Japanese Communist Party

Japanese Communist Party 日本共産党
Abbreviation	JCP
Chairman	Kazuo Shii
Secretary-General	Akira Koike[1]
Representatives leader	Keiji Kokuta
Councillors leader	Yoshiki Yamashita
Founded	15 July 1922; 99 years ago (15 July 1922)[2]
Headquarters	4-26-7 Sendagaya, Shibuya, 151-8586 Japan[3]
Newspaper	Shimbun Akahata
Youth wing	Democratic Youth League of Japan
Membership (2020)	270,000[4]
Ideology	Communism[5] Democratic socialism[6] Pacifism[7] Scientific socialism[8][9]
Political position	Left-wing[3][6] to far-left[10][11]
International affiliation	IMCWP
Colours	Red[12]
Representatives	12 / 465
Councillors	13 / 245
Prefectural assembly members	139 / 2,614
Municipal assembly members	2,473 / 30,101
Election symbol
Party flag
Website
jcp.or.jp
Politics of Japan Political parties Elections

The Japanese Communist Party (JCP; Japanese: 日本共産党, Nihon Kyōsan-tō) is a democratic socialist political party in Japan and is one of the largest non-governing communist parties in the world. The JCP advocates for the establishment of a society based on scientific socialism, communism, democracy, peace, and antimilitarism. It proposes to achieve its objectives by working within a democratic framework while struggling against what it describes as "imperialism and its subordinate ally, monopoly capital." The party does not advocate violent revolution, instead it proposes a "democratic revolution" to achieve "democratic change in politics and the economy" and "the complete restoration of Japan's national sovereignty", which it sees as infringed by Japan's security alliance with the United States, although it firmly defends Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution and aims to dissolve the Japan Self-Defense Forces, which it considers unconstitutional and due to its opposition of the re-militarization of Japan.

The JCP is one of the largest non-ruling communist parties in the world, with approximately 270,000 members belonging to 18,000 branches.^[13] In the wake of the Sino-Soviet split, the party began to distance itself from the Eastern Bloc, especially from the Soviet Union. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the JCP released a press statement titled "We welcome the end of a party which embodied the historical evil of great power chauvinism and hegemonism", while at the same time criticizing Eastern European countries for abandoning socialism, describing it as a "reversal of history".^[14] Consequently, the party has not suffered an internal crisis as a result of the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, nor has it considered disbanding or changing its name or fundamental objectives, as many other communist parties have done.

The JCP polled 11.3% of the vote in 2000, 8.2% in 2003, 7.3% in 2005, 7.0% in 2009, and 6.2% in 2012. These results seemed to indicate a trend of declining support, but the party won 21 seats in 2014; this was up from eight in the previous general election, as the JCP took 7,040,130 votes (13.3%) in the constituency section and 6,062,962 (11.37%) in the party lists. This continued a new wave of support that was also evident in the 2013 Tokyo prefectural election where the party doubled its representation. Fighting on a platform directly opposed to neoliberalism, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, attempts to rewrite the constitution, United States Forces Japan, and nuclear power, the JCP tapped into a minority current that seeks an alternative to Japan's rightward direction.^[15] Following the 2016 Japanese House of Councillors election, the party holds 13 seats in the House of Councillors.^[16] Following the 2017 Japanese general election, the party holds 12 seats in the House of Representatives.

Membership[]

In January 2014, the JCP had approximately 320,000 members. Following the party's advancement in the 2013 Tokyo prefectural election, there had been an increase in membership growth, with over 1,000 people joining in each of the final three months of 2013.^[17] Approximately 20% of new members during this period were aged 20–40, showing a higher ratio of young people joining the party than in the past.^[17] More recently membership numbers have declined, with membership number around 300,000 in 2017, and 270,000 in 2020.^[18][19]

History[]

Prewar roots[]

The Japanese Communist Party was founded in Tokyo on 15 July 1922.^[2] Its early leadership was drawn from the anarcho-syndicalist and Christian socialist movements that developed around the turn of the century. From the former came Yamakawa Hitoshi, Sakai Toshihiko, and Arahata Kanson, who had all been supporters of Kōtoku Shūsui, an anarchist executed in 1911. Katayama Sen, another early leader, had been a Christian socialist for much of his political life. The three former anarchists were reluctant to found the JCP, with Yamakawa shortly after arguing that Japan was not ready for a communist party and calling for work to be done solely within labor unions. Katayama's theoretical understanding of Marxism also remained low.^[20][21]

