Press translations [Japan]. Editorial Series 0458, 1946-02-18.

Full Translation:

The JAPAN Communist Party's Central Committee on the 8th decided on the general, principles to be presented to the 5th national meeting. The principles had been recognized as the establishment of a proletarian dictatorship by force and the establishment of a Soviet type of government. Accordingly, the masses felt it was a terrible party.

The principles of the Party decided at the 4th general meeting were so abstract that we found it difficult to grasp the inner thoughts. The Communist Party many times has proposed cooperation with the Social Democratic Party, which has refused it on various pretences. The Social-Democratic Party could not understand the political principle of the Communist Party.

This time however the principles of the Communist Party have become clear. According to its principles the Emperor System is to be abolished as a system. The private property system is to exist to meet the needs of the community. Today when post war reconstruction is being especially speeded, the food, living necessities, and housing problems should be solved promptly in order to secure a certain means of livelihood for the people. Middle, sized and small commercial and industrial entrepreneurs should make active use of their capital. Monopolistic capital and enterprises which are exploiting the masses, should be completely destroyed. This is reasonable from the standpoint of JAPAN's economic democratization. Furthermore, the Communist Party mentions in its platform that JAPAN's democratic revolution against the bourgeoisie should be accomplished by education or by peaceful democratic means, instead of the use of violence or dictatorship.

Since Mr. NOZAKA, Sanzo's home-coming, the Communist Party has gradually changed its political principles under the spirit of a "Popular Communist Party". This principle seems to have been created by him.

Mr. NOZAKA expresses in his speeches that if there are better views and plans on practical problems than the Communist Party's we should adopt them rapidly and co-operate in a body to secure the means of the people's livelihood and to reconstruct JAPAN. It is understood that by doing this, he intends to gather many classes of our society for a democratic front. This political principle is so spontaneous, generous, and co-operative that it is certainly

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worthy of a popular party. It will give life to JAPAN's Communist party.

We have many problems in securing the means of the people's livelihood, not only in the cities, but also in the local districts. By forming a powerful democratic front regardless of parties, we should achieve great results rapidly. It is with this object and as the best way to obtain popularity that the JAPAN Communist Party also fights as a soldier in a democratic front with the modest attitude of a party of the masses.

Full Translation:

The reclamation policy through which the Government plans to bring under cultivation l,550,000 cho of waste land and I woodlands, and to establish new villages, is a matter of epoch-making significance in JAPAN's agriculture. Naturally, reclamation is always accompanied by severe difficulties. Sometimes it happens that in a large tract of land one cannot find enough feed for horses. Land is sterile, and a self-supporting system is difficult to be established with only one or two years' effort. Even houses are not built without trouble, and it is common for one to live in a shed, built out of branches of trees. In addition, in an out of-the-way mountain district one; must got along without even lamplight, not to mention electric light. Not only that, the climatic conditions are extremely unfavorable, on account of cold, winds, snow-storms, and rain. There also may be great drought.

At the outset of the reclamation work, one does not know what to do. Often fields cultivated through greet trouble are ruined, by wind in a single night. Those who reclaim waste land courageously in the midst of such severe hardships are not engaged in a difficult task because to them the task is a great adventure. They can be called pioneers. They cherish at heart a strong desire to reconstruct themselves, which bears a resemblance to the spirit of those pioneers who went to AMERICA seeking freedom of religion and to found there a new unrestricted country. Each of them has a firm resolution and ideal to establish new villages and to pave the way for new prosperity through their own efforts. Particularly the hardships their leaders must undergo are more severe. The higher the ideal is entertained by them, the more severe are their pains. It is comparable to an artist who puts his heart into a creation. Indeed, establishing a new village is no less a work than art. Those who engage in reclamation are just like the artists who steadily give expression to their ideals by every day's work. We should admire then rather than sympathize with them.

The fundamental requisite for the reclamation administration should be the stimulation of those people who establish villages. The Government, dominated by immediately urgent problems regarding the reclamation, neglects this fundamental requisite with the result that free development of the reclamation enterprises is checked. It is known that our agricultural policy is based on agriculture as a first principle, which is intended to establish and maintain the self-supporting small holding system. Also this policy is

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observed in the reclamation administration. It is only natural that such intensive cultivation as rice production is based on the agriculture-first principle with the family members as the source of labor.

The greater part of our agriculture is carried out by manual labor. However, as for the fields to be reclaimed, almost all of them are dry rice-fields and land is extensive. The feudal fetters of the old landowners have been lifted in outline, but the violence of nature is more severe than over. Such being the case, to encourage now the small farmers will not only retard the reclamation work, but also cause them great trouble. Unless the Government acts decisively on modernization of the reclamation, administration, not merely holding to the agriculture—first principle, a large portion of those men engaged in the reclamation work will become uninterested.

Many of the authorities who are in charge of the reclamation administration misunderstand the concept of liberalism. It is not uncommon for them to recognize officially many enterprisers, including the grafting and self-advertising ones. Not only that, some of them seem to think it liberal or democratic to recognize several enterprises in a limited district and to make them compete with one another, or to order the formation of unions composed of new farmers, who have been given hardly three tan of land. This is decidedly beside the point. The thought that reclamation work can be carried on satisfactorily through free competition among various enterprisers, while the Government recognizes as large a number as possible, is nothing more than the concept of laissez-faire, an ideology of industrial capitalism. To consider it readily as being a liberal action to introduce the free competition system in defeated JAPAN is nothing but self-contentment and ridiculous confusing of meanings. It should be realized that the agriculture-first principle differs fundamentally from democracy.

It is to be hoped that the Government renders help to those engaged in the reclamation work, but the work itself should be entrusted to their creative activities the sane as a picture is entrusted to an artist. "While the task of establishing villages is attendant with pain, it is proper that those who engage in it are placed in a free position because of their ideals. In this regard only, the authorities concerned should encourage and nurture liberal thought.

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