The organization, to which I belong, has a tradition of so-called Rounou-marxism. Rounou-Marxisim has its origin in magazine 'Rounou'(Workers and Peasants) issued by Hitohi Yamakawa and others in 1927. At the time, the 1st communist party was organaized in 1921 and soon prohibited by the government.

Then marxists split into two tendencies. One was so-called Yamakawa-ism led by Hitoshi Yamakawa and another was so-called Fukumoto-ism led by Kazuo Fukumoto. Fukumoto insisted on reorganazing a communist party as a pure vanguard party by his theory of 'split before unification' that was supported by students.

Yamakawa criticized this theory and insisted on organizing a mass proletarian party. He also preached the importance for marxists to organize mass workers through fighting for their immediate profit('Change the tendency of our proletarian movement' 1922).

Later the 2nd Communist Party was organized mainly by Fukumoto-ists but soon Fukumoto-ism was criticized by Comintern and she changed her path.

Rounou group worked inside several proletarian parties. The controvercy between Rounou marxists and the Communist Party concentrated into strategy of revolution.

Rounou marxists explained that Japan was a capitalist state ruled by bourgiosie and the strategy must be targeted on socialist revolution. In the contrary, the Communist Party described Japan as an absolutist state ruled by the emperor regime. She insisted on the 2 stage strategy that a democratic revolution would be first and followed by a socialist revolution. This contravercy centered on definition of Meiji revolution(1868).

Rounou marxists called anti-fascist people's front in the circumstance of growing militarism. This effort failed because of oppression by the government and also pro-militarism tendency among some proletarian parties. Throughout the 2nd world war, most activists of Rounou group and CP were jailed or confirmed informally.

After the war, left leaders are released and naturally became aggresive. Most people were in hunger and ex- soldiers wanted jobs. Straight agitations were very effective to those ears. Huge demonstrations were often organized under the leadership of Japan Communist Party(JCP). Rounou group were relatively inactive. In this situation, Hitoshi Yamakawa called "Democratic People's Front" in order to clean up the remainings of militarist regime. This effort failed. JCP dreamt of an immediate revolution even under the occupation.

2 years later, policy of occupation army turned from democratization of Japanese politics toward utilizing right wing politician to make Japan anti-communist. Red purge began. Leaders of Unions (by industry organized) were purged. Those vacant posts were then occupied by non-CP activist group named Mindou (Democratization League). Unions were reorganized by cooporation. Soon, Mindou went into split. Left wingers came close to Rounou group and began to work with.

On the other hand, Japan Socialist Party was organized immediately after the end of the war. Most of activists and politicians of former proletarian parties gathered. Rounou group joined this party after Hitoshi Yamakawa's effort of founding a popular front had failed.

In rounou group, Itsurou Sakisaka(a famous translator of Capital, professor at university of Kyushu) proposed non-armed revolution strategy in 1946.

In 1949, JSP was split up. It merged again shartly but finally split again. Left SP came to adopt a marxist programme. In order to support the left SP theoritically, Socialist Association(SA) was founded by Rounou group. Roudou-daigaku (Labour college) was also founded as the official school of the party.

In the first half of '50s, both SP showed a great advance in mass support. In this sentiment, Dietmen/women of both party wanted re-unification of JSP. They dreamt of taking power.

SA was against that because that it meant a collapse of the new-born working class party. However, JSP unified again in 1955. But this fact caused the unification of consevative parties, founding LDP (Liberal Democratic Party).

In the first half of '50s, inner split was also found in JCP(Japan Communist Party). In 1955, JCP unified again. But they received a strong shock by the Khurchichev report. Some CP members turned to Trotzkism. Some CP members turned to Maoism. However, they are tiny groups at the time. 1960 was another turning point. There occurred great mass movements in the year; Miike strike and Anpo struggle. Anpo is the short-term of Japan-US Security Pact.

I think Zengakuren would be possibly in your dictionary. "Anti Anpo struggle had been very heavy at the begginig" remembered Akira Iwai (Chief Secretary of Sohyoh at the time) in his book. Sohyo was a left unions' national organization, to which over 6 mil. workers blonged. Right wingers had founded Doumei. Sohyo was led by left Mindou, supporters of JCP, and other leftist activists.

At the begginig, Anti Anpo struggle could not move workers. Workers concerns were more economical.

This situation was partly changed by the radical movement of students. At the time, Socialist student league lead most of student unions and called a radical movement agaist Anpo. This made Zengakuren famous. Zengakuren is " all japan league of student unions".

Students' actions stimulated workers. Sohyo's atittude toward Anpo also helped. This struggle moved over one million workers and students at the peak on 23th June, 1960.

