Just 18 months after surrendering in the Pacific War, more than 3 million people throughout Japan were preparing to bring the shattered, hungry nation to a standstill.

On the morning of Feb. 1, 1947, telecommunications would be cut and rail routes disrupted. Public offices and many key industries would be closed. Posters in country towns announced Japan's biggest-ever general strike. Participants, who included the elderly and mothers, waited in nervous anticipation, yet confident they would achieve their demands for a leftist coalition government and higher wages to counter spiraling inflation, among others.

They didn't. Embittered and disillusioned, Yashiro Ii, head of the strike organization committee, was finally forced to call off the action on the cold evening of January 31. Later, Ii returned to the strike headquarters alone. As many other strike supporters would that night, he wept.