar Japan . University of California Press , 1962, B0007FP0H6, pp. 374 .
↑ Stephen S. Large: Organized Workers and Socialist Politics in Interwar Japan . Cambridge University Press , 2010, ISBN 0-521-13631-8 , pp. 200 .
↑ Stephen S. Large: Organized Workers and Socialist Politics in Interwar Japan . Cambridge University Press , 2010, ISBN 0-521-13631-8 , pp. 220 .
^ Richard Sims: Japanese Political History Since the Meiji Renovation 1868-2000 . University of California Press , 2002, ISBN 0-520-06838-6 , pp. 216 .

[1] Robert A. Scalapino: Democracy and the Party in Prewar Japan . University of California Press , 1962, B0007FP0H6, pp. 374 .

[2] Stephen S. Large: Organized Workers and Socialist Politics in Interwar Japan . Cambridge University Press , 2010, ISBN 0-521-13631-8 , pp. 200 .

[3] Stephen S. Large: Organized Workers and Socialist Politics in Interwar Japan . Cambridge University Press , 2010, ISBN 0-521-13631-8 , pp. 220 .

[4] Richard Sims: Japanese Political History Since the Meiji Renovation 1868-2000 . University of California Press , 2002, ISBN 0-520-06838-6 , pp. 216 .