Political parties of the Empire of Japan public assembly, the press and on political discussion. The Meiji government had come to power by an elite of "samurai" from certain clans ("hanbatsu") and the "genrō" felt threatened by anything looking ever remotely like republicanism or democracy. During this period, Itagaki Taisuke and Ōkuma Shigenobu were leading figures in the legitimization of political parties. Itagaki created Japan's first political party, the Aikoku Kōtō, in 1873 in Tokyo to petition for an elected assembly, and a similar regional party based in Osaka, the Aikokusha. These groups were the basis of the Jiyutō (Liberal Party), founded in 1881 as Japan’s first
Social Democratic Party (Japan) serious conflict inside the party between factions of the right and the left, and the party's official name in English became the Japanese Socialist Party, or JSP, as the left-wing had advocated. The right had wanted to use the older "SDPJ". The party became the largest political party in the first general election under the Constitution of Japan in 1947 (143 of 466 seats), and a government was formed by Tetsu Katayama, forming a coalition with the Democratic Party and the Citizens' Cooperation Party. However, due to the rebellion of Marxists in the party, the Katayama government collapsed. The party