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Uchiyama Gudō 内山愚童 (1908). “Anarchist Communism: Commemorating the Imprisoned—Why Do Tenant Farmers Suffer?” [無政府共產――入獄記念――小作人ハナゼ苦シイカ].

Translation

Tenant farmers! You produce food, the most important thing human beings need, something we simply cannot live without. And yet, although you have worked with all your might throughout your lives to produce this most essential of human necessities, just as your parents and ancestors did before you, year after year you end up without enough. What terrible misfortune!

Is this, as Buddhists say, evil retribution carried over from a previous life? But friends, in today's twentieth-century world, if you go on being deceived by such superstitions, in the end you will have no choice but to become like oxen and horses. Would that make you happy?

Year after year you live in poverty, lamenting that you don't have enough. If this were because, in the cold of winter, you took your aged parents to Zushi, Kamakura, Numazu, or Hayama to escape the cold, then perhaps you could resign yourselves to it. If, in the heat of summer, you took your ailing wife and children to Hakone or Nikkō to escape the heat, and that left you a little short that year, perhaps you could find some consolation in it.

If this year you sent your eldest son abroad to study in Germany, your younger son to university, and enrolled your daughter in a higher girls' school, and as a result had to sell a chō of woodland or mortgage five tan of farmland, then at least you could look forward to future happiness, and your nighttime conversations with your wife would not be so bitter.

But friends, when you say year after year that you haven't enough, haven't enough, it is certainly not because of luxuries like these. New Year's comes, and Bon comes, but you don't even get a single new garment. They say that the art of building has advanced in this civilized twentieth century, but no news of that has reached your homes. Your houses are just as they were five hundred or a thousand years ago. Yet there is nothing surprising about this. Clothes require money paid to the cloth merchant; a house requires wages paid to a carpenter. And sadly, you have no money. So your clothes are always in tatters and your houses are like animals' dens.

But food—you produce that yourselves. So surely you eat the very best? Not at all. The best rice goes to the landlord, while you yourselves eat millet and barley, even though you work harder than either landlords or merchants. And despite all that, year after year you still say, “Not enough, not enough.” Tenant farmers, that is your fate throughout your lives.

Why on earth should this be?

Let me put it in a little song:

Why are you so poor?
If you don't know why, I'll tell you.
The emperor, the rich, the great landlords—
there are ticks sucking people's blood.

Friends, think about this carefully. All year long you sweat and labor to produce your crops. Half of what you produce is taken by the thief called the landlord. With the half that remains, you have to buy sake, soy sauce, salt, fertilizer, and everything else. But sake, fertilizer, and everything you buy carries taxes taken by that great thief called the government. And on top of that, the thieves called merchants take their profits. Thus people like you tenant farmers, who possess no land of your own and labor honestly, can never escape poverty as long as you live.

And if that were all, it might still be bearable. But when you have a son, you raise him for years amid poverty. Just when you rejoice that now, at last, he can cultivate another plot of land and perhaps help you get out of debt, he turns twenty-one and—whether you like it or not—is taken away as a soldier. For three years you send him spending money while he is forced to learn something you have no desire even to hear about: how to kill people. And when war comes, he is dragged off to some blood-soaked place where he must either kill someone else or be killed himself.

There have even been fathers who, after their sons were taken away for three years of military service, were left at home with their wives and children and had to go out begging. The son who has become a soldier receives no money from home because his family is poor; without money he is bullied by the veteran soldiers. How many have hanged themselves, thrown themselves into rivers, or killed themselves on the railway? No one knows.

When tenant farmers are tormented like this, you may rise with the first cockcrow in the morning and work until darkness falls at night, but you and poverty will never part company.

Why should this be?

Although we are all born equally human, someone born into the household of a landlord or a rich man can remain at school or travel abroad until twenty-four or twenty-five—even thirty—and when he returns home, he escapes the summer heat in some cool place and builds a house on a warm seacoast for the winter. He spends his life amusing himself. Without plucking so much as a single mulberry leaf himself, he wraps his body in silk garments, indulges himself amid pools of wine and forests of meat, and passes his entire life in idleness. Perhaps you don't know this.

