III

What Is Necessary to Get Closer to Establishing Democratic Government?

Next question is what is necessary to get closer to establishing such a democratic government.

The draft Resolution sets out the course for making the effort to establish a democratic coalition government in the early part of the 21st century. This finds a great echo nationwide. At the same time there are voices asking what must we do for this and what course must we take to establish such a government.

In relation to initiatives for establishing a government, there is a substantial difference between the all-are-ruling-parties forces and the JCP. The all-are-ruling-parties forces say their initiative for establishing a government depends on how to form a majority by reshuffling the tie-up between political parties within the existing situation. But, the core of our initiative is how the forces aiming for democratic reform can become a majority in national politics and among the people, and how to this extent we can change the situation and the balance of political power.

Accordingly, I will report on the following question: The points we need to stress in working to achieve such specific conditions, while advancing as a realistic objective the prospect of establishing a democratic government.

(1) Progress of the JCP in Quantity and Quality, Necessary for Fulfilling the Task

First, the development and progress of the JCP in quantity and quality to make it worthy of undertaking such a task. To make a democratic government a realistic perspective, the decisive need is for the JCP to develop as a political party both in quantity and quality to a level worthy of the support and trust of the majority of the people.

Our current quantitative aim is to achieve a steady growth in party membership to a position equal to 10% of all JCP voters in the general election and Akahata subscribers equal to 50% of such voters. This aim should be achieved no later than the year 2000, and we must work hard to achieve the party's further growth and development in the 21st century.

By the efforts of the whole party, we must raise the quality of the party by improving the content and level of activity worthy of a party aiming for a democratic government, and work to become a mass political party linked with tens of millions of people.

As part of this effort, it is especially important for the JCP to become a powerful parliamentary force in national politics.

As the immediate first phase toward these aims, I want to propose to the whole party that we work to achieve more than 100 House of Representatives seats and dozens of House of Councilors seats, based on which we could change the balance of power in the Diet and build up a force for squarely confronting the LDP. It is most unlikely that we could achieve either of these in just one election, but we must make the effort for continuous progress to develop sufficient strength to achieve these aims in a few elections.

I am convinced that if all party organizations view their own region based on such a perspective, even those party organizations which seem to be a long way from winning seats will get fresh determination not to continue to stand still.

(2) Development of Cooperation with Non-Party Forces

Second is the question of development of cooperation with people who support no specific political party.

A key point is that we must continue our efforts in all aspects of party activity to approach and develop exchanges with and work in conjunction with a wide range of people including progressive and conservative non-party forces.

In this respect, we have had many experiences and made progress nationwide. But we want to make this bolder and more systematic so that we can break new ground in this area.

Expand Network of Local and Workplace Progressive Unity Forums to Cover Whole Japanese Society

In this respect, I will speak about the following two specific questions. The first is on the development of the Progressive Unity Forum (Forum for Peace, Democracy and Progressive Unity) movement. This movement is a nationwide movement which is also developing grassroots activity with prefectural progressive unity forums in all 47 prefectures, 380 regional forums and 84 workplace forums. We can see in this the real value of the forum as a full-scale joint movement and organization for establishing a majority among the people.

In terms of the number of forums formed in local communities and workplaces, the work is still at an early stage, compared with the historic achievement in 1960 of 2,000 such regional units during the struggle against the Japan-U.S. Security Treaty. Of course it is the National Progressive Unity Forum's job to develop the movement in every corner of Japan, but the JCP, as a political party which plays a part in it, must make conscious and powerful efforts to promote the movement.

At present, 93 or more than a quarter of the 331 JCP district committees do not have any regional progressive unity forums in the area they cover. The number of forums in workplaces is far smaller than this, and a large majority of district committees have no workplace progressive unity forums in their areas.

Naturally, the area covered by a party district committee and a regional progressive unity forums do not necessarily coincide. But it is important for the JCP to make a much greater effort to establish regional and workplace forums in cooperation with individuals and organizations who support this movement, and to make systematic efforts so that the progressive unity forum achieves a network covering the whole of Japanese society.

