Heimin Shimbun

(The People’s Newspaper, or Commoner’s Newspaper), a Japanese weekly newspaper founded in Tokyo on Nov. 15, 1903, by the Japanese socialist society Heiminsha (see). It was edited by D. Kotoku and T. Sakai. Although it often took petit bourgeois pacifist positions, the newspaper spoke out against militarism, especially after the outbreak of the Russo-Japanese War. Heimin shimbun reported on the Japanese and international working-class movements and on revolutionary events in Russia. In November 1904 it published a translation by Kotoku and Sakai of The Communist Manifesto. The issue in which the translation appeared was confiscated by the authorities, and on Jan. 29, 1905, the newspaper was banned by the government.