OSAKA – Having long since abandoned any pretence of being a Leninist vanguard communist party, the Japanese Communist Party is now apparently experimenting with being an avant-garde communist party.
“work ers POLITICAL. political lacitilop L A B O U R ¿ J a pan;;;; elect ion,” explained Kazuo Shii [No relation. –WS Editor in Chief] in the form of a poem recited in the place of a speech at a recent rally in Osaka, performed over a soundtrack of atonal guitar playing. “WAR! WAR! WAR! WAR! WAR! WAR! WAR! WAR! WAR! WAR! WAR! WAR! WAR! WAR! WAR! WAR! WAR!”
“Peace.” he concluded.
Michiro Endo, best known as vocalist for the seminal Japanese punk act ‘The Stalin’, hailed the change in presentation by the Eurocommunist party: “I’ve been saying for years that the party needs to rebrand itself in a bid to reach more people outside the traditional sites of industrial labour organising, and I’ve also for years endorsed the mentality reflected in their new slogan: ‘Humanity is naked with naughty bits a-floppin’, we are the communists, we won’t be stoppin’.”
Yasuko Onuki, of Melt-Banana fame, also expressed her hope that members of the Japanese punk scene would embrace the creative new direction of the JCP, and was enthusiastic about the idea of personally getting involved in helping to build the rejuvenated party: “I will play benefit concerts for them, just as long as I don’t have to shake hands with any of their friends from the CPUSA. There is not enough hand sanitiser in the world for me to do that.”
The Zainichi Korean community loyal to the Workers’ Party of Korea remains suspicious of the JCP. Although a recent protest was carried out “in support of the DPRK’s right to self defence”, our correspondent in Osaka found that most local Zainichi Koreans suspect this was done sarcastically, particularly after the protesters joined together in a song whose lyrics called on the DPRK to nuke Tokyo, Posadas style.
“This is Japan, you know?” explained Ms. Kim, head of a local youth organisation for Zainichi Koreans, “Even the communists talk about ‘Japanese sovereignty’ and refuse to acknowledge that Japan is still an imperialist country. We’re not hopeful that they’ll come to their senses.”
On the other end of the national question spectrum, there are the Ryukyu republicans, who have historically been warm to the JCP’s stance on the US military presence in Okinawa. However, the turn to the surreal has cost the party dearly, as an earnest march against the military presence was interrupted by local JCP cadres throwing noodles in every direction and screaming “LENIN WAS TAIWANESE! LENIN WAS TAIWANESE!” in the faces of the protestors, in what the JCP later described as “a biting satire about colonialism in the Asia-Pacific region”.
In response to this shocking turn of events, various Trotskyist groups around the world have released statements by their sister organisations in Japan who are literally better known in English language Trotskyist publications than they are in Japan itself. The Japanese people remain blissfully ignorant of the continued existence of Trotskyism.
Worker's Spatula 