The Making of Minjung : Democracy and the Politics of Representation in South Korea 9780801461699, 9780801445668

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Copyright © 2011. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved. Lee, Namhee. The Making of Minjung : Democracy and the Politics of Representation in South Korea, Cornell University Press,

Copyright © 2011. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

THE MAKING OF MINJUNG

Lee, Namhee. The Making of Minjung : Democracy and the Politics of Representation in South Korea, Cornell University Press, 2011.

Copyright © 2011. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved. Lee, Namhee. The Making of Minjung : Democracy and the Politics of Representation in South Korea, Cornell University Press, 2011.

THE MAKING OF MINJUNG

DEMOCRACY AND THE POLITICS OF REPRESENTATION IN SOUTH KOREA

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NAMHEE LEE CORNELL UNIVERSITY PRESS ITHACA AND LONDON

Lee, Namhee. The Making of Minjung : Democracy and the Politics of Representation in South Korea, Cornell University Press, 2011.

Cornell University Press gratefully acknowledges a grant from the Korea Foundation which aided in the publication of this book. Copyright © 2007 by Cornell University All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or parts thereof, must not be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher. For information, address Cornell University Press, Sage House, 512 East State Street, Ithaca, New York 14850. First published 2007 by Cornell University Press Printed in the United States of America Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Lee, Namhee. The making of minjung : democracy and the politics of representation in South Korea / Namhee Lee. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-8014-4566-8 (cloth : alk. paper) 1. Political participation—Korea (South)—History. 2. Political culture—Korea (South)—History. 3. Social movements—Korea (South)—History. 4. Student movements—Korea (South)—History. 5. Democratization—Korea (South)—History. 6. Korea (South)— Politics and government—1960–1988. I. Title. JQ1729. A15L44 2007 320. 95195—dc22

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2007021947 Cornell University Press strives to use environmentally responsible suppliers and materials to the fullest extent possible in the publishing of its books. Such materials include vegetable-based, low-VOC inks and acid-free papers that are recycled, totally chlorine-free, or partly composed of nonwood fibers. For further information, visit our website at www.cornellpress.cornell.edu. Cloth printing

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Frontispiece: University students lie down in the street after their rally for reunification was blocked by police, August 15, 1988. Provided by Chungang Ilbo.

Lee, Namhee. The Making of Minjung : Democracy and the Politics of Representation in South Korea, Cornell University Press, 2011.

Copyright © 2011. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

To the undongkw˘on of South Korea, past and present

Lee, Namhee. The Making of Minjung : Democracy and the Politics of Representation in South Korea, Cornell University Press, 2011.

Copyright © 2011. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved. Lee, Namhee. The Making of Minjung : Democracy and the Politics of Representation in South Korea, Cornell University Press, 2011.

CONTENTS

Acknowledgments Notes on Romanization and Translation

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Introduction: Minjung, History, and Historical Subjectivity

ix xiii 1

Part I. The Crisis of Historical Subjectivity 1. The Construction of Minjung 2. Anticommunism and North Korea 3. Anti-Americanism and Chuch’e Sasang

21 23 70 109

Part II. Building a Counterpublic Sphere 4. The Undongkwon as a Counterpublic Sphere 5. Between Indeterminacy and Radical Critique: Madangguk, Ritual, and Protest 6. The Alliance between Labor and Intellectuals

145 147

Part III. The Politics of Representation 7. “To Be Reborn as Revolutionary Workers”: Gramscian Fusion and Leninist Vanguardism 8. The Subject as the Subjected: Intellectuals and Workers in Labor Literature

241

Conclusion: The Minjung Movement as History

294

Bibliography Index

305 339

Lee, Namhee. The Making of Minjung : Democracy and the Politics of Representation in South Korea, Cornell University Press, 2011.

187 213

243 269

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

During this long project I have accumulated many debts, and no words of acknowledgment would be enough to express my most profound gratitude to a number of people. From the very beginning of this project, Bruce Cumings has guided me intellectually and by giving me moral support. Tetsuo Najita, Harry Harootunian, Kyeong-Hee Choi, William Sibley, Norma Field, and Prasenjit Duara have all inspired me with their own scholarship and their support. I am grateful for friends and colleagues who have generously helped to make this book better with their meticulous, critical, and helpful comments on earlier drafts: Woo Jin Yang has greatly reshaped my thinking on the intellectuals’ role in the minjung movement and many other important issues; Wesley Sasaki-Uemura and Theodore Yoo helped to clarify many points and provided valuable examples in the book; Hwasook Nam has reshaped my understanding of the 1960s labor movement; and Jong Bum Kwon raised the draft to another level with his probing questions and his demands that I clarify my own positions on the issues raised here. I am also much indebted to John Duncan, Andre Schmid, Peter Lee, Todd Henry, Alec Leonhardt, Thu-Huong Nguyen-Vo, Dae-Sook Suh, Jin-kyung Lee, and Ruth Barraclough for their criticism, counsel, encouragement, and helpful suggestions on parts of an earlier draft. An excellent review provided by an anonymous reader for Cornell University Press was helpful in revising the manuscript. All these debts of gratitude do not, of course, release me from the shortcomings of the book. I have been fortunate to have mentors and sonbae who have generously

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x

Acknowledgments

given their time over the years, guiding me through the intricate maze of academia and publishing, and my extra special thanks go to Hagen Koo, Andre Schmid, Chungmoo Choi, Wesley Sasaki-Uemura, and Kyeong-Hee Choi. My respect for the scholarship of Ch’oe Changjip, Paek Nakch’ong, Kim Tongch’un, Cho Huiyon, and Im Chihyon and their influence on my work is much greater than is indicated by the footnotes in this book. I also thank Nancy Abelmann, Henry Em, and Charles Armstrong for their support at various stages of this book. The late Jim Palais had kindly offered to read the manuscript; his passing is not only a great loss for the field of Korean studies but also a missed opportunity for improving this book. Teachers and friends far and near have nurtured and sustained in me a deep appreciation of life in all its richness as well as its many challenges, and I thank particularly Suh Sung, Pak Sonmi, Lim Chol, Chang-Ling Huang, Miliann Kang, and Son Chongin for their friendship and support. Nam Chonghun has responded to my numerous email inquiries with humor and resourcefulness. Cho Konyong and Yi Pomjae spent many months guiding me through the labyrinth of the three decades of the minjung movement, sharing generously their encyclopedic knowledge and finding people for me to interview. I owe special thanks to those who have given me their time and trust and have patiently participated in lengthy interviews which sometimes took days and touched on deeply personal issues. I am truly privileged to be teaching at the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures at UCLA, where my colleague and mentor John Duncan has been a steady source of moral, intellectual, and institutional support and where other colleagues have provided a supportive and intellectually stimulating environment. George Dutton and Thu-Huong Nguyen-Vo have both been “fellow travelers” in more than one way, and I am grateful for their friendship. Miriam Silverberg has been a source of inspiration with her scholarship and her indefatigable spirit. Our graduate students, through their own projects, have likewise challenged and inspired me as a teacher and researcher. Our ever-so-supportive staff in the department have shepherded me through the university system with patience and humor. Various grants and fellowships made this project possible. A Fulbright Research Grant, a Social Science Research Council Fellowship, and a Fellowship from the Center for East Asian Studies at the University of Chicago enabled me to commence the research for this project. Grants from the Council on Research of the Academic Senate of the Los Angeles Division of the University of California, a Faculty Career Development Award from UCLA, and a travel grant from the Northeast Asia Council of the Association for Asian Studies made additional research possible. My children Hanyu Chwe and Hana Chwe, with their great sense of

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Acknowledgments

xi

humor and blissful appreciation of life, have sustained me, reminding me of the world outside this book. They are a source of great joy and a deeply felt sense of humility. I am truly grateful for the privilege of watching them grow. My brother Yong Il Lee, my sister-in-law Myong Sil Lee, my aunt AeSoon Kim, and my parents-in-law Byoung-Song Chwe and Jung Ja Chwe, as well as the extended Chwe family, have given me their moral support. I owe a special debt to my editor, Roger M. Haydon, whose enthusiasm, acuity, and promptness have been inspirational and sustaining. One could not have wished for a better editor to work with. Thanks must also go to Teresa Jesionowski for her patience, humor, and great care in overseeing the process of the book’s production and to Martha Walsh for her good judgment and meticulous copyediting. Helen Bournas-Ney has provided invaluable editing help with patience and goodwill. Sejung Kim at the Center for Korean Studies has provided much practical help and emotional support in the final stage of the revision. I owe an immense, immeasurable debt of gratitude to three individuals without whose love, moral support, and practical help over the years I could not have finished this book. My husband, Michael Chwe, has seen me through every permutation of this book. He has read over and commented on each version of the manuscript and has done what needed to be done on the home front. His prodding, his demand for clarity, and his many talents, including editing and wizard-like computing skills, made this book possible. His surplus of spirit and boundless energy have been gifts that have enriched our lives in many different ways. My dearest sister, Kyung Hee Lee, has been there from the very beginning of this project, as my interlocutor and fiercest defender. Without her encouragement and her help in the dauntless task of gathering all the necessary materials for this book and countless other undertakings, I could not have survived the crisis that plagued me, especially in the last phase of the revision. She and my brother-in-law, Alec Leonhardt, have also provided a warm home for my visits to Seoul for the last few years. My mother, Ki Soon Lee, has nourished me in so many ways that my gratitude cannot be measured. But the greatest debt I owe is to all those undongkwon in South Korea, many of whom remain nameless in this book, who have done what I have merely written about. This book is gratefully dedicated to them. Permission to reprint material published elsewhere has been granted as follows, and I thank the editors for their kind permission to use the material here: “Anti-Communism, North Korea, and Human Rights in South Korea: ‘Orientalist’ Discourse and Construction of South Korean Identity,” in

Lee, Namhee. The Making of Minjung : Democracy and the Politics of Representation in South Korea, Cornell University Press, 2011.

xii

Acknowledgments

Truth Claims: Representation and Human Rights, edited by Mark Bradley and Patrice Petro (Rutgers University Press, 2002), for a portion of chapter 2; “The South Korean Student Movement: ‘Undongkwon’ as a Counterpublic Space,” in Civil Society in South Korea, edited by Charles Armstrong (Routledge, 2002, 2006), revised as chapter 4; “Between Indeterminacy and Radical Critique: Madang-guk, Ritual, and Protest,” positions: east asia cultures critique 11, no. 3 (2003), revised as chapter 5; “Representing the Worker: Worker-Intellectual Alliance of the 1980s in South Korea,” Journal of Asian Studies 64, no. 4 (2005), for a portion of chapters 6 and 7. Namhee Lee

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Los Angeles

Lee, Namhee. The Making of Minjung : Democracy and the Politics of Representation in South Korea, Cornell University Press, 2011.

NOTES ON ROMANIZATION AND TRANSLATION

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All Korean words have been romanized according to the McCuneReischauer system; exceptions are those Korean authors who have published in English using a different spelling and well-known historical names such as Park Chung Hee and geographical names such as Gwangju. In the case of Korean authors with different spelling in their English publications, I also have given the McCune-Reischauer romanization in parentheses at the first occurrence of the name in the main text and in the bibliography. East Asian names are written according to the standard usage in East Asia, with surnames preceding given names. Full translations of the titles of Korean material cited in the text are provided in the bibliography. Unless otherwise noted, all translations from Korean to English are mine.

Lee, Namhee. The Making of Minjung : Democracy and the Politics of Representation in South Korea, Cornell University Press, 2011.

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THE MAKING OF MINJUNG

Lee, Namhee. The Making of Minjung : Democracy and the Politics of Representation in South Korea, Cornell University Press, 2011.

Copyright © 2011. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved. Lee, Namhee. The Making of Minjung : Democracy and the Politics of Representation in South Korea, Cornell University Press, 2011.

INTRODUCTION

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Minjung, History, and Historical Subjectivity

This book is about intellectuals and university students who participated in the South Korean democratization movement, known also as the minjung movement. I refer to them as either minjung practitioners or undongkwon (which I explain later in this chapter). This book explores how they articulated, contested, and practiced the notion of minjung, “common people,” from the 1970s to the 1980s. During this period, the minjung movement was prominent in South Korean politics and social life, and by the late 1980s it became the driving force for the country’s transition from an authoritarian military regime to a parliamentary democracy. The South Korean minjung movement lasted more than twenty years and is comparable, in its transformative scope and success in overturning an authoritarian regime, to more well-known democratization movements such as those in Eastern Europe and South Africa. This book tries to understand the minjung project as a product of the complex interplay of structural preconditions, South Korea’s repressive military regimes and its concomitant rapid industrialization, and the minjung movement’s own “political culture.” The notion of “political culture” here is informed by Lynn Hunt’s study of the French Revolution and refers to “the values, expectations, and implicit rules that expressed and shaped collective intentions and actions.”1 Political culture thus is made up of symbolic practices, such as shared visions, languages, codes, and images, which in return call a new political subjectivity into existence. The minjung movement as a 1. Hunt, Politics, Culture, and Class, 10–11.

Lee, Namhee. The Making of Minjung : Democracy and the Politics of Representation in South Korea, Cornell University Press, 2011.

2

Introduction

product of discursive contestations in a field of political, cultural, and symbolic forces reveals that the boundaries between repression and resistance, power and emancipation, are not fixed but fluid and that there are points of intersection between the state discourse of nationalism and modernization and the oppositional minjung discourse. This book is composed of three parts. Part I (chapters 1–3), “The Crisis of Historical Subjectivity,” argues that the central problematic of the minjung movement was a widespread anxiety among intellectuals and university students that modern Korean history was a history of failure, that the Korean people were not the subjects of their own history. In part II (chapters 4–6), “Building a Counterpublic Sphere,” I conceptualize the minjung movement as a sphere in which minjung practitioners developed counterdiscourses that challenged the state-established public agenda and redefined the grounds of social and political discourse in South Korea in the 1980s. Part III (chapters 7–8), “The Politics of Representation,” focuses on the theoretical and practical issues of what happens when intellectuals represent the minjung and discusses the intellectuals’ relationship with workers in the labor movement of the 1980s. It also examines the literary representation of the minjung and intellectuals in novels and short stories published in the late 1980s. I conclude the Introduction with a brief discussion of a common ethos that informed and united intellectuals and students in the minjung movement.

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The Crisis of Historical Subjectivity

The minjung project, the articulation and projection of minjung as endowed with a coherent and unifying political identity, was a characteristically postcolonial phenomenon.2 South Korea’s trajectory of decolonization resulted in a sense of the failure of Korean history. I call this a crisis of historical subjectivity, and it gave rise to the discourse of minjung, which constituted the intellectual basis of the minjung movement. This sense of failure among intellectuals and students led them to critically reevaluate and reinterpret major events in Korean history. In the process of contesting and rewriting Korean history, intellectuals and university students identified the minjung, the common people, to be the true subject of historical development and capable of social change.

2. Here I use “postcolonial” to refer to the post-1945 period but also to denote the widespread sense among Koreans of the continuing colonial influence in the post-liberation period.

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Minjung, History, and Historical Subjectivity

3

Korea’s independence from Japan in 1945 was achieved without Koreans’ direct participation, despite their persistent anticolonial struggles, and their liberation brought new forms of dependence on the United States. South Korea’s geopolitical location in the cold-war system, dominated by the United States, firmly placed it on the path of capitalist development, with all alternative possibilities written out of the decolonization bargains. In turn, this postcolonial trajectory dictated the dominant historical narrative of Korea’s modernity. Until recently, the story of Korea’s modernity was written largely from the perspective of a global narrative of transformation, locating its origins in Japanese colonial rule, and represented Korea’s experience in terms of its efforts to copy and resist it. Korea’s modernity was therefore summed up as a “state of exhaustion from trying to catch up with modernity [as well as the] energy of romantic negation of modernity.”3 Most historical narratives also presented modernity as “truncated,” “reactionary,” and “imposed.” All of modern Korean history was thus marked by negativity: colonialism, foreign interventions, civil war, socialist authoritarianism in the North, the equally authoritarian military dictatorship in the South, and the continuing confrontation between them.4 This sense of “negative” modernity was at the core of Korea’s postcolonial consciousness. Korea’s colonial experience was considered the “originary” point for all contemporary ideological, social, political, and intellectual fault lines. The division of Korea in 1945 created a continuing sense of exigency and inadequacy as well as an unrelenting competition between North and South Korea. The subsequent three years of bloody civil war contributed to the formation and legitimization of undemocratic systems in both South and North Korea.5 South Korea’s postwar anticommunism was not only state policy but also deeply internalized and pervasive, “bewitching [people’s] psyche and warping their perspective” to such an extent that Koreans became “self-divisional.”6 The narrative of negative modernity accompanied the narrative of postcolonial history as “failure.” Most emblematic of this failed history was the failure to establish an independent nation-state and to fully purge collaborators and tainted political and social leaders immediately after 1945. The overriding sense of failure constituted the postcolonial consciousness of South Korean intellectuals and university students, engendering a pervasive 3. Choi, “Rethinking Korean Literary Modernity,” 7. 4. “Taet’oron: 19–segi, kundaeroui ihaeng in’ga”; Yi, “Segyesajok kundae wa Han’guk ui kundae,” 304. 5. See Choi, “Political Cleavages in South Korea,” 13–50. 6. Han’guk Minjungsa Yon’guhoe, ed., Han’guk minjungsa, 1: 31.

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4

Introduction

and widespread sense of collective frustration and despair, which I call a “crisis of historical subjectivity.” This crisis of subjectivity was not unique to South Koreans; students and intellectuals of the former West Germany and Japan, two countries with histories of massive post-1945 social movements, experienced it widely in the aftermath of those movements.7 The post-1968 German crisis of subjectivity, for example, stemmed largely from intellectuals’ disillusionment with their own dogmatism in the protest movement. German participants in the 1968–69 protest movement criticized their “rigid materialist approach,” in which personal issues concerning the constitution of individual subjectivity were subsumed under social class and collective agency: “Political praxis did not evolve from lived experience but was instead dictated a priori, by a rigid theory.”8 This analysis perceived society as determined solely by class structure. It saw social reality reduced to essential and peripheral contradictions and dictated that political praxis be directed toward eliminating the essential contradiction, the one between labor and capital. With the gradual demise of the German protest movement, there began a concomitant questioning of the primacy given to collective subjectivity, along with a questioning of intellectuals’ true identity rather than their “assumed identity” as a revolutionary vanguard. Realizing that they had attained no power at the base, intellectuals were forced to rethink their analysis as well as their strategies; they shifted their focus from the collective to the individual, “not in their ‘objectified capacity’ as vanguard for the proletarian revolution or even as supportive fellow travelers in that revolutionary process, but rather as each individual’s specific subjectivity.”9 If the West German intellectuals’ crisis of subjectivity was a crisis of “individual agency” after their movement’s dissipation, for South Korean intellectuals the crisis was predominantly “historical” and was essential to their movement’s emergence. The crisis was historical in that it was engendered by a sense that Koreans were not in charge of their own history, historical events dictated the intellectuals’ particular set of concerns, and their main concern was with the agency of historical development. This crisis gave rise to the Korean intelligentsia’s concomitant sense of “burden” about their failed history—that they had a historical responsibility to “correct” this failed history. 7. See, among others, Adelson, Crisis of Subjectivity; Tsurumi, Student Movements in 1960 and 1969. 8. Von Dirke, “All Power to the Imagination!” 33. 9. Adelson, Crisis of Subjectivity, 5–7.

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Minjung, History, and Historical Subjectivity

5

This crisis of historical subjectivity emerged from the 1960s but intensified in the 1970s with rapid industrialization and Park Chung Hee’s Yusin regime. Modernization and development had become the supreme goals of the nation and the individual in postcolonial South Korea, as it was the first opportunity to move out of the predicament of an “incomplete” and “failed” history. Modernization theory spoke the language of “progress” and “universalization,” and it became a basis for hope and progress for South Korea, as elsewhere. Park Chung Hee’s development policy also had an egalitarian thrust that appealed to intellectuals.10 The Park Chung Hee regime (1961–79) was thus the first modern state in Korea to be so extremely capable of simultaneously emancipating and subjugating the people through the project of modernization. The experience of Koreans in this process was as both the object of the state’s totalizing drive for development and the beneficiary of resulting material prosperity. Development also brought feelings of immense achievement and of alienation among Koreans at large, giving rise to severe feelings of disconnectedness between past and present, between city and countryside, and between the emerging working and middle classes. The intellectual was the prime agent to whom the tasks of modernization and its critique were bestowed. While a large number of intellectuals were becoming technocrats, the widespread sense of disconnectedness and Park Chung Hee’s dictatorial rule cohered a small number into a category of critical intellectuals (pip’anjok chisigin) in the 1960s. The particular path of modernization as rationalization and Westernization, along with growing anxiety over South Korea’s perceived neocolonial status, gave rise to two overriding concerns among the critical intellectuals: overcoming a colonial mentality and recovering (or creating) historical subjectivity. If the “institutional” (statesponsored) intellectuals were undertaking the “most sublime task of the total mobilization of citizens’ energy for material wealth,” as literary critic Chong Kwari remarked, then the “critical” (dissident) intellectuals were under corresponding pressure to “recover subjectivity.”11 At the heart of these two conflicting yet parallel aspirations lay the minjung, the “common people.” Meaning “common people” as opposed to elites and leaders or even the educated or cultured, minjung came to signify those who are oppressed in the sociopolitical system but who are capable of rising up against it. Minjung thus constitutes a true historical subjectivity.12 Intellectuals therefore 10. Lee, “ ‘Minjung’ as Critique of Capitalistic Modernity?” 11. Chong, “Polgosungi chisigin,” 1419. 12. The most comprehensive view of minjung is provided in Choi, “Political Cleavages in South Korea,” 17, note 6; see also Koo, “State, Minjung, and the Working Class,” 142–47. On the concept of minjung in Korean historiography, see Chong, “Han’guksa(hak) eso ui minjung insik.”

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6

Introduction

reconstituted the people not merely as the “material” of the nation-state13 but as serious protagonists of a political and cultural project that was posited as opposed to and resisting the metanarrative of state-led development. Minjung was not conceived as a primordial opposition to modernity and modernization. However, its previous communal practices were seen as potential antidotes to the brutal pace and deleterious side effects of development. Minjung was thus the site of intense longing for a “utopian horizon” by intellectuals and university students and of contestation with the state. Minjung is therefore not an analytic concept that is materially or historically grounded, nor is it even a term that is commonly used. Although factory workers and farmers were privileged as true minjung in the minjung discourse of the 1970s and 1980s, small business owners and even “nationalistic elements” of the military were identified as minjung in the late 1980s. The very abstraction and elasticity of the term required a constant shoring up of the counterimage of the forces considered to be inimical to minjung: the military dictatorship, corporate conglomerates, and foreign powers. The combination of exalting the minjung and otherizing these three forces constituted minjung discourse and practice. Korean history became a foundational source for creating or recovering subjectivity in the minjung movement. A group of minjung-oriented historians, together with various minjung movement groups, began to scrutinize the distant and immediate Korean past. Modern Korean history was considered a failure and therefore deeply suspect. Simultaneously, it became a site for negotiating meanings, identities, and futures. From the Tonghak Peasant Uprising of the late nineteenth century to the anticolonial struggle during the Japanese colonial period to the more recent 1980 Gwangju Uprising, minjung historians, along with minjung practitioners, pulled past events from archives, research institutes, private libraries, and individual memories onto the open stage, as I discuss in chapter 1. Offering opposing and alternative meanings to those given by the state and established scholarship, minjung history redefined the role of events and persons and the nature of the political community. These new historical claims and interpretations were then deployed into the public arena through various public forums, seminars, commemoration services, and protests. By contesting and rewriting Korean history, intellectuals and university students in the minjung movement endowed minjung with a coherent and unifying political identity. 13. On the discussion of “population” constituting the “material” of society, see Chatterjee, “Beyond the Nation?” 62.

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Minjung, History, and Historical Subjectivity

7

With the notion of minjung as historical subjects, minjung practitioners questioned and reevaluated, not for the first time but in a way that was at once radical and comprehensive, the most foundational and normative ideological underpinnings of the state. These were: the state ideology of anticommunism and the implied perpetuation of the division of North and South Korea, South Korea’s “unequal” relationship with the United States, the priority of economic growth over distributive justice, the attendant subordination of labor, and the politics of claiming or reinventing tradition, among others. One of the most dramatic contestations between the minjung movement and the state in the 1980s centered on how to view North Korea and the United States. As I argue in chapter 2, South Korea’s anticommunism constituted the self-identity of the South Korean state and society. The birth and sovereignty of the South Korean state were contingent upon the existence of North Korea as the Other. At the same time, North Korea’s difference, its separate and divergent ideological, political, and cultural development embodied in its chuch’e sasang, North Korea’s state ideology of self-reliance, was a source of instability for South Korea’s claim as a legitimate representative of the Korean peninsula. The nation-building process in South Korea involved relegation of whomever the regime thought undesirable to the realm of the Other, under the national policy of anticommunism. As the Other in society—South Korea’s “children of the deceived”14—minjung participants were a threat to society not so much for their real or imagined political strength but for destabilizing the postcolonial image of South Korea as a unified nation-state. The real and perceived predominance of the United States in Korean life was another source of the crisis of historical subjectivity, and this is the focus of chapter 3. From the moment of the division of the country, the sense of a historical wrong and of betrayal had been deeply rooted in the consciousness of intellectuals.15 At the same time, the intellectuals sought in the American ideals of liberal democracy a way to break the vicious cycle of the “dynastic authoritarianism” of Syngman Rhee and Park Chung Hee. The United States would be not only a supporter of their democratization movement but also a potential partner who would intervene on their behalf. 14. According to Thongchai Winichakul, during the cold-war era in Thailand, communism was normally equated with countries such as Russia, China, and North Vietnam. The rise of indigenous Thai communists, including thousands of middle-class Thai students, shifted this definition to include all socialists, communists, and leftists in general. These Thai students came to be called “the deceived” or “the children of the deceived.” Winichakul calls this group “a created category between Thai-ness and Others.” Winichakul, Siam Mapped, 169–70. 15. Paek et al., “Minjok t’ongil undong kwa minjuhwa undong,” 23.

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8

Introduction

This proved to be an illusion, and the hegemonic and exalted place of the United States began to break down in the imagination of Koreans. The historically conflicted attitude toward the United States, coupled with the perception after the Gwangju Uprising that the United States not only failed to intervene on behalf of the people of Gwangju but that it was also deeply involved in their suppression, was at the heart of the apoplectic fervor with which anti-Americanism was expressed in the late 1980s. If the minjung practitioners’ attitude toward the United States took a “Copernican turn,” their attitude toward North Korea was equally dramatic but with far more serious consequences. For a large number of activists in the minjung movement, North Korea became an egalitarian alternative to their own capitalist society. South Korea’s rapid industrialization and concomitant Westernization may possibly have wrought more convulsive social changes than North Korea’s “socialist” revolution. Aside from larger societal changes, the post-1960 generation experienced capitalism’s logic of “atomization, competition, and fragmentation”16 firsthand in the intensely competitive college entrance examination system. The North, otherized and condemned by the South Korean state, became an antithesis to this capitalism for its apparent steadfast disavowal of what South Korea had relentlessly pursued beginning in the 1960s. The turn to chuch’e sasang proved to be an instance in which historical imagination was lacking. The chuch’e sasang followers found in the Northern system a facile solution to the longstanding historical search for an alternative future for Korea. North Korea was thus a source of both the crisis of historical subjectivity and a limit of new subjectivity for the minjung movement.

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Building a Counterpublic Sphere

One of the paradigmatic terms emerging from the minjung project was undongkwon. Literally meaning “the movement sphere,” undongkwon refers to an individual activist or the minjung movement itself as a whole, or both. The frequent invocation of this term both inside and outside the undongkwon implicitly acknowledged the existence of a separate but parallel “counterpublic sphere” in which values and attitudes different from those of the public at large resided. The regime (and media) portrayed undongkwon as “marginal” and “insignificant” as well as a menacing pro-communist force (yonggong seryok), potentially the most dangerous element in South Korean society at the 16. Katsiaficas, Imagination of the New Left, 199.

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time. Within the minjung movement, the meanings and implications of the term shifted uneasily between empowering and delimiting. The array of self-descriptions by undongkwon betray their own fluctuating selfidentities: abang (friend), hwaltongga (activist), hyongmyongga (revolutionary), inja (cell), int (intelligentsia), hakppiri (a disparaging and disapproving reference to intellectuals), and mongmul (literally “diluted ink,” similar to hakppiri), to name a few. As aspiring revolutionaries, undongkwon individuals often used self-deprecating terms such as hakppiri and mongmul to chastise themselves for falling short of their ideals. Informed by the multiple possibilities and varying perceptions of the term, part II of the book conceptualizes the undongkwon as a “counterpublic sphere,” that is, a sphere in which minjung practitioners mapped out their oppositional and alternative positions against the dominant culture and value system. “Counterpublic sphere” is a term proposed by feminist scholars critically and creatively appropriating Jürgen Habermas’s notion of “public sphere.”17 Although Habermas’s term has been criticized for being Eurocentric and insensitive to gender, his public sphere as a normative category offers possibilities for multiple and contestable constructions. A public sphere as “an institutionalized arena of discursive interaction” is not only about an already established “public agenda” delivered through “rational and critical discourse.” It is also about the parallel discursive processes that often challenge the established public agenda. This process involves constructing what Nancy Fraser terms “subaltern counterpublics” where “members of subordinated social groups invent and circulate counterdiscourses to formulate oppositional interpretations of their identities, interests, and needs.”18 For example, the U.S. feminist movement has a varied array of journals, bookstores, publishing companies, film and video distribution networks, lecture series, research centers, academic programs, conferences, conventions, festivals, and local meeting places. In these counterpublic spheres, feminists have invented new terms for describing social reality, including “sexism,” “the double shift,” and “sexual harassment,” among others. These newly invented terms also have been crucial in redefining the needs and identities of women.19 My use of “counterpublic sphere” in this book is in a similar spirit. But there is another element in Habermas’s notion of public sphere that also 17. Habermas, Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere. For a critical assessment of Habermas’s notion of public sphere, see, among others, Cohen and Arato, Civil Society and Political Theory, and Calhoun, ed., Habermas and the Public Sphere. On the absence of gender in Habermas’s analyses, see Fraser, “What’s Critical about Critical Theory?” 31–55. 18. Fraser, “Rethinking the Public Space,” 123. 19. Ibid.

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10

Introduction

resonates with the South Korean minjung movement. That is, the public sphere, both as conceptual construction and as historical account, is integral to the development of civil society, broadly understood to be a realm separate from the state and economy. The concept and categories of civil society have become central in articulating some of the social movements for liberalization and democratization, such as Poland’s Solidarity, France’s “second left,” Germany’s Greens, and Latin America’s new democratic left.20 It is widely recognized that the minjung movement, in particular the student movement, is the most significant contributing factor in the “revival” of civil society in South Korea.21 The projected vision of undongkwon as a counterpublic sphere went beyond “liberalization and democratization” premised on Western liberal democracy and included creating a community in which various contradictions of capitalism, such as dehumanization, individualization, fragmentation, and alienation are overcome, and wealth, equality, and a restored community would be enjoyed by all. The counterpublic sphere of the minjung movement was therefore one in which minjung practitioners articulated their identities, interests, and needs not only in opposition to the state but also as an emancipatory program for the whole of society. I present three areas of the minjung movement as such counterpublic spheres: the university student movement (chapter 4), a reinvented traditional folk theater (madangguk) (chapter 5), and the intellectuals’ alliance with workers (chapter 6). The university student movement of the 1970s and 1980s encapsulates the moment of a counterpublic as a counterdiscourse to the dominant ideology of the state not so much by restructuring the students’ own identity but by restructuring the “public agenda.” In the process, all of the major political, social, economic, and cultural issues confronting Korean society at the time, including the regime’s political legitimacy, questions of distributive justice, the truth of the Gwangju Uprising, and reunification, were debated vociferously, first within the student movement and by the mid-1980s by the public at large. The student movement also illustrates many of the basic strategies of a counterpublic sphere: how its projected visions and potentialities are constituted, organized, and articulated. In other words, analysis of the student movement shows how undongkwon constituted itself as a movement, the discursive strategies that define its shared visions, languages, codes, and images—its political culture—and how this counterpublic sphere relates to the process of larger societal transformation. 20. See Cohen and Arato, Civil Society and Political Theory, 29–82. 21. Kyongnam Taehakkyo Kuktong Munje Yon’guso, ed., Han’guk chongch’i, 48.

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The minjung movement in the 1970s and 1980s was also a meeting place of avant-garde art and new cultural expressions. An array of alternative, utopian cultural expressions exploded during this time, of which the most dynamic is madangguk, a form of “people’s theater” that combined Korean folk dramas with elements of Western drama. Madangguk practitioners, most of whom were the cultural activists (munhwa hwaltongga) of the minjung movement, envisioned madangguk not only as a new form of theater but also as a new form of community based on the shared experience of work and play. Against the conventional wisdom of mainstream Korean theater that dismissed folk dramas as lacking Aristotelian elements of drama, madangguk practitioners seized this absence as its most potent element. The key concepts that arose out of this reworking of traditional folk drama were not only the breakdown of the division between actor and spectator, between self and other, but also the transformative power of liminality, a shift from drama (the spectacle observed) to ritual (transformative participation in the event). The desired effect was the transformation of the audience from detached individuals into members of a collective that could share the vision of a new political and cultural community. Madangguk practitioners aimed to break down the usual walls between labor and leisure, producer and consumer, worker and intellectual. Factory workers, farmers, women, the urban poor, and intellectuals were to be both producers and consumers of madangguk, expressing the aspirations and concerns of their daily lives in a seamless web of work and play. In projecting a world not rooted entirely in rationality or the market, madangguk was a counterpublic sphere par excellence, however limited and fitful its challenge to the hegemonic position of the dominant culture. The third area of the minjung movement that I consider as a counterpublic sphere is the alliance of intellectuals with labor. In the 1970s, this alliance involved intellectuals, university students, and various Christian labor organizations raising labor issues—low wages, harsh working conditions, and violations of the basic labor laws—among workers themselves and in society at large. The Gramscian aspiration of intellectuals to be organically connected with workers has a long history and is not unique to South Korea. What was distinctive in Korea was that in the 1980s intellectuals went through a change in identity as many of them went to work in factories with the hope of being reborn as workers. This radical departure from the previous forms of alliance with labor was grounded in a shift in their understanding of capitalism and modernization as well as their vision for the future of South Korea. As South Korea’s overall state policy and practice implicitly made democracy and equality luxury ideals, the undongkwon inverted the state’s goals

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Introduction

and ideals in this counterpublic sphere of alliance with workers. Capitalist development, in its production of great wealth and great poverty, was viewed as the source of dehumanization, individualization, fragmentation, and alienation rather than liberation. The new ideal was an economic development that would provide wealth, equality, and a restored community.22 Undongkwon also inverted the usual societal representation of workers in the process of forming an alliance with workers. Previously disdained as kongsuni and kongdori (derogatory terms denoting “factory girls” and “factory boys”) by society at large and perceived only as a social category devoid of class consciousness or subjectivity by intellectuals, workers were now seen as having acquired class consciousness and subjectivity through their resistance to oppression. Their resistance legitimated the place of labor in society as a significant economic and political actor. Thus, the intellectuals’ involvement in labor and their constituting it as a counterpublic sphere came about by intervening in the social discourse of labor both physically (by becoming factory workers themselves) and discursively (by changing the terms and the grounds of the discourse).

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The Politics of Representation

Like many other emancipatory programs in history, the minjung project was beset with contradictions and various tensions. Much the same as the notion of the “subaltern” in subaltern studies, in the minjung project the minjung were seen as possessing a rich and complex consciousness and autonomous agency. Yet the political efficacy of the minjung project at times required that the minjung be understood merely as an aggregate of suffering and oppressed individuals. This gave rise to a tension among the minjung who seemed to possess a definite subjectivity in theory but who required the vision and guidance of intellectuals to become “fighting revolutionary material” in practice. The need for intellectuals to actively insert themselves into the process of constructing the minjung’s revolutionary subjectivity, and the need to efface this active presence at the same time in order to maintain minjung agency and autonomy, constituted one of the central tensions within the minjung movement. This tension, which intellectuals themselves articulated repeatedly, also speaks directly to a theoretical issue raised in academia: the assumed, and 22. Sociologist Jeffrey Alexander argues that intellectuals in the West developed a new theory to explain the shifting sociopolitical world order in the 1960s; their new narrative of modernity, modernization, and capitalist development inverted the signs and symbols previously associated with these notions. See Alexander, “Modern, Anti, Post and Neo,” 66–78.

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Minjung, History, and Historical Subjectivity

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at times projected, opposition between the deconstruction of essential identities and the possibility of effective political action. To put it bluntly, the undongkwon intellectuals’ efforts to mold the minjung into a political subject goes against the tide of the postmodern tendency that views progress, human emancipation, and class struggle as metanarratives23 which are regarded as intrinsically authoritarian and domineering. Cultural theorists generally doubt the progressive political potential in the ideal of the “autonomous subject” as well, since they question any notion suggesting identities are fixed or determined.24 The efforts of intellectuals in the minjung movement can therefore be criticized as yet another type of political oppression and exclusion. This general skepticism toward intellectuals’ representation of “people,” which Neal Lazarus calls “a post-Foucauldian disavowal of . . . representation,”25 has met trenchant criticism in a different context. In subaltern studies, Partha Chatterjee has argued that the criticism of intellectuals representing people is yet again the voice of the privileged in the First World speaking, and even after the spread of anticolonial movements, Western industrial societies still enjoy an “epistemic privilege.”26 Gayatri Spivak has further charged that the concern of First World intellectuals for the politics of the oppressed (let the oppressed speak for themselves) can hide a privileged position held by the intellectual.27 This is why, for Spivak, projects such as subaltern studies remained salient and valid. Although she questions whether the category of subaltern homogenizes and subsumes different subject-positions—for example, poor peasants and women—she argues that such a project nonetheless represents a “strategic essentialism,” “a useful device to open up a politically vital question.”28 The following elaboration of Spivak’s points offered by feminist philosopher Linda Alcoff is pertinent in thinking about the minjung project: [Spivak] criticizes the “self-abnegating intellectual” pose that Foucault and Deleuze adopt when they reject speaking for others on the grounds that it assumes the oppressed can transparently represent their own true interests. According to Spivak, Foucault and Deleuze’s position serves only to conceal the actual authorizing power of the retreating intellectuals, who in their very retreat help to consolidate 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28.

Lyotard, Postmodern Condition. Ching, Becoming “Japanese,” 194. Lazarus, “National Consciousness,” 211. Chatterjee, Nationalist Thought and the Colonial World, 17. Spivak, “Can the Subaltern Speak?” 284–85. Spivak, “Subaltern Studies: Deconstructing Historiography.”

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14

Introduction

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a particular conception of experience (as transparent and selfknowing).29 Alcoff finds a viable option in Spivak’s suggestion of “speaking to” in which “the intellectual neither abnegates his or her discursive role nor presumes an authenticity of the oppressed but still allows for the possibility that the oppressed will produce a ‘countersentence’ that can then suggest a new historical narrative.”30 Alcoff ’s position is based on the premise that speaking for the other and speaking about the other are not so clearly demarcated. Speaking for others entails speaking about others, and every form of representation, whether it is speaking for the other or speaking about the other, is a form of mediation and interpretation that impacts the other. Alcoff argues further that speaking for others, despite the epistemological problems, remains valid for certain situations: “An absolute retreat [from speaking] weakens political effectivity, is based on a metaphysical illusion, and often effects only an obscuring of the intellectual’s power.” Along with the necessity of speaking, Alcoff raises an important issue of accountability: “Speaking should always carry with it an accountability and responsibility for what one says.” This accountability is closely connected to analyzing the impact of the speaking, “the probable or actual effects of the words on the discursive and material context. . . . [O]ne must also look at where the speech goes and what it does there.”31 This notion of accountability has led me to reconsider the case of the South Korean minjung movement and the role of intellectuals in it, particularly in the context of recent critical reassessment. Although the sacrifice and dedication of undongkwon individuals are recognized as catalyzing the democratic reforms of the late 1980s, their role in the movement is now being scrutinized more critically as the privileged speaking for the presumed voiceless. Chungmoo Choi, for example, who has eloquently presented the South Korean minjung movement as a discourse of decolonization, nevertheless criticizes the intellectuals’ mode of representation as “otherizing” minjung; that is, intellectuals classify, appropriate, and, at the same time, subordinate minjung in their representation of minjung.32 More recent literature on the minjung movement is also highly critical of the erstwhile minjung practitioners as undemocratic, hierarchical, and sexist, among other things.33

29. 30. 31. 32. 33.

Alcoff, “Problem of Speaking for Others,” 22–23. Ibid., 23. Ibid., 24–26. Choi, “Discourse of Decolonization.” See, among others, Im, “Inyom ui chinbosong”; Kwon, “Militarism in My Heart.”

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This book specifically probes how intellectuals in the labor movement represented the minjung. As I discuss in chapters 7 and 8, the intellectuals’ self-representation as socially conscious and ethical (what I characterize as the “discourse of moral privilege”) was embedded in an a priori conceptual bifurcation between intellectual and worker, and it implied the worker as the object and beneficiary of their act of conscience. At the same time, the intellectuals’ exaltation of the worker as an ontological hero of the revolution-to-come betrayed the ambiguity of their stance visà-vis the worker. As such, intellectuals were conflicted between Gramscian ideas of organic fusion and Leninist vanguardism. In fact, the worker at times became a purely discursive and symbolic figure for both the movement’s raison d’être and the condition of possibility of its revolutionary project. I discuss these issues not just to point out the contradictions and shortcomings of intellectuals but because there are compelling reasons to rethink the current debates on the politics of representation. Critically scrutinizing representation is important and has brought much-needed rethinking on various issues, from nationalism to feminist practices. In the field of history, for example, the questioning of representation has been particularly fruitful in thinking about nationalism and nation-building, particularly our understanding of how the nation-state has suppressed various voices within it while claiming to represent the “people.”34 But I argue that simply criticizing intellectuals alone is too easy and even politically irresponsible. The disavowal of representation dislodges the act of speaking for others from the Alcoffian notion of accountability by implying that all acts of speaking for others are “a discredited aspiration, and secretly authoritarian.”35 To indiscriminately dismiss the undongkwon’s efforts in the minjung movement as yet another politically suspicious act, predicated upon “a will to power” that is similar to the dominant state power, for example, is to dismiss the continued need for continued engagement in the changed era that has followed. One needs to interrogate the ways this type of criticism functions to limit or foreclose, however inadvertently, further discussion of political and social engagement. Dismissing the intellectuals’ efforts as inherently untenable and politically illegitimate risks dismissing the continued, if diminished, relevance of their engagement.

34. See, among others, Duara, Rescuing History from the Nation. 35. Lazarus, “National Consciousness,” 204.

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Introduction

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The Intellectual and the University Student

Who are the intellectuals and what are some of the historical and discursive processes that have coalesced a broad group of people into a social category with the political and critical valence it has had in South Korea? Jacques Rancière once explained that the notion of class is “the product of a bundle of identifications . . . the product of a certain number of procedures, recognitions, and discourses.”36 The formation of intellectuals as a social class would follow similar discursive processes, and to attempt to disclose the material reality of these identifications and procedures is beyond the scope of this work. Since this book is mainly about intellectuals and university students in the minjung movement, who are known in South Korea as undongkwon, I limit my discussion to what I identify as the central aspiration and ethos around which undongkwon intellectuals and university students cohered—the intellectual as “a watchman in the darkness” and the consequent sense of self-abnegation. In South Korea of the 1970s and 1980s, the “violent upheaval” of the time was such that “one made efforts to differentiate the intellectual from the intelligentsia,” as sociologist Song Hogun remarked.37 However the distinction between the intellectual and the intelligentsia was made at the time, one needs only to glance at the Chinese experience of the twentieth century or the European socialists of the late nineteenth century for the notion of the intellectual that resonated most with South Korean minjung practitioners. More specifically, one might find the ideals and yearnings of the 1980s South Korean undongkwon in Errico Malatesta, the famous anarchist who joined the Italian International in 1871. After abandoning medical school and acquiring skills as an electrician and gas-fitter, he remained a manual worker until Mussolini placed him under house arrest when he was nearly seventy-five years old. As Malatesta recalled, the aspiration to become one with workers was the great aspiration and ethos of the intelligentsia: Labour was declared a social duty for everyone and . . . the condition of the workers was considered the only one compatible with a truly human morality, and many Internationalists coming from the middle classes, in order to be coherent with their ideals and to better approach the people, began to learn a manual trade. We saw in the working class, in the industrial and agricultural proletariat, the great factor of social 36. Rancière, Nights of Labor, xxx. 37. Song, “Ku taejung i anin sidaeui chisigin,” 1473.

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Minjung, History, and Historical Subjectivity

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transformation, the guarantee that it would really be done for the advantage of everyone and would not give rise to a new privileged class.38 This observation, more than one hundred years old, would become a mandate for thousands in South Korea in the 1980s. Not only did the undongkwon consider Labor a social duty; they attempted to “commit suicide as a class [and] be reborn as revolutionary workers.”39 The intellectual as a narodniki intelligentsia was not without alternative formulations, however. We owe the term “intellectual” to Paris intellectuals of the “Manifesto of the Intellectuals,” launched by Émile Zola and other literati during the Dreyfus Affair. Although these intellectuals were willing to stand up for high principles and on moral grounds, they had not, as Carl Levy puts it, “the slightest intention of abandoning Paris’s literary salons for the workshops of Belleville.”40 Most intellectuals in recent history have vacillated between the high-mindedness of these Paris gentlemen and the Gramscian aspiration of the Italian anarchist, and the Korean intellectuals were no exception. And herein lies the notion of self-abnegation that besieged the South Korean undongkwon. The notion of self-abnegation commonly found among intellectuals has at least three sources. The first comes from the idea, beginning with the Saint-Simonians of the mid-nineteenth century, that society was divided into “useful and useless classes,” and the intellectuals’ desire “to merge with or work for the useful class, to be at one with progress and history, to change the world and not merely understand it.”41 The second closely related source is the view of the intellectual as primarily a moral category, the idea that the intellectual should transcend the existing order. There is an “ethicalnormative” definition of intellectual activity, and various kinds of intellectual activities are demarcated thus. Jean-Paul Sartre asserted that an atomic physicist is “a true intellectual only when he signs a petition against nuclear testing”42; Noam Chomsky chastised American intellectuals for being “mouthpieces of power . . . who used their qualifications to defend America’s war in Vietnam.”43 The third source of the intellectual as traitor was exemplified by postwar French intellectuals, who saw being a traitor as part of the condition of being an intellectual: “He or she was either a traitor to the 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43.

Quoted in Levy, “Socialism and the Educated Middle Classes,” 159. Cabral, Revolution in Guinea, 110. Levy, “Socialism and the Educated Middle Classes,” 159. Judt, Past Imperfect, 205–6. Konrád and Szelényi, Intellectuals on the Road to Class Power, 8. Quoted in Fridjonsdottir, “Modern Intellectual,” 116.

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18

Introduction

cause believed in, always standing a little aside from them and therefore never wholly ‘authentic’; or else intellectuals were traitors to their class by virtue of this very engagement in such causes.”44 The Korean intellectual’s self-abnegation and sense of being a traitor can be traced to the colonial period, when recovering Korea’s lost sovereignty was considered the supreme task, and no middle ground was allowed for intellectuals. As one scholar observes, “If the intellectual was not working toward precipitating a full-scale revolution, he did not have a self-identity.”45 That the issue of collaboration with the Japanese continues to be a major political issue in contemporary South Korea, more than a half century after the end of colonial rule, also speaks in part to the persistent notion of the intellectual as a useful class and as a moral category. In the 1960s and 1970s, as South Korea industrialized rapidly, the intellectual faced contradictory desires. As a privileged elite, intellectuals had greatly expanding opportunities for their personal material and societal success, as well as the opportunities to advance the cause of their country. At the same time, since the authoritarian regime pushed economic development at the expense of distributive justice, some intellectuals were compelled to retain moral obligations vis-à-vis the government and society in the tradition of scholars (sonbi) of the Choson period (1392–1910), who were idealized for their pursuit of principles, integrity, moral obligations, and pure scholarship rather than pursuit of power or prestige. Despite their growing numbers and relatively reduced status in society—their proletarianization, perhaps—intellectuals were regarded as having high social importance and relevance.46 Choson scholars’ social criticism was embedded in, and in part an expression of, their sense of entitlement and aspiration for political power as the elite of society. Similarly, undongkwon intellectuals, even as they sought to break away from simply affirming traditional practices and finding their identity as minjung-oriented, found it difficult to extricate themselves from elitism. In the early 1970s, everyone with a university degree belonged to a privileged elite. They were highly esteemed, especially if they attended elite universities such as Seoul National, Yonsei, or Korea University. In 1970, the average South Korean had 5.7 years of schooling, and people between 44. Judt, Past Imperfect, 215. 45. Im, “Ilche ha hyongmyongjok chisigin,” 265–66. 46. According to a study reviewing essays written by intellectuals in popular magazines between 1954 and 1978 on the role of intellectuals, 46 percent of the writers viewed the primary duty of intellectuals as criticizing government policies or enlightening people, whereas 20 percent said that intellectuals’ obligation was to provide the state with necessary knowledge. Lee, “Confucianism and the Market,” 45–74.

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Minjung, History, and Historical Subjectivity

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20 and 29 years old averaged 8.3 years of schooling. The university student with 13 to 16 years of schooling belonged therefore to an elite group compared with those of his own age group, let alone society at large.47 The middle class was extremely small at the time, and anyone with a university diploma was on the road to becoming bourgeois regardless of his or her current socioeconomic background—few could say they came from the “suffocating bourgeois.”48 A great equalizer in postcolonial South Korea, education was acquired with the great sacrifice of parents and, more often than not, younger and female siblings who frequently worked in factories. University degrees made it possible for students to fulfill their dreams and goals, many of which were family obligations in the Confucian sense, as their personal success enabled them to raise the status of their families. Most students in the democratization movement were in it not to improve their lot in society but rather because they believed it was a just and righteous cause. However, striving for personal success and working for social justice were not conflicting objectives, as both were in some sense “a way to work for the good of the larger society; in both cases one was working for others.”49 Regardless, students agonized deeply over balancing their desire to fulfill their parents’ and their own wishes for success and their sense of responsibility to society. The paradigmatic experience of the 1980 Gwangju Uprising was one more source of the intellectual’s sense of being a traitor in a fundamentally different way in the post-Gwangju era, as I discuss in chapter 1. The disproportionate share of the working class and “lumpen proletariat” in the sacrifice, as well as intellectuals’ decision to turn in their arms to the authorities during the Gwangju Uprising, generated an overwhelming sense of guilt and self-reproach among intellectuals for their “abandonment” of Gwangju. In the post-Gwangju discourse, the educated and the intellectuals were associated with the cowardly and the impure: the intellectuals would falter, waver, agonize, and often betray the workers and themselves and their revolutionary cause. The sense of guilt, which in part pushed the post-Gwangju minjung movement to become “revolutionary,” produced another set of frequently 47. In contrast, in the 1990s, the average South Korean had 9.5 years of schooling, and people aged 20–29 years averaged 12 years of schooling. Kim, “1960, 1970–yondae minjuhwa undong,” 227. 48. Arendt, “Introduction.” 49. I thank Wesley Sasaki-Uemura for pointing out the underlying idea of “working for others” embedded in the students’ notion of success; as he points out, personal success in this case was “not the pursuit of individual success in the Western mode,” and I agree that this was generally the case for a large number of students until the late 1980s.

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20

Introduction

invoked expressions in the lexicon of the 1980s minjung movement. One was that a truly committed intellectual must give up kidukkwon, privileges and rights that come with education and social background. The other is that the force of tangwisong, obligations that are obvious and evident, also dictated that one give up such privileges and rights. For many students and intellectuals, the ultimate form of giving up privileges was to forgo a university diploma. For many others, it also meant forgoing the chance to go abroad, to pursue a graduate program, to get married, or to become a doctor, lawyer, or artist. For a committed undongkwon who was determined to devote his or her life to the minjung movement, a partner’s plan to attend a graduate program would have been sufficient reason to call off a marriage.50 The undongkwon’s “angry Manichaeanism,” the dichotomy of the world into binary categories of friends and enemies, good and evil, betrayed their sense of vulnerability as much as their commitment. The decision to be an undongkwon involved, in the most extreme cases, forgoing the future and accepting the imminent pain of cutting all ties to family members, if only briefly. Undongkwon individuals were alternately proud and guilty of joining the movement, and their self-abnegation was all the more dramatic and acute. At the same time, they were beset with historically unresolved ambivalence as to the precise function of intellectuals: should they continue to operate as interlocutors of the minjung, or should they deny any claim to superior knowledge and moral authority altogether and submit instead to the will of the minjung? This book attempts to historicize the undongkwon’s process of confronting, and various efforts at resolving, this dilemma in the minjung movement.

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50. Yi Huigyong, interview, Seoul, July 27, 2005.

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PART I

THE CRISIS OF HISTORICAL

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SUBJECTIVITY

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1. THE CONSTRUCTION OF MINJUNG

“Only minjung is completely nationalistic, and only minjung is completely democratic. This is my conclusion upon reflecting on modern Korean history, which has gone through trial and error in search for subjectivity [of historical development].”1 Thus declared Kim Minsok, a student leader at Seoul National University in 1985. Sentenced to a fiveyear prison term for his involvement in Sammint’u (Committee of the Three Min Struggle),2 Kim titled his statement of appeal “Minjung, minjok, minju” (People, nation, democracy). Kim further urged that a history that has gone astray must be “rectified” at the right time. Koreans had missed opportunities to “reanchor” the history that had gone amiss at critical moments in the modern period: the liberation from Japanese rule in August 1945, the April 19 student uprising in 1960, and the people’s uprising in Gwangju in May 1980. A history that has not been “corrected” will require an even greater and bloodier sacrifice from the people. Intellectuals and students have the burden and responsibility, in unity with the minjung, to turn these failed events into truly historical moments, to overcome the limitations of Korean history.3 1. Kim, “Hangso iyuso,” 6. 2. A vanguard organization within the nation-wide student organization Chon’guk Haksaeng Ch’ong Yonhap (National Students’ Alliance, Chonhangnyon), Sammint’u led most of the student movements in 1985, including the occupation of the Seoul USIS building in May 1985, discussed in chapter 4. The three min are national reunification (minjok t’ongil ), liberation of people (minjung haebang), and achieving democracy (minju chaengch’wi). 3. Kim, “Hangso iyuso,” 6.

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Part I. The Crisis of Historical Subjectivity

Kim’s repeated invocation of history is emblematic of the degree to which history was central in the discursive construction of minjung in the minjung movement, as well as the hubris of the students and intellectuals of the 1980s who claimed to be the rightful interpreters and interlocutors of history. Their persistent and almost incantatory invocation of minjung, history, and subjectivity defined and constituted the South Korean democratization movement of the 1980s. Turning to Korean history and identifying “lessons,” “tasks,” and “obstacles,” and reaching “conclusions” for the present and future, they constructed the notion of minjung as the true subject of historical development, capable of social change and therefore the rightful owner of a future democratic society. From the French Revolution to the 1989 Chinese student demonstrations, aspiring revolutionaries have endeavored to mobilize and control political and social discourse. History, as “the representation of the nature and meaning of the past,” has provided crucial ideological and intellectual resources for these efforts. Reworking past history has been central to reconfiguring and transforming the dynamics and the grounds for social and political discourse; in other words, history consistently has been indispensable in defining the grounds and conditions of “body politics.”4 Throughout twentieth-century China, history has been mobilized to explain a century of revolutions and counterrevolutions.5 In Japan as well, “people’s history” (minshushi) was critical to the philosophical basis and foundation for postwar protest.6 I argue that the rise of the minjung movement in South Korea was intimately tied to the critical reevaluation of modern Korean history; giving alternative and new meanings to past events was key to developing the notion of minjung in the minjung movement. Reworking history was a process of discursive contestation between officially sanctioned memory and countermemory, between the state discourse of dominant nationalism and the minjung movement’s oppositional nationalism. Korean history was thus a site of intense contestation between the state and the minjung movement, between established academic scholars and the newly rising independent “minjung-oriented” scholars. Starting in the late 1970s and throughout the 1980s, various forms of historical knowledge produced outside established academic institutions intersected with the minjung practitioners’ reassessments of past events. Most of the post-1945 historical events whose meanings had been sharply contested were brought into the public arena through public forums, seminars, 4. Baker, Inventing the French Revolution, 32. 5. Schwarcz, “Memory and Commemoration,” 112. 6. Sasaki-Uemura, “Citizen and Community,” 58.

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commemoration services, and protests. In particular, history novels (yoksa sosol), literary representations of historical events and a popular form of countermemory, deluged South Korean society.7 All of these efforts, by “acting out, performing, or demonstrating” social memory,8 contributed to articulating minjung as historical subjects. In what follows, I first present a brief history of the post-1945 social movements and the emergence of the Yusin regime and discuss what I have termed “the crisis of historical subjectivity,” the widespread and deeply felt sense among intellectuals and students that the Koreans themselves were not history-making subjects. I then discuss the Gwangju Uprising as the most critical event in ushering in the project of revolution in the minjung movement and defining minjung as subjects of history. I also examine three other historical events whose meanings have been contested and mobilized in the construction of minjung: the Tonghak Peasant Uprising of 1894, the Jeju Uprising of 1948, and the Korean War between 1950 and 1953. I close the chapter by discussing how commemorations brought new meanings into the public arena.

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A Brief History of Social Movements, 1960–70

Even a cursory glance at the history of postcolonial South Korea would clearly show that after thirty-five years of colonial rule, “a thousand inchoate dreams”9 of just-liberated Koreans were met with a brutal process of state formation marked by internal ideological divisions, an internecine civil war, and tenacious and continual protests against authoritarian regimes. While the history of post-1945 South Korean society cannot be reduced to an enumeration of social conflicts and protests, these are central to understanding the “crisis of historical subjectivity” that constituted the consciousness of intellectuals and university students, which in turn gave rise to the minjung movement. Here I present only the barest outline of the history of the most significant social movements from 1960 to 1970.

7. For literary representations of the Korean War, the Jeju Uprising, and the Gwangju Uprising, see, among others, Cho, T’aebaek sanmaek; Hyon, Suni samch’on; Hong, “Kippal.” 8. Healy, From the Ruins of Colonialism, 5–6. The theories of social memory or group memory were developed by Maurice Halbwachs (On Collective Memory) and expounded on by Paul Connerton (How Societies Remember). Group memory reveals the social orientation of concerns for the past, even on the part of individuals. Both sociologists explicitly separate historiography from memory, but as Peter Gottschalk argues, these two cannot be clearly separated or demarcated. Gottschalk, “Multiple Pasts, Multiple Identities,” 116–35. 9. Anderson, Imagined Communities, 128.

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Social protest has a long history in Korea,10 but the April 19 Student Uprising in 1960 was South Korea’s first massive and bottom-up expression of the desire and willingness to fight for “democracy.” As one participant put it, “blood was spilled not for national survival but for individual freedom and democratic rights.”11 The April 19 uprising (4.19) began initially as mostly high school students protested against the ruling party and Syngman Rhee, the president of South Korea at the time and the presidential candidate in the 1960 election, for interfering with their school activities before the scheduled election. On March 15, as the election took place amid beatings and murders of opposition candidates and their supporters, students and citizens rose up to protest, and police fired on demonstrators, killing nine and injuring eighty people in the city of Masan, in South Gyeongsang Province. Thousands of high school students and later university students nationwide joined the demonstrators in demanding an end to government corruption and the stepping down of the Rhee regime. University professors rose up to demand the resignation of Rhee and an “answer for the blood of students.” As they headed to Kyongmudae (the presidential residence), they were joined by shoeshine boys, beggars, and elementary school students pleading to soldiers “not to fire upon our brothers and sisters.” Syngman Rhee was forced to resign, after 58 days of continuous demonstrations, 186 deaths, and more than 6,000 injured.12 For the participants themselves and for the next generation, 4.19 became both a historical marker and a historical burden. Decrying the older generation’s incompetence and complicity in the corruption of society, the students and other youth succeeded in overthrowing the authoritarian regime. They may have given rise to a revolutionary setting, but they themselves were not revolutionary agents with the power to carry out revolutionary tasks. Indeed, these students did not aim to, nor did they anticipate, overthrowing the government. The revolution, if it was a revolution, came to most participants as a surprise.13 10. See, among others, Haboush, “Academies and Civil Society”; Yi, Haebanghu Han’guk haksaeng undongsa. 11. Ch’a, “4.19, kwado chongbu,” 163. 12. Pak and Kim, 1960–yondae ui sahoe undong, 70. 13. A more nuanced analysis of 4.19 calls for scrutiny of the term “students.” According to Pak T’aesun and Kim Tongch’un, students of the early 1960s were a different demographic group from those of later periods, due to the massive social dislocation in the aftermath of the Korean War. Students tended to be older and many were students in name only, as shoeshine boys and ragpickers (yang’ach’i) were also called “students of vocational schools.” In parts of Seoul, street gang members were far more organized participants in 4.19 than university students. At some universities, the “tainted” members of the state-controlled National Student Defense Corps were also active. Pak and Kim, 1960–yondae ui sahoe undong, 62–71. By grouping all of these variegated participants as “students,” 4.19 gave South Korean students a unique historical place and burden.

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Future generations of students and intellectuals were given a sense of historical responsibility by 4.19; they would become the conscience of the nation and a leading force against subsequent authoritarian regimes. At the same time, they were also made aware of the limits and failures of a revolution that did not include structural transformation, as they went through the tragically brief and problem-ridden tenure of the Second Republic (1960–61) toppled by the May 16 military coup and the phenomenon known as apostasy (pyonjol ) of former participants of the uprising—many of them later actively supported or colluded with the authoritarian Park Chung Hee regime.14 Society at large viewed the student movement as a temporary and idealistic outburst that would soon dissipate when students assumed more adult responsibilities.15 Thus, the April 19 Student Uprising was an unfinished revolution. Within the minjung movement of the 1980s, post-1960s South Korea became redefined largely as a place of struggle “between those who pushed the goals of 4.19 forward and those who tried to stop it from moving forward.”16 The minjung movement was to carry further the unfinished revolution of 4.19. As one poet put it, “We have not put down our banner . . . we cannot put down our blood-soaked banner.”17 No sooner had the students triumphantly returned to the campus when the interim government led by Ho Chong, who came into power “through the blood of revolution,” began to retreat from the goals and ideals of 4.19.18 A small number of students and intellectuals began to feel that their revolution had been handed over to power-hungry politicians who did not have a historical or popular mandate. The July 29 general election, in which most of the progressive parties failed to receive votes, gave students further doubts about achieving democracy through parliamentary measures and their own “enlightenment” projects.19 Students felt that the

14. For further discussion of this notion of apostasy (pyonjol ), see ibid., 168–69. 15. Sociologist Han Wansang summed up this sentiment: “When [students] go out into society, get married, and have children, they are changed; how can they not be?” Han, Han Wansang sahoe p’yongnon, 102–4. 16. Pak and Kim, 1960–yondae ui sahoe undong, 110. 17. Quoted in Ch’oe, “4.19 minju hyongmyong,” 218. 18. Pak and Kim, 1960–yondae ui sahoe undong, 50–62, 94–95. 19. In the immediate aftermath of 4.19, the students, while calling for democratization of the campus, also started to focus on “enlightenment projects,” which slowly became part of the government-directed Chaegon Kungmin Undong (Citizens’ Reconstruction Movement). As part of this movement, students organized research groups to investigate new farming methods and farmers’ living conditions, and they worked closely with government agencies such as the Agricultural Development Office and the Ministry of Farming and Forestry. Yi, Haebanghu Han’guk haksaeng undongsa, 193.

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policy and behavior of the new ruling Minjudang (Democratic Party) were antithetical to the spirit of the revolution of 1960.20 They gradually began to point to the division of the country as the main cause for many of South Korea’s problems, which included poverty, political oppression, and social demoralization. The blame for the division went to “self-seeking” foreign powers, the United States and the Soviet Union. The students claimed that the way to “revolutionize our historical reality” was to achieve a reunification of a divided Korea based on “antifeudal, antiforeign, and anticomprador capital.”21 A nationwide student organization, Minjok T’ongil Yonmaeng (Student League for National Reunification), was created in November 1960 to push for reunification.22 University students nationwide enthusiastically received this call for reunification. On May 13, 1961, student leaders—with the backing of several members of the National Assembly—staged a public rally to gain support for the immediate beginning of negotiations between the North and South as a first step toward national reunification. Students had slogans such as “Let’s go to the North! Come to the South! Let us meet at Panmunjom” and “Whose land is this that we cannot come and go at our will?” The liberal but ineffectual government of Prime Minister Chang Myon (1960–61), clearly unsure of what to do with these demands, declared the gathering illegal. Three days later on May 16, Lieutenant General Park Chung Hee and his subordinates carried out a military coup, ending all discussion of reunification as well as student protest.23 Leaders of the May 16 coup came into power claiming to have inherited the 4.19 spirit and aiming to complete its unfinished revolution. They upheld the historical legitimacy of people’s power in their words but betrayed the 4.19 spirit in their actions.24 The coup leaders completely excluded popular consensus and participation, and they reversed the course of democratic

20. For a detailed discussion on the Chang Myon government, see Yang, “Revolution and Change,” 140–47, 226–32. 21. Yi, Haebanghu Han’guk haksaeng undongsa, 190. “Comprador,” a Portuguese word meaning purchaser, “was originally used to refer to a local merchant acting as a middleman between foreign producers and a local market. Marxists have used it to refer specifically to that local bourgeoisie who owe their privileged position to foreign monopolies and hence maintain a vested interest in colonial occupation. In post-colonial theory the term has evolved a broader use, and includes the intelligentsia—academics, creative writers and artists—whose independence may be compromised by a reliance on, and identification with, colonial power.” Ashcroft et al., Key Concepts, 55. The South Korean students used “comprador” as the Marxists did and used it to refer to conglomerates (chaebol ), the South Korean government, and high-ranking bureaucrats. 22. Han, Failure of Democracy, 200–201. 23. Yi, Haebanghu Han’guk haksaeng undongsa, 160. 24. Sim, “4–wol hyongmyong ui chon’gae kwajong,” 66.

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society by dissolving a constitutionally elected government, however weak and ineffectual it may have been.25 Because the coup leaders lacked a clear vision or political ideology of their own, anticommunism and industrial development became their raison d’être and state policy.26 Perhaps in part because of their own internal dissension and chaos, the May 16 coup leaders found in Korean society only “incompetence, indolence, corruption, degeneration, impure elements, pro-communists, leftists, and chaos.”27 Soon after the coup, politically active individuals were rounded up as “pro-communists,” and the majority of students who were active in the reunification movement were either arrested or forced to hide from the police.28 Few intellectuals had a clear idea of how to assess the coup and its leaders’ professed nationalistic vision at the time. As the heavily censored media presented mainly the nationalist credentials of Park Chung Hee to the public, and as the United States government had initially questioned Park Chung Hee’s “leftist past,”29 students and intellectuals were cautiously inclined to believe that his agenda might indeed be “nationalistic.” Some compared him with Egypt’s Gamal Abdel Nasser.30 Sasanggye (The world of thought),31 the most influential journal read by intellectuals at that time, endorsed the military coup as a “nationalist military revolution”: “While the coup was an unfortunate incident from the perspective of democratic 25. Pak and Kim, 1960–yondae ui sahoe undong, 135. See also Yang, “Revolution and Change.” 26. See Yi, “Pak Chonghui minjokchuui,” 231. The economic development proposed by Park was a key policy issue of the Second Republic. For example, at his inauguration on August 13, 1960, President Yun Poson stated, “without economic freedom, political freedom would be like flowers in a vase with no water.” The principle of “economic development first” was also the first policy message of Prime Minister Chang Myon of the Second Republic. See Ch’a, “4.19, kwado chongbu,” 171; Yang, “Revolution and Change,” 226. 27. Quoted in Han, Failure of Democracy, 1. Kim Tongch’un offers a different view on this period in “4.19 sigi kwayon hollan’gi yonna,” 307–14. 28. A day after the coup, nearly four thousand progressive intellectuals, teachers belonging to unions, students, and politicians were rounded up for their “pro-communist” activities. Coup leaders also executed more than a hundred political prisoners whose death sentences had been issued during the previous government. In addition, gang members and even minor violators of traffic laws were sentenced to heavy labor in the name of the social purification campaign. Nearly four thousand “hoodlums” and thousands of beggars were made to parade in the streets of Seoul and were later turned over to the Pubic Works Office for hard labor. Pak and Kim, 1960–yondae ui sahoe undong, 142, 156. 29. Park Chung Hee, an army major when the Yeosu-Suncheon Rebellion broke out in 1948, was arrested and summarily sentenced to life imprisonment in 1949 by a military court on the charge of organizing a communist party branch in the army. At the outbreak of the Korean War, Park was immediately reinstated in the army upon suspension of the sentence. For further details, see Kim, Korea-Japan Treaty Crisis, 144. 30. Pak and Kim, 1960–yondae ui sahoe undong, 159. 31. Sasanggye was a monthly journal founded in 1953 by dissident intellectuals Chang Chunha and Paek Nakchun during the Korean War. It published the opinions of critical intellectuals and

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values, it was necessary for the nation, in light of the mounting corruption, incompetence, disorder, and the threat posed by communists.”32 Intellectuals across the political spectrum shared this view.33 Park Chung Hee’s subsequent Five-Year Economic Plans presented South Koreans with hope. The country was one of the poorest in the world at the time, with $100 per year in per capita income, and previous governments had brought little relief in terms of the widespread poverty and unemployment. Few could reject Park’s call for a modern, autonomous, and national economy. Kim Kunt’ae, who became a prominent dissident in the 1970s and 1980s, recalls how Park Chung Hee’s 1963 presidential campaign slogan to “solve the suffering of the common people with autonomous economic development” had tremendous appeal for him and his friends. In contrast, the campaign pledge of Park’s opponent and the former president (1960–62), Yun Poson, to “feed citizens even if we have to beg from the United States” appeared too dependent on foreign powers.34 The negotiations on the treaty to normalize relations between South Korea and Japan, known as the Normalization Treaty, pulled students and intellectuals out of their brief coexistence and cooperation with the military regime.35 Once Koreans became aware of the negotiations in March 1964, many expressed the thought that normalization with Japan should be preceded by Japan’s sincere apology for its past colonial rule of Korea. They said the treaty was against Korea’s national interests, that it was another humiliating episode for Korea because it made Japan’s “40 years of crimes against Korea justified,” and that it provided a way for Japan to rule over Korea once more.36 Students in particular argued that the country’s leadership had exchanged national pride for the promise of loans and economic aid from Japan.37 Some students played an important role in the April 19th Uprising and in the opposition to the Normalization Treaty of 1965. It was forced to close by the government in 1970 for having published Kim Chiha’s “Ojok” (Five bandits). 32. Yi, “Panje pan’il minjokchuui wa 6.3 undong,” 49. 33. See Han, Failure of Democracy, 1. 34. Kim, “Kuraedo minjung kyot’uro kagetta,” 298. 35. See Pak and Kim, 1960–yondae ui sahoe undong. 36. For a detailed account of opposition to the Treaty, see Kim, Korea-Japan Treaty Crisis, 95–116. 37. The ruling Minju Konghwadang (Democratic Republic Party, DRP) was rumored to have received a $130 million advance from Japan, from the property claims settlement fund, and it was said that the government and the ruling party had used the money to organize the party. These rumors heightened suspicions that the ruling party was hurrying the settlement in order to maintain its power. Distrust increased further when the Japanese government revealed that it had already arranged several commercial loans of more than $100 million with South Korea. This was contrary to South Korea’s previous statement that it would not ask for Japan’s economic cooperation before normalization of diplomatic relations. Kim, Korea-Japan Treaty Crisis, 104.

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argued that the government should pave the way for cultural and economic cooperation between the North and South, instead of conducting talks with Japan; some conservative politicians concurred. The treaty was opposed by an overwhelming majority of Koreans, including some in the military.38 There was also a widespread perception that the United States was behind the treaty.39 The opposition political party and the press criticized the United States for “presiding over the Japanese take-over of Korea’s economy.” Protesting student placards read, “United States, take off your mask and show that you are really an ally.”40 The former President Yun Poson echoed this sentiment when he charged that the U.S. attempt to push Japan to get involved in Korean affairs was to expect “a loan shark to do philanthropic work.”41 Another generation was thus born bearing the name of the historical moment that marked its emerging political consciousness—the “6.3 generation.” On June 3, 1964, (hence the name 6.3), the continuing protest against the treaty that began in March was brought to a brutal end with a declaration of martial law in the Seoul area and the occupation of universities and streets by the military.42 Campuses were left “only with battleground scars.” Student leaders were dismissed from schools. Those arrested were turned over to the military tribunal, and professors who were sympathetic to protesting students were branded as “political” and were forced to leave school. Only the banners expressing the students’ defeat and their utter despair remained on campus: “We mourn the death of campus freedom”; “Universities bruised with geta [Japanese sandals]”; “We’re wailing in the face of guns and knives”; “Is invasion of campus a defense of country?” “Before closing universities illegally, close down the National Assembly”; and “Yankee, keep silent.”43 The signing of the treaty in June 1965 initiated another series of massive demonstrations that lasted for nearly six more months, with university students carrying out hunger strikes and even holding a funeral service for “nationalist democracy.”44 The protest was ended once again by brutal military intervention, with the declaration of the Garrison Decree in Seoul, the occupation of university campuses by armed soldiers, and the closing 38. Ibid., 113–14. 39. On the role of the United States in the negotiation of the treaty, see Pak and Kim, 1960–yondae ui sahoe undong, 169–84; Macdonald, U.S.-Korean Relations, 116–35. 40. Yi, “Panje pan’il minjokchuui wa 6.3 undong,” 59. 41. Quoted in Kim, Korea-Japan Treaty Crisis, 106. 42. For a detailed account of this period, see Yi, “Panje pan’il minjokchuui wa 6.3 undong.” 43. Yi, Haebanghu Han’guk haksaeng undongsa, 246–52. 44. Pak and Kim, 1960–yondae ui sahoe undong, 188.

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of universities.45 From March 1964 to September 1965, a total of 3 million students and a half million other citizens participated in protest activities throughout the country in the form of rallies, street demonstrations, hunger strikes, and debates. They issued public statements and battled police, rioting soldiers, and tear gas.46 Throughout the remainder of the 1960s, the memory of the anti-Treaty movement was relived repeatedly on streets and university campuses as the authoritarian regime’s undemocratic behavior made students rush out of campuses, as in the case of the widely rigged National Assembly election in 1967 and Park Chung Hee’s attempt to stay in power by revising the constitution in 1968.47 According to a former student, from June 1968 to December 1969, “not a day passed without demonstrations erupting in universities and high schools nationwide.”48 While university students were the most visible protestors, South Korea in the 1960s witnessed a surge of progressive forces (hyoksin’gye), various individuals and groups who articulated social problems and presented their own alternative, often radical, views. While uniformly labeled as “dangerous and untrustworthy” by the regime and conservative forces, the progressive forces varied a great deal in terms of individuals’ backgrounds and their analysis of present conditions, future visions, and activities. Some had fought against the Japanese as nationalists, some participated in the post-liberation communist movement as guerrillas in the South. Some were just students belonging to university study groups (known as “circles,” which I discuss in detail in chapter 4) that discussed general Korean conditions and encouraged the development of critical views of society. These progressive forces published monthly journals, such as Sasanggye, and newspapers, such as Minjok Ilbo (National Daily).49 Some set up a Research Institute of Korean Agriculture to study agricultural issues, considered the most pressing matter 45. According to Kwan Bong Kim, “A Decree of ‘garrison state’ can be imposed by a district military commander at the request of a local or provincial government in an emergency created primarily by some military contingency. The decree has almost the same effect as martial law, except that it allows the continued function of civil administration and ‘freedom of the press’ in the area affected.” Kim, Korea-Japan Treaty Crisis, 116. 46. Ibid., 109. 47. In 1969, the ruling DRP called a secret early-morning session of its own in the assembly’s annex in order to pass a constitutional amendment that would permit Park to run for a third term in 1971. For a detailed account of student protests against the constitutional revision, see So, “3–son kaehon pandae.” 48. Yi, Haebanghu Han’guk haksaeng undongsa, 253. 49. Minjok Ilbo was a daily newspaper founded in February 1961 to voice the opinions of the progressive groups, advocate peaceful reunification of Korea, and represent the interests of the underprivileged. It was closed three months later by the order of the military leaders who accused the paper of “aiding” North Korea. Its founder and owner Cho Yongsu was executed in December 1961.

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at the time because the majority of the Korean population was working on farms. Some were members of underground Marxist-Leninist organizations that aimed to bring about a socialist revolution in South Korea, such as T’onghyoktang (Reunification Revolutionary Party). As I discuss in chapter 2, all of these individuals, regardless of their political views and their degree of radicalism, were labeled by the state as pro-communist and antistate, and they were severely punished. For future generations of activists, the progressive forces of the 1960s were therefore a double-edged legacy: they were a source of inspiration as well as a lesson showing the political vulnerability faced by a social movement pushed to clandestine existence and radical visions without a popular base.

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The Emergence of the Yusin Regime

Just as the decade of the 1960s opened with a hopeful sign for Korea’s democracy—the April 19 Student Uprising—the decade of the 1970s also began with two sumptuous ceremonies inaugurating high hopes for a modern, industrialized, and democratic South Korea: the ground-breaking ceremony for Pohang Steel, Asia’s largest steel factory (on April 1, 1970), and the opening ceremony of the Kyongbu Highway, connecting Seoul to Busan (on July 7, 1970).50 The year ended, however, with a crushing blow to the hope for democracy as the regime’s authoritarian grip on society began to tighten. In November 1970, Chon T’aeil, a twenty-three-year-old garment cutter set himself on fire to protest inhumane working conditions and low wages (see chapter 6), sparking an explosion of protests by the urban poor, the unemployed, and university students. Most notable of these was the Gwangju Settlers’ Riot in July 1971, the first of a series of protests by the urban poor. In 1970, the government had moved thousands of those living in the slum areas of Seoul to Gwangju, a newly created satellite city of Seoul. The city planned to eventually transfer 20,000 families to the new area and give them pieces of land on which to build houses by promising to give them loans during the next four years. When the promised factories and schools did not follow, nearly eighty percent of the settlers went back to their original squatting places. Those who remained in Gwangju faced unpaved roads, nonexistent 50. Built solely by South Korean technology and financed by the South Korean government, it was touted as the most quickly completed highway in the world, having taken only two years and five months for construction. Seventy-seven workers perished in the process, however—a testament to the brutal pace of construction.

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sewage and water services, nonfunctioning toilets, and high taxes for using land. This led to a riot involving thirty thousand settlers in August 1971.51 In April 1971, Park Chung Hee managed to win the third and what proved to be the final direct presidential election of the Park regime (1961–79), narrowly defeating his opponent Kim Dae Jung through “fraud and voter intimidation.”52 Park then declared a national emergency on December 1971. In the same month, he had the National Assembly illegally and secretly pass the Law Concerning Special Measures for Safeguarding National Security, which gave him “the authority to ban public demonstrations, control wages, rents and prices, and ‘mobilize any material or human resources for national purposes.’ ”53 On October 1972, in a single move that effectively wiped out any remnants of democracy in South Korea, Park declared martial law and the Yusin Constitution. Proclaimed as the first step toward political reform that would prepare the stage for eventual reunification of the two Koreas, these Yusin measures gave him the power “to appoint one-third of the National Assembly; to dissolve the National Assembly at will; to appoint all judges; and to appoint all members of the constitutional committee, which determined whether laws passed by the National Assembly were constitutional.” More insidiously, Park was now free to take whatever emergency measures might be needed, whenever “the national security or the public safety and order is seriously threatened or anticipated to be threatened.”54 These measures were announced three months after the “historic” Red Cross Meeting and Joint Communiqué between North and South Korea on July 4, 1972, in which the two sides pledged to end a quarter-century of mutual hostility and work together toward an independent and peaceful reunification of Korea.55 Koreans received the news with enthusiasm. 51. See Ch’ae, “Moktong ch’olgomin siwi sakon,” 295. 52. Park won the election with 51.2 percent of the total votes cast. Kim Dae Jung of the Sin Minjudang (New Democratic Party) captured 43.6 percent of the vote. In 1969, the DRP-controlled National Assembly rammed through a constitutional amendment to permit Park to run again in 1971 for his third term in spite of constitutional prohibition. 53. Hart-Landsberg, Rush to Development, 185. 54. Ibid., 186. 55. See Kwak, “North Korea and South Korea.” With the announcement of the communiqué, South and North Korea pledged themselves to exert joint efforts to achieve peaceful unification and established the basic negotiating principles: reunification through bilateral negotiations free of external interference, renunciation of reunification through force, and a commitment to transcending ideological differences. Officials exchanged visits, and regular communications were established through a North-South coordinating committee and the Red Cross. The high-level Red Cross talks collapsed in 1973 when Park Chung Hee announced that the South would seek separate entry into the United Nations, and after the kidnapping of South Korean opposition leader Kim Dae Jung by South Korean intelligence services. No other significant contact between North and South Korea occurred until 1984.

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Kim Kunt’ae, a student activist at the time, had “cried his heart out” at the news of the joint communiqué. Deeply moved by Park’s resolve for peaceful reunification as declared in the communiqué, he felt that his erstwhile opposition to Park had been “childish.” Only three months later, Yusin hit South Korea, and Kim Kunt’ae went “almost crazy” from his feeling of betrayal.56 For Yi Ch’ol, organizer of the future Chon’guk Minju Ch’ongnyon Haksaeng Yonmaeng (Minch’onghangnyon, National Federation of Democratic Youth and Students, NFDYS), which I discuss further in chapter 4, the Yusin Constitution was quite literally “one step before death,” as he was sentenced to death for his opposition to the Yusin measures.57 The period from the first issuance of an emergency decree in 1974 up to Park Chung Hee’s death in 1979 is generally referred to as the Era of Emergency Decrees. From January 1974 to March 1975, a total of nine emergency decrees were issued.58 The most severe and sweeping of all was the infamous Emergency Decree Number Nine. Announced in the midst of Park’s heightened “national security offensive” following the fall of Saigon,59 Emergency Decree Number Nine prohibited any kind of antigovernment activity, including any criticism of the constitution. As Martin Hart-Landsberg observes, “given the scope of Emergency Decree No. 9, Park had no need for further decrees.”60 The decree was indeed a declaration of war on the Korean people.61 The South Korean democratization movement of the 1970s was born out of an intense hatred of the Yusin era (1972–79). Park Chung Hee may have achieved an economic miracle that brought material improvement to a 56. Kim, “Kuraedo minjung kyot’uro kagetta,” 299. 57. Yi, “ ‘Minch’onghangnyon’ sakon,” 246. Yi’s death sentence was announced on July 13, 1974, but he was released in February 1975. 58. The decrees made it illegal to criticize the Yusin Constitution (Number Two and Three), made it illegal to join the NFDYS (Number Four), and made it possible for the military to occupy universities (Number Seven). Decrees One and Two were issued on January 8, 1974, stipulating that whoever criticized or opposed the Yusin Constitution was subject to a fifteenyear prison term. Decree Number Three, a provision for tax exemption for low-income people, was issued purportedly to stabilize citizens’ lives. Decree Number Seven was issued immediately after a particularly large-scale demonstration at Korea University on April 8, 1975; with this decree, the government closed the university. Yi, Haebanghu Han’guk haksaeng undongsa, 276–83. 59. Heightened anticommunism gripped South Korea after the fall of Saigon in 1975; textbooks of all levels were revised extensively and anticommunist rallies took place daily, sponsored by both the government and religious groups. “Pan’gong un taehoe eso undong uro,” 389. 60. Hart-Landsberg, Rush to Development, 198. 61. Park Chung Hee declared on July 16, 1974, “What we are faced with today is not merely a situation of semiwar but rather a situation of war.” Im, “74–yon mun’in kanch’optan sakon,” 301.

