Japan: Socialism on the Ropes

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The Japanese may be old masters at adapting most Western designs, but they have had no success at all with those of Karl Marx. Modern Socialist parties have flourished in Western Europe since World War II, and currently hold power in Britain, Sweden, Finland and—as of last October—West Germany, Japan's chief industrial rival. Yet, aside from a ten-month fling soon after World War II, Japan's ideologically fervent Socialist Party has had all the political appeal, as one European Socialist describes it, of "a scared virgin spinster."

Last week, as the final returns from Japan's eleventh postwar election were tallied, the Socialists seemed even less appealing. The conservative, pro-American Liberal Democrats and their predecessors, who have run the country for two decades, were so assured of victory that only 68% of Japan's 70 million voters bothered to go to the polls. Led by Premier Eisaku Sato, the party increased its hold on the Diet's 486-seat lower house from 272 to 300 seats. Three minor parties also gained strength, most notably the Komeito "Clean Government" Party, a Buddhist-backed outfit that doubled its strength to 47 seats.

The sorry Socialists, in fact, were the only losers. They dropped an astonishing 44 of their 134 Diet seats. "We were resigned to losing," said Saburo Eda, the party's secretary-general, "but this—this is not just a defeat, it is a completely crushing defeat!"

The Liberal Democrats, to be sure, had a lot going for them. In the past ten years, Japan's astounding boomu has quadrupled the gross national product (to $167 billion), choked Tokyo streets with Toyotas and filled workers' homes with TV sets and gadgetry. Sato's November trip to Washington, where he negotiated the return of Okinawa to Japanese rule in 1972, erased the international issue that most concerned voters. Beyond that, Sato's main asset was the stumbling Socialists themselves.

Recognizing the pragmatic bent of Japan's increasingly affluent younger voters, even the tiny Communist Party —which went from four to 14 seats —downplayed dogma and emphasized inflation, air pollution and the need for more dobuita (gutter lids) in the streets. The Socialists, by comparison, trotted out unfamiliar, underfinanced candidates whose chief ideological equipment was a militant 19th century Marxism. Foreign policy? The Socialists demanded "unarmed neutrality" so loudly that voters identified the party with the antiwar students who tore up Tokyo last October. Domestic policy? The Socialists called for nationalization of industry —just as employers were handing out the biggest year-end bonuses in Japan's history.

Dogmatic Purity. Japan's Socialists never followed the lead of Britain's Labor Party and Germany's Social Democrats. Once, both European parties exerted little appeal to anyone but blue-collar workers. Eventually, both discarded doctrinaire Marxism and set out to build national followings. The main characteristic of Japan's Socialists, however, is what West German Socialist Scholar Gebhard Hielscher calls an "almost hysterical emphasis on retaining theoretical purity." Adds Hielscher: "Ordinary people simply aren't interested in such performances."