Background
Sanzō Nosaka was born on 30 March 1892 in Hagi. He has at times gone by the name Okano Susumu.
野坂 参三
Sanzō Nosaka was born on 30 March 1892 in Hagi. He has at times gone by the name Okano Susumu.
After graduating from Keio Gijuku in Tokyo, he became secretary of the organization and edited a journal that it put out.
In 1931 he received secret instructions to go to the Soviet Union as Japanese representative to the Comintern, where he was active in maintaining contacts between the Communist movement in Japan and abroad. He also made two undercover visits to America. In 1940 he went to China, intending to return to Japan, but instead remained in Yenan, where he worked in cooperation with the Chinese Communist Party. There he organized a Japanese antiwar society made up largely of Japanese soldiers who had been taken prisoner by the Communist forces.
After the end of the war, he returned to Japan in 1946, where he received an enthusiastic welcome. In conjunction with Tokuda Kyuichi and Shiga Yoshio, he issued a joint statement calling for a flexible approach and proposing the slogan "a lovable Communist Party.” At the general meeting of the party, Nosaka’s doctrine of “peaceful revolution” was adopted, and the same year he was elected to the Lower House of the Diet. In 1950 he was purged from office on orders from General MacArthur, but resumed overt political activity in 1955. In 1956 he was elected to the Upper House of the Diet as representative from the Tokyo area. Since then he has served along with Miyamoto Kenji as leader of the Japan Communist Party, making certain that it maintains its independence and autonomy.
While a student, he joined the Yuaikai, a labor organization headed by Suzuki Bunji.
In 1919 he was sent to England as special representative of the organization, and in 1920, when the British Communist Party was founded, he became a member. After being deported from England, he visited France, Germany, and the Soviet Union and returned to Japan in 1922, where he joined the newly founded Japan Communist Party. He was arrested and imprisoned in 1923 and again in 1928 when the police took steps to suppress the Communist Party.
His wife Nosaka Ryo (d. 1971), was also a member of the Communist Party and active in the spread of socialism.