未分類

2026年1月12日

A brief guide to Japan’s “Left,” Socialism, Marxism, Communism, and Liberalism

First, the conclusion up front (in a table)

Term	Goal	Method	Vibe	Where it tends to live in Japan
Left	A “new” society	Reform or revolution	Progressive, innovative	Spread across the map
Socialism	Equality	Redistribution, planned economy	Big government	Former Japan Socialist Party, Social Democratic Party
Marxism	Realizing a communist society	Historical materialism, class struggle	“Scientific” (self-described), theory-heavy	Japanese Communist Party, some parts of academia
Communism	Abolition of class and the state	Violent revolution, dictatorship of the proletariat	Final form, utopia	(No “pure” real-world example)
Liberal	Individual dignity and fairness	Soft-focus justice, feelings	Anti-discrimination, environment, political correctness	CDP, media, civic activists

People tend to use these words as if they mean the same thing

Recently, “left,” “socialism,” “communism,” and “liberal” are often used as though they were interchangeable, especially “left” and “liberal.” Maybe many people haven’t sorted the concepts out.

For example:

A socialist state: a transitional phase under the dictatorship of the proletariat (the state still exists).
A communist society: the final stage where the state “withers away” (the state no longer exists).

Or:

At first, people imagined a communist society would be more productive than capitalism, but once socialist states were actually built, productivity often turned out terrible.

To make these ideas sit neatly in your stomach, you need a lot of background knowledge. Below is a simple explanation of these terms and why they became tangled.

What is “the Left”?

“The Left” refers to reformists, progressives, and (maybe) revolutionaries.

The key point is that “reform” here means making things new, not returning to the old. So “reform” that means “go back to the past” is not left-wing in this sense.

It can mean something humanity has never tried, or copying something another country is already doing. In one phrase: a doctrine of making things new.

The word’s origin is the French Revolution: in the revolutionary legislature, reformists and progressives sat on the left side, and the label stuck.

France, as the birthplace of the term “left,” is easy to grasp: whenever it tries something new, it’s often a top runner even among Western countries, sometimes even for humanity as a whole. Its catchphrases include “liberty, equality, fraternity, human rights,” and it aims to realize those.

Around the French Revolution, democracy, capitalism, the industrial revolution, Enlightenment thought, nationalism, and more all arrived in a rush. Everything was new. But returning to monarchy, for example, is the Right. So it’s fine to remember: Left = make it new.

Socialism

“Socialism” has shifted in meaning over history, but it’s easiest to understand it in the sense that became dominant after Marx.

Socialism is basically a doctrine that aims for equality. If you keep “equality” as the main theme and goal, you won’t get lost.

Before Marx, socialism is sometimes called “utopian socialism,” criticized as not scientific or not theoretically rigorous. After Marx, it gets framed as “scientific socialism.”

In the broad sense, socialism means “aiming for equality.” In the Marxist sense, socialism aims for a communist society where people are economically equal, the means of production are shared, and classes disappear.

“Class” here means your position in economic relations. Even if you’re poor, if you’re a capitalist you’re bourgeoisie; even if you’re rich, if you’re a wage laborer you’re proletariat.

By that logic, personal investors or pensioners might be considered bourgeoisie. As an extreme thought experiment: even the Emperor, if living only by labor (and not investment), would be proletariat. (Whether that is actually true depends on how you define these categories in modern capitalism.)

But in capitalism, everyone is structurally “plugged into” finance. Even if someone doesn’t invest directly, bank deposits get intermediated into loans, investments, or government bond purchases. So “class lines” are hard to draw cleanly today.

By contrast, strata (social layers) are fuzzier: “seems important or wealthy” equals higher strata; the opposite equals lower strata.

What is a communist society?

Marx made socialism concrete and became the mainstream of socialist thinking.

A communist society is one where people are economically equal, the means of production are shared, and classes do not exist. This is treated as humanity’s final destination: the end of history, even an “end-time” for humanity.

