By Episode 2 – Prelude to War Part 2:
A further explanation of the Korean factional powers that took over the Russian’s and USA’s respective occupation zones of Korea during the 1945-1947 period. The Right-wing asserts its power in the south, although the Left-wing was supported by a large number of people in the countryside. The Korean Workers Party asserts it’s power in the north, sending dissenters out, and implementing land reform.
3:47 am on July 15th, 2009 1
I don't know why it never dawned on me before in this light, but the way that paragraph came together, I thought:
You know — I've often read experts on Korea writing or speaking in English talk about the South and the right wingers by saying how there was so much support for the left (read-communists) out in the countryside…
…the picture that is often painted of the US occupation zone is one in which happy little people's committees spontaneously sprouted up everywhere like magic mushrooms (also out of dung heaps, I'd guess) — OK, I'm being a little too sarcastic….
but the idea about the short period between Japan surrendering and the US military movie in is heavily —- that Korea North and South was far on its way to self-rule and real democracy — with the "people's committees" being a prime source of "proof" of that idea —
—- which completely ignores just how great was the actual democracy that turned out everywhere such "people" power "committees" flourished around the world in the post-colonial nations…
—- but — looking at that paragraph — it dawned on me:
"If the people's committees and everything on the left was oh so damn popular, why did hundreds of thousands of these happy citizens flee the North? uprooting themselves and all they had to get the hell out of the area in which the "people's committees" kept on flourishing?
If things in the South were going so hunkydory with the leftists in charge, why weren't hundreds of thousands of them at the 38th parallel telling the Northerners to go back to the land of milk-n-honey instead of coming South where the small clich of rightists was taking over in a dictatorship?
Why was the massive flow of average Koreans pouring South instead of the other way around —- if the left was the truly popular group in most of the countryside???
5:01 am on July 15th, 2009 2
I'm a bit confused here USinKorea. You keep talking about how "average Koreans" fled to the south in rather imprecise manner. You do not clearly define what in your eyes constitutes as an objective definition of an "average Korean" in the post-colonial period. No demographic or other general statistical metrics are proffered by you. Furthermore, your comments smuggle in the assumption that these "average Koreans" fled BECAUSE of the "people's committees". Now, I'm sure that one could comb through the records and find such an incident. But was it a pattern in post-colonial Korea? If you have evidence to show that it was please offer it. Otherwise its facile assertion attempting to be persuasive.
Without getting into the debate of what constituted the "average Korean" who fled from the north in the post-colonial period, my reading of the secondary literature in regards to this matter shows that the typical individual or groups of individuals who fled to the south from the north were wealthy landlords-generally from Hwanghae and Pyongan (sp?) province-as well as individuals who had served in some sort of important capacity with the former colonial regime (i.e. police, military, or bureaucrat). For obvious reasons, the sprouting of these "people's committees" were inimical to their material and most likely bodily interests.
I know that I shouldn't probably say this on this blog, but if you really want an excellent history about the "people's committees" it's difficult to beat chapters 8 and 9 of the first volume of Bruce Cumings' "The Origins of the Korean War". I know of no other English language work that does such a meticulous and masterful of job of culling through the primary documents regarding this issue. If your ideology's not getting in the way you should definitely peruse it.
On a final not, GIinKorea says that this particular documentary is of British provenance. It wouldn't happen to have been produced by the Thames Production Company would it? Moreover, what is the title of this documentary. It wouldn't happen to be called "Korea: the Unknown War" would it? If both the above are true, then this is a documentary in which Bruce Cumings along with Jon Halliday served as principle advisors. You can read all about Dr. Cumings' experience making the documentary in "War and Television".
11:28 am on July 15th, 2009 3
I do not know who made this documentary, just that it is on YouTube and provides a different perspective and some interesting interviews of the Korean War.
