Dec.1994 HIROSHI TSUMURA (I.E.G.)
Around seventy years of the Japanese Communist Movement can be divided into three periods: the first from the founding of Japanese Communist Party (JCP) in 1922 till the first half of 1950s; the second covers about 15 years during which the New Left Movement engaged in struggles for leading positions in the revolutionary movement; and the third begins around 1970, when the New Left ran up against a wall in trying to escalate the upsurge of militant movements, leading to the present.
a) The Prewar Period
In the beginning of the 20th century, Japan became a highly developed capitalist country; insted, semi-feudal remnants prevailed in rural areas based on landlord-tenant relations. The oppresive Tenno government, constituted the strongest pillar of monopoly capital and landlords, instigated rapacious wars of aggression, such as the Sino-Japanese War (1894-95) and the Russo-Japanese War (1904-05) to take over Asian countries and make them Japanese colonies.
After the world War 1, the toiling people's resistance affected by the October Revolution in Russia surged up and at last JCP was founded on July 15, 1922. The foundation of the JCP was the turning ponit of the class struggle in Japan. Before the World War 2, JCP was the only party that demanded the abolition of the monarchy, an end to all intervention in Asian countries and complete withdrawal of Japanese armed forces form there. It was praiseworthy for JCP activists to oppose war of aggression and to struggle against common enemy, Japanese imperialism.
However, under the guides of Comintern 6th congress line, such as "general crisis theory", "class against class" tactics and "social fasism theory", JCP failed to lead the class struggle.[1] Furthermore, JCP had to face most serious difficults in its struggle because even the thought of socialism were treated as a crime and severely punishied. Many party members and workers were arrested, toutured and secretly murdered and the party was crushed by the Tenno system and its special political police in the first half ot the 1930s.
b) The Early Postwar Years
The fifteen-year Japanese war of aggression, resulting 20 million Asian people were killed, ended in August 15, 1945. The postwar condition under the rule of the US occupation forces enabled JCP to reinvigorate open activities. Since other than JCP, all political parties including those of social democrats had supported the Emperor system and its war of aggression, the rebuild JCP was able to draw upon the immense moral prestige, despite the failure to effectively resist the imperialist war.
Many People suffering from starving and homeless, eagerly listened to the revived JCP's message and the labor movement spread very fast under the Communist leadership. The mass movement in the early postwar years demonstrated the Japanese worker's revolutionary potential.
However,the JCP leadership defined the U.S.occupation as a "liberating force" and adovcated a peaceful revolution under the military occupation.[2] This strategic mistake led the worker's general strike in February 1,1947 into failure. When the Cold War started in 1947, furthermore, it put obstacles in the way of people 's resistance against the harsh anti-communist and anti-labor posture of the occupation authorities headed by General Douglas MacArthur. Although the JCP membership had reached one hundred thousand, with more than 30 members elected to the Diet by 1949, MacArthur's attacks, so called "red-purge" could easily weaken JCP forces because of the mistake.
According to the Comintern's 7th congress line, namely the popular front line, the JCP was under an illusion about the situation and the strategy.[3] The thinking way of the anti-fascist popular front line was that the World War 2 had been the struggles between the fascist block and the democratic block. Deviating from characterizing the World War as the impelialist war in Lenin's works such as "Imperialism," JCP didn't stand for revolutionnary defeatism but advocated the one side of imperilalist war.
c) The First Half of 1950s
In January 1950, the Cominform, with the Soviet Union as its center, suddenly, unilaterally and publicly criticized JCP for condoning the U.S.imperialism's "war unleashing plot," and the U.S.occupation forces suppressed JCP in June that year, purging the CC members from public office and prohibiting the publication of its organ papar. Then, on June 25, the Korean War began, turning Japan into the immediate rear base for the U.S.combat forces and strict wartime control was imposed on the whole nation.
After the Cominform criticism threw the JCP into disarray, precipitating factional struggles, the party adopted a new program. It is called "Stalin Program" because they said that it was written under the direct personal intervention of Stalin. This program was only a slight revision of the strategy which had sent the Chinese Communist Party to power and stipulated that the semi-feudal relationships were preserved virtually intact in Japanese agriculture. In Japan, however, this analysis was a tragic anachronism.
Under this program, the military adventurism was emerged, the confusion was intensified furthermore and the relations between the party and the people were seriously weakened.[4]
[1] The Communist Party of the Philippines(PKP) was established on November 7, 1930 on the basis of vanguard workers in urban areas led by Crisanto Evangelista. At that time, the 6th Congress line of the Comintern(1928), such as the social-facism theory, the general crisis theory and the "class against class" tactics, affected the world communist movement. Aiming at establishing the worker-peasnt's soviet republic, the manifestation at the foundation affirmed that the only way to achieve the independence was an armed uprising by working masses. Then, this line led workers to successive defeats.
