In January, a fellow journalist at Le Monde diplomatique’s Japanese edition told a rather prim teacher colleague at the Tokyo elementary school where she also works, that she was visiting the Japanese Communist Party (JCP) headquarters. The woman replied without a hint of irony, ‘That sends chills down my spine! Red means danger.’

Founded in 1922, the JCP has 250,000 members, making it one of the biggest communist parties in the world, next to those in China, Vietnam and Cuba. Accounting for the difference in population – 124.5 million people in Japan and 68.3 million in France – a French communist party of equivalent size would boast 137,000 members (its actual membership is 42,000).

Yoshimitsu Kuronuma is well aware of the fear the party still arouses. He has arranged for two of his comrades to take to the streets with him in Ota-ku, a lower middle-class ‘ward’ or borough in south Tokyo. His friends’ wrinkles reveal their advancing years but Kuronuma still seems spry: at 76, he’s the youngest member of the local JCP cell. Equipped with a loudspeaker mounted on a tricycle, the small group goes street to street, rallying voters in a forthcoming local election. ‘What do you have in your fridge?’ they ask. ‘Let’s make sure it’s full so you can have three meals a day.’

In their oversized anoraks, the three look like Studio Ghibli characters. But Kuronuma knows that, flanked by his sidekicks, some will give him a wide berth. ‘Your hand might tremble when you vote for the Communist Party, but take the plunge!’ he urges.

Every party member I met agreed that JCP membership is best kept secret. At work, discovery can lead to sidelining or outright dismissal. In everyday life, members may find themselves ostracised. The party is still subject to a 1952 law banning subversion. It has long been under state surveillance, which intensified after March 2016, when the far-right prime minister Shinzo Abe (2006-07 and 2012-20) accused the JCP (…)

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(2) Except August 1993-June 1994 and September 2009-December 2012.

(3) John Dower, Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II, WW Norton, New York, 1999.

(4) Quoted in John Dower op cit.

(5) Kenji Hasegawa, ‘The Japanese Communist Party has been a vital presence in Japan’s politics’, 15 July 2022, jacobin.com/.

(6) Kazuo Shii, ‘The Central Committee report of the amendments to the JCP program’, 14 January 2020.