이 몸이 죽고 죽어 一百番 고쳐 죽어
白骨이 塵土되여 넉시라도 잇고 업고
님 向한 一片丹心이야 가실 줄이 이시랴
鄭夢周
My body may die, again and again
One hundred times again, and
May turn into but a pile of bones and dust,
My soul may or may not live on, but
My loyalty to my country shall remain unchanged for ever.
Jung Mong Ju, 1337-1392, a Koryo scholar
My family originated from Kim-hae, South Gyong-sang Province, South Korea. Kim-hae was the capital of Gum-gang Gaya, an ancient kingdom that followed Ga-rak. Gaya was conquered by Baikje in 532 AD. Thus my ancestors were originally from Ga-rak and served Silla kings with noted distinction. According to the Three Nations Chronicle and the Ga-rak Chronicle, the nine village chiefs of Ga-rak met at a mountain top to elect their leader in 42 AD. They knelt on their knees and beseeched Heaven for guidance. A red beam of light appeared in the sky and struck a spot nearby and they village chiefs ran over to the spot, where they found six eggs in a golden basket.
Next day the eggs hatched and the first man-child to emerge became the first king, Kim Su-roh, of Ga-rak, and King the first of Kim-hae Kim's. He was named Kim, means 'gold', because of the golden basket that held the eggs. King Kim married Queen Huh, a woman who came all the way from India, and sired 10 sons and two daughters. The Kim family ruled the Kim-hae domain until 533 AD, when Kim-hae, under King Kim Gu Hyong, was annexed into Baik-je. The Kim-hae clan was allowed to lord over its old family domain in lieu of allegiance to Baikje kings. King Gu Hyong's grandson, Kim Yu Sin, married a Silla princess and led Silla armies in battles crucial to Silla's unification of Korea.
Some 200 years ago, my great, great grandfather was sent to South Hamgyong Province to command the Hamhung garrison. He was a general in the Yi Dynasty Army. He married a local woman and sired two sons. My grandfather moved to Hong Won on the east coast pf Korea and ran a small construction business. His brother moved to Samho, a fishing village, and became a fisherman. Unfortunately, the fisherman brother drowned in the East Sea leaving my grandfather the sole wage earner of the clan.
My father Kim Chang Lim was born in Hong Won Gun, Gyong-un-myon, Gyong-po Village, near Hong Won, in 1903. My grandpa died many years before my birth but my grandma was still alive in 1950, the last time I saw her, and lived with us on and off. My father had three sisters. The oldest sister war married to a poor farmer, my Uncle Park, from a revolutionary family in Kapsan. The second sister was progressive and self-taught. She moved to Seoul on her own and worked for women’s rights. The third sister was born retarded and lived with Uncle Park.
Figure
4. My father, Kim Chang Kim – a Communist-Capitalist Revolutionary.
My father, after his father's death, was too poor for schooling and worked for his father and uncle. My grandma, an illiterate woman of many superstitions, forced my father to study whenever he could. He was a bright, determined man and saw that the only way out of his misery and poverty was education. He learned the Japanese and Chinese languages on his own. He studied the Chinese classics and read volumes of Japanese books on history and philosophy. He took correspondence courses from Waseda University, Japan's Princeton.
Soon his scholarly prowess was noticed and recognized by the villagers. His wisdom and advices were valued and sought after. At about this time, he fell in love with Karl Marx’s communism. Marxism was popular among the Japanese intellectuals in the early twentieth century and my father got connected with the Japanese communists. He believed that Marxism was the right vehicle to liberate the toiling mass of Korea and to break the age-old shackle of poverty, ignorance and oppression.
Figure
5. My father and his 2nd sister. She was well educated.
My father began to teach and preach Marxism to the wretched farmers of Hong Won and some of the farm youth became ardent converts. They wanted actions. They wanted Marxism put into practice right away. Accordingly, my father organized and led the Hong Wong Peasant Uprising. The uprising spread to Myongchun, Dan-chun and other farm villages in the Hamgyong Province. The farmers were incredibly poor, eking out a sub-human living by clearing out with fire, hence the term Wha Jung Min, slash and burn migrants, a small patch of shrubs. After a crop or two, they would move on to another patch.
