Tetsu Katayama

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Tetsu Katayama (片山 哲, Katayama Tetsu; 28 July 1887 – 30 May 1978) was a Japanese lawyer and politician who served as prime minister of Japan from 1947 to 1948. He was the first socialist to serve as Japanese prime minister, and the last non-member of the Liberal Democratic Party or its forerunners to serve until 1993. A devout Protestant Christian, he was a leading figure in Japanese Christian socialism. Born in Wakayama Prefecture, Katayama graduated in law from Tokyo Imperial University in 1912. He was strongly influenced by the Christian socialism of Abe Isoo, and in the 1920s served as a legal adviser to labour organisations and socialist political parties. He helped form the Social Democratic Party in 1926 and was elected to the Diet for the first time in 1930. In 1932 his party merged into the Socialist Masses Party, from which he was expelled in 1940. After the Pacific War he became the first secretary-general of the Japan Socialist Party and later its first chairman. After the 1947...

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