Speaker 1: Cool Zone Media.
Speaker 2: Hello, and welcome to Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff.
Speaker 2: You're a weekly reminder that when bad things are happening,
Speaker 2: people try to do good things like kill Japanese emperors.
Speaker 2: Because this is a rerun episode and we are going
Speaker 2: back to the very first year of Cool People Who
Speaker 2: Did Cool Stuff, I am showing you again an episode
Speaker 2: because I think is pretty cool. It's an episode about
Speaker 2: the Japanese anarchist women who kept trying to kill emperors
Speaker 2: as there was a bunch of them. And this is
Speaker 2: totally unrelated to anything happening now. Hello, welcome to it
Speaker 2: could happen here the podcast that is my podcast.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 2: I'm your host, Margaret Kiljoy, and with me is the
Speaker 2: Webby Award winning Sophie Lichterman as our producer, as well
Speaker 2: as the actual hosts of the show, who go without
Speaker 2: mentioning because I don't see any reason to include them.
Speaker 1: Can that just be the intro to every episode for now?
Speaker 2: Yeah? This is better than our all of our regular
Speaker 2: introsh I loved that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So what are we talking about today? Also on podcast,
Speaker 1: Garrison Davis and Christopher Wong.
Speaker 2: Hello, Yes, so today we are we are talking about.
Speaker 3: The sort of long and incredibly tragic history of Japanese anarchism. Well, okay,
Speaker 3: I actually about this Japanese anarchism before World War Two,
Speaker 3: because after World War Two was an entirely different story.
Speaker 3: And as much as I love people in construction helmets
Speaker 3: just like beating the shit out of cops with large sticks,
Speaker 3: that story is extremely complicated. If you want to hear
Speaker 3: me talk more about that story a little bit. The
Speaker 3: third part of my Nobosuikikishi episode has a lot of
Speaker 3: people in construction helmets with sticks.
Speaker 2: But yeah, no, this is.
Speaker 3: You know, okay, So the history of anarchism generally is
Speaker 3: the history of tragedy, but even by by anarchist standards,
Speaker 3: the history of Japanese anarchism is just an absolute welter
Speaker 3: of heartbreak and loss. Out of all of the people
Speaker 3: that we're going to talk about today, exactly one of
Speaker 3: the non Russian anarchists is going to live to see
Speaker 3: world the end of World War two, and he's Korean.
Speaker 3: Every single other person is either going to be executed
Speaker 3: by the state, assassinated, kill themselves, drink themselves of death.
Speaker 3: So this is uh, this is this is an extreme
Speaker 3: om bleak story in a lot of ways.
Speaker 4: Good to have one of those optimistic episodes every once
Speaker 4: in a while.
Speaker 5: Yeah, you know, I mean I think the.
Speaker 3: Thrown down a well, well, okay, it's it's unclear whether
Speaker 3: anyone got thrown down.
Speaker 5: Awe.
Speaker 2: I'm sorry, I'm skipping ahead and I don't actually know.
Speaker 3: We will get to the wells uh yeah, I I
Speaker 3: also okay, So there's a lot of Japanese anarchists and
Speaker 3: we don't have that much time. So if you're like
Speaker 3: in Asawa U, Sakataro Stan, I'm sorry, we can't.
Speaker 2: Cover all of them. And the ever think about the
Speaker 2: history of anarchism in Japan that is weird is that
Speaker 2: the beginning of the story predates they're actually being anarchists
Speaker 2: in Japan, or pysically they're being Japanese anarchists. There's this
Speaker 2: huge degree of sort of like cultural exchange and influence
Speaker 2: running between Japan and Russia by rich of the fact
Speaker 2: that they are, you know, next to each other, and
Speaker 2: especially in the eighteen seventies and eighteen eighties. This is
Speaker 2: one of the sort of.
Speaker 3: This is important again because Russia in this period is
Speaker 3: like a this is like the hotbed of anarchism, right
Speaker 3: like they're they're killed, they're killing the czar, They're they're
Speaker 3: they're doing all the things. They're going to the countryside,
Speaker 3: they're the Russian anarchists are sort of on the move,
Speaker 3: and a lot of the famous Russian anarchists wind up
Speaker 3: like in Japan. Bakunin is there for like you like
Speaker 3: he has some extremely complicated arrangement who he like sneaks
Speaker 3: on a boat and he like gets out and he
Speaker 3: beats one of the sort of like samurai like Beiji
Speaker 3: Restoration revolutionaries, and they chat for a bit and then
Speaker 3: he leaves.
Speaker 2: So he you know Muchinon's not this is when he
Speaker 2: was escaping Siberia. Yeah, well I think, yeah, he's escaped
Speaker 2: me Siberia.
Speaker 3: And then he somehow convinces like the American embassy or
Speaker 3: something to like let him on a boat to Japan.
Speaker 2: It's it's a very weird story, as I call.
Speaker 3: Things, Bakunin ar But the most probably anarchists to spend
Speaker 3: time in Japan is Lev Meshnikov. Meshinakov is like he's
Speaker 3: like a pretty big deal in Russian revolutionary circles, Like
Speaker 3: he's he's considered like okay, so the the big sort
Speaker 3: of like anarchists. Left wing moving to Japan is the
Speaker 3: populist right. It's called the rob Nicks. And there's two
Speaker 3: big figures in it. There's uh Nikolai Turnichewsky and this
Speaker 3: guy left Menchikov, And you know, he's Menchakov. Like he
Speaker 3: knows everyone he knows, like he's friends with just like
Speaker 3: every single person. And we will get to more of
Speaker 3: his friends later. But like he's a kind of part
Speaker 3: of bakoonin he he has. He has a very similar
Speaker 3: creative Bacoon in a lot of ways where he just
Speaker 3: sort of like runs away, especially like Eastern Europe. He's
Speaker 3: like runs around the world being in revolutions, which is
Speaker 3: good work.
Speaker 2: If he can get it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, it's it's pretty exciting. And he doesn't die,
Speaker 3: which is sort of incredible. Oh well, I love that
Speaker 3: for him, So he's still around. Yeah, this is very sad,
Speaker 3: you know, well, I mean he he you know. Look, look,
Speaker 3: this is this is the goal of Russian cosmism.
Speaker 2: No is it actually cosmism?
Speaker 4: I have no idea.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the cosmonaut people, yeah yeah, yeah, they bring back
Speaker 2: all the dead people. Oh no, I don't know about this.
Speaker 2: I only know a weird thing where there was like
Speaker 2: anarchist cosmonauts in like nineteen twenties Ussia.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, so there, their whole thing was like, uh okay,
Speaker 3: so they they they thought that the anarchists had been
Speaker 3: defeated in the revolution because they were insufficiently committed to
Speaker 3: bring the dead back to life, and that that that,
Speaker 3: you know, the whole thing was like they like they're
Speaker 3: there's some of the people who are involved in like
Speaker 3: the Soviet like rocket programs, and they're doing this because
Speaker 3: they want to colonize the moon in March so they
Speaker 3: can fit all of the dead Poltaria they're gonna bring
Speaker 3: back to life.
Speaker 2: Wait, are you telling the truth to me?
Speaker 5: This is all true?
Speaker 2: This is this is just amazing. I've been trying to
Speaker 2: fight for the Anarchist Necromancer League for so long, which
Speaker 2: our slogan is raised the dead to fight like hell
Speaker 2: for the living.
Speaker 5: That it's incredible.
