Kanson Arahata

Who was Kanson Arahata?

Kanson Arahata a.k.a. Arahata Katsuzō was a 20th-century Japanese labor leader, politician and writer, participating in many of the leftwing movements of the era. He started as a socialist, then became an anarcho-syndicalist, then a communist, eventually serving in the Diet as a representative of the postwar Japan Socialist Party.

Born in Yokohama, he joined the socialist association Heiminsha in 1904 and was among those arrested for the Red Flag Incident of 1908. Arahata published Kindai Shisō with Sakae Osugi. He was member of the first Central Committee of the Japan Communist Party and belonged to the Rōnō Faction. After the war he was on the Central Executive Committee of the Japan Socialist Party from 1946 to 1948 and served in the Diet from 1946 to 1949 and spent his time after that writing.