A Marxist Reports from Japan

By E. YAMANISHI The great struggles of the Japanese students and workers involving almost the whole nation in May and June, forced the cancellation of Eisenhower’s visit and the resignation of the Kishi govenment. The following report is a full account of these events and also an assessment of the role played by the political parties. The report is sent exclusively to The Newsletter by E. Yamanishi, a Japanese socialist.

THE struggle of the Japanese people against the U.S.-Japanese Security Pact, which began in the early part of 1959, steadily gained in mass support as the negotiations for the Pact neared completion and the discussions in Parliament became more and more bitter. But in May, 1960, there began an entirely new stage of development of the mass movement, At midnight on May 15, the ruling Liberal-Democratic Party ensured the passing of the Pact by sheer physical force: opposition deputies were dragged from the House, all rules of procedure were broken, and the vote was taken in a matter of seconds. Henceforth the struggle against the pact took on a new tempo and rapidly extended in scope.

From May 15 till June 23, when Foreign Minister Fujiyama and American Ambassador MacArthur exchanged ratifications, the Anti-Pact struggle threw the Japanese people into a melting pot of excitement and anger. The whole area of the Houses of Parliament and the residence of Premier Kishi were completely surrounded by hundreds of thousands of workers, students, university teachers, intellectuals, Christians, Buddhists, housewives, shopkeepers, indeed every section of the population, all in furious protest against the Treaty.

The imminent prospect was that the Treaty would be Kishi said, to most humbly listen to the ‘voiceless voice automatically approved in the Upper House on June 18 of the nation’. (any bill which is passed by the Lower House is auto- Delegates from trade union and student organizations matically approved by the Upper House without any rushed to Tokyo from all over the country. The excitediscussion by the latter after 30 days). ment and indignation of the people grew in intensity Faced with this threat and the scheduled visit of Eisen- from one hour to the next. Hardly a single university or hower on June 19, the demonstrators were roused to new college could continue to function. Housewives, their heights of anger by the high-handed attitude of Kishi, who babies on their backs, no longer able to sit in front of declared that the demonstrators were nothing but a mob their radios and television sets, rushed to the Houses of of the lowest classes, dancing to the tune of a mere hand- Parliament and joined the demonstration. One girl from ful of agents of international ‘communism’. He wanted, (Continued on page 234)

By G. HEALY Once again Morgan Phillips staggers from the fast- up and down the country where young socialists were ness of Transport House in a last-ditch effort to save guilty of such crimes as the production of duplicated the Right wing from certain defeat at Scarborough. broadsheets airing their opinions. So severe is the crisis inside the party and so discredited His latest statement rambles on about bureaucracy on are Mr. Gaitskell and his immediate supporters that it Labour-controlled councils, but only a few weeks ago he is now left to the non-representative Phillips to fight proposed that the Parliamentary Labour Party should be what can only be for him a tiring rearguard action. independent of the party, in other words, a bureaucratic Mr. Phillips was not elected by anybody to the post of elite responsible to nobody. general secretary. He is an appointed, paid official of the He is very careful to avoid stating his position on party. The first and only time, to our knowledge, that Clause Four and the H-bomb. This is deliberate. He he decided to sample the democratic process in public was supported Morrison’s retreat from nationalization in 1948 when he stood for adoption as prospective Parliamentary and he has carried out the policy supporting the H-bomb candidate in a Derbyshire constituency. On that occasion adopted at the Brighton conference in 1957. In all he was decisively rejected. respects he is just as responsible and as guilty as the RightHe has, of course, remained silent during all those years wing Gaitskell clique. when the Right wing, step by step, moved further away This statement is an effort to sow some last minute from socialist policy. Whilst he now feels that young confusion in the constituencies. It will not be successsocialists should have their own organization, he readily ful. The Left have scored important victories on the Hacquiesced to the 1955 Margate decisions which were bomb and Clause Four. It should be possible without responsible for the party turning its back on youth. much difficulty to find another general secretary for the Phillips encouraged the full-time officials under his con- Labour Party who will be more responsive to these new trol to wage a series of witch-hunts in constituency parties policy changes than Mr. Phillips.

JAPAN (continued from front page) a Tokyo suburb, who had never demonstrated before, went to the demonstration with her friend carrying a placard ‘Let’s Demonstrate Too’. Soon they were joined by another thousand citizens, members of no organization, one of them the wife of a factory owner who had just fought against a strike of his employees.

Police brutally murder girl student On June 15, when student demonstrators tried to hold a protest rally in the Parliament grounds, armed police dispersed them with tear gas and batons (some were armed with steel batons). Hundreds of students and university teachers who had been anxiously watching their students and warning them against the Rightists’ brutal assault were seriously injured. A girl student of Tokyo University, daughter of a professor of Chuo University, was brutally murdered in this bloodiest attack by the frenzied armed police against a defenceless student group. The desperate and daring broadcast of announcer Shima of this bloody June 15 night, while he himself was gripped at the neck by the hand of one of the murderous police, lent great drama to the whole incident.

