Ishibashi, Masashi

Ishibashi, Masashi

 

Born Oct. 6, 1924, in Nagasaki Prefecture. Prominent figure in the Socialist Party of Japan (SPJ).

Ishibashi graduated from the department of economics at the university in Taipei in 1944. He took part in the trade union movement and was vice-chairman of the trade union council of Nagasaki Prefecture and chairman of the trade union council of the city of Sasebo. In 1951 he was elected a deputy to the prefectural assembly. Beginning from 1955 he was repeatedly elected deputy to the House of Representatives of the Diet, and in 1967 he was elected to the Central Executive Committee (CEC) of the SPJ. He headed the general bureau of the CEC SPJ and in 1968 became head of the CEC’s international bureau. In 1970, at the party’s Thirty-fifth Congress, Ishibashi was elected secretarygeneral of the CEC.