Statement of Condemnation Against the Politburo and National Committee of Japan Revolutionary Communist League (JRCL-NC) Around the 35th General Assembly of the National Committee of JRCL
Statement of Condemnation Against the Politburo and National Committee of Japan Revolutionary Communist League (JRCL-NC) Around the 35th General Assembly of the National Committee of JRCL
Hiro Yajima
Chair of the All-Japan Federation of Students’ Self-Governing Associations (Zengakuren)
Marxist Student League Chukakuha/ Student Organization Bureau of JRCL-NC
JRCL National Committee/ Female Organization Bureau of JRCL-NC
（０）
First of all, I sincerely apologize to the conscientious comrades of JRCL-NC, to our united front organizations, and to all the people who support us for the significant delay in terms of publishing this statement regarding the recent incident. During this time, a series of violent attacks by the JRCL-NC against our fellow student comrades has continued. Most of our means of livelihood and political activity have been taken away by the JRCL-NC. Despite this, we have been fighting both the rescue campaign for two students arrested and repressed in connection with the December 2024 Kyoto University Anti-War Rally, and the Regular National Congress of Zengakuren. In particular, conducting careful internal discussions with those who chose to support us and decided to fight alongside me required time. After taking into consideration issues related to protection against government repression, I have finally reached the point where I can publish this statement of condemnation on September 21.
The incidents were as follows:
① At the Politburo meeting on August 31, a decision to discipline Ishida was made entirely over my head, without my involvement.
② The Politburo destroyed the self-criticism discussions that Ishida had been engaged in.
③ Without my consent, the Politburo distributed and circulated a small excerpt of a document Ishida and I had been writing, manipulating impressions for a campaign of “demonizing Ishida.”
④ When I protested against the above actions, a so-called “meeting on the Ishida issue” was convened on September 4th, during which I was subjected for several hours to intimidation and sexist verbal abuse aimed at forcing my submission.
⑤ My absolute objection was completely ignored, and I was unilaterally notified that the 35th GA would “expose the issue of Ishida’s sexism and decide on disciplinary action.”
⑥ On the day of the 35th GA, September 6, sexist and violent assaults were carried out against my fellow student comrades and me, followed by a physical expulsion of all of us from Zenshinsha ( headquarters of JRCL-NC) by force that very day.
⑦ The September 11 Politburo Statement distorted the meaning of our student uprising and served to conceal its own acts of sexist behavior and organizational sabotage.
⑧ Violent follow-up attacks, divisive maneuvers, and ongoing dissemination of information both inside and outside the party have further intensified the secondary victimization directed at the fellow student comrades who supported the uprising and me.
In brief, the Politburo and members of the National Committee of JRCL committed unspeakable acts of sexism, violations of organizational discipline, destruction of the party structure, and violent assaults during the time of the 35th GA. We will never forgive the current Politburo members who took part in these class crimes, and we once again demand their self-criticism and public apology.
At the outset, I want to be absolutely clear that the person who led this uprising was Hiro Yajima. The Politburo has referred to the group of the uprising as the “Ishida faction,” but in reality, the student comrades who signed and rose up with the joint statement condemning the Politburo did so in response to my appeal; I had asked them to stand with me in protest against the Politburo’s sexist assaults directed at me.
In the Politburo statement published online on September 11 (“the September 11 Politburo Statement”), whose author is clearly Secretary-General Akizuki, the Politburo depicts the situation as if “I, the ‘unsettled accuser,’ were manipulated by Ishida and pushed to the forefront.” This outlook is no different from the contemptuous rhetoric of the public security police and the far-right, who describe the female chair of Zengakuren as a mere “figurehead”, “paper facade”, “puppet”, “token woman", “mascot”. It exposes the Politburo’s deeply ingrained sexism. That such a person, harboring this thoroughly rotten ideology, sits at the very center of the Politburo is precisely one of the fundamental causes that led to the current incident of sexism. I condemn this fact unequivocally at the outset.
What follows is a factual account of the events as they unfolded. I am fully aware that it involves revealing internal organizational matters, but I have made this statement out of conviction that justice cannot be served while the truth remains concealed. At the same time, I strongly condemn the Politburo for spreading false information, thereby creating a situation in which I have been forced to issue this statement under my real name and to disclose aspects of my personal life.