It has never been realized. Maybe small communities in primitive times came close, and perhaps some small island-like countries might resemble it in limited ways. But no country has reached a communist society as the final destination of modern Western-style civilization.

Marx said such a society would come as a historical necessity. Lenin tried to force it into existence through revolution.

But since the Russian Revolution, through the Cold War and after, no state that maintained a socialist system has realized a communist society.

We say “communist country,” but that usually means “a country aiming for communism,” not “a country that has achieved a communist society.” Same with “socialist country.”

In Marxist usage, “a socialist country” means “a country aiming at communism,” so “socialist country” and “communist country” can end up meaning the same thing.

Another issue is the country’s actual regime. Even if it claims to aim for communism, if its system is democratic, capitalist, liberal, market-based, and exchange-based, it’s hard to call it “communist” in any serious sense. Such countries haven’t, as a nation, tried to remodel themselves wholesale toward communism.

By “socialist country,” one often means a country where the state is actively redesigning itself, across institutions, law, and education, to transform from a capitalist-democratic-liberal-market-exchange system into something that can realize a communist society.

There have been many such countries: the Eastern Bloc during the Cold War, and officially China today.

So socialism and communism are often used as near-synonyms. Two criteria tend to appear:

It claims to aim for a communist society.
It is in the process of remodeling capitalism to reach it.

The existence of “socialist countries” and “communist countries” deviates from Marxist theory

In Marx’s theory, capitalism matures, revolution happens necessarily, and a communist society results.

Revolution is mandatory. Society does not gradually morph from capitalism into communism. Revolution “flips” the system at once.

So a “socialist country” or “communist country” as a halfway state is not very Marxist: it’s neither capitalist nor communist, a limbo regime.

This “flip-by-revolution” view (historical materialism) ends up causing trouble later, because it treats systemic change as essentially identical with revolutionary overturning.

The Socialist Party and the Communist Party (and also the Democratic Socialist Party)

Since this is confusing, here’s a short explanation.

Socialism and communism are different. Socialism is broader.

Socialism: pursuit of equality.
Communism: economic equality plus shared means of production plus abolition of classes, so it comes with more specific conditions.

Because communism became the dominant force within socialism, the two are often treated as the same. Marx’s influence was strong.

But there are forms of socialism that are not communist. Social democracy (often shortened to “Shamin,” as in the Social Democratic Party) tries to realize more equality while keeping democracy and capitalism, working within them.

In Japan, under the “1955 system,” the LDP, the Socialist Party, and the Communist Party solidified, though many splits and mergers followed.

The JCP became relatively unified after the 1955 “Rokuzenkyō,” largely due to strong internal bureaucratic control: heterodox elements were expelled, purged, driven out, or kept on a short leash.

The Socialist Party formed from a merger of the Socialist Left and Socialist Right. The Socialist Left was called the “Kyokai-ha” (Association faction), which (in this account) is essentially communist. Later an even more left-wing “Kaihō-ha” (Liberation faction) appeared. The party’s internal “structural reform” right wing was crushed by the Kyokai-ha and Kaihō-ha; the Kyokai-ha split into the Mukasaka faction and Ōta faction, and so on.

Those who couldn’t keep up with the Socialist Party’s leftward drift formed the Democratic Socialist Party (DSP, “Minsha-tō”), which roughly connects to today’s Democratic Party for the People (DPP).

After the Cold War, the Socialist Party entered coalition government, then split and changed names. What remains is the small Social Democratic Party, seen here as the descendant of the Socialist Left.

Most of the Socialist Party became the Democratic Party, then the Democratic Party of Japan / Minshintō, then the Constitutional Democratic Party (CDP). The DPP split from the CDP. The DSP no longer exists.

Labor unions and “orthodoxy”

For socialist and communist parties, political claims matter, but organization matters a lot, and the support base matters most. The key support base was labor unions.

In Marxism, the story is: bourgeoisie is overthrown by proletariat through revolution, and communism arrives. The proletariat are wage laborers, so unions are closely connected.

