Japanese Marxism, the University of Tokyo, and China
Tomoo Marukawa
The task given to me from Professor Sonoda was to introduce the intellectual
history of University of Tokyo and combine that with China studies. That is quite adifficult task for me. I studied Marxist economics here in the University of Tokyo, andthat is how I came in touch with the intellectual tradition of the University. After
graduation, I worked with an institute where I started to study China. I did not study
China in this University. For me, University of Tokyo and China is two different topics.
So I had a hard time combining the two. But anyway, I would like to mainly focus on
the intellectual history of the University of Tokyo in Marxism, because the main thing I
learned here was Marxist economics.
Introduction of Marxism to JapanFirst, let me start from how Marxism came to Japan. It was introduced in the
beginning of the 20th century. The first group of socialists gathered, and the Socialist
Democratic Party was established in 1901. But the Party was banned on the day of its
establishment, because there was a law called the public safety and police law and nine
years later, many of them got executed.
The Russian Revolution took place in 1917, and the USSR was established in
1922. Marxism again came into Japan, and from the 1920s onwards, it was quite widely
accepted by intellectuals mainly in economics and political science, the social sciences.
Russian Communists instigated the establishment of the Japanese Communist Party. In
1922, the Party was established by a small group of intellectuals. And, of course, thepolice again got worried about the Party. The Party was once dissolved in 1924 but
reestablished in 1926. And apart from the Communist Party, Japan also had socialist
parties. They were the Japanese Worker-Farmer Party and Socialist Mass Party. I don't
know so much about the difference between the two, so I just call them the socialists.
There were two groups of Marxists, the Communists and the Socialists.
The Debate on Japanese Capitalism
The focus of my talk today is the debate on Japanese capitalism, which took
place from around 1925 until 1937. It ended in 1937, which was the year of the
beginning of Sino-Japanese War. The police suppressed the Communists and Socialists
alike. They either got imprisoned or converted. The focus of this debate is where toplace Japan in the Marxist model of societal development stages. According to Marxism,
societies develop from feudalism to capitalism, and then to socialism. And between
these systems, there should be jumps. In the transition from feudalism to capitalism, for1example, there will be a bourgeois democratic revolution.
Examples of bourgeois democratic revolution are the French Revolution and
the American independence. From capitalism to socialism, there should be another jump,which is the socialist revolution. And the focus of the debate was, “Was Japan in the
1920s or 30s at the last stage of feudalism, or at the stage of capitalism?” The debate gotvery hot because it relates to the strategies of socialist and communist parties. If Japan
was at the last stage of feudalism, then we must fight for democracy, not for socialism.
But if Japan is a full-fledged capitalist society, then we should fight for socialism. The
strategic outcome is completely different depending on how to diagnose the current
status of Japan. The Japanese Communist Party insisted that Japan was at the final stageof feudalism, while the socialists party maintained that Japan had already entered thestage of capitalism. The USSR supported the Japanese Communist Party.
The debate was fought between two factions. One is called Koza faction 講座派. Koza means “lectures.” Another is Rono faction 労農派. Rono was the title of amagazine and it literally means workers and farmers. Koza faction is supported by theJapanese Communist Party. In fact its main figure was also a leading member of theParty. The Rono faction was connected with the socialist parties.
The focus of the debate was on the rural society. The Koza faction points outthat the peasants are very poor because they are extracted high rent by landowners. The
peasants should be liberalized from the burden of rents. Such reform should come firstand after such revolutionary change, we can think about moving towards socialism.
While in the case of Rono faction, they say that Japan has already entered the stage ofcapitalism with the Meiji Restoration, so it's already more than 50 years. And they
insisted, therefore, we can move directly to socialism.
Hirano Yoshitaro
I would like to mainly talk about four scholars that joined the debate. The firstone is this person, Hirano Yoshitaro 平野義太郎.

