Revolutionary Communist League, National Committee

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Revolutionary Communist League, National Committee 革命的共産主義者同盟全国委員会
Chairperson	Takeo Shimizu
Founder	Kan'ichi Kuroda Nobuyoshi Honda
Founded	1959
Split from	Japan Revolutionary Communist League
Headquarters	Edogawa, Tokyo
Membership (2020)	4,700
Ideology	Communism Marxism Anti-Stalinism Anti-imperialism
Political position	Far-left
Website
http://www.zenshin.org/zh/
Politics of Japan Political parties Elections

Japan Revolutionary Communist League, National Committee (革命的共産主義者同盟全国委員会, Kakumeiteki Kyōsanshugisha Dōmei, Zenkoku Iinkai) is a Japanese

The group is led by Takeo Shimizu [ja], who became the chairman in 1997.^[2]

The Japanese National Police Agency reports that as of 2020, 4,700 members are active in Chukaku-ha.^[3]

History

Prehistory of Chūkaku-ha

In 1957 a number of dissidents dissatisfied with the direction of the

The group evolved into its current form (Chūkaku-ha) 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 (MPD). Therefore, Kuroda, along with his right-hand man Nobuyoshi Honda, 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.^[6] In 1960, a youth branch of the RCL-NC was established for Zengakuren student activists as the Marxist Student League (MSL), abbreviated Marugakudō in Japanese.^[7] This was followed in 1961 by the creation of another youth branch for young labor unionists, the Marxist Workers' Youth League (MWYL).^[6]

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) Zengakuren, which staunchly adhered to Kuroda’s insistence on going it alone.^[8]

Chūkaku-ha era

Starting in the mid-1960s, Chūkaku-ha, became active in organizing protest activities. In 1966, Chūkaku-ha joined in alliance with two other radical student groups, the "Second Bund" (Daini Bunto) and the

In 1986, their covert weapons factory was raided by police after two suspects were arrested for carrying an explosive in their truck.[13] Chūkaku-ha's attacks continued into the later part of the 20th century, with the last one occurring in 2001.^[1]

In 2017, the MPD announced the arrest of Masaaki Osaka, a known Chūkaku-ha leader accused of killing a police officer during a riot on November 14, 1971.^[14] On that day, a protest against the occupation of Okinawa by the United States turned violent, with students throwing Molotov cocktails at officers.^[15][16]

Today, Chūkaku-ha still stages protests and operates a YouTube channel to document and publicize its activities.^[2] Takeo Shimizu, one of Chukaku-ha's surviving leaders, appeared in public after going underground since 1971 on September 6, 2020 at Arakawa, Tokyo.^[17][2] During a news conference on January 27, 2021, he criticized Tokyo for its COVID-19 response and asserted that the crisis was an opportunity for a revolution.^[3]

As of 2021, the organization has experienced a resurgence in interest among some young Japanese dissatisfied with the trajectory of the Japanese Communist Party.^[18] In May 2023, Chūkaku-ha organized an anti-G7 protest in Hiroshima, denouncing the G7 summit as "imperialism for nuclear war".^[19]

References