THE REVOLUTIONARY DAYS IN TOKYO
The entire world intensely followed and instinctively grasped the tremendous events in Japan, the demonstrations — ardent and systematically carried on for weeks on end — which had as their culminating points Haggerty's running away in a helicopter and Einsenhower's abandoning his trip to Japan. Everyone saw therein a mighty blow struck at US imperialism in particular, and more generally at the whole structure the capitalists have erected against the rising revolution throughout the world.
The events in Japan unquestionably had their sources in the atrocious crimes committed against that country's masses who, at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, had served as guinea-pigs for atomic war. Fifteen years could not wipe out such memories, especially at a moment when it was a question of preparing new holocausts.
The fact that, in spite of everything, the JapaneseAmerican part was later signed, proves that the imperialists have no intention of giving up their plans, even if they have to introduce changes in them to take into account conditions that are becoming more and more disadvantageous for themselves. It cannot be forgotten that the pact was signed literally in hiding, which shows how limited a value it has in case of war.
The events in Japan, occurring soon after those in South Korea that forced the hangman Syngman Rhee to let go of power, are a direct blow against the whole US combat system in the Pacific. The lackeys of South Vietnam, of Thailand, of Laos, and that "great friend" Chiang Kai-Shek, have felt these days the fear of death. It is well to recall also that after having given up going to Japan, Eisenhower got such a reception at Okinawa that he hastened to get out by the back stairs. But the events in Japan have an importance that goes far beyond the question of relations between the East and West solely from the strategic and military angle. They were preliminary fights in a social situation which in Japan is gravid with revolutionary explosions against
We have not space in an editorial note to develop all the characteristics of the situation in Japan (we refer our readers to news notes on Japan in our issues 2, 3, and 8, and especially to the two-part article, "The Situation and Tasks in Present-Day Japan." by T K, in our issues 6 and 7, Spring and Summer 1959). Here it will suffice to recall that Japan combines both the characteristics of an economically very developed capitalist country and, in certain fields, characteristics bordering on those of other Asiatic countries. rather contradictory combination basically explains the explosive, tumultuous, and powerful nature of the demonstrations and struggles through which the social contradictions tend to work themselves Essentially Japan contains contradictions reminiscent of those of
came into the arena for the first time large numbers of "prosperous" advanced capitalist state like Japan, studenis
FOURTH INTERNATIONAL Czarist Russia at the beginning of the XXth century but raised to a much higher level. on the march. proletarian, broadest objectives. The Japanese Communist Party, which was blathering the Stalinist asininities about the democratic revolution - and this in face of a China which, for the Japanese, was a century behind and was taking giant strides thanks to a victorious proletarian movement of the masses.
very important characteristic of the Japanese workers' movement is that its great majority and its cadres are not controlled by a CP dependent on Moscow or Pekin. The main political force therein is the Left Socialist Party, which, in these last years, has experienced an internal political life which is stormy and in which there are great potentialities for a revolutionary Marxist tendency. This party, through its trade-union cadres, leads the SOHY O labor federation, which played an immense part in the June 1960 revolutionary days by mobilizing the workers who formed the active mass therein.
One characteristic that it would be impossible to minimize is the role — glorious, heroic, and in every way deserving of admiration - of the student youth and its great organization, the Zengakuren. Three hundred
9 leadership. By their example, the Japanese students have struck serious blows against the Stalino-Khrush chevian conception of the march to socialism by peacefu] parliamentary paths. It can be easily understood that the temperature that has for months been rising in Japan has considerably contributed to affecting the Chinese, and thus, indirectly, stirring up the divergences between the Chinese and the Soviets.
The Japanese revolution has made a very promising
But the whole revolutionary process — for both the time it takes and the result it achieves - dependa on the existence of a revolutionary Marxist leadership. On this particular poini the situation — as we have just pointed out above — is also promising. But it were well to avoid thoughtless optimism. It is known that the Japanese labor and socialist movement has in these last years gone through numerous crises, and it would seem from the latest information in the newspapers that, after these recent events, new differentiations are appearing. However regrettable this aspect of things may be, we must be only half-surprised. The explosive contradictions in Japan make their way even into the labor and socialist movement.
genuine revolutionary Marxist leadership will be one which on both the political and organizational levels will have succeeded in solving them inside its own organization, and which in addition will have acquired mass influence and strength. However difficult this task may be, we have no doubt that, in all the possibilities that June 1960 has revealed in Japan, there are also the worker and intellectual elements who, with the aid of fifty thousand members strong, it has been led since its last congress by a coalition of "leftist" Communists who have broken away from the CP, and Trotskyists - a coalition that had eliminated the Stalinists from the of Japan to the conquest of power.
the whole international Marxist vanguard grouped by the Fourth International, will build the revolutionary party that will guide the proletariat and toiling masses