Mosaburō Suzuki (鈴木 茂三郎, Suzuki Mosaburō; February 7, 1893 – May 7, 1970) was a Japanese journalist, essayist, and socialist politician who served nine terms in the House of Representatives. He was the first chairman of the Left Socialist Party of Japan (1951–1955) and later the second chairman of the reunified Japan Socialist Party (1955–1960). Born into poverty in Gamagōri, Aichi, Suzuki worked various odd jobs before graduating from Waseda University in 1916. As a newspaper reporter he covered the Siberian Intervention, an experience that reinforced his lifelong opposition to militarism. In the interwar period he became a leading figure in the proletarian movement, joined the newly founded Japanese Communist Party in 1922, helped organize several left-wing parties, and was repeatedly arrested under the Peace Preservation Law, including during the Popular Front Incident of 1937. He spent the war years in prison without trial. After Japan's surrender, he helped found the Japan Socialist Party. He was elected to the Diet in 1946 and became party secretary in 1949. When the party split over the San Francisco Peace Treaty in 1951, he became the first chairman of the Left Socialist Party. In his inaugural speech as its chairman he delivered the widely quoted pacifist appeal "Young men, do not take up arms. Women, do not send your husbands and children to the battlefield." After the socialists reunited in 1955 he served as chairman of the unified JSP until his resignation in 1960 following the formation of the Democratic Socialist Party. In later years he continued to push the party leftward, opposed structural-reform theories, and established a socialist library that was later donated to the Museum of Modern Japanese Literature. He retired from electoral politics before the 1967 election and died in Tokyo in 1970.
Source: “Mosaburō Suzuki”, English Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0), excerpt