The US imperialism embarked on the direct military intervention in Vietnam in its counterrevolutionary attempt to roll back the mounting tide of the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam in 1964, and it started the indiscriminate airborne assaults of the whole of Vietnam in 1965 — the war became a total US warfare against North and South Vietnam. However, the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam opened the spectacular Tet offensive in January 1968. Then, in May, French students and workers exploded into their massive strikes and campus/factory-occupations.
In parallel with and in response to those developments, there were the massive mobilization of the Okinawan population against the US military-colonial system and varied radicalizing processes of the Japanese mainland population from the mid-1960s to the 1970s. Of all those processes, the Okinawan popular mobilization was the most important to the whole Japanese political situation from the late 1960s to the early 1970s, and its outcome was much relevant to the US war against Vietnam. The development of the Okinawan popular movement is discussed in this article, and some aspects of the Japanese mainland radicalization will be dealt with by another article.
Okinawa as the US military colony and the popular anti-colonial resistance
Okinawa(Ryukyu Islands), situated at the southwestern end of Japan, and close to Taiwan, was under the US colonial domination, and it served as a major platform of the US military setup in East Asia, the military bases occupying 13% of the whole land area. When the US embarked on the war against Vietnam, the Okinawan military bases, together with other US bases at mainland Japan, were put into full operation for the war. The US Marine Corps in Okinawa were dispatched to South Vietnam in 1965, and B52 bombers that mounted the air attacks on Vietnam were stationed at Okinawa from 1968 to 1970. The US-dominated Okinawa, whose population was 940,000 in the mid-1960s, became the major forward platform for the US war against Vietnam.
Okinawa was conquered by the US armed forces through a fierce battle from March to June 1945, before the Japanese surrender of August 1945, and it had been dominated as a military colony by the U.S. armed forces separately from the mainland Japan, serving as the US forward military foothold of East Asia especially for ’containment’ of the renovated China and its potential influence from the 1950s onward. The US colonial domination of Okinawa was legalized formally by the 1951 peace treaty between Japan and the US and other Allied countries, and the Government of Ryukyu Islands, composed of the executive, legislature and courts, was set up as a local administrative machinery under the control of the US military-colonial authority in 1952.
There were about 450,000 civilian population before the landing of US armed forces on Okinawa in March 1945, and 100,000 or 160,000 ordinary Okinawans died through the battle from March to June, with the military death toll of 12,000 US soldiers and 100,000 Japanese soldiers. From June, the population were gathered at 16 concentration areas, and the traffic was restricted between the camps. From October, the population began to get out of the camps and return to their original dwelling places, and the processes lasted until the middle of 1946. In the meantime, vast area of the land was enclosed by the US armed forces. Thus the postwar ’normal lives’ of the population began under the new US military domination, but their economic bases of social life had been completely destroyed.
While the US occupation forces replaced the former despotic regime with a new parliamentary democracy in the mainland Japan after the defeat of Imperial Japan, the US armed forces established its barbaric military rule over the Okinawan population, denying any basic democratic rights to the people. Under the US colonial domination, the Okinawan people were forced to secure any bits of democratic rights through their own popular mobilization, and there was their strenuous and protracted resistance against the regime of the US military colony and the heavy presence of the military bases all through the 1950s and 1960s.
In November 1950, it became clear that the US was working for holding the administration over Okinawa under a trusteeship of the United Nations indefinitely, and Shakai-Taishu-to(Shataito: Social Mass Party, popular right-wing reformist party) and Okinawa-Jinmin-to(OPP: Okinawa People’s Party, Okinawan communist party) decided to campaign for immediate return of Okinawa to mainland Japan in March 1951. In the following month, a coalition for Okinawan return to the mainland, set up by Shataito, OPP and other popular organizations, waged a petition campaign toward the September-1951 peace-treaty conference between Japan and the US and other Allied countries, and the petition for Okinawa’s return to Japan was endorsed by 72 percent of the adult population. In 1952, Okinawa Kyoshokuin-kai(Kyoshokuin-kai: Okinawa Teachers Association, composed of principals and teachers), which was to become the major organization for general popular mobilization against the Okinawan regime of the US military colony in the 1950s and 1960s, was founded, and it took a stand against the peace treaty’s provision to legalize the US colonial domination and for Okinawa’s return to Japan.