Alongside these demonstrations, organized workers independently proceeded to demonstrate their strength in strikes at their workshops and factories. The pressure of this upsurge of fighting spirit among the rank-and-file workers compelled the organization of several official strikes by the leaders of Sohyo (trade union federation).

On June 4, the members of the 350,000-strong National Railway Workers’ Union and other Sohyo-affiliated unions, together with members of the Zengakuren Students’ Federation, occupied the nation’s key stations from the preceding night to block railway traffic. In Tokyo, the railway traffic was completely stopped from 4 a.m. to 7 am. Train timetables were disrupted throughout the nation. Transport workers’. unions (comprising the workers on private railways, buses and street-cars) and Government and municipal workers in the capital were included in 57 unions of 5,600,000 workers who joined in ‘a general strike of two hours.

The biggest strike in Japanese history The National Federation of Coal Miners’ Unions, National Federation of Miners’ Unions, All-Japan Motor Car Industry Workers’ Unions, Amalgamated ° Printers’ Unions, National Federation of General Workers’ Unions etc., proclaimed a 24-hour strike while other unions in private industry also resorted to strike action. general strike of June 4 ended with success, backed by the sympathy of the whole people.

On June 18, Government and Municipal Workers’ Unions throughout the country held protest rallies within their working hours at their workplaces. On June 22, 111 unions of 6,000,000 members affiliated to Sohyo and other netural federations, entered the biggest strike in the whole history of Japan. That day, National Railway Workers’ Unions completely stopped trains throughout the whole country till 7 am. Sixty unions of workers on private railways stopped cars until 6 or 6.30 a.m. In the big cities like Tokyo and Osaka, city transport workers’ unions joined the general strike with a stoppage of buses and tramcars till 5 or 7 a.m.

Government and Municipal Workers’ Unions held protest rallies at their workplaces for up to two hours. Postal Service Workers’ Unions, Telephone and Telegraph Workers’ Unions did the same. The Teachers’ Union of - Aucust 13, 1960 Japan, one of the biggest unions in Japan, cancelled two hours of lessons to join the united protest rallies. Tanro (the National Federation of Coal Miners’ Unions, six biggest unions of National Miners’ Federation) stopped work for 24 hours. All unions affiliated to the Amalgamated Chemical Workers’ Federation struck for 12 to 24 hours. Other chemical workers’ leagues, All-Japan Transport Workers’ Unions, National Harbour Workers’ Union, National Federation of Printers’ Unions, All-Japan Motor Car Industry Workers’ Union, National Federation of Paper Pulp Workers’ Unions, Newspaper Workers’ Federation, All-Japan Red Cross Employees’ Union, all went on a limited one-hour strike or held protest rallies within work hours at their workplaces.

Eisenhower trip is cancelled The Anti-Treaty struggle and the movement against Eisenhower’s visit became intertwined. When Press Secretary Hagerty wanted to force his way to Tokyo from Haneda Airport on June 10 by car instead of by means of the helicopter which was kept ready to take him off, he was surrounded by an angry demonstration of some 4,500 workers and students for about an hour, and finally had to be rescued by his helicopter. Still Hagerty and Kishi declared there would be no change in their plan to go through with Eisenhower’s visit to Japan. On June 11, Japanese workers and students answered this challenge with a demonstration of 200,000 outside the Parliament, the Premier’s residence and the American Embassy. On June 16, the arrogant United States and Japanese govern‘ments were finally forced to give up the plan in deference to the anger of the whole nation, further aroused by the bloody events of the night of June 15, described above.

The capitalists counter-attack As a’ result of the tremendous struggle the Kishi: cabinet was forced to resign. However, despite the tremendous upheaval caused by the workers’ and students’ struggle, and the large number of middle-class people aroused to political action, the Japanese capitalists retain complete control of the government and continue to direct its policy unswervingly in their own interests. They recognize the political confusion resulting from the enforced ratification of the Security Pact and open suppression of Parliamentarism, and hope to ride the storm by putting all the blame on Kishi himself, replacing him with another man of their choice.

When Kishi announced his intention of resigning on June 23, immediately after the ratification, there emerged into the open the factional struggle within the Liberal-Democratic Party, with five separate groupings nominating candidates for the succession. Very soon these resolved into two main factions: first, the old ruling group of Ikeda, Minister of Industry and Foreign Trade, backed by Kishi and his brother Sato, Minister of Finance; second, the faction led by Ishii, Chairman of the Party’s Executive, and supported by the lower ranks in the Party. Ikeda won the vote for President, 302 against 194. Like Kishi, he is a pro-American spokesman, heavily committed to the current line of Japanese big business, which is a straightforward line up with American imperialism in Eastern Asia and to establish their own leadership in that area. Ikeda has no popular following; he is notorious for a recent insolent declaration in the Diet that the unemployed and the poor should eat barley if they could not get rice, and that it did not concern him at all if a few small and medium businesses went bankrupt.