Activity in Local Politics for "Politics in which Residents Are the Key Force"

Another important field is local politics. In fact, a substantial part of the cooperation with non-party forces is on local politics. In April, the number of JCP local assembly members exceeded 4,000, and today's Newspaper Akahata reports that this figure is now 4,051 after yesterday's (September 21) elections. This is a present to the JCP Congress from party organizations across the country.

As regards the present situation in local politics, under LDP politics the "decentralization of power" is just in name only. With the policy of making local governments something like "development corporations" and imposing central government's "administrative reform" including cutting social welfare programs, the imposition of bad government undermining local autonomy is rampant throughout the country. The "establishment of local governments worthy of being called local governments which defend local people's interests" is what the overwhelming majority of the people want. Irrespective of the difference of position between conservative and progressive forces, conditions are developing widely all over Japan, which can be the basis for defeating LDP politics which gives priority to developing projects, and for winning the majority of local residents to support "politics in which residents are the key force."

In this sense, the importance of the role of JCP local assembly members is increasing more than ever.

To meet local people's demands, making efforts to enhance the quality of the activity of JCP local assembly members and their groups is a vital task for the whole party. At present we have 351 local assembly members groups which have the right to initiate bills; these are in the Tokyo Metropolis and Kyoto Prefecture, 140 cities including 6 ordinance-designated cities, 20 wards and 189 towns and villages. They need to master the effective use of the right to initiate bills.

To exchange experiences on the activities of local assembly members groups and to help develop their activity to reach the new level the situation requires, the party is planning to hold a meeting next April of all JCP local assembly members. It will be held in a big venue in the Tokyo Metropolitan area. We have held several national meetings of local assembly members here in Izu, but there is limited capacity here and we had to limit attendance to 1,000 and less. We want to make this proposed meeting a big step for ensuring that we make an advance in local political activity by literally mobilizing all our assembly members.

The JCP is a ruling party in 120 local governments throughout the country. And 66 of these are municipalities in which the JCP is the only ruling party. The important thing is for them not to be isolated in the whole local politics, but to basically interact with national movements for local politics that serve the people, in which JCP local assembly members groups are playing the leading part.

How should we develop people-oriented administrations in the municipalities in which the JCP is a ruling party? We have to bear in mind that this has nationwide significance, not only for local residents, but as a bench-mark in assessing the capability of the JCP and the progressive and democratic forces for tackling the real political questions. We will do our utmost to this effect.

(3) Need for Outstanding Development of Democratic Mass Movements to Become a Majority Force

Next is the question of mass movements. A major change in political power relations conducive to establishing a democratic government is impossible without epoch-making advances of the mass movements in every field.

Mass movements include those of various strata, such as workers, farmers, fishers, small- and medium-sized business people, women, youth and students, old people, intellectuals and cultural people. There are also single issue movements, such as the environment, welfare, medical treatment and care, education, the adverse effects of some medicine, and disaster relief; also there are the movements for peace and democracy such as the anti-nuclear weapons and peace movements, the movement to defend the Constitution and the one for developing local self-government. In all these fields the JCP will consciously help democratic movements pursue the aim of becoming a majority, and thus contribute to developing and advancing such movements. We are convinced that developing mass movements in various fields on the basis of this viewpoint will surely help them break new ground and widen their perspective.

As the draft Resolution emphasizes, to get a democratic breakthrough in the trade union movement is an urgent social task arising from the people's needs. At the moment, the Japanese Trade Union Confederation (Rengo) has the majority in the trade union movement. But there is hardly any trade union in the world like Rengo which has gone to the extent of abandoning its duty of defending the economic interests of workers. European trade unions which have had exchanges with Rengo have been appalled at its excessive subservience to management and the government. It has become quite obvious that the political role of Rengo is to force workers to support LDP politics.

Japanese workers, under conditions of harsh control in workplaces which endangers their life, health and freedom, no longer tamely submit to such a position, and their energy and demands for an organization that will defend their interests has great potential for developing on a very wide scale. The mobilizing of such energy, to change the present trade union movement into being class-oriented and democratic, should be regarded as a common historic task for the party and the democratic forces as a whole, and every effort made and wisdom used to achieve it.

(4) Winning Public Support for a Progressive and Democratic Course by Contraposing Policies

Fourth is the question of helping the people understand the progressive and democratic course by comparing our policies with others'.

