Kyuichi Tokuda

Kyuichi Tokuda (徳田 球一, Tokuda Kyūichi, September 12, 1894 - October 14, 1953)[1] was a Japanese politician and first chairman of the Japanese Communist Party from 1945 until his death in 1953.

Kyuichi Tokuda
Portrait of Kyuichi Tokuda (ca. 1952)
Chair of the Japanese Communist Party
In office
3 December 1945 – 14 October 1953
Preceded byToshihiko Sakai
Succeeded bySanzo Nosaka
Member of House of Representatives
for Tokyo 3rd district
In office
4 April 1946 – 6 June 1950
Personal details
Born(1894-09-12)12 September 1894
Nago, Okinawa Prefecture, Empire of Japan
Died14 October 1953(1953-10-14) (aged 59)
Beijing, China
Political partyJapanese Communist Party

Biography

Kyuichi Tokuda was born in 1894 in Okinawa. He became a lawyer following graduation from Nihon University in 1920.[1] He joined the Japanese Communist Party in 1922 and became a member of its Central Committee.[2]

He was arrested in March 1928 on suspicion of violating the Peace Preservation Law, and spent 18 years in prison. He was released in October 1945.[1][2] While in prison, he occupied a cell adjacent to fellow Communist leader Yoshio Shiga.[3] Upon his release, he was reportedly hoisted to the shoulders of a crowd of Communists and Koreans chanting anti-imperial messages.[4]

After World War II, he was elected to the House of Representatives in the general election of 1946. In 1948, he survived an assassination attempt by a dynamite-laden soda bottle thrown at his feet while he was giving a speech.[5] By 1950 he was considered the second-in-command of the JCP and a key supporter of party leader Sanzo Nosaka.[3] Along with other JCP leaders, he was purged from politics under the Allied occupation. He was later exiled to China, where he died in 1953.[1] During his last years in China, he led a "mainstream" faction of the JCP and organized violent operations in Japan.[6]

Works
  • Tokuda appears in the video game Hearts of Iron IV by Paradox Interactive as the leader of JCP. If Japan renounces fascism under Hirohito and embraces communism, he would have become the leader of Japan. However, he was imprisoned in reality during the main events of Hearts of Iron IV, which takes place during World War II.

See also

References
  1. "Tokuda, Kyuichi". www.ndl.go.jp. Retrieved 2017-04-17.
  2. Milorad M. Drachkovitch (December 1, 1986). Biographical Dictionary of the Comintern. Hoover Institution Press. pp. 472–473.
  3. "JAPAN: Red Schism". Time. 1950-05-08. ISSN 0040-781X. Retrieved 2017-04-17.
  4. ""Remove Hirohito" Is Cry Of Freed Jap Communists". Toronto Daily Star. 1945-10-10. Retrieved 2017-04-17.
  5. "Pressure From Left Increases in Japan". The Lewiston Daily Sun. 1948-07-20. Retrieved 2017-04-17.
  6. Masaki, Nobuaki (2016-04-07). "Red-Baiting in 2016 – SNA Japan". shingetsunewsagency.com. Retrieved 2017-04-17.
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