They say that a great landlord or rich man can spend two or three thousand yen all by himself in just thirty days during the summer, amusing himself in Nikkō or Hakone. Three thousand yen! Friends, even if you worked without rest and without eating from the age of twenty until the age of fifty, you could never accumulate three thousand yen. And people like that don't even have to serve as soldiers.

Tenant farmers! Surely you too would like to enjoy the luxuries enjoyed by today's rich men and great landlords. Surely you would like, once in a while, to take some time off and eat something delicious. The reason you cannot do so is that you cling to a certain superstition. Because you have treasured this superstition since the days of your parents and ancestors, you cannot even dream of enjoying the luxuries of landlords and rich men. But if you listen to what we have to say and cast aside that superstition right now, you will become people who are truly at ease and free.

But if you abandon this superstition, the emperor and the rich will no longer be able to live idly and luxuriously. That is why, since ancient times, emperors and daimyō have made this superstition out to be something indispensable and sacred, and have used it to deceive you. So never forget that, from your standpoint, today's emperor and ministers, just like the Tokugawa and the daimyō of the past, are great enemies against whom grievances have accumulated since the days of your parents and ancestors.

It is exactly the same today in the Meiji era. The government works with all its might, employing everyone from university professors at the top to elementary-school teachers at the bottom, to make sure that you never abandon this superstition. And you, in turn, regard it with gratitude. That is why you can never escape poverty—not for your whole lives, nor even in the generations of your children and grandchildren.

What, then, are these superstitions that elementary-school teachers and others instill in you and your children? A superstition is simply the cherishing and preservation of a mistaken idea. I will leave until later the question of why you have held these mistaken ideas since ancient times. First let us consider what these mistaken ideas actually are.

△ You are allowed by the landlord to cultivate his rice fields and dry fields, and therefore, in gratitude, you must give him rent in rice.

△ Because there is a government, we farmers can work in peace; therefore, in gratitude, we must pay taxes.

△ If the country had no military forces, we farmers would be killed by foreigners; therefore, we must send our healthy young men away as soldiers.

Because these three mistaken ideas have become deeply embedded in you, no matter how poor you become, you are incapable of opposing the payment of rent, the payment of taxes, or sending your children away as soldiers. If someone says, “You don't have to pay rent. You don't have to pay taxes. You don't have to send your beloved children away as soldiers,” you immediately call that person a rebel or a traitor. You refuse even to listen to or read something that would actually bring you ease and freedom. This is precisely where I want you to think very carefully about what you are reading.

Why, then, is it all right not to pay rent to the landlord?

Tenant farmers, leave the fields you cultivate alone from spring until autumn. Don't put a plow into them, don't sow any seed, don't fertilize them—just leave them alone and see what happens. When autumn comes, not a single grain of rice will have been produced. When summer comes, you won't harvest even half a grain of barley.

Doesn't this make the matter perfectly obvious? Rice is produced in autumn and barley in summer because you farmers have worked without rest throughout the year, pouring out your sweat. If that is so, then the rice and barley produced by your labor belong—all of them—to you farmers. What sort of absurd reasoning says that you must hand half of them over to a landlord?

The land existed naturally. Our ancestors cleared it and made it capable of producing food. Why should anyone who cultivates that land and takes what it produces for himself be called a rebel?

Tenant farmers! For a very long time the landlords have been robbing you. Now that you have finally awakened from this delusion, you have the right not merely to refuse to hand over the annual rent but, in repayment for these long, long years of grievance, to take back the barley, money, and everything else stored in the landlords' storehouses. Taking everything in the landlord's storehouse is certainly not theft. It is the honorable work of recovering what has long been stolen from you and from us.

Next: why is it all right not to pay taxes to the government?