Outlawed and persecuted[]

The JCP was founded as an underground political association. Outlawed in 1925 with the passage of the Peace Preservation Law, the JCP was subjected to repression and persecution by the Special Higher Police (Tokkō), nicknamed the "Thought Police."^[22] JCP members and sympathizers were imprisoned and pressured to "convert" (tenkō suru) to anti-communist nationalism.^[22] Many of those who refused to convert remained imprisoned for the duration of the Pacific War. The Japanese Communist Party member Hotsumi Ozaki, who was part of the Richard Sorge spy ring for the Kremlin, was the only Japanese person hanged for treason under the Peace Preservation Law.^{[citation needed]}

Postwar reemergence[]

The Japan Communist Party was legalized in 1945 by the Allied military occupation of Japan and since then has been a legal political party able to contest elections. In the aftermath of the war, under the guidance of charismatic party chairman Sanzō Nosaka, the party pursued a policy of portraying itself as "lovable."^[23] Nosaka's strategy involved avoiding open calls for violent revolution and taking advantage of the seemingly pro-labor stance of the Occupation to organize the urban working classes and win power at the ballot box and through propaganda.^[24] In particular, the party was successful in winning acceptance of the notion that communists had been the only ones to resist Japanese wartime militarism.^[22] This propaganda effort won the party thousands of new members and an even larger number of sympathizers, especially among artists and intellectuals.^[23] The party rapidly built up its strength and in 1949, made unprecedented gains by winning 10 percent of the vote and sending 35 representatives to the Diet.

Red Purge and turn to violence[]

Beginning in the fall of 1949, in reaction to the JCP's electoral success and as part of the "Reverse Course" in Occupation policy amid rising Cold War tensions, the U.S.-led occupation authorities and the Japanese government carried out a sweeping , firing tens of thousands of communists and suspected communists from government posts, teaching positions at universities, high schools, and primary schools, alongside private corporations.^[25] The purge was accelerated even further in response to the outbreak of the Korean War.^[25]

Against this backdrop in January 1950, the Soviet-led Cominform, at the behest of Soviet premier Joseph Stalin, issued a blistering criticism of the JCP's peaceful line as "opportunism" and "glorifying American imperialism," and demanding that the JCP carry out an immediate violent revolution along Maoist lines.^[24] This devastating "Cominform Criticism" led to competition among rival JCP factions to win the Cominform's approval, and ultimately led to the militant "1951 Platform" (51年綱領) which declared that "it would be a serious mistake to think that Japan's liberation can be achieved through peaceful, democratic means" and called for an immediate violent revolution.^[24] The result was a campaign of terror in which JCP activists threw Molotov cocktails at police boxes and cadres were sent up into the mountains with instructions to organize oppressed farmers into "mountain guerrilla squads."^[24]

The backlash to the JCP's new militant line was swift and severe. Militants were rounded up, tried, and sentenced to lengthy prison terms, and in the 1952 general election, Japanese voters vented their ire at the JCP by stripping the party of every single one of its 35 diet seats, a blow from which it would take two decades to recover.^[26] Stunned, the JCP gradually began to pull back from its militant line, a process facilitated by the death of Stalin in 1953.^[27] Finally at the 6th Party Congress in 1955, the JCP renounced the militant line completely, returning to its old "peaceful line" of gradually pursuing socialist revolution through peaceful, democratic means.^[27]

Anpo protests[]

In 1960, the JCP played a central role in organizing the massive Anpo protests against the U.S.–Japan Security Treaty, which were the largest protests in Japan's history.^[28] The JCP differed from the Japan Socialist Party, the Sohyo labor federation, and other groups who argued that the main target of the protest movement was Japanese monopoly capitalism. Instead, the JCP argued that the main enemy was American imperialism, and thus the JCP and affiliated groups focused their protests around the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo.^[29] Accordingly, JCP-linked groups were the driving force behind the "Hagerty Incident" when they mobbed a car carrying U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower's press secretary James Hagerty outside of Tokyo's Haneda Airport on June 10, 1960, provoking a major international incident and helping precipitated the downfall of the Nobusuke Kishi cabinet.^[29]

