Sanzo Nosaka After leaving Britain , Nosaka traveled through the Soviet Union ( USSR ) . He returned to Japan in 1922 , where he co - founded the Japanese Communist Party ( JCP ) . Nosaka became a labor organizer , but was arrested twice by the Japanese government for his activities . After being released from prison a second time , Nosaka secretly returned to the USSR in 1931 , where he became an agent of the Comintern . He traveled to the West Coast of the United States , where he worked as a communist spy from 1934 - 1938 . After leaving the United States , Nosaka worked in China from 1940 – 1945 , supporting the Chinese Communist Party ( CCP ) by indoctrinating captured Japanese soldiers to support and fight for the Chinese communists against the Imperial Japanese Army , and coordinating a spy network that operated throughout Japanese - occupied China . After the surrender of Japan in 1945 , Nosaka returned to Japan with hundreds of other Japanese communists , where he led the Japanese Communist Party during the occupation of Japan . Nosaka attempted to brand the JCP as a populist party supporting Japan ' s peaceful transition into socialism , but his strategy was criticized within the party and within the Soviet Union . During the Korean War the JCP temporarily endorsed violence , and Nosaka disappeared from public life and went underground . He re - emerged to lead the JCP again in 1955 , after which he attempted to disrupt the US - Japan Security Treaty by organizing public demonstrations , but he generally supported the JCP ' s role as a peaceful party . In 1958 Nosaka became Chairman of the JCP , a position he held until retirement at the age of 90 , after which he was declared Honorary Chairman . Nosaka joined the faculty of Keio University , and he was widely idolized among left - wing intellectuals until shortly before his death , when the fall of the Soviet Union exposed controversial aspects of his relationship with Stalin ' s Communist regime . Biography . Early life . Sanzo Nosaka was the son of a prosperous Japanese merchant and was raised in a bourgeois environment . As a young man Nosaka was known for his fashionable taste in clothing and for the large dog that often accompanied him in public . He was quiet , serious , studious , introverted , and more comfortable in libraries than at public demonstrations . After his secondary education , Nosaka attended Keio University , which was then considered a " rich boys school " . At Keio , Nosaka became interested in the international labor movement , an interest that was largely supported by one of his professors , Kiichi Horie . Nosaka decided to write his senior thesis on the moderate labor organization founded by Bunji Suzuki , " " Yuaikai " " ( " The Friendly Society " ) . To research his thesis , Nosaka contacted " Yuaikai " ' s head office , and acquainted himself with its senior leaders : Suzuki initially mistook Nosaka for a salesman the first time they met , but eventually grew fond of Nosaka . When Nosaka graduated from Keio , in 1915 , he joined " Yuaikai " and worked for the organization as a research staff member and as an editor of the organization ' s journal , " Rodo Oyobi Sangyo " ( " Labour and Industry " ) . Nosaka became interested in communism after the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution . As a greater volume of leftist literature entered Japan from the West , Nosaka ' s political orientation moved farther from the center . The first Western texts on revolutionary social theory available in Japan were mostly on anarchism , but Nosaka also enjoyed Edward Bellamy ' s utopian novel , " Looking Backward " . In 1918 - 1919 Nosaka read an English copy of " The Communist Manifesto " brought to Japan by his friend , Shinzo Koizumi . After reading " The Communist Manifesto " , Nosaka embraced the theories of Marxism . Nosaka announced his intentions to go abroad to study social theory in the November 1918 issue of " Rodo Oyobi Sangyo " . He sailed out of Kobe harbor in July 7 , 1919 , and arrived in London on August 27 . After his arrival , Nosaka studied political economy at London University . Like many British intellectuals at the time , Nosaka deepened his studies of Marxism , and became a confirmed communist at the university . While in London Nosaka became active in communist circles . He affiliated himself with notable trade union leaders active in London , and attended the September 8 – 13 , 1919 Glasgow Trade Union Congress as a correspondent for " Rodo Oyobi Sangyo " . Nosaka was a founding member of the British Communist Party in 1920 , and attended the Party ' s first session as a representative from London . Nosaka ' s activities within the Communist Party brought him to the attention of Scotland Yard , and Nosaka was deported from Britain in 1921 . After he left Britain , Nosaka traveled through Europe to the newly formed Soviet Union . In Russia , with the help of friendly contacts in the communist hierarchy , Nosaka became influential within the Communist Party . Nosaka was suspected of being either a British or Japanese agent ; but , because of his contacts among high - ranking Finnish and Russian leaders , Nosaka was never