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BY ERIC TALMADGE • ASSOCIATED PRESS • April 19, 2009

TOKYO — Under a big red flag, the headquarters of the Communist Party of Japan are the center of the most vibrant grassroots movement in the country. The party's ranks are swelling, it has 24,000 branch offices and more than 1 million people read its newspaper. Only one party — the one that runs the country — beats it at fund-raising.

While the Communist Party — which is the fourth-largest party in parliament but has only 16 of the total 722 seats — is not likely to take over anytime soon, it is making . end.

Prior to Japans entry into WW2 the JCP (Japanese Communist Party) founded in 1922 was the only political party to oppose the ruling partys march to war.
Note JCP during WW2 waged a very bloody counter insurgency through a clandestine intelligence operation that penetrated the highest circles of Japanese Elite excerpt- From Richard Sorge probably the greatest spy intelligence operation in history-Sorge arrived in Japan in September 1933. He was warned by his spymaster not to have contact with the underground Japanese Communist Party or with the Soviet Embassy in Tokyo. His spy network in Japan include Max Klausen, Ozaki Hotsumi, and two other Comintern agents, Branko Vukelic, a journalist working for the French magazine, Vu and a Japanese journalist, Miyagi Yotoku, who was employed by the English-language newspaper, the Japan Advertiser.