14th Party Congress	No.632 May 5, 2009
		The New Socialist Party of Japan (NSP) will have its 14th National Congress on May 23 and 24. The party leadership appreciates readers of the organ who have supported our activities for these 14 years. We, the members of NSP, are determined to keep developing a path for the working population. We will discuss various issues sincerely in the Congress, responding to expectations of readers. We welcome your candid opinions. PLEASE RAISE YOUR OPINIONS How to Get United We will reconfirm in the Congress our determination to struggle, analyzing the current grave situation, which is called a crisis which comes in a hundred years. The general situation has completely changed in one year. The financial and economic crisis has prevailed swiftly in the whole international community. Everybody claims about a failure of ‘neo-liberalism’ and ‘the structural reform implemented by Koizumi Administration’, which has produced a loss of job and unemployment, increased suicides and made many rush to apply for life protection allowances. The phenomena have disclosed an illusory perspective of the government which insisted that active functioning of Big Business would bring a better life. The government has employed a boosting policy in which the debts amounting 44 trillion Yen were made and over 15 trillion Yen was injected in the supplementary budget. The compilation is practically to save Big Business. It will certainly surge the consumption tax rate and undermine social services. Thus, the society will fall into further recession. The only way to reach a solution is unity of the working population, if we are to defend employment and living conditions, provided the current economic decline persists. We will discuss how to create unity in the Congress. How to Stop Dangerous Developments The recession sharpens contradictions in the society, agitates chauvinism and intensifies reactionary moves to deter resistance of people. As for launching a satellite in April by Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the whole Japanese society was stirred by a fuss of ‘intercepting a missile’, in which municipalities and mass media were mobilized broadly. Meanwhile, the Diet is to enact an eternal law on sending the Self Defense Forces abroad for the first time, taking advantage of ‘a bill to cope with pirates’, without a full parliamentary debate. Agitations become more acute and dangerous: government sources emphasize a first strike to a military base in the hostile country and execution of the collective defense right and make noisy propaganda on the national referendum to amend Constitution, and the Constitution Judgment Council starts to work. These are the agenda we will analyze seriously in the congress. Unite All Forces to Defend Constitution Many people desperately demand us the NSP to be the core of a joint front to resist the economic difficulties and reactionary social developments. At this moment a victory cannot be won in the two-big party system and small constituency election mechanism, if the Japanese Communist Party and the Social Democratic Party run separately; an effective deterrent force cannot be obtained. One of the policies that the NSP can be proud of is the one we pursue to form an alliance to impede drives to amend Constitution, disregarding political orientations of organizations and parties. In terms of a critical bill, a sharp contrast is seen between the Democratic Party of Japan and the Communists and Social-Democrats, on the other. A hasty formulation of a broad, joint front of Constitution-defending forces is necessary to cope with the two-big party system. The New Socialist Party will run a candidate Hara Kazumi, who is supported by various Constitution-defending groups, in the general elections to come. Simultaneously, the NSP cooperates with the Social Democratic Party in the blocs for proportional representation as well as the constituencies and work jointly in the governor elections with the Communist Party. We will discuss in the congress how to realize a joint front in the 2010 Upper House election, encouraging cooperation activities with other political parties. In Order to Fulfill Tasks We must get united more solidly to fulfill the tasks. Thanks to the efforts of party members, almost all the candidates could win in the municipal elections and mid-year elections last year. We could gain new party member after surpassing the slump. We hope to stand for more candidates in the elections of local assemblies, have new members and increase the number of copies of organ. We ask our readers again for kind cooperation.