ABSTRACT
The Japanese Communist movement is part of a larger social movement that has developed since the end of the nineteenth century. Its influence represents an amalgam of Marxism, Christian humanism, socialism, and anarcho-syndicalism. The Japan Communist party (JCP) was formally organized on July 15, 1922, at the home of one of its founders in the middle-class district of Shibuya in Tokyo. In January 1950, shortly after the JCP achieved its greatest electoral success, the Communist Information Bureau issued a blistering attack against Nosaka’s peaceful parliamentary tactics, urging the party to adopt a militant line. Joseph Stalin had his own reasons for insisting on this policy change, which went against the best interests of the JCP. Since the mid-1950s the JCP’s development and policies have borne the imprint of its undisputed leader—namely, Miyamoto Kenji, who was seventy-eight years old in 1986. This period represents almost half of the party’s sixty-four-year history.