The lucky ones worked for rich landlords, but their lot was little better than that of a slash and burn farmer. The landlords literally owned the tenants. They had the power of a feudal lord and locked up any tenant failing to pay rent or debt on time. Farmers' daughters were married off early or sold into slavery, housemaids or concubines, to the Japanese or rich Koreans. Most tenants owed their landlord some 50 years of rent and had no hope of freeing themselves from their age-old bondage.
Farmers lived in straw thatched houses while rich landlords lived in tile-roofed houses. A farmer's house was built of stones, clay and straw. Wooden beams served as the main framework. The roof was made of rice plant straws tied with ropes. Strands of rope were placed here and there to keep the straws in place. The unique Korean on-dol was made of flat stones covered with dirt and wax papers. Beneath the stones were six to ten trenches that conducted cooking heat and smoke into a chimney, heating the stones, the only source of room heating. Meals were cooked over a wood-burning stove, the only source of heat.
A farmer's wife cooked two meals a day, a breakfast, achim-bup, and a dinner, junyuk bup. A lunch was a leftover from the breakfast and there was no cooking involved. On special occasions, you got a midnight snack of cold noodles with kimchi. Breakfast was the biggest meal of a day. A farmer went to work early with sunrise and he would fill his stomach before starting a day.
The Hong Won farmers demanded reprieve from the age-old excessive exploitation by absentee landlords. They armed themselves with sickles and spades, and thus armed, attacked local government offices. They were no match for the Japanese police equipped with modern weapons. Scores of the rebels were killed and many more were arrested. The survivors went into hiding.
Figure 6.
Newspaper articles on the Communist peasant uprisings in Hamgyong-nam-do. My
father led the uprising at Hongwon. Courtesy: ROK history archives.
The uprising failed and the poor peasants' lot became even more dismal. My father managed to escape and went into hiding. The police manhunt intensified and my father was forced to leave the village, with no money, no food and whatever clothing he had on his back. He set out on foot in the general direction of Manchuria, where he hoped to join Gen. Yi Tong Whi’s army rumored to be operating near Kapsan. He hid among the rocks and bushes during the day and walked during the night whenever he could. He stopped by peasant homes begging for whatever scraps of food were left over. He did menial jobs for food and occasionally gave reading lessons to farm kids. It was indeed a slow walk to China. The mountain paths were covered in snow and ice, and tigers, bears and wolves preyed on lone trekkers. He had to wait for a trader or a hunter to break the path for him and followed their steps at a distance.
By the time he reached Kapsan, he was a walking skeleton, half starved and half frozen. He could see the Yalu River in the distance, and across the river was the promised land of China, but he was exhausted. He could not go any further. His body and spirit were broken. He cuddled up in a pigsty of a farmhouse and laid down. He wanted to die and free himself from the endless and unbearable cold and hunger.
The farmer’s daughter discovered him. She was up early in the morning to feed her pigs. She spotted a small mound of snow by the pigsty and poked at it curious. To her utter horror, the little mount let out a groan and stirred. She ran into the house and woke up her brother. Thus by the kindly farming family, my father was saved from certain death. The tall skinny farm girl discovered him just in time.
She cared for him and soon my father was well enough to continue his journey. But he fell in love with the farm girl, and he had to make the decision of his life: to go on his journey into uncertain future in China or stay and resume his revolution among the farmers of Kapsan. He chose to stay.
The Samil Anti-Japanese March was led by young students and Christians in
Korea on March 1, 1919. , It
was
crushed brutally by the Japanese. A Declaration of Independence, patterned after
the American version, was read by teachers and civic leaders in tens of
thousands of villages throughout Korea: “Today marks the declaration of Korean independence. There will be
peaceful demonstrations all over Korea. If our meetings are orderly and
peaceful, we shall receive the help of President Wilson and the great powers at
Versailles, and Korea will be a free nation.”
Nearly two million students, patriots and Christians responded and joined the march. The naive Koreans were not aware that the American President Wilson was not quite the good guy he claimed to be: America had years earlier agreed to Japan's annexation of Korea. The 33 organizers of the movement were mostly Christian idealists and had no experience in mass movement and so the March failed disastrously.