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large number of Koreans,62 but his draconian Yusin measures made a small number of students and intellectuals turn against not only his regime but also the entire South Korean system with which he was associated. For these dissident intellectuals, the Yusin era was one of absurdities and tragicomedies, as well as rumors and fear. The nation’s president, elected by delegates without debate, recommended one third of the National Assembly members who were then “unanimously selected” in a mammoth gymnasium.63 In the 1978 presidential election, for example, 2,577 out of 2,578 delegates voted for Park Chung Hee, who was the only candidate.64 Journalists were fired en masse and newspapers were told what to report, with rumors and “communication by analogy” (yubi t’ongsin) replacing the nonfunctioning mass media.65 Even in the company of close friends, one had to look around and make sure no one was lurking and taking notes on the conversation. Not only might open and public criticism lead to imprisonment, so might private conversations among friends and neighbors. Numerous citizens, among them a tavern owner, a teacher, a palm reader, and a record company president, served time in prison for the alleged crime of “distorting facts” and “spreading false rumors.”66 Students and intellectuals expressed their resentment and distrust toward the regime by circulating phrases such as “imprisonment of our land” (due to the increased number of prisons); “imprisonment of all citizens” (due to the increased number of arrests for violation of the emergency decrees); “prostitution of all women” (referring to prevalent sex tourism known as “kisaeng tourism”67); and “compradorization of economy” (due to increased 62. See chapter 4. 63. For details on the Yusin regime see, among others, Sohn, Authoritarianism and Opposition in South Korea. 64. KBS, “Yongsang sillok, 1978.” 65. Coercing businesses to cancel advertisements in Tonga Ilbo (East Asia daily) and to fire journalists en masse for organizing a union was a representative case of the Park regime’s oppression of the press. For a detailed account of this case, see Sohn, Authoritarianism and Opposition, 78–88. 66. Yi, Haebanghu Han’guk haksaeng undongsa, 283. 67. Although kisaeng (female entertainers similar to the Japanese geisha) in the earlier era were not prostitutes, many South Korean kisaeng houses have become sex tourist destinations since the 1960s. The South Korean government selected tourism as its “third industry” and provided extensive administrative support and other privileges. From the mid-1960s to the mid-1970s, tourism grew by 34.9 percent. Especially fast-growing was Japanese tourism, which increased after the Normalization Treaty of 1965 and which accounted for 80 percent of all international tourism by 1973. Japan’s Shukan Asahi (Asahi Weekly) reported that in 1973 there were 27 entertainment houses and around 200,000 prostitutes serving Japanese male tourists in South Korea (October 25, 1973). South Korea’s minister of education was widely quoted to have said, “Korean women are earning foreign dollars necessary for economic development.” Han’guk Kyohoe Yosong Yonhaphoe, “Kisaeng kwan’gwang,” 358–97.

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foreign loans).68 The poet Yang Songu declared South Korea a “Frozen Republic”: While feigning ignorance day by day We meekly bend our ears to lies, Like slaves and servants, phonies all, Obedient to the crushing whip— Oh shame, shame, shame.69

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The Crisis of Historical Subjectivity

The Yusin regime’s harsh rule, combined with the rising human and ecological costs of rapid industrialization, deepened the existing sense among intellectuals and university students that modern Korean history was a “failure.” The sense of failure was widely shared by various groups, from social leaders to academics, from conservatives to dissidents. Park Chung Hee frequently invoked the failure of Korean history in part to justify his regime and his policies. In the 1980s, Pok Koil, a well-known novelist and presently a voice of conservative liberalism in South Korea, decried the fact that Koreans failed to decolonize, to free themselves from the colonial master (Japan) and a neocolonial superpower (the United States).70 The aura of tragedy and hopelessness of this failed history was perhaps most poignantly (yet problematically) captured by the well-known author Yi Munyol, who likened the post-1945 period to a “false nausea by a barren woman.”71 Here, an unreflective male figure resorts to the familiar but problematic trope of the nation as a female body. Nevertheless, the remark highlights failure as the predominant narrative motif of modern history. The failure was also the predominant narrative strategy of historiographical developments in the 1980s. As Henry Em has pointed out, what differentiated various interpretive positions of historians was the “problem of juche (the autonomous subject).”72 For the minjung practitioners, the issue of not being an “autonomous subject” meant that Koreans were not the subjects of their own history and that their failure stemmed from 68. Yi, Haebanghu Han’guk haksaeng undongsa, 283–84. 69. Quoted in Sekai, ed., Letters from South Korea, 350. 70. Park, Our Nation’s Path, 22–33; see Chungmoo Choi’s discussion of Pok Koil in “Discourse of Decolonization,” 86–88. 71. “T’ukchip: Onul ui taehaksaeng,” 363. 72. Em, “ ‘Overcoming’ Korea’s Division,” 452.

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South Korea’s geopolitical location in the cold-war order governed by the United States.73 Thus, for critical intellectuals, August 15, 1945 marked not the end of colonial rule but rather the beginning of South Korea’s “neocolonial” status.74 Consequently, the post-1945 period was a “history of occupation and betrayal,” “forty years of the appearance of liberal democracy,” “a history of accumulation of setbacks and sacrifices,” and therefore “refracted and distorted.”75 The post-1945 period was thus in one poet’s words “a time of executions, a time bereft of festivals or wreaths, and a time of stupor.”76 The sense of failed history also generated a widespread sense of despair and frustration that was at once collective and generational, as summarized in 1978 by Yi Siyong, a member of the class of 1970: For those of us born after 1945 (and who entered universities in the 1970s), what we have learned was not as a master [chuin], but as a guest, or, more painfully, as a servant of another country. Perhaps there is no other generation that has been raised on the poison of cold-war propaganda as we have been: America was our ally without qualification, the Soviet Union and China our enemies, and North Korea a faraway country ruled with cold and hunger. . . . We knew of the division [of the country] only as a line across the 38th parallel on the map, of unification only as lyrics in a song. We’ve never learned the meaning of the division, or why the division should remain; there was no effort, no willingness to overcome the division. When we were in the lower grades in elementary school, we composed poems celebrating the birthday of Syngman Rhee who had laboriously obtained milk for us from the United States. . . . We memorized the May 16 revolutionary promises in sixth grade, and we went through breathless successive competitions to enter middle school, high school, and college. Now that I reflect, my body was there but I was not the keeper of my body; my brain was there but I was not the keeper of my brain. I now look at myself as a pitiful and fragmented soul. It is as if fragments of a cold-war bomb got stuck in me and still give me pain. The false consciousness that I have received 73. For a critical view of this historiography, see Jager, Narratives of Nation Building, 99–106. 74. Song, “8.15 nun haebang ui nari anida,” 212–15. 75. O, Singminji ui adul ege; Kim, “Chayu minjujuui ui houl 40–yon”; Pak, “Ch’uch’on ui mal”; Song, “Chung, kogyo yoksa kyoyuk nonui,” 173. 76. Hwang, “Taedap omnun naldul ul wihayo, 2”; quoted in Kim, “P’ungja ui cheui rul nomoso,” 191–92.

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for sixteen years has made me cross-eyed and is threatening to make more people cross-eyed.77 Both Yi Siyong and previously mentioned student leader Kim Minsok expressed their sense of frustration and pain in the language of body, particularly that of the disabled or disfigured body. Yi Siyong was becoming “cross-eyed,” and Kim Minsok’s Korean history was a “ravaged body covered with scars.”78 The language of bodily impairments as a trope for the national condition was neither accidental nor new. Both the Japanese colonial discourse and the Korean refutation and disavowal of it used the language of the body. The Japanese notion of “one body of Japan and Korea” (naissen ittai) was, as Chungmoo Choi has put it, “imperial Japan’s double discourse of assimilation that constructed an illusion of . . . the bodily connection of Korea to metropolitan Japan.”79 Exposing the double nature of the assimilationist discourse and accentuating the material and conceptual limits placed on the colonized, Korean writers during the colonial period populated their fictions with disabled and impaired characters, as Kyeong-Hee Choi has shown.80 The sense of lack and incapacity continued to besiege postcolonial intellectuals due to policy of the authoritarian regime which accentuated the “neocolonial” condition of postcolonial South Korea. The dissident intellectuals’ discourse of lack was a narrative of failure. Korean history was the history of “absence and distortion,” of darkness and negativity; the present regime was dictatorial and antinationalistic, and the society too steeped in a Western, specifically American, value system.81 As I argue elsewhere,82 the dissidents’ discourse of lack and the state discourse of nationalism and modernization, while framed as oppositional, were, in fact, mutually interdependent. Both the state modernization project and the minjung movement’s resistance were carried out in the name of nation (minjok) and people (kungmin or simin for the state and minjung for the movement), and as such they converged on the goal of state-led economic development. My point here is not to question the criticism embedded in the discourse or the sincerity of the dissidents, but rather to suggest that the dissidents’ 77. In Song et al., “Pundan hyonsil kwa minjok kyoyuk,” 7–8. 78. Kim, “Hangso iyuso,” 11. 79. Choi, “Discourse of Decolonization,” 85. 80. See Choi, “Impaired Body as Colonial Trope.” 81. I am indebted to Professor Yang Ujin (Woo Jin Yang) for pointing out this important issue as well as other issues related to the discourse of lack among intellectuals. For a stimulating and indepth discussion on historiographical and other implications of the discourse of lack, see Yang, “Two Key Historical Moments.” 82. Lee, “ ‘Minjung’ ” as a Critique of Capitalistic Modernity?”

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problem with the state lay not in the ultimate goal of the project of modernization and economic development but rather in the manner in which this project was to be carried out. Minjung History

The dissidents’ narrative of failure accompanied a narrative of “rectification of history.” To rectify the discredited history was to embrace the “shameful history” and to acknowledge their complicity in the making of this history as well as to seek their own redemption, as it were. The student leader Kim Minsok proclaimed:

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No one can break off our fierce will to correct [history]. Fortunately for us, there is the [legacy of the] last twenty years of [our democratization movement] struggle, so that if we possess honesty and diligence, and do not ignore the past, we can diagnose the disease of modern Korean history. . . . As the struggle for anti-imperialist national liberation was the only truth of the time [during the colonial period], it is incumbent upon us to embrace it as the only truth [chilli] of this era.83 In calling for a rectification of history, the dissident intellectuals were keenly aware of the power of countermemory in a social movement. Michel Foucault wrote about the resistance of popular memory to coerced forgetting and how this memory is mobilized in protest. Memory, he wrote, “is actually a very important factor in struggle. . . . If one controls people’s memory, one controls their dynamism. . . . It is vital to have possession of this memory, to control it, administer it, tell it what it must contain.”84 Examples of how states have “engineered” both memory and forgetting abound, as do examples of how social movements have mobilized countermemories.85 South Korea’s incipient but vibrant social movement in the 1970s galvanized those individual scholars who had begun to seek an alternative Korean history, and they became a distinct but integral group of the democratization movement, which came to be known as minjung history (minjung sagwan).86 Minjung historians, much as the scholars of subaltern studies, sought 83. Kim, “Hangso iyuso,” 11. 84. Foucault, “Film and Popular Memory,” 25–26; quoted in Baker, Inventing the French Revolution, 31. 85. See, for example, Watson, ed., Memory, History and Opposition. 86. See, among others, Han’guk Minjungsa Yon’guhoe, ed., Han’guk minjungsa; Kang et al., “80–yondae minjung sahangnon.”

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to overcome the limitations of the dominant scholarship by interjecting a minjung-oriented perspective into their research and writing.87 Minjung history, however, unlike subaltern studies, developed largely inspired by, and in close tandem with, the South Korean democratization movement. The 1970 self-immolation of garment cutter Chon T’aeil was emblematic for this group (and for critical intellectuals at large) of the courage, dedication, and sacrifice of Korean people standing up to defend their rights and claim their rightful place in history in the face of the intensification of capitalistic development and the military dictatorship’s brutal suppression of people’s basic rights. Historian Yi Manyol wrote:

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Minjung as the subject of history, minjung as a main object of historiography, emerged due to [historians’] discovering the suffering of minjung during the painful era of the 1970s and 1980s. Historians have previously encountered minjung only as an ideal form in the pages of tattered documents, unrelated to their own historical experience. During the 1970s, however, minjung leaped out from the pages, alive, in front of them, having a direct bearing on their lives. . . . Witnessing minjung making history, historians rediscovered the true meaning of the oft-repeated phrase that “minjung is the subject of history” and found a point of view from which they could reassess history.88 To call for a reassessment of Korean history, however, was not merely an intellectual or an academic proposition at the time. The division of the country in 1945 and the subsequent Korean War caused the discipline of Korean history to undergo a complete realignment in terms of both scholars and approaches. A large number of left-leaning intellectuals, including most Marxist historians, went to North Korea immediately after the division. The few remaining leftists and many middle-of-the-road (chungdop’a) intellectuals either voluntarily went over or were forcibly taken to North Korea by North Koreans during the Korean War.89 Postwar South Korea’s history became dominated by empiricists (munhon kojung sahakcha), and historians in general avoided research or the teaching of post-1945 history, which they claimed was too contemporary to be considered a proper subject for historians. Even as late as the late 1980s, few universities taught post-1945 Korean history, and historians continued to claim that it was impossible 87. On subaltern studies, see, among others, Guha and Spivak, eds., Selected Subaltern Studies. 88. Yi, “Han’guksa yon’gu taesang,” 13–14; quoted in Chong, “Han’guk eso minjung sahak ui songnip,” 11–12. 89. Im, “Puk uro kan maksujuui yoksahakcha.”

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to objectively tackle contemporary issues in their work.90 The wellknown historian Kang Man’gil traces this reluctance of historians to the colonial era, a time when contemporary Korean history was indeed the history of colonial subjugation and therefore “an obstacle to overcome” rather than an object of research.91 Furthermore, by engaging in contemporary history, one risked unemployment and imprisonment, and this risk continued until the 1980s. The near-absence of post-1945 history in research and teaching helped to perpetuate the officially sanctioned historical perspective in society at large. As I discuss in chapter 2, the state ideology of anticommunism and suspicion of North Korea had blocked the emergence of the countermemory of Korea’s recent history. Furthermore, the continuing division and the confrontation with the North provided the state with a powerful justification for its policy of “development first and democracy later.” In the late 1970s, Kang Man’gil applied the term “division consciousness” (pundan uisik) to existing efforts to critically engage with post-1945 history, and the term spread widely among intellectuals.92 The “division consciousness” implicitly questioned South Korea’s autonomy vis-à-vis the United States and Japan, and in turn it implicated the ruling regime in its “collaborating” role. It also held the U.S. decision to divide Korea, which eventually led to the Korean War, responsible for engendering a “historical rupture” (yoksajok tanjol ), causing not only the tragic loss of lives and suppression of democratic developments but also ushering in anticommunism as the state ideology and extinguishing the once-vibrant post-1945 social movements.93 This critical stance toward the United States, along with the notion of minjung as a historical agent, constituted one of the central propositions of minjung history. Minjung history developed also as a reaction against nationalist and previous Marxist scholarship of Korean history. While recognizing that both scholarships tried to overcome the pernicious impact of the colonialist histories propagated by Japanese scholars from the late nineteenth century, minjung historians argued that both were limited. Nationalist historians conceived of nation “ideally” and saw nation as the prime agent of history, thereby subsuming all other histories under the category of nation. Marxist historians, on the other hand, endeavored to undermine the Japanese view of Korean history as stagnant by making Korean history a part of universal 90. 91. 92. 93.

Kang, “Taehak Han’guksa kyoyuk.” Ibid., 18–19. See Kang, “Pundan sidae sahak ui songkyok,” 15. Ch’oe et al., “Gwangju hangjaeng,” 65.

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The Construction of Minjung

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history. Their efforts to apply Western historical development to Korea’s case became “too mechanical,” however, and unique and particular aspects of Korean history were lost, according to minjung historians. Both therefore failed to present a correct image of minjung.94 Minjung historians, despite a common set of shared perspectives, were by no means a homogeneous, unitary group with a set of cohesive doctrines; in fact, it was not clear if they had an operational definition of minjung among themselves even in the 1980s. One of the most influential publications of this period, the six-volume series titled Haebang chonhusa ui insik (Understanding pre- and post-liberation history),95 was a representative work of minjung perspective; it is doubtful, however, that individual contributors to this series at the time would have identified themselves as minjung scholars. What distinguished minjung historians from other scholars in the 1980s was therefore not so much methodologies or approaches but rather their emphasis on “scientific” and “praxis-oriented” scholarship, obtaining universality of Korean history and serving the nationalist and democratization movement.96 Minjung historians also believed that the intelligentsia was not a class that stood alone in society; overcoming their own “petit bourgeois” limitations was critical for developing a higher level of historical consciousness, which could only take place through a fusion with the minjung. Public symposia and publications became an important venue through which the notion of minjung was articulated and disseminated, a forum through which scholars met minjung as equals, as well as a forum through which the traditional boundaries between intellectuals and minjung were actively deconstructed.97 Equally important for minjung historians was a cooperative process of research and writing. Cooperative work was attempted not only for efficiency but also as a conscious effort to “do away with competitive, achievement-oriented” scholarship and to “cooperatively resolve” problems arising in the process of research and writing, which they saw as a form of the much-emphasized praxis.98 Critical to minjung historians’ engagement with the public was the existence of a number of publishing houses founded by dismissed student activists or journalists who sponsored their symposia and put out publications. Largely responsible for publishing “social science literature” widely read among movement activists, these 94. Kang et al., “80–yondae minjung sahangnon,” 25. 95. The volumes of this series were published between 1979 and 1989. For an analysis of this series, see Em, “ ‘Overcoming’ Korea’s Division,” 460–79. 96. Kang et al., “80–yondae minjung sahangnon,” 25–26. 97. Chon et al., Han’guk hyondaesa wa yoksa uisik, 3. 98. Kang et al., “80–yondae minjung sahangnon,” 36.

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publishers were an integral part of the minjung movement in the 1970s and 1980s.99 The crisis of historical subjectivity that generated an acute sense of Korean modern history as a failure, combined with the emergence of a group of scholars with their “division consciousness” and minjung-oriented perspective, gave rise to a critical engagement with history. From the Tonghak Peasant Uprising of 1894 to the Gwangju Uprising of 1980, historical events were given the task of providing not only lessons for the present, with their implicit critiques of the present regime, but also directions for the future. The Gwangju Uprising of 1980 was the most critical in the rise of the discourse of minjung as subjects of history. The Gwangju Uprising and Countermemory

“All roads led to Gwangju” in the 1980s.100 When the student leader Kim Minsok vehemently called for embracing the “truth of this era” in 1985, he was also pointing to Gwangju. The era’s truth could not be articulated without reference to Gwangju; the experience of Gwangju overdetermined every aspect of the minjung movement in the 1980s.

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The Event, May 18–27, 1980

The seemingly invincible power of the Yusin regime was brought down by none other than the very right hand of that power, the chief of the Korean Central Intelligence Agency (KCIA). For dissident students and intellectuals, the death of Park Chung Hee on October 26, 1979, meant the end of the era bearing the name of Yusin and all of its absurdities and political terror. If the Yusin period was the Frozen Republic, the new era was the Spring of Seoul. The end of the Yusin regime opened a floodgate of democratic yearnings in all sectors of society. Miners in Sabuk in Gangwon Province opened the door for the workers’ movement by staging a demonstration and briefly occupying the city in April and May; Ch’onggye Textile Union workers in Seoul rose up to demand their livelihood; and students nationwide began calling for campus democratization and demanding the resignation of “yellow” (oyong) 99. For a detailed account of history and the role of publishing houses as a countercultural force against the authoritarian regime in the 1970s and 1980s, see Cho, Han’guk ollon kwa ch’ulp’an chonollijum. 100. This popular saying of the 1980s was frequently invoked in journals and newspapers as well as in conversations among scholars and movement activists.

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professors and deans and the expansion and improvement of university facilities, among other things.101 They also called for a quick end to the transitional government and the promise of a civilian government, along with doing away with Yusin remnants. By March 1980, almost all universities saw demonstrations calling for the lifting of the Martial Law, the release of arrested dissidents, and the resignation of Chun Doo Hwan, who later became president of the Fifth Republic (1980–88) and whom the students saw as the main architect of the December 12 coup that led to his assuming the leadership of the military.102 On May 15, 300,000 citizens joined 100,000 students at the central Seoul railway station to demand the lifting of martial law.103 By May 18, however, all the hopeful and euphoric voices were brutally silenced. Martial law was expanded to the rest of the country; state security agents picked up political and student leaders one by one; special airborne troops occupied university campuses and factories; and the streets fell silent and empty, left only with the scratching noise of the treads of armored vehicles. In Gwangju, South Jeolla Province, university students also began to demand campus democratization and political reform as soon as the new academic term started in March.104 The May 18 street demonstration began as an ordinary and unremarkable student protest, with the same demands as those being presented in the rest of the country. The protest turned into a citywide, popular rebellion lasting ten days, however, as citizens of Gwangju began to join the students in massive numbers, angered by the paratroopers’ brutal and indiscriminate killing and maiming of demonstrators and innocent bystanders starting on May 18. Taking up arms to defend the city and 101. “Kyoktonghanun hagwon’ga,” 249. “Yellow” here refers to faculty members who had actively collaborated with the previous regime. But students also called for the resignation of those who had used violence in their dealings with students and who were considered “incompetent.” 102. Under the martial law in effect since October 27, 1979, Major General Chun Doo Hwan, head of the Army Security Command and in charge of the military investigation of Park’s assassination, carried out a bloodless coup on December 12 and later occupied the Army Security Command and Korea Central Intelligence Agency. He soon became the chairman of the Standing Committee on Emergency Policy of the Legislative Council for National Security. Shortly thereafter, Chun became the de facto ruler of South Korea behind the civilian regime of Ch’oe Kyuha. Asia Watch, Human Rights in Korea, 32. 103. The decision by student leader to retreat from Seoul Station, which has become one of the most contested issues in the history of the student movement in South Korea, is largely attributed to a widespread fear among the leaders that the military might intervene. The decision was made by the general assembly of university student government presidents from fifty-five universities nationwide. Various movement groups later criticized this decision as having allowed, however inadvertently, the military to prepare for the onslaught that followed in Gwangju. Chang, “Yonse haksaeng undong paengnyonsa,” 118–119. 104. My brief account of the Gwangju Uprising here is based on Chung et al., Memories of May 1980.

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themselves, they had pushed the paratroopers out of the city by May 21. For five days the people of Gwangju governed themselves autonomously and peacefully. The provincial building in the city became a focal point of citizens’ various activities from the first day of the uprising. As the rumor about an impending invasion of state troops spread, citizens organized the Gwangju Simin T’ujaeng Wiwonhoe (Struggle Committee of Gwangju Citizens) and vowed to defend the city. About 150 people stayed in the provincial building and met their deaths on May 27 when special airborne commandos and 20,000 martial law troops reoccupied the city, with a massive array of equipment and weapons, including eighteen tanks and helicopters. The martial law forces cut off telephone lines within the city, as well as between the city and the rest of the province, and Gwangju was completely isolated when the troops began their carnage. During the ten-day uprising, more than 200 were killed, hundreds went missing, and thousands were injured.105 The American commander of the United States–South Korea Combined Forces Command (CFC) approved the deployment of the troops to Gwangju, and U.S. President Ronald Reagan approved the course of action taken by Chun Doo Hwan and his subsequent emergence as the leader of South Korea.106 The new military leaders were ruthless and swift in dispensing with “undesirable elements,” such as gang members, drug dealers, and smugglers, who were sent to military camps to be “re-educated.” Under the “purification campaign” generally known as Samch’ong kyoyuktae, 5,603 civil servants and 3,274 teachers and journalists were purged, and 811 politicians were banned from political activities. More than 60,000 individuals were convicted of violating “public peace and order” and sent to purification camps and tried in the military tribunal between April 1980 and January 1981. Of these, 39,742 spent from one month to several years at a military 105. In the aftermath of the Gwangju Uprising, various human rights organizations estimated more than two thousand dead, while the government claimed the number to be around 191. The recently published and authoritative account of the events by a group of former participants, Memories of May 1980, does not give a firm number of deaths. It disputes the credibility of the number given by official sources, however, citing that many of the dead were buried secretly and their whereabouts are still unknown. The book gives the number of injured as 1,468 based on a survey conducted by the Society of May 18 Casualties. Ibid., 386–89. According to the 5.18 Kinyom Chaedan (May 18 Memorial Foundation), established in 1994 with funds from government and individuals, the Law to Compensate Persons Involved in the Gwangju Democratic Movement was revised, and the fifth compensation was given by March 2004. The number of total applications for compensation for the dead was 240, for missing persons 409, and for injured 5,019. Of these 154, 70, and 3,028 cases respectively were compensated. See 5.18 Kinyom Chaedan, “Gwangju minjuhwa undong.” 106. Chung et al., Memories of May 1980, 396. For a discussion of the United States–South Korea CFC, see chapter 3.

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Citizens of Gwangju gather to demand democracy on May 16, 1980, in front of the provincial building. Courtesy of Noonbit Publishing Co., © Shin Bok-jin, 2006.

camp located in the Gangwon Province doing hard labor and were subjected to physical abuse under subhuman conditions. Many were innocent victims picked up by the police; each police station was given a quota to fill. Student activists, labor activists, participants in the Gwangju Uprising, as well as doctors, professors, and high school students were included. Some were brought in for having tattoos, a minor traffic violation, or a fistfight with a neighbor. High school students who were targeted by their teachers as “delinquent” or “conscientized” (i.e., those involved in student activism) were sent to the camp; they did not have any rights to rebuttal against the teachers or to visit their families before being sent away. In 1988 the Ministry of Defense reported that fifty people died during “re-education” while 397 died due to the “aftereffects of re-education.” In 2003, after a prolonged campaign by the victims and their families, the National Assembly passed a law to clear the names of those convicted and to offer compensation to victims.107 107. Samch’ong is said to refer to purification of three “evil” elements of society: violence, threat and fraud, and corruption in social morals. The incident is yet another case of the massive human rights violations committed by the Chun regime. For further discussion, see Samch’ong Kyoyuktae Inkwon Undong Yonhap, Samch’ong kyoyuktae paekso.

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The Gwangju Uprising was a source of collective “primordial experience and original sin.”108 The Gwangju-born novelist Im Ch’oru wrote: The [post-Gwangju period] was an era in which the deaths of hundreds and the suffering and cries of tens of thousands were simply ignored and rationalized too easily in the name of groundless rumor. The voices that tried to inform others of the truth were completely violated, and the majority turned their backs and kept silent under the terror and falsehood. It was a time when intellect, conscience, and morality were pushed to the background by violence.109 The sense of despair and darkness that permeated university campuses and the minjung movement at large immediately after Gwangju was captured in the songs of the time. The folk singer Kim Min’gi pronounced post-Gwangju “the dark era of death” in which “history is calling, oozing out thick tears and red blood.”110 Another song declared: “The day is dark and the night is long, and our brothers are tired of falsehood and deception.” Low and somber in melody, the song’s last stanza with its line “Let us go, go” hit listeners with a wave of “uncontrollable shivers.”111 After the deaths of so many people, and as conversations became hushed in streets, in classrooms, and on campus quadrangles, the days were indeed dark and the nights long. In these songs, even God could not speak or hear, and one did not know “if [God] is dead, or crying in a dark alley, or buried under garbage.”112 The Gwangju-based poet Kim Chunt’ae lamented that not only God but also birds had abandoned Gwangju.113 A member of the class of 1982 cried out, “Could there ever be another moment in modern Korean history where hope and despair intersected more extremely and violently?”114

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The Gwangju Uprising as a Historical Event

It was in the process of counterremembering that the 1980 Gwangju Uprising truly became a “historical event,”115 “a turning point,” and a “watershed event 108. Song, “Yollin konggan ul hyanghan chonhwan,” 1347–48. 109. Quoted in ibid., 1348. 110. The lyrics of Kim Min’gi’s “Ch’in’gu, II” (Friend, II) can be found in Soultae Meari, ed., Meari che 9–chip, 228. 111. Yi, “Gwangju minjung hangjaeng,” 287. 112. This is from a song that appeared in late 1983 and became popular among activists. See Yi, “Noraero pon 80–yondae haksaeng undong,” 165. 113. Kim, “Ah! Gwangju! Korea’s Cross,” 27–32. 114. Chon, “Nodo 58–nyon kaettinya?” 100. 115. For a theoretical discussion, see Sewell, “Historical Events.”

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of the last hundred years.”116 It was also during the process of rearticulating Gwangju that the political culture of the democratization movement became altered. This movement, which previously aspired to bring democracy to Korea, was sharply interjected with the urgency of a revolution based on “scientific analysis” and a “popular base,” the theoretical elaboration of which consumed the decade of the 1980s. The grounds of the minjung movement discourse shifted; words such as “minjung,” “uprisings,” “revolution,” and “democracy” took on new meanings as they were spoken in the context of radical political change. The entire 1980s movement and its visions for the future were not imaginable or possible without Gwangju. Three preexisting conditions did much to give this failed uprising its paradigmatic potency. First, Gwangju had a long history of the central power discriminating against its people and local culture, the phenomenon now known as “regionalism.” Although some scholars trace this regionalism to the Unified Silla period of the seventh century, it was with the Park Chung Hee regime that regional differentiation became systematic.117 Park’s uneven and discriminatory industrial policy left Jeolla Province virtually untouched by economic development. With only one large-scale industrial complex (compared to eight in Gyeongsang region), the Jeolla region befitted the characterization of “internal colony.”118 More than half of the fifty largest conglomerates (chaebol ) were owned by those born in the Gyeongsang region. Corporations owned by individuals born in the Gyeongsang region with 1,000 employees or more accounted for 61.3 percent of total sales, making Korea’s economy “Gyeongsang Province chaebol capitalism.”119 Society’s elite positions, from military general to banker to educator, have been dominated by those from the Gyeongsang region.120 The structural discrimination against the Jeolla region went hand in hand with social prejudice against its people,121 much as Italy’s historically differentiated regional development accompanied negative images of southerners.122 The Park regime’s unequal industrialization policy left the Jeolla people 116. Ch’oe et al., “Gwangju hangjaeng,” 39. 117. See Ch’oe, “Chiyok kamjong,” 30–39. 118. Kim, Han’guk chongch’i, 208. 119. Hwang, Chiyok p’aekwon ui nara, 9, 329. 120. Ibid., 329–30. See also Yang, “South Korea’s Top Bureaucratic Elites.” 121. A survey that attempted to gauge social distance among regions shows that Koreans in general mistrusted those born in Jeolla Province. When respondents were asked whether they would form the following relationships with those born in Jeolla Province, more than half responded negatively: 56 percent were against marriage, 61 percent against friendship, 63 percent against partnership in business, and 59 percent against rentals to people from this province. Min, “Sahoe simnijok uro pon chiyok kamjong,” 179. 122. Holub, Antonio Gramsci, 224.

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comprising the lowest strata of the society, constituting most of the migrant population. The mass media reproduced and strengthened this negative image in their portrayal of the lower class.123 True to Antonio Gramsci’s observation that language is not only class-related but also space-related,124 the Jeolla dialect has long been associated with backwardness and boorishness.125 The Gwangju Uprising was a culmination of long-brewing resentment against the regime.126 The state immediately branded the Gwangju Uprising as sedition stirred up by long-time opposition leader Kim Dae Jung. The people of Gwangju came to identify his political suppression with their own, and he became the symbol of their accumulated and collective suffering.127 A second specific condition for equating Gwangju with the revolutionary path was the “crisis of historical subjectivity.” As I argued earlier, the sense of historical rupture began with the perception of Korean history as disrupted and distorted, starting with the case of the immediate post-1945 historical relations between South Korea and the United States. The division of the country and the U.S. military occupation of the southern half were considered the most critical factors in the formation of the anticommunist ruling structure in South Korea. Prior to the Gwangju Uprising, the United States was considered “sacred and inviolable.” One could criticize the South Korean ruling regime but could not go into the fundamentals of U.S.-South Korea relations; “one had to keep an appearance of decorum.”128 The democratization movement of the 1970s was also not entirely free from the tendency to rely on assistance from the United States. Many dissidents in the 1970s were Protestant and Catholic leaders, and their church-based international networks enabled them to receive funds and other forms of assistance from the West. Those with informal ties with the U.S. Embassy staff in Seoul advocated militant 123. Kim, Han’guk chongch’i, 163–64. 124. Gramsci, Modern Prince, 29–51, quoted in Holub, Antonio Gramsci, 139–40. 125. Television dramas commonly used Jeolla dialect in portraying the lower class. Kim Manhum cites a very popular minidrama, “Morae sigye” (Hourglass) that dealt with the Gwangju Uprising and aired in the mid-1990s. Of the three main characters who were born in Jeolla Province, the one using the Jeolla dialectic was the most villainous. Kim, Han’guk chongch’i, 164–65. 126. Social discourse on regionalism preceded the Gwangju Uprising of 1980 but it became a key variable in election politics from 1987. Prior to Gwangju, researchers tended to focus on regional stereotypes and prejudices from a psychological perspective. See Kim, Han’guk chongch’i, 129. This is not to say that regionalism was not a factor during previous presidential elections. As early as the 1963 presidential election, the Yeongnam region, where Park Chung Hee was born and grew up, voted heavily for him, whereas provinces around Seoul voted for Yun Poson, the major opposition candidate. See Kim and Koh, “Regionalism and Voter Alignment.” 127. Ch’oe, “Chiyok kamjong,” 34. 128. Ch’oe et al., “Gwangju hangjaeng,” 42.

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strategies in attacking the regime and believed the United States was willing to back them up.129 The public’s historical image of the United States as an ally of the Korean people was such that the people of Gwangju expected the United States to intervene on their behalf during the uprising. When the U.S. government stationed its 7th Fleet with an aircraft carrier in Busan, people in Gwangju believed its purpose was to warn Chun Doo Hwan to restrain his use of force.130 The importance the people of Gwangju attached to American intentions, strategies, and views was again indicated in the publication of Gwangju-related documents, which began in 1997. Five volumes (3,701 pages) of the 41–volume collection put together by the Gwangju Kwangyok-si 5.18 Saryo P’yonch’an Wiwonhoe (Compilation Committee of the 5.18 Related Historical Documents) contain nothing but documents wired from the U.S. Embassy in South Korea to the U.S. Department of State during the uprising. The committee included them in the volume as “indispensable documents in understanding how the United States has perceived Korea’s situation, especially that of the Gwangju Uprising.”131 Given the privileged place of the United States on the cognitive map of South Koreans, not only the U.S. failure to intervene on behalf of the people but also its deep involvement in the suppression was a rude awakening.132 From the perspective of the minjung movement, the Gwangju Uprising proved decisively that the United States had not only been deeply involved in Korea but also had shared responsibility for the ugliness of Korean history, for its authoritarianism, military dictatorship, and political terror. Furthermore, the United States promoted its own military and economic gains.133 This critical perception of the United States was the beginning of the crumbling of the once seemingly invincible cold-war ideology, as well as the beginning of the democratization movement’s turn to a revolutionary course. The third specific condition for the equation of Gwangju with the revolution was the notion of “minjung.” Even prior to Gwangju, the democratization movement as a whole had been occupied with defining 129. Ibid., 58. 130. See the statement circulated on May 26, 1980, in Gwangju Kwangyok-si 5.18 Saryo P’yonch’an Wiwonhoe, ed., 5.18 Gwangju minjuhwa undong, 2:81. 131. See “Kanhaengsa” (unpaginated). 132. The claim was based on, among other things, the fact that South Korea’s Twentieth Infantry Division was released in the early stage of Gwangju from the United States–South Korea Combined Forces Command (CFC). The U.S. government claimed that the release of the troops was for the purpose of “crowd control and security work.” Peterson, “Americans and the Gwangju Incident,” 61. 133. Yi, Miguk ui taehan chongch’aek, 93.

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and elaborating the true nature of minjung. “Minjung” usually meant “common people” in the everyday use of the term. But it was not a term that ordinary people, officials, or the mass media would invoke casually; kungmin or simin (citizen), or taejung (masses), were used more often. The uprising rendered the pre-existing ambiguity of this term moot on the one hand and even more contentious on the other. The ordinary citizens of Gwangju rose up in arms to defend democracy, thereby affirming the minjung as a historical subject. However, those who remained in the provincial building on the last day of the uprising and met their deaths heroically fighting the state troops were the very bottom of this minjung— factory workers and lumpen proletariats, those Marx had derided as counterrevolutionary, “the whole indefinite, disintegrated mass, parasites and self-indulgent drones.”134 Very few intellectuals and students remained in the provincial building; furthermore, they had even advocated the return of arms to the authorities. Within the minjung movement, the citizens of Gwangju were projected as true examples of historical subjects. In their death, all became remembered as “martyrs of democracy”; the spilling of their blood becoming a transformative sacrifice. At the same time, the working class and lumpen proletariat’s disproportionate share in the sacrifice135 made the discourse of minjung more contested. The workers and lumpen proletariat were deemed true revolutionaries in the immediate aftermath of Gwangju, while intellectuals and students were regarded with suspicion for their “abandonment” of Gwangju. The death of Pak Kwanhyon, a student leader who left Gwangju to avoid arrest during the uprising, from a prolonged hunger strike in prison, was widely assumed to have been a form of atonement.136 134. Quoted in Chung, “Making History in the Trench City,” 214. 135. Workers, peasants, and “lumpen proletariats” (the term was used and defined in the original source as the unemployed and those with occasional manual jobs) accounted for 59.9 percent of the injured, 59.2 percent of the dead, 58 percent of the arrested, and 80 percent of the Mobile Strike Task Force (MSTF) organized during the Gwangju Uprising. These figures are drawn from various sources and are quoted in Chung, “Making History in the Trench City,” 207–8. As indiscriminate killing by state troops continued, the citizens of Gwangju armed themselves and organized the MSTF a day before the regular army advanced on May 27. The MSTF was composed of five to six individuals, and its duties included patrolling the city, monitoring and preventing the advancement of martial law troops, arresting suspicious individuals, and maintaining public security. 136. Pak Kwanhyon at the time of the Gwangju Uprising was the president of the student association at Chonnam University and had led demonstrations until May 16, 1980. Wanted by police for his activities, he left Gwangju during the uprising and later worked in a factory in the Seoul area. Arrested in 1982 and sentenced to a five-year prison term, he began a hunger strike and demanded an investigation of the truth about the Gwangju Uprising and better treatment of prisoners. His hunger strike lasted forty days, and he died from complications resulting from it in October 1982. See Chung, “Making History in the Trench City of Gwangju,” 186; Im, Gwangju ui nok.

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For Kim Insuk, a member of the class of 1986, being a university student at the time meant being in the middle of the “fierce site of history and the reality of the era [and] enormous historical meanings and significance were attached to even mundane activities such as sleeping and eating.”137 For many who eventually became undongkwon, the question was not even what one wanted to do with one’s life—the “mandate of what should be done” seemed to present itself with “oppressive clarity.” The weight of such clarity and the self-reproach for being unable to commit oneself to the movement led one Seoul National University student to throw herself into the Han River in 1986, blaming herself for being “cowardly and insincere.”138 The net effect of these factors for the minjung movement was the sense that it had to be completely and irrevocably transformed; the movement had to become “revolutionary.” The meaning and path of this revolution varied according to the individual. Some called for political reform, others for the complete overhaul of the South Korean system. Some articulated their goal as “antiforeign national liberation”; for others, the goal was “socialist revolution.” Regardless of how one articulated one’s goal, one thing was clear: the revolution required the life-and-death commitment of individual participants.139

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Individual Memory and Social Memory

Many ordinary citizens who participated in or witnessed the uprising were afraid of letting the authorities or others know that their son, daughter, wife, or husband was killed or injured or had disappeared. Efforts to coalesce these individual memories into collective, social memory began at once. Demands for investigations of Gwangju were put forth as soon as the massacre was over. The entire decade of the 1980s, starting from the very first day of the uprising, was spent in the struggle over the memory of Gwangju. The state imposed curfews, restricted the mass media, and issued travel bans as soon as the uprising broke out. Completely isolated, the Gwangju people were portrayed as rebels, rioters, impure elements, and extremists, and, worst of all, they were seen as acting on the order of an unsavory politician riding on the coattails of existing regionalism, Kim Dae Jung. Their demands for investigations into the truth concerning Gwangju were consistently met with force; any event that commemorated 137. Kim, “Ch’uok ilsu omnun hyonjae,” 170. 138. Han, Han Wansang sahoe p’yongnon, 214–15. 139. Ch’oe et al., “Gwangju hangjaeng,” 57–58.

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or justified Gwangju was an invitation to prison throughout the Fifth Republic (1980–88).140 Starting in 1984, Gwangju citizens, university students, and dissidents began to stage commemoration ceremonies at the Mangwoltong cemetery where the dead were buried. This annual pilgrimage became a topic of intense and prolonged contention. The state tried to prevent visits to the burial site by various means: it made visits illegal, made access to the burial site difficult by leaving the road unpaved, and dispersed gatherings by force. The state also attempted to “buy off ” the grave sites from the families.141 The battle over terminology was waged equally fiercely. The state insisted on calling the uprising a sat’ae (literally “situation,” as in the state of things), devoid of any particular meaning. The minjung groups insisted on naming it the Gwangju Minjung Hangjaeng (Gwangju People’s Uprising), identifying the citizens of Gwangju as peace-loving democratic citizens who “courageously and resolutely rose up to defend themselves” against the indiscriminate killing.142 Former participants and movement activists fought intensely for the right to own the memory of Gwangju and the right to invoke Gwangju so that it would not be tarnished or appropriated by others. Through this process, Gwangju gained its status as “morally superior,” a critical weapon against the ruling regime.143 At the same time, its status as morally superior also imposed a revolutionary direction to the minjung movement at large. If Gwangju was a point of departure for the minjung movement, it was a historical burden as well, in the same way that modern history was. The sense of guilt that they had abandoned Gwangju, and that they were incapable of countering the Gwangju massacre, was widespread not only in the movement but also among students and intellectuals in general. Five years after the uprising, student leader Kim Minsok declared, “Modern Korean history cannot move even one inch further before overcoming Gwangju of May 1980. Without confronting the reality of Gwangju of May 1980, and 140. For example, novelist Hwang Sogyong, author of one of the first publications on Gwangju, Chugumul nomo sidae ui odumul nomo, was charged with “spreading false rumors” and detained for ten days in the 1980s. In the late 1990s, it was revealed that Hwang had lent his name to protect the author of the book, Yi Chaeui, a student at Chonnam University at the time. The book was republished in English as Lee, Gwangju Diary. 141. When I visited Mangwoltong in 1984, the government had paid $12,500 each to ten families to have their family members’ graves removed from the cemetery. 142. In 1988, the Congressional Hearing on Gwangju redefined the Gwangju Uprising as a “democratization movement.” Consequently, the Gwangju Compensation Law was promulgated. In 1994, in an effort to unify all Gwangju-related groups, the May 18 Memorial Foundation was established, with Kim Dae Jung and members of the National Assembly as founding members. See “Owol un tasi hanada,” 28. 143. Chong, “Gwangju minjuhwa undong,” 151.

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furthermore, without overcoming Gwangju, any act, be it political, social, economic, religious, literary, musical, artistic, or even social movements for democratization, is incomplete, hypocritical, vain, and even fraudulent!”144 Kim Minsok further claimed that the Korean people’s “lack of historical consciousness,” which failed to “completely eliminate the remnants of the Park dictatorship,” in part contributed to the failure in Gwangju. The people of Gwangju, fighting a battle they were destined to lose, sacrificed themselves on behalf of the minjung: “The defeat [of Gwangju] was a result of the [Gwangju people’s] willingness to take the failure of the minjung upon their own shoulders and plunge themselves into the national history; it is atonement [on the part of the Gwangju people] for the nation.”145 Kim was pointing to another widespread sentiment within the movement in the 1980s: the people of Gwangju sacrificed themselves for the democratization movement. Histories Rewritten

With the reevaluation of Gwangju as a starting point, minjung practitioners began to rearticulate major historical events from the end of the Choson period to the present, focusing on key events in which the potential of the minjung seems to them to have emerged, bringing past events into the public arena to help reconfigure the present. The first of these events to consider is the Tonghak Peasant Uprising.

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The Tonghak Peasant Uprising, 1894

The Tonghak peasant movement, starting in 1893 and lasting until the end of 1894, was the largest peasant revolt in Korean history. It is heralded as a historical example of the common people rising up against government corruption, a feudalistic social order, and the aggression of imperialist powers. Initially a religious movement based on Eastern thought (Tonghak) that proclaimed the equality of all human beings, among other things, Tonghak gradually developed into a social and political movement that included demands for land distribution, tax reduction, human rights, and Korea’s political autonomy. The peasant revolt of 1894 was brutally crushed by the combined forces of Korean, Japanese, and Chinese troops, which the Choson government called in, eventually leading to a war between the Japanese and 144. Kim, “Hangso iyuso,” 16. 145. Ibid., 20.

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Chinese (the Sino-Japanese War). Despite its failure to obtain immediate objectives, it is regarded as one of the most pivotal events in modern Korean history, for it ushered in the demise of the Choson order and gave rise to the subsequent nationalist movements in Korea.146 Tonghak has received continuous attention from scholars in various fields, from history to religious studies to Korean literature. Tonghak has also figured prominently in both popular and historical novels.147 In 1994, the one hundredth anniversary of the Tonghak Peasant Uprising was celebrated with great fanfare and a variety of activities, ranging from academic conferences to the staged performance of musical drama (ch’angguk) to the re-enactment of the Tonghak peasant war.148 While scholars in the post-1945 period have rarely questioned Tonghak’s nationalist and anti-imperialist stance, especially since the goal of its second uprising was specifically to repel the Japanese army, their evaluations of Tonghak have varied over time, reflecting sociopolitical circumstances and the larger societal concerns of the time in which they were writing.149 The literature on Tonghak is vast; my discussion of Tonghak here is limited to its immediate relevance to the minjung movement. The rise of a minjungoriented perspective starting from the late 1970s has emphasized not only Tonghak’s nationalist but also “revolutionary” elements, emphasizing it as a product of the common people’s “heightened class consciousness” acquired through continuous rebellions against the feudal order throughout the nineteenth century. This minjung perspective is shown in the work of historian Pak Ch’ansung, whose publication in 1985, at the height of the minjung movement, reveals how Tonghak was directly pulled into the discourse and practice of 146. The first uprising on January 1894 in Gobu, North Jeolla province, was against a local magistrate who extorted exorbitant taxes from the peasants. Demands included land distribution, tax reduction, and human rights. After successfully routing government forces, the peasant army distributed government properties to peasants and then moved to other areas. The second uprising started in late 1894 when the Choson government called Japan to aid in suppressing the Tonghak army. For an extensive list of studies on Tonghak, see Lew, “Conservative Character.” A special volume on Tonghak on the occasion of its one hundredth anniversary appears in Korea Journal 34, no. 4 (1994), which also contains a brief summary of some of the major Korean publications on Tonghak. 147. Tonghak appears in the “new novel” (sinsosol ) of the early twentieth century to contemporary literature, and from Pak Kyongni’s monumental T’oji (Land) in South Korea to Pak T’aewon’s Kabo nongmin chonjaeng (The peasant war of the Kabo year) in North Korea. Pak T’aewon’s novel was republished in South Korea in 1989 as Chonp’yon Kabo nongmin chonjaeng: Pak T’aewon taeha sosol (The peasant war of the Kabo year: The completed volume). 148. See “Yoksahwa silp’aehan munhaksok ui Tonghak,” 46; “Tonghak un chinhwaron ul kukpok handa.” 149. See, for example, Lee, “Socioeconomic Background,” 91.

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the minjung movement. Pak opens the article by commenting that previous studies on Tonghak did not give sufficient attention to the participants themselves, particularly to their visions of the future. According to Pak, the peasant rebellions of the nineteenth century, of which the 1862 Rebellion in the Year of Imsul is the most representative, were limited in terms of their political goals and geographical boundaries. A revolt against heavy tax collection in Jinju, Gyeongsang Province, it was led by the impoverished elite and the local landed gentry, and joined by agricultural laborers and the unemployed. This group demanded the punishment of local functionaries for their wrongdoings rather than directly targeting the “contradictions of the oppressive feudal system.” The rebellion did not expand beyond the counties in which the revolt first took place.150 According to Pak, the leaders of the Tonghak movement possessed an advanced political consciousness and articulated the problem as embedded in the ruling class of the existing feudal system, thereby gaining a critical edge over previous movements in its efforts to expand nationwide. The leadership of the movement was composed of “progressive intellectuals” such as Chon Pongjun, the leader of the armed uprising and an impoverished elite, while the main force of the movement was the mass of people who suffered under the feudal system, such as commoners, small merchants, and “untouchables” including butchers and tanners as well as slaves. The movement therefore reflected their interests: “Their economic vision was to replace feudal control of land and produce with peasant ownership of land, economic autonomy for small farmers, and the lifting of restrictions on small merchants (to break official monopolies). Their social and political vision was emancipation of the untouchables and slaves, equal access to employment at all levels regardless of lineage, and local self-rule based on the chipkangso (peasant councils) that were formed during the rebellion.”151 As Kenneth Wells notes, while Pak’s study does not offer “remarkable or innovative” methodology or new factual information, it is imbued with the author’s unstated belief that the Tonghak movement “is the proper place to look for the minjung spirit and dynamic of Korean history.”152 In Pak’s study, the peasants of the Tonghak movement struggled to not only free themselves from oppression of the elite-centered society of Choson but also to be reborn as modern beings (kundaejok in’gan), envisioning a new social, political, and economic world order based on equality, freedom, autonomy, and 150. Pak, “Tonghak nongmin chonjaeng,” 74. 151. Ibid., 70–73; Here I use Kenneth Wells’s summarized translation from his “Cultural Construction,” 26–27. 152. Wells, “Cultural Construction,” 27.

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self-rule.153 Many later studies also locate the beginning of modern consciousness with the Tonghak movement.154 Wells goes so far as to suggest that Pak’s study of the Tonghak movement implies that the minjung of the time, had they been left to dictate the course of history, would have resolved the sociopolitical issues of the time:

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Not only were the “feudal” rulers caught up in contradictions which the peasant movement would have solved or avoided, but all the other alternative visions for national reorganization or salvation at the time were either also doomed by internal contradictions or based on alien systems which had little part in minjung culture. The selection of the Tonghak movement implies a rejection of the 1895 Kabo reforms, the 1896–1899 Independence Club, the enlightenment campaigns up to 1919, and the whole culturalist movement during the colonial period.155 While minjung-oriented scholars were perhaps less sanguine about openly rejecting the “bourgeois” nationalist movements, the minjung movement in the 1980s had no qualms about rejecting them on a wholesale basis. For the minjung practitioners, the Tonghak movement was the legacy they had inherited and claimed as their own. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, statements and manifestoes accompanying protests would invariably start out with the Tonghak movement as an example of “the history of anti-imperialism, antifeudalism, and antiauthoritarianism,” while none of the “bourgeois” nationalist movements would be mentioned.156 The image of Chon Pongjun, the leader of the Tonghak peasant uprising, rendered in a woodcut print, was as ubiquitous in the 1980s in South Korea as that of Che Guevara in the 1960s in the West. The beheaded leader’s piercing gaze greeted those who entered university seminar rooms, independent research institutes, students’ boarding houses, workers’ gathering places, and the offices of movement organizations. One student recalled making her daily vow to remain in the minjung movement in front of Chon’s image.157 The song “Saeya, saeya, p’arang saeya”(Blue bird), 153. Pak, “Tonghak nongmin chonjaeng,” 75. This point is articulated more clearly in Ahn and Park, “Historical Characteristics.” 154. See, among others, Lee, “Socioeconomic Background.” 155. Wells, “Cultural Construction,” 27. 156. See, for example, students’ manifestoes and statements collected in KSCF, “70–yondae huban ui haksaeng undong.” 157. Yi Kyongsuk, interview, Seoul, March 15, 1993.

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which was said to have been sung by Tonghak peasants, was a popular undongkwon song during demonstrations and gatherings. Minjung practitioners actively mobilized Tonghak’s potent image as antiimperialist in their own struggle against the state and the United States. When U.S. pressure to open domestic markets increased in the mid-1980s, Sungjon University students held a symposium on the historical assessment of U.S.-Korea relations and future prospects, followed by a drama titled “Noktu pol e tasi p’io oruda”(Again, rise up in the field of mung-bean flowers). (Chon Pongjun is also known as the Mung-bean General, reputedly due to his small physical stature.) The students followed this event with protests demanding the repeal of the import liberalization policy and with resolutions opposing the “subservient economic policy” of the Chun Doo Hwan regime.158

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The April 3 Jeju Uprising

Though students and intellectuals had embraced the Tonghak movement as the proud legacy of their predecessors’ struggle against imperialist forces, to embrace without reservation post-1945 historical events for the purpose of their own movement was politically dangerous. Many post-1945 historical events were officially deemed antistate and pro-communist, and open contestation of these events resulted in imprisonment and loss of their nationalist public image. As late as August 1994, for example, eight professors were indicted on charges of “benefiting the enemy” (ijoksong) for positively portraying North Korea in their undergraduate liberal arts textbook.159 Despite continuing state suppression and the lack of historical research, a number of post-1945 events began to make their way into the public arena from the 1980s onward. The first such event to be considered here is the previously little-known April 3 Jeju Uprising. Known until the late 1980s simply and ambiguously as the 4.3 sat’ae (April 3 incident), this event took place on Jeju Island in 1948, when a group of leftists, protesting the U.S. military government’s decision to uphold an election on May 10 to set up separate governments in Korea, attacked police and right-wing paramilitary groups. The combined forces of the U.S. military and the South Korean police hunted down insurgents and burned entire villages in a manner that anticipated tactics used in the Vietnam War. Although the exact number of deaths related to this event remains in dispute, various records indicate that 158. Hwang, 80–yondae ui haksaeng undong, 332. 159. See “ ‘Kongan’ polp’an e son siryon ui taehak,” 36–37.

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close to ten percent of the population was killed. Only about 550 of the dead were acknowledged by the army to have been armed insurgents.160 Unlike other armed rebellions that broke out on the mainland in the same year, such as the Yeosu-Suncheon Rebellion, this event did not enter the realm of public discourse until the late 1980s.161 Until then, a willed amnesia ruled the island and the public at large. Family members feared mentioning the names of the dead or even memorializing them in ancestral memorial services (chesa). The official version of the event prevailed, and only in fictionalized accounts by novelists born in Jeju was any countermemory suggested.162 From the mid-1980s, however, the Gwangju Uprising and the growing minjung movement encouraged various activities that would rearticulate the 4.3 Jeju Uprising. Against the official account of the 4.3 Jeju Uprising as a “communist guerrilla insurgency,” alternative perspectives, such as that presented by the Jeju-based research and social action group named the Jeju 4.3 Yon’guso (Jeju 4.3 Research Institute), rearticulated the event as the Jeju people’s resistance against national division and “American imperialism.”163 To this end, the institute proposed renaming the 4.3 incident “Jeju Minjung Hangjaeng” (Jeju People’s Uprising), reinscribing the Jeju people as political actors who consciously acted on their beliefs and ideological commitments.164 This view not only challenged the official one but also directly represented the concerns of the minjung movement that considered democratization, national autonomy, and the reunification of Korea to be its most urgent issues at the time. The 4.3 Jeju Uprising, redefined as a national independence movement, an anticolonial and anti-imperial resistance,165 could be thus regarded as a direct predecessor to the minjung movement. 160. Kim, “Chronicle of Violence,” 5. Kim lists the number of deaths at 80,065, based on official military records. A 1956 government publication (Han’guk p’yollam) set the number of fatalities at 40,000; in 1960, assemblyman Kim Songsuk claimed 50,000 dead. In 1963, a Jeju-based publication listed the number as 86,500. See “T’ukchip: Onul ui taehaksaeng,” 378. Bruce Cumings lists the number of dead as “one in every five or six islanders.” See his Origins of the Korean War, 2:258. 161. The Yeosu-Suncheon Rebellion has been extensively studied; see, for example, Cumings’ Origins of the Korean War, 2:259–67. Much literary work is also devoted to this incident, with the monumental ten-volume novel T’aebaek Sanmaek (Mount T’aebaek) being perhaps the most representative. 162. The most well known of these is Hyon Kiyong’s “Suni samch’on” (Uncle Suni). Soon after this story was published in 1979, Hyon was taken to the Army Security Command and tortured, and the story was banned until the 1980s. See Hyon, “Nae sosol ui mot’ae.” 163. The Jeju 4.3 Research Institute was established in 1989 and published its first journal, Jeju hangjaeng (Jeju uprising) in 1991. 164. Kim, “Mourning Korean Modernity,” 13–14. 165. Ibid.

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From 1988, the Jeju Uprising became one of the persistent topics on university campuses. In 1988, Yi Sanha’s poem “Hallasan” (the name of the mountain located in the center of Jeju Island) circulated widely on university campuses.166 Publications on the Jeju Uprising such as the Jeju minjung hangjaeng (Jeju people’s uprising) and Chamdulchi annun Namdo (The Southern Island that never sleeps) became steady sellers.167 Academic symposia on Jeju attracted hundreds of people, the majority of them reportedly college students. Conference proceedings were immediately put up on wall newspapers in universities, with some university newspapers printing verbatim the insurgents’ statements (hosomun).168 Through elevating the status of the insurgents to true nationalists, the students and intellectuals in the minjung movement located their own position in the current political discourse as equally nationalistic.

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The Korean War and “Revisionist” Scholarship

If the “successful” suppression of the Jeju Uprising was crucial for the emergence of the Syngman Rhee regime (1948–60), the Korean War of 1950–53 was indispensable for the Rhee regime to consolidate its power over civil society. Political scientist Jang Jip Choi (Ch’oe Changjip) argues that no other event comes close to the Korean War in determining the relations between state and civil society in South Korea.169 Perhaps equally important, the war also determined future relations between South Korea and the United States. The most enduring aspect of this relationship was the U.S. military and economic support of the South Korean regimes. Despite the war’s momentous and far-reaching impact on Korea’s politics and society, scholarship on the war was almost nonexistent until the mid-1970s, and even then most work was conducted outside Korea.170 As with the Jeju Uprising, the rise of the minjung movement and the institutionalization of the minjung perspective (to a certain degree) in academia made possible a more critical scholarly approach to the war as well as to the division and North Korea.171 This is not to suggest that South Korean society at large was receptive to alternative views. As the 1998 controversy surrounding Ch’oe Changjip indicates (as I discuss in chapter 2), to write 166. See Yi, Hallasan. 167. Asia Ap’urik’a Rat’in Amerik’a Yon’guwon, Jeju minjung hangjaeng; No, ed., Chamdulchi annun Namdo. 168. “T’ukchip: Onul ui taehaksaeng,” 379. 169. Choi, “Political Cleavages in South Korea,” 21–22. 170. Kim, “Pundan ui kujohwa,” 183. 171. Han’guk Sahoe Hakhoe, ed., Han’guk chonjaeng kwa Han’guk sahoe pyondong, 6.

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about the Korean War was to subject oneself to intense public scrutiny and even to potential charges of being pro-North Korea and violating the National Security Law (NSL). Even before the Gwangju Uprising, some intellectuals sought alternative and more critical views regarding the role of the United States in South Korea. For example, the introduction of dependency theory in South Korea in the mid-1970s did much to undermine U.S. prestige among a small number of intellectuals. But it was Gwangju that “administered a strong shock” and gave momentum to an emerging critical consciousness about the United States. The changing attitude toward the United States in the postGwangju period was the beginning of the long process of undoing the coldwar ideology as well as the four decades of internalization of the Western worldview and American ideals. With the questioning of the role of the United States, the historical place of the communists and leftists of the colonial and postcolonial periods was urgently reassessed, as it had direct bearing on the present. Political scientist Yi Samsong argues that mainstream Korean scholarship on the Korean War had “denied the historical legitimacy of the Korean communist movement in modern Korean history” and mainly aimed to expose the “crimes” of the Korean communist movements, denigrating leftists and praising the United States as a liberator and protector of Korea in the post-1945 period. The leftists, long perceived as the enemy, gradually came to be seen by students and intellectuals in the minjung movement as a poignant reflection of the dilemmas and the fragmentation generated by the dynamics of post-1945 history.172 Although this kind of perspective existed among a few before Gwangju, as I mentioned previously, it was with Gwangju that the perspective gained a wider audience and that the explosive demand for a systematic reinterpretation of modern Korean history began. One response to this demand, according to Yi Samsong, was “revisionist” scholarship from outside South Korea. Working against the traditional or orthodox scholarship that saw the Korean War as a result of Soviet Union expansionism, revisionist scholars placed more responsibility for the war on the United States and South Korea. Represented by Bruce Cumings, Jon Halliday, and Gavan McCormack, among others, revisionist scholarship on the Korean War developed in consonance with growing opposition to the Vietnam War in the 1970s in the United States and elsewhere.173 These scholars were also “freer” to say certain things than Korean scholars were, 172. Yi, Miguk ui taehan chongch’aek, 94–96. 173. For an account of the history, reception, and current state of revisionist scholarship on the Korean War, see Yu, ed., Sujongjuui wa Han’guk hyondaesa.

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given the repressive political condition that existed in South Korea, as I discuss in chapter 2. The revisionist scholarship as a whole offered a “radical” interpretation of the Korean War; it reconfigured the role of the leftists in post-1945 politics and presented the U.S.-South Korea relationship as conflict-ridden and turbulent. It also gave due recognition to the wide base of support that the left had with the Korean people, and it exposed the extent to which the right was dependent on the United States. Revisionist scholarship presented the conflict between the United States and the Korean people as originating from U.S. collaboration with rightists who did not have popular support, and it showed how these conflicts resulted in a war in which most victims were Korean.174 According to Yi Samsong and many who shared the minjung perspective, Bruce Cumings’s The Origins of the Korean War offered, out of all the revisionist views around, the most radical interpretation.175 South Korean scholars who were sympathetic to the minjung perspective hailed the book as a major contribution to the field of contemporary Korean history. Wellknown sociologists Han Wansang and Pak Myonggyu praised Origins for “elevating the scholarship of the Korean War from a mere descriptive level to an analytical level” and for its “minjung-oriented and progressive viewpoints” of Korean contemporary history, the scholarship of which in South Korea had been dominated exclusively by conservative viewpoints.176 In the view of political scientist Pak Myongnim, Origins also elevated the scholarship on the Korean War to the status of a legitimate subject in international studies. As such, Origins would influence future research and thinking not only on the Korean War but also on modern Korean history in general. Whether one agreed with its analysis, Pak Myongnim opined, future scholarship would necessarily have to refer to this work.177 Cumings defines the war as “a civil and revolutionary war.”178 The war was an effort to unify the country and, as such, aspired to accompany a social revolution, including much-desired land reform. The social base of this effort was not only the North’s arms but also the widespread people’s support in the South. That there existed social conditions and forces that would have supported a social revolution in the South and that the North made efforts to reorganize people’s committees and to effect land reform during the three months it occupied the South indicated that the war was 174. 175. 176. 177. 178.

Yi, Miguk ui taehan chongch’aek, 96. Origins of the Korean War, 2 vols. Han and Pak, “Han’guk sahoe yon’gu,” 9. Pak, Han’guk chonjaeng, 41–42. Cumings, Origins of the Korean War, 2:667.

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revolutionary; it was a war to “unify and transform the country,” according to Cumings.179 For the minjung movement, for which the status of the leftists in the post1945 period was one of the most contested issues, what Origins presented was the following. First, the Korean leftists during the U.S. regime had widespread support from the minjung. Second, the leftists were brutally destroyed by the U.S. Third, the confrontation between the leftists and the United States was the critical element in the eventual outbreak of the Korean War. This reinterpretation implied that the division between the North and South would not have been permanent had there not been the brutal “counterrevolution” of the United States against the left.180 Origins thus had the effect of affirming the historical mandate of the minjung movement; the Korean War, presented as a “civil and revolutionary war,” not only negated the official and mainstream account but also recognized as valid the postwar social movements to establish an independent, unified nation.

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History and Countermemory: Song of Ariran

While minjung scholars and activists were actively reexamining history, another kind of countermemory of Korea’s colonial past was taking place surreptitiously. Kim San’s Song of Ariran,181 an inspiring account of a Korean revolutionary during the colonial period, took the South Korean minjung movement by storm in the mid-1980s; it circulated among students, workers, white-collar professionals, soldiers in military barracks— whoever could get hold of a copy before the state authority confiscated bookstore copies. Kim San (his real name is believed to be Chang Chirak) left for Japan at the age of fourteen, after witnessing the brutal Japanese suppression of the March 1 Independence Movement of 1919. He soon abandoned his studies to join revolutionary movements in Manchuria and Shanghai. By 1924 he had become a communist and joined the Chinese Community Party (CCP), changing his previous anarchist beliefs and now believing that a revolution in China would eventually lead to revolutions in East Asia. He was pushed to underground activities after Chiang Kai-shek crushed the workers’ movement in Shanghai in 1927 and the United Front between the CCP and the Kuomintang crumbled. After his escape from the “counterrevolutionary bloodbath” in the aftermath of the failed Canton Commune, he led 179. Ibid.; Yi, Miguk ui taehan chongch’aek, 96. 180. Yi, Miguk ui taehan chongch’aek, 98. 181. Wales and Kim, Song of Ariran.

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a life of “suffer[ing] more than those who died,”182 enduring imprisonments, torture, and a decade of physical and mental privations. Kim San was in Yenan in 1937 as a delegate of the united front of Korean communists and nationalists when he met Nym Wales (Helen Foster Snow). Wales, immediately taken in by his intelligence and his life stories, began to take notes on their conversations, which resulted in the book Song of Ariran. At the time of this English publication in 1941, the whereabouts of Kim San were unknown. It was later revealed that he was suspected of being a Japanese spy and executed by the CCP shortly after Nym Wales last saw him. He was in his thirties when he was killed.183 Kim San was a portrait of the colonized intellectual whose life trajectory was inseparable from the vicissitudes of Korea’s turbulent history from the late nineteenth century to the early twentieth century. His moral rectitude and indomitable spirit were all the more admirable because Kim had known in his short life much personal anguish and many disappointments, including the bitterness of a failed first love, as well as the death and suicides of his comrades, which drove him to contemplate suicide himself. Given to existential musings in the midst of articulating his revolutionary visions, Kim was indeed “a sensitive intellectual, at heart an idealist poet and writer, hurled into one of the bloodiest, ugliest, and most confusing cataclysms of our time.”184 Although he had little in the way of official schooling, he spoke good English and knew Russian well enough to translate some texts into Korean. Kim San became the “Che Guevara of the East” for those who had come to know him through Song of Ariran. The South Korean public had to wait until 1984 for a full Korean translation of Song of Ariran. Even then the book was immediately banned. A Japanese copy of Song of Ariran had circulated underground as “required 182. Ibid., 58. 183. It was not until 1983 that Kim San’s name was cleared by the CCP, mainly through the efforts of former comrades and his son Ko Yonggwang. Kim’s survival of arrests and torture and his continued activities became cause for suspicion. The CCP also discovered a note, among the confiscated documents from the Kuomintang (KMT), concerning the arrest of Kim San. The KMT interrogator had referred to him as “a stupid, bullheaded fool” for steadfastly refusing to confess. There was also a directive from the Japanese police to arrest him; these notes saved his name, if only posthumously. In 1981, his son read Song of Ariran for the first time; the book had not been translated into Chinese and his family was branded counterrevolutionary during the Cultural Revolution. In 1985, the book began to be serialized in Killim sinmun in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture. In South Korea, this book was first serialized for sixteen months from 1946 in the monthly journal Sinch’onji. Yi Yonghui brought a Japanese translation into the country in 1959. In 1987, the 1984 ban was lifted, and in 1992 the book was republished. See Kim, “ ‘Arirang’ i tullyo onda”; “Kim San ui Arirang.” 184. Wales and Kim, Song of Ariran, 53.

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reading” among students and intellectuals long before the Korean translation was publicly available, however, attesting to the widespread desire on the part of students and intellectuals to bring back the “whole” history and to overcome a “distorted” and “disfigured” history. Only in 1993, during the presidency of Kim Young Sam, did the South Korean government acknowledge the need and its willingness to reassess the socialist contribution to the nationalist movement during the colonial period.185 Song of Ariran was a testimony to countless unknown Korean revolutionaries buried in the vast hinterlands of China, Manchuria, Russia, Japan, and the United States during the tumultuous late nineteenth and early twentieth century. These forgotten individuals—communists, socialists, syndicalists, anarchists, and “in-between” revolutionaries—testified to the rich and colorful history that had been silenced in South Korea since 1945 because of their reputed socialist leanings. Kim San’s story resonated deeply with students and intellectuals in the 1980s; they felt they were also living in a time of revolution and that they had been denied knowledge of possibly many other Kim Sans.

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History Reassembled: Commemorations

I have argued thus far that the process of reworking modern Korean history was also a process of constituting minjung as a historical agent and of renegotiating the students’ and intellectuals’ own place in modern history as nationalistic and revolutionary. Reworking history is not limited to reinscribing new meanings to existing “historical events” but also to making “historical” events whose meanings have been ambiguous or not previously articulated. With public performances of memory-making, such as commemorations, this reworked history enters the realm of common knowledge; “people who participate in these events know that other people also know about these events.”186 Common knowledge of these events is crucial to their becoming a part of history. Paul Connerton argues that “to study the social formation of memory is to study those acts of transfer that make remembering in common possible. . . . [I]mages of the past and recollected knowledge of the past are conveyed and sustained by (more or less ritual) performances, [especially] 185. See Han, “Interview,” 28. Han at the time was the minister of reunification and deputy prime minister. 186. My understanding of “common knowledge” and its importance to how historical events acquire their meanings is based on Chwe, Rational Ritual.

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commemorative ceremonies.”187 I would argue further that these commemorative performances not only “convey” and “sustain” received meanings of past events; they themselves constitute meanings and knowledge of past events, rendering whole and meaningful those individual and personal memories that often “are fragmented and immobile, and accompany doubts.”188 In the minjung movement, commemoration of events that had yet to become a part of “proper history” was essential to the construction of the minjung discourse and to the sustaining of the minjung movement. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, commemorations of various events and persons became as ubiquitous and as much a part of the minjung movement as street demonstrations. Those who had committed suicide in protest or died during protest, such as Chon T’aeil, who died protesting harsh working conditions in 1970, and Yi Hanyol, who died after being hit by a tear-gas canister in 1987, became in the process of commemoration martyrs for democracy and therefore patriots or heroes (yolsa).189 In fact, some of these events and individuals have acquired their historical significance mainly through commemorations; prior to commemorations, the historical meaning of many of these events had not been articulated or had been ambiguous.190 The Busan-Masan People’s Uprising of October 1979, which indirectly caused the demise of the Yusin regime, for example, gained its historical importance after repeated and public commemoration by students and intellectuals. Student activists fought to have well-known public places and university quadrangles renamed to recognize individuals or events that were not part of “proper” history at the time, such as those who were executed for allegedly conspiring to overthrow the Park Chung Hee regime or who had been part of the Gwangju Uprising.191 Popular gathering places, such as Kwanghwamun, or in front of a movie theater, were also venues for these commemorative events.192 These commemorative and naming activities functioned not only to diffuse reinterpretation of past events but also to form the basis of a new consensus within the minjung movement and society at large. Mona Ozouf ’s study of festivals during the French Revolution shows how the ritual of festivals and 187. Connerton, How Societies Remember, 39–40; quoted in Chwe, Rational Ritual, 90. 188. Gottschalk, “Multiple Pasts,” 116–35. 189. Yi Hanyol died after being hit by a tear-gas canister during the June Struggle of 1987, and his funeral was reportedly attended by more than one million people. 190. For an account of how an initially little-known 1969 riot at the Stonewall Bar in New York City became a major historical event for the gay and lesbian rights movement in the United States through commemoration, see Chwe, Rational Ritual, 91. 191. “T’ukchip: Onul ui taehaksaeng,” 379. 192. Hwang, 80–yondaeui haksaeng undong, 354.

Lee, Namhee. The Making of Minjung : Democracy and the Politics of Representation in South Korea, Cornell University Press, 2011.

Lee, Namhee. The Making of Minjung : Democracy and the Politics of Representation in South Korea, Cornell University Press, 2011.

Students march for a rally after holding a commemoration service for “democratic martyrs,” January 16, 1988. Provided by Han’guk Ilbo.

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the language used in these festivals served the “function of national integration.”193 The numerous and collective commemorative activities likewise held together the minjung movement, as individual undongkwon gradually transcended personal memories and doubts in their encounter with edifying aspects of the past and the present. Many “inspirational archetypes” for the undongkwon came from among their own peers, as student activists and dissidents who were killed or committed suicide during protests were memorialized. What Friedrich Nietzsche called “the monumental past”194 was therefore not only in the past but also in the present for the undongkwon. As historian Vera Schwarcz observes, the monumental past both inspires and coerces individuals, with its “normative expectations for the individual.”195 These commemorated events and individuals, while a source of integration and inspiration for the undongkwon, also became a part of history that served didactic purpose of the undongkwon. Through harnessing the historically ambiguous notion of minjung into a powerful concept of historical and political agency, the students and intellectuals projected a future community with the minjung as the center. The construction of minjung was also an outcome of the deep sense of displacement resulting from the rapid process of industrialization and modernization, as I discuss in the Introduction. It was a discursive practice that involved negotiation, contestation, and appropriation of the dominant state discourse and national identity.

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193. Ozouf, Festivals and the French Revolution. 194. Nietzsche, On the Advantage and Disadvantage of History; quoted in Schwarcz, “Strangers No More,” 51. 195. Schwarcz, “Strangers No More,” 50–52.

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2. ANTICOMMUNISM AND NORTH KOREA

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In 1982, Mun Pusik was sentenced to death for his role in planning the arson of the U.S. Information Service (USIS) building in Busan to protest U.S. involvement in the suppression of the Gwangju Uprising. He accepted the sentence without complaint but demanded that he be cleared of the charge of being a communist: That I am procommunist [yonggong] and impure [pulsun], that I am a leftist [chwagyong] is all made up by the political powers. I am a communist only to the extent that the state has designated me as such. If only I could be cleared of the dishonor of being called a communist, I would be willing to forgo a final testimony. How is it that calling for democracy is communistic? We need to revise our dictionary as follows so that there will be no misunderstanding: “communist is a name a dictator gives to a patriot who fights for democracy.”1 Aside from his own vehement denial, Mun was unlikely to have been influenced by communism or North Korea’s ideology of self-reliance (chuch’e sasang); a fourth-year student at a conservative theological seminary, he was not particularly active in the student movement nor was he interested in various ideological currents of the time. He believed that the tragedy of Gwangju was not that of the Gwangju people alone but of all Koreans and 1. Quoted in Kang and Kim, Huisaengyang kwa choeuisik, 238–39. Mun was released in 1988 after serving six years and nine months in prison.

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that those responsible for the massacre had to be brought to justice. This led him to target a building that symbolized the United States.2 Mun and others involved in the arson, including a Catholic priest who provided a hiding place for Mun, were all charged with violation of the Kukka Poanbop (National Security Law, NSL). That Mun spent more time during his trial extricating himself from the charge of being a communist than explaining why he tried to burn down the USIS building reveals the interlocking relationship between anticommunism, national security, and the technology of state discipline in South Korea. This chapter argues that anticommunism in South Korea, from the moment of its inception, was directed not only toward the “real communist” North Korea and its followers but even more toward the domestic political opposition. North Korea’s close proximity to South Korea, the fratricidal Korean War, and the continuing confrontation between the two Koreas made anticommunism in South Korea a particularly virulent form of social control as well as an effective technology for state power. Relegating critical elements of society to the category of the Other, South Korea’s anticommunism constituted the national identity of South Korea. This chapter consists of three parts. The first part delineates the emergence of anticommunism as a hegemonic social discourse in the trajectory of South Korean state formation and its educational program. The second part discusses the role of the NSL and the Pan’gongpop (Anticommunist Law) in silencing undesirable elements in society through the fabrication of espionage cases against dissidents and students. The third part briefly discusses anticommunism within the undongkwon.

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Anticommunism as Hegemony

Anticommunism in South Korea has been “hegemonic”; rather than expressing or projecting a particular class interest, it was “the whole lived social process as organized in practice by specific and dominant meanings and values.”3 Anticommunism has been equated with national security and public safety since the 1960s, making it a deeply and thoroughly internalized experience for many rather than just a state-imposed doctrine or policy. Both international détente and domestic tensions intensified the existing anticommunism in South Korea from the late 1960s onward. The 1968 Nixon Doctrine, which declared that the United States would avoid becoming 2. Mun, “Iroborin kiok ul chajaso,” 229. 3. Williams, Marxism and Literature, 109.

Lee, Namhee. The Making of Minjung : Democracy and the Politics of Representation in South Korea, Cornell University Press, 2011.

Lee, Namhee. The Making of Minjung : Democracy and the Politics of Representation in South Korea, Cornell University Press, 2011.

An anticommunist rally sponsored by the government, April 1972. Provided by Chungang Ilbo. (The banner in the front says, “Let us establish all-out security to destroy the delusions of the North Korean puppet regime.”)

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entangled in Asian conflicts, and U.S. President Richard Nixon’s 1972 visit to China, made Koreans suspect that the United States would no longer provide military protection for South Korea. North Korea turned belligerent toward South Korea as well from the mid-1960s, blowing up a railroad line at the time of U.S. President Lyndon Johnson’s visit in 1966, sending armed commandos to the presidential residence (known as the Blue House) in an attempt to assassinate Park Chung Hee in January 1968 and to Samch’ok, in Gangwon Province later that year. Domestically, intellectuals, students, and workers vociferously opposed the Park regime. All of these developments led the state to declare national security as an absolute goal (choltae myong jae) to be achieved at all costs; 1972 was designated “the year of all-out security” (ch’ongnyok anbo). As South Korea entered a state of emergency from 1968, a series of national security measures was adopted; all able-bodied males between ages eighteen and fifty who had completed their military duty were organized into the Homeland Reserve Force (Hyangt’o Yebi’gun) that year. In 1972, monthly defense drills (minbangwi hullyon) began, making South Korea come to a virtual standstill on the fifteenth day of every month.4 Shamans were organized into an “Anticommunist Spirit Worshippers Union.”5 Even the fashion world was not immune to national security hysteria: in 1972, well-known designers staged a fashion show with outfits “suitable for daily life under a national emergency,” such as those with pockets to store emergency food.6 Citizens were reminded each day of the enemy lurking around every corner. Banners and posters on public buildings, schools, walls, and stores urging hidden North Korean spies to give themselves up were as ubiquitous and mundane as street vendors selling instant noodles. South Korean scholar Kwon Hyokpom found that as late as 1998 anticommunist rhetoric had not abated and still dominated state discourse as a “monopolistic hegemony.” In 1998, South Korean cities and towns were still decorated with posters and banners with no fewer than 81 various anticommunist slogans. These posters were found not only in government buildings and para-state organizations such as the League of Freedom and the Bereaved Families Association but also in restaurants, medical doctors’ association buildings, bus companies, and banks. In the summer of 1998, a fellow passenger promptly reported to the police a Korean from Japan reading a book in a subway with “Kim Il Sung” as a part of the title.7 4. From 1989 onward, the monthly drill was held nine times a year; after 1992 the number was reduced to three times per year. 5. Choi, “Competence of Korean Shamans,” 75. 6. KBS, “Yongsang sillok, 1972.” 7. See Kwon, “Pan’gongjuui hoerop’an ilkki.”

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As Kwon argues, whether anyone takes these slogans seriously, their presence on streets and buildings has made these slogans “official” South Korea’s core attitude toward North Korea. In the name of state power, it demands its citizens to share this attitude. That these slogans are in public places also confers on them the authority to define proper political discourse. Citizens can bypass these slogans, but any specific act of defying them is met with the label of “pro-communism” and is appropriately punished.8 Anticommunism in South Korea has been promoted and sustained not only by the state but also by the mass media, Christian and veterans’ organizations, and various civic groups. In the aftermath of the 1982 Busan USIS arson, for example, all of the major newspapers declared their allegiance to anticommunism; one in particular went so far as to assert that “anticommunism and pro-Americanism is a national consensus that overrides the [Korean] constitution.”9 These groups demonstrated their political sinew again in October 1998, when one of the conservative monthly journals accused the well-known Professor Ch’oe Changjip of praising North Korea in his account of the Korean War and suggested that he be removed from his position as head of the Presidential Policy Planning Committee. Despite support from the government of Kim Dae Jung, Ch’oe was forced to resign by the combined forces of a conservative opposition political party, various associations of former military leaders, and veterans’ organizations.10 Sociologist Kim Tongch’un argues that the South Korean experience of anticommunism is sui generis. Anticommunism itself was not unique to South Korea; it swept through the United States, Japan, and West Germany. Only in South Korea, however, did it act as “a cement to forcibly consolidate social agents and mobilize to suppress opposition.”11 According to Kim, the claim that “I am an anticommunist” was indeed a license, an indulgence, and a master key; conversely, the accusation that “you are a communist” was wielded with real physical force that could terrorize, torture, and put someone in prison for forty-one years.12 As one former political exile during the Park Chung Hee regime put it, South Korea’s category of communist was broad and fluid: 8. Ibid., 57. 9. Kim, “Pumibang sakon.” 10. For a detailed account of this incident, see Koryo Taehakkyo Taehagwon Chongoekwa, “Ch’oe Changjip kyosu.” 11. Kim, Pundan kwa Han’guk sahoe, 37. 12. Ibid. U Yonggak, one of the seventeen former political prisoners freed during the presidential amnesty of February 25, 1999, spent forty years and seven months in prison, the longest prison term ever served. See “Ch’ulso changgisu 17 in.”

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In South Korea, commie [ppalgaengi] refers not only to a communist, but also to anyone who is socialist, socially progressive, critical of the United States, idealist, or humanist. To an extreme rightist, anyone who is not a rightist is a commie if he is not silent. . . . An existentialist who is not an extreme rightist is therefore a commie. The reason that I must be a commie is not because I am a communist but because I happen to know the French word “engagement.”13 As this exile tried to explain in vain to a French official his reasons for seeking asylum, only a Korean could become a communist; because opposition to the ruling regime constituted the core of anticommunism in South Korea, no “authentic” French communist would be defined as a communist in Korea. During the Yusin era and after, Kim Dae Jung was a representative “communist” figure due to his opposition to the Park regime’s extralegal measures.14 Political scientist Sungjoo Han explains how in South Korea the state’s anticommunist policy did not distinguish “socialists or radicals” from “democratic socialists, anarchists, or labor interests (‘trade unionists’) who were neither Communists nor socialists” and grouped them all as “leftists”— a code word for “communists”: A leftist in South Korea . . . could be characterized by rejection of capitalism and the existing socioeconomic order in Korea; advocacy of peaceful reunification of Korea and belief in the necessity for accommodation with the North Korean Communists for that purpose; a negative attitude toward South Korea’s heavy dependence upon the United States; and ambivalence toward the world conflict between the Communist and non-Communist camps.15

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Given that South Korea’s political life has been dominated by issues related to capitalistic development, continuing tension between North and South, 13. Hong, Nanun Ppari ui t’aeksi unjonsa, 151; quoted in Kwon, “Pan’gongjuui hoerop’an ilkki,” 65. 14. Kang, Jeollado chugigi, 371–72. 15. Han, Failure of Democracy, 77. In the 1980s, academics and activists used chwap’a as a neutral term to denote leftists, whereas state authorities used chwaik and yonggong to emphasize the “danger” these individuals supposedly posed to society and to portray them as uncritical followers of Marxism-Leninism or North Korea’s chuch’e sasang. The state-funded Kongan Munje Yon’guso (Public Security Research Institute) was staffed by scholars whose main job was to analyze leftist elements in publications and audiovisual materials issued by various social movement organizations. Between 1989 and 1994, 21,000 items were processed by this institute; of these, 67 percent were categorized as “chwaik, yonggong, and pro-North,” 17 percent as antistate, and only 16 percent were deemed harmless. See “Yangsan ch’eje katch’un ‘sasang kambyol.’ ”

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and dependency on the United States, Kim Tongch’un does not exaggerate when he claims that “our modern Korean history is about anticommunism— its content, its specific meaning, the way it was practiced, and the history of its formation. Anticommunism is our society’s sociopolitical conflict itself.”16 Anticommunism: Historical Context

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A nation’s concept of “the Other” is usually not a primordial or stable social category but rather is contested and reconfigured throughout its historical development. The communist as the Other in South Korea is a product of its specific colonial and postcolonial condition, as well as its political development. During the colonial period, Japanese authorities vilified communists as “criminals” and “sinners,” as they did anyone opposing Japan at the time; in Manchukuo, bandits were commonly called communists.17 Korean communists strongly resisted the Japanese and, despite their factionalism and brief existence as an organized party, enjoyed widespread support among the Korean people before 1945. The Korean communists, according to Dae-Sook Suh, succeeded in wresting control of the Korean revolution from the Nationalists; they planted a deep core of Communist influence among the Korean people, particularly the students, youth groups, laborers, and peasants. Their fortitude and, at times, obstinate determination to succeed had a profound influence on Korean intellectuals and writers. To the older Koreans, who had groveled so long before seemingly endless foreign suppression, communism seemed a new hope or a magic torch from which they hoped to gain revolutionary strength. . . . To the Korean in general, the sacrifices of the Communists, if not the idea of communism, made a strong appeal.18 Koreans’ view of communists shifted with the division of the country in 1945 and the occupation of each side by the United States and the Soviet Union. Koreans gained their independence from Japan not as a result of their own struggle but as a result of the end of World War II, and their wish for an independent and unified nation-state was pushed aside due to Korea’s 16. Kim, Pundan kwa Han’guk sahoe, 37. 17. Han, Manjuguk kon’guk, 168–69. 18. Suh, Korean Communist Movement, 132.

