Japan Revolutionary Communist League, National Committee (Middle Core Faction)

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Japan Revolutionary Communist League, National Committee (Middle Core Faction) (in Japanese: Kakumeiteki Kyōsanshugisha Dōmei, Zenkoku Iinkai (Chūkaku-ha)) is a Japanese far-left[revolutionary]] group, often referred to as Chūkaku-ha (Middle Core Faction).

[edit] Origin

Chūkaku-ha traces its origins in the internal divisions within Japan's communist movements in the 1950s which saw disillusionment amongst militant left-wingers with the USSR-led communist movement at that time and the Japanese Communist Party's abandonment of armed struggle.

This led to a 1957 formation of Japan Revolutionary Communist League (JRCL), a new "anti-Stalinist" revolutionary movement which renounced the existing communist regimes of USSR, Eastern Europe, China or North Korea as nothing more than "Red Imperialism" in which people are exploited by the communist party and government bureaucrats. A subsequent division led to the formation of JRCL National Committee.

In 1963, another disagreement within the JRCL National Committee led to dissidents breaking away to form the JRCL Revolutionary Marxist Faction who were to become bitter enemies; loyalists eventually became known as the JRCL National Committee Middle Core Faction, or simply Chūkaku-ha ("Nucleus Faction" or "Middle Core Faction") for short.

The group's aim is to fight the Japanese imperial system, as well as western imperialism, and the complete removal of United States military forces from Japanese soil. Chūkaku-ha are believed to currently have about 3,500 members. Chūkaku-ha is said to have maintained a small armed wing known as the People's Revolutionary Army.

[edit] Activities

Although the majority of Chūkaku-ha's activities today relate to pamphleteering and public protests, the group has a violent history, ranging from riots to sabotage attacks and assassinations.

Chūkaku-ha was one of the main orchestrators of a series of student riots in the late 1960s. One of the earliest was in 1967 when helmet-clad students, opposed to Japan's support for America's role in the Vietnam War and Prime Minister Eisaku Sato's official visit to South Vietnam, battled with riot police in an attempt to prevent him from reaching Haneda Airport in Tokyo. Another major riot at this time was in January 1968, when thousands of protesters belonging to the All-Japan Federation of Students' Self-Governing Associations (Zengakuren), led by several left-wing bodies including Chūkaku-ha, congregated in Sasebo, Nagasaki, in a failed attempt to prevent the USS Enterprise from stopping by at Sasebo's US Naval base en route to Vietnam. A two-hour battle with riot police resulted in 135 injuries.

Chūkaku-ha-led riots continued into the early 1970s, with causes ranging from opposition to the extension of the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty, support for strikes demanding an unconditional return of Okinawa from American occupation and opposition to the forced eviction of farmers for the construction of Tokyo's new airport, Narita, resulting in many arrests and the deaths of two riot policemen in separate incidents. At the time, Chūkaku-ha claimed that what they called Japan's Imperialist establishment had in fact already virtually disintegrated, held together by the use of riot police, and openly called for violence against riot police.

The 1970s were also marked by bitter rivalry with the JRCL Revolutionary Marxist Faction (Kakumaru-ha), who broke off in 1963 and were engaged in a bloody "war" against other leftist militant groups. In 1975, the leader of Chūkaku-ha, Nobuyoshi Honda, was attacked and killed in his sleep at his home in Kawaguchi, Saitama by members of Kawamaru-ha, and Chūkaku-ha declared war on Kawamaru-ha. Escalating tit-for-tat killings amongst militant leftist groups continued throughout the 1980s, and the total number of deaths across the three main leftist militant groups in Japan is said to approach one hundred.

The early 1980s saw clashes with yet another rival leftist group, the Japanese section of Fourth International, due to disagreements over the struggle against the construction and expansion of Narita Airport. This culminated in 1984 when members of Chūkaku-ha attacked Fourth International activists in their homes, seriously injuring two of them.

It was around this time that the group started to change their focus of activity from orchestrating demonstrations and riots to more underground, terrorist activities. The Narita Airport struggle also saw the last riot organised by Chūkaku-ha, when several thousand demonstrators, armed with logs, steel pipes, rocks and molotov cocktails, clashed with riot police at Sanrizuka near the airport on 20th October 1985.

On 19th September 1984, Chūkaku-ha's armed wing, the People's Revolutionary Army, attacked the Tokyo headquarters of the Liberal Democratic Party using a flamethrower mounted on a lorry, causing extensive damage but no casualties. In its statement, the People's Revolutionary Army said that the attack was part of the airport struggle.

In November of 1985, the group, who was opposed to the privatisation of Japan National Railways, simultaneously sabotaged railway signaling cables in 33 locations in Tokyo and Osaka and set fire to Asakusabashi station in Tokyo, paralyzing the railway systems of both cities. In 1986, the group launched crude incendiary rockets into the USAF's Yokota Air Base in Tokyo and at several locations related to the 12th G7 Summit. None of these attacks caused any casualties.

Chūkaku-ha's anti-Narita Airport activities continued as a campaign of intimidation against officials and industry figures related to the airport's expansion, with a series of arson and firebomb attacks, some of which were fatal.

In May 1991, Chūkaku-ha decided to moderate its campaign of armed struggle and instead concentrated on consolidating its position within trade unions and mainstream left-wing movements. Most of its activities today are peaceful; they have continued to occasionally carry out arson attacks against officials and police figures.