(Note: For practical reasons, organizational names have been replaced with [(real name)] where applicable.)
（１）
Ishida and I have been in a relationship since 2021, and for practical and administrative reasons, we formally registered our marriage in 2024. This fact was never intentionally disclosed by those around us, either inside or outside the party, though we refrained from announcing it publicly on social media to avoid giving right-wing groups material to attack us with. To put it plainly, the past four and a half years have been filled with joy and hardship. As both of us bore heavy responsibilities and duties as “faces of the party” and members of its leadership positions, we struggled in a kind of “family-less state,” unable to take days off or even spend time together. Yet, within such conditions, we did our utmost to maintain our relationship. Shaped by this reality, I often felt anger and distrust toward Ishida, and at times these emotions led to clashes between us. Even so, at his core, he remained the comrade I trusted the most and the one who had supported me more than anyone else.
In mid-July of this year, through my criticism of my husband, I sought to raise a question that demanded the transformation of the sexist tendencies manifested in individuals within our organization and movement. Specifically, my anger was directed at several things: at the neglect of the domestic sphere under the excuse of “being too busy”; at learning from a third party about his relationship with another woman seventeen years ago—at a time when that woman’s divorce had not yet been finalized; and at the organization itself, which had created and continuously reproduced such patterns of behavior. Moreover, as I studied the concepts and realities of “grooming” and “sexual consent,” a deeper awareness began to take shape within me. I began to question how we should confront the inescapable fact that, as long as we live in this society, elements of “sexual violence” inevitably permeate romantic and marital relationships.
As rumors have been circulating not only on social media but also within the party, I must make this point absolutely clear: there has been no instance of literal, violent, or coercive sexual assault in disregard of my refusal, nor has there been any act of infidelity by Ishida since our relationship began. At no point, even in the course of my criticism of him, have I ever claimed to be a “victim” in the above sense.
For a month and a half following my initial statement of the issue, we continued discussions involving Politburo member N, two members of the student leadership, and a female comrade M from the Tokyo Committee. During that period, at my request, those involved arranged for Ishida to focus entirely on self-criticism in his activities. Through this process, I personally came to a point where I could “approve” of his transformation and change. By mid-August, I had proposed that, after the upcoming Zengakuren Congress scheduled for mid-September, we should share the content of our discussions with a broader circle of comrades and open it up for collective deliberation, to which no one raised any objection.
However, at the student leadership meeting on August 21, when the outline of the issue was shared widely for the first time, Ishida’s attitude struck me as rather “light.” Since this was such a sensitive matter, I began to worry about how the other student comrades might have perceived it. My anxiety deepened, and I fell into a state of emotional turmoil. Later that night, after reading a document written by another student comrade, details of which I will omit here, its content resonated with my fears and intensified my distress. In the early hours of the next day, I sent messages to the two student leaders mentioned earlier, implying suicidal thoughts. After receiving my messages, they immediately contacted female comrade M and female worker comrade R, both of whom rushed to my side. As a result, however, my distrust toward the male comrades who had not come to help grew even stronger. I later learned that Ishida had tried to come as well, but was stopped by female worker comrade R, who told him not to come. During this time, through female comrade M, I heard about comments made by the Politburo member HS concerning Ishida and Politburo member N. This further deepened my sense of distrust toward Ishida. Acting on the strong wishes of female comrades M and R, a meeting was arranged on August 28 with the involvement of the Politburo members HS and TY. At that meeting, I submitted a short document that depicted my relationship with Ishida in an extremely negative, almost list-like manner. Unfortunately, that document was later used as the primary basis for the charges against Ishida.
Then, only three days later, on August 31, the Politburo issued what it called the August 31 Politburo Decision. The decision stated that “the accusation of sexual violence against comrade [Ishida], raised by comrade [Yajima] on August 28, has been acknowledged by comrade [Ishida] himself,” and further declared that “[Ishida]’s actions toward comrade [Yajima] constitute a grave class crime — more than four years of appalling sexual violence and sexism toward comrade [Yajima].” Following this, the Politburo began preparations to publicize and ratify this decision before the entire party at the upcoming 35th GA scheduled for the following week. Throughout this entire process, as the person directly involved, I received no report, contact, or consultation.
