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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 February 2009
If one were to believe the official histories written in North Korea during the past few years, political developments in North Korea after 1945 and even the entire history of the Korean Communist movement would seem to have been relatively simple. According to North Korean historians, the new proletariat took over the leadership of the struggle for national liberation after the bourgeois-led March First Movement of 1919 had failed. The Korean Communist Party, first organised in 1925, ceased to operate in 1928 because the sectarians in the Party leadership failed to establish a link with the surging movement of the workers and peasants. The national liberation movement recovered its vigour and direction in the 1930s only because Kim D-song, whose strategy and tactics were the most scientific and most in accord with the principles of Marxism-Leninism, provided leadership. Kim Il-song became the “beacon” of the revolutionary movement, and the Korean People's Revolutionary Army under him fought against the Japanese “shoulder to shoulder with the Soviet Army.”
1 Facts About Korea (Pyongyang: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1961), p. 33.Google Scholar
2 Cho had been a teacher, and later principal, at the famed Osan School established by An Ch'ang-ho. In 1916 he became the chairman of the board of directors of the Pyongyang Y.M.C.A. After 1927 he was principal of Sungin Middle School in Pyongyang, a Christian mission school, and later the President of Choson Ilbo, a nationalistic daily newspaper. Cho served a prison sentence for his activities during the March First Movement (1919).
3 The first party conference of the Democratic Party, held in February 1946, “exposed the anti-people's policy [of Cho Man-sik and his group], expelled the traitors, and organised a new central committee around the partisan fighter, Ch'oe Yong-gon.” Chong-myong, Kim [Mei, Kin Sho], Chosen Shinminshushugi kakumeishi (History of New Democratic Revolution in Korea) (Tokyo: Gogatsu Shobo, 1953), p. 183.Google Scholar
4 I have not been able to find any Japanese records dealing with Hyon's pre-liberation activities. But recent Japanese and Korean sources (see note 5) have him as a graduate of Keijo Imperial University who was arrested four times because of his Communist activities.
5 Ch'ang-sun, Kim, Pukhan Sip-o-nyon-sa (Fifteen Years of North Korean History) (Seoul: Chimungak, 1961), pp. 65–68Google Scholar; Senji, Tsuboe, Hokusen no Kaiho Junen (Ten Years of Liberated North Korea) (Tokyo: Nikkan Rodo Tsushinsha, 1956), pp. 36–39.Google Scholar
6 U.S. Department of State, North Korea: A Case Study in the Techniques of Takeover, Department of State Publication 7118 (Washington, 1961), p. 13.Google Scholar
7 Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Academy of Science, Center for Historical Studies, Choson T'ongsa (Outline History of Korea) (Hak-u Sobang reprint edition, Tokyo, 1959), III, pp. 16–17Google Scholar. For some reason this source and other recent publications refer to the Bureau as the Organisation Committee although Kim's “Selected Works” (Kin Nichisei Senshu [Kyoto: 1952], Supp. Vol., p. 43)Google Scholar cites it as the Central Bureau. This Japanese edition of Kim's selected works was edited by Korean Communists in Japan.
8 Ibid. A later publication further specified the charges implicating Pak Hon-yong as the leader of Kim's opposition. “But the Pak Hon-yong group, realising the fatal consequence to themselves of establishing the North Korean Organisation Committee, opposed its organisation to the utmost.” Im-hyok, Han, Kim Il-song Tongji e Uihan Choson Kongsandang Ch'anggon (Establishment of the Korean Communist Party by Comrade Kim Il-song) (Pyongyang: Korean Workers' Party Press, 1961), p. 32Google Scholar. Alleged agents and followers of Pak in North Korea were O Ki-sop, Chu Nyong-ha, Yi Chu-ha, Chang Shi-u and Chang Sun-myong. Ibid. p. 26.
