Hitoshi Yamakawa was a Japanese revolutionary socialist who played a leading role in founding the Japanese Communist Party in 1922.
13 Facts About Hitoshi Yamakawa
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Hitoshi Yamakawa was a founding member of the Rono-ha, a group of Marxist thinkers opposed to the Comintern.
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Hitoshi Yamakawa is remembered in Japan today for being instrumental in introducing Marxism and socialism to Japanese thinkers.
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Hitoshi Yamakawa enrolled in the Doshisha high school in Kyoto, where he converted to Christianity.
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Hitoshi Yamakawa moved to Tokyo, where he helped to write an article on the Crown Prince's marriage that got him sentenced to two years in jail.
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Hitoshi Yamakawa moved back to Tokyo and started working at the Heimin Shimbun in early 1907, where he met lifelong friends Sakai Toshihiko and Arahata Kanson.
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Hitoshi Yamakawa became a syndicalist under the influence of Kotoku only a month later, but was sent to jail again in 1908.
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Hitoshi Yamakawa was however initially reluctant to establish relations that could land him back in prison.
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Hitoshi Yamakawa wrote the essay "A change of course for the Proletarian Movement" in August 1922, which was a manifesto for the new Communist Party.
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Hitoshi Yamakawa advocated direct political action and organization of the working class.
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Hitoshi Yamakawa wanted a broad socialist movement focusing on practical gains.
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Hitoshi Yamakawa became the most influential theoretician of the small Communist Party which, while illegal, was popular among left wing students and academics.
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Hitoshi Yamakawa withdrew from active politics in 1931, but was nevertheless thrown in prison in 1937 when the government was clamping down on dissent after invading China.