The Anpo protests were a turning point in the JCP's ongoing attempts to revive its political fortunes after the disastrous turn toward violent revolution in the early 1950s.^[24] Although the Maoists had been purged from the party following the earlier disaster, the JCP was still riven by the age-old rivalry between the Rōnō Ha (Worker-Farmer Faction) and the Kōza Ha (Lecture Faction), which dated back to the prewar era.^[24] Among other disagreements, the two factions disagreed over which stage of Marxist development Japan was currently in; the Rōnō Ha believed that Japan had already achieved full capitalism, which meant that an immediate socialist revolution was possible, whereas the Kōza Ha argued that Japan's transition to capitalism was not yet complete and that therefore what was needed was a “two-stage” revolution—first a “democratic revolution” that would overthrow American imperialism and establish true democracy, and then a “socialist revolution” that would establish communism.^[27] Although the "mainstream" of the JCP, led by Kenji Miyamoto, favored the Kōza Ha interpretation, as late as the 7th Party Congress in 1958 the "anti-mainstream" Rōnō Ha faction still controlled around 40 percent of the delegates.^[24]

The Anpo protests greatly strengthened the hand of the Kōza Ha faction.^[30] During the protest, the JCP, still scarred by the backlash to its violent line in the 1950s, had consistently advocated peaceful, orderly, and restrained protests.^[30] This stance was very unpopular with the radical student activists of the Zengakuren student federation, who broke decisively with the JCP as a result and began to build a New Left student movement;^[31] however, it proved popular with the broader public, and the JCP was able to use its image as a "peaceful" and "positive" force during the protests as a recruitment tool. Membership in the party soared during the course of the protests, doubling from 40,000 to 80,000, and most of the new recruits wound up supporting the Kōza Ha line.^[30]

Over the remainder of the 1960s, the Kōza Ha was able to purge many members from the Rōnō Ha faction, and others, disgusted with JCP policies, quit the party of their own accord.^[32] Miyamoto was able to cement his control over the party, and reigned as party chairman all the way until 1982. Meanwhile, the party's membership continued to grow rapidly, and the party began to make steady gains at the ballot box, winning more and more seats in the National Diet.^[30] By the mid-1960s, the United States Department of State estimated party membership to be approximately 120,000 (0.2% of the working age population),^[33] and the party had acquired around 300,000 members by 1970.^[8]

Sino-Soviet split[]

The party did not take sides during the Sino-Soviet split of the 1960s. Its politics were independent of the Soviet Union. Reflecting this, the party chairman Miyamoto announced the JCP's opposition to the 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia. At the same time the party had distanced itself from Mao and Maoism, which allowed it to escape being tarred by association with the depredations of China's Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution once they came to light more fully in the 1970s and after. In July 1969, the JCP declared that if it ever came to power, it would permit the free functioning of opposition parties, in an effort to distinguish itself from the one-party states in the Soviet Union and China.^[8]

These efforts proved popular, and in the 1972 general election, the JCP won an astonishing 38 seats in the Diet, surpassing its 1949 high of 35 and signalling the party's full recovery from the disastrous militant line of the early 1950s.^[34] Party membership continued to grow in the 1970s, albeit at a slower rate than in the 1960s, reaching around 500,000 members by 1980.^[8]

1980s to 21st century[]

During the 1980s, party membership began to decline, falling to 370,000 by 1997.^[8] Owing to a significant loss in electoral support, the party revised its policies in the 1990s and became a more traditional democratic socialist party.^[6] argued in the Pacific Affairs in 1996 that "the JCP's viability is crucial to the health of Japanese democracy" because "[i]t is the only established party in parliament that has not been coopted by the conservative parties. It performs the watchdog role against the ruling parties without fear or favor. More importantly, the JCP often offers the only opposition candidate in prefectural governorship, city mayoral and other local elections. Despite the ostensible differences between the non-Communist parties at the national level, they often support a joint candidate for governor or mayor so that all parties are assured of being part of the ruling coalition. If the JCP did not offer a candidate, there would be a walkover and Japanese voters would be offered a fait accompli without an electoral avenue of protest. Promoting women candidates in elections to win women's votes is another characteristic of the party. More women are elected under the Communist label than other political parties in Japan.^[35]

In 2008, foreign media recorded an increase in support for the party due to the effect of the global financial crisis on Japanese workers.^[36][37] However, the party failed to increase its number of seats in the 2009 general election. Subsequently, the projected decline of the party was halted, with the JCP becoming the third largest party in the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly^[38][39] and making gains in the House of Councillors, moving from six to 11 seats. They surged forward in the 2014 elections, receiving 7,040,130 votes (13.3%) in the constituency section and 6,062,962 (11.37%) in the party lists.

