The Rally for celebrating 150th anniversary of the Communist Manifesto took place from 1:00 p.m. to 5 p.m. July 21 in a big conference room of Sohyo-kaikan, Tokyo. Although the scale was still small, 256 participants, more than we had expected, gathered the Rally.
Not only Japanese but also Sri Lankans, Filipinos, Koreans, and so on took part in the Rally. It was significant that beyond nationality and nation, workers and communists held the joint Rally on common purpose.
In Japan, rallys held so far was for Japanese only or for foreigners as a guest. The June 21 Rally, however, was prepared by both of Japanese and non-Japanese to make the Rally successful hand in hand. As the communist league was founded as a international organization 150 years ago, the rally was willing to take over the internationl spirits.
At noon, organizers, in particular, JVP activists began to decorate the hall with slogans painted gold on red board such as "Proletarians of All Lands Unite!", red flags, and portraits of Marx, Engels and so on. In addition, revolutionarty songs heard from speakers livened tha hall up.
Just before the openning, Alysn Alyel, a caltural activist form Philippine, sang two revolutionary songs with Tagalog: International Brother & Sisterhood, People's Uprising. With the passionate songs, the Rally was kicked off.
On behalf of the steering committee of the rally, Momo Iida delivered opening speech, in which he made the themes for the Rally very clear to the participants.
Then, three organizers of the Rally delivered proposals respectively.
At first, Somawansa Amarasinghe, the chairperson of People's Liberation Front-JVP (Sri Lanka), came from France where he obtained political asylum, called for communist alinement.
And then, Yasunobu Kuriki, a professor of Sensyu University, spoke as a researcher of Marxism.
At last, Ai Ikuta delivered a speech on behalf of communist groups & CECOP (The Congress of Establishing Communist Party).
Just before taking a break, Shouichi Chibana came from Okinawa and delivered a special speech.
Between speeches, the chairperson of the Rally read messeges from all over the world, such as Sri Lanka, Philippine, and Europe.
As this year is also 100th anniversary of Brecht's birth, recitation of Manifesto by him was broadcasting during the break. And then, Tatsuo Iwabuchi and Masahisa Tomita recited Bertolt Brecht's work "Manifesto," commemorating 100th anniversary of Brecht's birth, at the begining of the latter half of the Rally.
After the recitation, the following seven delivered brief speech respectively.
Kim Yontaku (Korian resident in Japan)
Kaoru Katagiri (The representative of Tokyo Gramsci Society)
MARKUS SALVADOR (The People Revolutionary Froces - Philippine)
Ryoji Ishizuka (a professor of Sensyu University)
Masao Tsuneoka (People's Power)
Harumi Hosono (IEG, Internationalism Editing Group)
Minoru Nakamura ("Workers")
After those speeches, Miyuki Tanaka, a member of WORKERS, read the Joint Appeal energetically and the participants applauded.
While JVP activists came up to the stage, all participants sang "International" in Japanese and then in Singhalese.
At last, the chairperson summed up the significance, the success of the Rally.
Although a group (JRCL), having no connection with us, tried to disrupted the rally, we gained the upper hand.
Our Rally took over the revolutionary spirits form the Communist Manifesto, without breaking up with it or making it relatively correct. We also rejected Stalinist understandings of the Manifesto, challenging the modern problems.
In the Rally, particularly, appeals for realignment of devided communist and leftist forces were emphasized.
For example, comrade Amarasinghe, JVP's chairperson, suggested Japanese communists to realign.
It is a pity that Japanese communists have been divided into many groups so far. Communists groups preparing the Rally also have had this defect, so we should overcome this week point.
Based on the success of the Rally, Japanese communists should hold meetings to join leftist forces into power, keeping pace with international realignment.
(HIROSHI TSUMURA)