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HOME  > Past issues  > 2023 August 2 - 8  > Komei Party newspaper uses demagogic propaganda against JCP
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2023 August 2 - 8 TOP3 [POLITICS]

Komei Party newspaper uses demagogic propaganda against JCP

August 3, 2023
The Komei Party's daily newspaper Komei Shimbun on August 2 in a column used false information on the Japanese Communist Party, saying that "the JCP based on its 1951 program advocated an armed struggle and went ahead with a policy of 'violent revolution'." The Komei Shimbun quoted the "Ishin" party leader, Baba Nobuyuki, as saying "The government regards the JCP as a dangerous political party." However, what they are asserting are not facts.

"The 1951 document" was not a formal JCP document. A sect, which emerged after WWII among JCP executives as a result of intervention or interference from the former Soviet Union and the Chinese leadership in JCP affairs, arbitrarily made that document.

It was not a party program. Stalin himself revised the text of the document and imposed an armed struggle policy on the sect. Stalin wanted to provoke a war in Asia and lure Japan, a U.S. rear-area, into taking military action so that the Soviet Union could avoid a military confrontation with the U.S. in Europe.

In October 1951, while the JCP was suffering from the party split, the sect held a meeting and adopted the armed struggle policy. However, this meeting was not something that the party officially convened. It was organized unilaterally by a group which created divisions within the party.

In March 1953, Stalin died. In June 1956, the JCP, in the process of restoring the party unity and solidarity, called a Central Committee plenum and denounced point-blank the 1951 document. In 1957, the JCP published a draft program and again denounced the 1951 document in the draft. In 1958, the JCP held its 7th Congress and formally abolished the document under the name of the JCP Congress. After spending a lot of time discussing the draft program, the JCP in its 8th Congress in 1961 finally adopted the Program stipulating the policy of "peaceful revolution through winning a parliamentary majority".

In the first place, it is groundless for successive governments to include the JCP in investigation targets under the Anti-Subversive Activities Law. The Public Security Intelligence Agency has unproductively pursued an investigation of the JCP for 70 years. However, not a single piece of evidence of subversive activity has been found. This clearly shows that the JCP is firmly opposed to any use of violence.

The Komei Shimbun took advantage of the historically uninformed remark made by Ishin party leader Baba to further its anti-communist propaganda. The demagogic tactic the Komei Shimbun uses is called into question.
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