Page:Sanzō Nosaka - A Brief Review of the Labour Movement in Japan (1921).pdf/40



Owing to the isolated position of their country, to concentration of their energy on the campaigns against their internal enemy, to their youth, and to their undeveloped class consiousness, the Japanese Trade Unions have taken no part in international affairs, except a mere fraternal relation of the Yuai-kai with the American Federation of Labour, some personal connections with Chinese and Korean workers and Socialists, and the accidental intercourse of a few Japanese workers with the Western champions of yellow Unions at the International Labour Conference (at Washington and Genoa).

Recently we learned the Amsterdam Trade Union International is trying to create some relationship with the Japanese Trade Unions.

At any rate, it is of great importance that the huge land of the Far East has been not yet stained by the yellow colour of Internationalism.

In conclusion I wish to consider an important issue that in Japan the Trade Unions should play by far the principal role in the future development of Communism more than in European countries. The reason is rather plain. In our country most of the leading Unions sprang up for, or as as [sic] a result of, the fighting against the employer, and not for the mere friendly benefit nor protection of their craft privileges. Therefore, they are comparatively free from narrow-minded and exclusive spirit, free from such a superstition as draws the futile line of demarcation between industry and politics, between industrial and political action—the political „neutrality“—as British Trade Unionists like to do. In other words, from the very beginning the Japanese Trade Union has been fulfilling both industrial and political functions; and the Trade Union constitutes by itself a Political or Socialist body.

Again, it is only the Trade Union in Japan which openly combines the mass of industrial workers in a permanent form. And the government is now compelled to recognise it as one of the social powers and also to permit it more freedom than to Socialists and Communists who