The Guardian 1 August, 2007
Japanese Communist Party:
85 years as "The only reliable party"
The Japanese Communist Party marked the 85th anniversary of its founding on July 15, amid the House of Councillors (senate) election campaign. In the campaign the JCP is calling on voters to "vote for the JCP, the only ‘reliable opposition party’, promising to continue fighting to end poverty and defend Article 9 of the Constitution." [Article 9 enshrines Japan’s status as a state of non-aggression]. The JCP says it continues to stand undaunted after the 85-year struggle it has waged in defence of living conditions and peace, in defiance of the fierce suppression and many difficulties it faced.
Resistance in the face of suppression
The JCP was founded 85 years ago during the brutal rule of the emperor-based government, which pursued policies of repression against the Japanese people and foreign wars of aggression. Despite all those difficulties, the JCP embarked on the road to a Japanese society in which the people would become the protagonists while opposing war.
That was an era in which no political party opposed to the emperor government was allowed to exist. Under the regime, which was one of the most despotic in the world at the time, the JCP was forced to carry out its activities underground. Despite the adverse circumstances, the JCP was courageous enough to fight for the abolition of the monarchy, the realisation of universal suffrage and an 8-hour day, improvement in social welfare services, and an end to Japanese intervention in foreign countries.
This is how the JCP built its initial influence among the public.
Before and during World War 2, the JCP called for democracy and many of its concrete demands were met in the post-war process of establishing the Constitution and achieving democratisation in various fields. It was very significant in the history of the Japanese people that the JCP had from the very beginning clearly opposed war and called for democracy in defiance of the political climate at the time.
Since its founding, the JCP has been likened to a beacon because of its work, and those traditions have carried on to this day.
Even since the end of World War II, the JCP has been consistent in defending the people’s living conditions, democracy, and peace. Although it has faced many political upheavals since the war’s end, the JCP has never betrayed the people’s fundamental interests.
In the 1960s, the Liberal Democratic Party Governments [the centre-right party which has governed Japan almost without interruption since the end of the war] has pursued an economic growth policy that has given priority to benefiting large corporations. From that very time, only the JCP has stood firm in opposition to these policies.
The Socialist Party of Japan at the time (now the Social Democratic Party) argued for an even higher growth rate than the LDP. The late Ito Masaya, Secretary to Prime Minister Ikeda Hayato at the time, later said, "The JSP’s attitude to compete with the LDP convinced us that the LDP had won".
The government’s high-rate economic growth policy led to serious environmental destruction and inflation. Unlike the JSP whose policies also catered to major corporations, the JCP’s firm opposition proved to be very valuable.
Later, with the LDP becoming unable to maintain power alone, opposition parties began to look to an alliance with the LDP. Since the early 1990s, all opposition parties except the JCP have at some time joined the LDP in a coalition government by accepting the LDP’s basic policy framework of maintaining the Japan-US military alliance, and economic policy primarily benefiting large corporations. Only the JCP stayed away from such coalition governments.
From "reliable opposition party" to "reliable ruling party"
A recent TIME Magazine (22 June, 2007) article said, "The largest parties in Japanese politics lack a clear and cohesive identity, functioning more as loose alliances of interest with few discernible political differences" and that "the JCP often functions as the only genuine opposition to politics-as-usual in Tokyo".
The JCP continues to emphasise that its role as a "reliable opposition party" will lead to playing the role as a "reliable ruling party" at some point in the future.
If the JCP, with its proud 85 years of opposition, is successful in the House of Councillors election, it will be able to exert the most reliable power to change Japan’s politics.
Editorial of Akahata, 15 July, 2007