Tetsuzo Fuwa

Tetsuzo Fuwa was the pen name of Kenjiro Ueda, a member and chairman of the Japanese Communist Party. He was a graduate of Tokyo University. He joined the Communist Party in 1947, and was elected to the House of Representatives in 1969.

Life and career

In around 1972, Fuwa, replacing certain senior party members, was placed in higher positions within the JCP as part of the party's attempts at changing its image and courting younger voters, with the Asahi Shimbun commenting on Fuwa's "eloquency, gentle manner and good looks" in connection to the JCP's electoral strategy. Fuwa was one of the figures in the party who were instrumental in the movement to change the JCP's general image from that of a violent revolutionary group to a reformist and democratic one.
Fuwa was eventually selected to be the chairman of the JCP from 1982 to 1987; he held the position again from 1989 to 2000. He was president of the Central Committee from 2000 to 2006. Fuwa reportedly declined to reattempt election in the 2003 Japanese general election, which ended his career in the Diet that had lasted over 30 years by then. he remained a member of the party's standing committee and presidium. He stepped down as a member of the party's executive committee as a result of the resignation of his successor as chairman, Kazuo Shii, in 2024.
He was an advocate of scientific socialism and he believed that socialism should be achieved through stages.
Fuwa died in Tokyo on 30 December 2025 at the age of 95.