That night, the Politburo conducted an “interrogation” of Ishida, and I was also present. During this session, my distrust of the Politburo deepened decisively. Politburo member HS asked Ishida, “Is what is written in the August 28 document true?” Ishida replied, “Since it is written in a bullet-point style, the details need to be confirmed, but basically I acknowledge it,” expressing a responsible acceptance of the content. Beyond this, however, there was almost no further fact-checking. From the beginning, what I had asked of Ishida was simply to recognize his sexist behavior toward me; any other contextual circumstances were intended to be discussed later. Therefore, Ishida’s response was entirely natural. A brief memo that Ishida had brought to the session, which served as the opening of his self-criticism document, expressed the same acknowledgment. Unfortunately, this memo, together with the document I had submitted at the August 28 meeting, was later circulated as so-called “evidence of confession.”
Furthermore, Politburo member TY ended up making empty criticisms of Ishida and then fixated on a term Ishida had written in his memo, “honorary male” (a woman being accorded the status of a man without disrupting the patriarchal status quo), a phrase anyone familiar with the women’s emancipation movement would recognize. TY asked, “What does this mean?” exposing the extremely low level of understanding within the Politburo. Moreover, this term had already appeared in Ishida’s first self-criticism document, submitted a month earlier, which clearly showed that TY had not even read it. In short, the meeting revealed, one after another, the Politburo’s complete lack of substantive discussion or serious consideration regarding this issue.
While having direct opportunities to speak with members of the Politburo, I had grown increasingly distrustful of their authoritarian, externally imposed, and non-subjective way of “taking responsibility.” On September 2, I submitted a document to the Politburo stating that “I cannot entrust this matter to them,” and I included my reasons. This was a statement of distrust and protest against the fact that no meaningful discussion had taken place within the Politburo regarding the content of the “sexual violence” or “class crime” allegations. This became evident during attempts to question the process and substance behind the August 31 Politburo Decision, when every member was at a loss for words and unable to provide any answers. The decision was being pushed forward as a predetermined policy for the 35th GA solely based on the confirmation that “Yajima described it as sexual violence, and Ishida acknowledged it”, which I could not accept. Then, on September 3, while the Politburo as a whole maintained its externally imposed stance, multiple Politburo members surrounded Politburo member N, who is the only member who had engaged proactively and supported my September 2 statement, accusing N of taking a protective stance toward Ishida, and implemented a measure banning both N and Ishida from contacting me. I learned about this measure on the same day simply by speaking with N.
Furthermore, on the day before the scheduled meeting with Ishida on September 4, where he was to engage in self-criticism, the Politburo unilaterally informed me that the meeting had been canceled. This session of self-criticism had been one that I myself had requested at the August 31 meeting, because after one and a half months of Ishida’s self-criticism, the process had reached a point where final approval could be granted and the matter concluded. It had been clearly confirmed at the time that, based on the discussion at that session, the handling of Ishida at the 35th GA would also be discussed, examined, and determined. What was held instead of that meeting was a so-called “meeting” in which, after excluding Ishida and Politburo member N, nearly ten Politburo members surrounded me, hurled misogynistic remarks at me for hours, threatened and mocked me, and tried to force me into submission, all because I opposed the Politburo’s policy. This was a re-enactment of what had once become a decisive problem at the 34th GA, when General Secretary Akizuki at the Chūgoku–Shikoku Regional Committee had labeled a survivor of sexual violence as an “organizational saboteur” and figuratively “strangled” or suppressed her. Even though the Party had self-criticized this as an organization and Akizuki had done so in his capacity as General Secretary, before the ink on that self-criticism had even dried, the stance had shifted from “do not voice your victimhood” to “behave as the ideal victim,” and now the same situation that was supposedly self-criticized was being repeated almost unchanged. At that meeting I repeatedly appealed, “Do you understand how destructive it is to have the August 31 Politburo Decision unilaterally made into a decision of the 35th GA and disseminated throughout the Party without any discussion with me, the directly involved party, or any consensus on the summary, and how, if that happens, I will be forced to present it myself to student comrades as though I were on the side of organizing the Party’s meeting?” “The August 31 Politburo Decision seizes, nullifies, and smears the horizon of struggle I have built through months and even years of painstaking work to facilitate Ishida’s transformation. If such a decision is issued, it will destroy me.”
