Inejirō Asanuma

“The Yoshida Cabinet’s agricultural policy suppresses rice prices through controls while selling fertilizer freely—selling expensive fertilizer to Japanese farmers, buying rice cheaply from them, and importing expensive rice while selling cheap fertilizer abroad. One wonders for whose sake this agricultural policy exists.”

“There can be no national independence without economic self-reliance.”

“Japan must develop an independent foreign policy based on the great principle of never intervening in war, aiming to become a bridge for peace connecting free Asia with the West.”

“If one country has its security guaranteed by another country's military forces, and if that period becomes long, independence inevitably turns into subservience, we must recognize this. The fact that Japanese courts have no jurisdiction over those residing in Japan [U.S. forces and dependents] constitutes a form of extraterritoriality, and cannot be called complete independence.”

“We must recognize that if a nation’s security is guaranteed by another country’s military for a long period, independence will turn into subordination.”

“Since graduating from Waseda, for over thirty years I have devoted myself to social movements, sacrificing myself to serve the masses, and have done what little I can, believing it to be my historical mission to fight for the realization of socialism [..] This inevitably means sacrificing family life. [...] From a human perspective, social activism can sometimes seem cruel. I sometimes think: what is social activism without the liberation and establishment of family life?”

“The Socialist Party is a mass party, so when discussing things, it is natural that there will sometimes be left-leaning arguments and right-leaning arguments. What we must guard against is fixing 'left' and 'right' and turning them into factions.”

“As I said during the recent party self-criticism, everyone must adopt the attitude of being a pure Socialist Party member — that is, 'I am a Socialist Party member. Neither right nor left, just a Socialist Party member.'”

“No matter how many different arguments may arise, I think it is fine to bring things together where they need to be brought together. In a mass organization like the Socialist Party, there should be someone who can be called a unifier.”

“People often call me 'Maa-Maa Koji' or say I am indecisive, timid, passive, etc. But in a mass organization, once a policy is decided at a congress, if everyone abides by it, there will be neither conflict nor split.”

“In last January’s general election the Communists jumped from four to thirty-five seats and the Liberals won an absolute majority of 270, yet Japan’s working class did not choose the victorious Communists; they chose the defeated Socialists.”

“America also has people who have come to terms with the war and those who have not. The same can be said of Japan. Those who have come to terms with the war welcomed us very warmly and have come to understand Japan very well.”

“Five or six thousand students gathered in front of the statue of Marquis Ōkuma. [...] It ended in a great student brawl, with people like Tokano Takeshi falling from the top of the Ōkuma statue and being injured. Since the day happened to be a Friday, we students called it 'Bloody Friday' and greatly raised our spirits.”

“From the standpoint of students, we began researching democracy and socialism, but influenced by external socialist and labor movements, two currents emerged among the students: those pursuing it ideologically and those focusing on practical action.”

“I entered Waseda in September of Taishō 6 (or 7), the year of the school disturbances when professors like Nagai Ryūtarō and Ōyama Ikuo resigned. I was drawn to Waseda because it was founded by Marquis Ōkuma Shigenobu as a free academy aiming for the independence of learning and freedom of research in opposition to the bureaucratic military clique of the time.”

“He has been a powerful leader of the farmer's Union in Tohoku district. He is one of pioneer christian socialist worker in northern Japan. Most northern farmer still hope him back to the democratic front. I hope so too.”

“Even if the electoral districts are small and the number of winners are limited, if a party gathers a large number of votes nationwide, it should naturally be able to participate in politics through that support. Therefore, a system that respects political parties must emerge. That is why adopting a policy of carving up the electoral districts into tiny pieces is clearly an act of repression against smaller parties. And if it is repression, the end result will be the obstruction of Japanese democracy. This is a point that we simply cannot accept.”

“Tennō Heika Banzai!”

“Now, let us perform remote worship toward the Imperial Palace.”

“In proportion to Britain's decline we see America's advance in the Far East; America is advancing as an obstructer of the construction of the New Order in East Asia even more than Britain's retreat.”