Pathway to Japanese Literature

I. The Class Nature of Anti-War Literature

I

There are various kinds of wars.
There are aggressive and conquering wars.
There are defensive wars.
Furthermore, there are national liberation wars and revolutions.

Anti-war literature has existed since ancient times; however, bourgeois anti-war literature and modern proletarian anti-war literature fundamentally differ in their principles.
Among the works of the ancient Hebrew prophet Micah can be found writings opposing war.
These warn against inter-ethnic conflicts and advocate peace - likely the oldest such texts ever recorded.
They appear in the Old Testament.
Yet we lack leisure to linger on such antiquity.
Modern literature clearly yields numerous works composed with anti-war intent.
These generally oppose war.
War is tragic.
War is repugnant, for it forces multitudes to forfeit their lives.
Thus they oppose it.

The proletariat opposes war; in their manner of opposition, they do not adopt a general attitude.
We do not oppose war in general terms.
In certain cases, the proletariat—which affirms even misery and cruelty for humanity's progress—thoroughly and unwaveringly opposes imperialist XX.
That is to say, we oppose X-istic and X-istic wars.

II

Bourgeois anti-war literature largely departs from individualistic or humanitarian grounds.
What is depicted there are individual pain, numerous sacrifices, the tragedy of war, and then individual feelings opposing these as well as humanitarian spirit.

Let me present a few familiar examples.

Tayama Katai’s *The Soldier* depicts a private hospitalized for beriberi in Manchuria during the Russo-Japanese War who, unable to endure the hospital’s filth, unsanitary conditions, and poor food, seized upon slight improvement as an opportunity to leave and rejoin his unit.
Dragging his heavy legs while carrying a rifle and backpack, he walked all day before finally dying of beriberi heart failure on the second floor of the supply depot’s canteen—or so he believed.
Such things are written there.
Here, the work emphasizes aspects like aversion to war, fear, and how military life binds individuals through extreme cruelty.
A peaceful life at home appears desirable.
For *The Soldier*, the battlefield becomes a vast prison.
Once humans enter there, no matter how they struggle or strain, they cannot escape that great prison—here, naturalism’s passive worldview briefly reveals itself.

War was bad.
That was because war killed people and did not allow them to live lives worthy of human beings.
There, the life of an individual as a human being vanished completely.
They had to remain under constant threat of anxiety and terror toward death.
Therefore, war was bad; war was unpleasant and detestable.

This represented a generalized opposition to war from an individualistic standpoint.
This stemmed from the so-called worldview of the bourgeoisie awakened to selfhood.
What expressed this tendency even more clearly was Yosano Akiko’s new-style poetry.
It appeared in the October 1904 issue of Myōjō.
The title was "Thou Shalt Not Die."
It was a poem lamenting her brother’s participation in the war as part of the Port Arthur siege army.
As for the same author's other tanka and poems—twisting things like love this way and that while flaunting technical skill—we found them utterly distasteful.
Not a single one resonated with us.
But "Thou Shalt Not Die," though constrained by the archaic 7-5 syllable structure of old-style poetry, overflowed with genuine emotion precisely because it concerned her own flesh and blood.

Even if Port Arthur’s fortress falls
What does it matter if it remains unbroken?
Do you not know the Akibito’s code?
There exists no household code.
Thou shalt not die
[××××××] goes to battle
From [××××] does he not come forth.
To spill human blood as mementos
To die on the beast’s path—
To deem death as human glory—

I arbitrarily quoted several lines here; however, XX was done by me.
Had it not been made into XX, it would likely be banned today.

At the time, Ōmachi Keigetsu condemned this poem as dangerous ideology.
It was an era when the entire nation was caught up in war fever.
This was a time when only the Heimin Shimbun declared opposition to war.
The author defended herself against Keigetsu’s criticism by stating: “A poem remains a poem—it simply poured out my true feelings.”
Parents seeing off their son departing for war at Shimbashi said these parting words: “Stay healthy, be careful, and come back safely!”
“It expresses the same sentiment,” she explained.

