Hello and welcome to the history of Japan podcast.

Episode 176, Red Star Over Tokyo, Part 1.

So I'm back. I'm married.

It was lovely, in case you're wondering, and I'm rested and ready to go with a brand new series

for you, one that I hope will not end up being an omen of things to come, because this

week I want to start a story

that is at its core about failure. After all, the things that didn't happen and why they didn't

happen are often just as important as the things that did, and to focus entirely on the victorious

people or ideologies of Japanese history is to give things

an aura of destiny, to give people the impression, in other words, that the triumph of this side

or that side was inevitable or the natural outcome of things. Nothing could be further from the

truth, and the story of Japan's Marxist movements really proves that.

Japanese Marxism, despite being a fringe throughout most of Japan's history,

has been at various points a potent enough ideological force to convince many Japanese leaders from different strands of life

of a necessity of a crackdown

or accommodation with the hard left. And yet, today, Japanese Marxism is functionally dead.

After 1995, the socialists have really retreated from the national stage, and even the Japanese

Communist Party, once at least a regional power,

has shrunk into insignificance. So where did these ideologies come from, and how do they

fit into the tapestry of modern Japanese history? Well, to understand Japanese Marxism,

you first have to understand Marxism. So what is it? Well, before we

dive into that loaded subject, let me say that this is the down and dirty version of Marxist

...