JAPANESE SOCIALISTS SPLIT

...Now is the time that our party has been blessed with an unequalled opportunity to move forward to the peaceful construction of a socialist society...

...Winning political support of the trade unions became a vital task for the SP...

...Besides the two wings, there is a center, claiming 13 members and led by Yonekubo, Miyake, and Yoshikawa, which was opposed to the split and is now conducting "unity talks...

...The riglrt wing, which has 15 Diet members, includes Chairman Katayama and such lesser leaders as Nishimura, Inoue, and former Cabinet Ministers Mizutani and Morito...

...The SP had the support of Sodoniei alone, since the unions of the left and most of the center were under the control of the Communists...

...The Socialist party," he declared, "as the party of the working class, must value quality above quantity...

...In another quarter, a powerful democratic movement had developed within the trade unions, and made rapid inroads in Communist serength...

...Hosoya, Qchiai, and others of the New Sambctsu, which had broken off from the Red-dominated Sambetsu, joined the SP...

...It was the inevitable result of a deadlock which occurred when the left and right each intransigent^ clung to its own proposals...

...The CP hail the political good sense to support Takayama and create an SPCP United Front...

...In the January election, this number shrank to 47...

...Finally, neither the left nor the right has...

...FUNDAMENTALLY, the Socialist party is a national party (a la Morito) and a class party (a la Suzuki) at the same time...

...On February 9 Yoshiyuki Takayama, a left-wing Socialist (and former Communist), was elected Mayor of Kyoto...

...The second cause of the January defeat was lack of support from the trade unions...

...So did leaders of such "centrist" unions as Kato, Fujikawa, and Hoshika of Kokutetsu and Araki of the Teachers' Union...

...Although the democratic trade unions were shocked by the split, a corresponding split in the labor movement is not to be expected...

...The imprisonment for complicity in a scandal of Nishio, a pillar of the Socialist party, dealt a shocking blow to SP prestige...

...Party chairman Katayama tried to Stop the split...

...To this day he seldom opens his mouth without talking of "seientmo socialism," and has made old line Marxism literally a part of himself...

...At the fourth party convention, held last April, these two problems were naturally thrashed out...

...Emphasis mine—T...

...The left wing claims 19 Diet members, and is led by Suzuki, Inamura, Hara, and Hiroo Wada of the House of Councillors...

...But even this program was subjected to attacks from a hundred different quarters at last April's convention...

...For example, tho opening sentence of Section 5 (Character and Function of the Party) read as follows: "Our party regards it as its historic mission, as a party of social democracy, to achieve a socialist revolution via democratic means...

...The center has been continuing its efforts in the same direction...

...The discussions centered around the new Draft Program presented to the convention...

...Later he went to the Soviet Union and on his return wrote up his impressions in a book entitled, A Guest of the Ru««io»i State...

...THE DEFEAT last January was less a defeat for the Socialist party than for its right wing...

...The February 18 edition of Red Flag, editorializing on the "lessons" of the electoral fight, depicted the victory as a vindication of the CP's program: "This victory and the miserable defeat of the traitorous Liberal Democratic Party have proved today how much our people desire national independence and are prepared to fight for it...

...His electoral defeat in January, in southwestern Japan where his position had been unshakable for decades, indicated the extent of the disillusionment...

...Neither Suzuki nor Morito sufficiently understands both these facts or has any inclination to correlate them...

...THE SPLIT is not decisive yet...

...If in the future it comes to bp manipulated by the CP, it will lose its popular following...

...Poreshadowings of mis' are already visible...

...ON JANUARY 16, Chairman Tetsu Katayama told the delegates to the fifth convention ^>f the Japanese Socialist party: "The Liberal Democratic party is astir over the question of a merger with the Democratic pajty...

...At last year's April convention, Suzuki became Secretary General, Inamura became literature director, and the left wing took over a majority of executive posts...

...The left wing controls even Sodomci, and m general the democratic unions are united in their support of Suzuki and the Left, In this sense the left wing's future course seems clear...

...At the present time, thirtytwo national unions, with a membership of approximately five million, officially support the Socialist party...