Speaker 4: But yeah, no, like, uh, the Russian cosmism, it's a
Speaker 4: weird one cosmism. It's like a weird mix of like
Speaker 4: like natural philosophy quote unquote, which is just like different
Speaker 4: films of like folk magic or whatever, and like religion
Speaker 4: and spiritual stuff, but also it's like a predecessor to
Speaker 4: like the modern transhumanism. It's a it's an interesting little
Speaker 4: collection of ideas that was popular at like the very
Speaker 4: beginning of the twentieth century.
Speaker 3: It's part of my thesis that no one normal has
Speaker 3: ever been involved in the production of a rocket like
Speaker 3: I mean, yeah on the Soviet in and then there's
Speaker 3: just like the Nazis and it's like, oh, zero normal people.
Speaker 2: I have no counter argument there was that because there
Speaker 2: was the guy who did all the multi stage rocketry,
Speaker 2: the Nihilists who killed the czar, who built the bomb
Speaker 2: that killed the czar. He like, when I talk about
Speaker 2: this in my podcast, Oh, probably already listened to this.
Speaker 4: You have a podcast?
Speaker 2: WHOA Yeah, I really just I'm here. I'm gonna plug
Speaker 2: this every like five minutes. This episode you can learn
Speaker 2: about the bombmaker who killed the czar and his what
Speaker 2: he brought to the world in terms of rocketry and
Speaker 2: manned rocket travel. Anyway, please continue on what on WAT show?
Speaker 1: Margaret?
Speaker 2: Well, okay, is this podcast that I'm recording on right now?
Speaker 2: When does it come out? When are you listening to it,
Speaker 2: dear readers? Okay, Well, then next Monday you can listen
Speaker 2: to cool people who did cool stuff, which is my podcast. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm so good at my job anyway. My job is
Speaker 2: to interrupt you with please tell me more about the
Speaker 2: cosmos and how they relate to Japan.
Speaker 3: The cousm was actually nothing to do with this, unfortunately.
Speaker 3: Oh okay, but yeah, but uh Lev uh Lev Meshnikov
Speaker 3: like he also he like fights with Garibaldi to unify Italy.
Speaker 2: He's just like all over the place.
Speaker 3: But he's an interesting guy because Okay, so there's like
Speaker 3: a lot of foreigners who go to Japan, but he
Speaker 3: like makes Japanese friends and like learns Japanese before he
Speaker 3: goes there, which makes him like utterly different than like
Speaker 3: ninety nine percent of the people who are writing like
Speaker 3: Westerns who are writing abut Japan in this period, who
Speaker 3: like don't speak very good Japanese and never leave their houses.
Speaker 3: So nothing has changed, Yeah, yeah, well except weirdly, this
Speaker 3: one guy's doing better. Oh no, I mean nothing has
Speaker 3: changed from now no where. No Westerners actually, they just
Speaker 3: pretend to care about Japan. Okay, Yeah, it's it's it's time,
Speaker 3: there's actually that's one of the burning themes of these
Speaker 3: two episodes is like there's a lot of stuff about this,
Speaker 3: about anarchism and about Japan just like don't change. But
Speaker 3: you know, so one of the things that Mechiakov winds
Speaker 3: up doing is he winds up spending two years teaching
Speaker 3: at this thing called the Tokyo School of Foreign Languages.
Speaker 3: And this has a bunch of major impacts, one of
Speaker 3: which is is on Meshnikov himself, who he becomes heavily
Speaker 3: influenced by by the Major Restoration, which he thinks of
Speaker 3: as like this like but he looks at it at
Speaker 3: this is like as a revolution, like this is an
Speaker 3: acty feudal revolution. This is the most successful social revolution
Speaker 3: of that you sent It's like he thinks that it's
Speaker 3: like destroyed the sort of stratified class system and creates
Speaker 3: this like possibility of like mass social mobility for commoners.
Speaker 3: And Okay, so this is like not the best interpretation
Speaker 3: of what's going on with with the Major Restoration. Where
Speaker 3: I mean, so the Major Restoration sort of ends the
Speaker 3: fuel system in Japan, it does a lot of other
Speaker 3: bad things.
Speaker 2: What is it, Like, I don't know that much about this, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: so maybe the audience doesn't either. Okay, So the Major
Speaker 2: restoration is a thing that happens where so so Japan
Speaker 2: has been ruled by a shogun for like a long time,
Speaker 2: and the shogun runs a fuel system. It's very elaborate.
Speaker 3: Everyone has at least sort of ritied hard casts. But
Speaker 3: eventually there's this kind of like that there's there's this
Speaker 3: sort of it's complicated. It's this kind of nationalist movement
Speaker 3: by a bunch of like a bunch of the samurai clans,
Speaker 3: who uh this is this is happening in the eighteen sixties,
Speaker 3: and they mobilize to overthrow like the shogunate and basically
Speaker 3: like restore the emperor to a power. The emperor has
Speaker 3: been like a puppethead like figurehead guy for like two
Speaker 3: hundred years and they bring him back to power. I
Speaker 3: because I'm a hack of a fraud and a fraud.
Speaker 3: I'm forgetting their exact slogan. It's it's something like it's
Speaker 3: revere the Emperor, and I ken't what the other part
Speaker 3: of the slogan is. It's very similar to the to
Speaker 3: the box of rebellion slogan. It's it's this sort of
Speaker 3: I mean, there's a lot of things going on here.
Speaker 3: It's kind of a reaction to so in the in
Speaker 3: the eighteen sixties, like Japan is sort of forcibly opened
Speaker 3: to the world by like Kamadar Perry's showing up with
Speaker 3: a bunch of like the largest gunboats anyone has ever seen.
Speaker 2: And this, like this forces Japan to sort of like.
Speaker 3: Abandon its isolationist positions and yeah, and you know, and
Speaker 3: you get the sort of classif intellectuals you're looking at
Speaker 3: this and they're going like, Okay, if we don't do something,
Speaker 3: like we're gonna get colonized mm hm.
Speaker 5: And so they do.
Speaker 3: And the thing that they do is that they do
Speaker 3: this revolution and they overthrow they overthrow the shogunate. There's
Speaker 3: all this like there's what there's like a trillion anime
Speaker 3: set in this period because there's like that, there's there's
Speaker 3: like like there there are there are squads of samurai
Speaker 3: swordsmen like running around like stabbing each other in Tokyo
Speaker 3: and like Kyoto and like it's it's wild, it is
Speaker 3: it is a it is a time and and this
Speaker 3: sort of this is what sort of consolidates the modern
Speaker 3: Japanese nation state. You know, I've talked about this in
Speaker 3: my Kishi episodes, but like it sets off this wave
Speaker 3: of colonialism. They like they conquer ho Kaido, they conquer
Speaker 3: the Yoku Islands, they do all this horrible colonialism stuff.
Speaker 3: But there's there's it's really unclear what the revolution is
Speaker 3: actually going to mean because like there has been a revolution, right,
Speaker 3: like the the sort of like feutal like class system
Speaker 3: has been swept away. There's all of this sort of
Speaker 3: there's all this this energy in the masses. There's like
Speaker 3: one of one of the things that uh Meshnikov find
Speaker 3: is like he so he gets to Japan in like
Speaker 3: the in like the eighteenth eighteen seventies, and he's seeing
Speaker 3: like the first signs of discontentment with with the sort
Speaker 3: of the major restoration, which is the restoration of the Emperor.
