Katayama Sen

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Sen Katayama (1859-1933), born Yabuki Sugataro, was an early member of the American Communist Party and co-founder, in 1922, of the Japan Communist Party.

Sugataro Yabuki was the second son born to Kunizo and Kichi Yabuki in 1859 in the Hadeki district of what would later become Japan's Okayama prefecture. He was adopted by the Katayama family at nineteen and adopted the name Sen Katayam, becoming the Katayama's "first son," after his birth mother was deserted by her husband. The adoption avoided Katayama's conscription and allowed him to continue his education.

In 1878 Katayama travelled to Tokyo to apprentice as a printer while he studied at a small preparatory school, the Oka Juku, where he formed a friendship with Iwasaki Seikichi, nephew of one of the founders of Mitsubishi. Iwasaki's departure for Yale University inspired Katayama to work his way to the United States. Katayama attended Grinnell College, from which he graduated in 1892, proceeding to the Andover Theological Seminary and then to Yale Divinity School. During this period Katayama became became a Christian and a socialist.

Katayama returned to Japan in 1896 but returned to American in 1903 at the urging of Iwasaki to look into rice-farming opportunities. During this trip he attended the Second International Socialist Congress in Amsterdam and an American Socialist Party convention in 1904 in Chicago. He settled in Texas and his main business became rice farming. When his rice crop failed he became employed by a Japanese restaurant owner in Houston, Tsunekichi Okasaki, who bought 10,202 acres of land in Texas with the plan that Katayama farm it. In late 1905 Okasaki and Katayama borrowed $100,000 from Iwasaki to fund the rice harvest, and together they formed a "Nippon Kono Kabushiki Kaisha" (Japan Farming Company) to develop the Texas project, and Katayama was made managing director. However, the company quickly dissolved, reputedly over Katayama's socialist leanings, and he returned to Japan in 1907, rejoined the Socialist movement, and pursued a career in journalism.

Katayama's was arrested and jailed for his participation in the Tokyo Streetcar Strike of 1912, and after his release he left Japan for California. Attracted by the success of the Bolshevik revolution of 1917-18, Katayama became an active communist and an officer for Comintern. He travelled to Mexico and later to Moscow, where he was hailed as a leader of the Japanese Communist movement. He remained in the Soviet Union until his death on November 5, 1933 and was buried in the Kremlin.

Katayam had two children by his first wife, Fude, who died in 1903, and another daughter by his second wife, Hari Tama, whom he married in 1907.

[edit] References

• Kublin, Hyman; Asian Revolutionary: The Life of Sen Katayama, (Princeton University Press, 1964).
• Orii, Kazuhiko and Conroy, Hilary; "Japanese Socialist in Texas: Sen Katayama, 1904-1907," Amerasia Journal 8 (1981).
• University of Texas Short Biography
• Sawada, Mitziko; Tokyo Life, New York Dreams: Urban Japanese Visions of America, 1890-1924, (University of California Press, 1996) chapter