Three letters published in ‘Mother Earth’, September 1911, New York City, published by Emma Goldman, edited by Alexander Berkman
KOTOKU’S CORRESPONDENCE WITH ALBERT JOHNSON
(Continuation.)
San Francisco, May 29th, 5 P. M.
Mr. Johnson.
Dear Comrade: I came here to-day (afternoon). I regret that I could not call on you, because I did not know where you are.
I have composed a poem of farewell* in [the] Chinese language. It is in style of ancient classic. I will write it on Chinese paper and send you. I think I can post it tomorrow. It will be addressed to the Alameda.
I will stay in Oakland till June 1st. On that day we are going to hold a meeting for the organization of [the] Japanese Social Revolutionary Party at the Oakland Socialist headquarters.
Yours for the revolution,
D. Kotoku.
[Denjirō Kōtoku, also known as Shūsui Kōtoku]
[ * Kotoku’s sojourn in America lasted only a few months. He organized the Japanese workingmen on the coast and returned to his native land to continue his propagandistic work.
– note by Hippolyte Havel ]
Japan, Dec. 18th, 1906.
Dear Old Friend And Comrade.
The winter has come, the leaves have fallen. It is, however, very fine weather. The sky is blue, the sunlight is warm. So I am very happy at my village home.
My wife went to the law-court to attend as a hearer to the trial of Comrade Osugi this morning. Comrade Osugi is a young Anarchist student and a best friend of mine. When I was in San Francisco he wrote to you in French language and Mrs. Ladd translated it for you. Do you remember it? Well, Mr. Osugi is now under the trial on the charge of “violence of the press law.” He translated an article titled “to the conscripts” from a French Anarchist paper and published it in Hikari, Japanese Socialist paper. This anti-militaristic deed was prosecuted by the public officials. I am now anxious to hear the result of that trial. I think it will be probable the sentence of several months’ imprisonment and the confiscation of [the] printing machine. How good law and government are!
The most comical fact of the results of the late war is the conciliation (or rather embrace) of Christianity with Buddhism and Shintoism. The history of Christianity in Japan was until now a history of horrible persecutions. The Japanese diplomatists, however, earnestly desiring to silence the rumors caused and spread in Europe during the war that “Japan is a yellow peril” or “Japan is a pagan country,” suddenly began to put on the mask of Western civilization, and eagerly welcome and protect, and use it as a means of introducing Japan to European and American powers as a civilized Christendom. On the other hand, Christian priests, taking advantage of the weakness of the government, got a great monetary aid from the State, and under its protection they are propagating in full vigor the Gospel of Patriotism. Thus Japanese Christianity, which was before the war the religion of the poor, literally now changed within only two years to a great bourgeois religion and a machine of the State and militarism!
The preparation for the Socialist daily is almost completed. I hope the daily will have a success. The Japanese Socialist Party consists, as you know, of many different elements. Social-Democrats, Social Revolutionists, and even Christian Socialists. So the daily would be a very strange paper.
Most of our comrades are inclined to take the tactics of Parliamentalism rather than Syndicalism or Anarchism. But it is not because they are assuredly convinced which is true, but because of their ignorance of Anarchist Communism. Therefore our most important work at present is the translation and publication of Anarchist and Free-thought literature. I will do my best, and use our paper as an organ for the libertarian propaganda.
In China the rebellions and insurrections are spreading. The social and political conditions of China are just the same to that of Russia in last century. I think China will be within the coming ten years a land of great rebellion and terrorism. A group of Chinese students in Tokio is becoming the center of [the] Chinese Revolutionary movement.
Yours very truly,
D. Kotoku.
Yugawara, Sagami, May 3rd, 1907.
Dear Comrade And Friend.
Please forgive me for not writing to you for a long time. During last few months I was very busy, owing to the persecutions of the Government. Now that our daily has been suppressed and our many comrades have gone to the prison, I have no work, no business, so I got leisure to write. I am now alone, at an inn in Yugawara, a famous watering place, one day’s ride from Tokio. I came here to improve my health and am now translating a pamphlet, Arnold Roller’s “Social General Strike.”
