Iwasa Sakutarō
Japanese anarchist
Sakutarō Iwasa (岩佐 作太郎, Iwasa Sakutarō; 1879–1967) was a Japanese anarchist who was involved in the Japanese anarchist movement during the 20th century. Living until the age of 87, he was significant in influencing Japanese anarchists towards his anarcho-communist variety of 'pure' anarchism.
It was said about him after his death that "the road which the aged Iwasa walked, extending through the Meiji, Taishō and pre-war and post-war Shōwa eras, was the history of the Japanese anarchist movement itself."
Early life
Sakutarō Iwasa was born in 1879, in a farming hamlet in Chiba Prefecture in Japan. His father was a wealthy land-owning farmer, and was the headman of five villages. His grandfather had been too, and had encouraged communal production on the farms which he oversaw, resulting in a "half-communist village". This influenced Iwasa to believe in the possibility of anarchist forms of organisation from a young age.
He received a traditional primary education, but dropped out of middle school due to boredom with his studies. He progressed to Tokyo Law College, and wished to drop out once more, but his mother encouraged him to press on to graduation in 1898. He was exposed to Christianity, but did not himself become Christian, arguing that "Jesus was a person. Buddha and Confucius were persons.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 15, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q28692233. VIAF identifies the subject as 12157667. The Library of Congress control number is nr90018519. 3 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 1 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1879, 1967 and 1898.
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This entry incorporates text from “Iwasa Sakutarō” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.