From the 'people's war' to the 'people's occupation' : Australian and Japanese communists 1945-52

Between 1945 and 1952, Australians participated in the British Commonwealth Occupation Forces (BCOF) in Japan, based in the Hiroshima prefecture. Among those Australians were members of the Communist Party of Australia (CPA) and fellow travelers, who made contact with members of the Japan Communist Party (JCP). This paper seeks to explore the attitudes of the CPA towards Japanese labour and communist activity, and the interactions between Australian and Japanese communists. These attitudes and relationships reflected the CPA’s desire to aid the radical transformation of the Asia-Pacific region in the postwar era, and reveal a little known aspect of Australian grassroots participation in the Occupation of Japan