The Yellow Chicago
Denjiro Kotoku formerly occupied a responsible position on the editorial staff of the Japanese daily paper, the Korozu Cho-ho (Thousand Morning News) or Tokio. Becoming familiar with Socialist and Anarchist thought, he resigned his position and founded a monthly review, Tatsu Kwa (Iron and Fire). This paper was Anarchist-Communist in tone. It preached the Class War, and was accordingly suppressed.
Kotoku had now called upon himself the hatred of the Governing Class. This despotism remembered that, during the Russo-Japanese war, Kotoku had fearlessly expressed anti-militarist convictions in the columns of the Korozu Cho. It saw those opinions assuming a more matured form, taking on more definite proportions in the revolutionary journal he had established. It answered him with the answer of authority, the proclamation of a conspiracy against the intellectual awakening of the Japanese proletariat.
The Tatsu Kwa was suppressed. All revolutionary--and even pseudo-revolutionary--magazines were suppressed. Not only Kropotkinist, Marxian, and Bakuninist journals, but also Lasallean ones, suffered the same fate. Among those thus suppressed were the Heimin Shimhim, Kunamato Hypron, Shin Shiho, and Wippon Heimin.
Kotoku answered this Governmental conspiracy against freedom of publication by devoting himself to the task of translating the works of Marx, Tolstoy, and Kropotkin into Japanese. In this work he was ably assisted by the friend--with whom he had formed a Free Love union, we understand--Mme. Kano. All these works were confiscated by the Authorities, who destroyed them.
Whilst suppressing Anarchist and Class-War Socialist thought, the Government appointed to professional seats in the Imperial and Wasada Universities men who upheld and propagated the ideas of evolutionary "State-Socialism"--the Fabian brand.
Kotoku sought to counteract this side-tracking by preaching the ideas of Revolutionary Communism to the Chinese and Japanese students resident in the University of Tokio. In this task he was ably assisted by Mme. Ho Chin and M. Lieu Sun Soh. The propaganda resulting from this activity has since been maintained through the columns of Chien Yee and the Chinese Anarchist News.
For these labours Kotoku and Kano paid the penalty of being driven into exile. The Government that had driven them to
|