Maoism in the Developed World

The defection of Shiga was of some historical significance. Before 1945 he had been jailed for eighteen years by the Japanese Imperial regime, and was so severely mistreated that he emerged from prison (to become Secretary of the JCP Central Committee) deaf and half blind.[521] However, in spite of these disabilities, he was reputed during the postwar period to be “one of the … triumvirate that headed the party.”[522]

The shift of the JCP towards a pro-Chinese position brought a strong reaction from the Soviet Party. This was reflected in a letter from the CC of the Chinese Party to that of the CPSU in June 1964, which claimed that “Recently you unilaterally published your letters to the Central Committee of the Japanese Communists Party and unscrupulously launched open attacks on the valiant Japanese Party which is standing in the forefront of the struggle against U.S. imperialism and domestic reaction. You work hand in glove with the U.S. and Japanese reactionaries and support Yoshio Shiga, Ichizo Suzuki and other renegades from the Japanese Communist Party in your efforts to subvert the Japanese Party and to undermine the revolutionary movement in Japan.”[523]

The JCP’s Return to Neutralism

The Japan Communist Party’s flirtation with the Chinese lasted only about two years. One U.S. State Department source noted that “During 1966, the JCP broke away from its uncompromising pro-Peking stance and adopted an independent line, espousing opposition to both ‘modern revisionism’ and left-wing dogmatism. The break with Peking hardened in 1967 with both sides directly attacking each other’s leadership in the most scathing terms. The last two JCP representatives left Peking in August, and were reportedly so severely beaten by the Red Guards on their departure that they had to recuperate for several weeks in North Korea. The Chinese Communists retaliated to the change in the JCP line by shifting financial support away from the JCP to those Communists who remained loyal to Peking and to the far-left of the Japan Socialist Party, and by splitting Communist front organizations into pro-JCP and pro-Peking groups.”

This same source noted that “Despite overtures from the USSR, the JCP remains wary of returning to the Soviet camp, partly in view of past Soviet interference in internal JCP affairs and Moscow’s support for dissident ‘revisionist’ elements.”[524] Even the dispatch of the chief “ideologist” of the Soviet Party, Suslov, to Japan did not win over the Japanese party to alliance with CPSU. In 1968, the JCP denounced the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia.[525]

Throughout the duration of the Sino-Soviet dispute, the Japanese party maintained its neutral position in that conflict.

The Japan Communist Party (Left)

When the Japan Communist Party shifted back toward a neutralist position in the Sino-Soviet dispute, a clearly Maoist group began to emerge in 1966. The Chinese Hsinhua news agency noted that “The Japanese proletarian revolutionaries and the broad masses of revolutionary people in Japan have risen in rebellion against and broken with the Miyamoto revisionist clique of the Japanese Communist party since the Miyamoto revisionist clique betrayed the revolution, emasculated and attacked with all its efforts great Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tse-tung Thought and opposed violent revolution and advocated the revisionist ‘parliamentary road.’” Hsinhua noted that “left revolutionary organizations or groups” had been formed, that were “studying and learning Mao Tse-tung Thought.”

Finally, on November 30, 1969 the National Council of the Japan Communist Party (Left), which Hsinhua said was “one of these left revolutionary organizations,” held a congress that formally announced the establishment of a new party, the Japan Communist Party (Left). The new party issued a manifesto which proclaimed that “Comrade Mao Tse-tung has analyzed all the contradictions in the present-day world and pointed out ‘With regard to the question of world war there are but two possibilities: one is that the war will give rise to revolution and the other is that revolution will prevent the war.’”[526]

The new party was centered on what had been the Yamaguchi Prefecture Committee of the JCP. In 1973, John Emmerson wrote that “As a fraternal party of the CCP, the JCP (Left) benefited from the strong ‘China mood’ which prevailed in Japan during much of 1972.” By that time the JCP (L) claimed to have committees in eleven prefectures with a total membership estimated at 2,000. The chairman of the JCP (L) was Fuduka Masayoshi. The JCP (L) strongly influenced the Japan China Friendship Association (Orthodox).[527]