Tenant farmers, there is no need for difficult arguments. How much ease has this thing called government actually brought you? If you can name even one thing about it for which you can say, “Here's something we should thank our esteemed government for,” then go ahead and name it.

Since ancient times people have said, “You cannot prevail against a crying child or a magistrate.” Isn't unreasonable oppression precisely what those above us have always made their business? Tenant farmers work honestly and become poor in order to pay taxes merely to keep such a troublesome thing alive. This is the height of stupidity.

Friends, stop paying taxes to this ridiculous government and destroy this troublesome thing as soon as possible! Then let us take back the government's property, which has been unjustly stolen from us since the days of our parents and ancestors, and make it the common property of everyone. This is your natural right. People who value justice should take the initiative and resist the government for the freedom and well-being of all people.

Why is destroying the present government and creating a free country without an emperor not the work of rebels, but rather the work of courageous people who value justice?

Because the emperor, the chief boss of the present government, is not a child of the gods at all, despite what elementary-school teachers and others have deceived you into believing. The ancestors of the present emperor emerged from a corner of Kyushu, murdering and robbing people and destroying fellow bands of thieves such as Nagasunehiko. In other words, they were like Kumazaka Chōhan or Shuten Dōji—bandits who happened to succeed. A little thought is enough to see that they were no gods.

When you hear that the imperial line has continued for twenty-five hundred years, you may imagine that this somehow makes the emperor a god. But generation after generation the emperors suffered from troubles abroad and at home were made playthings by their own retainers.

It has been the same in the Meiji era. The emperor must have suffered continually over domestic and foreign affairs. His suffering is the consequence of his own actions, so that is his concern. But because of it, honest, hardworking tenant farmers like you suffer more with each passing day merely to find enough to eat. However much they tell you that Japan is a divine country, there is nothing in that for you to be grateful for.

These things are perfectly obvious, yet those cowards called university professors and men of learning are incapable of saying or writing them. Instead they deceive others with endless lies while deceiving themselves. Elementary-school teachers, too, are at first at a loss when they have to explain how sacred and benevolent the emperor is. But gradually they become skilled at lying, and on the three great national holidays each year they put on an innocent face and teach you and your children that the emperor is the child of the gods.

You are thereby taught to labor and serve throughout your lives for the descendants of thieves wearing the mask of gods. That is why you can never escape poverty. Having explained matters this far, even you, patient as you are, will surely feel ready to undertake a movement at the risk of your lives to recover what has been stolen from you.

Tenant farmers! Because of this long-standing superstition, you have believed that ordinary people could not survive unless the country possessed an army. Certainly, both in the past and today, when war begins, a country without an army will inevitably be destroyed by a country that has one.

But that is because there are great thieves called emperors and governments.

Isn't war a quarrel between governments? In other words, ordinary people suffer because thieves quarrel among themselves. If we do away with this thief called government, the thing called war will disappear. And once war disappears, it should be perfectly obvious that there will no longer be any need to send your beloved children away as soldiers.

Thus, if you want to stop giving rent to landlords and stop giving taxes and your children as soldiers to the government, the quickest way is to do away with that great thief called government.

How, then, are we to put this justice into practice?

There are various methods. But first, tenant farmers, join together—even if only ten or twenty of you—and put into practice the refusal to give rent to landlords and taxes and soldiers to the government. Once you put this into practice, justice will gain friends: from one village it will spread to an entire district, from one district to a prefecture, and eventually from all of Japan throughout the entire world. And there will arise the ideal land of anarchist communism, a land of freedom and well-being.

Nothing can be accomplished without sacrifice. Those who consider themselves ready should undertake a movement for this justice even at the risk of their lives.