This poem opposes war entirely from personal feelings.
The center of life was entirely in the individual.
Therefore, the most dreadful thing is death.
It is killing and being killed.

When it comes to humanitarianism—though it remains six of one and half a dozen of the other—the perspective becomes somewhat broader, and a desire to pursue the causes of war becomes visible.
It ends up being half-hearted and lukewarm, though.

Mushanokouji Saneatsu’s *A Young Man’s Dream* was published during the European Great War.
This is humanitarianism’s opposition to war.

Even in this case, it emphasized the terror of death and the misery of humans being unable to live lives worthy of their nature. However, here it was humanity rather than the individual that stood primarily at issue. War arose from destroying other nations' civilizations and attempting to reduce them to colonies of one's own country. It emerged because there existed egoists who believed subjugating and conquering other nations would yield profit. Yet he failed to consider who these egoists truly were. To abolish war, humans needed to cease viewing things through national frameworks and instead adopt humanity's perspective. The will of humanity declared that a nation's civilization could not exist in any true sense when severed from others' civilizations. The problem lay in people's inability to respect this collective will. War sprang from ignoring humanity's will. War erupted where nationalism defied humanity's will. This formed the central idea permeating *A Young Man’s Dream*. Everything was humanity. Humanity stood as the supreme being of all creation—a special entity distinct in kind from other animals.

III

The bourgeoisie might oppose war out of immediate misery and terror, but they never considered eradicating war altogether.
Even when they did contemplate it, such considerations remained lukewarm and half-hearted, ultimately serving only reactionary purposes.
It was either idealism or status quo-preserving pacifism.
Thus even in anti-war literature, the bourgeoisie laid bare their class nature.

In modern European literature too, works opposing war amounted to a considerable number.
Generally speaking, I would simply list their names and move on to proletarian anti-war literature.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau – *Project for Perpetual Peace*

Émile Verhaeren – *Dawn* (In this play, the Belgian poet expressed hope for the revival of human society. The city of Obidmaanyu was besieged by enemy forces, and then, as revolutionaries from both the attacking and defending armies rose in revolt, the battle finally came to an end.)

Leo Tolstoy – *Sevastopol Sketches*, *War and Peace*, *Omoiokose*, etc.

Vsevolod Garshin – *The Coward*
*The Foolish Ivanov’s Notes*, *Four Days*

Leonid Andreyev – *The Red Laugh*

Next, French novelists Guy de Maupassant and Joseph Henri Rosny, humanist Romain Rolland, English playwright Bernard Shaw, American poet Whitman, and others also opposed war with tones ranging from fierce to ironic to sorrowful.

When it came to German Expressionism—which emerged after the World War—there were indeed numerous anti-war works.

Hasenclever – *Antigone* (an adaptation of a Greek tragedy; he linked it to the Great War by modeling Tareon on former German Emperor Wilhelm II, having those made into widows, orphans, and disabled by the war confront the king to plead their hunger and wounds while making them shout: "Expose the generals in the marketplace!")

Franz Werfel – *The Trojan Women*
(It lamented the misery of the defeated and the cruelty of the victors.)

Ernst Toller – *German Man Hinkelmann*, *Metamorphosis* (*German Man Hinkelmann* depicts the anguished life of a man who lost his testicles in the war, though it remains largely humanitarian in nature.)

Reinhard Goering – *Naval Battle* (In the naval battle, the fifth sailor harbored rebellious intent.)

Fifth Sailor.
"What are we fighting for now?"

First Sailor.
"To secure freedom of the seas."

Fifth Sailor.
"So your mother raised you for that purpose? So that's what gives meaning to your soul?"
"So that's why your body grew so big."

(omitted)

Voices.
"Homeland, homeland—what more do you want from us?"
"Homeland, homeland—death devours us ice-cold."
"Homeland, homeland—watch us fall here."
"Homeland—give us death, death, death—give us death, death."