During the nomination period of the July 2016 House of Councillors election, the party signed an agreement with the Democratic, Social Democratic and People's Life parties to field a jointly-endorsed candidate in each of the 32 districts in which only one seat is contested, uniting in an attempt to take control of the House from the LDP/Komeito coalition.^[40] JCP leaders have expressed willingness to enter into a coalition with the Democratic Party, a notion which was rejected by Democratic Party President Katsuya Okada as being "impossible" in the near future due to some of the "extreme leftist policies" promoted by the JCP.^[41] The party has three Councillors up for re-election and is fielding a total of 56 candidates in the election, down from 63 candidates in the 2013 election, but still the second-most behind the LDP.^[42] However, only 14 of those candidates are contesting single- and multi-member districts, while 42 will contest the 48-seat national proportional representation block.^[42]

Policies[]

Domestic policy[]

One of the JCP's main objectives is terminating the Japan–United States military alliance and the dismantling of all American military bases in Japan.^[43] It wants to make Japan a non-aligned and neutral country, in accordance with its principles of self-determination and national sovereignty. There are about 130 American military bases and other related facilities in Japan, with Okinawa Prefecture having the largest American military base in Asia. The JCP has also traditionally championed pacifism.^[44]

With regards to Japan Self-Defence Forces (Japan's own military forces), the JCP's current policy is that it is not principally opposed to its existence (in 2000 it decided that it will agree to its use should Japan ever be attacked), but that it will seek to abolish it in the long term, international situation permitting.

The JCP also opposes possession of nuclear weapons by any country or the concept of military blocs and opposes any attempt to revise Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution, which says that "never again [...] [Japan] be visited with the horrors of war through the action of government". Regarding the resolution of disputes, it argues that priority must be given to peaceful means through negotiations, not to military solutions. The JCP says that Japan must adhere to the United Nations Charter.

The JCP has traditionally been opposed to the existence of the Imperial House since the pre-war days. From 2004,^[14] it has acknowledged the Emperor as Japan's head of state as long as he remains a figurehead. The JCP has stated that it supports the establishment of a democratic republic, but that "its [the monarchy] continuation or discontinuation should be decided by the will of the majority of the people in future, when the time is ripe to do so".^[45] It is also against Japan's use of its national flag and national anthem which it sees as a relic of Japan's militarist past.

The JCP also strives to change the nation's economic policy of what it sees as serving the interests of large corporations and banks to one of "defending the interests of the people," and to establish "democratic rules" that will check the activities of large corporations and "protect the lives and basic rights of the people".

Regarding the issue of the international economy, the JCP has advocated establishing a new international democratic economic order on the basis of respect for the economic sovereignty of each country and strongly opposes the participation to the TPP. The JCP sees the United States, transnational corporations and international financial capital as pushing globalization, which it says is seriously affecting the global economy, including the monetary and financial problems as well as North–South and environmental problems. The JCP advocates "democratic regulation of activities by transnational corporations and international financial capital on an international scale".

In September 2015 after the passage of the 2015 Japanese military legislation, the JCP called for cooperation from other opposition parties to form an interim government to abolish the bills. It was the first time the party had called for such cooperation with other parties.^{[46][47][48][49]}

The JCP supports the legalization of same-sex marriage.^[50] It also advocates for more women in politics and political life.^[43]

Foreign policy[]

The JCP adheres to the idea that Japan as an Asian country must stop putting emphasis on diplomacy centering on relations with the United States and the G8 Summit and put Asian diplomacy at the center of its foreign relations. It supports Japan establishing an "independent foreign policy in the interests of the Japanese people" and rejects "uncritically following any foreign power".