Speaker 3: Because there's a lot of people who look at this
Speaker 3: and we're like, oh hey, we're gonna we finally like
Speaker 3: defeated this sort of olive art class that like rules
Speaker 3: all of us. And then there's a new oligart class
Speaker 3: and they're like wait, hold on. And so there's there's
Speaker 3: like there's a series of like ex samurai rebellions. There's
Speaker 3: this whole sort of like like he like uh Mechiakov
Speaker 3: literally like gets there in the middle of an uprising
Speaker 3: and he's just like in the streets and he has
Speaker 3: nobody what's going on because the guy he's been talking
Speaker 3: to winds up being in the uprising, and you know,
Speaker 3: so he guess they're But what what he sees also
Speaker 3: is he sees his upheaval, but he sees this enormous
Speaker 3: network of like cooperative movements and he's a bunch of
Speaker 3: mutual aid groups. He sees like villages who are like
Speaker 3: pooling all of their resources, like can send kids to
Speaker 3: like school in this city. He sees like he sees
Speaker 3: the government failing to provide services for people because there's
Speaker 3: an uprising going on, and also with the government and
Speaker 3: so people are sort of people taking care of each other.
Speaker 3: And this has an enormous influence on him, and he
Speaker 3: starts to, you know, like the way he thinks about
Speaker 3: anarchism changes, and he's he's like, he starts to think
Speaker 3: about sort of like anarchism as cooperation, like mutual cooperation
Speaker 3: between people who like mutual aid enters the sort of
Speaker 3: lexicon And.
Speaker 2: Okay, so there's a there's a modern historian named.
Speaker 3: Sho Kooshi who writes this book called anarchist anarchist modernity, cooperatism. Wait,
Speaker 3: hold on, yeah, anarchist madernity cooperatism and Japanese Russian intellectual
Speaker 3: relationship modern Japan. And he makes the argument basically, yeah,
Speaker 3: there's there's two there there.
Speaker 5: It's it's a better title.
Speaker 3: Than I'm reading it, because there's there's two. There's like
Speaker 3: a heading and like a subheading straight because I'm But
Speaker 3: he's making the argument that this this is like this
Speaker 3: is actually like something that's very important the development of
Speaker 3: narcro communism because this guy, he knows everyone liked the
Speaker 3: anarchist geographer, Like, uh, at least Ricklouse, I can't pronounce
Speaker 3: his name.
Speaker 2: I think it's the clue. Yeah, I think so, but
Speaker 2: I can't not with a gun to my head, I'm
Speaker 2: not sure.
Speaker 3: Yeah anyway, Yeah, like they're roommates, like they're like they
Speaker 3: live together for like a while, and like he he
Speaker 3: he writes the Japan entry and like the encyclopedia, he's
Speaker 3: friends with Krapotkin. And after after his his sort of
Speaker 3: like thoughts starts to change about mutual aid, you start
Speaker 3: to see a lot of the same stuff, like you know,
Speaker 3: like this is like he's he's there before Kripatkin writes
Speaker 3: mutual Aid, and then you see you see all the
Speaker 3: sort of vitel aid stuff popping up with Krikpotkin, And
Speaker 3: you know, I don't know how seriously to take the
Speaker 3: argument that like you're sort of seeing like that that
Speaker 3: a lot of this theory is sort of a rebound
Speaker 3: of reflection of what they were seeing in Japanese society.
Speaker 3: But it's interesting, and I think I should mention it
Speaker 3: because I don't know, like, there's there's this whole sort
Speaker 3: of intellectual sphere of people who were like associated with anarchists,
Speaker 3: and the every thing that happens in this period is
Speaker 3: that like so there's a bunch of like Meshnikov like
Speaker 3: has a bunch of friends in Russia who all got
Speaker 3: arrested because they were in like terrorist groups, and he's
Speaker 3: able to get like a whole bunch of these people
Speaker 3: to like he's able to get them like exiled, and
Speaker 3: their exile is they go to Japan, they teach with him,
Speaker 3: and so suddenly there's like there's like a bunch of
Speaker 3: people who are now like these populists are like writing
Speaker 3: stories about like the stuff they were doing, and like
Speaker 3: all the people who are still fighting in Russia. So
Speaker 3: there's suddenly there's all these people who are like reading
Speaker 3: about the Russian populists in Japan. And and you know,
Speaker 3: and this is there's there's this kind of like anarchist
Speaker 3: cultural sphere that exists in Japan.
Speaker 2: Like before there's anarchists, like anarchists.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, for jah anarchists, they'll be like one, like yeah,
Speaker 3: there's like a couple of Russian anarchists and like yeah,
Speaker 3: but uh like uh Meschakov leaves one. But the other
Speaker 3: big thing with this is Tolstoy, who is like Tolstoi
Speaker 3: in like the eighteen eightyes, eighteen nineties, like early ninete hundreds.
Speaker 3: He's like he's the like he I think he's like
Speaker 3: the most translated author like on Earth in Japan. And
Speaker 3: it's they're not just reading his like literary work, they're
Speaker 3: reading his like theology, his political work, which is important
Speaker 3: because Tolstoi is like a Christian arco pacifist, right yeah,
Speaker 3: And and this influences this there's this kind of like
Speaker 3: there's there's a lot of sort of like left wing
Speaker 3: anti imperial strains of Christianity that pop up in Japan,
Speaker 3: and this is one of the reasons for us, because
Speaker 3: everyone's reading Tolstoy and so you get the seeds of
Speaker 3: this anarchist movements that eventually sprout into a man named
Speaker 3: uh oh god, this guy's name is actually hard Kotoku Shusi.
Speaker 2: I'm butchering the last part of it. I'm sorry.
Speaker 3: My Japanese does not extend to this many yous and
Speaker 3: eyes in a row.
Speaker 5: But Kotaku.
Speaker 2: He's an interesting guy.
Speaker 3: Because so he doesn't so he has like a whole
Speaker 3: career before it becomes an anarchist. He's he's like he's
Speaker 3: a very premp my journalist intellectual, Like he writes a newspaper.
Speaker 2: It's very famous. Everyone reads it.
Speaker 3: And he's the heir apparent to this other like very
Speaker 3: famous sort of liberal journalist who again, because lev Metchnikov
Speaker 3: knows literally everyone, was like a friend of Lef Meshnikov.
Speaker 3: He just knows every single person on earth. It's incredible,
Speaker 3: ye know.
Speaker 2: That rules, yeah, goals?
Speaker 6: You know?
Speaker 2: Yeahs turn if you ever snitched to be terrible apparently
Speaker 2: he never did, so yeah yeah, I mean it's still around,
Speaker 2: so I mean he still could snitch. He's still around.
Speaker 2: He still ask the chance oh, I guess everyone would
Speaker 2: snitched on his dead so makes it harder the epic
Speaker 2: skip blurry area. Yeah.
Speaker 3: So Kotoku is like he's kind of like a standard liberal,
Speaker 3: but he gets involved with the anti war movements especifically,
Speaker 3: this is the anti uh why it does anti a
Speaker 3: lot of wars because the Japan is fighting an enormous
Speaker 3: series of wars in like the early nineteen hundreds.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they kicked Russi's ass at that point.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, they fight uh Japan, they fight Japan. Sorry,
Speaker 3: they fight China. Yeah, and do you know who else
Speaker 3: is fighting China?
Speaker 5: I don't know.