Unions supported different parties: the Socialist Party via Sōhyō, the Communist Party via Zenrōren, the DSP via Dōmei. There was also Zenrōkyō.

When the Cold War ended, unions tried to reorganize and formed Rengō (Japan Trade Union Confederation) as a unified front. Rengō is a merger of the Dōmei line and the Sōhyō line. Zenrōren (linked with the JCP) did not join, viewing the reorganization as “right-wing.”

Roughly speaking: within Rengō, the Sōhyō line supports the CDP, while the Dōmei line supports the DPP. One background difference is that Sōhyō was public-sector oriented, while Dōmei was private-sector oriented.

Fighting over unions

Organizational turf wars happen everywhere, but in politics, socialism, and Marxism, they are crucial.

Unions feel murky, even monstrous, because they can become objects of political capture. It isn’t as simple as openly switching endorsements; often it’s messy behind the scenes.

After the emergence of the New Left around 1960, not only did the Socialist Party and the Communist Party compete over unions, but New Left groups joined the struggle too. Trotskyists are especially skilled at taking over organizations, partly because Trotsky, expelled from the USSR, lacked a base and tried to seize control of organizations abroad. (This takeover method is called entryism.)

Japan’s New Left, especially the Trotskyist tradition, became dominated by two surviving currents: Kakumaru-ha and Chūkaku-ha, both emerging from Kakudōkyō. Their survival itself illustrates how crucial it is to secure organizational bases.

Because entryism exists, things become complicated: even if you say “the Socialist Party,” parts might be captured by Kakumaru-ha. The Socialist Party’s patchiness rivals that of the LDP.

The JCP, with its Marxist-Leninist posture and its internal control under Miyamoto Kenji, was relatively resistant to entryism.

For leftists, New Leftists, communists, Marxists, and socialists (and since Marxism and communism have been the dominant stream within socialism, you can crudely treat Left ≈ Socialism ≈ Marxism ≈ Communism), unions are revolutionary “all-in-one kits”: they provide the organized proletariat, workplaces, bases of activity, sites of struggle (demonstrations and strikes), recruitment pipelines, and daily hangouts. So they get fought over.

Sometimes they’re seized by overt struggle; sometimes by entryism. Even within entryism, some groups operate openly, while others, like Kakumaru-ha, hide and infiltrate quietly.

(Example mentioned here: JR Sōren Tokyo as a Kakumaru base; Matsuzaki Akira is described as having operated as a separate organization from Kuroda Kan’ichi’s main Kakumaru body. The details are said to be unclear due to secrecy.)

Even privatization of JNR (JR), NTT, KDDI, Japan Post, and trends like deregulation in education, corporatization of universities, privatization of utilities, and outsourcing to companies/NGOs can be interpreted through this “weakening public-sector unions” lens, though other motives (corruption, crony capitalism, activist funding and recruitment) may also apply.

In any case, unions are an underground ecosystem, and keeping this lens in mind may help make sense of various phenomena.

Schools and universities

Unions matter, but universities matter too. The Socialist Party and the Communist Party had student organizations like Shaseidō and Minsei (Democratic Youth League). For example, Take○ Heizo was Minsei, and Ike○ Akira was Shaseidō.

These are subordinate organizations and, in a sense, a reserve pool of activists. Even if they don’t become revolutionaries, spreading as “cells” throughout society is useful.

The JCP had controlled the University of Tokyo student自治会 since prewar days, aiming to expand sympathizers and cadres throughout society. From Todai, people can rise to the top in bureaucracy, politics, and finance.

But as the JCP’s authority declined, those who broke with or were expelled from the JCP formed many New Left groups and tried to seize university自治 bodies, once a JCP stronghold.

The New Left, emerging around 1960, aimed to replace the JCP as the vanguard of revolution. Zengakuren, originally thought to be a Minsei fortress, also became a target.

Zenkyōtō tried to unite beyond sectarian boundaries, but by attempting to take over Todai Hospital, the university, and student自治 bodies, it triggered the JCP’s wrath.

