An examination of postwar labor unrest in Japan and the “demo operators” behind it.
It explores the actions of a Tokyo University activist, labor disputes at Mitsukoshi and JAL, and questions the later media and literary portrayal of such figures as heroes.

2019-01-07
NHK reported in a special program several years ago, astonishingly portraying as a hero this Tokyo University Communist who infiltrated Japan Airlines, together with novelist Toyoko Yamasaki.
The chapter titled “Tracing the Roots of Professional Demonstrators Leads to a Dashing Tokyo University Student Named Kantaro Ogura,” first published on 2017-09-17, is now ranked in the top ten of goo searches.
The following is a continuation of the previous chapter.
Business owners did not seem overly distressed, replying only, “We are troubled by these demo operators.”
A demo operator is someone who finds Japanese companies, incites employees, and organizes demonstrations for better treatment and higher wages.
When a company yields and raises salaries by some percentage, they take a success fee and move on in search of the next Japanese company to exploit.
Tracing the roots of such demo operators leads to a dashing Tokyo University student named Kantaro Ogura.
After launching campus disputes at Komaba, he infiltrated companies while still a student and incited strikes that destroyed them.
Among them was Mitsukoshi.
He was handsome.
With a talent for captivating women, he drove female employees into strikes.
The Mitsukoshi dispute at the end of 1951 was one such case.
Female clerks picketed the main entrance with the lion statue and repeatedly clashed with police.
Unlike Chinese demo operators, Ogura did not take money.
Destroying companies and spreading social unrest to push Japan toward collapse was enough.
That was the mission of the Japanese Communist Party.
Ogura next entered Japan Airlines.
It had just been established with strong government backing as the base for rebuilding “Aviation Nippon,” which GHQ had dismantled.
Posing as a Tokyo University graduate management candidate, he became the labor union chairman and used the same techniques as at Mitsukoshi, first seducing female employees.
He even lined up stewardesses on Ginza’s main street for demonstration marches.
President Shizumaro Matsuo, who was devoted to rebuilding aviation, was shocked by the internal turmoil and tried to persuade Ogura, but Ogura would not listen.
He made absurd demands such as free pantyhose and one-week menstrual leave, pushing labor-management conflict to its peak just as Matsuo’s daughter fell critically ill with leukemia.
Ogura exploited this.
He forced all-night negotiations and cornered Matsuo without compromise until dawn, causing Matsuo to miss his daughter’s final moments.
The stewardesses wept when they learned this and left Ogura.
Japanese demo operators failed to fully exploit women.
To be continued.
The man was turned into a hero in a fabricated novel like “The Unfading Sun” by Toyoko Yamasaki, who, in her China-related works, brazenly plagiarized the novels of Endo Homare, one of Japan’s literary treasures.
NHK then collaborated with Yamasaki to portray this Tokyo University Communist who infiltrated JAL as a hero in a special program, with Ken Watanabe playing the leading role.