Free Japan Committee

For more than a year a Free Japan Committee, organized along the lines of Moscow's Free Germany Committee, has been active in Yenan. The official name of the committee is the Japanese People's Liberation Alliance. Wrote brilliant Biographer Boris J. Nicolaevsky (Aseff the Spy) in Manhattan's socialist New Leader:

"Whether or not Russia declares war against Japan, Stalin certainly intends to share in the spoils of victory. For this purpose he tries to enlist . . . Japanese forces which can be set in motion at the propitious moment. . . . The Free Japan movement officially dates back to February, 1944, when a report from Yenan [capital of the Chinese provinces under the Communists] announced the arrival of the member of the Central Committee of the Japanese Communist Party, Susuku Okano. . . ."

Comintern Agent. Susuku Okano, 52, helped found the Japanese Communist Party (1922), spent many years in Moscow, served as one of the Communist International's Far Eastern experts. He was a disciple of the late Sen Katayama (once a Comintern agent in the U.S.), who was so violently anti-American that German Geopolitician Karl Haushofer gave his views a special classification--revolutionary pan-Asiatism of the "Katayama type."

Last summer Okano's Liberation Alliance numbered some 300 members, most of them Japanese soldiers captured by the Chinese Communists. The rest, were Japanese Army deserters or Japanese living in China.

Like the Free Germany Committee, the Alliance conducted highly organized propaganda among the prisoners. Okano had boasted that Japanese prisoners are "rather susceptible to it, provided it is cleverly presented." Some joined the Yenan partisans. Others were allowed to return to the Japanese lines; often they rejoined the partisans, bringing along some friends.

Against Capitalism. Shortly after the Alliance was organized, Okano made a trip to Moscow. When he returned to Yenan. the Alliance published a manifesto ("Anti-War Call to the Japanese People") expounding its program.

Wrote Nicolaevsky: "Politically the manifesto was aimed not against militarism or 'military fascism' in Japan, but against capitalism and the 'gigantic trusts' which it declared responsible for the war. . . . It demanded the creation of a 'popular government,' a formula suitable to cover very diverse things. Still more significant is the fact that the manifesto does not even mention the Mikado.. . ." Explained Okano: Communists are opposed to monarchy, but the Alliance embraces people of various viewpoints; therefore the overthrow of the Emperor was not urged.

Liberal Supporter. What other Japanese groups support the Alliance is not .clear. "The manifesto mentions only Yukio Ozaki. ... He is called the 'greatest liberal statesman.' " Ozaki, now about 90, is widely known in Japan as an independent in politics. He has been a lifelong advocate of Japanese collaboration with Russia. He supported this idea when Russia was ruled by Tsar Nicholas, continued to support it after the Bolsheviks came to power. In the 1942 Japanese elections he was so popular that the Government did not dare to void his candidacy, and the Supreme Court acquitted him of lese majeste.

Said Nicolaevsky: "The participation of both Okano and Ozaki in the Alliance proves Stalin's willingness to avail himself of every Japanese supporter of an agreement with Russia. The silence about the Mikado shows that no special importance is attributed to the problem of monarchy. . . . The Alliance's basic line . . . consists in forming Japanese cadres ready to support Stalin's Eastern policy, and in averting . . . British and American predominance in China after the war."

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