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
Rightist Socialist Party of Japan of the former Rightist Socialist Party broke off from the JSP in 1960 and created the Democratic Socialist Party. A newly formed youth organisation, Young Socialists (which retains full membership in the International Union of Socialist Youth), is said to be inherited from the political tradition of the Rightist Socialist Party. On domestic policy, the party was moderate social-democratic and centre-left. It is now defunct. Rightist Socialist Party of Japan The Rightist Socialist Party of Japan (右派社会党, the official English name was Social Democratic Party of Japan) was a Japanese political party that existed between 1948 and 1955. It was