Kotoku Shusui (幸徳 秋水, November 4 or September 23, 1871–January 24, 1911) was a socialist and anarchist who played a leading role in introducing anarchism to Japan in the early 20th century, particularly by translating the works of contemporary European and Russian anarchists, such as Peter Kropotkin, into Japanese.
Kotoku moved from his birthplace, the town of Nakamura in the Kochi prefecture, to Tokyo in his mid-teens and became a journalist there in 1893.
Kotoku was hung along with twelve others on 24th January, 1911, even though only four of the hundreds arrested were found to be involved in a planned attempt on the Emperor's life, and Kotoku wasn't one of them.
According to our earliest information concerning the town, not undoubtedly genuine, it received its original name from Jinmu, first Emperor of Japan, who landed there about 660 B.C. In A.D. 313 Emperor Nintoku made it his capital.
Kotoku in 645 and Shomu in 724) also resided there, but it was only after it had become in the sixteenth century a great Buddhist religious centre that the wealth and importance of the city began rapidly to increase.
Fortified in 1534, it was the chief stronghold of the Buddhists during the bloody persecution to which they were subjected under Nobunaga.
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