We didn't win the struggle. However it showed power of mass action. From this experience, parliamentarism in JSP gradually weakend.

At the same time, Saburo Eda (Chief secretary of JSP) proposed the change of the party's programme in line with structural reformism that he imported from Italia. SA responded immediately. The remaining heat of Anpo struggle and Miike strike helped left in the party to prevent such change of the programme. Controversy about structural reformism, however, enriched our theory of non-armed revolution and SA came to emphasize the importance of mass action.

Structural reformism also influenced on JCP. The present commitee chair Testuzo Fuwa and his elder brother Kouichiro Ueda were famous structural reformists in the communist party. They finally criticized theirselves and stayed in the party but certain amount of cadre and members left the party. Pro-Soviet people founded "Voice of Japan". Some of others came to JSP. Some went to New Left movement.

Miike struggle was actually mother of the movement I belong to. I would like to begin from the very beginning.

Miike struggle ---part 1

In the period of economic revival in Japan, the government took industry policy that targeted the revival of energy and basic material industry. At the time, domestic coal production was the key energy industry and full of subsidy from government was put into the industry. Workforce was provided by ex-soldiers who came back from abroad.

The labour conditions at coal mines were seriously bad. The dis- satisfaction of workers stimulated labour movement and enforced the power of the unions. The coal miners union was called the strongest union at the time.

Miike coal mine was owned by Mitsui capital, one of 6 Zaibatsu in Japan. In Miike mine, the management seriously oppressed the communist party with help by GHQ (General head quater of occupation army) in the post war period. In other coal mines, there were sometimes seen workers production controll but such a thing had never happend in Miike mine.

In 1949, Miike management suddenly fired 1300 workers. It was followed by 'Red purge' that 197 communist party members were fired in 1950. Then came a firing of 4650 workers in the same year. Miike union was the weakest among miners' unions.

In this period, several activists in the union visted prof. Sakisaka at university of Kyushu.(Miike is located in Kyushu Island) Sakisaka had come back to the university after the informal confirmation in Tokyo. The activists asked Sakisaka to do lectures to workers in Miike. Then started learning group movement in Miike.

( remember this is the same time when JSP split into left and right)

After the enormous firing in 1950, dissatisfaction of workers put up those activists to the leadership of the union. The first thing they did was organizing house wives to the union. Miike mine house wives organization was founded and managed independently by wives of miners. The second thing was organizing 'Goningumi' (unit of 5 persons) over the union. This Goningumi became the kernel of resistence struggle at workplace.

In July 1953, the Mitsui capital proposed 10,000 personnel reduction to the union. This time the union was ready to fight. The union striked 113 days. The result was not satisfactory, 2,600 left the mine. Learning from this lesson, the union enforced daily resistence struggle at workplace. The manegement labelled activists as production checkers.

In 1959, Mitsui proposed more firing of 6,000 workers (all mitsui mines) again to the union. In the case of Miike, the proposal was nominate firing of 1,200 'production checkers'.

Naturally, the union rejected the proposal and went into strike. They began to strike in Feburary 1960.

In March, the management attacked the union by arrangement of the second union. They began to discriminate members of the first union by all means. They also hired right-extremists to break the picket line. One of striking worker Kubo was murdered with a knife by a right-extremist.

On the other hand, broad support for the union spread. The national center Sohyo organized support demostrations of over million workers. Buraku Kaiho Doumei (Discriminated Liberation League) showed their solidarity with many activists' participation to the union's actions.

Socialist Associaion was also by the struggle. It issued daily paper named "Socialism Daily" for the striking workers. Prof. Sakisaka also took numbers of students into the struggle. They had a chance to learn from workers in struggle.

The youth section of JSP was also active in support for the strike. They gathered many young union activists in the struggle and founded a mass youth organization named Japan League of Socialist Youth. In August 1960, The labour comittee showed the union a proposal that was almost bad as the original proposal of the management. However, the leaders of the coal miners union (national) accepeted the proposal, although the Miike local was against.

The nominated workers had to leave the mine. The struggle settled in defeat.

The discrimination to the members of the first union bacame more serious. The union lost its members one by one. But it maintained about 1/4 of all workers in Miike.

# Buraku is a discriminated region in Japan. The residents there belonged to the most under class in the feudal regime of Edo.

To describe history of japanese left, I can not avoid writing about new lefts and student movement.

I wrote that Anti-Anpo struggle was led by Socialist student league. This was a student section of Communist League ("Bund"). Bund was founded by moistic former members of JCP.

After the Anpo struggle, it was unveiled that the several leaders of Bund were aided financially by a right-wing boss Seigen Tanaka. This was a great scandal for Bund. They immediately split to several organizations and lost its influence on mass students.

