Down with the Kishida administration! Turn Aggressive war into a Civil War!
Overthrow Imperialism of aggression and massacre!
Stop aggressive war on China, prevent world war!
For the explosive anti-war and anti-military base struggle!

Preface

In 2024 we are going to face a year of crossroads, a historical choice between world war and world revolution. Each of working class people who live in this age is required how to live and fight. We are witnessing a large number of people with younger generation at its forefront are already rising up, well aware of the advent of a revolutionary convulsion.

A decisive shock was given by the uprising of Palestinian resistance forces, headed by Hamas, Islamic resistance movement, on October 7 last year. To this resolute declaration for national liberation, Israel responded, supported by the United States and all other imperialist powers, with horrible genocide and war of aggression on Palestinian people. This attack instantly called forth unprecedented wide-spread denunciation against Israel and the United States and rising up of people of the whole world. The struggle for radical change of the world and total human liberation is rapidly expanding as an expression of the anger of people of the whole world against unbearable brutal imperialist world domination.

While the war to suppress Palestinian national liberation continues, the war in Ukraine has been aggravated and bogged down. In the East Asia, another big war, a war of aggression by US and Japanese imperialism on China is impending. It is the result of the decline of US imperialism, which after the long rule over the post World War II system, has no other way for survival than to plunge into a war on China, the world second largest power. This desperate drive of the United States for aggressive war on China and world war is the determining factor of the world situation now.

In face of this historical upheaval, war and revolution, the class struggle in Japan, especially the anti-war, anti-military base struggle headed by Okinawa has a decisive position to prevent US-Japan move to aggressive war on China. Now is the time to raise the slogans: “Turn Japanese imperialist war of aggression into a civil war, in solidarity with fighting Asian people and the oppressed nations“.

Let’s stand up for a decisive battle in 2024 to overthrow the corrupt Kishida administration!

I. The start of the struggle to “turn aggressive wan into a civil war, in solidarity with fighting Asian peoples” and November 19 Rally

(1) The three-union initiative and Grand March has joined in explosion of anger against genocide in Gaza

International Workers’ Rally 2023 has been successfully carried out with a larger mobilization than last year, 2,800 participants, raising slogan, “Stop the war by the power of workers!”, as an exciting anti-war workers’ assembly.

The initial organizers of the November Rally were three labor unions– Solidarity Union of Japan Construction and Transport Workers Kansai Area Branch (Kan-Nama), Metal and Machinery Workers’ Union in Osaka (Minato-Godo) and National Railway Motive Power Union of Chiba (Doro-Chiba).

Michitoshi Seki, president of Doro-Chiba, emphasized in his keynote speech: “Labor unions open an active perspective to prevent war in East Asia” and appealed to confront world war drive by the power of international solidarity and to revive strike for the future of Japanese labor movement.

The rally has adopted “Korea-Japan Labor Joint Statement 2023” and “Palestine Solidarity Resolution” to forge international labor solidarity to confront world war.

Class struggle labor movement led by the three militant unions denounced and exposed the class character of the existing labor unions headed by the Rengo (Japanese Trade Union Confederation) who has surrendered to and are collaborating with imperialism, and the three unions strengthened its tie with radical anger of working class people against war. Unity with foreign workers from Palestine and Myanmar living in Japan is widened and the young workers and students who have been playing a leading role in anti-war movement showed up in their expanded contingents. The recent experiences of organizing anti-war struggle have remarkably contributed to vitalize activities in workplaces, as is demonstrated by several strikes immediately after the November rally.

Solidarity with October 7 Uprising

The historic success of November 19 Rally was achieved through the decisive autumn battle which was fought by all-out organizational activities of the comrades of JRCL following the party line of

“Rise up against war! Organize November 19 Rally!” (Zenshin No.3,305). Anti-war demonstrations were organized every week and everywhere by the Great March Campaign against the Constitutional Revision and War, distributing hundreds of thousands of flyers on the street and in workplaces to call for standing up against war to overthrow imperialism.

In face of aggravating wars, anti-war demonstration has been heated up and lively discussions have taken place on the street to gain the support of wider range of working class people. Thus, expanded mobilization to the November 19 Rally has been achieved from work places and also from streets. It has been proved through practice that the advance of the Great March Campaign and war is the right way to realize “Turn imperialist war into a civil war”

It was just in the midst of these successive anti-war demonstrations that the October 7 Uprising of Palestinian people shook us. JRCL has grasped this as an explosion of national liberation /revolutionary war of Palestinian people and issued an appeal to stand up to anti-war struggle to overthrow Israel and its supporter imperialists.

Japanese imperialism is also a part of imperialist powers which are committed in suppression and rule over Palestinian people. The October 7 Uprising is meant to call on the working class people who are under the rule of imperialists and allowed imperialist tyranny till today. We are now determined to stand up for the struggle to overthrow our own government, imperialism, to achieve genuine international solidarity of working class people of the world.

While almost all political forces in Japan including Japan Communist Party are unanimously chanting against Hamas, we have resolutely fought out the ideological struggle against Social-Chauvinism and successfully achieved to join a large number of people and strengthened solidarity with foreign workers in Japan including Palestinians through organizing activities to the November 19 Rally.

What November 19 Rally has demonstrated is that working class can regain the self-consciousness as a revolutionary class and its own power through the struggle of “Turn imperialist aggression into a civil war” and rise up for the struggle to overthrow imperialism. Succeeding these experiences, anti-war struggle in December has been powerfully carried out also in this conviction.

(2) The struggle to crush G7 summit talks was a springboard of all-out rising up for anti-war struggle

All the victorious results of every struggle in 2023 have been concentrated in November 19 Rally. Our decisive battle of 2023 was launched with the powerful protest action against the eviction of Mr. Takao Shito of Sanrizuka-Shibayama United Farmers’ League against the Airport Construction from his farmland and followed by the revolutionary election campaign in the nationwide local elections (Suginami Ward, Tokyo, and Takatsuki City, Osaka), which vigorously called for anti-war struggle. In Suginami, Tomoko Horaguchi, incumbent ward council member, stood in the front line of the re-election campaign, confronting violent assault of the right-wingers, called upon Suginami residents to rise for anti-war movement with big success and ended in re-election. As a result, unprecedented large number of Suginami residents joined November 19 Rally to demonstrate establishment of an anti-war stronghold in Tokyo.

The struggle to crush the G7 summit talks in May in Hiroshima has built a big spring board to “Turn the war into a civil war”. Powerful demonstrations were staged for seven times in five days, breaking through the wall of 24,000 riot police and protesting against the unjust arrest of students of Zengakuren. The news of the whole development was instantly diffused to the whole world.

“Hiroshima Vision” adopted by the G7 has justified the possession of nuclear weapons by G7 countries and their nuclear policy by maintaining, “Nuclear weapons, for as long as they exist, should serve defensive purposes, deter aggression and prevent war and coercion.” The major aim of the G7 summit was to destroy the anti-war and anti-nuke will and struggle of people of Hiroshima, A-bombed city. But this attempt was completely crushed by the all-out struggle organized by August 6 Hiroshima Grand Action Committee and expressed by powerful demonstrations which succeeded to gain support of Hiroshima citizens and to arouse their wide spread and profound anger.

The struggle has been further developed in actions on August 6 in Hiroshima and August 9 in Nagasaki, followed by the protest action in Fukushima against damping of radioactive contaminated water into the Ocean, declaring to stop it by all means.

It was no small challenge for us to organize the whole Japanese working class people for anti-war struggle. Last autumn, we held the 100th commemoration day demonstration in Kinshicho, Tokyo, on the spot of the massacre of Korean and Chinese residents in Japan during the disaster of Great Kanto Earthquake on September 1, 1923. It was followed by September 23 National Rally and Demonstration and other numerous actions on the street, in workplaces and on campuses to call for ant-war uprising and overthrow of imperialism. In Tokyo, the capital city, 18 waves of demonstrations were fought out in defiance of assaults of far-right forces and state power suppression. In response to October 7 Uprising of Palestinian people, above all, youth and students jointed in demonstrations in an unprecedented number. On the street, further number of people jumped into demonstrations, inviting other people to join in and thus enlarging the contingents.

For us, JRCL, these developments have enriched our experiences and lessons for gaining broad class unity through organizing numerous working class people directly on the street over the limited workplace struggles. Added to this, renewed experience of political contention with all sorts of system-friendly forces has forged our capacity of wider propaganda and agitation．

(3) The 31st National Committee GA of JRCL in August 2023 has achieved a policy change and great advance in the construction of party local committee

JRCL has decided at the 31st General Assembly of the National Committee, as the primary task of the party, to rise up for “anti-war struggle per se”, to oppose against war by our own government, “organizing working class people to direct political actions to stop their own government’s participation in the war” through all-out mobilization with a conscious effort to change activities in war time.

The essence of this “change” lies in unconditional standing of each of the party members oneself as a revolutionary communist with no exception against war in face of a start of war , and in engaging in organizational activity through exposing the ongoing imperialist wars at every opportunity and calling for revolutionary actions, anti-war demonstrations and strikes to prevent war by our own government. The duty of a revolutionary party in war-time is to organize anti-war struggle to overthrow imperialism as a responsibility of a political organization and to develop further class struggle labor movement. The initial achievement of this change in actual practice of all party members is the very cause of the great mobilization to November 19 Rally and an explosive development of anti-war struggle under the slogan, “Turn the war into a civil war!”

A revolutionary party, armed with our understanding of the current era and convinced in political line, “a world war has started” “Actuality of world revolution lies in unity of national liberation/revolutionary war and proletarian revolution in imperialist countries” and repeated anti-war demonstrations with the party member workers at forefront has succeeded to gain a large number of participants to the Rally. The cause of the success is combined efforts of heated development of anti-war struggle and mobilization campaign for November 19 Rally, which enabled to reach deep into the mind of working class people.