The Japanese suppressed the movement with brutal force. They fired into groups of Korean Christians singing hymns. Christian leaders were nailed to wooden crosses and were left to die a slow death – “so that they can go to heaven”. Mounted police beheaded young school children. The police burned down churches. The official Japanese count of casualties include 553 killed, 1,409 injured, and 12,522 arrested, but the Korean estimates are much higher, over 7,500 kiled, about 15,000 injured, and 45,000 arrested.
The Korean people, in particular Christians, came to realize the international fact of life, so-called self-determination of the Wilson Doctrine was only propaganda used by the Western imperialists to dupe people. Young Korean patriots were forced to join the camps of the Soviets and China for material and ideological support. Thus the Korean Provisional Government (KPG) was established on April 8, 1919, in the French Concession of Shanghai. Rhee Syngman, in absentia, was elected premier, Yi Dong Whi, defense minister, later, premier, and Kim Kyu Sik, foreign minister. The KPG had its own parliament, press, and a military school in Shanghai. The original founders of KPG represented a broad spectrum of the Korean political ideologies united in the common cause of Korean independence, but this coalition did not last long. Soon after its formation, the KPG split into numerous factions.
On April 25, 1919, Gen. Yi Dong Whi organized a central command based in Vladivostok for all partisans. Yi's command published newspapers; conducted propaganda in Siberia, Manchuria and Korea; established contacts with partisans in Manchuria and Korea; and had formal ties with Moscow and the Third International.
A few years earlier, Gen. Yi had established the Korean Military Academy at Mishan, Manchuria, staffed with former Yi Army officers. Yi received arms and funds from the Soviets, formally issued army draft orders to all 18-year old Korean boys and a 20-yen tax on all Korean households. Korean military training centers were in operation at Chita under Gen. Yi Kang, Nikolayevsk under Gen. Mun Chang Bum and Ahn Myong Gun, Vladivostok under Gen. Om In Sup and Ssucheng under Gen. Yi Tong Whi. Gen. Yi had some 3,700 Koreans fighting the Japanese in Siberia as members of the Soviet Army. In addition, several hundred independent Korean guerrillas were fighting the Japanese in Siberia.
In September 1920, a Korean Independence Army detachment attacked Hunchun, China, killing the Japanese residents of the town. In response, the Japanese Army dispatched two full divisions to crush the Independence Army once for all. After a fierce, bitter battle, some 3,000 Korean survivors fled to Siberia. More than 2,000 Japanese soldiers were killed. The enraged Japanese killed over 6,000 Korean civilians; Korean women and babies were bayoneted; village elders were buried alive; Christian pastors were crucified; and captured soldiers were quartered or skinned alive.
On August 28, 1919, a Czarist guerrilla unit captured and executed the key leaders of Soviet-Koreans in Siberia. Gen. Yi managed to escape to Shanghai to join the Korean Provisional Government as its defense minister. This put an end to the Korean People's Socialist Party. The survivors joined the Soviet Communist Party, the Korean Chapter, commonly known as the Irkutsk Group. Yi Dong Whi took over the premiership of the Korean Provisional Government in Shanghai on September 23, 1919, filling high positions in the KGP with his fellow members of the Korean People's Socialist Party. Yi's effort to regroup KPG into a united front failed, however. The exiles split into two groups: Yi's group who favored military actions with Soviet backing and Rhee Syngman's group which favored diplomatic channels working closely with America.
On July 19, 1920, the Second
Comintern Congress opened with a Korean Communist, Park Chin Sun, delivering a
keynote speech: “Admitting that the first stage of the revolution in the East will be
the victory of the liberal bourgeoisie and the nationalistic intelligentsia, we
should nevertheless now prepare our forces for the next stage, drawing from the
depths of the peasant masses enslaved by the feudal regime organized forces for
an agrarian-social revolution in Asia as soon as possible. The industrial proletariat, if Japan is not taken into consideration,
is too weak in Asia for us to cherish serious hopes of an early Communist
revolution; but there is no doubt of the success of an agrarian revolution if we
are able to grasp the immediate problems of the great bloody struggle. The Russian proletariat, standing as the vanguard of the world social
revolution, could withstand a desperate three-year onslaught of the bourgeoisie
of the whole world only because it knew how to attract the poorest and middle
classes of peasantry to its side.”
