Japanese People's Emancipation League

The Japanese People's Emancipation League (日本人民解放連盟) (JPEL) was a Japanese Communist resistance group based in the Chinese People's Liberation Army stronghold of Yan'an during the Second Sino-Japanese War. It was led by Sanzo Nosaka (who went by the name Susumu Okano during the war).

Background
Sanzo Nosaka was a leading figure in the Japanese Communist Party, and a Comintern agent. He escaped from Japan in 1930 or 1931. Practically all his colleagues in the Communist Party leadership were in prison because of Government suppression.

In December 1938, two years before the JPEL was founded, the Japanese Cabinet Information Bureau had obtained a copy of an article written by Sanzo Nosaka, a communist leader in exile. The article had been published in the Journal of the Communist International that same year. It called for the Japanese people to unite with the Chinese people in the fight against Japanese fascism.

Founding
The JPEL was formed in 1940, and led by Sanzo Nosaka. Other members were Jun Sawada, a veteran Communist from Japan, who had smuggled himself into North China in 1943 after his release from prison. He met Koji Ariyoshi, a nisei (second-generation Japanese) sergeant in the United States Dixie Mission, who was accompanied by a State Department official. Kiyoko Hara, a Japanese woman whose Chinese name is Yuan Chingchih, made propaganda broadcasts from the propaganda radio station based in Yanan with the guidance of Sanzo Nosaka. She would call for Japanese Imperial soldiers to surrender. A Chinese who was in charge of propaganda for Japanese soldiers during the war was quoted as saying that Hara's broadcasts caused some soldiers to surrender.

According to the Office of Strategic Services, the JPEL's primary concern was finishing the war, withdrawing Japanese troops from occupied areas, and punishing persons responsible for the war and eradicating militarism.

Defectors
The JPEL engaged in the re-education" of Japanese prisoners of war (POWs) and created propaganda on behalf of the Chinese Communists. The JPAA used leaflets, and pamphlets, and propaganda shouting", or the use of megaphones or loud-speakers against a stationary foe, and telephone conversations with Japanese army personnel over lines which the propagandists cut into.

The re-education was conducted in the The Japanese Peasants' and Workers' School. Established in November 1940 by the Political Department of the Eighth Route Army. The first class had 2, out of 11 students were reluctant to convert. Susumu Takayama, who was later to become Superintendent of Education at the school. He was a former factory worker and stevedore who had been captured while on a looting expedition in North China. He had received several months of indoctrination before the school had opened. The other anti-fascist student was Ken Mori, who was later to be elected to the People's Assembly in the Border Region. He had been teaching Japanese to the Chinese political workers in Yenan for some time prior to entering the school.

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.

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. Although many Japanese soldiers committed suicide after their capture, those who chose to live generally came to sympathize with the Chinese.

The JPEL's activities were not without hazard, however. One night, the JPEL members were "night broadcasting" under the cover of darkness to Japanese troops. As re-educated Corporal Shiratori was broadcasting, a Lieutenant Koga, who was in charge of Blockhouse 50, where Shiratori was stationed, and his men fired upon the JPEL. Still, the JPEL continued broadcasting after the end of the shooting.

Sabotage of Imperial Japanese operations
The propaganda was so effective that they were able to cause a few cases of resistance in the enemy camps. In January 1942 six soldiers in the Tenth Mixed Brigade requested their company commander not to launch a punitive drive. When their request was not granted, they were slapped by the officer. The soldiers then fired on him with a light machine-gun. The company commander escaped to the outskirts of the city and refused to return to camp. Subsequently he was reprimanded by the regimental commander and committed suicide, while, of the six soldiers who made the request, three were shot and three were sentenced to life imprisonment.

In the Thirty-sixth Regiment of the Third Mixed Brigade food was bad and served in insufficient quantity. Dissatisfaction resulted, and the soldiers staged a hunger strike, as a result of which the company commander was questioned by his superiors. The food was improved.

The JPEL was able to damage a pillaging expedition lead by Koga. Private Mori, a "secret member" of the JPEL recruited in Blockhouse 50, informed about a Japanese pillaging expedition led by Lieutenant Koga, who was in charge of blockhouse 50, to Corporal Shiratori, who was formerly a member of blockhouse 50 and now was a JPEL member who had been "night broadcasting" to Koga, and his troops. When Koga, and his expedition went to their mission, they found all the grain hidden and not a peasant left in the villages. Mori deserted to the JPEL one dark night. Then Corporal Goto and Private Hoshino slipped away during a pillaging expedition. In all, Koga lost nine men through desertion. 17 formerly lived in the blockhouse 50.

Mori deserted to the JPEL one night. Then Corporal Goto and Private Hoshino slipped away during a pillaging expedition. They searched the countryside for the Communist-led guerrillas and were captured by militiamen who took them to headquarters where Shiratori welcomed them. In all, Koga lost nine men through desertion. Out of these, five came to Yenan and Koji talked with them.

The JPEL also were successful in re-educating captured Japanese spies who, after months of re-education, confessed that they were sent into the guerrilla areas with instructions to assassinate Nosaka, and disrupt the activities of the JPEL. One converted spy was Naoyuki Tanikawa. During his capture, some spies who escaped from the school were caught by Chinese peasants and were brought before the student body for questioning. The students reasoned with them, told them that they were being used by the militarists, and asked that they reveal what the Japanese army had ordered them to do. When they did they were taken back into the school and treated as friends.

Japanese military reactions
The Japanese military, concerned with the JPEL, tried to counter the propaganda. This indoctrination was filled with the following slogans : "We must fight to the end or we shall be oppressed and exploited by Great Britain and America, and suffer the same harsh fate as China." "Japan was never defeated, and we shall win this war." "We die in order to live, and life should be found in death." "Once captured by the enemy, you must commit suicide." "It is a disgrace for a military man to eat at the enemy table." "Japanese in the Eighth Route Army are traitors to their fatherland." In addition to this, Special Service operatives were scattered throughout all the companies in North China to determine what effective anti-militarist propaganda was having on the troops. Wounded soldiers who could not walk, and thus might fall into the hands of the Eighth Route Army, were shot.

Other activities
The JPEL's Nosaka was also an adviser for the United States' psychological warfare units during the US war with the Empire of Japan. Copies of his evaluations for the US psychological warfare units were sent to Honolulu, Saipan, Washington, and the Philippines. The JPEL was also associated with the Japanese American Committee for Democracy, a pro-American organization based in New York City.

Controversies of JPEL's Founder
The JPEL's founder, Sanzo Nosaka, 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. Sanzo accused Kenzo Yamamoto, a fellow Japanese Communist, and his wife Matsu of being spies for the Japanese. Yamamoto was executed by a Stalin firing squad, and Matsu died in a gulag.