Hirano Yoshitaro（1897-1980）

He was one of the main figures in the Koza faction. He studied law at the2University of Tokyo. After graduation he worked for the department as a research
assistant first, and then after two years he became an associate professor. He went toEurope in 1927 and met Karl Wittfogel. Through Wittfogel’s influence, Hirano becamea Marxist. After returning to the University of Tokyo he restarted teaching civil law. But
after lecturing some months, he got prosecuted for donating 200 yen to the JapaneseCommunist Party. 200 yen is not today's 200 yen. 90 years ago, 200 yen should be like1 million yen today. This is quite a big sum as a donation. He was forced to resign the
University of Tokyo and he was imprisoned for half a year. After his release, he becamevery active as a Marxist theorist. He was one of the main editors of The Lectures on theDevelopment of Japanese Capitalism『日本資本主義発達史講座』. The title of the bookseries explains why the faction was called Koza or Lecture faction. And he publishedThe Mechanism of Japanese Capitalist Society 『日本資本主義社会の機構』 in 1934,
which was one of the most important works of this faction.
In The Mechanism, Hirano wrote that Japan under the Edo regime was forced
to open its economy. American vessels came to Japan and pressured to open its ports orotherwise they would attack. This triggered a change in the regime and the Meiji
Restoration started. Japan was reluctantly on the track towards capitalism. Hirano saysthat Japanese society was not ready for capitalism but it was forced to enter thecapitalist stage. The process that prepares the condition for capitalism is called as“original accumulation” in Marxism. It is a process of dissolving the rural societies into
two parts. One is the capitalists and landowners, and the other part is the workers. Japan
did not really begin the process of original accumulation when it was forced to get on
the track towards capitalism. When the Meiji Restoration took place, 78% of Japanese
workforce were rural farmers. The average acreage of peasants’ plots was very small,
0.87 hectares, which was only 1/10 of that in Germany. There was no source ofgovernment revenue other than taxing the agriculture. 80% of Japanese government's
tax revenue in early Meiji period came from land tax. The government was in desperateneed for tax revenue for pushing forward its industrial and military development to copewith the pressure of Western imperialism. Consequently, the land tax became very heavy.
It was as heavy as the tributes that farmers needed to submit during the previous feudal
era. In 1873, there was a reform in land tax. That reform tipped the balance of power inrural societies in favor of landowners. Before then, taxes (tributes) were paid by thefarmers, but from 1873, the landowners became responsible for tax payment. Therefore,
the landowners imposed high rents, which included tax, to the peasants.
Hirano shows that the distribution of income between the government or theprevious samurai class, and the landowner and tenants. The landowners’ share has
increased from 28% during the Edo period to 38% in 1877, while the farmers sharedeclined from 35 to 32%. The small farmers were impoverished by the heavy tax andprice hikes in agriculture inputs. Some of them have fallen to the status of tenant
farmers. Some of them quit farming and went to the cities. And the poor peasants had to3

