Democratic Socialist Party (Japan)


The Democratic Socialist Party was a social-democratic political party in Japan. It was anti-communist and pro-American alliance, and supported a reformist/revisionist social democracy as opposed to the JSP's orthodox Marxism

History

The Democratic Socialist Party was established in 1960 by a breakaway group of the Japan Socialist Party. It was made up of many members of the former Rightist Socialist Party of Japan, a moderate democratic socialist faction that existed between 1948 and 1955.
Declassified U.S. government documents revealed that CIA funding led to the founding of this breakaway party. It was aimed at moderating and subverting the political opposition of the ruling conservative Liberal Democratic Party, which was the main CIA funded party.
The DSP advocated Democratic socialism and was a member of the Socialist International.
The DSP supported the construction of a welfare state, opposed totalitarianism, and strongly backed the Japan-US alliance. This made the pro-US and anti-communist alliance within the LDP continued to have majority in both Houses. It derived much of its financial and organisational support from the Domei private-sector labour confederation.
The DSP was dissolved in 1994 to join the New Frontier Party. In 1996, the Japan Socialist Party was transformed into the Social Democratic Party. Two years later, in 1998, the New Frontier Party dissolved and most former DSP members eventually joined the Democratic Party of Japan. Despite the dissolution of the DSP in 1994, its youth organisation survived until 2003 and was a member of the International Union of Socialist Youth. After Minsha Youth was dissolved, some of its former members and independent social democrats formed a new youth organisation, Young Socialists, which retained full membership in IUSY; however, it was finally dissolved on 8 March 2008 without any successor organisation and abandoned its IUSY membership.

International Comparison

Internationally, the Democratic Socialist Party may be compared to Democratic Socialists '70, another centre right wing, anti communist split from a social democratic party