A History of Korea (68 page)

As Japanese business interests invested heavily in mining and heavy industry, taking advantage of cheap Korean labor, a small working class emerged in the 1920s and labor unrest grew steadily: 36 labor disputes involving 3,403 workers erupted in 1921, growing to 81 cases involving 5,984 workers in 1926, and then to as many as 205 incidents involving 21,180 participants in 1931. These disputes gathered intensity with the organization of both the Korean Workers Mutual Aid Society in 1920 and the Korean General Workers Alliance in 1927. At first, labor disputes arose mainly over demands for higher wages. Then, as time went by, the workers increasingly demanded an eight-hour workday and better working conditions. The worst labor strife, involving more than 3,000 Korean workers, occurred at W
ŏ
nsan in 1929, and led to a general strike. A Korean worker had been struck by a Japanese foreman in an oil company in the city and, when news of the incident spread, nearly all the workers at W
ŏ
nsan joined in a strike. The strike was resolved by a compromise, but it indicated that labor disputes were an important part of the Korean nationalist movement.

The Japanese saw that tenancy disputes and particularly labor disputes, threatened their colonial rule in Korea, and so the Government-General exhausted every means to thwart them. Thus, although tenancy and labor disputes
spread like wildfire in the 1920s, they subsided in the next decade under sustained harsh repression.

Unchallenged by the disunited nationalist movement, the Japanese remained in firm control of colonial Korea for many years following the March First Movement. On 15 February 1927, however, right- and left-wing nationalists formed a common front to establish the Sin’ganhoe, or New Main Society, as a united nationalist organization. The plan to organize the Society was proposed by right-wing nationalist leaders who keenly felt the need to combine all nationalists, including communists, into a single independence organization. The communist camp, for the purpose of building up its own strength, also sought to form a united front with the right-wing nationalists. The new organization’s main platforms called for the political and economic awakening of the Korean people, unity of purpose, and rejection of any compromise with Japan, which remained the ideological mainstay of the body. Still pursuing their heralded “Cultural Policy,” the Government-General reluctantly recognized the New Main Society as a legal organization. Soon it grew to encompass more than 140 branches throughout the country, and its membership totaled some 40,000. A parallel women’s nationalist organization, the K
ŭ
nuhoe, or Rose of Sharon Fraternity Society, created on 27 May 1927, acted in line with the New Main Society.

Through lecture tours across the country, the united nationalist organization called for dismantling the Japanese colonial apparatus that exploited Koreans, such as the Oriental Development Company; ending Japanese immigration to Korea; disavowing any form of opportunism; establishing an educational system to serve Korean needs; implementing freedom of study and of thought; and abolishing special laws and regulations aimed at repressing the Korean nationalist movement, including communism. The New Main Society also led various tenancy and labor disputes and school strikes among Koreans. When the Kwangju student demonstration arose in November 1929, the Society staged sympathy demonstrations in order to spread the anti-Japanese movement throughout the country. But this move led to the arrest of many of its leading members, making it almost impossible for the Society to continue its activities. Another problem was the conflict between the leftist elements who wanted to continue radical activities and the more conservative nationalists who urged law-abiding tactics. The New Main Society split, and on 15 May 1931 the communists voted to dissolve the nationalist coalition. Without the communists,
the right-wing nationalists proved unable to maintain any strong coalition. No other united resistance organization emerged on a comparable scale to replace it.

When the last Chos
ŏ
n king, Sunjong, died on 26 April 1926, the Korean people were gripped with sorrow, and their hatred against the Japanese grew even stronger. Left-wing nationalist activists seized this opportunity to hold a massive anti-Japanese demonstration on 10 June, the day of the king’s funeral. In an awe-inspiring atmosphere and strictly monitored by the Japanese police, Korean students staged street demonstrations as the funeral cortege passed each location en route to the burial ground. In this “10 June Independence demonstration,” more than 200 students were arrested, all shouting “Taehan Tongnip Manse!”—“Long Live Korean Independence!”

