‘Taigyaku Jiken’, a 1989 piece by Iri and Toshi Maruki, was inspired by the High Treason Incident of 1910

Kōtoku Incident (幸徳事件, Kōtoku Jiken), was a socialist-anarchist plot to assassinate the Japanese Emperor Meiji in 1910, leading to a mass arrest of leftists, as well as the execution of 12 alleged conspirators in 1911.

Uchiyama Gudō, born on this day in 1874, was a socialist Buddhist priest who opposed Japanese imperialism, oligarchic land ownership, and the rule of the Emperor. He was executed by the state in 1911 during the “High Treason Incident”.

Gudō was ordained as a Soto Zen priest in 1897. In 1904, he became the abbot of Rinsenji temple in a poor area of a rural region of the Hakone Mountains. Village tradition states that every autumn Gudō would invite poor villagers to divide the harvest from the temple’s only two trees equally among themselves.

Gudō was a self-identified socialist and outspoken advocate for redistributive land reform, overturning the Meiji emperor system, encouraging conscripts to desert en masse, and advancing democratic rights for all. He also criticized Zen leaders who claimed that low social position was justified by karma.

One of Gudō’s most widely read and circulated works was a scathing denunciation of the Imperial Japanese government. Contradicting official state doctrine, he argued that the Emperors of the Imperial family were neither divine nor the destined rulers of Japan, and that their ancestors “came forth from a corner of Kyushu, killing and robbing people as they did. They then destroyed their fellow thieves.”

Due to the popularity of Gudō’s subversive publications, he was arrested in May 1909 and charged with violating press and publication laws. When police uncovered an alleged socialist plot to assassinate the Emperor (known as the “High Treason Incident”), Gudō was accused of being a co-conspirator.

In 1911, he, along with eleven other socialists, were convicted and executed. In July 1909, before Gudō’s conviction, officials of the Sōtō Zen sect revoked Gudō’sabbotship.

“When I began reading the Heimin Shimbun at that time [1904], I realized that its principles were identical with my own and therefore I became an anarcho-socialist.”

Uchiyama Gudō

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