The JCP advocates that Japan issue further apologies for its actions during World War II and has condemned prime-ministerial visits to Yasukuni Shrine.^[51] In the 1930s, while the JCP was still illegal, it was the only political party to actively oppose Japan's war with China and World War II. However the JCP supports the territorial claims by Japan in the Kuril and Senkaku Islands and Liancourt Rocks disputes. Furthermore, the JCP has condemned North Korea's nuclear-weapons testing, calling for effective sanctions, but opposing the prospect of a military response.^[52]

In 2020, the JCP revised its platform for the first time since 2004. The new platform criticized the Communist Party of China, denouncing China's “great-power chauvinism and hegemonism” as “an adverse current to world peace and progress”. The JCP also removed a line from its platform which described China as a country “that is beginning a new quest for socialism”. JCP members have stated that this was due to human rights conditions in China. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of China denounced the accusations of the JCP as “groundless and biased”.^[53][54]

Organization[]

Press[]

Shimbun Akahata (English: Red Flag Newspaper) is the daily organ of the JCP in the form of a national newspaper. Several other newspapers preceded and merged into Red Flag, including (English: The Second Proletarian News), which was merged into Red Flag in 1932.^[55]Daini Musansha Shinbun was itself the immediate successor to the original The Proletarian News, which was banned by the government in September 1929.^[55] Daini Musansha Shinbun began publication immediately after the ban.^[55]

In the past, the party published numerous other newspapers as well, including another national paper called (English: Japan Political News) and a theoretical journal called (English: Forward).^[56] The party also published several regional newspapers such as Class War in and around Kyoto, Osaka and Kobe, Shinetsu Red Flag in Nagano and Hokkaido News in Hokkaido.^[57] They also published numerous (the exact number is unknown) factory newspapers.^[58]

Some regional newspapers, such as Shin Kanagawa (English: New Kanagawa) in Kanagawa, are still published.^[59]

Affiliated organizations[]

The youth wing of JCP is the Democratic Youth League of Japan. In the 1920s and 1930s, the organization published several newspapers of its own, including (English: Lenin Youth) and Proletarian Youth.^[55]

The party also has affiliate medical and consumer co-ops.^[60] The Japanese Consumers' Co-Operative Union (JCCU), the umbrella body of the co-operative movement in Japan, has a sizable number of communists in its ranks, although the exact numbers are difficult to verify.^[60] Another example of the JCP's prevalence in the co-operative movement is the Co-op Kanagawa in the Kanagawa Prefecture, which has 800,000 members and has historical ties to the JCP.^[60] It still advertises and occasionally is published in JCP newspapers such as Red Flag and New Kanagawa.^[60] The prevalence of house unions in Japan as opposed to enterprise unions has prompted much of the exceptional development of other organizations by the JCP, as well as causing the JCP to seek other external organizational support, including from .^[60]

The musical group Choir of JCP-fans (JCPファン雑唱団, JCP-fan zassyōdan), was founded in Kyoto in 2011 and directed by , composer, accordionist, choir director and an ordinary member of the National Council of The Singing Voice of Japan (日本のうたごえ, Nihon no utagoe) / うたごえ運動 Utagoe-undō). As of 2016, the choir is the only organization of Japanese musicians specializing in political support and in the cultural activity of the party, naming itself explicitly by the English official acronym JCP. Its repertory and artistic activity are strongly linked in The Singing Voice of Japan, a musical movement of Japanese working class that dates back to 1948, when the Choir of the Communist Youth League of Japan (日本青年共産同盟中央合唱団, Nihon-seinen-kyōsan-dōmei Chuō-gassyōdan) was established. In various cultural events organized by the party, the Choir of JCP-fans appears as an element among the joined choirs of the volunteer singers of The Singing Voice of Japan.

Activity of the Choir (some notable concerts and performances)

• 11 February 2011, Kyoto Kaikan Hall: Concert sponsored by the Kyoto Committee of the Japanese Communist Party (JCP).^[61]
• 1 August 2013, Nishijin Bunka Center (Kyoto): Cultural Live Revolutionary Pub, in collaboration with Tokiko Nishiyama (西山登紀子), former JCP member of the House of Councilors.^[62]
• 23 September 2014, Takaragaike Park (Kyoto): Festival Kyoto ed.2014, organized by the Kyoto Committee of the JCP.^[63]
• 1 February 2015, Kyoiku Bunka Center (Kyoto): Festival sponsored by the Kyoto Committee of the JCP.^[64]
• 29 April 2016, Takaragaike Park (Kyoto): Festival Kyoto ed.2016, organized by the Kyoto Committee of the JCP: performance with Seifuku Kōjō Iinkai (制服向上委員会) and Akira Koike (小池晃), JCP member of the House of Councilors and Secretary-General of the party.^[65][66]