Speaker 2: I'm afraid to know. The products and services that support
Speaker 2: the show. Are we supported by American nationalism?
Speaker 5: Apparently? Yes, question mark.
Speaker 3: And we're back with the first rush, the first actual
Speaker 3: Japanese anarchist. So in nineteen hundred, kotuk who writes this
Speaker 3: book called Imperialism Monster of the twentieth Century, which is
Speaker 3: like good, yeah, yeah great, he rules and this certificate
Speaker 3: for a number of reasons, one of which is that, like,
Speaker 3: this is one of the first major like books about imperialism,
Speaker 3: Like there are some other Western writers whose stuff like
Speaker 3: predates this, but like this is nine hundred. This is
Speaker 3: before Lenin has written about imperialism. This is before like Hobson.
Speaker 3: This is before Luxembourg. And I'm just gonna read it
Speaker 3: a little bit from it because it rules. So this
Speaker 3: is from the first section. It's called imperialism of wildfire
Speaker 3: in an open field. Imperialism spreads like a wildfire in
Speaker 3: an open field. All nations bow down to worship this
Speaker 3: new god, sing hymns to praise it, and have created
Speaker 3: a cult to pay it, to pay it adoration. Look
Speaker 3: at the world that surrounds us. In England's both governments
Speaker 3: and citizens have become fervent acolytes of imperialism. In Germany,
Speaker 3: the war loving emperor never loses a chance to extol
Speaker 3: its virtues. As for Russia, the regime has long practiced
Speaker 3: a policy of imperialism. France, Austria, and Italy are all
Speaker 3: delighted to join the fray. Even a young country like
Speaker 3: the United States has recently shown its eagerness to master
Speaker 3: this new skill. And finally, this trend has reached Japan.
Speaker 3: Ever since our great victory in this Japanese War, Japanese
Speaker 3: of all classes burned with fervor to join the race
Speaker 3: for an empire like a wild horse freed from its harness.
Speaker 2: So you know, the one thing that he got incorrect is,
Speaker 2: as I understand by spending a lot of time on Twitter,
Speaker 2: is that actually only the United States is imperialist and
Speaker 2: any actions, especially by Russia. I was very confused that
Speaker 2: he included Russia as the I can't finish the sun,
Speaker 2: so this great face what Russia would be? Also, how
Speaker 2: could it be imperialism if Lenin hadn't yet defined the
Speaker 2: term for us? Oh this is okay, this is the
Speaker 2: whole thing.
Speaker 3: Okay, So Kuduko gets like a lot of shit from
Speaker 3: this book, like from later on for Japanese leftst because
Speaker 3: were like he's insufficiently materialist. It's like, yeah, he is
Speaker 3: mostly just talking. Like the book's mostly about like how
Speaker 3: patriotism and nationalism like create this stuff. It doesn't look
Speaker 3: at economics much. But like, okay, there's a whole problem here,
Speaker 3: which is that if you try to apply Lenin's definition
Speaker 3: of imperialism to Japan, it doesn't work because like like
Speaker 3: when Japan is invading China, they have like I think
Speaker 3: it's like fifty total factories.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like the everything is completely backwards.
Speaker 3: Yeah, like it's like yeah, and like you know, so
Speaker 3: like like like Lenin's imperialism is supposed to be like
Speaker 3: the highest stage of capitalism, but then you go to Japan,
Speaker 3: Japan's like barely started the transition to capitalism. Like if
Speaker 3: Lenin's imperialism is supposed to bet like debt exports, right,
Speaker 3: but Japan is just conquering countries while they're just literally
Speaker 3: like borrowing massively from whether states to funder industrialzations. Everything
Speaker 3: does nothing, None of it works, and koto Ku gets
Speaker 3: like again he has like a lot of shit for this,
Speaker 3: but it's like, no, he's right, like Lenin is wrong.
Speaker 3: Like Lenin's analysis if you try to apply Japan does
Speaker 3: not work and codiness does.
Speaker 2: So imagine that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and you know, Cotico, I think like he's keyed
Speaker 3: into things that the Marxists aren't, but like specifically about
Speaker 3: like about the power of nationalism, because you know, I
Speaker 3: mean like obviously, if if you go a bit later,
Speaker 3: it's like, well, all of these people who are like, oh,
Speaker 3: imperialism is the highest age of capitalism, and then all
Speaker 3: of their parties vote to go to war with each
Speaker 3: other in will War one, Like you know, okay, Codico,
Speaker 3: I think like gets this because his relationship the socialism
Speaker 3: and anti imperialism are like backwards from the Marxist right
Speaker 3: where the Marxists arrive at anti imperialism, like from their Marxism.
Speaker 3: But Coutico like becomes a socialist because he sees it
Speaker 3: as a way to stop wars. Like that's like his
Speaker 3: big thing is he's in the anti war movie and
Speaker 3: he wants his wars to stop, and.
Speaker 2: That's the right direction to do shit. Yeah, you should
Speaker 2: do shit because like you don't pick the label because
Speaker 2: what's cool. You pick You figure out what you believe,
Speaker 2: and then you pick the label that fits what you
Speaker 2: believe instead of the other way around. You know. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and you know, and it means that he's less sort
Speaker 2: of like he's less dogmatic than like his successors, because
Speaker 2: you know, I'll make because because he's he's working off
Speaker 2: of his actual principles versus sort of like this like
Speaker 2: dictation stuff. And I mean he's he's he inc you know.
Speaker 3: Three, he publishes The s of Socialism, which is like
Speaker 3: this is like the first like socialist like book written
Speaker 3: by Japanese person. It's like one of the I think
Speaker 3: there's maybe like one or two other ones that are before,
Speaker 3: but this is like the first big one and he
Speaker 3: so he's also like he's involved in founding the Japanese
Speaker 3: Socialist Party and then he gets like arrested and sent
Speaker 3: to the US and something happens when he's in the You,
Speaker 3: I don't know, there's I've seen like six conflicting accounts.
Speaker 3: Like I've seen accounts that say he joins he joins
Speaker 3: the IWW.
Speaker 2: I don't know. I've seen other people say he lived,
Speaker 2: he lived in a commune, Like he definitely read ger Pocket,
Speaker 2: he like becomes an anarchist. Let's decide he did all
Speaker 2: of these things.
Speaker 3: Yeah, lived in a commune and tried to organize the
Speaker 3: comedy with the IWW. Yeah, but you know, I mean
Speaker 3: this guy is a normal influential in history of Japanese left.
Speaker 3: Like he is the guy when he comes back in
Speaker 3: nineteen know six, he's the guy who introduces the concept
Speaker 3: of the general strike Japan.
Speaker 5: Yeah, like he's.
Speaker 2: The first guy to write about it.
Speaker 5: He's very cool.
Speaker 3: He also like, yeah, you know, he starts pushing this
Speaker 3: and start this. He starts pushing anarchism as a direct
Speaker 3: action as like I said of like doing parliamentary stuff,
Speaker 3: and he translates like Kropocket's work in the Japanese. He
Speaker 3: translates like the company's manifesto. He does labor organizing. He's
Speaker 3: sort of like all over the place. And you know,
Speaker 3: like labor and the anti war movement are like two
Speaker 3: of the big currents that are adroucing anarchists. But the
Speaker 3: other like big current that's making anarchists period is feminism.
Speaker 3: Because okay, so I stop me if this is in
Speaker 3: any way surprising, but the late eighteen hundreds and early
Speaker 3: nineteen hundreds are not a time to be a woman
Speaker 3: in Japan.
