It is dangerous to assume that Japan’s education and politics have returned to normal simply because Nikkyōso appears to have declined on the surface.
Its pro-Soviet, pro-China, and pro-North Korea ideology has merely changed form, sinking into the Democratic Party and the Ministry of Education, where it continues to exert deep influence on educational policy and the foundations of the nation.
Through the history of Nikkyōso, its political penetration, and the background of yutori education, this essay sharply questions the danger that still remains.

2019-05-30
The appearance of shouting “Long live the Soviet Union” has faded from sight, but that is only like a boil disappearing from the skin; the bacteria remain deep within.
The more malignant elements have infiltrated the Democratic Party and have also entered the Ministry of Education.

What follows is a continuation of the previous chapter.

Do Not Be Reassured by the Slow Decline of Nikkyōso

In June of Shōwa 22, 1947, Nikkyōso, the Japan Teachers’ Union, was formed.
As I noted earlier, because sound teachers had been purged from the profession and leftists filled the gap, Nikkyōso too naturally had many leftists in its ranks.
Within Nikkyōso there were various factions, including the mainstream socialist faction and the anti-mainstream communist faction.
But whichever the case, they were pro-Soviet, pro-China, and pro-North Korea.

That Nikkyōso succeeded in steering things in the direction of making school administrators into enemies.
When Nikkyōso was first formed, principals and vice-principals were also members of the union.
But the union appealed to bodies such as the ILO, the International Labour Organization, and had them excluded from the union.
Then the teachers’ union decided that it would determine everything, beginning with the handling of the Hinomaru and Kimigayo, and it established a policy of hostility toward administrators under which principals and vice-principals who tried to restrain it would be pushed out.

There also emerged within Nikkyōso people who became full-time union officials.
At first, the system was that teachers would spend two or three years engaged in union activities, not teaching during that time, but would then return to the teaching profession.
But gradually this turned into permanent full-time union service.
These people had been teachers, but in effect ceased to be teachers.
Then, using that as a stepping stone, they became members of the Socialist Party and the like, and went into political activity.
In that way, Nikkyōso became a seedbed for leftist politicians.
Those who turned toward politics created the Japan Democratic Education Political League.
From there, they tried to become members of the Diet.

There was a former Nikkyōso chairman named Motofumi Makieda.
I once had a dialogue with Mr. Makieda.
He was a graduate of the Youth Normal School, which had existed only before the war, and although his way of thinking differed from mine, he was personally a pleasant man.
During the war, he had entered the military and seems to have served in the military police.
Military police were chosen only from among the most capable soldiers.
Mr. Makieda was chairman at the time when Nikkyōso was at its height, and he even went on to become chairman of Sōhyō.
He was a man who praised the North Korean system so much that he went to North Korea, met President Kim Il-sung, and received a medal from him.
He also served as chairman of the Japan-China Skilled Workers Exchange Center and as chairman of the Japanese Committee Supporting the Independent Peaceful Unification of Korea.

When I spoke with Mr. Makieda and asked him about the Nanjing issue, he said something like, “Didn’t they kill large numbers over time after the occupation?”
Since a man who had served in the military police should have known that the Japanese military would never have had such a mass-murder plan, I remember thinking, “What a strange thing to say.”

Nikkyōso in the era when Mr. Makieda was chairman was unionist in style, recklessly calling general strikes and sometimes abandoning the educational field altogether.
Afterward, however, partly because the law changed, the situation became one in which they could not go on striking all the time.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Nikkyōso rapidly lost its power.
Even if one tried to praise China, before anyone knew it China had become an anti-socialist socialist country with disparities greater than Japan’s, while North Korea was an extreme hereditary dictatorship from which people fled at risk of their lives, and many who could not flee were reportedly starving to death.
That is why the line of being pro-Soviet, pro-China, and pro-North Korea is also disappearing.

So where are they now?
They have infiltrated the Democratic Party.
That is why people must realize that one of the Democratic Party’s major support groups is deeply problematic.
As for the Hinomaru and Kimigayo, they have been codified into law, and in public schools opposition movements concerning them are now to be controlled.
One can say that great progress has been made toward normalization.
But one must still not relax.
The easily recognizable form of Nikkyōso shouting “Long live the Soviet Union” has faded from sight, but that is only like a boil disappearing from the skin; the bacteria remain deep within.
The more malignant elements have infiltrated the Democratic Party and have also entered the Ministry of Education.

The people who promoted “yutori education” in the Ministry of Education were precisely those who themselves said that they had realized it was no use for leftists merely to engage in anti-government movements, and had therefore decided to enter the government from within.
This is a grave situation.
As many have pointed out, it was because of the “yutori education” pushed forward by such people that the academic ability of Japanese children declined markedly.
One must not relax simply because Nikkyōso’s power has weakened.
One must not forget that in the shadows there are forces always trying to breathe back to life.
To be continued.