Capitalists try to terrorize workers Objectively, the strength of the colonial revolution, together with the threatened consequences of intensified international business competition, impels the imperialists to press forward their plans with a dangerous hastiness, as their methods of imposing the Security Pact on the Japanese people have clearly shown. Nonetheless, the same incident poses for us mercilessly the problem that despite the great struggles against the Pact, no lasting blow has really been struck against the power of the bourgeoisie. Indeed, the ruling class, while trying to stabilise the situation by a change of Prime Minister, is preparing savage blows against the labour movement. Militant workers who were prominent in the recent strikes and demonstrations are coming in for punitive measures on a large scale.

Working class support miners The Telegraph and Telephone Corporation announced in July its measures against 2,160 workers, including the top le:ders of the union. Immediately afterwards, The Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry published measures against 26 union leaders. At the Miike Coal Mine in Fukuoka Prefecture in Kyushu, where 9,000 miners have been struggling ever since January this year against the terrorism of armed police, Rightist gangsters and 5,000 company-union men, the government is now (July 10) mobilizing more than 10,000 armed police from other various prefectures to drive the mass pickets out of their occupied positions.

Armoured cars are being rushed from Tokyo to Omuta City, where the Miike Mine is situated. Police mobilization will be completed by July 17. Sohyo, the Socialist Party and other democratic organizations (including Zengakuren) are rushing their organizers to the spot. Sohyo and Tanro are mobilizing 10,000 organizers to defend the Miike miners. The most bloody clash will occur in a few days’ time as the result of this determined offensive by the government.* And there is no doubt that further attacks are on the way.

The organization of the workers to defend themselves against the counter-attack of the bourgeoisie is seriously lagging behind. The purely Parliamentary policies of the Socialist Party, Communist Party and Sohyo leaderships, completely lacking in fight and perspective, are allowing the bourgeoisie every chance to organize its counter-offensive. All of them are turning the workers’ attention from the organized struggles of the workers at their places of work towards the dissolution of the Diet and a general election. In the repression of the militant elements within the labour movement, the bourgeoisie fully expects the cooperation of the top bureaucrats of Sohyo and other unions; after all, the same militants threaten their own bureaucratic rule inside the unions AucGustT 13, 1960 The recent struggles clearly exposed once again that neither Sohyo, the Socialist Party nor the Communist. Party leaders are capable of putting first the strategic question of the defeat of the capitalists and the conquest of working class power. No matter how high a pitch the workers’ struggle reaches, and even though vital questions of class power are more and more obviously posed, it remains a fact that without a determined and principled revolutionary leadership there can be no victory for the working class.

Right wing Social Democrats suffer defeat The struggle against the new Security Pact was formally led by the People’s Council Against the Revision of the Security Treaty. This was formed at the beginning of 1959 by all the organizations and groups in opposition to the revision of the Treaty, in order to co-ordinate their actions. In reality, it is an amalgamation of the leaders of all kinds of democratic and peace-loving organizations and trade unions, under the leadership of the Socialist -Party and Sohyo; at the peak of the upheaval it had al- , most no authority among the masses. At the beginning of its activity, the Right-wing Social Democrats of the Nishio group, now in the Democratic-Socialist Party, but then still with the Socialist. Party, tried to drive out the Communist Party and Zengakuren from the Council, but this proved impossible as mass support grew, and eventually they themselves practically turned their backs on the _ Later, the Stalinists and the main faction of Sohyo tried to oust Zengakuren from the People’s Council, but again the development of the movement barred their attempts. Through the activities of its rank-and-file members, the Communist Party had a certain influence in the local cémmittees for joint struggle. On this basis, they gradually gained some influence in the centre of the Council, though without clear differentiation from the Sohyo faction.. :

The revision of the treaty expressed the class needs of the capitalists in Japan and the United States, and therefore effective struggles against it had to be led and organized from a specific and direct class point of view. Especially it had to be closely tied up with the struggle against rationalization and speed-up in industry, which the bourgeoisie is using aS a weapon against the workers. This is part of an attempt to consolidate its national economic foundation in preparation for imperialist advance into South-East Asia. Since the revision of the security treaty was a class attack allowing no room for compromise, the ‘struggle against it also could be nothing other than the real struggle of the working class at the factories and _ pits; only this could really threaten the bourgeoisie. For this, the organization of genuine strikes in the basic industries was an absolute necessity.

Workers are held back However, the Socialist Party, Communist Party and