make their living by not only agriculture but also engaging in sericulture—raising
cocoons—and sent their daughters to sweatshops. Daughters of peasant families worked
in textile workshops with long working hours. Hirano says that the working hour would
be as long as 15 hours a day. The workers’ freedom was constrained by restrictive labor
contracts. Hirano says that the low-income structure of peasants was inherited from theprevious feudal society. He says that Japan was a half feudal society and because the tax
and rent burden in agriculture was so heavy, capitalist agriculture like that in UnitedStates and United Kingdom could not develop in Japan. And upon such half-feudal
economic substructure stood the upper structure, which was also half feudal in his view.
The political upper structure is characterized as “absolutism by the Emperor.” However,as The Mechanism was published in 1934, he had to erase the word “Emperor,” because
openly criticizing the Emperor’s authority constituted a crime at that time.
And besides writing a lot about Japan, he was also interested in China throughhis friendship with Karl Wittfogel. Wittfogel was a famous scholar on Chinese economy.
Hirano translated Wittfogel’s China's Economy and Society which was originallypublished in German. Wittfogel argued that in China the management of water was very
important. The water was provided by huge rivers like Yangtze River and Yellow River.
To manage them, a lot of manpower and a strong political power were needed. Uponsuch agricultural basis, a strong state was constructed. Wittfogel called such state as an
Asiatic despotism. The emperor had great power, and it was supported by awell-developed bureaucracy. Hirano was inspired by Wittfogel’s idea, and he thoughtthat same thing applies even to Japan. He wrote an article entitled “Two ways of
studying China” in 1934. And he argued that the economic basis of China’s state systemis still a feudal society and above that substructure Asiatic despotism stood as an upper
structure.
Sadly in 1936, he was arrested on the charge of violating the Public Security
Law again, and during his detention he declared that he had abandoned Marxism. In
those days many Marxists were enticed to declare “conversion” from Marxism tomilitarism during detention. He got released, and he joined a research group on ruralsocieties in northern China. He made an interesting research trip in China, mainly at thesuburbs of Beijing. There are interesting stories about that, but I don't plan to go intomuch detail of that story. And from 1941, he got more involved in Japanese militarism.
He wrote books on “the Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere” every year. That
period should be considered the most embarrassing period for Hirano.
After the end of the war, he returned to Marxism. In 1946, he published a newversion of The Mechanism of Japanese Capitalist Society. In post-World War II Japan,
the Allied Powers that occupied Japan conducted a major reform in rural society. The
landowners were forced to sell their lands to the peasants at low prices. The tenant
farmers became small and independent farmers that had ownership of their land. That
structure created in postwar Japan remains basically unchanged until today. Besides this,4the Constitution, civil law, and the political structure were changed under occupation. In
this new edition, Hirano writes that the success of postwar reforms proved that his
analyses in the 1934 book were correct.
In 1949, Hirano published a book entitled “China's Great Revolution.” Thebook was published in November 1949, only one month after Mao Zetong declared theinauguration of the People’s Republic of China. Hirano depicted China as an Asiatic
despotism, and a half feudal, half colonized society. Of course, he was talking about
China before the People's Republic.
Inomata Tsunao
I would like to introduce another interesting person, who is Inomata Tsunao 猪俣津南雄.

Inomata Tsunao (1889-1942)
I think, he represents the best part of the other faction, which is the Rono 労農
faction. He has a quite interesting career. He was born in a poor family, so he had tostart working after finishing middle school. He worked first as a teacher at anelementary school and then he went to military service. And after working for several
years, a rich person helped him study at Waseda University. He entered Waseda and theprofessors found him very intelligent. Another rich man supported him to go to theUnited States to study. He studied agricultural economics at Wisconsin University andearned PhD. He studied at Chicago University and Columbia University, too. Theinteresting part is that, as soon as he arrived at the United States, he fell in love with a
Polish-Jewish woman. They married and his wife taught him Marxism. So, he became a
Marxist in the United States, and came back to Japan via Moscow. It is rumored that hewent to Moscow to discuss with the Russian communists about establishing theJapanese Communist Party, and indeed, after coming back to Japan he and the othermembers established the Japanese Communist Party. He started working at Waseda as aprofessor. He was arrested and imprisoned on the charge of joining the Communist
Party. After being released, he didn't join the Communist Party and he couldn't return to
Waseda. He spent the rest of his life as a freelance writer, and he wrote a lot of books.
He joined the Rono faction and the socialist party, but very soon he was expelled from5