Korean students also organized school strikes, and the most dramatic was the Kwangju Student Movement in November 1929. This student movement was sparked when a Japanese male student insulted a Korean female student waiting for a train to take her home after school in late October 1929. By 3 November, a clash between Korean and Japanese students had escalated into open fighting in the streets of Kwangju. As expected, the Japanese police blamed the Korean students for the incident and arrested some 400 of those involved. Angered by this unjust police action, all students in the city participated in anti-Japanese demonstrations and in skirmishes with the Japanese police. These student protests spread beyond Kwangju and by March 1930 were occurring nationwide, involving 194 schools and some 54,000 students. In the end 582 students were expelled from their schools and 2,330 were suspended for an indefinite period.
¹⁶

The Kwangju Student Movement was both a massive school strike and an independence movement strongly demanding freedom of speech, assembly, and publication, as well as the abolition of the colonial educational system and the installment of an educational institution serving Korean needs. These demands were developed with the guidance of the New Main Society. The Kwangju Student Movement represented the only major resistance movement against Japanese colonial rule in Korea between the March First Movement and Korea’s liberation at the end of World War II and helped Korean nationalism survive during great adversity.

As armed resistance against Japan became impossible within Korea, many independence fighters who followed the tradition of the former
ŭ
iby
ŏ
ng militia
moved into Manchuria, propitiously located directly across Korea’s northern border. Manchuria became a major center for a lasting, tenacious armed fight for Korean independence. Although ill-equipped and outnumbered, the independence fighters in Manchuria were a powerful force of Korean nationalism, sometimes achieving spectacular success.

On numerous occasions these fighters moved in and out of the Korean-Manchurian border area, engaging in guerrilla warfare against Japanese forces. Two of their most spectacular victories occurred in 1920 at Fengwu-dong and Qingshan-li, just across the Korean-Manchurian border in southeastern Manchuria. In the battle at Fengwu-dong, on 4–7 June, the Taehan tongnipkun, or Korean Independence Army, led by Hong P
ŏ
m-do, defeated a Japanese army contingent, killing 160 and wounding more than 300. In the battle at Qingshan-li on 21–26 October, the independence fighters of the Pungno kunj
ŏ
ngs
ŏ
, or Northern Route Military Command, led by Kim Chwa-jin, routed a Japanese force that far outnumbered and outgunned them, killing more than 1,200 and wounding over 2,000. The victory would remain a landmark in the history of the Korean independence struggle. In retaliation, Japanese forces attacked Korean villages in Manchuria, slaughtering more than 10,000 Koreans and burning down over 2,500 houses and more than 30 schools in what became known as the “Massacre of 1920” or the “Massacre in Jiandao.”

To save Korean civilians from Japanese atrocities and elude Japanese follow-up attacks, independence army units scattered into less accessible areas, including Russian territory. In the Russian Maritime Province, in June 1921, Korean nationalist fighters suffered what has come to be known as the “Free City disaster,” in which Soviet Korean and Bolshevik forces attacked independence fighters who refused to be disarmed and killed several hundreds at Braweschensk. Despite the adverse conditions facing them, the Korean volunteer fighters regrouped into smaller units, under a single command, to launch more effective operations. As a result, the Ch’am
ŭ
ibu, or General Staff Headquarters, was formed by Ch’ae Ch’an and Kim S
ŭ
ng-hak under the direct command of the Korean Provisional Government in the region of the mid-Yalu River, centered on Jian prefecture, in 1923. The Ch
ŏ
ng
ŭ
ibu, or Righteous Government, was established in Jilin province by O Tong-jin and Chi Ch’
ŏ
ng-ch’
ŏ
n (Yi Ch’
ŏ
ng-ch’
ŏ
n) in 1925, functioning in effect as a governing authority for the Korean populace living in southern Manchuria. In northern Manchuria the Sinminbu, or New People’s Government, was created by Kim Hy
ŏ
k and Kim Chwa-jin in 1925. The independence forces that returned from the Russian
Maritime Province were a core force uniting several independence army units into this Sinminbu. Thus the Korean independence forces scattered throughout Manchuria were organized under three commands. Each functioned not only as a military command to battle the Japanese but also as a means for Koreans to practice self-rule in its sphere of jurisdiction. In 1929 the three commands were integrated into the Kungminbu, or National Government, with a united military headquarters.

