The Mountain Village Operation Units (山村工作隊, Sanson Kōsakutai) were underground paramilitary units organized by the Japanese Communist Party (JCP) in the early 1950s. The purpose of the units was carrying out guerrilla operations against the Japanese government and the Allied Occupation of Japan inspired by Mao Zedong's strategy of forming a base of operations in rural villages to launch a nationwide communist revolution. These operations achieved no successes and proved a disaster for the JCP's political prospects going forward.
Background and history In early post-war Japan, the newly legalized Japanese Communist Party (JCP), guided by its charismatic leader Sanzō Nosaka, pursued a strategy of fostering what Nosaka called a "lovable" (aisareru) public image, seeking to take advantage of the seemingly pro-labor, American-led Occupation of Japan to bring about a peaceful socialist revolution in Japan. This strategy was highly successful at first, attracting a large following for the party within the student and labor movements, and among intellectuals. In the 1946 general election, Nosaka and four other members of the JCP were elected to the Diet, and the party received 4% of the popular vote. In the 1949 general election, the JCP had its best showing ever, receiving nearly 10% of the popular vote. However, with the fall of China to the communists in 1949 and increasing Cold War tensions around the world, the United States initiated the so-called "Reverse Course" in Japan. The Occupation authorities shifted away from demilitarization and democratization to remilitarization, suppressing leftists, and strengthening Japan's conservative elements in support of American Cold War objectives in Asia. At the Occupation's urging, the Japanese state and private corporations carried out a sweeping "Red Purge," firing tens of thousands of communists and suspected communists from their jobs in both government and the private sector. In 1949, China's Liu Shaoqi met with Soviet leader Joseph Stalin. At the meeting, Stalin urged China to support the struggle of JCP. Liu was unenthusiastic about the idea. However, after Mao Zedong visited the Soviet Union in January 1950 for the renegotiation of the Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship and Alliance, China was pressured to issue a statement criticizing JCP's change to a peaceful party. Meanwhile, on January 6, 1950, the Soviet-led Cominform published a tract personally written by Joseph Stalin, harshly criticizing the JCP's peaceful line as "opportunism" and "glorifying American imperialism" and demanding that the JCP take steps to pursue immediate violent revolution in Japan. The pressure from Soviet Union caused an internal struggle between JCP members. On June 6, 1950, Douglas MacArthur, the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers, ordered a purge of 24 members of JCP's Central Committee and forbade them from engaging in any political activities. Competition between JCP factions to win Cominform approval in the wake of this devastating "Cominform Criticism" would ultimately lead, by the summer of 1951, to a complete reversal in JCP tactics from the peaceful pursuit of revolution within democratic institutions to an embrace of immediate and violent revolution along Maoist lines. General Secretary Kyuichi Tokuda and his allies saw this situation as a perfect opportunity to take personal control of the party through an informal process that did not involve convening the Central Committee or the Politburo which he named the Interim Central Directorate. Tokuda excluded seven Central Committee members, including Kenji Miyamoto, who held dissenting points of view, and went underground. As a result of the Red Purge, Tokuda and his group went into exile in the People's Republic of China and on February 23, 1951, at the JCP's 4th Party Congress, they decided on a policy of armed resistance against the American occupation of Japan, issuing orders to form a "liberated zone" in the rural villages across the country, particularly among peasants in mountain villages, just like the tactics successfully employed by the Chinese Communist Party in the Second Sino-Japanese War. At the 5th Party Congress of October 16, a new manifesto-like document was adopted called Present Demands of the Japanese Communist Party which included clauses on waging guerrilla war in the villages. Clandestine organizations were created including the Chukaku Jieitai, for weapons' procurement and training, the Dokuritsu Yugekitai, for offensive guerrilla operations, and the Mountain Village Operation Units.
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