Today in Labor History August 30, 1974: A powerful bomb exploded at the Mitsubishi Heavy Industries headquarters in Tokyo. 8 died and 378 were injured. The East Asia Anti-Japan Armed Front, a radical far-left organization carried out the attack because they were supplying the U.S. during the Vietnam War. The EAAJAF was an anarchist-inspired group that espoused revolution against the Japanese state, corporations, and symbols of Japanese imperialism. They committed a series of bombings during the early 1970s until the Japanese authorities arrested most of its membership in 1975. Several members were sentenced to death
The EAAJAF lacked centralized leadership. Members chose to work by day as normal corporate employees and prepare their operations by night, donating half their income to the cause. In contrast, other groups, like the Japanese Red Army, raised funds through illegal means including bank robberies. As they studied the history of aggression by Japan against Korea and the Ainu, the EAAJAF acquired its personal "anti-Japanese ideology." They considered not only those in power, but also Japanese corporations and laborers as "perpetrators of imperialist aggression" and believed that they were acceptable targets for attack.