In 1960, Okinawa-ken Sokoku-fukki Kyogikai(Fukkikyo: Council for Reversion of Okinawa Prefecture to the Homeland) was set up as the inclusive popular campaign body against Okinawa’s status of the US military colony, and its influential organization was Kyoshokuin-kai. Unionization of workers and their union activities also increased significantly from the late 1950s to the early 1960s(see the Table 1 and 2). Among the military-base workers, too, small unions were set up in 1960, and Zen-Okinawa Gun-Rodokumiai Rengokai(Zengunroren: All Okinawa Military Labor Unions Federation) was founded by 6 unions with 2,600 base workers in 1961.
Table 1: Unit unions, union membership and estimated unionization rate (1955-71 )
Year | unions workers | ± | unionized | ± | total workers | unionization rate (estimated) |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1955 | 5 | 1 | 603 | 200 | 112,000 | 0.53 |
1956 | 12 | 7 | 1,641 | 1,038 | 116,000 | 1.41 |
1957 | 35 | 23 | 5,316 | 3,675 | 115,000 | 4.62 |
1958 | 47 | 12 | 8,566 | 3,250 | 123,000 | 6.92 |
1959 | 52 | 5 | 10,715 | 2,149 | 131,000 | 8.10 |
1960 | 84 | 32 | 17,792 | 7,077 | 146,000 | 12.18 |
1961 | 101 | 17 | 20,330 | 2,538 | 163,000 | 12.47 |
1962 | 130 | 29 | 28,811 | 8,481 | 172,000 | 16.75 |
1963 | 115 | -15 | 29,954 | 1,143 | 182,000 | 16.45 |
1964 | 124 | 9 | 33,156 | 3,202 | 184,000 | 18.01 |
1965 | 123 | - 1 | 36,715 | 3,559 | 196,000 | 18.7 |
1966 | 137 | 14 | 40,990 | 4,275 | 209,000 | 19.6 |
1967 | 142 | 7 | 47,952 | 6,962 | 222,000 | 21.6 |
1968 | 154 | 8 | 57,919 | 9,967 | 228,000 | 25.4 |
1969 | 196 | 44 | 63,340 | 5,421 | 238,000 | 26.6 |
1970 | 236 | 40 | 64,523 | 1,183 | 219,000 | 29.5 |
1971 | 253 | 17 | 72,162 | 7,639 | 223,000 | 32.4 |
* Source: Labor Department of the Ryukyu Government, “Trade Union Survey Report”
* Total population: 698,000/1950, 801,000/1955, 883,000/1960, 934,000/1965, 945,000/1970.
Table 2: Labor Disputes (1956-67)
Year | Labor disputes Cases | Labor disputes Participants | Without labor actions Cases | Without labor actions Participants | With labor actions Cases | With labor actions Participants |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1956 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
1957 | 9 | 517 | 3 | 123 | 6 | 394 |
1958 | 18 | 926 | 10 | 435 | 8 | 491 |
1959 | 16 | 690 | 10 | 532 | 6 | 138 |
1960 | 28 | 4,165 | 9 | 2,372 | 19 | 1,793 |
1961 | 21 | 4,920 | 11 | 4,051 | 10 | 869 |
1962 | 38 | 8,006 | 9 | 4,062 | 29 | 3,944 |
1963 | 40 | 10,000 | 7 | 3,341 | 33 | 6,659 |
1964 | 26 | 6,192 | 14 | 3,550 | 12 | 2,642 |
1965 | 28 | 8,067 | 4 | 2,348 | 24 | 5,791 |
1966 | 39 | 7,352 | 22 | 5,454 | 17 | 1,898 |
1967 | 27 | 7,903 | 17 | 5,123 | 10 | 2,780 |
* Source: Labor Department of the Ryukyu Government, “Labor Economy Indicators”(April, 1969)
In 1962, with the majority pro-military-colonial legislators, representing the social layers that were benefiting from the presence of US military bases, and the oppositionist legislators together, the Ryukyu Government legislature adopted a unanimous resolution addressed to the UN member states, asserting that Okinawa was under US domination against the will of the population, with reference to the UN anticolonial resolution of 1960. The Okinawan people’s cause against the US military-colonial domination was endorsed by the third Afro-Asian Peoples’ Solidarity Conference of 1963. In 1964, an issue of public election of the Ryukyu Government executive chief became a focal point, and the campaign for the public election became a massive popular movement in opposition to the US military-colonial authority.