A Korean delegation led by Han Hyong Gwon, a member of Gen. Yi's staff, met Lenin in Moscow in August 1926, and was authorized 2 million rubles, about one million dollars, for the Korean Provisional Government. Since Russian paper rubles were not negotiable in China, Han was handed 400,000 gold rubles in seven boxes, each box contained 20 sacks of gold rubles and weighing 700 pounds. Han was promised the balance after he had delivered the first payment to Gen. Yi. In order to speed up the money transfer, Han handed over the boxes to Kim Rip, Gen. Yi's secretary, at the border town of Omsk and went back to Moscow for the rest of Lenin's money.
To his surprise, Han was told on his return to Moscow that the Soviet-Koreans (Irkutsk) had told Lenin that the Soviets were backing the wrong men; that the KPG was made of impure reactionaries; that Han himself was a capitalist. Consequently, Lenin refused to honor his prior commitment. However, Han managed to squeeze out 200,000 more rubles from Lenin. Gen. Yi kept Lenin's gold rubles away from the non-Communist members of the KPG, which was to contribute to the final split of the KPG in 1921.
In October 1920, a Korean partisan unit took over Nikolayevsk, a Czarist town in Siberia, after a bloody battle, and murdered several hundred Japanese prisoners and civilians. Japan was enraged and threatened retaliation against the Soviets and demanded removal of all Korean military from Siberia. At the time, Lenin was trying to negotiate Japanese withdrawal from Siberia. Lenin told Japan that there were no Korean military units in Siberia; that all Korean armed men belonged to the Soviet Red Army. Lenin told the warring Koreans to cease hostilities against the Japanese or else.
On December 8, 1920, Rhee Syngman arrived in Shanghai. He was elected president of the KPG in 1919, in absentia, but this was the first time Rhee set foot in the KPG office. Unfortunately for the KGP, Rhee was to ferment dissension in the ranks and was finally expelled by Kim Gu from the KPG in 1924 for embezzlements. But movement continued within the faction torn KPG. On January 10, 1921, Gen. Yi Dong Whi reorganized the Korean People's Socialist Party into the Korean Communist Party, Koryo Kong Sang Dang, with Lenin's gold rubles brought by Kim Rip from Moscow.
On January 26, 1921, the Korean Provisional Government in Shanghai split openly. When Rhee's faction learned about Lenin's gold rubles, an open hostility toward Gen. Yi erupted. Rhee Syngman accused Kim Rip of embezzling funds to finance his sex habits. Kim Rip was assassinated and the KPG's primer minister, Gen. Yi Tong-whi, parted company with the KPG. Shortly thereafter, Rhee himself was accused of embezzlements and expelled from the KPG by Kim Gu.
In March 1921, the friction between the Irkutsk Soviet-Koreans and Gen. Yi's faction led to an open warfare in which Yi lost nearly half of his followers to Rhee's rightist group and to the Irkutsk group. Lenin decided to back the Irkutsk group and dictated that Yi's followers must take orders from the Soviet-Koreans. Thus, Lenin abandoned his long-time ally Gen. Yi and the Korean nationalists. In effect, the Soviet-Koreans sold out the Korean nationalism to Russian interests.
By April 12, 1921, the Korean military units in Manchuria were defeated in a series of battles with the Japanese and the survivors fled to Siberia. There were at least 36 independent Korean military organizations. Gen. Yi regrouped them into the Greater Korea Independence Corps known as the Taehan Tong Lip Dang. The Corps was allied with the Soviet Army and received Soviet equipment and training. At about the same time, the Soviet-Koreans formed their own military unit, the Korean Revolutionary Military Congress, and wanted to absorb Yi's Independence Corps. Gen. Yi realizing that the Soviet-Koreans worked for Lenin, not for the Korean independence, refused to cooperate.