Vacant space was occupied by several other organizations including DY (Democratic Youth, youth organ of JCP). Trotskist League split to RCL(Revolutionary Communist League) and JBFI(Japan branch of 4th International). RCL soon split to RM and Kernel.

From JLSY(see previous post), "Liberation fraction" was born as a radical student organization. Structural Reformists organized Student Socialist Front (Front). In the field of student movement, DY was the largest. In 1968, May revolution stimulated student movement also in Japan. The first revolve began in Nippon university. Nippon university was famous that students rights were extremly limited and right-extremist students dominated the students life. The revolt aimed at democratization of the university. But the management of the university utilized those right-extremists to oppress the revolt. They often used japanese sword to threaten activists. However, solidarity movement spread to other universities. In the case of university of Tokyo, the movement began to critisize the exsistence of the university. DY wanted to limit the movement as a reform of the university, but radical students could not stop there. The student actvists except DY and RM founded Zenkyoto as a body of cooperated struggle. They prevented the entrance examination for fiscal year 1969 by barricades. Then they occupied the Yasuda Hall. Riot cops were introduced to the university and all of them were arrested after 2 days fight (using 'cocktails').

1970 was the another year of Anpo struggle. Students organized strong demonstrations at the time. They wore helmets and held banboos in order to fight with cops or with other groups. After the defeat, a cooling period came. Front vanished immediately though it showed the largest demonstration at the Anpo 70. RM vs Kernel, RM vs Liberation fraction, there began killing each other. They attacked their enemy fractions with iron pipes at night. More than hundred died in '70s. Such behaviours freezed the student movement.

At the heat time of student movement, labour movement faced a serious problem. Right wing unionists of Sohyo bagan to campaign to unify Sohyo and Doumei. If they had succeeded, the new national center of unions would have been dominated by right wingers and abondon the idea of class struggle. However, activity of young activists was growing. The youth sections of Sohyo unions were getting more militant.

In Sohyo, the youth sections became more independent from the parent leaderships.

In the surge of inflation that began from early '80s, unions had to fight wage struggle more seriously. Dissatisfaction of workers about higher living costs forced unions to fight for wage increase by strikes. Sohyo called "kokumin Shunto" (people's wage struggle) that was to be a broad based cooperated struggle for wage increase. That was successfull.

In 72-74, japanese workers acquired big wage increases. This also helped workers unification to be stronger in Sohyo. Young activists were encouraged to resist at workplaces. The body of JLSY grew very rapidly in this situation. JSP was enforced by recruiting those activists. Composition of SA and its sympathizers in JSP raised to 40%.

The peak was 1975 when National Railroad Union striked 11 days, although the union was prohibited striking by Law. The request of the strike was legalizing strikes of public sector unions. Theachers union also striked and its chair Makieda was arrested because of the agitation of striking.

However such a rapid growth of left in Sohyo and JSP soon caused serious conflicts with right wingers. For example, in Telecom industry, young and especially women workers had began to protest thier occupational diseases. They requested the union leadership to pick up this problem. However the response of the management was very quick. They stood pro-management candidates to the union leaderships over the union. Finally leftists lost most posts. Left activists didn't give up the struggle, of course. They ignored the instruction of the union leaders.

Then pro-management leaders of the union claimed JSP that Activists of Socialist Association intervened the activity of the union. They split the several locals of JSP such as in Tokyo,in Chiba and in Fukushima.

I would like to write about JSP today.

I wrote about the re-unification of JSP in the 3rd post of this serie. That was 1955.

I also wrote the defeat of "structural reformism" inside the party around 1960 already.So I continue from here.

1966 was the year when Japan Socialist Party adopted the marxist programme named "Japan's way to socialism". In this programme, JSP adopted the strategy of non-armed revolution. Our Socialist Association is not satisfied with it, however. Because the programme lacked of more concrete and scientific concept of socialism. For example, it hadn't cantained a concept of proletarian dictatership at first. This was added as an answer of the chair of the theoritical committee at the party conference.

But I can say that programme was in line with marxism. It seeks the united front of "Anti-monopolistic capitalism". This means cooperations with the communist party and other left organisations in practice.

As I wrote in the previous report, right wingers began to attack SA in mid '70s and try to regulate it. Finally, the rule of the party was changed to give an advantage for right wingers. For example, dietwomen/men become automatically delegates of the party conference, etc.