Construction of the party’s district committees can achieve its progress only through such painstaking efforts. In Tokyo, the Suginami district committee is newly born. Based on the recently gained stage as a result of victorious experience of Suginami ward council election in April, an advance for party construction in the district to organize cells in workplaces, communities and neighborhoods and establish unity with working class people in wider range. Fundamental base for these activities is to strengthen deep agreement and close unity through intense discussion in the party congress and general assembly of national committee and expand this achievement to all of district and industrial organizations with their cells, in a word, establishment of Leninist party centralization. Youth and students who have recently fought out, have grown up to compose class leadership and are organizing newly joined people into party.

Our impending task is a decisive leap for a qualified party of working class in its composure and number, with November 19 Rally as a spring board, in order to further promote a gigantic anti-war struggle. Let’s push forward a conscious change of party and a full-scale construction of district party organization as practice of the general line decided in the 8th Party Congress and 31st National Committee GA. Without the progress and leap of party construction, further development of class struggle labor movement is impossible. JRCL is firmly determined to solidify the unity of the three militant labor unions headed by Doro-Chiba, National Coordinating Center of Labor Unions and the Grand March Against Constitutional Revision and War and to put all of its power to develop the stage gained by November 19 Rally.

As is emphasized by the appeal of Women Liberation Committee of JRCL with a title of “Women should stand at the forefront of the anti-war struggle” ( ZENSHINNo.3318 ), a large number of women staged anti-war demonstrations at the head and standing up of women is expanding. International Women’s Day on March 8 was fought, raising slogan, “Stop the war immediately! Let us live! Overthrow the Kishida administration by all-out uprising of women!”, in outright confrontation with war mobilization of women unanimously all over Japan. The struggle has demonstrated the result of actual practice to materialize the fundamental line presented in the 30th GA of the National Committee, “struggle to overcome the present situation of discrimination and suppression of women”.

Innocence of comrade Masaaki Osaka has been completely proved through the struggle in the court. The trial should inevitably end with innocence judgment and immediate release.

The state compensation lawsuit faces now an important phase to claim the responsibility for the death of comrade Fumiaki Hoshino in prison.

Let’s win the struggle for Osaka and-Hoshino cases and revive the glorious horizon reached by the 1970 Anpo (US-Japan Security Treaty) and Okinawa Struggle* today in the midst of world war situation in Japanese class struggle!

*1970 Anpo and Okinawa Struggle, Struggle against the US-Japan Security Treaty and their alliance and oppression of Okinawan people and military bases, was fought not just in 1970 but from 1967 through early 1970s. Comrades Hoshino and Osaka led militant demonstration against ratification of Okinawa Reversion Agreement on November 14, 1971.

Ⅱ Aggressive war on China by US imperialism, a determining factor of the whole situation today in the Middle East and Ukraine

The determining factor of today’s world situation, world war situation, is the decision of the United States to wage aggressive war on China and its drive to overthrow Chinese Stalinism with all its power, a world war. At the starting point of our decisive battle in 2024, it is necessary to clarify this point as a fundamental understanding of current era for the revolutionary party and working class.

Based on the New Years’ Appeal of 2022 that mentioned the aggressive war on China by US imperialism is going to explode as a world war, nuclear war, JRCL has pointed out in 8th congress in February 2022 immediately after the outbreak of Ukrainian war, “It is the grave impact of US policy of confrontation with China and actual aggressive war drive on China that brought crisis in Ukraine into actual war” (The second report). Two years after that, Ukraine, the initial burst point, has got bogged down, and in the Middle East, US-Israeli invasion into Gaza and the genocide has expanded, and in the East Asia, conflict and confrontation between the United States and China has further intensified. So-called “three-front war” is taking place not separately or accidentally in three different regions. The decision of the United States to launch war on China is the very cause of the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, which are aggravating day by day.

The key to stop the war on China, a world war, and turn the wars into world revolution against Imperialism and Stalinism is in explosion of anti-war struggle in Japan and in a civil war to overthrow our own government, Japanese imperialism.

(1) Explosion of national liberation struggle of Palestinian people in the midst of on-going world war

October 7 Uprising of Palestinian people is, in its essence, national liberation/revolutionary war as a necessary historical outcome of the thrust of US imperialism into war on China, a world war. Israel, a military base state, supplied with modern weapons and advanced technology, has suffered an unprecedented grave defeat and the imperialist world domination has experienced a terrible blow by this struggle. The insurrection against the devastating suppression by Israeli military forces, calling to the whole world to stand up for Palestinian national liberation, has been persistently continued in Gaza till now.

Israel has responded to this uprising with a large-scale genocide, targeted to the whole Gaza inhabitants exceeding 2.2 million, to be memorized in the human history and the United States and all other world imperialist countries fully supported for “Israel’s right to self-defense”. This outrageous development triggered anger of billions of people of the world, which exploded in stormy protest actions to express solidarity with Palestinian people in an unprecedented scale, involving people of imperialist countries with the United States at its head. The United States, however, in pretense of asking Israel “restraint”, is actually continuing its military aids to Israel: “we do not intend to do anything but defend Israel”

For imperialism, needless to say, aggression on and colonial rule of the Middle East countries and monopolistic stable possession of petroleum resources in this area have a vital importance since the period of World War I till today. But the “foundation of the State of Israel” in 1948 was not a simple prolongation of the former policy of aggression on the Middle East countries materialized by Jewish settlement with Zionists as its spearhead. It was an absolutely essential task for US imperialism, which climbed up to the pivotal position of the world imperialist system after WWII, to establish a new ruling system in the whole Middle East area in place of UK imperialism, to expand influence over the Arab countries and to suppress national liberation struggle there. To achieve this aim, US waged the “foundation of the State of Israel” as a powerful military base state, surpassing, in its character, far beyond settlement.

The position of Israel in the US rule after WWII has a serious significance parallel to Japan-US Security System and NATO. This ruling system, however, has never been stable, incessantly shaken by Palestinian national liberation struggle, an inevitable result of US policy. October 7 Uprising was carried out as an explosion of accumulated indignation in the focal point of contradiction of the postwar world system.

Anger against the attack of annihilation of Palestine

It is important to confirm fundamentally that the present Middle East and Palestinian situation culminating in October 7 Uprising was caused by the great decline of US imperialism and the aggravation of US-China confrontation–US drive to aggressive war on China.

US imperialism, which already thrust into successive defeats in aggressive wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, was not capable to carry out, in case of the Syrian civil war, direct intervention by mobilizing its ground force, has begun a shift of its main military force from the Middle East and put it to the Asian Pacific region all through 2010s in face of confrontation with China, which has grown up to a great power. In the course of these developments, the United States tried to make up the set-back of its military rule, caused by the retreat of troops, through drastically stepping up military aid to Israel in order to stop the collapse of US rule in the Middle East.

The military aid of the United States to Israel has grown up to $260 billion in total since its “state foundation”. In 2007, when the blockade of Gaza was forced, foreign military fund of $3 billion for 10 years, 25% increase from the previous years, was decided. It was followed by its decision in 2016, further increase of $38 billion (yearly average $3.8 billion ) from 2018. This aid is remarkably unique for US foreign military assistance to a certain country not just in its unparalleled amount, but its manner–all granted, all without obligation to purchase US made weapons. Through these US assistances, Israel has strengthened its military and security system and promoted the research and development of the production of cutting-edge weapons and of latest industries as well as construction of surveillance system with the newest cyber-technique. As a result, Israel has grown up to one of the most advanced countries in these fields. On the other hand, sieged Gaza has been exposed to repeated air raids and arrests, detention and torture of Palestinian people have increased rapidly.

It is also important to notice that both of Trump and Biden administrations of the United States have strongly promoted diplomatic normalization between Israel and the Middle Eastern countries by the Abraham Accords, which has overthrown the Arab Cause that had claimed the principle of non-recognition of Israel, let alone without the establishment of Palestinian state. The Union of Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco established diplomatic relations with Israel. Saudi Arabia, self-proclaimed leader of Arab world, began negotiation with Israel. However, in face of intensification of US-China confrontation, the United States was shaken by a shocking event: restoration of diplomatic relations between two big powers in the Middle East, Saudi Arabia and Iran through the mediation of China in last March.

Pressed by this, the US Biden administration has presented a scheme of India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor to promote investment and military cooperation between Israel and the Middle Eastern countries, in the summit talks of major 20 countries and regions in September in rivalry with Chinese Belt and Road Initiative.

Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, who had developed for years a series of fierce attacks on Palestinian people, including rapid expansion of settlements in the West Bank and the largest assault on the refugee camp in Jenin since 2002, responded to this new move with a map of “a New Middle East,” in which the Palestinian self-governing areas of Gaza and West Bank are completely eliminated at the UNGA in September, insisting; “Palestinians are only 2% of the Arab world. . . . So, when the Palestinians see that most of the Arab world has reconciled itself to the Jewish state, they too will be more likely to abandon the fantasy of destroying Israel.” “When the rest 98% of it agrees with reconciliation, Palestinian has no choice than to accept it”.

It was immediately after this speech that Saudi Prince Muhammad bin Salman remarked that the normalizing of relation with Israel could be completed by early 2024. It is quite evident that the strategy of US imperialism and Israel of “a new Middle East” means strangulation of Palestinian national liberation movement, dismantling of the self-governing areas, reducing them into vacant lots—a start of a new ethnic cleansing.

Exactly at this moment, October 7 Uprising was staged with all power of Palestinian people. The new US strategy of “a new Middle East”, mobilizing Israel, on the background of aggravating US-China confrontation and plunge into an aggressive war on China, has provoked intensification of contradiction inherent to the rule of the Middle East and Palestine. Its outcome is an explosion of national liberation/revolutionary war.

(2) Imperialist war on Russia = bogging-down of Ukrainian war

Nearly two years after its opening, Ukrainian war has been prolonged and inevitably bogging down on the background of US aggressive war on China.

