ABSTRACT
The 1930s is not considered to be the high point for socialism in modern Japan. The sorry fate of a divided, weak and ultimately flawed movement is not usually regarded as sexy. Accordingly, scholars have not shown much interest in seeking to understand the deeper, long-term significance of this era. After all, by 1945, the 1930s was seen either as a dark valley, an aberration, or a purely historical tale of the weakness of an idea whose relevance ended with the triumph of postwar democracy. In general terms, the failure of interwar Japanese socialism has often been collapsed into a general treatment of the failure of the Left as a whole in the face of the wartime emperor system.
