Tetsu Katayama

Tetsu Katayama (片山 哲, Katayama Tetsu; 28 July 1887 – 30 May 1978) was a Japanese lawyer and politician who served as prime minister of Japan from 1947 to 1948. He was the first socialist to serve as Japanese prime minister, and the last non-member of the Liberal Democratic Party or its forerunners to serve until 1993. A devout Protestant Christian, he was a leading figure in Japanese Christian socialism. Born in Wakayama Prefecture, Katayama graduated in law from Tokyo Imperial University in 1912. He was strongly influenced by the Christian socialism of Abe Isoo, and in the 1920s served as a legal adviser to labour organisations and socialist political parties. He helped form the Social Democratic Party in 1926 and was elected to the Diet for the first time in 1930. In 1932 his party merged into the Socialist Masses Party, from which he was expelled in 1940. After the Pacific War he became the first secretary-general of the Japan Socialist Party and later its first chairman. After the 1947 election, in which the Socialists emerged as the largest party, Katayama became prime minister at the head of a coalition cabinet with the Democratic Party and the National Cooperative Party. With the backing of occupation authorities he implemented a wide range of progressive social reforms, including the establishment of a Labour Ministry, but lacked the political strength for more radical measures and was forced to resign in 1948 after only eight months in office. He lost his Diet seat in 1949, though he remained a leading figure on the party’s right wing throughout the 1950s. From 1960 he supported the newly formed Democratic Socialist Party. He also played a prominent role in promoting Japan–China cultural exchange and the World Federalist Movement.