Ryūichi Inamura

Ryūichi Inamura (稲村 隆一, Inamura Ryūichi, 7 March 1898 – 20 November 1990) was a Japanese peasant movement activist and politician who served four terms in the House of Representatives. Active in the prewar agrarian and leftist movements, he belonged successively to the Japanese Communist Party, the Labour-Farmer Party, the Social Masses Party, and the Tōhōkai, before joining the Japan Socialist Party after the war. He was purged from public office during the Allied occupation and later returned the Order of the Sacred Treasure in protest against its award to Ryōichi Sasakawa. His younger brother was politician Junzō Inamura and his nephew was Toshio Inamura.

Biography Inamura was born on 7 March 1898 (Meiji 31) in Kutchan Village (present-day Kutchan, Hokkaido), Abuta District, Hokkaido, as the eldest son of Dōsaburō and Tama Inamura. His parents were from Matsuzaki Village (present-day Matsuzaki, Higashi-ku, Niigata City), Nakakanbara District, Niigata Prefecture, and had settled in Kutchan as civilian pioneers in 1895. After his father failed in a miso and soy sauce manufacturing business, he succeeded in land reclamation and ranch management in what is now Kimobetsu, Hokkaido. The family later moved to Sapporo after the father sold the farm.

He graduated from Hokkai Middle School (now Hokkai High School) in 1918 and from the Faculty of Political Science and Economics at Waseda University in 1923. While at Waseda, he joined the Minjin Dōmeikai (People's Alliance) and later the Kensetsusha Dōmei (Builders' League). He became involved in the peasant movement around this time and guided the formation of a tenant farmers' association in his parents' hometown of Matsuzaki in Niigata Prefecture.

After graduating from Waseda, he continued as a peasant movement activist. He joined the Japan Farmers' Union (Nihon Nōmin Kumiai) in 1925 and became a standing executive committee member in 1926. That same year, he joined the Labour-Farmer Party. Together with Shōichi Miyake and Inejirō Asanuma, he led the peasant movement in Niigata Prefecture and was involved in disputes such as the Kizaki Village tenant farmers' dispute. However, in 1978, he returned the decoration in protest against the award of the Order of the Sacred Treasure, Grand Cordon to Ryōichi Sasakawa (chairman of the Japan Shipbuilding Industry Foundation, now the Nippon Foundation). He stated that he did not know Sasakawa personally but criticized the awarding of a decoration to the head of an organization involved in gambling, which he regarded as a root of social evil.

Inamura died on 20 November 1990 at the age of 92.

Anecdotes While at Hokkai Middle School, he formed the "Ushioi-kai" (Cattle-Driving Society) in memory of Shizuka Asaba together with Seion Kawamata and Eitarō Noro. He was also a member of the Hokkai Middle School debate club with Kawamata. He was one of the nominal holders of a one-tsubo shared land plot related to the New Tokyo International Airport (now Narita International Airport).

Major works Nōmin undō no keizaiteki narabi ni seijiteki kiso (The Economic and Political Foundations of the Peasant Movement) (Nishōdō Shoten, 1927) Nihon ni okeru nōgyō kyōkō (The Agricultural Panic in Japan) (co-authored with Junzō Inamura, Hakuyōsha, 1931) Nihon nōson shakaishi (Social History of Japanese Rural Villages) (Nihon Nōson Shakaishi Kankōkai, 1969)

He authored numerous books, particularly on rural issues.