Editing SG31SBE-T (section)

=== An Example of Economic Conditions Determining Action ===
'''A:''' On the eve of the formation of the Revitalized Buddhist movement, one incident gave me decisive confirmation on this issue: the withdrawal of the Kōfu branch.<ref>The Kōfu branch (Kōfu shibu 甲府支部) in Yamanashi Prefecture was one of the strongest regional bases of Seno’o’s earlier Nichirenist movement. It withdrew immediately before the founding of the Youth League for Revitalizing Buddhism on April 5, 1931, following disagreement over the new movement’s explicit opposition to capitalism. As Seno’o explains here, many Kōfu members were shopkeepers and salaried workers whose livelihoods made such a commitment particularly difficult. He treats the episode as concrete evidence of the extent to which material conditions shape religious conviction and action.</ref>

'''B:''' That was actually something of a surprise to me as well. After all, that branch had been the one into which you had put the greatest effort ever since you first launched the Nichirenist movement, and it was also the most influential branch. What was the reason for its withdrawal?

'''A:''' Five comrades had even promised to come up to Tokyo for the founding ceremony on the fifth. But the anti-capitalist declaration contained in our third principle, published in the inaugural issue of Buddhist Banner delivered on the third, proved fatal.<ref>“Buddhist Banner” (Bukki 佛旗) is Seno’o’s abbreviated designation for Shinkō Bukkyō no hata no moto ni (新興仏教の旗の下に, Under the Banner of Revitalized Buddhism), the original title of the Youth League for Revitalizing Buddhism’s journal.</ref> Since the branch included quite a few members of the petit-bourgeois class and salaried employees, the basic reason was that opposition to capitalism threatened their own livelihoods and made it difficult for them to carry on. That, roughly speaking, was the reason.

'''B:''' But surely none of them were actually supporters of capitalism. And among the younger members, I heard there were some quite energetic people who had even told you that you ought to join a proletarian political party immediately.

'''A:''' When reform remains at the level of ideas and words, one can say almost anything. But when it comes time, as the saying goes, to “put the bell on the cat,” things no longer proceed according to one’s professed convictions. That, too, is ordinary human nature.

'''B:''' But for a religious organization that had worked hand in hand with you for ten years, wasn’t that an extraordinarily faithless response?

'''A:''' If blame is to be assigned, then my own lack of virtue and lack of ability deserve blame first. I cannot bring myself simply to condemn the attitude of the branch with the word “faithlessness,” because I still remember the genuine goodwill the comrades there had shown us. I also believe that among them were comrades who opposed withdrawal, or who thought the decision should at least be postponed. Nevertheless, the fact that the entire branch ultimately decided to withdraw revealed both human weakness in the face of the problem of bread and the workings of a group psychology that transcends the individual.

If this movement were really to deprive comrades of their jobs and cut off their means of obtaining bread—and I do not think that must necessarily happen—then, for someone with a wife, children, parents, or siblings, it would generally be unreasonable to expect him simply to advance in a straight line according to a single-minded conception of justice. If, despite such circumstances, the comrades who withdrew had merely disguised their own weakness and invented other reasons for leaving, then they would indeed deserve blame. But that was not what happened.

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'''A:''' In reality, even while cursing the tyranny of capitalism, they dropped out because they were forced to consider the immediate problems of making a living. “You can’t trade your belly for your back,” as the saying goes. ''Here we can see just how powerfully economic problems tend to govern human action, and how the ruling class, through its tyrannical repression, threatens the lives of the vulnerable masses. This, I think, demonstrates all the more clearly the significance of our having placed the transformation of the capitalist economic system in our third principle''.