Comparison Between Pre- and Post-War Student Movements in Japan

Abstract

The world-famous Zengakuren of Japan is analyzed in its social context. Three types of student movements are distinguished: in-campus, co-campus, and extra-campus. The first are concerned only with an individual institution and are run by its students. The issues are direotly relevant to their campus life. These movements occur spontaneously and attract a majority of the enrollment on the campus involved. When, however, issues directly relevant to student life cannot be solved within a particular institution, students of many colleges cooperate with each other, thus running a co-campus movement. Formal organizations like Zengakuren are founded in this way. When political disputes of a broader-than-educational significance become the central concern of students, cooperation with non-student organizations like political parties and labor unions is necessary. Movements of this kind are naMed extra-campus. In post-war Japan, these three types of student movements can be seen in the periods from 1945-47, 1948-50, and 1951 to date, respeotively. Gradual radicalization, federation, and bureaucratization are found in both preand post-war student movements. But the pre-war movements were run by underground, cohesive minorities, whereas the post-war movements have mobilized the majority of Japanese university students. The latter are open, legal, heterogeneous, and not-very-cohesive, ma88 movements.