The JCP used not only Minsei but also the Tōgakuren action squads (Akatsuki action squads, a clandestine arm of the party involving students and non-students, adults, yakuza, and workers) to crush Zenkyōtō.

The text argues that in an era when many “adults” were war veterans and experienced in physical force, student groups would not stand a chance against serious suppression.

Universities, then, remain important alongside unions. Of the many New Left factions (said to have been near 100), the main surviving groups with numbers and explicit revolutionary aims are Kakumaru-ha and, perhaps, Chūkaku-ha. Other groups like Kakurōkyō (Shaseidō Kaihō-ha, though Shaseidō itself is New Left here) persist, supported by control over places like Kyushu University and Meiji University. Hosei University is described as a Chūkaku base.

The transformation of 1968–1970 and the birth of “liberalism”

The suspicion “Maybe what humans want most isn’t equality” has existed for a long time. One might even argue fascism emerged when Mussolini realized patriotism matters more than equality.

Two factors are suggested as having drained the motivation of the traditional Left (socialists, Marxists, communists), enabling the rise of “liberals.”

The failure of the Russian Revolution (as a realization of Marxist expectations)

In Marxist theory, progress is supposed to happen like:

Mature capitalism → revolution → communist society

Marxism is also a kind of classical economics: it assumes society progresses. It does not account for resource or environmental constraints, and it assumes history has an end. This is framed here as an inheritance from “end-times” thinking in Biblical cultures.

Lenin created additional theory to do what Marx considered reckless: make revolution happen in a “backward” society. This is Leninism, and historically Marxism and Leninism became a package: Marxism-Leninism (ML).

There are other streams (e.g., Eurocommunism associated with Antonio Gramsci), but they are omitted here.

Lenin’s “two-stage revolution” theory in outline:

Backward society → bourgeois-democratic revolution → establish a democratic capitalist society → mature capitalism → socialist revolution (proletarian revolution) → abolish capitalism, proletariat seizes power, abolish classes, socialize means of production, eliminate economic inequality.

But in reality, timing mattered: after February 1917 achieved the bourgeois-democratic revolution, there should have been time for capitalist maturation. Yet Lenin pushed the second-stage socialist revolution in November 1917. Lenin hoped advanced capitalist countries would follow with revolutions, but they didn’t. Russia ended up isolated.

Marx had warned that revolution in a backward society would lead to worse outcomes and conflict over wealth, and something like that happened. Still, the USSR managed to build what became the “communist bloc” in the Cold War, though those member states were not communist societies, but socialist states claiming to aim for communism.

Miscalculations of Marxism, socialism, and communism

Lenin and comrades expected worldwide revolutions after Russia, but instead had to focus on defending revolution in Russia alone.

Contrary to Marx’s expectations, socialism often proved less productive than capitalism. It can surge temporarily via Five-Year Plans or wartime mobilization, but productivity tends to worsen over time. This is presented as another miscalculation.

To launch a forced revolution, Lenin developed the vanguard party theory and democratic centralism. The vanguard party leads both revolutions. But in the bourgeois-democratic phase, the vanguard party may not be democratically chosen. So Lenin shifted toward one-party rule: “dictatorship of the party, democracy inside the party.”

Marx had the idea of dictatorship of the proletariat, but treated it as temporary. After Lenin, one-party rule became permanent.

Lenin also renamed the party “Communist Party” rather than “Socialist Party.” The common image of a “communist country” is thus: a Communist Party rules as a one-party state, standing above the state and controlling it. This is socialism under ML, but not a communist society.

A further miscalculation is that a Communist Party, once it monopolizes power and wealth, may stop aiming for communist society at all. Stalin, in particular, is portrayed as wanting to preserve that system: Stalinism. Stalin advanced “socialism in one country,” defeating Trotsky’s world revolution line.

Even with later criticisms of Stalin, and even if the JCP distanced itself from the Soviet party, this account claims the reality remains Stalinist in structure.

The “episteme” of 1968–1970

Two major issues became visible around 1968–1970, making it a historical branching point: it became clear that history would not unfold as Marx predicted.

