The All-Japan Federation of Student Self-Government Associations (Zengakuren) was established as a national student federation and became a central organizer of postwar student activism, including later New Left mobilizations.
Prime Minister Nobusuke Kishi pushed the revised U.S.–Japan Security Treaty through the Lower House by calling a sudden vote and using police to remove opposition lawmakers—an escalation that helped ignite the mass Anpo protest wave.
Hundreds of thousands marched on the National Diet; clashes followed, and Tokyo University student Michiko Kanba was killed during the confrontation. The violence intensified pressure on Kishi and further politicized student participation.
The 1960 U.S.–Japan Security Treaty entered into force after the exchange of ratification instruments in Tokyo, despite the peak of street protests and political crisis surrounding ratification.
Beheiren (Citizen’s League for Peace in Vietnam) was officially established, helping broaden the Japanese New Left ecosystem beyond campus-centered organizations into wider “citizen” antiwar networks.
Organized opposition in Sanrizuka/Shibayama against construction of the New Tokyo International Airport (Narita) began, with farmers and leftist allies—including student activists—turning it into a long-running flashpoint for New Left direct action.
Amid a campus finance scandal and mass demonstrations, Nihon University students formed a Zenkyōtō (All-Campus Joint Struggle Council), a model of broad, often non-sectarian student organizing that rapidly spread across Japan.
Student protesters occupied Tokyo University’s Yasuda Auditorium during the 1968–69 university struggles, turning it into a national symbol of campus barricades, confrontation with police, and the wider New Left moment.
Anti–Vietnam War protesters occupied and fought police around Shinjuku Station, producing one of the era’s most visible urban clashes and underscoring how campus and street mobilization were converging.
Riot police cleared students from Yasuda Auditorium after a televised siege, marking a decisive defeat for barricaded campus occupations at Tokyo University and accelerating a shift in public opinion toward restoring order on campuses.
On International Anti-War Day, New Left factions again clashed with police in and around Shinjuku, showing the persistence of militant street confrontation even as major campus occupations were being dismantled.
Two militant New Left groups began the merger process that produced the United Red Army (URA), reflecting a turn by some factions from mass protest toward clandestine armed struggle.
During the Sanrizuka/Narita airport conflict, the second administrative subrogation prompted intense clashes in which three police officers were killed, highlighting how the anti-airport struggle had become a major arena for violent confrontation involving New Left supporters.
Five URA members took a hostage at the Asama-Sansō lodge, leading to a days-long siege that ended with a large-scale police assault. The incident—broadcast live for hours—shocked the public and became a turning point in perceptions of the radical left.
Student Movements and the New Left in Japan (1960–1972)
