March 24, 2019

The JCP has never had an official policy of calling for violent revolution

Public Security Intelligence Agency official Yokoo Yoichi said that the Japanese Communist Party had in the past allegedly engaged in terroristic, subversive activities. This remark was in response to a question from a lawmaker of the rightwing political party Nippon Ishin no Kai, Adachi Yasufumi, at a meeting of the House of Representatives Internal Affairs Committee on March 7.

Between 1950 and 1955, the JCP was split into two factions and the Central Committee was paralyzed by the actions promoted by a party faction headed by Nosaka Sanzo and Tokuda Kyuichi, both of whom sought asylum in China. During this period, this faction introduced the violent revolution policy to Japan from abroad under the sponsorship of the former Soviet Union and China.

However, this was promoted only during a brief period in JCP history by the faction which had split off from the party. When restoring organizational unity through the 7th Party Congress in 1958, the JCP sharply criticized and rejected the violent revolution policy.

In 1961, in the 8th JCP Congress, the party established its policy line and adopted a Program that stated that any transformation in Japan’s social and political systems should be accomplished electorally by securing a stable majority in the Diet. The 1961 Program made it clear that the party rejects the armed struggle policy which foreign powers attempted to impose on the JCP. Ever since, this policy of rejecting armed struggle has been repeatedly confirmed by party Congresses and with the JCP Program.

The JCP in recent years proposed to launch a full-fledged joint struggle among opposition parties to bring down Prime Minister Abe Shinzo from power. In a bid to promote the collaboration between opposition parties and concerned citizens, the entire JCP, from the headquarters to grass-roots branches in towns and cities and workplaces across the country and individual party members, is making sincere efforts. Such a concerted effort by JCP members became possible because of the party’s long-nurtured policy line of democratic revolution.

The JCP has never supported "violent revolution" as its official policy both in its prewar and postwar history. All anticommunist attacks that distort history have no basis in fact at all.

What must be stopped are the serious violations of the constitutional right to freedom of association

Even today, by taking advantage of the worn-out attempt to vilify the JCP, the government and the Public Security Intelligence Agency see the JCP as an organization subject to investigation under the Subversive Activities Prevention Act.

However, as the head of the intelligence agency, Ishiyama Yo, admitted to Fuwa Tetsuzo, the JCP chair at that time, at the Lower House Budget Committee meeting (Feb.18, 1989), the authority has never found even a single piece of "evidence" of a JCP call for "violent revolution". The intelligence chief said, "As a matter of fact, we haven't applied any restrictions" upon the JCP for 36 years to that date since the enactment of the antisubversive law.

Since then, another 30 years have passed. The intelligence agency uses a huge amount of taxpayers' money and still conducts "surveillance activities" of the JCP by crafting improper means of surveillance. Nonetheless, it has not brought forward any "evidence" of a JCP call for "violent revolution".

Unjustifiable monitoring and spying activities against the officially recognized political party by exploiting the groundless rumor that the JCP would support a "violent revolution" are the serious infringements of the right to freedom of association guaranteed by the present Constitution. Such acts should immediately be stopped.

In order to drive a wedge into joint struggles among opposition parties, the rightist political party Ishin no Kai is now making use of the unjust activities conducted by the government and the Public Security Intelligence Agency. Such a vicious attack shows the very nature of Ishin no Kai to be just a trivial supplement to the LDP-Komei regime.

Past related article:
> Unjust attack on JCP for purpose of weakening opposition parties’ intra-Diet collaboration (part I) [March 23, 2019]