Democratic Socialist Party (Japan)

The party was established in January 1960 by a breakaway faction of the Japanese Socialist Party.[3][4] Led by Suehiro Nishio, it was made up of members of the most moderate wing of the former Rightist Socialist Party of Japan, a moderate democratic socialist faction that had existed as an independent party between 1948 and 1955 before reluctantly merging back together with the Leftist Socialist Party of Japan.[3] Although long-standing ideological differences and factional rivalries played a key role, the proximate cause of the split was internal disagreements over how to conduct the ongoing Anpo protests against revision of the Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security Between the United States and Japan, known as Anpo in Japanese, and whether or not to cooperate with the Communist Party of Japan in doing so.[3]

Declassified United States government documents later revealed that covert CIA funding had also helped encourage the founding of this breakaway party.[5] CIA support was aimed at moderating and subverting the political opposition to the ruling conservative Liberal Democratic Party, which was the main CIA funded party.[6][7]

The DSP advocated democratic socialism and was a member of the Socialist International.[8] The DSP supported the construction of a welfare state by a mixed economy based on democratic socialism, opposed totalitarianism, and strongly backed the Japan–United States alliance.[2] This made the pro-United States 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.[4] Despite the dissolution of the DSP in 1994, its youth organisation (Minsha Youth) survived until 2003 and was a member of the International Union of Socialist Youth (IUSY). After Minsha Youth was dissolved, some of its former members and independent social democrats formed Young Socialists, a new youth organisation which retained full membership in IUSY; however, it was finally dissolved on 8 March 2008 without any successor organisation and abandoned its IUSY membership.

The tradition of the DSP is carried on by the Democratic Socialist Group (民社協会 Minsha kyōkai) as a faction within the Democratic Party of Japan, Democratic Party and now Democratic Party for the People.

Internationally, the DSP may be compared to the Democratic Socialists '70, another centre-right, anti-communist split from a social-democratic party.