9 “By the time of the third enlarged conference, the Korean Communist Party's organisation, from the central guiding organ down to the cells, was firmly established, and the Party organisation began to develop into a disciplined combatant fortress closely aligned with the masses.” Choson T'ongsa, III, p. 20.Google Scholar
10 Kin Nichisei Senshu, I, p. 268.Google Scholar
11 I dealt with the Yenan group in detail in Chaps, xi–xii of my forthcoming book, The Politics of Korean Nationalism (Berkeley & Los Angeles: Un. of California Press, 1963).Google Scholar
12 These officers and troops were soon integrated into the North Korean police and security forces and eventually became the core of the “Korean People's Army.” For details see Appleman, Roy E., The United States Army in the Korean War: South to the Naktong, North to the Yalu (June–November 1950) (Washington: Office of the Chief of Military History, Department of the Army, 1961), pp. 8–9.Google Scholar
13 Ch'ang-sun, Kim, op. cit., p 98.Google Scholar
14 Kin Nichisei Senshu, I, pp. 81–82.Google Scholar
16 Ch'ang-sun, Kim, op. cit., pp. 99–101Google Scholar. Kim Il-song reported: “There have been attempts to falsify the recent merger as a scheme of the Communists, and the reactionary elements are spreading this kind of false rumour.” Kin Nichisei Senshu, I, p. 105.Google Scholar
17 See U.S. Department of State, op. cit., p. 115Google Scholar, and Lee, Chong-Sik, “Korean Communists and Yenan,” The China Quarterly, No. 9, 01–03 1962, pp. 182–192.Google Scholar
18 Kin Nichisei Senshu, I, pp. 82–83.Google Scholar
19 U.S. Department of State, op. cit., p. 115Google Scholar. Kim Il-song stated in his report at the Pyongan Namdo Parry enthusiasts' conference (Sept. 9, 1946) that some individuals rejected Marxism-Leninism as the guiding doctrine of the Workers' Party. Some others said that the Communists must abandon Marxism-Leninism when the Workers' Party was established. Kin Nichisei Senshu, I, p. 103.Google Scholar
20 ibid. p. 83.
21 Ibid.
22 Quoted in Chong-myong, Kim, op. cit., p. 188Google Scholar. Kim Il-song also referred to the Communist Party as that of the proletariat and the New People's Party as the representatives of farmers and intelligentsia. Kin Nichisei Senshu, I, p. 269.Google Scholar
23 For details see Yong Mok Kim's article in this issue.
24 Ch'ang-sun, Kim, op. cit., p. 105Google Scholar. Kim Il-song's speech at the March 1948 plenum has already been cited. (See note 8.)
25 U.S. Department of State, op. cit., p. 14Google Scholar. According to Kim Il-song, the strength of the party rose from 366,000 in July 1946, to more than 700,000 in January 1948. Kin Nichisei Senshu, Supp. Vol., pp. 47–48.Google Scholar
26 Scalapino, Robert A. and Lee, Chong-Sik, “The Origins of the Korean Communist Movement (I),” Journal of Asian Studies, XX, No. 1 (11 1960), 19, pp. 162–163.Google Scholar
27 Yo Un-hyong (sometimes spelled Lyuh Woon Hyung) was a progressive nationalist of renown. Ho Hon, a lawyer, defended the Korean Communists in Japanese courts. Yo was assassinated in Seoul in 1947. Ho went to North Korea and became the first president of the Supreme People's Congress.
28 Ki-ha, Yi, Hanguk chongdang paltalsa (History of the Development of Korean Political Parties) (Seoul: Uihoe chongch'isa, 1961), pp. 138–147Google Scholar. Although this is an uneven book, it presents a useful outline of the political events in South Korea. Ch'ang-sun, Kim (op. cit., p. 119)Google Scholar agrees with Yi's estimate. Kim Il-song did not mention the size of the South Korean Party, but did state in 1936 that “the Pak group carried out fivefold and tenfold movements to show that the South Korean Party was numerically superior to the North Korean Party.” Kim Il-song Sonjip (Selected Works of Kim Il-song) (Pyongyang: Korean Workers' Party Press, 1960), IV, p. 534.Google Scholar
29 Ibid. p. 532.
30 According to the North Korean Premier, Pak and his followers spread poisonous germs in the hitherto healthy North Korean Party and collected around their coterie such enemies of the people as Ho Ka-i (a former Russian citizen and vicechairman of the Workers' Party), Chu Nyong-ha (former vice-chairman of the North Korean Workers' Party, domestic faction), Pak Il-u (a leader of the Yenan faction, one time Minister of Home Affairs), and other sectarians still remaining in North Korea. Ibid. p. 536.
31 Kim Sam-gyu, a former editor of the influential Tong-a Ilbo (Seoul) and now an advocate of “neutral Korea,” advanced the thesis that Pak's anxiety about the destruction of his forces in South Korea and his assessment of the public opinion in South Korea was largely responsible for the beginning of the Korean War. Konnichi no Chosen (Korea Today) (Tokyo: Kawade Shobo, 1956), pp. 51–103.Google Scholar
