Japanese Communist Party - History

History

The JCP was founded on July 15, 1922, as an underground political association. Outlawed at once under the Peace Preservation Law, the JCP was subjected to repression and persecution by the military and police of Imperial Japan. It was the only political party in Japan that opposed Japan's involvement in World War II. The party was legalised during the U.S. occupation of Japan in 1945, and since then has been a legal political party able to contest elections. In 1949 the party made unprecedented gains. It won 10 percent of the vote and sent 35 representatives to the Diet. But early in 1950, the Soviet Union sharply criticized the JCP's parliamentary strategy. Stalin insisted that the JCP pursue more militant, even violent, actions. SCAP seized this occasion to engineer the Red Purge, which forced the party leaders underground. Then, after the Korean War broke out, the party staged some acts of terrorism or sabotage. This resulted in a loss of popular confidence. Through the end of the decade it never won more than 3 percent of the votes or two seats in the Diet. Even so, its strong support among many intellectuals gave it a relatively greater importance than these numbers suggest.

The party did not take sides during the Sino-Soviet split of the 1960s. In the mid 1960s the U.S. State Department estimated the party membership to be approximately 120,000 (0.2% of the working age population).

It reached the peak of its parliamentary strength in 1970s. In the December 1972 Lower House election, it received 5,497,000 votes (10.5% of the total), and won 38 seats in the Lower House (7.7% of the total). The party received similar levels of support in the 1976 and 1979 elections, and only slightly lower levels in the 1980s. In the 1996 and 2000 elections the JCP vote totals rose to over 12% of votes cast. Despite the higher vote totals, the JCP has not won more than 6% of Diet seats in any election since 1979.

The JCP has maintained its position partly because of the collapse of the old Japan Socialist Party, once the country's main opposition party but by 2005 reduced to 5.5% of the vote. The JCP has also been helped by recent reforms to the Japanese electoral system. It is unable to win any single-member constituencies, but retains its representation by winning some of the proportional representation seats.

Lam Peng Er argued in Pacific Affairs in 1996 that "the JCP's viability is crucial to the health of Japanese democracy." This, he says, is because: "It is the only established party in parliament that has not been coopted by the conservative parties. It performs the watchdog role against the ruling parties without fear or favor. More importantly, the JCP often offers the only opposition candidate in prefectural governorship, city mayoral and other local elections. Despite the ostensible differences between the non-Communist parties at the national level, they often support a joint candidate for governor or mayor so that all parties are assured of being part of the ruling coalition. If the JCP did not offer a candidate, there would be a walkover and Japanese voters would be offered a fait accompli without an electoral avenue of protest. Promoting women candidates in elections to win women's votes is another characteristic of the party. More women are elected under the Communist label than other political parties in Japan."

In 2008, foreign media recorded an increase in support for the party due to the effect of the global financial crisis on Japanese workers. However they failed to increase seats in the Japanese general election, 2009. Since 2009 they have been losing members.

In a rare incident, JCP member, Kasai Akira (笠井亮), met the descendant of the Korean royal family to consolidate the action to bring back Korean royal artifacts back to South Korea.