Notable members[]

Pre-war (1922–1941)[]

• Kanson Arahata
• Sen Katayama
• Hajime Kawakami
• Fukumoto Kazuo
• Takiji Kobayashi
• Toshihiko Sakai
• Hitoshi Yamakawa

Wartime (1941–1945)[]

• Kim Chon-hae
• Sanzō Nosaka
• Yoshio Shiga
• Kyuichi Tokuda

Post-war (1945–present)[]

• Kiyoteru Hanada
• Kenji Miyamoto
• Hiromu Murakami
• Tetsuzo Fuwa
• Kazuo Shii
• Hisashi Inoue
• Takeshi Kimura

Leaders[]

No.	Photo	Name (Birth–death)	Constituency / title	Term of office		Prime Minister (term)
				Took Office	Left Office
General Affairs Chief Secretary (1922-1923)
1		Arahata Katsuzō (1887–1981)	None	5 July 1922	1923		Katō To. 1922–1923
							Yamamoto 1923–1924
2		Sakai Toshihiko (1871–1933)	None	1923	1923
Party outlawed by the Government
General Secretary (1945-1970)
1		Kyuichi Tokuda (1894–1953)	Rep for Tokyo 2nd (1946) Tokyo 3rd (1947-1950)	3 December 1945	14 October 1953		Shidehara 1945–1946
							Yoshida 1946–1947
							Katayama 1947–1948
							Ashida 1948
							Yoshida 1948–1954
2		Sanzō Nosaka (1892–1993)	Cou for Tokyo at-large (1956-1977)	14 October 1953	1 August 1958
							Hatoyama I. 1954–1956
							Ishibashi 1956–1957
							Kishi 1957–1960
3		Kenji Miyamoto (1908–2007)	None	1 August 1958	7 July 1970
							Ikeda 1960–1964
							Satō 1964–1972
Chairperson (1970-present)
1		Kenji Miyamoto (1908–2007)	Cou for National PR (1977-1989)	7 July 1970	31 July 1982		Satō 1964–1972
							Tanaka K. 1972–1974
							Miki 1974–1976
							Fukuda T. 1976–1978
							Ōhira 1978–1980
							Ito 1980 Acting
							Suzuki Z. 1980–1982
2		Tetsuzo Fuwa (b. 1930)	Rep for Tokyo 6th	31 July 1982	29 November 1987
							Nakasone 1982–1987
							Takeshita 1987–1989
3		Hiromu Murakami (1921–2007)	Rep for Osaka 3rd	29 November 1987	29 May 1989
4 (2)		Tetsuzo Fuwa (b. 1930)	Rep for Tokyo 6th (1969-1996) Tokyo PR block (1996-2003)	29 May 1989	24 November 2000
							Uno 1989
							Kaifu 1989–1991
							Miyazawa 1991–1993
							Hosokawa 1993–1994
							Hata 1994
							Murayama 1994–1996
							Hashimoto 1996–1998
							Obuchi 1998–2000
							Mori 2000–2001
5		Kazuo Shii (b. 1954)	Rep for Southern Kanto PR block	24 November 2000	Incumbent
							Koizumi 2001–2006
							Abe S. 2006–2007
							Fukuda Y. 2007–2008
							Asō 2008–2009
							Hatoyama Y. 2009–2010
							Kan 2010–2011
							Noda 2011–2012
							Abe S. 2012–2020
							Suga 2020–present

Popular support and electoral results[]

House of Representatives (Lower House)[]

Prior to 1996, the entire House of Representatives was elected by majoritarian/"semi-proportional" voting systems with votes cast for individuals (1946: limited voting in multi-member districts, 1947 to 1993 SNTV in multi-member districts). Since 1996, the House of Representatives is elected in a parallel election system – essentially two separate elections only in the lower house complicated by the fact that a candidate may stand in both segments and the sekihairitsu system which ties proportional list ranking to FPTP results: only the majority of members the House of Representatives, 295 (initially 300) seats, are elected in a majoritarian system with voting for candidates (first-past-the-post in single-member districts), while the remaining 180 (initially 200) seats are elected by a proportional representation system (votes are cast for party lists in regional multi-member districts, called "blocks" in the House of Representatives). The votes and vote percentages in the table below are the JCP candidates' vote totals for the whole election from before 1993 and just the votes for the party in the election to the 180 proportional seats after 1996.

