Paper short abstract:

Between 1924 and 1932 students at University of Tōkyō's Settlement ran a labor school to educate the urban proletariat, creating opportunities for labor emancipation and political change in Japan.

Paper long abstract:

Between 1924 and 1932, students at the University of Tōkyō ran a project of proletarian education which was based around the Settlement's "Labor school" (rōdō gakkō). Under the slogan "After Factory to the Labor school!" the young Marxist activists distributed pamphlets in and around the proletarian quarters in Tōkyō Honjo, inviting hundreds of young workers, male and female, Korean and Japanese, into the evening classes of the school. These classes where run by teachers (e.g. Suehiro Izutarō) and by senior students or junior professors, many of whom were to become famous for their political conversions (Hirano Yoshitarō, Asano Akira) or for their participation in the theory struggles of the 1930s on the formation of Japanese capitalism (Hattori Shisō, Ōmori Yoshitarō). While the senior activists were holding lectures on political economy, labor law, or history of the Japanese labor movement, the activities of the younger students were focused around the daily experiences and political practices of the workers of Honjo, trying to form a proletarian cultural consciousness.

By looking closely at the reminiscences of the former activists and reports of the University Settlement, this presentation will show how the young student intellectuals at Tōkyō University tried to apply their knowledge of Marxist theory to the practice of putting the concept of a proletarian class culture into the hearts and minds of the workers of Honjo ward by "entering into the masses". Special attention will be paid to the question whether proletarian education in the Labor School was limited to the attempt to spread Marxist theory, or if the interaction between elite students and intellectuals and young workers created actual opportunities for political change.

The presentation will argue that the latter is the case. Several of the workers that went to the Labor School became members of the Communist Party, others joined the ranks of trade unions or even became high-level functionaries in the post-war Socialist Party of Japan. Although it is less clear in the case of women and ethnic minorities, the Labor School played its part in social emancipation in prewar Japan.