Mr. Asanuma’s Fresh Blood Will Never Flow in Vain
People's Daily, 20 October 1960
Japanese Socialist Party Chairman Inejirō Asanuma was unfortunately assassinated by a fascist thug while delivering a campaign speech in Tokyo on the 12th of this month. Mr. Asanuma’s murder is a great loss to Japan’s patriotic and democratic forces. The Japanese Socialist Party has decided to hold a funeral for Mr. Asanuma today. The “National Council to Prevent Revision of the Security Treaty,” composed of more than 140 political parties and organizations in Japan, has also decided to advance its schedule and hold the 23rd nationwide unified action against the Japan-U.S. military alliance today to protest the murder of Mr. Asanuma by U.S. and Japanese reactionaries. In this nationwide unified action, the Japanese people will not only continue to oppose the Japan-U.S. “Security Treaty” and demand the abolition of the Japan-U.S. military alliance, but will also resolutely demand that the Ikeda government, which bears responsibility for the murder of Inejirō Asanuma, resign en masse.
The Chinese people express deep mourning for Mr. Asanuma’s assassination and death, sincere condolences to Mr. Asanuma’s family, and immense indignation at the bloody atrocity committed by U.S. and Japanese reactionaries in murdering Mr. Asanuma. The Chinese people firmly support the Japanese people’s just struggle against the Japan-U.S. military alliance and their demand for severe punishment of the real culprits behind the murder of Mr. Asanuma.
Mr. Asanuma was an outstanding patriotic statesman of Japan. In the Japanese people’s struggle against U.S. imperialist aggression and for independence, democracy, peace, and neutrality, Mr. Asanuma was an active fighter and consistently stood at the forefront of the movement opposing the Japan-U.S. military alliance treaty. He repeatedly pointed out that the Japan-U.S. “Security Treaty” is an aggressive military alliance and that the Japanese people must struggle to abolish this treaty. Even a few minutes before he was killed, Mr. Asanuma was still fiercely condemning the Japan-U.S. military alliance treaty and demanding that Japan become a completely independent country. With great passion and eloquence, he told the audience: “The Japan-U.S. Security Treaty is the most important issue for Japan. Because the government forcibly revised the Security Treaty, Japan—which has suffered for fifteen years from the stationing of foreign troops—will have to allow U.S. forces to use its territory for another ten years. This is an unprecedented and extraordinary situation in Japanese history.” He emphasized, “To become a completely independent country, Japan must demand the withdrawal of U.S. troops and the return of all areas occupied by the United States. To free itself from U.S. occupation, Japan must become a neutral country.” Mr. Asanuma’s voice on the eve of his death reflected the firm will of the broad Japanese people to defend national independence and national dignity.
Mr. Asanuma was also a respected friend of the Chinese people. He consistently opposed the reactionary Japanese government’s policy of following the United States, being hostile to China, creating “two Chinas,” and obstructing the normalization of relations between China and Japan. He made unremitting efforts to promote friendship between the Chinese and Japanese peoples and to establish diplomatic relations between the two countries. In 1957 and 1959, Mr. Asanuma twice led Socialist Party delegations to visit our country, leaving a deep impression on the Chinese people and making major contributions to strengthening friendly cooperation between the Chinese and Japanese peoples in their common struggles. Even before he was assassinated, he still loudly advocated that “There is only one China, and Taiwan is part of China. Japan must normalize Sino-Japanese diplomatic relations as soon as possible.” These statements by Mr. Asanuma represent the strong desire of the Japanese people for friendship with China and ensure that the Chinese people will forever cherish and respect this loyal friend.
Mr. Asanuma not only devoted himself to the cause of Sino-Japanese friendship but also made active contributions to defending peace in the Far East and the world and to developing the unity of the peoples of Asia and Africa. He advocated establishing a Far East collective security system based on the conclusion of a mutual non-aggression treaty among Japan, China, the Soviet Union, and the United States to replace Japan’s military alliance with the United States. He also fully supported the proposal by our Premier Zhou Enlai for Asian and Pacific coastal countries to sign a mutual non-aggression peace treaty and turn the region into a nuclear-weapon-free zone. Disregarding the intimidation and threats of U.S. imperialism, Mr. Asanuma repeatedly pointed out: “U.S. imperialism is the common enemy of the peoples of Japan and China” and “U.S. imperialism is the common enemy of the Asian peoples.” He also believed that the fundamental issue in safeguarding peace in the Far East is first and foremost for the United States to withdraw its troops from its bases in Okinawa and other parts of Japan, China’s Taiwan, South Korea, and the Philippines. Although the U.S. Ambassador to Japan, Douglas MacArthur II, extremely arrogantly demanded that Mr. Asanuma retract his accusations against U.S. imperialism, Mr. Asanuma rejected this unreasonable demand and maintained a solemn and just stand.
Mr. Asanuma was assassinated on the very rostrum from which he loudly called for Japan’s independence, democracy, peace, and neutrality, while exposing and striking at U.S. and Japanese reactionaries. This was by no means accidental. It is a serious signal that U.S. and Japanese reactionaries are launching a new offensive against the Japanese people and part of their overall conspiracy to attack the Socialist Party, the Communist Party, and other patriotic and democratic forces in Japan on the eve of the general election.