Speaker 2: Really. Yeah, it's not a good time like anywhere.
Speaker 5: But it's not even now.
Speaker 4: It's not the best.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I will be improved.
Speaker 3: I will say it's it's better than this. This is
Speaker 3: like sure, like the major regime is sort of like
Speaker 3: consultating self is as is consolidating itself. It gets like
Speaker 3: progressively more like patriarchical misogynist. I'm going I'm gonna read
Speaker 3: from the book Reflections on the Way to the Gallows.
Speaker 2: Which is this is a great book.
Speaker 3: It's also a collection of Yeah, well so that's oh god,
Speaker 3: I forget one of the Japanese anarchists Who's about to die?
Speaker 3: Like that's the title of like a piece.
Speaker 2: That she wrote.
Speaker 3: And this book is like a collection of Japanese feminist writings,
Speaker 3: mostly from people who get killed by the state, because
Speaker 3: that's what happens in your feminist Japan in this period.
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, it's bad.
Speaker 3: All right, Okay, So I'm gonna read the quote from this.
Speaker 3: In eighteen ninety two, the government forbid women to make
Speaker 3: political speeches, and in eighteen ninety mayde it illegal for
Speaker 3: women to participate in political activities whatsoever. Women were forbidden
Speaker 3: to even listen to political speeches. The Police Security Regulations
Speaker 3: of nineteen hundred reinforce these strictures. Article five of the
Speaker 3: regulations prohibited women from forming any political organization whatsoever.
Speaker 2: Jesus.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's like that's like a level of restriction that like,
Speaker 3: I'm not sure I've ever seen like that explicit level
Speaker 3: of no, you can't do this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I feel like it's usually implicit in a lot
Speaker 2: of westerns.
Speaker 5: Yeahs.
Speaker 2: And then also, like one of the things that really
Speaker 2: strikes sticks out to me about that is that I'm
Speaker 2: so used to thinking about I think people tend to
Speaker 2: think about like this like linear progress model where like
Speaker 2: you go back really far, like all women and all
Speaker 2: other oppressed categories had it terrible and then just slowly
Speaker 2: gets better or whatever. But if they're passing these laws
Speaker 2: in nineteen hundred, there's an implicit it was a little
Speaker 2: better before nineteen hundred.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, yeah, it's very specially it's worse. Like so
Speaker 3: one of the things with the eighteen ninety eight legal
Speaker 3: coaches that like it literally just legally enshrines like patriarch
Speaker 3: control the house holds, and this is this is this
Speaker 3: is a massive reactionary shift in in Serve Jeopardese like
Speaker 3: domestic and political culture. Like this is like that that
Speaker 3: kind of patriarchal control of the household was like a
Speaker 3: thing in some Samurai families, but like it wasn't a
Speaker 3: thing for there's a huge number of popular classes like
Speaker 3: just that didn't exist and they just legislated into existence.
Speaker 2: And like.
Speaker 3: You know, I mean like the things that the things
Speaker 3: that they're applying here, like women need consent of their
Speaker 3: father to marry. It is for this another quote for
Speaker 3: the book, what are the provisions held that quote, cripples
Speaker 3: and disabled persons and wives cannot undertake any legal action.
Speaker 2: Fucking hell uh huh.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So this is this is this is an incredibly reactionary state.
Speaker 3: And there's also like there's a lot of sex trafficking
Speaker 3: going on, like like actual like there's a lot of
Speaker 3: people just being grabbed off the street. It's a it's
Speaker 3: a it is a disaster, and it is into this
Speaker 3: patriarchal mess that like several generations of Japanese narco feminists
Speaker 3: step into the most famous of the first round is
Speaker 3: Connor Asukako, who's she's a socialist author who converts to
Speaker 3: she's originally socialist, and she con vers anarchism, which is
Speaker 3: like a thing that happens a lot in this period.
Speaker 3: And she she's working as a journalist and you know,
Speaker 3: she she's she's like she's just a very sort of
Speaker 3: controversial figure. The government like hates her. So she meets
Speaker 3: Kotoku and they have an affair. And this is like
Speaker 3: one of the other things that keeps happening here is
Speaker 3: there's a lot of like free love stuff going around
Speaker 3: the Japanese anarchist circle at this time. And this this
Speaker 3: has two consequence is one is a lot of men
Speaker 3: use it to be really shitty and means there is
Speaker 3: like there is a again, this is this is this
Speaker 3: is this is the big like nothing has ever changed
Speaker 3: the anarchist movement. There are so many relationship drama things nothing.
Speaker 7: There are so many times this lat circle like like
Speaker 7: there are two different times when the most famous Japanese
Speaker 7: anarchists man and the most famous Japanese anarchist women wind
Speaker 7: up in a relationship.
Speaker 3: Uh it ends with it with them explaining the movement
Speaker 3: and them both dying in prison.
Speaker 2: Like this happens twice. Exact sequence happens twice.
Speaker 5: It's not.
Speaker 2: Like they're they're just they're just doing pollicule shit, Like
Speaker 2: it's oh, they just the better mediators.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, have that well, And I mean this is
Speaker 3: this is the thing with like the Japanese Like so
Speaker 3: the Japanese anarchist movement like has a huge feminist wing,
Speaker 3: but like the men still.
Speaker 2: Suck, like they just keep being bad.
Speaker 3: And so the other thing about this is that uh
Speaker 3: Konosukoko is like enormously more militant than like almost every
Speaker 3: any other anarchists that's alive in Japan at this point.
Speaker 3: And so in nineteen ten, she gets involved with the
Speaker 3: plan to assassinate the Emperor and this becomes known as
Speaker 3: the High Treeson incidents, and the state like gets wind
Speaker 3: of this. They arrest her, they arrest Kotaku, and they
Speaker 3: arrest like twenty two other twenty two twenty two other anarchists.
Speaker 3: Now like five of these people are like even tangentially
Speaker 3: involved in this plot, but they this is okay, So
Speaker 3: I can't say that the Japanese government only does this
Speaker 3: to anarchists because they do this to fascist like once.
Speaker 3: But like they do this thing where okay, So they
Speaker 3: have a bunch of people that they want to execute, right,
Speaker 3: So they find one person who's like an ideological figure
Speaker 3: and they're like, okay, you're now in the middle of
Speaker 3: this and you're the link between like this group and this.
Speaker 2: Other group want to kill. This other group want to
Speaker 2: kill the other group want to kill.
Speaker 3: And so they convict uh like Chuosio and kind of Psygaku,
Speaker 3: Like they all get convicted, they all get executed. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and so this case is also interesting because there's a
Speaker 3: bunch of people who the state like wanted to kill
Speaker 3: but they couldn't because they'd already arrested. They'd already they
Speaker 3: like this is like two years after like a mass
Speaker 3: arrest of like half of the Japanese nargist movement. And
Speaker 3: so they have all these people who are in prison,
Speaker 3: and it's like even by like the standards of the
Speaker 3: Japanese state, it's like, Okay, how are we going to
Speaker 3: convict all of these people who have been in prison
Speaker 3: for two years of trying to of like being a
Speaker 3: part of this plot to kill the emperor that was
Speaker 3: like organized outside of the jail. And so this this
Speaker 3: is the thing that saves like a huge portion of
Speaker 3: the Japanese anarchist movements, that saves it from literally so
Speaker 3: like this the hydrogen incident kills like most of the
Speaker 3: famous anarchists Japan, but it leaves like like a couple alive.
