The present analysis presupposes that in the flow of history there is recognizable societal structure (cultural type) and recognizable societal change (development). It also recognizes the theoretical and practical significance of major societal types, societies—operational units whose peculiarity is determined by the interaction of a number of essential technical, organizational, and social elements. Some of these essential elements are not necessarily specific: they may be compatible with several types of society. But they may become specific through their magnitude or the institutional setting in which they function. For instance, though slaves were present in many societies, in only a few did the institution of slavery become an essential feature. And serfs (peasants attached to the soil or to the village) were present in several societies: they appeared in oriental civilizations long before they were conspicuous in Greek antiquity or in the European and Japanese Middle Ages. But they were essential mainly in feudal societies and in the “helotage” society of Sparta. Similar diversities in compatability characterize corvee labor, irrigation economy, and commercial and industrial capitalism.

Students of Chinese society should devote more attention to urban Taiwan, for several reasons. First, whatever the relative significance of Taiwan and Communist China in the world, Taiwanese social life can at least be studied at first hand over a protracted period, and with relatively little interference. The events on the China mainland since 1950 are often described as “the most large scale experiment in social change in world history.” Yet these events cannot be studied in the way social scientists prefer to do their research. Moreover, the most dramatic social events do not necessarily make the most important sociological problems; important breakthroughs in any science often come from the study of very mundane phenomena. Second, Taiwan is now, with Japan, Singapore and Malayasia, the most industrialized and economically developed of Asian countries. Urban Taiwanese are strategically significant in this context. Since Taiwan as a whole is becoming ever more urbanized and industrialized, knowledge of social life in metropolitan Taiwan today may provide the best clues as to the patterns toward which Taiwan as a whole will tend in the future. Third, Japanese sources describe many aspects of social structure in urban Taiwan a half century or more ago, and thereby provide comparative data on change over time in urban Taiwan. Such data have been little utilized thus far.

This article examines the thought and career of Nabeyama Sadachika (1901–79) from communist militant in 1920s Japan to his conversion to the emperor system in the 1930s and, finally, to his role in shaping the postwar anti-communist movement. Using Nabeyama's recently released private papers, the article shows how he brokered his anti-communist expertise to a range of postwar actors and institutions—the police, the Self-Defense Forces, business circles, politicians—as well as to foreign states, especially the Republic of China (Taiwan). These networks indicate that important sections of Japan's postwar establishment rallied behind anti-communism in the face of reforms that threatened their power at home and their vision for Japan in the world order after 1945. As a transwar history, this article adds to our understanding of Japan's transition from the age of empire to that of liberal democracy by qualifying narratives about the “progressive” nature of postwar Japanese politics. It argues that the vitality of anti-communism is symptomatic of the durability of particular political traditions, and reveals that, despite the significant reforms that Japan underwent after 1945, the Right was able to claim a space in the country's political culture that has been neglected by historians.

The Chinese Communist movement stemmed from nationalism and assumed the left wing in the Chinese national revolution. The CCP (Chinese Communist Party) was organized in the wake of the May Fourth Movement which had kindled a great fervor of patriotism, particularly among the intellectual youths. Only as nationalists first and Communists second, were the Communists willing to join the KMT (Kuomintang) as individuals in order to take an active part in the national revolution. In a span of five years, the KMT-CCP alliance had contributed to the consolidation of the revolutionary base in Kwangtung and the spread of revolution to the north. In the course of the national revolution, the CCP enjoyed a spectacular growth from a group of about 70 intellectuals in 1921, when the party was founded, to a mass party of over 50,000 members in 1927, when die Pei-fa (Northern Expedition) swept the whole of South China.

One would hardly expect extreme political theories like anarchism to be popular in Japan, where there is a strong tradition of obedience to political authority, and where those in control of the government do not hesitate to use police power to check what they consider to be “dangerous thoughts.” In fact had it not been for the famous Taigyaku Jiken or the high treason incident in 1910, anarchism might have been relegated to obscurity, having made but an imperceptible ripple in die course of Japanese thought. As a result of this incident, however, there are probably not many among the older generation in Japan today who have not heard about Kōtoku Shūsui, the leader.