My book, in which are collected my essays on AntiMilitarism, Communism, and other Radicalism, has been prohibited and many copies seized by the Government, but the cunning publisher secretly sold 1,500 copies before the policemen came.
Mrs. Yamanouchi is living with her mother and grandmother in a country villa near Tokio. Her family is rich, but she is preparing to live an independent life. She says she does not like to live a parasite’s life. I am now looking for her work. My wife and Magara Sakai were very pleased with the fine cards from you. Magara is now with her father. She is four years old and a very amiable child.
Have you seen the Japanese students in Berkeley who are publishing a magazine which caused a sensation last January? They are all clever and devoted libertarians. I hope the future revolution in Japan will be caused by their hands. Please teach them, educate them, instruct them.
Mr. Sakai is working on an “Encyclopedia of Social Problems” with a few young comrades. Its accomplishment will take five or six months after this. It will have great effect for the education of our people. I am going to translate Kropotkin’s works.
I am very anxious to hear of your eyes. Eyes are very important organs for all men. Take care of yourself. Remember me to your daughter and granddaughter. I ever remain,
Yours fraternally,
D. Kotoku.
Excerpt from ‘Are Kotoku Protests Justified?’ – Emma Goldman (1911)
Published in ‘Mother Earth’, April 1911, New York City
[…] Now, as to why the Anarchists have combined in an active protest against the terrible murder in Japan. The Japanese who were recently killed proclaimed themselves as Anarchists without any extra qualification to it. As a matter of fact they were known as “Kropotkinists,” because they have translated Kropotkin’s works. They were and still are bitterly attacked by the Marxian Socialists, just as we are attacked by them in this country. It certainly would have been downright betrayal to the Japanese victims if their only comrades, the Anarchists, had not taken an active part in their behalf. The very fact that they stood quite isolated in Japan is more reason why we here and in Europe should have expressed as loudly as possible our sympathy with them; at least it must have been something inspiring to know that their comrades all over the world were with them.
I should, of course, be very sorry to hurt those who are still alive and in the hands of the Japanese authorities; but I am quite confident that they would not want me to keep silent simply because I could buy their release by denying them. I am quite sure that were I in their place I should utterly repudiate the sympathy and assistance of any set of so-called “liberals,” if they gave it to me on the condition that they would deny my Anarchism […]
Kotoku Demonstrations – Alexander Berkman (1911)
Published in ‘Mother Earth’, February 1911, New York City
The terrible crime of the Japanese government — the judicial murder of Denjiro Kotoku and comrades—has roused the unqualified indignation of the libertarian elements all over the world. Throughout Europe, as well as in America, the conscience of humanity has been voiced in condemnation of the brutality and barbarism of the government of Japan and its atrocious, inhuman methods.
Progressive elements, without distinction of race or party, revolutionists, radicals, intellectual proletarians, — all joined hands in protest against the governmental assassination of the twelve Japanese Anarchists and Socialists. Everywhere the challenge to humanity has been taken up by the progressive elements: Free Mason lodges of Switzerland and France, members of medical societies, trade unions and syndicalist organizations met on common ground and unanimously condemned the judicial murders, thus proclaiming the solidarity of the international proletariat.
In America, the largest and most significant indignation meeting took place in New York, Sunday, January 29, at Webster Hall. The mass meeting, called by the Kotoku Protest Conference, (representing various radical and labor organizations) was attended by over two thousand people who voiced the sentiments of the revolutionary proletariat in the following resolutions:
“Whereas, Dr. Denjiro Kotoku and eleven of his comrades have been legally assassinated by the Japanese government; and
“Whereas, The only crime of these comrades was the effort to disseminate scientific thought among their people to the end of creating a movement for the overthrow of a social system that breeds misery and degradation for the workers, the charge of ‘conspiring against the throne and person of the Emperor’ being false and unproven; and
“Whereas, This incident is one of many incidents of a similar nature, it having a close relation to the so-called trial and legal assassination of Francisco Ferrer;
“Resolved, First, that we, the workingmen of New York, in memorial demonstration assembled, condemn emphatically the brutality and barbarism of the Japanese government and give it notice that the international revolutionary movement will avenge the death of the Japanese and other martyrs to the cause of social progress by the abolition of class rule and despotism; and,
“Resolved, That we express our appreciation and admiration of the intrepidly noble work of Dr. Denjiro Kotoku and his comrades and pledge ourselves vigorously to carry forward the emancipatory struggle for which they were assassinated.”
