The Wringer

Hokkaido, second largest (30,132 sq. mi.) of Japan's home islands, sits just across a narrow strait from Russian-held Sakhalin, so close that at the end of World War II Communists tried to proclaim Hokkaido an "independent Socialist republic." They failed then, but last week one of the biggest cities on the island was in the grasp of a Communist-led strike so rough that police and government officials were powerless. Strikers, who have been besieging the big plant of the Oji Paper Co. in the bustling (pop. 40,000) town of Tomakomai since February, have since taken over the whole city. Last week, at all intersections, they even set up special sentry boxes topped with red flags and manned by helmeted workers who stood ready to frisk and waylay nonsympathizers. "Tomakomai," sighed one city official, "is like no other place in Japan. There is neither law nor order here any more."

The strike began to get violent only after the paper company persuaded 1,000 restive strikers to transfer to a company union. Thereupon Union Leader Haruo Yokoyama, 34, a swarthy, tough fellow traveler, put out the order for a reign of terror. With the help of 30 hardbitten Communists, he organized motor bicycle patrols to ride by the houses of the "new union" men at night, heaving bricks and excrement through the windows. Men who showed up at work were attacked with clubs and baseball bats. The town's teachers helped man the picket lines, and telegraph and postal workers tapped Oji telephones and held up delivery of mail and supplies.

Yokoyama was particularly adept at persuading women to help him. They developed a specialty known as "the wringer." They would converge on a faithful company man, strip him naked and twist his testicles. Entranced by Yokoyama, even the wives of some "new union" men helped subject their own husbands to the wringer. A useful assault weapon, the women found, were the spiked weights to

DC found in the bottom of flower vases. When Yokoyama was finally arrested and ordered to Tokyo to stand trial, 2,000 workers and their wives gathered at the station to cheer and embrace him. 'We will fight to the bitter end," said Yokoyama confidently in Tokyo last week, "and we are well fixed for money." One source of money: Japan's most powerful (3,400,000 members) labor federation, the Communist-infiltrated Sohyo, which has so far donated $300,000 to him.

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