 He was only able to complete high school by working as a live-in tutor in the household of a wealthy banker.Hayashi was able to obtain admission to the law school of Tokyo Imperial University, where he led Marxist seminars, but he left school in 1925 to devote his energies to leftist politics and to the arts.Hayashi was arrested in early 1926 as part of a roundup of Communists and suspected Communist sympathizers in universities under the provisions of the Peace Preservation Law and was incarcerated for ten months.