both organizations.
Inomata published An Introduction to Rural Problems 『農村問題入門』in 1937.
It talks a lot about Japanese agricultural history. But I don't want to go into that detail. I
will only focus on his views on the on the current—I mean, the 1920s and30s—situation of Japanese rural society. He shares Hirano’s views that the Japanesepeasants are suffering from small lands, high rents, and low productivity, which did notchange so much from the feudal period. But at the same time, he says that Japan after
the Meiji Restoration is no longer feudalism. A feudalistic system has an
extra-economic enforcement mechanism that ties peasants to their land. But since the
Meiji period peasants are no longer personally subjective to landlords. Before then, in
feudalism, peasants could not leave the land. They could not quit agriculture and workin other occupations. Since Meiji, they have the right to quit agriculture or sell their land
if they have the ownership. That's not feudalism, he says. Although the land tax and rent
were heavy, but that doesn't necessarily mean that the society was under feudalism.
He tried to explain why the peasants suffer so much, even though they are
under capitalism. He says that it stems from the characteristics of Japanese agriculture.
Compared to Europe where they grow wheat or raise cattle, Japanese agriculture isfocused on rice. Rice production is a very labor-intensive task. You have to pick theweeds in the rainy season, which is quite troublesome, and the crop season is very short.
You have to harvest rice within a very short period. Otherwise, typhoon will ruin thecrops. In short, it's very labor-intensive. And that's why the average acreage of paddies
remain small.
Because the peasants are poor, the stagnant domestic market restricted thedevelopment of industrial capitalism in Japan. Therefore, the redundant workforce inrural Japan could not be absorbed in urban industries. Because of rural overpopulation,peasants have to compete each other for having a land to cultivate. That is why the rent
was so high. With the high rent, low productivity, and small plots, farmers have toincrease their income by side businesses like sericulture and also by sending theirdaughters to sweatshops. He admits that agricultural machinery such as tractors andcombines was available in the 1920s and 30s. But only a small number of big farms
introduced such modern machinery. As there were plenty of cheap labor in the
countryside, there was no incentive to introduce labor-saving technologies.
With high rents, the landowner class became rich. They were the people that
paid considerable sums of tax, which earned them voting rights at general elections.
Through political participation, they were well connected with politicians andbureaucrats. With high rents, capitalist agriculture could not develop. Capitalists
agriculture is a type of agriculture that runs a big farm by buying or borrowing land,
introduces labor-saving machinery, and employs many agricultural workers. Inomata
says that even in Japan a large farm will be more productive than smaller ones. He
seems to suggest that with a fundamental reform in land ownership—which follows a6socialist revolution— Japanese agriculture can break through its vicious cycle andenlarge the farm size, introducing large-scale farming technology using labor-saving
machinery, and agricultural productivity can be increased. However, he could not
express his ideas overtly, because at the time of publication, such discussion was notallowed.
Sakisaka Itsuro
I would like to shortly introduce two other guys. One is Sakisaka Itsuro 向坂逸郎.

Sakisaka Itsuro (1897-1985)
He is considered to be another important figure in the Rono faction. The main
reason I would like to introduce him is that he was also a graduate at the University ofTokyo. He went to Germany to study Marxism. After returning to Japan he became aprofessor at Kyushu University. He was also forced to resign because of his connections
with the Marxist movement. After the war, he became a professor at the Kyushu
University again, and he became a very influential figure, even politically. He was thehead of the leftist faction of the Japanese Socialist Party.
His book on the debate on Japanese capitalism was The Problems of Japanese
Capitalism 『日本資本主義の諸問題』. He had a simple idea that even though there may
be varieties in production modes at the beginning of capitalism, with the developmentof capitalism, the various types tend to converge to a single type. He admits thatJapanese agriculture was different from what we see in the United States or United
Kingdom, but with the development of capitalism, it will converge to the same pattern.
That idea is based on Chapter 24 of Marx’ Capital Volume 1. Marx says thatthe capitalism tends to split the society into two big parts: the capitalist class and theimpoverished worker class. That is the inevitable law of capitalism. Sakisaka did not
explain why Japanese agriculture looked so different from European or American
agriculture. He did not explain why the acreage was so small and the rent was so high.
On the contrary, Hirano and Inomata faced these problems and tried to give answers tothem.
Uno Kozo
7

Finally, I would like to introduce Kozo Uno 宇野弘蔵.

Uno Kozo (1897-1977)