Immediately afterward, I went alone to the emergency Politburo meeting that had been convened to address this issue and warned them, “If something like this is issued, I will have no choice but to rise up on the day itself. Do you understand what consequences that will bring? You will be held responsible.” Despite this, the Politburo maintained its firm stance of “We will not retract the August 31 Politburo Decision.” Politburo member HS spat, “Then was the accusation a lie? If you have something to say, say it at the 35th GA.” Having known throughout my Party life that many Politburo members themselves had committed acts of sexism overlapping with or even exceeding what I had accused Ishida of, I pointed out, “Your hands aren’t exactly clean, are they?” To this, Politburo member FR brazenly replied, “Of course, we’ve been doing this for decades.” During this process, I also heard Akizuki say, “Yajima is being mind-controlled by Ishida.” It became clear to me that a Politburo of this level was entirely incapable of making Ishida engage in genuine self-criticism.
In the course of these events, it came to light that Politburo member HS, along with comrades M and R—whom I had trusted—took the lead in distributing my documents without my permission to at least several dozen people, including individuals whose faces and names I did not even know, and in some cases during meetings of various Party bodies that had been specially convened for this purpose. These documents, which I had entrusted to a small circle of reliable persons solely to share and consult about matters—including sexual relations within the household—were selectively used for manipulation of impressions, focusing only on the passages that portrayed Ishida in the worst possible light. When I pressed the Politburo to disclose where, to whom, and which of my documents had been disseminated beyond these, they revealed nothing. The situation is ongoing; I have already confirmed that related documents have reached individuals who are clearly not Party members, have been spread online, and have progressed to the point where my personal identity can be ascertained.
The unauthorized disclosure of sensitive content and the handling of my documents based on assumptions about “what Yajima really thinks” constitute a classic case of secondary victimization, exposing complete ignorance, misunderstanding, and a low level of awareness regarding sexism. Unlike the male members of the Politburo, I believe that M and R, as women, acted from a sense that they were “fighting against sexism” when they circulated my documents—but, as the saying goes, “the road to hell is paved with good intentions.” While they may have empathized with or supported my anger, they never engaged in any discussion aimed at deepening or systematically organizing the ideological and strategic content of the issues I had raised. Instead, using a crude analogy with the sexual violence incident in Kansai involving OZ, they ultimately fell into the position of threatening and criticizing me to “comply with the Politburo decision.” On September 4 and the day of the 35th GA (September 6), comrade R strongly accused me, saying, “You have betrayed us!” But the true betrayal was committed first by the Politburo and by comrades M and R, who circulated the documents I had entrusted to them without permission. A betrayal that not only betrayed me as an individual but also thoroughly undermined trust in the Party.
In such a movement, women can no longer safely report sexism or trust their comrades to fight alongside them.
（２）
In the early hours of September 5, following the emergency Politburo meeting on the night of September 4 and with the forced public disclosure of the August 31 Politburo Decision to the entire Party looming the next day at the 35th GA, I resolved not to forgive this utterly corrupt Politburo and Party structure. I decided to carry through Ishida’s self-criticism while simultaneously advancing the fight against sexism, resolving family issues, and pursuing self-criticism and self-transformation as an individual within the movement and the organization, taking full responsibility for these actions. To that end, I began drafting a personal document criticizing the Politburo’s erroneous handling of the matter, as well as a joint statement condemning the current Politburo in its entirety. Among the comrades, many were hearing the full series of events for the first time, yet all approximately 20 members of the Student Organization Bureau of JRCL-NC, who were able to listen to my explanation, agreed to sign the joint statement in a single day, enabling the uprising on the day of the 35th GA.
On the day of the 35th GA, as the “culmination” of the entire preceding process, my student comrades and I were subjected to endless insults and mockery. Politburo member FR shouted at students, condemning the Politburo’s information dissemination, “Are you all feminists?” as a “verbal attack.” Moreover, Akizuki insulted the female comrades who had joined the movement over the past several years, moved by our fight for women’s emancipation, by declaring, “We organize youth, students, and women! This isn’t about swindling the feminist circles a little bit.” When the students protested Akizuki’s “mind control” remark, he stammered through a response: “What is particularly discriminatory regarding that? I just said it in a figurative way!” an answer reminiscent of Emperor Hirohito’s evasions of war responsibilities.
