Communist Party's vision to change Japan
KIMITOSHI MORIHARA, vice-head of the Japanese Communist Party's international department, took part in the Asia Pacific Solidarity Conference in Sydney over Easter. He outlined the JCP's analysis of Japanese capitalism and its tasks. Following is an abridged version of his presentation.
Japan's nation building after World War II has been abnormal, based on subservience to the US â politically, economically and militarily â and gave the highest priority to the interests of Japan's big business. It is a failed course.
Last year, the government imposed a 9 trillion yen (US$70 billion) burden on the Japanese people by increasing the consumption tax and revising the pension and medical insurance systems. These measures froze personal spending and prolonged the recession.
Support for the JCP has been increasing, spreading to the traditional base of the conservatives.
Electoral gains
The JCP has made successive advances in recent elections. In the 1996 House of Representatives election, it won 7.26 million votes, 13.08% of the total, or 40% of votes cast for the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, and increased its seats from 15 to 26.In the July 1997 Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly election, the JCP won 21.3% of the total votes, or 70% of the LDP's. We doubled our seats to 26 and become the second biggest party in the assembly.
In local elections, the JCP has surpassed the LDP by securing the highest number of local assembly seats, totalling 4073 as at April 1. In March, the seventh Communist mayor in Japan was elected. The number of local governments where the JCP is the ruling party reached 124.
The JCP was founded in 1922 and was illegal for the first 33 years, during which time many of its leaders were persecuted and imprisoned for opposition to militarism. Currently, it has 370,000 members and 2.3 million readers for its official daily newspaper, Akahata.
Two contradictions
A fundamental contradiction is the government's excessive priority given to big business and the US. Japan has gone further on this than other developed capitalist countries.Average working hours in 1995, for example, were 400 hours more than Germany and 300 hours more than France. Karoshi is a Japanese expression for deaths from overwork, which are common. This symbolises the extreme degree of capital accumulation.
The basic cause of Japan's prolonged economic crisis is that while a small number of big businesses accumulate super-profits, the people's living standard is the lowest among developed countries.
The second contradiction arises from Japan's more than 50 years of subservience to the US, under the Japan-US military alliance. Under the military treaty, Japan is to support US military bases for raids on east Asia and the Pacific. There is no US forces stationed in Japan to defend Japan, though the Japanese government maintains such bases with Japan's money.
The aircraft-carrier Independence, whose home port is at Yokosuka and whose Marines are stationed in Okinawa, carries expeditionary forces whose operational areas stretch from the African east coast to the Indian Ocean and the Pacific. The US Army units and Marines in Okinawa are training Indonesian forces which are now suppressing their own people.
The Japanese and US governments are now implementing new guidelines which will expand the military treaty's geographical coverage to all of Asia and the Pacific, even worldwide, such that the US can mobilise Japanese military and economic forces to assist its military interventions around the world.
Goals
We work towards the establishment of a democratic government which seeks to resolve these problems, within the framework of capitalism, by early next century. We will cooperate with other forces if they share the following objectives:- a Japan in which the extraordinary position of capitalism without rules is remedied, and big business is made to fulfil its social responsibility, and in the course of economic development, priority is given to the people's living conditions;
- an independent, non-nuclear, non-aligned and neutral Japan which breaks with the Japan-US Security Treaty, and which contributes to world peace by developing genuine relations of friendship with the US and Asian countries;
- a Japan which checks any moves to adversely revise the constitution and to revive complete militarism; a Japan in which democracy will flourish, and people are respected as human beings.
In postwar Japan, social democratic parties have failed as a political trend. They monopolised control of trade unions while failing to build their own organisations. They supported interference by the former Soviet Union and other countries in Japan's progressive movements. Tempted by a call to join the government, they abandoned in an unprincipled way their public pledges.
In 1980, in face of the Socialist Party's complete degeneration to the right, we called for cooperation between the JCP and progressive non-party forces, on the basis of common political goals.
A key achievement has been the formation of the National Forum for Peace, Democracy and Progressive Unity on the basis of the three objectives for progress. It is also prepared to cooperate with organisations and individuals on the simple basis of common opposition to a bad government. This forum has been making remarkable advances.
What sort of party?
The JCP's vision is that a revolution can be achieved based on a consensus of the majority of the people. The expression the people are sovereign captures this central principle. The JCP carried out this spirit even under the brutal tenno (emperor) system in pre-war days. Risking their lives, members stood up in opposition to Japanese imperialism's invasion of Asia, in defence of the rights of the people and for democracy.The JCP specified this spirit in its 1976 Manifesto on Freedom and Democracy, which gives an outline of its perspective for social progress in Japan: democratic coalition government, democratic revolution and socialist revolution.
It also specifies the connection between each of these stages and the people's will. It says, The route for social progress, as well as when and how far along this route we should move, are questions to be determined by the will of the people, the sovereign, and by the choice the people express in elections.
We are convinced that capitalism will be overcome in time. In Japan, the situation is now maturing for democratic reform. In achieving these tasks and as the consensus of the majority moves on and is ready for new advances, the new tasks will get onto history's agenda.
We are of the view that the Soviet Union had been unable to reach even the transition to socialism. In fact, it was completely derailed from the path to socialism.
I would like to emphasise the JCP's traditional independence. We don't follow big powers blindly or copy other countries' experiences unconditionally. We think for ourselves and find answers by analysing Japan's realities. We have established these lines, activities and the foundation of finance through a severe fight against interference by Soviet great power chauvinism.
The JCP and Asia
In our last party congress in September, we resolved to strengthen our relations with forces in Asia and the Pacific, a region of growing importance, politically and economically.Our priorities of activities in the area included:
- Denuclearisation and substantial arms reduction. By making clear that Japan is non-nuclear, we hope to expand the nuclear free zones in Asia. East Asia is the only area where military spending is increasing. Japan's current military budget is the fourth largest in the world, but our aim is to take a lead in cutting military spending substantially.
- We aim to secede from the Japan-US military alliance and to take a neutral, non-aligned stand. We intend joining the Conference of Heads of State and Government of Non-aligned Countries after we establish a democratic coalition government. We reject any hegemonic policy and support peaceful settlement of disputes.
- Making clear domestically and internationally the past mistakes of Japanese militarism. We will seek to resolve all outstanding cases of postwar reparations.