US Vietnam war and the surge of Okinawan massive campaigns
The US military-colonial regime of Okinawa was already undergoing its incipient political crisis toward the mid-1960s. When the US generalized its outrageous Vietnam war in the mid-1960s, this military colony was thrown into its utmost political crisis, due to the massive opposition against the full operation of the military bases for the Vietnam war and the military-colonial system of Okinawa.
In 1965, strong worry spread among the population, concerning Okinawa’s direct involvement in the Vietnam war. Then, in response to the first B52 South-Vietnam attack from Okinawa at the end of July, the Ryukyu Government legislature adopted a unanimous resolution, calling on the US government to halt the Vietnam sorties from Okinawa and to refrain from any act of war which would embroil Okinawa in the war. There developed popular consciousness against the US war, and the anti-Vietnam-war stance became a new feature of Fukkikyo’s reversion-to-homeland movement in opposition to the US military-colonial regime. Fukkikyo’s general meeting of March 1967 endorsed its new explicit stand against the US-Japanese security treaty and the US military bases, and for withdrawal of the nuclear bases.
The pro-military-colonial forces, which were managing the local machinery of the Ryukyu Government executive and legislature under the US military-colonial supervision, were put on the defensive, and they attempted to restrain the activities of Kyoshokuin-kai, the major Fukkikyo-affiliated organization of teachers and principals, by a new repressive legislation in 1966-67. On the day of the final legislation in February 1967, however, 15,000 demonstrators overpowered and paralyzed the police forces that were guarding the legislative house, and the attempt of repressive legislation ended up as a definite failure.
Confronted with the deteriorating situation of the Ryukyu Government machinery, the US and Japanese governments came to an agreement of November 1967 that the administrative power over Okinawa was to be transferred to the mainland Japan in order that the latter would be in charge of protection of the US military bases from the population. The Okinawan situation, however, deteriorated more and more to the detriment of the purpose of the military bases. The Fukkikyo mass rally of November 1967, which was held in protest against the US-Japanese agreement on Okinawa, asserted explicitly that the US military bases, most especially, should be withdrawn for the realization of Okinawa’s reversion to the mainland Japan.
In January 1968, the village assembly of Kadena, the major part of whose village area was occupied by the Kadena Air Base, the biggest US air-force base in Far East Asia, resolved to demand the withdrawal of the air base. The following month, when the B52s came to the Kadena air base and exhibited signs of their permanent stationing at the base, virtually the whole Okinawan population exploded into the massive campaigns against the stationing of B52s and the US military bases themselves.
On the tenth of February, the Ryukyu Government legislature
unanimously decided to oppose the B52 stationing at Okinawa and to demand the immediate withdrawal of B52s and suspension of all the acts of war. Five days after, the Kadena village assembly resolved to oppose the B52 stationing at the Kadena air base and to demand the immediate withdrawal of B52s, and many other village assemblies followed the Kadena example. On February 27, more than ten thousand people rallied at Kadena, demanding the immediate withdrawal of B52s. Kyoshokuin-kai endorsed the ’withdrawal of US military bases’ as its explicit campaign policy at its March conference.
On top of all those developments, on April 24, Zen-Okinawa Gun-Rodokumiai (Zengunro: All Okinawa Military Labor Union) of the military-base employees carried out its successful one-day paid-leave campaign of de facto 24-hour strike, demanding repeal of a US military’s order, which prohibited the right of strike and restricted the union activities, and a substantial wage increase. At the time, the Zengunro unionized about 18,000 workers, out of about 35,000 workers employed directly or indirectly by the US armed forces, and about 23,000 workers participated in the ’paid-leave’ strike action. The US military-colonial authority admitted the base workers’ right of collective bargaining two days before the April-24 action, and the remarkable success of the action was a great shock for the US military authority, which refrained from its disciplinary punishments against the base workers.