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geopolitical location in the cold-war system. The leftists, frustrated by political constraints not of their own making and believing that their sacrifices during the anticolonial struggle conferred on them a historical and moral mandate, pushed relentlessly for their own vision of a socialist Korea. The rightists, with little historical or moral claim to the nation’s leadership, were equally adamant about their right to chart the future of Korea on their own terms. Despite efforts by those in the middle of the political spectrum (chungdop’a) to bring about a unified Korea, separate regimes in the South and North were established in 1948 with extensive backing from the United States and the USSR. In 1950, another effort to reunify the country by force resulted in the Korean War. The turning point for the public reception of leftists in the South came with their decision to support the agreement at the Moscow Conference of December 1945. Members of the Moscow Conference agreed to set up a provisional Korean government first before considering a four-power trusteeship of Korea.19 In part through media manipulation on the part of the U.S. military government (1945–48) and rightist elements, however, Koreans came to believe that the agreement would establish a trusteeship in Korea and that the United States opposed the trusteeship (the United States endorsed it) while the Soviet and the leftists, following the orders of the Soviet Union, supported it. Koreans could not accept the idea of yet another foreign rule implied in the trusteeship, and they vehemently opposed it. The left, encouraged by the proposal for a provisional Korean government, declared its support for the “full text” of the agreement without clarifying its position on the issue of trusteeship, which it did not support.20 Regardless, many Koreans came to see communists as inveterate lackeys of Moscow, individuals with no concern for the nation’s future.21 Although internal division between the leftists and rightists accounted for much of the political mayhem in the immediate post-1945 period, U.S. policy in Korea was decisive in helping rightists’ power to increase, while that of the communists and leftists was eliminated. Dictated by U.S. military and security interests in Asia, at the heart of U.S. policy in South Korea was “the containment of the spread of Soviet communism, the establishment of political stability, and the securing of Korean allies who would promote an American style democracy and capitalist development.”22 American ideals of freedom and democracy guiding South Korean political 19. For a detailed discussion of the Moscow Conference, see Cumings, Origins of the Korean War, 1:215–27. 20. Ibid., 223; Pak, Han’guk chonjaeng, 92–96. 21. Pak, Han’guk chonjaeng, 97. 22. Kim, “Politics of Repression,” 20.

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development were, as Bruce Cumings succinctly points out, the “American code words for anti-communism.”23 The U.S. military government in Korea proved to be a highly effective proselytizer for anticommunism in postcolonial South Korea.24 By the time the Republic of Korea was established in 1948, the revolutionary situation of the first few years after 1945 was completely brought under control, leftist groups that had mounted a vigorous challenge to the regime were driven underground, and General Douglas MacArthur declared South Korea “an impregnable bulwark against all dissident elements.”25 In the cold-war environment, the variegated sociopolitical issues that defied easy categorization were framed in a simplistic division of anticommunism and pro-communism, as exemplified by the trusteeship case. Those individuals whose previous political allegiance and activities would have been a target for the post-1945 purge of pro-Japanese elements were given a new political life and identity as anticommunists. In this world of stark divisions between communist and anticommunist, communists, or anyone accused of being one, had become not only “antinational” but also an “impure element.” They were branded as “thieves, bandits, seditious, heretic, vampire, and evil spirits.”26 Society was to dispose of these elements, “[j]ust as chapkwi [sundry evil spirits] are feared and exorcised as evil in the shamanic rituals.”27 They were not only denied full citizenship, they were deemed to be less than human beings.28 Under the system of punishing family members and relatives of those accused of a major crime such as lèse-majesté (yonjwaje), the family members and relatives of an alleged leftist were barred from employment as public servants, attending military academy, and travel abroad, which prevented them from obtaining jobs in corporations.29 Throughout the postcolonial period, elimination of the dissident elements in South Korea was conducted with brutality and violence that was unparalleled even during the Japanese occupation.30 The “red hunt” in the South was carried out with added ferocity when Christians and others fleeing from the North joined in.31 The police made frequent, indiscriminate 23. Cumings, Origins of the Korean War, 2:28. 24. Kim, Pundan kwa Han’guk sahoe, 44. 25. Quoted in Kim, “Politics of Repression,” 25. 26. Quoted in Kim, Pundan kwa Han’guk sahoe, 47, note 8. 27. Kim, “Chronicle of Violence,” 290. 28. Kim, “20–segi Han’guk,” 37. 29. Although yonjwaje was officially abolished in 1981, it is said to have continued well into the 1990s, particularly in the hiring of staff and faculty in the conglomerate-owned universities. I thank Peter Schroepfer for this information. 30. Kim, “20–segi Han’guk,” 36. 31. See Kang, “Han’guk chonjaenggi pan’gong ideollogi.”

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arrests, claiming that a person might be a leftist, thereby creating a new term—government-manufactured communist (kwanje kongsandang). Some who had previously had only brief encounters with the leftist movement volunteered to serve in the National Defense Patrol to avoid the wrath of the police.32 A Chicago Sun-Times reporter visiting South Korea during the U.S. military government period noted in 1946 that “the victim was already damned as a Communist and Enemy of the State. To ‘prove’ their case, the police set about wringing a ‘confession’ from them.”33 Mass murder and rape of those considered leftists and dissenters were not isolated incidents in the immediate post-1945 period. The massacre of the Jeju people occurred two years before the Korean War, in 1948, and is now known as the Jeju Uprising. As I discussed in chapter 1, the combined forces of police and paramilitary groups, with the guidance of American military officers, killed more than ten percent of the island’s population. When the 6th and 14th Regiments stationed in Yeosu and Suncheon refused to participate in the suppression of the Jeju people and rebelled, now known as the Yeosu-Suncheon Rebellion, citizens of these cities were subjected to summary executions and indiscriminate detention in concentration camps.34 Thousands were executed and imprisoned; those who were left in prison were executed during the Korean War. So many people were killed during this period, and so many of their family members were subsequently barred from employment and other social activities, that one observer was led to comment, “It is no wonder that Jeolla Province is void of the talented.”35 The case of the Kungmin Podo Yonmaeng (National League of Guidance) again speaks to the regime’s brutal suppression of leftists. Organized by the state in 1949 to weed out the remaining leftists, the league lured former leftists with the false promise that they would be forgiven their former leftist allegiances. As soon as the Korean War broke out, however, most of the league’s members were summarily executed; the whereabouts of their bodies became known only recently.36 Another group of roughly 50,000 people were subjected to indiscriminate execution, torture, or various restrictions, all for their alleged cooperation with the North during its brief occupation of the South during the Korean War.37 For most South Koreans, however, the paradigmatic experience of anticommunism remained the Korean War. The war claimed close to three 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37.

Kim, “1948–nyon Yeosun ponggi,” 249. Gayn, Japan Diary; quoted in Kim, “Politics of Repression,” 193. Cumings, Origins of the Korean War, 2:259–67. Kim, “1948–nyon Yeosun ponggi,” 249. See Cho, “Hyonjang ch’wijae,” 160–61; Han, “Kungmin Podo Yonmaeng.” Pak, “Chonjaeng puyokcha.”

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million civilian lives and destroyed half of Korea’s industries and a third of all homes. Moreover, the atrocities committed by both sides left Koreans with deep scars, as many who were accused of supporting the other side were imprisoned or summarily executed during the war. The enmity toward and fear of North Korea that developed from the war in part contributed to the establishment of anticommunism as a national policy as well as its deeply internalized and quotidian quality. Jang Jip Choi writes the following:

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The Korean War was the most decisive turning point in modern Korean history, the denouement of everything that preceded it: the colonial experience, liberation, division, and occupation. At the same time, it became the point of departure for all post-Korean War politics. For the state-civil society relationship as well, the Korean War was critical in shaping the parameters of conflicts to come. Whereas before the war, the South Korean state had a weak local base of support, the war gave the state an ideological basis for building its legitimacy. Anticommunism, articulated and experienced in everyday life, became the premier motif for ideological legitimization of the South Korean state.38 The Korean War also solidified American hegemonic power in postwar South Korea, as the dominant South Korean intellectual and social paradigm became American-oriented. Yi Samsong maintains that, after the war, Koreans came to believe that South Korea’s political and social problems stemmed from the fact that it was not Americanized enough.39 Yi suggests that anticommunism and the widespread desire for Americanization reinforced each other. To many Koreans, the Korean communists could not be forgiven for their sins; they had caused the division, sowed the seeds of hatred, and disturbed the normal democratization process. Riding on the back of the Soviets, they set up a totalitarian regime in the northern half and, most incriminating of all, caused the Korean War: “Why did Korea have to have the misfortune of having communists like this?” For many, the answer to this question also had to be found in the backwardness of Koreans. A Western-oriented worldview became aligned with anticommunism and the hatred toward North Korea became internalized and intensified. What has been deeply rooted in the consciousness of Koreans, as Korea is situated in one corner of 38. Choi, “Political Cleavages in South Korea,” 21–22. 39. Yi, Miguk ui taehan chongch’aek, 92–93.

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the cold-war order with the United States as its hegemonic leader, is this shame and self-loathing. The pre-existing conflict between the United States and Korea thus evaporated in the Koreans’ longing to emulate the United States, which was again the flip side of our shame about our own history.40

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While the war was possibly the most traumatic collective experience for most Koreans, the experience had to be continually performed publicly, however, in order to become an effective medium through which to consolidate society and to sustain the sense of fear and animosity toward North Korea. The war did not necessarily turn South Koreans into vehement anticommunists in its immediate aftermath, during a brief period in which individual experience of the war was yet to be hardened into a useful social memory by and for the state. In the 1956 presidential election, for example, over two million Koreans, out of nine million who cast votes, voted for the Chinbodang (Progressive Party) candidate Cho Pongam with his “social democratic” platform, which included peaceful reunification with North Korea.41 This election was carried out amid widespread violence and terror against Progressive Party members and election staff, who were threatened by the ruling party campaign staff that they would be killed if they voted for Cho.42 No politician of Cho’s political program could have survived—and no one did, after Cho was executed in 1959 under vaguely defined charges of espionage for North Korea—the intense and systematic anticommunism that began in the late 1960s. As I discuss later, the Park Chung Hee regime consolidated its regime in part through its policy of anticommunism. The appropriation of collective memory of the Korean War granted South Korea “membership in the imaginary community called the Free World,” as Kim Tongch’un put it, and this illusory notion provided the state with a powerful grip on society.43 Anticommunism as Technology of State Power and Discipline

One of the principal mechanisms through which the authoritarian regimes controlled and disciplined society was the indiscriminate application of the National Security Law (NSL) and Anticommunist Law. First enacted in 40. 41. 42. 43.

Ibid., 93. So, Cho Pongam kwa 1950–yondae, 1:149. Ibid., 131–49. Kim, “20–segi Han’guk,” 39.

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1948 and revised several times since, the NSL mandated harsh felony punishments for “any person who has organized an association or group for the purpose of . . . disturbing the state or who prepared or conspired to do so.”44 In reality, the NSL was applied broadly to those who expressed views on inequality in a capitalist economy, the lack of political freedom in South Korea, South Korea’s relations with the United States, Korean reunification, and so forth.45 Within a year of the enactment of the NSL, 118,621 individuals were arrested or convicted for violating it, 132 political parties and social organizations were disbanded, and approximately 9,000 members of the military were purged.46 Between 1961 and 1980, a total of 6,735 individuals were arrested for violation of the NSL and the Anticommunist Law.47 During 1981 and 1987, a total of 1,512 persons were tried for violating the NSL, and of these 13 received death and 28 life sentences. From 1984 to 1987 the number of individuals who were tried for violation of the NSL increased fivefold, again testifying to the intimate relationship between the rise of criticism against the regime and the rise of NSL-related cases.48 In the revised NSL of 1958, definitions of “communist” and “antistate activity” were even more broad and vague than before. Few distinctions existed between political opposition and political enemy, between progressive political parties and communist organizations, and between political rivals of the president of South Korea, Syngman Rhee, and threats to national security. Rhee and his ruling party often charged that those who disagreed with them were enemies of the state rather than political rivals, as exemplified in the previously mentioned case of Cho Pongam. The Anticommunist Law, promulgated soon after the military coup of 1961, was created to deal further with dissent and was followed by the revamping of the NSL in 1962.49 Intended to “strengthen the anti-communist posture . . . [and] block the activities of the communist organizations that endanger the national security,” this law mandated up to seven years of hard labor for “any person who has praised, encouraged, or sided with anti-state organizations or members thereof on foreign communist lines or benefited the same in any way through other means.”50 44. Quoted in Shaw, ed., Human Rights in Korea, 184. Even joint membership in the United Nations in 1991 did not change the enemy status of North Korea until the summit meeting in June 2000. 45. Amnesty International, USA, “South Korea: Return to Repressive Force,” 5. 46. Pak, “Minjok ui kasum,” 314. 47. Pak, Kukka Poanpop yon’gu, 31. 48. Ibid., 36–37. 49. See Yang, “Revolution and Change,” 224–25, 243. 50. Quoted in Shaw, Human Rights in Korea, 184.

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That the Syngman Rhee regime had used the NSL and the Anticommunist Law as a weapon against political opponents was openly acknowledged by the First Republic’s minister of justice: “The NSL is a rifle and ammunition . . . not a law for peacetime. Nevertheless, even at the risk of slighting the protection of human rights, [the NSL] is necessary as an emergency measure in an emergency situation.”51 This “emergency situation” lasted more than five decades, throughout South Korea’s existence. In 1988, Roh Tae Woo, who became the president of the Sixth Republic, again acknowledged the political role of the NSL in his inaugural address: “The day when freedom and human rights could be slighted in the name of economic growth and national security has ended. The day when repressive force and torture in secret chambers are tolerated is over.”52 The NSL still exists in South Korea, despite persistent efforts by numerous groups to abolish it. The institutionalization of anticommunism was complete with the creation of the Chungang Chongbobu (Korean Central Intelligence Agency, KCIA), the state agency most responsible for the culture of terror that lasted until the 1980s.53 Created shortly after the coup of May 16, 1961, the main function of the KCIA was to prolong the Park Chung Hee regime. Known as “Korea above Korea” for its formidable power,54 one of its key counterintelligence functions was to monitor dissident and student groups. With its extensive surveillance network—one writer quipped that it kept a record of the exact number of pieces of silverware in a dissident’s household55—the agency was ingenious in turning a group of mostly idealistic pro-democracy university students and intellectuals into a group of radical revolutionaries. No one was safe from the terror wielded by the KCIA and its successor from 1980, the Kukka Anjon Kihoekpu (Agency for National Security Planning, ANSP). The KCIA and the National Police randomly detained writers, journalists, educators, artists, musicians, and religious leaders for violating the NSL. The culture of terror deepened with the declaration of the Yusin Constitution in 1972. During the Yusin era (1972–79), the indiscriminate

51. Pak, “Minjok ui kasum,” 320. 52. Quoted in Amnesty International, Amnesty International Report 1989, 182. 53. Shortly after Chun Doo Hwan took power in 1981, the KCIA was renamed the Kukka Anjon Kihoekpu (Agency for National Security Planning, ANSP). In April 1998, the Kim Dae Jung government renamed the ANSP the Kukka Chongbowon (National Intelligence Service, NIS) and pledged that it would no longer use the NIS as a political tool or allow it to carry out human rights violations. On the origins and activities of the KCIA, see Yang, “Revolution and Change.” 54. Quoted in Pak and Kim, 1960–yondae ui sahoe undong, 205. 55. Han et al., 80–yondae Han’guk sahoe, 15.

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arrest of citizens under the NSL and Anticommunist Law became so pervasive that people deridingly called them unrefined rice wine (makkolli) laws, alluding to the imprisonment of a farmer who, after a cynical remark about the government under the influence of makkolli, landed a two-year prison term.56 Well into the 1980s, owning a book of poems whose author had gone to live in North Korea shortly after 1945, publishing a book that contained a Marxist analysis of history, possessing books on North Korea and being in contact with a former professor charged with being a North Korean spy, and even criticizing the authorities for wrongly labeling some students as pro-communist were grounds for arrest and imprisonment for violation of the NSL.57 Once charged with the violation of the NSL or the Anticommunist Law, there was little chance of an honest or speedy trial. The suspected were dragged out of their houses at night, blindfolded, and taken to either the Anticommunist Bureau of the National Police, some unidentified building, or occasionally a hotel room. Torture, beatings, as well as physical and verbal abuse were routine for detainees. Detectives invariably started their interrogations with the threat that they had the ultimate power to decide the fate of a detainee, who, already marked as a communist regardless of the case in which he or she was reputedly involved, could be disposed of without anyone knowing: “No one knows that you’re here. If you die of torture, we will just report that you are missing. . . . We will take you to the 38th parallel and announce to the public that you were shot when you were trying to cross over to the North.”58 In 1986, Kim Kunt’ae, a respected leader of the Minjuhwa Undong Ch’ongnyon Yonhap (Minch’ongnyon, Youth Alliance for Democracy), was taken to the Anticommunist Bureau and detained there for two months. For three weeks, he was subjected to electric shocks and “water torture,” each session of this punishment lasting about five hours.59 All the while, the interrogator threatened Kim: “Our undertaking business is about to start. Do you know how Yi Chaemun died here? He died when his internal organs burst. [Yi was killed while being interrogated in the case of the Reunification Revolutionary Party incident discussed below.] Now it’s your turn. I’ll allow you to retaliate after you achieve democracy. Then I’ll be on

56. Yi, Haebanghu Han’guk haksaeng undongsa, 283. 57. Amnesty International, South Korea, Violations of Human Rights, 19–20. 58. This is some of the verbal abuse that labor activist Yi T’aebok endured when he was being interrogated in the Anticommunist Bureau in 1982. See Minjuhwa Silch’on Kajok Undong Hyobuihoe, ed., 10–tae chojik sakon, 45. 59. See Han’guk Kidokkyo Kyohoe Hyobuihoe, ed., Komun omnun sesang e salgo sipta, 444–68.

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the torture rack instead of you.”60 Yi Yorho, Kim’s colleague from the same organization, had to be admitted to a mental hospital after being subjected to continuous torture for forty-four days.61 Human rights advocates have long argued that the public at large accepted torture as necessary when applied to North Korean agents and political prisoners who had violated the National Security Law. When Pak Chongch’ol, a third-year Seoul National University student, died as a result of torture in 1987, some journalists reporting the incident suggested that the detective who tortured Pak must have been confused about whether Pak was involved in a national security incident (kongan sakon) or in a more common antigovernment protest (siguk sakon). The implication was that the torture would have been less controversial if Pak had violated the NSL.62

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Anticommunist Education

The level of societal consent and internalization of anticommunism that tolerated and even justified torture of dissidents was achieved via the nation’s educational system. Since the early 1960s, the state has repeatedly attempted to strengthen and amplify anticommunist education. However, the central focus of anticommunist education remained instilling in children enmity toward communism and North Korea. Analyses of various textbooks on anticommunism show very little discussion about the history or main tenets of communism or discussion of why or what to oppose about communism; the education was mainly about the demonization of communism and communists.63 The culture of enmity promoted by anticommunist education is seen most emblematically and dramatically in the case of Yi Sungbok, an eightyear-old boy who is said to have shouted, “I don’t like communists” before he was allegedly killed by North Korean armed guerrillas in 1968. Nationwide exaltation of the boy—in textbooks, in children’s speech contests, by putting his statue in every elementary school, and by showing children a feature film based on his story—lasted well into the 1990s. That a young boy should “hate” communists, and therefore North Korea, was not a part

60. Amnesty International, South Korea, Violations of Human Rights, 67–69, 73. 61. Ibid., 22–23, 71–74. 62. See Pak, “Minjok ui kasum,” 320. Pak Chongch’ol, who was not an activist himself, was arrested by the police who wanted to find out the whereabouts of his activist classmate. 63. Kwon, “Pan’gongjuui hoerop’an ilkki,” 49–56; Kwon, Taehanmin’guk un kundae ta, 83; Yi, Han’guk kyoyuk ui pip’anjok ihae.

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“I hate communists.” School children in front of the statue of Yi Sungbok, 1996. Provided by Choson Ilbo.

of public discussion. (In 1998, a group of journalists, academics, and civic organizations publicly questioned whether this event happened.64) Institutionalization of anticommunism in education began as leaders of the May 16 military coup declared it a national policy. Revision of textbooks to include anticommunism was the first step. From 1963, the Ministry of Education revised yet again the curriculum for all grades and intensified anticommunist education in all areas, creating a separate course entitled “Anticommunist Ethics” in elementary, middle, and high schools. Despite this flurry of activities, anticommunist education during the 1960s remained somewhat perfunctory and did not take off in earnest until the late 1960s.65 The turning point in anticommunist education came with changing U.S. policy toward the communist bloc and a series of North Korean armed

64. Kwon, Taehanmin’guk un kundae ta, 83. 65. Han, “Yusin ch’eje pan’gong kyoyuk,” 334–35.

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incursions in the late 1960s, as I mentioned previously. In addition to a series of national security measures, such as the Homeland Reserve Force, military training was introduced in high schools and universities in 1969, on the grounds that the military threat from North Korea demanded adequate preparation on the part of all South Korean youth. Male university students had no choice but to take this course; with no training, there was no diploma. Female students received training in emergency aid and basic nursing, as befitted the gendered thinking of the society at the time. With the emergence of the Yusin system in 1972, anticommunist education became more systematic in its content and its emphasis on national security. School-wide activities and performances, such as photo exhibits, lecture series, speech contests, and essay contests to strengthen national defense, were held regularly during the Yusin period. Instructions on how to report North Korean agents to state authorities were a part of the curriculum.66 One of the major frustrations for university students about the revamped anticommunist education was that a new subject called “National Ethics” was now required for a college degree; students felt it was mostly a repeat of a high school course.67 The addition of National Ethics to the curriculum was also widely criticized by commentators and educators as an attempt to legitimize the state. One educator quipped, “the [existing] Korean history course alone was not enough to highlight the role of the state.”68 Indeed, the objectives of National Ethics, as presented by the Ministry of Education, was to “imbu[e] in the students the sense of responsibility toward national development, anticommunism, and national security.”69 What was new about this otherwise hackneyed emphasis on nationalism was that it was now equated with national security. Anticommunism was also a component of Park Chung Hee’s “Koreanstyle democracy,” a democracy that was “right for Korea’s situation and helpful for solving her problems.” The basis for Park’s brand of democracy was purportedly found in Korea’s history of the “brave defense of fatherland”70 and was expressed in the slogan “all-out security system” (ch’ongnyok anbo), mentioned earlier. According to Park, democracy during the Yusin era was nothing more or less than a call for “strengthening [and] building a selfsufficient national defense.”71

66. 67. 68. 69. 70. 71.

Ibid., 340. Ko, “Taehak ui Han’guksa kyoyuk,” 27–28. Paek et al., “Saeroun taehak kongdongch’e,” 25–26. Quoted in Jayasuriya, Education in Korea, 66. Chon, “Pak Chonghui ui minjujuui kwan,” 148. Chon, “Pak Chonghui ch’eje,” 3.

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The National Student Defense Corps

Hakto Hoguktan (National Student Defense Corps, NSDC), a governmentcontrolled nationwide student body organized as a paramilitary unit, was intimately tied to anticommunist education. A source of great contention between the state and university students throughout this period, the NSDC was first introduced in 1949, at the suggestion of South Korea’s first minister of education, An Hosang, who had studied in Germany in the late 1920s. Its roots could be located in An’s idea of “one people” (ilminjuui sasang), which equated national education with anticommunism: “Students have to study hard and resist the communists’ destructiveness, get rid of individualistic behavior, and discipline themselves to acquire the spirit of cooperation, organization, and valor [ssikssikham].”72 An also emphasized physical training of students, through which they were to “acquire the nationalist spirit and patriotic unity, and destroy communist elements.”73 The basic ideas and the language of NSDC were strikingly similar to those of Hitler Youth ( Jugend ), particularly in their emphasis on organizational life, valor, cooperative spirit, and physical education, among other things. If Hitler emphasized education as “a matter of state-concern for the protection of the race,”74 An Hosang envisioned education as a means of protecting South Korea’s “democracy” against North Korea. When the Korean War broke out in 1950, students in the NSDC were mobilized to fight as student-soldiers (hakdobyong). The NSDC was a thoroughly state-controlled organization, established at schools of junior high level or above in every city; its national leaders were none other than the president of the Republic and the minister of education.75 The NSDC’s emphasis on military training took off with a particular vengeance. Even before the NSDC was officially launched, more than 2,400 students were selected to be trained as officers. Since there were few military officers available as training instructors at the time, high school physical education teachers were selected to receive military training from the Military Academy, commissioned as second lieutenants, and stationed in each school as attendant officers. This military training involved not only students but also the faculty and staff. The NSDC, much hated by students and faculty, was dissolved in the aftermath of the April 19 Student Uprising of 1960 but was revived in 1975 by 72. “Haksaenghoe nya Hoguktan inya,” 240. On An’s concept of “one people,” see Cumings, Origins of the Korean War, 2:211–18. 73. “Haksaenghoe nya Hoguktan inya,” 241. 74. Rempel, Hitler’s Children, 163. 75. “Haksaenghoe nya Hoguktan inya,” 240.

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the decree of the State Council. Few dared to protest the revival of the NSDC; the widespread fear of communist expansion after the victory of North Vietnam made students reluctant to criticize state policy.76 Soon after, all previous autonomous student organizations, various extracurricular activities (hereafter called “circles”), and department student organizations (hakhoe) were absorbed into the NSDC in each university. At Seoul National University alone, more than 200 existing circles were forcibly dissolved, and other universities followed suit.77 As the NSDC absorbed all university circles, with the exception of athletic circles, university students’ activities were severely curtailed and monitored. Meetings of more than ten persons or an invitation to an outside speaker had to be approved in advance by the school.78 As during the Syngman Rhee regime, the newly revived NSDC was intended to serve as an adjunct military organization in a national emergency. The NSDC was organized like the military, into squads, platoons, companies, battalions, regiments, and divisions, and the top officers were appointed by the president of the country.79 With the revival of the NSDC and the introduction of military training, campuses turned into military camps and students into soldiers. A high school teacher in 1978 felt as if the “ghosts of Japanese colonizers were visiting the country” whenever he attended the students’ morning assembly (chohoe): The students are lined up in a formation of platoon and company, each with military training uniform, gaiters (spats), and wooden rifle on his shoulders. The march song begins as the principal approaches the podium. . . . As the student leader, who is a regimental commander, with saber on his side, yells out, “To the commander, Present arms!” the rest of the of students, thousands of them, shout in union, “Loyalty and Filial Piety” [Ch’unghyo]! . . . Then begins the principal’s inspection, and the march music again reverberates throughout the campus. After the principal’s review, the lines are quickly realigned into platoon and company, and these “solider-students” march on proudly . . . [under the slogans of ] “Let’s defend the nation” and “Let’s fight [for our country] while learning.”80 The predominance of NSDC in campus life and the military training of students show the extent to which South Korean universities, and society at 76. 77. 78. 79. 80.

Han, “Yusin ch’eje pan’gong kyoyuk,” 341; “Haksaenghoe nya Hoguktan inya,” 247. “Taehak ssok’ul Hoguktan sanharo,” 390. “Chungang Hakto Hoguktan paltan,” 349. Han, “Yusin ch’eje pan’gong kyoyuk,” 340–41. See Song et al., “Pundan hyonsil kwa minjok kyoyuk,” 29–30.

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large, became militaristic. The state intervened in university matters in the manner of a military commander handing down orders.81 Fed up with these top-down orders, the well-respected scholar Kim Chunyop quit his presidency at Korea University after less than three years. During his tenure, twelve state security agents were stationed in his secretary’s office every day. Kim refused to give them a daily allowance as his predecessor had done although this was expected of him. He also refused to give honorary degrees to foreign dignitaries as demanded by the Ministry of Education. Shortly after a group of Korea University students staged a sit-in at the headquarters of the ruling party, Kim was told by the minister of education to dismiss the involved students or be branded as “antistate.”82 As Kim Chunyop saw it, the state and the Ministry of Education functioned as generals in the military, university presidents as company leaders, deans as platoon leaders, faculty members as squad leaders, and students as privates.83 South Korea’s president appointed university presidents based on the recommendation of the minister of education, and the minister appointed deans based on the recommendation of the university president.84 The state opened and closed universities at will. Since its foundation in 1946, Seoul National University, long claimed to be the best university in South Korea, was forced to close fifteen times. There were times when only nonstudents were given special passes to enter its campus.85 University students continually demanded the abolition of the NSDC and military training, claiming that a readiness for national security should come out of their own volition; the top-down order caused mistrust between the military and students, ultimately weakening the base for national security. Students also argued that the military training, facilitating only a black-and-white mentality, stifled their creativity and critical thinking and turned them into simpletons, which, again, was a disservice to the nation.86 Intellectuals also joined the students in criticizing the military training as creating a culture of obedience and holding Korean society hostage to military tension. They claimed that military training, together with the deeply rooted feudalistic elements still operating in the society, blocked the development of a democratic spirit among Korean youth.87 81. 82. 83. 84. 85. 86. 87.

See Choi, “Where the Universities in Korea Stand,” 249. “Han’guk ui sonbi, Kim Chunyop,” 292, 295. Ibid., 293. “Kungnip Soul Taehakkyo,” 331. Ibid., 338. “Kyoktonghanun hagwon’ga,” 245. Paek et al., “Saeroun taehak kongdongch’e,” 25.

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Despite their vociferous opposition to the NSDC and the compulsory military training at school and at military bases for male university students (known as chonbang ipso hullyon88), protesting students remained silent about military conscription. Under the Military Service Law of 1949, which became effective in 1957, all South Korean men aged eighteen years or above, except for those considered “physically or socially undesirable,” were required to serve in the military.89 With the exception of a few Jehovah’s Witnesses and a very small number of other individuals who refused to serve on religious grounds, no student conscientiously objected to the military service.90 Intense anticommunist education, in addition to the repeatedly emphasized notion that military service was “men’s national duty,” rendered the students unable to consider conscription in terms of individual freedom or conscience. Feminist scholar Kwon Insuk defines militarization in South Korea not only as referring simply or only to societal consent to military buildup or the absence of opposition to military conscription; she also refers to the widespread societal belief that an individual is a subunit of the state and that his or her well-being and interests should be disregarded or sacrificed for the greater benefit of the state’s well-being and development. According to Kwon, militarism is a mirror of statism; it posits the state as an absolute entity—above any individual—and accepts the hierarchy within a group as necessary.91 The pervasive statist thinking in South Korea equated nationalism with anticommunism, which in turn equated the resistance to military service as antinational and unpatriotic. The student movement was highly nationalistic and its subculture—even as it opposed militarism in South Korean society—militaristic.92

88. A compulsory week-long military training conducted at the Army Unified Administration School (Munmudae) for first-year male university students, it began in 1977 and was abolished in 1989 except for ROTC (Reserve Officers’ Training Corps). University students protested persistently against it, arguing that they were merely becoming mercenaries for the United States. In 1986, two students from Seoul National University, Kim Sejin and Yi Chaeho, set themselves on fire to protest military training, but their protest was part of widespread anti-American sentiment and was linked to the antinuclear and antiwar movements and not seen as opposition to conscription. It was only in 2001 that a public debate on conscription began in South Korea. See “T’ukchip 1, P’ongnyok ui munhwa.” 89. The length of mandatory service was reduced to twenty-six months in the Army or twentyeight months in the Navy or the Air Force in the late 1990s. 90. According to historian Han Honggu, only one out of the 1,500 individuals imprisoned for refusal to serve in the military in 2003 had been involved in the student movement. Han opines that the fact that student activists who served prison terms were exempted from military service may have somewhat mitigated their opposition to military conscription. Han, Taehanmin’guksa, 2:217. 91. Kwon, Taehanmin’guk un kundae ta, 14–15; Moon, Militarized Modernity, 46–55. 92. On the militaristic subculture of the student movement, see Kwon, Taehanmin’guk un kundae ta, 86–111.

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The Enemy Within and Without

While anticommunist education and all of its related state apparatuses were to prepare South Koreans to fight against the “enemy,” the real and presumed existence of the enemy was taken for granted. The enemy was not geographically specific or bound; it was ubiquitous and unrelenting. The enemy was not only the North but anyone perceived to harbor a notion different from that of the state on how society should be changed—the “progressive forces” discussed in chapter 1. They were made into enemies of the state through legal measures such as the NSL and the Anticommunist Law. The discourse of “enemy” and viewing disparate dissenting elements as a unified force against the state and as pro-communist were effective ways of doing away with dissent and disciplining the society. I do not suggest that all espionage cases were manufactured or that the entire KCIA operation was without logic. Its logic was at once historical and sociological. Since the division of the country, aspiring socialist revolutionaries in South Korea had dreamt of, and had made various attempts at organizing, a vanguard party to lead a revolution. The North Korean leader Kim Il Sung, after consolidating his power in the 1950s and achieving a decent level of economic development, began to expound on the South Korean revolution in the early 1960s. Kim attributed the failure of the April 19 Student Uprising (which was to bring democratic changes to the South) mainly to the absence of a Marxist-Leninist revolutionary party that represented the interests of the South Korean masses, and he began to set up state agencies to facilitate establishing such a vanguard party in the South. What North Korean leadership called the “Operation against South Korea” (Taenam Kongjak Saop; its name varied over time) involved various state agencies collecting information on South Korea and training agents to be sent to the South to organize a vanguard party.93 In 1964, Kim Il Sung’s ideas about South Korean revolution changed, however, and can be summed up as the following: South Koreans themselves were responsible for making their own revolution. Kim Il Sung thought that after South Korea successfully carried out its own revolution, it would reunify with the North, which would complete the revolution in the whole peninsula. North Korea was thus consigned to the role of supporter. In other words, the vanguard party in the South would no longer be a branch of the Choson Rodongdang (Korean Workers’ Party, KWP) of the North, as had 93. Pak and Kim, 1960–yondae ui sahoe undong, 225–26. North Korea’s position on South Korean revolution is much more complex and has a long history, which I cannot summarize adequately here. For further discussion on this issue, see Cho, “Pukhan ui t’ongil noson.”

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been the policy of the North before, but would be independent of KWP and would derive its power from South Koreans’ own abilities and capacities.94 But Kim also thought the successful completion of a South Korean revolution was the “noble and national task of all Koreans,” and he saw no contradiction in North Korea’s attempt to “select . . . and systematically train” individuals in South Korea as revolutionary cadres so that they could “play a vanguard role in political, economic, and cultural areas.”95 Kim Il Sung’s other point was that the main task of South Korea’s revolution was “to expel U.S. imperialism and military fascist dictatorship and to advance democratic development in South Korea.”96 In other words, South Korea needed not a socialist revolution with workers at the center but a national liberation from U.S. “colonial rule.” A united front of all segments of society, with the exception of the ruling elite, was to lead the revolution. Kim Il Sung’s pronouncements, such as the above, and the North Korean Operation against South Korea were the grounds for the South Korean regime to accuse its social movements of being manipulated by the North. Kim’s theories on South Korean revolution also excited and galvanized both the old and would-be revolutionaries in the South, some of whom had harbored misgivings about the North’s previous policy of directly leading the South Korean revolution. Notwithstanding Kim’s espousal of the autonomy of the South Korean revolution, would-be revolutionaries in the South had had no recourse but to deal with the North. No revolution in Korea would be complete without taking the North into account—this was the predicament of the South Korean revolutionaries and also the logic behind the KCIA’s existence and operation.

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Espionage Cases

Irrespective of North Korea’s role in the existence and operation of underground vanguard organizations (which I discuss further below), what remains paramount is the general function of espionage cases in South Korea. The KCIA’s disclosure—and manufacture—of espionage cases was the regime’s routine mechanism through which the dual function of warning the public about the danger of dissent and of eliminating dissenting social forces was fulfilled. Most espionage cases were announced after major political events in South Korea, such as presidential elections or particularly violent student or worker demonstrations. In the 1960s alone, there were at least 94. Pak and Kim, 1960–yondae ui sahoe undong, 225. 95. U, 82 tul ui hyongmyong norum, 90–91. 96. Quoted in ibid., 89.

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three major incidents of espionage cases, mostly involving intellectuals, university students, and “progressive forces” (hyoksin’gye)—individuals who had participated in various leftist organizations in the immediate post-1945 era and in the social movements of the 1960s, as discussed in chapter 1. The first case occurred on August 14, 1964, while South Korean society was still gripped by the nationwide protest against the Normalization Treaty with Japan (discussed in chapter 1). The KCIA announced the so-called “Inmin Hyongmyongdang (People’s Revolutionary Party) Incident”; university professors, journalists, and students were alleged to have directed the student protest to bring about socialist revolution under the direction of North Korea. Many of the implicated were well known, such as the noted scholar of Chinese literature Im Ch’angsun, economist Kim Pyongt’ae, journalist Chong Toyong, and other individuals whose names were familiar to the intellectual community in Korea.97 Most were also active in the protest against the Normalization Treaty. This espionage case was clearly the Park regime’s warning to both South Korean progressive forces and North Korea; the progressive forces had resurfaced again with the growing protest against the Normalization Treaty, and at about the same time North Korea had begun to implement its Operation against South Korea.98 All of the accused vehemently denied the existence of any vanguard organization, let alone their being North Korean agents. There was no conclusive evidence that these individuals had any “organizational or continuous” contact with the North.99 Regardless, the majority of the forty-seven persons remanded were severely tortured, leading some prosecutors to resign in protest, a rare act of courage for the judiciary that until recently had been generally regarded as a handmaiden to the regime.100 (In 1974, at the time of the intense anti-Yusin protest, the regime accused a group of individuals of organizing the second People’s Revolutionary Party, and eight of the accused were executed only eighteen hours after the Supreme Court’s decision to dismiss the final appeal.101) 97. Pak and Kim, 1960–yondae ui sahoe undong, 215. 98. See Cho, Hyondae Han’guk sahoe undong, 105. 99. Ibid., 104, note 20. According to Cho, one of the individuals did visit North, for which he was executed in 1967. 100. Yi, Haebanghu Han’guk haksaeng undongsa, 247. 101. Kongan sakon kirok, 102. On December 7, 2005, the Kukka Chongbowon Kwago Sakon Chinsil Kyumyong ul T’onghan Palchon Wiwonhoe (Committee to advance [Korean society] through examining the truth about the past incidents in which the National Intelligence Service was involved) concluded that the first and second cases of the People’s Revolutionary Party were fabricated by the KCIA in order to suppress the anti-Yusin movement. See Yi and Pak, “Inhyoktang, Minch’onghangnyon sakon un chojak.” The committee was created by the National Intelligence Service (NIS, formerly KCIA) in part to gain public trust through investigating incidents its predecessor was involved in, and it is composed of civilians and NIS officials.

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The second major espionage case of the 1960s was announced in July 1967, soon after the presidential and general elections, which were widely regarded as rigged and which were followed by widespread protests. The KCIA accused a group of Koreans residing in Europe (hence the name Tongbaengnim [East Berlin Incident]), including Yun Isang, an internationally renowned composer, of spying for North Korea. Altogether, fifteen university professors, a medical doctor, artists, and civil servants were said to have frequented the North Korean Embassy in East Berlin, some visiting Pyongyang and receiving secret education to carry out spy activities.102 A few days later, the KCIA announced another espionage case involving faculty members at major universities who were studying or had previously studied in Europe, or who were reputed to have been in contact with the East Berlin group. According to the KCIA, Hwang Songmo, a well-known professor of sociology at Seoul National University, and a number of other university professors had formed an extracurricular circle in their departments in order to “establish the base for socialist revolution,” to “instill seditious ideas” among students, and to instigate various protests aiming to destabilize society, thereby aiding North Korea.103 When the KCIA announced these cases in July 1967, South Korea was reeling from a series of widespread and fierce protests waged by university students against the fraud and corruption of the presidential election (May 3) and the subsequent general election (June 8). These espionage cases were clearly aimed at weakening the growing oppositional movement and severing any existing and future contacts between the students who were active in circle activities and the dissidents.104 The case involving Koreans in Europe was also aimed at routing out prodemocracy movements abroad that were gaining momentum at the time.105 In view of the severity of the punishments meted out, it was no wonder that the subsequent pro-democracy movements both in and outside South Korea exercised strenuous self-censorship to avoid any unintended contact with North Korea or with any person known to have contacts with North Korea.106 In the final count, 194 intellectuals were said to have been involved in 102. Kongan sakon kirok, 17; Yi, Haebanghu Han’guk haksaeng undongsa, 255–56. 103. Kongan sakon kirok, 24–58. 104. Cho, Hyondae Han’guk sahoe undong, 107. 105. Koreans residing in Europe, Japan, and North America began to form pro-democracy groups in the early 1970s. These groups, however, were far from “revolutionary”—they mostly discussed Korea-related issues, published newspapers, and demonstrated occasionally in front of Korean embassy buildings. A few individuals who had family members and friends in the North had visited North Korea via East Germany for various reasons, giving the South Korean regime justification to brand them as North Korean agents. 106. Hong, Nanun Ppari ui t’aeksi unjonsa, 61.

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these spy rings. Two received death sentences and the rest received prison terms from three and a half years to life.107 The composer Yun Isang died in 1995 in Germany without ever fulfilling his wish to return to his homeland. He was kidnapped by the KCIA in 1967 from his home in West Berlin (where he had lived since 1957), taken to Seoul, and sentenced to life imprisonment. Released in 1969 after a worldwide petition led by renowned musicians, he returned to West Berlin.108 Of all the espionage cases of the 1960s and 1970s disclosed by the KCIA, the “T’ongil Hyongmyongdang (Reunification Revolutionary Party) Incident” of 1968 is probably the one case in which the group had “organizational” and “direct” contact with North Korea. The KCIA’s first announcement of this case began with a warning to the Korean public that North Korea “is plotting to communize and reunify the country by force (muryok chokhwa t’ongil ), is bent on setting up an underground organization to be used as a base to support guerrilla movements and to stir up the masses to revolt, and is reaching people from all walks of life in Korean society with highly sophisticated means.”109 The KCIA urged the South Korean public to be aware of, and to make “strenuous efforts” to ferret out, “pro-communist and impure elements who, wearing the mask of progressiveness, denounce anticommunist ideology and advance exclusive nationalism, engage in antistate speech and conduct, incite discontent and complaints among people.”110 According to the KCIA, students from elite universities and individuals with prior experience in social movements were recruited by North Korea to instigate social unrest and to carry out armed uprising and had set up several front organizations, including a journal, a bar, and several student and youth associations such as the Buddhist Youth Association and the Christian Youth Welfare Association. The members were said to have studied the guerrilla tactics of Mao, the Vietcong, and the Tonghak peasants, all in an attempt to carry out an armed rebellion. Four of the members were 107. Kongan sakon kirok, 19, 59. On January 26, 2006, the “Committee to advance [Korean society] through examining the truth about the past incidents in which the National Intelligence Service was involved” concluded that while some of the accused had visited North Korea and had received money, they had not engaged in espionage activities. See Chu’gan Tasan Inkwon, “Tongbaengnim sakon chojak twaetta.” 108. The East Berlin Incident was also one of the first spy cases the KCIA manufactured and botched miserably, spreading word of its notoriety and ineptitude to the international community. When the KCIA kidnapped the accused to South Korea for interrogation, the West German government threatened to sever diplomatic relations and to stop providing economic aid. 109. Kongan sakon kirok, 67 110. Ibid.

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subsequently executed in 1974, while the remainder served prison terms ranging from two to twenty years.111 There is no doubt that key members of this group had visited the North and received funds, that some met with Kim Il Sung, and that they operated all of the front organizations mentioned by the KCIA.112 But these “facts” alone do not tell the whole story, a story whose entirety with all of its complexities perhaps can never be fully told. Why did so many promising young people (the majority of those involved were in their thirties and university-educated) get involved in an organization with a link to North Korea, a link which, once exposed, as the previous espionage cases had clearly shown, would put them in prison and condemn them to death? Did they know about North Korea? What and how much did they know? What was the historical and sociological logic behind this seeming foolhardiness? While I do not have the space to elaborate on all of the possible motivations of these individuals and the surrounding circumstances, I suggest that we consider briefly the following sociopolitical and intellectual contexts.113 For a small number of intellectuals and university students in the late 1960s, what I discuss in chapter 1 as the crisis of historical subjectivity had reached a new level as the military regime’s harsh and repressive measures were silencing all forms of dissent and as repeated and massive Korean protests (such as the 1960 Student Uprising and the 1964–65 opposition to the Normalization Treaty) had failed to bring about democratic change in Korean society. The bright and socially conscious spent their university days reading social theories and agonizing over how to bring economic development and social reform to their underdeveloped country. Some read Karl Marx’s Capital, Vladimir Lenin’s What Is to Be Done?, as well as Maxim Gorky’s Mother, and they began to dream about a revolution. Some took to donning a “Lenin hat” and proclaimed themselves Lenin’s heirs. Most lacked organization, theory, experience, and necessary revolutionary discipline, however.114 These individuals would be approached by older, experienced revolutionaries, some 111. Kongan sakon kirok, 76–78. For detailed discussion of this case, see Pak and Kim, 1960–yondae ui sahoe undong, 215–40. The attempt to revive the party continued in the 1970s and 1980s. See, among others, Kongan sakon kirok; Pak, Kukka Poanpop yon’gu, vol. 2. 112. According to Cho Huiyon, the party’s five key members each went to North Korea between one and four times, with each visit lasting a few days. Cho, Hyondae Han’guk sahoe undong, 290, note 11. 113. Much of what I present here is based on works of scholars who have done extensive research on the underground organizations of this period. In particular, Pak T’aesun and Kim Tongch’un’s 1960–yondae ui sahoe undong and Cho Huiyon’s Hyondae Han’guk sahoe undong have been helpful in my thinking on the issue, and some of the materials I present here are borrowed from their books. I provide page numbers where appropriate. 114. Pak and Kim, 1960–yondae ui sahoe undong, 215–18.

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of whom had a history going back to anticolonial movements and therefore had an almost mythic quality associated with them. When these revolutionaries approached them to work together to build an underground vanguard party that would bring about a socialist revolution, few hesitated.115 Most of the younger members were not privy to the party’s overall organizational structure, however, and many did not know its link with the North.116 It was in part their intense desire for a revolution that would bring democratic changes and prosperity to Korea, their lack of experience in any sustained organizational activities, and their revolutionary romanticism mixed with a certain dose of naiveté and braggadocio that led them to join the party. Despite the name Reunification Revolutionary Party, what members mostly did was neither revolutionary nor a serious organization of a vanguard party. Indeed, what they were mostly capable of doing, given the political repression and material constraints, was to continue to do what they had done before: they read Marxist-Leninist literature, argued among themselves, wrote for the journal (in which they aired their frustration as materially and intellectually deprived postcolonial intellectuals as much as articulated their revolutionary vision), and made some sincere but ineffective attempts at organizing. They mostly “organized” those with whom they already shared commonality in terms of political analysis and outlook—their school friends, those senior and junior to them in school, and people they already knew. For older and more experienced individuals, what the party represented might have been somewhat different from what it represented for the younger group. One of North Korea’s ways to “aid” the South Korean revolution was to recruit those individuals who had participated in the leftist organizations in the immediate post-1945 South but who, since the complete demise of the social movements shortly thereafter, remained inactive.117 Some had been leaders of the Namjoson Rodongdang (South Korean Workers’ Party, SKWP),118 and a few were still active in the labor movement at the time of their arrest. 115. For a detailed account of the cases of Kim Chongt’ae, Kim Chillak, and Yi Mun’gyu, main leaders of the party, see ibid., 219–23. 116. For a detailed account of the organizational structure of the party, see Cho, Hyondae Han’guk sahoe undong, 287–93. 117. Ibid., 108–9, 148–49. 118. The SKWP was organized in 1946. Banned by the U.S. military government (USMG), it continued to exist underground and organized a series of massive protests against the USMG. In 1947 it launched a guerrilla movement to bring reunification, and many of its members were arrested and imprisoned. In 1949 it merged with the Pukchoson Rodongdang (North Korean Workers’ Party) and became the Choson Rodongdang (Korean Workers’ Party, KWP), which is the ruling party of North Korea.

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Some of these individuals were approached by their family members or relatives who were living in the North (many Koreans were separated during the Korean War and could not openly contact their family members on either side) and sent to the South by the North Korean leadership. They were then invited to the North for study sessions and training in organizational strategies and tactics. (Some had relatives who were members of a North Korean organization in Japan through whom they were contacted.) Key members of the party were recruited in this manner. Chong T’aemuk, one of the principal organizers of the party, was approached by his brother from the North and later went to the North to receive funds and instructions; Ch’oe Yongdo, the key organizer of the South Jeolla Province branch of the party, went to the North persuaded by a nephew who was sent by the North.119 For these older members who had experienced numerous setbacks in social movements but had retained some level of commitment to socialist ideas, it is not difficult to imagine that the party represented an opportunity to overcome their previous failures as socialist revolutionaries and to revive their organizational activities. Some set up a Farmers’ School, worked as staff for farming cooperatives, and organized a group of urban-poor youth. Despite key members’ contact with the North, chuch’e sasang was apparently not introduced to this group systematically at this time. They continued to read mostly Marxist-Leninist literature; some said that they knew of Kim Il Sung’s anticolonial armed movements by reading North Korean novels.120 Although I have presented only the barest outline of the circumstances surrounding the organizing of the Reunification Revolutionary Party, it is difficult to overstate the importance of viewing espionage cases in the larger sociopolitical and intellectual context as well as the ideological landscape of the time. Otherwise, these individuals would seem like caricatures of the anachronistic and the inexplicable; removed from the complexity of their reality, they become mere reminders of the ideological fury of a bygone era, mere victims of historical circumstances.121 Despite the North’s continuous attempts to influence South Korean social movements and despite the South Korean government’s claim to that 119. Cho, Hyondae Han’guk sahoe undong, 149. 120. Pak and Kim, 1960–yondae ui sahoe undong, 236. 121. Unfortunately, one cannot consign espionage cases to a bygone era. At the time of this writing (October 2006), South Korea is rattled by disclosure of yet another espionage case allegedly involving former student activists who are currently members of the Minju Nodongdang (Democratic Labor Party), one of the four main political parties with representatives in the National Assembly.

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effect, most who were involved in organizing a vanguard party in South were indigenous (chasaengjok) socialists—they may have been inspired by North Korea’s chuch’e sasang and may also have been in contact with the North, but they were not directed or aided by North Korea. The Namjoson Minjok Haebang Chonson (Namminjon, South Korean Liberation Front, SKLF) is a case in point. The so-called SKLF, uncovered by the security agency in October 1979, was, according to the state, a vanguard revolutionary party organized to establish a socialist regime in the South. It had recruited students, intellectuals, and those who had served prison terms for violating the emergency decrees (discussed in chapter 1), “in an attempt to communize and reunify the country by force.” The members were said to have been carrying out “urban guerrilla operations à la Vietcong . . . to instigate social unrest . . . to communize South Korea.” By October 16, the security agency reported having arrested 46 of the 76 individuals allegedly involved in this organization.122 At the time of the organization of the SKLF in 1976, the democratization movement faced a depressing situation in terms its future. The Park government’s series of emergency decrees effectively blocked any oppositional movement. SKLF organizers, however, were encouraged by the fall of Saigon, which they viewed as a sign of the weakening of U.S. imperialism and of rising anti-imperial nationalist movements in Third World countries. Park’s extreme measures were also viewed as the “last breath” of the authoritarian regime. The immediate impetus for the SKLF’s organization was the 1975 Emergency Decree Number Nine and the declaration of the Sahoe Anjonpop (Public Security Law, PSL) in the same year.123 Emergency Decree Number Nine, which prohibited any kind of antigovernment activity, completely blocked off any remaining space available for legal and open activism, and it forced progressive groups underground. The 1975 PSL was created to monitor and to detain “preventively” those who had refused to convert or those who had been released without conversion due to the expiration of their sentences (I discuss this later in the chapter). As a result of this law, activists with a prior record of imprisonment had no choice but to either convert or face repeated imprisonments or perpetual hiding from police.124 At the same time, they felt the need for a centralized and unified political leadership to unite and further advance various anti-Yusin movements of the time, so as not to repeat the mistake of the early 1960s. 122. Kongan sakon kirok, 103. 123. Cho, Hyondae Han’guk sahoe undong, 161. 124. Ibid.

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The ultimate goal of the SKLF was to establish a socialist country in Korea, but its immediate aim was to unify broad segments of society, crossing the boundaries of ideologies and political differences, in order to create an effective anti-Yusin movement. It operated underground, published its own newsletter, Minjung ui sori (Voice of minjung), and tried to organize an armed unit. After three and half years of existence and a few attempts at the robbery of homes of the wealthy, SKLF members were all arrested in 1979 and sentenced to long prison terms.125 Espionage cases were not limited to Koreans in Korea; as the case of the East Berlin Incident indicates, Korean diasporic communities also got tangled in the web of espionage cases. The case of the Western Illinois Campus Spy Ring involved Korean graduate students studying at Western Illinois University in the United States between 1982 and 1983. During their stay in the United States, Kim Songman and Yang Tonghwa, both majoring in political science, are said to have read widely about the political system of North Korea, met North Korean officials in Hungary and East Berlin, received political indoctrination and instructions on how to engage in antigovernment activities, and passed on information about the South Korean student movement to the North Koreans. All those arrested were severely tortured. Kim Songman and Yang Tonghwa were sentenced to death, and Hwang T’aegwon was sentenced to life in prison.126

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Long-Term Political Prisoners and the Conversion System

These espionage cases, whether they were real or manufactured, also explain the existence of long-term political prisoners. South Korea is probably the only country in the world with a special term for long-term political prisoners: changgisu. According to a 1989 Amnesty International report, more than two hundred political prisoners were serving long prison sentences after being convicted on charges of being North Korean spies or agents. Many of these people were first arrested during or after the Korean War on suspicion of being North Korean agents or of having worked for the North Korean army during the war. As of 1994, South Korea continued to hold two of the world’s longest-serving prisoners of conscience: 69-year-old Kim Sonmyong was arrested in 1951 at the age of 25, and 64-year-old An Haksop was arrested in 1953.127 125. For a detailed account of this organization and the trial of its members, see Kongan sakon kirok, 103–242. 126. See Minjuhwa Silch’on Kajok Undong Hyobuihoe, ed., 10–tae chojik sakon, 51–68. Their sentences were commuted to life and twenty years, respectively, in 1988. 127. For further details on long-term political prisoners, see Amnesty International, South Korea, Violations of Human Rights. The story of Kim and other long-term political prisoners was made into a feature film. See Hong, dir., Sont’aek.

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South Korea’s infamous conversion (chonhyang) system contributed to the long-term imprisonment of these prisoners. Those who refused to sign a statement saying they had “converted” to anticommunism were kept in prison under the PSL, even if they had already completed their original sentences.128 As was the case with many other South Korean institutions, the conversion system was a legacy of Japanese colonial rule, originating with the 1925 Security Maintenance Law. The term chonhyang (tenko¯ in Japanese) was initially used by a Japanese Marxist to encourage fellow Marxists to go beyond narrow personal experience and to develop a “firm and autonomous” stance both in theory and in practice. The Japanese authorities appropriated the term to refer to those leftists who, as So Chunsik put it, “returned to the legitimate emperor system . . . as if ‘conversion’ was the most autonomous action one could take in changed circumstances.”129 This conversion system was responsible for the demise of the Japanese Communist Party during wartime, as the rank and file followed the example of their top leaders who began to convert one by one from 1933. The end of colonial rule in 1945 ended the conversion system in a legal sense. In reality, however, the persistence of colonial influence in the South Korean security apparatuses and the U.S. military regime’s anticommunist policy effectively revived the conversion system. Former political prisoners were forced to become undercover agents or to announce their defection from leftist organizations in public. In 1956, the conversion system was formally reinstituted as political prisoners were categorized into the “converted” and the “nonconverted.”130 Immediately after the May 16 coup in 1961, all three hundred nonconverted political prisoners were transferred to Daejeon Prison, which since then has housed political prisoners. The intensive campaign to induce conversion, accompanied with severe torture of prisoners, left one hundred prisoners to convert by the end of 1974. In 1975, the PSL was created to monitor and to detain “preventively” those who had refused to convert or those who had been released without conversion due to the expiration of their sentences. Until the PSL was replaced in 1989 with the Social Surveillance Law, which was as restrictive as the PSL, 150 former prisoners who had served their original prison terms were returned to prison without trial, 16 died while under detention, and 51 were released without having converted.131 In the public realm, long-term political prisoners did not exist until the late 1980s. It was dangerous for individuals or groups to support those with 128. 129. 130. 131.

Amnesty International, Amnesty International Report, 1995, 186. So, “Chonhyang, muot i munje in’ga,” 19. Ibid., 18–23. Ibid., 23.

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a presumed connection to North Korea, regardless of the nature or the extent of such a connection. It was not until 1986 that an organized effort on behalf of these prisoners began in South Korea, when Minjuhwa Silch’on Kajok Undong Hyobuihoe (Min’gahyop, Council of Family Members for Democracy), an organization of family members of political prisoners, initiated a campaign to release the long-term political prisoners. In 1989, a former political prisoner published a collection of short stories detailing prison life in almost subhuman conditions, the very first literary representation of such prisoners.132

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The S˘o Brothers

One of the more well-known cases of long-term political prisoners in South Korea was the So brothers: So Sung (Suh Sung) and So Chunsik. They were Korean residents in Japan (Zainichi kankoku cho¯senjin),133 and their case was emblematic not only of their marginalized place as a minority in Japan but also of the insidious impact of the division on the lives of Koreans residing outside Korea and of the ambiguous and contested status of Zainichi Koreans in South Korean society and in the democratization movement as well.134 In no other country were the everyday lives of Koreans so deeply affected by the legacy of division as in Japan. The Korean community in Japan has been divided into two groups since 1945: one group who identified politically and socially with the North (the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan, Ch’ongnyon) and one with the South (the Korean Residents Association in Japan, Mindan).135 It is important to point out here that one’s decision to identify with Ch’ongnyon historically has had more to do with the Japanese legal and social prejudice against Koreans than with one’s feelings about North or South. Ch’ongnyon, from its very inception in the immediate post-1945 period, has advocated a nonassimilationist policy and, through its various institutions and programs such as Korean schools and its own business ventures, made it 132. These short stories are collected in Kim, Wanjonhan mannam. Kim Hagi served nine years in prison. 133. This is an official Japanese term for Korean residents, meaning “South and North Korean residents in Japan.” I use “Zainichi Koreans” to refer to both groups of Koreans in Japan (referring to their legal status as permanent residents), bearing in mind that Koreans in Japan use various terms to denote their position in Japanese society or to express ethnic pride. See Chung, “Korean Voluntary Associations.” 134. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, approximately two hundred Zainichi Koreans were charged with violation of the NSL and imprisoned in South Korea. Mun, “Uri, Taehanmin’guk ui yaman,” 379. 135. See Ryang, North Koreans in Japan.

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possible for Zainichi Koreans to live with some semblance of cultural pride and political identity. Many Ch’ongnyon initially came from the South, indicating that geographic origin was not a factor in the decision to become a Ch’ongnyon.136 While Japan did not have official connections with North Korea, the Japanese government, according to Wesley Sasaki-Uemura, “unofficially used groups like Ch’ongnyon and the Japan Socialist Party as avenues for communications with North Korea,”137 adding yet another layer of complexity to the place of Ch’ongnyon in Japanese society. The status of North Korea as an enemy of South Korea also applied to the members of Ch’ongnyon, making members persona non grata in South Korea until recently. Not surprisingly, most Koreans from Japan visiting the South were Mindan members until the end of the 1980s. Those who wanted to study in South Korea faced rigorous ideological screening. Only after undergoing “special education” were these Koreans eligible to attend regular schools in the South. Once in the South, many found it difficult to adjust to the political repression and the accompanying self-censorship of intellectuals in Korea; they grew up relatively tolerant of leftist perspectives, as half of the Korean community were members of Ch’ongnyon and a communist party is legal in Japan. Some had visited North Korea before coming to South Korea, as in the case of the So Brothers. So Sung and So Chunsik were Mindan Koreans studying at Seoul National University when both were arrested by the KCIA in 1971. They were charged under the Anticommunist Law and the National Security Law on the grounds that they instigated student protest against the government. Their other “crime” was a visit to North Korea.138 As So Chunsik wrote in his memoir, his price for a sojourn of eight days in North Korea was seventeen years in prison, averaging a two-year prison term for each day spent in North Korea.139 In the memoir, So wondered if it would ever be possible for the South Korean state authorities to understand his painful journey; as a second136. I thank Wesley Sasaki-Uemura for pointing out this very important factor to me. 137. For an incisive comment on recent developments in Japan regarding Ch’ongnyon, it is perhaps best that I quote Wesley Sasaki-Uemura directly: “[T]he hysterical nature of Japanese response to North Korea’s recent admissions that they kidnapped some Japanese children in the 1970s to train them as agents is I think an important phenomenon. It comes right at a time when zainichi are gaining a measure of social acceptance. The kidnappings are a way for Japanese to exhibit extreme nationalism (in a seemingly safe way), demonize the north again as ‘insane’ and justify the colonial period and the treatment of Koreans who sought independence. It also patronizingly pats the south on the head.” Personal communication. 138. Amnesty International, USA, “South Korea: Long-Term Political Prisoners,” 7–8. See also Suh, Unbroken Spirits. 139. This and the following paragraphs are based on So, Naui chujang, 225–40.

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generation Zainichi Korean, So had spent his high school years longing to be in his homeland, South Korea. In ninth grade, after prolonged agony over his identity, he decided to affirm being Korean openly in a school-wide speech contest. He then changed his name from Fukuda to So (until 1985 the naturalization process in Japan required adopting a Yamato name) and went to South Korea at the age of nineteen, where he began to study the Korean language at Seoul National University. Coming from relative material comfort in Japan and long wishing to be with his fellow Koreans, So was shocked to see in Seoul so many beggars, prostitutes, and young children laboring as paperboys, shoeshine boys, and gum sellers, not to mention the ubiquitous English-lettered billboards and advertisements. His days in Korea were filled with shock, anger, and pain at the “misery and suffering” of many Koreans. His intellectual predilection for “social scientific analysis,” combined with his search for “true human liberation,” led him to socialist and Marxist ideas. To the South Korean authorities who repeatedly denied his release for ten years, even after he had served his original sentence of seven years, he was simply too “dangerous to society,” for he “still believed in the superiority of socialism.” The So brothers’ case attested to the severity with which the South Korean regime dealt with Zainichi Koreans. The espionage cases involving Zainichi Koreans were especially risky for South Korean dissidents or human rights groups to step into, as it might implicate them as well, and the two brothers languished in prisons for nearly twenty years each, with little support from Korean activists.140 The older brother, So Sung, suffered serious burns as a result of a suicide attempt in prison, and the younger brother, So Chunsik, spent ten more years in prison under the Public Security Law after having served his original sentence of seven years.141 While the So brothers’ case was the most well-known and possibly most severe case, there were numerous espionage cases involving Zainichi Koreans and South Koreans visiting Japan. In 1974, a South Korean novelist’s chance meeting with Zainichi Koreans was turned into a case of espionage by the KCIA.142 As the human rights lawyer Pak Wonsun remarked, any Zainichi Korean traveling to South Korea was a potential candidate for a KCIAmanufactured espionage case in the 1970s and 1980s.143 140. In Japan, a number of intellectuals and social activists were involved in the campaign to release the So brothers. 141. So Sung was first sentenced to death. His sentence was reduced to life, then to twenty years. He was released in 1990. So Sung was held in isolation for more than seventeen years with limited facilities and restricted access to reading and writing materials. So Chunsik was released in 1988. 142. Im, “74–yon mun’in kanch’optan sakon.” 143. Quoted in Mun, “Uri, Taehanmin’guk ui yaman,” 379.

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Anticommunism and the Democratization Movement

The anticommunist paranoia instilled in the public was a strategy by which the state effectively portrayed radical elements as the “enemy” who, therefore, could be disposed of. Once labeled a communist or a North Korean agent, having one’s name cleared in court, if it happened at all, was not much good; the lingering effect rendered the accused dangerous and therefore to be avoided at all cost. Painfully aware of the KCIA’s manufacturing of espionage cases and its other instruments of terror, dissidents and university student activists exercised strenuous self-censorship well into the mid-1980s. Anticommunism was thus never solely a state-monopolized discourse. Most activists in the 1970s and much of the 1980s were under the spell of anticommunism, and they participated in the shaping of that discourse, if only reactively. Demonstrating students occasionally denounced North Korea and called for its regime change. One of the popular slogans during the April 19 Student Uprising of 1960 was “Let us destroy communism by getting our democracy right.”144 During the Gwangju Uprising in 1980, protestors shouted, “Let us get rid of the Yusin remnant and drive away Kim Il Sung, too.”145 To dissuade protestors, the South Korean state often claimed that student protests incited political mayhem, which North Korea could take advantage of. From the 1960s to the early 1980s, students would occasionally make the same argument themselves and warn North Korea not to exploit their protests.146 In the early 1970s, the poet, dissident leader, and iconoclastic figure Kim Chiha was able to save his life by publicly declaring that he was not a communist.147 Yi Ch’ol, a student leader sentenced to death in 1974, appealed to the presiding judge that he would gladly die for Korea’s democracy but that he should not be dishonored by being labeled a communist.148 Sin Ch’oryong, arrested for organizing a labor organization in 1981, after stating his reasons for participating in the labor movement—“even after nearly thirty years since the promulgation of the Basic Labor Laws, workers were working long hours with no minimum wage”—argued that a democratic labor movement was the best way to counter communism.149 These remarks were made in desperate circumstances, at a time when these individuals’ lives hung in the balance; any analysis of them would require a great 144. 145. 146. 147. 148. 149.

Quoted in Yi, “Han’guk sahoe wa hagwon kaltung,” 289. Ibid., 290. See Kim, “Kongp’an choso,” 33. See Kim, “Declaration of Conscience.” Yi, “ ‘Minch’onghangnyon’ sakon,” 262. “Irunba Minju Haksaeng Yonmaeng,” 3–5, 23.

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deal of sensitivity to the individual circumstances as well as to the larger historical context. It is not difficult to find in history cases of an oppositional movement’s rhetoric appealing to the existing dominant ideology or discourse. James Scott finds that in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century France and Italy, insurgents’ rhetoric of rebellion often appealed to existing conservative institutions, such as the church and king. Scott argues that this should be understood not as evidence of “false consciousness” but as a strategic ploy; by “invoking the ritual symbols of a conservative hegemony,” Michael Chwe explains, “insurgents better create common knowledge, making more people understand their demands.”150 The undongkwon’s rhetoric of anticommunism might have been a strategic ploy, to the extent that the machinery of the National Security Law and other state security apparatuses wielded such terror that anyone accused of being a pro-communist had to fear for his or her life and his or her family members being subjected to life-long scrutiny and harsh treatment by the state and society at large. Furthermore, the label of pro-communist invalidated not only the individual’s goal but that of the democratization movement at large. It robbed the movement of the most essential elements of its appeal to and support from society—its “purity,” “sincerity,” and “nationalist cause.” At the same time, however, undongkwon’s rhetoric had the effect of reinforcing society’s longstanding anxiety, fear, and distrust of North Korea induced by the discourse of anticommunism, as well as its binary logic of “us” and “them.” It is also quite evident that some undongkwon behaved in a way that was not exemplary—again, if only to protect themselves. Through the 1970s and into the mid-1980s, some undongkwon political prisoners avoided talking to the long-term political prisoners and refused to share the same cell, and some even refused to share with those prisoners the privilege of a two-hour exercise time for which they had fought.151 The reunification movement in South Korea and among Korean diasporic communities was also particularly hard hit by the division between those who were rumored to have ties with North Korea—and were therefore “impure”—and those without such ties. The overseas Korean communities, particularly foreign students’ communities in the United States and the former West Germany, were extremely cautious about any unintended link with North Korea. 150. Scott, Domination and the Arts of Resistance, 101; quoted in Chwe, Rational Ritual, 89–90. 151. See Kim Pyonggon Ch’umo Saophoe Chunbi Wiwonhoe, Ko Kim Pyonggon hoego munjip, 214.

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One of the insidious effects of anticommunism has been the cognitive limitation placed on individuals and greater society. Despite their vociferous and consistent protest against specific aspects of anticommunism, such as military training, the undongkwon as a whole were not able to move away from the statist and militaristic paradigm. One of the most problematical manifestations of this was the undongkwon’s eventual uncritical embrace of North Korea’s chuch’e sasang, as I discuss in chapter 3.

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3. ANTI-AMERICANISM AND CHUCH’E SASANG

At the end of the 1980s, the well-known literary critic Kim Pyongik marveled at the intellectual and cognitive journey that he and the country collectively had taken in the 1980s:

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In the last ten years, I have been able to read and utter the name of Marx, which had been taboo in our history. I have read the travelogue [by fellow Koreans] to North Korea, and I myself have been to the Soviet Union, neither of which I dreamt would be possible in my lifetime. I have heard criticisms of the United States, previously unimaginable, with which I find myself in agreement to a great extent.1 Adding to his amazement was the recent publication of previously banned works by writers who had gone over to North Korea and of contemporary North Korean writers whose names and writings he had heard about in the past only in “whispers and rumors.”2 Things he could not have dreamed before were happening around him “actively, freely, and even in abundance,” 1. Kim, “80–yondae: Insik pyonhwa,” 1294–95. The minjung movement began a public campaign to learn more and to learn “correctly” about North Korea starting in the mid-1980s. By the late 1980s, as the South Korean government gained more confidence vis-à-vis the international community, it relaxed some regulations regarding publications on North Korea. Previously banned North Korean works, including some literary work by scholars, novelists, and poets who had gone over to North Korea during 1945–50, became available to the public. By 1989, the previous year’s North Korean bestseller could be found in South Korean bookstores. 2. On writers who were taken or went over to North Korea, see, among others, Kwon, ed., Wolbuk mun’in yon’gu.

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and he found himself gradually accepting them “without much fear or strangeness.” For him, the legacy of the 1980s was “the vast distance we have traveled, in our minds and in our vision”: “Perhaps no other era in our history has had the intellectual freedom, cognitive diversity, and vigor, or the active resistance to the status quo and to the ruling ideology or the experience of obtaining what it had fought for that was seen in the 1980s.”3 The journey of that decade was indeed remarkable. The sociologist Song Pok characterized early 1980s South Korea as a place “where conservative forces had an unquestionable reign . . . and where there was only primitive diversification in terms of ideological perspectives.”4 In the early 1980s, the state’s banned “Marxist” literature included not only Karl Marx’s Capital but also E. H. Carr’s What Is History? In the late 1980s, however, Marxist and even North Korean publications began to flood bookstores.5 Minjung practitioners were at the forefront of this journey, and their persistence and sacrifice paved the way for the intellectual freedom that Kim Pyongik so exuberantly celebrated in the late 1980s. This chapter discusses the two most significant outcomes of the journey: the breakdown of the hegemonic position of the United States on the cognitive map of South Korean intellectuals and students, and the reassessment of North Korea among the undongkwon. Both the United States and North Korea were sources of the crisis of historical subjectivity for the dissenting intellectuals and students. The predominance of the United States in South Korean life since 1945 gave rise to deep anxiety that Koreans were not in charge of their own affairs. The existence of North Korea was a constant reminder that Koreans had failed to establish a unified nation-state and a source of continual military tensions as well as unrelenting competition. The minjung movement’s critical reassessment of the United States led to an unprecedented level of anti-Americanism in South Korean society by the late 1980s. Concurrent with this was the undongkwon’s reimagining of North Korea as a 3. Kim, “80–yondae: Insik pyonhwa,” 1295. 4. Quoted in Cho, Hyondae Han’guk sahoe undong, 11. 5. In early 1982, the Chun government lifted the ban on publications on Marxism and its criticism, ostensibly to overcome Marxism by making it possible to criticize it. In May 1985, it reversed its previous liberal policy by banning again hundreds of books and pamphlets. Between May 1 and 10, 1985, 313 titles were banned. All had passed the government’s own review process prior to publication. Included in this list of banned books were Frantz Fanon’s Wretched of the Earth, Eric Wolff ’s Peasant Revolutions of the Twentieth Century, Herbert Marcuse’s Art and Revolution and Freedom and Progress, Bertrand Russell’s Reality and Theory of Bolshevism, Edgar Snow’s Red Star over China, and Upton Sinclair’s Jungle. Some of these had become virtual reference books for political science courses in Korean universities. By 1987, the number of banned titles reached almost 1,100. In 1988 the ban was lifted. For discussion on the banned literature, see Chong, “Han’gye ui insik,” 1402–3; Asia Watch, Human Rights in Korea, 294–301.

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utopian alternative to a capitalistic South Korea and its adoption of North Korea’s ideology of self-reliance (chuch’e sasang) as its guide for revolution. I argue that anti-Americanism for the minjung practitioners was a process of “performing”6 decolonization. An attempt to overcome the crisis of historical subjectivity, anti-Americanism involved not only questioning the predominance of the cold-war mentality and assumptions in public life and academia, but also questioning South Korea’s uncritical adoption of capitalistic development and its many consequences in all spheres of life in South Korea. This process of reassessment made intellectuals reexamine their own complicity in the making of postcolonial history in South Korea. I also argue that the turn by undongkwon individuals to chuch’e sasang began as a cognitive journey for a new subjectivity. Their deep hatred of the military regime, South Korea’s “neocolonial” status, its unrelenting pursuit of the capitalistic development that had become a “national pastime,” the societal drive for material gain and self-interest, and North Korea’s disavowal of the capitalist path all led them to regard North Korea as a possible utopian alternative to their own society. The journey for a new subjectivity was fraught with the undongkwon’s own cognitive limitations, political realities, as well as their own nationalistic logic. This chapter consists of two parts. The first part starts with the historical context of anti-Americanism, discusses the impact of the 1980 Gwangju Uprising on the development of anti-Americanism, and finally examines various manifestations of anti-Americanism in the 1980s. The second part discusses the adoption of chuch’e sasang within the undongkwon and its implications for the minjung movement.

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Anti-Americanism: The Historical Context

The authors of Anti-Americanism in the Third World, published in 1985, state that the “most fundamental perception” behind anti-Americanism is the following: U.S. policy relegates all Third World countries to the status of pawns in the global struggle. All bilateral relationships are subordinated to 6. I use the notion of “performing” in the sense it is used by scholars such as John L. Austin to denote not only the act of performance in the conventional sense (“illocutionary act”) but also an act that has “a real effect on performers as well as on the audience” (“perlocutionary act”). Austin, How to Do Things With Words, 115–17. I thank Youngmin Yu for sharing her unpublished manuscript in which the notion of “performing” is more fully explored. Yu, “Musical Performance of Korean Identities.”

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calculations of utility in the cold war or peaceful competition with the Soviets. The Americans profess commitment to peace, economic development, human rights, and democracy in the Third World, but any of these values may be jettisoned without hesitation or compunction if U.S. military or strategic interests are at risk.7 The authors of this book could not have foreseen that in a matter of a few years their statement would become the prevalent sentiment among a large number of intellectuals and university students in South Korea and to a lesser degree among the public at large. It was not surprising that the book’s long list of countries with strong anti-Americanism did not include South Korea. In fact, until the mid-1980s, South Korea was widely believed to have been “one of the most pro-American nations in the world,”8 not just by outsiders but also by Koreans themselves. In the postcolonial imagination of the majority of Koreans, the United States was an embodiment of the future Korea: democratic, free, and modern. While this perception of the United States had not disappeared completely by the mid-1980s, some dramatic changes had begun. By the late 1980s, anti-Americanism ( panmi juui) had become one of the most conspicuous and dramatic elements of the South Korean democratization movement, gradually changing the public perception of the United States as well. My purpose here is not to offer a comprehensive study of antiAmericanism in South Korea nor to suggest all the possible reasons for it; my aim is limited to exploring historical groundings of why antiAmericanism became one of the dominant forces in the 1980s minjung movement and why it took on such a “now-or-never” urgency. It would be pointless to argue whether anti-Americanism in South Korea was “ideological or emotional. . . . issue-oriented, instrumental, or revolutionary.”9 It was all of the above and more. At the same time, however, it is crucial to stress that the minjung movement as a whole took painstaking care to show that its criticism was directed to the U.S. government’s policies and actions only and that its occasional virulent denouncement of the American way of life and value system had not been made manifest in any concrete or public expression.10

7. Rubinstein and Smith, eds., Anti-Americanism, 12. 8. Plunk, “Continuing Cold War,” 116. 9. Kim, “Nature of South Korean Anti-Americanism,” 40. 10. By saying this, I do not mean to suggest that the minjung movement somehow occupies a morally superior ground, but I think it is worth exploring further why this was the case with the minjung movement.

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The U.S.-Korea Relationship

It would be misleading to suggest, however, that the critical attitude toward the United States was wholly new or limited temporally to the postcolonial period. A brief history of the U.S.-Korea relationship will show that intellectuals harbored deeply conflicted and ambivalent attitudes and sentiments toward the United States from the beginning of the relationship. In fact, that beginning was marked by a military confrontation in 1871 with the event known as “Sinmiyangyo” (literally, Western Disturbance of the Year Sinmi) in Korea and the “Little War with the Heathen” in the United States. Nearly 350 Koreans were killed in an effort to fend off the U.S. Navy and the U.S. Marines demanding trade and diplomatic relations with Korea in part as a retaliation against the Korean killing of the crew of the General Sherman in 1866.11 Ten years later, in 1882, the U.S.-Korea Amity and Trade Treaty was signed, proclaiming the establishment of “everlasting amity and friendship between the two peoples.” This treaty contained, among other things, the infamous “good offices” clause: “If other powers deal unjustly or oppressively with either government, the other will exert good offices, on being informed of the case, to bring about an amicable arrangement, thus showing their friendly feelings.”12 The implicit promise extended by this notion of “good offices,” which was most likely a “friendly” gesture of goodwill on the part of the United States rather than the offering of a treaty of mutual defense, nevertheless became the basis for the “unrequited love” of the United States felt by the small number of Koreans who knew of the treaty, particularly Kojong, the king of Korea at the time.13 Some reform-oriented thinkers during this period sought in America and its way of life a future vision of Korea, seeing America as a country of wealth, civilization, and enlightenment, a country that “was without territorial ambition . . . upheld public trust and treaties with foreign countries. . . . realized universal human ideals of freedom and human rights.”14 Some intellectuals, such as Kim Yunsik and Yu Kilchun, were more equivocal toward the United States, however. Kim Yunsik complained in 1895: “Americans talk of helping us with words but do nothing in action.” Koreans were disappointed that the United States failed to intervene on behalf of Koreans to prevent the 1905 Protectorate Treaty, which led to Korea’s formal colonization by Japan in 1910. During the colonial period, this disillusionment and ambivalence 11. For a detailed account of events leading up the 1871 Little War, including China’s advice to Kojong to seek U.S. help to counterbalance other imperial powers, see Kim, Last Phase, 51–76. 12. Quoted in Editorial Comment, “International Status of Korea,” 445. 13. Han, Taehanmin’guksa, 1:237. 14. All the quotes in this paragraph are from ibid., 237–39.

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toward the United States within the intellectual community continued; while the March 1 Independence Movement of 1919 (in which close to two million Koreans rose to demand peacefully Korea’s independence) was inspired by the Wilsonian doctrine of “self-determination,” leaders of the independence movement felt betrayed by the 1921–22 Washington Conference in which the United States again ignored the issue of Korea’s independence. After 1945, a popular saying would greet Americans who “returned” to Korea (the U.S. government had closed its legation office when Japan and Korea signed the Protectorate Treaty in 1905): “Don’t trust Americans, don’t trust Russians; Koreans, be careful, the Japanese are rising again.”

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The U.S.-South Korea Relationship

In postcolonial South Korea, the overwhelming U.S. influence, the contradiction between the U.S. government’s espousal of liberal democratic values and its conflicting policies toward South Korea, and the disenchantment of Korean intellectuals with liberal democratic values were all part of the profound sense of ambivalence toward the United States within the South Korean intellectual community. When criticism against the United States exploded in public in the late 1980s to the dismay of conservative elements and the Chun government (which exploited this sentiment in its negotiations with the United States), few in the intellectual community were genuinely surprised. For them, anti-U.S. sentiment was a given in the existing U.S.-South Korean relations. American influence dominated the public life of South Koreans politically, materially, and culturally through its three years of military government (1945–48), its involvement in the Korean War, its extensive economic and military aid, and its stationing of military troops in the South. More important for these intellectuals, the United States had divided Korea, creating two Koreas, which led to the Korean War, and had supported authoritarian regimes in the South as well. Intellectuals’ sense of historical betrayal was therefore deep-rooted.15 Some considered the 1945 liberation of Korea from the Japanese not an authentic independence and believed that only reunification of the two Koreas would bring true independence.16 The political environment in the postKorean War period did not allow public expressions of these sentiments, but the 1960 Student Uprising opened up public debates on South Korea’s dependence on the United States and the need for reunification with North Korea. During the brief existence of the Second Republic, intellectuals and 15. Paek et al., “Minjok t’ongil undong,” 23. 16. Kyongnam Taehakkyo Kuktong Munje Yon’guso, ed., “Che 2–pu, Hanmi kwan’gye,” 158.

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politicians took a more explicit nationalist stance, opposing the influence of both the United States and the Soviet Union.17 With the 1961 military coup, the critical attitude toward the United States was pushed underground again. It reappeared in 1964 during the protest against the Normalization Treaty with Japan, as I discussed in chapter 1. The South Korean regime also considered criticism of United States pro-communist. The deeply rooted equation of anticommunism and proAmericanism was so indelible in the minds of South Koreans that historian So Chungsok noted in the late 1980s that older Koreans simply could not utter slogans such as “Yankee, go home” and “Antiwar, antinuke,” even if they agreed with the slogans.18 The widely shared public perception that antiAmericanism was pro-communist made these slogans sound strange and unfamiliar, which in turn reinforced the idea that the public expression of anti-American sentiment, if not the sentiment itself, should indeed be foreign in South Korea. Until the end of the 1970s, many intellectuals were also enchanted with American ideals of liberal democracy. Especially among some dissident intellectuals of the 1970s, the United States was regarded as not only a supporter of the democratization movement but also an ally who would intervene on their behalf. Many dissident leaders were themselves educated in the United States and were regarded as carriers of American values by society at large. These deeply conflicting attitudes and sentiments toward the United States and the central place the United States occupied in Korea were at the heart of 1980s anti-Americanism. This is not to suggest that anti-U.S. sentiment was a monopoly of the intellectuals or of the 1980s’ democratization movement. Post-1945 critical views toward the United States had various trajectories and manifestations, with different proponents in each phase. For example, political scientist Chang Talchung suggests there were roughly three phases of anti-Americanism in South Korea: immediately after the Korean War, during the Yusin period, and in the aftermath of the Gwangju Uprising of 1980. Immediately after the Korean War, South Koreans shared one fundamental perception of the United States—as a protector of democracy against the Soviet and North Korean threat. Most critical views toward the United States were within this cognitive structure: the United States was criticized for its insufficient exercise of military, political, and economic influence on South Korea.19 During the Yusin period (1972–79), the Carter 17. Ibid., 158–59. 18. Ch’oe et al., “Gwangju hangjaeng,” 68–69. 19. Chang, “Panmi undong,” 134.

