Japan Cooperative Party (1945–46)

The Japan Cooperative Party (日本協同党, Nihon Kyōdōtō) was a political party in Japan.

On 18 December 1945,^[1] the Japan Cooperative Party was founded by Kōtarō Sengoku with the cooperation of Torizō Kurosawa^[2] Before the war, Sengoku was a leader of the industrial cooperatives, and after the war, he served as Minister of Agriculture and Commerce in the Higashikuni cabinet. Kurosawa was a leader of a dairy cooperative and was known as the "Butter King" of Hokkaido.^[2] Katsutarō Kita, an agriculturalist who previously served as a prefectural director of the nōkai, has been appointed as the party's vice chairperson.^[2] It initially had around 20 members.^[1]

On 4 January 1946, the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers (SCAP) published a memorandum pertaining to the Purge (from public office) based on the Potsdam Declaration and an order from the State-War-Navy Coordinating Committee (SWNCC).^[3] Only two of the party's 23 legislative members were able to escape the Purge.^[4] In the April 1946 elections, the party fielded 94 candidates, however won only 14 seats.^[2][5] Nine of the election winners were executives or former leaders of agricultural and fisheries organizations, or both, highlighting the party's strong agricultural affiliation.^[2] On the other hand, the dominant Liberal Party could not win an absolute majority, so the Shidehara Cabinet did not resign and began maneuvering to cling to power.^[6] In response, the party supported a movement for the campaign to oust the cabinet advocated by the Socialist Party, and formed a four-party joint committee of the Japan Cooperative Party, the Socialist Party, the Liberal Party, and the Communist Party.^[7] The four-party joint committee started negotiations for a coalition government after defeating the cabinet, but the idea eventually failed due to disagreements within the subcommittee.^[8] In May, it merged with several smaller parties to form the Cooperative Democratic Club, later renamed the Cooperative Democratic Party.^[9]

The Japan Cooperative Party was an political party that represented the philosophy of cooperative unionism (kyōdō kumiai shugi), and one of its central policies was the ideal of labor-management cooperation.^[2] One of the party's organizational principles was to "use agricultural organizations to influence elections," attempting to combine the spirit of cooperative unionism with the interests of the agriculture and business.^[2] In January 1946, the party proposed replacing the compulsory rice delivery system, which the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry (MAF) had introduced in December 1945, with a voluntary system.^[2] Furthermore, in the first post-war election, the party pledged to demand a price of over 500 yen per 150 kilograms of rice, and won many votes from farmers.^[2]

The party adhered to cooperative ideology, had an agricultural orientation, and formed the mainstream of the cooperative movement in Japanese politics.^[10] Ultimately, the party's cooperative movement tradition weakened and flowed into the National Democratic Party, the Reformist Party, and eventually the Japan Democratic Party.^[10]

• Kanda, Fuhito (1983). Senryō to minshu shugi. Showa no Rekishi (in Japanese). Vol. 8. Tokyo: Shogakukan. ISBN 4-09-376008-X.
• Fukui, Haruhiro (1985). Political parties of Asia and the Pacific. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press. ISBN 031321350X.
• Mulgan, Aurelia George (2013) [2000]. The Politics of Agriculture in Japan. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 0-415-22346-6. Retrieved 21 March 2026.