Tetsuzo Fuwa, a former chairman of the Japanese Communist Party (JCP) who was considered its “theoretical pillar”, died on Tuesday, according to party sources. He was 95.
Fuwa, whose real name was Kenjiro Ueda, joined the JCP in 1947 when he was a high school student and served as the director of the party think tank, the Social Sciences Institute, after stepping down as chairman in January 2006.
He quit his post as the party’s top executive due to old age.
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The Tokyo native worked as a secretary for the iron and steel workers’ union upon graduating from the Faculty of Science at the University of Tokyo, and became a working member of the JCP in 1964.
He won his first seat in the House of Representatives in 1969 and served 11 consecutive terms.
Fuwa became head of the JCP’s secretariat in 1970 and was sworn in as party chief in 1982. From 1990, he jointly ran the party with Kazuo Shii, current chairman of the party’s Central Committee, before being elected as Central Committee chairman in 2000.