12:24 pm on July 15th, 2009 4
I would agree with Maruyama. The revolution in the North was communist(after 50 years of Japanese subserviance, and landlords reaping the rewards of their serfs) and the land was to be given to the people. I think I would have been communist under the same circumstances. It must have been very attractive to many in the south as well.
The people (refuges) emigrating to the south would logically have been previous land owners, overseers, or anyone who had prospered under the Japanese. Where else could they go?
The US inherited South Korea as a result of the end of WWII. MacArthur didn't want anything to do with the country, and those in political control had very little knowledge of the far east other than the war. The idea of freedom and democracy were little known in Korea, and only attractive to a few. How could it ever compete with "land redistribution" and equality of the workers.(even if the boss was a hard ass).
In truth, the only reason South Korea ended up free, is because Truman didn't like to be kicked around by the Russians, and stood up to them. (despite advice to the contrary).
6:09 pm on August 25th, 2009 5
I just spotted this response…
The secondary material I remember reading said the flow of Koreans from North to South was massive – not just a handful of landowners. That is why I said "average" Koreans.
I vaguely remember reading that one of the major problems the South Korean government had in the early days was inadequate resources to handle the influx of so many people (coupled with the fact some of them, and some communist sympathizers already in the south, were actively trying to disrupt the economy).
A quick search of Google Books using search terms related to this idea offered some confirmation of this. One figure I saw was that half a million Koreans moved into the South before the war.
And yes, reading Bruce Cumings to define your view of post-colonial Korea is a mistake – even in his best academic work – the book you mentioned.
In his discussion of the people's committees he tries to strip them of ideology, paint them as simple land and wealth reformers, and claim they spontaneously organized into a budding democracy across the land — until the US showed up and put them out of business.
My ideology doesn't blind me from using common sense: how in the world can an organization or organizations "spontaneously" coordinate from city to city much less across the whole nation without some sort of prep-work (organization) beforehand? Especially in a poor nation like Korea at that time with somewhat limited technology even in the 1940s standard…?
Origins is definitely worth reading, but it isn't hard to see the foundation of Cumings' distortions way before he dropped the facade altogether than started to write things like North Korea: Another Country…
11:42 pm on August 25th, 2009 6
Alright, you say the influx from the North to the South was "massive" and not merely isolated to a few landlords and colonial collaborators. But you still haven't sufficiently accounted for why the non-landlord, non-collaborators "fled" South.
I do not discount the fact that some "average" Koreans fled because of a visceral dislike of communism. That said, your discussion of this issue omits the fact that in the immediate post-colonial period there was a massive movement of people across Northeast Asia.
My intuition is that your so-called deluge of Koreans from North to South can be accounted to the simple process of Koreans returning to their hometowns following the dismantling of Japan's empire. After all, the North was always less populated than the South.
As for the issue of the people's committees: Just because a nation is poor doesn't preclude the notion that individuals within that society can't organize for political agitation. Your contention is not only utterly a-historical but flat-out empirically wrong. There's a whole host historical and social science literature I can cite for you showing why. But to start off, I suggest you take a look at the works of Charles Tilly, Barrington Moore, Jeffery Paige, Theda Sckopol, as well as Rosa Luxembourg for added measure.
Finally, you don't Cumings. Fine. To each their own. But my just advise that however much you dislike the man the evidence he presents in Origins of the Korean War is something you can't impeach.
3:19 am on August 26th, 2009 7
It's not very "so-called" when it is so large. But, wording aside, you have a valid point, and the issue is inconclusive. I would point back to what I believe I said in the original comment (it has been awhile) that the migration trends away from communist dictatorships toward more democratic societies is a proven, historical trend. Was it a major factor in 1945-1950? I don't know. I think scholars on Korea have largely left this too unexplored….more in a second on that…
You missed my point. What I said agrees completely with the first quote. In fact, I said it was common sense — and something Cumings tries to deny or cloud with smokescreens in his discussion of the people's committees in South Korea immediately after the Japanese surrender. He tries to convince readers that they were just grassroots organizations that sprung up spontaneously + were somehow magically working together as a democratic unit across geographical locations.