Meanwhile, in January 1968, the US government accepted the public election of the Ryukyu Government executive chief. Chobyo Yara, president of Kyoshokuin-kai(Okinawa Teachers Association), became the Fukkikyo candidate for the local executive chief in April, the pro-Fukkikyo campaign coalition was founded for the executive-chief and legislature elections in June, and the Fukkikyo election campaign had moderating effects on the popular mobilization against the B52 stationing. The Japanese-mainland government and the ruling Liberal Democratic Party(LDP) intervened aggressively in the election campaign, and especially the mainland LDP general secretary was being blatantly intimidating to the Okinawan people. However, Ch. Yara of the Fukkikyo candidate was elected the Ryukyu Government executive chief on November 10, with 237,566 votes for him and 206,011 votes for the pro-military-colonial candidate, the voter turnout being 90.58%.
All-Okinawan upsurge for the anti-B52 general strike of February 4
On November 19, nine days after the election, a B52 failed in its takeoff and exploded spectacularly at the Kadena air base, and the incident was really dreadful for the whole Okinawan population, the very spot being not far away from the nuclear depot. On that day, the Kadena village office, assembly
and board of education called a protest rally of the village residents. In December, B52-tekkyo Gensen-kiko-sosi Kenmin-kyotokaigi (Kenminkyoto: Prefectural Joint-struggle Council for Withdrawal of B52s and Checking of N-submarine Port Call) was set up as joint-campaign body, much broader and more inclusive than Fukkikyo, and Kenminkyoto organized massive protest rally and demonstration in the vicinity of Kadena air base.
In mid-December, Okinawa-ken Rodokumiai Kyogikai (Kenrokyo: Council of Trade Unions of Okinawa Prefecture) held its emergency congress, and the congress decided to campaign for a general strike on the demand of B52 withdrawal and a massive sit-in demonstration at Kadena. Early in January 1969, the Kenminkyoto steering committee decided to call a general strike and to organize a 100-thousand mass rally and sit-in at Kadena on February 4. In the mid-January, the Zengunro emergency congress endorsed the plan of February-4 strike with 223 pros, 13 cons and 1 abstention, and Kyoshokuin-kai, too, decided to join the general action, confirming the approval from more than 95 percent of the membership. On January 24, 40 thousand people participated in Kenminkyoto’s pep rally toward the February-4 general strike. City shopkeepers, fishing folks and villages began to be mobilized for the general action of February 4.
On January 28, the Kenminkyoto chairman issued the final readiness directive for the general strike, and all the Kenminkyoto organizations and groups were engaged in the last efforts for the February-4 general action. The greatest number of the Okinawan population were mobilized toward the February-4 head-on confrontation to the US military-colonial authority and the purpose and actual working of the military bases, which would have direct relevance to the US war against Vietnam and the security-treaty relationship between the US and Japan.
Confronted with this all-Okinawan massive challenge, the US military-colonial authority was much powerless, in the sense that there was not much room for its own choice except a outright suppression of the general strike. In this context, the mainland Japan and its bourgeois LDP government played the key role in blocking the Okinawan February-4 general strike.
A new stage of the anti-military-colonial mobilization and the mainland working-class situation
The overwhelming popular surge for the general strike actually set off the imperialistic or bourgeois transferring process of the administrative power over Okinawa from the US to the mainland Japan. Thus, with the massive rush toward February 4, the Okinawan population had entered a new stage where they were forced to tackle with the mainland Japan as a whole ? the state and society ? as a matter of direct and major importance for the sake of their own political and social interests. There were two major obstacles that the Okinawan people were to encounter; the mainland Japanese bourgeois state and its international framework since 1950s, and the political structure of the mainland working-class movement at the time.
After the victory of the third Chinese revolution in 1949 and the breakout of the Korean war in 1950, Okinawa became the strategic military foothold for the US to confront and contain the new China in East Asia. And Japan, which had been defeated, occupied and disarmed militarily by the US armed forces in 1945, had been heavily dependent on the US ’containment’ machinery against China since its formal independence in 1952. That is, the politico-military regime of the US-Japan security relationship had become the essential international framework for the Japanese bourgeois state, and the US military complex at Okinawa was the pivot of the US-Japan politico-military arrangement.