In a covert operation, the Soviet Red Army and Soviet-Koreans surrounded an Independence Army corps of 7,000 men at Alekseyevsk, Siberia, on June 27, 1921 and demanded that they surrender. A battle ensued and several hundred Koreans were killed. Many managed to escape. Some 1,700 captured Koreans were pressed into the Red Army and many officers were jailed or killed. Today, this infamous battle is known as the Free City Incident, because the city was declared a “free” zone, a clever deception to lure the Korean nationalists into a death trap.
Figure freecity.jpg: The Free City (Alekseyevsk, Siberia) today. Courtesy: Korean Independence Hall.
The Soviet version of this Incident differs from the Korean account. According to the Soviet historians, there were some 7,000 armed Koreans at the camp being reorganized into regular Soviet army organizations, divisions, regiments, battalions, companies and squads, and a modern military command structure. The Yi units refused to cooperate and started to sneak away. Naturally, the other armed Koreans tried to stop them from leaving. Unfortunately, there were some shots fired. At any rate, the bulk of Yi's forces managed to escape to Manchuria and joined the anti-Communist forces there.
Gen. Yi was incensed at this Soviet treachery and set out to see his old friend Lenin in person. Fearing foul deeds by the Soviet Koreas, he took the long way to Moscow, through Hongkong to Europe. On the way to Moscow, Gen. Yi ran into a series of mishaps, and it would take him almost a year to reach Moscow. Meanwhile, Lenin ordered an investigation of the Free City Incident, but no clear picture of what had actually happened could be obtained. The best that Lenin could do was to ask both factions to work together from then on. However, these two factions would engage in assassinations and political blackmail up until the end of World War II.
With all the bloody tragedies, Korean efforts to organize did not stop. The First Congress of the Toilers of the Far East convened in Moscow on January 21, 1922, and 144 voting delegates from China, Japan and Korea attended, including 52 Koreans from Siberia and China. Gen. Yi Dong Whi led the Korean delegation, with Yo Un Hyon and Park Hyon Yon. The Comintern ordered the Korean factions to merge; all prisoners be released henceforth and restored to their positions prior to the Free City Incident; and the key ring leaders of the Incident were banished.
After the 1919 March 1st non-violent movement for independence was brutally suppressed by the Japanese in Korea, many Korean patriots turned to violence. They believed that the only path to independence was to counter violence with violence. They disdained those nationalists who preached non-violence against the Japanese. For example, Rhee Syngman, the nominal head of the Korean Christian faction wanted Korea under a US-supported tutelage, in effect to become a US protectorate.
On November 9, 1919, in Kirin, Manchuria, Kim Wong Bom, alias Kim Ik San, formed Uiyoldan, Practice Justice Bravely Society, a secret terrorist group with members in Korea, Japan and China, and a number of foreigners including a German named Martin, a specialist on making bombs.
Figure 7. Kim
Wong Bom, Korea’s #1 anarchist. Courtesy: ROK History Archives.
Kim Dae Ji and Whang Sang Gyu
advised the group. Charter members included Kim Won Bong, Yun Je Soo,
Lee Sung Woo, Kwak Gyong, Kang Se Woo, Lee Jong Ahm, Han Bong Gun, Han Bong In,
Kim Sang Jun, Sin Chul Wu, Ba Dong Sun, Suh Sang Rak and Kwon Jun. Kim Won Bong
was the leader.
The Society carried out some 300 acts of terrorism against the Japanese from 1919 to 1924. More than 300 Uiyoldan members were captured and executed by the Japanese. One of the most prominent members was Chon Kwang (alias O Song Yun) who later joined Kim Il Sung's partisans in Manchuria. Another was Kim Won Bong (alias Kim Yak San not to be confused with Kim Yak San aka Kim Wong Bom) whose feats are described in a later section.
Among the Uiyoldan's notable accomplishments were the bombing of Japanese Gov. Gen. Saito's office in Seoul, September 12, 1921, and the shooting of Gen. Tanaka on March 28, 1922. They also attempted the assassination of the Japanese Emperor on January 4, 1924 and the bombing of the Tokyo Takushoku on December 28, 1926.