House of Representatives
Election year	No. of votes	% of vote	Total seats	±	Status
1946	2,135,757	3.8	6 / 464		Opposition
1947	1,002,883	3.7	4 / 466	2	Opposition
1949	2,984,780	9.8	35 / 466	31	Opposition
1952	896,765	2.5	0 / 466	35	Opposition
1953	655,990	1.9	1 / 466	1	Opposition
1955	733,121	2.0	2 / 467	1	Opposition
1958	1,012,035	2.5	1 / 467	1	Opposition
1960	1,156,723	2.9	3 / 467	2	Opposition
1963	1,646,477	4.0	5 / 467	2	Opposition
1967	2,190,564	4.8	5 / 486	0	Opposition
1969	3,199,032	6.8	14 / 486	9	Opposition
1972	5,496,827	10.5	38 / 491	24	Opposition
1976	5,878,192	10.4	17 / 511	21	Opposition
1979	5,625,527	10.4	39 / 511	22	Opposition
1980	5,803,613	9.8	29 / 511	10	Opposition
1983	5,302,485	9.3	26 / 511	3	Opposition
1986	5,313,246	8.8	26 / 512	0	Opposition
1990	5,226,987	8.0	16 / 512	10	Opposition
1993	4,834,587	7.7	15 / 511	1	Opposition
1996	7,268,743	13.1	26 / 500	11	Opposition
2000	6,719,016	11.2	20 / 480	6	Opposition
2003	4,586,172	7.8	9 / 480	11	Opposition
2005	4,919,187	7.3	9 / 480	0	Opposition
2009	4,943,886	7.0	9 / 480	0	Opposition
2012	3,689,159	6.2	8 / 480	1	Opposition
2014	6,062,962	11.4	21 / 475	13	Opposition
2017	4,404,081	7.9	12 / 465	9	Opposition

House of Councillors (Upper House)[]

Elections to the House of Councillors are staggered. Every three years, half of the House is up for election to six-year terms. In addition, a parallel election system is used: the majority of members of the House of Councillors (currently 146 of 242, or 73 in one regular election to one half of the House) are elected in 45 (formerly 46→47) prefectural districts, votes are cast for individual candidates by SNTV, but with both multi- and single-member districts used and in the latter SNTV becomes identical to FPTP (winner-takes-all). The remaining, currently 96 members (48 per regular election) are elected in one nationwide district. Until 1980, votes there were cast for individuals too by SNTV. Since 1983, votes are cast for party lists and the seats are allocated proportionally (d'Hondt) in the nationwide district. Unlike in general elections to the lower house, a candidate may not be nominated in both segments of one regular election to the upper house. The seats totals show below are the JCP's overall post-election seat totals, not just their seats elected in that particular year. The votes shown are the votes in the election for the 48 (formerly 50) seats in the nationwide SNTV/PR segment.

Election year	National district votes		Total
	No. of votes	% of votes	Seats	±	Status
1947	610,948	2.9	4 / 250		Opposition
1950	1,333,872	4.8	4 / 260	0	Opposition
1953	293,877	1.1	2 / 260	2	Opposition
1956	599,254	2.1	2 / 254	0	Opposition
1959	551,916	1.9	3 / 254	1	Opposition
1962	1,123,947	3.1	4 / 254	1	Opposition
1965	1,652,364	4.4	6 / 254	2	Opposition
1968	2,146,879	5.0	7 / 251	1	Opposition
1971	3,219,307	8.1	10 / 251	3	Opposition
1974	4,931,650	9.4	19 / 260	9	Opposition
1977	4,260,050	8.4	16 / 252	3	Opposition
1980	4,072,019	7.3	12 / 252	4	Opposition
1983	4,163,877	8.9	14 / 252	2	Opposition
1986	5,430,838	9.5	16 / 252	2	Opposition
1989	3,954,408	7.0	14 / 252	2	Opposition
1992	3,532,956	7.9	11 / 252	3	Opposition
1995	3,873,955	9.5	14 / 252	3	Opposition
1998	8,195,078	14.6	23 / 252	9	Opposition
2001	4,329,210	7.9	20 / 247	3	Opposition
2004	4,363,107	7.8	9 / 242	11	Opposition
2007	4,407,937	7.5	7 / 242	2	Opposition
2010	3,563,556	6.1	6 / 242	1	Opposition
2013	5,154,055	9.7	11 / 242	5	Opposition
2016	6,016,245	10.7	14 / 242	3	Opposition
2019	4,483,411	8.95	13 / 245	1	Opposition

