Revolutionary Action

 Source: La Vie Ouvrière, Novembre 9, 1923, p. 5.

Hồ Chí Minh toàn tập, Tập 1, Chính trị Quốc gia - Sự thật, Hanoi, 2011, pp. 237-239.

Translation: Foreign Languages Press, Paris, 2021.

The recent disasters have drawn worldwide attention to Japan. Much has been said about its industrial power and economic development, past and future; occasionally some mention has been made of its social conditions. It is known that Japanese capitalism has taken only twenty to twenty-five years to reach the state of progress that its Western counterparts have taken a century to achieve.

Parallel to its capitalist development, Japan has seen its workers’ movement grow at a rapid pace. Alongside the proletarian movement, another revolutionary movement made its appearance: the Eta movement.

Within the Empire of the Rising Sun, there is a category of citizens known as Eta. Their appearance does not differ from that of other Japanese people. But the legend says that they are descendants of slaves exported abroad in ancient times. That’s why today they are treated like their ancestors were back in time. They are forced to live in special communes, where no Japanese per-son sets foot. They are not allowed to mix with the Japanese population; they can only approach the Japanese as servants. They are only allowed to do hard and dirty jobs that no other Japanese would do, hence their name Eta, which means “dirty.” No relationships nor marriages between Japanese and Eta are allowed. In short, all social rights are denied to them, and their situation is similar to that of the Shudras of India or the blacks of America. Currently they number around three million.

Under the pressure of the conscious proletariat, the Eta are waking up and organizing themselves. A league has just been formed, which bears the meaningful name of Suiheisha.112 Members are enthusiastically joining and last year in its first National Congress the Suiheisha gathered 2500 delegates from all over the country. The rallying cry was “Absolute equality” and the official mot-to: “The liberation of the Eta will be the work of the Eta ourselves.” Liberal and governmental organizations, worried about this new force, tried to coopt it. They did not succeed.

When all the doors were closed to them, the Eta workers found an equal and brotherly support among the Japanese workers’ groups. That is why, today, declining all interested help from the government liberals, they are joining forces with the working class of Japan,begun as a caste struggle, the movement is turning into a class struggle.

Before the opening of this year’s Congress, the Eta addressed an appeal to “all nationalities, all workers and victims of international capitalism and imperialism.” After recounting the hardships experienced by their people and the ineffectiveness of the reforms proposed by the Government, the appeal affirms the “will of the organized Eta to walk hand-in-hand with the working class towards the Social Revolution and towards the emancipation of all the exploited peoples.”

In their action program, we see several characteristic points that denote the energy and resolution of the League. Among other things, the program includes:

a) The refusal to accept any aid having a charitable character, including government aid;

b) The preparation of their members for direct action;

c) The formation of farmers’ unions;

d) The creation of Suihei sections for women and young Eta;

e) The creation of libraries and the publication of educational, legal, and propaganda literature;

f ) The demand for absolute political and economic freedom.

Below we will discuss another revolutionary force in Japan, the peasant movement.

Nguyen Aï Quac

112 The Buraku Liberation League is one of the burakumin’s rights groups in Japan. Buraku are ethnic Japanese and descended from outcast communities of the Japanese feudal era. The ori-gin of the Buraku Liberation League is the National Levelers Association, or Zenkoku Suihe-isha, founded in 1922. The word “suihei,” meaning horizontal or level, is employed as a call to realize a society that is uniformly even and without discrimination. As an association for such aims, the name Suiheisha (“sha” means association) was used.