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clear comprehension of the Capitalist system and a definite programme for future action, but most of the Socialists (except a small Osugi Syndicalist group) shut themselves up in their study, keeping aloof from the practical movement, leaving the workers' organisations in the hands of Reformists.
But such a period did not last long. The historical year of the world revolution was coming nearer.
Outside those two, there was another Union in Osaka, called „Association for Conducting Trade Union“ of metal workers.
CHAPTER II.
Prologue of the Social and Industrial Upheaval, and
Unorganised Strikes.
(1917–1918).
1917 and the following years mark the turning point in the world history, not only because the Workers' Republic was for the first time established in Russia, but also because the enslaved classes in the Far Eastern countries have begun to awake from their long sleep. In Egypt, in India, in China, in Korea, we have seen the open rebellions of the toiling masses against the exploiting classes, both foreign and at home at first in the form of riot and then organised mass action.
In Japan this tide of proletarian revolt and organising movement synchronises with (1) extraordinary development of industrial capitalism, (2) increase of industrial workers in number, (8) amazing advancement of prices, and (4) also with revolutionary ferments in Russia and Europe.
1. Development of Industrial Capitalism.
Without doubt the „European War“ gave Japanese capitalists a golden opportunity for their expansion and adventure, while to European Capitalists it meant a sword for their suicide. During the War Japanese bourgeois triumphantly invaded the huge markets of the Eastern countries, seized upon navigation on the western part of Pacific and the Indian Sea, robbed the former German flash-houses in the South Sea for future large-scale piracy, and succeeded to lay with the sanction of the English government their avaricious hands on rich coal and iron fields in China, Everywhere Japanese and American robbers have knocked heads together and grappled together, leading both into another bloodthirsty War.