On March 28, 1922, the Uiyoldan mounted a terrorist attack on Gen. Tanaka, the main architect of the Japanese Imperialism in China and Korea. The plot involved assassins O Song Yun with a pistol, Kim Ik Sang with a bomb and Yi Chong Am with a sword. O Song Yun fired at Tanaka at which moment, a large American woman who happened to be next to Tanaka grabbed Tanaka in terror and was hit, thus saving Tanaka's life. O ran from the scene believing that Tanaka was dead.
The second line of attack, Kim Ik Sang, threw a bomb at Tanaka, but a British sailor saw it coming and kicked it into the river. The third line of attack, Yi with a sword, saw that Tanaka was by now surrounded by a large crowd of Japanese police and gave up.
Kim Ik Sang was captured and executed. O Song Yun hijacked a car but not knowing how to drive, ran into another car and was arrested. A Japanese woman smuggled a steel knife to O and he escaped after cutting out the lock on his cell door. O hid in an American friend's house for three days after which he managed to escape to Canton, from there to Germany on a forged passport; from Berlin, O traveled to Moscow and joined the Communist Party.
By April 22, 1922, the Comintern issued its final directive to Gen. Yi for the Soviet-Koreans to merge and work together, or else they would receive no further financial aids. The Irkutsk and Shanghai offices were ordered immediately closed and all Koreans were commanded to concentrate on setting up Communist Party cells in Korea and Manchuria.
“You are both the same. None of you know the real facts about Socialism or Communism. You are actually engaged only in an independence movement, so settle up your personal differences and unify yourselves” - or get out of the Revolution!
Japan agreed to evacuate her troops from Siberia and the Bolsheviks won the civil war. Now the Soviets saw no further use for the Korean revolutionaries in Siberia and did not wish to provoke Japan by providing funds and sanctuaries to the Korean fighters. All Korean military groups who were not part of the Red Army were disbanded or expelled to Manchuria.
The Uiyoldan attempted its biggest terrorist act ever in October 1922, aided by German and Irish terrorists. The German terrorist Martin made 200 special bombs to blow up bridges across the Yalu and Japanese police stations in North Korea’s Siniju. The Irish terrorist Sao transported the bombs from Shanghai to Korea in a British merchant ship. However, the Japanese discovered the plot and arrested Sao and ten of the would-be terrorists.
In January 1923, Sin Chae Ho refined the Uiyoldan Charter, Korean Revolution Charter, and established that the group's primary objective to free Korea by popular democratic armed struggle by the people. It rejected the policies of education, diplomacy and gradualism pushed by other nationalists. The Uiyoldan became more hardcore
On September 3, 1923, Anti-Korean riots erupted in Tokyo and Japanese mobs and police killed some 800 Korean students. Over 100,000 Koreans were expelled from Japan. The costs of Japan’s ill acquired possessions and subjects were bubbling at home. Kim Yak San, alias Kim Won Bong, a Uiyoldan, walked into the office of Gen. Sato, the top Japanese in Korea, and threw seven grenades. But Sato somehow escaped and so did Kim Yak San. Kim returned to South Korea in 1945 and went north in 1946 where he held several high positions.
In June 1924, the Korean People's Delegates Congress convened in Shanghai to form a united front against the Japanese. More than 600 delegates came from Korea, Japan, Russia and Manchuria. In the end, the battle hardened, iron-willed participants reached no consensus. Kim Gu had Kim Rip assassinated and took the 200,000 rubles Kim Rip received from Lenin in 1922.
At about this time, the Uiyoldan split into three factions: the nationalists, the anarchists and the communists. It had lost most of its terrorist commandos with little to show for those losses. The Uiyoldan popularity diminished and few new recruits could be found.
Manchurian warlord, Chang Tso-lin, signed an agreement in May 1925 with the governor-general of Korea concerning Korean nationalists in Manchuria. Chang knew that more than 90% of the Korean immigrants in Manchuria worked for the Japanese and only about 10% were hostile to Japan. The Japanese considered Koreans as Japanese citizens and so did many Chinese. Chang agreed to arrest and turn over Korean nationalists to the Japanese police and in return Japan would pay Chang so many dollars per head. Chang's bandits used this cold-blooded mandate to attack and plunder Korean farms throughout Manchuria. Japan was forced to station a large number of police in order to protect the pro-Japanese Koreans, and the Koreans formed their own self-defense militias.