(Explosion.
First, Fourth, and Fifth Sailors lie dead with torn-off gas masks.)

Expressionism was subjectivism.
Thus while Goering remained anti-war in stance, what he truly sought to articulate appeared to be humanity's relationship with that looming force of fate overshadowing all.
In this sense, *Naval Battle* constituted a species of fatalistic tragedy.

Fritz von Unruh.
—In Unruh’s early works—namely *Officers* (1912) and *Prince Louis Ferdinand of Prussia* (1914), written before the Great War—the ideology of the class to which he belonged was reflected with utmost clarity.
He was a military man of noble birth who possessed the so-called German spirit—one grounded in idealistic notions.
Therefore, his works were filled with nothing but abstract concepts.
He went to war as aide-de-camp to the German Crown Prince during the Great War.
There he saw the horrors of war.
That expanded his concepts greatly and profoundly while giving them a clear, definite direction.
He became a pacifist and a humanitarian.
There, in the trenches, he wrote a poem titled *Before the Decision*.
Regarding the fortress battle of Verdun, he then wrote a tragic tale of furious indignation titled *The Path of Sacrifice*.
This was coincidentally published in the same year (1919) as Henri Barbusse’s *Clarté*.

The Expressionists, though many opposed war, cursed its miseries and atrocities, and cried out against it, remained idealistic and persisted in merely subjective emphasis.

Having examined bourgeois writers' opposition to war to this extent, let us now turn to proletarian literature.

IV

Henri Barbusse’s *Clarté* is another anti-militarist work born from the Great War.
This novel is slow-paced and difficult to read in its beginning sections.
Barbusse not only curses the horrors of war but hurls disgust at those responsible for it, elevating the spirit of the International.
“There, you must force the homeland to disarm.”
“And you must radically shrink and discard the concept of homeland to embrace a profound social consciousness.”
“You must eradicate militarist borders and remove the even worse economic and commercial barriers.”
“Protectionism introduces violence into the development of labor and brings about the fatal madness of militarism.”
“You must abolish what is called legitimate between nations yet termed ‘murder,’ ‘theft,’ and ‘unfair competition’ among individuals.”
“It is particularly you who must remove these things.”
“Because it is you who must do these things.”
“Wherever you go, only you—you alone who possess immortal power and a selfless, bright conscience—can accomplish this.”
“You do not wage war for your own sake.”

“You must not fear ancient magic or temples of the gods. Your immense rationality must destroy the idols that sustain the roots of believers’ wealth.”

“A worldwide republic is an unavoidable result necessary to equalize all people’s rights in this life. If you advance grounded in the concept of equality, you will arrive at the people’s International. If you do not reach it, that is because you are not grounded in correct principles.”

In this way, Barbusse cried out for the International.

The proletariat absolutely opposed imperialist, aggressive ××.
Therefore, in proletarian anti-war literature, this had to be expressed.
The bourgeoisie concealed war’s true cause from the people’s eyes.
“They tell you people”—once victory is achieved exactly as those above you desire, all tyrannies will vanish as if by magic, and peace will reign on earth.”
That—that was not true.
“Peace will not come to earth until rule by ×× arrives.”
He then declared to soldiers worldwide in another passage:
“Man snatched at random from the human throng—remember this:
“—that you were never yourself for even a single moment!
“‘You must!
“‘You must!’—under this cold absolute command, there was never an instant when you did not yield.
“You—in peacetime, surrounded by unceasing labor regulations in commercial and industrial machine shops; becoming slaves to tools, slaves to pens, slaves to talent, or slaves to something else; dragged through daily toil from morning till night without rest—you!
“Through that, you could barely scrape by and find rest only in dreams.”

"When this war you never desired arrives—your country or name matters not—the terrible fate that gripped you firmly casts off its mask to reveal its quarrelsome, complex true nature. The wind of judgment has arisen."

"Your body is conscripted.
They seize you using intimidation methods akin to criminal arrest.
'No matter how poor you may be...'
'You are processed...'