Speaker 2: And that's why they're alive because they were all in prison.
Speaker 2: Oh god, wait, how are they going to kill the emperor?
Speaker 3: The plant didn't get very far. I think they were
Speaker 3: trying to use a bomb, but the police got wind
Speaker 3: of it like very very early, so they never really
Speaker 3: got much like past.
Speaker 2: The planning stage. This is a shame.
Speaker 5: Yeah yeah, And do you know what else?
Speaker 3: Never gets very far plast past the planning stage when
Speaker 3: they're trying to assassinate the emperor of Japan?
Speaker 2: Is it the ads because they don't know how to
Speaker 2: do direct action because they're too immeshed in capitalism.
Speaker 4: That is actually exactly what we were talking about, Margaret,
Speaker 4: Thank you so much, and we're back.
Speaker 3: I was genuinely trying to see if I could like
Speaker 3: think of a company that had like tried to kill
Speaker 3: the Japanese emperor, and I couldn't think of one. And
Speaker 3: I was like, hmm, this says something about society.
Speaker 4: This does. This is a real, real solid critique we
Speaker 4: have here.
Speaker 2: I really hope that ten years from now this all
Speaker 2: seems very dated. You're like, of course someone major company
Speaker 2: has tried to never.
Speaker 8: Mind, one can dream, so kind of Skaku is dead
Speaker 8: is also dead in this This means that it's time
Speaker 8: for sort of like another generation of anarchists to try
Speaker 8: to fill in the gaps.
Speaker 2: Wait, so they're executed.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, they're dead, Like they just die and they kill,
Speaker 3: they kill, they kill like twenty two of the anarchists
Speaker 3: or something.
Speaker 2: And I mean this is a this is a huge purge.
Speaker 3: The wind up executing just like there's just like a
Speaker 3: like a sympathetic like Buddhist priest it's executed.
Speaker 2: When is this?
Speaker 3: This is nineteen eleven. Sorry, yeah, this is nineteen eleven.
Speaker 3: And actually there's another ansty thinking about this kind of
Speaker 3: Sukaku becomes the first woman ever executed by the Japanese state.
Speaker 2: She will not be the last, like oh.
Speaker 6: Boy feminist diicon, Yeah, I mean equal rights, equal fights.
Speaker 3: There's another like very influential Marco feminist who's emerges lightly after,
Speaker 3: like just like in like nineteen fourteen, nineteen fifteen is
Speaker 3: echo Noah. She's an egoist anarchist who eventually.
Speaker 4: Like, yes, finally, finally we bring it out.
Speaker 3: That's all I have to say about yes, But that's.
Speaker 2: Like almost all I have to say. She she she
Speaker 2: takes over the editorial.
Speaker 3: Position of this this magazine called Bluestocking Magazine, which is
Speaker 3: like Japan's I think she's like, this is like the
Speaker 3: most important feminist magazine in Japan, and she takes over
Speaker 3: the editorial staff about it. And her work is really
Speaker 3: interesting in a lot of ways because it just it
Speaker 3: just straight up is contemporary feminism in a way that
Speaker 3: like a lot of the stuff on this period isn't
Speaker 3: like if if you go and read the arguments she's
Speaker 3: having she's arguing that sex work should be legal and
Speaker 3: that everyone should be able to be able to get
Speaker 3: abortions because women should have autonomy over their bodies.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like rule keep winning.
Speaker 4: Well, sometimes this.
Speaker 2: Is not going to end well for her, but you
Speaker 2: know it doesn't end well for any of us on
Speaker 2: a long enough timeline. You know, like all that matters
Speaker 2: is the time of what were this time we are
Speaker 2: gularly bad?
Speaker 3: Okay, fine, yeah, so yeah, and I think so she's
Speaker 3: able to do this for like a year, and the
Speaker 3: Japanese state looks at this it is like absolutely not
Speaker 3: and shuts the magazine down. And so she she gets
Speaker 3: forced to move on to other things. And the other
Speaker 3: thing she moved on she moves on to is being
Speaker 3: extremely heavily involved in the free love movement of course.
Speaker 5: Yeah yeah, and and.
Speaker 3: But also, and this is the thing that that's interesting
Speaker 3: about this sort of period of Japanese anarchism is that
Speaker 3: like the egoists are all also syndicalists.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah yeah yeah.
Speaker 3: And she's so she's like heavily involved in labor organizing,
Speaker 3: and this is how she comes into contact with her partner,
Speaker 3: who she's like cheating on her imprisoned husband, who will
Speaker 3: later form the Japanese Communist Party.
Speaker 4: Oh wow, that is that's a lot of stuff happening.
Speaker 3: There's the there's so much there's so much beef.
Speaker 2: It's incredible.
Speaker 3: There's there's so this like we haven't even gotten to
Speaker 3: the wild part of this relationship yet.
Speaker 5: Okay, which is so so okay.
Speaker 3: So she she comes to contact with her partner pushing
Speaker 3: who will become her partner Osagi Sakai, who is like
Speaker 3: dating another very famous Japanese narco feminist who she stabs
Speaker 3: him in the neck over the fact that he's multiple
Speaker 3: relationships at once.
Speaker 2: So this is really a free love situation from her
Speaker 2: point of view. Yeah, this is this is the thing
Speaker 2: that keeps happening with.
Speaker 5: Free love of this period.
Speaker 3: It's like you gotta like, you gotta lay down, you
Speaker 3: gotta make sure everyone's okay with everything.
Speaker 4: They sure seem to the right things in theory, but
Speaker 4: then they sure, yeah.
Speaker 2: Sure do fall apart. Huh isn't that funny?
Speaker 5: Yeah? And this too divides the Japanese.
Speaker 2: But did she win, does she succeed? Did she kill
Speaker 2: him or did he survive that? Okay, Yeah, I'm just
Speaker 2: I have there's a special place in my heart for
Speaker 2: split slit throats of patriarch.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Anyway, so oh Saki is also very heavily volve in
Speaker 3: labor organizing, and he he's one of the guys who
Speaker 3: like turns anarchist labor into like a serious political force, which.
Speaker 2: Is maybe it's that they survived.
Speaker 3: Yeah, like it's probably not good. But all of the
Speaker 3: guys in this story like suck excepts.
Speaker 2: Do I haven't accept here. What about the Korean guy who?
Speaker 2: Oh yeah we got to him. Yeah he's he's I
Speaker 2: kind of like I think he's actually fine. Yeah, I
Speaker 2: think maybe the end of his story gets weird. Yeah,
Speaker 2: well real, we'll get to that in a second.
Speaker 3: But yeah, so Osaya Sakai has like he has he
Speaker 3: has this like fusion of like egoism and syndicalism, where
Speaker 3: like the individual ego will be liberated through like collective action,
Speaker 3: but the goal of the workers movement is not to
Speaker 3: just like end poverty, it's to like liberate the individual
Speaker 3: and give themselves developments. And he's also this like incredible
Speaker 3: fierce like like one of his big thing is that
Speaker 3: like he does not want intellectuals anyone your the workers
Speaker 3: movements like.