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administration’s human rights policy was a focal point of contention between the United States and South Korean regime, and Park Chung Hee considered U.S. President Jimmy Carter’s human rights policy as interference with South Korean internal affairs. But dissidents were encouraged by Carter’s human rights policy and actively sought to have the United States intervene in their efforts to undermine the Yusin regime.20

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The Gwangju Uprising and Anti-Americanism

The third phase and the “Copernican turn” on the perspective toward the United States occurred in the aftermath of the Gwangju Uprising. The sense of Gwangju as a failure and therefore a historical burden regenerated fierce debates on the meaning of Gwangju and the movement’s future direction. For the minjung movement, Gwangju was a rude awakening from previous “romantic” and “naïve” notions about democracy. The future movement was to be “revolutionary,” guided by “scientific” social analysis, with the minjung at the forefront. Implicit in this notion of scientific analysis was the question of how to position the United States in its relationship with the South Korean military dictatorship. In March 1982, students belonging to a conservative theological seminary set fire to the USIS building in Busan, demanding that the “United States stop treating South Korea like a colony” and calling Chun Doo Hwan “a murderer” for his suppression of the Gwangju Uprising. The arson was not only the first aggressively anti-American act, it was also one of the first acts of “violence” committed by activists in the democratization movement, who had until then strenuously avoided any violence except throwing rocks at riot police. The Busan USIS incident did not have an immediate impact on the democratization movement, which was initially unsure how to respond to the violence (the fire resulted in the death of one university student who was using the USIS library) and the unfamiliar slogans. But the event triggered a long train of thought on the issue of U.S.-South Korea relations for many individuals and groups. Statements such as the following by Mun Pusik, who faced the death sentence for his role in the arson, began to stir the intellectual community and the movement activists: “I hope that my death will be a turning point in U.S.South Korea relations, and that the U.S. government will no longer force the Third World countries to maintain the Cold War system, but will support and help her friends to build a democratic society and a unified 20. Ibid., 135.

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country. . . . The relationship of both countries should be based on equal friendship, not vertical control.”21 Shortly after the incident, the ecumenical Han’guk Kidokkyo Kyohoe Hyobuihoe (National Council of Churches in Korea, NCCK) issued the following statement:

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In order to understand this directly hostile act against the United States, it is important to start from a clear understanding of the fundamentals of U.S.-Korea relations. The United States has always been recognized as the closest ally of Korea ever since the United States involved itself in the fate of the Korean peninsula. But because the American role in Gwangju has left a scar that can never be erased, Koreans’ attitude toward the United States has decidedly changed.22 By the mid-1980s, the unequal relationship between South Korea and the United States, previously discussed by only a few people, had become a commonly accepted truth within the minjung movement and the intellectual community in Korea. By 1985, events related to Gwangju swept throughout university campuses—from anniversary ceremonies to memorial services for the dead, from street demonstrations to performances of folk plays. Gwangju had become the most burning issue of the time as activists vowed to claim the legacy of Gwangju and to do away with the military dictatorship. They sent fact-finding teams to Gwangju and published a white paper on Gwangju, sponsored public lectures featuring the participants of the uprising, and showed documentaries of Gwangju that drew thousands.23 All of these activities related to Gwangju brought forth the question of the decade: what was the role of the United States in the suppression of the Gwangju Uprising? This question led to probing the fundamentals of U.S.-South Korea relations in the 1980s. Throughout the early 1980s, however, the United States remained an ally and a symbol of democracy, even among those who were developing critical views of the united States. Soon after Gwangju, remarks by high-ranking officials of the Reagan administration triggered angry reactions from Koreans; U.S. Army General John Wickham called South Koreans “lemming-like” individuals who “need a strong leader,” and Ambassador Richard Walker called South Korean students “spoiled brats.” Dissidents and Christian organizations demanded an apology and an explanation for these 21. “Moon Bu-Shik’s Appellate Court Final Statement,” 15. 22. Quoted in Chang, “Panmi undong,” 135. 23. “Chonhangnyon, Sammint’u wa Mimunhwawon sakon,” 474–76.

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insulting pronouncements, but these demands implicitly suggest that the United States was regarded as an ally and a symbol of democracy. Koreans were hurt by the blatant U.S. ignorance of Korean national interests and pride, but even its critics did not yet consider the United States an “imperial” force. For example, when the student government at Seoul National University conducted a survey among its students in March 1985, 66 percent of the respondents viewed the United States as a “strong power” (kangdaeguk), while only 27 percent viewed the it as an imperial power. Eighty-one percent of the respondents, however, expressed dissatisfaction with contemporary U.S.-South Korea relations.24 A new political generation was born out of this dissatisfaction. The new generation gradually came to view South Korea’s political, social, economic, and cultural life as intimately related to, and moreover controlled by, the policy of the United States. Toward the end of the 1980s, the character of anti-Americanism in South Korea shifted fundamentally: the United States had become an “imperial power.” This new perspective saw the South Korean political, social, and economic system as directly resulting from the internal contradictions of U.S. capitalism and, most significant, saw the South Korean ruling regime as being in collusion with the United States. In other words, South Korea’s authoritarianism was seen as an inevitable product of the American system, and anti-Americanism therefore came to be an integral—even inevitable—element of the democratization movement.25 I do not suggest that this view was shared among all the undongkwon or that its articulation was always as clear-cut and coherent as the foregoing discussion might suggest; there existed among the undongkwon varying degrees and shades of critical attitudes and positions toward the United States. However, it is apparent that this view was propelled to a hegemonic position within the movement through vocal and repeated articulations, which included suicides of student activists. A number of students immolated themselves to “alert” the public to the U.S. “crimes” and to urge their fellow citizens to take action in defiance of the United States.26 The slogans “Antiwar, antinuke,” “Yankee, go home,” and “We refuse military training at the military base [chonbang ipso hullyon]; we refuse to be mercenaries for Yankees” became as familiar and mundane as the slogans of “Down with Chun Doo Hwan.” In the face of the death of many young people, any counterargument to why they died and for what would have to be equally, if not 24. Chang, “Panmi undong,” 136–37. 25. Ibid., 137–38. 26. See chapter 2; “T’ongil undong ui saeroun chon’gae.”

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more, compelling, and few could present such an argument and withstand the collective reprisal that followed.27 United States–South Korea Combined Forces Command

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What were the historical and material grounds for this vehemently critical attitude toward the United States? The most central is the historically unequal relationship between South Korea and the United States, which was symbolized by American control of the United States–South Korea Combined Forces Command (CFC).28 This arrangement was also the basis for the charge by the undongkwon of U.S. responsibility for the suppression of the Gwangju Uprising. In accordance with the 1954 mutual defense treaty between the United States and South Korea, the United States had maintained air and ground forces, equipped with tactical nuclear weapons, in forward positions in South Korea.29 Especially disconcerting for the dissenting intellectuals was the fact that “an American commander in chief would hold operational control through the Combined Forces Command not only over American forces in Korea but also over South Korean forces.”30 In addition, the American commander in Korea “can unilaterally order the wartime use of nuclear weapons.”31 The American commander reported directly to the U.S. Pacific Command, bypassing the South Korean government. Former Commander General Richard Stilwell described this arrangement as “the most remarkable concession of sovereignty in the entire world.”32 Equally worrisome to South Koreans was the fact that the United States had stationed nuclear weapons in South Korea (from 1957 to 1991),33 making a nuclear war a 27. In 1991, for example, Kim Chiha, a well-known poet and dissident leader of the 1970s democratization movement, was strongly criticized for calling student suicides a “glorification of death” (twelve students committed suicide that year). Kim was expelled from the Minjok Munhak Chakka Hoeui (Association of Writers for National Literature) and reinstated ten years later only after showing “repentance” for this mistake. See Ch’oe, “Kim Chiha ssi, 10–yonman ui hwahae.” 28. Harrison, “Political Alignments,” 121. Of course, many intellectuals and students also wanted close military cooperation with the United States. See Kim, “Peace and Security of Korea.” 29. See, among others, Han, ed., U.S.-Korea Security Cooperation. 30. Quoted in Harrison, “Political Alignments,” 122. On the history and legal status of U.S. military bases in Korea, see Song, “U.S. Military Troops,” 156–71. Several aspects of the security relationship have changed recently, including the command structure of the Combined Forces Command. On December 1, 1994, peacetime authority over all South Korean military units still under U.S. operational control was transferred to the South Korean Armed Forces. Discussions are also under way concerning the return of the Yongsan base to the heart of Seoul, as well as eventual disestablishment of the Combined Forces Command. See Lawless, “US-ROK Relationship.” 31. Harrison, “Political Alignments,” 126. 32. Ibid., 123. 33. See Oberdorfer, Two Koreas, 256–60.

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likely scenario on the Korean peninsula, not only in the event of an attack from North Korea but also for reasons beyond either North or South.34 The belief that the “United States wants to keep Korea divided for global strategic reasons” reinforced the perceived necessity for a U.S. military presence in the South to protect larger U.S. security interests in the East Asia– Pacific region, a fact that had been publicized by U.S. pronouncements.35 This perception was consonant with a widespread sentiment that American policies were derived from its “tendency to treat Korea as a subsidiary factor in American relations with other East Asian powers, insignificant in its own right and expendable when necessary.”36 With South Korea’s dependent position symbolized by the CFC and the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA),37 there was thus a widespread sentiment that South Korea had lost its sovereignty, for it did not have rights over its own territory. This in turn generated a critical attitude toward social issues related to American troops in general, such as “unequal burden-sharing” in financially maintaining military bases, prostitution around the bases, crimes committed by U.S. soldiers, unequal treatment of Korean employees on the bases, and the damage done to property and people near the bases due to the joint Team Spirit military exercises.38 The U.S. government’s contradictory claims and actions were another source of anti-Americanism. Despite its public espousal of democracy and freedom, the U.S. government had been closely identified with successive repressive regimes in South Korea. For example, Chun Doo Hwan, who was widely held to be responsible for the suppression of the Gwangju Uprising, was the first foreign leader President Ronald Reagan invited to the White House in 1981. The Reagan administration’s support for Chun did not abate until 1987.39 34. Hayes, “American Nuclear Dilemma in Korea,” 172. 35. Harrison, “Political Alignments,” 126. 36. Ibid., 125. For an account that argues that U.S. stakes were not vital in Korea, see Carpenter, “South Korea,” 6–7. 37. Song, “U.S. Military Troops,” 164. SOFA, signed in 1966, dealt with the status and criminal jurisdiction of U.S. forces in Korea. 38. The Filipino peace activists’ demand for increased rent for U.S. military bases in the Philippines led South Korean activists to reevaluate the cost of maintaining U.S. troops in Korea. See Ho, “Han-Mi pangwibi.” Held annually since 1976, the large-scale Team Spirit military exercises involved between a hundred and two hundred thousand U.S. and South Korean troops. The purpose of the exercises was to prepare for a possible attack from North Korea, although North Korea denounced the exercises as preparations for invading the North. 39. When Chun Doo Hwan seized power after Park Chung Hee’s assassination by overthrowing an interim constitutional government, he redeployed elements of the Korean Ninth and Thirtieth divisions and the Korean First Corps units from the front line to Seoul. General John Wickham, American commander, said that he had not been informed of the move in time to intervene. But many Koreans suspected American complicity in the coup, citing Wickham’s statement soon afterward that Koreans are “lemming-like” and “need a strong leader.” Similarly, critics blamed the

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The Chun regime, in turn, by relying on repressive measures such as the 1980 Basic Press Law (which legalized state supervision of all aspects of the media), made sure that South Korean media coverage of U.S.-South Korea relations conveyed U.S. support and approval of the military regime and U.S. commitment to South Korea’s security. The regime also made sure that the South Korean media demonstrated to the public the fact that the “U.S. cared about security more than democracy.”40 Partly as a result of the Chun regime’s persistent efforts to assert its close ties with the United States, the South Korean public, especially students and intellectuals, largely believed that the United States supported the military regime and its brutal crackdown in Gwangju. The daily Hankyoreh Sinmun’s 1988 survey of 700 university students reported that over 95 percent of respondents believed the United States was deeply involved in the military operation in Gwangju. A second survey of students’ opinion in 1990 conducted by another daily, Choson Ilbo, also showed that 75 percent of the respondents thought the United States helped in some way in the military crackdown in Gwangju.41 The Chun regime, ruthless to its own people, was unduly obeisant to the United States. In the latter half of the 1980s, the Chun regime’s dependent posture vis-à-vis the United States became even more pronounced with the growing U.S. pressure to open Korean domestic markets and to carry out currency reform.42 South Korea’s decision to open up its market for agricultural products and livestock led thousands of farmers to descend on Seoul with their cows to protest the low price of domestic livestock.43 When U.S. Secretary of State George Schultz visited Seoul in 1985, the Korean public was stunned by the news that he took several security dogs into the office of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. To many in Korea, these incidents only confirmed the subservient position of the Korean government vis-à-vis the United States. All of these factors—the unequal U.S.-South Korea relations underlined by the U.S. military presence, the public’s intense animosity toward Chun and U.S. support for Chun, U.S. pressures on South Korea to

United States for permitting Chun’s use of Korean forces to suppress the Gwangju Uprising in May 1980. In reality, General Wickham did not have operational control over the Korean Special Forces units that committed the most serious atrocities. But American spokespersons have acknowledged that the United States did approve the use of the other Korean units involved. Harrison, “Political Alignments,” 123. 40. Lee, “Anti-Americanism in South Korea,” 68. See also Chang, “Panmi undong,” 141. 41. Lee, “Anti-Americanism in South Korea,” 104. 42. See Kim, “Political Changes in South Korea,” 55–56. 43. “Sijang kaebang amnyok,” 6–8.

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accommodate American demands, and the Chun government’s inability to deflect U.S. pressures for trade and exchange rate reforms—made antiU.S. sentiment one of the most explosive features of the democratization movement of the 1980s. From the slogans shouted by university students to academic journals to popular culture, anti-Americanism came to constitute the era’s Zeitgeist.

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Occupation of the Seoul USIS Building, May 1985

One of the most dramatic moments of the minjung movement’s rethinking about the United States came with the student occupation of the USIS building in Seoul in May 1985. On May 23, seventy-three university students belonging to the Struggle Committee to Punish the Ringleader of the Gwangju Massacre pushed through the gate of the building, occupied the library on the second floor, and demanded that the U.S. government apologize for its role in Gwangju. Denied a meeting with U.S. Ambassador Richard Walker, they immediately staged a hunger strike. Seventy-two hours later, and a day before the scheduled meeting of the South and North Red Cross, the students walked out of the building on their own.44 Unlike the students of the earlier 1982 Busan USIS arson incident, the students occupying the Seoul USIS building were in the public spotlight; from their entrance to the building until they voluntarily handed themselves over to the waiting police, their moves were televised, commented upon, and widely discussed among ordinary citizens and commentators. The occupation was also perhaps the first time the students were accused by their government and the mass media of being both opposed to and reliant on the United States (sadaejuui, “rely on the great”). The occupying students demanded that the U.S. government apologize for its role in the massacre of the Gwangju Uprising, that it immediately stop supporting the Chun military dictatorship, and that American citizens make diligent efforts toward establishing “correct” U.S.-Korea relations.45 The audacity of these demands, along with the audacity of occupying a building that housed a U.S. government agency, sparked intense public debate not only on the validity of the occupation itself but also on larger issues, including who was responsible for the Gwangju massacre. In the National Assembly, the ruling party and opposition parties were pressured into dealing with the issues put forth by the occupation. A verbal battle ensued on questions such as how to define minjung and what constituted 44. See, among others, Kim, “Mimunhwawon chomgo,” 256–71. 45. Han et al., 80–yondae Han’guk sahoe, 130.

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anti-Americanism.46 The defense minister was prompted to deliver a white paper on the Gwangju Uprising as a response to the inquiry of the Defense Committee of the National Assembly, which further intensified the students’ demands for a full investigation into Gwangju.47 Because the students insisted that their only motive for the occupation was to seek an apology from the United States for its role in Gwangju, it became unavoidable during their trial that Gwangju would be discussed, notwithstanding the dogged but farcical attempts by judges and prosecutors to skirt the issue.48 During the trial, students took every opportunity to articulate why they considered the present regime and the U.S. government responsible for Gwangju, how to establish true democracy in South Korea, and what the future relations of the two countries should be. When asked specifically about the role of the United States during Gwangju, Kim Minsok, one of the student leaders on trial, replied:

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With its support for military regimes, the United States, for its own political and military interests, has more often than not played a role that has been antithetical to the true democratic demands of minjung. . . . The more specific wrong of the United States during Gwangju is that it had tacitly consented to the use of the military under the Combined Forces Command. In other words, the United States watched over the massacre with its eyes open because of its own political interests.49 Perhaps without intending to do so, student occupation of the USIS building upset the belief system upon which U.S.-South Korea relations were founded. While it did not immediately shatter, cracks began to appear in the decades-old popular conception of the United States and its relations with South Korea. These students also inaugurated a veritable anti-American campaign in the minjung movement at large (as well as introducing a new strategy called “occupation sit-in”). After the occupation of the Seoul USIS building, university campuses nationwide were swept by the wave of antiAmericanism, which the mass media characterized as both “mass-oriented” and “full-scale.” In a survey of Seoul National University students conducted in 1988, 80 percent of first-year student respondents characterized their 46. “Chonhangnyon, Sammint’u wa Mimunhwawon sakon,” 466. 47. “Hagwon, ‘chayurhwa’ eso,” 264. 48. For example, prosecutors charged most of the students involved with violation of the Special Law on Trespassing in Residential Buildings instead of the National Security Law, in an effort to minimize political discussion during the trial. See Kim, “Kongp’an choso,” 35. 49. Quoted in ibid., 44–45.

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own views as “anti-American.”50 Within the minjung movement, antiAmericanism became the order of the day, as pamphlet after pamphlet denounced the United States as “a military gangster,” “Korea’s enemy,” and “a threat to world peace.”51 Dissidents, religious leaders, and student groups focused on anti-U.S. activities, even designating a “Day of Anti-U.S. Struggle.”52 .

Chamint’u and the Anti-U.S. Campaign

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By the mid-1980s, the growing critical attitude toward the United States had resulted in a number of student activists seeing their most immediate task to be “exposing the U.S. influence on Korean politics and policy.” The exposure of “American sin” was the underlying motif of the group known as Panmi Chajuhwa Panp’asyo Minjuhwa T’ujaeng Wiwonhoe (Struggle Committee for Anti-United States, Antifascist, and Autonomous Democratization, Chamint’u). Chamint’u characterized South Korea as “colonial and semi-feudal capitalist” and called for establishing minjung democracy with workers and farmers at the center. Chamint’u activities consisted of campaigns to “expel U.S. imperialists from Korea” and to overthrow the current regime.53 By openly criticizing the United States, students declared publicly what had previously been considered a political taboo. With the United States as the main target of their campaigns, Chamint’u students consigned secondary roles to all other forces they had previously targeted. A widely circulated underground pamphlet, “Haebang sosi” (Overtures to liberation), declared the following, in the fall of 1985: The main agent of the fascist domination of the Korean people is U.S. imperialism. Conservative bureaucrats, monopoly capitalists, and the military in South Korea are only servants of the United States. . . . The main enemy of our struggle should be the United States. All other opposing groups are our enemies only because they take orders from the United States.54 A pamphlet circulating at the time warned, “If your veins are not convulsed with burning hostility toward U.S. imperialism, you need to think 50. 51. 52. 53. 54.

“Taehakka hwipssunun panmi undong,” 583. Kyonghyang Sinmun, May 9, 1986. “Taehakka hwipssunun panmi undong,” 584. On Chamint’u, see Kang et al., 80–yondae haksaeng undongsa, 161–269. Quoted in Lee, “Anti-Americanism in South Korea,” 130.

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again before reading this pamphlet.”55 Another pamphlet declared the antiU.S. campaign a “holy war.”56 The call by Chamint’u for an anti-U.S. campaign also coincided with a number of domestic and international incidents, giving credence to their slogans for general students: U.S. Secretary of State Schultz’s visit to cabinet members with his security dogs, the persistent U.S. demand for import liberalization, and U.S. bombing of Libya and giving aid to the contras in Nicaragua, among others. One of the main targets of the Chamint’u group was the annual military training that university students were required to undergo, which was conducted in military camps near the demilitarized zone (DMZ). Students vehemently protested the training, arguing that they did not want to become American mercenaries. During the protest, two student leaders set themselves on fire, shouting “Antiwar, Antinuke” and “Yankee, go home!”57 In May 1986, the Busan USIS was occupied by Chamint’u students, and in October of the same year, another nationwide organization similar to Chamint’u was inaugurated at Kon’guk University. These students’ slogans marked a clear departure from those who had occupied the USIS building in Seoul a year earlier. The students of 1985 had been anxious to declare that they were not anti-American, that their intention was not to attack the United States directly but to deal a political blow to South Korea’s dictatorial regime by exposing U.S. support as morally wrong.58 The students inside the Busan USIS in 1986 betrayed no such anxiety; they made sure to let the public know that their main target was the United States. The theme of the student movement in the late 1980s was captured by one of their slogans: “With anti-Americanism as an antidote, let us revive our country that has been ruined by the United States.” Anti-American sentiment also became the barometer with which to measure one’s dedication to the movement. The students did not spare former students from this yardstick. Yi Ch’ol, one of the four who had been sentenced to death in the National Federation of Democratic Youth and Students case of 1974 (see chapter 4) and who was at the time a member of the opposition party, was invited to a stu55. Quoted in Kang et al., 80–yondae haksaeng undongsa, 437. 56. “Haebang sonon 2,” 3. 57. Han et al., 80–yondae Han’guk sahoe, 156. 58. According to Yun Yongsang, one of the seventy-three students involved in the occupation, once the students successfully occupied the building and had the time, they discussed how to frame their criticism, whether to target the United States or the Chun regime. Many felt that declaring themselves anti-U.S. would invite immediate repercussions from the Chun regime and the mass media, and their objective of denouncing the Chun regime would be less effective. Interview, Seoul, July 29, 2005.

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dent rally at Seoul National University in 1985. He was asked to clarify his own and his party’s position on the United States; students declared that this important matter should not be glossed over just because Yi Ch’ol was a respected alumnus and a well-known former student activist.59 It is difficult to gauge how Korean society at large reacted to this critical view of the United States. In the absence of any systematic and longitudinal study tracing changing public perceptions toward the United States, the only available sources for some insight are polls taken by the media at the time (though one should be wary of the politics of polls). In 1990, the MBC (Munhwa Broadcasting Corporation) and a research institute of Seoul National University surveyed 1,523 Koreans and found that 57.8 percent agreed with the statement that the United States “pursues only its own national interests” in its relations with South Korea. In the same survey, 29.6 percent responded that the United States “is a help to Korea,” while 7.0 percent thought that the United States “does damage to South Korea.”60 A daily newspaper’s survey of Seoul residents in the late 1980s also found that 35.3 percent of those surveyed responded that they agreed with the students’ anti-U.S. views.61 Some literature published at this time makes it apparent that the intellectual community at large was critical of the United States, although its language was perhaps less strident than that of university students. Sociologist Han Wansang characterized U.S.-Korea relations as “forty years of unrequited love.”62 The previously mentioned Mun Pusik likened the United States to a meddlesome mother-in-law whom the daughter-in-law hates more than she hates her abusive husband.63 A poet wrote in 1987, “Who drove a picket into the ground of our own house?”64 In 1988, a volume of short stories was entitled Panmi: Sosolchip (Anti-America: Collection of stories).65 A former student activist-turned-journalist published a book with the subtitle “Pallo ch’ajun ‘panmi kyogwaso’ ” (Textbook on Anti-Americanism).66 59. Choson Ilbo, June 14, 1986. 60. Quoted in Kim, “Nature of South Korean Anti-Americanism,” 42. 61. See Yu and Pak, “Han’guk haksaeng undong,” 112. 62. Han, Han Wansang sahoe p’yongnon, 210–11. 63. Kim, Pult’anun Miguk, 44. 64. Kim, “Uri modu kaja t’ongillo.” 65. Kim, ed., Panmi: Sosolchip. 66. O, Singminji ui adul ege. A few conservative scholars tend to emphasize that anti-U.S. sentiment was directed by North Korea in the first place and that without North Korea’s continuous prodding, it would not have reached the level it did in the 1980s as well as later. See, for example, Kim, Panmi undong i Han’guk sahoe e mich’inun yonghyang. This view ignores the longstanding critical stance in South Korea since 1945 and the large numbers of Koreans who held negative views of Americans for their willful defiance of Korean law and social customs in a series of widely publicized incidents, and not just because of the issue of sociopolitical dependency.

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In academia, the reassessment of the role of the United States in Korean history invited a critical look into the intellectuals’ own complicity in that history. The cold-war perspectives, anticommunism, and the “ideology of security” had dominated the South Korean intellectual community since 1945.67 The rising anti-American sentiment, along with the minjung history and “revisionist” scholarship discussed in chapter 1, caused intellectuals to critically reevaluate their own role in sustaining the cold-war mentality and the “division system” within their scholarship. Much of the scholarship in Korean history and to some degree in Korean literature in the 1980s and the early 1990s reflected this critical reevaluation.68

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The Turn to Chuch’e Sasang

On May 22, 1986, a wall newspaper (taejabo) on the Seoul National University campus startled students with the following news: “We listened to the North Korean radio broadcast; what is wrong with that? We have the right to listen to it. We receive more information from North Korean radio than from the one-sided coverage of KBS.”69 This announcement, shocking even to undongkwon students at the time, was the beginning of the “northern wind”—North Korea’s chuch’e sasang—that swept through the minjung movement in the years to come. The shock was due not so much to the fact that the students listened to North Korean radio broadcasts but that they announced this to the public. Appearing one day after the Chamint’u students’ occupation of the Busan USIS building in May 1986 and one year after the 1985 student occupation of the Seoul USIS building, the announcement on the wall newspaper was, in hindsight, neither accidental nor surprising. The movement’s turn to chuch’e sasang was not a separate or independent development from the movement’s turn to anti-Americanism. These two phenomena intersected at critical points, feeding each other with similar analyses, perspectives, and a now-or-never eschatological flavor. In fact, the two phenomena stemmed from the same source—the deep anxiety about postcolonial South Korea not having gone through a proper process of decolonization. The undongkwon’s critique of the United States revealed their own and the South 67. Yu, ed., Sujongjuui wa Han’guk hyondaesa yon’gu, 10. 68. For a list of Korean history books published with a minjung perspective see, ibid., 12–13. For accounts of reassessment in the field of education, see, among others, Yi, “Chegukchuui munhwa ui ch’imnyak,” and Ch’oe, “Migunjonggi Kuktaean pandae undong.” 69. “Undongkwon ui Chusap’a,” 294. KBS is government-owned and had been a target of boycotts because of its partial coverage throughout the 1980s.

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Korean intellectual community’s complicity in the making of postcolonial history, and they found redemption in North Korea’s chuch’e sasang, itself a decolonization narrative. Chuch’e sasang is North Korea’s thought system that emphasizes autonomy and self-reliance in all aspects of life, from politics to economy to culture to one’s everyday behavior. Chuch’e (literally, “master, the main, the whole”) generally means independence and self-reliance; it has existed in the lexicon of Korean political life and has been invoked often by social and political leaders such as Park Chung Hee.70 Chuch’e sasang as a central political doctrine that governs all aspects of North Korean life appeared in 1955, however, a time when the North faced increasing difficulty maintaining a neutral and independent position in the intensifying tension between the Soviet Union and China. This thought system encompassed the idea of chuch’e in ideology, independence in politics (chaju), self-sustenance in the economy (charip), and self-defense in national defense (chawi).71 Much of the literature published on North Korea in the 1970s suggested that chuch’e sasang had a positive impact, particularly on the North’s economic development, at least until the 1970s.72 Scholars differ on chuch’e sasang’s relation and relevance to Marxism and Leninism, and North Korean leaders have over the years changed their own position on this issue, from initially emphasizing the ideology’s rootedness in Marxism-Leninism to later claiming its complete originality and sole authorship by Kim Il Sung. Regardless, one of the principal ideas of chuch’e, that “Man is master of everything and decides everything,” is, according to Aidan Foster-Carter, the “quintessentially Marxist theme of homo faber, Promethean man, whose nature it is perpetually to be transforming Nature, and whose history is made of that dialectic of transformation.”73 I have neither the space nor the capacity to discuss chuch’e sasang comprehensively, and my purpose here is limited to examining its relation to the minjung movement in the 1980s. It would suffice to remind the reader that regardless of how it was put into practice and how it was perceived by outsiders, chuch’e sasang was initially a product of North Korea’s particular predicament: it was a postcolonial society in which the leadership’s political legitimacy was based on its waging an anticolonial armed movement. Its adversary in the South was backed by one of the two most powerful countries in the world at that time—the United States. It was largely considered to be 70. For examples, see Cumings, Korea’s Place in the Sun, 30, 207. 71. White, “North Korean Chuch’e,” 46; Suh, Kim Il Sung, 302. 72. See, for example, Brun and Hersh, Socialist Korea; White, “North Korean Chuch’e”; FosterCarter, “North Korea.” 73. Quoted in Foster-Carter, “North Korea,” 123.

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“the ultimate international pariah” in the West for having initiated the Korean War, which had involved the United Nations; it was considered a puppet of the Soviet Union. It was also the “only ruling Communist regime in a post-colonial third-world. . . . for almost a decade.”74 Some scholars were willing to recognize this aspect of chuch’e sasang and characterized it as “a normal and healthy reaction of the Korean people to the deprivation they suffered under foreign domination”75; a form of “psychological decolonization . . . an attempt to get rid of Japanese [colonial] influences and to prepare them for the task of transforming Korea into an advanced and independent nation.”76 As I show below, this aspect of chuch’e sasang also became most salient and relevant for the 1980s minjung movement. But, first, I return to the North Korean radio broadcasting, introduced above. The North Korean radio broadcast mentioned in the wall newspaper was North Korea’s radio program “Kuguk ui sori” (Voice of national salvation), which has been aired in the South in the name of the Han’guk Minjok Minju Chonson (Hanminjon, Korean National Democratic Front, KNDF) since 1985. From 1970 until 1985, the program had been called “T’onghyoktang moksori” (Voice of the Reunification Revolutionary Party), the underground organization in South Korea from 1964 to 1968. The broadcast usually started with an announcement about its origin in Seoul, although the radio station was believed to be located in Haeju, South Hwanghae Province, in North Korea, about fifty miles north of Seoul. The messages were sent three times a day for a total of thirteen hours in both short and medium waves.77 The KNDF was believed among those who followed chuch’e sasang to be a vanguard party operating in South Korea. As I discussed in chapter 2, aspiring socialist revolutionaries in South Korea had long dreamed of a vanguard party to lead the revolution, and North Korean leader Kim Il Sung espoused the autonomy of the South Korean revolution (even if only in theory). An underground organization such as the Reunification Revolutionary Party in the 1960s was therefore a product of both the South Korean revolutionaries’ wish to fulfill their dream of organizing a vanguard party and North Korea’s self-designated role as a supporter of the revolution. After its existence was exposed by the KCIA and its members executed and put into prison, the revival of a vanguard organization had become the dream of many that few could hope to ever realize. 74. Quoted in ibid., 118. For a detailed account of the establishment of the North Korean state, see Armstrong, North Korean Revolution. 75. Suh, Kim Il Sung, 310. 76. White, “North Korean Chuch’e,” 45. 77. “Undongkwon ui Chusap’a,” 295. This broadcasting was discontinued in 2003.

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The KNDF therefore took on a mythic existence among the undongkwon, and all the more so because no one was in the position to affirm or deny its existence. Those among the undongkwon who embraced chuch’e sasang believed, well into the early 1990s, that the KNDF indeed existed and operated in South Korea—a dream come true for them.78 Starting from the late 1980s, a number of activists began to record, transcribe, edit, and distribute the KNDF radio programs to fellow activists at large. In 1989, for example, there were at least three such transcriptions circulating in booklet form, with titles such as “Saenal” (New day), “Kuguk ui kwangjang” (Patriotic field), and “Minjok haebang undong ui chollyak kwa chonsul” (Strategy and tactics of the national liberation movement).79 The KNDF radio program dealt with educational subjects such as the history of the North Korean revolution and lectures on chuch’e sasang. Particularly pertinent to the activists were the analyses of contemporary South Korean sociopolitical issues and suggestions for the democratization movement. In one roundtable discussion, one of the participants cited a public opinion survey that was published in a South Korean monthly news journal the previous week. This apparent grasp of details of South Korean life helped convince listeners of the existence of the KNDF inside South Korea.80 During the 1987 presidential election, the KNDF had called for a single opposition candidate, while the majority of the minjung movement opted for “critical support” of Kim Dae Jung. (With two opposition candidates running, the opposition vote was split and the ruling party candidate Roh Tae Woo was elected by a narrow margin.) After the election, it was said that the KNDF’s analyses and its specific instructions were held in esteem by chuch’e sasang followers. For a South Korean citizen, listening to North Korean radio program was an antistate activity, punishable under the National Security Law. Radio broadcasts were also widely associated with espionage activities; media coverage of captured North Korean spies would unfailingly include a picture of a radio as indisputable evidence of their spy activities. Access to North Korean radio broadcasts was relatively easy, however. All one needed was a shortwave radio, which was openly available in the wholesale electronic market in Cheonggyecheon, Seoul. 78. It was clear from my interviews with activists in 1992 and 1993 that those who belonged to chusap’a believed in the existence of the KNDF; those who did not thought the idea was ridiculous. 79. It may be that there were many more publications in circulation. In 1992, I found these transcriptions of the broadcasts in the library of Han’guk Kidokkyo Sahoe Munje Yon’guwon (Christian Institute for the Study of Justice and Development, CISJD), which had just started to collect and catalogue various materials related to the minjung movement. 80. “Chipchung yon’gu: Chusap’a,” 384.

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North Korea, Chuch’e Sasang, and the Democratization Movement

Since the appearance of the Seoul National University wall newspaper in 1986, South Korean society had witnessed what had been unthinkable even a year earlier: an open endorsement and, in some cases, adoption of the North Korean revolutionary line among undongkwon. This not only flagrantly defied South Korean law, which the undongkwon was accustomed to, but also went against the principles of anticommunism, which the undongkwon themselves previously considered inviolable, as I discussed in chapter 2. What brought about the changed attitude among the undongkwon toward North Korea and its main political ideas? I discuss first the place of North Korea and chuch’e sasang in the minjung movement before discussing the embrace of chuch’e sasang by the undongkwon in the 1980s. The geographic border that separates the North and South lies less than an hour’s drive from Seoul, but North Korea was located far away on the psychic map of most South Koreans, perhaps much farther than the United States or Europe. North Korea has loomed large in every aspect of South Korean life, both as a perennial competitor81 and as the Other that needed to be snuffed out or at least taken over. Yet South Koreans knew very little about North Korea. Students and intellectuals hungered for information on North Korea. In 1980, a lecture by a U.S.-based scholar on North Korea at Seoul National University was attended by hundreds of students who barraged the speaker with seemingly basic and naïve questions such as “Do North Koreans live better than South Koreans?”82 It was not until 1988 that a South Korean university offered a course on North Korea in Korea University’s Department of Political Science and Diplomacy.83 The state’s blockade of information on North Korea and its rhetoric of “we are doing better than the North” made the intellectual community distrust the information issued by the state. In 1984, for example, the United Nations issued gross national product (GNP) figures for both Koreas. Kim Yonghwan, a third-year university student at the time, remembered that the South Korean government widely touted its superiority over North Korea in citing the GNP figures. When Kim calculated the per capita GNP, how81. South Korea’s competition with the North covered everything from international recognition to economic development to sports. It is widely assumed that Park Chung Hee’s economic policy developed in part from his sense of “having to do better than the North,” as the North’s economic development until the mid-1970s surpassed that of the South. See Brun and Hersh, Socialist Korea; Foster-Carter, “North Korea”; McCormack, “North Korea: Kimilsungism,” 53. 82. Sin, “80–yondae haksaeng undong yasa 1: 10.26 eso Murim kkaji,” 174. 83. It was only in 1989 that a quarterly journal of history, Yoksa pip’yong, began openly discussing North Korea, with three special series beginning in its spring issue.

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ever, it turned out that South Korea’s per capita GNP was $2,300 and North Korea’s was $2,100. His government’s exaggeration that “South Korea lived ten times better than North Korea” made Kim resolve not to trust it on matters related to North Korea.84 On the other hand, accounts of North Korea by Western intellectuals or journalists, such as were available, were highly valued. Presenting herself as “typical” of her generation, journalist Yi Misuk (class of 1984) relates her experience of reading a travelogue by a West German writer, Luise Rinser—Yi’s first “encounter” with North Korea outside official approval.85 Although Yi at the time thought Rinser’s account of North Korea was too idealized, she found it difficult to question the author, who was a wellknown European intellectual.86 Yi was not a chuch’e sasang follower or an undongkwon, but her hesitation to probe Rinser’s account was indeed “typical” of her generation. For the undongkwon at large, until the mid-1980s, North Korea was perhaps even farther away on their psychic map than it was in the minds of the general public, since any link with it, intentional or unintentional, was an invitation to lifelong suffering or death. Even when activists were searching for a revolutionary path and actively examining socialist literature in the early 1980s, they had assiduously avoided discussing North Korea. Also, a small number of socialists had a deep-seated suspicion that North Korea was not a truly socialist country. By the mid-1980s, however, the ideological landscape of the minjung movement was rapidly expanding. The growth of the minjung movement, its revolutionary turn after Gwangju, minjung historians’ reassessment of Korean history, introduction of revisionist scholarship on the Korean War, and circulation of “forgotten history” such as Kim San’s Song of Ariran all contributed to changing attitudes toward Korean communists and, by extension, toward North Korea. In this context, some individuals in the movement began to reevaluate past underground organizations, particularly those deemed to have had anti-imperialist and socialist goals, such as the South Korean Liberation Front (SKLF).

84. Kim Yonghwan, interview, Seoul, July 28, 2005. 85. Yi, Pyonhwa nun sijak twaetta, 13. Luise Rinser, of the former West Germany, was a popular author in South Korea, and her novels, essays, diaries, and autobiography were widely available in Korean translation. The travelogue was based on her 1980 visit to North Korea and was translated into Korean with the title Tto Hana ui Choguk (Another Motherland) and was immensely popular. See Rinser, Nordkoreanisches Reisetagebuch. Other popular travelogues in the early 1980s were by Korea-born academics and medical doctors based in the United States and Canada who had visited North Korea in July 1983. See Yang et al., Pundan ul ttwio nomo. 86. Yi, Pyonhwa nun sijak twaetta, 13.

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Although the minjung movement as a whole viewed the specific strategies and tactics of the SKLF (such as urban guerrilla tactics) with ambivalence and skepticism, a small number of activists began to reassess SKLF’s anti-imperialist and socialist perspectives as particularly relevant for them. They viewed most dissident organizations at the time as reform-oriented, and they felt it was necessary to organize an underground vanguard party to guide the various social movements in a coherent, unified direction— toward a socialist revolution. Wishing to emulate the revolutionary tactics of the SKLF, but lacking information, many of the undongkwon resorted to memorizing a photocopy of the written arraignment of the case.87 The search for a revolutionary path for their movement went hand in hand with the rising number of undongkwon individuals labeled communists or leftists and going to prison in the 1980s. One observer called this phenomenon “human wave tactics” (inhae chonsul),88 recalling the large number (more than half a million) of Chinese soldiers fighting alongside North Korean soldiers during the Korean War. Indeed, the large number of undongkwon in prison, combined with recognition by the general public of the undongkwon as nationalist, made the once deadly demarcation between nationalist, communist, or leftist somewhat blurred. In the late 1980s, it was said that ordinary (criminal) prisoners would treat with disdain their undongkwon cellmates who were charged with anything less serious than violating the National Security Law—for example, violating the assembly law.89 The mid-1980s was also a time when the movement as a whole was rent with ideological divisions and sectarian fighting. Since the early 1980s, there had been continuous debates within the movement on how to characterize South Korean society, on how to define their own movement, and on goals, strategies, and tactics. Numerous pamphlets filled with abstractions and movement jargon circulated, and protracted debates continued, leaving a large number of undongkwon individuals feeling disempowered and dispirited (I discuss this further in chapters 7 and 8). More insidiously, opposing groups (most notably Chamin’tu and Minmint’u90) began to fight 87. U, 82 tul ui hyongmyong norum, 91–94. 88. See Ch’oe et al., “Gwangju hangjaeng,” 43. 89. Hong, “6–wol hangjaeng,” 870–71. 90. Panje Panp’asyo Minjok Minju T’ujaeng Wiwonhoe (Committee for the Struggle for an AntiImperialist, Anti-Fascist National Democracy, Minmint’u), a nationwide student organization launched in April 1986, followed the analysis of the People’s Democracy (PD) group, whereas Chamint’u, discussed earlier, followed the analysis of the National Liberation (NL) group. NL and PD are two main factions within the democratization movement of 1986 whose major difference lay in the analysis of the characterization of South Korea. Both the NL and the PD saw South Korea as state-monopoly capitalist dependent on foreign powers; however, PD recognized that

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each other violently with wood poles in public and disrupt each other’s public gatherings. Although the violent phase of the movement was brief, lasting perhaps a few months, it left a deep scar among many undongkwon individuals. In this atmosphere of divisiveness, chuch’e sasang would have a particular attraction for the undongkwon with its call for unity, overriding ideological and political differences under the banner of chuch’e sasang. Chuch’e Sasang as a Heroic Narrative

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The South Korean undongkwon of the mid-1980s was therefore a fertile ground for chuch’e sasang. Of course, there were always a few curious and adventuresome among the undongkwon (and among the general university student body and the public) who found a way to obtain North Korean books and listen to North Korean broadcasting even before the mid-1980s. For many members of the previously mentioned socialist vanguard organizations, chuch’e sasang was a guide for their revolution. But it was not until 1985 that the democratization movement as a whole was introduced to chuch’e sasang, which became a model for their own revolution. The previously mentioned Kim Yonghwan, a third-year student at Seoul National University at the time, was most responsible for introducing chuch’e sasang through a series of underground pamphlets known as the Kangch’ol series. Kangch’ol, literally meaning “tempered steel,” comes from Korean translation of a fictionalized account of the Russian Revolution, Kangch’ol un ottok’e tallyon toeonnun’ga (How the Steel Was Tempered ), which became widely popular among activists in the mid-1980s.91 Kim Yonghwan’s Kangch’ol series, particularly Kangch’ol sosin (Letters from Kangch’ol), were immediate sensations among the undongkwon.92 South Korean society had produced a capitalist system with a unique logic of its own, while the NL, denying any autonomy to Korean capitalism, saw South Korean capitalism as a U.S. imperialist attempt at domination, and saw the class contradiction (i.e., the contradiction between capital and labor) as taking the form of the contradiction between imperialism and the South Korean people. Crudely put, PD was for class struggle, while NL was for a nationalist revolution (from U.S. imperialism). 91. Osutturop’usk’i, Kangch’ol un ottok’e tallyon toeonnun’ga. 92. These were later published as Kangch’ol sosin. My interviews with former activists and a perusal through contemporary news journals invariably mentioned the language of the Kangch’ol series; it was refreshing, personal, and easy to understand. They note that most previous underground pamphlets also dealt with similar historical and sociopolitical analyses, as did the Kangch’ol series, but their language was dull and full of jargon. The author later acknowledged that, after having spent time with workers at the Kuro Industrial Complex since college, he realized how the movement’s language was a barrier to ordinary workers; not only was there an influx of foreign words in the movement literature, they were also heavily abbreviated. He resolved to write clearly and for a general audience. Kim Yonghwan, interview, Seoul, July 28, 2005.

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Kim Yonghwan found in chuch’e sasang a “true revolutionary path, for it combined the best of Marxism-Leninism with the best of Korea’s nationalist movements.”93 Thoroughly steeped in nationalist yearnings, unsatisfied with the existing information about North Korea, and troubled by the democratization movement’s silence on North Korea, Kim decided to find out more about North Korea on his own and spent much time poring over any literature on North Korea that he could find. He had also been disenchanted with the existing socialism of the Soviet Union and China, and he hoped to find in North Korea his socialist ideals untainted. For many in the undongkwon as well, chuch’e sasang was first and foremost a nationalist narrative. Thirty-five years of colonial rule had made nationalism the supreme virtue in South Korea. Postcolonial political leaders such as Syngman Rhee and Park Chung Hee staked their legitimacy on their nationalist credentials. The history of Kim Il Sung’s anti-Japanese guerrilla movements became an indisputable and irresistible story of nationalism for many undongkwon. Those with socialist visions did not find their nationalist aspirations in conflict with socialism, much as North Koreans’ nationalism was not in conflict with their socialist and communist ideas. Chuch’e sasang appealed to the undongkwon particularly as a “heroic narrative,” a narrative of collective idealism and sacrifice. Sociologist Jeffrey C. Alexander shows, following Hayden White’s idea that historians write their history as stories of a particular kind,94 how intellectuals explain shifting sociopolitical world order using literary genres. Intellectuals in the West narrated the modernity, modernization, and capitalist development as “romantic narrative,” in which the language of progress and universalization was central. In the 1960s, in part invigorated by the eruption of new social movements worldwide such as peasant rebellions, Black and Chicano national movements, and women’s liberation, intellectuals began to reassess the premises of modernization theory and the impact of capitalism. As they became critical of these, they shifted from the previous romantic narrative to “heroic narrative”: Intellectual myths were inflated upwards, becoming stories of collective triumph and heroic transformation. The present was reconceived, not as the denouement of a long struggle but as a pathway to a different, much better world. In this heroic myth, actors and groups in the present society were conceived as being “in struggle” to build the future. The individualized, introspective narrative of romantic modernism 93. This paragraph is based on my interview with Kim Yonghwan. 94. White, Metahistory, 426.

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disappeared, along with ambiguity and irony as preferred social values. Instead, ethical lines were sharply drawn and political imperatives etched in black and white.95

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Heroic narrative is essential to any nationalist story. Heroic narrative is also central for social mobilization, for it inflates the importance of actors and events, and it relies on black-and-white thinking. The notion of p’umsong, one of the more noteworthy aspects of the Kangch’ol series, illustrates chuch’e sasang as a heroic narrative that gives primacy to an individual’s sense of agency. P’umsong generally means “character,” but in the context of the chuch’e sasang it means those qualities that make a true revolutionary, such as sincerity, courage, honesty, and loyalty. In fact, this emphasis on p’umsong was responsible for the initial popularity of chuch’e sasang among the undongkwon. According to the Kangch’ol sosin, p’umsong refers to one’s everyday attitude toward life. A model of true p’umsong can be found in the individuals who fought against the Japanese in the 1930s. The 1930s anti-Japanese armed struggle was a truly successful anti-imperialist and antifeudal movement. It was qualitatively different from the early communist movement of the 1920s, which had been beset by sectarianism and flunkyism (sadaejuui) and was far from people-oriented, according to Kangch’ol sosin.96 Kangch’ol sosin characterized the 1930s anticolonial armed struggle as based on an autonomous ideological system (i.e., chuch’e sasang) and people-oriented activities: activists dedicated everything they had to serve the revolution, its leadership, and the people. The author of Kangch’ol sosin described the crucial aspects of correct revolutionary conduct as the following: First, receive the leadership’s order unconditionally and carry out the order until the end. Second, carry out every task responsibly and assiduously, taking the attitude of one’s self as a subject of the revolution. Third, leaders need to provide examples in every aspect of revolutionary tasks. Fourth, innovate continuously and move forward continuously. Fifth, keep the revolutionary disposition [hyongmyongjok kip’ung] in order to complete one’s tasks with one’s own efforts and to overcome hardships. Sixth, treat every task deliberately, with principle, fairness, and maturity.97 95. Alexander, “Modern, Anti, Post and Neo,” 78–79. 96. Kangch’ol sosin, 22. 97. Ibid., 28–29.

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The people-oriented p’umsong was about “abundant humanity, principled unity, revolutionary devotion to one’s comrades, a high level of partisanship, and class consciousness.” These qualities were also known as “motherly p’umsong”; activists were to respect, love, and share the pain of minjung as their own family members. The “motherly p’umsong” also emphasized one’s sincere and honest p’umsong over knowledge and theory as a way to earn the trust and confidence of the people. In other words, the most important qualities in a revolutionary were his or her attitudes and behaviors that would make people realize that they themselves are the agents of struggle.98 The heroic narratives also instruct one on how to live. The Kangch’ol series argued that revolutionary spirit and praxis start from everyday life and emphasized disciplining oneself accordingly. One organization influenced by chuch’e sasang prepared detailed guidelines for activists, including:

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Six. Spend at least an hour a day meditating and studying. Seven. Keep one’s appointments without fail. Eight. A healthy body is the base for correct thoughts; exercise at least thirty minutes a day. Nine. One should be moderate in drinking and smoking. Resolutely resist adopting imperialist culture (such as drinking coffee or CocaCola, or wearing blue jeans) and implant the culture of national life in everyday life.99 This emphasis on self-discipline was indeed “revolutionary” within the movement at the time. Since the spread of p’umsong-non (principles of p’umsong), activists had noticed that excessive drinking and smoking among them gradually had given way to moderation. They also began to criticize the previous generation as romantics who frequented taverns and lacked discipline. The question that p’umsong-non posed, “Do you love your comrade?” was also a tremendous jolt to the activists who had been in the thick of sectarian fighting. Few could disagree with p’umsong-non’s emphasis on nonauthoritarian and nonhierarchical relations among activists.100 A labor activist who remained critical of chuch’e sasang felt that p’umsong-non generally helped activists to be more sensitive and less hierarchical in their relations with others.101 It was also said that the changed values and behavior of the 98. Ibid., 29. 99. Ibid., 31. 100. Sin, “80–yondae haksaeng undong yasa 5: Minmint’u wa Chamint’u,” 180–81. 101. Yi Subong, interview, Seoul, August 13, 2003.

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undongkwon would greatly confuse those returning to the movement after having been away in prison or in military service. The chuch’e sasang as an example of a heroic narrative that answered an individual’s yearning for agency in a social movement can be found in the case of Yi Subong.102 Yi had spent a year in prison during his sophomore year (1984) for his involvement in student activism. After he was released from prison, he spent another year reading up on historical materialism and dialectical materialism in order to prepare himself for factory work. During this time he encountered the Kangch’ol series, which was then in wide circulation. The most attractive aspect of chuch’e sasang for him was its underlying principle that the human being is the center of the universe; this stems from the previously mentioned notion of chuch’e sasang that “Man is master of everything and decides everything.” The experience of prison had been traumatic: he was young (twenty-one years old), he was often beaten by inmates, and he was assailed by guilt over disappointing his family with his movement involvement. What he had experienced in a year would amount to what others might have experienced in ten years. Overcome with desolation and anguish, he even contemplated death. This sense of desperation made him feel there was no place for an individual within the scheme of historical materialism: “The earth was a mere dot in the universe and human beings inside the earth were only tiny microorganisms. When the earth disappears from the universe, it would be like a dot disappearing.” Historical or dialectical materialism did not provide an answer to the question he often asked himself in prison: “Why do I have to be the one to sacrifice to make a better society?” For Yi Subong, chuch’e sasang provided an answer: human beings were at the center of the universe. Yi had gained strength and meaning from this newfound perspective. Now, with the notion of the human being as the center of universe and therefore a subject of his or her own life, he was convinced that his own personal involvement in the democratization movement mattered—that for him, an individualistic or opportunistic middle-of-the-way was not going to be a solution. For Yi Subong, chuch’e sasang’s appeal was not so much its reputed analytical acumen or immediate political relevance, but rather its worldview, which gave him a sense of agency he did not have before. 102. This and the next two paragraphs are based on my interview with Yi Subong, Seoul, August 13, 2003. As I mention in chapter 7, Yi spent six years working in factories and a few more years as a union representative before becoming a staff member of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, an organization founded after the 1987 Great Labor Struggle.

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Dominance without Hegemony

By the late 1980s, the minjung movement at large was under the spell of chuch’e sasang. In 1989, two of the influential monthly news journals concluded that the minjung movement’s “final destiny” was North Korea, which was meant as a warning to the public about the danger of the growing influence of chuch’e sasang in not only the social movement but also in society at large.103 Starting from the mid-1980s, those who adopted chuch’e sasang as the guiding principle for their movement came to be known as the chuch’e sasang group, or chusap’a (chuch’e sasang p’a). Despite appearances, however, chusap’a was neither homogeneous nor unitary. Within chusap’a, some accepted without question Kim Il Sung’s supreme leadership (suryonggwan), one of the most controversial aspects of chuch’e sasang (which I discuss below). Some accepted only North Korea’s revolutionary line, and some only adopted certain strategies such as anti-American campaigns and mass-oriented political campaigns.104 This differentiation within the group notwithstanding, much of the democratization movement in the late 1980s was identified as chusap’a. Under chusap’a leadership, slogans such as “Yankee, go home” and “Antiwar, antinuke” became familiar as well as quotidian in South Korea. Chusap’a was also responsible for the most attention-grabbing political events of the late 1980s, from the spectacular showdown with police at the Kon’guk University in October 1986 to the mega-media event of the One Million March for reunification in June 1988. Many activists who could not accept chuch’e sasang found themselves alienated in the chusap’a-dominated movement of the late 1980s.105 One labor activist felt that chuch’e sasang was the tidal wave of the era that could not be resisted and stayed in a chusap’a-dominated organization even though he did not accept chuch’e sasang.106 Chusap’a was dominant without being hegemonic. Chusap’a was numerically dominant in the undongkwon,107 but it had difficulty fending off numerous criticisms raised by non-chusap’a (who usually considered themselves to be more orthodox Marxists-Leninists). Even those who agreed with the emphasis of chusap’a on p’umsong found it difficult to accept the overall theoretical position, which seemed to them another brand of dogma. Particularly 103. See “Chipchung yongu: Chusap’a”; “Undongkwon ui Chusap’a.” 104. “Undongkwon ui Chusap’a,” 295. 105. Kim Ch’olgi, interview, Seoul, November 13, 1992. 106. An Chaehwan, interview, Seoul, March 17, 1993. 107. Activists whom I interviewed generally felt that about 80 percent of members of the student movement and about 50 percent of members of the labor movement in the late 1980s and early 1990s were chusap’a. Of course, these figures are estimates.

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troubling to non-chusap’a was the notion of supreme leadership. In chuch’e sasang, the term suryong, literally meaning a supreme leader, occupies a central place in a nation’s life and plays a decisive role in a revolutionary struggle. The supreme leader guides the revolutionary movement, and people unite based on comradely love and loyalty. During a revolutionary struggle, people are to accept without question suryong as the supreme authority on all matters.108 The chusap’a acceptance of the idea of a supreme leader was their Achilles’ heel. Many non-chusap’a activists found the idea of a supreme leader incomprehensible; one self-identified socialist activist thought chusap’a had given up any form of rationality by accepting it without criticism.109 Some did not consider them as fellow socialists, “for a true socialist had to think on his own”; the chuch’e sasang group in contrast was thoroughly under the direction and influence of North Korea.110 Chusap’a also offered no explanation for North Korea’s personality cult, which was one of the most troubling aspects of chuch’e sasang. For example, the North Korean broadcast program contained the following description of the “superior intelligence” of Kim Jong Il, the leader of North Korea since Kim Il Sung’s death in 1994: What is the secret for our beloved comrade’s revolutionary thought, which manifests at the highest possible level, perfect and faultless? One of the secrets was Kim Jung Il’s extraordinary penetrating wisdom. . . . When he was in kindergarten, the teacher told the students that one plus one was two. He replied that one plus one can be one or two; this was something other students could not think of; it was sophisticated thinking at work. When the teacher asked how it was so, he replied: “When you look at flowers, water droplets on the flowers do not become two, they become one; many drops of water become one.” This kind of penetrating mind made it possible for a mere college student to rewrite the history of Silla, thereby disputing the long-held belief that Silla unified the three kingdoms.111 That the chusap’a circulated this undiluted hagiography of Kim Jong Il without a hint of critical evaluation perhaps best illustrated the “fury of ideology” at work in the 1980s in which “no one was free from either chuch’e 108. See Suh, Kim Il Sung, 304. 109. MBC, Ije nun marhalsu itta: Han’guk ui chinbo, 2–pu. For a rigorous criticism of chuch’e sasang, see Yi, ed., Chuch’e sasang pip’an. 110. MBC, Ije nun marhalsu itta: Han’guk ui chinbo, 2–pu. 111. “Saenal,” 25.

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sasang or Marxism-Leninism.”112 From the most die-hard chusap’a to a fellow traveler, North Korea was held up as a perfected socialist country. While its living standard might have been lower than South Korea’s, North Korea was essentially an egalitarian society with no discernible wealth disparity; moreover, North Korea had done a better job of preserving national essence and cultural autonomy.113 The idealized image of North Korea was not monopolized by the chusap’a. U.S.-based scholar Dae-Sook Suh experienced an episode that conveyed the widespread idealized image of Kim Il Sung embraced by university students. When he gave a lecture on North Korea at Seoul National University in 1989, his earlier remark that Kim Il Sung had indeed engaged in anti-Japanese activities brought wild applause from the students, who were mostly seniors majoring in political science. On his subsequent remark that Kim Il Sung plundered cows and chickens from poor peasants, one student asked, “Dear professor, how can you suggest that our great leader Kim Il Sung plundered?” When Suh proceeded to explain that indeed Kim Il Sung’s taking of livestock from peasants without their consent constituted plunder, citing the dictionary definition of the term, the audience booed him.114 One well-known labor activist, Yi T’aebok, has offered insight into the apparent abandonment of critical thinking among the chusap’a.115 According to Yi, South Korea’s rampant corruption, political oppression, the wide gap between poor and rich, and the various contradictions of capitalism made activists look to North Korea as a possible blueprint for a progressive society. This underlying attitude became all the more acute with the Gwangju massacre in 1980. It was North Korean radio broadcasts and foreign newspapers that quenched the activists’ intense desire for information on the Gwangju Uprising during the ten-day news blockade immediately following the uprising. As the Chun Doo Hwan regime continued to curtail news, as had also been the case under the Yusin regime, the North Korean radio program became the only interlocutor and analyst available to relay the events surrounding South Korea. As Yi remarked, only those who had lived through the 1970s and 1980s “with the burning rage of the era” could appreciate the absurdity of movement 112. Yi, Pyonhwa nun sijak twaetta, 16. 113. “Undongkwon taehaksaeng tae haebu,” 185. 114. Yi, Pyonhwa nun sijak twaetta, 15. 115. This and the next two paragraphs are based on Yi, “Chaeya undongkwon.” Yi T’aebok served eight years in prison for his involvement in Chonminnoryon (Nationwide League of Democratic Labor Movements; see chapter 6.) and has been active in the labor movement since his release from prison. When this article appeared in a conservative monthly journal, he was publisher of Nodongja Sinmun, a weekly newsletter for workers.

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activists having to rely on North Korea for information on what was happening inside South Korea. Yi T’aebok was not an apologist for chusap’a. On the contrary, he was vehemently critical of chusap’a, who in his view were demagogues in the same league as those working at the KCIA. As far as Yi was concerned, North Korean leadership was as bad as its counterpart in the South, if with a lesser degree of corruption. The North Korean leadership also seriously undermined the South Korean democratization movement through its series of misguided underground (espionage) activities, thereby supplying the South Korean regime with justification to suppress dissidents harshly. Moreover, the North Korean leadership used the South Korean minjung movement as a means to consolidate its own political legitimacy and to control its own people. For Yi T’aebok, the most glaring example of this was the North’s invitations and the lavish hospitality given to Chong Chuyong, former chairman of Hyundai Corporation and icon of capitalism, and to Mun Sonmyong, head of the Unification Church and pariah of the Protestant church—in blatant disregard for South Korean workers and the Protestant church’s democratization struggle. Yi T’aebok unequivocally called for an end to the movement’s affinity with the North, warning that North Korea had done much damage to the cause of the minjung movement: “You [North Korea] don’t understand our problems and you do not have the capacity to solve them, and you have only damaged us so far with your underground activities. Stop all your underground operations and apologize to the Korean people.” He urged activists to stop thinking of North Korea as the perfect society, telling them that the North should be a target of change, not an object of worship.

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Chuch’e Sasang and Limits of Subjectivity

If the United States had long been the object of “unrequited love” for many in postcolonial South Korea, North Korea had become the object of that unrequited love for a large number of the undongkwon in the 1980s. Their curiosity was roused by the lack of information about the North, the state’s demonization of the North, the North’s espousal of autonomy and independence, the movement’s own previous silence on the subject of the North, and the movement’s reevaluation of Kim Il Sung’s anticolonial armed movement. The spread of chuch’e sasang was, as Kim Yonghwan pointed out, “a movement to do away with the idol . . . the red com-

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plex.”116 The chusap’a succeeded in destroying their red complex but fell prostrate at the feet of another idol, chuch’e sasang. The intellectuals’ tendency to idealize and withhold critical judgment of a political system that was perceived to be progressive was not unique. Tony Judt, writing of post-World War II French intellectuals who had been reluctant to criticize Joseph Stalin, attributes this phenomenon to “an unwillingness to think seriously about public ethics, an unwillingness amounting to an incapacity.”117 This unwillingness partly stemmed from their belief that socialism was inherently progressive and therefore criticizing it would be tantamount to denouncing the revolutionary goal, and that to engage in “morally binding judgments of a normative sort” would undermine progress on immediate issues. North Korea’s seeming unflappable show of defiance against the international community, which had labeled it an international pariah, and its adroit balancing act to keep its independence during the Sino-Soviet conflict in the 1960s, as well as its reputed achievement of socialist goals, freeing itself of capitalistic development and Westernization with all its attendant problems—corruption, wealth disparity, and social inequities, among others—all pointed to its superiority over South Korea’s dependency and reliance on the United States. Chuch’e sasang and, by extension, North Korea had become therefore “a signifier without a signified.”118 Chuch’e sasang had become for the chusap’a an empty vessel into which all of their own aspirations, past failures, disappointments, and future hopes were placed. The questionable aspects of the North Korean regime, such as its purges of political opponents and its support of other authoritarian regimes,119 were therefore ignored or wished away as being implausible. In view of the state’s demonization of the North and university students’ longstanding complaint that the state’s anticommunist education limited their capacity to think critically and made them simpletons, one would be tempted to suggest that there was a certain historical justice in the willing submission of the chusap’a to chuch’e sasang—although it would be rather

116. Quoted in Yi, Pyonhwa nun sijak twaetta, 16. 117. Judt, Past Imperfect, 229. 118. I thank Jong Bum Kwon for sharing his thoughts on chuch’e sasang and for this pithy remark. 119. According to Gavan McCormack, North Korea has supported a series of authoritarian regimes such as Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire, Macias Nguema of Equatorial Guinea, Idi Amin of Uganda, Pol Pot of Kampuchea, and Emperor Bokassa of Central Africa. McCormack, “Kim Country,” 40. Added to this list should be the “Pol Pot of Africa,” Mengistu Haile Mariam of Ethiopia, according to historian Theodore Yoo. Personal communication.

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simplistic, and possibly perverse, to advance such a view. The undongkwon’s chuch’e sasang was a search for autonomy in all aspects of Korean national lives, a search for a utopian alternative to their own capitalist society. Their lack of first-hand knowledge about the North, their tendency to simplify the issues at hand as black and white, and their own nationalist disposition, among other things, found in chuch’e sasang a mirror image of what they were looking for, with all of the problems blotted out. A site of possible new subjectivity, chuch’e sasang was also the limit of this new subjectivity.

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PART II

BUILDING A COUNTERPUBLIC

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SPHERE

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˘ AS A COUNTERPUBLIC SPHERE 4. THE UNDONGKWON

As I discuss in the Introduction, one of the paradigmatic terms capturing the multiple aspirations and conflicting practices of the 1980s minjung movement was undongkwon. Denoting either an individual activist or the minjung movement as a whole, it was frequently invoked inside and outside movement circles, signaling that Korean society at large implicitly recognized the minjung movement as a significant force, whether or not one agreed with it. The term was often used outside the minjung movement to indicate disapproval; the state used it to emphasize its undesirability, equating the undongkwon with antistate and pro-communist elements. Individual activists rarely used the term without a mixture of self-deprecation and irony, as the implications of the term shifted often between positive and negative, between conviction and doubt. While the term was received in various ways in Korean society, it came to embody the ideals, yearnings, and hopes of the 1980s minjung movement, as well as its shortcomings. Informed by and taking into account its multiple meanings, implications, and potentialities, this chapter presents the undongkwon as a counterpublic sphere. The undongkwon of the 1980s constructed a counterpublic sphere by articulating, publicizing, and legitimizing many of the major issues the state deemed unsuitable for public debate—from reunification, the regime’s political legitimacy, and questions of distributive justice to the truth about the Gwangju Uprising. Claiming to be the voice of conscience and the true representatives of the minjung, what I call the “discourse of moral privilege,” they restructured the “public agenda,” thereby defining the grounds and conditions of social and political discourse in South Korea in the 1980s.

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Their efforts were responsible for bringing parliamentary democracy to South Korea in the late 1980s. In conceptualizing the minjung movement as a counterpublic sphere, I am concerned not only with what its projected visions were but also with how these visions and possibilities are constituted and organized. In other words, what are the ways in which the undongkwon constituted itself as the undongkwon? What are the discursive strategies that define and contribute to the undongkwon’s shared visions, languages, codes, and images? How does this public sphere integrate and disintegrate in the process of a larger societal transformation? I draw my empirical material for this chapter mainly from the South Korean student movement, because it is in some ways a prototype of all minjung movement groups. The student movement was at the forefront of the minjung movement as a whole, in terms of theoretical and intellectual development, and in implementing programs. The student movement was also a “nursery” for the minjung movement because many of the students moved on to larger movements, such as those associated with labor, the urban poor, women, and farmers, and to white-collar movements that developed in the late 1980s. The student movement of course has distinctive aspects, but much of what I discuss in this chapter is commonly shared in the minjung movement as a whole. I first present a brief sociopolitical and cultural landscape of the 1970s from which the discourse of moral privilege arises. I then discuss how the undongkwon constituted and organized itself as counterpublic: the discourse on moral privilege and the informal institutions of the undongkwon, such as the nexus of senior and junior students (sonbae-hubae); the circulation of texts (wonso); circles and study groups; and reading lists. I then show how an ordinary student became an undongkwon, highlighting overlapping but distinctive features in three different periods: the early 1970s, the era of yearning for democracy; 1975–79, the era of Emergency Decree Number Nine; and 1984–88, the era of liberalization. I conclude with a discussion on the undongkwon’s internal tensions and contradictions. University Students and the Yusin Regime

The existing literature on social movements usually attributes enthusiasm for social change as a universal phenomenon among youth, even their prerogative. In South Korea as well, the student movement was perceived by society at large as a temporary and idealistic outburst that would soon

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dissipate when the students assumed more adult responsibilities.1 Yet many continued into their twenties and thirties in varying capacities and varying degrees of involvement. South Korean students in the 1970s and 1980s were not free from societal or familial obligations; in fact, as the country had been one of the poorest in the world in the 1960s, there was a collective pressure to succeed for one’s own future, for family, and for the nation. Until the late 1970s, a male activist was often the only family member to have made it to university and thus was the sole hope for the family’s material well-being and status aspirations. Opportunities for material success expanded throughout the 1970s and 1980s during South Korea’s rapid economic development, which intensified the tension between participating in the social movement and societal success.2 That these aspirations were thought to be incompatible was also the ethos of the time. The university student in the 1970s experienced an extreme case of what Ernst Bloch called “simultaneity of the non-contemporaneous,”3 the disparity between one’s mode of consciousness and social reality. A typical student first fully faced the varying impact of South Korea’s transformation at a university, through his new physical surroundings, cultural practices, and everyday living style. The resulting sense of excitement, as well as the dislocation and disconnectedness between his early childhood and his new surroundings, was both profoundly exhilarating and unsettling. The state-led development transformed South Korea from agrarian to industrialized in a mere thirty years (in other parts of the world, this took more than a hundred years). By 1976, per capita income in South Korea had reached $1,000 (from $94 in 1960). In 1974, Seoul’s first subway was completed, making South Korea the third country in Asia after Japan and China to have a subway system. In 1977, South Korea’s total exports reached $100 billion (and $200 billion four years later), with more than 1,200 kinds of items being shipped to 133 countries.4 Even as the “miracle of Han River” improved Koreans’ living standard rapidly and dramatically, the dark side of the miracle became visible. In the 1. See, for example, Han, Han Wansang sahoe p’yongnon, 102–4. 2. Among more than fifty former undongkwon individuals I have interviewed, only a handful said they did not have much internal conflict or conflict with their families. The majority experienced anguish and conflict at the initial stage of deciding whether to participate in a protest or to go to a factory. Once they were in the movement, however, many experienced a sense of fulfillment and happiness. 3. Bloch, “Nonsynchronism and the Obligation.” 4. These are culled from KBS, “Yongsang sillok,” 1974, 1976, 1977.

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early 1970s, South Korea witnessed a massive riot in the new resettlement area of Gwangju, a city on the outskirts of Seoul (30,000 of the 150,000 residents rioted), the self-immolation of a young garment cutter to protest inhumane working conditions and low wages, and praise from the minister of education for young women in the sex tourist industry as patriots for earning much-needed dollars. The wretched condition of the shacks that dotted the outskirts of Seoul would shock even a student from a poor family in Gyeongsang Province who had not owned a radio until he was in high school.5 Once in Seoul, students found that around their campuses there were more hostess bars than bookstores, more prostitutes than fellow women students, and more sweatshops than high-rise buildings. In those sweatshops, twelve- to fifteen-year-old girls worked fourteen to sixteen hours a day, seven days a week, making in two weeks what one could easily spend in a single night at a dance hall. Young men and women the age of university students were killed or killed themselves over wage increases of a few hundred won. Children in slum areas snooped around their more fortunate neighbors’ houses to smell the meat their families could not afford to buy, as related in Cho Sehui’s classic novel Nanjangi ka ssoaollin chagun kong (A dwarf launches a little ball). The conversation in this novel between a teenaged daughter and her mother living in a shack offers a haunting portrayal of the 1970s: The aroma of the grilling meat flew from the residence area over the other side of the open sewer. . . . I would ask my mother, “Mother, what smell is this?” After a while, at my repeated prodding, Mother would reply, “Somebody must be barbecuing. You study hard, and someday you can live in a good house and eat meat every day.” “Mother, Elder Brother didn’t listen to you and went out to smell the meat. . . . I didn’t go.” . . . “Mother, Elder Brother is going to beat me for telling on him.”6 The immense displacement that accompanied the rapid industrialization left this dwarf family in Nanjangi ka ssoaollin chagun kong with two deaths. After having had stints as a debt collector, knife sharpener, highrise window washer, pump installer, and house water-pump repairman, and failing to find a stable job, the father commits suicide. The eldest son 5. Kim, “Onu silch’onjok chisigin,” 134. 6. Cho, Nanjangi ka ssoaollin chagun kong, 89; quoted in O, “Sarang ui ippop kwa sabop,” 377.

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is killed after getting involved in the labor movement. From the hardhitting satire of bureaucrats and the rich in Kim Chiha’s poem “Ojok” (Five bandits) to the poignant portrayal of the unemployed man involved in the aforementioned Gwangju resettlement protest in Yun Hunggil’s short story “Ahop k’yolle kuduro namun sanai” (The man who was left as nine pairs of shoes), the classic literature of the 1970s offered mostly trenchant indictments of rapid industrialization and the resulting dehumanization.7 This was also a period of expanding popular culture. As South Korea’s economy expanded, more literary products, films, and popular songs became available. The number of households owning a television set was 13.5 times greater in 1979 than it had been in 1970.8 Streets were full of women wearing the latest fashion called “maxi style”—long skirts, big round sunglasses, and platform boots. Popular films portrayed, or, more precisely, constructed, new sexual norms. A film about a prestigious university woman student with multiple sexual partners drew more than half a million Korean viewers in 1977.9 For a minority of students and intellectuals who became critical of the Park Chung Hee regime, the same period was an era of “fascist Yusin culture”; it was a time when a state agency monitored the length of their hair and their skirts, as well as television broadcasts, newspapers, academic journals, cultural performances, and cinema, among other things.10 The declaration of the Yusin Constitution in 1972 and the emergency decrees in 1975 stopped “the pulse of youth and popular culture.” State censorship targeted every sphere of popular culture, including the names of entertainers.11 The official state discourse of puritanical solemnity (television stations were ordered to stop airing comedies briefly in 1977) extolled the virtues of anticommunism and patriotism. This rigid censorship produced only didactic television dramas, portraying mostly patriotic and industrial citizens, and “hostess” (pornographic) films.12 For dissenting intellectuals, the fact that Park Chung Hee, the official proponent of the ascetic life, met the end of 7. Kim, “Five Bandits”; Yun, “The Man Who Was Left as Nine Pairs of Shoes.” 8. Kim, “ ‘Yusin munhwa’ ui ijungsong,” 123. 9. In 1977, the film Kyoul yoja (Woman of winter) was viewed by 580,000, a record number at the time. KBS, “Yongsang sillok,” 1977. 10. Kim, “ ‘Yusin munhwa’ ui ijungsong.” 11. In 1975, broadcasting and selling records of 202 Korean pop songs and 261 foreign songs were banned because of the “negative influence on national security and the unity of citizens.” Korean entertainers’ English names were regulated for their “indiscriminate importation and imitation of foreign fashion.” Bob Dylan’s “Blowing in the Wind” was one of the foreign pop songs banned by the state. Kim, “ ‘Yusin munhwa’ ui ijungsong,” 128. 12. Ibid.

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Policeman measuring the length of a skirt as part of the “regulation of good customs and established social morals,” a social campaign conducted by the government in the early 1970s, March 1973. Provided by Chungang Ilbo.

his life in a palace of dissipated pleasure (he was shot by the KCIA director during a drinking party attended by female pop singers) best represented the era’s hedonistic dilettantism. A Discourse of Moral Privilege

The process of the student movement constructing its own identity as oppositional and alternative to the dominant culture was born out of the particular sociohistorical condition of the 1970s. At the same time, the process involved a practice that was embedded in the traditional role of intellectu-

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als, a long tradition of providing social criticism. I characterize this practice as “a discourse of moral privilege.” In what follows, I argue that moral privilege discourse and informal institutions of the movement enabled students to structure their movement as a counterpublic sphere. The discourse of moral privilege was a mark of “distinction” in Pierre Bourdieu’s sense.13 The students were bequeathed a rich tradition of social criticism, the Confucian legacy of remonstrance to the throne. During the Choson period, students at the National Academy and the public schools, soon to be future officials, “routinely engaged in protest acts or voiced their opinions through joint memorials.”14 Key to social criticism was the Confucian concept of knowledge, which was instrumental for political power and prestige and which dictated that knowledge should be employed not only to enhance one’s own status and position in society but also to maintain the proper and stable order of society, “rectifying it if gone astray and restoring it if in disarray.”15 As I discussed in the Introduction, Choson scholars’ social criticism was also an expression of their sense of entitlement and aspiration for political power as the elites of the society. Similarly, undongkwon students, even as they sought to position themselves as oppositional to the state and as minjung-oriented, found it difficult to extricate themselves from elitism. South Korean undongkwon students were not unique either in their claim to be the moral voice and conscience of their nation and people or in their elitist attitude. Various accounts of the Tiananmen protest described the Chinese students’ cause and rhetorical construction as moralistic.16 In Europe and in the United States as well, the 1960s New Left was a moralistic critique of contemporary society.17 During the Tiananmen protest, the Chinese students saw their own politics as “selflessly pure” and that of the peasants and workers as motivated by “crass materialism.”18 The New Left German students’ call for fundamental change was not altogether separate from their fear of the “relative loss of class position” that was associated with the decline of the new intellectual elite in West Germany.19 In South Korea’s case, the discourse of moral privilege was injected with urgency by the distinctive historical experience of Korea: its colonial past 13. Bourdieu, Distinction. I use this term in the way Nancy Fraser uses it to describe how in eighteenth-century Europe the bourgeois men’s formation of a public sphere was intimately related to the processes of their own class formation. See Fraser, “Rethinking the Public Sphere,” 114. 14. Haboush, “Academies and Civil Society,” 387. 15. Kwok, “Moral Community and Civil Society,” 19. 16. See, for example, Perry, “Casting a Chinese ‘Democracy’ Movement,” 152. 17. Levitt, “The New Left, the New Class,” 643–45. 18. Perry, “Casting a Chinese ‘Democracy’ Movement,” 152. 19. Levitt, “The New Left, the New Class,” 647.

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and the divided state. To the students of the 1970s and 1980s, the responsibility for discovering past history, previously perceived to have been buried (as the history of armed struggle during the colonial period, for example) or distorted (as the history of the nationalist movement, for example), the necessity of rereading and reinterpreting past history became an integral part of the movement. With the production of minjung history, which aimed toward an “authentic” representation of the Korean people, they received an intellectual affirmation of their claims. The discourse of moral privilege was also a “public transcript” in the sense that it had its audience in mind and in the sense that it took a “dialogic form” in which its language, as well as logic, depended very much on that of the dominant ideology of the state.20 As such, the discourse was directed against the state, to society at large, and to fellow students as a way to counterclaim the hegemonic ideology and value system, to project an oppositional vision, and to enjoin them to share and build the projected utopia. Even as students articulated their vision in a binary opposition to the state, however, their imagination stayed within the received notions of nation-state. They persistently projected their future vision in the narrative of nation-state, portraying themselves as patriotic, nationalistic, and true inheritors of the nationalist legacy, seekers of truth uniquely endowed because of their purity, sincerity, and devotion. Unabashedly Kantian, believing that politics is about morality and ethics,21 their discourse of moral privilege was also based on the “pre-existing sense of a ‘moral climate’ which made the confrontation between ruler and ruled an intimate, unmediated affair,” thereby having “an effect of representing the whole society against the state.”22 The discourse of moral privilege created a realm in which previously “unpublic” issues—those that had been monopolized by the state or considered too threatening, such as the legitimacy of the state, distributive justice, welfare, and reunification—were reconstituted as public. Existing concepts and terms, such as people (minjung), democracy (minju), nation (minjok), and reunification (t’ongil ), were reinvested with new meanings and charged with emancipatory possibilities. Different and alternative meanings were given to certain historical moments, such as the Jeju Uprising and the Gwangju Uprising. Individuals who committed suicide in protest were elevated to the positions of patriot or fighter for democracy (minju t’usa), as in the case of Chon T’aeil, Kim Sejin, and Yi Hanyol. 20. See Scott, Domination and the Arts of Resistance, 90–107. 21. See Habermas, Structural Transformation, 102–17. 22. Strand, “ ‘Civil Society’ and ‘Public Sphere’ in Modern China,” 17.

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History and Responsibility

Students acted in full awareness of historical implications, as amply shown in the rhetorical structure of the student movement. Especially in the 1970s, student demonstrations and activities would begin with exhortations to fellow students to follow the dictates of history and nation. A typical protest to demand democracy and educational freedom might start by having students say that the “wretched reality of our nation,” the “gruesome price” paid by the Korean people, “urgently demands our immediate response.” It was the calling of history that moved them to act; they desired to be “responsible for the history of our motherland,” and their act was “based on the calling of conscience.”23 During an impromptu funeral service for Kim Sangjin, a student at Seoul National University who committed suicide in 1975 protesting the Yusin regime, the leaders urged their fellow students to remember the death as a historical act, with as much significance as that of Chon T’aeil, and reminded them of their responsibility: “Those of us who inherited the legacy of Chon T’aeil and Kim Sangjin have a debt we must pay back; we cannot forfeit [the debt], it is our yoke, it is our fetters, from which even death cannot release us.” On November 18, 1978, Sogang University students declared, “We will willingly sacrifice everything, faced with this historical responsibility.” One student stated, “I did not get into the student movement with a clear purpose in mind. This was true even long after I was in the movement. What motivated me was the sense of responsibility; if I don’t, who will?”

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History as Morality Lesson

The discourse of moral privilege was also embedded in the traditional promotion of virtue and reproval of vice (kwonson chingak) and history as a morality lesson. The appearance of a knight-errant novel (muhyop sosol) in 1992 written by a former student activist attests to this.24 The choice of this genre with its narrative structure of a clear dichotomy of good and evil was not accidental for the author of the novel: “This was a period [1980–87] in which, on the one hand, there was the evil force of foreign domination and military dictatorship, and on the other hand, the good force of the democratic movement that defied imprisonment, torture, and even death.”25 23. This and the next paragraphs are based on KSCF, “70–yondae huban ui haksaeng undong,” 39–106. 24. Kim, Muhyop: Haksaeng undong. The knight-errant novel has been extremely popular in South Korea. The Chinese classic San Guo Yan Yi (Three Kingdoms) is one of the perennial bestsellers and Hong Kong–made knight-errant movies flood the video market in South Korea. 25. Ibid., inside the cover.

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Yi Hanyol, a third-year Yonsei University student hit by a tear-gas canister, June 8, 1987. Provided by Chungang Ilbo.

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A student gathering with a woodcut print, “Bring Yi Hanyol back to life!” July 1987. Provided by Chungang Ilbo.

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A number of university students attempted literary representations of the contemporary situation in this genre, which reveals their desire to frame their cause as a confrontation between good and evil, just and unjust, and democratic and undemocratic.26 It was also the state suppression of a more explicit form of critique that made the knight-errant novel a popular literary representation of the contemporary political situation.27 The notion of kwonson chingak played out also in the drama of the courtroom. In the widely publicized case of Kwon Insuk, a female student (whom I discuss in chapter 6) who dropped out of college in her fourth year to work in a factory, the defense lawyers focused on portraying Kwon as a person of great moral courage.28 Giving up her status as a student at a prestigious university was an act of supreme sacrifice, an expression of the “pure conscience of youth” and “ethical determination” in the face of South Korea’s “glaring sickness of corruption and injustice.” The defense lawyers also invoked modern Korean history, its “damaged ethical health,” and its “paralyzed social conscience due to a long history of colonization and continuing division.” Modern history did not embody kwonson chingak; never “once have antinationalistic, antidemocratic, and antisocietal forces been dealt with by using appropriate punishment.” Given this “twisted history,” the defense lawyers continued, their own generation had been taught “to acquiesce to power and authority and to seek only personal comfort and safety, to be extremely individualistic, cowardly, and small-minded.” Society taught their generation that resistance to unjust authority was considered “an act of foolhardiness, like hitting a rock with eggs; concern for the poor and oppressed was nothing but a warning sign of jeopardy for oneself and one’s family.” Kwon is of a new generation, however, the lawyers argued, and “represents our nation’s ethical vitality and social conscience that has gradually begun to reappear as we pass from the exuberance of the April 19 Student Uprising to the death of Chon T’aeil and the national calamity of the Gwangju massacre.” Just as the students’ 26. A third-year Yonsei University student was sentenced to two years in prison in 1974 for writing a knight-errant novel. In 1981, Pak Yongch’ang spent two years in prison for his knight-errant novel, which, because it described the ruling regime in a negative light, was considered “assist[ing] the enemy” (ijongmul ) and therefore banned. Sin, “80–yondae haksaeng undong yasa 2: Hwangmuji,” 141. 27. Wesley Sasaki-Uemura reminds us that in Japan during the Tokugawa period (1600–1868), many writers and playwrights wrote ostensibly about a time in the past in order to critique current rulers. He also gives a more recent American example, Robert Altman’s film M*A*S*H, which was set in the Korean War but which people understood as a critique of the Vietnam War. Personal communication. 28. All of the quotes and references in this and the next paragraphs are from Ko et al, “Song komun sakon pyollon yoji,” 1–2.

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discourse of moral privilege was based on the preexisting sense of a “moral climate,” the defense of Kwon also was predicated on the preexisting discourse of moral privilege. The deeply embedded sense of moral and historical responsibility seemed to have encouraged what can only be described as a sense of “original sin” among those who were involved in the movement. Court testimonies expressing this sense of “having committed sin” abound and were often related to a historical event such as the Gwangju Uprising but also were part of the general sense of “being responsible to history.”29 One’s previous “ignorance” of the larger social issues or one’s attempt to search for an “individual” solution to structural problems was also considered an example of not being responsible to history.