Contradictions between LDP politics and the people's interests and demands have sharpened to an unprecedented level in various fields and are continuing to become more extensive. A very wide range of people who see the contradictions and the antagonism are looking for a solution in the people's interests.

This makes it important for us to carry out activity to make clear the conflict on policy in a way that makes it more visible and understood by a wider range of people, and to put forward solutions to various problems in the people's interests. When necessary, we are also required to conduct activity, in cooperation with a broad range of people, to seriously explore solutions which the majority of the people can agree with. From this standpoint, it is now more important than anything else to make conscious efforts to drastically strengthen policy-making activity in both national and local politics to a level which the current situation demands.

There is another issue which should be mentioned. Of the many problems in Japanese society, there are a number of social problems which cannot just be attributed to bad politics, though of course they are connected to the harm done by LDP politics. Bullying and juvenile delinquency are such problems. It goes without saying that there are serious manifestations of the distortions and mistakes by education administrations under LDP politics. But it is also obvious that a change of politics cannot be a cure for everything.

As a party working to build a democratic society, naturally we propose what we regard as necessary solutions for such social problems. It is on this basis that the draft Resolution refers to the party's 1970s proposals on education for the moral behavior of citizens which need to be further developed in the recent bad social trends. At the time, the government was undertaking moves to impose "moral education," a kind of revival of the prewar thinking, and prompted by its automatic opposition to this, there was in the democratic movements an entrenched atmosphere of general opposition to moral education. In such a situation, there were many varied reactions to the party's proposals for establishing education for the moral behavior of citizens. I would like to again stress that this is an important task of the movement for social progress.

(5) On Coalition with Other Parties

The fifth issue is about coalition with other political parties.

As the draft Resolution again proposed the direction for establishing a "democratic coalition government," some comrades have raised the question of whether there are any parties which could be our partners in such a coalition.

That the JCP is not aiming to establish one-party government has been the party's consistent position and is included in the Party Program. In light of the position of the other existing political parties, there is no party at present with which we can cooperate for bringing about democratic changes in national politics. But there is no need for us to see this situation as being permanently set. Actually, postwar history has proved time and again that the Japanese people have enormous democratic energy for calling for democratic innovation in politics and society. In future when the conditions for democratic change mature, and in particular mature to the point of the majority of the people supporting such change, there will be the strong possibility for democratic parties and groups supported by the public to come into existence. It is with this prospect in mind that the draft Resolution specifically says that the party works for establishing a democratic coalition government.

In terms of the future, there can be various democratic parties and groups with whom we can cooperate. The question we are now raising in Japan is democratic change within the framework of capitalism, which can be supported even by those political forces standing for revised capitalism, which theoretically means defending the capitalist system. For this reason, we must not have fixed views about what political forces can emerge as JCP partners for common action.

In talking about partners for common action, we should not be dogmatic and regard past experiences in Europe and of the progressive movement in Japan in the 1960s and 70s as forever relevant, and common action with social democratic parties as central. In Japan's 50 postwar years the social democratic parties have failed to take root among the people as a political trend. I think this is an important point. The reasons for this failure are: (1) They unjustifiably monopolized the control of trade union organizations and failed to build their own organization; (2) when there was outside interference by the former Soviet Union and other countries in Japan's progressive movements, they always supported such interference and even performed the role of cheer leader; (3) tempted by a call "to join the government," they abandoned in an unprincipled way their public pledges and policies. The failure of the social democratic parties to take root among the people has important meaning after all, when we think about future political prospects in Japan.

In the pre-congress discussion, questions were raised in relation to the party's assessment of, and attitude toward the New Socialist Party. JCP policy has been one of dealing with New Socialist Party organizations in good faith in localities where the need and conditions existed for cooperation. In the Diet, the party took common action with them in the House of Councilors in opposition to consumption tax rate increase and on other issues. But the New Socialist Party does not necessarily have a national unified policy on cooperation with the JCP. Some local organizations of the New Socialist Party are dominated by anticommunist and anti-democratic currents. In the general election, it did not qualify as a national political party. We think it appropriate to look at such things realistically and deal with them on a case by case basis, depending on the actual local situation.

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