News Japanese Communist Party marks the 100th anniversary

Yesterday, 15 July, marked the 100th anniversary of the Japanese Communist Party (日本共産党 Nihon Kyōsan-tō), founded in 1922 as an outlawed party. The JCP is facing the shrinking of its organization and struggling to form a united front with other opposition parties. Still, it is one of the largest non-ruling communist parties in the world, with approximately 270,000 members belonging to 18,000 branches.

At the 2004 convention, the party revised the program to accept for the time being the country having the Emperor and the Self-Defense Forces — a drastic shift from its previous opposition to the institutions. Although the changes were made in hopes of attracting political independents, the JCP saw its membership decline to around 270,000 in 2020 after peaking at around 500,000 in 1990. The number of subscribers to its Shimbun Akahata newspaper, the main funding tool for the JCP, which does not receive state subsidies, dropped to around 1 million in 2020 from 3.55 million in 1980. The JCP lost seats in both last year's Lower House election and Sunday's Upper House poll.

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I saw one of Mr Shii's stump speeches in a nearby station, and he left a good impression (no Che Guevara-style fist-raising so popular with Japanese politicians).





The Japan Press Weekly is an affiliated news service. Whatever you think of their politics, they highlight political issues never reported in the Japanese mainstream press.

For example:

Back in the early 70's the communist party always held a week long event in Fukuoka where they sold goods from China mostly. Also held pretty big parades. Hakata Base would restrict everyone to base for the week to prevent problems. I always went to the sale because they had cool things really cheap. I still have my "little red book" from Chairman Mao , LOL. Once in a while the communist members would question me and I would tell them I was from Russia and they would smile and shake my hand.