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The Rationale of Korean Economic Nationalism Under Japanese Colonial Rule, 1922–1932: The Case of Cho Man-sik's Products Promotion Society
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 November 2008
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Economic nationalism may seem rather too grand a term for the contents of this paper. And indeed, I have not attempted any analysis of the economics of economic nationalism. My concern is with the nationalist element in the equation, in particular the basic perceptions of nationalists inside Korea who responded to the plight of their colonially oppressed nation. The question, ‘Is economic nationalism viable under colonial occupation?’ may be answered negatively in Korea's case. But one may equally assert that all nationalist movements and all economic action, of left or right, were not viable in Korea at this time. Even if a certain theory of the determinative role of economic superstructures is employed, I suspect this question of viability may generate only fruitless dispute over whether we strictly mean non-viability or simply failure. Hence I willingly leave the theoretical aspects of the case to those equipped to deal with them.
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References
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90 See note 161. His effectiveness is another thing, and has been questioned, e.g. by Kim Kyu-hwan (Ilje ǔi ǒllon sǒnjǒn chǒngch'aek (Seoul I-u Publishing Co., 1978), p. 176), who nevertheless remarks that it was possible to influence the formation of ‘public opinion’ among the masses to quite a large extent through such movements as Cho Man-sik's.
91 See note 63. Kim was reported as saying there was an average of 2000 members in each of the eight provinces—obviously not a precise figure.
92 Unless acknowledged otherwise, these details are gleaned from nationalist journals such as Tong Kwang and the Society's Journal, the Hank'guk Inmyǒng Taesajǒn (Dictionary of Korean People) (Seoul, Shingu Munhwa Sa, 1980); Ki-jun, Cho (see note 33), pp. 506–7Google Scholar, and Tōk-kyu, Chin (see note 59), p. 147.Google Scholar
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103 Ibid., Naimushō keihōkyoku, 1931: ‘Minzokushugi undō’.
104 Donga Daily, 13.3.1923.
105 Quoted in Robinson, Michael E., ‘The Origins and Development of Korean Nationalist Ideology, 1920–1926: Culture, Identity, National Development and Political Schism’, doctoral dissertation, University of Washington, 1979, pp. 243–4.Google Scholar
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110 ‘Chamyǒl inga, tosaeng inga?’—Donga Daily, 26.4.1923.
111 This does seem to conform with Marx's own words: ‘When a society has discovered the natural law that determines its own movement … even then it can neither overleap the natural phases of its evolution, nor shuffle them out of the world by a stroke of the pen.’ Capital, Preface to the First Edition, quoted in Popper, K. R., The Opeen Society and its Enemies, vol. 2 (London, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1980), p. 86.Google Scholar
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113 Namely: 1. real material capacity for class-struggle among the proletariat; 2. the morale and determination necessary to persevere in the struggle; and 3. an internationally favourable situation. The absence of this final condition was blamed for the failure of 1919, and Na believed no improvement was in sight.
114 There is, of course, the very important factor of the Japanese economic superstructure, but treatment of this is beyond the purpose of this paper. Nationalists did consider this factor, of course, when planning their movements, e.g. Kwang, Tong, no. 31 (March 1932), pp. 57–61.Google Scholar
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116 An Ch'ang-ho, ‘Ch'ǒngnyǒn ege puch'inǔn kǔl’, written about 1926 in Peking, Collected Works of An Ch'ang-ho. Published in Tong Kwang in December 1926, January 1927 and February 1931.
117 Such articles are too numerous to cite them all, but include Kim Ch'ang-se, ‘Yōngguk ūi saram gwa mal’, Tong Kwang no. 2, June 1926; Lee Sun-t'aek (Society director), ‘Sekaji mugi’ (no. 8, December 1926); Changbaek Sanin (pseudonym), ‘Kaein ǔi saenghwal üi kaehyǒki minjok chǒk palhǒng ǒi kǔnbon ida’ (no. 1, May 1926); Kim Yun-gyǒng, ‘Ingyǒk ǔi hangni chǒk haeǔi’ (no. 4, August 1926); Kim Yun-gyǒng, ‘Mu.shil.yǒk.haeng.shinǔi.yonggi’ (no. 10, February 1927); Kim Kyǒngsǒk, ‘Minjok kaejoron tokhugam’ (no. 29, January 1932).