When I was allowed by the agenda committee to speak and went to the podium to present content similar to what I have described in this statement, the audience erupted with jeers, ridicule, and collective sighs, shouting things like “Stop defending Ishida.” Toward the end of my speech, as the Politburo members began to be criticized for the misogynistic attacks they had carried out over the past few days, the National Committee members and observers unleashed the fiercest jeers and shouts. Triggered by the rampage of female comrade R, participants collectively grabbed at me, cut the microphone, and violently dragged me off the stage. The removal was led by female comrades who had themselves suffered sexism and sexual violence within the Party, while the male members of the Politburo looked on grinning—a grotesque scene that I witnessed firsthand at the 35th GA. Every student National Committee member and comrades attending by observation who had risked themselves to protect me were violently removed by the Politburo’s enforcers with greater hostility than they would have shown toward enemy forces or riot police. To think that, based solely on the selectively edited information the Politburo had presented in the days leading up to the GA, they were able to kick students who had fought alongside us in Hiroshima on August 6 just a month ago, it raises the question: who is really being “mind-controlled”? Fueled by this momentum, they carried out the expulsion of us, leaving us without even our personal belongings, from the Zenshinsha offices on the same day. Young comrades, including myself, have repeatedly said that the experience felt like directly confronting “Kakumaru” in reality.
（３）
What is shown here is that we have entered an era in which, under the terminal crisis of imperialism, the conditions for war and internal upheaval are ripening, and the division between revolution and counterrevolution is being rigorously tested in an instant. Our September 6 uprising exposed the reality that the Politburo of the Revolutionary Communist Party had deeply succumbed to the discriminatory ideologies produced by imperialism and had consistently turned away from the rigor of the struggle against such discrimination. Claiming “organizational discipline,” they became, in the process, a group of the worst oppressors, openly hostile to the antiwar struggles of the past several years and to the women’s emancipation struggles carried out in tandem with them.
During this period, as many youth, students, and women continuously started joining the antiwar movement, the critical question arose: could our organization and movement truly confront the pervasive discrimination and Chauvinism in this society, and in particular, the reality of sexism? Reflecting on my own experience, when I first encountered the Marxist Student League in 2020, it was the aftermath of 2019, when female students had become zero from the core activists of Zengakuren. In the Tokyo metropolitan area, I was the first woman member to join, and I resolved that “I will make up for what the Party currently lacks.” Through conscious engagement in theory and practice, one by one, female students and sexual minority comrades joined the movement, deepening the fight for women’s emancipation in tandem with the development of the antiwar struggle. In particular, in April of last year (2024), an incident occurred in which Ayano Matsumoto of Zengakuren was subjected to sexual violence by a walk-in participant of the April 28 demonstration. Through the mobilization and reflection of the concerned accuser, our practical struggle against sexism within the movement made a significant leap forward. Regarding the April 28 sexual violence incident, the accuser’s initiative led to three months of organized internal discussion among student comrades, followed by six months of sharing with the Party and related organizations, and ultimately, the matter was made public online one year after the incident. The statement in the September 11 Politburo Statement claimed that “What exactly was the purpose of the ‘April 28 reflection’ raised by the SOB [Student Organization Bureau] last year… after vigorous discussion and thorough self-criticism and reflection by the Politburo, the secretary general, and the National Committee?” is, frankly, the question we should be asking them. It is completely unclear what Akizuki intended by saying this. In any case, it only exposes their total failure to understand the struggles of the women’s emancipation struggle, which, while defending and respecting the affected woman, secured organizational lessons and programmatic deepening.
My criticism of Ishida in July was not only directed at him personally but was a denunciation of the ongoing and reproduced sexism still rampant within the Party, including among National Committee members and male Politburo members, and a demand for transformation across the entire Party. My intervention was a critique of the Party’s overall structure and conduct, not solely of my husband as an individual. However, the Politburo and its followers turned away from the reality that Ishida’s issues, as a Politburo member, were in fact symptomatic of the entire Politburo and the Party as a whole. They sought self-preservation by demonizing and punishing him as an individual, thereby refusing the necessary transformation of the organization, including themselves. The presentation of the “Politburo that punished the discriminatory Ishida” before the Party and the class was framed with a highly political intent, and this narrative was imposed as the “established policy” of the 35th GA.