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Correspondence between Knowledge and Conduct

For those in the movement, one’s moral authority came from the fact that one practiced what one knew, the principle of chihaeng ilch’i (correspondence between knowledge and conduct). A common way to reprimand one’s classmates or juniors was to demand, “Why can’t you or won’t you practice what you know?” One who practiced chihaeng ilch’i was also in possession of a principled sense of morality (todoksong). Undongkwon individuals were perceived by their fellow students to be those who gave priority to todoksong, and undongkwon individuals justified their actions by this possession of todoksong. Those who received this moralistic criticism could not respond adequately; no argument could justify their “individualistic” action. Within the undongkwon culture, historical obligations that are obvious and evident (tangwisong) required one to relinquish one’s ambitions and pursuit of happiness. They also required that one give up the presumed rights and privileges that come with being a member of a particular class or educational status (kidukkwon). Kim Yongae, who married Kim Hyonjang in prison after both received sentences for their involvement in the burning of the Busan USIS building in 1982, had deferred registering their marriage: “I have given up on having a happy family life. As history has not allowed [my husband] to pursue his own personal happiness, we have decided not to pursue our own personal happiness in order to pursue a rightful [olbarun] history.”30 29. Ho Inhoe, a student leader facing trial for his activism, stated, “I, too, am a sinner before history.” Ho, “Hangso iyuso,” 45. 30. “Kim Hyonjang kwa Mun Pusik,” 354.

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The force of tangwisong that one had to give up kidukkwon is also partly responsible for the truly unique phenomenon of the massive migration by students and intellectuals into factories in the 1980s, which I discuss in chapter 6. This phenomenon was caused by various sociopolitical reasons as well as internal dynamics and socialist ideas of the undongkwon. However, much of the students’ motivation was framed in terms of the discourse of moral privilege, making the exodus to factories a moral rather than strictly an ideological endeavor.

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The Informal Institutions of the Undongkwon ˘

The discourse of moral privilege was therefore embedded in the intellectuals’ own sense of their historical role and in societal perceptions of the role of intellectuals. Accompanying the discourse were several informal institutions that made the student movement politically effective and organizationally sustainable. These were interpersonal networks created out of the close bond between those senior and junior schoolmates, and variegated networks formed from members of study groups, for instance. Since the modern educational system was introduced in Korea, these informal networks have constituted the core of university life. These were also vital in sustaining the student movement as a counterpublic sphere, as I discuss later. What the students said and what they did was thus historically and socially constituted and “performatively deployed” within the existing social and cultural codes. Therefore, if the undemocratic regime with its unwillingness to reform was the structural cause for the rise of the student movement initially, then it was the reading of the diary of Chon T’aeil who immolated himself in 1970 to protest the inhumane treatment of workers, the underground circulation of documents and documentaries on the Gwangju Uprising, the “radical” interpretation of the Korean War proffered by “revisionist” scholars, and the imprisonment of a senior student that gave students the impetus to act and gave the student movement its symbolic coherence and political force throughout the 1970s and 1980s. Nexus of Senior and Junior Ties

The first of these informal institutions to consider is the nexus of senior-junior (sonbae-hubae) ties. These ties remain one of the most important types of “social capital” in South Korea, where age and hierarchical relationships are very much operational and where school and regional ties remain instrumental in one’s social relationships. The degree of intimacy and mean-

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ingfulness of sonbae-hubae ties varies considerably for each individual. For the undongkwon in the 1970s when university circles were driven underground, sonbae-hubae ties were the gateway to the movement; it was usually with a sonbae’s introduction to an underground circle that one began the process of becoming an undongkwon member. In the 1980s, one’s sonbae were the critical and in some cases determining factor in an undongkwon individual’s ideological orientations, so much so that in the mid-1980s, it was said that “If the sonbae belonged to NL [National Liberation], then the hubae would also be a member of NL.”31 That an underground circle was called a “family” and an aggregate of them was called a “house”32 until the mid-1980s was not purely accidental. It is, however, misleading to present sonbae-hubae as strictly hierarchical or unilateral; as in a relationship between an older and a younger sibling, a proper relationship between sonbae and hubae entails mutual respect and reciprocal obligations. If the sonbae is the moral guide, counselor, and a model to be emulated, the hubae is someone the sonbae feels responsible for. It was often the sense of commitment to his hubae that pushed a sonbae to engage in an act that he or she might not have otherwise engaged in, especially if the sonbae were the one who had conducted the numerous seminars during which the hubae’s previous ambivalent position with respect to the movement had been clarified and his/her commitment solidified. It was not unusual to find an undongkwon student who stayed in the movement because of the sense of responsibility toward his sonbae or hubae. The case of one male student from Korea University, Ch’oe Inch’ol, illustrates the point. Having entered the university in 1982, Ch’oe Inch’ol spent the first six months of his freshman year socializing with his sonbae, not attending a single class, but instead mostly drinking, agonizing over politics, and learning movement songs. One of his sonbae, as he was being dragged away by the police right in front of Ch’oe, exhorted him to carry on the movement. Although his fellow classmates were dropping out of the movement one by one and his parents were appealing to him to concentrate only on his studies, telling him that he was the only hope of the family, he could not let go of what his sonbae had told him and what he had promised to his sonbae.33 31. Pak Tong, interview, Seoul, February 12–13, 1993. On the other hand, students who graduated from newly established high schools and therefore did not have seniors were in some ways freer to pursue their activities, without too much ideological guidance or influence from seniors. Sim Sangjong, interview, Seoul, August 3, 2005. At the same time, many belonged to underground circles that were connected to other universities, from which they formed sonbae-hubae ties as well. 32. Kim Chongmin, interview, Seoul, May 26, 1993. 33. Ch’oe Inch’ol, interview, Seoul, February 14, 1993.

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Ch’oe’s sonbae were also responsible for a gradual crumbling of his deeply embedded anticommunism. Ch’oe was initially greatly confused when his sonbae talked freely of the armed guerrilla movements in the Jiri Mountains in the 1940s and 1950s, a taboo subject at the time. The apparent pro-North Korean sentiments expressed by his sonbae—“If we get kicked out of school, we’ll carry on the guerrilla movement; we’ll call North Korea for help”—confused him and made him anxious but also put a few cracks in his anticommunist beliefs.34 Sonbae-hubae ties could lead one to unanticipated danger. Throughout the post-1945 period, numerous people were arrested, tortured, and imprisoned solely because of their (in some cases unintended and unknowing) ties to a sonbae or a hubae whom the state thought of as antistate. Pak Wonsik was implicated in the 1982 Busan USIS arson and was severely tortured and sentenced to a seven-year prison term. Although he had helped to distribute pamphlets before the arson at the request of his sonbae Mun Pusik, he had not been aware of the plan for arson.35 Kim Namju served fifteen years in prison for his membership in the South Korean Liberation Front. He had joined the organization without asking many detailed questions; it was enough that the other members were his sonbae or colleagues whom he could trust.36

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Circulation of Texts

Along with the sonbae-hubae nexus, another crucial practice of the student movement was the circulation of printed materials such as banned literature, pamphlets, underground newsletters, diaries of symbolic figures such as Chon T’aeil, and statements of appeal written by imprisoned students.37 Underground newsletters and pamphlets were often directed to both the undongkwon and the general public. Those designated for the undongkwon provided analyses of the current political situation and guiding principles for future action. In the absence of an open and public channel of communication among the undongkwon, the circulation of underground materials and banned literature became the main medium of communication and a 34. Ibid. 35. Kim, Pult’anun miguk, 87–88. 36. “Kongsochang: Sowi Namjoson Minjok Haebang Chonson sakon.” 37. In a survey titled “On the Conscientization of Seoul National University Students” conducted in 1986, university students were asked to name the source that influenced them most in their conscientization process; 43.5 percent replied printed materials, whereas 2.6 percent mentioned professors, 26.8 percent fellow students, and 2.2 percent mass media. “Kyosudul ui komin,” 244.

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sustaining force of the movement. For this reason, duplication and distribution of underground literature was an integral part of activism. It is possible to postulate that from the late 1970s to the mid-1980s, the mode of the movement became as important as its content. The undongkwon’s major ideological developments were sometimes determined by certain pamphlets. The so-called Murim-Hangnim debate, a major debate in the early 1980s on the role and future of the student movement visà-vis the larger democratization movement, was sparked by the appearance of a pamphlet entitled “Panje, panp’asyo t’ujaeng sonon” (Declaration of anti-imperialist and antifascist struggle).38 Another well-known debate on the direction and goal of the movement initiated at the beginning of 1985 was “Kippal, pan Kippal nonjaeng” (the Flag and Antiflag debate), from a pamphlet of the same name. The circulation of texts also contributed to what seemed to be a remarkable degree of homogeneity within the movement in terms of issues, attitudes, ethos, and cultural markers. In what one former activist termed “The Era of the Great Circulation of Texts,”39 there were many theoretical texts that in fact became the “text” for the movement. It was as though there was a correspondence course on the student movement and every activist took it. In the early 1970s, such texts were only available in their original languages or in (often crude) Japanese translation, forcing activists to teach themselves German or Japanese. Most of these were also on the government’s banned lists, which partly contributed to their allure and to the great lengths the activists went to obtain copies.40 Understanding the content of this literature was another big challenge for students who did not have the luxury of seeking help from more learned fellow students or professors in their analysis of the text, as the possession of these books was a violation of the National Security Law. One student remembered reading the Korean translations of Lenin and Marx out loud in the hope of understanding them better.41 The student movement culture was essentially a literati culture in which reading Immanuel Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason was thought requisite, although “few did and many just pretended to have read it.”42 38. The Murim group advocated that students not focus on targeting the current Chun Doo Hwan regime but instead focus on the issues of student welfare and then move gradually to political issues. The Hangnim group, on the other hand, stressed the importance of the student movement’s raising political issues such as demands for democratization. These debates continued throughout the 1980s mainly through the circulation of pamphlets. 39. Chong Ch’oryong, interview, Seoul, January 14, 1993. 40. It was not until October 1987 that the Ministry of Culture and Information finally relinquished its “right” to examine whether a given publication was legal. 41. Kim Sugyong, interview, Seoul, April 2, 1993. 42. Chong Ch’oryong, interview, Seoul, January 14, 1993.

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Once a theoretical text (usually from the West) was introduced into the network of the underground (and later open) circulation, it took less than a month for the undongkwon to have at least a shaky command of it. In the early 1980s, among an array of “isms” that were introduced and soon became out of fashion (no “ism” lasted more than six months43), Leninism and Marxism had a strong hold on the students. From the mid-1980s, North Korea’s chuch’e sasang swept the movement, as I discussed in chapter 3. The “texts” in the early to mid-1980s were Lenin’s What Is to Be Done? and Marx’s Capital. These were pored over and memorized, giving a sense of urgency and imminence to the “battle” to be waged. One former student felt that Lenin’s What Is to Be Done? was really “our” story: “It almost felt as if Lenin wrote the book based on the reality of South Korea of 1983.”44 Students compared the maturity of their own movement to corresponding developments in the Russian Revolution. Kim Sugyong remarked on her reading of Capital: “The description in Capital was so real that I could hear my heart palpitate; the part on England’s industrial development was so similar to South Korea’s that I wanted to put exclamation marks on every single word.”45 What was available and distributed among the undongkwon at the time was limited to translated materials and what they could get hold of; hence, what students had access to was extremely truncated Marxism and Leninism, which one scholar called “pamphlet Marxism.”46 Very few books that criticized Marxism and Leninism, which circulated widely in the West from the 1950s, spread within the movement. The priority of translation was given to those texts believed to be most relevant to the present needs of the movement.47 Indeed, Lenin became the “absolute science” for many activists. Little effort was made to analyze, criticize, or debate his writings; rather, they were simply to be absorbed. According to one former activist, “Theories defined reality, and reality was redefined according to Marxism and Leninism.”48 The partial lift on the ban in 1983 and the spread of photocopy machines made possible the wide and rapid dissemination of various texts from the mid-1980s. Many of the activists who were dismissed from universities became publishers, editors, writers, and translators, thus also helping to spread the texts. There were reportedly at least sixteen publishing houses established 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48.

Pak Tong, interview, Seoul, February 12–13, 1993. Kim Sugyong, interview, Seoul, April 2, 1993. Ibid. Choi, “Rethinking Korean Literary Modernity,” 8. See Chong, “Polgosungi chisigin,” 1421. Chong Ch’oryong, interview, Seoul, January 14, 1993.

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by these former activists in the early 1980s; by 1987, the number had increased to twenty-four.49 These publishers were devoted exclusively to the publication of “movement literature” such as classical works on socialism, writings on the nature of world capitalism and the Korean economy, worker and peasant movements, and Korean politics and history. Circles and Seminars

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If the circulation of texts mapped the topography of issues for the undongkwon, then the accompanying circulation of reading lists (k’ori, from the English word “curriculum”) and ssok’ul (extracurricular clubs of mostly academic nature, from the English word “circle,” hereafter circle) disseminated these issues as public knowledge among the undongkwon. Throughout the history of the Korean student movement, circles were a crucial medium. Politically conscious and eager minds usually gathered in circles and gradually transformed them into a nursery for movement activities. In the 1950s, a few circles with limited membership were the only alternatives to the statesponsored student organizations. At Seoul National University, for example, Shinjinhoe (New Progressive Club) consisted primarily of students in the Department of Political Science, with its membership not exceeding fifteen at any given time during its existence (1956–60).50 The state’s intelligence network always linked the existence of circles, both underground and open, to the outbreak of campus demonstrations.51 During the protest against the Normalization Treaty in 1964, many of these circle members were active leaders. The members of the circle Society and Law in the Department of Law and Studies on Comparative Nationalism in the Department of Political Science at Seoul National University were crucial in the organization of the Chon’guk Minju Ch’ongnyon Haksaeng Yonmaeng

49. Lee, “Confucianism and the Market,” 118–20. According to Cho Sangho, a former student activist who was dismissed for his involvement in an underground newspaper at Korea University and founded the publishing company Na’nam, three groups were most responsible for spearheading publishing as a part of the larger countercultural movement during the 1970s and 1980s: dismissed journalists, dismissed professors, and dismissed students. Cho, Han’guk ollon kwa ch’ulp’an chonollijum. Kim On-ho, who founded another well-known countercultural publishing company, Han’gilsa, is a former journalist who was fired from Tonga Ilbo in 1975. Kim, Ch’aek ui t’ansaeng. 50. The New Progressive Club was small and exclusive. An invitation to a prospective member to join the group was made only after a thorough examination of his family background, school records, and ideological orientation, and the individual was only allowed to join upon the unanimous consent of existing members. Han, Failure of Democracy, 198–99. 51. The state-directed research institutes monitoring student and dissident groups argued for a close connection between underground circles and student protests. According to an internal publication of the Naewae Research Institute on Policy covering the campus protest in 1981, for example, the

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(Minch’onghangnyon, National Federation of Democratic Youth and Students, NFDYS) a decade later, as I discuss further on in this chapter. With the government’s campus liberalization policy in 1983, which I discuss in more detail later, most circle activities became open and legitimate. These circles conducted seminars at every level and at every available forum: underground, in the open, in factories, in farming villages, and in slum areas. Intensive seminars called “membership training” (MT) were conducted during vacations and holidays.52 Students replaced their regular classes with seminars, often attending school only for the purpose of carrying out their assigned movement activities. These seminars were grueling but intellectually exhilarating, especially for first-year students. Many former activists recalled that they used to read a tremendous amount in the study groups. For example, one student recollected that in his second year in college (1983), his readings covered dependency theory, liberation theology, and Euro-communism, in addition to analyses of the current political situation, cases of revolutionary movements in other countries (such as Russia, China, the Philippines, Bolivia, Cuba, Nicaragua, and the Antifascist People’s Front during World War II), philosophy, political economy, and theories of social movements.53 Another student remarked, “Seminars offered an opportunity to travel through all historical eras and countries” by virtue of offering a curriculum on economic history, capitalism, and world revolutionary movements.54 The Case of Kim Sugy˘ong

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Kim Sugyong, who entered Ewha Women’s University in 1979, initially feared that she might be “brainwashed” if she participated in a circle.55 But

“leaders of the protests have close connections, directly or indirectly, with some left-leaning campus circles whose purposes are to inspire negative and revolutionary thoughts among members.” The report’s authors also pointed to the increasing number of underground pamphlets as partly responsible for increased campus unrest. Naewae Research Institute on Policy, “Analysis of the Backgrounds,” 245. The KCIA and the National Security Planning Board have published numerous studies analyzing the contents of published material by various movement organizations. See, for example, Kukka Anjon Kihoekpu, “Hagwon chwap’a seryok uisikhwa.” 52. A newspaper article claimed that in 1986, there were 72 undongkwon-led circles in 22 universities in the Seoul area alone, which was an increase from the previous year’s 51 circles in 19 universities. Chungang Ilbo, December 16, 1986. These numbers seem to me unduly low and possibly reflect the difficulty of getting an exact number because many of these circles remained underground even after the campus liberalization policy became effective. 53. Ho Inhoe, interview Seoul, February 19, 1993. 54. Kim Chongmin, interview, Seoul, May 26, 1993. 55. Kim Sugyong, interview, Seoul, April 2, 1993.

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she was attracted to seminars and was envious of the participants who “seemed to be learning so much in such a systematic way.” She had obtained a reading list and started a seminar on her own; she found herself agreeing with most of what she was reading. The Autobiography of Malcolm X and The Jungle 56 particularly moved her as examples of individual courage against inhumane power. When her university reopened in the spring of 1980 (universities were closed following the assassination of Park Chung Hee in November 1979), she voluntarily went to a circle that was mobilizing students for service in farming villages (nongch’on pongsa hwaltong, or nonghwal ).57 A fellow classmate then approached her to organize a circle. By then her fear of the circle had dissipated, and she registered the circle as a literary group at the university. When the Gwangju Uprising forced most of her sonbae into hiding and made her circle members stay home, she met with a few friends and continued with the seminars. With much uncertainty as to where the movement and the seminar were going, she and her friends kept repeating, like a mantra, “This is probably what is meant [by the text].” In her third year, as a senior member, she was expected to revive the circle. After much anguish and deliberation, she resolved to do it, putting together a reading list. With recommendations from a number of her friends, she “guided” her hubae.

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From the Ordinary to the Undongkwon ˘

If the discourse of moral privilege and informal institutions were discursive practices that generated and constituted the undongkwon as a counterpublic force, how did one actually become an undongkwon? What were the ways in which ordinary students entered the realm of the movement and remained active in the movement? While basic patterns persisted throughout the period discussed here, there were also considerable differences between time periods. I break down the discussion into three historical periods: the “era of yearning for democracy” from the early 1970s to the mid-1970s, the “era of Emergency Decree Number Nine” from the mid-1970s to the late 1970s, and the “era of liberalization” from the mid1980s to the late 1980s. 56. These books were banned by the government until 1982. 57. University students helped farmers with farm work or child care during their break from school as a part of the student movement and as a way to include nonmovement activists. Almost all university student organizations promoted nonghwal in the 1980s. Although the Ministry of Education prohibited it in 1983, the students continued activities on farming villages throughout the 1980s. The official ban was lifted in 1988.

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Throughout the 1970s and until the mid-1980s, university life for the majority of students was wholly disappointing.58 Before entering college, students usually delayed everything, from the pursuit of lofty ideas such as freedom, justice, and truth to more mundane desires such as arranging one’s clothes and hairstyle.59 Most students did not choose their majors based on their interests or aptitudes but rather on what was most likely to get them in, due in part to intricate and complex application procedures. Most students did not know what to expect from their own area of study. They had a vague notion that college was going to be romantic, carefree, and vibrant. What greeted these incoming students was the poor quality of courses, which in some cases differed little from high school courses; the ubiquitous presence of state agents known as kigwanwon; and scenes of sonbae and classmates involved in heated discussions one day and dragged away by riot soldiers the next. For many students who became involved in the movement, sonbae provided much more in the way of intellectual stimulation and genuine human relationships than courses or professors. Gradually, these students were introduced to various circles and immersed in a series of seminars offered by circles. This “qualitatively different” organizational life, coupled with the eye-opening experiences of working in a slum, farming village, or factory for the first time in her life, or attending a trial of someone she knew, all became transformative and often determining experiences that often led a student to the path of undongkwon.

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The Era of Yearning for Democracy, Early 1970s

The experience of Kim Pyonggon points to the intersection among sonbae, circles, and the path to movement activism in the early 1970s.60 When he was introduced to a circle in his first year at Seoul National University in 1970 (through an older student from his high school who was attending the same university), Kim Pyonggon was not aware that the circle was one of the oldest at the university or that he was soon to be involved in the student 58. In a 1981 survey on university life conducted in twenty-four universities in South Korea, for example, 55.3 percent of the students expressed dissatisfaction and 18.6 percent expressed some sort of satisfaction. In terms of education, the majority of students cited the poor quality of professors and lectures, which they believed were too removed from the reality of South Korea, as the reason for their dissatisfaction. The second most-cited reason was a lack of autonomy for students. See Ko, “Han’guk taehaksaeng ui uisik,” 300–301. 59. South Korean middle and high school students wore uniforms and short hair until 1983, a practice dating to the colonial period. 60. The information and quotes for this and the next two paragraphs are from Kim Pyonggon Ch’umo Saophoe Chunbi Wiwonhoe, ed., Ko Kim Pyonggon hoego munjip, 46–171.

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movement. He liked the circle members and the issues they discussed. His life as an activist began from the first semester, as he started reading social theories and immersing himself in fact-finding research on the living conditions of laborers and those who lived in slums. Even then, he did not have a clear idea of what he was to do or the nature of the circle. After witnessing the “too cruel” reality of the workers’ situations and the slums, he developed a vague idea that the student movement was to change the existing injustice and inequality in society. In the early 1970s, the university circles were the most important bases for the student movement; their activities, however, were mostly academic in nature. Kim Pyonggon’s circle held a seminar once a week, and its reading list was limited to what could be purchased at bookstores because the elaborate system of underground copying of banned literature was not in place then. What most attracted the circle members were the frequent social gatherings called “after hours.” Seminar participants would gather in a tavern to carry on a discussion, often joined by sonbae of the circle dating back to the 1960s. One former circle member recalled an all-night discussion on the issue of whether “history’s motor is elite or minjung” or whether “the priority of the movement should be placed on [individual] freedom or [social] equality.” Elite universities’ circles had well-established routines and protocols. The circle that Kim Pyonggon belonged to held an initiation ceremony for new members in a remote campground on the outskirts of Seoul. Present at the ceremony were Kim’s immediate sonbae and those who had graduated in the 1960s. The ceremony started with each new member’s “report” on his life history, worldviews, political views, and future plans. This “report” was followed by sonbae’s comments, with more discussions, songs, and drinking. Barrels of unrefined rice wine (makkolli) and cigarettes were essential for these gatherings. For some students, this intensely personal yet at the same time intensely group-oriented experience was “the beginning of a new world, which was full of wonder and fear, and yet a world to which one could not say no.” When Park Chung Hee declared the Garrison Decree in 1971, all universities were closed and circles became illegal. Most of Kim Pyonggon’s circle members were forcibly inducted into the army,61 and circle meetings continued in remote places; their members were often at great risk. Students 61. Protesting male students faced forcible draft into the army, sometimes without prior notification. From the 1980s, they were subjected to intensive psychological and physical abuse and were required to report on their fellow undongkwon who remained in activism. Some committed suicide, unable to overcome the guilt from having to spy on their friends and classmates or unable to carry out the required assignment. During the Chun Doo Hwan regime (1980–88) alone, at least twelve former undongkwon students who had been forcibly conscripted were found dead. Cho, “Han’guk kunbu kwonwijuui,” 25, 30.

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devised intricate ways of arranging their rendezvous à la James Bond, making their communications cryptic. For example, if one mentioned at the end of a meeting the number 135, it was meant that the next meeting place would be somewhere around the terminal of the bus number 135. Upon arriving there, a member would shout “west,” and the meeting would take place at the first restaurant on the west side of the terminal. Meetings in coffeehouses also became both necessary and popular. The court record in the case of the National Federation of Democratic Youth and Students (NFDYS), in which Kim Pyonggon was later implicated, shows that his group met, in the space of two weeks, no fewer than 63 times in 43 different coffeehouses.62

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The NFDYS Case

The NFDYS case fittingly captures the workings of circles and the sonbaehubae nexus in the student movement of the early 1970s. Soon after particularly large demonstrations against the Yusin constitution broke out at university campuses on April 3, 1974, the Park regime declared Emergency Decree Number Four banning the NFDYS as an anti-state organization planning to overthrow the government. A total of 1,024 university students, religious leaders, politicians, writers, and academics were implicated in the NFDYS incident, and seven received death sentences. NFDYS was not an organization based on any set of interests or principles nor was it a Leninist vanguard organization; it was essentially a mobilization of all relationships forged through ties of personal, regional, school, and university circles. According to Yi Ch’ol, one of the principal organizers, the groups that were directly and indirectly related to the NFDYS were school sonbae-hubae, student activists based in universities, Christian student activists based in church youth organizations, religious leaders, graduated sonbae, dissident elders, politicians, writers, and academics.63 Members of the Society and Law circle in the Department of Law at Seoul National University met with the members of Studies on Comparative Nationalism based in the Department of Political Science (this circle began in 1963 and some of its former members were implicated in the People’s Revolutionary Party Incident in 1964 and in the East Berlin Incident in 1967). They were in contact with students in South Jeolla Province through a university sonbae from Gwangju in that province. They were also in contact with Yo Chongnam in Gyeongbuk University in North Gyeongsang Province, who, as a student leader in the 1960s and many years 62. “Che ilsim sosong kirok.” 63. Yi, “ ‘Minch’onghangnyon’ sakon,” 247–51.

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their senior, maintained ties with activist students (Yo was later executed in the second People’s Revolutionary Party case). Yi Ch’ol, who took three years to be admitted to Seoul National University, was friends with upperclass students and had an extensive network through his membership in various circles. (It was not unusual for high school graduates to retake exams several times for admission to a prestigious university.) So Chungsok, another principal member of the NFDYS, was in his sixth year at the university at the time. His extensive and variegated sonbae-hubae nexus was crucial in the organization of the NFDYS.64 Na Pyongsik became another active participant as he was one of those students who, wishing to remain an activist, did not graduate on time in 1973.65 The loosely connected but powerful web of individual networking was such that these university students were in contact for advice and for financial support with well-known religious, political, and intellectual leaders of the time. Na Pyongsik was in contact with the former president of the Republic of Korea, Yun Poson.66 The students also knew Kim Chiha, a wellknown poet and dissident, who graduated from Seoul National University in 1966 and who was in contact with Bishop Chi Haksun and Presbyterian minister Pak Hyonggyu, both prominent religious leaders. The students from Yonsei University also sought moral and financial support from their professors, such as Kim Ch’an’guk and Kim Tonggil, two prominent social leaders. As Yi Ch’ol later mused, without the prestige and status of these individuals who were also implicated in the case, these students could have been executed.67

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Campus Demonstrations

Student demonstrations during the early 1970s were brief affairs. Once a decision to demonstrate was made, usually by someone who also had a link with a dissident organization, one or two in the group, be it an underground seminar or school circle, were assigned to work on a manifesto or a statement, which was copied manually using stencil paper and a mimeograph. On the designated day, students gathered in a lecture room, read manifestoes or statements, and marched around the campus. Venturing into the streets outside the campus gate did not occur until the late 1970s. At Seoul National University, a large number of students participated in a demonstration 64. 65. 66. 67.

Ibid. Na Pyongsik, interview, Seoul, May 17, 1993. Kim Pyonggon Ch’umo Saophoe Chunbi Wiwonhoe, ed., Ko Kim Pyonggon hoegomunjip, 48. Yi, “ ‘Minch’onghangnyon’ sakon,” 251.

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in the early 1970s. Students would scrum68 together, circle the campus a few times, and then advance toward the entrance gate where the riot police waited. Students would throw rocks at riot police who would shoot tear gas, after which students headed back to campus, whereupon female students waited with buckets of water to wash the tear gas off their faces.69 Prior to Park Chung Hee’s declaration of Yusin Constitution in 1972, student protest was limited to major universities located in Seoul, such as Seoul National University, Korea University, and Yonsei University, as well as some of the major provincial universities such as Jeonnam University. Given that elite universities tended to have longstanding traditions of wellestablished circles and that protest organizers were mostly circle members, it is not surprising that elite universities dominated the student movement in the early 1970s. The romantic aura that is generally associated with the 1970s student movement in South Korea was brief and confined to the pre-1975 era—that is, before the declaration of Emergency Decree Number Nine in 1975. Before 1975, the student movement mainly consisted of participating in campus demonstrations and circles, which mostly required a sense of justice and youthful ardor. Students and society at large considered participation in a protest a natural phenomenon, almost a required course in the humanities. It was not unusual to find students playing cards between demonstrations. The campus demonstrations were not ritualized in the sense of having repertoires, as happened in the 1980s. Before 1975, there were no particular “movement songs,” something that would become essential to the student movement in the 1980s; the protesting students sang a mixture of Korean pop songs (ppongtchak)70 and American pop songs, with no apparent tension or irony. There was a sense of humor in the student protest as 68. This term originated in rugby, but it was popularly used among students to refer to the lineup during a demonstration. Students would link arms or put their arms on the next person’s shoulder, making a chain-like line. Each line would consist of several students. 69. In the 1970s, participants in circle activities, as well as demonstrations, were mostly men. In the 1980s, as the movement became more widespread, women began to take more active roles. Female students at women’s universities tended to be more active than those at coed universities, and leaders of the student movement in coed universities were mostly men until the mid-1980s. 70. Ppongtchak is an onomatopoeic Korean term used to describe a common genre of music characterized by 4/2 beat and a highly repetitive structure. It is similar to enka, a Japanese song genre with a populist appeal described by Marilyn Ivy: “[E]nka remains the outdated sonic preserve of the masses—downtrodden office workers, factory laborers, farmers. Much like country and western music (to which it is often compared), enka encompasses a universe of sentiment outside the bounds of cosmopolitan pretensions.” Ivy, Discourses of the Vanishing, 225. Ppongtchak’s mass appeal was as extensive in South Korea, including among university students. From around the mid-1980s, however, undongkwon students began to shun ppongtchak as an imported genre and un-minjung-like. On the relationship between ppongtchak and folksongs, see Kim, “Spirit of Folksongs,” 33–36.

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well. One slogan during this time read, “The United States should supply Kleenex instead of tear gas.”71

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The Era of Emergency Decree Number Nine, 1975–79

With the declaration of Emergency Decree Number Nine in 1975, the romantic era of the student movement came to an end and what sociologist Cho Huiyon called the “era of determination” arrived.72 The declaration of the Yusin Constitution in 1972 was the beginning of the end of what little democracy there had been until then, but the emergency decrees truly inaugurated the culture of terror on university campuses. From January 1974 to March 1975, a total of nine emergency decrees were issued, as I discussed in chapter 1. With Emergency Decree Number Nine, the government re-established the National Student Defense Corps, which had been abolished in the aftermath of the 1960 April 19 Student Uprising; forcibly dissolved the existing autonomous student organizations; revised student regulations, making it difficult to reinstate dismissed students; legalized the presence of security agents and the military on college campuses; extended students’ military training; curtailed various extracurricular activities; and introduced the system of reappointment for faculty members, thereby terminating the tenure system. The emergency decrees intruded upon every aspect of students’ lives. A play by students at Seoul National University was canceled because the Ministry of Culture and Information would not issue the necessary permit to stage the play.73 Ewha Women’s University students were forced by the school to perform the May Queen pageant, which they had earlier voted not to do as an expression of their solidarity with the Tongil Textile women workers. In 1979, the Yongnam University folklore research team’s mask-dance performance landed its main leaders one-year sentences for violating Emergency Decree Number Nine. A fourth-year Kungmin University student was stopped and handed over to security agents by members of the National Student Defense Corps when he tried to distribute pamphlets on campus. The students felt they were “suffocating” and their campuses being “raped.” Chon Sangin, a student in the class of 1980, thus summed up his and his classmates’ experience during the era of Yusin: What awaited us at the university was the romance of death. The campus was owned by plain-clothes security agents [tchapsae]. Notions of 71. Yi, “Norae ui sahoesa.” 72. Cho, “ ‘Minch’ong’ sidae,” 112. 73. The cases mentioned in this paragraph are from KSCF, “70–yondae huban ui haksaeng undong,” 73–168.

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justice, peace, and patriotism cried silently in the streets and one’s boarding house. Faced with the glittering knife of Emergency Decree Number Nine, the spirit of youth was like an egg hitting a rock. Even friendship was rare and confidential. While society indulged in revelry because of the sudden economic prosperity, the first of its kind since Tangun [the mythological founder of the first Korean state], people were internally hungry for love and attachment.74 In this atmosphere, any gesture of opposition or resistance was indiscriminately punished with dismissal or suspension from school—or imprisonment. Involvement in the movement required “a resolute sense of sacrifice and dedication.” The demarcation between the undongkwon and nonundongkwon emerged during this time (although the term itself was not used widely until the 1980s). The number of protesting students decreased, but the protests themselves became more urgent, and underground seminars emerged in earnest. Campus demonstrations required careful planning and a soul-searching decision as to who was prepared to go to prison. Another pressing issue was how to attract students’ attention and hand them messages during the brief precious moments before one was dragged away by security agents stationed on campus. In this atmosphere, the students resorted to what one observer called “kamikaze tactics”: they pulled school buildings’ fire alarms to gather their fellow students; they distributed pamphlets during military training sessions; and they used mask-dance performances to initiate demonstrations.75 Another “five-minute strategy” allowed for a student leader to distribute pamphlets or spread out a banner shortly before the advance of security agents or police.76 Outside university campuses, students also raided movie theaters to distribute pamphlets.77 Students’ mode of resistance changed as the state’s mode of control and suppression changed. Before 1975, the Park regime’s control of resistance was achieved by framing student protests as a large-scale organizational attempt to overthrow the regime and by handing out heavy sentences (the 1974 NFDYS case being representative), thereby warning the public about the danger of opposition. This, however, resulted in a certain public recognition and created larger-than-life public images for the individuals involved. Those in the NFDYS case became celebrated figures in a way. (At the time, the prize for information on Yi Ch’ol’s whereabouts was three million won, whereas the prize for reporting a North Korean spy was 300,000 74. 75. 76. 77.

Chon, “Nodo 58–nyon kaettinya?” 100. KSCF, “70–yondae huban ui haksaeng undong,” 129–32. So, “3–son kaehon pandae,” 60. See Sin, “80–yondae haksaeng undong yasa 1: 10.26 eso Murim kkaji,” 171.

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won.78) During the emergency decrees era, however, the regime’s strategy changed to one of concealing resistance. Emergency Decree Number Nine blocked media coverage of dissident activities. Students were driven underground, where they worked nameless and hidden.79 In this atmosphere, university campuses were thick with an air of gloom, defeatism, and grim determination. Activism consisted of finding a few like-minded classmates and studying together in underground circles in a secretive and even conspiratorial atmosphere. The simple act of reading certain books meant courting danger and possibly serving a prison term. Seemingly innocuous names such as Utopia betray the efforts to conceal the nature of these circles. The state of affairs at universities nevertheless still attracted the sensitive and socially conscious to the movement. In his widely quoted and celebrated (within the undongkwon initially and in the wider society later) hangso iyuso (statement of appeal),80 Yu Simin, a student leader at Seoul National University, writes how within six months of entering the university in 1979 he strayed from his goal of becoming a judge. His journey from a hopeful and unsuspecting nineteen-year-old, a model student and a bookworm, to a “problem student” and “violent criminal” epitomized one of the typical ways an ordinary student could come to be one of the undongkwon in the late 1970s and early 1980s. As he was leaving home for Seoul to enter the university, Yu felt on his back the proud and hopeful gaze of his mother standing at the village corner. Upon graduation from the university, he was going to become a judge, “to pay back my parents who, raising six children, could not afford good food or clothing all their lives, and because I was sure that becoming a judge was not a bad thing.”81 This was not a flight of fancy. Being a judge was one of the most prestigious and sought-after occupations in South Korea, even well into the 1990s. Seoul National University has been a training ground for judges and top bureaucrats. If a student from the university were on trial, it was entirely possible for everyone involved (defendant, defense lawyer, prosecutor, and judge) to be graduates of that same school.82 A scholarship student, Yu began his gradual awakening soon after entering the university: As the greenery of the spring and acacia flowers seemed to explode against the warmth of the May sun, I saw a female classmate being 78. Yi, “ ‘Minch’onghangnyon’ sakon,” 256. 79. Cho, “ ‘Minch’ong’ sidae,” 113. 80. This statement is now available in Chi, Yu Simin ul mannada. 81. Quoted in Hwang, 80–yondae ui haksaeng undong, 176. 82. For example, 14 of 24 government ministers in 1987 were graduates of Seoul National University (eight from the Law Department). Most of the vice ministers were also Seoul National graduates. “Kungnip Soul Taehakkyo rul haebu handa,” 326.

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dragged away by her hair. I frantically tried to wipe the tears that kept on rolling down, the tears from the tear gas that I tasted for the first time. I was watching all this time from the corner of the student hall, where no one could see me, unable to breathe and overcome with fear. Since that day, gradually, things began to have different meanings for me. I became embarrassed that our monthly expenses for room and board were more than what a sixteen-year-old female worker could earn in a month, working over sixty hours a week. From time to time, as I drank beer with friends or had a date with a pretty girl, I would be suddenly struck by the pangs of conscience as if I was caught doing something wrong. Perhaps these were all symptoms that I was to be a “delinquent” student [munje haksaeng]. And that very winter, as I watched my respected sonbae coming out of the “sacred court” as “criminals,” I finally erased in my head, after much agony, the image of myself as a judge sitting on the bench with dignity and authority.83 Elected in his sophomore year as a representative of his department, which made Yu an official troublemaker from the school’s point of view (department representatives were usually undongkwon students at the time), he started throwing stones in campus demonstrations. During the brief moment of breathing space called the Spring of Seoul in May 1980 (following the assassination of Park Chung Hee the previous year), Yu plunged himself into reviving autonomous student organizations. He was arrested on May 17 in the massive arrests that followed the Gwangju Uprising and was soon forcibly conscripted into the army: “As I was getting my hair cut in an unknown village the night before I was to enter the army, I realized that the fact that I was still alive was no longer a blessing but an insult.” His father died of shock while he was in the army.84 After his three-year stint in the army, Yu returned to the university in May 1984, and in August he was elected president of the Committee of Reinstated Students. He was arrested again within two weeks because of the “fake student” (p’urakch’i) incident,85 dismissed from school, and sent to prison for a year and half. As he started his prison term, his neighbors collected 83. Quoted in Hwang, 80–yondae ui haksaeng undong, 167–68. 84. “Kusok haksaeng kwa ku kajoktul,” 352. 85. Ibid. In September 1984, Seoul National University students discovered a number of “fake students” whom they accused of being informants for the state security agency. Having been detained for a few days by students, these “fake students” later charged them with beatings and other abuses. This incident led to the dismissal of all the students involved, police occupation of the campus, and campus-wide boycott of exams. “Hagwon, ‘chayurhwa’ eso,” 258.

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money to send to him—he had been known as a filial son who helped his mother run the family store throughout high school. Although Yu did not mention this in his statement of appeal, it was most likely that he was first introduced to an underground circle upon entering the university, that the sonbae he watched in the courtroom probably belonged to the same circle, and that he had shared with his circle members the sudden attacks of conscience that he felt during a date. The modalities of the student movement were operating in full gear, even as the harsh conditions outside pushed them deep underground. It was Yu’s class and his immediate seniors, the generation of Emergency Decree Number Nine, who paved the way for what was to come in the larger democratization movement of the 1980s.

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The Era of Liberalization, 1984–88

The death of Park Chung Hee in 1979 meant the end of the Yusin era and all of its absurdities and political terror. If the Yusin period was the “Frozen Republic,” the new era was the Spring of Seoul. Students relished their sense of relief by openly calling the dead dictator a rogue and a scoundrel.86 Students also greeted the Spring of Seoul with an exuberant display of energy, enthusiasm, and hopefulness. A dazzling array of academic and cultural activities sprang up, from the exhilarating mask-dance performances to wall newspapers and circle activities. The euphoria generated from this new freedom and the hopes for immediate democratization were met with brutal suppression in the Gwangju Uprising, as discussed in chapter 1. After Gwangju, most student leaders went into hiding or jail, or in some cases to the infamous purification camps run by the military. The few surviving clandestine circles sustained themselves by circulating crudely mimeographed underground newsletters or foreign journal articles with the censor’s marker obscuring half their contents. With a series of so-called “campus autonomy” measures, announced in December 1983 and effective mostly in 1985, student activism revived, giving rise to a renaissance of the student movement. The government initiated these measures in part to ensure the success of the 1986 Asian Games 86. Students freely changed the lyrics of the popular song, “Kuttae ku saram” (The person at the time). The singer, Sim Su-bong, was present at the scene of Park’s assassination, adding poignancy and irony. The students’ changed lyrics were: “I think of that rogue when I hear ‘Yusin.’ He always liked the emergency decrees. . . . He got shot in the Kungjongdong [a private restaurant/saloon set up exclusively for Park Chung Hee for his drinking parties and managed by KCIA] one day . . . by the most trusted [Kim] Chaegyu . . . mumbling ‘I’m okay,’ he dropped his head, that scoundrel.” A feature film dealing with the Park Chung Hee assassination, released in 2005, was also titled “Kuttae ku saramdul.”

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and 1988 Olympic Games, both scheduled to be held in South Korea. Perhaps more important, the Chun regime realized that its repressive measures could not contain campus unrest. The number of students dismissed for their involvement in protests reached 1,363 (from 65 universities) between May 1980 and December 1983. This was more than twice the number of those dismissed during the seven-year Yusin period. Campus protest also increased during this period: in 1981, there were 56 cases of protests, and in 1983, 134 cases. In 1983, there were student demonstrations almost daily except during school vacations and holidays.87 As a result of the campus liberalization measures, the once-menacing presence of state agents disappeared, the dismissed students and professors returned to campuses, the state-controlled National Student Defense Corps was dissolved, and efforts to revive autonomous student organizations spread like wildfire. Campuses started to shed their gloomy, melancholy, and depressive identities. With the revival of autonomous student organizations, nationwide university organizations such as Chon’guk Haksaeng Ch’ong Yonhap (Chonhangnyon, National Students’ Alliance)—which sought to link campus democratization with larger political issues—became possible in April 1985. It would be misleading to suggest that these changes were solely due to the liberalization policy, however; student activists, albeit a small number of them, had kept up various activities underground even under the most trying circumstances, so that once some measure of openness was allowed, the various groups appeared seemingly spontaneously. Most significantly, the students’ locus of activism moved from underground circles to department student organizations (hakhoe). What was once the domain of the underground circle made up of a small number of like-minded people became open, legitimate, and public. Organized at the divisional and departmental levels, the open and public nature of hakhoe also generated a tremendous proliferation of academic circles, publications, and seminars. In the post-liberalization period, “every student became a movement activist,” as one journalist commented.88 The children of high-ranking government officials, such as the son of the chair of the National Assembly, participated in and sometimes led demonstrations. In 1984, when student leaders at Seoul National University boycotted exams, more than half of the student body participated.89 Over 3,000 students filled the quadrangle of Korea University and cheered the student government president, who was dressed in traditional Korean clothing, with 87. Minjuhwa Undong Kinyom Saophoe, “Sillok minjunhwa undong.” 88. “81 hakpon undongkwon,” 238. 89. Ibid., 239.

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slogans such as “Whatever kind of oppression, let’s destroy it and obtain democracy.”90 The songs favored by students also reflected these changes. In the beginning of the 1980s, marching songs, short and mostly in a minor key, were popular. Most were about death and sacrifice; comrades and friends were gone, people had fallen, and the grounds were soaked with blood. Gradually, Gwangju and its failure were overcome, and images of Gwangju as victory emerged in songs. In 1985, melodic and lyrical songs became popular. If marching songs had been appropriate for demonstrations and rallies, then lyrical songs now indicated that the student movement’s focus had moved from rallies and demonstrations to the everyday issues of campuses.91 The widespread popularity of these songs was also due to university singing groups, which began to emerge in 1984 and were an active part of the student movement.92 In sum, the liberalization policy brought several significant changes to the landscape of the student movement. First, the student movement became popularized, no longer dominated by the elite (such as Seoul National, Yonsei, and Korea Universities) or by the “movement-prone” universities as they were traditionally known, such as Jeonnam University in South Jeolla Province. Nationwide organizations mobilized the students, cutting across region, school prestige, and gender. Second, the quantitative expansion of the student movement brought certain cultural changes. The secretive and conspiratorial culture of the 1970s and early 1980s in which circle members and leaders were preselected and groomed gave way to open and more democratic ways. The movement was not, and could not be, monopolized by a few select or courageous students. Anyone could join a circle without the introduction of a sonbae or a classmate. There was also a dazzling array of circle activities, from traditional four-instrument groups (p’ungmul) to minjung comic clubs. This is not to suggest, however, that joining the movement required less determination on the part of students. Until the early 1990s, being an undongkwon meant facing the possibility of expulsion from school, going to jail, becoming a fugitive, and, for male students, forced induction into the army. Third, women students became increasingly active in the student movement. A reporter estimated in 1985 that between 20 and 30 percent of protestors in coeducational universities were women.93 In 1985, women accounted 90. “Kusok haksaeng kwa ku kajoktul,” 341. 91. Yi, “Noraero pon 80–yondae haksaeng undong,” 167. 92. The “Meari” group at Seoul National University, for example, was founded in 1977 and has been a part of the student movement. By the mid-1980s, almost all universities had their own singing groups as a part of the student movement. 93. “Chonhangnyon, Sammint’u wa Mimunhwawon sakon,” 475–76.

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for 26 percent (22,000) of university students dismissed for political activities.94 In the case of the 1984 occupation of the ruling party’s headquarters, 57 of 264 participants were women, and in the 1985 occupation of the USIS building in Seoul, 20 of 73 occupying students were women. Fourth, the student movement as a whole became more ideologically oriented on the one hand and more factional and divisive on the other; these two tendencies were mutually reinforcing. The mid-1980s witnessed a great wave of ideological debates within the democratization movement as a whole, and while it is difficult to trace all of the ideological orientations and goals, one might say that the movement was divided into two ideological camps: one group emulated North Korea’s chuch’e sasang (the National Liberation group) and another group advocated an orthodox Marxist-Leninist revolution (the People’s Democracy group). Various groups came together and fell apart along this “great divide.” Some of the most regrettable aspects of the student movement also came from this ideological division. Opposing groups thwarted other groups’ public gatherings, physical assault was not uncommon for a brief period in 1985–86, and the opposing group even labeled student suicides as an “easy way out of the ideological struggle.”95

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Wall Newspapers

Campus liberalization also brought changes in the informal institutions of the undongkwon as well. Wall newspapers (taejabo)—on university campuses, bulletin boards, streets, the walls of buildings, and inside washrooms—were ubiquitous symbols of the era of liberalization. They signaled not only the new relaxed policy of the Ministry of Education but also the creation and recognition of the undongkwon culture as such; along with pamphlets and other printed materials mentioned earlier, these were the literary medium that helped generate the minjung discourse within the general student body. Initially stemming from the mistrust of mass media, wall newspapers became an integral part of everyday college life. They sometimes dealt with immediate campus issues such as student regulations issued by administration, but more often they carried penetrating analyses of the current political and social situations that ordinary university students would have difficulty finding on their own. Written by undongkwon students who created an intricate system of communications among students in other universities, wall newspapers were a key medium through which the issues of 94. Chungang Ilbo, September 4, 1986. 95. Quoted in Sin, “80–yondae haksaeng undong yasa 5: Minmint’u wa Chamint’u,” 180.

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Students reading a wall newspaper (taejabo) with a large painting (kolgae kurim) in the background that says, “Rise up, Gwangju!” May 1986. Provided by Han’guk Ilbo.

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the day became common knowledge among the general student body. On March 20, 1984, for example, three universities (Seoul National, Yonsei, and Songgyun’gwan) carried identical items on their wall newspapers: news of the forced withdrawal from school and forced military conscription of activist students, reports about the Pope’s visit to Korea, the White Paper on Gwangju released by the U.S. Embassy in Korea, and reports of the previous day’s demonstrations.96 The varied forms of wall newspapers also helped to capture and sustain the attention of fellow students. Mostly handwritten on large paper, they consisted of long essays in serial format, translations of foreign newspaper articles and editorials, petitions and slogans, comic strips and songs, and refutations of specific individuals as ruling-class mouthpieces. For obvious reasons, wall newspapers became a site of intense confrontation between students and university staff, who would engage in a daily struggle to put them up and take them down.97 Wall newspapers also signaled the emergence of an undongkwon public sphere on university campuses. Unlike the students of the 1970s, the undongkwon of the liberalization era entered into a direct relationship with their fellow students, informing, challenging, cajoling, and sometimes chastising their fellow students with their wall newspapers. If this relationship was nourished by the intense didacticism of the sonbae, it was for the higher purpose of creating a “true human being,” the sonbae would claim. One of the wall newspapers put up by undongkwon students at Seoul National University for first-year students was entitled “Kkopttegi rul potkoso” (As we shed our husk): We welcome you; you are now standing at the starting point toward the path of freedom and truth. The education you have received so far [in high school] was not a real education. . . . Ask yourselves honestly, as your hearts must be buoyant with unlimited expectations. . . . Why have you come to college? For better jobs with good pay and stability? If you’re interested in academia, have you thought about the social position and the role of the discipline that you’re interested in? Have you not just applied to this school that your parents chose without thinking of your own aptitude and personal goals? If you’re a woman, is it not just to receive a college diploma to make yourself more attractive on the marriage market?98 96. “Soul 1984–nyon taehaksaeng siwi,” 207. 97. Ibid. 98. “T’ukchip: Onul ui taehaksaeng,” 367.

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The appearance of this wall newspaper was soon followed by a separate, undongkwon-organized welcoming ceremony for incoming students who were introduced to Liberation Dance (haebangch’um), a four-beat dance that usually accompanied a farmers’ song with a fast, vibrant, and spirited beat. An array of undongkwon-led circles presented a program of singalong, traditional folk songs (minyo), a musical also titled “Kkopttegi rul potkoso” that dealt with the issue of corruption in the previous year’s election, and a drama dealing with the “inhumane” Korean educational system.99 At other universities, welcoming ceremonies were similar, with perhaps some regional variation. For example, at Jeonnam University in Gwangju, its musical “Omoni, wae uri rul?” (Mother, why us?), attended by 1,500 students, portrayed the negative impact on farmers of the current government’s trade liberalization policy.100 These ceremonies usually were followed by the student association’s annual inaugural ceremony as well as street demonstrations. After a month of these kinds of activities, a student would have a general idea of where he or she stood on the student movement. By her third and fourth year, a student in the movement would become responsible for organizing campus events, as well as directing study groups and various circle activities. By her fourth year, a student would be in or out of the movement, with all that such a decision implied.

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Minjung as a Metanarrative

If the undongkwon remained marginal in the society at large, it had a privileged and even hegemonic position in a relatively freer university environment from the mid- to late 1980s. From around 1982, campus activities led by undongkwon students were mostly “movement-oriented” (undongsong), with an emphasis on a “nationalistic orientation” (minjoksong) and “wholesomeness” (konjonham).101 The once-popular couples party (ssangssang p’at’i) and rock concerts disappeared from most university festivals, as the undongkwon sometimes took on the role of police, trying to get rid of 99. Ibid., 367. 100. Ibid., 368. 101. Taehak ch’ukche (university festivals) were especially popular after the April 19 Uprising in 1960, and the newly organized autonomous student groups were in charge. Widely regarded as the essence of the university experience, festival activities included academic symposia, athletic competition, and a masquerade procession. In 1975, the National Student Defense Corps became the main organizer of festivals, with rock concerts and a “couples party” (ssangssang p’at’i) being the prominent features.

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“degenerative” elements in university life.102 Short skirts for female students were considered too Western and decadent, and playing video games was looked down upon. Like any emancipatory project, efforts by undongkwon to construct a new democratic space also established a parallel of “new norms and hierarchies.” The new order disdained and suppressed what were considered holdovers from the previously held (capitalistic) worldview, while elevating what was considered minjung-oriented. To assimilate into the “pure, healthy,” and overall superior minjung culture, there was a constant effort by undongkwon students to shed “capitalistic” and bourgeois tendencies in terms of language, clothing, cuisine, and everyday habits. “To become like minjung unconditionally” (mujokon minjung kach’i) was the motto under which the undongkwon attempted to live.103 They encouraged what they thought were minjung qualities such as honesty, simplicity, and ceaseless participation in productive activities. One’s self-identity became closely linked with the demands of the movement, and one’s life and personality were frequently expressed as “bourgeois-like” (pijijok), “petit-bourgeoislike” (p’ut’ijok), and “proletariat-like” (p’it’ijok).104 Despite, or perhaps because of, their intense efforts to become minjunglike, undongkwon students were easily identified. In the late 1970s and the early 1980s, women undongkwon students were usually recognized by their short hair, lack of make-up, wrinkled T-shirts, blue jeans, and sneakers; men were identified by their dyed military training jackets, unwashed hair, and unshaven faces that revealed too much drinking and smoking, and by their black rubber shoes (komusin, usually worn by farmers). Great efforts were made to erase any mark of individuality, making undongkwon students more recognizable as members of a group. Especially in the early 1980s, students often found a fellow undongkwon student on the campus not by discussing the topics of the day but by “having a hunch” that “since she’s dressed or talking that way, she must be in the movement.”105 Although the undongkwon created spaces of withdrawal and regroupment from larger society, this designation also subsumed individuals in the all-encompassing, even totalizing, notion of minjung. In the discursive practice of the undongkwon, the emphasis on minjung-orientation both empowered and disempowered women students in particular. For example, as the emphasis on orienting oneself toward minjung grew, there was a 102. 103. 104. 105.

Ch’oe Inch’ol, interview, Seoul, February 14, 1993. Han Chisu, interview, Seoul, February 27, 1993. Kim, “Ono uimi ch’egye ui punsok,” 130. Yi Kyongsuk, interview, Seoul, March 15, 1993.

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perception that a separate women’s movement might become a distraction from the presumed larger issues. Women themselves did not raise issues because of a fear of breaking the movement’s unity, the lack of urgently felt issues that could command the attention of the movement as a whole, and the absence of a forum where they could voice their own concerns.106 Many of the women in the movement had to adjust to the essentially masculine and puritanical undongkwon culture. They believed they were equal with men and therefore did not need or want a separate women’s movement. When female students organized their own campaigns on campus, they focused on the issues of women workers and not necessarily on issues of their own, which might have been perceived as too bourgeois or too egocentric and, therefore, not urgent enough.107 The prevailing masculine culture of the undongkwon of the late 1970s and early 1980s went hand in hand with its puritanical asceticism, which emphasized suppressing one’s own pleasure and the pursuit of individual goals. For Han Chisu, a female member of the class of 1983, the movement “was all about frugality and simplicity; for someone who grew up with relatively good food and material comforts, [the undongkwon] was a group that had different notions of good food and comfort.”108 There were Korean dishes she had never had until she went to college, such as chicken feet and Korean sausage (sundae). When she was taken to one of the ubiquitous, dilapidated taverns that dotted the campus towns in the early 1980s (which since the 1990s have been replaced with cafes equipped with a variety of expensive espresso machines imported from Europe) and saw a plate of chicken feet with toes still intact on the table, she nearly gasped but could not say that she could not eat it; it would have given away her “bourgeois” background. In such a tavern, drinking beer would have been too bourgeois and Western. Students drank only a liquor made from potatoes (soju) and unrefined rice wine. For the same reason, wearing colorful clothes, going to a disco (a popular entertainment for students in the early 1980s), dawdling at a cafe (tabang), having a mit’ing (“meeting,” or blind date), playing billiards (a favorite pastime especially for male students), or dining in a Western-style restaurant was unthinkable; wearing a pair of Nike shoes to school was met with even more disapproval. Even cigarettes were carefully chosen; students tried their best to smoke only Korean brands such as Eunhasu and Hansando.109 106. Nam Yunju, interview, Seoul, March 2, 1993. 107. The boycott of Tomboy brand clothes in 1985 was one of the first university-wide issues to mobilize female students; the workers at Tomboy were mostly women. Nam Yunju, interview, Seoul, March 2, 1993. 108. Han Chisu, interview, Seoul, February 27, 1993. 109. “81 hakpon undongkwon,” 247.

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To call someone bourgeois was a tremendous affront. Han Chisu recollected: “We all unnaturally imitated the life of the poor; we had elevated the poor to the purest symbol of highest morality, and there was tremendous pressure to follow them.”110 There was also strong resistance to what was perceived to be Western. Traditional Korean folk songs and movement songs were preferred over popular rock songs or folk songs. Learning or giving too much attention to English was looked down upon.111 My conceptualizing of the student movement as a “counterpublic sphere” entailed thinking of the undongkwon as a sphere that aspired for truth and emancipation. In an effort to construct an alternative democratic space, students tapped into the past, reinventing and reworking the traditional folk culture. By no means unique—students in Paris of 1968 self-consciously acted in the tradition of past revolutions—we see that creating an alternative vision involved mobilizing moral and cultural resources. Student efforts brought previously unpublic issues into the public domain. At the same time, the visions of an alternative public sphere were fraught with tensions and contradictions. Those who had shared visions, languages, and codes that contested the hegemonic state-licensed worldviews also imposed their own hierarchy of worldviews and value systems.

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110. Han Chisu, interview, Seoul, February 27, 1993. 111. “81 hakpon undongkwon,” 242.

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5. BETWEEN INDETERMINACY AND RADICAL CRITIQUE

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Madangguk, ˘ Ritual, and Protest

The French Revolution is sometimes said to have started with the opening night of Pierre Beaumarchais’s Marriage of Figaro; audience cheers for the servant Figaro who stood up to and outwitted his depraved and lewd master, the count, signaled the crumbling of the existing social and moral order.1 Throughout the 1970s and 1980s in South Korea, many rehearsals for the minjung revolution were carried out as madangguk, a drama form that synthesized and amalgamated Korean traditional folk drama with elements of Western drama. Characterized by stereotyped characters, chain-like connections between scenes, hard-hitting satire and caricature, comical gestures and dialogues, jokes, dances, songs, shouting, lectures, demonstrations, mime, and shamanistic rituals, madangguk was performed in open areas without theatrical sets, and performers infused history, folk tales, and legends with strong sociopolitical messages. Emerging in the 1970s as both social protest and a new dramatic form, madangguk by the 1980s had become an alternative, even utopian, form of cultural and political expression; it was a site of avant-garde art, social movement, and expressions of new subjectivities. Madangguk swept university campuses in particular from the early 1970s. By the 1980s, few universities were without their own madangguk groups, and few university festivals and events did not include madangguk performances. Madangguk was not limited to university campuses; it was performed at factories, village squares, public halls, Protestant and Catholic churches, and outdoor markets. In addition to madangguk, traditional folk 1. Benston, “Aesthetic of Modern Black Drama,” 63.

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recreations, which had been revived initially by government-sponsored folk contests, drew thousands of students on university campuses. Contemporary professional theaters attempted to fuse Western forms with traditional folk drama elements, and a few Protestant churches even incorporated shamanistic rituals in their worship services.2 In its richness as drama and as social critique, madangguk opens itself to a variety of interpretations: scholars have conceptualized madangguk as people’s theater and resistance theater, as well as a unique expression of the Korean spirit.3 I propose thinking of madangguk as another expression of the counterpublic sphere; madangguk was not simply political satire or an experimental form of drama but also an alternative way of living and working in the dominant capitalist system. Madangguk challenged the capitalist system’s organization of social relations by challenging the boundaries between labor and leisure, producer and consumer, and bourgeois and worker. In this chapter, I first situate madangguk in the context of the politics of the invention of tradition in general and the revival of folk culture engineered by the Korean state in particular. I then discuss the dramaturgical and aesthetic structure of mask-dance drama (t’alch’um), a popular folk drama during the Choson period, upon which the madangguk of the 1970s was built as “resistance theater” in opposition to the Yusin regime. The third part of the chapter deals with the impact of the Gwangju Uprising on the themes and aesthetics of madangguk in the 1980s and how the demands for new revolutionary aesthetics and political efficacy led madangguk to take on the characteristics of a ritual. I conclude with a brief remark on madangguk’s relevance to contemporary cultural politics.

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The State, Intellectuals, and Nationalism

If nationhood is “a key term in the lexicon of modernity,”4 then folk culture has been a key agent of that nationalism, as folklore scholarship in particular has been closely intertwined with national history and nation-building.5 During the colonial period in Korea, studies in folklore developed as a “countervailing cultural expression of Korean identity against the Japanese policy of cultural assimilation.”6 In the postcolonial era, “traditional folk culture” became a site of contested nationalism. The military regime of Park 2. Ch’ae, “70–yondae ui munhwa undong,” 212. 3. Choi, “Discourse of Decolonization”; Chong, Sosaguk; van Erven, “Resistance Theatre in South Korea”; Cho, K’at’arusisu. 4. Mitchell and Abu-Lughod, “Questions of Modernity,” 82. 5. See, for example, Fernandez, “Folklore as an Agent of Nationalism,” 586. 6. Janelli, “Origins of Korean Folklore Scholarship,” 28.

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Chung Hee revived folk culture as a reservoir of resources for modernization and a source of its own legitimacy, while dissenting students and intellectuals saw it as the embodiment of indigenous minjung life capable of resisting the negative impact of modernization and Westernization.7

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Invention of Tradition

The revival of folk culture was a widespread phenomenon after World War II among the newly independent countries in Africa, other developing countries such as Argentina, and long-colonized countries such as Ireland. In Gabon and Cameroon, for example, the new governments spent large sums of money to promote folklore field research.8 In South Korea as well, the state initiated a series of projects and institutions that gave rise to the revival of folklore as both an academic discipline and a popular project in the 1960s. In 1961, the state sponsored its first national folk art contest,9 and the next year it legislated the Cultural Property Protection Act. This legislation designated certain items as Important Intangible Cultural Properties and certain individuals as Human Cultural Treasures.10 The Office for Cultural Properties Management, created in 1963, managed these cultural properties and treasures. As the state’s institutional encouragement and funding helped initiate extensive scholarly research in folk culture, a large number of folklore scholars were recruited to define and select the tangible and intangible cultural properties.11 Many of these scholars, who for the purpose of this chapter can be characterized as “institutional” rather than “dissident,” participated eagerly in folklore projects, viewing this as a proper response to “the national demand to establish national identity” and to the sense of impending foreign, especially Japanese, encroachment.12 The South Korean government was not alone in “inventing” tradition for the purposes of modernization; the project of Japanese modernization during the Meiji period (1868–1912) involved an extensive “invention of tradition” as well.13 Under the Park regime, however, the reinvention of tradition and the systematic displacement of tradition were carried out simultaneously. Park Chung Hee, while denouncing Confucians as “responsible for 7. Yi, “Minjungguk ui silsang kwa ihae,” 19. 8. See Fernandez, “Folklore as an Agent of Nationalism,” 586. 9. Im, Han’guk minsokhak kwa hyonsil insik, 77. 10. Until 1980, 16 categories and 175 individuals were designated as both tangible and intangible cultural properties. In the case of the mask dance, 11 categories were selected as intangible cultural properties between 1964 and 1970. 11. Janelli, “Origins of Korean Folklore Scholarship,” 24. 12. Minsokhakhoe, ed., Han’guk minsokhak ui ihae, 39. 13. See, for example, Vlastos, ed., Mirror of Modernity; Hobsbawm and Ranger, eds., Invention of Tradition.

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the nepotism and conservatism that delayed economic and scientific development,” adroitly appropriated the Confucian authority system and brought into the project of modernization the recalcitrant Confucianist scholars through a policy of appeasement.14 Theoretically, traditional folk culture defied any form of stasis; it was a spontaneous expression of the everyday lives of people in communities. The government’s cultural policy of keeping “tradition” intact “as a symbol and reminder of Korea’s past” was beset therefore with what scholars called “decontextualization” and “museumization”; this policy kept folk culture from evolving into forms relevant and meaningful to contemporary society.15 The Human Cultural Treasures, for example, officially appointed as “keepers” of folk art, were required to conform to government criteria for teaching and performing.16 Likewise, government-sponsored festivals, ostensibly created to revitalize folk culture, were removed from their historical and regional bases and were no longer participatory community events. Folklore scholars began to voice their concern that these festivals had “degenerated” into “cheap” entertainment that did not provide “national revitalization” or give new momentum, that they had become state-led events that did not give participants a sense of ownership.17 The most trenchant criticism of Park’s cultural policy, for which there are many historical precedents in other countries as well, is that it reappropriated folk culture for the purpose of Realpolitik.18 Encouraging folk tradition had become a way of strengthening the state’s legitimacy, through government sponsorship of nationwide folk arts contests and festivals, through the use of traditional performing arts during government-sponsored sporting events, and through the use of traditional performing arts in diplomatic exchanges during the 1960s and 1970s.19 14. See Kim, “Reproduction of Confucian Culture,” 218. 15. Yang, “Madangguk: The Rejuvenation,” 33. 16. See ibid., 39. 17. See Hahn, Kugak: Studies in Korean Traditional Music, 75–136; Yi, Ch’ukche wa madangguk, 64–65. 18. The first national state to make “political capital” out of folklore studies was the National Socialist government of Hitler. Soviet Russia also saw in folklore a powerful force with which to advance communism. See Dorson, “Introduction,” 15–18; Kamenetsky, “Folklore as a Political Tool,” 221–35; Byrne, “Nazi Festival,” 107–22. 19. Sports events were a popular venue for folk performances. See Yang, “Madangguk: The Rejuvenation,” 44. During the 1960s, Minsok Yesultan (Folk Arts Troupe, which later became the Folk Dance Troupe), and the National Classical Music Institute toured in Europe, the Americas, Australia, Southeast Asia, Japan, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. At the same time, the military regime distributed propaganda materials both in and outside South Korea. In addition to the New Nation Weekly (a newsletter highlighting the military junta’s weekly achievements), loudspeakers and radios were freely distributed to people in Korea, and there was also a tremendous increase in the number of government broadcasts and films. For foreigners, Korea Report, a monthly government publication, was also published in different languages and was freely distributed. In the late 1960s,

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More to the point, the articulation of folk culture as national culture made the state visible as the principal agent of modernization.20 The official designation of folk culture as tradition formalized and displaced the lived experience of the past as an artifact and at the same time highlighted contemporary Korea’s transformation from the past. Regardless, the past as an artifact, “preserved” as both a manifestation of tangible and intangible cultural properties, became not only a symbolic reminder of the past but also an open arena for contestation over the future. Madangguk arose in this context of tension between the state and oppositional movements over how to preserve and find meaning in tradition and the past for those living in the present. Working against the state’s attempt to promote folk culture as a part of its intense, didactic modernizing efforts, the university students and intellectuals reappropriated and reinvented folk culture as a counternarrative of Korean modernity and capitalist development. Madangguk was a product of their ongoing search for counterhegemonic cultural identities, a form of resistance against the process of rapid modernization and authoritarian rule in South Korea. Between Nostalgia and Utopia

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The “folk drama wave” shook the ground of South Korean universities in the late 1960s. It began with folklore research groups and mask-dance drama, which was supposed to have disappeared during Korea’s transition to modernity.21 The wave continued into the 1970s, marking this period as an “era of university mask-dance drama.” Mask dance was not the only element of folk culture hitting the campuses; farmers’ music (nongak), oneperson musical drama (p’ansori), and shamanistic ritual (kut),22 previously the South Korean government spent more than any country except the Soviet Union for its “information service” in Washington, D.C. Kim, Politics of Military Revolution, 110–11; Hahn, Kugak: Studies in Korean Traditional Music, 39. 20. Ann Anagnost has argued that the post-Mao Chinese state’s attempts to discipline various folk practices as superstitious has more to do with its own self-representation as the visible agent of modernization than with eradicating superstition. See Anagnost, “Politics of Ritual Displacement.” 21. Yi, Ch’ukche wa madangguk, 168. 22. Nongak was developed by peasants and consists mostly of percussion instruments. P’ansori is a form of opera whose stories are based on epic narratives of Korea. P’an refers to an open, flat place where people gather, and sori to song or sound. It was developed in the eighteenth century but reached its peak in the nineteenth century through the efforts of Sin Chaehyo (1812–1884), who revived, polished, and rewrote six p’ansori texts, five of which are still performed. A single actor sings and narrates dramatic episodes with elaborate gestures and drum accompaniment. Kut is held traditionally for a good harvest or a good catch of fish, as well as for the cure of a patient. A shaman is a master of spirits who performs while in a trance, during which time her soul is believed to leave her body and either ascend to the sky or descend to the underworld. Korean shamanism is a syncretistic belief, which includes animism, rites of fertility, nature worship, religious resurrection, and other pre-religious phenomena.

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denigrated to the realm of premodernity and superstition, were revived by students and intellectuals and fueled the artistic and political imagination of the period. Outside university campuses, there were student-initiated ethnographic research projects, exhibitions of masks, and open classes for p’ansori, nongak, and mask-making. Academic seminars and the exchange of performances among universities were carried out in tandem with other grassroots ethnographic research group activities. Students not only received instruction from farmers, who were considered the original carriers of folk tradition, but also restored, reconstructed, and “returned” to farmers what was believed to have been lost or destroyed in the process of Korea’s modernization—the prime example being Sogang University students’ reconstruction of Gasan ogwangdae (Five singers of Gasan), a puppet drama originated in Gasan, South Gyeongsang Province.23 Traditional folk practices, rapidly becoming distant memories in the 1960s, were rediscovered as a tangible source of identity. For many students and intellectuals, folk performance was initially not so much a political vehicle for opposition or resistance against the state or dominant culture but rather a way to recover individual and national identity as expressed by the participants of various university mask-dance performances in the 1970s: To perform mask dance is to search for myself.

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We found in folk culture the direction we have to go and we have recovered the meaning of the past in the present; we have found a way of reflecting upon ourselves. We have [until now] indiscriminately accepted Western culture, forgetting our own sense of beauty; we have to cure this disease with our own sense of mirth. We are not saying that Korea’s folk culture is the most sublime. . . . We are saying that it is something we feel close to and something that moves us profoundly.24 The irony of their effort to revive folk culture was not lost on the students, however. University education is often viewed as central to the reproduction of 23. Ch’ae, “70–yondae ui munhwa undong,” 209–10. See Cho, “Ogwangdae.” 24. Quoted in Ch’ae, “70–yondae ui munhwa undong,” 174–75.

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social inequality.25 It is also characterized as the kernel of the dominant ideology of bourgeois societies and the root of the hegemony of nationalism.26 From the 1960s well into the 1980s, South Korean universities were viewed with both veneration and suspicion by society at large for these reasons. Universities were also considered largely Western-oriented and detached from society, notwithstanding the 1960 Student Uprising that overthrew the Syngman Rhee regime. For South Korean students and intellectuals, the sense of irony was due to the distance between the historical place of folk drama—its hypothetical embeddedness in the everyday lives of commoners—and its contemporary vogue among the elite and on university campuses. The contrast between their own Westernized lives and their self-designated task of recovering the cultural practices of commoners was often jarring and alienating. Thus, the encounter with folk drama was for many a moment of mixed emotions: relief, anger, ecstasy, and even catharsis. The students’ self-deprecating remarks expressed this sense of incongruity: mask dance was “only the intellectuals’ hobby which emulated plebian [sominsuroun] aesthetics,” “an academic display,” “a self-fulfilling catharsis,” and “an idealistic wandering of the mind.”27 Folk drama as a social critique and alternative social project was thus placed ambiguously between nostalgia and utopia. Marilyn Ivy attributes the resurgence of the popularity of Japanese taishu engeki (small-scale, itinerant variety theater) in the mid-1980s to “contemporary modernity’s incorporation of historical displacement, becoming in the process a strangely appropriate locus of the neo-nostalgia.” Ivy finds that this sense of nostalgia had two levels of historical reference: “prewar modernity’s nostalgia for Tokugawa premodernity and late modernity’s nostalgia for the incipient communal mass culture of prewar modernity.”28 South Korean students and intellectuals envisioned folk drama not simply as a reservoir of folk tradition but also as a form of social critique. However, a central reason for its popularity in the 1960s and early 1970s was their own sense of historical displacement which stemmed from rapid modernization and industrialization. From Tradition to Revolution

In the 1960s, intellectuals thought their task was mainly to restore the original form and structure of folk tradition. From the 1970s, however, 25. 26. 27. 28.

Pierre Bourdieu is the best-known proponent of this idea. See Swartz, Culture and Power, 190. Balibar, “The Nation Form,” 103. Ch’ae, “70–yondae ui munhwa undong,” 174–75, 214. Ivy, Discourses of the Vanishing, 206.

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they began to think they should inherit the creative spirit of folk culture and express it in the idiom of contemporary needs and issues. For madangguk practitioners, and minjung movement groups in general, folk drama was a newly discovered medium through which to express not only their own artistic aspirations but also the aesthetics of minjung, the common people. In other words, madangguk was to be the “true representational expression of the spirit and wishes of the minjung.”29 This notion of madangguk as a new form of play, both as a drama and as a form of new subjectivity, drew from the dramaturgical, thematic, and aesthetic structures of folk dramas, especially the mask-dance drama of the earlier period.30

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Mask-Dance Drama in the Chos˘on Period

Mask-dance drama has a long history, possibly going back to the prehistoric period.31 Although scholars differ on its precise origin and function, most agree that it was developed from shamanistic village rituals.32 Scholars divide the extant Korean mask-dance dramas into two types, village and town. Village drama was performed during village rituals and developed alongside ture, the villagers’ autonomous organization of cooperative labor, recreation, and rituals. As Korean society gradually developed towns and commercial activities in the nineteenth century, professional mask-dance groups appeared in larger towns.33 Mask-dance drama in general was composed of a series of independent scenes or episodes, and each is called madang, literally “outdoor area” or “ground.” Each scene was independent, with little causal relationship between scenes. The drama’s integrity did not depend on the linear development of a plot, and a narrator appears between scenes to explain what the scene is about. The scenes can be reordered at different performances, and each scene can be performed separately as a short independent play.34 The mask-dance drama’s stage was an open outdoor arena in village squares and market places, with no scenery or permanent stage properties. The audience viewed the stage from three or four sides, making a circle; there was no physical separation between the performing area and the viewing place.35 29. Yi, Ch’ukche wa madangguk, 211. 30. There were three main genres of folk drama during the Choson period: mask dance (kamyonmu), mask-dance drama (kamyon’guk or t’alch’um), and puppet play (kkoktu kaksi norum or inhyong nori). See Yun, “Minsokkuk ui yoksa,” 527–43. 31. For further discussion on mask-dance drama, see Lee, “Kamyon-guk”; Yi, Han’guk ui kamyon’guk; Cho, T’alch’um ui yoksa wa wolli. 32. Lee, “Kamyon-guk,” 66–67. 33. Ch’ae, “T’alch’um,” 159. 34. Cho, Korean Puppet Theatre, 20. 35. Lee, “Kamyon-guk,” 169–70; Kim, “Hahoe Pyolsin-kut,” 168.

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Usually accompanied by farmers’ music, mask-dance drama owed much to music and dance for its theatricality. The dialogue of mask-dance drama consisted mainly of the colloquial language of the common people, with an abundance of witty talk, puns, and earthy language and expressions. The mask-dance drama was transmitted orally, and performers improvised at each production, much as in the Italian commedia dell’arte.36 Performers and patrons were mostly commoners who lacked formal education. Mask-Dance Drama as Satire

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The Choson period (1392–1910) was marked by a rigid social hierarchy of four classes,37 and mask-dance dramas during this period were highly critical of the ruling class as well as Buddhist monks.38 Parody of the corruption of government officials, exposure of the debauchery of the elite (yangban) and Buddhist monks, and ridicule of the ignorance and self-indulgence of the elite constituted the main themes of these dramas. Some of these episodes were colored by suggestions of inverted sexual roles and liberating sexual mores, inviting potentially multifarious interpretations of folk dramas. However, folk drama as social satire par excellence has been the most readily and commonly received interpretation, and it remained the orienting axis of madangguk practitioners of the 1970s and 1980s. In Hahoe pyolsin kut, the mask-dance drama of Hahoe village that is believed to be the longest extant form of mask-dance drama, for example, the episode of “P’agyesung” (Apostate monk) first introduces a Buddhist monk who is unable to restrain his sexual desire for a dancing girl.39 At the 36. Kim, “Hahoe Pyolsin-kut,” 208. On Italian commedia dell’arte, see Pietropaolo, ed., Science of Buffoonery. 37. They were the ruling elite, yangban; the middle class, chungin; the common class, sangmin; and the lowest, or outer, class, ch’onmin. The chungin included interpreters, translators, physicians, and minor civil and military officials such as accountants, geographers, and law enforcement officers. Sangmin comprised the majority of the population—farmers, businessmen, and craftsmen. The ch’onmin included butchers, acrobats, tumblers, court musicians, slaves, kisaeng (female entertainers), and islanders. Most of the yangban were landowners and enjoyed hereditary privileges of tax and public labor exemption. Toward the end of the Choson period, the social hierarchy disintegrated, and many individuals purchased titles of yangban. 38. Buddhism was a state religion of the Koryo Dynasty (936–1391), and priests and monks enjoyed privileged status as official guides of the spiritual lives of the people. Widespread corruption and secularization of monks toward the end of Koryo was one of the reasons for the dynasty’s fall. As Confucianism became the founding ideology and philosophy of the Choson dynasty, Buddhism became a persistent target of state persecution, and the monks’ social status was relegated to the lowest strata of society. 39. Originated in ancient times, this mask-dance drama is believed to have been established in its currently known form around the twelfth century. It continued to be performed until 1928. It was held every three, five, or ten years as a part of a Hahoe village ritual, which involved worshipping the tutelary goddess. Local villagers were in control of all aspects of the performance, including

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beginning of the scene, Pune the dancing girl stops to urinate after her seductive dance. The monk is aroused at the scene, and his efforts to remain calm—fingering his beads—are of no avail. He scoops up the soil and sniffs, eventually giving in to his desire, which is symbolized by a wild dance with Pune. Interrupted by the appearance of a nobleman’s servant, the monk puts Pune on his back and runs away.40 The hypocrisy of the ruling class is the theme in the episode “Yangban sonbi” (Nobleman and scholar), the most dramatized and elaborate episode in the Hahoe pyolsin kut. Although they condemned the monk for his transgression in the earlier scene, both the nobleman and the scholar try to seduce the dancing girl. A butcher enters, displaying his merchandise—ox testicles. Initially upset at being interrupted by the untouchable butcher, they soon fight over the ox testicles after being told of their power as an aphrodisiac.41 Hoping to impress the dancing girl, the two noblemen argue over their social standing. Their aggrandizement of high learning and noble blood offers an excellent opportunity for an elaborate use of puns. The scholar claims he has read all of Saso Samgyong, the Four Books and Three Classics of ancient China. The nobleman, not to be outdone, boasts that he has read P’also Yukkyong, a meaningless wordplay suggesting that he has read twice as many. This farcical situation becomes even more absurd when the nobleman’s servant, Ch’oraengi, exposes the list of Yukkyong (which are themselves nothing but words that rhyme with yukkyong): taejanggyong, paragyong, angyong, chilgyong, wolgyong, and swaegyong—literally the eighty thousand volumes of the Buddhist sutras, the cymbals of the monks, the eyeglasses of the blind, a Chinese medicine in the apothecary, the menstruation of a virgin, and the annual pay to a farmhand. The nobleman taunts the scholar for his lack of knowledge: “Even these two [servants] know about the Yukkyong. You, the so-called scholar, don’t know that?”42 In Pongsan t’alch’um (Mask-dance drama of Pongsan), Malttugi, a generic servant character in Choson folk dramas, introduces his masters to the audience in the following manner: Hush! The noblemen are coming. I call them noblemen. But you shouldn’t mistake them for the retired noblemen who once belonged the selection of actors and other minor performers. Hahoe village is located in North Gyeongsang province. Different versions of this episode can be found in Kim, “Hahoe Pyolsin-kut,” 175; Cho, “Theatrical Presentation.” 40. Kim, “Hahoe Pyolsin-kut,” 175; Lee, “Kamyon-guk,” 77; Cho, “Theatrical Presentation.” 41. Kim, “Hahoe Pyolsin-kut,” 176; Lee, “Kamyon-guk,” 78–79. 42. Kim, “Hahoe Pyolsin-kut,” 204–5.

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A silkscreen print of the mask-dance of a monk, from Pongsan t’alch’um, 1989. Courtesy of Kim Pongjun.

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to every faction of East and West, old doctrine and new doctrine, and enjoyed the fame of being the heads of three ministries and six departments. What I mean by noblemen [yangban] is yang for the dog and ban for the small table with dog-foot-shaped legs.43 In another mask-dance drama, the servant Malttugi happens to meet a fellow servant, Soettugi, and asks for his help in finding lodging for his masters, who were on the way to Seoul to take an official examination but got sidetracked by attending a mask-dance drama. Soettugi suggests a pigpen and leads them into one. As Malttugi explains the family history of the noble brothers to Soettugi, it becomes obvious to the audience that Malttugi thinks of them as pigs. When the noblemen order Soettugi to beat Malttugi for his rude behavior in a later scene, Malttugi offers him money in place of punishment. When the amount is not enough to please the noblemen, Soettugi contributes some of his own money. The greediness of a nobleman is such that “he would even snatch a nickel from a baby,” according to Soettugi.44 The unscrupulous provincial governor was also a common target in folk dramas of the Choson period. In one scene of the Kkoktu Kaksi inhyongguk (Puppet theater of Lady Kkoktu), for example, Hong Tongji, who usually 43. I synthesized the following two references to make the English translation clearer: Traditional Korean Theatre, 270, and Lee, “Kamyon-guk,” 125. 44. Lee, “Kamyon-guk,” 124.

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appears in puppet drama naked with enlarged genitals, sabotages the funeral service of the mother of the greedy governor. Hong Tongji’s presence brings disgrace and humiliation to all, especially when he declares that the body lying inside the coffin smells like a rotting dog in summer heat, thus implying that the governor is no better than a lowly beast.45 As seen in all these scenes, satire and ridicule of the ruling class were essential to Korean folk drama. Previous scholars have interpreted satire and ridicule as a social outlet from the tensions of a stratified society, a psychological relief from the hardships of survival, and a physical release from backbreaking manual labor. They have also interpreted mask-dance drama as a theater, a ritual, and a festival, bringing village-wide unity by sharing sacred food and drink.46

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Mask Dance as the Embodiment of the Minjung Spirit

Madangguk practitioners of the 1970s and 1980s took a step beyond these interpretations and saw the satire as an expression of minjung’s mature critical consciousness, as their condensed form of struggle with the existing social order, and therefore as imbued with potentialities and possibilities.47 Satire in the Choson folk dramas functioned possibly more to resolve and thereby contain societal conflicts rather than to initiate commoners’ direct confrontation with noblemen or any explicit political action. Nevertheless, madangguk practitioners saw in the Choson folk dramas minjung’s inherent potentialities, which, they argued, along with the elite’s “obstinate and ignominious attachment to his status,” hastened the demise of the Choson order.48 With this minjung-oriented perspective, Cho Tongil reexamines thematic elements previously taken for granted in the Choson folk dramas: the relentless ridicule of Buddhist monks, for example, which was as severe as the mockery of the ruling class. What were the commoners of the late Choson period really saying about Buddhism by deriding stray monks? According to Cho, the commoners’ scathing criticism of the Buddhist monks stemmed not so much from their adherence to Confucian principles, but rather from the commoners’ disdain of the Buddhist “pretension of promoting transcendental indifference and apathy.” In other words, it was the minjung’s critical consciousness that gave rise to the trenchant satire of both Buddhist monks 45. 46. 47. 48.

Cho, Korean Puppet Theatre, 17–22. Kim, “Hahoe Pyolsin-kut,” 171–72, 176; Cho, Korean Puppet Theatre, 20. Ch’ae, “T’alch’um,” 164; Cho, T’alch’um ui yoksa wa wolli, 185. Cho, T’alch’um ui yoksa wa wolli, 204.