Over the past year and a half, the Japanese people, under the joint leadership of the Socialist Party, the Communist Party, and other patriotic and democratic forces, have successively launched twenty-two nationwide unified actions against the Japan-U.S. military alliance treaty, dealing heavy blows to the war plans of U.S. and Japanese reactionaries and their steps to revive Japanese militarism. Therefore, U.S. and Japanese reactionaries have resorted to every possible means to attack Japan’s patriotic and democratic forces and the Japanese people in an attempt to sabotage the Japanese people’s anti-U.S. patriotic movement. The Ikeda government, which succeeded the notoriously evil Kishi Nobusuke, had already begun clamoring in September that it would “try” participants in the anti-U.S. patriotic struggle in mid-October. At the end of September, Tokyo police authorities openly prosecuted three cadres, including the secretary-general of the Japanese “National Council to Prevent Revision of the Japan-U.S. Security Treaty” and Socialist Party Diet member Tanaka Toshio, in an attempt to suppress the patriotic and just struggle of the Japanese people against the Japan-U.S. military alliance. On the 11th of this month, the Ikeda government’s National Police Agency held a nationwide meeting of police chiefs to arrange for local police to intensify the suppression of democratic forces on the eve of the general election. The director of the Ikeda government’s National Police Agency, Kawamura, openly clamored for “effective crackdowns” on democratic forces during the election campaign.
At the same time, in order to implement the Japan-U.S. military alliance treaty, U.S. and Japanese reactionaries are exerting every effort to push the policy of reviving Japanese militarism, turning Japan into an accomplice of U.S. imperialism’s aggression in Asia. In the short three months since the Ikeda government took office, it has decided to increase Japan’s direct military expenditure for next year to more than 200 billion yen. It also plots to establish a joint operations headquarters with U.S. forces after the Japanese general election, strengthen Japan’s military preparations for nuclear war, accelerate plans to revise the Japanese constitution and the “Police Duties Execution Law,” and actively prepare to increase the number of police and modernize police equipment. For the same purpose, the Ikeda government, under the cover of fine words, has begun implementing a series of reactionary measures such as high prices and low wages that attack the livelihood rights of the Japanese working people, shifting the heavy burden of military expenditure onto the Japanese people. This inevitably sharpens the contradictions between U.S. and Japanese reactionaries and the Japanese people.
Since the end of the war, there has always been a struggle between two roads between the Japanese people and U.S. and Japanese reactionaries: whether Japan will be independent or subordinate to the United States; whether it will be peace or war; whether it will be democracy or military dictatorship; whether it will be neutral or become a member of the U.S. aggressive bloc and an accomplice in launching new wars by the United States. These two roads represent an irreconcilable struggle between the broad Japanese people and U.S. imperialism and its agents, and a struggle that decides Japan’s destiny. Although Mr. Asanuma’s patriotic and just struggle did not in the slightest exceed the scope stipulated by Japan’s current constitution, because it reflected the Japanese people’s aspirations for independence, democracy, peace, and neutrality, he became a thorn in the side of U.S. and Japanese reactionaries. Therefore, immediately after Mr. Asanuma was stabbed, the U.S. United Press International openly clamored that “Asanuma had long been a thorn in the side of the Japanese government.” This is the most obvious self-exposure by U.S. reactionaries. Mr. Asanuma was the first Japanese patriotic statesman to suffer after the war under the butcher’s knife of U.S. and Japanese reactionaries, but the targets U.S. and Japanese reactionaries want to murder are by no means limited to Mr. Asanuma alone. The murderer who killed Mr. Asanuma has already confessed that, under the instigation of fascist leaders tolerated by U.S. and Japanese reactionaries, he had also planned to murder Japanese Communist Party Chairman Nosaka Sanzō and Japan Teachers’ Union Chairman Kobayashi Takeshi, among others. This confession further exposes how frantically U.S. and Japanese reactionaries are plotting bloody massacres against the Japanese people. This not only exposes the brutality and cruelty of U.S. and Japanese reactionaries but has also profoundly educated the Japanese people, making them more clearly realize that as long as the contradictions between the Japanese people and U.S. imperialism and its agents are not resolved, the struggle between the two roads cannot stop for a single day. The dagger with which U.S. and Japanese reactionaries stabbed Mr. Asanuma is not only aimed at the Japanese Socialist Party and Japan’s patriotic and democratic forces but at the entire Japanese people.
Mr. Asanuma’s fresh blood will never flow in vain. Such despicable acts by U.S. and Japanese reactionaries can only ignite the anger in the hearts of millions of Japanese people and awaken more masses. In recent days, people in various parts of Japan have held protest demonstrations one after another. On the 15th, four million Japanese workers held massive strikes in eight hundred locations to protest the murder of Inejirō Asanuma by U.S. and Japanese reactionaries, demand the abolition of the new Japan-U.S. “Security Treaty,” and demand that the Ikeda cabinet immediately take responsibility and resign en masse. Not long after Kishi Nobusuke stepped down, the Japanese people’s struggle against U.S. and Japanese reactionaries has once again risen to new heights. The great Japanese people, with their tradition of national independence, national self-respect, and desire for peace, will surely smash all terrorist conspiracies and continue to hold high the banner of striving for independence, democracy, peace, and neutrality and march forward victoriously. As our Premier Zhou Enlai has pointed out: “The Japanese people’s struggle for independence, democracy, peace, neutrality, and the promotion of normalization of relations between China and Japan will certainly achieve final victory; the unfinished cause of Mr. Asanuma will certainly be realized with the victory of the Japanese people’s struggle.” The Chinese people pledge that they will always stand together with the Japanese people and fight to the end to oppose the common enemy—U.S. imperialism’s policy of aggression and war—and to defend peace in Asia and the world.
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