At the conclusion of the document in which I criticized Ishida in July, I wrote the following: “Throughout this report, I have listed my distrust, dissatisfaction, and criticism of Ishida, but this is not a critique of him as an individual. Rather, it is a recognition that as the movement and the organization have grown, the Party’s leadership itself has repeatedly run into structural walls. The way the Party has handled emerging organizational problems has rarely involved thoroughly exposing them ideologically and conducting a comprehensive self-critique. Instead, until problems explode, they are ignored, or unresolved issues are forced onto individuals capable of absorbing contradictions, in a manner that is merely experiential and pragmatic. As a result, the Party has progressed while leaving extremely significant contradictions unresolved, and these contradictions are now erupting in various forms.” This is the core argument of my statement.
（４）
The September 11 Politburo Statement that “revolutionary women’s emancipation struggles are not at all about becoming obsessed with ‘detailing principles and evaluating concrete cases of sexual violence as a class crime’ or defining it” is a blatant display of ignorance and incomprehension regarding women’s emancipation, amounting to an outright antagonism. It also constitutes a total denial of the ground that student comrades have fought to open. Reducing all incidents to analogies and condemning them indiscriminately as the same type of “sexual violence” erases specific contexts, and this abstraction is precisely how defeat in women’s emancipation struggles occurs. The Politburo and its followers repeatedly invoke phrases like “it’s the same as X,” crudely overlaying incidents from this process onto various past cases of sexism within the Party to “understand” them, thereby constructing an “ideal perpetrator image” (i.e., demonizing Ishida). From that standpoint, any behavior of mine that falls outside the “ideal victim image” becomes subject to “secondary harm.” One might even argue that if the phrase “it’s the same as X” were banned, there would be no way to discuss sexism at all.
Around the 34th National Congress, many comrades reflected that when they first learned of the OZ case, “we did not see it as a matter of sexism but as a romance issue.” I have long warned against this dangerous oversimplification of “sexism or romance.” It erases the deep entanglement of ordinary gendered “lovers’ quarrels” with the realities of class society and sexism. Is there any romantic relationship in this society that exists independently of sexism? Such a notion exists only in an idealized world. Under private property, patriarchal systems and ideologies have been deeply embedded in us for millennia with enormous material force. That is precisely why daily vigilance and an all-encompassing struggle against sexism are vital. The moment one separates “sexism from romance,” the fight against discrimination is removed from everyday practice. As the late Nakano, labor advisor of Union Doro-Chiba Japan, noted, in times of war, merely affirming “I am not a sexist” or “I am fighting sexism” is insufficient; when vast layers of workers are drawn in, such a movement is destined to fail.
Within this reality of a class society, people are compelled to live amid the destruction of genuine human family relations. How should communists understand this, situate it within the organization and movement, and overcome it? As new female comrades continued to join the Marxist Student League, this question became not just personal but collective, forming an important trigger for my July “accusation,” which articulated the universal reality of sexism.
It is self-evident that someone like OZ, who had relationships with multiple women while having a spouse and children, and who trampled women’s will to commit sexual violence, should be immediately condemned. But are the levels of sexism of OZ and Ishida equivalent? I, too, have used the OZ analogy to express my own suffering, but this is a deliberately oversimplified comparison. I still recognize that Ishida and the organization forced a “family-less state” upon me, creating such profound distrust that I temporarily regarded my family relationships as suffused with sexual violence. That is why my statement questioned the inevitable aspects of “sexual violence” in family relationships under a class society.
（５）
Above all, the September 11 Politburo Statement demonstrates that the Politburo of JRCL-NC and its defenders have degenerated into forces fundamentally incompatible with the real struggles and anger of the working class against discrimination. We must affirm what our party self-criticized at the 26th General Assembly of the National Committee of JRCL (26th GA).