The Ukrainian “large-scale counter-offensive”, started in last June, has ended in a miserable defeat. The major strategic target was originally set to “regain” fortress of Tokmak and Melitopol through marching southward to the Oblast of Zaporizhzhia, to disrupt the Russian supply line to Crimean Peninsula by separating the Russian occupation zone into east and west and further to struggle for the capture of Crimean Peninsula over Sea of Azov. The Zaporizhzhia front was, however, blocked by a strong Russian defense line, in spite of a large-scale supply by the United States and European countries of weapons with major tanks and mass mobilization. Ukrainian army was forced into an exhaustive battle without advance, suffering a large amount of loss of fighting forces. The Russian army, on the contrary, developed a war of attrition, taking advantage of a defense battle and finally turned to offensive in East front.

It was remarkable that the Ukrainian army suffered a large and serious loss in human resources as well as war materials. The annual report of the Royal United Services Institute issued in September pointed out, “Attempts at rapid breakthrough have resulted in an unsustainable rate of equipment loss.” and emphasizing that it is indispensable to gain superiority in production and supply of munitions and to overpower the Russian army in fire power in order to reach the goal, and concluded, “It is vital that Ukraine’s partners assist the country’s preparations for winter fighting, and subsequent campaign seasons now, if initiative is to be retained into 2024”.

It is difficult, however, to exceed Russia, which have already established a war-time economic system capable of producing 2 million shells annually. The European Union presented last May a plan of spending 2 billion euro (approximately 314 billion Yen) for military production, which can supply 1 million rounds of ammunitions within a year and declared to “move into war economy” (European Commissioner Thierry Breton). In November, however, he was obliged to confess that the plan was in standstill and its achievement was proved to be impossible. First of all, the United States, the largest assistant country, is unable to set up a future plan to aid Ukraine.

Even in this extreme situation, the United States can by no means consent to the cease-fire with Russia or to accept the ending of the war with the defeat of Ukraine, as far as the present war is an essential part of the US world war strategy with an aim of “out-competing China and constraining Russia” and has a character of preparing a full unfolding of aggressive war on China. The war in Ukraine will continue as a big war absorbing a great volume of weapons and munitions, accompanied with a conversion of imperialist economy into a military economy and expose its brutal character as imperialist war demanding more and more sacrifices of people.

At the same time, it will inevitably sharpen the contradictions at home of the United States and other Ukraine supporting countries further, accelerate split within the ruling class and call forth anti-war uprising of people. The struggle against the war in Ukraine is an important pillar of our decisive battle in 2024 to build a road for a civil war to overthrow imperialism, which is driving toward an aggressive war on China—a world war.

(3) The great downfall of US imperialism and the irreconcilable intensification of the US-China conflict

In its summer appeal last year (Zenshin No. 3,305), the JRCL stated, “U.S. imperialism, the hegemon of the post-WWII imperialist system, entered into a war, for its own survival, to crush China, remaining Stalinism, and Russia, former Stalinism. This is the beginning of a world war and an impending crisis of a nuclear war. This is the quintessence of the present situation of ongoing war.” The root cause of the world war is the terminal crisis of imperialism, which is the great downfall of US imperialism, which reigned over the post-WWII world as the sole pivotal power, and the collapse of its global domination.

The systemic crisis of US imperialism will further intensify in the run-up to the November presidential election, Biden vs. Trump. The serious split in the ruling class symbolized by the debt ceiling issue in Congress, the dismissal of the House Speaker, and the mudslinging between Democrats and Republicans over the budget for Ukraine aid has already created a civil war-like crisis in the United States. Inflation has remained high despite sharp increases in interest rates, and the growing poverty, discontent, and resentment of the working people have brought about a historic upsurge in the labor movement, including the UAW strike for a large pay raise and the elimination of the tiered wages, which, together with the explosion of the Palestine solidarity movement, has opened up a new phase of the class struggle in the United States. The US economy, which is once again inflating its bubble due to the expectations of Fed’s halt to interest rate hikes or interest rate cuts, is also facing the problem of massive government, corporate, and household debts–the crisis could explode any time.

In these circumstances, Biden has no choice but to further escalate his confrontation against China, stir up hostility and chauvinism toward China, and push forward with an aggressive war on China. While confirming with China the resumption of military dialogue at the US-China summit meeting last November, Biden immediately thereafter announced the early supply of arms to Taiwan, pushed for the accelerated realignment of the Marines in Okinawa to the Marine Littoral Regiment (MLR), and announced that the deployment of the Multi-Domain Task Force (MDTF), which operates ground-based medium-range missiles with a range that can strike China, to Asia by the end of 2024. In December 2023, the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) 2024 was enacted to provide for a total defense budget of $886.3 billion, and the Pacific Deterrence Initiative (PDI), a fund for strengthening US military posture in the Asia-Pacific region, was increased by $14.7 billion, up 30% from the previous year (doubled from FY 2022). While threatening China that it will oppose “change to the status quo by force,” the United States itself is steadily making concrete preparations for an aggressive war on China.

Chinese Stalinism has become a major power

US imperialism in the crisis of a great downfall can no longer tolerate the existence of China, which has become a major power under the Stalinist regime.

In 1972, the US-China collusion for confrontation with the Soviet Union began with the then US president Richard Nixon’s visit to China. Under such strategic change, the globalist development of neoliberalism and the “engagement” policy, US imperialism has allowed China in an unrestrained manner to become a great power, to become powerful. The US imperialists believed that incorporation of China into the imperialist world economy, massive amounts of capital investment, and transformation of it into a market economy and capitalism, would lead to collapse the Chinese Stalinist regime like the Soviet Union. However, China was different from the Soviet Union, which had already been completely stagnant and exhausted since the 1980s due to the contradictions of “socialism in one country” and the intense military pressure from US imperialism. After the Chinese Revolution of 1949 and the turmoil caused by “Cultural Revolution” of the 1960s, China had entered a process of rapid economic growth under the “reform and opening-up” policy from 1979 onward, incorporating imperialist foreign capital and technology and unleashing the vast potential of labor force from its rural areas. In this process, the political dominance of the Stalinist Chinese Communist Party was not weakened but strengthened. After the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, it became even stronger. However, the capital investment from the US, European, and Japanese imperialist countries to China increased dramatically from the 1990s onward, while engaging in fierce inter-imperialist rivalries, and this helped to promote China’s remarkable economic growth.

In this way, the US imperialists unexpectedly transformed China into a superpower that could compete with the United States. By relying deeply on the Chinese economy under the Stalinist regime, US imperialism and all imperialist countries were able to escape the crisis of the great depression triggered by the 2008 Lehman Shock. This is the reality of the historical downfall of US imperialism, which has reached the point of the great downfall.

Even so, at the present time, the United States still has an overwhelming military and technological advantage over China. Therefore, the deeper the crisis deepens, the more the US imperialists are driven by the urge to strike and crush China, while they still can. The US imperialists will never recognize the unification of Taiwan with China, on which the survival of the Chinese Stalinist regime depends, and they are pushing Taiwan under the sphere of influence of US imperialism further and further against the Chinese Stalinists. This is what US imperialism is actually doing: separating Taiwan from China and placing it under the control of the United States. It is none other than US imperialism that is changing the status quo by force. After the January presidential election in Taiwan, the US-China confrontation will inevitably become increasingly warlike and irreconcilable.

(4) Overthrow Japanese Imperialism! Topple corrupt Kishida, who is pushing for an aggressive war on China!

As described above, the US imperialists’ drive to wage an aggressive war on China , a world war, for their own survival, is tremendous. We cannot afford to harbor illusions that the US-China confrontation will ease or result in a half-baked settlement in the future. On the other hand, the United States is also attempting to violently restructure their relations with other imperialist countries through this war. Above all, the US imperialist rush into an aggressive war on China presents a huge challenge–a desperate leap for Japanese imperialism, who will be thrusted into the frontline of this war.

The three security documents (National Security Strategy, National Defense Strategy, and Defense Buildup Program) approved by the Kishida administration at the end of 2022 set forth the basic policy for Japanese imperialism to take the actual war against China as their own war of aggression. The massive military buildup and national reorganization based on this policy, as well as the massive tax hikes to finance it and the shift to a military-first fiscal policy, have aroused violent anger of the working people, who have already suffered from impoverishment and soaring prices under neoliberalism, and have created unrest and division within the centers of power and ruling classes as well.

Against this backdrop, the ruling LDP’s slush funds problem has come to light. In particular, the fact that the pus and stench of this money has erupted from LDP’s largest faction, the Abe faction (Seiwa Seisaku Kenkyukai), has aroused unbridled indignation among the people. This Abe faction has produced the largest number of party presidents and prime ministers since the Mori administration in 2000 through the use of illegal kickbacks to maintain and strengthen the unity of faction members, and has controlled national politics in collusion with abominable far-right forces–the Japan Council, the Unification Church and others–and tyrannically promoted neoliberalism and war. Moreover, the current Kishida administration has escalated this course even further under today’s world war situation.

In the midst of this upheaval that shook the nerve center of Japanese imperialism, Kishida instructed the LDP’s Headquarters for the Promotion of Revision to the Constitution “concretize and narrow down the draft articles of the Constitution” at its meeting held on December 5, 2023. The cabinet also decided to lift the ban on the export of “licensed products,” including lethal weapons. No matter how much political crisis and confusion there is, or rather because of it, Kishida and the Japanese ruling class are trying to prolong their lives by violently pushing forward on the path of massive military expansion and war, and they are even trying to bring out of this chaos a more extreme right-wing war-mongering cabinet.

On the other hand, the Japanese imperialist bourgeoisie is using this massive military buildup and the promotion of arms exports as a channel to push forward the shift in the Japanese economy toward a war economy. According to an Asahi Shimbun article on November 14* titled “Defense Business Expansion ‘More Than Imagined,'” under the government’s conscious support for the military industry, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries’ orders for aviation, defense, and space projects in the first half of last year were “a record 999.4 billion yen, a fivefold year-on-year increase.” Kawasaki Heavy Industries expects about 460-billion-yen order, up about 200 billion yen from the previous year, followed by NEC and Mitsubishi Electric. The Ministry of Defense, which places the orders, has raised the profit margins for companies from around 8% to 15%.

