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Japan's Militant Teachers

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Japan's Militant Teachers JAPAN’S MILITANT TEACHERS THE EAST-WEST CENTER—formally known as “The Center for Cultural and Technical Interchange Between East and West”—was established in Hawaii by the United States Congress in 1960. As a national educa- tional institution in cooperation with the University of Hawaii, the Center has the mandated goal “to promote better relations and understanding between the United States and the nations of Asia and the Pacific through cooperative study, training, and research.” Each year about 2,000 men and women from the United States and some 40 countries and territories of Asia and the Pa- cific area work and study together with a multinational East- West Center staff in wide-ranging programs dealing with problems of mutual East-West concern. Participants are sup- ported by federal scholarships and grants, supplemented in some fields by contributions from Asian/Pacific governments and private foundations. Center programs are conducted by the East-West Commu- nication Institute, the East-West Culture Learning Institute, the East-West Food Institute, the East-West Population Insitute, and the East-West Technology and Development Institute. Open Grants are awarded to provide scope for educational and re- search innovation, including a program in humanities and the arts. East-West Center Books are published by The University Press of Hawaii to further the Center’s aims and programs. Japan’s Militant Teachers A History of the Left-Wing Teachers’ Movement BENJAMIN C. DUKE Open Access edition funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities / Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Humanities Open Book Program. Licensed under the terms of Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 In- ternational (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), which permits readers to freely download and share the work in print or electronic format for non-commercial purposes, so long as credit is given to the author. Derivative works and commercial uses require per- mission from the publisher. For details, see https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/. The Cre- ative Commons license described above does not apply to any material that is separately copyrighted. Open Access ISBNs: 9780824880804 (PDF) 9780824880811 (EPUB) This version created: 17 May, 2019 Please visit www.hawaiiopen.org for more Open Access works from University of Hawai‘i Press. Copyright © 1973 by The University Press of Hawaii All rights reserved To Noriko Susan and Kimiko Ann, our Japanese daughters Contents Foreword viii Preface xi PART I Origins of the Left-Wing Teachers’ Movement, 1919–1947 1 1 The Prewar Movement 3 2 The Postwar Rebirth (1945) 28 3 Struggles for Economic Survival (1946–1947) 43 PART II The Japan Teachers Union: Twenty Years of Militancy, 1947–1967 73 4 The Rise and Fall of Communist Leadership (1947–1951) 75 5 Obsession with Ideology (1951–1956) 100 6 Violent Encounter with the Government (1957–1961) 136 7 Economic Struggles (1962–1967) 164 PART III Militancy 187 8 Militancy 189 Appendix 203 Notes 232 vii Foreword In the development of educational policy in postwar Japan, the significance of the roles of the Ministry of Education and Nikkyōso (Japan Teachers Union) cannot be disputed. Their functions differ, of course, with one representing the gov- ernment and the other the teachers. The Ministry of Education draws up the national curriculum, approves the textbooks, and recommends teaching methods. The power Japan’s central gov- ernment thus maintains over teachers, comparable to that of other highly centralized governments, is a legacy from prewar Japan, and shows the influence of French and Prussian prac- tices. Following World War II, the central government’s influence over education was sharply curtailed as a result of the American Occupation policy, which was designed to decentralize educa- tional administration. After the American interlude, the Min- istry of Education recovered much of its prewar control and influence. But the government was confronted with an unprece- dented situation brought on by the rise of Nikkyōso, a strong- hold of opposition to the government. Prior to World War II, the majority of teachers were rep- resented by the Dai Nippon Kyōikukai (Great Japan Education Association), a quasi-government organization under strong in- fluence of the Ministry of Education. A dissenting minority of teachers endeavored to organize the teaching body into an op- position force but was quickly suppressed by the government. Shortly after the war, prewar activists were able to reorganize a teachers’ movement that crystallized into Nikkyōso in 1947, when the power of the Ministry of Education was curtailed by the American Occupation. Nikkyōso, like its prewar predecessors, was initiated as an independent, militant organization. It derived its strength and power from the general political and social upheaval within viii Foreword the labor movement during the period of democratization after the war. Consequently, even after the Ministry of Education re- gained much of