These intense pictures of Japanese anarchists rioting in the 1960s show chaos in the streets
The Zengukaren protestors were against American influence
Picketing, tear gas, riot police—the motifs of political protest are recognizable anywhere. Such scenes were a regular sight in many American cities in the 1960s and 1970s, spurred by racial and economic disparity, anger over the Vietnam War, and countercultural rebellion against the status quo. But the United States wasn’t the only economic powerhouse rocked by social unrest in those extraordinary decades. Indeed, leftist student movements in Japan constituted some of the bloodiest and most dramatic battles between protestors and authorities anywhere. Japanese student groups were fighting for a handful of causes, including education reform and land rights. But their unifying stance was anti-Americanism. They wanted post-occupation Japan to be just that, and any lingering U.S. influence on their country was grounds for action. The Zengakuren student group, which formed in the late 1940s as a far-left league of anarchist student activists, organized many of the protests. Of central concern to the Zengakuren was American military presence in the region, and many of the most violent clashes occurred in demonstrations against the Vietnam War. The Zengakuren’s vigilance exposed a vein of lingering dissent in booming postwar Japan, where material comforts and economic stability had placated many others into political apathy.