*English language version of this article was issued on December 1 under the title of “Defense industry says policy-shift windfall higher than expected”

This is where the “slush fund” comes from. The military industries, the government, and the LDP are colluding to promote the shift to a war economy at all costs. The only way for the Japanese imperialists to find a way to survive is through the military industry and war, and this is the terminal stage of Japanese imperialism.

Let us fight through the great anti-war struggle to stop the war of aggression against China, which will open the way for a huge civil war to overthrow Japanese imperialism!

Ⅲ. Reestablishment of Today’s 7-7 Line and Deepening the Theory of Anti-Imperialist Anti-Stalinist World Revolution

(1) Unequivocally support the October 7 Uprising = National Liberation / Revolutionary War! Fight in Solidarity with it!

The JRCL grasped the October 7 Uprising as an explosion of the Palestinian people’s national liberation/revolutionary war against the extreme aggression, domination, and oppression by US imperialism=Israel, and immediately announced its full support and its position to fight in solidarity with this uprising.

US imperialism=Israel justifies the genocide in Gaza, which left 20,000 dead and 50,000 wounded, by calling it “self-defense,” while propagating the “atrocity” of the October 7 Uprising. This is the same accusation that all invaders throughout history have hurled at resisters to justify their rule and atrocities. The positions such as “Israel’s indiscriminate bombings and massacres are unforgivable, but Hamas and others’ terrorism and hostage-taking are also unforgivable” is utter hypocrisy and deception. It is an acceptance of all the tyranny and oppression of ethnic groups since the foundation of “the State of Israel” and a taking for granted of their own “peace” and “daily life” based on such tyranny.

What is happening now did not start with “Hamas terrorism”. Rather, it began with the unilateral aggression and massacre of the Palestinian people by Israel, with the support and backing of US imperialism and the entire imperialist regimes. All the resistance and armed struggle of the Palestinian people is a 100% legitimate counterattack against this unilateral attack, ethnic cleansing, by the United States= Israel. The righteousness of the October 7 Uprising by the armed forces of Hamas and other Palestinian liberation forces — the national liberation/revolutionary war–should be fully supported. We must be inspired by this uprising and carry out a commensurate struggle, which “turn aggressive war into a civil war, in solidarity with them” in the imperialist homeland. That is the position of the revolutionary communists, of all the working-class people who seek their own emancipation. All the arguments such as ” Terrorism is unacceptable for any reason,” ” Is violence right or wrong?” or ” It is too much,” are made against the uprising people, who have stood up from the point of desperation, for their life or death . Such arguments show an abject corruption, immersed in the position of the imperialist oppressing nationalities.

The hostage tactic was also used in the Paris Commune of 1871, the first ever self-power of the working people. Marx defended it as “the last check upon the unscrupulous ferocity of bourgeois governments” (Civil War in France). How can we condemn the October 7 hostage taking, the last check upon the unscrupulous ferocity of Israel? In the first place, it is Israel that has been abducting, imprisoning, and detaining thousands of Palestinians, including boys and girls. Just as the French bourgeois counter-revolutionary forces launched a brutal attack against the Paris Commune without regard for the lives of the Archbishop of Paris and other hostages, US imperialism=Israel has targeted the entire population of Gaza for massacre, and has attacked to obliterate the entire Gaza Strip. The “war strategy” of pouring seawater into underground tunnels is a very genocide à la Nazis.

The October 7 Uprising made people in every corner of the world realize the daily aggression, oppression, suppression, and massacre of the Palestinian people by Israel, and the fundamental nature of the Palestinian people’s anger and struggle for liberation. Without the October 7 Uprising, the overwhelming majority of the imperialist world would not have been aware of the extreme situation of the Palestinian people; there is no doubt that the Israeli aggression would have continued until the extermination of Palestine. On the other hand, the thoroughness of the US-Israeli attack to eradicate the Palestinian people exposed the hypocrisy of imperialist world domination, which pretends to preserve “freedom,” “democracy,” “human rights,” “rule of law,” and so on.

The firm and total support for the national liberation/revolutionary war of the Palestinian people is the only position that the working class should take in its struggle for a world revolution that will abolish all forms of imperialist domination, aggression and oppression. Any anti-war or anti-imperialist struggle that does not take this stand is a sham. The accomplishment of Anti-Imperialist Anti-Stalinist World Revolution through combination of the proletarian revolution in the imperialist countries with the national liberation/revolutionary war in the colonial and neo-colonial countries is the only way to eliminate imperialist rule and all its exploitation and plunder, the national oppression and aggression to maintain and expand it, and the colonial and neo-colonial system and achieve permanent peace.

(2) The 7-7 Line and the “thought of blood debt” that carry on anti-Stalinism

(1) The reason why the JRCL was able to take the above position of firm support and solidarity with the October 7 Uprising was because it adhered to the ” 7.7 self-criticism line” (7.7 line) established in the process of the 1970 decisive struggle* and to the line in the platform of “turning the Japanese imperialist invasion of Asia into a civil war in solidarity with fighting Asian peoples (oppressed nationalities). The reason for this is that the process of the great downfall of US imperialism and the final collapse of the post-WWII world system is proceeding as a process of the US imperialist aggressive war against China—a world war. At the same time, it will inevitably bring about the collapse of the neo-colonial system and the explosion of national liberation/revolutionary wars, including in the Middle East and Palestine as a point of concentration of the contradictions of imperialist world domination. The world revolution, which will transform the imperialist wars of aggression and world war into a civil war and realize the fundamental emancipation of the proletariat, will be victorious only if it is combined with this national liberation/revolutionary war. The time has come for a general uprising for a proletarian world revolution, an Anti-Imperialist and Anti-Stalinist World Revolution, based on the combination of the revolutionary uprising of the proletariat in the imperialist/oppressing countries and the revolutionary uprising for national liberation in the colonial/neo-colonial countries.

* 1970 decisive struggle: 1970 Anpo Okinawa struggle

(2) “7-7 self-criticism” was made at the rally held on July 7, 1970 (the People’s Gathering to Stop Japanese Invasion of Asia on the occasion of the 33rd anniversary of the Lugou Bridge* Incident ), a joint struggle with the Korean, Chinese and Asian residents in Japan. In the process of preparing for the rally, the Huaqiao Youth Struggle Committee (Huaqingtong) [an organization of young Chinese residents in Japan] criticized the JRCL for its “insufficient efforts in its struggle against the Immigration Control” and “lack of awareness of its positionality as an oppressing nation.” Through the criticisms from the Huaqingtong and JRCL’s self-criticism in response to them, the JRCL has made it a cornerstone of the proletarian struggle for self-emancipation and the revolutionary communist movement in Japan that we, the Japanese proletariat, Japanese people, should set ourselves on the side of the Asian peoples, invaded peoples, identify their real existence and struggle, learn from them and stand in solidarity with them as the basic condition of the proletarian self-emancipation struggle and the revolutionary communist movement in Japan. From this standpoint, the line of “Turn the Japanese imperialist aggression against Asia into a civil war, in solidarity with fighting Asian peoples” was established, and the civil-war like development of revolutionary struggle, which led to in the decisive battle in November 1971, was achieved.

*Lugou Bridge—Marco Polo Bridge

The 7-7 Line is not simply emphasis on the struggles of oppressed nations and discriminated peoples. It is definitely not a demand for thoroughgoing bourgeois democracy, like the “respect for minorities” under imperialist rule. It is a line that thoroughly adheres to the communist principle that the proletariat’s struggle for self-emancipation can only be a struggle to liberate all oppressed peoples, and it makes us aware of the decisive significance of the struggle against imperialist chauvinism and racism, which have divided the peoples and mobilized them to aggressive war. It was to revive proletarian internationalism, which had been distorted and destroyed by Stalinism, among the proletariat peoples of the imperialist/oppressing countries, and it was also the very essence of the revolutionary accomplishment of anti-Stalinism.

The 7-7 line established the “thought of blood debt.” It was the position that the Japanese proletariat, under the treacherous leadership of Stalinism, had been defeated by the Japanese imperialists in their mobilization offensive, chauvinism and aggressive war, and as a result had sacrificed 20 million Asian people and even after WWII allowed to continue aggression and oppression, and that this “blood debt” should be “repaid” through the struggle to overthrow the Japanese imperialists with their own blood. The 7-7 Line, “thought of blood debt,” ignited the class pride of the proletariat, which could stand in solidarity with all the discriminated and oppressed peoples and fight for the liberation of all the people as its own liberation, and the revolutionary communist consciousness and historical sense of mission to fundamentally overcome Stalinism, which had always yielded to imperialist chauvinism. Thus, the strength of the party and the working class was brought out in an explosive way in the actual struggle.

(3) The basis of the 7-7 line, the “thought of blood debt,” is the unlimited trust in the revolutionary nature of the proletariat, a class that cannot achieve its own emancipation without overthrowing imperialist rule. The Japanese proletariat is a revolutionary subject capable of transforming the aggression of the Japanese imperialists into a civil war, in solidarity with the fighting Asian peoples and the Korean, Chinese, and other Asian residents in Japan, and of carrying out the overthrow of Japanese imperialism. This is an unshakable Marxist conviction.

On the other hand, the “blood-debtism” and “denunciationism” that emerged in a part of JRCL’s leadership in the past was not motivated from a Marxist conviction of the infinite revolutionary potential of the proletariat, but from a deep-rooted distrust of and despair over it. They distorted the thought of blood-debt into the idea of class distrust that workers in imperialist countries are mired in chauvinism and racism and cannot become subjects of revolution as they are, and turned against the basic line of the class struggle labor movement.