118 Kǒn-ho, Song, ‘Shingan Hoe Undong’, in Yun Pyǒng-sǒk, Shin Yong-ha and An Pyǒng-jik (eds), Essays in Modem Korean History (Han'guk kǔndae saron), vol. 2 (Seoul, chishik sanǒp sa, 1977), p. 448.Google Scholar
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121 Cho Yong-man (ed.), History of the Cultural Movement under Imperial Japan (Iljeha ǔi Munhwa Undong Sa) (Seoul, Minjung sǒgwan, 1970); and essays by D. P. Mesler and Chanbok Ghee in Nahm (ed.) (see note 19), and by Seok Choong Song, Andrew Nahm and Oh Kon Cho in Kim and Mortimore (eds) (see note 4).
122 ‘Hǒmu Tang’, 1.1.1926, in Anti-Japanese National Declarations.
123 Donga Daily, 26.3.1923.
124 Ibid. Needless to say, the radical left did not consider themselves to be advocates of such a position, but the charge that they were preaching both despair and escapism was a major part in the Society's counter-attack.
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128 I am indebted to my colleague John Jorgensen for this information which he learned in conversation with Korean Buddhists while carrying out research on Buddhism recently in Seoul.
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130 One must allow for the fact that in citing these persons Cho was answering a Tong Kwang questionnaire and was given no space to explain what he meant. It is clear from his 1937 comments on Marxism mentioned in note 109 that Cho did not agree with historical materialism or economic determinism. Probably, it was Marx's vision of a just society that appealed to Cho (and other Korean Christians) rather than his political programme, and this reminds one that Marx did not of course invent socialism, and did not ever claim to have done so. The ‘moralism’ of Cho and his colleagues is not problematic as it is for Marxists, unless they were strict social-Darwinists. Yun Ch'i-ho had been something of a social-Darwinist and this had stuck like a bone in the throat. (See my article, ‘Yun Ch'i-ho the Quest for National Integrity’, Korea Journal, vol. 22, no. 1 (01 1982), pp. 46–7.) But An Ch'ang-ho appears to have dropped this problem and Kim Yun-gyǒng, a philosophy graduate from Tokyo, rejected a Darwinist view of society in favour of Kropotkin's concept of society as a community of mutual aid. Kim Yun-gyǒng, ‘Kaein gwa sahoe’, Tong Kwang, no. 9 (January 1927).Google Scholar
131 Some did become members of the North Korean Communist Party after 1945, like Lee Kǔng-no. Conversely, some leading communists became involved in the South Korean administration, like Kim Yak-su and Cho Bong-am.
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134 Kwang-su, Yi, ‘Kyumoǔi in—Yun Ch'i-ho Ssi’, Tong Kwang, No. 10 (February 1927), p. 10Google Scholar; The Donga Daily ran a series on Korean industry, in which the Songdo textile plant, ‘Songojik’, established in connexion with Yun's Hanyǒng College, was noted for the high quality of its products, which were being exported. (Donga Daily, ‘Chosǒn chingmul hyǒnhwang gwa saengsan chinhǔng ch'aek’, 1–16.8.1923.) Yun had a son, Yun Yǒng-son, trained in the U.S.A. in Agricultural Science, who established a dairy farm near Songdo which supplied milk even to Wǒsan, on the north-east coast. Kim Ūl-han, Chwaong Yun Ch'i-ho Chǒon (Seoul, Ūlsǒ mumhwa sa, 1978), p. 118.
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137 E.g., Ri-sǒk, Ch'a, ‘Sanghae sangmuin sǒgwan’, Tong Kwang, no. 12 (April 1927).Google Scholar
138 The case of Shin Hǔng-u, Y.M.C.A. leader and former Principal of the Methodist Pae Chae Higher Common School, highlights the ambiguity, or at least the differences in perceptions, of nationalist movements. When Shin organized the Chǒkkǔk Shinang Tan (Positive Faith Corps) in 1933, a Japanese report claimed it was modelled on the ‘Hitler Youth’ movement, on Hitler's idea of creating a ‘positive Christianity’ geared to weld Germans together as one body to surmount post-first world war difficulties. (Sǒtokufu hǒmu kyoku, 1938: Chǒsen dokuritsu undǒ no hensen’.) However, one finds Shin in 1934 lamenting that in ‘these days of dictatorships and Fascisms, liberalism seems to have received a setback’, and expressing the view that Christian thought, the ‘soul of liberalism’ and democracy, was the surest foe of such. (Hugh Heung-wu Cynn [Shin Hǔung-u], ‘Laymen and the Church’, in Within the Gate (Jubilee publication of the Northern Methodist Mission in Korea, 1934), p. 119, in the Archives of the Presbyterian Church of Victoria, Australia, Mitchell Library, Public Library of New South Wales, Sydney.)
139 Han Kyǒng-jik fled south in 1946 and founded Young Nak Presbyterian Church, the largest of that denomination in Korea, with about 35,000 members currently. I approached him in 1981 while in Seoul for an interview, and he referred me to some early sermons and speeches now published. These begin in 1946, but are consistent with his views before the liberation.
