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Title: Anarchism in Korea Date: 2009 Source: *The International Encyclopedia of Revolution and Protest*, Edited by Immanuel Ness. DOI: 10.1002/9781405198073.wbierp0063 Authors: Dongyoun Hwang Topics: History, Anarchist history, Korea Published: 2020-05-10 06:58:51Z
Anarchism, accepted by Korean radicals in
the early 1920s as an idea for independence
from Japanese colonial rule since 1910, was
one of the most important currents in the
Korean independence movement. While their
immediate goal was to “retake” independence
through direct action, motivated by national
consciousness, the ultimate goal of Korean
anarchists was to achieve a social revolution
bent on anarchist principles. Anarchism
offered them an alternative to Bolshevism
and social Darwinism with its promise of
human progress through mutual aid, and
hope for a new society with its universal
messages of freedom, no compulsory power,
and spontaneous alliance.
The circulations of anarchist ideas as well
as anarchists themselves in East Asia were of
significance in the rise of Korean anarchism
in the 1920s, in the sense that it was basically
a product of interactions among anarchists
in the area, through which Korean anarchists
were imbued with national consciousness
and shared transnational concerns with other
anarchists as a result of mutual influence and
inspiration. Transnationalism, like nationalism, was a main force in the rise of Korean
anarchism, which may explain why Korean
anarchists preferred political independence
to social revolution, without which, they
believed, no significant political changes
could even be made (Hwang 2007).
After 1920 anarchist groups and organizations appeared first among Korean exiles
and/or study-abroad students in China and
Japan, and then in Korea. In early 1920s
China the Beijing Branch of the Black Youth
Alliance and the Korean Anarchist Federation in China were successively established.
The inaugural editorial of the latter’s organ,
clearly expressed its advocacy of social revolution for “the oppressed class,” while Shin
Chaeho’s 1923 “Declaration of the Korean
Revolution” justified mass violence against
Japanese colonial government (Graham 2005:
373–6, 381–3). Of importance in the Korean
reception of anarchism was support from
Chinese anarchists and the role of Vasilij
Eroshenko, a blind Russian poet and anarchist, who propagated in early 1920s China
cosmopolitanism and anti-Bolshevism (Bak
2005: 26; Hwang 2007). Many Korean anarchists participated in such anarchist projects
as the opening of the National Shanghai
Labor University (1928), the Movement for
Self-Defensive Rural Communities (1927–8)
in Quanzhou, and educational experiments
(1929–early 1930s) also in Quanzhou. After
1931 many engaged in armed struggles
against Japan, in collaboration with some
Chinese anarchists. Their goal, however, was
still social revolution rather than political
independence, as exemplified in the platform
and declaration of the Alliance of Korean
Youths in South China (Bak 2005: 161–8).
In Japan the first anarchism-oriented Black
Wave Society appeared in 1921, but a group
of Korean anarchists withdrew from it to
establish the Black Friend Society and published *Fat Korean* (*Hutoi senjin*). Park Yeol
was a leading figure in the organizations and
journal until 1923, when he and his Japanese
comrade Kaneko Fumiko were arrested
for their alleged conspiracy to assassinate
the Japanese emperor. *Fat Korean* and its
successor, *The Contemporary Society* (*Gen shakai*), both published in 1923, made clear
their national and transnational goals under
the shackles of capitalism and colonialism
(Hwang 2007). Park’s arrest was a setback
to the Japan-based Korean anarchist movement which was revived briefly with the
organization in 1926 of the Black Movement
Society, which became a member of the
Japanese Black Youth League. Obviously,
many Japan-based Korean anarchists partook
in the various publications and organizational
activities of their Japanese counterparts,
which was conducive to their survival under
Japanese surveillance. Their activities used to
be supported and even sponsored by Japanese
anarchists such as Ōsugi Sakae, Hatta Shūzō,
and Iwasa SakutarĹŤ.
The Korean anarchist groups in Japan
manifested their criticism of capitalism,
colonialism, and the nationalist movement,
and made poignant attacks on Bolsheviks as
a “new privileged class.” Their movement,
however, began to decline after 1930 due to
tight control of “dangerous thoughts” in Japan
after its invasion of China. One exception
to this was the *Black Newspaper* (*Heuksaek sinmun*), published from 1930 until 1935 with
funding from Korean anarchist unions and
organizations in Japan, which interspersed
a wide range of local, national, and global
news of anarchist activities and propagated
social revolution, cosmopolitan ideas, and
intense interactions among all anarchists and
the masses across boundaries, along with
criticism of nationalism and patriotism in the
independence camps (Hwang 2007).
The ups and downs of the anarchist
movement in Korea were closely tied to the
situation of Korean anarchists in Japan and
China. Any attempts to set up an anarchist
organization in Korea, however, always met
with swift and brutal suppression from the
Japanese colonial government. Attempts to
establish the Black Flag Federation (1924),
the Real Friend Federation (1925), and Choi
Gabryong’s scheme to establish the Korean
Anarcho-Communist Federation (1929)
were all immediately crushed. Nevertheless,
various anarchist groups and organizations
continued to appear until the mid-1930s,
albeit all short-lived. In the 1930s and 1940s
anarchists in Korea were either arrested or
forced underground to survive. Similar to
their counterparts in China and Japan, their
goal was not so much Korea’s independence
as the realization of an anarchism-oriented
society (Mujeongbu jueui undongsa pyeonchan wiweonhoi 1989: 189–274, 394–400).
In the 1930s the Korean anarchist movement began to be at the ebb both at home and
abroad, from which it never recovered. The
notion and idea of social revolution, however,
was sustained at least until 1945, coexisting
with its national goal of independence (Yi
1974: 11). It is in this sense that anarchism in
Korea was accepted not just to be “utilized”
only for independence, but rather with reference to a society free of the “social problems”
prevalent under capitalism. Anarchism still
seems alive in South Korea as an idea for “freedom for the twenty-first century” (Bak 1999).
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