Leftism, socialism, Marxism, and communism were among the greatest modern “grand narratives.” What became clear in this period is: “communism is impossible.”

Revolution does not occur in mature capitalist societies. Revolutions occurred mostly in poor countries that were not “properly capitalist.” And in large communist states like the USSR and China, once a one-party communist regime forms, it tends to stop there: rather than realizing communism, it fixes the regime, expands inequality, and becomes corrupt.

The vanguard party becomes a nomenklatura, and internal democracy weakens, with power concentrating in a single individual. The party-state rules the proletariat; the dictator rules the party-state. Worse, it tries to impose this on other countries.

After WWII, many countries became communist (or were made so). Some tried sincerely to reform toward real communism. Hungary was crushed by Soviet forces when it tried to reform (the Hungarian Uprising). In 1968, Czechoslovakia tried to reform socialism and was also crushed (Prague Spring).

In China, the Cultural Revolution is described here as a power struggle: Mao, having lost authority after the Great Leap Forward’s disaster, sought to regain power.

In Japan, only Asahi○ Newspaper (described here as the only media recognized by China) conveyed information, but not necessarily the truth, leading to many China/Mao enthusiasts. The text also mentions the “Return to North Korea” project promoted by Beheiren’s Ko○ Minoru, along with the slogan “North Korea is a paradise on earth,” which many believed.

It also describes how the Red Army (derived from Bund factions) hijacked a plane and defected to North Korea, how North Korea abducted Japanese along the Sea of Japan coast (later the abduction issue), and how some abductees were used to train agents, connected here to the Korean Air bombing incident.

Overall, the text argues that many socialist countries still exist, typically dictatorships with dictators, and that this pattern may be a more universal “law of history” than Marxism. Hence, serious research, education, and public awareness are needed.

“Maybe you can get to communism without revolution?”

Meanwhile, strange things happened in the Western liberal-democratic capitalist camp too.

Some mature capitalist countries incorporated welfare and achieved something “communism-like” (not communism, but somewhat harmonious). The U.S., before neoliberalism and post-Cold War globalism, was relatively balanced and prosperous, with tolerable inequality. Baby boomers who remember that era later became a core base of liberals. Some people recall Piketty-era graphs showing postwar equality.

Japan is portrayed here as having become more “communistic” than communist countries: it was called “the most successful socialist country” and “a nation of 100 million all middle class.”

Policies like inheritance tax were said to prevent wealth lasting beyond three generations. Progressive taxation was strong; wage gaps did not become major status gaps. Japan had capitalism and stock markets, but historically disliked foreign capital, preferring borrowing while maintaining sovereignty. Japan also developed capitalism “by its own power,” which is described as rare outside a few Western countries and the U.S.

Japan’s cross-shareholding system meant it was not “shareholder capitalism”: corporate groups held shares in each other, preventing a particular shareholder from controlling companies. Dividends were modest; accounting was not mark-to-market. Managers were “worker presidents,” not hired professional CEOs. Companies aimed to serve the firm, employees, and society, not primarily shareholders.

These systems were later dismantled under U.S. pressure through trade friction and post-Cold War dynamics. Still, Japan’s limited embrace of extreme neoliberal global finance may have had benefits.

Revolutionaries losing steam and the rise of “liberals”

Up to around 1970, people were “macho,” for better or worse. The Left aimed to change society root and branch via revolution.

The inclusion relation is framed as:

Left ⊃ Socialism ⊃ Marxism ⊇ Communism

Capitalism is portrayed as more organic, while socialism appears more constructed and narrative-driven.

In postwar capitalist societies, politics looked like a fight between that left-spectrum bloc and everything else. The era’s war-experienced mentality may have favored binary showdowns.

But straightforward prewar-style right-wing restorationism was a minority. New right currents emerged, perhaps as a counter to postwar leftist unrest.

Practical adults focused on rebuilding and growing Japan, unable to indulge in unrealistic talk. Older adults, many war veterans, might have viewed radical youths as merely energetic. Serious adult suppression would have been overwhelming.