its prewar influence in the mid-fifties, the union continued as a formidable opposition force. Indeed, the period from 1955 to 1960 was marked by a series of anti-Nikkyōso measures undertaken by the Ministry of Education to restrict that power. The union may well be considered at the present time to have been forced into a defensive position by the Ministry. Nev- ertheless, in certain instances such as Nikkyōso’s appeal to the International Labor Organization and several successful legal cases, the Ministry itself seems to be on the defensive. This much is certain: the Ministry of Education can no longer make any decision concerning the educational policy for the nation without taking Nikkyōso’s reaction into consideration. Nikkyōso is a national federation of prefectural unions of teachers whose members include the large majority of ele- mentary and junior high school teachers, as well as groups of teachers in other sectors. The Ministry refuses to recognize it at the national level, and consequently negotiations occur only between local education authorities and local teachers’ unions. However, the union’s national policy on wages and working con- ditions influences local negotiations; it also has its effect on the labor movement as a whole. Nikkyōso is, in fact, one of the most powerful labor unions in Sōhyō (General Council of Trade Unions), the largest labor confederation in Japan. As is the case with most labor organizations in Japan, Nikkyōso is deeply involved in politics. It openly supports the opposition Socialist party, bringing it into confrontation with the ruling conservative party. The platform of Nikkyōso’s annual conventions includes political slogans opposing American in- volvement in Vietnam and the United States-Japan Security Pact. As a union of teachers, though, the union is deeply con- cerned with educational problems. The different aspects of Nikkyōso’s activities, including teacher welfare, politics, and education, have received varying degrees of emphasis during the course of the union’s devel- opment. Shifts of emphasis have occurred in parallel with changes in leadership of the union, while changes in leadership can be seen, in turn, as a reflection of the educational, political, economic, and social circumstances surrounding it. It is thus necessary to understand the problems of Nikkyōso within the whole context of Japanese society, and such an understanding requires not only a familiarity with Japanese education itself but ix Foreword also a knowledge acquired from related disciplines. This makes the study of Nikkyōso a difficult but challenging task, and, ac- cordingly, few serious studies on the topic have ever been made either within Japan or elsewhere. Professor Duke’s work is an ambitious attempt by a non- Japanese scholar to take the lead in this field. Using the his- torical approach, he sets out to trace the origin and devel- opment of the left-wing teachers’ movement through Nikkyōso’s first twenty years. His work is based on his own first-hand observations in Japan, supplemented by published and unpub- lished works of Japanese scholars on the subject. Readers will find this a good introduction to, and analysis of, the problems of organized movements of Japanese teachers, as well as Japanese education as a whole. UNESCO Institute of Education Hamburg, Germany KOBAYASHI TETSUYA Director x Preface Ever since I came to Japan in 1959 to teach in a university in Tōkyō, I have been keenly interested in the activities of the Nihon Kyōshokuin Kumiai (Japan Teachers Union), better known as Nikkyōso. From its inauguration in 1947, climaxing the chaotic movement among rival left-wing teachers’ organiza- tions immediately after the war, Nikkyōso has pursued a highly controversial policy involving strikes, demonstrations, sit-ins, mass vacations, and other forms of physical and verbal mili- tancy, which at times attained violent proportions. The hostile relationship between the Japanese Ministry of Education and Nikkyōso is reflected in the latter’s militancy. Shortly after I undertook an intensive study of Japanese edu- cation, it became manifest to me that this mutual antagonism provides, in fact, the key to an understanding of developments within postwar Japanese education. Consequently, I concluded that without a knowledge of Nikkyōso and its militant policies and programs it is virtually impossible to grasp the significance of postwar educational policies that were carried out by the Japanese government and the Ministry of Education. Although a knowledge of the role of Nikkyōso is essential for the comprehension of postwar Japanese educational develop- ments, and although this union represents not only the largest union in Japan but also one of the largest unions of teachers in the world, Nikkyōso is virtually unknown outside Japan. A pe- rusal of the literature revealed a dearth of material concerning this union published in languages other than Japanese. Based on this set of circumstances, I rather boldly set out to rectify the situation by undertaking a study of the evolution of the left-wing teachers’ movement in Japan, which culminated in the birth and growth of Nikkyōso in 1947.
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