A party that avoids the concrete struggles with capital in the workplace and the practice of class struggle becomes incapable of confronting capital and power, producing setbacks and distortions even in political and theoretical struggle. Moreover, this reality was increasingly masked by abstract, idealistic rhetoric that deviated from Marxism. The consequences were the loss of the “three conditions guaranteeing the discipline of a revolutionary party” enumerated by Lenin: (i) the “consciousness as a communist” produced only through struggle with capital and power, (ii) the “political ability to connect with the masses” cultivated only through practical class struggle, and (iii) the “correct theory” verified by the masses.
Report of the 26th General Assembly of JRCL
Indeed, the September 11 Politburo Statement represents a repetition of “setbacks and distortions in theoretical struggle” and “idealistic abstractions deviating from Marxism.” The passage asserting that “women’s emancipation unconnected to proletarian violent revolution and the realization of communism, whether called ‘radical feminism’ or Marxist feminism,’ is actually a complete fraud” and that “women’s emancipation exists only in connection with achieving communism” is particularly emblematic. Of course, ultimately, women’s emancipation is impossible without the abolition of private property. Yet, it is absurd and arrogant of for Akizuki, who only a few months ago confirmed through self-criticism that he was in a state of “ignorance, incomprehension, meaning hostility toward the women’s emancipation struggle,” to now patronizingly claim that the concrete practice of women’s emancipation consists of “resolutely declaring the class-core truths to the countless women who spontaneously rise up.”
Many revolutionary but confused minds appeal to principle ‘whenever ideas are lacking’. That is, when the mind is closed to the sober facts, which must be considered.
Clara Zetkin, Lenin on the Women’s Treatise
The Politburo and members of the National Committee lashed out at my criticism of their “low level of understanding”, accusing me of “disdain for workers” or saying “don’t look down on workers.” I am not trying to play the intellectual or to mount a knowledge-based superiority. Rather, from the perspective of ordinary women, it is only natural to think, “We cannot trust people/organizations of this level.” My point is that those who occupy the heart of a revolutionary party, the Politburo members and National Committee members who profess to be communists, are operating at a “level” that does not connect with the masses at all, which is the core problem I am criticizing. What is missing is the attitude that the JRCL-NC once supposedly put at its foundation: to first learn from what women have woven through their struggles. What is also lacking is the Marxist disposition to continually renew one’s theoretical “level.” To dismiss this critique as “disdain for workers” is not only the wrong attitude for a communist; it openly reveals a disdainful idea that “workers cannot or need not engage in theoretical struggle.” This critique overlaps with the criticism leveled at the old Kansai leadership. Has what was criticized at the 34th General Assembly already been forgotten long before the incident of “Ishida counterrevolutionary”?
To preserve their authority and protect themselves, the Politburo has already, within a day of the 35th GA, deleted the YouTube account “Zenshin Channel” and begun a Stalinist-style historical revisionism. They will likely also liquidate the slogans calling for “learn from students!” and the efforts to advance the antiwar and women’s liberation struggles. It is to be expected that, going forward, the paper Zenshin will repeat slanders against the “Ishida faction,” demonize Ishida to maintain internal cohesion, spread disinformation worldwide, and inflict further secondary harm on me. I publish this document fully aware of that.
The September 11 Politburo Statement insults and damages my existence and the years of struggle behind me. I am determined to live and to smash every attack from the Politburo while advancing the revolution. Through my own active struggle, the more the Politburo tries to paint me as an “unsettled victim absorbed by the perpetrator,” the more reason there is for workers and especially women to lose trust in them.
（６）
From what has been described so far, it is clear that I was the “leader” of our September 6 uprising, and that the action was fully justified both in terms of the struggle against sexism and from the perspective of party discipline and internal democracy. This makes evident how utterly baseless and simplistically fabricated the Politburo’s claim that the uprising was a “self-serving, privatization of Party by Ishida” really is. The organization of the September 6th action was a direct response to the sexist incidents I faced at the hands of the Politburo immediately beforehand, as well as to their internal maneuvers to conceal those incidents. At that time, of course, all signatories shared the understanding that they could face severe punishment, including expulsion. On the other hand, in order to protect those outside the central student organization from slanders of “abuse of organizational authority” or “privatization of Party,” the facts were largely not disclosed to comrades in the Marxist Student League until they were forcibly expelled from Zenshinsha. Accordingly, aside from one experienced member deemed capable of taking responsibility, Marxist Student League members who were not part of the central student organization did not sign. Nevertheless, the Politburo and its followers disregarded this entirely, shouting things like “None of you are members of the Party anymore!” and violently expelling even Marxist Student League students who were unaware of the situation. While it took over a year to resolve even the EL5 issue, one wonders how such non-comradely and anti-democratic party management could be possible. We had tried to trust our Party comrades to the end, and if the Politburo had at least shown a willingness to self-criticize its sexism, “reunification” would have been entirely possible, but the Party’s corruption proved far deeper than we had imagined.