140 Kyǒng-jik, Han, ‘Kidokkyo wa Kongsanjui’, Sermon, 1947, Han Kyǒng-jik Moksa Sǒlgyo-jik, Tae Han Yesu Changno hoe Ch'onghoe Kyoyuk Buk, vol. I, 1971.Google Scholar
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142 Ibid.
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147 Paik, Lak-Geoon George, The History of Protestant Missions in Korea 1832–1910 (Seoul, Yonsei University Press, 3rd edn, 1980), ch. 4.Google Scholar
148 Shearer, R. E., Wildfire: Church Growth in Korea (Michigan, Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1966), p. 142.Google Scholar
149 Chin Tǒk-kyu (see note 59). Defining true nationalism as popular movements, Mr Chin in effect concludes that if a movement fails it is because it is not supported by the people. This is obviously questionable in itself. Mr Chin then puts the decline in enthusiasm after 1924 down to the Society's faulty ideology, i.e., it was not'populist’. No mention is made of the crucial objective conditions limiting the movement, not even of the Government-General's harassment. According to Mr Chin's reasoning, one would have to conclude from the lack of success of any movement in the 1920s and 1930s that none at all was supported by the people, ergo, that there was no nationalism. Mr Chin cites (p. 148) in support of his position a Government-General Police Affairs Bureau summary of reports for 1933–38, dealing with the Japanese divide-and-rule policy against nationalism then. Such reports do refer back to earlier periods, and while they note a decline in nationalist movements in the mid-1920s, the decline is relative to socialist movements. As I argue in this paper, it is misleading to dichotomize ‘nationalists’ and ‘socialists’ in Korea at this time, and a rise in socialism did not mean nationalist sentiment was discarded. The Japanese paranoia about the ‘red threat’ in the 1920s must be allowed for: socialists and labour leagues were lumped under statistics on communism and some statistics are quite indiscriminate. Japanese reports also note a decline in radicalism by 1929 and the resurgence of ‘pure’ nationalism: Shakai undō no jōkyō, Naimushō keihōkyoku, Minzokushugi undō’, 1931, 1935 and 1937 (Tokyo, Sanichi Shobō, 1971). These reports cover Korean nationalism in both Korea and Japan.
150 Kim Yang-su, ‘Tosan ǔi suyang undongǔl chaeinsik’, in Chu Yo-han (comp.), An Ch'ang-ho Chǒnjip (Complete works of An Ch'ang-ho) (Seoul, Samjungdang, 1963).
151 The controversy began with the publication of the series ‘Rule of the People’, in January 1924 in the Donga Daily (see note 80), which seemed to stop short of demanding complete independence and to call for self-government, pursued by legal or constitutional means. The idea was immediately opposed by several groups, nationalist and communist. Mr Chin (op. cit.), in order to advance his theory that the Society suffered a fatal lack of popular support, tries to link it with the ‘flawed’ ideology of legal, or ‘compromise’ nationalism.
152 For example, Chōsen Sōtokufu Keimukyoku Tōkyō shutchōen, May, 1924: ‘Zaikyō Chōsenin jōkyō’, reveals that whereas various Korean groups in Toyko, where they had relative freedom to speak plainly, met to censure the Donga Daily line in February 1924, by April, talk of this censure was rarely heard. Sometime in mid-March, Donga Daily manager Song Chin-u had secretly conferred with the communist youth leader, Han Wi-gōn, through an intermediary, and apparently some understanding was reached.
153 Cho Man-sik was affiliated with the ‘non-compromise’ side. When the Shingan-hoe, a united front movement, was lauched early in 1927 with a strong statement that it rejected all opportunist or compromise movements (Chosǒn Daily, 20.1.1927), Cho became Head of the P'yǒngyang branch. Moreover the Shinganhoe's first national President was the Christian nationalist Yi Sang-jae (ibid., 16.2.1927), who was a leader of the movement to establish a Korean university in 1924, which Mr Chin places on the ‘non-popular’ side. Founding members of the Shinganhoe included the following founding members of the Korean Products Promotion Society: Lee Sun-t'aek, Lee Chong-rin, Pak Tong-wan and Myǒng Che-se; Yu Sǒng-jun's nephew Yu ǒk-kyǒm; and the communist leader, Han Wi-gǒn. (Donga Daily, 20.1.1927). Chang Tǒk-su was an editor of the Donga Daily, while Cho Man-sik was at one time manager of the Chosǒn Daily; the two newspapers were supposedly ‘compromise’ and ‘non-compromise’ organs in the 1920s and 1930s. That the communists were aware of the lack of clear definition of the factions is evident from the Korean communist ‘theses’ of March 1928. See ‘Chǒngch'i Rongang’, in Ko Jun-sǒk, (compiler), Chōsen Kakumei te-ze, pp. 81–8.
