Japanese Socialists at the Crossroads

...The delegates will gather in an atmosphere of party crisis, reflecting the defeat the Socialists sustained last May in the elections to the Diet's upper house...

...As for domestic policies, there has been a great deal of thought and discussion in JSP ranks on concrete measures for adapting socialist doctrine to Japanese reality...

...Public and press opinion was particularly critical of pre-election statements made by Socialist party Secretary General Inajiro Asanuma, who headed a party mission to Peking last spring...

...markets for Japanese goods, for Communist trade is state-manipulated and in addition cannot begin to compare in volume with Japan's free-world trade...

...Restoration of diplomatic relations with China and conclusion of a Soviet-Japanese peace treaty...

...These moves would be accompanied by the continuation of the good neighbor policy with Taiwan and friendly relations with the U.S...

...Asanuma assumed what the press here termed a servile attitude to Communist China...

...The rethinking of Socialist goals has centered on measures that would modernize industry, boost production, increase national income, encourage redistribution of wealth, stabilize workers' living conditions, increase the country's export potential and expand the social security system...

...At the same time, increasing attention is being paid to the more immediate and practicable goal of achieving greater worker participation in the management of industry by establishing labor-management councils on a nation-wide basis...

...Abrogation of the Japan-U.S...

...However, abrogation of this treaty ought to coincide with the dissolution of the China-USSR Defense Treaty and the formation of a new collective security area consisting of China...

...There is widespread sentiment within the JSP, and among many of its natural supporters in the working class and the intelligentsia, for a shift in the party's direction...

...Security Treaty...

...Japan, the USSR and the U.S...

...they now tend to think this step should be taken only when it can be shown to be in the best public interest...

...The objective would be to make Japan a genuinely neutral country which could not serve as a base for any foreign troops or nuclear weapons...

...The cause of the defeat is amply clear to all: Premier Nobusuke Kishi's Liberal Democratic party was able to capitalize on the tendency of some top Socialist leaders to follow a pro-Communist line on international and domestic policies...

...Such a position, unrepudiated by the rest of the leadership, lost the party considerable support at the polls...

...The large companies engage in healthy competition and they operate under the general direction of the Government...

...Adherence to the platform would have precluded defending the aggressive practices of the Soviet Union and China in East Germany, Hungary and Tibet...

...And like some of their counterparts in other free countries, Japan's democratic Socialists have had some second thoughts on nationalization of industry...

...The distinction is important because the party's development along "class" lines would commit it to an unrealistic doctrine of class struggle and to extra-parliamentary, extra-legal tactics for which WADO HARUO is a leading Japanese editor, trade unionist and Socialist...

...Certainly, most thinking Socialists do not believe that monopolistic capitalism controls the country...

...But this would not be at the expense of U.S...

...Japanese Socialists At the Crossroads Party's future depends upon renewed democratic program By Wado Haruo Tokyo NEXT WEEK, from September 12-14, the Japanese Socialist party will hold its annual convention...

...It is recognized, for example, that even under the present capitalistic system, with production concentrated in giant enterprises, the Government, acting in the interests of the whole nation, is playing an increasingly positive role in improving Japan's industry...

...On the international level, this would involve the following policies: Expansion of trade with the Communist bloc, especially China...

...The fact is that in veering so far leftward, leading elements of the JSP have departed from the clear-cut directives of the party platform...

...By the same token, it would disabuse the leadership of rigid Marxist dogmas about the nature of capitalist development in the 20th century...

...Equally effective criticism was leveled at the Socialists on the score that they have come under the powerful influence of left-wing trade unions who seek to make the Socialists a "class" party rather than a "mass" party...

...the democratic Japanese electorate has no taste...

...In the United States, Western Europe and even in post war Japan, the capitalist economy has been gradually evolving in a genuinely progressive direction, and the standard of living of the mass of the population has been rising steadily...