Accordingly, at end of 1968, the mainland Japan or its bourgeois state actually began to exert its domination over the Okinawan population in defense of the essential international framework of its existence, and the Okinawan popular mobilization came into direct conflict with the mainland Japanese bourgeois state. Further development of the popular mobilization in opposition to the US military complex would mean to take a course of rejecting the mainland Japanese administration over Okinawa and going into a rebellious confrontation, which might potentially bring about a kind of regional dual-power situation face-to-face with the mainland bourgeois state.
When the Okinawan popular mobilization thus entered the new stage, there was another deadly obstructing wall: the situation of the mainland working-class movement at the time. The Okinawan popular movement followed a general ascending evolution in the 1950s and 1960s after the second world war, starting from the extremely difficult period of the late 1940s. On the contrary, the mainland working-class movement followed a sort of retrogressive evolution from the immediate postwar period to the 1960s.
Immediately after the defeat of Japan, under the US occupation, the mainland working masses exploded as a class for the first time, and massive struggles were waged under the Communist-led national federation of industrial unions in the years of 1945-49. This great wave of militant struggles and the Communist-led trade-union federation were defeated decisively by the US occupation authorities and the Japanese government and bourgeoisie in 1949-50. The unions came under the anti-Communist and pro-Socialist-Party elements, and a new reformist federation of ’intra-enterprise unions’ was founded in 1950.
Then, in the latter half of the 1950s, with the background of the economic recovery and the relative easing of international political tension, there was a significant rise of spontaneous militancy among the broad mass of workers within the reformist structure of intra-enterprise unions, and there developed massive pacifist and democratic campaigns, with the bloc of the SP and the reformist trade-union federation being the hegemonic umbrella for the political mass mobilization. However, the reformist union forces of the private sector were broken down and replaced by the right-wing, outright pro-management forces among the unions of big businesses in the late 1950s and the early 1960s, and the remaining reformist forces of the public-sector unions deepened their alienation from the rank and file and exhibited a right-wing shift around the same time (For the ’intra-enterprise union’, and more on the postwar mainland workers movement, see: Y. Sakai, gJapanese Working Class Movement from the 1950s to the Middle of 1970s h, posted at the website of Europe solidaire sans fronti?res[ESSF]: http://www.europe-solidaire.org/spip.php?article2909).
Faced with the Okinawan surge for the February-4 general strike in 1968-69, the right-wing union forces of the private sector were simply rejective, and the reformist union forces of the public sector were evasive about and guarded against the projected general action. On the other hand, there were widespread radicalizing processes among the various layers of the mainland population and even significant far-left activities among the students and young workers from the mid-1960s to the early 1970s, but those processes and the far-left activities didn’t affect the basic structure of the mainland organized workers movement, and the far-left mass activities remained to be a militant protest movement as an embryonic current of the workers movement.
Breaking-up of the February-4 general strike
Thus, when the Okinawan anti-military-colonial mobilization entered the new stage to encounter the mainland Japanese state directly in 1968-69, the main body of the mainland working class was not prepared for defending the Okinawan mobilization, but structured for oppressing the Okinawan popular mobilization and selling it out to the mainland bourgeois state.
On the other hand, as indicated at the previous section, further development of the anti-military-colonial mobilization would mean to go along a confrontational course to reject the mainland Japanese administration over Okinawa. In regard to this precise issue, the bloc of the Fukkikyo movement and its local executive chief of Ch. Yara was ambiguous and not unitary at all. The Fukkikyo mass movement was tending toward a rejectionistic orientation vis-a-vis the reversion project of Okinawa by the mainland Japanese government at the time. However, the line of Executive Chief Yara was literally reformist in the sense that he stood for the return of Okinawa to the mainland Japanese administration and for efforts to change or improve the mainland administration in the interests of the Okinawan people.
Then, fully taking advantage of Yara’s reformist orientation and the ambiguous relation between the Fukkikyo movement and Executive Chief Yara, and relying on the passivity and unwillingness of the mainland organized workers movement, the LDP government of mainland Japan intervened in the situation, and it worked toward breaking up the campaign for the February-4 general strike. Asserting that the February-4 general strike might hinder the Japanese-US negotiation for Okinawa’s reversion and hold up the reversion itself, and telling a lie that the B52s might possibly withdraw from Okinawa shortly within several months, the mainland government pressured Yara to work for cancellation of the general strike, and the national trade-union federations collaborated with the mainland government in this operation.
