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Title: Shinmin Prefecture Summary Author: Min Date: 2021 Language: en Topics: Shinmin, Korea, history Source: Retrieved on 2022-01-02 from https://libcom.org/history/summary-shinmin-prefecture
A short historical summary of the forgotten Korean project known as
Shinmin Prefecture and Korean People’s Association in Manchuria. This
was a self-governing region of around two million people from 1929 to
1931.
Many Koreans gathered in Manchuria to avoid oppression from the Japanese
Empire, following the Japanese colonization of the Korean peninsula,
forming their own society there. Kim Jong-jin, inspired by anarchism
under Yi Hoe-yeong, aspired to “create a society in which all were equal
without privilege and discrimination, free to develop and improve as
they pleased”. He believed that in order to achieve a revolutionary
movement it was necessary to maintain a long struggle with a detailed
plan and robust organization and that Manchuria was an appropriate spot
for a base. He divided and surveyed the region before reporting the
results to Kim Jwa-jin, suggesting a reformation of the Shinmin
prefecture in order to prevent invasion by Marxist-Leninists. His aim
was to defeat those who espoused “scientific socialism,” and hold a long
struggle against Japanese imperialism.
Meanwhile, in Manchuria, Korean anarchists created an organization
called “Freedom Youth Organization”(FYO, 자유청년회) whose members were
working throughout. Kim Jong-jin, along with Yi Dal and Kim Ya-bong,
gathered all members and formed “Black Friend League”(BFL, 흑우연맹)
focusing on propagating anarchism. More youth organizations converged
under the activities of “Black Friend League” and formed “North
Manchuria Korean Youth League”(NMKYL, 북만한인청년연맹) which also
studied anarchism with a focus on enlightenment of the population. Kim
Jong-jin and Yi Eul-gyu subsequently established the Korean Anarchist
Federation in Manchuria (재만조선무정부주의자연맹) using “North
Manchuria Korean Youth League” as a base.
Meanwhile, nationalists in Manchuria failed to unify the factions of
three prefectures, and their innovative congress disbanded without
making much progress. As a result of their expropriating resources from
the populace while reigning over them, the nationalists were losing
support and the populace was leaning towards the Marxist-Leninists.
Feeling threatened by this development, the nationalists and anarchists
joined forces to create the Korean People’s Association in Manchuria
(KPAM; 한족총연합회).
“North Manchuria Korean Youth League”, through their
Announcement(<선언>), exposed Japanese ambitions to invade Manchuria and
made clear of their opposition to political struggle as they were too
reformist. They also opposed capitalism and foreign rule and they sought
to respect the will of the individual. They established the rule of free
association, thus rejecting centralised governance.
The programme of the Korean Anarchist Federation in Manchuria had
proposed a society without rulers, advancing free development via mutual
aid and free association, work according to one’s ability, and
consumumption based on one’s needs. They sought to revolutionize the
minds and lives of the peasants and build an ideal society in order to
advance the liberation efforts. Their immediate programme was as
follows:
cultivate their anti-Japanese, anti Marxist-Leninist ideology.
the self-governing cooperative structures to promote the
economic/cultural improvement of Korean-Chinese people
to strengthen the anti-Japanese force and the cultural development of
young people.
collective labor with the farmer population and, at the same time, focus
on the improvement of the lives of farmers and farming methods as well
as cultivation of ideologies.
report self-criticism.
with ethnic nationalists on the anti-Japanese liberation front.
According to the rules of the KPAM, its members were comprised of
revolutionary Koreans (Article 2). Those living in the region for longer
than three months had rights and obligations including donation of
funds, enlisting in the military, voting and passive suffrage (Article
19). As its central institution, they installed the representative,
executive, conference agencies (Article 6) and military, farming,
education, and economy committees (Article 5). The representative agency
was the top resolution agency (Article 7) which was held every January
by those gathered by the executive agency (Article 13) and the head was
picked by the executive agency to chair the meeting (Article 12). The
executive agency was composed of between 15–21 members (Article 11) and
handled the affairs decided at the meeting (Article 8). Their terms
lasted for only one year (Article 18). The conference agency, composed
of members from each committee, handled connections between committees
and PR decided by executives (Article 9).