In the process of forced retreat in the labor movement and mass movement during the civil-war-like confrontation against the counterrevolutionary Kakumaru, blood-debtism occupied a part of the leadership of the party but was overthrown by the ensuing revolution of the party in 2006-2007 that decisively restored and revitalized the JRCL as the party of the working class. The struggle of overthrowing of blood-debtism was an effort to basically redefine the 7-7 Line as a line for the self-emancipation of the proletariat in the imperialist countries and to fully carry it through. In fact, the class struggle labor movement centering on the anti-war struggle has been proposed and practiced, above all, as a struggle against chauvinism and to stop Japanese imperialist war of aggression. That is why the KCTU from former Japanese colony, Korea, and Doro-Chiba, Japanese trade union, and the working people who joined the November rally from around Japan, were “instantly” combined, and strengthened their solidarity through the following process of 20 years of neoliberalism, which was enforced with violent imperialist scheme of chauvinism and divide-and-rule. Thus the “miracle” of strengthening their class and international solidarity has been realized more and more.

The shock and impact of the October 7 Uprising and the development of the violent genocidal war by US imperialism=Israel against it poses us, oppressing peoples of the imperialist homelands, a serious question: is the present struggles of the proletariat responding straight to the situation as they are? What way the solidarity with the fighting oppressed peoples should be like? This uprising awakened the revolutionary consciousness of the world proletariat at once. We were keenly awakened that it is the duty of revolutionary communists and their party to be fully engaged in an anti-war struggle qualified as embodiment of solidarity with the fighting Palestinian people, of solidarity with the October 7 Uprising, an anti-war struggle that turns aggressive war into a civil war, with the whole existence of the revolutionary communists and their party at stake. In the recent 8th JRCL Congress and 31th National Committee GA, it was made clear that the party would fight the war by firmly determining the “7-7 line” and the “turn the Japanese imperialist aggression against Asia into a civil war, in solidarity with fighting Asian peoples/oppressed nationalities, ” as its programmatic line.

(3) Crisis of imperialist world domination and problems of neo-colonial system

The October 7 Uprising conclusively exposed that imperialist world domination, the colonial rule/neo-colonial system, and national oppression that are inseparable from it, continue to exist and perpetuate in the present world. Regarding imperialism and colonial/neo-colonial problems, it is a terrible mistake to deny or dismantle Lenin’s theory of imperialism by treating them it as past or already resolved ones.

Through World War II and its aftermath, the imperialist colonial system was brought to the verge of collapse. Struggles for national liberation arose throughout the world, including in Asia, India, the Middle East, Africa, Central and South America, and other former colonial and semi-colonial subject countries. In particular, the victory of the Chinese Revolution in 1949 dealt a huge blow to imperialist world domination. However, Chinese Stalinism closed off the path to the development of the Chinese revolution towards the victory in the world revolution through the combination of the national liberation/revolutionary war and the proletarian revolution in the imperialist countries. In Asia, imperialism, including US imperialism, militarily contained Stalinism and the national liberation struggle that was under its influence, forming an anti-communist military alliance centered on the Japan-US security Treaty system (with the US bases in Okinawa as its largest military entity), and creating divided client states—South Korea, Taiwan, and South Vietnam—as military base states.

Even more decisive for the US imperialism’s reconstruction of the post-WWII imperialist system and world domination was the establishment of control over the Middle East, the world’s largest oil-rich region at the time. To that end, US imperialism artificially created the military state of Israel, drove a military wedge into the very center of the Middle East, and continued to apply pressure with wars and military presence to the national liberation struggle there. The process of its formation was a continuous war of colonial aggression that violently expelled the indigenous Palestinian people and robbed them of their land. Inexcusably, USSR Stalinism endorsed the founding of “the State of Israel” and then used it to expel Jews from the Soviet Union. Furthermore, US imperialism supported anti-communist military dictatorships in Central and South America and continued to brutally suppress national liberation struggles there.

As mentioned above, the reconstruction of the post-WWII imperialist system with the United States as its pivotal axis, the formation process of the post-WWII system of imperialism and Stalinism, were inseparable with the suppression of the national liberation struggle and the reconstruction of the colonial system=establishment of the neo-colonial system. However, this neo-colonial system was extremely dependent on the military power of US imperialism, and as soon as US imperialism began to show the limits of its power, it immediately exploded into crisis. The defeat of the United States in the aggressive war on Vietnam in the 1960s and 1970s, in other words the victory of the Vietnamese national liberation/revolutionary war, brought about the historical downfall of US imperialism, and the spread of national liberation struggles and revolutions in Asia, Afghanistan, Iran, Africa, and Central and South America. It spread in waves and shook the neo-colonial system to its core. The struggle to overthrow military dictatorship led by student movements and labor movements in South Korea from the 1970s to the Gwangju Uprising of 1980 was also part of this world historical trend.

However, these struggles combined with the explosion of class struggle in imperialist countries, including the United States, which was in a post-WWII revolutionary situation due to the defeat of Vietnam, was not developed into to a world revolution that would fundamentally overthrow imperialist world domination. On the contrary, it was once again distorted by Stalinist counter-revolutionary intervention and headed for defeat and disintegration. Imperialism took advantage of counter-revolutionary interventions in the national liberation struggle, such as the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan, and promoted a neoliberal counter-revolution by pushing the confrontation with the “communist threat” to the fore. From the latter half of the 1970s to the 1980s, the neo-colonial system was reorganized and developed with new dimensions.

With the collapse of USSR Stalinism and the development of neoliberal globalization since the 1990s, the rapid industrialization and economic growth of South Korea, Taiwan, and other Asian countries, which received vast amounts of imperialist funds, have attracted attention. The relationship between imperialist countries and colonial/neo-colonial countries has been regarded as if they had been dissolved. However, it is impossible for the entire world to uniformly become capitalist and for the “emerging countries” and “underdeveloped countries” that have come to be known as BRICS or the “Global South” to rapidly develop and become developed countries. It is impossible for “emerging countries” to catch up with the enormous amount of capital that a handful of imperialist countries, such as the G7, have historically accumulated and continue to proliferate through continued invasion, expropriation, market monopoly, and financial control for over 100 years. Furthermore, countries under neo-colonial regimes suffer from poverty, unemployment/semi-employment, lack of labor rights, child labor, hunger, plundering and competing for resources, financial domination, debt slavery, environmental destruction, deterioration of sanitary conditions, and infections. Violent contradictions such as the spread of the disease, military dictatorship, and civil war are rampant in these areas.

Even in South Korea, Taiwan, India and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), such as Indonesia and Thailand, which have been said to have achieved capitalist development, dependence on imperialist countries still exists. Overwhelming control by chaebols (conglomerates) and wealthy peoples, extreme gap between rich and poor, extreme concentration in some cities and devastation of rural areas and farming villages are expressions of specific contradictory characteristics of neo-colonial system. The bias towards semiconductors and electronics in the economies of Taiwan and South Korea is due to the outsourcing and incorporation of imperialist capital, including the giant tech companies in the United States, into their supply chains. When a recession hits, such contradictions are the first to explode.

The brutality of imperialism lies in continued enforcement of financial and economic dependency and of military and political control over the countries of the neo-colonial system, which are praised as the “remarkable economic growth and development of emerging countries and the Global South” as if imperialism and colonial domination/national oppression had vanished away and capitalism will continue to develop forever. Above all, US imperialism has increasingly dominated Taiwan as its own semi-colony, its vassal state, and has thoroughly armed it as a military base state, and used it as a lever to provoke Chinese Stalinism and wage an aggressive war to overthrow the regime. South Korea is basically treated in the same way. For US imperialism, both Taiwan and South Korea are production and supply bases where it can obtain semiconductors and electronic parts at low prices, military bases for invasion of China and North Korea ready to turn them into nuclear battlefields without hesitation.

The relationship between imperialism and colonies (neo-colonial system), and the relationship between oppressing peoples and oppressed peoples, has not disappeared nor is it on the verge of dissolution. Above all, this is exposed by the reality: the situation of Palestinian people since the founding of “the State of Israel,” the continuation of the current genocidal colonial war by the ferocious US imperialism=Israel; the North-South division system on the Korean Peninsula, problems of Taiwan, which maintains its basic character as an anti-communist military base state of US imperialism against the Chinese Revolution, Japanese imperialism’s discrimination and oppression of the Korean residents in Japan and the strengthening of the heinous immigration control system, and intensified far-right xenophobia against immigrants in US and European imperialist countries. This is becoming increasingly evident in the actual development that by 2023, 284 million people have become immigrants and more than 114 million were compelled to be refugees. The only solution to this imperialism and national/colonial problem is to overthrow imperialism, to complete a world revolution.

The progression of the world war and the current great depression will first explode crises and contradictions mostly in countries under neo-colonial system. US and Japanese imperialism are ready to use Taiwan and South Korea (and Okinawa) thoroughly as battlefields and to trample and sacrifice them, and to force through a war of aggression to overthrow and destroy the Stalinist regimes in China and North Korea. It aims to completely control all of China, including Taiwan, and the entire Korean Peninsula as an imperialist neo-colonial domain. It is the big backlash against the historical achievement of the Chinese Revolution, which expelled from the continent all the imperialist powers of Europe, Japan, and the United States and their stooges, which had invaded, overran, and dominated China and Asia, the Middle East, and the entire world for a hundred years since the 19th century. It is a great counter-revolution that seeks to completely destroy and wipe out the entire national liberation struggle, national liberation/revolutionary war.

However, the reorganization and new developments in the imperialist neo-colonial system since the 1990s have created a large number of proletarian forces in Asia, the Middle East, and throughout the world as revolutionary actors to confront such imperialist aggression. It is the young and powerful army of the world proletariat, including the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU), which has been forged through fierce struggles against military dictatorships and capital in collusion with imperialism. In both Palestine and Myanmar, where the fight to overthrow the military government continues, the working class and trade unions have emerged as protagonists supporting and carrying out national liberation/revolutionary wars. The subjective and material conditions of the national liberation/revolutionary war in unity with proletarian class liberation are now fully mature with the proletariat as the actual bearer, as part of the proletarian world revolution.

