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April 2, 1915 – October 11, 1990 was a Japanese politician who served as chairman of the Japan Socialist Party, and as mayor of Yokohama from 1963 to 1978.
After he dropped out of Chuo University, he moved over to Meiji University to pursue film studies there. He graduated from there, and afterwards he took the exams for the "higher civil service examinations," becoming a lawyer as a result. In the immediate Post-war Japan period, he was assigned to defend various B and C class war criminals.
In 1963, he was elected Mayor of Yokohama with the JSP's backing. He was one of the leading early leaders of the progressive local government movement, founding the National Association of Progressive Mayors. This movement involved left-of-centre opposition parties building their strength in local assemblies, with a focus on improving quality of life. This inspired imitators in several other cities, including Tokyo governor Ryokichi Minobe, and soon enough these progressive local governments began to spread throughout the rest of the country. However, at the time of his initial election, he made note of the fact that the Yokohama establishment was still by and large dominated by conservatives and said that being elected was like "landing alone on the top of Mt. Fuji by parachute: I occupied only the summit, while the whole of the mountain was in the hands of the enemy." His tenure as mayor was marked by efforts to realise local direct democracy, which was criticised by more conservative members of the city council as "disregard for parliamentarianism." He naturally pursued policies relating to things such as Urban park, Child care, and pollution control. However, concerns such as high prices in the city proved to be an obstacle for him as, being a mayor, he had little power to control these things but was still expected to solve it. His image was also hurt by a scandal in which an aide was arrested for right to light-related corruption. At the height of the Vietnam War, he continued to make anti-war and anti-military base statements, lending support to the so-called 1972 "tank struggles" in Japan.
In 1977, he succeeded Tomomi Narita in becoming the Japan Socialist Party's chairman. In the 1978 vote by the Diet to appoint the prime minister, the JSP voted for Vice Chairman Shōichi Shimodaira, due to the fact that Atsukata was a non-Diet member. Atsukata resigned from his position as Mayor of Yokohama and ran for the House of Representatives in the 1979 general election instead. However, his decision to resign was opposed by his local supporters, and so he could not rely on a strong power base to vote for him in Yokohama. As a result, he decided to run from Tokyo 1st district instead, However, there were still issues as now that he was in an area where he lacked a power base at his disposal, he was unable to really assist other JSP candidates.
Atsukata set out to make the JSP more open by introducing a system in which the party leader can be selected by all party members. He also tried to increase the appeal of the JSP by expanding party membership and setting up closer coordination with citizen interests groups. He also reformed some party policies which he regarded as being dogmatic. In November 1979, he moderated the JSP's position on the US-Japan Security Treaty, as he claimed on a visit to the United States that if the JSP were given power, the party would not unilaterally override the treaty. In the 1980 general election, the JSP and Komeito entered into a coalition agreement, which resulted in the JSP moving away from the Japanese Communist Party. Atsukata was defeated in the 1983 House of Councillors election, and resigned both from his position as chairman as well as political life in general thereafter.
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