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and elites during the Choson period. Madangguk practitioners also saw the episode of “Miyal ch’um” (Old couple), previously considered by folk scholars to be a ritual performance for a village guardian deity, as registering protest against male oppression.49 Madangguk practitioners particularly valorized servants in Choson folk dramas as embodying the true spirit of minjung, possessing placidity, a generous spirit, a sense of humor, and a quick wit. The servant character Malttugi therefore became synonymous with minjung and a staple character in the folk dramas performed in the 1970s and 1980s. Through the character of Malttugi, madangguk performers commented on contemporary issues such as inequality, working conditions, the state’s agricultural and foreign policy, and press censorship.50

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Madangguk ˘ as Life and Leisure

Madangguk practitioners envisioned it as not just political satire and an experimental form of drama but also as a new way of thinking about life and nori as well (nori generally refers to a wide variety of pleasure activities from singing and dancing to playing cards). They conceived madangguk as a way to recover “a life of community” through common sharing of nori and to recover the meaning of nori as life-giving, life-based art. Thus, madangguk was envisioned as a holistic movement based on the communal artistic experience and consciousness of the minjung. In other words, madangguk was to reconceptualize how a drama was created and performed and how an audience was constituted.51 The notion that the Choson period’s mask-dance drama was embedded in the everyday life of commoners stems from a utopian reimagining of the communal village practice believed to have originated in the late Choson period. Of the three known forms of cooperative and autonomous village organizations in the Choson period—ture, p’umasi, and kye—only kye is believed to have survived in its original form up to the present. Both ture and p’umasi refer to a form of cooperative labor, whereas kye refers to a cooperative banking system for financing marriages, funerals, and other significant life events. While p’umasi has survived in modified forms, ture is believed to have completely disappeared by the 1960s.52

49. Ibid., 198–221; Ch’ae, “T’alch’um,” 165–66. 50. Yang, “Madangguk: The Rejuvenation,” 53–54. 51. Ch’ae, “70–yondae ui munhwa undong,” 210; Chong, Sosaguk, 83. 52. For discussion of p’umasi as an egalitarian community ethic guiding urban life and industrial relations in contemporary South Korea, see Lee, “Confucianism and the Market,” 84–106.

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Choson was an agricultural society, and cultivating and harvesting rice required intensive labor mobilization, which gave rise to cooperative work arrangements such as ture and p’umasi. Both ture and p’umasi were based on implied equality and the principle of cooperation. Ture, literally meaning “circular cooperation,” was a village organization of cooperative labor, recreation, and rituals. P’umasi usually took the form of one person working for another for one day, and then the other person returning one day’s labor at a later date. While p’umasi was a form of labor exchange based upon individual needs, ture is thought to have involved more community spirit and cohesion, as its activities included communal meals and recreation as well: each village’s ture had its own band with traditional instruments and a flag, which would be hoisted in the rice field where the village ture worked.53 Informed by ture’s reputed communal spirit and practices, the prominent folklore scholar Chu Kanghyon has proposed that ture be understood as representing all communal activities.54 Ture was not free of coercive practices or hierarchical relations among villagers,55 but its implied doctrine of equality and its communal form of recreation captured the imagination of intellectuals from the 1970s; ture became another site of nostalgia for the swiftly disappearing past and a utopian reimagining of minjung life. Madangguk practitioner and critic Ch’ae Huiwan saw Choson’s mask dance as having originated from ture, from its communal lives of commoners. For Ch’ae, the communal artistic activities made mask dance the embodiment of true art, the true integration of work and recreation, of consciousness and expression, of the real world and the ideal world.56 Cho Tongil, the first scholar to systematically propose an aesthetic theory of mask-dance drama, also emphasizes its identity as an expression of commoners’ lived experiences: The mask dance of farmers and merchants differed from the ritualplay [kut nori] of shamans and the puppet theater of itinerant performers [sadang p’ae] as it was based on their life as commoners. They were conscious of the existing social order’s problems and often recognized the possibility of change. As the agricultural and commercial scenes of the late Choson period changed, their social consciousness 53. Han, “Continuity and Change,” 197–98. 54. Chu, Han’guk ui ture. 55. Chu Kanghyon’s research shows that although those who were able to contribute to community labor were considered equal among ture members, villagers were often coerced into becoming a part of ture. Chu, Han’guk ui ture, 2:61, 65. 56. Ch’ae, “70–yondae ui munhwa undong,” 213.

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also changed; the town-type mask dance originated and developed with a new recognition that the world was changing and that a new society had to be built.57 As an expression of a village or township activity by and for the community, the mask dance’s dramatic form and aesthetics departed from the Aristotelian notion of drama, according to Cho—there was no separation between performer and audience. The performers were from the village or town itself and therefore were not subjected to the distrust or humiliation faced by shamans and itinerant performers. Since there was no need to impress the audience with their dramaturgical achievement, performers were free to express the community’s concerns and values. Villagers and town dwellers did not merely watch the drama but actively participated in it, making it their own artistic and social expression.58 From Drama to Ritual

This transformation of the audience from spectator to participant also captured the imagination of most of the twentieth-century revolutionary drama movements. As Walter Benjamin explains, Bertolt Brecht’s “poetics of epic theater”

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eliminated the Aristotelian catharsis, the purging of the emotions through empathy with the stirring fate of the hero. . . . [I]nstead of identifying with the characters, the audience should be educated to be astonished at the circumstances under which they function. The task of the epic theater . . . is not so much the development of actions as the representation of conditions.59 The poetics of epic theater also informed Augusto Boal’s idea of “people’s theater” in Latin America, with which the practitioners of madangguk found much affinity. Boal’s idea was that people’s theater not only produced a catharsis of the “revolutionary impetus” but was a “rehearsal for revolution”: “The spectator no longer delegates power to the characters either to think or to act in his place. . . . The spectator frees himself; he thinks and acts for himself.”60 57. 58. 59. 60.

Cho, T’alch’um ui yoksa wa wolli, 178. Ibid., 178–79. Benjamin, “What Is Epic Theater?,” 150. Boal, Theatre of the Oppressed, 155.

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The transformation of the audience from spectator to participant is the core of what madangguk practitioners seized upon as well. The madangguk practitioners therefore gave radical and utopian interpretations to the narrative structure, theatrical tension, and aesthetics of Choson-period mask-dance drama. Contemporary mainstream Korean theater tended to dismiss Korean folk dramas as “simplistic,” “unconscious,” and “limiting” because of their presumed lack of the Aristotelian elements of drama.61 But this lack became precisely what was compelling for madangguk practitioners. The most potent aspect of folk drama was not only the breakdown of the traditional actor/spectator and self/other division, as pointed out by Chungmoo Choi and other scholars, but also the transformative power of liminality, enabling the audience to move from observing a drama to participating in a transformative event.62 This notion of liminality that is not just a momentary release from the social order was also suggested by Victor Turner in his concept of ritual, which he describes as “transformative performances revealing major classifications, categories, and contradictions of cultural processes.”63 In his view of “social drama” as “a way of scrutinizing the quotidian world,” there are no clear boundaries between different genres; ritual, carnival, drama, and spectacle are all social dramas and all possess a temporal and dramaturgical structure. Often a social drama is also a “critique, direct or veiled, of the social life it grows out of, an evaluation (with lively possibilities of rejection) of the way society handles history.”64 Ritual can also “symbolically mark and socially solidify” emergent communities and can express emergent collective aspirations. Scholars of the French Revolution have looked at commemorations, festivals, and carnivals in this way.65 For example, William Sewell shows how ritual performances that employed old regime forms in postrevolutionary contexts were used for emerging labor communities in late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century France.66 Although some scholars dismiss rituals as the “ultimate sources of order and stability in a hierarchical society,”67 observers of the postcolonial Third World have explored the possibilities of resistance in rituals. Referring to the Tshidi of southern Africa, for example, Jean Comaroff suggests that “ritual 61. See, for example, Lee, “Kamyon-guk,” 112. 62. Choi, “Discourse of Decolonization,” 92. The desire to seek a transformative power in a drama was not unique to Korean madangguk. Many Third World “people’s theaters” have much in common with what I have just described. See, among others, Kavanagh, ed., South African People’s Plays, xxx. 63. Turner, Anthropology of Performance, 75. See also Turner, Drama, Fields, and Metaphors, 37–41. 64. Turner, Anthropology of Performance, 22. 65. See, for example, Hunt, Politics, Culture, and Class; Ozouf, Festivals and the French Revolution. 66. Sewell, Work and Revolution in France. 67. Davis, Society and Culture, 130.

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provides an appropriate medium through which the values and structures of a contradictory world may be addressed and manipulated.” The syncretic ritual and religious movements that have accompanied capitalist penetration into the Third World are a “purposive attempt to defy the authority of the hegemonic order” and “do more than just express revolt; they are also more than mere acts of self-representation. Rather, they are at once both expressive and pragmatic, for they aim to change the real world by inducing transformations in the world of symbol and rite.”68 Madangguk practitioners clearly situated ritual in a political world of hegemony and struggle, “aim[ing] to change the real world by inducing transformations in the world of symbol and rite.” When South Korea experienced its explosive political tensions in the mid-1980s, these practitioners proposed a turn from madangguk to madanggut, shamanistic rituals performed in open space.69 The South Korean state had taken shamanistic ritual from the domain of superstition and validated it, with shamans designated as human cultural treasures. But the madangguk practitioners called for madanggut in order to unite a radical theatrical idiom with a new political vision in the hope of achieving that shift from drama (the spectacle observed) to ritual (transformative participation in the event). The goal was to transform the audience from detached individuals into members of a collective who affirmed a shared vision of a new political and cultural community and participated in it.

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Madangguk ˘ as a Theater of Resistance in the 1970s

It is not surprising that intellectuals and students gradually transformed the mask-dance drama of the 1960s into a “theater of resistance” during the Yusin era of the 1970s. Because of its dramatic structure and imputed historical positioning as a form of social satire, mask-dance drama was a natural and effective medium for voicing resistance to the Yusin system. In much of the 1970s, staging a madangguk performance was itself a form of protest, not least because the state immediately disbanded any gathering of university students and dissident groups. Madangguk emerged alongside peopleoriented drama practices in other parts of the world as well, particularly in Asia, Africa, and Latin America.70 68. Comaroff, Body of Power, 196; quoted in Dirks, “Ritual and Resistance,” 487. 69. Ch’ae and Im, “Madangguk eso madanggut uro,” 114–20. 70. In Asia, Africa, and Latin America, popular people’s theaters became theaters of resistance during the colonial and postcolonial periods. For details of these cases, see, among others, Kaitaro, “The Asian Political Theaters”; Björkman, “Mother, Sing for Me”; Kidd, From People’s Theatre for Revolution.

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In postcolonial theaters of resistance worldwide, historical events, especially anticolonial struggles, have long been considered prototypes for future liberation movements.71 In South Korea, likewise, historical narratives of “national liberation,” such as the 1894 Tonghak Peasant Uprising and the 1960 Student Uprising, dominated madangguk. For example, in Changsan’got Mae (Hawk of Changsan’got), the brutally suppressed Hwanghae-do peasant rebellion of the mid-nineteenth century is represented as a symbol of the vitality and invincibility of the minjung.72 In Noktu kkot (Mung-bean flower), adapted from Kim Chiha’s “long poem” (tamsi) about the 1894 Tonghak Peasant Uprising, resistance by ordinary peasants against foreign invasion and central state power is portrayed as a precursor of the contemporary minjung movement.73 The madangguk of the 1970s was what Clifford Geertz would call a “metasocial commentary” on Korean life;74 it raised virtually every social issue, from Korea’s dependence on the United States and Japan to the suppression of workers’ rights, freedom of the press, pollution, urbanization, and the forced removal of slum dwellers. Most of the madangguk dealt with the everyday lived experience of the people, thereby eliciting an active response from audiences who were familiar with the events depicted in the drama. A dramatic act of exorcism also often bridged the distance between the spectators and the actors, as well as between the audiences and the dramatic action. In Chinogwi kut (Exorcism of five demons), one of the first madangguk to focus on farmers’ issues, the three main problems faced by farmers were represented as demons and were exorcised through a shamanistic ritual.75 In Twaeji p’uri (Exorcism of the pig), a play critical of state livestock policy that bankrupted farmers in the late 1970s, pigs were slaughtered after the performance to console the farmers who lost money raising them.76 Street demonstrations also readily provided the cathartic effect that madangguk practitioners desired. In the 1970s and 1980s, madangguk was often a prelude to a street or campus demonstration, either a spontaneous outburst by the audience following a performance or the outcome of elaborate arrangements by performers. In March 1975, for example, Seoul National University students produced a madangguk titled Chin Tonga kut 71. See, for example, Björkman, “Mother, Sing for Me,” ix. 72. This is adapted from well-known novelist Hwang Sogyong’s ten-volume novel Chang Kilsan (Chang Kilsan), a historical novel set in the Choson period with major characters who were itinerant performers and bandits turned revolutionaries. 73. Ch’ae and Im, eds., Han’guk ui minjungguk, 49–67, 347–73. 74. Quoted in Turner, Anthropology of Performance, 49. 75. Its English translation can be found in Kim, “Chinogi.” 76. Ch’ae and Im, Han’guk ui minjungguk, 69–129.

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(Exorcism for the truth of the East Asia Daily), raising the issue of freedom of the press by presenting the case of Tonga Ilbo reporters who were fired en masse for organizing a union. The student body at Seoul National University participated enthusiastically both as actors and audience; their intimate knowledge of the event was crucial because they improvised the drama with actors randomly selected from the audience. The audience of approximately fifteen hundred students collected an unusually large sum of money after the performance to support the journalists and took to the streets to protest their suppression.77

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Madangguk ˘ as a Shamanistic Ritual in the 1980s

During the 1980 Gwangju Uprising, South Korea witnessed one of the most spectacular transformations of ordinary Koreans from spectators into participants on a grand scale. As I discuss in chapter 1, the Gwangju Uprising became a historic marker for the minjung movement, which began to move away from seeking a Western-style liberal democracy and toward more fundamental social change. It is also after Gwangju that madangguk became recognized as a legitimate and vital component of the larger minjung movement.78 In the aftermath of Gwangju, the practitioners of madangguk began to refine the aesthetic and dramaturgical elements of madangguk to make it both viable and pertinent to the minjung movement. Their efforts, however, were constrained by the movement’s revolutionary turn, as well as their own attempt to deal with many issues at once, including political freedom, labor, antiwar and antinuclear issues, women’s rights, and the urban poor, for example. After the Gwangju Uprising, the cultural activists within the larger minjung movement concerned themselves mainly with how to represent the minjung. That minjung was the subject and motor of history, as well as the embodiment of life’s force and health, was not disputed. The question was how to represent the minjung in its multiplicity and diverse aspirations without resorting to stock and formulaic portrayals. The overriding concern with minjung as the embodiment of life and historical subjectivity, coupled with the concern about political efficacy, was behind the Seoul National University students’ production of Noktu kkot 77. Ibid., 273–99. 78. At Seoul National University, for example, the drama club was a part of the student movement; its members actively participated in seminars and demonstrations. One student recalled that after Gwangju, it was unthinkable to suggest performing a Western play. Minjokkuk Yon’guhoe, ed., Minjokkuk taebonson 2, 289–90.

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(Mung-bean flower) in early 1980. (This production is not the same as the earlier mentioned Noktu kkot by Kim Chiha.) Noktu kkot also illustrates that, despite prolonged debates on artistic representation of the minjung, past historical events continued to be a source of inspiration. Traditional folk drama characters, whose rowdy manners and humor were held up as essential qualities of minjung, inspired madangguk practitioners into the 1980s.79 Im Chint’aek, a well-known madangguk practitioner who participated in the students’ production, offers the following reflection:

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The drama group of Seoul National University students met in the fall of 1979, before the assassination of Park Chung Hee. The students’ original plan was to stage the popular Ch’unhyang-jon (Story of Ch’unhyang).80 Although the story itself was not appealing to the students, it would have passed censorship. Students were going to add a dramatic twist of their own, however. Their ending, by having the peasants demolish the prison and rescue Ch’unhyang, was to signify a breakdown of the Choson class system. After Park Chung Hee was assassinated [in November 1979], however, the students felt the ensuing political crisis warranted material with more immediacy; the “Story of Ch’unhyang” seemed too removed from the contemporary reality. The students decided to base their drama on Chon Pongjun, the leader of the Tonghak Peasant Uprising, which they viewed as “the most illuminating of all minjung struggles and the monumental example of struggle for national liberation.” To take on Chon Pongjun was not simply to take on his individual heroic deeds but to remember the thousands of unnamed peasants who perished during the Tonghak Peasant Uprising. The students spent the winter break doing preliminary research on the uprising and jointly working on the script. The university campus in early 1980 exploded with the longrepressed freedom and vision for a democratic future, and the drama students wanted to express the energy of the time. They soon found 79. The presentation by Seoul National University students of “Hong Tongji” (Comrade Hong), one of the most humorous and earthy characters of puppet theater, was one of the first university performances after Gwangju and expressed a vision of overcoming Gwangju’s tragedy. Ibid., 296. 80. This was a popular story, set in Namwon, Jeolla Province, from the eighteenth century about the relationship between the son of a nobleman, Mongnyong, and the daughter of a retired kisaeng, Ch’unhyang. The two secretly marry but soon Mongnyong leaves for Seoul with his family and Ch’unhyang is asked to serve a new governor. She refuses, suffering imprisonment and torture, and she upholds her love for Mongnyong. After Mongnyong returns to Namwon as the king’s emissary with the authority to punish corrupt officials, they are reunited. This story is also one of the five p’ansori dramas performed to this day.

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themselves in a dilemma, however. As they worked on the script, the overriding mood of the drama became tragic heroism and grim determination, which they thought was antithetical to the inherent optimism and mirth of madangguk. The students then took another turn with Tonghak: to see Tonghak as not only a past historical event but as a historical energy that would manifest itself again and again, just as religious faith would. Imbued with the sense of responsibility that they needed to express contemporary society’s concerns and issues, if only allegorically, the students came up with a script about a new religion based on a new worldview. The new religion’s basic teaching was that “rice is god” [hanul ].81 This reworking of Tonghak was consonant with the minjung historians’ reinterpretation of the Tonghak Peasant Uprising that I discuss in chapter 1. Although “Noktu kot” had preceded Pak Ch’ansung’s publication on Tonghak (discussed in chapter 1) by a few years, it shows that minjung-oriented perspectives informed the students’ work on their madangguk script. In the post-Gwangju minjung movement, the working class became its central hero, as I discuss in chapter 7, and cultural activities were influenced by socialist realism, as I discuss in chapter 8. While the negative aspects of society were relentlessly criticized in madangguk, the demands of the movement were favored at the expense of realistic portrayals of characters and situations. Women in particular often appeared only from the perspective of the labor movement and in the context of class and national liberation, for example. In both Ttal (Daughter) and Tattchi p’uri (Exorcism of Tattchi), produced by Ewha Women’s University students, the main character is a young woman factory worker. In Tattchi p’uri, first performed in April 1984, women are doubly oppressed—first as a class (a prostitute, a factory worker) and second as national subjects of South Korea subservient to foreign countries (in this case, prostitutes serving Japanese males). The protagonist, Unja, is a farmer’s daughter with a dream of making enough money to send her brother to college and to buy a tractor for her father. Low wages and frequent dismissals from factory jobs push her to prostitution. Eventually she commits suicide by jumping out of a hotel window as her Japanese customer approaches her with a lighted cigarette.82 81. Im, “Noktukkot,” 70–77. 82. All three performances discussed in this section can be found in Minjokkuk Yon’guhoe, ed., Minjokkuk taebonson 2.

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Ttal, performed in the spring of 1986, also poses women’s issues in the context of the labor movement. Like other labor-related dramas, Ttal introduces a group of women who face various obstacles to organizing a labor union. Chinsuk, the leader of this group, is from a family that has been deeply scarred by the Korean War and South Korea’s anticommunist ideology. Due to her uncle’s alleged defection to North Korea (after witnessing his sister’s rape by a group of American soldiers), her father is perpetually unemployed and her grandmother has lost her mind. Chinsuk’s older brother, whose college education was funded by her factory work, is a white-collar clerk in the same factory. He appeals to Chinsuk’s sense of loyalty to her family, pleading that her organizing activities will jeopardize his job and therefore the family. He also promises that he will compensate her for the sacrifice she has made. Chinsuk replies that her initial distress over quitting school and working in a factory has given way to her determination to become part of a larger goal. Boldly she declares to her brother, “I am proud of being a factory worker, and I want to get paid what my labor is worth. You don’t know how the girls in this factory are mistreated. . . . I want to be family with all the people who work in this factory.”83 Here Chinsuk has not only declared her revolutionary working-class identity but also has triumphed over the web of family and emotional ties that ensnare activists and eventually force them to give up the movement. There is also an implicit suggestion that Chinsuk’s working-class identity and labor activism would overcome her parents’ suffering caused by the country’s division. In the revolutionary logic of the 1980s, the minjung was idealized as retaining the magnanimity, placidity, and humor that typified the servant characters of mask-dance dramas in Choson Korea, but at the same time the minjung was also placed at the forefront of the class struggle. The servants in mask-dance dramas of the Choson period were full of humor, irony, and self-deprecation; this was all the more poignant because of their masters’ stupidity and preposterousness. The worker-hero of the 1980s madangguk usually steadfastly marches to her class emancipation with little humor or irony and with formulaic, at times tedious, slogans such as “Let’s establish democratic unions” and “Down with dictatorship.” The poet and erstwhile madangguk practitioner Kim Chiha was certainly not alone in chastising the madangguk of the 1980s, especially those produced by university students, for falling into “political slogans, offensive curses, and incantations.”84 83. Ibid., 214. 84. Quoted in Chong, Sosaguk, 21.

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The absence of interiority or agency in the transformation of the factory worker (or peasant) into a revolutionary subject is common in the 1980s madangguk, much as in the labor literature (nodong sosol) of the 1980s discussed in chapter 8. In both madangguk and labor literature, the characters serve as a receptacle for the lessons an author desires the spectator to learn. In Chinogwi kut, for example, the peasant Kaedoch’i loses money as a result of the state’s policy of low prices for grain and livestock. Overwhelmed with despair, he contemplates running away from his farm, ignoring his fellow peasants’ plea to “unite our soul and strength to grasp our fate with our own hands.”85 In the next scene, however, Kaedoch’i shouts antigovernment slogans with the other peasants, apparently having overcome his sense of defeatism. Similarly, in Sungmyong Women’s University’s 0 ponji (Address zero), a dramatic representation of the plight of the urban poor in a slum area, the family remains optimistic and generous even if its life is disrupted, and in the end destroyed, by the city’s redevelopment plan.86 There was an implicit premise in the madangguk that the reputedly enduring qualities of minjung, such as their fortitude and generosity, would “overcome” the unevenness—and the failure—of capitalist development. In the folk drama of the late Choson period, commoners were also endowed with qualities superior to those of the elites, the ruling class of Choson, and they were symbolically positioned in opposition to it. Thus, madangguk as a category of critique or resistance was neither stable nor unambiguous; the construction of minjung as inherently capable of resisting the dominant order signified the indeterminateness of its category as critique. The much-discussed cathartic effect of madangguk also allowed for conflicting possibilities: if it encouraged the audience to question the sociopolitical system, it was also possible that it allowed the audience to release its own grievances in the controlled framework of the dramatic performance. The repeated, uncompromising, and indiscriminate assault on all that appeared inimical to minjung was often likely to promote what Susan Buck-Morss calls an “anesthetization of reception,” a numbing of the senses due largely to repeated stimulation and shock.87 But I would suggest that we stop focusing primarily on the “privileged duration” of the performance itself and consider the aspects that are often 85. Chae and Im, Han’guk ui minjungguk, 71. 86. Minjokkuk Yon’guhoe, ed., Minjokkuk taebonson 2, 222–61. 87. Buck-Morss, “Aesthetics and Anaesthetics.”

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unacknowledged, what one might call the “spillover effects”—that is, their potential and unanticipated effects in everyday life. Although many of the madangguk in the 1970s were initially written by well-known writers such as Kim Chiha and Hwang Sogyong, both the Yusin system’s draconian emergency decrees (which made open acknowledgment of authorship dangerous) and its practitioners’ wish to promote noncapitalist ways of production pushed the play’s authorship to anonymity and to cooperative efforts. In addition, well-known madangguk have had a long post-performance life as educational—consciousness-raising—materials. In the case of Chinogwi kut, for example, the performance was taped, distributed, and enjoyed widespread popularity among farmers who attended evening classes or belonged to farmers’ organizations. After the arrest of its principal author Kim Chiha (who had collaborated with farmers on the script), its “original” draft circulated among various groups in different villages who adapted it for their own plays, freely reshaping the story by incorporating their own experiences. In the 1980s, it became common for factory workers, women, farmers, or the residents of communities affected by environmental and other social issues to stage their own madangguk. Participating as writers, actors, and audience of madangguk, these individuals took the occasion to assign new meanings to their lives and bring cultural politics not only to the level of resistance against the state but to the level of everyday life. The liminality or topsy-turvy inversion experienced during the performance could very well stay at the personal level, serving merely as a reverie or a refuge. But the cooperative and group-oriented nature of madangguk performances could have also channeled these personal reveries into a collective reconstruction of reality and expanded the areas of social engagement. Another aspect of madangguk that is not discussed much is its postperformance events. Often these events involve audience participation— either at the end of the performance as dramatic conflict is resolved or in a more direct form of action such as a street demonstration. For example, in “Chinogwi kut,” the audience was called upon at the end of the play to exorcise the devils, the state’s failed agricultural policy. In the Chin Tonga kut, the participants engaged in a spontaneous street demonstration to protest the state’s suppression of the freedom of press. A post-performance event was also, more often than not, a communal gathering with food, drinks, and songs, a Bakhtinian moment of carnival. Often lasting until dawn and involving a variety of recreational activities infused with humor and spontaneity, a post-performance event could very well be even more cathartic and affective than the performance itself, possibly upending in some unexpected ways the often formulaic and controlled content of the drama.

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A madangguk performance in front of the train station in Boseong, South Jeolla Province, in the late 1980s. Provided by Choson Ilbo. (The newspaper caption reads, “Previously found only on university campuses, madangguk has now spread not only to factories but also to farming villages.”)

I have conceptualized madangguk as part of the counterpublic sphere, showing how its thematic and dramaturgical structures implicitly—and in a diffused way—challenge the capitalistic order. Fueled by the urgency of sociopolitical circumstances, struggling to imagine a dramatic form capable of emancipatory content, its practitioners envisioned madangguk as not only an emergent form of drama but also a new concept of work and play grounded in a new form of community. Madangguk as such threatened to break down the usual wall between labor and leisure, producer and consumer, and worker and intellectual. Factory workers, farmers, women, the urban poor, and intellectuals participated in madangguk as its producers and consumers to express the aspirations and concerns of their daily lives. Madangguk as a critique was thus in the domain of the symbolic rather than of the material, but I would suggest that the performative effects of even dispersed and fitful attempts at critique, when accumulated over a period of more than two decades, can weaken the hegemonic position of the dominant culture. Madangguk also indicates that the tension between the dominant and that which it opposes is not always one of confrontation

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or resistance but often allows a reformulation of a community in ways that bypass the state. The task that madangguk practitioners set out for themselves in the 1980s was therefore not simply to revivify a putative national essence or national culture but to construct, all the while negotiating between history and contemporary social reality, a non-market-oriented cultural space.

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6. THE ALLIANCE BETWEEN LABOR AND INTELLECTUALS

On July 6, 1986, the Choson Ilbo (Korea Daily) carried a one-sentence item at the bottom of its social page: A twenty-three-year-old woman student from Seoul National University named Kwon had sued a detective of the Puch’on police, charging him with sexual torture during her recent detention.1 This small news item was to rock Korean society for months. It was shocking that a young woman would go public with an accusation that was more likely to damage her own reputation than that of the accused.2 Furthermore, she had voluntarily quit a prestigious university to work in a factory. While the mass media and the government provided the public with mostly tantalizing and “subversive” elements of her case, alternative narratives began to circulate almost immediately from court proceedings, statements by defense lawyers, and the newsletters of a citizen support group that was organized soon after the suit.3 What gradually emerged from these accounts was a composite portrait of an undongkwon of the 1980s. While her decision to go public with the charge of sexual abuse was indeed unprecedented, Kwon was only one of an estimated 3,000 undongkwon in1. “Susagwan 6 myong kobal.” 2. Several female students were raped and abused sexually during interrogation by police detectives, who routinely intimidated students to keep them from demonstrating. Female students were forced to stand naked and submit to body searches and were subjected to verbal abuse and even brutal beatings. See Asia Watch, Human Rights in Korea, 104–5. It was not until the case of Kwon became public that these students also went public with charges of abuse. 3. “ ‘Uridul ui ttal,’ Kwon-yang,” 567–81.

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dividuals in factories in the mid-1980s.4 Like most of the others, she had forged her identification card in order to hide her identity as a student and to obtain a factory job, thereby becoming a disguised worker (wijang ch’wiopcha),5 a criminal by law.6 Kwon Insuk thus became an emblematic figure of South Korea in the 1980s; she embodied the passion, the ideals, and the conflicting aspirations of the 1980s democratization movement. In that decade, thousands of university students and intellectuals plunged into the world of the factory worker, forgoing university diplomas, job prospects, and middle-class lives in the hope of bringing about “revolution.” Like Kwon, at times these individuals had to endure extreme ordeals and insidious accusations.7 This chapter presents the intellectuals’ efforts to align themselves with labor in creating a counterpublic sphere, a sphere in which workers’ identities, interests, and needs, as well as those of the intellectuals, were reformulated. This alliance in the 1970s involved intellectuals, university students, and various Christian labor organizations that raised issues of labor—low wages, harsh working conditions, and violations of the basic labor laws—among workers themselves and in society at large.8 In the 1980s, the alliance took the form of intellectuals becoming workers themselves. In the lexicon of the South Korean democratization movement, this alliance is generally referred to as “worker-student solidarity” (nohak yondae). As I show in this chapter, the 4. Ogle, South Korea: Dissent, 99. The exact number of undongkwon in factories is difficult to determine because most of them forged their identities in order to get factory jobs. Government statistics were notoriously unreliable: Both the government and labor activists claimed that the actual number of intellectuals in factories was higher than the figures reported by various government agencies. 5. This term was coined by the state and mass media to impute criminality to the undongkwon for working in factories. Undongkwon students and intellectuals in the labor movement referred to themselves as “student worker activists” (hak-ch’ul undongga) or “intellectual worker activists” (in-ch’ul undongga). These were used also to differentiate them from activists who were from working-class backgrounds, more often in a self-deprecating way than in an attitude of superiority toward working-class activists. 6. University graduates were not legally barred from working in factories, but starting in the early 1980s they were regarded as potential instigators in labor disputes and were weeded out in the application process. They thus resorted to forging their identity papers, a criminal offense. Not every university graduate working at a factory was an undongkwon, however. In 1985, college graduates began to find it increasingly difficult to get white-collar jobs, so some turned to the factories for work. Due to the age limits in production work, these university graduates often forged information on their identification cards. 7. The government charged that the undongkwon exploited sex for its revolutionary cause and that Kwon’s charge of sexual torture was a form of “conscientization” and a “strategy to undermine the public authority of the government.” See “ ‘Undongkwon, kongkwonnyok muryokhwa ch’aektong,’ ” 11. 8. For a detailed account of the worker-student alliance of the 1970s, see KSCF, “70–yondae huban ui haksaeng undong.”

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alliance involved not just students but a large number of intellectuals. Nor was the alliance limited to intellectuals supporting workers’ struggles: By the 1980s, it was about fundamentally changing South Korean society as well as the lives of the participants. This alliance was the most distinctive feature of the South Korean democratization movement. I argue that while workers’ own continual and courageous struggle for their rights and dignity was most responsible for challenging the established public agenda on labor and for improving the situation over the years, intellectuals, together with workers, also participated in this process, through persistently articulating issues concerning labor and the working class. This construction of a counterpublic sphere was not simply or mainly about opposing the status quo. It was part of the evolving debates over what kind of society South Korea should be, what principles this society should be built upon, and who was going to build it. As a result of this discursive process, the workers, previously disdained as lacking class consciousness and political subjectivity, were seen as endowed with a new collective social identity and subjectivity, and with a potential for revolutionary vision and appropriate action to bring this vision into reality. In this chapter, I first discuss briefly the historical context of the intellectualworker alliance and focus on two of the most important aspects of the intellectual-worker relations in the 1970s: the activities of the Tosi Sanop Son’gyohoe (Urban Industrial Mission, UIM) and the night schools (yahak). Then, I show how the sociopolitical conditions and the undongkwon’s inner dynamics in the post-Gwangju Uprising period contributed to the particular form of alliance in the 1980s: intellectuals recreating themselves as workers.

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Historical Context of the Alliance in the 1970s

South Korean intellectuals’ aspiration to be connected to workers was longstanding and was not unique. In China, the intellectual-worker alliance had been a pronounced feature from the May Fourth Movement of 1919 until the communist victory of 1949.9 In France in 1968, young revolutionaries saw the working class as the “indispensable agency of revolution.”10 In the late 1960s, the Guinean revolutionary leader Amílcar Cabral exhorted intellectuals to “commit suicide as a class [and] be reborn as revolutionary workers.”11 9. Perry, “Casting a Chinese ‘Democracy’ Movement,” 154–55. 10. Brown, Protest in Paris, 77–121. 11. Cabral, Revolution in Guinea, 110.

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The distinctive nature of the intellectual-worker alliance in South Korea has to do with its historically specific process of worker proletarianization as well as intellectuals’ process of politicization, so to speak. The most crucial elements constituting the 1970s proletarianization included the repression of labor by state and management, low wages relative to labor productivity growth, long work hours, unsafe working conditions, and workers’ lack of organizational resources. Although a recent study on the labor movement of the 1960s suggests the movement was vibrant and that the state-capital-labor relationship prior to the 1970s had been flexible and tolerant,12 by the 1970s a combination of political and economic factors pushed the state to adopt a more repressive labor policy, as is well documented elsewhere.13 A real wage increase, relatively equal income distribution among different social groups, and a big gender gap, among other things, characterize economic development under Park Chung Hee.14 Female workers’ wages in the manufacturing sector averaged less than half those of male workers.15 Korean women also worked the longest hours of any women in the developing countries in Asia.16 In addition, workers faced extremely unhealthy and unsafe working conditions, largely due to the negligence of factory owners and managers.17 Those who were involved in union activities were branded as pro-communist and subjected to various threats, employment 12. Hwasook B. Nam’s study of workers at the Korea Shipbuilding and Engineering Corporation (KSEC) in the 1960s is a representative case of this argument in English. See Nam, “Labor’s Place in South Korean Development.” According to this study, in the 1960s, there were vibrant and even militant labor struggles led by crucial sectors such as the shipbuilding industry at the local level, and, especially after 1968, various groups of workers—miners, textile workers, electronics workers, and dockworkers—waged strikes and street demonstrations. Park Chung Hee’s labor policy was also more accommodating of labor in the 1960s. I agree that one should examine the 1970s labor movement in the larger context of the post-1945 labor movement as a whole (one that includes the 1960s). But my main and immediate concern in this chapter is limited to elucidating intellectuals’ involvement and role in the labor movement, rather than the labor movement itself. 13. See, among others, Ogle, South Korea: Dissent. 14. See, for example, Amsden, Asia’s Next Giant; Song, “Who Benefits from Industrial Restructuring?” However, Song also points out that official statistics on income do not tell the whole story. Korea’s statistics on income, while comparatively abundant and useful, only contain regular incomes after tax, ignoring unearned income that is a practical source for the luxurious life of the upper class. South Korea’s rapid economic growth has offered enormous opportunities for capital gains through speculation in housing and land, making it possible for some to accrue large amounts of unearned income. When property such as land and financial assets are included in the inequality measure, the story is radically different from what official statistics offer. 15. See, for example, Amsden, Asia’s Next Giant, 203–4. 16. Kim, Class Struggle or Family Struggle? 3; Koo, Korean Workers, 58–59. Koo calls South Korea “one of the most sex-biased societies in the world in terms of its wage structure.” Ibid., 59. 17. In 1986 alone, according to historian So Chungsok, 142,088 workers were injured during work; of these, 1,660 died, 21,923 became disabled, and 1,637 suffered from work-related

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termination, and imprisonment. The existing labor organizations such as the Han’guk Nodong Chohap Ch’ong Yonmaeng (Noch’ong, Federation of Korean Trade Unions, FKTU) offered little help for workers. For most of the 1970s, these organizations remained under state control and became the handmaiden of the regime’s suppression of labor unions—the case of Tongil Textile being the prime example of this.18 Workers were also “culturally and symbolically oppressed,” treated unjustly and humiliated by management and society at large.19 The proletarianization process, as repressive and exclusionary as it was, does not alone fully explain the intellectuals’ involvement in labor. Another impetus was the critical reevaluation by South Korean intellectuals (particularly university students) of their own prior activism. In 1969, despite fierce opposition from students and intellectuals, a constitutional amendment passed that permitted Park Chung Hee to run again in the 1971 presidential election for a third term. A few student activists and dissident intellectuals began to think their social movement might have been too preoccupied with political issues, and they worked to develop a long-term perspective in anticipation of a longer authoritarian regime under Park. They articulated the idea that social change and democracy might involve broader structural changes rather than just political reform. They perceived a need to organize various sectors of society, particularly labor. This debate, which later became known as the “debate on labor organizing” (hyonjang-non),20 would resurface at critical moments in the South Korean democratization movement, as I show later in the chapter, and initiated a change of course within the larger movement. A small number of dissident intellectuals and university students were thus poised to become involved in labor in the early 1970s. There were roughly three, often overlapping, chronic diseases. The total amount of industrial damage reached one trillion won in 1986, a 10 percent increase from the previous year. It was estimated that the actual number of injured workers and the amount of monetary damage were much higher because government statistics do not include small factories with fewer than four employees and factories that do not carry industrial accident insurance. In addition, seamen, Korean employees of the U.S. Eighth Army, and construction workers employed in foreign countries were not included in the statistics. See So, So Chungsok rup’ojip, 257. 18. Tongil Textile is the representative case of a democratized union dissolved by the combined forces of the government, company owners, and the FKTU. The FKTU was involved not only in undemocratic union operations but also in suppression of workers’ rights. The president of the Textile Union, Kim Yongt’ae, circulated a list of dismissed workers among all garment factories, blocking their future employment. Pak, “70, 80–yondae nodong,” 62–63. 19. Koo, Korean Workers, 12–13, 16. 20. Hyonjang literally means “site” or “field,” but its import depends on the context and the word with which it is paired: it can be a place where something happens, such as a construction site or an accident scene, or a place of historical importance. It was used among the activists to

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groups. The first group began to be involved in labor as a part of student or dissident movements, starting from union organizing at Ch’onggye Textile (where Chon T’aeil had worked as a garment cutter before his death). The second group began as staff members of Christian organizations such as the UIM, K’at’orik Nodong Ch’ongnyonhoe (Jeunesse Ouvrière Chrétienne, or Young Catholic Workers, JOC), and the Christian Academy. The third group went into factories to experience the life of workers and to attempt to organize unions; they did so individually without organizational links to any group.21 For many of these individuals, the death of Chon T’aeil in 1970 also gave them momentum to act. Death of Ch˘on T’aeil and the Intellectual-Worker Alliance

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The story of Chon T’aeil is by now familiar; his name is included in Korean textbooks and his life story was made into a feature film.22 His last words have become immortalized: “We workers are human beings, too!” “Guarantee the Three Basic Labor Rights,” and “Do not let my death be in vain.”23 Every activist came to know the intimate details of Chon T’aeil’s life: his dreams, disappointments, struggles, sufferings, and death. Many were inspired by, and hoped to emulate, his devotion to fellow workers, and a few came to conclude their lives as Chon had. If Che Guevara stirred the souls of middle-class European and American college students in the 1960s, Chon T’aeil and his death stirred the souls of thousands of Korean students and workers, eventually pushing them into the streets and factories. If the Gwangju Uprising became the cross to bear for 1980s activists, then Chon T’aeil’s death was the cross for 1970s activists. denote a work that one pursued with the democratization movement’s goals in mind and had a strong connotation of “praxis” as opposed to “theory.” Hyonjang-non refers to the debate and a theoretical position within the democratization movement that prioritized labor organizing over involvement in the movement for political reform. 21. This categorization is based on Kim, Yogong 1970, 441. 22. Chon T’aeil began to be mentioned in university entrance examinations starting from the 1990s, and the film based on Chon’s life was released in 1995. See Pak, “Arumdaun ch’ongnyon.” 23. Chon T’aeil Kinyom’gwan Kollip Wiwonhoe, ed., Onu ch’ongnyon nodongja ui sam kwa chugum, 226–31. The second edition of this book was published in 1991, when it was revealed that its author was Cho Yongnae, a well-known human rights lawyer from the 1980s. He had written this book when he was in hiding from the police for his participation in the NFDYS case in the mid-1970s. His earlier mimeographed copy circulated widely among activists and workers. When it was published as a book in 1983, the publisher could not use the name of Chon T’aeil in the title nor reveal the name of the author for fear of state persecution; the publisher devised Chon T’aeil Kinyom’gwan Kollip Wiwonhoe (Committee to Establish a Chon T’aeil Memorial Hall) as the author. Nevertheless, the book was banned immediately upon publication. For the second edition of the book, see Cho, Chon T’aeil p’yongjon.

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Having been pushed into various jobs from the age of thirteen, Chon had watched his fellow workers, many of them young girls, working up to sixteen hours a day, with thirteen to fifteen girls cooped up in a two-p’yong (about seventy-two square feet) room. Each girl earned wages of less than 30 dollars a month (at the 1970 exchange rate). Many suffered from tuberculosis, ulcers, and other chronic diseases because they worked all day in closed areas without ventilation. Most were migrants from rural areas. The 1970s saw South Korea’s dramatic change from a predominantly peasant society to an industrial society in one generation.24 The resulting rural to urban migration made the state’s development strategy possible by creating an ever-expanding labor pool, as well as creating a great mass of urban poor. Women comprised the majority of the migrants. They were overwhelmingly young, and the majority worked in factories. In fact, over 70 percent of all female wage workers were employed in manufacturing, mostly in the main export industries producing textiles, clothing, rubber footwear, and electronics, which accounted for almost two-thirds of South Korea’s exports during the early 1970s.25 Daily encounters with the young women workers and the realization that his individual assistance to them was not a solution made Chon T’aeil give up his life and change the history of the labor movement in South Korea. With a small group of fellow workers, Chon conducted extensive, albeit crude, fact-finding research on labor conditions. Armed with his findings, he repeatedly petitioned the Ministry of Labor, the City of Seoul, and the mass media. When all of these efforts failed to bring any results, he and his fellow workers decided that a public demonstration was the next step. On November 13, 1970 (the day Chon set himself on fire and died), they planned to have the fourth such protest; each of the previous planned protests had been thwarted in advance by factory owners and police.26 Chon’s longing to have college friends who could help him with Chinese characters (so that he could understand the labor laws) left university students with a tremendous sense of shame and guilt. Five days after his death, two hundred students from the Department of Commerce at Seoul National University staged an indefinite hunger strike, demanding improved working conditions and vowing to carry out joint activities with workers. On November 20, a week after Chon’s death, students at Seoul National, Ewha, Korea, and Yonsei Universities organized a rally to commemorate his 24. Koo, “From Farm to Factory,” 672. 25. Hart-Landsberg, Rush to Development, 178–81. 26. Chon T’aeil Kinyom’gwan Kollip Wiwonhoe, ed., Onu ch’ongnyon nodongjaui sam kwa chugum, 189–223.

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Students march with a photo of Chon T’aeil after holding a commemoration service for him at Seoul National University, November 20, 1970, one week after his death. Provided by Chungang Ilbo.

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death and adopted a resolution declaring the establishment of their own fact-finding missions on working conditions with the following public speech: Fellow students! We have always prided ourselves on being an advance guard to promote democracy and to improve our national interest. . . . We have done great things that only we [as university students] could have done. However, is not the death of Chon T’aeil an occasion for solemn reconsideration? Dear Sir Chon T’aeil: Oh, we’re ashamed and guilty. We have let this heroic patriot die; we want to die with shame. We cannot lift our heads up. However, he will forgive us; we will follow his footsteps.27 27. Ibid., 242.

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Students held commemorative activities and adopted resolutions to demand an improvement in working conditions. Students held “fasting prayers of repentance,” donned black ribbons, and demanded to be allowed to carry out fact-finding research into workers’ and slum-dwellers’ conditions. Labor activists later applauded these student reports as one of the classic documents of the 1970s, capturing the turbulence of the time but also testifying to students’ active participation in labor issues.28 Notwithstanding the students’ determination to ameliorate labor situations, few improvements followed, nor was there a great surge of labor activism among students. The small number of those who remained involved in labor long after all the public outcry had ceased included Chang Kip’yo, a highly respected dissident throughout the 1970s and 1980s. Chang was a student at Seoul National University when he read of Chon’s death in a newspaper. He rushed to the wake and, seeing the sparse attendance, asked Chon’s mother if the students of his department could hold their own service for her son, a request later denied by police. He began his long involvement with labor first by explaining the labor laws to the workers at Peace Market (a sweatshop market in Seoul) and to Chon’s mother, Yi Soson, who since her son’s death had become the “mother of all workers.”29 Chang met with Yi Soson and the Peace Market workers every day, despite a police warrant to arrest him. He also wrote most of the pamphlets used for organizing a union at Ch’onggye Textile. We have in Chang Kip’yo a representative figure of the first group described above. Kim Munsu, a prominent labor activist throughout the 1970s and 1980s, was also a Seoul National University student in 1970. He had spent a number of years agonizing over whether he should become a worker; after meeting with Chon T’aeil’s mother, he was able to decide.30 Mun Songhyon, who remained in the labor movement into the 1990s and who is one of the most respected labor leaders in South Korea, was the first in his extended family to enter university; his cousins all worked in factories. He began to think about his own cousins after reading the diary of Chon T’aeil; he later resigned from his white-collar job and started working at T’ongil Industrial Corporation, a ball-bearing factory, where he became instrumental in democratizing a company-controlled union in the 1980s.31 (I discuss his unionizing efforts in chapter 7.) Both Kim Munsu and Mun Songhyon would represent the third group of intellectuals of the alliance. 28. 29. 30. 31.

See Chong, “Chaeya minju nodong undong,” 178. “70–yondae undongkwon kisudul ui onul,” 388. Kim, “Onu silch’onjok chisigin,” 138. “Saebom e mannan saram,” 129.

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Chang Kip’yo, Kim Munsu, and Mun Songhyon were hardly representative of intellectuals in general, but they were representative of the small number of intellectuals who responded to social issues in the 1970s. Chang Kip’yo, describing Chon as the “Jesus of our era,” blamed not only the ruling class for his death but also intellectuals with their “unlimited privilege of learning.”32 Chon T’aeil’s death had thus become the scourge of both the ruling regime and the intellectuals as well. As Kim Munsu remarked, Chon T’aeil’s death was a “signpost and an invitation” to intellectuals, “making it no longer possible for us just to pay lip service to labor.”33

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Christianity, Intellectuals, and Workers

The second group of intellectuals in the alliance of labor began their involvement by serving on the staff of interdenominational labor organizations such as the UIM or by teaching at night schools for workers that were set up by churches.34 With Chon T’aeil’s death as a rude awakening, intellectuals and university students started to look for ways to put their incipient desire to correct the labor situation into action. They found in Christian organizations both space where they could meet workers and an array of programs in which they could get involved. The Protestant and Catholic churches in South Korea remained largely conservative and pro-government, but a small number of groups and individuals, such as the UIM, JOC, Christian Academy, and individual dissidents as well as dissident groups, had been actively engaged with social issues.35 They educated workers about the need for trade unions and provided guidance and support for union leadership. They mobilized moral and public support for workers, who were often isolated and lacked their own resources. They held numerous prayer meetings, sit-ins, demonstrations, and public lectures, and they also made public statements to support workers. Both the UIM and JOC were directly involved in the historic labor movement of the 1970s, in which workers organized new unions or democratized existing yellow unions at Signetics, 32. Quoted in Kim, “Chugim ui sewol,” 345. 33. Kim, “Onu silch’onjok chisigin,” 151. 34. Sin Choryong and Kim Kunt’ae, for example, both well-known dissidents in the 1980s, first worked as staff members at the UIM at Yeongdeungpo and Incheon, respectively (1975–83). When Kim Munsu was looking for a factory job during his first year in college, he was led to one by the UIM. 35. There are numerous studies available on the history and role of Christian organizations in South Korea’s democratization movement. See, among others, Han’guk Kidokkyo Kyohoe Hyobuihoe, ed., 1970–yondae nodong hyonjang kwa chung’on; Han’guk Kidokkyo Sanop Munje Yon’guwon, Tosi sanophwa wa kyohoe samyong.

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Tongil Textile, Han’guk Textile, Pangnim Textile, Wonp’ung Textile, YH Trading, and Control Data.36 At both Tongil Textile and YH Trading, the struggle by women workers to keep their jobs and their union was sustained by the support of Christian organizations and dissident groups.37 Church organizations also provided a sanctuary for those involved in the labor movement, protecting them from ideological attacks by the state and society at large. Fearing international attention focusing on its human rights abuses, the government treated Christian organizations and individuals relatively less harshly. More important, South Korean society regarded Christianity generally as nationalist, modern, and anticommunist—the trinity of South Korean national identity. Many reform leaders during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were Christians;38 the various institutions of Christianity—the church, missionary schools, the YMCA and YWCA, their medical and welfare organizations—were widely thought to have contributed to Korea’s modernization.39 Also, Christianity in North Korea had suffered severe persecution in the early stages of the North Korean regime, giving rise to the religion’s vehement anticommunism.40 All of these factors contributed to the perception of the church as a safe place to engage in labor movement activities. I do not suggest that the church was only a front for social activism or that church activities and programs were immune from attack by the state and society. In the 1970s, the state and the mass media relentlessly attacked Christian organizations such as the UIM as pro-communist.41 Neither do I suggest that workers always welcomed Christian labor organizations (as I discuss later in the chapter), or that all Christian organizations had the same approach to labor organizing42; my main point here is that Christianity’s social standing, among other things, facilitated students’ and intellectuals’ participation in Christian labor organizations in the 1970s. 36. This is not to suggest that the UIM and JOC staff members ran the unions. The workers led the daily operation and the movement, but they received training from these Christian organizations. For an account that offers critical perspective on the relationship between workers and the UIM staff, see Kim, Yogong 1970, 456–70. 37. Ogle, South Korea: Dissent; 84–86; Cho, Let the Weak Be Strong, 47–73. On the case of YH Trading, see Ogle, South Korea: Dissent, 92. 38. See Yi, “Birth of the National Spirit.” 39. Kim, “Role of the Christian Church,” 202–5. 40. Kim, “History and Prospects of the Protestant Church,” 166. 41. See Cho, Tosi sanop son’gyo ui insik, 156–64; Ogle, South Korea: Dissent, 90–91. 42. For a discussion of the different approaches of the UIM and JOC to the labor movement, see Kim, Yogong 1970, 490–95.

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The Urban Industrial Mission

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One of the Christian organizations that played a pivotal role in the 1970s labor movement was the Urban Industrial Mission. An interdenominational ministry for factory workers, UIM originated in the late 1950s as an effort to expand membership and to spread the gospel to workers. Its history and activities have been well documented,43 and here I only briefly summarize its relevance to the intellectual-worker alliance. According to Myongjin In, who was a staff member of the Yeongdeungpo UIM from 1972 to 1979, the UIM underwent gradual changes in its mission and activities so that by the early 1970s its mission had become the “the awakening of conscience” (“conscientization”) of workers,44 a move from its earlier activities of worship services and counseling. The rapid industrialization of Korean society and the increasing demands by workers that their everyday concerns should be dealt with was responsible for this change. As the Yusin state tightened control over workers and open labor activity of any kind became increasingly dangerous, the UIM went “underground,” as it were, organizing small groups (somoim) to carry out conscientization programs. Its small groups were composed mostly of female workers because there were more female workers than male workers in the Yeongdeungpo area and because women faced much worse working conditions than did male workers. Furthermore, male workers were more fearful of losing their jobs as they were more likely to be solely responsible for their family’s livelihood.45 Joining the UIM was dangerous: sometimes it meant losing one’s job. Female workers, who were forced to give up work upon marriage, also found it easier than their male cohorts to find paying jobs once they had been fired.46 Between 1972 and 1974, the UIM organized about eighty small groups in twenty companies. By 1975, one hundred such small groups were active. 43. See, among others, Cho, Tosi sanop son’gyo ui insik; Cho, Let the Weak Be Strong; In, “Rethinking the Work.” 44. In, “Rethinking the Work,” 40–41. 45. Ibid., 47. The issue of whether, or to what extent, a female worker was responsible for her family’s livelihood has been a point of contention among scholars. While I am not in a position to weigh in on this debate, Kim Won criticizes the view that women workers were only supplementary to men, arguing that male activists commonly held this view and that this view perpetuated a patriarchal perspective of women workers. Kim, Yogong 1970, 272, 352. Anthropologist SeungKyung Kim’s study of women workers in the Masan Free Export Zone in the 1980s shows that most women working in factories in the area perceived their work to be temporary and anticipated that marriage would raise their social status. Kim, Class Struggle or Family Struggle? 17. For a detailed discussion about why women workers were more organized in the 1970s, see Koo, Korean Workers, 92–99. 46. In, “Rethinking the Work,” 47. The turnover rate of Korean workers was high, at an annual rate of 50–60 percent throughout the 1970s. Song, “Heavy-Chemical Industrialization,” 38.

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These small groups were instrumental in sustaining the labor movement during the 1970s and the early 1980s. Many of the small groups affiliated with the UIM were also connected to university students and dissident intellectuals through a wide network. Made up of seven to nine workers, small groups initially acted as hobby groups; the most common activities involved were hiking, knitting, arranging flowers, making toys, reading fiction, and studying Korean history and Chinese characters (a critical skill since most newspapers at the time used Chinese characters along with the Korean alphabet). The UIM supplied meeting places and relevant discussion materials such as newspaper articles and publications from dissident organizations. Even as hobby groups, workers usually had to meet clandestinely and late at night. Gradually they began to discuss issues that affected their lives: wages, dismissal, labor unions, forced overtime, retirement pay, industrial accidents, and sick days, as well as larger political, social, and economic issues, and family or personal problems.47 Labor-related activities such as discussion of the Labor Law, the basic principles of organizing, and reading and analyzing newspapers became main activities in these small groups. The news of striking workers at other plants was a crucial source of social commentary. With a sense of camaraderie fostered by the secrecy and the danger involved in participating in an underground group, workers gradually began to develop a common critical social outlook. In the mid-1970s, Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed was widely circulated within social movement groups, and the UIM’s educational programs and philosophy came to reflect much of Freire’s way of thinking.48 According to Myong-jin In, the most salient aspect of Freire’s ideas for the UIM was the notion of conscientization, which was different from that of education: [W]hile education is learning what one did not know before, conscientization is changing one’s heart. The fact of knowing something— being educated—did not necessarily lead one to an action, but when it was accompanied by a change of heart, an action followed. Conscientization therefore involved both heart and mind, a transformation of the total being. Only those with changed lives could take actions 47. In, “Rethinking the Work,” 44. 48. Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Activists were aware of the different socioeconomic context in which Freire initiated the project; Brazil at the time had an 80 percent illiteracy rate as opposed to 10 percent in South Korea. Freire’s approach was based on a Christian education approach; in South Korea at the time, less than 10 percent of Koreans were Christian and more than 60 percent professed traditional shamanistic beliefs. See KSCF, Yahak hwaltong annaeso, 30–31.

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and those who acted became changed through those actions. Thus, changing heart and taking actions were complementary.49

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The transformation of one’s life was possible only through sharing each other’s lives and eventually putting collective knowledge into action, according to Freire. The small-group activities therefore involved not only conversing, thinking, and discussing issues but also “cooperative living.” UIM staff members shared the fate of workers; they, along with the workers, were vilified as pro-communist50; and UIM programs would be suspended because of the imprisonment of staff members. Many of the UIM staff recalled their experiences as life-changing for them as well as for the workers.51 The young women in these small groups, transformed with the knowledge that their collective action would bring a change, were responsible for the protracted and courageous struggle to unionize workers and to democratize the existing, company-controlled unions when most workers could not tell the difference between a trade union and the Ministry of Labor, let alone fight for their rights. Although they were shunned and ignored by society as factory girls (kongsuni, a derogatory term), they led the majority of the disputes in the 1970s that became symbols of the labor movement: the ones in Tongil Textile and Pangnim Textile in 1978, and in YH Trading in 1979. The YH case became a major political event that partly contributed to the fall of the Park regime later that year.52 When the women workers rose up to demand that they be treated like human beings, they were verbally abused, beaten, humiliated, accused of being communists, thrown from a moving van onto a garbage dump, had human feces pushed down their throats and rubbed into their faces, and were molested, imprisoned, and killed.53 In the end, however, they carved out a place for themselves in labor movement history and the democratization movement at large. 49. In, “Rethinking the Work,” 45–46. 50. “No-hak yondae wa chaeya nodong undong,” 271; Cho, Let the Weak Be Strong, 82. In the late 1970s, the government bribed some former union members to appear on television programs to denounce the UIM and its staff as pro-communist. Cho, Let the Weak Be Strong, 87. 51. In, “Rethinking the Work,” 45. 52. A group of employees of the YH Trading Company, a wig manufacturer, took over the plant in protest when they learned that its owner had closed the factory without prior notification. Police broke in, injuring many workers and forcibly disbanding others. Workers fled to the office of the opposition political party for protection. Kim Kyongsuk, a twenty-three-year-old worker at YH Trading, was killed during the melee when police forced the workers out of the building. Kim Young Sam, the chairman of the party, was subsequently removed from his chairmanship and from the National Assembly by Park Chung Hee. This incited the citizens of Busan and Masan to protest, which is widely attributed to have led to the ultimate downfall of the Park regime. For a detailed description of these cases, see Ogle, South Korea: Dissent; Cho, Let the Weak Be Strong, 47–73; Yi, Pulkkot iyo, i odum ul palk’yora. 53. For details of these incidents, see Kim, Class Struggle or Family Struggle? 105–8.

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Despite the best of intentions, dedication, and the sacrifice of the UIM staff members, the UIM’s involvement in labor had mixed, and often adverse (unintended and unanticipated) consequences for workers and for the labor movement, however. My point is not to downplay the important role of the UIM or to minimize individuals’ dedication and sacrifice. But it is important to remember that their dedication did not always make life better for workers. In the annals of the 1970s labor movement, Tongil Textile stands as the exemplary case of women workers’ courageous struggle to organize a union and of the UIM’s contribution to helping workers recognize their own rights and providing essential help for their organizing efforts.54 In a recent study, historian Kim Won contends, however, that the UIM’s involvement also resulted in producing the discourse of binary opposition in the 1970s labor movement, pitting “democratic” unions against so-called company-friendly (oyong) unions, which since has become a dominant narrative of the 1970s labor movement.55 Some union activists, most of whom were members of small groups affiliated with the UIM and led by Reverend Cho Hwa Soon, a staff member of UIM, after having spent years struggling to organize a union and then keep it, felt that the UIM’s confrontational strategies brought more persecution for workers and that they should have negotiated with management. These individuals were labeled as company-friendly by the UIM and eventually excluded from union leadership positions. Those who had agreed with the UIM’s strategy became known as “democratic,” and those willing to work with the government-friendly FKTU or who had distanced themselves from the UIM were labeled company-friendly.56 Furthermore, as Kim Won points out, the exclusive emphasis on the “courageous and determined struggle of women workers of the 1970s,” which since has become part of the dominant historical narrative of the 1970s labor movement, in some ways elevates the militant struggles of workers to the point of exaggerating their achievements and minimizing the weakness of the labor movement at the time.57 Six years after a “democratic” union58 was organized at Tongil Textile, 125 workers, including all the union officers, were fired. These workers then became full-time activists, using dramatic tactics 54. For a detailed account of UIM’s role in the formation of a labor union at Tongil Textile, see Ogle, South Korea: Dissent, 84–88; Koo, Korean Workers, 74–85. 55. Kim, Yogong 1970, 442–43, 453–65. 56. Kim Won argues that this binary discourse was produced not by workers themselves but by intellectuals who were a part of church organizations such as the UIM and later by scholars. Ibid., 475. 57. For a discussion of specific cases, see ibid., 446–53, 502–11. 58. Throughout the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, a labor union organized as an alternative to the existing company union, regardless of its actual practice, was called a “democratic union” (minju nojo). Most unions or labor organizations organized by labor activists were also called “democratic” unions or “democratic” labor organizations. My use of “democratic” in this book follows this common practice.

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to carry on their demands to be reinstated. While these workers’ courage in standing up to the brutal forces of state and management rightly contributed to Tongil Textile’s exalted place in the history of the labor movement, the everyday problems faced by workers had persisted, and in the end few gains had been made for workers through their struggles.59

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Night Schools and Intellectuals

Despite the foregoing, it is hard to exaggerate the importance of the UIM as a venue through which intellectuals engaged in labor activism in the 1970s. Another invaluable venue in the 1970s was the night schools (yahak) set up by churches and other social groups. If night school was a place for workers to acquire academic diplomas and sometimes critical perspectives that would eventually lead them to demand their rights as workers, it was also a place for intellectuals to come in contact with workers and learn of their situation firsthand. Initially established to help workers get the basic education necessary to function in society, from the 1970s some of the night schools gradually took on the characteristics of conscientization programs similar to the UIM programs, thereby assuming a supportive role vis-à-vis the labor movement.60 Most of the night school teachers were also university students, and their position and attitude toward workers influenced the night schools’ philosophy, emphasis, and curriculum.61 The history of night schools is long, dating back to the end of the Choson period. When night schools were first set up, for example, their primary role was to complement existing village schools (sodang) and, in conjunction with the rising patriotic enlightenment movement, to instill a nationalist spirit among the attendees.62 Night schools were particularly active during the colonial period, undergoing changes that paralleled those of the social movements of the time and continuing in the form of small underground groups after severe crackdowns by the Japanese beginning in the 1930s.63 In the late 1950s and 1960s, as the gap between those who rode the wave of rapid industrialization and those who fell behind increased, efforts to set 59. Kim, Class Struggle or Family Struggle? 107, 109. 60. Yi, “Nodong kyoyuk,” 223. 61. It would be misleading to suggest that all night school instructors were motivated by movement goals or that they were always conscientious. Kim Miyong, a former seamstress who attended night school in the late 1970s, once had a female university student who started her lesson by cursing her father and did not show up the next day. Kim, Mach’imnae chonson e soda, 30. 62. Yi, “Nodong kyoyuk,” 222. 63. Kidokkyo Yahak Yonhaphoe, ed., Minjung yahak ui iron kwa silch’on, 24.

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up night schools proliferated. Organized mainly for the children of the urban poor and recent migrants from the countryside who could not attend regular schools, those night schools specialized in curricula aimed at helping students pass their qualifying exams (or equivalent tests known as the komjong kosi). During the early 1960s, the military government also set up numerous reconstruction schools (chaegon hakkyo) nationwide as a part of social services for the urban poor and farmers.64

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Labor and Qualifying-Exam Night Schools

According to most literature on night schools, the death of Chon T’aeil became the critical impetus for the transformation of the schools from a substitute for the regular school curriculum of the 1960s to a conscious social movement in the 1970s.65 As previously discussed, those who began to reevaluate their prior democratization movement as “too political” and “reactive” (believing it mainly responded to pressing political issues of the time), gradually began to articulate the necessity of realigning basic social structures and forging solidarity with the larger social movements. This reevaluation was taking place concurrently with the Yusin state’s crack down on campus activism. Also, at this time, those in the church who had been previously engaged in social issues began to grope for ways to find their “true mission” in helping workers, as I discussed above. Once they began teaching at night schools, however, they observed that very few attendees passed the qualifying exams and even fewer managed to enter the school they wanted to attend after passing these exams.66 It did not take long for teachers to realize that night schools alone could not solve the problems of the workers; workers’ poverty and suffering stemmed from larger social structures. This realization, coupled with the growing student movement and an increased emphasis on organizing workers, made night schools an active component of the social movement. From the mid-1970s, two kinds of night schools began to emerge: one emphasized preparation for the qualifying exams (komjong kosi yahak) and the other emphasized labor issues (nodong yahak), although there was much overlap between them. It was usually up to individual teachers (who were very likely to have been a part of the student movement or from Christian organizations) to decide 64. Ibid., 25. 65. Ibid., 26–27. 66. According to a survey on night schools conducted by the Korean Christian Presbyterian Church, only 5 percent of those in night schools in the Seoul area managed to pass the qualifying exam in 1978. Ibid., 27.

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how much emphasis should be placed on labor issues in a night school program. As education was one main route for upward mobility in South Korea, most workers came to night schools wanting education above anything else. In the 1970s and early 1980s, it was not unusual for workers to choose a particular factory because the manager promised to allow them to attend night school.67 Workers wanted the practical knowledge necessary to get by in society. They wanted to read Chinese characters and to take concrete steps to improve their lot—such as receiving a high school diploma. Very few came to night schools to develop critical thinking skills, at least not initially. Students’ demand for practical knowledge would often baffle the instructors, who were mainly university students or recent graduates. These teachers were beginning to question the merit of their university educations and, furthermore, they were at night schools to conscientize workers. When some instructors tried to introduce new instructional material, such as a collection of poems by well-known dissident poets or memoirs written by female workers about their unionizing activities, it was not unusual to have some workers demand that they stay focused on the regular curriculum.68 In some night schools, workers waged a boycott of the classes they deemed too political.69 Workers also challenged the sincerity of instructors, seeing their devotion as vanity. Since presumably university students, especially those from elite schools, had promising futures, the workers would ask them why they would want to suffer and waste their time with them.70

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Curriculum and Students

Night schools usually met two hours a day, four or five times a week. Even this schedule was grueling for most workers, who usually worked overtime, often without prior notice. The curriculum therefore had to be condensed and the subjects confined to a minimum. Some night schools, especially those geared toward passing qualifying exams, covered the regular three-year middle school curriculum in two years, using the government-issued junior and high school textbooks. Curricula included Korean language, history, 67. One former female shoe-factory worker told Seung-Kyung Kim that factory owners often used promises of education to lure young female workers, then broke that promise. Women had to “cry, fight, and run away to go to school.” One third of the workers in her factory were attending night school in the 1980s. Kim, Class Struggle or Family Struggle? 31. 68. Kim, Mach’imnae chonson e soda, 29–35. 69. Chong, Ch’onman’gae ui pulkkot, 129. 70. See, for example, Chung, “Making History in the Trench City,” 182.

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literature, and Chinese characters. Depending on the teacher’s inclination, introductory economics courses and English conversation might be added to the curriculum. The workers who attended night schools were from the lowest socioeconomic class of South Korea. In 1980, 94 percent of elementary school graduates entered middle schools, and it would be safe to assume that night school participants came from the other 6 percent. Most night school students were young, between fifteen and nineteen years of age.71 Most were also women, similar to the UIM participants in the 1970s, and were employed in small factories, companies, and stores. Although an increasing number of male workers from large factories began to attend night schools in the early 1980s, their numbers remained small. Night schools were beset with many problems. Teachers doubted their utility in the context of the larger social movement and state suppression. Some felt the schools were too time-consuming and offered little prospect for any real societal change; they proposed closing down all night schools, judging them to be part of neither the student movement nor the labor movement and feeling that the same amount of energy and time put into other projects would produce more concrete results.72 Much of the experience of teachers and advances in curriculum development were not systematically transmitted and were lost as individual teachers left. The quality of teachers was problematic as well; they were mostly first- or second-year university students, wrestling with various issues themselves, and they were certainly not labor experts.73 The challenge posed by the state was no less daunting. The state became increasingly suspicious of night schools, and in 1980 arrested many of their teachers; most materials were confiscated and the teachers’ efforts to run cooperative programs evaporated as a result.74 Since many night school programs were housed in churches, conflicts with the church also arose. For example, there were tensions when the church demanded that the curriculum include religious teaching or that students participate in church activities, or 71. KSCF, Yahak hwaltong annaeso, 41. According to the Christian Social Research Center, in 1985 there were about 40 night schools in the Busan area; of these, about 30 were considered to be “qualifying-exam” night schools and the rest were labor night schools. The number of night school students in the Busan area was estimated to be around 2,000 in 1985. See CISJD, ed., Busan chiyok silt’ae wa nodong undong, 98. 72. Pak, “70, 80–yondae nodong undong,” 68. 73. Yi, “Nodong kyoyuk,” 236–37. According to some case studies discussed in Yahak hwaltong annaeso, the most serious problems related to university students teaching at night schools was that despite their enthusiasm, they nevertheless began with either a patronizing attitude or pity toward the attendees. See KSCF, Yahak hwaltong annaeso, 49–57. 74. See Mun, “80–yondae ch’o nodong undong,” 91–92.

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when church authorities wanted a strict academic approach rather than conscientizing efforts, for fear of state reprisal.75

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Night Schools as Pedagogy of the Oppressed

As South Korea’s sociopolitical situation began to acquire the more general characteristics of the Third World in the 1970s, theories of social movements based on the experience of other Third World countries began to take a powerful hold among the South Korean intelligentsia. The organization theory of Saul Alinsky and the educational theory of Paulo Freire were especially popular,76 although the government banned Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed until 1983. As mentioned earlier, these theories greatly influenced the educational philosophy of the UIM and JOC, as well as night school programs in the late 1970s.77 Freire’s relevance for night schools was his idea of conscientization, which stems from a “pedagogy of the oppressed,” a new approach using education as a tool to make the oppressed responsible for their freedom. In his “dialogical educational system,” both student and teacher become “critical co-investigators,” interact as equals, and are united in their common humanity. Freire called this process of humanization “conscientization.”78 Freire had developed his ideas in an effort to make education relevant to the tenement dwellers with whom he was working and to expand their awareness via their own life experiences. He advocated group dialogues in which the lived experiences of the individuals were discussed, broadening both the individual’s and the group’s consciousness. It was critical that these relationships were between equals; without equality, dialogue could not take place, and the revolutionary qualities of the pedagogy of the oppressed would be lost. Freire stressed that “there is no dichotomy between dialogue and revolutionary action. There is not one stage for dialogue and another for revolution. On the contrary, dialogue is the essence of revolutionary action.”79 The ideas that education is about obtaining critical perspectives through dialogue, and that teachers and students become humanized through this process, greatly influenced the philosophy and direction of night schools in 75. Chung, “Making History in the Trench City,” 1–2, 175. 76. See, among others, Alinsky, Rules for Radicals. 77. Yi, “Nodong kyoyuk,” 232; KSCF, Yahak hwaltong annaeso, 21–22. 78. Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 42; quoted in Chung, “Making History in the Trench City,” 169. 79. Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 130; quoted in Chung, “Making History in the Trench City,” 169.

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the 1970s.80 Various attempts were made to put Freire’s theories into practice. In order to promote equality between teacher and student, the participants experimented with calling each other educator-student (kanghak) and worker-student (nohak), or using nicknames.81 Much emphasis was also placed on the instructor’s modest attire; the use of everyday conversational language, appropriate examples, and humor; punctuality; and keeping one’s promises.82 Despite the emancipatory ideals of the pedagogy of the oppressed, night school programs were very didactic. Pak Yongjin was a welder and an aspiring poet who belonged to a poetry reading group (later, in 1986, he set himself on fire demanding the guarantee of three basic labor rights). The teacher of his night school challenged Pak’s concept of a good poem by introducing three well-known poems, explaining that although the first two were beautiful in a conventional sense, they ultimately served the Japanese cause during the colonial period. It was only the third poem by Yun Tongju, a well-known poet and a patriot, that captured Korea’s miserable colonial reality and was therefore truly beautiful: “True beauty is obtained when our lives are described as they are . . . even if all adjectives are employed to beautify [the false reality], it is no longer a poem but meaningless wordplay.” Resolving to become more like Yun Tongju, Pak Yongjin began to question the sincerity and devotion of the fellow poets in his reading group.83 Notwithstanding the didacticism, for many workers, night school was more than a place to gain a diploma or critical thinking skills. In the early 1980s, small publishing houses run by activists printed several collections of workers’ essays and other literary works.84 These short pieces show how workers perceived these schools: [Night school] is a place where we care for each other and where they listen to what I have to say . . . that’s why I can be like a human being. . . . I’m still agonizing, but I’m happy. . . . I’m not just working like a machine, but I am a human being who can think.85

80. Yi, “Nodong kyoyuk,” 235. For further discussion on employing Freire’s notion of conscientization in the Korean context, see KSCF, Yahak hwaltong annaeso, 30–40. 81. KSCF, Yahak hwaltong annaeso, 27–28. 82. Ibid. 83. Chong, Ch’onman’gae ui pulkkot, 117. 84. See, among others, Kim et al., Kurona ije nun oje ui uriga anida; Chon, ed., In’gan tapke salcha. One of the earliest literary representations of a night school teacher is in Kong, To isang arumdaun panghwang un opta. 85. Quoted in CISJD, ed., Busan chiyok silt’ae, 98–99.

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By attending night school, I have gained confidence to say what I think and have learned to appreciate myself as a worker. What night school has done for me is to allow me to think of myself from an objective perspective rather than a subjective perspective. Before I attended night school, I only cared about myself. I only thought about what I wanted to do. . . . I find myself surprisingly changed.86 In Freire’s concept of the intellectual as an agent, the intellectual’s role in fostering conscientization depends on equality between the agent and the oppressed. While this notion of equality may have been utopian, one must keep in mind that the classroom was not the only site of night schools. Developing friendships with their college students-cum-teachers provided workers with a wider intellectual and social horizon; workers acquired “a new political language” with which to transform their daily experience into something more than just work and to develop close relationships with dissident intellectual communities and labor activists.87 The friendship of welder Pak Yongjin with his night school teacher introduced him to social science and to the literary works then in wide circulation in the minjung movement.88 Former seamstress Kim Miyong had fond memories of cajoling her teachers to have a class outing after instruction was over.89 These relationships, forged at a time when society at large still casually referred to workers as factory girls and factory boys (kongdori, also derogatory), in some cases became instrumental in reviving the labor movement in the 1980s, although usually they evaporated without a trace once a worker finished her night school program.

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The Gwangju Uprising and Labor in the 1980s

University students were right when they characterized their alliance in the 1970s as “lateral support” (ch’ungmyon chiwon).90 Students and intellectuals organized demonstrations and hunger strikes whenever called for; set up night schools, hoping to enlighten workers and stir up their consciences; and staffed the UIM, JOC, Christian Academy, and labor research centers. They were vilified as pro-communists and imprisoned along with the workers. But most did not think their labor activism would necessarily 86. 87. 88. 89. 90.

Quoted in ibid., 100. Koo, “Work, Culture, and Consciousness of the Korean Working Class,” 67–68. Chong, Ch’onman’gae ui pulkkot, 127. Kim, Mach’imnae chonson e soda, 30. KSCF, “70–yondae huban ui haksaeng undong,” 180.

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change society fundamentally, nor did they believe their involvement called for fundamentally changing their own lives. When opportunities came to return to their schools or jobs, most of them gladly and “without much apparent agony”91 went back, as did many members of the NFDYS, which had been accused of planning to overthrow the state in the early 1970s. In the 1980s, however, labor occupied the center of the democratization movement, propelled by sociopolitical factors as well as the undongkwon’s own internal dynamics. Involvement in labor became the most privileged form of praxis among minjung intellectuals. The worker was hailed as the true revolutionary subject, and labor acquired the aura of an inevitable revolution. Massive numbers of intellectuals and university students, including Kwon Insuk who was mentioned earlier, descended from their ivory towers to factories, creating the term “disguised worker” (wijang ch’wiopcha), a term that captured the ethos of the time. The labor movement was equated with bringing fundamental change to society, and becoming a worker was the main, if not the only, way to bring about this revolution. Involvement in labor also meant fundamentally changing one’s life. Various factors pushed the intellectuals, but the main galvanizing force was the 1980 Gwangju Uprising.

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The Gwangju Uprising

The Gwangju Uprising was, for the minjung movement, a heroic narrative, exhorting activists to remember “who the real heroes were” and “who really fought” for democracy. With Gwangju, the intellectuals, who had long denigrated themselves as egotistical, petty bourgeois, or “fanciful ideologists,” proved their own fragility and cowardliness in this time of revolution. The workers, by contrast, confirmed their ontological status as revolutionary “fighting material.” The disproportionate share of the sacrifice made by the working class and lumpen proletariat during the Gwangju Uprising (as I discussed in chapter 1) became emblematic of the intellectuals’ “inherent” weakness and the workers’ “inherent” revolutionary qualities. University students and intellectuals frequently referred to themselves in self-deprecatory terms. Those who had fought and died in the provincial building in Gwangju became the ultimate heroes of the uprising. A short story that appeared in 1988, for example, defined these real history-makers: “Remember those who remained in the provincial building. You have to remember who participated, who 91. Kim, “So: 80–yondae chisigin ui nodong undong ch’amyo,” 18–19.

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fought, and who died. . . . Then you will know what kind of people make history . . . [and] that knowledge will become your strength.”92 This “truth” of Gwangju was an immense shame and burden on the students and intellectuals. Those who survived the Gwangju massacre were weighted down with the guilt of having survived. One non-undongkwon student from the city of Gwangju killed himself after professing to have spent a year agonizing over his inability to stop the massacre.93 The leaders of the famous 1985 Daewoo Auto Strike confessed that their commitment to the labor movement was a way to overcome the “guilt that we did not participate in the Gwangju Uprising and that we thought only about our own livelihood.”94 The intellectuals’ overwhelming sense of guilt and despair in the aftermath of the Gwangju Uprising, combined with post-1980 sociopolitical developments, produced a narrative of revolution for the minjung movement. The minjung movement had to be completely and irrevocably transformed from what it had been in the 1970s—it had to be revolutionary. This fervor for revolution generated its own movement culture. The truly committed undongkwon individuals must give up the privileges and rights that come with education and social background, and the force of obligations dictated that one give up such privileges and rights. In the aftermath of the Gwangju Uprising, before and after Chun Doo Hwan’s ascendancy to the presidency in August 1980, there was a severe state crackdown on labor. The labor movement, carefully nurtured through the harsh political conditions of the 1970s, was completely decimated. The Chun regime’s labor policies, “the most restrictive and oppressive in South Korean history,”95 need not be detailed here. Hundreds of union leaders, many of whom had spent the previous decade in prison for their organizing activity, were now sent to prison on various pretexts and to infamous military “purification camps” (discussed in chapter 1) where they were subjected to harsh labor and physical abuse. This sociopolitical landscape following Gwangju could only reinforce the prevalent idea that historical obligations dictated that one should give up all privileges. The Primacy of Labor Organizing

The widespread despair following the Gwangju Uprising led to intense debates within the minjung movement in general and the labor movement in 92. 93. 94. 95.

Hong, “Kippal,” 203. Sin, “80–yondae haksaeng undong yasa 2: Hwangmuji,” 140. Quoted in Sin,“80–yondae haksaeng undong yasa 4: Mimunhwawon,” 167. Hart-Landsberg, Rush to Development, 219.

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particular. Even before Gwangju, however, a group of activists revisited a longstanding debate on the merit of continuing with “political struggle,” that is, engaging in issues mainly about political reform, as I discussed before. Their failure to oppose the Yusin dictatorship of the 1970s revealed yet one more case of the limitations of the political struggle. They concluded that the principal agent of social change was the working class, and the most urgent task was to strengthen the labor movement. They had to avoid a direct political confrontation with the regime and prepare themselves for involvement with labor. This group, known as the proponents of labor organizing (hyonjang-non), maintained that intellectuals who were serious about social change should become factory workers.96 A common criticism directed against these proponents of labor organizing by other labor activists centered around their preoccupation with preparation: they failed to produce any meaningful labor movement or social change because they were too preoccupied with a long-term strategy of preparation and the fear of being discovered by the state security forces; despite their conviction about the primacy of organizing workers, the idea of a labor movement remained abstract and utopian to most of them; and their presence in factories added more numbers to the swelling tide of workers but did not change the workers’ thoughts, visions, or welfare.97 The labor organizing proponents were primarily reacting against their own experience with the 1970s student movement, which they felt was too reform-oriented and incapable of changing society by itself. The previously mentioned Kim Munsu is a case in point. At Seoul National University where he was a freshman in 1970, the student leaders who insisted on the primacy of the labor movement vis-à-vis the social movement at large had no knowledge of factory life—“there was an abundance of theory but no praxis.” Kim believed that students’ focus on political issues was a luxury for only the idle and well-to-do. “When workers are busy just getting by with three meals a day and saving their own asses, why would they bother with politics?”98

96. Yi, “80–yondae nodong undongnon,” 225. 97. Ibid., 226. In an autobiographical novel by a former student labor activist, this tendency reaches an absurd point: The student labor activist protagonist in the novel was waging a oneperson campaign to regain his job after he was unjustly fired. After he protested alone for months in front of the factory gate, two female workers, who turn out to be student labor activists from another university, cautiously approach him. He learns that there are two more student labor activists in the same factory; none had dared to support him for fear of exposure. An, P’aop, 98–99. 98. Kim, “Onu silch’onjok chisigin,” 188.

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Yi T’aebok, a principal organizer of Chon’guk Minju Nodongja Yonmaeng (Chonminnoryon; Nationwide League of Democratic Labor Movements, NLDLM) in the early 1980s, had a similar experience with the student movement. Dismissed from the university in 1971 for his activism, he was forcibly conscripted into the army. After witnessing the disgraceful behavior of some former student leaders in the army who had quickly succumbed to a violent military culture and the demands of the military (some were mobilized as speakers for a pro-Yusin lecture series because of their activist background), Yi concluded that the student movement was ineffectual. Discipline and determination were lacking, Yi felt, and he vowed to cut all ties with it until he himself was firmly established as a worker.99 Yi also might have been one of the few socialists at the time, but it would have been detrimental for him to have said so in public. The organization of NLDLM in May 1980 (a few days before the Gwangju Uprising) was both a product of the theory of labor organizing and an attempt to overcome the limitations that its proponents had experienced. The members of NLDLM viewed the student movement as an ancillary group that articulated problems and the labor movement as the main force (chungsim seryok) that solved problems. As such, they attempted to integrate the two strands of thinking prevalent at the time—one that emphasized allout political struggle and the other that emphasized preparation, that is, labor organizing. They saw NLDLM as a way to integrate the experiences of both the 1970s labor movement and the student movement—fusing together praxis (of the workers) and theory (of the intellectuals).100 Its leaders envisioned NLDLM as a core organization in which intellectuals and workers were organically integrated. To this end, one of its organizing principles was to have the ratio of intellectuals to workers be one to six.101 A large number of activists in the aftermath of Gwangju shared this longstanding vision of moving their focus of activism from political reform to labor organization. After witnessing the brutality of the regime and the people’s heroic but ultimately ineffectual demands for political reform in Gwangju, many concluded it was no longer possible to change society through legal and open means. The search for alternative means led many to socialism, which also reinforced the primacy of organizing labor. With a history going back to the colonial period, socialism was certainly not new in Korea, but the division of Korea and the subsequent internecine war had made socialism, along with communism, South Korea’s defining nemesis, 99. Yi, “Nodong undong t’usin tonggi,” 265–66. 100. Yi, “80–yondae nodong undongnon,” 226. 101. Chong, “Chaeya minju nodong undong,” 185–86.

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as I discussed in chapter 2. The intellectuals’ enthusiasm for socialism in the 1980s also coincided with their gradual disenchantment with Western liberal democracy. The democratization movement attributed its failure to stop the Yusin regime in the 1970s and the reemergence of the military dictatorship in 1980 partly to its own uncritical application of Western liberal democratic ideas to South Korea. South Korea’s draconian Labor Law contributed inadvertently to the intellectuals’ migration to factories. The Labor Law of 1980 contained an infamous clause prohibiting “third-party intervention,” making it illegal for a local union to receive assistance from its industrial union or the FKTU when bargaining. Although local unions were still required to belong to an industrial federation and the FKTU, each union was on its own, and bargaining was possible only between a company and a plant union. This measure made collective bargaining “even more of a sham than it had been under Park” and led to the company and the police exerting complete control over the union.102 The only way to participate in labor was to become one of the workers. The bodily intervention of intellectuals into the discourse of labor through the shifting of their social identities was therefore an outcome of various sociohistorical forces as well as the undongkwon’s own political culture: the revolutionary push of the post-Gwangju minjung movement with its internal dynamics between obligation and privilege, the preexisting theoretical debate that privileged labor, the Labor Law that allowed intellectuals’ participation in labor only as factory workers, and the intellectuals’ predilection for socialist ideas. All of these factors, combined with the intellectuals’ belief that, in their unjust and unequal society, the workers’ situation deserved rectification, made their alliance with workers one of the most dynamic, and problematic, features of the minjung movement, the topic of next chapter. 102. Ogle, South Korea: Dissent, 113.