Under the circumstances, on January 31, Yara called on Kenminkyoto of the joint campaign body to cancel the general strike. The Kenminkyoto steering committee could not decide on Yara’s request, but the steering committee of Kenrokyo(Council of Trade Unions of Okinawa Prefecture) decided to propose the acceptance of Yara’s request to the component unions, one of its arguments being that the general strike might push the reformist executive chief into a difficult situation. However, there were a strong opposition to the proposal from the component unions. At the teachers’ association of Kyoshokuin-kai, Fukkikyo’s major organization, its executive body accepted the proposal, but its representative struggle committee refused to accept the cancel of February-2 general action. On February 1, urging the cancellation of the general strike, Yara threatened major union leaders, warning that he might consider resignation from his post, if the general strike would be carried out. Following day, the Kenminkyoto steering committee came to its final decision to cancel the general strike.
Thus the projected general strike was broken up, and 45,000 workers and students gathered at the Kadena mass rally on
February 4. At the time, a mainland daily paper commented that, if the executive chief had been a conservative, he would not have been able to play such a role as the progressive did. Then, if it had been so, or if the general strike had been carried out on February 4, the US advanced military platform of Okinawa and the politico-military arrangement of the US-Japan security treaty might have been thrown into a major political crisis, which would have had a definite relevance to the Vietnamese liberation struggle against the US.
Aftermath of the failure of February-4 general strike
The campaign for the February-4 general strike was the peak of the whole Okinawan mobilization against the US military-colonial domination and military complex, and the breaking-up of the general strike set the basic political context toward the imperialistic or bourgeois transferring process of the administrative power over Okinawa from the US to the mainland Japan.
In March 1969, it became definitely clear that the mainland government would negotiate for the return of Okinawa to Japan ’on equal footing with the mainland’; that is, Okinawa’s return to Japan was to be negotiated within the framework of the politico-military arrangement of the US-Japan security treaty. In November, the Japanese prime minister visited Washington, and both heads of the governments agreed that Okinawa would return to Japan in 1972, jointly confirming that the Okinawa’s return would not hamper the workings of the US military bases there in the least. The technical negotiation on the reversion agreement began between the both governments in June 1970. There was an Okinawan election for the mainland parliament in November, and 5 members of the lower house and 2 members of the upper house were elected locally. The Okinawa reversion agreement was signed in June 1971, and the date of the return was decided on as May 15 of 1972 in early January 1972.
As the negotiating stance of the mainland government on the return of Okinawa became clear shortly after the failure of February-4 general strike, Fukkikyo kept its basic position to pursue a peaceful Okinawa that would be free from the US military bases and to oppose the international arrangement of the US-Japan security treaty, and it took a rejectionist position against the whole negotiation that was to be conducted within the politico-military framework of the US-Japan security treaty. Basically along the line of Fukkikyo’ position, there were the Okinawa-day rallies and street actions of April 28 at Okinawa and the mainland; the Okinawa and mainland mass campaigns and actions against the prime minister’s visit to the US in November 1969; the Okinawa-Day mass rallies and street actions, chiefly in the mainland, on April 28, 1970; a massive Okinawan rally for abrogation of the US-Japan security treaty and withdrawal of military bases in June; the Kenrokyo joint strike against the Okinawa reversion agreement on April 15, 1971; the Okinawan general strike against the reversion agreement(54,000 workers of 54 unions went on 24-hour strike) on May 19, 1971; Zengunro’s strenuous struggle against mass dismissals of base workers from 1969 to 1972; and so on.
At the same time, the local executive chief, Ch. Yara, kept his basic approach to submit Okinawan aspirations to the mainland government and to work for the Okinawan interests through the latter. He did not accept Fukkikyo’s outright opposition to the mainland government’s course of reversion negotiation, and his local executive machinery of the Ryukyu Government was actually drawn into the overall process to integrate Okinawa with the mainland administration and society.
Yara’s reformist executive machinery inherited an economic design of industrial development through inviting business plants, from the previous pro-military-colonial executive chief, and it emphasized the importance of oil industry for Okinawa.
