Page:The Cannery Boat.pdf/168

158

The significance of the general elections in 1928 consisted by no means in the fact that they were “the first general elections in our land” (vide the jubilations of the bourgeois press). What then was their significance? During the winter of the preceding year the Japanese proletarian movement was in a state of transition, a Communist Party had at last emerged, shaking off narrow “sectarian” elements and working within the legal “worker-peasant” party, “Ronoto.” Broad propaganda was embarked upon, using the elections and all legal opportunities.

The Osawa Peasant Union had three times taken up the struggle against the Yotani health-resort company during those seven years. Over twenty of them had been thrown into prison as a result. The Osawa Peasant Union had become the centre of the peasant movement in the district, the motive-power of the whole organization in the Shiga province. Miesima, Ozawa and Kurose had become whole-time organizers.

The day of the elections approached. Miesima, as the secretary of the local Ronoto organization, exerted all his energies to get the central committee to accept the candidacy of Hamamato Sendzo for the electorate of Shiga. Almost all through the elections Hamamato himself was confined to his bed.

The energetic work of the Communist Party made itself felt throughout the electorate of Osawa. Communist Party leaflets were sure to be handed round in halls where election speeches were being