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PART III

THE POLITICS OF

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REPRESENTATION

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7. “TO BE REBORN AS REVOLUTIONARY WORKERS”

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Gramscian Fusion and Leninist Vanguardism

The intellectuals shifted their social identity in the 1980s in an effort to break down the societal division between themselves and workers, rather than lead in the manner of a Leninist vanguard. This identity shift was an attempt for the most “transparent” representation possible, a mode of representation unmediated by any effects of representation, as it were. Yet the underlying logic of this representation relied on, and became a subtle means of confirming, the existing social division between the intellectual and the worker: the intellectual as socially conscious and ethical, and the worker as the recipient of this act of conscience. The alliance between workers and intellectuals in the 1980s was beset by the unrelenting tension between the intellectuals’ desire for an organic fusion with the workers and the practical demands involved in leading the workers. However fraught with problems, it was the intellectuals’ efforts in the alliance that in part catapulted labor into a central position in the 1980s democratization movement. This chapter focuses on what I call the “politics of representation” in the 1980s’ alliance. I do not merely criticize the intellectuals for somehow distorting, censoring, or ignoring the workers’ own voices; nor do I argue that there is some other essence of workers that the intellectuals had missed. My concern here has to do with the unintended and dispersed consequences of the intellectuals’ representation of workers, especially in the post-1987 labor movement in South Korea. I propose to consider these problems in the context of what I discussed in the Introduction as the “Alcoffian notion

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of historical accountability,” that is, the notion that the act of representation should carry with it an accountability and responsibility for its possible material and discursive impact. Any hasty celebration or denouncement of the intellectuals’ role in the alliance without considering their impact on the changed sociopolitical reality of the post-1987 landscape would not only be misleading but historically and politically irresponsible. This chapter consists of four parts. The first part examines the “discourse of moral privilege” as one of the predominant discursive practices of the undongkwon in the alliance. The second part considers the representation of workers by the undongkwon in the specific cases of the 1985 Kuro Strike and the 1986 “wage increase struggle.” The third part examines “factory employment”: the logistics, specific historical cases, and personal and organizational issues of undongkwon individuals becoming workers. The chapter ends with a brief discussion of the alliance in the context of the post-1987 labor movement.

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The Discourse of Moral Privilege

In the 1980s, intellectuals carried their alliance of the 1970s into factories “in person,” literally and figuratively, interjecting themselves in the discourse of labor by shifting their social identity from that of intellectual to that of worker. This shift was grounded in part in the minjung movement’s fundamental change in terms of its vision for the future, brought about by the desperation, resolve, and revolutionary fervor arising out of the Gwangju Uprising in 1980, discussed in chapter 6. At the same time, however, the narrative of the intellectuals’ commitment to labor became enmeshed in what I have previously characterized as a “discourse of moral privilege” (in chapter 4) that relied on the traditional role of intellectuals as educated and, therefore, morally upright and socially responsible. Even as intellectuals envisioned a fundamental shift from the existing epistemic and sociopolitical order in the 1980s, their claim to be the voice and the true representative of the people rested in the largely Confucian notion of the intellectual. Throughout the 1980s, the discourse of moral privilege, the narrative of responsibility as the educated and the privileged perceived it, was prevalent. For example, this discourse dominated the court testimonies of the twenty-six involved in the case of the Nationwide League of Democratic Labor Movements (NLDLM) of 1981. One member of the NLDLM articulated his involvement as a simple desire “as a privileged member of society to pay his debts to the society and to help those who were poor, uneducated, and

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oppressed.”1 Another testified: “I only worked for South Korea’s democracy, as someone privileged enough to go to college and as someone indebted to our society.”2 No Sugyong, a female student on trial for working illegally in a factory and “possessing socialist thoughts,” also framed her motivation in the discourse of moral privilege:

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No one can avoid responsibility for our society’s problems. Especially those with higher education and social conscience need to volunteer to create a new ethical and moral social order. For this simple reason, I went to work in a factory. I had no self-conceit or arrogance. My only desire was to contribute to the society I have benefited from by living a productive life [dictated by] my conscience and reason.3 It is true that these statements, made in a courtroom, were intended for public consumption and might not reflect the activists’ true feelings. However, the narrative of moral privilege among the activists persisted throughout the 1980s. It became even more prevalent in the mid-1980s, when the minjung movement as a whole was working out a “scientific” path to its “revolutionary” goals and when socialist ideas began to dominate the movement. Even for those involved in Soul Nodong Undong Yonhap (Sonoryon, Alliance of Labor Movements in the Seoul Area, ALMSA), which, inspired by MarxistLeninist principles, claimed itself as a revolutionary organization (which I discuss later), the discourse of moral privilege was operational. During the trial of ALMSA members, for example, most articulated their involvement in labor as expressing their sense of responsibility as the privileged, and their desire to partake in the life of workers, which they considered more authentic. Prior to joining ALMSA, Yun Hyonsuk had been teaching at a performing-arts school. Her many upper-middle-class students were brought to school in chauffeured cars. She quit her teaching and started working at a small factory with ten employees. She worked from 8:00 a.m. until 9:00 p.m., often sustaining herself on diluted yogurt and pieces of 100-won pastry (a dollar was equivalent to about 890 won in 1985). She saw some fellow workers saving the pastries to give to their siblings at home. She had to quit her first job due to an injury but soon found another garment-factory job. The starting daily wages at the new factory were 2,280 won; without overtime, her monthly wages would have been 1. “Irunba Minju Haksaeng Yonmaeng,” 27. 2. Ibid., 22. 3. No, “Hangso iyuso,” 3.

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between 70,000 and 80,000 won, which was hardly enough to live on. When charged with instigating a rally for increased wages at the factory, Yun declared, “I accept the charge. Who would not instigate the struggle given this reality?”4 Yu Siju had also been a teacher. Her first paycheck of 300,000 won felt like “workers’ sweat and blood.” Working in a factory was a way of doing away with her previous “life of complicity and cowardice.”5 Another ALMSA member, Yu Inhye, believed that factory experience was necessary in order to live “a rightful life.” When a wrist injury forced her to quit her factory job, she established a night school with the workers she had befriended at the factory.6 As the foregoing examples show, the discourse of moral privilege also included a hard-hitting exposé of the low wages and harsh working conditions at the time. Kwon Insuk’s testimony of her own brief experience as a factory worker is representative: The daily wage was 2,900 won. . . . If there was no overtime, the entire monthly wage of 60,000 to 70,000 won would easily be spent on the younger brother’s tuition, the father’s medicine. . . . This forced the workers to work until ten at night. With the conveyor that never stopped, there was already work piled up if one got up even once to straighten one’s back. . . . [T]he never-ending verbal abuse of the foreman. . . . [As] there was no meaningful conversation between [the workers], when one nineteen-year-old fellow worker said to me, “Onni [big sister], it’s hard work, isn’t it,” I cried in gratitude.7

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The “Insidious Logic of Representation”

The intellectuals’ desire to fuse organically with workers was sincere, genuine, and even heroic. At the same time, plunging oneself into the life of a worker had also become a sort of deus ex machina by which all tensions and problems of the undongkwon would be resolved. In fact, intellectuals’ relations with workers remained fraught with tension—that is, their discourse of moral privilege was embedded in an a priori conceptual bifurcation between 4. 5. 6. 7.

Sonoryon, “Sonoryon popchong t’ujaeng kirok,” 109. Ibid., 110. Ibid., 108. Kwon, “T’anwonso,” 177–78.

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intellectual and worker. The intellectuals’ representation of themselves as socially conscious and responsible hinged on the workers being the objects and beneficiaries of their act of conscience. Bifurcation between the Intellectual and the Worker

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This problem in representation for intellectuals, which had precedents in several other countries,8 manifested itself on two levels in the mid-1980s in South Korea. On one level, students and intellectuals unwittingly objectified and in some cases apotheosized workers while subsuming workers’ individual identities under the easily transparent category of “working class.” This in turn made workers the objects of the intellectuals’ competing debates and mobilizations. For example, in 1984 Han’guk Kidok Haksaeng Ch’ong Yonmaeng (Korean Student Christian Federation, KSCF), a nationwide organization of young Christians which became active in the democratization movement in the 1970s and 1980s, published an extensive manual for would-be workers titled Kongjang hwaltong annaeso (Guidelines for factory activism). The purpose of this manual was to look at the reality of minjung objectively in order to “overcome the prevalent tendency to objectify minjung as an abstract form.” The publication is admirably comprehensive and detailed: it discusses the correct attitude for a prospective student labor activist (haksaeng ch’ulsin undongga or hakch’ul), offers a long list of prerequisite readings before finding a job, suggests potential topics for conversation with workers, offers a list of skills helpful in getting jobs (including instructions on how to fabricate one’s background on an application), and explains how to calculate wages and how to quit. The following section is on how to befriend coworkers: Hobbies that take money and time are not appropriate for workers. Find out what you can do together with coworkers [that will not cost money] such as hiking or playing ko [Korean chess] and chess. If you can sing pop songs soulfully, play guitar, repair a tape recorder, or perform acupressure, you can gain popularity. Good handwriting can be particularly useful in various ways. 1. In order to befriend workers, one has to invest lots of time and have a reservoir of conversation topics ready. When getting to know someone for the first time, accompany him wherever he goes 8. See, among others, Brown, Protest in Paris.

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(such as on walks, shopping, and going to stores, taverns, and pool halls). 2. Do not slacken your pace while working; do not complain about hard work (lest you are seen as making a fuss). However, it is not good to be seen as a workaholic either. One can always learn how workers talk and what they do for leisure by observing. Let’s learn by imitating. 3. Keep up your spirits in the factory (it is all right for women to be talkative); a man should be seen as considerate but of few words. Pay attention to your expressions and choice of language. At first, ask simple questions to learn their language and their way of speaking, and then gradually lead the conversation to a more sophisticated level. 4. Be attentive to your clothes, choice of food, hobbies, and so on, so that you are not noticeably different but also do not give the sense that you are hiding something.9 While the manual shows the extent to which the intellectuals labored to acquire intimate knowledge of workers, the above quotation also captures the moment when what French philosopher Jacques Rancière calls the “insidious logic of representation” played out most innocently and disturbingly: in a reductionist manner, the worker became knowable, easy to categorize, and, most of all, transparent. There was a presumed worker’s identity, culture, attitude, and value system that ordered the worker’s daily life differently from that of the intellectual. More to the point, this objectifying conferred upon the intellectuals the authority to represent workers and to articulate the ideology of workers as their own, much as the French intellectuals described by Rancière did.10 If the KSCF manual presumed a difference between the intellectual and the worker at the conceptual level, this difference was inscribed on their bodies as well. A female student labor activist on trial for instigating a wageincrease dispute urged the presiding judges and prosecutors to “go out on a sunny day around five or six in the evening near Ewha Women’s College and the Kuro Industrial Complex and compare college students and workers. The students are shiny, vivacious, and pretty, whereas the workers are pale and short, with big feet—since they work sitting down all day long.”11 9. KSCF, Kongjang hwaltong annaeso, 22–27. Despite its name, the KSCF is composed of youth, university students, and university graduates, and its leaders are usually in their late twenties or early thirties. 10. Rancière, Nights of Labor, xviii. 11. Sonoryon, “Sonoryon popchong t’ujaeng kirok,” 111.

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This bifurcation at the level of the body was not merely rhetorical; it was also immediately recognized as a given by society at large. Undongkwon students and intellectuals often invoked this familiar representation of workers to highlight both the plight of workers and their own dedication to erasing the division between the workers and themselves. In the mid-1980s, collections of writings on the students’ experiences of working in factories would often bear titles such as Koch’in soni arumdapta (Rough hands are beautiful).12 The problem was that the intellectuals’ efforts to shift their social identity from intellectual to worker was meaningful and effective only when the bifurcation, conceptual as well as actual, between the intellectual and the worker was recognized and validated by society at large. The intellectuals’ discourse of moral privilege relied on and sustained this bifurcation, however unwittingly. The undongkwon’s true dilemma was that without the binary setup between the intellectuals and the workers, their discourse of moral privilege had little social and political efficacy. Of course, this issue was not new or specific to the 1980s. The ontological bifurcation between the intellectual and the worker also underlay the 1970s night schools as well. Intellectuals in the night school program were confident they would be able to enter the world of the worker and determine the workers’ identity: “Through meeting with them we understand the workers’ hopes, frustration, anger, and pain, and that is how we can find ways to truly help the workers.”13 They also betrayed a sense of anxiety about the possible erasure of the division between intellectual and worker. Some of the night school teachers were concerned that their conscientizing efforts would churn out “pseudointellectual workers” who could not firmly root themselves in factories but would merely imitate university students and intellectuals. Intellectuals were keenly aware of their own tendency to both objectify and romanticize the worker and often acknowledged this tendency more straightforwardly than the above KSCF quotation might suggest. Another publication prepared by the KSCF, for example, warned soon-to-be workers of potential problems they could create in their relations with coworkers. These included the tendency to value theoretical positions more highly than practical considerations; to view workers as the object of pity; to think of labor activism as the sole barometer of one’s commitment to the movement (“if she cannot survive in the labor movement, she lacks basic qualifications as an activist”); and to adopt an attitude of “pietism,” showing off to 12. KSCF, ed., Koch’in soni arumdapta. 13. KSCF, Yahak hwaltong annaeso , 23.

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fellow activists how well one is adapting to the “ascetic life” of a worker.14 The KSCF manual also warned the would-be-workers: “Many of you think of workers as simple and lofty individuals, without greed and egotistical individualism, but the reality is different; workers are realistic, giving in to the rules of capitalistic society.”15 Indeed, the workers whom the undongkwon met on factory floors refused to live up to stock working-class images. They were not always steadfastly marching toward class emancipation nor were they free of worldly, “frivolous” concerns. A former student labor activist related her encounter with a female worker who had teased her for not paying attention to her appearance: “Things started getting interesting; one fellow worker chided me for an hour to put on makeup and to wear skirts and told me that [my negligence about appearance] was because I was lazy. . . . It is difficult being a worker.”16 If the intellectuals’ “insidious logic of representation” unintentionally objectified workers, then in everyday practice it made the workers the object of their conflicting aspirations—the Gramscian aspiration to fuse organically with the workers versus the Leninist one to lead them. The lexicon of the 1980s’ democratization movement produced various terms and phrases that expressed these conflicting desires. One would hear, for instance, of the intellectuals’ “infatuation with struggles,” their emphasis on “political struggle,” and their “ideological struggles.” They were anxious to engage in whatever form of struggle they thought appropriate as soon as they set foot in a factory, to lead a protest demanding political reform, and to justify such an act on ideological grounds. It was not unusual to find a student labor activist organizing a strike only a few months into his job at a factory, without organizing a union first.17 The intellectuals’ emphasis on political struggle often led workers to radical forms of protest, including street demonstrations, sit-ins, and the occupation of factories, regardless of the issue at hand. Workers who associated with intellectual labor activists were often dismissed for engaging in activities as minor as attending study groups. Unable to find other jobs due to the circulation of blacklists and unable to sustain their movement activities due to their exposure to management and state surveillance, the workers found that their proletarian consciousness and revolutionary vision, acquired initially at the urging of intellectuals, often led them to the path of the lumpen 14. 15. 16. 17.

KSCF, “Hanal ui miral,” 18–20. Ibid., 12. KSCF, Kongjang hwaltong annaeso, 120. Yi Tongsu, interview, Seoul, February 14–15, 1993.

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proletariat or the militant labor activist. The following discussion of the Kuro Strike provides a specific case in point.

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The 1985 Kuro Strike and the 1986 Wage Increase Struggle

In the annals of the history of the South Korean labor movement, the 1985 Kuro Industrial Complex Solidarity Strike is considered a watershed event for the labor movement and the larger minjung movement.18 From June 24 to June 29, thousands of workers from nine companies in the Kuro Industrial Complex waged strikes and sit-ins and boycotted their lunch in support of the three Daewoo Apparel union officers who had been arrested for their involvement in a previous wage negotiation. During this strike, students, representatives from dissident organizations, and members of twentytwo other labor groups stood side by side with the demonstrating workers amid tear gas and threats of arrest. During and after the event, labor activists considered the strike a “political struggle” par excellence, as political repression of its union movement rather than the workers’ economic grievances had triggered the strike. It was also widely thought initially that the workers themselves, not student labor activists, had organized the strike. The strike introduced workers to a whole array of support groups, and it demonstrated the need to work outside legal structures and to assert independence from the official (company-friendly) union leadership.19 The strike also had generated visible and widespread excitement among workers in general. The former seamstress Kim Miyong recalled how the workers in her factory greeted the news of the strike enthusiastically; their productivity immediately went down, and they debated heatedly about the strike every night in their dormitories. Management forbade workers to leave their dormitories at night, threatening them with arrest should they be found near the Kuro area. Some workers openly wished there were student labor activists in their plant to initiate a strike because the government and mass media portrayed the strike as the work of “disguised workers.”20 However exhilarating the strike had been for the participants and other workers who merely heard about it or watched it on television, and despite its future discursive impact on the labor movement, its immediate impact on the Kuro workers was devastating: 30 workers were arrested, 700 were dismissed or forced to leave their jobs, 1,500 were laid off, and the unions 18. For a detailed analysis of the strike, see Koo, Korean Workers, 111–25. 19. “No-hak yondae wa chaeya nodong undong,” 268. 20. Kim, Mach’imnae chonson e soda, 67–69.

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that had been tended so carefully were torn up from their roots. Since student labor activists were thought to have been behind the strike, government and management surveillance and repression, especially of students who had gone into factories, intensified. Indeed, the student labor activists were at the forefront and behind the scenes of the Kuro Strike. Many of the activists had not been in the factories long enough to organize a strike. Afterward, the labor activists criticized themselves for their “impatience” in resorting to the strike and for their “radical” tactics, which they felt had brought harsh repression that their unions were not ready to withstand.21 Still, the labor activists considered the Kuro Strike a model of solidarity not only for the workers crossing the barriers of individual plants and regions but also for dissident and student groups. Before the strike, labor activists had thought that workers tended to protect their own organizations rather than build solidarity (due to the extreme difficulties of organizing a union). That the workers came together crossing the barriers of each plant was seen as a step toward a higher level of consciousness and a move away from protectionism. Thus, the strike became an inspiration and model for the 1986 “wageincrease struggle.”22 Wage-increase negotiations generally take place every May. Until about 1985, collective bargaining and contract signing between union and management were performed perfunctorily. In early 1986, the democratic labor organizations had reached a consensus; they would conduct annual negotiations in a unified manner, with their demands not limited to bread-and-butter issues but also including political reforms. They saw the upcoming negotiation as an opportunity to move the labor movement toward a higher level of struggle, owing to the workers’ heightened political consciousness. An attempt to organize a region-wide committee to coordinate unified activities to obtain wage increases failed, however, and eventually two separate groups were formed. Much like the 1985 Kuro Strike, the 1986 wage increase struggle was a woeful failure, resulting in fewer gains than had been made during the previous year. Suppression by the state and management was only one reason for this failure; the labor activists later offered the following additional reasons. First, the leaders of the negotiations, many of whom were intellectual worker activists, were preoccupied with their role as leaders, often taking action without first analyzing the demands and situation of the workers. Second, most activists were concerned more with 21. “No-hak yondae wa chaeya nodong undong,” 284. 22. My discussion here relies on Ch’oe, “Imgum insang t’ujaeng,” 60–69, and Chong, “Chaeya minju nodong undong,” 197–200.

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immediate results than with workers becoming empowered through gradual and self-motivated participation. Finally, most activists tried to turn wage-increase negotiations into political struggles through the use of militant tactics, which included sit-ins and the occupation of factories. Their demands for wage increases were accompanied by slogans such as “Down with the military regime.” All of these were attributed to the intellectuals’ general tendency to think of workers as objects of their agitation and mobilization rather than to see them as agents of their own movement.23 Some workers who were initially active in the wage increase struggle rejected the activists’ more militant political demands. The lack of rank-andfile support left leaders without protection. Many of the labor disputes of 1986 failed in spite of numerous strikes and sit-ins, resulting in the dismissal and the imprisonment of numerous workers, thanks to the activists’ impatience, their interest in immediate fruits at the expense of long-term gains for the workers, and their inattention to the workers’ immediate and pressing needs. Much blame went to organizations such as ALMSA, which had pushed for “political struggle” during the negotiation.

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The Alliance of Labor Movements in the Seoul Area and “Political Struggle”

ALMSA, organized in August 1985, represented a new breed of labor activism in South Korea. It openly defined itself as a revolutionary organization, a revolutionary act in the sociopolitical context of South Korea at the time. ALMSA criticized the prevailing perspective among activists that workers should acquire political consciousness gradually, and it attributed the failure of the 1970s labor movement to trade unionism. “Trade unionism” here referred to improved working conditions and higher wages as the final and ultimate goal of the labor movement as a whole. Lenin argued that a spontaneous working-class movement could not on its own develop more than a trade union consciousness: “[T]he ‘spontaneous element’ represents nothing more or less than consciousness in an embryonic form and that a revolutionary consciousness would have to be brought to the workers from without for them to overcome their ideological enslavement by the bourgeoisie.”24 As an aspiring Leninist organization, ALMSA guided and supported various workers’ political struggles to develop their revolutionary consciousness, openly carrying out political agitation among workers through its publication Sonoryon Sinmun (ALMSA Journal) and by organizing workers in underground small groups. 23. Pak, “80–yondae nodong chohap undong,” 86–87. 24. Lenin, What Is to Be Done? 30–31; quoted in Fantasia, Cultures of Solidarity, 237.

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These political struggles of workers tackled a wider set of sociopolitical issues that affect workers rather than just traditional working-class issues such as wages, working conditions, and the right to unionize. In South Korea’s sociopolitical context at the time, political struggle would have meant engaging virtually all issues—import liberalization, reunification of the Koreas, and nuclear proliferation in the Korean peninsula. ALMSA was the first labor organization to announce its official position on the presidential direct election debate in 1985 and on the campaign to abolish the National Security Law, issues that were not traditionally considered in the domain of labor. The politics of ALMSA were controversial within the democratization movement but inspired much awe among the undongkwon and society at large when its leaders later became well-publicized fugitives. This was in part due to the organization’s reputed Leninesque discipline, dedication, and revolutionary lifestyle. ALMSA also inspired the literary imagination of former student labor activists who produced much of the “labor literature” of the late 1980s and early 1990s, as I discuss in chapter 8. The main force behind the rise of ALMSA was a group of intellectuals, including Kim Munsu, mentioned in chapter 6.

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Ideological Struggles

The political struggle at the center of the 1986 wage-increase campaign was part and parcel of the ideological struggle (inyom t’ujaeng) that became one of the hallmarks of the 1980s democratization movement. Inspired by and modeled after Lenin’s What Is to Be Done? the ideological struggles were comprehensive debates on political theories, organizational theories, strategies, and tactics of the democratization movement. Protracted debates on social formation of South Korean society (sahoe kusongch’e nonjaeng) and trade unions (nodong chohap nonjaeng) involved a great deal of energy and time. Positions within the movement were divided. The National Liberation group advocated “national liberation and anti-American struggle,” whereas the People’s Democracy group emphasized “antifascist struggle” (as I discussed in chapter 3). The debates became extremely pedantic. Numerous small groups and underground circles gathered and scattered along ideological divisions. Animosity among activists made it impossible to have any organizational unity, and the once-militant groups, such as ALMSA, disintegrated utterly. Within the labor movement, the emphasis on political struggle focused on street demonstrations, sit-ins, and occupation of factories. Some even denied the utility of trade unions. As the labor movement

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became more politically oriented, there was a tendency to discount or dissociate from Christian groups such as the UIM and JOC because they were too reform-oriented.25 These debates consumed much intellectual energy in the 1980s and caused a great deal of anguish and pain for those who were directly or indirectly involved. Whatever merits these exhaustive debates might have had for the labor movement were outweighed by the fact that they were pedantic, divisive, and debilitating. Workers often felt squeezed between the warring groups. The experience of one former ALMSA member and seamstress, Kim Miyong, is emblematic.26 In her memoir, Kim recalls the evening when she presided over a public rally to launch a nationwide workers’ organization. The idea of such an organization was conceived by the upper echelon of the ALMSA leadership; many other labor groups saw the plan as ALMSA’s attempt to gain hegemony within the labor movement. Unaware of this sentiment, Kim had worked hard to prepare for the rally, even rehearsing answers for questions that might be raised from the floor. Her speech (“Let’s build a nationwide workers’ organization and build a world where the workers are in charge of society!”) was greeted with cynical remarks and a barrage of questions from activists representing various ideological orientations. As Kim stood on the podium with hundreds of people staring at her, it occurred to her for the first time that she had not the slightest idea how to build such a world or even what it meant to her. That she had been yearning for such a world and the fact that other people who shared the same vision had proposed it had seemed sufficient grounds for her to publicly proclaim it. After her speech, members from other organizations leaped to the podium and led the audience to the streets with their own slogans. What troubled Kim was not only the other groups’ disruption of the rally but also the increasing gap within ALMSA between the intellectuals who comprised the leadership and ordinary workers such as herself. For example, Kim was asked by the ALMSA leaders to draft a workers’ position on the abolition of the National Security Law and the 1986 Asian Games to be held in Seoul. She had spent many nights working on the draft, only to have it returned with instructions for revisions that she believed were beyond her capacity. Discouraged and confused, she felt ignorant.

25. When the former Wonp’ung Textile Union leader Yi Oksun was released from prison, for example, she found that her fellow activists had decided to sever the relationship with the Urban Industrial Mission, arguing that it, as a Christian organization, had limitations as a movement organization. For details, see Yi, Na ije chuin toeo, 208–11. 26. The next four paragraphs are based on Kim, Mach’imnae chonson e soda, 144–52.

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Soon after the rally, an underground pamphlet circulated within ALMSA criticizing its activities as “bowing to spontaneity,” a phrase from Lenin’s What Is to Be Done? 27 Its meaning remained elusive to Kim, and it made her feel that all her activities so far could have been characterized as “bowing to spontaneity.” Kim soon found that those who agreed with this type of criticism were leaving ALMSA, which dissolved soon after. Kim felt the underlying cause of the problem was the ideological struggle: Sasang [ideology]! It has brought so much pain and agony . . . a separation from the most beloved comrades and isolation from fellow workers. The members of ALMSA are scattered, each following a calling of his or her own. The people who had belonged to the most militant labor organization are now all scattered, seeing each other only in chance meetings.28 The widespread tendency of the intellectuals to inculcate a “correct” vision for the future in the workers, and to adopt it themselves, was at the heart of the political and ideological struggles. Sociologist Song Hogun suggests that this tendency also caused intellectuals to settle too readily into the role of worker, eschewing the need for a critical tension that would mediate their relationship with the workers. Being a worker provided a sense of security and comfort at the expense of questioning and reflecting on one’s own motives and positions.29 Moreover, the political efficacy of the alliance relied on the intellectuals’ preserving their position as individuals who were authoritative and knowledgeable. The alliance was predicated on and in some ways reified the division between intellectual and worker.

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The Sociology of “Factory Employment”

These criticisms do not undermine the activists’ dedication and sacrifice. Indeed, the 1980s was a time when ordinary individuals were plunged into

27. Lenin, What Is to Be Done? 41. Kim is referring to a pamphlet that circulated in 1986, on “Establishing a correct leadership.” Written by ALMSA leaders, it was intended for members only. In the pamphlet, they addressed the criticisms repeatedly voiced by the rank and file: the organizational structure was hierarchical, the leadership insisted on its members’ formalistic loyalty and adherence to rules, and the activists’ own agency was undermined and had become objectified. This and other pamphlets that circulated during the time can be found in Kim and Pak, eds., Han’guk nodong undong nonjaengsa. 28. Kim, Mach’imnae chonson e soda, 152. 29. Kim et al., “Sahoejuui kwon ui pyonhwa,” 1267.

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the life of “violent upheaval,” irrespective of, and in some cases in opposition to, their own personal desires and intentions. In many cases, becoming a factory worker involved life-changing decisions, not to mention dealing with issues ranging from state suppression to management suspicion to parents’ disappointment. Although factory work had become routinized and even privileged among the undongkwon by the mid-1980s, the process of transplanting oneself into a factory involved more than individual determination and a sense of historical responsibility. In order to crack down on “disguised” workers, the Ministry of Labor in 1984 directed management to screen prospective employees’ educational, social, and family backgrounds as well as employment history. This measure forced students and intellectuals to acquire assumed identities, forging official documents and reconstructing life stories to fit those of workers. Many were immediately suspected and weeded out before they set foot in a factory. Once arrested, they were charged with criminal offenses, as was the case with Kwon Insuk, as discussed in chapter 6. Perhaps more daunting than the logistics of obtaining a counterfeit identification card was confronting one’s parents. The generation of the parents of the undongkwon had shared Japanese colonial occupation, three years of bloody civil war, and rapid industrialization; their determination to see their children succeed on a material level was fierce. Given the unwavering collective push in South Korea for material success and status elevation, a son or daughter as a factory worker could only be a slap in the face, a disgrace to the family name, and possibly a sign of the parents’ own failure. Activists’ personal letters and essays as well as court documents attest to the dilemma between their desire to fulfill their parents’ wishes and their sense of activist responsibility. In order to break away from watchful parents, activists often resorted to lying to parents about their reasons for leaving home (such as going away to a monastery to prepare for the bar exam), and in some cases activists endured their parents’ threats of disowning them. One male student agonized over his parents’ objection to his working in a factory. His father threatened to break his leg if he dared to do so, and his mother, though not intervening, was always watchful and worried: “My mother would worry about whether I was safe, whether I got injured, whether I ate regularly, or whether I was healthy. My heart feels so heavy. I have to overcome this loneliness, overcome the web of affection and sentimental feelings.”30

30. KSCF, Kongjang hwaltong annaeso, 97.

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“Factory Employment” in the 1970s

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An undongkwon’s decision in the 1970s to work in a factory required tremendous determination and resourcefulness. Until the early 1980s, an undongkwon usually made a decision to go to a factory individually, without organizational support or any practical guidance. The number of labor activists in factories was perhaps less than one hundred altogether; they were scattered throughout the country, unlike in the 1980s. Although graduates and current students of elite universities might have had personal contacts in factories, as some of their seniors and classmates were already in factories, those from lesser-known schools with little or no activist background could rely only on their own sense of historical responsibility. It was not until around 1984 that a would-be student worker could find written guidelines for factory activism, such as the previously mentioned KSCF’s “Guidelines for Factory Activism.” Yi T’aebok, whom I introduced in chapter 6 as a proponent of the primacy of labor activism, had vowed to establish himself firmly in labor organizing (hyonjang) after having witnessed the disappointing behavior of former student activists in the military. When he was released from military service (he was forcibly conscripted during his university years because of his student activism), he first wanted to test himself to see if he could sustain the life of a worker and commit himself to labor organizing. He began as a day laborer in Yongsan, Seoul, delivering merchandise on an A-frame rack (chige) on his back. He then spent a few years exploring labor conditions in industrial complexes throughout the country. He attempted to “infiltrate” the FKTU, hoping to reform it from within, only to be thwarted by someone who recognized him as a former student activist.31 Kim Munsu, the principal organizer of ALMSA, went through a tortuous process before he decided to dedicate his life to the cause of labor. He spent his first summer vacation in the university making dresses in a sweatshop, which stood in the middle of a vegetable field on the outskirts of Seoul. No application or resume was required to get a factory job then. As Kim pedaled the sewing machine, however, he began to doubt his decision: “I began to question whether I could last like this for the rest of my life. I was used to being poor, but I didn’t think I had to live like this. My friends and I talked about the need for organizing workers, but I didn’t think I had to be the one to do it.”32 He finally resolved to commit himself to the labor 31. Yi, “Nodong undong t’usin tonggi,” 266–67. 32. Kim, “Onu silch’onjok chisigin,” 134.

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movement a few years later, which took him to another sweatshop where his job was to make buttonholes for men’s shirts. He was twenty-two years old, a former student at a prestigious university, and slow, for which a much younger coworker constantly rebuked him. After stints at three different sweatshops, he obtained a license as a boiler mechanic in 1975.33

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“Factory Employment” in the 1980s

In the post-Gwangju era, activism in factories became the only logical, “proper course” to follow for the most committed undongkwon, as Yun Nansil, former activist, recollected.34 Another student labor activist, An Chaesong, recollected later in his autobiographical novel that “every activist prioritized the labor movement, [and] factory work became the barometer of one’s commitment to the movement.”35 Starting in the mid-1980s, as the democratization movement grew, the number of undongkwon individuals increased, and many more paths besides the factory opened up for them to pursue. By becoming a professional such as a teacher, journalist, or staff member for a legal organization, one could still retain privileges as a university graduate and contribute to the white-collar labor movement. These choices notwithstanding, the immense force of obligation, the notion that being a truly committed undongkwon required giving up all privileges, was still prevalent throughout the 1980s. Before the early 1980s, the social categories of worker and intellectual were not as clear-cut as they would become later. South Korea’s rapid industrialization and its concomitant massive urban migration resulted in a large number of university students hailing from socioeconomically disadvantaged backgrounds. As education became the sole vehicle for upward mobility for most South Koreans, one’s university education was attained at the great sacrifice of family members. It was not unusual to have university students whose parents and younger, mostly female, siblings worked in factories to finance their educations. So while Kim Munsu’s decision to become a factory worker in the early 1970s was a circuitous one, he was not unfamiliar with factory work because his sister was a factory worker. Pak Tong, a member of the class of 1986 at Korea University, could not afford a decent pair of shoes throughout high school, and his father was a day laborer.36 From the mid-1980s, however, economic development brought material prosperity, and more and more university students came from the homes of 33. 34. 35. 36.

Ibid., 138–40. MBC, Ije nun marhalsu itta: Han’guk ui chinbo, 1–pu. An, P’aop , 1–2. Pak Tong, interview, Seoul, February 12–13, 1993.

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South Korea’s first postcolonial middle class. Their childhoods were spent in relative wealth and comfort, and factory work became all the more foreign. Kwon Insuk, a member of the class of 1987, came from a solid middle-class background; her father was a government official, and her postgraduation goal had been doctoral studies in France. Neither Kim Munsu in the 1970s nor Pak Tong in the early 1980s would have dreamed of studying abroad, which was reserved only for the truly privileged. From the mid-1980s, with more students involved in campus activism and the general growth of the minjung movement, the path toward activism had a routinized and ritualized element. By the time a student was in her third or fourth year in school, it was expected that she would organize study groups or a campus rally and be prepared to spend time in prison. Working in a factory was the next step after prison. Not everyone who went to factory was a committed undongkwon, however. The “violent upheaval” of the time was such that even those students without a deep sense of commitment to the democratization movement felt it was almost “mandatory” to be a part of the student movement, which then led them to factories.37 Ch’oe Hanbae, a former ALMSA member, was unusual because his involvement in the labor movement came after he had had a white-collar job. With a bachelor’s degree in business management, Ch’oe had worked in the marketing department at a large corporation and had been conducting marketing research in the sweatshop district of the Peace Market area. He was very impressed with the workers who remained dignified in spite of “hell-like working conditions.” Especially impressive for him was the fierce spirit of the Ch’onggye Textile Union workers. Not knowing how to go about getting involved in labor, he started as a handyman on a construction site and later acquired a license as a boiler technician. After stints at a paper mill and working for an electronics manufacturer, he found a job at Daewoo Apparel.38 Labor activists were concentrated in the Gyeonggido-Incheon area, which had the highest concentration of small-sized factories and a high concentration of workers, about half of all manufacturing workers in South Korea. The area was also known for high job turnover. Little skill was required for jobs, and the security screening of applicants was less thorough than in areas with large factories. Gyeonggido-Incheon was also close to Seoul, the center of the democratization movement. Would-be workers found it easy to blend in and to find fellow undongkwon individuals in the 37. For a set of informative interviews with female student activists who went to work in factories in the 1980s, see Kim, Class Struggle or Family Struggle? 134–39. 38. Sonoryon, “Sonoryon popchong t’ujaeng kirok,” 113–14.

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area. In the mid-1980s when a female university student went to work in a small electronics factory with 140 employees in Incheon, for example, she discovered that there were at least ten student labor activists in her factory alone.39 Although female activists seldom needed to acquire skills before getting a factory job since few jobs required skills, many male activists went to vocational schools to get licenses as welders, millers, or lathe operators, spending from three months to a year getting this training. These skills made it easier for them to find jobs and receive a high salary, which was essential for those who expected to spend their entire lives as workers. Having a skill also made it easier to find work when in hiding from the police, which sometimes lasted for years.40 Despite the increased number of disguised workers and the relatively reduced level of isolation, however, changing one’s social identity to a worker required a great deal of courage and determination for even the most committed. Yi Subong, a member of the class of 1985, spent six years working in factories and a few more years as a union representative after graduating from Korea University. The initial decision to work in a factory was a “difficult and lonely” one, however. Before making up his mind soon after graduation, he had spent a year in the library reading up on “historical materialism” and “dialectical materialism.” He then gathered a group of like-minded classmates in Incheon and looked for an experienced school senior who would help him find a factory job.41 Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, labor activities were subjected to severe state repression, and even in the mid-1980s, organizing a labor union required one’s willingness to face torture and long prison terms, not to mention social disapproval.42 As one former labor activist remarked, an activist risked the label of pro-communist, which was “akin to being a leper.”43 The government and the mass media portrayed the intellectual labor activists as pro-communists, agitators, and troublemakers who were only interested in creating problems instead of being genuinely concerned about the welfare of workers or the nation. During the Kuro Strike in 1985, for example, management forced the Kuro workers to watch a television special called “Kudul un nugu in’ga? Wijang ch’wiopcha, pulsun punja!” 39. Kim, Class Struggle or Family Struggle? 135. 40. MBC, Ije nun marhalsu itta: Han’guk ui chinbo, 1–pu. 41. Yi Subong, interview, Seoul, August 13, 2003. 42. One former activist said in an interview for a television documentary that labor activists also had to be willing to face possibly even death. MBC, Ije nun marhalsu itta: Han’guk ui chinbo, 1–pu. 43. Ibid.

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(Who are they? The disguised workers, impure elements!)44 Although some workers thought the Kuro strikers looked really “cool” and some openly wished their factory had disguised workers who could initiate a strike, many remained suspicious of intellectual labor activists.45 The NLDLM was brutally crushed upon its inception in 1981. Twenty-five of its members were illegally confined for weeks in the infamous National Police Headquarters and tortured until they “confessed” that they were pro-communists. The members were sentenced to long prison terms, and the main leader, Yi T’aebok, spent eight years in prison. Many intellectuals did not last long in factories. The basic challenge for them was adjustment to factory life. It was critical to master necessary skills to gain authority and legitimacy as workers, but they were slow at learning these skills.46 Many were also prone to injuries (one former activist mused it was because they were constantly thinking of how to befriend fellow workers or organize an underground circle while working47). For Yun Nansil, who started work in 1986, the physical labor and the supervisor’s constant reproaches about her clumsiness were too overwhelming. Her initial plan to organize workers in the factory quickly faded, and she quit after a year.48 The unaccustomed physical labor, the sheer boredom from repetitive work, the alienating working environment, family pressures, management suspicion, their own impatience with the workers, and the feeling that they were not making an impact drove many of them to quit after only a few months.49 Many instead became labor counselors, organizers of study groups outside factories, night school teachers, and staff members of labor organizations. Very few stayed in a plant long enough to make an impact—to organize a union where none existed or to lead a strike and successfully conclude it.

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The Daewoo Auto Strike and the T’ongil Democratic Union

One of the most successful examples of labor activism by intellectuals, and indeed of general labor-management negotiations in South Korean labor 44. Pulsun punja literally means “impure elements” and usually refers to North Korean spies and South Korean sympathizers of North Korea or anyone perceived to be destabilizing the existing social order. 45. For a further discussion of workers’ reactions to student labor activists, see CISJD, Seongnam chiyok silt’ae wa nodong undong, 93–94; Kim, Class Struggle or Family Struggle? 139–43. 46. Yi Subong, interview, Seoul, August 13, 2003. 47. Yun Yongsang, interview, Seoul, July 29, 2005. 48. MBC, Ije nun marhalsu itta: Han’guk ui chinbo, 1–pu. 49. Those who considered themselves “introverts” felt a tremendous pressure to engage in conversations with workers but were unable to do so. One rather shy female student quit after a year of working as a sewing machine operator in three different sweatshops. See Kim, Class Struggle or Family Struggle? 136.

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history, was the case of Daewoo Auto in 1984. The Daewoo Auto Union had been company-controlled, with its leadership in the hands of one man from 1976 to 1985.50 A number of workers broke away from the official union, organizing an alternative, democratic union and choosing their own representatives. Two of the three negotiators were intellectual labor activists51 who successfully guided their union through the final stage of negotiations. They brought the chairman of the Daewoo group to the table, “an unprecedented feat in a chaebol-owned company,” as Daewoo had been considered a “good place” for workers and also “immune to collective action.”52 The Daewoo Auto Strike was an example of the dedication and good organizational skills of intellectual labor activists. The activists first organized a small group in the factory whose members later became the most active in the strike, publishing newsletters and leading the rest of the workers to a consensus. But the Daewoo Auto Strike was one of the few successful cases of labor negotiations initiated by intellectuals; most were unsuccessful and, even if initially successful, were met with the formidable forces of state and management, as illustrated in the following case. The T’ongil Corporation, a ball-bearing manufacturer, was the third largest plant in the Changwon Industrial Complex, with 2,800 employees in its production lines. In 1985, as the company-controlled union had failed to increase wages for years, workers decided to form a new task force separate from the existing union to negotiate a wage increase. Mun Songhyon, a graduate of Seoul National University, was elected chair of the task force. The company immediately branded him a North Korean spy who had infiltrated to “instigate a strike, not a wage increase.”53 Mun openly acknowledged his university background to the workers, who responded approvingly, saying, “There is no law stipulating that university graduates work only for management. We workers need them, too.”54 The company continued to harass the workers and Mun, even after signing a new contract on the wage increase. The workers removed the president of the previous union with a vote of no confidence and elected Mun as an officer in the newly formed union. Two months later, Mun was arrested

50. Ogle, South Korea: Dissent, 109. 51. Song Kyongp’yong was a university graduate and Hong Yongp’yo was dismissed from Yonsei University for his student activism. Asia Watch, Human Rights in Korea, 250–60. 52. Ogle, South Korea: Dissent, 109–11. 53. CISJD, Busan chiyok silt’ae wa nodong undong, 152. 54. Ibid., 154. Mun Songhyon was widely respected by both workers and student labor activists in the 1980s. He also became the president of the National Democratic Metal Union in the 1990s, the first university graduate in South Korea’s labor history to occupy the post. See “Saebom e mannan saram.”

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for violating the National Security Law. The remaining union officers were beaten, dismissed, or transferred to other regions, and the rank-and-file workers were shown free anticommunist films. Although the T’ongil case was initially remarkably successful and transformed an existing companycontrolled union into a democratic union, the union became company friendly again.55 As the case of T’ongil illustrates, student labor activists faced tremendous obstacles from management and the state, and their initial success at labor negotiation became a prelude to even more suppression of workers.56 What made the difference for workers and society at large, therefore, was not so much their immediate or tangible impact in the factories. Rather, their willingness to forgo their middle-class futures and share the life of the worker— the discourse of moral privilege—brought further societal attention to labor, thereby shifting the terms and grounds of public debate on labor. Their willingness to bear the burden as disguised workers (therefore criminals) had a function of “shifting social resources” to labor,57 as one observer remarked. The successful Daewoo Auto Strike, led by two student labor activists, so impressed one worker that he became active in labor organizing.58 It was not uncommon to have workers wish that their factory had “disguised workers” to initiate a strike or some type of action that they themselves felt powerless to initiate. The court testimonies of those on trial for organizing labor activities were often smuggled out, copied, circulated, and widely read, further generating and shaping the public debate on labor.59 The spectacle of privileged youths giving up their status and future for the cause of the working class was in direct opposition to the dreams, expectations, and ambitions of South Korea’s rapidly rising middle class. The case of Kwon Insuk, introduced in chapter 6, was its worst nightmare come true. Many middle-class families had sons and daughters in factories and prisons. The possibility of their own children facing the same predicament as Kwon, along with their desire to see the end of the military regime, gave rise to crucial, albeit limited, support for the June Uprising in 1987, which eventually led to South Korea’s transition toward parliamentary democracy.60 55. CISJD, Busan chiyok silt’ae wa nodong undong, 161–62. 56. For similar cases of efforts by student labor activists to form democratic unions that were later turned into company-controlled unions, see CISJD, Seongnam chiyok silt’ae wa nodong undong, 115–21; CISJD, Busan chiyok silt’ae wa nodong undong, 127–47. 57. Im Chaegyong, interview, Seoul, May 11, 1993. 58. Sonoryon, “Sonoryon popchong t’ujaeng kirok,” 106. 59. For example, court testimony by ALMSA members were transcribed as “Records of Sonoryon’s Struggle in Court” and were distributed widely among factory workers. 60. An unprecedented number of civic groups, including women’s groups and Buddhist monks, became part of the campaign to support Kwon Insuk during and after her trial. These groups

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The Great Labor Struggle of 1987

Despite the insistence of undongkwon that labor organizing, not political reform, was most critical to social change, and despite their own valiant efforts at labor activism, it was their success in bringing political reform as a result of the 1987 June Uprising that made it possible in part for workers to rise up on their own. In June 1987, South Korea witnessed a month-long nationwide protest waged by people from all walks of life that led the ruling party to declare its promise of reform on June 29. This declaration and the subsequent presidential election in December 1987 marked South Korea’s transition to parliamentary democracy. A series of events from early 1987 triggered this protest: the death, in January, of a third-year Seoul National University student as a result of being tortured; a successful campaign waged by the newly formed opposition party in the National Assembly election in February, which advocated immediate democratization and revision of the constitution; and Chun Doo Hwan’s announcement that he would suspend further discussion and consideration of constitutional revision until after the Olympics and would choose his successor through the existing electoral college system on April 13. Against this, the dissident groups and the main opposition party formed a pan-citizens’ organization to oppose the “4.13. decision” and announced a citizens’ rally for June 10th. From June 10 through June 29, hundreds of thousands of South Koreans participated in demanding constitutional revision and the resignation of Chun Doo Hwan. The ruling party’s promise of political reform was issued by Roh Tae Woo, Chun Doo Hwan’s successor in the party, on June 29, 1987. It included the revision of the constitution, direct popular election of the president, amnesty for Kim Dae Jung and other dissident leaders, and liberalization of various laws to protect the civil rights and liberties of the South Koreans. Soon after the June 29 Declaration, thousands and thousands of workers rose up to demand rights to unionize, better wages, and humane and just treatment. Virtually all of South Korea was affected by daily work stoppages, wildcat strikes, and street demonstrations. This was the largest labor protest since 1945.61 The promised political reform was received enthusiastically by nearly everyone in South Korea but offered little in the way of

formed the Joint Task Force on Sexual Torture by Puch’on Police, publicized this event through newsletters and public statements, and helped to bring a legal victory for Kwon. “ ‘Uridul ui ttal,’ Kwon-yang,” 567–81. For a detailed account of middle-class participation in the 1987 June Uprising, see Kim, Democratization in Korea, esp. 80–95. 61. For a detailed account of the Great Labor Struggle, see Koo, Korean Workers, 153–217.

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workers’ rights or improved working conditions. The changed political atmosphere around the promised reform, however, enabled workers to voice their pent-up grievances. At the end of what South Korean workers and activists call the Great Labor Struggle, South Korean labor had undergone the most militant and successful labor activism of the four newly industrialized countries (South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, and Hong Kong), pushing pay increases to double digits in 1987 and organizing 2,000 new unions in 1988.62 Most of the literature and social commentary on the Great Labor Struggle suggests that it was purely spontaneous and that the undongkwon had little role in it.63 By then, many undongkwon individuals had already left factories, and those who remained were concentrated in the GyeonggidoIncheon area, far from the southeast region where the most militant protest had taken place. The workers’ protests spread like wildfire; they could not have been organized or coordinated by any particular group or with clearly defined goals and directions. Many of the undongkwon, along with the rest of society, watched the unfolding scene with a sense of bewilderment and even skepticism. In some cases, undongkwon activists attempted to coordinate factory protests into some sort of regional alliance but were rebuffed by workers.64 Still, the struggle cannot be adequately considered outside the context of the continuous and vociferous discourse of labor in the 1980s in which undongkwon intellectuals played a significant role. As I have shown so far, throughout the 1980s, thousands of undongkwon activists went into factories and organized underground study groups and small groups among workers. Although undongkwon activists were not directly involved in the 1987 struggle, it is not difficult to imagine that at least some of the workers had connections to the undongkwon, however tenuous, through either these underground groups or other networks that had existed before the massive mobilization in 1987.65 Moreover, those undongkwon activists who had left factories earlier played an active role during the struggle, distributing pamphlets in subway stations, streets, and factories; they provided 62. Ogle, South Korea: Dissent, 121–69. 63. Koo, Korean Workers, 162–63. However, Koo argues that despite its apparent spontaneity, there were prior efforts to organize labor unions among some workers: “The 1987 labor uprising was spontaneous only in the sense that a majority of the disputes occurred without premeditation, planning, or organizational leadership, not in the sense that workers simply reacted to the circumstances in a purely impulsive and irrational manner in the absence of prior efforts to organize collective resistance.” Ibid., 163. 64. Chong Ch’angyun, interview, Seoul, August 18, 2003. 65. See Koo, Korean Workers, 163 n. 7.

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practical and administrative assistance to the strikers at big plants.66 Many of them became staff members of the labor organizations that were created in the aftermath of the 1987 struggle, such as the Chon’guk Minju Nodong Chohap Ch’ong Yonmaeng (Minju Noch’ong, Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, or KCTU).

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Representation and Historical Accountability

Although South Korea’s transition to parliamentary democracy in the late 1980s brought the much-hoped-for political reform, it is crucial to point out that this transition was accompanied by globalization and neoliberal labor policies.67 Labor since that time has had difficulties maintaining its hard-won rights and has faced multiple challenges.68 The transition also accompanied a paradigm shift within the larger social movement: the 1980s emancipatory narrative of minjung, with its ontological place in the social movement, was no longer tenable; the new social movement in the post1987 era centered on the discourse of “citizen”: articulating issues “largely on the basis of interest, as a right-bearing and right-claiming citizen.”69 The shift obviated the need for intellectuals’ representation and minjung’s privileged place in the social movement. After the 1990s, one would be hard pressed to find an undongkwon forging her identification card, hoping to lead workers into a revolution. Most undongkwon activists in the alliance reverted back to their nonworker status, an option few workers had. This changed sociohistorical landscape in the post-1987 era tempers any hasty celebration of the historical role of intellectuals in the labor movement of the 1980s. Although most of the challenges facing the post-1987 labor movement stem from structural factors beyond its control, neoliberal policy and globalization being the most obvious, some are related to the lingering impact of the undongkwon’s involvement in labor. As I previously discussed, the 1980s social movement in general was beset by an ideological struggle between the “nationalist” (National Liberation) and “socialist” (People’s Democracy) groups. According to Mun Songhyon, these two ideological currents still dictated much of the discussion and decision-making process in the democratic labor movement groups in the 1990s, particularly 66. Yi Subong, interview, Seoul, August 13, 2003. 67. Scholars such as Nae Hui Kang argue that in South Korea neoliberal policy has been imposed from the early 1980s. Kang, “Neoliberalism and the Vacillation of Culture.” 68. For a detailed account of the post-1990s labor movement, see Koo, Korean Workers, 189–217. 69. Lee, “South Korean Student Movement,” 156.

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in the KCTU. Decisions were often made according to one’s ideological or sectarian affiliation at the expense of the general welfare of the workers as a whole. At Hyundai Auto, for example, a democratic union that had been organized after a prolonged strike dissolved mainly due to a struggle for hegemony among various sectarian groups in the union. Mun Songhyon remarked that the National Democratic Metal Union, of which he was president in 2003, was divided among three sectarian groups at the time.70 The ideological struggle is certainly limited to the small number of labor organizations and does not represent the most crucial issue for the South Korean labor movement. But it reminds us that many years after the majority of undongkwon individuals left factories, the labor movement is still left to deal with the material and discursive impact of the 1980s’ alliance. This reminds us of the Alcoffian notion of historical accountability discussed in the Introduction. One cannot deny that the decision of the intellectuals to “move over,” to revert back to their non-minjung social category, for whatever reason, was possible because of their privileged social position. The undongkwon may have retreated, but their words still reverberate, even as sociopolitical structures and intellectual paradigms have shifted.

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70. Mun Songhyon, interview, Seoul, August 19, 2003.

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8. THE SUBJECT AS THE SUBJECTED

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Intellectuals and Workers in Labor Literature

This chapter explores the literary representation of intellectuals and workers in short stories and novels known variously as labor literature (nodong munhak), class literature (kyegup munhak), or novels of labor (nodong sosol ),1 published in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Many authors of this literature were undongkwon intellectuals who had become factory workers,2 and much of their work was motivated by their own factory experiences and the urgency of current sociopolitical circumstances. They chose realism, both in terms of their subject matter and their narrative structure, and they conceived of their work as an extension of labor activism and viewed their literature as having a potential revolutionary function. I recognize the complexities involved in literary representation and the fact that realist fiction claims authority by asserting “a privileged relationship with reality.”3 But I am interested in novels of labor because of their claim to this privileged relationship with reality. Many novels of labor were avowedly autobiographical, offering a rare glimpse into the inner dynamics of intellectual-worker alliances—the dreams, hopes, disappointments, and failings of the individuals in the alliance.4 They are especially valuable 1. My use of “novel of labor” in this chapter is interchangeable with these other terms. 2. While the personal identities of some authors were initially unknown, and not every labor novelist was an intellectual labor activist, a fair number of critically acclaimed writers of novels of labor turned out to be labor activists. For example, four out of the five writers discussed by literary critics at a roundtable discussion sponsored by the quarterly journal Ch’angjak kwa pip’yong in 1993 were intellectual labor activists. See Yom et al., “90–yondae sosol ui hurum.” 3. Anderson, Limits of Realism, 7; quoted in Liu, Translingual Practice, 110. 4. Kim, “Monjo ‘chonhyong’ e taehae komin haja,” 173.

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because the few existing accounts on the minjung movement focus exclusively on historical and sociopolitical factors behind the alliance and seldom venture into the labyrinth of the multifaceted and complex relationship between workers and intellectuals in the alliance. I survey fiction produced mostly by intellectual labor activists, which had some standing in literary circles. Although their authors insist upon treating their literary productions as unmediated reflections of reality, I show how novels of labor, emerging at the onset of South Korea’s transition to parliamentary democracy and the attendant paradigm shift in the social movement (discussed in chapter 7) functioned as an interpellation. This literature called into existence the subjecthood of the working class that had yet to materialize even after the great surge of the 1980s revolutionary movement. At the same time, writing novels of labor represented for the intellectuals the process of rearticulating their self-identity; their indeterminate and problematic experiences in the alliance were reinscribed with historical meaning and the possibilities of merging their identity with that of the collective.

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The Emergence of Labor Literature in the 1980s

Both historical vicissitudes and the larger literary and cultural structures of Korea determined the trajectory of novels of labor and their reception in society. During the colonial period, these novels were popular and even predominant, until they were pushed into oblivion in the late 1930s by the mobilization for war and intensified censorship. Prominent writers such as Yi Kiyong and Han Sorya are known for their proletariat literature and for their experimentation with a variety of narrative structures. With the organization of proletariat writers (who, with a few exceptions, were not workers themselves but were grouped as such for the subject matter of their work) into the Choson P’urollet’aria Yesulga Tongmaeng (Korean Artist Proletariat Federation, KAPF) in 1925 and with the influence of socialist realism, writers produced nearly a hundred works of proletarian literature from 1925 to 1938.5 After 1945, the decimation of the labor movement and the subsequent rise of anticommunism obliterated proletariat literature.6 When labor literature reemerged in the late 1970s, its narrative structure was mostly memoir or “reportage,” in which authors interwove their own

5. An, ed., Han’guk nodong sosol chonjip, 489–501. 6. Ku et al., “Hyon tan’gye minjok munhak,” 15.

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individual involvement in the 1970s labor movement with historical events.7 In the early 1980s, a number of female workers published autobiographies with well-known commercial publishing houses, including both powerful stories of their journey from destitute farm girls to union activists and insightful social commentary.8 It was not until the late 1980s that literary critics began to take labor literature seriously. With the publication and critical reception of Chong Hwajin’s short story “Soenmulch’orom” (Like a metallic stain) in 1987, critics claimed that labor literature had carved for itself a legitimate and significant place in the literary scene.9 Largely based on the author’s own experience as a lathe operator, the story follows a group of male workers in a foundry in their attempt to wage a strike. It details individual workers’ inner struggles as well as those they had with management. Literary critic Kim Myongin hailed “Soenmulch’orom” as “one of the first pieces of prose fiction that objectified the fate and historical path of the working class at the hands of the working class.” He also applauded it for having overcome much of the “emotionalism and defeatism” of earlier labor literature.10 Another critic praised it as signaling the emergence of the professional worker-writer (nodongja chonmun chakka) and expanding the scope of the genre of proletariat literature itself.11 “Soenmulch’orom” was also regarded as a departure from previous labor literature because of its portrayal of the lives and struggles of male workers. These characters were seen as more “legitimate” representations of the working class; previous labor literature of the 1970s had tended to focus mainly on women workers whose status as working class was considered “temporary.”12 All of these qualities signaled the creation of what Kim Myongin called representative prototypes (taep’yojok chonhyong) of labor literature.13 While the focus of this chapter is not to engage with gender and class ideologies of (mostly male) critics who found women’s writings “emotional and defeatist” and viewed women workers as “temporary,”14 it is important to point out that many of these critics’ reactions were embedded in the 7. Kim, “Monjo ‘chonhyong’ e taehae komin haja,” 179. For a roundtable discussion on these writers, see Ch’oe et al., “Minjok munhak kwa minjung munhak.” 8. Barraclough, “When Korean Working-class Women Began to Write.” 9. Chong, “Soenmulch’orom.” 10. Kim, “Monjo ‘chonhyong’ e taehae komin haja,” 179. 11. Ch’oe et al., “Minjok munhak kwa minjung munhak,” 50. 12. Kim, “Monjo ‘chonhyong’ e taehae komin haja,” 179. 13. Ibid., 190; Kim, Minjok munhak undong, 397. This short story was also enormously popular among workers. Even before it was published in 1987, the handwritten draft circulated among workers in the Gyeonggido-Incheon industrial complex who adapted it for their own plays and comic books, freely reshaping the story by incorporating their own experiences. 14. See chapter 6, n. 44, for a brief discussion about this issue.

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larger cultural and literary structures that “erased women workers from the ‘brotherhood of the working class,’ ” as aptly put by Ruth Barraclough.15 Barraclough has shown how women workers’ invisibility as a real working class both in the labor movement and in society at large also affected their invisibility in the literary scene.16 She points out that critics did not take women workers’ writings seriously because “autobiography by working-class women was not a part of any recognizable tradition either in literature or socially,” as literature by and large was still part of the domain of the “traditionally cultured and middle class.” She further suggests that it was not until “labor literature spoke in the idiom of the larger literary scene that it gained attention and acclaim.” With the appearance of “Soenmulch’orom” and the ensuing emergence of a series of labor novels, there followed intense debates among writers and critics about the role of such literature in the larger social movement. Some critics saw the production and popularity of novels of labor as reflecting the advanced consciousness of the working class and the growth and maturity of the minjung movement in general. Accordingly, these critics argued, the task of the novel of labor was not only to truthfully reflect reality but also to suggest and anticipate prospects for social change.17 Thus, writers should put forth workers as the subject of social change; writers should explore fully the class-based consciousness supposedly budding in these struggles, what critics called aesthetics of fighting (ssaum ui mihak); and writers themselves should project to society a revolutionary optimism and a “totalistic perspective and vision.”18 The critics exhorted authors to create “representative prototypes.” Simply put, the creation of representative prototypical individuals and situations would come about when the “author’s subjective choice converged with the present society’s objective needs.” The individual author’s choice was therefore determined by “his or her ability to delineate correctly the objective needs of the present society.”19 This kind of demand for representative prototypes was not particular to 1980s South Korea. Frederick Engels had proposed that realism was “about 15. I am very much indebted to Ruth Barraclough for her incisive and invaluable comments on a draft of this chapter and for sharing her thoughts on the topic with me. All the quotes without attribution in this paragraph are from her comments. 16. Barraclough, “When Korean Working-Class Women Began to Write.” It is published in Korean as Paerok’ullop’u, “Han’guk yosong nodongja.” 17. Yun, “Haesol,” 307. Again, compare this statement with the following: “Modern Chinese literature did more than just mirror the chaotic condition of its age, for it had been burdened from birth with an enormous responsibility.” Anderson, Limits of Realism, 3. 18. Ku et al., “Hyon tan’gye minjok munhak,” 16, 53. 19. Kim, “Monjo ‘chonhyong’ e taehae komin haja,” 173.

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reproducing truthfully prototypical characters in prototypical situations.”20 Lucien Goldmann theorized that literature encompasses the “totalistic” condition of life.21 As China’s great writer Lu Xun defined realism as “writing largely about others,”22 realism has traditionally appealed to writers in part because it directs attention to the “others” of society, historically overlooked, disenfranchised groups. Drawing these neglected groups into serious literature, the writers hoped to “fundamentally redefine social relations,” whether in China in the 1920s and 1930s or Korea in the 1980s. During the colonial era, Korean realist authors most often chose to depict peasants, whom they described as “integral and whole, healthy and naturally resistant to the worst psychological danger of colonialism.”23 Likewise, the writers of novels of labor in the 1980s depicted workers as embodying these same qualities.

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Labor Literature and Revolution

Most authors and critics of novels of labor in the 1980s saw their literary production as a continuation of labor activism. Many of the authors were working in factories at the time they were writing. Chong Hwajin, the author of “Soenmulch’orom,” began his labor activism from his first year in college as a teacher for a workers’ night school. His daily encounter with the “decimated mass of workers” had shattered his previous ambition to become a writer and set him on the road to becoming a labor activist. When an injury forced him to take time off from factory work (he was a lathe operator), he began writing “Soenmulch’orom,” his first short story. Much like the authors of West Germany’s “literature of the student movement,” Chong believed that literature should serve “as a weapon for the liberation of all minjung.”24 Pang Hyonsok, the author of several critically well-received short stories, who was also a student labor activist at the time, wrote: “I cried many times writing these stories, [thinking of ] people I have met and the memories of what we have been through together.” For him, the literary merit of his work was to be determined by “how correctly I portrayed the unlimited creativity and the bright hope of those [workers], who did not lose hope for tomorrow in spite of brutal economic and political oppression.”25 20. Quoted in Kim, Minjok munhak undong, 194–210. 21. See Goldmann, Hidden God, 35. 22. Anderson, Limits of Realism, 26. 23. Nelson, “Nationalism and Agrarian Populism,” 56. 24. Chong, “Munhak ul haebang ui mugiro,” 64–65. On West Germany’s “literature of the student movement,” see, among others, Adelson, Crisis of Subjectivity. 25. Pang, “Hugi,” 296.

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The author of P’aop (The strike), An Chaesong, was also a student labor activist. Dismissed from Gangwon National University in 1980, he worked in factories in the Kuro Industrial Complex area from 1984 to 1986. P’aop is set in a factory, and its various themes, events, and characters are based on the author’s own experiences—including his involvement in underground study groups, the political education of the workers, the struggles of fellow dismissed workers seeking to be reinstated ( pokchik t’ujaeng), organizing a union, waging strikes, the self-immolation of a fellow worker, imprisonment, and the violence of the kusadae26 and police. Indeed, the novel was advertised as “containing every aspect of the 1980s labor movement.” Literary critics also shared the authors’ sense of social responsibility as a writer. It was not unusual for critics to praise a new author in terms not of literary merit but of his or her revolutionary ideals and commitment. Yun Chongmo, a writer well known for her minjung-oriented work, praised an author for his “perspectives and ideals” and the level of his commitment to the goals of people’s liberation and reunification.27 Another critic, Kim Myongin, commented that writing novels of labor should be viewed as a division of labor within the movement; it was a way to continue one’s activism and a way to fulfill the movement’s tasks, especially when one was dismissed from a job, thereby “maintaining one’s identity as a worker and avoiding the pitfall of becoming an intellectual or a petit-bourgeois.” Kim opined that this idea of writing as a form of division of labor seemed to be spreading within the movement, and this was as it should be.28 Given these pronouncements by both writers and critics, the charge by some critics that novels of labor were “ideological” and lacked “that fundamental stuff ” was neither baseless nor without historical precedent. We need only to recall the earlier proletariat writer Pak Yonghui’s famous statement after he defected from the KAPF: “What we have gained is ideology and what we have lost is art.”29 As far as the function of literature was concerned, the worldview of labor novelists was at odds with that of their “more refined” counterparts and critics, much as in 1930s colonial Korea where “literary Bolsheviks” set themselves apart from “pure writers.”30 26. Literally meaning “save the company,” it refers to thugs hired by factory owners to counter and threaten the workers who were engaged in union organizing or other activities deemed anticompany. 27. Yun, “Hugi,” 308. 28. Ch’oe et al., “Minjok munhak kwa minjung munhak,” 50. 29. Quoted in Choi, “Rethinking Korean Literary Modernity,” 24. Pak was active in writing proletariat literature in the 1920s and 1930s and was one of the founders of KAPF. He defected from it in 1934. 30. Chung, “Korean and Chinese Experience of Marxism,” 55–58.

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In labor novels of the late 1980s and early 1990s, boundaries between art and life blurred, similar to the literature of “socialist realism.” In socialist realism, art and literature must didactically represent ideal behavior for emulation rather than just criticize society; literature should represent the way things ought to be in a socialist society and not the way they “really are.”31 Likewise, many characters of labor novels served “as a receptacle for the lessons” an author desires the reader to learn. Much as in the minjung movement of the late 1980s, “a priori conceptual structures” dominated in these works, and at times the author’s task seemed to be only to fill out their political content. Many of these writers placed their fictional work in a verifiable historical context, with specific references to contemporary circumstances and events, as in the case of P’aop.32 The juxtaposing of historical events and persons with plots and dramatis personae, as well as the frequent references to texts then in circulation within the movement, created a documentary-like quality in these works. For example, in Ch’a Chuok’s novel, Hamkke kaja uri (Let us go together), which I discuss later, protagonist Kyongch’ol accuses his fellow activists of “bowing to spontaneity.” In the late 1980s, an underground pamphlet had criticized the organization ALMSA for “bowing to spontaneity,” as discussed in chapter 7. An otherwise sympathetic critic protested that labeling reportage as fiction did not make fiction out of reportage.33 Another critic cautiously suggested that labor novels might improve if authors could recognize the distinction between documentary and prose fiction.34 Yet another critic commented: “Although many novels of labor capture workers’ lives with cool-headed, realistic analysis, and precise description, the majority of labor novels are limited to the description of various forms of workers’ struggles: the struggle to organize a union or to defend it, the struggle to demand wage increases, the struggle to improve working conditions, and so on.”35 Again, South Korea’s labor novels were not exceptional in this respect. The West German New Subjectivity writers used “traditional narrative structures” such as autobiography, biography, and documentary and were criticized “for their obliviously naive faith in the continued possibility to tell it ‘like it is.’ ”36 According to critics, these narrative structures rely upon the 31. Anagnost, Nation Past-Times, 54. 32. This of course was a common practice of realism. For further discussion on relations between reality and realism, see Huters, ed., Reading the Modern Chinese Short Story. 33. Ch’oe et al., “Minjok munhak kwa minjung munhak,” 46. 34. Kim, “ ‘Nodong’ munhak kwa nodong ‘munhak,’ ” 511. 35. Ku et al., “Hyon tan’gye minjok munhak,” 16. 36. See Adelson, Crisis of Subjectivity, 27.

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reader’s empathy with a protagonist and are therefore anachronistic, aesthetically and politically.37 The Chinese literary scene also experienced an explosion of reportage in the mid-1980s concerning “virtually all conceivable social and cultural issues.”38 The blurring of fact and fiction by labor novelists stemmed in part from their shared belief that their work should “inform” and “alert” the public about the suffering of workers. In the 1970s, the labor novel writer Yi T’aekchu, the author of the Nulgun nodongja ui norae (The old worker’s song), remarked that his novel was not intended to be a creative literary work; it was meant to “show ordinary readers the reality of workers’ lives, since the mass media was not doing its job properly.”39 In the late 1980s, An Chaesong, the author of P’aop, related the urgency involved in writing the novel: the “mere act of recording what actually happened” was acutely necessary for the movement, serving as a kind of “literary propaganda.”40

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The Bifurcation between Intellectual and Worker

If writers’ commonly shared view of literature as a means for social change informed the narrative structure of labor novels, then their literary representation of intellectual-worker relations was deeply embedded in the utopian vision of the minjung movement. In this utopian imagination, the worker was projected as an inherent revolutionary and a rightful subject of future society. In the practice of the minjung movement, however, the worker as a “victim/hero would still require the vision and guidance” of intellectuals before being transformed into “effective fighting revolutionary material.”41 The tension between the need for intellectuals to actively insert themselves into constructing workers’ revolutionary subjectivity and the need to simultaneously efface this active presence constantly beset the 1980s minjung movement. The identity shift of intellectuals to factory workers also hinged on and magnified this tension: intellectuals sought to fuse with the minjung through their own sacrifice and self-effacement, but at the same time their actions could be considered a sacrifice only given the great social inequality they sought to eliminate. This problematic constituted one of the common themes of labor novels as well. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41.

Ibid.; Kosta, Recasting Autobiography. Zhang, “Narrative, Ideology, Subjectivity,” 211. Quoted in Ch’oe et al., “Minjok munhak kwa minjung munhak,” 44. An, “Chakka ui mal,” 318. Feuerwerker, “The Dialectics of Struggle,” 70.

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By emphasizing working-class partisan-ness (tangp’asong),42 which manifested itself in the stereotypical presentation of intellectuals and workers, labor novels prioritized working-class subjectivity. From seasoned writers to emerging novices, authors invariably portrayed workers as the embodiment of purity and a healthy conscience, and as possessing unswerving class identity. On the other hand, intellectuals, with their usual disposition to question and ponder, often failed to act at critical points and ended up betraying the revolutionary cause. This bifurcation between the intellectual and the worker is perhaps most unrelenting in Ch’a Chuok’s Hamkke kaja uri, a novel written by a former student labor activist with several years of factory experience. This novel is particularly pertinent for us since three of its five main protagonists are student labor activists, each representing a different phase of the worker-student alliance of the 1980s. The novel presents a number of “prototypical” portrayals of these student labor activists. Hamkke kaja uri can be broken into two parts. In the first, the protagonist Kyesun is dismissed in the aftermath of an unsuccessful wage-increase struggle initiated by Mija and Kyongch’ol, both student worker activists. Kyesun’s romantic relationship with Kyongch’ol also ends tragically as she undergoes an unwanted abortion due to Kyongch’ol’s indifference and neglect. The second part of the novel deals with Kyesun’s involvement in organizing an underground study group aimed at preparing workers for unionization; this is accomplished with the help of yet another student labor activist, Suni. If the first part is about failure caused by a hasty decision by intellectuals to engage in a struggle without considering workers’ own sentiments or readiness, then the second part anticipates victory, as the struggle is based on class identity and the autonomous action of workers themselves.43 The mediating force between the first and second parts of the novel is Kyesun’s gradual transformation from “ordinary” factory worker into union organizer. In the beginning of the novel, Kyesun avoids her worker identity even though she is a highly skilled seamstress; she is ashamed of being a factory girl and pretends to be a student by carrying a backpack that was favored by students at the time. Her life revolves around her personal dreams of saving money, getting married, and having a house of her own. In the second part of the novel, she becomes not only a model labor activist but also a mature human being; she is principled but flexible, committed yet caring, firm yet gentle. She is also magnanimous; she forgives her former 42. See Chong, “Minjok munhak kwa nodongja kyegup munhak.” 43. Yun, “Haesol,” 311.

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lover Kyongch’ol who had caused her so much pain. It was through her romantic relationship with Kyongch’ol that she initially became involved in the labor movement, and it was also his change of heart that caused her to doubt the meaning and purpose of the movement before she became a committed activist by her own free will. Kyongch’ol is perhaps the most negative portrayal of an intellectual in all of the labor novels produced in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Formerly a militant student activist and presently leading a small underground group composed of student labor activists, Kyongch’ol always spins out his “theory” (mainly from Lenin’s What Is to Be Done?), often as a way to display his intellectual superiority over his fellow activists and as a means to preempt any meaningful discussion. Filled with “unrefined class-based anger,” he gradually becomes as problem-ridden and dehumanized as the system he seeks to overthrow. In the following passage, Kyongch’ol’s fellow activists discuss strategy for a wage-increase struggle, and some activists suggest that they should wait until the workers are ready and the overall situation turns favorable.

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[Kyongch’ol] quotes Lenin’s What Is to Be Done? “I’m sure you’ve all read it. . . . What you are mentioning is the economic perspective that Lenin has explicitly criticized in the newspaper Rabochaya Mysl, and I’m sure you all know this.” Kyongch’ol spoke as if he had recorded all of Lenin’s work in his brain. . . . He particularly stressed the part, “I’m sure you have all read Lenin” as if to say, “even if you’ve read it, how could you have understood its deep meanings?”44 Fellow activists are frustrated by Kyongch’ol’s tendency to go astray by always quoting Lenin and Marx, and they urge him to consider that the real situations at their factories did not warrant a quick action. But Kyongch’ol insists upon taking action: “Even at times like this, [Kyongch’ol’s] logic and fast talk are his most steadfast companion and shield; they shot out of his mouth into every corner of the room like ammunition: ‘Could you comrades possibly understand the concept of the dictatorship of proletariat, one of the principles of which is a democratic central leadership?’ ”45 In this novel, the student labor activists Kyongch’ol and Mija are directly responsible for the failure of the wage-increase struggle in Kyesun’s factory, which results in the dismissal of Kyesun and other workers. It was their decision to carry out the struggle in spite of the lukewarm response of the 44. Ch’a, Hamkke kaja uri, 105. 45. Ibid., 107–8.

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workers; as a result, ordinary workers such as Kyesun lost their jobs overnight without knowing exactly why. Although the historical circumstances of the failure of wage-increase struggles in 1985 and 1986 are far more complex than the way they are presented in this novel, the fear of losing one’s job haunted workers associating with intellectual labor activists. Kang Myongja, who had been part of an underground study group with student worker activists and had much respect for them, nevertheless became bitter, realizing after she was fired that they did not have to worry about their livelihood as she did.46 Former Wonp’ung Textile Union leader Yi Oksun recalled how her fellow dismissed workers, who could not find jobs because they were blacklisted, found solace in discussing their “glorious past” whenever they got together.47 As discussed in chapter 4, the 1980s South Korean democratization movement was not a rich field of radical literature or its critiques, as attested by the popularity of Lenin’s What Is to Be Done? during this time. Lenin reigned supreme among movement activists until the mid-1980s, in part due to the availability of the translation of his work and the paucity of other types of literature. The intellectuals’ “infatuation with struggles” dominated the labor movement for several years, forcing every labor activist to wrestle with the call to action; those who disagreed were often labeled as “economists” and “unionists.” Many labor activists (many of whom were intellectuals themselves) later criticized the intellectual worker activists for ignoring the workers’ immediate and specific issues and mobilizing the workers only to achieve their own political goals. The first part of the novel Hamkke kaja uri therefore typifies this historical trend.48 The reflections of Suni, the student labor activist who successfully guides Kyesun into becoming an activist, clearly reveal the author’s harsh indictment of the intellectuals of the 1980s labor movement. This indictment is also presented in the bifurcation of workers and intellectuals: The workers were pure and unsophisticated [t’ubak] but the students were so sure of themselves. . . . They did not expect even a tiny amount of learning from workers. Students always indiscriminately drop names of this and that, chipping away at the healthiness of workers, turning themselves into wavering intellectuals who know only how to talk and idle away time.49 46. 47. 48. 49.

MBC, Ije nun marhalsu itta: Han’guk ui chinbo, 1–pu. Yi, Na ije chuin toeo. Yun, “Haesol,” 312. Ch’a, Hamkke kaja uri, 180.

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Suni—and the author—accuses these intellectuals of misguiding and eventually letting down the workers who trusted in them. The intellectuals were “those who have filled their brains with rubbish, and cannot open themselves up, and therefore cannot receive the truthful emotions of other people . . . those who always have ready-made answers, those who maintain that fighting is the only way, [those who apotheosized workers] so much that they would not even talk to people who are not workers.”50 The activists who abandoned the struggle in its midst left the workers “in a sea of storms, looking for a lighthouse here and there,” making them lose hope in the struggle and in humanity in general, finally causing their “emotional bankruptcy.”51 The intellectual-worker bifurcation, as well as the notion that workers are inherently superior to intellectuals due to their purity and simplicity, is also most pronounced in “Kippal” (The banner).52 Although this short story initially received attention primarily for its new treatment of the Gwangju Uprising, the tension between a group of workers and intellectuals forms the core of this treatment, and the story suggests a triumph of the worker over the infantilized intellectual.53 The clear dichotomy between the solipsistic intellectual (represented by the night-school teacher Yun Kangil) and the mature worker (represented by former night-school student Hyongja) reaches its dramatic climax when Yun Kangil escapes the city of Gwangju before state troops advance while Hyongja remains in the provincial building and is killed by the troops. The author presents the dichotomy between intellectuals and workers through a set of contrasting pairs throughout the story, from the differing attitudes toward the labor movement to the contested issue of whether to take up arms during the Gwangju Uprising. When some university students (who teach at a night school) suggest that an a priori understanding is just as important as factory experience for successful labor organizing, Hyongja responds unequivocally that one needs at least three years of working at a factory before attempting to organize workers:

50. Ibid. 51. Ibid. 52. Hong, “Kippal.” When this story appeared in the influential quarterly journal Ch’angjak kwa pip’yong in 1988, it was immediately hailed as a departure from the previous literary treatment of the Gwangju Uprising: its protagonists were workers, it did not deal with the guilt complex of intellectuals and those who survived the massacre, and its author was a factory worker. See Ch’oe, “Gwangju hangjaeng ui sosorhwa.” It turned out that the author graduated from Ewha Women’s University and debuted as a writer with the publication of this story. 53. Cho, “Minjujuui minjok munhak.”

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But you [students] are too eager to apply the theory you have learned. At the least, you have to come in [to the factory] theoretically unified. Theory has its inherent tendency to propagate differences. Workers are swept this way and that way and eventually lose the sense of direction and autonomy. So rather than come individually, you need to come in organizationally, with a unified organization and theory. If not, it is better that you do not come at all. We will naturally become militant [chont’ujok] because of what we are.54 [Emphasis added] That workers are ontologically militant becomes an ironclad inevitability in this story, a claim buttressed by the conflict between intellectuals and workers on the issue of taking up arms during the Gwangju Uprising. The “softliners,” who wanted to turn in arms to the authorities, were mostly university students and intellectuals, while the “hard-liners,” who saw the return of arms as giving in to the authorities, were mostly workers and the lumpen proletariat.55 In “Kippal,” the intellectuals are just fancy talkers; as they begin to realize that the citizens of Gwangju are not going to give up their arms, they talk about waiting until the situation improves rather than “shed their blood meaninglessly” in an attempt to wage a city-wide uprising. Hyongja could not conceal her anger at and scorn for these intellectuals: “How can you talk about a retreat when things you’ve talked about all along, the people’s uprising, urban guerrilla fighting, are now actually happening?”56 The story concludes with an image of the intellectual as infantilized, thereby portraying the “superiority of the working class over intellectuals.”57 When Yun Kangil, the university student who taught at a night school, returns to the city after being in hiding, he visits Sunbun, one of the former night-school students, and falls into a coma-like sleep in her room. Sunbun gathers other former students of Yun Kangil, and when they go to work in the morning, they leave food and money for him. While there is nothing unusual or emblematic in the act of leaving money, and it is even expected in such a circumstance (Yun is in hiding and has no money), the scene of their walk toward the factory is in dramatic contrast with that of Yun sleeping in the room. As these workers start walking toward the factory, they are joined by a number of workers heading in the same direction. One male worker on a bicycle offers them a ride, his mouth pumping out steam 54. 55. 56. 57.

Hong, “Kippal,” 188. Ibid., 191–92. Ibid., 186. Cho, “Minjujuui minjok munhak,” 186.

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against the cold winter morning “as if rising out of a steam engine.” The workers’ hair blowing in the wind, together with their brown uniforms, creates an image of countless banners, hence perhaps the title “Kippal.” In contrast to this scene of life, vitality, and collectivism, the intellectual is sleeping in a room. An open hostility toward intellectuals as hypocrites and cowards is evident in a collection of short stories by Yi Tongch’ol. The title, Turora mongmuldura (Listen, you pool of diluted ink), is itself a direct expression of enmity toward intellectuals: diluted ink (mongmul ) is a disparaging and disapproving reference to intellectuals.58 In one of the short stories in the volume, a daughter of a well-to-do family, who had earlier gone into a factory despite her parents’ opposition, eventually quits factory work and marries a well-to-do university graduate who is disillusioned about the movement. Yi Tongch’ol calls them “these sons-of-bitches . . . talking about minjung and ‘our poor neighbors,’ while they spend their time idly in cafes sipping imported wine and nibbling imported cheese.”59

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Ideological Struggles and Workers

If the dichotomy between intellectual and worker was a common theme in these labor novels, another theme that became almost formulaic was that of the workers being victimized by intellectuals’ insistence on “struggles.” In P’aop, two former comrades who fought to keep a union going in the 1970s have not seen each other for more than a decade. Chin Yongman has become a counselor of a small labor group and Yi Sangsop has recently been dismissed for unionizing efforts in a factory. To Yi Sangsop, Chin Yongman is a changed man; even his previously commanding physique seems to have shrunk, and his face is full of wrinkles. Yi Sangsop always remembered Chin Yongman as a man to be reckoned with; when Chin Yongman was leading the struggle to keep the union years ago, “he knew nothing of compromises or giving up.” With his fierce determination, he had successfully led the struggle, ignoring threats from the police, management, and the state. Under Chin’s strong leadership, “fifteen hundred [union] members acted as if they were one.”60 When Chin Yongman learns from Yi Sangsop that Honggi, a student labor activist whom I discuss in more detail later, was involved in union 58. Yi, Turora mongmuldura; quoted in Takijawa, “Sam ui kuch’esong,” 122. 59. Quoted in Takijawa, “Sam ui kuch’esong,” 122. 60. An, P’aop, 40.

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organizing at Sangsop’s factory, he lashes out uncontrollably at the student labor activists: What those students do. . . . They don’t change much, do they? They are just interested in getting an end result. . . . [M]eanwhile, the mass of workers get fired because of them and are left to fend for themselves . . . and yet those students go around as if they’ve done something worthwhile. . . . Everywhere you go, it’s only the workers who get sacrificed.61 Sangsop is confused and pained to see the deep scars of defeatism in his former comrade, whom he had greatly respected. Chin Yongman complains further:

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What I’m worried about is that the student labor activists are in too much of a hurry. They don’t prepare. In some cases, they start fighting within a few days into the job and get fired. All they can think about is how to take workers out to the streets, with their slogans of anti-dictatorship. . . . What’s accomplished with that babble? Not only that, they talk about workers’ liberation, but they don’t actually give a damn about workers. They fight and split among themselves, getting the workers involved only to boost their group’s image. . . . Even worse, there was a case of two university students in the same factory where one of them informed against the other to management. They’re crazy, aren’t they?62 These are harsh words. They also echo Suni’s criticisms of Kyongch’ol and Mija in the novel discussed earlier, Hamkke kaja uri. These words reflect the widespread sentiment expressed in the aftermath of the failure of the wage-increase struggle in 1986 discussed in chapter 7. The impact of the “theoretical struggle” (inyom t’ujaeng), mainly carried out by intellectual labor activists, was far-reaching and insidious. The pedantic and jargonridden debates among intellectuals tended to further alienate workers, who felt they were becoming hostages to the intellectuals’ ideological squabbling. The intellectuals’ tendency to use movement jargon in their conversation and their frequent references to theoretical texts circulating within the movement did not help the situation. In P’aop, one of the workers shouts in frustration—and cynicism—as he listens to two arguing student 61. Ibid., 155. 62. Ibid.