Soon a change of the programme came. "Japan's way to socialism" was changed to revisionistic "Project of socialism" in early '80s. This programme abandoned marxist idea and revolution. It emphasized anti-LDP coalition with Democratic Socialist Party and Komei Party. Then came more reformistic "The New Declaration" in the late '80s. This "Declaration" was a declaration of abandoning socialism. It also admit the coalition with conservatives. And the party changed its english name from Japan Socialist Party to Social Democratic Party of Japan. But the japanese name has been unchanged as Japan Socialist Party if directly translated.

The rightward tendency of JSP has been not alone. It's been associated with the rightward tendency of former Sohyo. The beginning was early '80s. The prime minister Nakasone began neo-conservative politics learned from Thatcher in '82. He proposed to privatise state-owned companies like Nippon telecom, National railroad, Tobacco, etc. Of course such privatization came with "ratonalization" that meant mass-firing. The first one was Nippon telecom. As I wrote before, union leadership of the company had been already given to the pro-management group. They were opposite to the privatization plan at first because its management were opposite. They soon got some fruits and turned to be pro- privatization. At the time they were isolated among Sohyo unions. But the situation changed gradually.

The second target of privatization was the National railroad. National Railroad Union (NRU) was so-called the strongest union in Japan. There left-wing socialists and communist party members mostly work together unlike other Sohyo unions. The union was naturally opposite to the privatization. The management declared to fire all who were opposite. NRU fought against it till the end in march 1987. More than 30,000 retired unwillingly.The membership of the union decreased from 160,000 to 40,000 in 3 years. 1000 activists of the union were actually fired. The union help them to continue to fight and still 300 stay fighting to get back to the workplace. We have learned much from the struggle.

But the union leaders of other Sohyo unions learned a different thing. They began turning their nose to right. And they seek to the unification with Doumei. Then Rengou came out as the unification of Sohyo and Doumei with membership of 6,000,000. At the same time, JCP instructed their member union activists to split unions and formed their own national center named Zenrouren(about 500,000). NRU was rejected by Rengou and form an independent union group named Zenroukyo(about 150,000) with other independent unions. Left wing socialists are devided into Zenrokyo and Rengou.

With entirely changed programme, JSP has lost its popularity among working class in Japan. At the last general election when LDP split and several new conservative parties were founded, JSP could not show a clear policy. Many supporters could not see the difference and did not vote. The result was miserable. JSP got only 69 seats in the lower house. The poorest result in the history of JSP. Then consevatives beated JSP and JCP with a stick of changing electoral system - introducing small electoral districts. Under un-democratic party organizing, the recent JSP conference decided to solve itself and build a new party. How opportunistic they are! But there's a conflict among rights of the party. Some of them want to reject SA and some of them want to utilize SA.

I cannot say it's time for SA to leave the party. Inner party struggles are still goin' on. Certain amount of non-SA JSP members are still wondering. We have to coordinate with most of them.

Actually hundreds of lefty members of the party started to leave the party, however.

Turning eyes to labor movement. Zenrokyo (joint struggle organization of independent unions) have succeeded in several spheres. One is organizing foreign workers including illeagals. Another is organizing middle managers and organizing part time workers. These spheres have not been touched by traditional unions. So there's a positive light. However, former Sohyo unions joining Rengou go right and right. Teachers union abandoned its line of opposition to so-called national flag Hinomaru and national song Kimigayo. etc.

JSP is a member party of socialist international but she had relationship with CP-USSR and CP-China at the same time. Socialist Association had relationship with Marxism-Leninism Institutes of DDR and USSR. We three had annual discussion meetings in Tokyo. SA and MLI of USSR had different opinions on nuclear power and other various matters. SA and MLI of DDR had a good relation.

JCP was in line of 'independent'. This party held a good relation with romanian party in '70s.

In the youth movement, JLSY(Japan League of Socialist Youth) and JLDY(Japan League of Democratic Youth) are both member leagues of world league of democratic youth. JLDY is a youth organization of JCP. In the world organization, JLSY positions itself mostly in the mainstream, JLDY with euro group.

JLSY thinks it also important to make a solidarity with korean residents in Japan. From historical reason, there are about 600,000 korean residents in Japan. The Japan - South Korea pact in 1965 devided them into two sides. One supports south korea and got south korean nationality, another refused to get south korean nationality and got no nationality. Most of the latter support north korea.

Since the struggle against Japan - South Korea pact, JLSY has held a good relation with the Leaugue of Korean Youth Residents in Japan.

Korean residents are discriminated in various ways in Japan. They cannot get well-paid jobs in big business. So, they are mostly self-employed. Korean restaurants, Pachinko Hall and other personal services are where they can do their business. Today some of them succeeded to make their business larger. However, it is still important to make solidarity with their struggle for citizen rights.

Today we see it more important to make solidarity with workers in other asian countries. Some activists groups built relations with militant unions in South Korea and Philipines.