purged . After attending the Far Eastern People ' s Conference in the Soviet Union , Nosaka returned to Japan in 1922 , and helped found the Japanese Communist Party ( JCP ) that same year . Nosaka was more secretive about his relationship with the Communist Party than he had been in Britain , and kept his membership a secret from Bunji Suzuki and other moderate labour leaders . After his return , Nosaka worked as a trade unionist and editor of the JCP ' s official newspaper , " Musansha Shimbun " . Because of his activities within the Communist Party ( which was illegal in Japan ) , Nosaka , like many communists in Japan , was arrested ( twice in his case ) , interrogated , and tortured by the Japanese kempeitai , but he was released after short periods both times . Nosaka was first arrested in 1923 , and released within a year . After his release , Nosaka became more active within the Japanese labor movement . In March 1928 , the Japanese police began a campaign to harass and destroy the JCP , beginning with the May 15 Incident . After his second arrest in 1929 , Nosaka spent two years in jail . He was released in 1931 on the grounds of illness . The short lengths of Nosaka ' s arrests aroused suspicion among other Japanese communists that Nosaka had given important information to the Japanese secret police , but these suspicions were never acted upon . Comintern agent . Upon his release , Nosaka secretly returned to the Soviet Union , arriving in Moscow in March 1931 . While there , Nosaka served as a representative of the JCP , and worked as an executive member of the Comintern . While in Moscow Nosaka helped to draft the " 1932 Thesis " , which became the guiding document of the JCP until 1946 . Most of his colleagues active in the JCP , who were not able to go abroad , were subsequently arrested by the kempeitai by the fall of 1932 . One of Nosaka ' s friends was Kenzo Yamamoto , a legendary Japanese communist who had been in the Soviet Union with his common - law wife , Matsu , since 1928 . Yamamoto had a reputation as a great womanizer ; and , when rumors circulated that Yamamoto was engaged in an affair with Nosaka ' s wife , Ryu , Nosaka wrote a confidential letter to the KGB ( dated February 22 , 1939 ) indicating that he believed Yamamoto and his wife were likely Japanese spies in the pay of the kempeitai . On Stalin ' s orders , both Yamamoto and Matsu were arrested as spies . A firing squad executed Yamamoto , and Matsu died in a gulag . Both Yamamoto and his wife were formally rehabilitated after their deaths by Nikita Khrushchev on May 23 , 1956 , recognizing the lack of any evidence that the two were actually spies . In his autobiography , Nosaka later wrote that he had tried to save Yamamoto ' s life . In 1934 , Nosaka secretly traveled to the West Coast of the United States , where he became involved in intelligence work on behalf of the International Liaison Department of the Comintern against the Imperial Japan ese government . Nosaka ' s activities included disseminating information to communists still active in Japan , infiltrating and making contact with the Japanese communities active in the United States , and establishing a number of communist front organizations in Seattle , Los Angeles , and other cities on the West Coast . Nosaka worked to gain funding from the Comintern for his activities , and attempted to have other Japanese Communists secretly relocated to America . He planned to recruit American and Japanese agents to send to Yokohama to establish a cell that would operate as a communist front organization . Because the records from this period are incomplete , historians cannot be certain to what extent Nosaka ' s efforts in America were successful . Nosaka worked as a Comintern agent in America until 1938 , when he returned to Moscow . In 1940 , the Comintern ordered Nosaka to aid communist forces in China . Activities in China . From March 1940 to the end of 1945 , during the Second Sino - Japanese War , Nosaka resided at the Chinese Red Army base in Yan ' an , in Shaanxi Province , where he headed the Japanese People ' s Emancipation League ( JPEL ) . The JPEL engaged in the " re - education " of numerous Japanese prisoners of war ( POWs ) and created propaganda on behalf of the Chinese Communists . Japanese troops captured by the Communists were then used by the Communists in various civilian and military roles , and were especially valued because their level of technical expertise was generally greater than that of most Chinese soldiers . " Re - educated " Japanese troops were instrumental in a number of Communist victories after World War II , including the 1949 Pingjin Campaign , in which most of the artillery fielded by the Communists was manned by Japanese gunners . In general , the method of " re - education " devised and employed by Nosaka was highly effective . Initially , the Red Army was a purely guerrilla force without the facilities to imprison POWs . The policy of the Eighth Route Army , the main communist force active during World War II , was to interrogate prisoners and then release them . After reports surfaced that the Japanese were punishing Japanese prisoners after they returned , the