Japanese Delegations Flock to Red China
NAOI, TAKEO
Japanese Delegations Flock to Red China By Takeo Naoi Tokyo The number of Japanese visitors to Communist countries in 1955 was more than three times as great as in 1954. According to the Peking...
...Their success last year was so great that the Government is planning to tighten its controls on passports, which are now available without question to any Communist-bloc invitee who can show that his expenses will be paid...
...The death of Kyuichi Tokuda, chief symbol of violent revolutionary tactics, was particularly opportune...
...89 Japanese attended the fifth World Peace Festival of Youth and Students in Warsaw in August, and 16 showed up for the "World Mothers' Conference" at Lausanne in July...
...Agitation against enlarging the present U.S...
...Nor has the party joined the international Communist effort to lure the Socialists into a united front it is apparently too confused...
...The previous May, 17 scholars including President Kaya of the Japanese Academic Council and former President Nambara of Tokyo University had visited Moscow on the invitation of the Soviet Academy of Sciences while in October 34 members of the Teachers' Union and a 13-member "medical mission" went to China and 8 professors visited Russia to help mark the Michurin centenary...
...With the 20th Congress of the Soviet Communist party, the Japanese CP found itself at a complete loss...
...Domestically, the Peace Committee has set up organizations to campaign for each of its current main objectives: halting of American H-bomb tests, elimination of U.S...
...Communist-bloc foreign policy is the chief determining factor, buttressed by Japan's myriad front organizations...
...Last August, it staged a "world peace conference" at Hiroshima...
...Nevertheless, the Japanese Communist party itself is currently at a low ebb...
...Last fall, for example, Chinese Vice Premier Kuo Mo-jo...
...This situation, plus a struggle for power among various factions, virtually paralyzed the party...
...The statement issued afterward neither praised nor condemned Stalin it merely hailed the results of the Moscow Congress in abstract terms...
...It also established a Japanese-Asian Solidarity Committee which announced plans early this year to send a 22-member cultural mission, including some prominent artists, writers and musicians, to eight countries, including India, China and the USSR...
...Last year, 55 Japanese trade-unionists attended the May Day celebration in Peking, 10 in Moscow, and 3 in Bucharest...
...Sohyo mobilized its members for mass demonstrations in which even some Socialists took part, and in some areas the governors, prefectural councils and lower administrative bodies were induced to pass resolutions supporting the movement...
...The Helsinki World Peace Congress in June 1955 drew 75 Japanese delegates, including several noted intellectuals and Socialist Diet members, many of whom went on to Moscow...
...With the latter now exercising a disproportionate influence in the country, Japanese Communism remains very much to be reckoned with...
...military bases in Japan, restoration of formal relations with mainland China and the Soviet Union, and blocking of rearmament...
...The Japanese are generally too polite to criticize what they are shown...
...In September, Red China's National Festival was attended by four groups of Japanese: 55 businessmen, 36 representing the country's six major cities, 61 from the theater, and 27 members of the Diet...
...The result has been a Chinese-Soviet "boom...
...In the academic and cultural fields, the Society of Democratic Scientists is particularly influential...
...Far more depends on the political situation throughout the world, particularly in Asia...
...Most were from unions of the Communist-dominated General Council of Japanese Trade Unions (Sohyo), but some represented independent unions...
...The Communist nations, of course, extend invitations at the slightest provocation...
...The Committee organized Japanese participation in last June's Helsinki Congress and in the two Indian conferences...
...The Japanese visitors included Diet members, scholars, journalists, businessmen and labor leaders, all invited by various Chinese Government institutions with expenses paid...
...These groups have managed to recruit a good many well-known politicians, businessmen, labor leaders and intellectuals...
...In May 1955, it had 2,443 members, including 921 students, at more than 50 universities throughout the country...
...Their families have been vehement in their recriminations, and the removal of Nosaka and other leaders is being demanded...
...A new "collective leadership" was set up with Sanzo Nosaka as First Secretary, and new party rules were introduced laying greater stress on intra-party democracy...
...Before leaving, Katayama signed a Sino-Japanese "cultural agreement," and Sohyo President Fujita, a member of the delegation, signed a Sino-Japanese "labor agreement...
...air bases has been conducted on a large scale...
...Today, Moscow and Peking are not banking very heavily on the local Japanese CP...
...In January 1955, the Japanese Peace Committee held a special meeting at which it "broadened" its base by including a number of non-Communist politicians, labor leaders, scholars, etc...
...who lived in prewar Japan with his Japanese wife, arrived here as chief of a Chinese academic mission...
...Last November, on the invitation of the Peking regime, the National Council to Combat Revision of the Constitution (an anti-rearmament group) sent a 27-member mission to China...
...The total was 847, compared with 503 from North Vietnam, 377 from Czechoslovakia, 337 from Poland, and 331 from the Soviet Union...
...Several Japanese front organizations have helped organize the "invitation offensive...
...However, the strength of Communism in Japan should not be judged by the party's performance...
...The introduction of limited party democracy has encouraged rank-and-file members to level increasingly sharp criticism at the leadership for past "deviations...
...Two Communist-sponsored events in India last year, the Asian Lawyers' Conference held in Calcutta in January and the Conference of Asian Nations in New Delhi in April, were also well attended by Japanese...
...Last year, it liquidated its underground organization, severely criticized its old leadership for past "leftist deviations," and pledged itself to shun violence in the future...
...The party organ contented itself with simply reprinting speeches and announcements from Moscow, and the party refrained from any comment on the anti-Stalin campaign...
...The Peace Committee and the Japan-China Friendship Societies are chiefly responsible for selecting the names of visitors to China...
...495 allegedly visited China, 233 the USSR, 10 North Korea, and 160 the Eastern European satellites...
...Early in March, the party Central Committee met for three days, but nothing came of it...
...Japanese official data put the total at only 495, considerably below Peking's figure apparently, a good number were smuggled into China in various ways...
...During the Korean War, the Society energetically backed the report of the International Scientific Commission which charged the U.S...
...Japanese public opinion is highly sensitive to political and economic developments in the Asian area, and any pronounced gain by China or the Soviet Union would automatically strengthen Communism in Japan...
...An organizing drive was launched which resulted, within six months, in the establishment of 27 chapters...
...According to the Japanese Government, 898 Japanese visited Communist countries last year most received passports to do so, but others changed their destinations after originally applying to visit non-Communist lands...
...As a legacy of the direct-action days, many young Communists are still in prison charged with murder, inciting to riot, arson and sabotage...
...As Richard Deverall noted in The New Leader of February 6, there is not "a country in Asia that is as thoroughly termited by Cominform organizations and fronts as Japan...
...These are: the Japanese Peace Committee, affiliated with the World Peace Council the Society of Democratic Scientists, affiliated with the World Federation of Scientific Workers the Democratic Youth Society, affiliated with the World Federation of Democratic Youth the Japan-Soviet Friendship Society, and the Japan-China Friendship Society...
...It was headed by former Socialist Premier Katayama...
...Visitors to Communist countries invariably repeat exactly what they were told...
...with employing germ warfare...
...He invited the Governor and 12 council-men of the prefecture where he had formerly lived to China, and they promptly applied for passports...
...According to the Peking People's Daily, Japanese visitors to Red China exceeded those of any other nation...
...These private pacts have little immediate significance, of course, but the ultimate effect is unquestionably to promote Chinese influence here...
Vol. 39 • June 1956 • No. 24