In December 1926, O Song Yun, alias Chong Kwang, returned to Canton from Moscow and took a Russian language teacher's job at Whampoa Military Academy where Chiang Kai Sek was the principal. Nearly a thousand Koreans joined Chiang Kai Sek's Northern Expedition set out to wipe out corrupt warlords and feudal systems. These Koreans hoped to stay with the Chinese Army until it reached the Yalu; and then to march on to liberate Korea.
The radical Uiyoldan was dormant, but not defunct. In October 1928, the Uiyoldan joined forces with the communists and preached leftist socialist revolution. By this time, its membership shrank to 70. Its main base of operation was moved near Kim Gu's office. The Uiyoldan became the secret arm of Kim Gu's government in exile.
In October 1938, Kim Wong Bom
established the Korean Volunteers Army with Chiang Kai Sek's help. In 1944, his
wife, Park Cha Jung, was killed while leading a Korean women's detachment in a
fight with the Japanese troops in China.
In 1945, Kim Wong Bom returned to his hometown Milyang after 27 years of exile. He opposed Rhee Syngman and the US Military Government of Korea and joined up with Kim Il Sung. He was active in politics in North Korea and received numerous awards from Kim Il Sung. In November 1958, the Yenan Korean communists openly criticized Kim Il Sun’s personality cult. Kim Il Sung accused Kim Wong Bom of being a Chiang Kaisek's spy and jailed him. While in jail, he took his own life.
On August 1, 1927, Mao Zedong led a peasant rebellion, the Autumn Harvest Uprising and formed a peasant army base at Chingkangshan. Chu Teh, a bandit general, joined Mao there. The First Division of the First Peasant Army had only 15,000 men, but it did include several hundred well-trained and bright young officers, including a number of Koreans, formerly with the Kuomintang Army.
Mao forged a new kind of army; to fight to the death against the enemy; to arm the peasants, and to raise money to support the army. The new Army marched toward Canton to liberate Kwantung Province. But the first battle of Mao's Army ended in defeat for Mao. Mao himself was taken prisoner but he managed to escape just a moment before his execution.
That December, the Canton Commune Uprising attempted to overthrow Chiang Kai Sek. Korean students from Sun Yatsen University and the old Uiyoldan terrorists led by O Song Yun formed the spearhead. There were 67 Koreans in the planning group. The leaders prophetically proclaimed:
“Comrades, tonight we put an end to the old history. Tonight we conquer the last icy mountain on our path forward”
Gen. Yeh Yung, a Chinese, was elected commander and Korean Li Ying, became political commissar of the rebel army, later to be called The Red Army.
The Red Army took over Canton but was crushed in a few days of confusion and fighting; some 7,000 rebels were killed by Chiang's troops. The survivors, including 15 Koreans, fled to Hailufeng, the first Soviet area created in China, on September 9, 1927. Hailufeng had only 800 troops before the Uprising, but now, there were 2,000 men of Gen. Yeh Yung’d Fourth Division, 800 men of the 2nd Division and several thousands Red Guards of Mao Zedung's peasants army.
Hailufeng fell by May 3, 1928, and a small band of 100 Korean survivors hit the road again, this time towards Leiyang, from which they hoped to escape to Hong Kong.
On May 10, 1929, Kim Il Sung was jailed for political activism while attending Yuwen Middle School in Jilin, Manchuria. Earlier he joined the South Manchurian Communist Youth Association. That August, the Korean Communist Party was officially dissolved and became a branch of the Chinese Communist Party in Kirin, Manchuria.
In 1930, Kim Il Sung was released from jail and moved to Kutun, a small Korean community. Kim engaged in communist agitation and formed a guerrilla army of 18 followers.
On September 18, 1931, a bomb, planted by Japanese secret agents, exploded under a Japanese-owned express train in Manchuria. The Manchurian warlord Chang Tsolin was killed and Chang's son, Chang Hsueh-liang, the "Young Marshall", swore revenge and joined forces with Chiang Kaisek. Japanese troops poured into all Manchuria. Japan moved hordes of Japanese and Korean families to Manchuria as part of her economic occupation of China. Naturally, the Chinese people turned hostile to the Korean immigrants - the “running dogs” of the Japanese. That November, Mao Zedong was elected chairman of the Chinese Soviet Republic and expelled Russian and Comintern “foreign devils” from his camp.
