Bloody May Day (1952)

Although most gatherings around the nation were peaceful, violence broke out in central Tokyo when protesters attempted to occupy the plaza in front of the Imperial Palace (present-day Kokyo Gaien park). This plaza was a traditional site for annual May Day protests but in 1952, fearing popular outrage in the aftermath of the protests, the Japanese government declared that the plaza would henceforth be closed to public gatherings.^[1] Sōhyō sought to follow the new regulations and had its members gather at Meiji Shrine instead.^[5] However, Zengakuren student activists, Zainichi activists, and other JCP-affiliated instigators led a large group of protesters on a march from Meiji Shrine to the Imperial Palace to "retake" the "people's plaza."^[1][2]

Initially, the protesters succeeded in occupying the plaza without incident, gathering together to wave flags, snake dance, and sing protest songs.^[1] However shortly thereafter a large contingent of police officers arrived on the scene and commanded the protesters to clear the plaza. The protesters refused to leave, and a bloody struggle commenced in which protesters armed with paving stones, baseball bats, wooden staves, pachinko balls, bamboo spears, and even some Molotov cocktails faced off against police armed with pistols, tear gas, and batons.^[6][2] Eventually, the police fired what they later claimed were "warning shots" with their service pistols, but some of these shots were aimed directly into the crowd, killing two protesters and wounding twenty-two others.^[1]

With the eruption of gunfire, many protesters panicked and attempted to flee the plaza, leading to further clashes with police. Retreating protesters overturned and set fire to dozens of American-owned military vehicles parked along the road. With chants of "Yankee go home!" (yankii go homu), they also attacked American bystanders, including reporters and American soldiers.^[1] Three American GIs were hurled into the palace moat and stoned before they were saved through the intercession of other Japanese.^[1]

Altogether 1,232 protesters were arrested, of whom 261 were charged with sedition and put on trial. The trials associated with the Bloody May Day incident dragged out for decades due to lengthy appeals processes. It was not until November 21, 1972, that the Tokyo High Court acquitted the final 16 defendants as part of a prosecutorial appeal of their earlier acquittals in lower courts, and prosecutors declined to appeal to the Supreme Court of Japan.

In the immediate aftermath of the Bloody May Day incident, the National Diet passed the Subversive Activities Prevention Act, which prescribed stiffer legal penalties for persons convicted of engaging in specified "terroristic subversive activities," and granted the government the power to suppress or even dissolve organizations involved in carrying out these activities.^[7]

Sporadic violence continued across the country throughout the summer of 1952. For example, anti-American protesters clashed with police in Osaka in June, and hurled Molotov cocktails at police and American military vehicles in Nagoya in July.^[1] Later that year, popular outrage at the continuing presence of military bases in Japan even after the Occupation had ended would coalesce into a nationwide anti-base movement, beginning with large-scale anti-base protests at Uchinada in Ishikawa Prefecture from 1952 to 1953.^[1]

In the fall 1952 general election, Japanese voters punished the Communist Party for their violent policies, and the JCP lost every single one of its 35 seats in the lower house of the Diet.^[8] Thereafter the JCP began to retreat from militancy and return to its former peaceful line, but it would take the party decades to recover its old strength.^[8] The party would not fully recover until the 1972 general election, when it sent 38 members to the Diet.^[9]

• Hasegawa, Kenji (April 2004). "Experiencing the 1952 Bloody May Day Incident". Journal of the International Student Center, Yokohama National University. 11: 97–111.
• Kapur, Nick (2018). Japan at the Crossroads: Conflict and Compromise after Anpo. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0674984424.
• Maki, John (September 1953). "Japan's Subversive Activities Prevention Law". The Western Political Quarterly. 6 (3): 489–511. doi:10.1177/106591295300600305.

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