John Crump - The Origins of Socialist Thought in Japan

LONDON AND NEW YORK

The idea of writing this study came to me a full ten years ago, when I spoke not a word of Japanese, had never been to Japan, and knew next to nothing about the country. Over the last ten years I have walked a long and often hard road, but I have been assisted by many people who have given me a helping hand along the way.

I should like to thank the staff of the Centre of Japanese Studies at the University of Sheffield for giving me a grounding in Japanese and for putting up with a sometimes difficult undergraduate student. In particular, I should like to thank Graham Healey, who gave up several hours of his own time to guide me through my first stuttering lessons in Japanese (and who later supervised me when I became a postgraduate student).

After graduating from Sheffield, I spent the next two years at the Institute of Social Science, University of Tokyo and then returned to the Centre of Japanese Studies, University of Sheffield for a further three years. During these periods I lived on scholarships provided by the Japanese Ministry of Education and the British Social Science Research Council. I should like to record my gratitude to the working class, which involuntarily provides the surplus value from which the various states finance such scholarships.

While in Japan, many people were kind enough to give up hours of their time to talk to me about socialism (or socialism). They included And Jimbei, Arahata Kanson, Fujita Shz, Fukumoto Kazuo, Hagiwara Shintar, Haniya Yutaka, Hara Momoyo, Higuchi Tokuz, Matsumoto Reiji, Nabeyama Sadachika, Nakajima Masamichi, Nakamura Akira, Nosaka Sanz, Ozeki Hiroshi, Sakisaka Itsur, Shimodaira Hiromi, Shirai Shimpei, Taguchi Fukuji, Takahashi Kkichi, Takahashi Masao, Tsushima Tadayuki, Tsuzuki Chshichi, Wada Eikichi, Yamakawa Kikue and others who wish me not to mention their names.

Outside Japan, my greatest debts are to those from whom I have gained insights into what socialism genuinely means. It may seem strange to acknowledge my indebtedness to men whom I have never met and who, indeed, were often dead long before I was born. Yet the fact remains that my intellectual debts to Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Peter Kropotkin and William Morris (to name but four) are enormous. I have also learned lessons and received inspiration from later generations of revolutionary socialistsin other words, from those who have battled to maintain the vision of a genuinely socialist society throughout the bitter years of social-democratic and Bolshevik ascendancy. The men and women I refer to here are those who have stood in the anarcho-communist, council-communist, Bordigist, situationist and Socialist Party of Great Britain traditions. In particular, I gained a great deal from the SPGB (and also gave back a little in return) during the nine years I spent within its ranks. The fact that certain political differences now separate me from the men and women who have formed the SPGB over 75 years does not deter me from acknowledging what I owe to them.