Our urgent task is to overthrow Japanese imperialism, the only imperialist country in Asia and the weakest link in the imperialist system. When the Japanese proletariat stands up for its own emancipation in the struggle to turn the US-Japanese imperialist war of aggression against China into a civil war, when it realizes international and class solidarity with the peoples of China, Taiwan, North and South Korea, and all Asian peoples, the prospects of the proletarian revolution and the revolutionary unification of the national liberation struggle in Asia, and the anti-Stalinist revolution in China and North Korea (the genuine completion of the national liberation/revolutionary war as part of the world proletarian revolution) will be opened up all at once. Now is the time to fight through the “7.7 line,” a platform that stands in solidarity with the fighting peoples of Asia and turn Japanese imperialist aggressive war on Asia into a civil war.

Ⅳ. Organize massive, civil war like anti-war struggle to overthrow imperialism!

(1) It’s time to unleash anger on Japanese imperialism, which aims to change itself into a full-fledged war state.

In the decisive battle between world war and world revolution as described above, Japan’s class struggle is being strongly demanded to make a leap forward.

The biggest challenge is to resolutely stand up for anti-war struggle to overthrow imperialism. Unleashing the anger of the Japanese working class, suppressed under the rule of the Rengo (Japanese Trade Union Confederation), and marking a dramatic shift from the post-war “peaceful” class struggle, let’s organize demonstrations and strikes in head-on confrontation with state power and spread it throughout the whole society like a civil war. The November 19 rally has opened up this outlook in the horizon. Our urgent task is to create a fight which overthrow imperialist rule, to materialize the solidarity and unification of anti-war struggle with national liberation/revolutionary war in mass movement, to develop international labor solidarity, and create a huge anti-war movement that shakes the capital, Tokyo.

The biggest focus for the time being, in face of the ever-aggravating war of aggression and genocide against Palestine, Gaza, is to start, from the beginning of the year, a rush of anti-war demonstrations every day in the capital and across the country. Let’s gather to the protests against the Israeli embassy, the US embassy and consulates, and create a civil war like upheaval . Let’s continue further, in continuation from last December, the protest actions against Japanese companies that have made contracts with Israeli military companies, and fight through the struggle to cut off support and cooperation for Israel from the government, the Ministry of Defense, capital, universities, and others.

Also, the struggle against the war in Ukraine is entering a decisive phase even more important than last year. On February 19, Japanese imperialism, Kishida government, will hold the Japan-Ukraine Conference for Promotion of Economic Reconstruction in Tokyo, with an intention of deeper involvement in the “second phase” of the Ukrainian military’s large-scale counteroffensive, and of open provision of military support. They are trying to plunge Ukraine into an even more hellish battlefield and then participate in the “reconstruction” business. Let us stand up in anti-war struggle furiously against Japanese imperialism’s rapid leap to an arms exporter, the emergence as one of the war participating countries in Ukraine, and the complete transformation of Japan into a warring state. In line with the action to stop the Gaza massacre, let’s raise a voice for an immediate end to the war in Ukraine! Stop G7 imperialists’ military support to Ukraine! Overthrow Kishida, Japanese imperialism, which aims to turn Japan to an arms exporter and a warring country! Let’s fight to crush the Japan-Ukraine Conference for Promotion of Economic Reconstruction on February 19! Organize the second Ukraine war anniversary rally on February 24!

1. 1. 1. Flags of the Great March all across the country

The fight against constitutional revision and large-scale military build-up will be even more decisive than last year.

The Kishida administration decided, on the one hand, to front-loading the deployment of both the US-made Tomahawk cruise missiles and the domestically produced long-range missiles by one year in face of accelerating process of US aggressive war against China, a world war. On the other hand, under the pressure of the eruption of a tremendous political crisis and the decline in government approval ratings to the 10% range, the government is unable to decide when to start tax increases for the large-scale military build-up and has postponed them until after FY 2026. The Japan Restauration Party and the Democratic Party for the People are aggressively attacking this attitude from the right and stirring up the drive for the constitutional revision. Revision of Article 9 of the constitution and transformation of the form of government are absolute objectives for Japanese imperialism to become a war participating country. The aggravation of the crisis pushes forward this impetus. Let us prepare for a decisive battle to stop the constitutional revision in order to stop the aggressive war on China and cut off the life of Japanese imperialism.

The next ordinary Diet session will be a war and arms buildup session. Let’s crush the deployment of long-range missiles, turning of the Nansei Islands into military fortresses, massive buildup of the Self-Defense Forces, and building of a joint operational posture with the US military and a large-scale arms expansion worth “43 trillion yen in five years” together with the whole agenda of the War Diet. Organize angers against Kishida, who is pushing forward with constitutional revision, war, and large-scale military buildup in the swamp of deepening corruption! Create a huge demonstration in Tokyo’s city center and a powerful struggle, surrounding the Diet and the Prime Minister’s Office !

We must achieve the development of the Grand March Against Constitutional Revision and War as an active body of total mobilization of people to the anti-war struggle centering on the class struggle labor movement led by the three fighting labor unions! Focusing on the national convergence anti-war struggle in Tokyo as a political struggle to overthrow imperialist state power, we adhere to that stance and spread the movement throughout the country, organizing activists, building regional bases, and moving from all over the country to the capital and other areas. The core of the Grand March movement is to form contingents for a political decisive battle in Tokyo. Let’s plant the flags of the Grand March all over the country and develop it into a huge movement!

(2) Let’s revitalize direct actions in Okinawa and across the country to stop aggressive war on Chinese

Okinawa is the largest field of our struggle against aggressive war on China. The confrontation from 2024 to 2025 will be focused on the total transformation of Okinawa into a military fortress: the 15th Brigade of the Ground SDF will be turned into a division; a missile unit and regimental headquarters will be established at Vice-Camp Katsuren; a missile unit will be deployed to Camp Yonaguni; it will be reorganized and deployed as a long-range missile unit, and it will be moved to Okinawa City; the construction of a new ammunition depot in Okinawa City and joint use of the US Kadena Ammunition Storage Area, the deployment of the SDF to Kita Daito Island, the relocation of Naha Naval Facility to Urasoe, and the expansion of Camp Ishigaki for joint training. The Kishida administration has already selected 14 airports and 24 ports as candidates for “specified important bases” to extend runways and develop ports in order to strengthen defense capabilities, of which 28 facilities, or about 70%, are in Okinawa and Kyushu. In Okinawa, they aim is to use Okinawa Development and Promotion Plan to promote the development of Okinawa as a military staging point.

In addition, the Kishida administration finally took step to file administrative subrogation in preparation for the construction of the new Henoko base, and on December 20, the Fukuoka High Court’s Naha branch issued a ruling allowing the administrative subrogation. This is because the transformation of Okinawa into a military staging point will not be completed without the dismantling of the Okinawa Struggle, which continues to resist base construction. The struggle to stop the construction of a new base in Henoko is a great stronghold for crushing the Japan-US Security Alliance and preventing an aggressive war on China.

“Never let them make Okinawa a battlefield!” is the unwavering determination of Okinawan people. Their anger, and the fight to stop the construction of SDF bases, which has been fought on Miyako Islands and Ishigaki Island, have broken through the bankrupt attitude of All-Okinawa Council which has not been squarely confronting the US-Japan Security Alliance and the Japan’s SDF. These developments are opening the floodgates of people’s struggle, confrontation with the misleaders who are trying to transform the Okinawan struggle into accommodation with the state power. Let’s revive the fierce struggle around 1970, in which young workers and students stood at the forefront, waving the banner of “Take back Okinawa! Smash Japan-US Security Alliance and Overthrow Japanese Imperialism!” Let’s fight the May 15 Okinawa struggle, the 52th anniversary of Okinawa “Reversion” to the mainland Japan as a great struggle to “Stop the war on China!, Remove all bases = Smash Japan-US Security Alliance, Overthrow Japanese Imperialism!” by putting the Great March Movement on the forefront of the society.

Furthermore, let’s strengthen the anti-war, anti-base struggle across the country in conjunction with the Okinawa struggle. Of particular importance is the fight in Kyushu, which, along with Okinawa, is positioned as a major staging point in a war on China. The crash of a Gound Self-Defense Force helicopter off the coast of Miyako Island in April last year, followed by the crash of a US Air Force CV22 Osprey off the coast of Yakushima in November, revealed that the entire Kyushu region was already in a state similar to a battlefield. The Japanese Ministry of Defense is still proceeding with the construction of a garrison at Saga Airport in preparation for the deployment of Ospreys. Led by the Kyushu Grand March, which is continuously fighting the Saga Airport struggle, let’s stand in solidarity with the fight at Kisarazu, Chiba, where it is being provisionally deployed, and fight to remove the Osprey and prevent its deployment. Let’s fight anti-base struggles in the Tokyo metropolitan area, where commanding functions and sortie bases are concentrated, such as Yokosuka, which opened new prospects with the 50-year struggle against homeporting of U.S aircraft carriers in October, as well as Yokota, Atsugi, Sagamihara, and Asaka. Let’s organize fights all over the country, including Iwakuni, Kure, Maizuru, and Ominato.

The transformation of the Self-Defense Forces into full-fledged invasion forces has been exposing violent contradictions such as rampant sexual violence and power harassment, and a breakdown in order and discipline. Let’s intensify the anti-military struggle by surrounding the SDF bases with anti-war struggles and recruiting SDF members into the ranks of the class struggle as workers in military uniform.

1. 1. 1. Defend Mr. Shito’s farmland!