I was taught Marxist economics from Professor Ito Makoto 伊藤誠. Professor
Ito's mentor was Suzuki Koichiro 鈴木鴻一郎 and Suzuki was a follower of Uno.
Therefore, Uno is my great grandfather in intellectual lineage. Uno studied at the
Economics Department of the University of Tokyo, and he also went to Germany. He
didn't really attend college there. What he did there was to read Marx’ Capital andLenin's Imperialism in his room. After coming back, he became an associate professor
at Tohoku University, and after the war, he became a professor at the Institute of Social
Science, and became the first director. The Institute is where I currently am working for.
So, I have many reasons to admire Uno. Uno created the so-called “Uno school.” There
should be more than 200 scholars who seem to have some relationship with the Uno
school. It should be considered the most powerful faction in Japanese Marxian
economics.
I like to limit my talk on Uno’s remarks regarding the debate on Japanese
capitalism. Uno argues that in the case of England, the polarization of rural societies,
which means the polarization into landowners and landless peasants precedes thedevelopment of capitalism. The landless peasants go to the cities to make their living
and become the proletariats. That process is called “original accumulation” in Marx’
Capital.
But in late-comer capitalisms like Germany or Japan, Uno argues, capitalism
come from outside. The original accumulation in rural societies had not started or only
at its early stage when capitalism is imposed. The old feudal system remains there. The
rural society with feudal characteristics is involved in capitalism without its own
transformation.
Therefore, in late-comer capitalisms like Japan, the transformation of ruralsocieties from the feudal production mode to capitalism will be promoted bygovernment forces. But the process will be a slow and gradual one. That is why even at
the stage of capitalism, the rural society seems to have feudal traits. Capitalism has its
common tendency to foster rural transformation by eroding the feudal traits fromoutside. But this law will be hampered or distorted based on the condition of each8

country.
And later, Uno was inspired from this debate and developed a kind ofmeta-theory about how to combine theory and actual analysis. He thinks that to directly
apply the basic theory of capitalism like Marx’ Capital to the case of Japan is wrong.
There should be something in between. He advocated to split the Marxist analysis into
three parts. The first part is the basic theory. The second part is the stage theory, which
describes the stages of global capitalist development. Uno said that global capitalism
had passed through the stages of mercantilism, liberalism, and imperialism. The 1920s
and 30s was the era of imperialism. The actual situation of Japan should be analyzed inlight of the stage theory and basic theory. The basic law of capitalism will work in Japanbut it will be affected and distorted by its individual conditions.
Comparison
I’ve introduced four scholars and let me compare their views. I think, thedebate on Japanese capitalism reveals a problem of applying a universal theory to aparticular country. I think in many cases you face a similar problem not only in
Marxism, but also in other theories. There is a universal theory, but if you try to applythat to a particular country, like China or Japan, you always face a problem that theactual situation may not fit completely into the model. Japanese agriculture in the 1920s
and 1930s sustained the low productivity, small acreage, and rural poverty in feudal
society. Yet the land ownership institutions could no longer be regarded as feudal. Japan
did not neatly fit into the schema of Marxism.
Sakisaka was the most optimistic. He thought that within 10 or 20 years thereality would change and it would fit into the model of capitalism. But his view was
wrong. The postwar reforms revealed that without such strong enforcement under
occupation, Japanese agriculture might never be able to get out of its vicious cycle.
Then, was Hirano correct? Well, Hirano was also wrong in his own way,
because he tried to prove that Japan was under feudalism in vain. He and the Koza
faction tried hard to show the existence of extra-economic enforcement. But barring therule of the state, such extra-economic enforcement did not really exist after the Meiji
Restoration.
I think Inomata had the deepest understanding of what was happening inJapanese agriculture. I think he knew the most about agriculture. But, at the same time,
he had his failure in his own way because he seemed to think that only socialism canovercome the problem of Japanese rural society. However, the postwar reform had
nothing to do with socialism. The drastic adjustment of the land ownership
structure—which could be likened to a revolution—paved the way for Japan’s postwar
capitalist development.
In short, I think, strategically speaking, the Koza faction like Hirano wascorrect. Japan really needed a revolutionary reform in agriculture to push forward its
9capitalist development. But, at the same time, the Rono faction, in particular Inomata,
was correct in a theoretical sense. Japan was not a feudal society. There was a split intheoretical correctness and strategic correctness. That was a problem caused by directly
applying the Marxist formula to the case of Japan. Therefore, I think, Uno’s proposal
was the most appropriate. His proposal is a good way to adjust Marxism to make it
useful in explaining Japan’s actual situation while not abandoning Marxism.
That's the end of my talk. Thank you.
October 8, 202010