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labor activists: “Yo, let me sleep. You smarties fight or whatever. We the uneducated will just follow what you tell us, okay?”63 P’aop also takes up the familiar theme of the bifurcation between worker and intellectual. When Honggi, the intellectual labor activist, reveals his university background and his decision to quit the factory to members of his underground study group, several workers express concern for his livelihood, especially since Honggi’s wife is pregnant. Honggi replies that something will work out, partly to assuage their worries. To those workers, however, Honggi’s seeming nonchalant attitude about his future is a reminder that intellectuals are fundamentally different from them:

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Yi Sangsop was relieved to hear that [things will be all right for Honggi], but he couldn’t help feeling at the same time a bit let down. It was as he had always thought . . . university graduates always have a way out. Tongyon [another worker in the study group] felt the same way.64 For a veteran worker such as Yi Sangsop, there was a fundamental and unbridgeable gap between workers and intellectuals, which the years of intellectuals’ devoted commitment to the labor movement could not erase or hide. As far as Sangsop was concerned, “a maggot is always a maggot no matter how hard he tries to crawl.” The reason for his bitterness is revealed some pages later, as he muses: “Students are smart to begin with; they have the learning, they have the connections, and [seven years in the labor movement] will bring them respect and even recognition. As for workers, there is nothing there but empty husks.”65 In Hwarhwasan (Active volcano), a two-volume novel set in a mining village on Mount T’aebaek, the gap between intellectual and worker is explored through the relationship between the female intellectual Miyong and the male worker Cheuk. When the novel begins, Cheuk is working in a mine, having left his factory work after a failed wage-increase struggle and also partly because of his misgivings about Miyong, who had worked together with him in the factory. He had thought she was a “real” worker but she turned out to be a university student from a well-to-do family. Despite his own romantic feelings for her and her repeated efforts to reach him after he left the factory, Cheuk maintains his distance. His mistrust of Miyong stems from her role in the failure of the wage-increase struggle. When the workers were about to reach an agreement with management 63. Ibid., 116. 64. Ibid., 80–83. 65. Ibid., 168.

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during their wage-increase negotiation, Miyong had insisted on the need to organize a union and had initiated a petition drive to that effect, thereby giving management an excuse to call off the previous agreement. Since this incident, Cheuk has felt betrayed not only by Miyong but by the intellectual labor activists in general. When an underground pamphlet circulates urging the miners to strike, he wonders who the author might be and wishes that he or she was “a real worker.”66 Miyong acknowledges that their different social and educational backgrounds are an immense issue in present society but believes that this difference has already been erased between herself and Cheuk, as they were working together to create a new world with a different value system. When she later visits him in the mine and demands his explanation for leaving the factory (and thereby leaving the labor movement), he invokes the “ontological difference” between the intellectual and the worker: “there is no place for a worker to go once he is fired. Workers face different situations from intellectual activists.” The novel’s denouement, however, suggests that Miyong has convinced Cheuk of the possibility of the bridging the gap; Cheuk introduces her to his ailing mother who is delighted at the prospect of his son marrying “a nice and pretty girl” like Miyong.67 In the view of the well-known author Pak Wanso, the “ontological gap” between intellectual and worker is bridgeable only within the ideal world of undongkwon. In her short story called “T’i t’aimui monyo” (Mother and daughter at tea time), the daughter is married to a once-committed undongkwon who not only has a degree from the “best university in Korea” but is also from a well-to-do family. While the mother cannot contain her happiness at her daughter’s marriage into a wealthy family, the daughter lives in constant fear that her marriage will soon come to an end. She fears that it is not only their differing social and educational backgrounds that sets them apart, but also the fact that she is equal to him only when he is totally committed to the ideals and the goals of the movement.68 The daughter met the husband while she was working in a factory. Keenly aware of their different backgrounds and the potential problems that might surface after their union, she had tried to suppress her own romantic feelings toward him to prevent the relationship from developing further. The husband had thought that her reluctance to commit to the relationship was due to his political activism, and thus he had told her he was not a communist. The daughter reflects on this: 66. Yi, Hwarhwasan, 1:106. 67. Ibid., 93. 68. Pak, “T’i t’aim ui monyo,” 144–60.

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Why didn’t I see then that he has never respected me? It was clear even then. . . . He didn’t respect me; otherwise how could he offer [his being not a communist] as the only explanation for his involvement in the movement? From the beginning, he did not have any wish to let me understand his thoughts.69 Feeling that only within the realm of movement ideals could she be truly respected by him, she tries to believe that he still retains movement ideals, even when everything around her indicates otherwise. Her desire to be his equal is expressed in her wish to move to a farm village where she and her husband could start anew as farmers, even though she has no farming experience. Although moving to a farm was a last option for most people (except those who wanted to organize farmers), it is the “only hope” for her. It is the only possible way for her to be equal to him.70 Pak Wanso, the author of this short story, is known for her incisive and relentless probing of middle-class values, and we might perhaps see this piece as her satire of the middle-class pretensions of some undongkwon. The undongkwon husband in this short story proves to be as worldly as anyone. Indeed, in the beginning of the story, he can barely contain his joy at hearing one of his friends’ passing remarks, at the hundredth-day celebration of his son’s birth—the observation that the boy looked “aristocratic.” After his friends leave, he repeatedly asks his wife whether she agrees that the boy looks aristocratic. As he repeats the word “aristocratic,” his face brightens with pride. She feels betrayed for the first time by his reaction, and she fears that indeed he is just like any other person: “Who would have thought that an undongkwon would be so taken by this ‘aristocratic’ talk?”71

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Intellectual Heroes with “Ripe Ideals”

Regardless of authorial intention, this short story captures the Zeitgeist of the era, the undongkwon belief that, in order to become a true revolutionary and to bring about a new world, one had to give up formal education and future prospects and, in some cases, marry uneducated factory workers. If the worker was associated with the ideals of purity, simplicity, spiritual and physical health, and steadfastness, then the ideal image of the intellec69. Ibid., 155. 70. Ibid., 154–57. 71. Ibid., 156.

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tual activist was that of someone giving up the privileges that come with education and social status and overcoming multifold obstacles and challenges.72 In the short story “Chiokson ui saramdul” (The people of the infernal ship) by another former student labor activist, Pang Hyonsok, the protagonist Kidae comes to Haepo Shipyard after graduating from a university “that ordinary people can’t get into even if they studied their brains off.”73 In his eight years at Haep’o, Kidae has watched many undongkwon students come and go. Half of them could not handle the physical labor or quickly got caught in the company intelligence net. The other half, disillusioned with the slow-paced and unrewarding activism, just left. As the story opens, the underground study group that Kidae has organized faces multiple challenges: a group of thugs hired by management beat up Kidae and his study group members; Minho, one of the most vocal and active members of the group, quit the shipyard two months ago, revealing his student identity and announcing his decision to return to school; and some members are openly hostile to Kidae and are purposely neglecting their assigned duties. Minho’s desertion has been a serious blow to the group; his logic was always clear, his stance firm, and his language without hesitation. Armed with his “scientific and legitimate” movement theories, Minho used to launch relentless criticisms against his fellow members. He was also the first to openly criticize Kidae’s strategies and tactics. Kidae had often wondered about Minho’s dogmatism and academism—“his talk smelled of fresh ink”— but had embraced it as a novice’s enthusiasm and devotion. But Kidae also knew that it was “too overwhelming for those with unripe ideals to break through the impenetrable wall of the Haep’o Shipyard, where everything remained as solid as before.”74 Anyone who had followed the events in South Korea through the 1980s could infer that “before” here refers to the pre-1987 era, before the Great Labor Struggle of the summer of 1987. Kidae is the stuff of “ripe ideals.” He is still at the Haep’o Shipyard despite repeated beatings and death threats, having survived the fourth lynching as the story unfolds. He protects his fellow workers with his own body

72. This ideal representation of undongkwon was not monopolized by labor novels; Kim Wonil is a well-known writer whose previous work focused on the division of the country and its consequences for family life. In his acclaimed story “Maum ui kamok” (Prison in one’s soul), Kim portrays, through the perspective of his middle-class older brother, the purity, devotion, and steadfastness of an activist younger brother who eventually dies of lung cancer. The cancer is attributed to his years among factory workers and slum-dwellers, as well as his numerous imprisonments. See Kim, “Maum ui kamok.” 73. Pang, “Chiokson ui saramdul.” 74. Ibid., 175–76.

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while urging them to flee when the company-hired mob attacks them during one of their late-night study sessions. Later, when a fellow worker’s wife urges him to go back to Seoul and stop “buying the suffering,” he gently reminds her of the world they both want to live in, a world in which hard work is paid for with decent food and housing, where the sick are cared for, and in which children do not have to take exams to get into school.75 This deceptively simple plea also captures the logic of the minjung project in which a humanist quest for liberation, a faith in history, is achieved through revolutionary commitment, dedication, and the sacrifice of individual undongkwon. Kidae in “Chiokson ui saramdul ” and Honggi in P’aop emblematize this hope for history and for revolutionary commitment. Deeply committed to the minjung movement, willing to sacrifice, and capable of self-reflection, Kidae and Honggi are firmly committed not only to abstract goals but also to the everyday activities of the movement. For Honggi, becoming a member of the movement organization was “the biggest event in his life.” He has given “everything for the struggle and his comrades.” He is disciplined, “firm as iron,” and has not allowed himself a moment of indolence. He continually challenges and is challenged by others through fierce theoretical struggles. He would not hesitate to visit his comrades in the wee hours, either to pass on the organization’s decisions or to engage in debates. He is also willing to learn and take orders from younger activists.76 Honggi is more than an iron-disciplined Leninist organizer; he is also compassionate and warmhearted. We read of his concerns for his fellow activists who carry out their assigned duties even when they are on the run from the police, often without enough money to ride the bus in bitter cold weather. At the factory where he worked with his false identification card, he quietly and steadfastly paved a way for workers to form a union. He first spends a few months selecting prospective candidates for an underground study group by socializing with them, drinking together, and visiting their houses. When he finally launches the study group, it meets no less than three times a week! The members, most of whom possess less than a high school education and are thus intimidated by anything “academic,” find the sessions fun and easy to follow. Honggi diligently prepares for each session by culling materials from various newspapers and news journals. When Honggi feels the time is ripe for the study group workers to carry on the union organizing by themselves, and also to avoid possible management backlash against them, he quietly quits his job and stays in the background. 75. Ibid., 179. 76. An, P’aop, 140.

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That Honggi has earned respect and trust from his fellow workers is shown when he reveals his “true” identity to the members of his underground study group. His fellow workers were surprisingly nonchalant at the revelation, and one member responded, “I expected it. . . . You know how many disguised workers there are nowadays? We’re not stupid, you know.” Honggi’s concern that management might claim that a “communist infiltrator” has duped the workers is also met with quick dismissal: “Who’s going to say you’re a commie? Nowadays, people respect someone like you. Who has anything negative to say to those who give up their own comfort and future for the workers?” One worker invites him to have regular meals at his house, and another offers to take care of meals for his family, in exchange for knowledge: “Teach us everything you know, not less and not more; when we know as much as you do, the world will turn upside down.”77 This is the moment Honggi has been waiting for, the moment the minjung movement has been waiting for. It is the moment when the worker realizes his own power to turn the world upside down, the moment when the traditional identity of the intellectual as a transmitter of knowledge and a representative of workers’ interest in the larger society no longer holds. Once the worker obtains the necessary knowledge, there will be no need for the intellectual, either as interlocutor or representative. P’aop was published in 1989, a time when the labor movement as a whole was facing multiple challenges—what Hagen Koo calls the “State and Capital Offensives”78 following the unprecedented Great Labor Struggle of 1987. In a time of mounting uncertainty for the future of the working class and the labor movement, P’aop calls forth the working-class subjectivity that did not materialize on factory floors even after the Great Labor Struggle of 1987. The Subject as the Subjected

The realist writers of the colonial period depicted peasants as the embodiment of purity and hope for the future. Beverly Nelson points to another important aspect of the realist literature of this period, one that has much resonance with the novels of labor of the 1980s and 1990s: the tension between the supposed didactic message in these works and the personal doubts that plagued even the most ideologically committed writers. “In much of 77. Ibid., 82–83. 78. Koo, Korean Workers, 190–98.

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proletarian literature . . . in the best works there was a tension between recognition of the need for political organizers from outside and the inherent, native strength in rural communities of people.”79 In the minjung movement of the 1980s, this tension manifested itself in various ways: for example, between the need for consciousness-raising education for workers and their perceived “inherent revolutionary qualities,” between the actual and the ideal state of workers’ consciousness, and between intellectuals’ heavily didactic approach and the fear that this approach would turn workers into mere academics instead of fighting revolutionaries. As I have argued, this tension also manifested itself in literary representations as the bifurcation between the intellectual and the worker. When this binary opposition is dismantled and the subversive moment is suggested, as we see in the following story, this moment is also predetermined. In Kong Chiyong’s 1988 short story “Tong t’unun saebyok” (Dawn is breaking), a female student labor activist, Chonghwa, takes her fellow worker, Sunyong, to a protest against the 1987 presidential election fraud. Both are subsequently taken to a police station and interrogated; Chonghwa’s identity as a college student is then revealed to Sunyong. Earlier in the story, Sunyong was too embarrassed to introduce herself as a factory worker (nodongja) to a group of fellow detainees and instead told them she was an office worker (hoesawon). Chonghwa whispered to Sunyong: “Sunyong, we’re factory workers and we can say it with pride.” Chonghwa’s confident manner had impressed Sunyong as well as other detainees who were university students. Shortly after Sunyong’s interrogation is over, Chonghwa overhears a conversation among the police detectives; from this she learns that Sunyong wrote down in her confession that she will fight the election fraud until the end. Chonghwa felt a chill going down her spine; how did Sunyong come to think of that? She had seemed interested in only working, getting snacks, and saving money to buy cosmetics. Chonghwa begins to suspect that she might have viewed the workers the same way as the company owners, as devoid of their own subjectivity. Chonghwa had been frustrated, indeed “suffocated,” by the workers’ seeming complacency toward the discrimination they face in the factory and toward political upheavals such as the Gwangju Uprising of 1980 and the Great Labor Struggle of 1987. But in that airless interrogation room, Sunyong had declared, proudly and clearly, “I’ll fight the election fraud.” Chonghwa shook her head: “I didn’t 79. Nelson, “Nationalism and Agrarian Populism,” 57–64.

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trust Sunyong. I didn’t trust workers and their strength. . . . Perhaps I only trusted my own thinly veiled ideals.”80 How indeed has Sunyong, who, we are led to believe, has never previously engaged in any kind of political activity or even voted, come to acquire the political consciousness and will to fight the election fraud until the end? With the absence of interiority in Sunyong, the reader is expected to take her transformation for granted and share the narrator’s surprise— and self-reproach—for not having detected Sunyong’s inherent revolutionary potential sooner. This is consistent with Althusser’s notion of subjectivity being “always and already interpellated into the ‘Subject,’ ” owing to its given subject position in the society.81 Sunyong has indeed been “interpellated” by the “Subject”; that is, her status as a working-class person in a capitalist society makes her inherently a revolutionary. Althusser’s notion of ideology has been criticized for its “over- and predeterminism” (“alwaysalready interpellated”), its disregard for the discursive process involved in the construction of subjectivity.82 The lack of discursive practices, the absence of interiority in the process of the workers’ transformation into revolutionary subjects, was indeed a problem in labor novels. In Hamkke kaja uri, Kyesun’s transformation from a shamefaced factory worker who carried a backpack like a student to hide her working-class status into a principled labor activist is also without mediating force. Although Kyesun’s failed romantic relationship with a student activist catalyzes her changes, we see very little of her own thoughts and processes in the novel. In fact, yet another student activist, Suni, is brought in to help. This dichotomized and transformed image of the worker in “Tong t’unun saebyok” and the novel Hamkke kaja uri has its own literary and revolutionary logic, however, consistent with the tension that was embedded in the revolutionary project of the 1980s minjung movement. The 1980s minjung program required the “simultaneous entertaining of two opposites”: a utopian vision of the intersubjectivity of workers with their predetermined revolutionary qualities and optimism versus the worker as a pupil requiring the vision and guidance of the intellectual. This utopian vision and guidance offered by intellectuals were the forces that “hailed” workers into subjecthood, although their revolutionary quality was already predetermined by their position as the oppressed in capitalist society. 80. Kong, “Tong t’unun saebyok,” 421–25. 81. Althusser, Lenin and Philosophy, 175; quoted in Zhang, “Narrative, Ideology, Subjectivity,” 228. 82. Zhang, ibid.

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Labor Literature as Revolutionary Words

Scholars have observed that revolutions, from the French Revolution to China’s Cultural Revolution, proliferate with words, “words that have the power to perform new worlds into being.”83 In the French Revolution, according to Lynn Hunt,

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revolutionary language did not simply reflect the realities of revolutionary changes and conflicts, but rather was itself transformed into an instrument of political and social change. Political language was not merely an expression of an ideological position that was determined by underlying social or political interests. The language itself helped shape the perception of interests and hence the development of ideologies. Revolutionary political discourse was rhetorical; it was a means of persuasion, a way of reconstituting the social and political world.84 Taking a cue from these observations and going against the authors’ insistence upon treating their work as an unmediated reflection of reality, I propose to read them as “revolutionary words,” spoken not in the midst of a revolution or because a revolution was imminent, but because the possibility of it ever occurring was diminishing. Most novels of labor were written and published at the onset of the demise of the minjung project as a vibrant social and political movement. By transplanting themselves into factories, the 1980s activists had tried to forgo the privileges that reinforced the difference between the intellectual and the working class. The intellectuals’ identity shift in the 1980s was a search for a mode of representation unmediated by the effects of representation. In most cases, the utopian vision never materialized on the floor of a plant. The act of intellectual worker activists writing labor novels had then the function of interpellation, calling into existence the subjecthood of the working class as a transparent reflection of a reality that can speak for itself. Labor novels did not reflect current material and political conditions but rather projected a future world in which social structure and human relations would be fundamentally realigned; they hoped to be “an instrument” of such changes. The labor novels as revolutionary words have historical precedents in the historical and autobiographical novels that populated the 83. See Sewell, Work and Revolution in France; Hunt, Family Romance of the French Revolution; Perry and Xun, “Revolutionary Rudeness.” 84. Hunt, Politics, Culture, and Class, 24.

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literary scene in 1980s South Korea. In the 1980s, South Korean society was deluged with “historical novels” that dealt with post-1945 historical events whose meanings have been variously interpreted over the decades. In the absence of any counternarratives of these events at the time, these novels told history that “history books could not”85 and offered countermemories against official, dominant interpretations. The autobiographical writings of female workers in the early 1980s were also “revolutionary words.” Effaced by literary critics and society at large, women workers wrote themselves into the meta-narrative of industrial growth and modernization, reshaping our understanding of that process.86 To read labor novels as revolutionary words, despite the incongruity of the claim in a decidedly nonrevolutionary post-1987 South Korea, is to recognize the vision that has been effaced by the ensuing globalization and neoliberalism.

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85. This phrase is from an advertisement for the popular ten-volume historical novel T’aebaek Sanmaek appearing inside the cover of Ch’angjak kwa pip’yong 16, no. 2 (1988). 86. See Barraclough, “When Korean Working-Class Women Began to Write.”

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CONCLUSION

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The Minjung Movement as History

Lasting over three decades under ruthless suppression by the state, the minjung movement produced many martyrs and heroes who gave the movement its moral authority vis-à-vis society and the government. The minjung program’s rhetorical power and political efficacy also lay in the narrative of dichotomies, such as authoritarianism versus democracy, dominance versus resistance, enemy versus friend, and the competitiveness of capitalism versus the cooperation of the minjung. Indeed, an indomitable spirit and selfless devotion were the great aspiring ethos of the minjung movement. Despite harsh repression, the pro-democracy protest continued throughout the period. Many gave up their lives and many more spent their youth in prison. When condemned to death for their protest, they declared that they were honored to die for Korea’s democracy. In the aftermath of the Gwangju Uprising, thousands of intellectuals descended on factories, willingly choosing the life of a factory worker over that of a white-collar professional. When pursued by police and state security agents for their activities, they were often forced to sever family relationships, sometimes for years. Some of their parents met untimely deaths from the shock, disappointment, or grief of their children’s imprisonment or death. If, as Thomas Jefferson wrote, “the tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants,” the tree of South Korean democracy was refreshed with the blood of the democratization movement participants. It is estimated that since 1969, 431 individuals have died either from torture, from injuries after being hit by tear-gas canisters or falling from buildings, or from illnesses resulting from long-term incarcera-

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tion and lack of medical care while in prison.1 Many committed suicide as an act of “active resistance.” Male students were forcibly conscripted into the military while in detention, and several were found dead while they were in military service. Many of those released from prison were barred from employment in public and other sectors and from traveling abroad. Given such courage and sacrifice, it is understandable that the few existing historical analyses of the minjung movement would frame it exclusively in the context of state repression and heroic resistance. Mostly written during the height of the movement by former activists or those sympathetic to the movement,2 these accounts betray both the pressure of having to state their case against ruling powers and the need to justify certain events or strategies and tactics. This literature also treats the minjung movement as a natural outcome of the repressive military regimes and the concomitant rapid industrialization with its disruptive and dislocating impact. The narratives are also unduly unifying and coherent, subsuming fissures and fractures under the larger narrative of minjung liberation. This book has tried to understand the minjung project as discursive contestations in a field of political, cultural, and symbolic forces by emphasizing its potency, richness, and historical significance as well as its contradictions and shortcomings. With the cataclysmic, now-or-never mentality characteristic of the youth of 1968 elsewhere,3 students and intellectuals were the Nietzschean “knights of totality”4: their ethical principles and pronouncements, high-flown and moralistic, became the categorical imperatives of the revolution. The South Korean minjung movement’s construction of itself as a counterpublic sphere involved the establishment of “new norms and hierarchies” that consigned all other forces considered to be inimical to 1. Of the dead, 272 were killed during the Gwangju Uprising in 1980. These numbers are based on a report provided by the “Deliberation Committee on Regaining Reputation and Compensation for Those Involved with the Democratization Movement.” On December 28, 1999, the National Assembly passed the Law Related to Regaining Reputation and Compensation for Those Involved with the Democratization Movement, and a commission was established on August 8, 2000, to carry out activities outlined by this law. Starting in 2000 and 2001, the commission began to receive applications for regaining reputation and compensation from family members of those killed. Since this law applies only to individuals involved in incidents since 1969 and leaves open the closing year in terms of responsibility, the number of the dead is likely to change as more family members might report or applications of those who have already reported might contain errors. There are also debates as to what constitutes the “democratization movement.” See Cho, “Han’guk kunbu,” 20–25. 2. See, for example, Hwang, 80–yondae ui haksaeng undong; Yi, Haebanghu Han’guk haksaeng undongsa. Hwang Ui-bong was a journalist with Sindonga, a monthly news journal, and Yi Chaeo was a prominent dissident in the 1970s and 1980s. 3. Katsiaficas, Imagination of the New Left, 199. 4. Konrád and Szelényi, Intellectuals, 135.

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minjung as anti-minjung, antidemocratic, and antinational. The strategy of dichotomization, exalting the minjung while “otherizing” and at times demonizing the state, corporate conglomerates, and foreign powers, served to shore up their own oppositional identity. The undongkwon were certainly not alone in replicating the power structure they were fighting to overcome and in establishing new norms and hierarchies in the process. As Michel Foucault wrote, in his characteristic way of upending received wisdom, “the major enemy, the strategic adversary,” for the progressive force was “the fascism in us all, in our heads and in our everyday behavior, the fascism that causes us to love power, to desire the very thing that dominates and exploits us.”5 In other words, there are no “pure discourses of nonpower”; a variety of forms of exclusion and oppression are involved in every act of resistance.6

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Indeterminacy of the Minjung Project as Critique

The undongkwon culture was a mandarin culture in which texts, theories, and debates were as important as organizing activities and street demonstrations. In the early 1980s, the minjung movement as a whole was enchanted with Marxism-Leninism even as its emancipatory potential was becoming defunct in other parts of the world. A great deal of intellectual energy was spent debating how to characterize South Korean society (known as the debate on social formation [sahoe kusongch’e-ron]). This is why South Korea in the mid-1980s was said to have a thousand would-be Lenins, all testifying to the exalted position, and problematic roles, of theoretical debates within the movement. Despite its radical appearance, the minjung project as a whole never categorically disavowed the modern notion of nation-state or capitalist development. Even as minjung practitioners articulated their vision in terms of a binary opposition to the state, their emancipatory imaginary stayed within the received notions of nation-state. They persistently projected their future vision onto the narrative of nation-state, portraying themselves as nationalistic and true inheritors of the nationalist legacy. The undongkwon’s repeated public articulation and public performance of their devotion to nation had the function of affirming the presumed potency and efficacy of the state “as a singular and sovereign adjudicator and enforcer” of political 5. Foucault, “Preface,” xiii. 6. For critical analyses dealing with the issues of “internalized power” and “voluntary obedience” in South Korean society, see “T’ukchip: Urian ui p’asijum.”

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and ideological differences. Despite their vehement opposition to the state, the state became a “privileged expression of political community and hence as the principal and necessarily privileged site of political action.”7 The undongkwon’s symbolic gestures enhanced the status of the state as the privileged location to recognize, validate, and enforce various claims of its own (as well as those of others). Those who rose up to defend themselves against the military troops’ brutal killings during Gwangju hoisted Korean flags in their cars and sang the Korean national anthem. The students who occupied the Seoul USIS building in May 1985 to protest the U.S. government’s tacit support of the Gwangju massacre draped themselves in Korean flags. Those on trial for violating the National Security Law in court shouted “Long live the Republic of Korea” along with “Long live democracy!” Even as the undongkwon persistently questioned the state’s political legitimacy, they did not fundamentally question the power held by the state.8 Their revolution was over when they exchanged the “bad dictatorship” for “good power” (choun kwollyok), as Mun Pusik referred to it.9 With South Korea’s transition to parliamentary democracy, and with the disintegration of “actual living socialism” in East Europe in the late 1980s, the underlying logic of the minjung movement had dissolved as well. The minjung project’s relation to South Korea’s capitalist development was also ambivalent. The minjung movement has persistently implicated South Korean economic development with both the colonial past and the neocolonial present. At the same time, the development, as it was first introduced with Park Chung Hee’s Economic Plans and bolstered by modernization theory, presented an opportunity to “rectify” Korea’s failed history. South Korea until the late 1970s was a typical Third World country, sharing the same three factors that the proponents of modernization theory identified as characterizing underdeveloped countries: a strong current of sympathy for socialism, due to their colonial experience, especially among the educated; a high value given to economic development, with economic growth having priority over political democracy; and a strong current of nationalism.10 Modernization theory’s prescription for economic development in underdeveloped countries was to make the most of these characteristics by redirecting nationalist sentiments into modernization efforts. South Korea became a successful case that bore out the premise of modernization theory. 7. McClure, “On the Subject of Rights,” 63. 8. Im, “Ilsangjok p’asijum ui k’odu ilkki,” 41. 9. Mun, “Iroborin kiok ul chajaso,” 238. 10. Rostow, Stages of Economic Growth; Rostow, An American Policy, 4–5, 9–10.

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By the mid-1980s, its economic growth had created an ideological conduit to channel nationalist sentiments toward capitalism, which also fostered “the kind of social and political motivations that would reinforce American values,”11 and the United States was firmly in a position to influence South Korea. But the dictatorial rule of military regimes divided the intellectual community into “institutional” (state-sponsored) intellectuals and “critical” (dissident) intellectuals. As historian Hong Songnyul points out, those intellectuals who were incorporated into the system were isolated in their own professional and technical areas and did not or could not develop a comprehensive view or criticism of society. “Dissident” intellectuals, on the other hand, isolated from the government or universities, were denied the venues through which to propose specific and alternative solutions to the problems they so clearly articulated.12 Much as the late nineteenth-century intellectuals who advocated national reform found it difficult to extricate the nation from its “double nature,”13 the critical intellectuals found it difficult to extricate themselves from the double nature of modernization and economic growth: the promise of material well-being for Koreans at the expense of Korea’s autonomy.14 The notion of minjung was at the center of this dilemma. The minjung movement criticized the state for mobilizing Koreans as taejung (literally meaning masses, this word usually implies a lack of political subjectivity), simply cogs in the modernization machine. But Koreans at large were gaining their sense of agency through the modernization project. The state’s mass mobilization of Koreans involved reconstituting them as national subjects or citizens, interpellating multiple identities of individuals as the homogeneous and nationalized subject. The economic development project became a symbol of progress, productivity, and national unity for a large number of Koreans. The modernization project was also the process of conjoining the egalitarian push from the bottom, the aspirations of the majority of the Koreans to rise out of poverty and for material improvement, with developmentalism from the top.15 Thus, minjung as the subjects of history and capable of underwriting an alternative history proposed by the minjung project inhabited an ambiguous terrain. Minjung as the subjects of history would be the main carriers of 11. Pearce, Rostow, Kennedy, and the Rhetoric of Foreign Aid, 68–72. 12. Hong, “1960–yondae chisonggye ui tonghyang,” 191–93. 13. Schmid, Korea between Empires, 38. 14. For a discussion of the reception of modernization theory among Korean intellectuals, see Yi, “1960–yondae pip’anjok chisigin.” 15. Hwang, “Pak Chonghui ch’eje ui chibae tamnon.”

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the development, yet they would be inherently capable of resisting the negative aspects of capitalist development. This construction of minjung as inherently capable in some ways gave the appearance of an alternative to capitalistic development, much as Japanese native ethnology of the 1930s offered “the appearance of an alternative to capitalistic modernity” through its invention of the “abiding folk.”16 The Undongkwo˘n in the Post-minjung Era

By the early 1990s, it became clear that the dichotomy of “reform or revolution” that had become obsolete in the West was becoming obsolete in South Korea as well. A great deal of confusion, anxiety, and uncertainty among the undongkwon followed this realization. Some began to raise fundamental doubts about the passion of their own previous engagement. A glimpse of this is captured in the self-deprecating “confession” of a poet:

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Of course, I know I liked the demonstrators more than the demonstrations, And the feel of the barroom more than the booze, And that when I was lonely, I enjoyed love songs in a low voice More than all the combative ditties that began with “Comrades!” And this makes no difference at all.17 Indeed, the life-and-death urgency and high “affective investment” that characterized the 1980s may have seemed rather quixotic, even to the participants themselves. A literary critic renders the 1990s in stark contrast to the 1980s as the decade of the victory of “the quotidian over history, the individual over the collective, the post-didactic and post-political over didacticism and politics.” This was a period in which the “writer wishing to talk about minjung again in this climate had to steel himself against the implied stigma of being a man behind the times.”18 Many undongkwon in the 1990s indeed felt behind the times, unable or unwilling to adjust to the changed era. While many were groping for ways to meet the new challenges of the changed era, their erstwhile passion, dedication, and sacrifice were increasingly becoming the “easy iconography” of popular culture. The spirit of self-negation and collective goodwill was (and still is) repeatedly invoked as 16. Vlastos, “Tradition: Past/Present Culture,” 10, 12. 17. Ch’oe, “At Thirty, the Party Was Over,” 52. 18. Kim, “Musopke pyonhanun minjung,” 24; quoted in Ryu, “The Writer as Neighbor,” 12.

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the Zeitgeist of the 1980s, as if everyone had fought for democratization; this fed the already pervasive sentiment of nostalgia and political enervation. The ubiquitous literary and dramatic representations of the minjung movement in the 1990s signaled possibly that its critical ethos had been effectively and comfortably integrated into the new era and that it was time to move on (or move over). The demise of the minjung movement was also accompanied by a palpable diminishment of the intellectual’s privileged status as a “moral identity, collective intelligence, historical agency, and cultural force.”19 Indeed, the passing of the Gramscian organic intellectual as both an ideal and real-life figure seemed well underway, if the number of books and articles bemoaning the disappearance of public intellectuals, in a similar vein as Russell Jacoby’s The Last Intellectuals,20 was any indication. These publications betray a very real angst about the changed expectations society held in regard to intellectuals, especially since the notion of “professionalization” had largely shaped intellectual activity, identity, and organization in the 1990s. “Professionalization” demands that intellectuals’ knowledge production should not only serve academic disciplines but also provide expert testimony to the state and the market.21 The dominant mode of intellectuals’ social participation also changed in the 1990s from “political” to “cultural.” The 1980s concern for “theory, praxis, and politics” among intellectuals was replaced with the 1990s celebration of “sensitivity, spontaneity, and consumption.” Instead of “arguments and heroic stands” of intellectuals exemplifying the notion of a correspondence between knowledge and conduct (chihaeng ilch’i), originality of ideas and the ability to digest imported theories were now in demand. In place of the political activism of the 1980s, popular culture came to be regarded as the key domain of resistance, with the emerging category of “cultural critic” elevated to the position of “culture guerrilla.”22 If “incredulity towards metanarratives” characterizes the postmodern condition,23 South Korean society seems indeed to have entered the postmodern stage. The grand narrative of minjung has been effectively consigned to a bygone era, the state is no longer the single locus of power, no single issue can galvanize all of society as in the 1980s, and people “speak of 19. Davies, ed., Voicing Concerns, 18. 20. Jacoby, Last Intellectuals. This book and Edward Said’s Representations of the Intellectual were widely read among intellectuals in the 1990s. 21. A prime example of this would be the Kim Dae Jung government’s proposal for the “new intellectual” (sin chisigin). See Kim, “Chonhwan’gi chisik chongch’aek.” 22. Sin, “Sahoe kwahak ui wigi?” 11. 23. Lyotard, Postmodern Condition.

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‘emancipations’ rather than Emancipation”24 (conscientious objectors to military service and gays and lesbians coming out are examples of individual “emancipations”). But postmodernity in South Korea did not simply come after modernity but “after particular manifestations of the modern”25 in Korean history. The postmodern in South Korea is not only postauthoritarian but also post-minjung, with all that entails. Postmodernity in South Korea coincided with the 1997 financial crisis known as the IMF Crisis, so named because the government was forced to seek $58.4 billion in aid from the International Monetary Fund. The crisis caused massive layoffs and pay cuts, and it severely weakened basic and hard-won labor benefits and rights for all Korean workers. The hardship endured by South Koreans was such that it was often considered the toughest time since the Korean War. The resulting economic and social instability led some social discourse to revert back to the earlier development stage, emphasizing once again national unity over differences and quick economic recovery over equitable distribution.26 The minjung practitioners had hoped to have a different trajectory for South Korea than what the 1970s Japanese leftists have had in their country since the demise of their movements. According to Victor Koschmann, the demise of the 1970s Japanese social movement is attributed in part to the radical students’ “preoccupation with reified and sometimes solipsistic notions” which often “detracted from hard situational and tactical analysis.”27 The defeat reinforced right-wing dominance, and some radical leaders became Japan’s leading neoconservative ideologues.28 The historical trajectory of the South Korean minjung movement since the late 1980s has included dizzying changes and ambiguous developments that make any general assessment difficult. Those who led the minjung movement in the 1980s, known as the “386 generation,”29 presently occupy important positions in all aspects of public life, from politics to academia to the film industry. The 386 generation is an especially conspicuous political presence: in the general election of April 2004, the previously minor Yollin Uridang (Uri Party) won 162 seats in the National Assembly, compared to the 49 seats it had held before. A large number of the elected were part of the 386 generation, and at least ten were former presidents and officers of the 24. Laclau, New Reflections on the Revolutions, 225. 25. Dirlik and Zhang, eds., Postmodernism and China, 4. 26. For a discussion on the impact of the economic crisis, see “T’ukchip: Tagaon ‘sin chilso.’ ” 27. Koschmann, Revolution and Subjectivity, 247. 28. Ibid. 29. Coined in the 1990s, it refers to those who were in their thirties at the time, entered the university in the 1980s, and were born in the 1960s.

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nationwide organization that led the student movement since 1987, Chon’guk Taehaksaeng Taep’yoja Hyobuihoe (Chondaehyop, National Committee of University Student Representatives). The Minju Nodondang (Democratic Labor Party), whose support base is mainly workers and farmers, has emerged as the third-largest party in the National Assembly, and most of its representatives are also members of the 386 generation with years of factory work behind them.30 It is the first left-wing party in the history of South Korea to have won seats in the legislature. The 1970s democratization movement leaders have also assumed important political positions; several became cabinet members during the Kim Dae Jung and Roh Moo-hyun governments. Many 386 generation members in the National Assembly also belong to the conservative Hannaradang (Grand National Party), whose leaders, if not the majority of its members, would have been obvious protest targets in the 1980s. A few have found the present South Korean capitalistic system to be sufficiently reformed and have publicly embraced it as a way to bring further equality to South Korean society and to the world. A few have even declared themselves New Rightists, advocating a Margaret Thatcher–style leadership in the party, among others. But undongkwon individuals by and large profess their continued commitment to progressive agendas, although what this means is difficult to know, given their ever-shifting allegiances and the constantly varying political circumstances. South Korean undongkwon certainly did not ignore “hard situational and tactical analysis.” Once in positions of power, they have readily realized that prior political divisions might be no longer viable or desirable in a radically restructured society. Yet many who had fought for democracy and reunification in the 1980s are still confined to the categories, problematics, and practices of the 1980s. As one member of the 386 generation remarked, the 386 generation in the Uri Party has not internalized the notion of “economic democracy”; neoliberalism became the key economic policy of the Kim Dae Jung and Roh Moo-hyun governments, and many members of the 386 generation in the ruling party have succumbed to the logic of neoliberalism. These governments’ mantle of higher moral authority, relative to previous regimes, has helped vindicate their embrace of neoliberalism.31 The present day is a period of shifting intellectual paradigms in general and concerns minjung and intellectuals in particular. My book’s purpose 30. No Hoech’an and Sim Sangjong, two party leaders, started working in a factory when they were university students. 31. Sim Sangjong, interview, Seoul, August 3, 2005.

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has changed somewhat since I began the project as a graduate student. Still hoping to “tell the story” of the minjung movement, with all of its dreams, hopes, aspirations, and shortcomings, I became more cognizant of the need to be historically responsible—to engage the 1980s social movement so that one is able to explain both its potency and failings, neither privileging essentialized notions of “history” and “people” nor dismissing pronouncements for not being “theoretically sophisticated.” This sense of responsibility is also heightened by current developments in the post-minjung era. The visions and ideals of the 1980s have been only partially attained, and the movement’s experiences are increasingly becoming images and fragments “for the purposes of nostalgia or pastiche.”32 In the consequent sense of shallowness, in which history becomes “mythified and fabulized stories . . . melt[ing] our sense of the past’s solidity,” history as a possible venue for selfunderstanding is denied. This book hopes to rescue the minjung movement. Treating the minjung movement as a rightful subject of history not only historicizes the conditions of its emergence as a political and social force but also generates a historical praxis. The purpose is not to restore the fallen bygone hero but to give history the capacity to enable individuals and society to reconceptualize social relations in an empowering and participatory way.

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32. O’Hanlon and Washbrook, “After Orientalism,” 153.

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Works in Korean (Unless otherwise noted, works in Korean are published in Seoul, South Korea.) 5.18 Kinyom Chaedan. “Gwangju minjuhwa undong kwallyonja posang hyonhwang” [Status of compensation for the persons involved in the Gwangju democratic movement]. http://www.518.org/main.html?TM18MF=A030106. Accessed August 6, 2006. “70–yondae undongkwon kisudul ui onul” [The 1970s movement leaders’ today]. Wolgan Choson, September 1988, 376–92. “81 hakpon undongkwon ch’ulsin ui 11–nyon twi” [Eleven years later: What happened to the undongkwon who entered university in 1981?]. Wolgan Choson, August 1992, 237–49. An Chaesong. “Chakka ui mal” [Preface]. In Sarang ui chokon [Terms of love]. Han’gilsa, 1991. ——. P’aop [Strike]. Segye, 1989. An Sunghyon, ed. Han’guk nodong sosol chonjip [Complete collection of Korean labor novels]. Pogosa, 1995. Asia Ap’urik’a Rat’in Amerik’a Yon’guwon. Jeju minjung hangjaeng [The Jeju People’s Uprising]. Sonamu, 1988. Ch’a Chuok. Hamkke kaja uri [Let us go together]. Silch’on Munhaksa, 1990. Ch’a Kibyok. “4.19, kwado chongbu mit Chang Myon chongkwon ui uiui” [The meaning of 4.19, interim government, and the Chang Myon government]. In Han Wansang et al., 4.19 hyongmyongnon [On 4.19 Revolution]. Irwol Sogak, 1983. Ch’ae Huiwan. “T’alch’um” [Mask-dance drama]. In Minjung munhwaron [On

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minjung culture], edited by Chong Chich’ang. Gyeongsan-si, Gyeongbuk: Yongnam Taehakkyo Ch’ulp’anbu, 1993. ——. “70–yondae ui munhwa undong” [The cultural movement of the 1970s]. In Munhwa wa t’ongch’i [Culture and rule], edited by Han’guk Kidokkyo Sahoe Munje Yon’guwon. Minjungsa, 1982. Ch’ae Huiwan, and Im Chint’aek, eds. Han’guk ui minjungguk [Korea’s minjung drama]. Ch’angjak kwa Pip’yongsa, 1985. ——. “Madangguk eso madanggut uro” [From madangguk to madanggut]. In Munhwa undong-non [On the cultural movement]. Kongdongch’e, 1985. Ch’ae Kwangsok. “Moktong ch’olgomin siwi sakon” [Protest by Mokdong residents who were forcibly removed]. Hyonsil kwa chonmang 1: 80–yondae ui minjung sanghwang. P’ulpit, 1984. Chang Sinhwan. “Yonse haksaeng undong paengnyonsa” [One-hundred-year history of the student movement at Yonsei University]. In T’ukchip: Han’guk haksaeng undong ul ihae handa [Special issue: Understanding the Korean student movement]. April 1985. Chang Talchung. “Panmi undong kwa Han’guk chongch’i” [The anti-American movement and Korean politics]. In Hanmi kwan’gye ui chae chomyong [Reassessing South Korea-U.S. relations], edited by Kyongnam Taehakkyo Kuktong Munje Yon’guso, 1988. “Che ilsim sosong kirok: Minju Ch’ongnyon Haksaeng Yonmaeng” [The record of the first trial: The case of the “National Federation of Democratic Youth and Students”]. N.d. (Unpublished court document; photocopies circulated clandestinely.) Chi Sungho. Yu Simin ul mannada [Meeting with Yu Simin]. Puk rain, 2005. “Chipchung yon’gu: Chusap’a” [Focused study: The Chuch’e sasang group]. Sindonga, August 1989, 378–93. Cho Chonghwan. “Minjujuui minjokmunhak ui hyondan’gye wa munhakchok hyonsiljuui ui chonmang” [The present stage of democratic national literature and the prospects for literary realism]. Ch’angjak kwa pip’yong 16, no. 3 (1988): 162–87. Cho Chongnae. T’aebaek sanmaek [Mount T’aebaek]. Han’gilsa, 1988. Cho Huiyon. “Han’guk kunbu kwonwijuui chongkwon ha eso ui kukka p’ongnyok e uihan huisaeng mit minjujuui ihaeng kwajong esoui kwago ch’ongsan ui tonghak” [Sacrifice under the state violence of South Korea’s military authoritarian regime and rectification of the past in the transition to democracy]. In Han’guk ui minjuhwa ihaeng kwa kwago ch’ongsan [South Korea’s transition to democracy and rectification of the past], edited by Minjuhwa Undong Kinyom Saophoe. Minjuhwa Undong Kinyom Saophoe, 2002. ——. Hyondae Han’guk sahoe undong kwa chojik: T’onghyoktang, Namminjon, Sanomaeng ul chungsim uro pon pihappop chonwi chojik yon’gu [Social movement and organization of contemporary South Korea: A study on extralegal, vanguard organizations, focusing on the Reunification Revolutionary Party, the South Ko-

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INDEX

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0 ponji (Address zero), 209 5.18 Kinyom Chaedan (May 18 Memorial Foundation), 46n105, 54n142 “6.3 generation,” 31 “386 generation,” 301–2 A-frame rack (chige), 258 “after hours,” 169 Agency for National Security Planning (ANSP), 83 Alcoff, Linda, 13–14 Alexander, Jeffrey, 12, 135 Alinsky, Saul, 232 Alliance of Labor Movements in the Seoul Area (ALMSA), 245–46, 253–56, 258, 260, 264, 275; Sonoryon Sinmun, 253 “all-out security” (ch’ongnyok anbo), 73, 87 Althusser, Louis, 291 An Chaesong, 259, 274, 276; P’aop (The strike), 237n97, 274–75, 282–84, 288–89 An Haksop, 101 An Hosang, “one people” doctrine (ilminjuui sasang), 88 anti-Americanism, 8, 110–12, 115, 118, 120, 122–27 Anti-Americanism in the Third World, 111–12 anticommunism, 3, 7, 29, 35n59, 42, 70–71, 74–76, 78, 80–81, 83, 85–88, 91, 102, 106–8, 115, 127, 131, 162, 270. See also National Security Law (NSL)

Anticommunist Ethics, 86–87 Anticommunist Law, 71, 81–84 Anticommunist Spirit Worshippers Union, 73 “anticomprador capital,” 28 anti-Japanese armed struggle, 135–36, 154 antiwar slogans, 115, 125, 139 apostasy (pyonjol), 27 April 19 Student Uprising of 1960, 23, 26–28, 33, 88, 92, 106, 114, 156, 158, 173, 193, 204 Army Unified Administration School (Munmudae), 91n88 Arumdaun ch’ongnyon, Chon T’aeil (Beautiful youth, Chon T’aeil, film), 218n22 Asian Games (1986), 177, 255 banned literature, 109, 110n5, 163–64 Barraclough, Ruth, 272 Basic Press Law (1980), 121 Beaumarchais, Pierre, Marriage of Figaro, 187 “benefiting the enemy” (ijoksong), 59 Benjamin, Walter, 201 Bloch, Ernst, 149 Boal, Augusto, 201 Bourdieu, Pierre, 153 “bowing to spontaneity,” 256, 275 Brecht, Bertolt, “poetics of epic theater,” 201 Buddhist monks, 195, 198, 264n60 Busan-Masan People’s Uprising of 1979, 67, 226n52

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340

Index

Cabral, Amílcar, 215 “campus autonomy” measures, 177. See also campus liberalization campus liberalization, 166, 178, 180 Canton Commune, 64 capital: and labor, 4, 216; political, 190; social, 160 capitalism, 8, 11–12, 135, 142, 165–66, 294, 298; U.S., 118 capitalist development, 3, 75, 77, 111, 135, 143, 191, 209, 296–97, 299 capitalist system, 188, 302 Carr, E. H., What Is History?, 110 Carter, Jimmy, 116 Ch’a Chuok, Hamkke kaja uri (Let us go together), 275, 277–80, 283, 291 Ch’ae Huiwan, 200 chaebol (conglomerate), 6, 49, 78, 296 Chamint’u, 124–25, 127 Chang Kip’yo, 221–22 Chang Myon, 28 Chang Talchung, 115 changgisu (long-term political prisoners), 101–2 Changsan’got mae (Hawk of Changsan’got), 204 Chatterjee, Partha, 13 Chi Haksun, 171 Chiang Kai-shek, 64 “children of the deceived,” 7 Chin Tonga kut (Exorcism for the truth of the East Asia Daily), 204–5, 210 China, 24, 38, 64, 66, 73, 128, 135, 149, 166, 196, 215, 273, 292 Chinese Communist Party (CCP), 64–65 Chinogwi kut (Exorcism of five demons), 204, 210 chipkangso (peasant councils), 57 Cho Chongnae, T’aebaek sanmaek (Mount T’aebaek), 60n161, 293n85 Cho Huiyon, 173 Cho Hwa Soon, 227 Cho Pongam, 81–82 Cho Sangho, 165n49 Cho Sehui, Nanjangi ka ssoaollin chagun kong (A dwarf launches a little ball), 150–51 Cho Tongil, 198, 200 Cho Yongnae, Chon T’aeil p’yongjon (A critical biography of Chon T’aeil), 218n23 Ch’oe Changjip (also Jang Jip Choi), 61, 74 Ch’oe Hanbae, 260

Ch’oe Inch’ol, 161–62 Ch’oe Yongdo, 99 chohoe (students’ morning assembly), 89 Choi, Chungmoo, 14, 39, 202 Choi, Kyeong-Hee, 39 Chomsky, Noam, 17 Chon Pongjun, 58–59, 206 Chon Sangin, 173 Chon T’aeil, 33, 154–55, 158, 218–19; commemoration of, 67, 220–21; diary of, 160, 162, 221–22, 229; minjung history and, 41; night school and, 232 Chong Chuyong, 142 Chong Hwajin, 273; “Soenmulch’orom” (Like a metallic stain), 271–72 Chong Kwari, 5 Chong T’aemuk, 99 Ch’onggye Textile Union, 44, 218, 221, 260 Ch’ongnyon (General Association of Korean Residents in Japan), 103–4 Chon’guk Haksaeng Ch’ong Yonhap (Chonhangnyon). See National Students’ Alliance Chon’guk Minju Ch’ongnyon Haksaeng Yonmaeng (Minch’onhangnyon). See National Federation of Democratic Youth and Students (NFDYS) Chon’guk Minju Nodong Chohap Ch’ong Yonmaeng (Minju Noch’ong). See Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU) Chon’guk Minju Nodongja Yonmaeng (Chonminnoryon). See Nationwide League of Democratic Labor Movements (NLDLM) Chon’guk Taehaksaeng Taep’yoja Hyobuihoe (Chondaehyop). See National Committee of University Student Representatives Choson period (1392–1910), 18, 55–57, 153, 188, 195–200, 202, 206, 208–9, 228; four classes of, 195 Christian Academy, 218, 222, 234 Chu Kanghyon, 200 chuch’e sasang, 7, 135–36; chusap’a and, 139–41; history of, 128–29; its influence on undongkwon, 131–42; p’umsongnon and, 136–37. See also North Korea Chugumul nomo sidae ui odumul nomo (Overcoming death, overcoming the darkness of the age), 54n140 Chun Doo Hwan, 51, 141, 265; “4.13 decision” and, 265; demand for

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Index resignation of, 45; import liberalization policy and, 59; regime: as fascist, 94, 124, 133, 163, 166, 254; U.S. support of, 46, 120 chungdop’a (a middle-of-the-roader), 41, 77 Ch’unhyang-jon (Story of Ch’unhyang), 206 chwaik or chwap’a (leftist), 75n15 Chwe, Michael, 66n186, 107 circles (university study groups), 32, 89, 165–66, 170 circulation of texts (wonso), 148, 162–63, 165 civil society, 10, 26, 80 cold-war order: and Korean perspective, 38, 111, 127; and U.S., 3, 38, 51, 77–78, 81 Comaroff, Jean, 202 commemoration activities, 6, 25, 66–67; for Chon T’aeil, 220–21; common knowledge and, 66–67; for “democratic martyrs,” 67–68; at Mangwoltong cemetery, 54; Stonewall Rebellion and, 67n190 Committee of Reinstated Students, 176 common knowledge, 66, 107, 182 commoner, 57, 193, 195, 198, 200, 209 “communication by analogy” (yubi t’ongsin), 36 communist, 30, 62, 65–66, 70–71, 76–80, 84–85, 88–89, 106, 132, 135, 226, 285–86; category of, 74–75 “communize and reunify the country by force” (muryok chokhwa t’ongil), 96, 100 “company-controlled” (or “companyfriendly”) union, 221, 226–27, 251, 263–64, 288 Compilation Committee of the 5.18 Related Historical Documents, 51 Connerton, Paul, 25n8, 66–67 conscientization, 162n37, 214, 224–25, 228, 232, 234. See also Freire, Paulo conversion (chonhyang) system, 101–2 correspondence between knowledge and conduct (chihaeng ilch’i), 159, 300 Council of Family Members for Democracy, 103 counterpublic sphere, 2, 8–12, 147, 153, 160, 186, 188, 211, 214–15, 295 couples party (ssangssang p’at’i), 183 crisis of historical subjectivity, 2, 4–5, 7–8, 24–26, 37–38, 44, 50, 97, 110–11 “critical” intellectuals (pip’anjok chisigin), 5, 29n31, 38, 41, 298

341

cultural activist (munhwa undongga), 11, 205 Cultural Revolution, 292 “culture guerrilla,” 300 Cumings, Bruce, 62, 78; The Origins of the Korean War, 63–64 Daejeon Prison, 102 Daewoo Apparel, 251, 260 Daewoo Auto Strike (1984), 262–64 debate on social formation (sahoe kusongch’e nonjaeng), 254, 296 December 12 coup of 1980, 45 decolonization, 2–3, 14, 111, 127–28 Deleuze, Gilles, 13 Deliberation Committee on Regaining Reputation and Compensation for Those Involved with the Democratization Movement, 295n1 democracy, 1, 26–27, 31, 33–34, 42, 49, 52, 70, 83, 88, 106, 112, 116, 121, 123, 155, 167, 179, 217, 220, 235, 245, 294, 302; American, 10, 38, 77, 115, 117–18, 120; “economic,” 302; Korean-style, 87; martyrs of, 52, 67; minjung, 124; transition to parliamentary, 148, 264–65, 267, 270, 297; Western liberal, 205, 239 Democratic Labor Party (Minju Nodongdang), 99n121, 302 Democratic Party (Minjudang), 28 Democratic Republic Party (Minju Konghwadang), 30n37 “democratic union” (minju nojo), 227n58 discourse of lack, 39 discourse of moral privilege, 15, 147, 152–55, 159–60, 167, 244–46, 249–64 “disguised worker” (wijang ch’wiopcha), 214, 235, 251, 261–62, 264, 289 “division consciousness” (pundan uisik), 42, 44 DMZ (demilitarized zone), 125 Dreyfus Affair, 17 East Berlin Incident, 95–96 education, 19–20, 86, 88, 95, 104, 182, 225, 230, 245, 259, 286, 288; university, 192, 208, 259; poor quality of, 168n58; for workers, 274, 290 educational freedom, 155 educator-student (kanghak), 233 Em, Henry, 37

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342

Index

Emergency Decree Number Nine (1975), 35, 100, 173–75, 177 Engels, Frederick, 272 “Era of the Great Circulation of Texts,” 163 Ewha Women’s University, 173, 219, 248

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“factory boys” (kongdori), 12, 234 “factory employment” (hyonjang ch’wiop), 257–62 “factory girls” (kongsuni), 12, 234 fascism, 296 Federation of Korean Trade Unions (FKTU), 217, 227, 239, 258 Fifth Republic (1980–88), 45 “five minute strategy,” 174 Five-Year Economic Plans, 30, 297 folk art contests, 190 Foster-Carter, Aidan, 128 Foucault, Michel, 13, 40, 296 France, 107, 202, 260; intellectuals of postwar, 17, 143, 248; Second Left of, 10; youth of 1968, 186, 215 Fraser, Nancy, 9 Freire, Paulo, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 225–26, 232–33 French Revolution, 1, 24, 67, 292; festivals and carnivals during, 67, 69, 202; Marriage of Figaro and, 187; “revolutionary words” of, 292 Gangwon National University, 274 Garrison Decree of 1965, 31 Garrison Decree of 1971, 169 Gasan ogwangdae (Five singers of Gasan), 192 Geertz, Clifford, 204 “Geyongsang Province chaebol capitalism,” 49 Goldmann, Lucien, 273 Gorky, Maxim, Mother, 97 “government-manufactured communist” (kwanje kongsandang), 79 Grand National Party (Hannaradang), 302 Great Labor Struggle of 1987, 265–67, 287, 289–90 guerrilla movements in the South, 32, 60, 98, 98n118, 162 Guevara, Che, 58, 65, 218 Gwangju Settlers’ Riot (1971), 33–34, 150–51 Gwangju Uprising of 1980, 6, 23, 44–47; anticommunist slogans during, 106; and

changing perception toward U.S., 50–51; and “crisis of historical subjectivity,” 50–51; and intellectuals, 19–20; and Kim Dae Jung, 50, 53; in “Kippal,” 280–81; and “lumpen proletariat,” 52; and May 18 Memorial Foundation, 46n105; and Mobile Strike Task Force, 52n135; and non-undongkwon, 236; number killed in, 295n1 Gyeonggido-Incheon area, 260, 266 Habermas, Jürgen, 9 Haebang chonhusa ui insik (Understanding pre- and post-liberation history), 43 “Haebang sosi” (Overtures to liberation), 124 “Haebangch’um” (Liberation dance), 183 Hahoe pyolsin kut (Mask-dance drama of Hahoe village), 195 hakhoe (department-affiliated student organizations), 89, 178 hakppiri (disparaging term denoting intellectuals), 9 Hakto Hoguktan. See National Student Defense Corps (NSDC) Halliday, Jon, 62 Han, Sungjoo, 75 Han Chisu, 185–86 Han Sorya, 270 Han Wansang, 27n15, 63, 126 hangso iyuso (statement of appeal): of Kim Minsok, 1, 39; of Yu Simin, 175 Han’guk Kidokkyo Haksaeng Ch’ong Yonmaeng. See Korean Student Christian Federation (KSCF) Han’guk Kidokkyo Kyohoe Hyobuihoe. See National Council of Churches in Korea (NCCK) Han’guk Minjok Minju Chonson (Hanminjon). See Korean National Democratic Front (KNDF) Han’guk Nodong Chohap Ch’ong Yonmaeng (Noch’ong). See Federation of Korean Trade Unions (FKTU) Hart-Landsberg, Martin, 35 historical novels (yoksa sosol), 25, 56, 292–93 Hitler Youth (Jugend), 88 Ho Chong, 27 Homeland Reserve Force (Hyangt’o yebi’gun), 73, 87 Hong Huidam, “Kippal” (The banner), 280–82

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Index Hong Songnyul, 298 Hong Tongji, 197–98 How the Steel Was Tempered (Kangchol un ottok’e tallyon toeonnun’ga), 134 Human Cultural Treasures, 189–90, 203 “human wave tactics” (inhae chonsul), 133 Hunt, Lynn, 1, 292 Hwang Sogyong, 54n140, 204n72, 210 Hwang Songmo, 95 Hwang T’aegwon, 101 hyonjang (“site”), 217n20, 258 hyonjang-non (debate on labor organizing), 217, 237–38 Hyundai Auto, 268

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“ideological struggle” (inyom t’ujaeng), 250, 254, 256, 268, 282–84 Im Chint’aek, 206 Im Ch’oru, 48 IMF crisis, 301 import liberalization, 59, 121, 125, 254 “impure elements” (pulsun punja), 70, 78, 96, 261–62 In, Myongjin, 224–25 “infatuation with struggles,” 250, 279 Inmin Hyongmyongdang. See People’s Revolutionary Party “institutional” intellectuals, 5, 189, 298 intellectual worker activist (in-ch’ul undongga), 214n5, 250, 252, 262–63, 269n2, 270, 279, 284, 292 Italian International, 16 Ivy, Marilyn, 193 Jacoby, Russell, The Last Intellectuals, 300 Japan, 3–4, 18, 24, 37, 39, 42, 64, 66, 73–74, 76, 99, 104, 113–15, 149, 204, 301; 1930s ethnology of, 299; colonial rule of, 3, 18, 25, 30, 38, 102, 135; “people’s history” (minshushi) of, 24; social movements of the 1960s, 4, 301. See also Normalization Treaty Jefferson, Thomas, 294 Jeju People’s Uprising of 1948, 25, 59–61, 79, 154 Jeonnam University, 172, 179, 183 Johnson, Lyndon, 73 Joint Communiqué between North and South Korea, 1972, 34–35 Judt, Tony, 143

343

June 29 Declaration of 1987, 265 June Uprising of 1987, 67n189, 264–65 “kamikaze tactics,” 174 Kang Man’gil, 42 Kang Myongja, 279 Kangch’ol sosin (Letters from Kangch’ol), 134–36 Kant, Immanuel, Critique of Pure Reason, 163 K’at’orik Nodong Ch’ongnyonhoe (Jeunesse Ouvrière Chrétienne). See Young Catholic Workers (JOC) KBS (Korean Broadcasting Service), 127 kidukkwon (vested rights), 20, 159–60 Kim Ch’an’guk, 171 Kim Chiha, 106, 171, 208, 210; “Ojok” (Five bandits), 30n31, 151 Kim Chunt’ae (Kim Jun-T’ae), 48 Kim Chunyop, 90 Kim Dae Jung, 34, 50, 74–75, 130, 265, 302 Kim Hagi, Wanjonhan mannam (A perfect meeting), 103n132 Kim Hyonjang, 159 Kim Il Sung, 73, 92–93, 97, 99, 106, 128–29, 135, 139–42 Kim Insuk, 53 Kim Jong Il, 140 Kim Kunt’ae, 30, 35, 84–85, 222 Kim Min’gi, 48 Kim Minsok, 23, 39–40, 54–55, 123 Kim Miyong, 234, 251, 255–56 Kim Munsu, 221–22, 237, 254, 258–59 Kim Myongin, 271, 274 Kim Namju, 162 Kim Onho, 165n49 Kim Pongjun, 197 Kim Pyonggon, 168–70 Kim Pyongik, 109–10 Kim San (Chang Chirak), Song of Ariran, 64–66, 132 Kim Sangjin, 155 Kim Sejin, 91n88, 154 Kim Songman, 101 Kim Sonmyong, 101 Kim Sugyong, 166–67 Kim Tongch’un, 74, 76, 81 Kim Tonggil, 171 Kim Won, 224n45, 227 Kim Wonil, “Maum ui kamok” (Prison in one’s soul), 287n72 Kim Yongae, 159

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344

Index

Kim Yonghwan, 131–32, 134–35, 142 Kim Young Sam, 66 Kim Yunsik, 113 “kisaeng tourism,” 36 Kkoktu Kaksi inhyongguk (Puppet theater of Lady Kkoktu), 197–98 knight-errant novel (muhyop sosol), 155, 158 Koch’in soni arumdapta (Rough hands are beautiful), 249 kolgae kurim (large painting), 181 Kong Chiyong, “Tong tunun saebyok” (Dawn is breaking), 290–91 Kongan Munje Yon’guso (Public Security Research Institute), 75n15 Kongjang hwaltong annaeso (Guidelines for factory activism), 137, 247–48, 258 Kon’guk University, 125, 139 Koo, Hagen, 216n16, 266n63, 289 Korean Artist Proletariat Federation (KAPF), 270, 274 Korean Central Intelligence Agency (KCIA), 44, 83, 92–97, 104–6, 129, 142, 152 Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU), 267–68 Korean history: and anticommunism, 76, 87; as “failure,” 2–3, 37, 39, 50–51, 158; and Korean War, 41, 62–63; Marxist scholarship on, 42–43; and minjung movement, 23–24, 41, 43, 57, 66, 127n68; teaching post-1945, 41–42 Korean National Democratic Front (KNDF), 127, 129–30 Korean Student Christian Federation (KSCF), 247–50 Korean War, 25, 41–42, 71, 74, 77, 79–81, 99, 101, 114–15, 132–33, 160, 208, 301; revisionist scholarship on, 62–63 Korean Workers’ Party (KWP), 92–93, 98n118 k’ori (curriculum), 165 Koschmann, Victor, 301 “Kuguk ui sori” (Voice of national salvation), 129 Kukka Anjon Kihoekpu. See Agency for National Security Planning (ANSP) Kukka Chongbowon. See National Intelligence Service (NIS) Kukka Poanpop. See National Security Law (NSL) kungmin (citizen), 39, 52

Kungmin Podo Yonmaeng (National League of Guidance), 79 Kuomintang, 64 Kuro Industrial Complex, 248, 274; strike at, 251–52, 261–62 kusadae (“save the company” corps), 274 kut (shamanistic ritual), 191 Kuttae kusaramdul (The president’s last bang, film), 177n86 Kwon Hyokpom, 73–74 Kwon Insuk, 91, 213–14, 246, 260 kye (cooperative banking system), 199 Kyongbu Highway, 33 labor laws, 11, 106, 214, 219, 221, 239 labor literature (nodong sosol ), 209, 254, 269–78, 282, 287, 289, 291, 293 labor movement, 2, 15, 98, 106, 151, 207–8, 214n5, 216, 219, 221–24, 226–28, 234–39, 243–45, 249, 251, 253–55, 258–60, 262, 265–69, 271– 274, 278–80, 284–85, 289 labor-intellectual alliance, 10–12, 213–16, 221–22, 224, 234, 239, 243–44, 256, 267–70, 277 Lazarus, Neal, 13 Lenin, Vladimir, 97, 163–64, 253, 296; What Is to Be Done?, 97, 164, 254, 256, 278–79 Levy, Carl, 17 Lu Xun, 273 MacArthur, Douglas, 78 madang (“outdoor area” or “ground”), 194 madangguk (folk play performed in open space), 10–11, 187–212 madanggut (shamanistic ritual performed in open space), 203 makkolli (rice wine), 169, 185; laws, 84 Malatesta, Errico, 16 Malttugi, 196–97, 199 Manchukuo, 76 Mangwoltong cemetery, 54 “Manifesto of the Intellectuals,” 17 March 1 Independence Movement of 1919, 64, 114 Martial Law of 1972, 34 Martial Law of 1980, 45 Marx, Karl, 52, 109, 163, 278; Capital, 97, 110, 164

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Index Marxism-Leninism, 75n15, 128, 135, 141, 164, 296 Marxist, 28n21, 41–42, 84, 102, 105, 110 Marxist-Leninist, 33, 92, 98–99, 139, 180, 245 mask-dance drama (t’alch’um), 173–4, 177, 188, 191–92, 203; of Choson, 194–200, 202, 208 “maxi style,” 151 May 16 Military Coup of 1961, 27–29, 38, 82–83, 86, 102 MBC (Munhwa Broadcasting Corporation), 126, 140n109, 259n34 McCormack, Gavan, 62 Meiji period (1868–1912), 189 “membership training” (MT), 166 Memories of May 1980, 46n105 middle class, 5, 16, 19, 260, 264, 272 militarism, 91, 108 military conscription, 91; forced, 169n61, 176, 182, 238, 258, 295 military training, 87; chonbang ipso hullyon (military training at military bases), 91, 118; students’ opposition to, 90 Mindan (Korean Residents Association in Japan), 103–4 Ministry of Culture and Information, 163n40, 173 Ministry of Education, 86–87, 90, 180 Ministry of Labor, 216, 226, 257 Minjok Ilbo (National Daily), 32 Minjok T’ongil Yonmaeng. See Student League for National Reunification minju t’usa (fighter for democracy), 154 Minjuhwa Silch’on Kajok Undong Hyobuihoe (Min’gahyop). See Council of Family Members for Democracy Minjuhwa Undong Ch’ongnyon Yonhap (Minch’ongnyon). See Youth Alliance for Democracy minjung history (minjung sagwan), 6, 40, 42, 127, 154 Minjung ui sori (Voice of minjung), 101 Minmint’u, 133 “miracle of Han River,” 149 “Miyal ch’um” (Old couple), 199 modernity, 135, 188; of Japan, 193, 299; of Korea, 3, 6, 191, 301 modernization, 2, 5–6, 11, 39, 135, 189–93, 223, 297–98

345

modernization theory, 5, 135, 297–98 mongmul (diluted ink), 9, 282 monthly defense drills (minbangwi hullyon), 73 “Morae sigye” (Hourglass, television drama), 50n125 Moscow Conference, 1945, 77 Mun Pusik, 70–71, 116, 126, 162, 297 Mun Songhyon, 221–22, 263–64, 267–68 Murim-Hangnim debate, 163 Na Pyongsik, 171 naissen ittai (Japan and Korea as one body), 39 Nam, Hwasook B., 216n12 Namjoson Minjok Haebang Chonson (Namminjon). See South Korean Liberation Front (SKLF) Nasser, Gamal Abdel, 29 National Academy (of Choson), 153 National Assembly, 28, 31, 34, 36, 47, 54n142, 122–23, 178, 301–2; (general) election: of 1960, 27; of 1967, 95; of 1987, 265; of 2004, 301 National Committee of University Student Representatives, 302 National Council of Churches in Korea (NCCK), 117 National Democratic Metal Union, 268 National Federation of Democratic Youth and Students (NFDYS), 35, 166, 170–71, 174, 218n22, 235 National Intelligence Service (NIS), 83n53, 94n101 National Liberation (NL), 161, 180, 254, 267 National Police, 83; Anticommunist Bureau of, 84; Headquarters, 262 National Security Law (NSL), 62, 71, 81–85, 92, 103n134, 104, 107, 130, 133, 255, 264, 297 “national security offensive,” 35 National Student Defense Corps (NSDC), 26n13, 88–91, 173, 178, 183n101 National Students’ Alliance, 23n2, 178 nationalism, 2, 15, 24, 39, 87, 96, 135, 188, 193, 290, 297 Nationwide League of Democratic Labor Movements (NLDLM), 238, 244, 262 Nelson, Beverly, 289 neoliberalism, 267, 293, 302

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346

Index

New Democratic Left of Latin America, 10 New Left of 1960s, 153 New Rightists, 302 Nicaragua, 166; Contras in, 125 Nietzsche, Friedrich, 69 night schools (yahak), 215, 218–34, 246, 249, 262, 273, 280 Nike shoes, 185 Nixon, Richard, 73 Nixon Doctrine (1968), 71–73 No Hoech’an, 302n30 No Sugyong, 245 nohak yondae (worker-student alliance), 214–15 Noktu kkot (Mung-bean flowers): adapted from Kim Chiha’s poem, 204; by Seoul National University students, 205–7 nongak (farmers’ music), 191–92 nongch’on pongsa hwaltong (service in farming villages), 167 nori (pleasure activities), 199 Normalization Treaty, 30–32, 94, 97, 115, 165 North Korea, 3, 7, 109, 120, 208; accused of being pro-, 62, 74; alleged espionage cases for, 95–101; and anticommunism, 80–81; and anticommunist education, 88; armed incursions of, 73, 85–87; changing views on, 8, 61, 111, 141, 143, 162; Christianity and, 223; chuch’e sasang and, 70, 108, 128, 131, 140; democratization movement and, 7, 135, 139; as enemy, 59, 82n44; enmity toward, 85; GNP of, 132; and long term political prisoners, 101; Marxist historians and, 41; National Liberation (NL) and, 180; and National Security Law, 84, 103; “Operation against South Korea” (Taenam Kongjak Saop) of, 92–93; as the Other, 7; publications of, 109–10; radio broadcasts of, 127, 129–30, 134, 141–42; South Koreans’ view on, 7, 42, 74, 107, 115, 131; and Zainichi Koreans, 103–4. See also chuch’e sasang North Korean agents, 85, 106, 263; reporting, 87, 174 North Vietnam, 7n14, 89 novels of labor. See labor literature (nodong sosol) nuclear weapons, 119–20, 254; movement against, 91n88, 115, 118, 139, 205

Olympic Games (1988), 178, 265 One Million March for reunification, 139 Ozouf, Mona, 67–69 “P’agyesung” (Apostate monk), 195–96 Pak Ch’ansung, 56–58, 207 Pak Chongch’ol, 85, 265 Pak Hyonggyu, 171 Pak Kwanhyon, 52 Pak Myonggyu, 63 Pak Myongnim, 63 Pak Tong, 259–60 Pak Wanso, “Ti t’aim ui monyo” (Mother and daughter at tea time), 285–86 Pak Wonsik, 162 Pak Wonsun, 105 Pak Yonghui, 274 Pak Yongjin, 233–34 “pamphlet Marxism,” 164 Pang Hyonsok, 273; “Chiokson ui saramdul” (The people of the infernal ship), 287–88 Pangnim Textile, 223, 226 Pan’gongpop. See Anticommunist Law Panje Panp’asyo Minjok Minju T’ujaeng Wiwonhoe. See Minmint’u Panmi Chajuhwa Panp’asyo Minjuhwa T’ujaeng Wiwonhoe. See Chamint’u p’ansori (one-person musical drama), 191–92, 206n80 Park Chung Hee: and 1961 coup, 28–29; and anticommunism, 81; assassination attempt on, 73; and Confucianism, 189–90; and constitutional revision, 32, 217; cultural policy of, 188–91; death of, 44, 176–77, 206; economic development policy of, 5, 30, 297; on Korean history, 37; “Korean-style democracy” of, 87; labor policy of, 216; presidential elections and, 30, 34; regionalism and, 49; on U.S., 116; Yeosu-Suncheon Rebellion and, 29n29. See also May 16th Military Coup of 1961; Yusin regime (1972–79) Peace Market, 221, 260 peasants, 13, 57, 59, 76, 96, 141, 191n22, 204, 206, 209, 273, 289 People’s Democracy (PD), 180, 254, 267 People’s Revolutionary Party, 94 “people’s theater,” 10, 201, 203n70 Pohang Steel, 33 Pok Koil, 37

Lee, Namhee. The Making of Minjung : Democracy and the Politics of Representation in South Korea, Cornell University Press, 2011.

Index

Copyright © 2011. Cornell University Press. All rights reserved.

pokchik t’ujaeng (struggle for reemployment), 274 political culture, 1, 10, 49, 239 “political struggle,” 237–38, 250, 253–54 Pongsan t’alch’um (Mask-dance drama of Pongsan), 196 ppongtchak (Korean pop songs), 172 presidential election: of 1967, 95; of 1971, 34; of 1978, 36; of 1987, 265, 290 pro-communist (yonggong), 8, 29, 33, 59, 70, 84, 92, 96, 107, 115, 147, 216, 223, 226, 234, 261–62. See also National Security Law (NSL) “progressive forces” (hyoksin’gye), 32–33, 92–101 Progressive Party (Chinbodang), 81 promotion of virtue and reproval of vice (kwonson chingak), 155, 158 Protectorate Treaty (1905), 113–14 Public Security Law (PSL), 100, 102 public sphere, 9, 148, 186 publishing houses of dissidents, 43, 164–65, 233 p’umasi (cooperative labor), 199–200 p’ungmul (traditional four instrument group), 179 Rancière, Jacques, 16, 248 Reagan, Ronald, 46, 120 realism (in literature), 269, 272–73, 275n32, 289; socialist, 207, 270, 275 Rebellion in the Year of Imsul (1862), 57 red complex, 143 Red Cross meeting of North and South Korea (1972), 34 “red hunt,” 78 regionalism, 49–50, 53 reportage, 270, 276 “representative prototypes” (taep’yojok chonhyong), 271–73 reunification, 10, 23, 28, 32n49, 34–35, 60, 75, 81–82, 114, 139, 147, 154, 254, 274, 302 Reunification Revolutionary Party, 33, 96–99 Rhee, Syngman, 7, 26, 38, 61, 82–83, 89, 135 Rinser, Luise, 132 Roh Moo-hyun, 302 Roh Tae Woo, 83, 130, 265 Russia, 65–66, 114 Russian Revolution, 134, 164, 166

347

Sabuk miners’ strike, 44 sadaejuui (“rely on the great,” flunkyism), 122, 136 sadangp’ae (itinerant performers), 200 Sahoe Anjonpop. See Public Security Law (PSL) Samch’ong kyoyuktae (Reeducation Corps to Purify the Three Vices), 46–47, 267 Sammint’u (Committee of the Three Min Struggle), 23 Sartre, Jean-Paul, 17 Sasaki-Uemura, Wesley, 19n49, 104, 158n27 Sasanggye (The world of thought), 29, 32 Saso Samgyong (Four Books and Three Classics), 196 Schultz, George, 121, 125 Schwarcz, Vera, 69 Scott, James, 107 Second People’s Revolutionary Party incident, 94, 171 Second Republic (1960–61), 27–28, 114, 171 Security Maintenance Law (1925), 102 self-abnegation of intellectuals, 16–18, 20 Seoul National University, 90, 118, 123, 171–72, 175–79 Sewell, William, 202 Shin Bok-jin (Sin Pokchin), 47 Shinjinhoe (New Progressive Club), 165 Sim Sangjong, 302n30 simin (citizen), 39, 52 Sin Ch’oryong, 106, 222 Sinmiyangyo (Western Disturbance of the Year Sinmi), 113 Sino-Japanese War of 1894–95, 55–56 Sino-Soviet conflict, 143 small group (somoim), 224–26, 253–54, 263, 266 So Chungsok, 115, 171, 216n16 So Chunsik, 102–5 So Sung (Suh Sung), 103–5 Social Surveillance Law (1989), 102 socialism, 105, 135, 143, 165, 238–39, 297 socialist, 7, 16, 66, 75, 132, 140, 238, 267; indigenous (chasaengjok), 100; role in Korean nationalist movement, 66 socialist ideas, or thoughts, 77, 99, 101, 105, 135, 143, 160, 238–39, 245 socialist revolution, 8, 33, 92–95, 98, 129 Soettugi, 197

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348

Index

Sogang University, 155, 192 soju (liquor made from potatoes), 185 Solidarity (in Poland), 10 sonbae-hubae, 148, 160–62, 170–71 sonbi (scholar), 18, 153 Song Hogun, 16, 256 Songgyun’gwan University, 182 Sont’aek (The road taken, film), 101n127 Soul Nodong Undong Yonhap (Sonoryon). See Alliance of Labor Movements in the Seoul Area (ALMSA) South Korean Liberation Front (SKLF), 100–101, 132–33, 162 South Korean Workers’ Party (SKWP), 98 Soviet Union, 28, 38, 62, 77, 115, 128–29, 135 Spivak, Gayatri, 14 Spring of Seoul, 44, 176–77 Stalin, Joseph, 143 state security agents (kikwanwon), 90, 168, 173–74, 294 Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA), 120 Stilwell, Richard, 119 Student League for National Reunification, 28 student movement, 10, 27, 45n103, 70, 91, 91n90, 101, 125, 148, 152, 160, 163, 165, 167n57, 169–70, 172–73, 177, 179–80, 183, 186 student-worker activist (hak-ch’ul undongga), 214n5, 237n97, 247–48, 250, 252, 254, 259, 261, 264, 273, 277–79, 283, 287, 290 “subaltern counterpublics,” 9 subaltern studies, 12–13, 40–41 Suh, Dae-Sook, 76, 141 suicide, 17, 65, 150, 207, 215; in protest, 67, 69, 105, 118, 119n27, 154–55, 180, 295 sundae (Korean sausage), 185 Sungjon University, 59 tabang (coffeehouse), 170, 185 taejung (mass), 52, 298 taishu engeki (itinerant variety theater), 193 tangwisong (obvious and evident obligations), 20, 159–60 Tattchi p’uri (Exorcism of Tattchi), 207 tchapsae (plain-clothes security agents), 173 Team Spirit military exercises, 120 tear-gas canister, 67, 156, 294 Third World, 100, 111–12, 116, 202–3, 232, 297 Three Basic Labor Rights, 218, 233

Tiananmen protest, 1989, 24, 153 todoksong (principled sense of morality), 159 Tonga Ilbo (East Asia Daily), 36n65, 165n49, 205, 210 Tongbaengnim Incident. See East Berlin Incident Tonghak Peasant Uprising of 1894, 6, 25, 44, 55–56, 96; impact on social movement, 58; madangguk and, 204, 206–7; studies of, 56–58 “T’onghyoktang moksori” (Voice of the Reunification Revolutionary Party), 129 T’ongil Hyongmyongdang (T’onghyoktang). See Reunification Revolutionary Party T’ongil Industrial Corporation, 221, 263–64 Tongil Textile workers: suppression of, 217; as symbol of 1970s labor movement, 226–28; union organizing of, 223, 226; women university students and, 173 Tosi Sanop Son’gyohoe. See Urban Industrial Mission (UIM) Trade unionism, 253 Ttal (Daughter), 207–8 ture (cooperative labor and recreation), 199–200 Turner, Victor, 202 Twaeji p’uri (Exorcism of the pig), 204 United States, 3, 42, 66, 74, 86, 101, 107, 153, 173; and division of Korea, 42, 50; Embassy in South Korea, 50–51, 182; feminist movements of, 9; Gwangju Uprising and, 51, 117–18, 122–26, 297; as imperialist, 93, 100, 134; Korean War and, 63–64; military government (1945–48), 77–79, 98n118, 102, 114; military presence of, 119–20; Park Chung Hee and, 29, 115–16; relations with, 26, 42, 50, 59, 61, 71, 73, 76–77, 81–82, 113–14, 116–18, 121–22, 128, 204, 298; views on, 7–8, 28, 37–38, 51, 62, 75, 91n88, 109–10, 112–15, 119–21, 127, 142–43; Yun Poson and, 30. See also anti-Americanism university festivals (taehak ch’ukche), 183 university singing groups, 179 Urban Industrial Mission (UIM), 215, 218, 222–28, 231–34, 255 Uri Party (Yollin Uridang), 301 U.S. Information Service (USIS) buildings: arson in Busan (1982), 70–71, 74, 116–17; students’ occupation in Busan

Lee, Namhee. The Making of Minjung : Democracy and the Politics of Representation in South Korea, Cornell University Press, 2011.

Index (1986), 125; students’ occupation in Seoul (1985), 122–23, 180, 297 U.S.-Korea Amity and Trade Treaty (1882), 113 U.S.-South Korea Combined Forces Command (CFC), 46, 51n132, 119–20 U.S.-South Korea Mutual Defense Treaty (1954), 119 Vietnam War, 17, 59, 62, 158n27 vocational schools, 26, 261

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wage-increase struggle, 275, 278–79, 284; of 1986, 244, 252–53, 283 Wales, Nym (Helen Foster Snow), 65 Walker, Richard, 117 wall newspaper (taejabo), 61, 127, 129, 131, 177, 180–83 Washington Conference of 1921–22, 114 Wells, Kenneth, 57–58 West Germany: crisis of subjectivity in, 4; Greens of, 10; “literature of the student movement” of, 273; New Left students of, 153; New Subjectivity writers of, 275–76 Western Illinois University Campus Spy Ring, 101 White, Hayden, 135 Wickham, John, 117 Wonp’ung Textile, 279 worker-student (nohak), 233 working class, 16, 19, 52, 207, 215, 235, 237, 247, 264, 270–72, 281, 289, 292 Yahak hwaltong annaeso (Guidelines for night school activism), 225n48, 231n73, 233n80 Yang Songu, “Frozen Republic,” 37 Yang Tonghwa, 101 Yang Ujin (Woo Jin Yang), 39n81 “Yangban sonbi” (Nobleman and scholar), 196 “yellow” (oyong ): labor union, 222 (see also “company-controlled” union); professors, 44–45 Yeosu-Suncheon Rebellion, 60, 79 YH Trading, 223, 226 Yi Chaeho, 91n88 Yi Chaemun, 84 Yi Ch’ol, 35, 106, 125–26, 170–71, 174 Yi Hanyol, 154 Yi Inhwi, Hwarhwasan (Active volcano), 284–85

349

Yi Kiyong, 270 Yi Manyol, 41 Yi Misuk, 132 Yi Munyol, 37 Yi Oksun, 279 Yi Samsong, 62–63, 80 Yi Sanha, “Hallasan,” 61 Yi Siyong, 38–39 Yi Soson, 221 Yi Subong, 138, 261 Yi Sungbok, 85–86 Yi T’aebok, 84n58, 141–42, 238, 258, 262 Yi T’aekchu, 276 Yi Tongch’ol, Turora mongmuldura (Listen, you pool of diluted ink), 282 Yi Yorho, 85 Yo Chongnam, 170 yolsa (patiot or hero), 67 yonjwaje (guilt-by-association system), 78 Yonsei University, 18, 171–72, 179, 182, 219 Young Catholic Workers (JOC), 218, 222–23, 232, 234, 255 Youth Alliance for Democracy, 84 Yu Inhye, 246 Yu Kilchun, 113 Yu Siju, 246 Yu Simin, 175–77 Yun Chongmo, 274 Yun Hunggil, 151 Yun Hyonsuk, 245 Yun Isang, 95–96 Yun Nansil, 259, 262 Yun Poson, 30–31, 50n126, 171 Yun Tongju, 233 Yun Yongsang, 125n58 Yusin Constitution (1972): 34–36, 172 Yusin regime (1972–79), 5, 25, 36–37, 75, 106, 141, 237, 239; and antiAmericanism, 115–16; anticommunist education of, 87; control of workers during, 224; culture of terror of, 83–85; dismissed students during, 178; end of, 44–45, 67, 177; madangguk of, 188, 203–5, 210; popular culture of, 151–52; protest against, 94, 155, 170; SKLF and, 100–101; suppression of student activism by, 172–75. See also Park Chung Hee Zainichi Koreans, 103–5 Zeitgeist, 122, 286, 300 Zola, Émile, 17

Lee, Namhee. The Making of Minjung : Democracy and the Politics of Representation in South Korea, Cornell University Press, 2011.