Episode 176 – Red Star Over Tokyo, Part 1

Today, we’ll turn our attention to a set of ideas that will ultimately fall flat on their face in Japan (and most other places): Marxism. How did the hard left come to Japan? And before that, what even is Marxism?

Listen to the episode here.

Sources

I relied heavily on the excellent Political, Economic, and Social Thought to put together this brief summary.

Contextual information was taken from Hunt, Tristam. Marx’s General: The Revolutionary Life of Friedrich Engels.

Images

ffbca221ac03fa5fd358414a6f722fa3 — Statues of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels dot all parts of the former Soviet bloc. This one is in Berlin, Germany.

marxdial_2 — Marx’s historical dialectic in action.

match-girls-1888 — Popular demonstrations, like the Match Girl’s March on Parliament in 1888 depicted above, became increasingly common in the late 19th century. Many of these protests had Marxists among their organizers and/or participants, creating a fear of growing Marxist influence in the West.