Speaker 5: Does not this so absolutely not.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and this is because like again he's been around
Speaker 3: for ages, Like he becomes an anarchist around the time
Speaker 3: when Kotoku does like that's No. Six, So he's been
Speaker 3: like around it. He's one of the guys who survives
Speaker 3: the High Trees an incident because he was already in prison. Okay,
Speaker 3: all right, it's all he like he's one of the
Speaker 3: people who like keeps the sort of flame of anarchism
Speaker 3: alive after like they're Prussian nineteen eleven. But unfortunately for
Speaker 3: him and for Echo Noe, they get caught up in
Speaker 3: the Canto earthquake of nineteen twenty three, which is this
Speaker 3: like this earthquake between Yokohama and Tokyo alone kills two
Speaker 3: hundred thousand people. It is like it is like it
Speaker 3: is one of the worst like natural disasters. It's it's
Speaker 3: really bad, and it immediately gets worse.
Speaker 2: The state wouldn't use a natural disaster to try and
Speaker 2: further its aims through extra legal means.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So okay, I'm gonna start with one of the
Speaker 3: ways that the genocide of Korean people in Japan at
Speaker 3: this time starts is so there's a bunch of Korean
Speaker 3: workers in a long stur union that's been organized by
Speaker 3: this built and like leftist union guy named Yamaguchi Sakhaan
Speaker 3: and and Okay, so like they're in this long shot union.
Speaker 3: There's this disaster they start doing virtually, they start going out,
Speaker 3: they start taking care of the vivories, are giving people food,
Speaker 3: but you know, they're like waving red flags and stuff,
Speaker 3: and the Japanese police lose their minds and are like,
Speaker 3: oh my god, they're the Koreans are doing socialism and
Speaker 3: they just start killing them. And they there's this whole
Speaker 3: thing about like there's these rumors start to like Koreans
Speaker 3: are raping Japanese women and it turns into this thing
Speaker 3: about like looting, and then like Korean malcontents are supposed
Speaker 3: to be like overrunning police stations and the lynch mobs
Speaker 3: those also are mostly targeting Koreans, but they're also target
Speaker 3: like if you're Chinese, if you're from Buku Islands, like
Speaker 3: they're killing you. Two they kill two thousand Koreans in
Speaker 3: Tokyo and another two thousand in Yokohama, and like two
Speaker 3: thousand Koreans in Yokohama, that is half the Korean population.
Speaker 5: Of the city.
Speaker 8: Wuck.
Speaker 3: And these people die like horribly, like because and it's
Speaker 3: not just like so that the police are actively hunting
Speaker 3: them down. Like the entirety of Japanese society like remembers
Speaker 3: that they really like killing people and they really like fighting,
Speaker 3: and like, I mean, you have people like taking their
Speaker 3: like ceremonial swords from like their ancestors who are in
Speaker 3: the major revolution, Like they're taking their katanas and going
Speaker 3: industry and murdering people with them. Like people just like
Speaker 3: have fish hooks and they're just murdering people in the street.
Speaker 3: And this goes on for like, this goes on for days.
Speaker 3: And one of the things that happens in this is.
Speaker 5: Well, okay, so the one of the other things happens.
Speaker 3: In this period is that the Javanese government just starts
Speaker 3: like arresting random leftist and executing them. Yeah, and that's
Speaker 3: what was supposed to happen to knowe to Eato Noe
Speaker 3: and Osaga Sai Kai. But they get arrested by a
Speaker 3: squad of military police led by Mashahiko Amakasu who just
Speaker 3: he just murders them. There's like conflicting stories of how
Speaker 3: this happened. There's there's one version of it where like
Speaker 3: he kills them and like their six year old nephew
Speaker 3: and throws their bodies on a well. There's another version
Speaker 3: of it where they get strangled, and that he strangles
Speaker 3: him in prison and this is like a huge outrage,
Speaker 3: but it's not a huge outrage because he murdered them,
Speaker 3: but he huges outrage.
Speaker 2: Because he was supposed to wait for the trial.
Speaker 5: I mean, and.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and this is one of the things that like
Speaker 3: this is this is part of how like fascism comes
Speaker 3: to Japan, is that like he becomes a hero with
Speaker 3: the fascist right, Like he goes to prison for ten
Speaker 3: years supposedly, but he only serves three and then he
Speaker 3: gets out. He becomes a hero, and then he becomes
Speaker 3: basically the head of like the the sort of fascist
Speaker 3: secret police and the like mencharian puppet state. But on
Speaker 3: the upside, he when when Japan loses to worry, kills himself.
Speaker 2: So when I yay with the story I had heard
Speaker 2: was the Throne in the Well story, and I remember it.
Speaker 2: It stuck with me so much because the first time
Speaker 2: I met anarchists from Japan. They gave me a zine
Speaker 2: and it was like Japanese anarchist martyrs, you know, like
Speaker 2: the martyrs of our movement or whatever. And I was
Speaker 2: like looking through it and were all of these children,
Speaker 2: and it just like really emotionally affected me that I
Speaker 2: was like, oh, y'all's martyrs include all of these like
Speaker 2: not like like literal like like six year olds and stuff,
Speaker 2: because yeah, you know they came and killed not just
Speaker 2: the grown up anarchists but the baby anarchists or whatever
Speaker 2: as well.
Speaker 5: I know that must have.
Speaker 2: Happened lots of places, but it just it really stuck
Speaker 2: with me. So whether it's true or not, the story
Speaker 2: I heard was this story about the well and it
Speaker 2: stuck with me. Yeah. I mean, like the level of
Speaker 2: repression in Japan, like.
Speaker 3: It's it's unlike anything I've ever seen that's not in
Speaker 3: a country that's literally in the middle of a civil war.
Speaker 4: Hm.
Speaker 2: Like they just they just like murder people like constantly. Yeah.
Speaker 3: And then this is one of the other things, like
Speaker 3: one of the things that starts the right wing like
Speaker 3: turn in Japanese society is when is when the earthquak
Speaker 3: happens and the government is like like they're like the
Speaker 3: police are being like, it's the Koreans. Need to go
Speaker 3: fight the Koreans, and so they do and like I
Speaker 3: mean yeah, like wait, they.
Speaker 2: Like blame the earthquake on the Koreans.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, so everything is there's this fire. The fire
Speaker 3: kills like sixty thousand people like it it consumes. They're
Speaker 3: like they're they're the urban core of uh uh what's
Speaker 3: the name of the city. Uh, the urban corep of
Speaker 3: Yokohama just goes up in flames, like sixty thousand people
Speaker 3: burn to death, and that's the government needs some explanation
Speaker 3: for it. Yeah, but it's horrible. It's yeah, the government
Speaker 3: needs some explanation for it. They're like, oh, we'll blame
Speaker 3: the Koreans. And then suddenly all of these people are
Speaker 3: just like like the whole Jappan society just goes into
Speaker 3: this total mobilization like kill mode thing and they just
Speaker 3: murder enormous numbers of people and this and like this
Speaker 3: has this normous sort of like like cultural affection, shifting
Speaker 3: people back to the right and shifting people back towards
Speaker 3: militarism because now they've like you know, like they've they've
Speaker 3: tasted blood they've like they've gotten.
Speaker 2: This sort of sense of it in it. Yeah, it
Speaker 2: is brutal. And uh, before we go, we're gonna kill
Speaker 2: off one more anarchist team. Can we kill off the
Speaker 2: other team instead? I? Unfortunately no, none of them die
Speaker 2: in this story. It's the worst. All of the assassination
Speaker 2: attempts fail.
Speaker 5: It's so sad.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm sorry, that's all right.