You lived a life of misery...
They were given meager rations...
Every instant...
You were punished...
'You discard your lives...'"

Such unpleasant, terrifying wars will break out again even after ending once, as long as the ×××× system exists.
As long as war can be decided by those who do not fight, it will be repeated again and again.
"As long as war can be decided by those other than the dull-witted masses who forge bayonets and brandish them, it will be repeated time and again."
And as long as the ×××× system persists, "there will be nothing left on this earth but preparations for war.
All human power will be absorbed for that purpose, and every discovery, every science, every imagination will be monopolized through it."—this is what *Clarté* cries out.
And today, ten years after *Clarté*'s publication, the world’s imperialist nations find themselves doing nothing but preparing for ××.

Marcel Martinet wrote three works against the backdrop of the Great War.
These were: the poetry collection *Cursed Time*, which called out to soldiers heading to the battlefield; the novel *Shelter*, depicting the wretched lives of civilians groaning in the war’s rear; and the play *Night*, written under the influence of the German Revolution.
Among them, several poems and the play stood as exceptionally powerful works.
It remains likely one of the most outstanding pieces among proletarian literature yet translated into Japanese.

As long as the capitalist system persists, preparations for war will never cease.
Moreover, wars themselves never cease.
We are absolutely opposed to ×××× wars.
However, war can only be eradicated when the proletariat—the most oppressed and final class—liberates itself while simultaneously liberating all humanity from the class system in general.
To reach that point, they must undergo XXX war.
The proletariat opposes XXXX wars but affirms XXXX.
In *Night*, Martinet opposes XXXX wars but affirms the XXXX carried out through the unity of the oppressed and exploited proletariat.
“Night” instills a cold fervor in the proletariat and rouses them to action.
The proletariat’s attitude toward war—both aspects of it—is most clearly expressed in *Night*.

Upton Sinclair, the American socialist writer, in *Jimmie Higgins*, depicted the internal strife within the varied consciousness of the proletarian class regarding imperialist war.
On one level, it was said that Sinclair had written about the mental position he himself adopted—having affirmed weapons after no small amount of anguish—during World War I.

As the crisis of imperialist wars between European nations gradually intensified, socialists and militant workers in those countries launched opposition movements against this war scourge.
This movement eventually roused American socialists as well, and the Leesville Socialist Party branch to which Jimmie belonged held rallies in opposition.
But Europe’s golden kings and military men ultimately drove their own country’s slaves into the battlefield.
And to America, orders for weapons flooded in from those nations, and nearly all factories were swiftly transformed into weapons factories.
The Empire Factory where Jimmie worked, owned by Old Man Granich, was also converted into a weapons plant.

Jimmie realized that what was being manufactured by his own hands were shells that would kill comrades in Germany, and confronted grave doubts.
As an internationalist and socialist, could Jimmie manufacturing such weapons truly be considered a noble act?
And could he accept the four-cent-per-hour raise Old Man Granich offered as a share of this cruel plunder?
This problem tormented him until he realized even wheat from American farmers was bought by Britain to feed soldiers slaughtering German comrades.
Weapon orders swelled endlessly and wages soared.
It finally made even honest socialists like Jimmie giddy.
But as wages climbed, prices rose too.
In the factories, voices of discontent and condemnation swelled.

“Strike! Strike!”

After being fired from the factory, Jimmie was hired as a menial laborer by a farmer in the suburbs.

Before long, a revolution occurred in Russia, and the proletariat secured peace through their own strength.
But Germany marched into Russia.
American socialists began to emerge who would participate in the Great War within the scope of defeating Germany, which was trampling upon Russia—the world’s sole proletarian state.

Should he defeat the detestable German military or should he oppose militarism?!
Jimmie was being tormented by two absolutely incompatible perspectives.