Current Diet members[]

House of Representatives[]

House of Councillors[]

See also[]

• Appeal to the People
• Democracy in Marxism
• Democratic Youth League of Japan
• Japanese dissidence during the early Shōwa period
• List of foreign delegations at the 21st Japanese Communist Party Congress
• List of foreign delegations at the 22nd Japanese Communist Party Congress
• Relations between Japanese Revolutionaries and the Comintern and the Soviet Union
• Socialist thought in Imperial Japan
• Zengakuren

References[]

Citations[]

Bibliography[]

Books[]

• Beckmann, George M.; Okubo, Genji (1969). The Japanese Communist Party, 1922–1945. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. ISBN 978-0804706742.
• Kapur, Nick (2018a). Japan at the Crossroads: Conflict and Compromise after Anpo. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0674984424.
• Uno, Shun'ichi (1991). Nihon zenshi: Japan chronik (in Japanese). Tokyo: Kodansha Ltd. ISBN 4-06-203994-X.

Journal articles[]

• Berton, Peter (May 2000). "The Japanese Communist Party and Its Transformations". Japan Policy Research Institute (JPRI Working Paper No. 67). Retrieved 26 July 2020.
• Kapur, Nick (2018b). "The Empire Strikes Back? The 1968 Meiji Centennial Celebrations and the Revival of Japanese Nationalism". Japanese Studies. 38 (3): 305–328.

Further reading[]

• Peter Berton and Sam Atherton, "The Japanese Communist Party: Permanent Opposition, but Moral Compass." New York: Routledge, 2018.
• T.E. Durkee, The Communist Party of Japan, 1919–1932. PhD dissertation. Stanford University, 1953.
• G.A. Hoston, Marxism and the Crisis of Development in Prewar Japan. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1986.
• Hong M. Kim, Deradicalization of the Japanese Communist Party Under Kenji Miyamoto. Cambridge University Press, 1976.
• Stephen S. Large, The Romance of Revolution in Japanese Anarchism and Communism during the Taishō Period. Cambridge University Press, 1977.
• Robert A. Scalapino, The Japanese Communist Movement: 1920–1966. London: Cambridge University Press. 1967.
• R. Swearingen and P. Langer, Red Flag in Japan: International Communism in Action, 1919–1951. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1952.

External links[]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Japanese Communist Party.

• Official website
• "Anti-Russian Organization Rises in Japan; Red Liaison Officer Says That American Occupation Too Soft". Times Daily. 9 October 1945.
• "Military Oblivion Is Japs' Fate". The Evening Independent. 15 October 1945.
• "Jap Communists Ask United Front Against Shidehara". The Evening Independent. 19 October 1945.
• "Japanese Reds Enjoy Freedom For First Time". Berkeley Daily Gazette. 15 December 1945.
• Members of the Communist Party march and protest in Tokyo (in Japanese). NHK. 27 December 1945.
• Article on Japanese Communist Party from Japanese Press Translations 1945–46. Dartmouth Digital Library Collections.
• "Japanese Communist Party Asks End of Feudal System". Berkeley Daily Gazette. 23 February 1946.
• "5–12 The Red Purge". National Diet Library. Modern Japan Archives. 6 June 1950.
• "Red Parliament Members Fight Purge in Japan". The Owosso Argus-Press. 8 June 1950.
• "Japan's Eight Top Communists Still Missing Without Clue". Reading Eagle. 3 June 1951.
• Kazuo Shii: Comments from the Japanese Communist Party on the upcoming election. YouTube video (in English) of the JCP leader Kazuo Shii discussing the 2014 Japanese general election. Uploaded 8 December 2014.