Japan Press Weekly

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2022 October 19 - 25 [JCP]

Additional 246 JCP activists buried in JCP tomb

The 37th memorial service for Japanese Communist Party activists who died in the past year took place on October 22 in a cemetery in Tokyo's Hachioji City. An additional 246 activists, bringing the total to 5,082, were buried in the JCP tomb.

The epigraph, "Indomitable warriors rest here," is inscribed on the gravestone. It was July 1986 when the first ceremony was held. Before and during the war, it was totally impossible for the then illegal JCP to build a common memorial grave. Not only that, the people who rushed to the wake after learning of the death of famous proletarian writer Kobayashi Takiji, a JCP member, in 1933 were arrested in mass.

The JCP's dauntless spirit to pursue social progress has been inherited from the desperate efforts made by party predecessors in the prewar and wartime period. They fought against the despotic regime with the absolute power of the Emperor, against the notorious Law for Public Order Maintenance, and against the Special Political Police. Many members were killed in the relentless crackdown. Their names are written on a plaque and have been placed in the JCP tomb.