But the clever trap set by the American Army finally dragged Jimmie out to the battlefield.
However, at the very first step, he encountered something interesting.
The German submarine hurled him into the Atlantic Ocean.
Next, he was admitted to a British hospital.
There, he was spoken to by George V of the United Kingdom.

“How are you feeling?”

“I’m quite well, thank you.”

“Are you an American soldier?”

“No, I’m a mechanic.”…

Finally, Jimmie received leaflets from a Jewish Bolshevik and distributed all of them within two days.
For this reason, he was arrested and subjected to every manner of terrible torture, but he did not confess his accomplices.

The above is merely the rough outline of *Jimmie Higgins*. Concerned about increasing page count, I could only write it in an extremely incomplete manner.

Here resound both the spirit of the International and the condemnation of imperialist war ××.

In the three works listed above—*Clarté*, *Night*, and *Jimmie Higgins*—there exists something fundamentally distinct from the bourgeoisie’s generic anti-war literature. The proletariat must first and foremost elevate the spirit of the International. “The International signifies international or worldwide solidarity—a global alliance.” This explanation appears in *The Developmental History of the International* edited by Bukharin.

When capitalism developed with tremendous force and bore down upon the proletariat class as an international power, from within the working class emerged the attempt to create our own International organization to oppose capitalism. That is what constitutes international workers' unity. Proletarian anti-war literature opposes imperialist ×× while advocating the ideology of international solidarity among the working class.

II. Proletariat and War

1.

The proletariat understands that without the abolition of class society through the victory of socialism, war will never cease.
The proletariat’s attitude toward war differs fundamentally from that of bourgeois pacifists, anarchists, or anti-war literary figures proceeding from such ideologies.
They consider that the struggle waged by the ruled class against the ruling class is necessary and possesses progressive value.
The struggle of slaves against slave owners, the struggle of serfs against lords, and the struggle of workers against capitalists are necessary.
War is accompanied by atrocities, brutal acts, and hardships and suffering; however, there have been wars in history that served to abolish harmful and reactionary evil systems.
They should be justified considering their contribution to humanity’s development.
Therefore, the proletariat must analyze the historical specificity of the current war—whether it will lead to our liberation or continue to oppress us.

The French Revolution opened a new era in human history.
From then until the Paris Commune, there existed bourgeois progressive national-liberation wars.
In other words, those wars primarily served to remove feudal despotism and foreign domination.
That was a progressive war.
Moreover, if ×× were to start a war against Britain, that would be a just and necessary war.
We cannot help but sympathize with wars waged by the oppressed class against oppressors and exploiters.
And we cannot help but desire their victory.

2.

What was the nature of the war now looming before our eyes?

Suppose two thieves were to clash again over stolen goods—one having less loot than the other?
However vigorously the disadvantaged side might erect moral pretenses to gild their actions, their essence would remain that of thieves.

Or imagine three thieves quarreling over what they deemed an equitable division of their ill-gotten territories?
However ostentatiously they draped themselves in justice and humanity to justify their conduct, such posturing would ultimately serve only to deceive others for their own gain.
Yet precisely such a brawl—petty squabbles between brigands over scraps of plunder—now threatened to erupt before us.
This was none other than the imperialist war poised to ignite.

Modern capitalism followed a trajectory from free competition toward monopoly.
Monopolies within each industrial sector increased profits.
Small capitals were absorbed by large capitals.
Banks then united with industry, financial capital emerged, and a financial oligarchy took shape.

Among capitalists, monopolies initially divided domestic markets among themselves.
However, domestic markets under capitalism maintained close ties with foreign markets, through which they coalesced into a unified world market.
If groups of major capitalists monopolized particular raw material sources and markets, they would gain tremendous power and reap enormous profits.
"International capital groups frantically strove to strip all competitive capabilities from their rivals while laboring to seize iron mines and oil fields."
"And colonies alone could guarantee monopoly groups' success against all contingencies in their struggle with rivals." (Lenin) Therefore, capitalists "burned with desire to conquer colonies."
"And 'financial capital and its corresponding international policy would ultimately precipitate struggles among powerful nations over the economic and political division of the world.'"

