Photo/Illutration Riot police officers outside the Asama-Sanso lodge in Karuizawa, Nagano Prefecture, where members of the United Red Army holed up with a hostage in 1972. The crisis led to a 10-day fatal standoff with police. (Asahi Shimbun file photo)

Half a century ago, the leadership of the United Red Army extremist group carried out a bloody purge against its members.

Something as mundane as putting on makeup or combing your hair was viewed as proof of a lack of commitment to the revolutionary cause and could result in a member being mercilessly tortured and eventually killed.

At this time, around 30 young men and women were undergoing military training at a mountain hideaway. In keeping with the ideology that every individual must embrace communist ideology, the URA leadership brutalized any member deemed to be insufficiently revolutionary, demanding severe “self-criticism.”

Twelve members lost their lives in the course of this purge.

An account written by Yasuhiro Uegaki, one of the perpetrators who served a prison term for murder and other charges, shows he had qualms about harming his colleagues.

But he went with the flow anyway because he was “unable to criticize the struggle for communization,” according to “Heishitachi no Rengo Sekigun” (The United Red Army of soldiers).  

In a secretive organization such as this, a single value system can become absolute in the eyes of a handful of top leaders. But in the URA’s case, the human degradation it entailed was beyond belief. 

In his book “Boku no Showashi” (My Showa history), author Shotaro Yasuoka (1920-2013) drew a parallel between the beatings meted out and daily life in the former Imperial Japanese Army, where officers beat rank-and-file troops on the most spurious grounds.

Similar warped ways of thinking may exist in more organizations than we care to think, although not involving physical violence these days. 

Cases of suicide due to excessive work pressure are tied to the sort of corporate climate that places absolute value on the attainment of goals.

The more closed the organization, the more unlikely its members are to question the system.

The massacre led to the URA’s collapse, and some of the surviving members fled to Karuizawa in Nagano Prefecture, barricading themselves in a holiday lodge called Asama-Sanso on Feb. 19, 1972.

We cannot forget it as just an aberrant episode in history.

--The Asahi Shimbun, Feb. 19

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Vox Populi, Vox Dei is a popular daily column that takes up a wide range of topics, including culture, arts and social trends and developments. Written by veteran Asahi Shimbun writers, the column provides useful perspectives on and insights into contemporary Japan and its culture.

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