[2] The 7th Comintern Congress stressed that the line of the popular front (The united anti-fascist front), depending on wrong evaluation of fascist characteristics. According to this international line, in particular, national liberation movements in oppressed countries in which non-fascist imperialists dominated had the optimistic illusion about the master-puppet rules. Therefore, in 1938, the 3th PKP Congress adopted the resolution describing that Quezon government was progressive. Futhurmore, supporting the colonial constitution of the puppet commonwealth government, PKP merged in the very year with the Socialist party which organized peasants in rural areas.
[3] On February 6, 1942, the PKP Central Luzon Bureau Conference decided to fight against the Japanese imperialism, fascist invaders with a people 's army. Thus, the PKP established the Anti-Japanese People 's Army, Hukbakahap(Hukbo ng Bayan Laban sa Hapon) on March 29, 1942. The main force of the Hukbalahap was the poor peasantry, and the peasant army fought against aggressors with guerrillas warfare. When landlords escapesed from villages, the Hukbalahap held real power over the villages. However, following the Comintern's popular front line, Hukbalahap's founding declaration confirmed the activities in cooperation with the Far East U.S.Army. So, PKP and Hukbalahap hailed the return of U.S.imperialism and obeyed the U.S.orders of disarmament in 1945. After the World War 2, PkP had no ideological and political preparation against the return of U.S. imperialism and the reimposition fo semi-feudalism in the! countryside. In the 1946 elections, PKP regarded as top item in its agenda of parliamentary struggle the queation of turnig PKP through the Democratic alliance into a mere adjunct of either the Nacionalista Party or the Liberal Party.
[4] PKP started to recognize the necessity of a drastic changeover in ongoing policies just after the assassination of the famous leader of peasant movement on August 1946. In 1947, Hukbalahap was reestablished, on the other hand, PKP adovocated all-round cooperation with the Roxas puppet regime and its "pacification" campaign against the people's army. In 1948-49, intrapaty dispute over turning line continued. When so-called "Cold War" started, the Cominform (the Communist Information Bureau) was founded. Under the Cominform line, the adventurist line of quick military victory - grasping the state power by all nation uprising within 2 years - formally put forward through resolutions of the Party Political Bureau in January 1950. At the same time, PKP changed the Hukbalahap's name to HBM. There were many contradictions between right wing opportunism and adventurism.
a) Another Turning Point
Around 1955, Japan had reached another turning point. Japaneses monopoly capitalism had revived on the springboard of special procurement boom brought by the Corean War, overcoming the post-war high tide of labor and popular militancy with the hilp of JCP's mistakes. Japanese capitalism was entering into a long period of high growth and prosperity. In the labor world, Sohyo (The General Council of Trade Unions), the strongest trade union federation under a leftwing Socialist leadership, started the first "spring labor campaign" for higher wages. Although the US military continued to stay under the Japan-US security treaty, Japan was no longer under occupation.
In the party politics arena, not only two conservative parties merged to form the Liberal Democratic Party(LDP), but also leftwing and rightwing Socialist parties reunited the major opposition party(JSP). This LDP vs JSP political arrangement, refering to as the "1955 System," would remain the framework of political struggle until its demise in the early 90s.
Surrounded by these new environment, JCP convened its 6th national conference in July 1955 where the leadership disavowed its earlier armed struggle line, "leftwing adventurerism" and declared the party unity was renewed. However, the obviously erroneous party program of 1951 was not abrogated but declared valid for the sake of factional peace. This kind of solution with the half-baked self-criticism and compromise threw caders and rank-and-file into an utter confusion.
In 1956, the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), particularly its condemnation of Stalin and his personaly cult, shocked the whole party, stimulating independent and critical thinking, bold theoretical search, and the review of the history of the communist movement in Japan and in the world.[5] Furthermore, under the impact of the Hungarian uprising in 1956, party intellectuals nad student members embarked on critique of the Stalinist orthodoxy.
