United Red Army (Jitsuroku rengô sekigun: Asama sansô e no michi) (実録・連合赤軍 あさま山荘への道程)

A Wakamatsu Production

Skole Corporation

The events depicted in this film are all true

but some fiction has been incorporated

UNITED RED ARMY

THE PATH TO ASAMA MOUNTAIN LODGE

1972 : Once, armed youth cried out for revolution

On June 15, 1960,

The ruling Liberal Democratic Party

used police forces to expel any opposition

forcing through a Security Treaty with the US,

Then Prime Minister Nobosuke Kishi

quit one month later.

The demonstration against the treaty

surrounded the Diet on this day too.

At 7 pm Michiko Kamba died

in the demonstration.

She was a 22 year old college student.

After failing to stop the 1960 Security Treaty,

the core of the Japanese student movement

split from the Communist and Socialist parties.

May 1966,

Mao Zedong struggled for power in China's Communist Party.

The Cultural Revolution began.

Students played a central role.

In Japan in July,

the government decided to build an airport at Sanrizuka in Chiba prefecture,

ordering people to surrender their land.

Protests erupted at universities across the nation.

This university is no longer a place for education.

It is only run as a business.

To the administration, we aren't learners.

We're just sources of profit.

Tuition wasn't supposed to rise before graduation.

What should people do who can't pay it?

They're trying to take away our right to learn...

Victory is ours! Down with fee increases!

The struggle to prevent fee increases ended in failure.

Some student leaders had met secretly with the administration

and accepted the increase.

But struggles at universities across the nation revived a political group...

The Communist League or Bund that had played a key role

in the 1960 Security Treaty protest.

The Bund joined up with two other student organizations

and formed the so-called 3 Sect All-Student Alliance.

Through 1968, the student movement developed...

During the day I work at Kirin Beer

My mom says to go to school during the day.

But I saw how she suffered when my dad died and I don't want to burden her.

I may not be so active in the movement.

Actually, I used to work at Kikkoman!

Fall, 1967 : From Okinawa, constant American bombing raids of Vietnam.

In October : Prime Minister Sato visited South Vietnam to offer aid.

October 8, students opposing Sato's trip

clashed with riot police.

One student died,

making the students more militant.

Nov 67 : Struggle to prevent Sato's US visit

Jan 68 : Struggle to prevent US nuclear aircraft carrier from docking

Apr 68 : US Civil rights leader Martin Luther King assassinated

May 68 : Protests begin in France

Apr 68 : Tax bureau announces 200 million yen missing from Nihon University

May : First protest at Nihon University A Joint Struggle Committee forms

June : The Committee blockades the Economics dept.

With its economy reaching a high-growth peak

Japan became the strongest economic power behind America.

But struggles between students and administrators

that erupted some years earlier spread to many campuses across Japan.

112 universities are engulfed in struggles by 1969.

Within these,

Listen up!

Along with the Vietnam War,

the Revolution in China destroyed ruling powers.

Anti-war and civil rights movements in the US have pushed Johnson out.

Global liberation from capitalism has begun.

The world is shifting toward revolution.

Simultaneous struggles in each country are creating world revolution.

The revolutionary war develops through defense, confrontation,

and offense.

The Vietnam War is the stage of confrontation.

The proletariat will lead the offensive

by the bourgeois.

This is our revolutionary mission.

10/21 : Shinjuku Riot Incident.

October 21, 1968,

on International Anti-War Day, students and citizens confronted police in Shinjuku

trying to prevent the fueling of American Jets at Yokota airforce base.

Students occupied Shinjuku station to block the transport fuel.

Police invoked the Anti-Riot law,

a law to stifle rebellion.

734 arrests

July 1968 : Yasuda Hall is occupied and barricaded

Early morning, January 18, 1969,

8500 riot police entered Tokyo University campus

to remove the Joint Struggle Committee activists.

As a condition to hold entrance exams, the Education Ministry

ordered President Kato to break up the barricade.

Students erected another barricade around

the university area near Ochanomizu station.