Speaker 3: I forgot how depressing this because I was I was
Speaker 3: remembering part two of this, which is this like absolutely hilarious,
Speaker 3: kind of pointless like ideological battle over like things that
Speaker 3: are kind of dumb, and then I forgot about the
Speaker 3: first part of the story, which is everyone gets executed.
Speaker 2: So the last person who we're talking.
Speaker 3: About he gets executed is is Fumi ko Kanako, who
Speaker 3: is from Ko Kanko. So she she she's a nihilist anarchist,
Speaker 3: but she's different from like everyone else we've talked about
Speaker 3: today so far because when she's a kid, she gets
Speaker 3: sent to live in Japanese occupied Korea, and so she
Speaker 3: goes there and she gets like horribly abused by her family,
Speaker 3: which leads to become like leads of her becoming a nihilists.
Speaker 3: But it means that like okay, so, like like a
Speaker 3: lot of the anarchists, like in Japan, talk a big
Speaker 3: game about anti imperialism, right, and like they will do
Speaker 3: things like yeah, like they will go fight police to
Speaker 3: try to stop a warf FM mappening, but they don't
Speaker 3: really talk to people in Korea very much. And from
Speaker 3: Go Kanico was like the exception to that, because you know,
Speaker 3: she she lived there for a long time and she
Speaker 3: she winds up marrying Pak Yol, who is a very
Speaker 3: influential Korean anarchist, and they do a bunch of organizing
Speaker 3: they specifically like that they're their thing is they're trying
Speaker 3: to like get they're trying to like ny the Japanese occupation,
Speaker 3: and you know, they're doing great work. And then unfortunately
Speaker 3: the earthquake, she and pac Yol are and stop me
Speaker 3: if you've heard this one before, They are sentenced to
Speaker 3: death for a supposed plot to kill the emperor.
Speaker 2: Wait now, yeah, we already did this part. You're just repeating, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: they do it again.
Speaker 5: This is the second time.
Speaker 3: Like they just keep doing this, and this one it's
Speaker 3: unclear if there was actually a plot, and if there
Speaker 3: was a plot, it's unclear to what extent Fumio Kanicoat
Speaker 3: was like involved with it, But while she's getting interrogated.
Speaker 2: She's like, oh, yeah, no, like I hate the emperor.
Speaker 2: I was absolutely involved in a plot to kill him,
Speaker 2: Like I was making a bomb to kill him.
Speaker 3: Also I'm an anarchist. And here's like an incredibly detailed
Speaker 3: sketch of like all of the oppression in Japanese society.
Speaker 5: And I'm just gonna tell you, like.
Speaker 2: The person she's like like the court examiner who's.
Speaker 3: Like and am you know, there's there's an internal thing
Speaker 3: that happens where she and Paciol are like are handed
Speaker 3: pardons as like the sort of like mercy of the
Speaker 3: Emperor thing, and Paciol like takes it, but Hugo Kandako
Speaker 3: like they hand her the paper and she tears it
Speaker 3: to shreds in front of them, And it's so in
Speaker 3: embarrassing that like the record of what happened is like
Speaker 3: sealed until after World War two.
Speaker 2: Because it was a big like it was like a
Speaker 2: big media scandal, all of the stuff with them being arrested, right,
Speaker 2: And I'm I'm yeah, yeah, I don't actually know more.
Speaker 2: But I watched a movie once there's a great movie
Speaker 2: about this called Anarchists from Colony.
Speaker 5: This part of it, yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and she yeah, and like yeah, it's just like
Speaker 3: whole thing. And like the government also kind of doesn't
Speaker 3: want to assassinate them because it looks really bad that.
Speaker 3: I mean, they've they've they've picked they've they've arrested two
Speaker 3: random people who like have done nothing, and they're just
Speaker 3: gonna kill them. But for mechanicals like no, like I
Speaker 3: believe in the things that I believe in, and I
Speaker 3: will literally like tear up this part in and die
Speaker 3: for it. And so she tears out the pardon and
Speaker 3: so she goes to prison, and she lives long enough
Speaker 3: to write like the greatest entry in the genre of
Speaker 3: a narcofeminist, a Japanese narcofeminist prison memoirs, which is an
Speaker 3: entire genre. There's like multiple books because this it keeps
Speaker 3: happening and these people get arrested and set the prison.
Speaker 3: It's called the Prison Memoirs of a Japanese Woman. It's great,
Speaker 3: everyone should go read it. It's it's also shouldn't be
Speaker 3: depressing because her life sucks.
Speaker 1: But.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it's it's good.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 3: And so now having killed off the leading intellectuals of
Speaker 3: anarchism again for the second time in a generation. You
Speaker 3: would think that this would this would kill the movement,
Speaker 3: like I think, I think like ninety nine percent of movements,
Speaker 3: Like if if you kill their leading intellectuals, like all
Speaker 3: of them, like twice in like.
Speaker 2: Twelve years, like the movement collapses. Yeah. That, but at
Speaker 2: the very beginning there was the guy who said keep
Speaker 2: the intellectuals away from the labor organizing.
Speaker 3: Maybe yeah, right, well, but this this is Yeah, the
Speaker 3: incredible thing about this is no, it doesn't it doesn't
Speaker 3: kill them. They keep going like and they have they
Speaker 3: have one last glorious, glorious and absolutely baffling hurrah okay
Speaker 3: of like infighting, extremely weird and funny infighting. Okay, So yeah,
Speaker 3: that that's what we're gonna be talking about next episode.
Speaker 3: All right, Yeah, is.
Speaker 1: It time for the plug of the plug?
Speaker 2: Yes?
Speaker 1: Oh oh, Margaret, you have a new podcast I do.
Speaker 2: It's about that.
Speaker 1: It's on this very network, Cool Zone Media.
Speaker 2: On this very network. I have my own podcast. Is
Speaker 2: it called Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff? And does
Speaker 2: it I believe so? Does it come out on May second?
Speaker 2: And is it produced by the webby award winning Sophie Lichterman.
Speaker 1: Perhaps, and do episodes drop every Monday and Wednesday?
Speaker 5: I think they do.
Speaker 1: That is super, super exciting. And you can find that
Speaker 1: wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 2: Remember quickly anywhere you get them, like if there's a
Speaker 2: pedler on the corner who sells you podcasts your pain that.
Speaker 4: Gets your pods, get your podcast half off today two
Speaker 4: for one exactly.
Speaker 1: And where and where can people follow you on the interwebs?
Speaker 2: Uh? Well, for now, you can follow me on Twitter
Speaker 2: before the mass exodus at Magpie Killjoy, and you can
Speaker 2: follow me on Instagram, which we've all known for a
Speaker 2: very long time is owned by evil people, and that
Speaker 2: is Magpie No Margaret Killjoy because I wasn't clever enough
Speaker 2: to get my own name in both places. I don't
Speaker 2: know why I am explaining this to you, but you
Speaker 2: can follow me on social media and that's where I
Speaker 2: am and I post pictures of my dog that keeps
Speaker 2: barking in the background while I'm trying to record this episode.
Speaker 1: But but if you, if you follow Margaret, you'll see
Speaker 1: her dog and you'll understand that it is worth it
Speaker 1: because he is handsome.
Speaker 2: And agrees.
Speaker 4: Well I'm very excited to start listening to CPWDC. It's
Speaker 4: just the best.
Speaker 2: Oh is that the episode? Episode? It could happen here
Speaker 2: as a production of cool Zone Media.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website
Speaker 1: coolzonemedia dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.