Background
Inejiro Asanuma was born on 27 December 1898 in Miyakejima in Tokyo.
浅沼稲次郎
Inejiro Asanuma was born on 27 December 1898 in Miyakejima in Tokyo.
In 1923 graduated from the political science department of Waseda University.
In 1925 he became chief secretary of the Nomin Rodoto (Farmer Labor Party). After the party was disbanded, he became a member of the standing committee of the Zenkoku Rono Taishuto (National Labor Farmer Popular Party). In 1926 he headed the organizing section of the Rodo Nominto (Labor Farmer Party). In these and other ways, he participated in the struggle to establish proletarian political parties, though the difficulties faced by the movement at this time were very great.
In 1933 and thereafter he was twice elected to the Tokyo City Council, and he also served as city vice-chairman. In 1936 he was elected to the Lower House of the Diet, serving a total of nine terms as a member of that body.
In 1960, as a member of the central executive committee of the party, he played a key role in the movement to oppose the revision of the Security Treaty between Japan and the United States. The same year, when he was attending a public meeting of the heads of the three major political parties at Hibiya Hall, he was stabbed to death on the speaker’s platform by a right-wing youth. In spite of his prominence, he continued in later life to live in a very simple apartment and was widely admired for his unassuming manner.
While in college, he came under the influence of democratic thought and later of the theories of socialism and joined the socialist movement.
After graduating, he joined the Japan Miners' Union, taking part in the strike against the Ashio Mines in Tochigi Prefecture. He also joined the Japan Farmers’ Union and worked to support its labor disputes in various parts of the country.
In 1945 he took part in the forming of the Japan Socialist Party, and from 1948 served as chief secretary for eleven years. When the Socialist Party split into two factions, he allied himself with the right-wing faction but did all he could to act as mediator between the two groups.