The JCP and the Domestic Context of the Creation of the NPR: 1945–1950

Abstract

This chapter illustrates the threat the Japanese Communist Party (JCP) was perceived to represent to the internal security of Japan. This was a threat which was seen to require measures including the creation of the National Police Reserve (NPR). The examination of the central domestic influences on the NPR is split into two sections, the first dealing with the history of the JCP until the adoption of its 'military policy' in 1950, and the second examining the Japanese conceptions of internal security and the corresponding desire for an internal security constabulary. The chapter is largely contextual and elements of it do not explicitly or directly relate to the creation of the NPR but its inclusion is necessary to illustrate the growth of the perception of the JCP as a threat to the Japanese state; a threat which, to be successfully guarded against, required the creation of the NPR.Keywords: internal security constabulary; Japanese Communist Party (JCP); military policy; National Police Reserve (NPR)