science

Rōnōha Marxism

Rōnōha Marxism is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Rōnōha Marxism rather than just read about it. In short: Rōnōha (労農派, Rōnōha; lit. "Labor-Farmer Faction") was a group of non-Japanese Communist Party Marxists in prewar Japan. It took its name from the magazine Rōnō (『労農, Labor-Farmer), founded in December 1927.

Key takeaways

Rōnōha Marxism belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Rōnōha Marxism to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Rōnōha Marxism from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Rōnōha (労農派, Rōnōha; lit. "Labor-Farmer Faction") was a group of non-Japanese Communist Party Marxists in prewar Japan. It took its name from the magazine Rōnō (『労農, Labor-Farmer), founded in December 1927. The group consisted of economists who opposed the Kōzaha in the debate on Japanese capitalism, social activists based in the most left-wing proletarian parties, and proletarian literary figures associated with the "Bungei Sensen faction" (文戦派, Literary Front faction).

Formation The Japanese Communist Party is said to have been founded in July 1922 (the First Communist Party). Veteran activists from the Meiji period such as Sakai Toshihiko, Yamakawa Hitoshi, and Arahata Kanson also joined and became central figures. However, around February–March 1924, many party members decided to dissolve the party on the grounds that the conditions for forming a communist party did not yet exist in Japan at the time. Arahata opposed the dissolution and successfully advocated the creation of a small committee (the Bureau) to handle residual affairs. Yamakawa and others argued for organizing a broad proletarian party that would encompass all anti-bourgeois classes and social strata, rather than a small revolutionary party isolated from the masses, and for building a vanguard party while developing the masses. They actively promoted this view in legal magazines and elsewhere. The Bureau launched the legal theoretical journal Marxism in May 1924. Fukumoto Kazuo contributed a series of articles to Marxism based on his theory of "separation before unity" (the so-called Fukumoto-ism), strongly criticizing Yamakawa Hitoshi and others, and exerted a major influence on intellectuals and students of the time. Although Fukumoto-ism was later criticized by the Comintern and declined, Fukumoto's influence remained strong within the subsequent Communist Party. Yamakawa and his associates initially cooperated with Marxism, but as the criticism of Yamakawa intensified they openly rebutted it and severed relations with the journal. Under Comintern guidance, the Bureau decided in January 1925 on a policy of reconstructing the Communist Party, and the party was formally re-established in December 1926 (the Second Japanese Communist Party). The Japanese Communist Party programme adopted by the Comintern in 1927 (the so-called 1927 Theses) criticized both Fukumoto and Yamakawa, making the opposition between the two sides clear. Arahata also left the Bureau in reaction against what he saw as greater sectarianism than in the First Communist Party, did not join the Second Communist Party, and acted together with Yamakawa. In December 1927 Yamakawa and others founded the magazine Rōnō as their own base, and the Rōnōha was formed. Regarding the name "Rōnōha," Yamakawa later wrote: "The editorial collaborators of Rōnō came to be called the 'Rōnōha.' Of course we did not call ourselves that; we had no intention of forming a 'faction,' and being called a 'faction' was unpleasant, but the name stuck." The Japanese Communist Party decided in February 1928 to expel Yamakawa Hitoshi and Arahata Kanson, but the Rōnōha side maintained that Yamakawa and the others had never joined the Second Communist Party and had themselves broken with it, rendering the expulsion decision meaningless.

Theoretical positions The Rōnōha was, in today's terms, a network-type collective without a clear organization or leadership, but it shared a common understanding. (The following is based on the round-table discussion "For the Study of the Socialist Association Theses" (『社会主義協会テーゼ』学習のために), Chapter 1 "The Rōnōha and the Kōzaha," included in the Japan Socialist Association Theses (『社会主義協会テーゼ』).)

Character of Japanese capitalism The Meiji Restoration was an incomplete bourgeois revolution, and the Emperor system was a bourgeois monarchy. The target of political struggle at the time (1927) was the imperialist bourgeoisie centred on finance capital and monopoly capital. Therefore the character of the revolution was a socialist revolution. Evaluation of Bolshevism and the Comintern Leninism (Bolshevism) was a theory developed on the basis of Russian conditions and was not the only development of Marxism. The task of the Japanese socialist movement was not to imitate German-style social democracy or Russian-style communism, but to start from Japanese reality. The revolutionary movement should not be directed from a single world centre. Theory of the party For the general masses, the choice between capitalism and socialism was not an immediate issue. Therefore it was necessary to organize a mass, legal party that would unite all social strata opposed to the bourgeoisie. This party had to be a single proletarian party of a united-front character. Marxists should play an active role in the formation and growth of such a party while expanding their own leading influence within it. Theory of trade unions Trade unions were not substitutes for the party, and the trade-union movement also had to be unified. The struggle aimed at socialist revolution and the struggle to improve everyday life must not be mechanically separated, with the latter slighted or denied. These positions led the group into direct theoretical confrontation with the Kōzaha (associated with the Communist Party and the Comintern's 1932 Theses) in the Japanese capitalism debate of the early 1930s.

Later developments Many of those who participated in the faction were arrested in the Second Popular Front Incident of February 1938 (following earlier arrests in late 1937). After the war the current was inherited by the Japan Socialist Association, the theoretical group of the left wing of the Japan Socialist Party, and exerted a major influence on the policy formation of the Japan Socialist Party and Sōhyō (the so-called Japanese-style social democracy).

Leading figures Limited to those active before the Second World War. Economists

Kushida Tamizō (櫛田民蔵) Ōuchi Hyōei (大内兵衛) Inomata Tsunao (猪俣津南雄) Tsuchiya Takao (土屋喬雄) Sakisaka Itsurō (向坂逸郎) Arisawa Hiromi (有沢広巳) Okazaki Jirō (岡崎次郎) Ōmori Yoshitarō (大森義太郎) Social activists and politicians

Sakai Toshihiko (堺利彦) Yamakawa Hitoshi (山川均) Yamakawa Kikue (山川菊栄) Eda Saburō (江田三郎) Suzuki Mosaburō (鈴木茂三郎) Arahata Kanson (荒畑寒村) Kuroda Hisao (黒田寿男) Tsushima Tadayuki (対馬忠行) Literary figures

Hayama Yoshiki (葉山嘉樹) Aono Suekichi (青野季吉) Hirabayashi Taiko (平林たい子) Komaki Ōmi (小牧近江)

References

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Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Rōnōha Marxism

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Rōnōha Marxism claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Rōnōha Marxism before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Rōnōha Marxism ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Rōnōha Marxism

In research: Rōnōha Marxism appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Rōnōha Marxism in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Rōnōha Marxism is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Japan Socialist Party, Marxism, Political organizations based in Japan, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Rōnōha Marxism outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Rōnōha Marxism in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Rōnōha Marxism means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Rōnōha Marxism out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Rōnōha Marxism in simple terms?

Why does Rōnōha Marxism matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Rōnōha Marxism?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Rōnōha Marxism.