This was precisely imperialist war.
And the capitalists who had monopolized vast colonies and markets did not work themselves in any way, living parasitically through exploitation.
“Capitalism pushes a very few particularly wealthy and powerful states to extremes, and though these few states contain at most one-tenth—or even generously estimated, no more than one-fifth—of the world’s inhabitants, they plunder the entire globe through mere ‘interest coupon clipping’.” (Lenin)

Therefore, the imperialist war was a war between plunderers and plunderers; it was a quarrel between thieves and thieves.
"The colonial residents subjugated to those thieves were treated like cattle or horses.
They were exploited through various methods.
'Through capital export, concessions, deceptions in commodity sales, being subjugated under dominant nations, and other such means.'" (Lenin)

Capitalists amassed enormous profits from the colonies in addition to those they exploited from domestic workers.
With this excessive surplus money, they attempted to buy off the labor aristocracy and worker leaders.
This was something that actually existed, and capitalists employed all means, both indirect and direct, to subdue those traitors.

Workers who had been bought by them were no longer allies of ours.
They became agents of the bourgeoisie.
Their way of thinking was no longer that of the proletariat.
They indeed became a hindrance to the proletarian movement and proved of no use whatsoever.
Once an imperialist war broke out, such traitors would not only fail to oppose it but would instead flail about in panic and rush headlong into patriotism.

3.

Imperialist war possesses no progressive significance whatsoever; on the contrary, it is carried out to oppress the majority of the world’s nations while simultaneously suppressing the proletariat within its own country—all to secure and expand the system of wage labor.
Yet the cunning bourgeoisie brandish artful, specious justifications.
During the European War, the bourgeoisie of France and Britain claimed to wage war for Belgium’s liberation and that of other nations, thereby deceiving the masses.
In truth, they fought to maintain their plundered colonies.
The German imperialists conversely battled to forcibly redistribute Britain and France’s excessive colonial holdings.
In wars yet to come, such deceptions will recur.
Thus shall the propertyless be driven like cattle into slaughterhouse battlefields.

However, the proletariat must absolutely oppose being driven helplessly into battlefields amid thieves' territorial squabbles—even if their skin colors differ—where fellow paupers wound and slaughter one another.
And they should consider using the thieves' infighting to abolish the entire thief system.

To that end, the proletariat must elucidate for what purpose that war is being waged.
Anti-war literature must here expose why wars occur—their true nature—convey this reality to the masses, and rouse them to action.
It becomes imperative to lay bare how thieves persist in safeguarding their vile system of robbery with impunity.

Our literature constitutes one domain within the proletariat's comprehensive endeavors.
We must fuse the proletariat's anti-imperialist will and ideology into visceral emotion, express them with unrelenting force, and thereby decisively broaden our influence over workers and peasants.
We must drive literature's full anti-imperialist propagandistic power like a wedge into the very marrow of these masses.

Imperialist war brims with latent potential to transmute itself into the proletariat's revolutionary assault against the bourgeoisie.
Moreover, the proletariat must labor ceaselessly to effect this transformation.
Therefore, our literature must not merely articulate anti-imperialist resolve - it must marshal every propagandistic resource to hammer home how our movement perpetually converges upon this ultimate objective.
(What precisely constitutes this objective lies beyond our present scope.) We must rouse workers, peasants, and those millions still leveling bayonets at so-called enemy nations - redirecting those steel points toward [anti-imperialist struggle] and [the capitalist class] - then deploy literature's full arsenal to entrench and amplify this reorientation.

IV

Furthermore, I wish to draw attention to the crisis of a new imperialist war—namely, that three imperialist bourgeoisies are attempting colonial redivision alongside the impending crisis of other imperialist nations colliding against Soviet Russia.
This is, in various respects, the problem that most strongly commands our attention.

III. Permanence of Anti-War Literature

I.