This came to be called the "Kanda Liberation Zone".

The expulsion of occupying students carried over to the next day.

631 arrests

1969 : A bund meeting

Tokujo Saragi, age 40, Bund Chairman.

Sarafi, what is your self-critique

The campus movement was weakening.

Universities are no longer bases for mass movement.

Citizens and workers will have to take over the struggle

and carry it beyond the campus to create a broader movement.

That's not what I'm asking.

Didn't you tell Takahara's gang to get out of Yasuda when the cops came?

Had they done that, they would have been running away.

The only reason they didn't become laughing stocks

is because they didn't follow your directions.

Your judgment was wrong.

The occupation of Yasuda Hall was just militant propaganda.

I still believe this.

Reiji Matsumoto, age 40, Bund member

If you can't follow orders from the politburo,

how can you take responsibility?

If you're just carrying out more factional activities, you should quit the politburo.

That's not the issue.

What is your self-critique of the 10/21 action,

how are you going to face the 4/28 action?

These are the issues at hand.

The policy of the politburo is clear.

It is armed struggle as mass movement.

No, any rebellion not led but a vanguard is meaningless.

We haven't yet reached the revolutionary stage.

It's too soon for armed insurrection.

Don't go rushing it, Shiomi.

How can you say that and believe in revolution?

For 4/28, we're gonna hit 'em with all kinds of weapons.

We're staking our lives on it. You all aren't revolutionaries!

What did you say? Asshole!

April 28, 17 years ago, the San Francisco Peace Treaty was ratified.

With Okinawa falling under US occupation, it was called Okinawa Day.

Gatherings were called in Tokyo

for Okinawa return and repealing the Security Treaty.

Over 100.000 participated.

Students and some workers marched from Tokyo Station to Shinbashi

calling for occupation of the government office area.

But a thick wall if riot police blocked the way.

Opinions within the Bund split over the best response.

Shiomi's Kansai faction called for militancy.

956 arrests

The Law Against Destructive Activities was used

July 2, Saragi's faction began to probe

the dissolution of Shiomi's Kansai faction,

who had moved to form the RAF (Red Faction Army).

Tsuneo Mori, age 25, escaped the scene

July 6, 1969 : Meiji University

Where is your critique for 4/28?

Criticize yourself, dammit!

You wanna break us up? Just try!

Bastards!

Stop it! What the fuck are you doing?

Takahashi, take Saragi to the hospital.

Shigenobu, this isn't revolution.

Tokyo Medical and Dental University

They're here!

Saragi's group is here!

Takahashi!

I'm RAF (Red Faction Army) too. Take me!

Shigenobu, just stay here, please.

Amidst the barricades at Chuo University

Do you know what the hell you've done?

How much you've fucked up Saragi.

Saragi got arrested while he was out of it.

What is the Red Army's problem!

Fuck you! Criticize yourselves!

Go back to fucking Kansai!

Otherwise we'll put you in a concrete block and throw it in Tokyo Bay.

You asshole! Don't just fucking sit there, say something!

You won't be using a stave anymore!

July 24 : Chuo University

The Kanto Faction took Shiomi's Kansai Faction as hostages,

trying to break it up.

But the Kansai group was unfazed.

As the Kanto faction kept watch over Shiomi's faction.

They worried this could lead to police intervention.

But the Kansai faction accepted no conditions,

their dissolution was unjustified

and their existence became unmanageable.

I'm going down.

July 24, 1969 : Takafumi Mochizuki, age 22, falls.

Aug 1969 : An Emergency Law on University Management is forced through the Diet

In the new year's extension of the Security Treaty.

The ruling party passed the Law

for Extraordinary Measures on University Management.

The Ministry of Education suggests closing campuses engulfed in unrest

through police force.

Aug 28, 1969 : Jogashima, Kanagawa Prefecture

Declaration of war.

Listen up, Bourgeoisie!

We hereby proclaim that we will force

you to confront the revolution.

Takaya Shiomi, RAF Chairman

We will no longer be deceived.

If you have the right to kill