Red Army ' s policy gradually changed to one of retraining POWs , and the communists began to implement this policy after Nosaka arrived in Yan ' an . By the time of its war with China , the Japanese army was educating its officers and common soldiers to die rather than surrender . Injured soldiers were easily captured , and made up the bulk of Japanese POWs . Captured Japanese believed that they would be killed , but were instead fed and clothed , and began to develop a rapport with their captors . Besides Nosaka ' s regimen of psychological indoctrination , there were several reasons that Japanese POWs chose to join the Chinese communists . Communist guerrillas took care to develop an early rapport with their prisoners by treating them well . Captured Japanese soldiers were generally moved when they learned of the terrible conditions the war inflicted on the Chinese people , a perspective that they had not been exposed to before their capture . Closer to the end of the war , the growing possibility of defeat created anxiety among the Japanese army . Because of the Japanese military ' s policy to never surrender , Japanese soldiers never received any training about how to act as POWs : upon returning to Japanese ranks , many would face disgrace , punishment , and starvation . Many Japanese soldiers committed suicide after their capture , but those who chose to live generally came to sympathize with the Chinese . The Japanese army was aware of the existence of Nosaka ' s Communist Japanese soldiers , and feared the phenomena out of proportion to their actual threat . An American who met Nosaka in Yan ' an wrote that Nosaka was " the Japanese national who undoubtedly contributed the most in the war against Japanese militarism " . The Japanese army attempted to use numerous spies and assassins in order to eliminate Nosaka ( who used the name " Okano Susumu " for the duration of the war ) , but were unsuccessful . Nosaka maintained a network of agents throughout Japanese - occupied China , which he used to gather information about events within the Japanese Empire and about the war . Nosaka ' s Japanese " prisoner converts " fought freely for the Chinese communists once their re - education was complete . In Yan ' an , the Japanese lived normal lives without guards , owned a cooperative store , and printed their own news bulletins and propaganda . Visiting American officers used Nosaka ' s Japanese soldiers to critique and improve their own methods of anti - Japanese psychological warfare . Shortly after Japan ' s surrender in 1945 , Nosaka began to march with approximately 200 other Japanese Communists across northern China . They arrived at the coast after picking up hundreds of other Japanese along the way . Demanding immediate repatriation from the first Americans they found , they declared their intention to return and work " for the democratization of Japan and the establishment of peace in the Far East " . Although there are no records of the exact number of Japanese " re - educated " by Nosaka who elected to remain in Communist - occupied China after 1945 , it is estimated that " the number must have been considerable " . Nosaka ' s contributions to the eventual victory of the Red Army were not forgotten by the leaders he had worked with in China . In 1965 , on the twentieth anniversary of Japan ' s defeat , Nosaka was publicly praised by name by the highest - ranking general in China at the time , Lin Biao . Japanese political career . After the World War II , Nosaka ' s return to Japan was facilitated by E . Herbert Norman , the Canadian representative to the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers , who may also have been a Soviet spy . Before returning to Japan , Nosaka gained Stalin ' s endorsement for the leadership of the Japanese Communist Party . Nosaka ' s re - entry to Japan was also aided by the American diplomat John S . Service , who had a history of being friendly to Chinese Communists . Before returning to Japan , Nosaka advised Joseph Stalin to retain the position of the Japanese Emperor , but to replace Emperor Hirohito with Crown Prince Akihito if the Communists ever gained control of Japan . Nosaka returned to Japan in January 1946 , and received a hero ' s welcome by the JCP . He returned to China as a recognized protege of Mao Zedong , and enjoyed the informal recognition as a " roving ambassador " for Japanese communism . After his return to Japan , Nosaka worked to organize Japanese communists . In the general elections of 1946 , he and four other members of the JCP were elected to the Diet , and the party received 4 % of the popular vote . The JCP made progress infiltrating Japanese labor associations and socialist parties ; and , in the general elections of 1949 , the JCP gained 10 % of the popular vote . In May 1950 , shortly after the United States entered the Korean War with the support of the United Nations , the Cominform criticized the JCP ' s gradualist policies , and directed the party to actively disrupt the American occupation . Throughout the 1950s , Nosaka ' s efforts were challenged by American occupying forces , as part of a broader effort to suppress leftists . In 1949 , a Communist - led general railroad strike led to several attempted derailments , and Sadanori Shimoyama , the president of Japanese National Railways , was found lying across a set of train tracks in Tokyo with his arms and legs cut off . These and other incidents of " terrorism " were received poorly by the Japanese public , and cost the JCP most of its popular support . The American commander of occupied Japan , Douglas MacArthur , declined to outlaw the JCP , but held the Party ' s leaders responsible , and , in June 1950 , ejected Nosaka and the other Communist legislators who were elected in 1946 . After losing his seat in the Diet , Nosaka disappeared from public life and was forced to work underground . After Nosaka went underground , the U . S . Central Intelligence Agency reported that he had temporarily returned to China . His strategy of " peaceful revolution " was criticized by the Cominform , and the Party temporarily endorsed violent revolution until 1952 . After working covertly for several years , Nosaka re - emerged in 1955 as the First Secretary of the JCP . Nosaka was briefly arrested after he resurfaced , but quickly released . In 1958 , Nosaka became the chairman of the JCP ' s Central Committee . He played a part in organizing a series of riots that lasted from May – June 1960 in opposition to the US - Japan Security Treaty . These demonstrations forced the American President , Dwight Eisenhower , to cancel a visit to Japan , and forced the Japanese Premier , Nobusuke Kishi , to resign , but failed to achieve their main goal of seriously disrupting US - Japan relations . In Japanese public opinion , the demonstrations were received as a national embarrassment , and the JCP received only 3 % of the popular vote in the 1960 elections . The US - Japan Security Treaty was opposed by both ultra - rightists as well as ultra - leftists . In an attempt to stop the bill from being passed , an ultra - nationalist member of the Diet , Otoya Yamaguchi , rushed the stage and stabbed a wakizashi into the stomach of the leader of the Japanese Socialist Party , Inejiro Asanuma , as Asanuma was giving a speech in support of the bill . After his arrest , Yamaguchi told police that he had hoped to assassinate Nosaka as well . Nosaka attempted to keep the JCP neutral during the Sino - Soviet Split of the 1960s , though the CIA interpreted that Sanzo ' s party remained somewhat more friendly with the Chinese . On Nosaka ' s seventieth birthday party in 1962 , Nosaka received extravagant praise from Beijing . Deng Xiaoping praised Nosaka as an " outstanding fighter of the Japanese people and comrade - in - arms of the Chinese people " . The Soviets sent Nosaka a matter - of - fact confirmation of his status within the JCP , and within a month sent the JCP another letter scolding the Party for not adequately supporting Soviet positions . The Soviets ' measured praise of Nosaka was consistent with earlier Cominform criticism of Nosaka ' s political theories , which advocated a peaceful transition into communism . After his re - entry into public life in 1955 , Nosaka was elected to the House of Councilors , a post that he held until 1977 . Nosaka joined the faculty of Keio University , and was one of many prominent communist intellectuals active in Japanese academic institutions in his time . Nosaka remained the JCP ' s chairman from 1958 – 1982 , when he stepped down at the age of 90 and took the role of " Honorary Chairman " . Scandal . On September 27 , 1992 , two Journalists working for the magazine " Shukan Bunshun " , Akira Kato and Shun ' ichi Kobayashi , publicly revealed evidence of Nosaka ' s involvement in the deaths of Kenzo Yamamoto and his wife . On a trip to Moscow , Kobayashi and Kato had managed to purchase a number of KGB documents , which had been kept secret since the Stalinist era . Among these documents was the letter that Nosaka had written in 1939 denouncing Yamamoto and his wife . The revelations of Nosaka ' s involvement in Yamamoto ' s death shocked the JCP , already reduced to six seats in the Diet after the 1991 elections . " Akahata " ( " Red Flag " ) , a prominent communist newspaper , sent a team of journalists to Moscow to investigate the allegations , and they confirmed the authenticity of the documents . After the allegations against Nosaka became widely known , he checked himself into Yoyogi Hospital in Tokyo ( a common tactic of Japanese politicians facing scandal ) . When a team of investigators sent by the JCP visited him , Nosaka confessed that the letter was his , but refused to discuss the matter further . The JCP ordered Nosaka to be present for a general Party meeting on December 27 , 1992 . After some deliberation , the party that Nosaka helped found expelled him by unanimous vote . The Party newspaper reported that Nosaka , when asked if he had any reply to the charges against him , would only state : " I have nothing to say " . One year after being expelled from the Japanese Communist Party , Sanzo Nosaka died in his home of old age . Outside the JCP , Nosaka was remembered for his gentle demeanor , good manners , and conservative sense of style , " just like a British gentleman " . He was 101 years old .