The Japan Revolutionary Communist League (Revolutionary Marxist Faction) ( ja, 日本革命的共産主義者同盟革命的マルクス主義派, Nihon Kakumeiteki Kyōsanshugisha Dōmei, Kakumeiteki Marukusu Shugiha) is a Japanese

Trotskyist Trotskyism is the political ideology and branch of Marxism developed by Ukrainian-Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky and some other members of the Left Opposition and Fourth International. Trotsky self-identified as an orthodox Marxist, a rev ...

revolutionary A revolutionary is a person who either participates in, or advocates a revolution. The term ''revolutionary'' can also be used as an adjective, to refer to something that has a major, sudden impact on society or on some aspect of human endeavor. ...

group, often referred to by the abbreviation Kakumaru-ha ( ja, 革マル派, links=no) in Japanese. It is classified as a Far Left organization.

History

The group's origins lie in its split from the

Japanese Communist Party The is a left-wing to far-left political party in Japan. With approximately 270,000 members belonging to 18,000 branches, it is one of the largest non-governing communist parties in the world. The party advocates the establishment of a democr ...

following the

Hungarian Revolution of 1956 The Hungarian Revolution of 1956 (23 October – 10 November 1956; hu, 1956-os forradalom), also known as the Hungarian Uprising, was a countrywide revolution against the government of the Hungarian People's Republic (1949–1989) and the Hunga ...

. The dissenting factions attended a congress of the

Japanese New Left The in Japan refers to a 1960s Japanese movement that adopted the radical political thought of the Western New Left, breaking from the established Old Left of the Japanese Communist Party and Japan Socialist Party. In the 1970s the Japanese New ...

in 1957 and agreed to unite as the

Japan Revolutionary Communist League The is a Trotskyist group in Japan. History Several small groups split from the Japanese Communist Party (JCP) following the Hungarian Revolution of 1956. They attended a congress in 1957 and agreed to unite as the JRCL. Although Japan had no h ...

(RCL), usually abbreviated as Kakukyōdō in Japanese. This group was fervently anti-Stalinist, and soon fell under the sway of the charismatic half-blind Trotskyist philosopher

Kan'ichi Kuroda was a self-taught Japanese political philosopher and social theorist, associated with Trotskyism, who was deeply involved in far-left political movements. Nearly blind, Kuroda was affectionately nicknamed "The Blind Prophet" and "KuroKan" b ...

. Their goals at this time were to overthrow the Japanese government, end U.S. occupation of

Okinawa is a prefecture of Japan. Okinawa Prefecture is the southernmost and westernmost prefecture of Japan, has a population of 1,457,162 (as of 2 February 2020) and a geographic area of 2,281 km2 (880 sq mi). Naha is the capital and largest city ...

, and abolish the

U.S.-Japan Alliance The is a military alliance between Japan and the United States of America, as codified in the Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security between the United States and Japan, which was first signed in 1951, took effect in 1952, and was amended ...

. Kakumaru-ha evolved into its current form after a series of schisms. In 1959, Kuroda Kan'ichi was expelled from the RCL in the wake of a scandal in which he tried to sell compromising information about the JCP to the

Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department The serves as the prefectural police department of Tokyo Metropolis. Founded in 1874, it is headed by a Superintendent-General, who is appointed by the National Public Safety Commission, and approved by the Prime Minister. The Tokyo Metro ...

(MPD). Therefore, Kuroda, along with his right-hand man

Nobuyoshi Honda Nobuyoshi (written: 信吉, 信芳, 信義, 信喜, 信由, 経惟) is a masculine Japanese given name. Notable people with the name include: *, Japanese photographer and artist *, Japanese chief executive *, Japanese sumo wrestler *, Japanese com ...

, founded their own version of the RCL, with the appellation "National Committee" added to the name, and took many of their followers with them to create the RCL-NC. In 1960, a youth branch of the RCL-NC was established for

Zengakuren Zengakuren is a league of university student associations founded in 1948 in Japan. The word is an abridgement of which literally means "All-Japan Federation of Student Self-Government Associations." Notable for organizing protests and marches, ...

student activists as the Marxist Student League (MSL), abbreviated Marugakudō in Japanese. Finally in 1963, the parent organization RCL-NC split in two as the result of a disagreement between Kuroda and Honda over whether to pursue socialist revolution in alliance with others, or to focus on strengthening and expanding a single revolutionary organization, with the resultant split of Marugakudō into the " Central Core Faction" (''Chūkaku-ha''), which was led by Honda and favored allying with others, and the "Revolutionary Marxist Faction" (abbreviated ''Kakumaru-ha''), which staunchly adhered to Kuroda's insistence on going it alone. The two groups had frequent violent conflicts and, by the mid-1970s, these were resulting in several deaths per year—16 in 1975 alone, including Kakumaru-ha's assassination of Chūkaku-ha's leader Honda Nobuyasu. The organisation subsequently engaged in a number of high-profile guerrilla activities while continuing to organise on university campuses, primarily through their

faction. In 1998, police seized thousands of recordings of their conversations made by Faction members, which a spokesperson claimed had been "necessary to protect the organisation."Raid on Leftist Lair Yields Police Radio Recordings
, ''

The Japan Times ''The Japan Times'' is Japan's largest and oldest English-language daily newspaper. It is published by , a subsidiary of News2u Holdings, Inc.. It is headquartered in the in Kioicho, Chiyoda, Tokyo. History ''The Japan Times'' was launched by ...

'', 10 April 1998 Formerly close to the

Spartacist League The Spartacus League (German: ''Spartakusbund'') was a Marxist revolutionary movement organized in Germany during World War I. It was founded in August 1914 as the "International Group" by Rosa Luxemburg, Karl Liebknecht, Clara Zetkin, and other ...

,Robert Jackson Alexander, "International Trotskyism, 1929–1985: A Documented Analysis of the Movement", pp. 599–601 the group now has friendly relations with the International Trotskyist Fraction.

References

External links

Official website (English)
{{Authority control Communist militant groups Communist parties in Japan Far-left politics in Japan Left-wing militant groups in Japan Political parties established in 1963 Trotskyist organizations in Asia