(END)

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Statement on the Purpose of Publication

This pamphlet has been published to commemorate the imprisonment of the following comrades. On 22 June 1908, in the capital of the Japanese Empire, more than ten of our comrades raised the red flag of anarchist communism and proclaimed a declaration of war against the sovereign power of the Japanese Empire. On 29 August of the same year, they were found guilty:

Ōsugi Sakae
Arahata Katsuzō
Satō Satoru

Momose Susumu
Utsunomiya Takuji
Morioka Eiji

Sakai Toshihiko
Kimura Genjirō
Ōsuga Sato

Yamakawa Hitoshi
Kogure Rei
Tokunaga Yasunosuke

This pamphlet has been published in commemoration of the imprisonment of these comrades.

During the absence of these comrades, who will be released two or four years from now, this pamphlet represents the modest missionary work of the small number of comrades remaining in Tokyo.

Those of you who, after reading this pamphlet, have come to understand that the coming revolution lies in the realization of anarchist communism—

(continued on reverse)

—please send either a postcard or a letter to our comrades who are now in prison. This is the one consolation we can offer the imprisoned comrades, a gospel that will strengthen the courage of those fighters.

Letters sent to the imprisoned comrades should be addressed:

Tokyo Prison, Ichigaya, Ushigome Ward, Tokyo City
Prisoner [name]

Please clearly write the sender's address and name before mailing it.

This pamphlet must be propagated widely and deeply, so that it may awaken you from the long, long dream of superstition and prevent you from misunderstanding the revolutionary movement that we must undertake in the near future. Therefore, those who understand what anarchist communism means and would not shrink even from throwing dynamite should each spread the teaching to as many people as possible.

But those who still cannot understand after reading this should investigate deeply whether the society that presently exists is truly a just society, and whether our ideal is really to be satisfied with society as it now exists.

Source Note

Museifu kyōsan 無政府共產 [Anarchist Communism] was clandestinely published by Uchiyama Gudō in 1908 in the aftermath of the Red Flag Incident (赤旗事件) of 22 June and the subsequent imprisonment of twelve socialist and anarchist activists. Addressed primarily to tenant farmers, the pamphlet explains their poverty not in terms of karmic retribution but through landlordism, taxation, conscription, and the political and ideological structures that sustain them. Gudō characterizes the beliefs legitimating these institutions as “superstitions” (meishin 迷信) and calls upon tenant farmers to refuse rent, taxes, and military service collectively. The society he envisages in their place is the “ideal land of anarchist communism” (museifu kyōsan no risōkoku 無政府共產の理想國).

The concluding “Statement on the Purpose of Publication” (發行の趣意) explains the subtitle “Commemorating the Imprisoned” (入獄記念) by identifying the twelve activists imprisoned following the Red Flag Incident. It also extends the pamphlet's language of awakening from “superstition” while employing religiously inflected terms such as “missionary work” (dendō 傳道) and “gospel” (fukuin 福音). The statement concludes with the pamphlet's most explicit reference to revolutionary violence.

The Japanese text used for this translation is reproduced from 無政府主義図書館 [Japanese Anarchist Library], which identifies its source as a 2009 online reproduction of the original pamphlet. The transcription has not yet been checked in full against an original copy or facsimile. Apparent errors, irregular orthography and punctuation, and variations between hiragana and katakana have therefore not been silently emended. Several readings remain uncertain, and the translation of those passages should be regarded as provisional pending verification against a primary witness.

For the historical circumstances surrounding Gudō's clandestine publishing activities, see Kashiwagi Ryūhō 柏木隆法, 『大逆事件と内山愚童』 (Tokyo: JCA出版, 1979), chap. 6, 「秘密出版の決意」, pp. 98–123.

How to Cite this Text

Uchiyama Gudō (1908). “Anarchist Communism: Commemorating the Imprisoned—Why Do Tenant Farmers Suffer?” (Museifu kyōsan: Nyūgoku kinen—Kosakunin wa naze kurushii ka 無政府共產――入獄記念――小作人ハナゼ苦シイカ). Translated and annotated by James Mark Shields. The Radical Buddhism Project. https://www.radicalbuddhism.org/