Deck 15: Political Struggles and Settlements of the High-Growth Era

Question 1

To which political party did Hatoyama Ichiro originally belong?

A) The Japan Socialist Party
B) The Reform Party
C) The Liberal Party
D) The Democratic Party of Japan

Answer 1

C

Question 2

What underlay the decline of the Japan Communist Party at the polls in the 1950s?

A) The movement of their supporters to the Socialist Party.
B) Their split into two violently opposed factions
C) An unpopular policy of radical action
D) Their public criticism of Japanese economic gains due to the Korean War

Answer 2

C

Question 3

What was Nakayama Ichiro's primary contribution to postwar Japan?

A) He was a proponent of global economic engagement
B) He was a notable critic of foreign imports
C) He criticized the exaltation of high growth at the expense of the environment
D) He pushed to normalize of relations with the USSR

Answer 3

A

Question 4

Why did the late 1950s LDP effort to review and revise the constitution ultimately fail?

A) Some in the LDP were unenthusiastic about revision
B) Socialist boycotted the review process
C) The LDP lacked the ⅔ Diet majority required to pass any revisions
D) All of the above

Question 5

In which year did Sohyo commence it nationwide wage campaigns called "spring offensives"?

A) 1955
B) 1960
C) 1965
D) 1974

Question 6

In which decade did significant opposition to nuclear power plants first emerge?

A) The 1930s
B) The 1950s
C) The 1970s
D) The 1990s

Question 7

What key right did unionized nurses win in the 1960s?

A) Paid overtime
B) Lifetime employment
C) The right to work after marriage
D) Pay that rose with seniority

Question 8

Why did Dwight

A) Escalating public protests
B) The murder in Tokyo of his press secretary
C) His unhappiness at the death of a young woman during a demonstration outside the Diet
D) All of the above
D) Eisenhower cancel his visit to Japan in 1960?

Question 9

Why, in the end, did the Miike Mine strike fail?

A) The miners failed to present a common front
B) The mine closed down
C) The government mediators ruled in favor of the mine owners
D) A dissenting union faction broke the strike

Question 10

What did the Department Law Store of 1956 do?

A) It subsidized department stores along the major rail lines to promote travel and consumption
B) It prevented large retail stores from locating in many urban shopping districts
C) It subsidized department stores built in rural areas to spread economic benefits
D) All of the above

Question 11

The notion of 'lifetime employment' in Japan was misleading over the postwar decades because

A) Many employees quit their jobs despite high job security
B) Companies forced workers to quit in hard times by calling for 'voluntary retirements'
C) Companies, with union consent, would force workers to shift to work at subsidiaries
D) All of the above

Question 12

What was significant about the formation of the Japan Council of the International Metal Workers Union?

A) It consolidated an alliance of unions in heavy industry willing to cooperate with management
B) It was the first time an American labor union had founded a branch in Japan
C) It was the first anti-communist labor union in Japan
D) It was later exposed as a group founded with assistance from the LDP and the American CIA

Question 13

What was the All-Campus Joint Struggle Council (Zenkyōtō)?

A) An alliance of non-communist 'New Left' factions within the student movement
B) An alliance of leftist factions and representatives of new religions popular on campuses
C) The name of a German student organization, Gewalt, with branches in Japan
D) An newly emerged alliance of student organizations that shut down universities in 1968-1969

Question 14

What of the following was not a major pollution disaster from the 1950s through the 1970s?

A) Mercury poisoning
B) Sulfur-dioxide asthma
C) Cancers from dioxin produced by incinerators
D) Cadmium poisoning

Question 15

In which of the following areas did citizen activism NOT produce major movements in postwar Japan?

A) Protecting wildlife
B) Consumer protection
C) Protesting industrial pollution
D) Protesting US bases in Okinawa

Question 16

In which year did the LDP expand Japan's welfare policies?

A) 1960
B) 1973
C) 1978
D) 1985

Question 17

What had the 'Kigensetsu' holiday commemorated?

A) Japan's founding by Emperor Jimmu
B) The start of the Meiji era
C) The birth of Emperor Hirohito
D) The death of the Meiji emperor

Question 18

Which of the following reasons was NOT behind the decline of Japan's coastal fisheries in the post war period?

A) Overfishing
B) Pollution
C) Expansion of cities in coastal areas
D) The siting of resort hotels in fishing villages

Question 19

The "Strike for the Right to Strike" launched by public workers in 1975 failed because

A) Private sector workers did not join the strike
B) Public sentiment had turned against the public sector unions
C) Student organizations did not support the strike
D) All of the above

Question 20

Which American academic worked as a diplomat to counter anti-US sentiment in Japan in the 1960s?

A) Douglas MacArthur II
B) Edwin O. Reischauer
C) Robert Kennedy
D) John Foster Dulles