Red Purge
The Red Purge was an anticommunist movement in occupied Japan from the late 1940s to the early 1950s. Carried out by the Japanese government and private corporations with the aid and encouragement of the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers, the Red Purge saw tens of thousands of alleged members, supporters, or sympathizers of left-wing groups, especially those said to be affiliated with the Japanese Communist Party, removed from their jobs in government, the private sector, universities, and schools. The Red Purge emerged from rising Cold War tensions and the Red Scare after World War II, and was a significant element within a broader "Reverse Course" in Occupation policies. The Red Purge reached a peak following the outbreak of the Korean War in 1950, began to ease after General Douglas MacArthur was replaced as commander of the Occupation by General Matthew Ridgway in 1951, and came to a final conclusion with the end of the Occupation in 1952.
Background
Surrender of Japan and early reforms
In August 1945, Imperial Japan surrendered to the Allied Powers. From September 1945 to April 1952, the United States occupied Japan and attempted to transform Japanese society from an authoritarian regime into a democracy. The Allies endeavored many ways to reform, including disarmament, dissolution of the Zaibatsu, granting of the freedom of speech, release of political prisoners, and enactment of the three labor laws to protect workers' rights: the trade union law, the labor standards law, and the labor relations adjustment law.To manage Japan under the Allies, MacArthur constituted the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers, a management organization of about 2,000 U.S. officers, also commonly known as General Headquarters. Because MacArthur had a huge influence on the people of Japan, GHQ/SCAP was also often used to refer to MacArthur and his bureaucrats rather than just the organization itself.
Political reform
On October 4, 1945, GHQ's Civil Information and Education Section composed the Civil Liberties Directive and ordered the Japanese government to abolish all laws and ordinances that restricted "freedom of thought, of religion, of assembly and of speech, including the unrestricted discussion of the Emperor, the Imperial Institution and the Imperial Japanese Government." Furthermore, SCAP commanded that all persons imprisoned under the designated laws must be released within a week, including many of these prisoners who were socialists or communists, and also specifically noted that the Japanese Communist Party should be allowed become a legal political party again. Shortly afterward, many released communists and left-wing activists reorganized the JCP and held its first general assembly since 1926. Its membership grew rapidly, reaching 7,500 in 1946, 70,000 by 1947, and 150,000 in 1950.Based on the Potsdam Declaration, Douglas MacArthur sent to the Japanese government a document "Removal and Exclusion of Undesirable Personnel from Public Office" on 4 January 1946, which commanded the purge of war criminals and leaders of ultranationalist groups. This purge, which lasted until May 1948, later came to be referred to as the "White Purge" in comparison to the "Red Purge", and led to more than 900,000 people undergoing investigation, with more than 200,000 former career military personnel, politicians, bureaucrats, educators, and opinion leaders ultimately being purged.
Educational reform
During the occupation period, the United States took many methods to reform Japanese educational system, which was heavily influenced by militarism, imperial ideologies and central government. These methods included expanded years of compulsory education, textbook reform, and issuance of the Fundamental Law of Education in 1947. Marxism, especially Marxian economics, was widely spread within many universities during this period. Many Marxists and leftist scholars, who had been banned from teaching, were encouraged by SCAP to organize social activities and regarded as victims of the previous regime and progressive and democratic by many students.Economic reform and labor movement
Japan was seriously devastated in World War II. Nonetheless, with the help of the United States, Japan quickly recovered from the suffering, earning the title of "Japanese Economic Miracle". In Japan, industrial production decreased in 1946 to 27.6% of the pre-war level, but recovered in 1951 and reached 350% in 1960.By the end of the American occupation of Japan in 1952, the United States successfully reintegrated Japan into the global economy to eliminate the motivation for imperial expansion and rebuilt the economic infrastructure that would later form the launching pad for the Japanese economic miracle.
However, rapid economy growth also brought shortcomings and inequalities for poorer and weaker class in the society, especially the workers. The struggle between the working class and the capitalists in Japan became progressively more intense as the reconstruction work progressed. Initially aiming at gaining control over the workplace, seeking better security and respect for the working class, the struggle later evolved into a social movement. The workers not only formed trade unions and developed all kinds of trade unionism and socialism, but also united with the communists, the peasants and the poor city people in their struggle. In addition, Japan's rapid economic development brought serious inflation. From September 1945 to August 1948, prices in Japan increased more than 700%, which later led to crucial unrest in the society.
Under these reformations, activism and with the help of American authorities, nearly five million workers joined the labor movement by December 1946. At first, MacArthur was confident about labor movement because "working classes are the strongest single bulwark of the new democratic regime". The number of organized workers continued to grow, from 5 million in 1946 to 6.7 million by the end of 1948.
Cold War and the Reverse Course
After World War II, relations between the Soviet Union and the United States became increasingly strained in a series of conflicts and eventually led to the Cold War. In March 1947, shortly after the foreign ministers from the United States, Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and France met in Moscow, President Truman issued the Truman Doctrine, which called for containing the global expansion of communism. Especially after the victory of the communists in the Chinese Civil War, the United States feared that a communist revolution might develop in Japan and sought to keep Japan stable and under control. In addition, the JCP and its leaders had been under the influence of the Comintern and the Chinese Communist Party since the 1920s, and continued to attack the Emperor system and the government during the JCP's rapid growth in membership.In the late 1940s, U.S. policies toward occupied Japan underwent a gradual transformation, shifting from focusing on demilitarization and democratization toward economic reconstruction and rearmament. In later years, this policy shift would come to be known as the "Reverse Course".