For Japanese imperialism, which is pushing forward with its aggressive war against China, the absolute need is the dismantling of the Sanrizuka Struggle, the fortress of anti-war struggle, and the establishment of a system for full-scale, permanent military use of Narita Airport. The battle over Shito’s farmland in Minamidai has already entered the final stage. The cultivation right case has been fought in the Chiba District Court for 16 years. Let’s fight decisively in the cultivation right suit from January to March and surround the court with anger. Let’s raise a voice all over the country to stop the deprivation of his farmland, and rush to Sanrizuka and fight together.

Let’s organize the anger of the whole residents in Hokuso area against the functional enhancement of Narita Airport and defeat the construction of the third runway and the extension of Runway B. Let us forge the blood alliance with the Airport Opposition League to deepen the worker-farmer-alliance, and advance together towards a major development in the anti-war struggle and a historic victory in the Sanrizuka struggle. From the January 14 New Year’s demonstration to the cultivation rights lawsuit, and the March 31 on-site rally in Shibayama, let’s make the most of it.

1. 1. 1. Stop Japanese imperialism’s nuclear armament!

March 11, 13th anniversary of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Accident, will be definitely a historic day to wage a decisive battle. Uncompromising fight against the state power has been the very principle of the March 11 actions for 13 years. The source of Fukushima’s anger lies in this point. Let’s fight on against the government and the TEPCO, that have been shamelessly evading the responsibility for the nuclear accident, shrugging off the internal radiation exposure, and thus still continue exposing people to radiation. They dared to start dumping of contaminated water into the ocean. Fight until their overthrow!

Last year, Kishida government, decided to promote nuclear power generation as a part of its scheme of large-scale military build-up and transformation of Japan into a warring state, and openly legitimized the possession of nuclear weapons in the G7’s Hiroshima Vision adopted at the May summit talks. As a war state, Japanese imperialism has placed nuclear energy policy as a pillar of its national policy, and has taken steps to restart nuclear power plants and extend lifespan of its aged nuclear plants. In particular, the nuclear fuel cycle for production of nuclear weapons is a vital issue for Japanese imperialism. The dumping of contaminated water from the wrecked Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant is also a scheme aimed at putting the Rokkasho Reprocessing Plant*, which will release far more radioactive materials, into operation.

Stop the restart of nuclear power plants! Abolish all nuclear power plants! Smash “nuclear fuel cycle”! Fight against all of these issues as anti-war, anti-nuclear struggle! Let’s stop the construction of an “intermediate storage facility” in Kaminoseki! Let’s organize successful March 11 anti-nuclear Fukushima action, in solidarity with the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU), which is holding a general strike demanding suspension of the dumping of nuclear-contaminated water into the ocean!

 

*Rokkasho Reprocessing Plant is a factory to extract plutonium from spent nuclear fuel for Japan’s nuclear armament.

(3) Revitalize labor movement bases on the anti-war struggle to overthrow imperialism

Let us further develop the groundwork opened by the November 19 Workers All-Out Rally and vigorously build a labor movement to overthrow imperialism on the basis of the anti-war struggle.

Workers, the subject of revolution, essentially have the power to overthrow imperialism and open the future of mankind, without allowing war and discrimination. However, in the postwar labor movement, anti-war political struggles and struggles in the workplaces have been set in opposition. The labor movement was deprived of its class identity and suppressed within the organizational structure in a way that gave priority to the economic struggles.

The November 19 Rally has opened up an epoch-making ground to overcome these limitations of the postwar labor movement in practical approach. It has set workers free from narrow unionism by the straight-out explosion of indignation against the Israeli genocide in Gaza with the imperialist countries which help it. Moreover, by thoroughly fighting to stop this war, the workers have become aware that the anti-war struggle is the greatest task of the labor unions. And one after another, workers who participated in the November 19 Rally, are rising up to fight in their workplaces. It has been practically demonstrated that the fighting based on the anti-war struggle to overthrow imperialism in wartime is the greatest power to create a class struggle labor movement in the workplace.

The Kishida administration has drawn the Rengo deep into its camp, and Rengo is rapidly transforming itself into an Industrial Patriotic Association*. By calling to rise up for the anti-war struggle, confronting this situation earnestly, a new struggle has begun to put labor unions back in the hands of rank and file workers. The anti-war struggle is awakening the class consciousness of workers and creating a decisive force to overthrow Rengo. Let us fight the anti-war struggle in our workplaces and create a labor union bastion to turn the imperialist war into a civil war.

*Industrial Patriotic Association (Sangyo Hokokukai, Sampo) was war-collaboration “labor” organization created in 1940.

The scrap-and-build is underway in all areas of society, starting with the scrapping of “unprofitable” JR rail lines, education, medical care, nursing care, and infrastructure, with the aim of turning society into a war state. This is an attack to transform Japan into a wartime state that places priority on securing the military budget by cutting out everything that is not profitable to the state and capital. Together with these moves, the Ministry of Defense is spearheading the drive for the use of railroads for military purposes and the development of airports and seaports in preparation for contingencies.

In tandem with the transformation into a war state, the collapse of schools, hospitals, and transportation systems has become a serious social problem. There is a deep-rooted anger erupting in all workplaces over extreme under-staffing, rationalization, and labor intensification. Let us organize this anger into a class struggle labor movement and create struggles in all workplaces.

Let us fight together with the Three Labor Unions!

The prospect for the labor movement to turn the imperialist war into a civil war lies above all in developing the struggles of the Three Labor Unions: Kan-Nama, Minato-Godo and Doro-Chiba.

The fight against the massive crackdown on Kan-Nama, which came as a part of the attack by the Japanese imperialists for constitutional revision and war, has finally plunged into a counter offensive with the acquittal of the Wakayama case on appeal in March of last year. Let us further fight for the acquittal of President Yuji Yukawa at the appellate court, and strongly build a labor movement that fights together with Kan-Nama.

On November 20, the day after the November 19 Rally, the Shoichi Metal Branch of the Minato- Godo fought through the strike with the determination to “show that the united struggle of labor unions has the power to stop war and change society”. Let us make their determination and struggle our own cause of all workers and revive the strike in all industries.

This year, Doro-Chiba marks the 45th anniversary of separation/independence from the Doro National in 1979. The efforts of Doro-Chiba members, who have absolutely confronted against the Division and Privatization of Japan National Railways and have devoted their lives to the revitalization of the labor movement, must now be brought to fruition in the historical development of the class struggle labor movement and the international solidarity struggle. They have embodied the interests of the working-class as a whole,

The struggle for the withdrawal of the dismissal of 1,047 national railway workers is now “one step closer to victory.” Let us compel the perpetrators of the unfair dismissals, Yuji Fukasawa (president of JR East) and Masataka Ide (former chairman of JR West) to appear in the court.

Three labor unions— Kan-Nama, Minato-Godo and Doro-Chiba―are calling for the start of massive uprising of working-class people by promoting the National Coordination Center of Labor Unions and the Grand March Against Constitutional Revision and War as the two wheels of a cart.

(4) Let us confront discrimination and xenophobia and defeat the divide-and-rule.

In order to achieve a truly united advance of the proletarian revolution and revolutionary war for national liberation to overthrow imperialism, as task of accomplishing the struggle to ” turn aggression into a civil war, in solidarity with fighting Asian peoples”, we must wage an all-out struggle against the Japanese imperialists’ racial suppression. We never allow the refusal to accept refugees, deportation, racial discrimination and inhuman treatment of the detainees by the immigration authorities. Let us fight to smash the Immigration Control Act and immigration control system together with the foreign workers living in Japan who are determined to risk their lives.

The people’s resolute struggle against the Myanmar military coup has finally made a decisive turnaround. Starting with the simultaneous attacks on military bases, launched in northeastern Myanmar last October, the offensive to overthrow the military is spreading throughout the country. The funding of the military and military training by the Japanese government and the Nippon Foundation, which support the Myanmar military, must not be allowed to continue. Let us respond to the call for solidarity of the Myanmar people living in Japan and win the struggle for the 3rd anniversary of the February 1 Coup.

Advance the Women’s Liberation Struggle

The women’s liberation struggle in wartime has begun on a huge scale, fueled by deep-rooted anger and growing confrontation against discrimination, oppression, and sexual violence against women, which have got serious in the context of neoliberalism and war. In solidarity with the struggles of women who put their lives on the line, let us fight together with them to eradicate discrimination and oppression and to overthrow imperialism. The women’s liberation struggle is the core of the communist revolution, which aims to liberate all human beings through abolishing private property system and class society. Let us organize the anger of women swirling in society and stage huge demonstrations throughout the country on March 8, the International Women’s Day.

Let us strengthen the Women’s Liberation Organizing Committee and fight for the organization of women comrades to the Party Center and District Party leaderships as the most important task for the construction of the revolutionary party.

Toward the Buraku Liberation and the Overthrow of Japanese Imperialism

The Sayama struggle entered a new phase, smashing the state power’s attempt to dismiss the retrial utilizing the retirement of former Chief Justice Katsunori Ohno of the Tokyo High Court. The Sayama Affaire is a crime committed by the Japanese imperialists based on Buraku discrimination. The state branded Buraku (discriminated community) as “a breeding ground for crimes”, and unjustly arrested Mr. Kazuo Ishikawa. He is still in invisible handcuffs as a “murderer.” The state is continuing to punish him—the death penalty in the trial and the life imprisonment in the second instance. It is absolutely unforgivable. Let us make the indignation9 of the Buraku people our own and push forward with the struggle for victory in the Sayama retrial, Buraku liberation, and the overthrow of the Japanese imperialists. The state is trying to evict Buraku people and clear land throughout Japan. Let us fight against such attacks on Buraku, make the National Levelers’ Alliance bigger and build a Buraku liberation movement that stands in absolute opposition to the imperialist war.

Furthermore, let us fight and win against discrimination, oppression, and divide-and-rule scheme that are aggravating under the world war situation, including the struggle for the liberation of the disabled.

