Short Abstract

This paper examines the Japanese reception of the Polish Solidarity movement in the 1980s through three key words; labor, culture, and journalism. The paper argues that Solidarity movement and the East European case functioned in Japan as an idealized imaginary model of reform in late Cold War era.

Long Abstract

This paper examines how the Polish Solidarity movement was received and re/interpreted in Japan during the 1980s, a decade marked by the coexistence of advanced capitalism, a weakened domestic socialist movement, and heightened interest in alternative models of social organization. The reception of Solidarity movement in Japan did not take the form of a systematic engagement with Polish politics. Instead, it emerged as scattered debates in labor circles, cultural criticism, and intellectual journalism with different expectations and questions of the Japanese society in mind.

The paper focuses on how Solidarity was translated into Japanese contexts on three different layers: labor consciousness, media culture, and broader social debates on socialism. Within labor movements and union-related publications, Solidarity attracted attention as a rare example of worker-led organization that resisted both state socialism and corporate capitalism.

In cultural circles, Solidarity was considered more as an intellectual revival. Essays, translations, and commentaries highlighted dissident culture over labor activities were printed by a number of Polish enthusiasts. These writings conveniently summarized the movement's essence, reframing it as part of a broader Eastern European critique of modernity and ideological stubbornness.

A third line of reception appeared among socially engaged intellectuals and journalists, who viewed Solidarity as evidence that socialism could be reformed with civic values. In this context, the Polish movement functioned as a reference point for reimagining socialism beyond Cold War binaries.

By looking at these diverse receptions, I argue that the Polish Solidarity movement served in Japan as an imaginary, and to a certain extent idealized, model of reform. Japanese actors projected their own concerns onto a distant movement, using Poland as a conceptual resource to rethink labor, culture, and socialism under late Cold War political realities. This paper ultimately aims to fill the gap of the grand Cold War narrative in the Japanese history.