At 12:43 18/06/00 -0400, you wrote:
>Communism gains acceptance in Japan
>
> Economic problems turn voters away from mainstream parties
>
> By Sharon Moshavi, Globe Correspondent, 6/18/2000
Interesting article and hopeful, if old prejudices are dying out. But the
developments here must be qualified in many ways.
They sound similar to the gradual relative rise in respect and
acceptability for the Communist Party of Italy. That went hand in hand with
developments in Eurocommunism, and also with changes of name. Although the
official policy is not to change the name of the CPJ, it is not surprising
the question has come up.
The article is accompanied by many protestations against anything that may
sound like the dictatorship of the proletariat. Ultimately force lies
behind much of politics. Tactically and strategically I am sure the CPJ is
right not to imply it will be the first to use force. But from this
bourgeois report it could be more explicit about how it is going to
neutralise the force of the enemy.
It appears to be attracting votes as a sort of protest party concentrating
on local activism. It sounds the equivalent in English terms of a cross
between the Liberal Democrats and Ken Livingstone.
Gathering together all the threads of discontent is a strategy which has
Lenin's stamp of approval, and they appear to be occupying a viable niche
here, but it is not really communism.
Or is it?
The report is reminiscent of the situation which Marx and Lenin described
in the early 1840's in Germany when all different strata called themselves
communists. The CPJ seems to be angling for a return to that sort of
acceptance.
After all Jesus was a communist, and different sorts of communists have
surfaced in different social conditions throughout history.
How does the CPJ deal with class contradictions, and finance capital?
Chris Burford
London
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