The Evolution of the Japan Teachersʼ Unionʼs Overall Peace Policy: Focusing on the Central Executive Committeeʼs Deliberations

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Other Title
  • 日本教職員組合における全面講和論の選択
  • 日本教職員組合における全面講和論の選択 : 中央執行委員会内の議論に注目して
  • ニホン キョウショクイン クミアイ ニ オケル ゼンメン コウワロン ノ センタク : チュウオウ シッコウ イインカイ ナイ ノ ギロン ニ チュウモク シテ
  • 中央執行委員会内の議論に注目して

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Abstract

<p> In the period from the end of 1949 to the first half of 1950, the Japan Teachersʼ Union (hereafter JTU) moved towards a policy promoting complete and overall peace in relation to the issue of the peace settlement of Japan. It is important in examining the character of the JTUʼs peace campaign in the 1950s to look at why the JTU was the first among Japanʼs labor unions to embrace the concept of complete and overall peace and how it arrived at this conclusion. The purpose of this paper is to address these questions by following the deliberations of the JTU Central Executive Committee. In particular, the paper focuses on the Central Executive Committee members and groups involved in the decision to promote overall peace, and analyzes their reasoning.</p><p> The findings are as follows. In the JTUʼs move toward the promotion of an overall peace policy, the responsibility for drafting JTU peace campaign policies shifted from the organizationʼs Education and Culture Section to its Planning Committee. This shift in responsibility led to the following changes in JTUʼs peace campaign policies. First, the way was cleared for promoting complete and overall peace. Second, the JTUʼs strategy became a two-pronged policy addressing the diverse struggles of labor unions in general, together with its campaigns to raise awareness of educational issues. Third, while the campaign policies continued to be grounded in the recommendations for promoting peace through education made by various UNESCO peace study groups, there was a distinct shift in emphasis to the Constitution of Japan.</p><p> In examining the implications of these changes, it is necessary to consider the activities taking place at the time outside the JTU. Notable is that various groups outside the JTU, with the exception of the Japan Communist Party, were at this time embracing the idea of complete and overall peace in their peace campaigns. The decision to shift responsibility for drafting JTU peace campaign policies from the Education and Culture Section to the Planning Committee suggests that the peace campaign promoted by the JTUʼs Central Executive Committee, which was alert to matters outside of the JTU, eventually became the official policy of the JTC in the 1950s. Thus, we see how the JTUʼs peace campaign in the 1950s came to reflect a clearly liberal stance aligned with the peace policies of the Japan Socialist Party and the General Council of Trade Unions of Japan (Sōhyō).</p>

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