The article details the significant social and political unrest in Japan during the Taisho Era, focusing on the 1918 rice riots. These riots, sparked by soaring rice prices and wartime inflation, involved approximately 2 million people across hundreds of municipalities.
The situation was further complicated by the ongoing Russian Revolution, prompting fears of a similar Bolshevik uprising in Japan. Authorities responded with harsh measures, arresting around 25,000 rioters and executing suspected leaders. The liberal newspaper Toyo Keizai Shimpo criticized the government's response, highlighting the lack of political representation for the non-property owning majority.
In the summer of 1918, "rice riots" swept the country. They began in a fishing village on the Sea of Japan in remote Toyama Prefecture. By September, some 2 million people in hundreds of municipalities had taken to the streets. They looted, bombed, demonstrated, struck.
The immediate cause was wartime inflation, especially the soaring price of rice. Rural and urban alike, the poor reeled. In the cities, factory hands toiled long hours for low pay under slave-like conditions. Industrialization comes at a cost and they were paying it. "The most violent strikes in Japanese history occurred in this period," writes American historian Herbert Bix (in "Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan," 2000).
The Russian Revolution was in full swing. Authorities were alarmed. Was Japan going Bolshevik? Some 25,000 "rice rioters" were arrested. Suspected ringleaders were hanged. The liberal newspaper Toyo Keizai Shimpo editorialized in disgust, "Unfortunately the political process in our country works effectively only for the property-owning minority. ... In one sense it is possible to say that those without property have no government at all."
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