There’s even an anecdote: after the Asama-Sansō incident, Emperor Shōwa reportedly said he was glad neither side had deaths or severe injuries, like a parent concerned for children.

It was an era when leftism and socialism were associated with justice and truth. A saying existed: “If you aren’t left-leaning when you’re young, you lack spirit.”

If the USSR is bad, the JCP is bad, the New Left is bad, and “we” are bad, while capitalism is going well and Japan is close to a de facto classless society, with cross-shareholding resembling shared means of production, national unity, strong trust and rule-consciousness, and institutions accelerating equality, then maybe revolution seems unnecessary. Revolutionaries might lose motivation.

The “end of history” is a theme in Western thought with eschatology. Marx made the end of history communism; post-Cold War America made it liberal democracy and markets. But this text argues that Japan around 1970 embodied the “end of history” more than anyone.

The Left often contains heroism, romanticism, sentimentalism. A path where steady practical work as a social gear becomes “the road to communism” may have felt unattractive.

Many leftists and revolutionaries were highly educated elites, often narcissistic. Such people shift into “liberalism.” Liberalism, in this framing, is left-progressive and equality-leaning, but also the emotional refuge of those whose Marxist-communist destination collapsed.

Yet they can’t fully abandon Marxism/communism either. When people lose their place, they may become anomic, or they may seek self-justification and recognition, drifting into performative or meddlesome activism.

Anti-imperialism and anti-colonialism were already New Left themes; they are not uniquely liberal. Liberals move into areas that hard-left activists used to mock as petty-bourgeois: anti-discrimination, minority rights, environmentalism, anti-Japan activism, and so on.

Hard-left groups (JCP, Kakumaru, and arguably Chūkaku; Kakumaru is Trotskyist and anti-Stalinist) keep pushing revolution, and in that sense are “consistent.”

The text warns: even if they say similar things, hard Marxists and “liberals” can have completely different content and intent, yet modern audiences often mix them up, and even commentators may not clearly understand the difference.

In short: hard leftists use anti-discrimination, minority issues, environmental issues strategically and self-consciously within a coherent theory and revolutionary strategy. Liberals are “soft-focus”: emotional, mood-based, intuitive. This can become anti-intellectual, feverish, intolerant of dissent. But since there is no real theory, it’s not ideology so much as ideological vibes.

Some drift into religion, New Religions, naturalism, spiritualism; some figures (written with ○) are described as having tried “almost everything.”

Why “liberal”?

“Liberal” is short for “liberalism,” often translated as “liberty-ism” or “freedom-ism.”

Today it often evokes things like “political correctness,” LGBT, BLM, SDGs, feminism, and climate change (recently toned down into “environmental issues”). The image shifts by era.

Classical liberal (old): “Government, don’t interfere. Give individuals economic freedom.”
Modern liberal (new): “Government should intervene and protect the vulnerable. Give individuals social fairness.”

Modern ideals include freedom and equality as two pillars, plus human rights and fraternity. As ideals, they function as ideology, often opposed to realism.

Realism fits better with conservatism and the Right because it has historical “track records.” The Left tries to create new states that haven’t existed, so there’s less data and more surprises. The French and Russian revolutions were unstable afterward; by contrast, the Meiji Restoration and the English revolution are framed here as more restorationist and thus more stable.

“Liberal” can mean liberalizing different domains. If everything becomes “free,” freedoms collide: one person’s freedom becomes another’s constraint. Scarcity and trade-offs (and opportunity costs) apply.

Modern liberals often interpret the hardships of the weak, victims, or minorities as consequences of the freedom of the strong, perpetrators, or the majority. Equal opportunity and institutional freedom can, over time, generate inequality; so liberals try to protect those harmed by inequality by regulating the freedom of those who benefit.

From one view, that reduces freedom; from another, it increases freedom for the protected side. Overall freedom may be diminished and systems grow complex, but that gets called “liberal.”

