Japanese Communist Party has 410,00 members

Apparently in the last sixteen months membership of the Japanese Communist Party has increased to more than 410,000 with some 25% of those who have joined since the end of 2007 under the age of 30. Now with some 100 million more across the South China Sea Karl Marx could be forgiven a smile from the grave and there might even be some who can envisage a brave new world in the not too distant future. Of course, with just nine seats in the 480 seat parliament and with a parliamentary system that, like the one in the United Kingdom, is not too democratic the rise in Japan might not mean very much, not even in Japan. Moreover, while the 410,000 member in the Japanese party might signify a some increase in consciousness in Japan ..... well, let us not hope too much for that brave new world coming from a CCP that would seem to be more in sync with Lenin's little tirade round about ninety years ago when he said that the problem with most Communists was that they didn't understand very much about communism. Still with 100 million members they might not all be lost souls and who knows, perhaps, the struggle is still going on, and maybe the Japanese "cuddly Communists" will get to together with that more enlightened part of the CCP, which does still know what communism is. You have got to have a dream.