Progression
Early conflicts
From 1946 onward, the labor movement in Japan began to gradually move beyond the vision of SCAP. Led by the JCP, left-wing socialists, and labor unions, Japanese workers launched a series of strikes. Some of these strikes continued to focus on the improvement of the working conditions and labor rights, but some were dedicated to impacting or even reconstructing the nation's political system. Instead of striking, some Japanese workers used the radical tactic of production control, where workers seized control of production at a company and managed its operations themselves to the exclusion of owners and management. In May 1946, Prime Minister Shigeru Yoshida blamed radical labor movements for their misuse of democracy, reiterating that both capitalists and workers cooperate for the same purpose of increasing production. SCAP retaliation also came very soon, starting with the Cabinet's Imperial Ordinance No. 311, which imposes fines and hard labor of up to 10 years for taking part in "acts prejudicial to Occupation objectives", followed by the usage of police enforcement. Nonetheless, strike action continued in various fronts, and some of the strikes went well, such as the September 1946 strike, which was conducted with MacArthur's acquiescence and achieved some success. The subsequent strike in October, however, was condemned by Yoshida, and the resulting conflict eventually made MacArthur change his position completely. In the same month, MacArthur and the Japanese emperor agreed on the point that the labor movement could be highly vulnerable to manipulation by political opponents.In solidarity with the All Japan Congress of Industrial Unions, left-wing and right-wing socialists united with communists and independents since November to prepare for a general strike on February 1, 1947. The general strike demanded both the solution of labor problems, food shortages, and inflation and the resignation of the Yoshida Cabinet. On January 18, the unions sent an ultimatum to the government demanding that the workers' demands be resolved by 31 January. MacArthur initially remained reluctant to ban the strike outright, merely issuing an informal warning to the unions and sending a document to the strike leaders stating he would not permit "a coordinated action by organized labor to provoke a national calamity by a general work stoppage." The unions ignored MacArthur's warning since they thought that SCAP would not violate its own newly issued labor rights law. On the afternoon of January 31, MacArthur issued a formal directive prohibiting the general strike that was in the process of being prepared. After the ban was issued, Theodore Cohen negotiated with the strike's leaders, and eventually, the strike leaders agreed to cancel the strike. Although the negotiations went well, leftists, especially members of the JCP, subsequently became hostile toward the Occupation authorities.
The Yoshida Cabinet intensified the situation, and instead of solving the inflation, they caused a further decline in the quality of life of the people, suppressed strikes, and confronted the unions, which caused a further spread of labor discontent and a further increase in union membership. In the 1947 general election, the socialists and liberals made significant gains, and the Yoshida Cabinet had no choice but to resign. Meanwhile, SCAP introduced a series of policies and laws to regulate the workers' movement and to provide compassion to the workers, but the policies and laws also called for preventing communists from manipulating the workers' movement to subvert the government. These policies and laws brought benefits to the workers and met many of the demands of the previously outlawed strikes, and also received a great deal of support from the JSP. However, the victory of the socialists and liberals did not mean that the conservative forces were weak; they still held many seats, while Tetsu Katayama's new coalition cabinet itself had internal conflicts between Marxists and others. The JCP was also not fully aligned with the new cabinet.
At the end of the labor reform in 1948, civil-service expert Blaine Hoover suggested in the new revision of the National Public Service Law that workers should not be allowed to overthrow the government by striking and collective actions. He was appointed to a newly created Civil Service Division inside Government Section although his proposal was stymied and not passed, including by GHQ and Prime Minister Katayama. Just as Hoover was revising the law once again in his new role, the Katayama Cabinet collapsed. Centrists in Katayama's cabinet could not continue to maintain their coalition, right-wing socialists lacked sufficient control over the labor movement to implement various austerity measures over the protests of the Sanbetsu and left-wing socialists, and the Democratic Party in the coalition strongly opposed Katayama's proposal for the state management of the coal industry, with conservatives among them ultimately chose to switch to Yoshida's liberals. Although the new Ashida Cabinet was governed by the same three-party coalition as its predecessor, MacArthur did not support the new cabinet as much as he had supported Katayama's. On 22 July 1948, shortly after the formation of the new cabinet, SCAP asked the Ashida Cabinet to pass an order banning strikes by 40% of workers in public industries throughout Japan. The Ashida Cabinet backed down and issued Cabinet Order No. 201 to implement the said actions. The order sparked oppositions and protests from a variety of workers, teachers, and civilians in Japan who considered it a violation of constitutional freedoms and basic labor law, and more than 100 people were arrested during the wave of opposition; the Soviet representative in the Allied Council for Japan and all non-U.S. members of the Far Eastern Commission in Washington also expressed opposition to the order. The order was finally carried out despite heavy opposition that led to the fall of the Ashida Cabinet, anti-American sentiment and the expansion of left-wing forces.