Is literature that organizes anti-war thought and emotion to appeal to worker-peasant masses only necessary when war is being waged?
Is anti-war literature unnecessary during peacetime when no war rages?
No—it is essential.

So long as the capitalist system endures, the era of war's extinction will never arrive.
Even when peace comes after imperialist war partitions the world, another imperialist war inevitably follows.
The European War ended and peace descended.
Yet within a decade, imperialist-centered struggles over colonial territories among capitalist powers gradually intensified anew.
This inherently carried the seed of fresh global division.
And it would not desist until provoking war.
Bourgeois governments devoted themselves ceaselessly to war preparations.
Capitalist peace, scrutinized in essence, proved mere preparation for the next conflict.
Scientific inventions, chemical industries, railway construction, telegraphs, road networks—all under capitalism became concentrated toward militarization's aims.
This bore profound implications, both direct and indirect, for proletarian lives.
Here lay anti-war literature's enduring necessity.
While capitalism persists, proletarian anti-war literature must persist and wage struggle against it.

II.

Anti-war literature was not limited to works dealing solely with barracks or military life.
Capitalism exploited everything to prepare for the next war.
They dragged young workers and peasants into [censored], making them all wear identical [censored] without distinction.
They attempted to mold humans into a single most convenient form.
And so masses of workers and peasants began forming processions shouldering rifles—a masquerade-like parade that constituted one act through which the imperialist bourgeoisie prepared via [censored] to exploit the proletariat.
Schools, youth training centers, and reservist associations had all become tools for their [censored].
Steelworks, chemical plants, fertilizer companies—and the workers laboring there—were all utilized for war.
From chemical plants came poison gas; from fertilizer plants—though fertilizer companies sold their products at exorbitant prices to farmers—they could produce gunpowder as needed.
Wireless telegraphy, railways, steamships—even movies and theater—the imperialist bourgeoisie exploited these for [censored] or to incite militaristic ideology.
All things were being concentrated solely to augment military power.
But for the bourgeoisie, this remained not an end but a means.
They attempted through their militarism to maintain the current exploitative system even one day longer.
And they would continue endlessly oppressing the proletariat.
That constituted their objective.
Therefore militarism stood prepared not only for [censored] with foreign nations but also [censored] against the domestic proletariat.
The deployment of [censored] to peasant uprisings and large-scale strikes became one piece of evidence corroborating this.

Therefore, to expose such imperialist—militarist substance, appeal to the masses of workers and peasants, and ×-rouse the masses was the task of proletarian literature. It went without saying that this had to continue even during peacetime when no war was occurring. In this case, our principal focus lay in exposing the substance of militarism. In other words, it lay precisely in anti-militarist literature.

III.

It had been stated that in peacetime, the principal focus lay on anti-militarist literature; however, this was naturally not limited to that alone.
They were free to address any content whatsoever.
Moreover, there was absolutely no issue in handling this alongside the content we were about to discuss next.
It was merely stated that the principal focus would be placed on anti-militarist literature.

The imperialist bourgeoisie, even in peacetime, pursued policies of subjugating colonies’ ×× other ethnic groups and suppressing labor movements.
That policy continued and developed until finally a war arose through ×× means.
But when war broke out, a dangerous situation inevitably arose even for the government representing the imperialist bourgeoisie.
The government's anxiety toward the ×× of the workers and peasant masses grew increasingly severe.
For example, in Russia, following the Russo-Japanese War, the 1905 ×× occurred, and near the end of the European War, the 1917 ×× arose.
Even when considering the example of the Paris Commune, this fact was confirmed.
The proletariat had to ×× that moment.

“Transform ×××× wars into ××!”
By vehemently emphasizing this, they must rouse the workers and peasant masses to ××, ×××××××××××××.

The principal focus of anti-war literature during wartime must be concentrated here.

The proletariat must utilize the economic and political crises that arise for ×× to “expedite the ×× of capitalist society.”

However, this too is not strictly limited to being handled independently.
They must merely place their principal emphasis there.