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
Leftist Socialist Party of Japan Party. Leftist Socialist Party of Japan The Leftist Socialist Party of Japan (左派社会党, the official English name was Japanese Socialist Party) was a Japanese political party that existed between 1948 and 1955. Following the defeat of the Social Democratic Party of Japan (SDPJ) in 1948 at the hands of Japan's two main conservative parties, the Liberal Party and the Democrat Party, the Japan Socialist Party dissolved into chaos and internal bickering between moderates and Marxist-Leninists. As a result, the SDPJ split: some of its members formed a moderate and almost centrist social-democratic party, while others formed a more radical, socialist,