In 1957, JCP leadership promised to change the program and drafted a new program. However, the draft preserved most of the essential elements in the 1951 program, defining Japan as a developed capitalist country subjugated by the US and concluding that therefore the revolution Japan faced was noto a socialist revolution but a national democratic one to regain Japan's lost sovereignty. Despite of the fact that Japan was already highly developed monopoly capitalism, the two-stage revolution strategy did not set itself the task of overthrowing capitalism, nor did it recognize Japan as an imperialist country. This strategical approach as well as the bureaucratic control of the party was confronted by two major intra-party opposition groups; the Structural Reformists depending on the work of Togliatti and Gramsci, and student Communists who later found BUND.
b) The Birth of the New Left
The JCP, unlike its European counterparts, had remaind isolated from the prewar divisions of the world communist movement. It was only after the 20th congress of the CPSU and the Hungarian uprising in 1956 that the open party struggle on the principle brought about the first major breakway from JCP. In Japan, the New Left gruoups emerged against the background of the intra-JCP struggles and divisions of the international communisit movement in the post-Stalin period.
Although Trotskyist League established in 1957 was a tiny group, it is acknowledged as the origin of Japanese Trotskyism and one of the saurce of later New Left as well. The Trotskyist League was the ideology- and program-oriented propagandist which later became the Revolutionary Communist League(RCL) founded by intellectuals principally from the JCP. Under the impact of the Hungarian uprising, they insisted that establishment of a firm anti-Stalinist line was the prerequsite for new party building.
On the other hand, the Communist League (CL,and also widely acknowledgeed as BUND) founded in 1958 was the first major breakaway from JCP, and also a product of student Communists' revellion against JCP bureaucracy. While Trotsky's historical review of the Stalinist orthodoxy had a profound impact on the thinking of the students Communists who formed the BUND, the BUND cannot be rightly called a Trotskyist current. It was rather a mixture of various ideoloical and theoritical influences, Trotskey's analysis having played the role of booster in helping the student communists to take off fromthe plane of Stalinist orthodoxy.
The student Communists had been leading a vigorous student movement whose organizational body was the All-Japan Federation of Student Association (Zengakuren) established in 1948. In 1956 and 1957, the Zengakuren movement devoted all its energies to mass action mainly on peace issues. The JCP leadership was not pleased with this autonomous tendency of the Zengakuren movement because student Communists were developing sharp criticism of the party line and the draft program. The central party bureaucracy and the student militants clashed head-on in June 1958, resulting in a massive expulsion and resignation of students from the party. Then, this led them to establishing the BUND.
Main difference between JCP (Stalinist) and BUND/RCL were:
Both BUND and RCL opposed the denial of Japanese imperialism, the national democratic revolution and two-stage strategy, endorsing the socialist revolution.
They opposed Stalin's "socialism in one country" theory which had oppressed class struggle in the world, calling for the world revolution.
They criticized Krushichev's "peaceful coexistance" line, emphasizing the class antagonism between the world's bourgeoisie and the world's proletariat.
They rejected the "peaceful transiton" line and JCP's opportunistic parliamentalism, adovocating violent revolution.
They condemned Stalin's excesses, particularly his use of terror against those who opposed to him, and its JCP brand as well.
Main difference between BUND and RCL were:
RCL opposed Stalin's and JCP's "objectism" and mechanical materialism (too much emphasis on object factor, without much regard for the subjective factor, thus giving rise to bureaucratism and formarism within the communist party). Then, depending on mainly Marx's early works, they promoted "subjectism" and the liberation of the human being in the party organization.
Criticizing RCL for economism (putting too much stress on the trade union struggle), BUND emphasized direct political struggles against the state power. BUND opposed RCL's position of "program before organization" and "organization before action," and argued that party cannot be built in a vacuum - action had to come first.
In 1958 and 1959, RCL split up two times. The major faction called RCL national committee criticized Trotsky for being defeated in struggle between the Left Wing Opposition and Stalin. The minor groups which later founded 4th International branch in Japan adovocated "unconditional support for worker's country - down with stalinist bureaucrats," but RCLNC launched the new slogan "anti-imperialism, anti-stalinism."
Viewpoint of the structural reformists were:
The structural reformists as well as BUND/RCL regarded Japan as an imperialist country and advocated for a socialist revolution. However, they concerned more with grasping new relaitons of capitalism and ways to approach socialism in the new conditions of modern capitoalism. Furthermore, they insisted that in developed capitalist countries, socialism can be approached through democratic reforms or a "positional war," which would profoundly restructure society under the "intellectual and moral hegemony" of the proletariat.
[5] In 1956, Krushchev condemned Stalin's "personality cult" and asserted peaceful coexistance, peaceful competition and peaceful transition in the 20th CPSU Congress. Affected by this new line, PKP supported elite nationalist in 1957 elections.
[to be continued...]
c) The Anpo Struggle
d) The Breaking up and the Realinement
e) The Late 60s Storm
3, THE THIRD PERIOD