Development of ISHIKAWA Sanshiro's Anarchism under the Influence of Elisée Reclus

Abstract

Ishikawa Sanshiro was a representative Japanese anarchist who ranked with Kotoku Shusui and Osugi Sakae. He defected to Europe in 1913 and remained there for 8 years, develping a close relation ship with Paul Reclus, in whose vegetable garden he worked in Dordogne, France. Paul Reclus was the nephew of Elisee Reclus, the greatest geographer and anarchist theorist in 19th- century France. His exile in Europe gave him the opportunity to form a friendship with Edward Carpenter, “discover” Elisee Reclus, and live an agricultural life. After coming back to Japan in 1920, Ishikawa took up residence in Chitose in the suburbs of Tokyo and studied Elisee Reclus, cultivating his garden as at Domme in Dordogne. He published many articles concerning Elisee Reclus in his personal periodical Dynamique and presided over a small circle for the “Study of Elisee Reclus” to which he delivered lectures once a month. In those days, he translated and published the first volume of the monumental work of Reclus' later years, L'Homme et la Terre, Man and the Earth. In 1933, Ishikawa published two important books, Kinsei Domin Tetsugaku (Philosophy of the Anarchist Democracy) and Rekishi Tetsugaku Joron (Introduction to the Philosophy of History), which were his original anarchist theories. They are based on Elisee Reclus' ideas, and especially in the latter, he referred frequently to Reclus' L'Homme et la Terre. He criticized the theories of evolution and dialectical historical materialism, which were the academic mainstream theories in those days in Japan Although. Ishikawa held that this was also Reclus'opinion, the author does not agree. Reclus did not take a critical stance toward the theories of evolution without acknowledging the struggle for existence and of dialectical historical materialism. Ishikawa's anti-evolutionism and anti-Marxism come from his nihinlism and Edward Carpenter's anticivilisation ideology. Although Ishikawa has the same ideas as Reclus on the view of the world and on the universe, he had a different view of humans in the universe. While Ishikawa Sanshiro had a pessimistic view of life, Reclus believed in progress and hoped for solidarity amony human beings.