The economic plan exhibited an intention to introduce the mainland ’high economic growth’ into Okinawa, and Ch. Yara urged the mainland government to support the Okinawan effort to invite mainland business companies to the area. There was no serious friction between the Okinawan executive machinery and the mainland government at the level of economic policies and practical administrative matters. However, any critical voice was not raised on these issues from the Fukkikyo movement.
There was the Okinawan election for the mainland parliament in November 1970, as mentioned before. It was an operation of Okinawan integration into the mainland political machinery and administration, but there was no serious examination of the matter inside the Fukkikyo movement. There were three candidates of the Social Mass Party, Socialist Party and Okinawa People’s Party for the lower house and the joint Fukkikyo candidate for the upper house, and all four candidates were elected to the parliament. At the same time, there was an ad hoc campaign for boycott of the election outside the framework of the Fukkikyo movement, but the campaign did not get popular influence, though it had some political impact on the Fukkikyo movement.
Thus, the Fukkikyo movement did not set the tasks to oppose the integration of Okinawa ? or establishment of national administration and control over Okinawa — by the mainland Japanese state. Somehow, a course of rejecting the mainland Japanese administration over Okinawa and going into a rebellious confrontation was excluded for the actual Fukkikyo movement.
Then, there was a spectacular riot at Koza city on December 20, 1970. At the night time of early morning, a US soldier’s traffic accident triggered a conflict between the US MP and the local crowd, and it turned into a massive riot of more than 5,000 people. The rioting crowd burned the US cars and broke into the Kadena aid base, and it continued for the night hours. It was spontaneous, and the anger focused on the US base and related things. The riot found the broadest sympathy and favorable response among the Okinawan population. The Koza riot can be said to be an aftereffect or complement of the failure of February-4 general strike: there were popular feeling of anger that was not allowed to express through the ongoing Fukkikyo movement.
The last strenuous struggles of worker were base workers’ strikes in 1969, 1970, and 1972. Soon after the failure of the February-4 general strike, the US armed forces gave its dismissal notice of 150 base workers. Zengunro of the base workers union went on 24-hour strike in June 1969, and the union accepted a truce, with the disciplinary actions withdrawn in August. Again in December 1969, the US armed forces announced the dismissal plan of more than 2,400 workers as a part of its worldwide military rationalization scheme. Zengunro stood for withdrawal of the US bases from Okinawa, but it was opposed to base workers’ sacrifices for any military rationalization. Zengunro waged 48-hour and 120-hour strikes in January 1970. The dismissal of 400 workers was withdrawn in the context of the US invasion of Cambodia and the renewed US air attacks on North Vietnam at the beginning of May.
However, the union’s situation was much difficult. The campaign against the attempt of anti-Kyoshokuin-kai legislation had broad support among the population in 1966-67, and there were popular sympathies for the Zengunro’s gpaid-leave h strike in 1968. But the much inclusive anti-military-colonial cohesion that had been distinguished in the 1950s and 1960s was deteriorating, and Zengunro was put into a new isolation. At the same time, the union could not compensate for pay cuts due to the strikes at all, and it was obliged to agree to a truce in April. Furthermore, the US armed forces gave another mass-dismissal notice of 1,629 workers in February 1972, three month before the date of Okinawa’s reversion, and the struggle against the dismissals was extremely difficult. In March, Zengunro went on ten-day strike initially, then it was extended one week more, and the strike became indefinite finally. The strike lasted for 35 days, and it was halted unilaterally by the Zengunro leadership in April.
Reversion of Okinawa to the mainland Japanese administration
he fundamental aspiration of Okinawan people that was expressed through the Fukkikyo movement in 1960s was Okinawa’s return to mainland Japan without the heavy US military bases, but the desire was in absolute conflict with the Japanese bourgeois state. In this conflict, the mainland working class could not defend the Okinawan people against the mainland bourgeois state. Thus, the administrative power over Okinawa was transferred from the US to mainland Japan within the politico-military framework of the US-Japan security arrangement, and the mainland Japanese state and society became directly involved in enforcement of the presence of US military bases on the Okinawan population.
The basic processes in and around Okinawa can be summarized as such on the one hand. However, there is another problem: that is, how to understand the specific ’nationalist’ character of the Fukkikyo movement. And this question is not dealt with in this article at all.