>>1973Well Japan's laws due to their Fascists never really losing power are heavily anti-Communist.
Any party that would have an explicitly 'non-revisionist' visible party-line would immediately get broken up, its members imprisoned, and its associates surveilled.
Even as it stands, this Communist party that is basically SocDem gang (though Japanese Marxist tradition is weird and kind of its own thing) is heavily surveilled by the government.
The surveillance is not only an in-the-open fact, but is legitimized by Japanese law, as the Communist Party has 'ties to the terrorist North Koreans' by virtue of being Communist.
Many members of the party are quite well versed in theory, and certainly attempt to do what they can in the context of Japanese law; they aren't not 'real Communists.'
They aren't actually spineless SocDems who have faith in Bourgeois Democracy and Capitalism, but they do suffer a bit of 'CPUSA Syndrome' in that even gaining enough power to build up their power is highly illegal.
This results in the party being perceived as 'weak,' because it is weak; it's still the strongest party in the country, it's still serves as the best congregational organization for people with actually revolutionary views.
In any case, actual on-the-ground moves by the party are not the sort of thing to be easily viewable on baka gaijin English language clearspace.