World（各国語版）

Appeal on the Shooting of Shinzo Abe on July 8

Political Bureau of the Revolutionary Communist League

July 10, 2022.

On July 8, former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was shot dead with a homemade gun by a 41-year-old former member of the Maritime Self-Defense Force during a street speech in Nara City.

Amid Japanese imperialism's desperate rush toward constitutional revision and war, Abe, the "commander-in-chief" of this attack, was shot, an unprecedented event (the first "assassination of a former prime minister" since February 26 incident of 1936 (attempted military coup). The Japanese ruling class suffered a decisive blow. The war in Ukraine is escalating, and in parallel, the U.S. and Japanese imperialists are pushed forward toward a war of aggression against China, and the third world war in history actually began. The shooting of Abe symbolized the arrival of the turbulent situation reminiscent of the 1930s, when the historical choice between "war or revolution" was called into question.

Abe's government--the first term, from September 2006 to August 2007, and the second term, from late 2012 to September 2020, eight years and eight months in total--consistently promoted constitutional revision, war, and neoliberal assaults. His first government pushed through the revision of the Basic Law on Education and the passage of the Referendum Law on Constitutional Revision, while the second government passed a cabinet resolution and the Security Law, the War Law, to constitutionalize the exercise of the right to collective self-defense. The government also worked to strengthen the Japan-U.S. Security Treaty and integrate the U.S. military and Japan's Self-Defense Forces. In addition, the government invited the Olympics to Tokyo and claimed that the Fukushima nuclear accident was "under control," while continuing the restart of nuclear power plants and the devastating attack on Fukushima, which forced people to return to their homes and to be exposed to radiation.

The government ignored the desperate appeals of the bereaved families of those who died from overwork and promoted the abolition of postwar labor laws under the title of "Work-style Reform," freedom to firing, and the creation of non-regular (precarious) jobs. In addition, the government has put many workers and their families in a situation where they cannot make ends meet. In addition, the government tightened security measures with the passage of the Protection of Secrets Act and introduction of the Crime of Conspiracy, and repeated the suppression of labor unions which culminated in the massive crackdown on the Kan-Nama, ready-mixed concrete workers union in Kansai Area.

However, cornered by people's anger and resentment, he was forced to step down for a second time in September 2020 without having achieve his long-held desire to revise the constitution. People's anger and resentment cornered him. Abe's Moritomo Gakuen (Ultra-nationalist kindergarten & elementary school), Kake Gakuen and the cherry-blossom party tax money scandals were revealed. So-called Abenomics's failure became all too visible. The recession-pandemic double whammy hit people's lives.

Abe's unparalleled brazen shamelessness made him the only spiritual pillar of the Japanese imperialist push for constitutional revision and war and he maintained such role even after his resignation. He formed the LDP's largest faction, the Abe faction, and shouted, "a Taiwan contingency would be a Japan contingency," "Japan should possess capability to attack enemy bases," "nuclear sharing," and "doubling of defense budget." Now Japanese imperialism lost such central figure.

All political parties, from the Liberal Democratic Party to the Communist Party to the Reiwa Shinsengumi and others, now unanimously condemn the shooting, and the media is screaming, "Don't let violence silence speech," but at its core, the incident is definitely not about "silencing speech" or "challenging democracy." The person who attacked Abe stated that his motive was grudge against Abe and the "religious organization"*¹ his mother joined that destroyed his family and his life. This "religious organization" is evidently none other than the notorious anti-communist Unification Church, with which Abe has had close ties since his grandfather Nobusuke Kishi. The Unification Church has collected huge sums of money from the population through its Spiritual Sales*², which has also been a source of funding for far-right politicians like Abe.

The shooter lived as a dispatched worker under very precarious conditions with no future prospects since he left the Self-Defense Forces. He identified the Unification Church=Abe as the enemy who had driven him and his family into a hopelessness and his hatred grew in a will to kill.

