‘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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Sad, they’re so immsersed in bad faith and psyops that they can no longer imagine someone just being correct
Yea it really is silly. If they oppose me so strongly, why not directly reply instead of running away and stalking my account? Mind you, Rimu accused me of being part of a group organizing harassment of them.
I’m sorry you’re being stalked. Maybe it helps to frame it like this: they don’t oppose you as a person, because they don’t even know you. They just chase after this weird idea of a tankie or whatever they have in their propaganda twisted mind. If they choose not to learn from what you generously offer, they don’t deserve it
As always, the quiet lurkers, who read your well thought out comments will have learned more, than the loud trolls. The audience is more important than the opponent in a public discussion.
Yep, I agree, and thanks for the kind words! I still do it because people still get positive outcomes from it, even if MeanwhileOnGrad seems to focus on me a lot these days.
It’s been crazy to see how since Federation, the liberal instances have reacted to communist instances in exactly the same way as liberal countries react to a new socialist country. All the projection, reactive crackdowns, fabrications, establishment of narratives, villification of disbelievers (I’ve seen people questioning the blue maga line get accused of being .ml alts on other comms, just like we all get accused of being Russian ops), the thought-terminating magical fear response (do not engage with the tankies or read what they write, no matter how reasonable and correct they sound! It’s all a trick, everyone sucks and nothing is possible!), even the faking of evidence (the db0 nazi thing). They cannot tolerate coexistence because they cannot ideologically compete on a level field; they have to tightly police people’s ideas about other people in a magical, anti-analytical way with stories about the mindlessly bloodthirsty, nihilistic, authoritarian, eastern-style tank enthusiasts.
Yep, it’s a bit bewildering, and it helps us understand what those actually building socialism in real life have gone through, the sheer depth of disinformation and slander. It really puts to rest the notion that simply arguing about the facts will magically let the truth win in the marketplace of ideas, this is a dirty struggle fought with class interests at heart.