United Red Army

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The United Red Army (連合赤軍, Rengō Sekigun) (URA) was a far-left militant organization that operated in Japan between July 1971 and March 1972. The URA was formed as the result of a merger that began on 13 July 1971 between two extremist groups, the Marxist–Leninist–Maoist Red Army Faction (赤軍派, Sekigunha), led in 1971 by Tsuneo Mori, and the Reformed Marxist Revolutionary Left Wing group, Japanese Communist Party Kanagawa Prefecture Committee, also known as the Keihin Anti-Security Treaty Joint Struggle Group (京浜安保共闘, Keihin Anpo Kyōtō), led by Hiroko Nagata. The group intended to disrupt the Japanese political system to enable the emergence of communism. The United Red Army's internal functioning was marked by violence: members who had defected from the group were murdered, while others were routinely beaten and humiliated to eliminate their "bourgeois" tendencies and ultimately killed. The group had 29 members and lost 14 due to internal killings in less than a year. The URA came to a sudden end with the Asama-Sanso incident, a nine-day siege and hostage situation at their mountain hideout in Nagano Prefecture in February 1972. This event was widely publicized, with viewers across Japan able to view the shoot-out between the radicals and riot police on TV. Immediately after the URA's disbanding, public perception of the group was varied. Many were strongly opposed to the group and their tendency toward violence, whilst others initially sympathized with them and their desire to bring down the "police state". This perception changed after the group's internal functioning was revealed to the public.