Even without knowing much about Korea at the time I read that, I knew it was largely bunk. It doesn't make sense. Which you obviously agree with.
(So you don't mind if I pass schooling myself with your impressive list of names, right?)
And that was my point. One the one hand, Cumings wants to say that the Korean War was a civil war with roots well back into the colonial days and that the people's committee leader types were just regular folk springing to true democracy taking power into their own hands and redistributing wealth. But he also wants to insist that they didn't have any significant number of die-hard communists among them who had been trained in organizing and had sprung into action to help foster control of power and wealth adhering to an ideological system hindsight tells us was absolutely horrible for the common people and was absolutely in no way, shape, or form a "democracy".
It seems to me these issues have been stunted in Korean studies somewhat because people don't have access to records and people in the North. Also, the ideological divide prevented adequate scholarship on these issues on both sides of the DMZ.
But, the work that has been done on the top level leadership among the Koreans living in exile or in Japan clearly shows the ideological divide was strong among them. Maybe the Japanese were very good at rooting it out in Korea when they had control. But, it seems like common sense to me that, if we had the source material available, we could see that that ideological divide was working on secret groups in Korea during the colonial period as well —– just as it was in societies around the world. But, scholars seem to pain the picture of Korea as somehow being outside that natural flow of communist vs non-communist/capitalist/other authoritarian ideas.
I despise the man because it is possible to see how he manipulates and twists information even without having the language skills and access needed to consult the impressive volume of primary works he used — and this is true of even his best academic work – Origins.
I just pointed out a big hole that was clear from the start in his description of the people's committees.
If he later work still holds your respect and hasn't caused you to rethink his earlier work. If you find him to be a top notch scholar largely speaking the truth of the experience in Korea, fine. It says a lot about where you are coming from…And I believe the majority of people who read a significant amount Cumings, (except for maybe the majority in South Korean colleges) would agree…
3:24 am on August 26th, 2009 8
Should be "disagrees completely"…
1:23 pm on August 26th, 2009 9
Could the "grassroots organizations that sprung up after the defeat of Japan" be discibed better as "vigilanti groups? It would seem to make much more sense. For a people who had been oppressed by the Japanese and their sympathizers, of whom profited greatly, it would seem natural for people to rise up and attack their former supervisors, landlords, and other people who profited from the Japanese occupation. Especially after the defeat of their masters.
4:07 pm on August 26th, 2009 10
I don't know. It has been awhile since I read the books on this period. I want to say no overall. I seem to remember reading that Seoul in particular was fairly calm. I don't think the people's committees were generally involved as vigilanti groups. I am taking that to mean wanton mayhem makers. They did confiscate land and seek to run things in their local areas, and I'm sure there was some violence, but I don't think that description fits —- again – these are vague memories of mine.
The wanton mayhem, I think, didn't begin until after the US came in and the people's committees were dissolved and the conservatives among the Koreans came to life to vie for power with the leftists and the leftists sought to disrupt the economy and government under US authority.
But a likely problem with any of these readings is that we're talking about compressed time. Japan surrendered. The Russians came in. The Americans came in. The PC were dissolved. Conservatives became political active. And a significant amount of hell broke loose. All within a relatively tight time frame.
1:30 pm on August 27th, 2009 11
Groups of people knowing the backing of former landowners, supervisors, landlords, would spontainiously grow, knowing their oppressors were no longer in power. Call them whatever you want, but it would only seem natural given what most of the people had lived under for 50 years.
The natural uprising would have started before the US came in for the US to desolve them when they arrived. This would give life to conservative landowners etc. to promote the new government. It would also give life to leftists to disrupt the economy and government under US authority.
I have read nothing on the times we are talking about, but understand human reactions very well. Sometimes you don't need a book to tell you what was going on.