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
Democratic Socialist Party (Japan) membership. Democratic Socialist Party (Japan) The was a social-democratic political party in Japan. It was anti-communist and pro-American alliance, and supported a reformist/revisionist social democracy as opposed to the JSP's orthodox Marxism The Democratic Socialist Party (DSP) was established in 1960 by a breakaway group (led by Suehiro Nishio) of the Japan Socialist Party. It was made up of many members of the former Rightist Socialist Party of Japan, a moderate democratic socialist faction that existed between 1948 and 1955. Declassified U.S. government documents revealed that CIA funding led to the founding of this breakaway party. It was aimed at