Workers World, Vol. 2 No. 13
What is really at stake in Japan? What is really on the order of the day? It is the revolutionary seizure of power, for which the objective situation has fully ripened.
It is first necessary to define the aims of the basic classes in contemporary Japanese society in order to understand this situation clearly.
The Japanese bourgeoisie, having thoroughly exposed itself as a tool of Wall Street imperialism, is desperately trying to confine the masses to strictly bourgeois-democratic limitations. It is trying to make absolutely sure that the masses do not go beyond the confines of the “democratic” state structure. It intends to placate the masses with a fraudulent bourgeois election and divert them from the path of revolution.
The aim of the proletariat and its allies is to break through the façade of hypocritical bourgeois democracy and to erect a proletarian dictatorship.
This aim has on numerous occasions been given expression by various workers’ and students’ organizations, particularly by the revolutionary elements in the Zengakuren.
In the days immediately following the Hagerty debacle and the forced cancellation of Eisenhower’s visit, it had become apparent that a truly revolutionary situation had finally matured, bringing with it the elements of dual power.
On the one hand stood the Kishi government, supported by the bourgeoisie, the police and the government bureaucracy, with the army standing by. And on the other hand there stood the Japanese proletariat, its organized trade unions (SOHYO), the revolutionary student youth grouped around Zengakuren, and the lowest strata of the plebian masses in the cities and the poor of the countryside.
A test of strength took place and is still taking place – between these two powers. It remained for the Zengakuren and SOHYO, along with the representatives of the above groups, to constitute themselves as the government of the country and call upon the masses to rally around it and repudiate the parliamentary masquerade of the bourgeoisie. (Naturally the exact day and hour for doing this must depend on special tactical considerations.)
All slogans had already crystalized themselves into one: “Kishi Must Go!” And the hatred of Kishi, the oppressor of Japanese workers and tool of American capitalists, had become well-nigh universal.
Hatred of the foreign occupier is a powerful cement in welding the revolutionary masses together. The enrichment of the Japanese bourgeoisie through the American occupation authorities in the face of the poverty of the masses makes the appeal for the overthrow of Kishi’s government far more powerful than would otherwise by the case.
But there is a great obstacle to the seizure of power besides the reactionary bourgeoisie itself. That obstacle is the leadership and the policies of the “left-wing socialists” and the CP. For the leadership of these organizations, contrary to false impressions generated by the vile red-baiting press in this country, are carrying out a policy which helps and abets the plans of the Japanese bourgeoisie and even its overlords in Washington.
The strategy of the bourgeoisie was to divert the revolutionary struggle of the masses into safe parliamentary channels – to create the illusion that a ministerial reshuffle was the basic solution to a deep-going social crisis, a crisis of bourgeois society itself.
The CP and SP leaders joined the bourgeoisie in creating this illusion.
To confine the objectives of the revolutionary mass movement to a purely parliamentary reshuffling was the worst of all deceptions. For the history of all bourgeois parliamentarism teaches that the bourgeoisie can rule no matter what party and no matter what clique holds office as long as the essential elements of state power, the army, police and governmental bureaucracy, remain intact.
Under such circumstances, the bourgeois parliament is nothing more than a screen behind which the class enemy maneuvers, dupes the mass movement and then destroys it.
To utilize the bourgeois parliament to the very end in the interest of rallying the masses and exposing the bourgeoisie is the duty of every working class party. However, when the elements of dual power become apparent, and the masses or the majority of class-conscious workers among the masses have become thoroughly disillusioned with the bourgeois parliament and the hypocritical stooges at its head, such as Kishi and Co., the situation is different. Then it is the duty of the working class parties to give political expression to their side of the dual power which has openly split Japanese society.
The large Socialist fraction in the Diet was plainly cognizant of this all-important fact when it decided to hand in its joint resignation. The next logical and consistent step for them to have taken was to convene a congress of the basic organizations of the popular masses, composed of the trade unions, the various anti-treaty organizations, the revolutionary youth organizations, the peasants and all working class organizations who stood on a program of “Kishi Must Go” and an “End to the Japan-U.S. Treaty.”
This in fact would have been, and even as of now would be, the embryo workers’ state in direct and irreconcilable opposition to the capitalist state.
Such a body would have the authority to declare any treaty signed by Kishi null and void and not binding on the Japanese people. Such a body would have had the support of the decisive elements among the popular masses as even their enemies now admit.
But the Social Democrats, true to their role as handmaidens of the bourgeoisie, refused to make a complete break with the bourgeois parliamentary regime. By the trick method of having resigned from parliament, but not really handing in their resignation, and merely depositing it with the chairman of their parliamentary delegation, they revealed their unwillingness for a clean break with the bourgeois regime.
In the meantime, the high waters of the revolutionary struggle have temporarily subsided. The hated treaty is signed. But the issue of Kishi’s resignation still remains.
Kishi, of course, must go. He is hated by the masses and he is of no further use to the capitalist rulers. The bourgeoisie does not mind having a new general parliamentary election, especially if the time and circumstances are well chosen to suit its own need and the election is conducted by its own henchmen. A ministerial re-shuffle or even a new bourgeois coalition with an SP-supported ministry could still serve its predatory class interest. (Indeed, in a revolutionary situation, this would serve the bourgeoisie much better than Kishi who is so thoroughly exposed!)
But the revolutionary mood of the masses must not be dissipated and frustrated by parliamentary deception and dilatory tactics by the leaders of the CP and SP as has happened all too often in other countries.
The tactic of convening a congress of all the workers and revolutionary student organizations is the method best suited for organizing the overthrow of the Kishi regime and the establishment of a workers’ state.
This would open a new historical epoch in the Far East.
Last updated: 11 May 2026