17 Facts About Suehiro Nishio

Suehiro Nishio was a Japanese labor activist and party politician whose career extended across the prewar and postwar periods.

Suehiro Nishio served as Deputy Prime Minister of Japan during the cabinet of Hitoshi Ashida, and in January 1960, he led a breakaway faction out of the Japan Socialist Party to found the new Democratic Socialist Party.

At the age of 14, Suehiro Nishio dropped out of school and went to Osaka to work a variety of factory jobs, beginning with a lathe apprenticeship at the Osaka Arsenal.

Suehiro Nishio soon became involved in militant labor activism, which forced him to frequently switch jobs.

Suehiro Nishio was elected to the House of Representatives in the National Diet for the first time in 1928.

Unlike many other non-recommended candidates who dutifully joined the IRAA upon election, Suehiro Nishio refused to join, and became involved in an effort to depose Prime Minister Hideki Tojo.

In 1945, when the Communist and Socialist Parties were legalized again, Suehiro Nishio became the leader of the right wing of the Japan Socialist Party.

Unlike many other Socialist leaders, Suehiro Nishio maintained strong connections with big business interests, which facilitated his rise within the party.

In 1946, he became party General Secretary under chairman Tetsu Katayama and when the Socialists held power in 1947 and 1948, Suehiro Nishio became Chief Cabinet Secretary under Prime Minister Katayama and was named Deputy Prime Minister under Prime Minister Hitoshi Ashida.

The scandal led to a split between the left and right halves of the Socialist Party amid mutual recriminations, with Suehiro Nishio emerging as one of the leaders of the Right Socialists.

Thereafter, Suehiro Nishio consistently pushed for the Socialist Party to try to expand its base beyond urban working classes to encompass a broader coalition of farmers and small business owners, a position which conflicted with the Marxist dogma adhered to by the party's left wing that a socialist party should be based entirely on the working class.

Suehiro Nishio earned the enmity of the left Socialists because unlike most Socialist Party Diet Members, who drew support from the left-leaning Sohyo labor federation, Suehiro Nishio and his allies drew support from the smaller, much more moderate Zenro labor federation, and in the late 1950s Zenro had embarked on a controversial effort to hive off Zenro-affiliated "Second unions" from Sohyo affiliated unions, which Sohyo viewed as an existential threat.

Suehiro Nishio was openly ambivalent about the anti-treaty movement, and Zenro refused to participate whatsoever after the Socialist Party and Sohyo decided to allow the Japan Communist Party to join the movement.

The left wing of the Socialist Party and the leaders of the Sohyo labor federation decided that Suehiro Nishio was impeding the anti-treaty struggle and began taking steps to have him booted from the JSP.

Rather than waiting to be expelled, Suehiro Nishio bolted the party himself, announcing the formation of the new Democratic Socialist Party of Japan on January 24,1960, and taking around 40 members of the old Right Socialist Party with him.

Suehiro Nishio retired as chairman of the DSP in 1967 due to failing health, and retired from the Diet entirely in 1972.

Suehiro Nishio died on October 3,1981, at the age of 90 due to renal failure.