...Only Katayama's Socialist party—unable to resolve its inner contradictions—split left and right...

...The fall of the coalition government, the formation of the Yoshida Government (October, 1948), and the general election followed...

...the Communist party is at the crossroads which will lead it either to Titoization or to capitulation before the Cominform...

...The Draft Program presented to the convention was a.compromise between these two points of view...

...Suzuki, while a journalist in Neu York, came under the influence of Sen Katayama and became a Communist...

...This is the background against which the fifth convention of the SP took place, from January 16 to 19...

...But as long as it lacks an understanding of Communism and a philosophy with which to defeat it, tho possibility of its being manipulated By the CP may become increasingly great...

...It ended with the right wing walking out of the convention, on Jan...

...Suzuki defined the Socialist party as "the party of socialism," maintained that it must be guided by the principles of scientific socialism and base itself upon the working class...

...The road ahead for inexperienced Japanese social democracy permits of no optimism whatever, The extreme right tip, which has already definitively split off, announces that it cannot look on in silence while the task of reconstructing the party fulls into the hands of narrow-minded leftwing Marxists, who will make the Socialist party into a second Communist party...

...Before the conversion, Mosaburo Suzuki of the Left drew up a program of political action, to which the Right's Tatsuo Morito offered a series of amendments...

...The most important cause of the electoral defeat was the series of scandals which took place during the Ashida - Katayama postwar coalition governments...

...Each group elected its own executive...

...Morito, on the other hand, called the SP "the party of social democracy" and7 rejecting the class struggle, declared that the party must become a national party, including not only workers but also middle class and intelligentsia...

...THE SPLIT was not over policy or program, but over the election of officials, convention procedure, etc...

...sufficient understanding of the nature of tin...

...N.) In general the left wing of the SP is prevailing over the right wing...

...Under suspicion of accepting bribes in connection with the transmission of several ^billion yen to the account of the Showa Dcnko Company, Prime Minister Ashida was arrested and Cabinet Chief Secretary Nishio—of the Socialist party—was imprisoned...

...Communist party or of Marxism, and consequently they lack a sound theory of social-democracy capable of coping with the current situation...

...In Japan, where democracy came late, the Socialist party must be militantly democratic, but must at the same time be the ally of the modern proletariat...

...thus both parties have revealed great internal contradictions...

...In the heat of the fight, he stepped down from the chair and declared: "Unless the rivalry between the left and right wings ceases, I resign from the chairmanship of the Party...

...recently Suzuki conferred with the right's Chosoburo Mizutani (former Minister of Commerce and Industry) on the question of unity...

...There is a strong tendency on the part of the centrists to ally themselves with the right wing...

...Naturally, the power of the left wing increased in the following year...

...BEFORE THE general elections of January, 1949, the extreme right tip of the SP tSato's Social Reform party) and the extreme left (Kuroda's FarmerLabor party) quit the party, thus reducing its parliamentary strength from almost 130 to little more than 100...

...With this, the fundamental diffcrpnee of opinion was given expression and the right wing withdrew to set up its own convention...

...But the general feeling hi pessimistic...

...This was a rebuke to Katayama, who had said the SP "must, within the framework of social democracy, ignore petty differences and cooperate on the basis of major points of agreement...

...19, en masse...

...The result wss thst no fixed program was adopted, and the matter of a program was added to the agenda Of this year's convention...

...Furthermore, in Japan, poor in the experiences of democratic tradeunionism but rich in tho experiences of economic hardship, the workers tend easily toward radicalism and are not disposed to view Morito and his right wing with understanding or tolerance...

...Upon it devolved the task of the political reconstruction of the party...

...The left wing continued the original convention...

...But Party Secretary Suzuki, whose left wing already controlled the executive, refused to bow...

...Unfortunately, he is all too often called a fellow-traveler by the right wing...

...Suzuki has said, "There is a clear line of demarcation between tho Communist party and ourselves," but this writer, at least, is reluctant to put too much faith in that...

...Shortly thereafter, the Liberal Democrats absorbed twenty-four members of the Democratic party (on February 9), and the Communists bowed their heads to the Kremlin...