Victory for the Osaka-Hoshino Struggle

The class struggle under the situation of world war is an irreconcilable clash with imperialist state power. It is a process of advancing toward revolution, while crushing oppression, overwhelming state power, forming a fighting force without fear. The struggle to defeat repression exposes the anti-people character of the state power and arouses the fundamental anger of the working-class people. The struggle in custody and in prison to remain totally silent and to stick to non-conversion, and the struggle to take back comrades from prisons will dynamically develop the class struggle. Let us open up the development of class struggle with the anti-oppression struggle as its foundation.

Comrade Masaaki Osaka’s trial has shown the class righteousness and triumph of the November 14, 1971 Shibuya riot struggle. At the same time, it has totally exposed the bankruptcy of the prosecution, which had no evidence other than the record of oral statements, fabricated by the prosecutors. Let us win the Hoshino state compensation lawsuit together with the Osaka trial. We never allow the medical negligence of Comrade Taketoshi Suga, who is fighting against the suppression on framed-up charges concerning bombings of the State Guest House and the Yokota US Air Force Base under the Penal Provisions for Explosives Control* (Cabinet Ordinance No. 32 of 1884). Let us smash the inhuman prison medical treatment, and defend and recapture our comrades in prison.

*Penal Provisions for Explosives Control was issued as Ordinance N.32 in 1884 by Dajokan (the archaic top agency of the Imperial Japan which had administerial, legislative and judicial powers)

The revolutionary rising-up of the lawyers’ front is important in times of war and revolution. We need to create a group of lawyers who will fight against the state power in a principled and irreconcilable manner, in unity with the riotous development of the class struggle. Above all, let the Lawyers’ Front itself thoroughly stick to the position of the working-class, stand on the front lines of the class struggle, and fight through as subjects to open up the anti-war struggle.

For the Great Development of the Student Movement

Through last year’s struggles, Zengakuren (All-Japan Federation of Students’ Self-Government Associations), which resolutely carried through a powerful struggle fearlessly clashing with the state power, the riot police, had a huge impact on the class struggle in Japan as a whole. Let us achieve further development and expansion of the student movement, which is at the forefront of the anti-war struggle.

Starting with the passage of a bill to revise the National University Corporation Law at the end of last year, the Japanese imperialists and Kishida have launched an offensive to finally destroy the postwar university system. The state power is going to take full control and suppress all aspects of universities and mobilize them for the war. Universities are now complicit in the government’s war and attack students with disciplinary measures and repression who fight against the war. Let us unleash our anger against war-collaborating universities and win the development of a militant student movement across the country, led by students of Kyoto University and other key universities.

V. Our urgent task: Construction of the Party and its Leadership

In the decisive battle of 2024, we stand at the crossroads of world war or world revolution. The JRCL must make all-out efforts to create an anti-war struggle with an aim to “turn aggressive war into a civil war, in solidarity with fighting Asian people” in a completely different quality and quantity from those of the past. This is indeed an extraordinary task. We would like to confirm some of the issues that are now required for the Party construction.

(i)

In the first place, the Party must be constantly united solidly as a conscious political rallying body of revolutionary communists fighting for the liberation of the proletariat and all oppressed peoples. This means that the Party must rely to the utmost on the class nature of the working class as the subject of its own emancipation. The October 7 Uprising of the Palestinian people has made us realize once again that the world revolution is a process in which the anger of the exploited class and oppressed people explodes in a violent uprising. The Party is now required to create a unity that is pervaded with a fundamental class character and a thoroughgoing revolutionary spirit for the overthrow of imperialism.

After the 8th Congress of JRCL in 2022, we have made a decisive step forward to Turn Imperialist War into a Civil War, which was carried out by Lenin and Bolsheviks. We firmly rejected the path of capitulation and treachery from opportunism to social-chauvinism reminiscent of The Collapse of the Second International. Therefore, the 8th Congress was the final settlement of the inner-party struggle against the opponents of class labor movement, that is the EL5 (an unprincipledly organized faction around five national committee members of the former Northeastern Regional Committee). The EL5 fundamentally rejected the idea of workers’ self-emancipation and attempted to change the JRCL into a petty bourgeois liberalistic organization. The irreconcilable confrontation and break with the EL5 faction sharpened the Party’s political line based on the understanding of current era, and the thorough unanimity in the confrontation drew out the strength of the whole Party to the utmost, creating a basis for the victory in the decisive battle in 2023.

Breaking with opportunism and uniting without any ambiguity on the political line based on the understanding of current era make it possible for the Party to unite with the proletariat and the oppressed peoples standing in irreconcilable opposition to imperialism. This guarantees the development of the struggle to turn aggressive war into a civil war in solidarity with fighting Asian people toward the world proletarian revolution.

(ii)

What is required under the circumstances of the outbreak of the world war is to put into concreate and full practice the following duties which Lenin, in his article The Collapse of the Second International, proposed as “the indisputable and fundamental duty of all socialists”: 1) revealing to the masses the existence of a revolutionary situation, explaining its scope and depth, 2) arousing the proletariat’s revolutionary consciousness and revolutionary determination, helping it to go over to revolutionary action, 3) forming, for that purpose, organizations suited to the revolutionary situation.

Firstly, we have to develop the power to organize a huge mass action, a revolutionary anti-war struggle. “Turning aggressive war into a civil war ” is a process in which hundreds of thousands or millions of the working-class people take part in huge mass demonstrations and strikes, develop them to a scale that would make it impossible for the government to continue the war, and, through repeated clashes with the police and the army, lead to the seizure of political power by the proletariat, the establishment of a proletarian dictatorship. We need to make a giant leap forward to become a Party that can vigorously promote such a process.

For this purpose, we must gain more experiences in mass movements, which we still lack. We have to arouse mass anger against imperialist domination by exposing and agitating the class character of war and the positions and actions that the working-class people should take. It must be done in a concrete, rich, and sharp manner. At the same time, it is necessary to expose the true nature of the system-friendly forces, such as the Japan Communist Party (JCP) and the Rengo. Also, we have to convince the working-class people of the need for demonstrations and actions to fight against their own government. Moreover, it is important that we should actually organize such demonstrations and actions. Let us further build on the practices initiated in various regions of the country, which we have carried out in organizing for the November 19 Rally last year, for more proficient in organizing our labor movement.

Secondly, we must achieve a change of our Party into a rallying body by means of our organ paper Zenshin to organize anti-war struggle. We should further raise up our ability in publishing Zenshin as a weapon for all-out political exposure and agitation, and make it possible to immediately start engaging in propaganda activities, agitation, and organization anywhere in the country. Let us further enhance the promotion of our organ paper as a joint struggle of the Party’s leading body, Editorial Bureau, Printing Bureau, Management Bureau, District Organizations, together with readers.

In particular, we should place the activity for wider network of Zenshin as the core task of the district party organizations. The power to expand several times or even dozens of times the ground opened by the decisive battle in 2023 lies in the building of a network of readers. Let us use Zenshin as a weapon and rise up to organize an anti-war struggle on the scale of 10,000 for now. Here lies the central link of the Party’s great leap forward that will truly advance the revolutionary process.

(iii)

Thirdly, for the overthrow of imperialism, we have to make it our main frontal task of our district parties to organize an anti-war struggle.

The late comrade Nobuyoshi Honda, the founder and former general secretary of the JRCL, made clear as follows in his lecture On the History of the Revolutionary Communist Movement (Honda Works, Vol. 5) in 1972. He states that the district party organization is neither a party as a rallying body of fractions within a labor union nor a party that is formed by holding existing union organizations and gathering them together. “It is rather a party that clearly creates party leaders in the dimension of each district, that is the workers’ own party leaders. And under such leadership, representatives of each party organizations in each of labor unions and industrial federations and labor unions come together beyond the limit of narrow industrial demands, the party will literally fight the political struggle against state power revolutionarily from the viewpoint of the Party, that is, from the viewpoint of the Party preparing for the proletarian dictatorship, and will strengthen its organization as a political league, as a vanguard party”. The task of the district party organizations is to organize all fronts and all peoples into anti-war struggles, combining various fronts such as the women’s liberation struggle, the Buraku liberation struggle, the struggle against immigration control, and the disability liberation struggle, on the basis of workers and labor unions, and to fight to overthrow imperialism and establish a proletarian dictatorship. Therefore, the basic meetings of the party organizations must be clearly distinguished from fraction meetings within labor unions and mass organizations, and must be a place to discuss on the basis of our organ paper the Party’s political line based on its understanding of current era, and to reproduce unity and solidarity on a daily basis. This is where we should invest the major part of our energy. Let us create the leadership of the next generation in the course of organizing the anti-war struggle! The construction of a Marxist Youth Workers League is the task of the entire Party. Let us step forward to build branches of the core faction of the Marxist Students’ League in major universities throughout the country with the united efforts of the district party organizations.

Fourthly, the anti-war struggle for the overthrow of imperialism will be a full-scale confrontation with the state power, with the police crackdown. We must build our Party that can overcome this repression. In the struggle of 2023, we have crushed down the suppression and successfully won the Sanrizuka battle (against the confiscation of farmland for the construction of Narita Airport), the struggle to crush the G7 summit in Hiroshima, and the anti-war struggle in solidarity with Palestine. The core of this victory was the complete silence and non-conversion in case of arrest and detention by police. It was also decisive in winning the clash with the rightwing civilian counterrevolutionary forces, with Suginami as a major focal point. Let us win the immediate release of Comrade Taketoshi Suga, who is in prison on the fabricated charge for the bombing on the State Guest House and the Yokota US Air Base in 1986. Let us fight for the acquittal of Comrade Osaka, who stood up with the late Comrade Hoshino in the November 14 Shibuya riot struggle in 1971. The existence of these comrades, who defend the honor and pride of the Party, is the perfect picture of the JRCL.

Let us build JRCL as a revolutionary party of fighting young people and students, and march toward the decisive battle in the year of 2024 to open the way to turn aggressive war into a civil war, in solidarity with fighting Asian people”.