Background
Shiga Yoshio was born on 12 January 1901 in Fukuoka Prefecture.
志賀 義雄
Shiga Yoshio was born on 12 January 1901 in Fukuoka Prefecture.
In 1925 he graduated from the social studies course of Tokyo University.
In 1922 he organized a nationwide Student Alliance and in 1923 joined the newly formed Japan Communist Party. The following year, after the party was disbanded, he contributed authoritative articles to a magazine called Marukusu-shugi (Marxism).
He worked with Tokuda Kyuichi to reestablish the Japan Communist Party and in 1926 became head of the political bureau of the Central Committee and chief editor of Marukusu-shugi.
In 1927 he became a member of the Central Standing Committee and in 1928 was among those taken into custody in the March 15 mass arrest of members of the party. He spent the following eighteen years in jail, and though many of those arrested eventually renounced their political beliefs and were released from jail, he steadfastly refused to do so. He was released after the end of the Pacific War in 1945 and joined Tokuda Kyuichi in refounding the Japan Communist Party. He became a member of the Central Committee, member of the political bureau, and chief editor of the Communist newspaper Akahata.
In 1946 he was elected to the Lower House of the Diet, playing an active role as one of the few Communist Party members of the Diet. In 1950 he was purged from office on orders from General MacArthur and turned to underground activity. He returned to overt political life in 1955, resuming his role of leadership in the party, and was once more elected to the Diet.
While a student in Tokyo Imperial University, he joined a socialist organization called Shinjinkai.
In 1950, when the Cominform had criticized the Japan Communist Party, he was among the minority in the party who recognized the Soviet Union’s leadership in such matters. In 1964, when controversy arose over the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, the party as a whole took an anti-Soviet stand, but he favored ratification of the treaty. As a result, he and Kamiyama Shigeo were both expelled from the party and instead founded an organization known as Nihon no Koe.