COMMUNISTS IN JAPAN WERE FORESTAILED BY MACARTHUR’S ORDERS

Wanganui Chronicle, 24 February 1949, Page 5

COMMUNISTS IN JAPAN WERE FORESTAILED BY MACARTHUR’S ORDERS

NEW YORK, Feb. 22 (Rec. 8.10 p.m.)—Two directives issued by General MacArthur last year upset Japanese Communists’ plans to stage a revolution and seize the Government, says the New York “Times” Tokio correspondent. He adds that documents made available to him show that Communists expected their projected general strike of last August to turn into an armed revolt by October and result in the formation of a Communist * “people’s Government” by February this year. The Communists believed their revolution would be synchronised with similar revolts throughout the nonCommunist world. The documents show General MacArthur’s July order forbidding strikes by Government workers destroyed the Communists’ carefully plotted scheme to tafce control of Government-owned communications network and railways, as “a* patrol skirmish for the October revolution.” The correspondent adds that MacArthur’s November announcement that minority groups would not be permitted to interfere with economic recovery apparently upset the Communists’ timetable further. A Communist Party instruction issued last July told regional committees that revolution by violence would begin in October. It ordered them to acquire a large amount of sulphuric acid to start “fires by inadvertence.” Communication workers should give high priority to union messages and sabotage, and eventually suppress all Government messages. The instruction urged railway workers to leave their posts in a mass absenteeism campaign. . MacArthur's directives stopped these moves, the correspondent adds. The Far-Eastern Cominform in September warned the Japanese Communist Party to recognise “the grave situation abroad before starting the October offensive.” The Cominform added: “In the case of a Russo-Ameri-can war Japanese Communists should start an armed revolt and a great general strike as an attack from inside. Underground units shall organise the distribution of weapons. Coordination with the Korean Communists will be strengthened.” Orders issued by the Japanese after September revealed that the party’s primary interests were sabotaging production in order to reduce the workers’ ival incomes and cause discontent and fighting anti-Communist campaigns within unions.