Page:Sanzō Nosaka - A Brief Review of the Labour Movement in Japan (1921).pdf/30

 (Sling-ink Society), both for the study of Marxism and for supporting the livelihood of colleagues. In 1914, the Baibuh-sha started a monthly journal, „The New Society“. Naturally the society and its journal became a bond of Socialists scattered over the country and in the foreign countries.

In 1916 Osugi published a syndicalist journal, „The Modern Thought“, but it could not continue long.

A little later, there appeared a few small study groups of Socialist intellectuals and workers in Tokyo, among which „The Hokufu-kai“ was prominent.

Taken on the whole, however, all those groups, papers, an activities were largely confined to the academic study of Socialist theory and the masses of workers and their organisations were not touched by them. Poor, miserable and wretched not materially alone, but mentally also, were the exploited peoples of this period.

Faced with the life-and-death struggles of the enslaved for their existence at home and the great practical lesson of Communist Revolution in Russia, Socialism (especially Marxism) began early 1918 to revive from a decade's enforced silence, to come out on the high-way from its refuge on the dusty bookshelf.

One year from the summer of 1919 was that of the greatest crop of Socialist literature such as never happened in the previous years. Translations, writings and papers on Socialism of all schools (Marxism, Syndicalism, Guild Socialism, Anarchism, State Socialism, Fabianism, etc.) were published in a considerable amount by the Baibun-sha group, petit-bourgeois professors and journalists, some of them however being suppressed by the censor and some published in secret. At the same time, several groups for the study and propaganda of Socialism sprang