The quintessence of this incident lies in the fact that the so-called "Abe policy," extreme neoliberalism, the reactionary, corrupt and warlike policy that emerged at the time of the final crisis of Japanese imperialism, flooded this society with people's anger and hatred, so that they wanted to "kill Abe." It is Abe who has deprived working people of their jobs, livelihoods, security, health care, social security and various rights, who has disrupted neighborhoods. Abe has driven many people into poverty and death, suppressed the labor and student movements, and fomented ethnic discrimination and assaults against the people who live and stay in Japan. Abe has seized control of the bureaucracy through the Cabinet Personnel Bureau and even arranged for the falsification of official documents by bureaucrats who have become Abe's personal army, taking the life of Toshio Akagi*³, a former Kinki Finance Office official. It is Abe who destroyed the "foundations of democracy." The anger and hatred of a large number of people has been pent up against the neoliberal bourgeoisie and the Japanese imperialists, against the constant terrorist attacks of Abe and his neoliberal bourgeoisie on the working people. The shooting of Abe was precisely caused by Abe himself, and his death symbolizes the very fact: "neoliberalism is on the verge of collapse by its own contradictions."

In response to Abe's death, countless people's voices flooded out; "Abe deserved to be killed." They are even angrier at politicians and the media who try to whitewash and glorify him. However, individual outbursts of anger and hatred, individual terrorism cannot not fundamentally change this world. Class unity and the struggle of the working class for the overthrow of capitalism, imperialism, and the achievement of a proletarian dictatorship are the forces that will open our future.

The overthrow of Boris Johnson amid the historical British railroad workers' national strike, the workers' rallies against the reactionary Yoon government of Korean Confederation of Trade Unions which mobilized 60,000 workers in Seoul and 5,000 workers in Koje, and the storming and occupation of the presidential palace by the workers in Sri Lanka show determination of the working class around the world, who will turn the war into a civil war. The working class of the world is raising the same angry cries against war and inflation, shouting the same slogans and waging the same struggle. In solidarity with these struggles, we must transform the "hidden civil war" into an "open civil war" in Japan as well, into a united struggle of the working class - this is our response to the shooting of Abe on July 8.

The Japanese imperialists are exploiting this incident in a reactionary way, celebrating Abe with a "state funeral," massively strengthening the security police and other repressive system, and escalating their push for the constitutional revision and war offensive immediately after the July 10 Upper House elections. The shooting and the Upper House elections triggered a revolutionary civil war over constitutional revision and war. The next year's G7 Summit talks in Hiroshima will be held under martial law like repression. However, we will smash the G7 Summit our own forces.

Let's join the anti-war, anti-nuke rallies in Hiroshima on August 6 and in Nagasaki on August 9!

Fight through the great struggles in the summer and autumn to stop the constitutional revision and the war, and organize a huge column of the rank-and-file workers' and students' movement and in Hibiya on November 6.

*¹ "religious organization"--The government imposed a strict media control immediately after the shooting. The national newspapers used the same frontpage headline, exactly same word by word. The media unanimously reported that the shooter had resentment against "a certain religious organization" and "assumed" that the former PM had tie with it.

The close tie between the LDP, especially the Abe's family, and the Unification Church has been a well-known fact since 1960s. UC's Japan Headquarters was situated on the premise of Nobusuke Kishi's mansion.

After the huge Anpo struggle (struggle against Japan-US Security Treaty) in 1960, the then Prime Minister Nobusuke Kishi was forced to resign. In mid 1960s, Kishi, Moon Sun Myung Moon of the Unification Church, Taiwan's Chiang Kai-shek, Yaroslav Stetsko (Ukraine's Nazi collaborator) and others created the World Anti-Communist League (WACL).

*²Spiritual Sales--UC has been selling pots, beadrolls and other items at exorbitant prices, threatening people with cult cursing etc.

*³Toshio Akagi was forced to tamper official documents related to the sales of public property to ultra-nationalist Moritomo Gakuen and committed suicide in March 2018.