Takiji Kobayashi
Murdered by Police
The latest victim of the police terror against Communists in Japan is the foremost Japanese proletarian writer, Takiji Kobayashi. At the time of his death he was only thirty, but, starting with the sensation caused five years ago by his story The Cannery Boat (which is something akin to The Jungle), followed up by a series of militant stories, his name was a household word. Those stories include: The Fifteenth of March, 1928, For the Sake of the Citizens (these three are included in this book), Absentee Landlords, Factory Cells, The Organizer, Solitary Confinement, The Village of Numajiri, People of the District and the posthumous Age of Transformation.
He had already served several terms of imprisonment, but managed to disappear just before a police raid on his house about a year ago, and was engaged in underground work for the Communist Party when, about 1 p.m. on February 21st, 1933, he was arrested on the street and within five hours was tortured to death. On the street he struggled with the police for half an hour and almost succeeded in getting free. He was finally dragged to the police station in an exhausted condition, and then Third Degree methods were started on him, but nothing could make him divulge one word, one name. His
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