幸德秋水

Anarchist ideas were brought to Japan by Kotuku Shusui in the very early years of the 20th century. He had read Kropotkin’s writings while in prison during the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–5. When released he visited California, making contact with the militant anarcho-syndicalists of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), and returned to Japan to publish an anti-militarist journal, Heimen. Kotuku claimed that there was always an anarchist undercurrent in Japanese life, deriving from both Buddhism and Taoism. He was one of 12 anarchists executed in 1911, accused of plotting against the Emperor Meiji. All through the first half of the century, a series of successors continued propaganda and industrial action against militarism, and were suppressed by government, to reappear in a changed climate after the horrors of the Second World War.