This book provides an historical overview of the Japanese Communist Party from its foundation to the present. It outlines the development of the party, explores its stance on key issues and discusses how the party has set a high moral tone, avoiding compromising coalitions with other parties, being intolerant of corruption within its own ranks, and frequently and consistently opposing the ruling Liberal Democratic Party. The book also considers the internal nature of the party, which continues to have a mass membership, and which in recent years has softened its former somewhat rigid approach. The book emphasizes the importance for Japan of this moral approach as the conscience of the nation, especially as the present Abe government moves Japan to the right, even though the Japanese Communist Party has never gained power and is never likely to.

Revolution Goes East is an intellectual history that applies a novel global perspective to the classic story of the rise of communism and the various reactions it provoked in Imperial Japan. Tatiana Linkhoeva demonstrates how contemporary discussions of the Russian Revolution, its containment, and the issue of imperialism played a fundamental role in shaping Japan's imperial society and state. In this bold approach, Linkhoeva explores attitudes toward the Soviet Union and the communist movement among the Japanese military and politicians, as well as interwar leftist and rightist intellectuals and activists. Her book draws on extensive research in both published and archival documents, including memoirs, newspaper and journal articles, political pamphlets, and Comintern archives. Revolution Goes East presents us with a compelling argument that the interwar Japanese Left replicated the Orientalist outlook of Marxism-Leninism in its relationship with the rest of Asia, and that this proved to be its undoing. Furthermore, Linkhoeva shows that Japanese imperial anticommunism was based on geopolitical interests for the stability of the empire rather than on fear of communist ideology. Thanks to generous funding from New York University and its participation in TOME (Toward an Open Monograph Ecosystem), the ebook editions of this book are available as Open Access (OA) volumes from Cornell Open (cornellpress.cornell.edu/cornell-open) and other repositories.

The authors of this book have joined together for a third time to produce a book on Japanese political parties and elections. The first two books under the title of The Japanese Party System were also published by Westview Press in 1986 and 1992. This book, Japan's New Party System, has a different purpose than the previous volumes. The first two books had as their task the presentation of a vast amount of material on the various parties of the 1955-1993 party system. Since 1955, Japanese politics and parties had been rather uneventful and predictable; consequently, many Japanese political scientists preferred to study other nations. Decade after decade, the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) ruled Japan while the permanent opposition party, the Japan Socialist Party GSP) revolved around it but could never even come close to replacing it in power on the national level. All of this changed in 1993 after the LOP split, new parties emerged and formed a non-LOP government, and a new party system began. This book is about the Second Party System and how Japanese politics has changed from the old LOP-dominated First Party System.