Shakai Taishuto

(Social Mass Party), a Social Democratic party in Japan that existed from July 1932 to July 1940. Shakai Taishuto was founded by the right-wing Social Democrats Abe Isoo, Aso Hisashi, Kawakami Hotaro, and Nishio Suehiro to replace Zenkoku Rono Taishuto (Labor-Farmer Masses Party) and Shakai Minshuto (Social Democratic Party). A left wing was active from the very beginning, led by Ananuma Inejiro and Katayama Tetsu.

Shakai Taishuto approved the creation of the state of Manchukuo in 1932 and voted for new military appropriations. The party took the antimilitary sentiments of Japanese workers into account; it proposed the conclusion of a Japanese-Soviet nonagression pact and in the period 1932–35 condemned Japan’s resignation from the League of Nations. It also voiced support of a campaign against inflation and poverty. These platforms facilitated the party’s victory in the parliamentary elections of Feb. 20, 1936. Shakai Taishuto won approximately 600,000 votes and 18 seats in parliament, 13 more than it had held before the dissolution of the previous parliament. By 1937, it had 37 deputies in parliament. In 1936 and 1937 some left-wing members of Shakai Taishuto responded to a call of the Communist Party of Japan and Nihon Musanto, a legal left-wing party of workers and peasants, to help organize an antifascist national front. However, the rightist leadership of Shakai Taishuto dismissed from the party those who supported the front. Cooperating with the military, the leadership of Shakai Taishuto announced in July 1940 the disbanding of the party and joined the movement for the establishment of the New Order.