Dispatches from Japan artwork

JAJ38: the Asama Lodge and the New Left (part 2)

Dispatches from Japan

English - July 09, 2021 00:00 - 32 minutes - 29.8 MB
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(Just a quick note: This episode has some descriptions violent acts and death. Nothing too graphic. But if you're sensitive to that sort of thing, well, just be warned. If you want to skip to episode 3, I'll make sure you understand the gist of the story in that one.)


In February of 1972, 5 members of a radical leftist group took a woman hostage and began a 10 day standoff with the police. In the months leading up to the standoff, the 5 had been part of what has been described as a bloody, internal purge of their radical leftist group. Learn about what happened in those deadly months in the woods of Gunma prefecture.


Yoshikuni Igarashi's article "Dead Bodies and Living Guns: The United Red Army and Its Deadly Pursuit of Revolution, 1971–1972" https://doi.org/10.1080/10371390701494135 (Taylor and Francis publication - subscription service)