International communist who founded the JCP, ran the Comintern's Pacific networks, and led the party for 24 years
On his arrival at JCP headquarters in January 1946, one newspaper reported that 'young girls in both kimonos and Western dress gathered like fans awaiting a star at the stage door.'
An international communist who helped found both the CPGB in London (1920) and the JCP in Tokyo (1922), he served on the Comintern Executive Committee and ran intelligence networks against Imperial Japan from the United States and China. From 1940 to 1945 in Yan'an, he led the Japanese People's Emancipation League, converting captured Japanese soldiers into communist forces, and after the war he crafted the JCP's 'lovable party' strategy of peaceful revolution, winning up to 35 Diet seats. As JCP Chairman from 1958 to 1982, he steered the party through the Anpo protests and the Sino-Soviet split, but in 1992 the discovery of his 1939 letter denouncing a comrade to the NKVD led to his expulsion from the party he had founded.
Career Timeline
- 1915Joined Yuaikai (Friendly Society), editor of Labour and Industry
- 1920Founding member, Communist Party of Great Britain; London delegate
- 1922Co-founded the Japanese Communist Party; editor of Musansha Shimbun
- 1931–1940Comintern Executive Committee member; intelligence work in USSR, USA, China
- 1940–1945Led the Japanese People's Emancipation League in Yan'an; re-educated Japanese POWs
- 1946–1950Elected to House of Representatives; JCP Central Committee
- 1955–1958JCP First Secretary
- 1958–1982Chairman of the JCP Central Committee