Regarding Ishida’s “self-criticism,” as noted above, it had reached a level that could be acknowledged on a personal level toward me, but as self-criticism toward the Party and the class, from the standpoint of a Politburo member who had initiated and promoted the 34th General Assembly, it remains clearly incomplete. In light of the events, the original plan was significantly deviated from, and comrades who read (or were compelled to read) my firsthand critical documents of Ishida experienced significant shock. They were enraged by Ishida’s sexism, the sexism pervasive in the Party, and their own complicity in permitting such realities. Moreover, given the current intensity of events and the changes in the situation, a level of self-criticism that accounts for this responsibility is now demanded at a new dimension, centrally, for comrades who struggle together, and in relation to the working class as a whole. Without this, no comrade, including myself, would tolerate Ishida continuing to act as if he were still the chairperson of the central student organization. We ourselves take on the responsibility to ensure that Ishida carries out fundamental self-criticism and will soon make self-criticism in relation to the class clearly evident.
Note: In response to this statement, it is expected that the Politburo and its followers will claim that Ishida is “a coward who hides behind me while I stand at the forefront.” However, the student leadership unanimously agrees that it is appropriate to let him speak only once his self-criticism has reached a sufficient stage. Criticism has also been raised regarding his presence at the Regular National Congress of Zengakuren. However, on the day before the congress, Party members in Hiroshima attacked students of the Hiroshima University branch; based on this, it was judged that allowing Ishida to act alone would have posed life-threatening danger, and the decision was made after careful discussion.
（７）
US and Japanese imperialism’s launch of a full-scale aggressive war against China is unfolding before our eyes, and more than millions of Asian people are under threat of facing a massacre. In the current situation, calls to stoke discrimination against foreigners, women, and people with disabilities are intensifying. Therefore, it is a grace crisis for the Japanese class struggle that JRCL-NC, the only Party that had been actively organizing antiwar struggle under the slogan of “Stop the Japanese-US War on China,” is now capitulating to discrimination from the top down and being transformed into a Party that cannot confront discrimination and therefore cannot confront imperialist war.
To comrades in JRCL-NC who still have conscience and conviction: I will call on you to stand with us in the thorough overthrow of this rotten Politburo of JRCL-NC.
No matter how difficult the circumstances, we are determined to forge a new antiwar struggle to stop the invasion of China and overthrow Japanese imperialism, one that “solidarizes and turns invasion into internal revolt,” and to create a mass-movement party that becomes a rallying point for unleashing the power of youth, students, and women. We call on all workers, students, and citizens to gather under the banners of the Marxist Student League and Zengakuren for the October 7, 2nd Anniversary of the Palestinian Uprising Antiwar Protest in Shinjuku. We also ask for your enormous support and contributions toward the rebuilding of the revolutionary party.
The student comrades who participated in the September 6 uprising, as well as workers and students who learned of the situation immediately afterward, have firmly formed a united front and refuse to abandon the revolution. Reading the September 11 Politburo Statement has sparked questions and anger from many worker party members and supporters, who have expressed their desire to join our ranks. The justice of the September 6 uprising becomes clearer with each passing day. We issue this statement as a final warning: unless the Politburo and its followers engage in thorough self-criticism and transformation, JRCL-NC will permanently lose both Zengakuren and the Marxist Student League.
End of statement.
The September 11 Politburo Statement
石田による私党化と党破壊を粉砕 女性解放闘争と反戦闘争の爆発へ – ZNN.JP
第35回革共同全国委員会総会を開催 革命的共産主義者同盟政治局 ９月初め、革命的共産主義者同盟は第35回全国…
