Episode 443 - The Collapse
Added 2022-06-27 15:55:25 +0000 UTCFirst: sorry for the delay in posting! I've been away on a family trip and didn't have access to a laptop.
This was a very interesting episode for me, chiefly because it reflected a lot of my own personal experiences. As the observant among you have likely already guessed, my own politics are generally (though not always) to the left, and though I identify more with the center left these days I have organized with and used to be a part of organizations farther to the left. And frankly, a lot of what I saw in those movements--particularly the obsessions with theoretical correctness and factional infighting--is reflected in the history of the Socialist Party. So, the more things change, the more they stay the same, I guess.
One other thing to note about this episode: it is, once again, based largely on Nick Kapur's work on this period, but I omitted one area of focus that Kapur spent a good length of time on. His book also chronicles the abandonment of leftist activism by some of the most prominent intellectuals of the time, most notably Yoshimoto Takaaki (very associated with the Zengakuren), Shimizu Ikutaro (with the Kokumin Kaigi, the mass anti-treaty movement) and Maruyama Masao (with the post-May 19th protests themselves). Partially, I decided not to focus on these men for lack of time--and partially, because Maruyama himself might become the topic of an episode one day. That said, I'm not sure if that kind of intellectual history is interesting to people; it'd be a lot like the Ienaga Saburo episode in structure.
Let me know what you think! Next week is the last episode in this miniseries on 1960-61.