In the 1920s, under adverse conditions, Korean independence fighters in Manchuria battled the Japanese and willingly sacrificed themselves. Despite their sustained efforts to work together, however, they failed to resolve the discord among themselves caused by regionalism and disparate ideologies.

In the early 1930s Japan’s military-oriented government attempted to find a way out of the economic problem caused by the Great Depression by advancing into the Asian mainland, embarking first on an invasion of Manchuria in 1931 and then on China proper in 1937. These Japanese war efforts transformed Korea as a colony of Japan into a vital military rear-support base, which in turn greatly changed the nature of Japanese colonial rule. The Government-General in Korea mobilized human and material resources more ruthlessly and exhaustively to achieve the Japanese goal of making Korea a military supply base.

In June 1931 Ugaki Kazushige (1927, 1931–1936) replaced Saito Makoto (1919– 1927, 1929–1931) as governor-general, heralding a new phase in Japanese colonial rule in which Korea was forced to completely serve the Japanese war effort. The Japanese encouraged military values in every part of Korean society and ruthlessly repressed all opposition. As the Government-General directed its energies to mobilizing all Korean resources for Japanese military campaigns in the Asian continent, Korea was plunged into a wartime economy.

To restore Korea’s rural economy, which was severely damaged by the Great Depression, the Japanese launched the so-called Korean Rural Revival Movement in July 1932, declaring a crusade against “spring suffering,” that is, the spring shortage of food, and emphasizing self-reliance and the spiritual regeneration of rural villages. In practice, however, it aimed to strengthen Japanese control of the Korean rural community. The Japanese also enacted modest
tenancy reform measures, such as the Tenancy Mediation Ordinance and the Farmland Ordinance, promulgated in 1932 and 1934, respectively, to settle tenancy disputes by arbitration and check the growth of absentee landlordism. As the Japanese economy recovered its strength, the Korean rural economy, relying heavily on Japan, repaired itself as well.
¹⁷

As Japan’s wars in China and the Pacific rapidly increased the need for military provisions, especially rice, the Japanese sought to boost rice production in Korea. Whereas they shipped tremendous quantities of Korean rice to their country, they brought coarse grain substitutes, such as millet, from Manchuria to stave off starvation in Korea. As time went on, this tendency was intensified. In the 1940s, to exploit more Korean farm products for their war effort, the Japanese employed the method of
kongch’ul,
or quota delivery, which compelled farmers to grow rice with expensive fertilizers to fulfill their assigned quotas. Because the Japanese usually demanded kongch’ul offerings in excess of the actual year’s harvest, Koreans faced mass starvation. Many barely managed to stay alive by eating roots and bark.

As Korea emerged as an important base for Japan’s wars on the Asian mainland, Japan sought to stimulate key manufacturing facilities in Korea such as machines, chemicals, and metals to secure sufficient military supplies. Korean industry served only Japanese military needs.

The Japanese war industry needed cheap and plentiful labor, which was met by Korea’s immense agricultural labor force. Hundreds of thousands of unskilled Korean workers were pressed into service in industries in northern Korea as well as in Japan and Manchuria. They performed heavy manual labor at wages less than half of those earned by their Japanese counterparts.

To meet Japan’s increasing need for military hardware, Koreans, as second-class citizens, were forcibly mobilized on a large scale; hundreds of thousands of Koreans were requisitioned as laborers. Soon, in March 1943, Koreans were being drafted into the Japanese army, and even college students were being drafter under the Student Volunteer Ordinance of January 1944.

Women were drafted into the Japanese armed forces as sexual slaves in military brothels. Under the “comfort women” practice, tens of thousands of young Korean women, mostly teenagers, were recruited. In the guise of regular employment, they were sent to the front lines of China, Manchuria, the Pacific islands, and Southeast Asia and forced into service for Japanese soldiers. The orders to recruit these so-called comfort women came from the highest echelon of the Japanese government, including the highest military authorities,
and recruiters were the Japanese police and local government officials. The Japanese military established the brothels not only to boost morale among its troops but to prevent rapes of local women and the spread of sexually transmitted diseases among Japanese soldiers. Poorly paid, these women were forced to endure shame and disdain.