Freedom also collides with equality. “Egalitarianism” isn’t common as a label because “socialism” already occupies that semantic space. In broad terms, socialism is a rough egalitarianism; Marxism/communism is egalitarianism with extra conditions: economic equality, socialization of means of production, abolition of class distinctions.

“Liberal” in Japan is often used mainly in the political-cultural sense; if you mean economic liberalism, you tend to say “neoliberalism” instead.

Equality also involves trade-offs: equality within a subgroup can produce inequality vis-a-vis the whole; equality for the whole can feel unequal to some subgroup. Even freedom alone is hard; trying to maximize both freedom and equality creates conflict.

The period 1968–1970 is suggested as a turning point when “freedom” and “equality” began to get conflated, and “liberal” (originally about freedom) began to be used to mean egalitarian social progress, increasing confusion.

A fault line on the Left: Marxist communism and liberalism are independent phenomena

In this framing, “liberal” is not about freedom in general nor about large-scale equality across society, but about pursuing smaller-scale equality for people who feel life is hard to live.

In that sense, both Marxist communism and liberalism are egalitarian and thus forms of socialism. But different equalities collide: one group’s equality becomes another’s inequality.

From a revolutionary view that wants to spend all resources to achieve communist society, liberal social reform looks like trivial branches and leaves. New Left activists often believed that once communism is achieved, small-group inequality can be easily fixed.

Yet even if society achieves broad equality (even a communist society), subjective and objective inequalities for smaller groups might remain or newly arise. Sometimes these issues may be causally related; other times they should be treated as independent problems.

In the end: subjectivity matters, vested interests matter, and you have to compromise with realism

A blunt conclusion: much of this is about subjective experience, and about livelihood.

Revolutionaries and ruling powers alike may no longer be acting from pure “mission.” Era, age, and generation change things. Once you’re raising children, ideology becomes a luxury; you have to feed them. (Hence, the claim here that Kakumaru-ha is essentially unmarried by doctrine.)

In wartime, people don’t have leisure for anti-discrimination talk. Freedom, equality, fraternity, human rights, patriotism, and peace change meaning between peaceful times and war.

When survival and solidarity dominate, ideals matter less than immediate emotion, judgment, and frontline realism. People may not even be able to distinguish freedom from equality in those contexts, or it may not matter.

When people have time, they think extra thoughts, sometimes creative, but either way they drift from realism. In peace, liberalism becomes business; power also corrupts via cronyism. “Business leftism” and “business liberalism” appear.

Japan too is not immune; politics and media feel highly corrupt. Yet some corruption and misrule can be seen as part of political reality; a totally corruption-free regime can be abnormal in other ways.

Liberalism looks half-baked to the hard left, and hollow to the right/center. So turbulence will likely continue, and people will muddle through.

Final practical summary

Left: In contrast to conservatism (status quo), a position that tries to change society toward equality, expanded rights, and anti-privilege. Ranges from reform to revolution. Originates from seating arrangements in the French revolutionary assemblies.
Socialism: Rather than leaving things to markets, the state or society intervenes in production and distribution to curb inequality and secure living standards. Forms include nationalization, cooperatives, welfare states, etc.
Marxism: Analyzes capitalism as a structure of class relations and exploitation, seeing capitalist contradictions as the engine of history (historical materialism). Tries to explain socialism and communism “scientifically.”
Communism: The final ideal in which classes disappear, means of production are not privately owned, and in principle the state becomes unnecessary. Real-world “Communist Party states” usually mean one-party regimes that claim that ideal, so you must distinguish ideal from reality.
Liberal: Originally a doctrine emphasizing individual freedom, rights, and rule of law. In Japan, “liberal” often follows U.S. usage, meaning “center-left” (human rights, diversity, welfare-leaning).
Why they got mixed: For a long period, the Left contained socialism and communism; additionally, Japanese “liberal” circulated more as “progressive” than as “freedom-ism,” so they came to be treated like synonyms.

That’s the realistic way to understand it.

A brief guide to Japan’s “Left,” Socialism, Marxism, Communism, and Liberalism