154 The said pattern is supported by statistical tables in an unpublished seminar paper presented by Professor Sydney Crawcour, Far Eastern History Department, Australian National University on 15 November 1983: ‘War and Industrial Development in Modern Japan: The Sino-Japanese War to World War I’.
155 Scalapino, and Lee, , ‘The Origins of the Korean Communist Movement (II)’, Journal of Asian Studies vol. 20, no. 2 (02 1961), p. 161CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Government-General Police Affairs Bureau, ‘Chōsen kyōsantojiken no kenkyo temmatsu’, August 1926. Subsequently three more short-lived Communist Parties were established in Seoul in 1926, 1927 and 1928 (Suh Dae-sook, pp. 77–80; Government-General of Chosen: Kei Kō hi, no. 8036, 27.10.1928). Further attempts to establish a party in Korea in 1929, 1930 and 1931–1932 failed completely (Suh Dae-sook, pp. 118ff).
156 Thus Suh Dae-sook, p. 332: Communism ‘never got to the grass roots’. Of the 175 arrested on the fall of the fourth Communist Party in October 1928, the majority were students (Government-General of Chōsen: Kei Kō hi, loc. cit.). Examination of the documents and trial records relating to the 1926 Six-ten Incident and 1929 Kwangju Student Uprising reveal also that radical leftism was mainly the domain of intellectuals—inside Korea, that is. The 1926 Incident was an attempt to re-stage the 1919 movement and was designed ‘to test the revolutionary potential of the masses’, in line with Comintern instructions: students led some demonstrations but nothing came of it. (Government-General Police Affairs Bureau, ‘Chōsen kyōsanto jiken no kenkyo temmatsu’, August 1926).
The Kwangju Student Uprising began on 3 November 1929, sparked off by an altercation between a Korean and a Japanese student but planned since September 1928 by student ‘Reading Societies’ which under Chang Chae-sǒng had become Marxist. The uprising became nation-wide after the President of the Shingan Hoe, the Ch'ǒndogyo Old Faction leader Kwǒn Tong-jin, arranged a speech rally in Seoul with Donga Daily manager Song Chin-u and the Buddhist nationalist Han Yong-un, and notified Shingan Hoe branches in the provinces. In all, 335 Koreans were sentenced to imprisonment, of whom 232 were students and 14 were teachers. (Kwangju District Court Criminal Records Bureau, vol. 5, no. 46, 8.10.1930; Government-General Police Affairs Bureau, no. 1237, ‘Shinkankai no gakusei sōjō ni saishi fuon keikaku jiken yoshin shūketsu no ken,’ 11.9.1930; Seoul High Court Investigation Bureau, Thought Department, Shisō Geppo no. 6, September 1931).
157 See note 75.
158 The series of Japanese Ministry of Internal Affairs reports headed Shakai undō no jōkyō reveal increasing uncertainty about the actual force of Korean nationalism from 1935 to 1940. After the discovery in 1937–38 of two major nationalist organisations—Tonguhoe and Hǔngǒp Kurakbu—the Japanese reassessed ‘pure’ nationalism and concluded that while it seemed at times to die down, it was extremely resilient, simply lying in wait for the slightest opportunity. Sǒtokufu hǒmu kyoku, 1938: ‘Chosen dokuritsu shisǒ undo no hensen’; Sǒtokufu keimukyoku, 1939: ‘Saikin ni okeru Chōsen chian jōkyō’. The same is evident in the Shisǒ ihǒof the late 1930s, put out by the Seoul High Court Prosecutor's Office. These can be found in Pak Kyǒng-shik (comp.), Chōsen mondai shiryǒ sǒsho vol. 8, ‘1930 nendai minzoku undō (Tokyo, Sanichi shobǒ, 1983).
159 Cf. Chong-sik, Lee, The Politics of Korean Nationalism (University of California Press, 1963), p. 178.Google Scholar
160 Ki-jun, Cho (see note 33), p. 524.Google Scholar
161 Lim Ǔn (pseudonym), The Founding of a Dynasty in North Korea (Tokyo, Jiyusha, 1982), p. 133.Google Scholar The author of this very interesting book also maintains that Cho was the Soviet Command's first choice for leader of North Korea (he was Head of the Interim Government until January 1946), dropped only because he refused to accept the idea of a protectorate over Korea (pp. 149–51).
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