The Webster Hall meeting closed with a street demonstration, during which four men and one woman were arrested. One of the prisoners was discharged in the Night Court, while the woman was fined $10.00, which was paid. The other three comrades were thrown into prison, where they were held till released by friends on $500 bail, each. They are now facing trial at the Court of Special Sessions.
In view of this situation, the Defence Committee of the Kotoku Protest Conference is appealing to all friends of justice and liberty to aid in organizing a fund for the defence of our indicted comrades and also for the purpose of sending financial assistance to the many victims of Japanese reaction who are incarcerated at Tokio. Their families, hounded by the detectives of the Mikado and denied the right to work, are without the means of subsistence. Their many comrades are in a similar plight. Shall we allow them to starve?
Contributions are to be sent to the Treasurer of the Defence Committee, ALEXANDER BERKMAN, 210 E, 13th St., New York.
Excerpt from ‘Kōtoku Shūsui And The American Connection’ – John Crump (1980)
Excerpt from ‘A Critical History Of Socialist Thought In Japan To 1918‘
by John Crump
During the Russo-Japanese War Kōtoku Shūsui had started to correspond with Albert Johnson, a veteran activist living in San Francisco. Not a great deal is known about Albert Johnson, but he was evidently already an old man (probably in his seventies) when Kōtoku visited the USA in 1905/1906 and is said to have formerly worked as a sailor on one of the ships which plied between San Francisco and Oakland in California. It is not even absolutely certain whether Johnson was himself an anarchist*, but what is beyond doubt is that he played an important role in introducing Kōtoku to anarchist thought. It is clear from the correspondence which passed between the two men in 1904 and 1905 that Johnson sent Kōtoku a copy of Peter Kropotkin’s Fields, Factories And Workshops, as well as a picture of Kropotkin and his address in Britain, where he lived in exile…
* Ishigaki Eitarō is on record as saying that Albert Johnson was a prominent figure in the San Francisco anarchist groups and Hippolyte Havel described Johnson as the “veteran Anarchist of California” when Kōtoku’s letters to Albert Johnson were published in Mother Earth after Kotoku’s death. (Kōtoku Shūsui, F. G. Notehelfer, Cambridge, 1971, p 123. ) Havel in particular ought to be a reliable source, since from 1900 — when he accompanied Emma Goldman to the USA — he was a very long-standing anarchist in America. On the other hand, Oka Shigeki claimed that Johnson was not an anarchist but a freethinker. (Zaibei Shakaishugisha Museifushugisha Enkaku — History Of The Socialists And Anarchists Resident In America, Suzuki Mosaburo (ed.), Tōkyō, 1964, p 19. ) Oka emigrated to the USA in 1899 and, coming from the same part of Japan as Kotoku, knew Kōtoku well. [Note by John Crump]
Also
Shūsui Kōtoku texts at the Anarchist Library
Reflections on the Way to the Gallows, by Kanno Sugako (1911)
Reflections of a Propagandist, by Lucy Parsons (1911)
The Facts of Anarchy, by Itō Noe (1921)
Against the God Emperor: The Anarchist Treason Trials in Japan, by Stefan Anarkowic (1994)
The Anarchist Movement in Japan, 1906–1996, by John Crump (1996)
Anarchist Opposition to Japanese Militarism: 1926-1937, by John Crump (1991)
Hatta Shūzō and Pure Anarchism in Interwar Japan, by John Crump (1993)
Life of anarchist-feminist revisited 100 years after her murder, from The Japan Times (2023)