Each regional division of the KPAM was the agriculture association and
therefore served as a regional administration handling matters ranging
from executive, judicial, finance, to education, security, picking
between 5 and 9 members to carry out each task. They also installed the
associations of education and security to handle the matters
respectively.
The KPAM sought maintenance of the region in order to cement
organizational foundation. Meanwhile, they focused on building
elementary (소학교) and middle schools (중등학교). They also built rice
mills in order to protect the Korean peasants from the trickery of
Chinese merchants.
The prefecture began to disintegrate following the assassination of Kim
Jwa-jin by a 화요파 (“Hwa yo pa”) Communist Party member, Gong Do-jin,
when the Marxist-Leninists attempted to dismantle the nationalist
organization as the conflict between both factions escalated. KPAM
blamed and executed figures like Kim Bong-hwan and Yi Ju-hong which
brought further condemnation and more assassination attempts from
Marxist-Leninists.
The association moved its headquarters to Jilin and sought to unite the
ethnic organizations against the Communist Party once more and subjugate
the Marxist-Leninists. They also tried to calm the local population by
addressing a range of structural problems. They quickly ran out of
funds, however, so were forced to request money during a meeting in
Beijing (무정부주의자동양대회). They got the money and planned to use it
to rebuild the commune, however, ten members were arrested by the
Chinese police who were collaborating with the Japanese embassy. Police
immediately confiscated the funds. China-based Korean anarchists quickly
gathered around Manchuria to reconvene and rebuild Shinmin efforts.
After gathering, anarchists tried to restructure and enlighten the
population once more but their efforts remained in vain for two reasons.
There was an internal division in the association and a conflict between
nationalists and anarchists. Anarchists soon found themselves rejected
from the main positions of the association as the conflict worsened. The
nationalists assassinated Yi Jun-geun, Kim Ya-un, and Kim Jong-jin,
thus, finally closing the chapter of the Shinmin prefecture as the
anarchists fled from Manchuria.
The KPAM did indeed operate in an anarchistic manner. It was structured
in accordance with anarchist principles of bottom-up organization, based
on free association. Each region would send their share of delegates who
would manage the main issues of the association, and the general
association would take care of all paperwork, decide on foreign affairs,
and public relations. Each region would hold a meeting to choose
delegates and write proposals to the main branch. However, due to the
situation in Manchuria, the lacking state of the Shinmin prefecture
forced the association to adopt a top-down approach whereby they would
select a couple of candidates for each structure and hold elections
respectively.
However, the KPAM had a fundamental flaw. Whilst it was operated and
structured by anarchist principles, it was not unified by anarchism nor
did every member agree with anarchism. For example, one phrase of their
programme says, “[w]e strive for the complete independence of the nation
and thorough liberation of the people”. This meant they did not deny the
state but rather that they acknowledged it. Despite the state being one
of the top authoritarian oppressors of the people according to
anarchists, anarchists in Shinmin deviated from their principles. They
recognised the state in order to collaborate with the nationalists
because they needed the regional base from them. This “non-anarchistic”
element eventually led to internal divisions within the association, but
also between the anarchists and nationalists. Despite nationalist
ideology having fundamental differences with anarchism, anarchists
cooperated with nationalists. This was a self-contradiction. The
anarchists carried a risk by sharing a regional base with the
nationalists instead of establishing their own and, unfortunately, this
collaboration ultimately led to their defeat.
After anarchists fled from Manchuria to mainland China, they resumed
their focus on terrorist activities. Unlike in Korea and Japan, there
was no Korean populace with whom to rally the movement and because the
efforts to build a base for liberation movement were shattered, the only
remaining option for Korean anarchists at the time (this being the
early- to mid- 1930s) was direct terrorism.
They were heavily discouraged by the failures of Shinmin and having to
live abroad, this encouraged them towards nihilist terrorism. The
remaining anarchists began collaborating with nationalists like Kim Koo
as both groups had a common objective — to achieve liberation through
terrorism. Kim Koo and nationalists possessed the funds whilst the
anarchists had the people to carry out assassinations. The anarchists
also had prior experience of cooperating with nationalists in Shinmin.
The anarchists loathed the Marxist-Leninists after they killed Kim
Jwa-jin and this was a key factor in the fall of Shinmin, which
ultimately led to anti-ML activities.
Dr. Yi Horyong (이호룡), 한국의 아나키즘 — 운동편 (지식산업사, 2015),
332–360.