In March 1932, Yun Pong-Gil threw a bomb at a Japanese ceremony in Shanghai’s Hingkew Park killing several Japanese officials and wounding scores of others, including the top military man in China, Gen. Shirakawa. A Chinese boycott of Japanese goods would lead to the Battle of Shanghai; Japanese aircraft carriers went into action for the first time in history. The League of Nations condemned Japanese aggression in Manchuria.
The Manchurian Provincial Committee of the Chinese Communist Party established the Northeast Anti-Japanese United Army on January 3, 1932. The United Army would bring together all communist guerrilla units, formed spontaneously since early 1920's, including the remnants of the Korean Independence Army and Kim Il Sung's partisans. On September 15, 1932, Pu Yi, the last Emperor of China, was enthroned as the Emperor Kang Teh of Manchukuo, a puppet government created by Japan. By December 1932, Kim Il Sung's army retreated to Mount Laohei to regroup. Kim with 90 partisans joined forces with another Korean partisan group led by Yang Song Yong.
In April 1933, a Chinese guerrilla unit led by Wu Yi Cheng wiped out a 30-men Korean guerrilla group of Yi Kwang, claiming that the Koreans were Japanese spies. This incident caused a major upheaval among the Korean partisans. Many Koreans in Chinese-led units defected to the Japanese to fight the Chinese or joined Korean guerrilla units of Kim Il Sung and Chu Chin, commanding the 2nd Army of the United Army, operating in the Jiandao region of Manchuria where Koreans made up nearly 80% of the population. The Japanese police used this incident to their advantage and organized the People’s Community Association, Minsaendang, made of some 8,000 Korean collaborators. Minsaendang members performed espionage and anti-guerrilla chores for the Japanese. Local chapters of Minsaendang had various front names, such as Hyophwa-hoe and Hyopcho-hoe. It is sad to say that the great majority of the Koreans joined Minsaendang. The Koreans were caught between a rock and a hard place and many chose to side with the Japanese.
On October 16, 1934, the 90,000-men Chinese Red Army began their epic 6,000-mile Long March. A young general Lin Piao led the vanguard of the Red Army. Another young general, Deng Hsiao Ping, was deputy commander of the 12th Division. The “bandit” general, Chu Teh, was the Commander in Chief. Chu was a people's general - he lived and dressed like a peasant soldier and shared all hardships of a foot soldier. Chu's door was open to any soldier at any time. He carried his own baggage. Some 20,000 wounded soldiers were left behind, guarded by 6,000 volunteers commanded by Fang Chih Min and peasant guerrillas. Fang held off Chiang's troops for several weeks, long enough for the main body of the Red Army to escape. Fang and his staff were captured and beheaded in public.
For information on my family origin, see:
1) http://www.genealogy.co.kr/kim/bonkimhea22.htm 김해(金海) family tree.
2) http://genealogy.co.kr/etc2/song/kimhea.htm Kim Hae family origin
3) http://kumjong.golden21.net/k1/k1-40/k1-401/kwangsoo/bonkimhea22.htm
4) http://www.tgmuseum.org/exhi/gogo/041.html Golden Age of Kim-hae
5) http://www.hongik.ac.kr/~kayakim/knbaekka.htm Baik-je history
6) http://earth.interpia98.net/~bitinfo/local.htm Family Origins
For information on the Free City Incident, see:
1) http://members.tripod.lycos.co.kr/~agentguy/c54.htm The Free City (Black River" Incident
2) http://kangssi.or.kr/munhun/dogrip/gwangbok.htm Korean Armies
3) http://myhome.naver.com/yjh116/dldirl.htm Famous Koreans - Pictures
4) http://www.independence.or.kr/exhibition/1995/1995-079.htm Korean Independence Hall
For information on Yiyoldang, see:
1) http://1109.co.kr/home/history/history_korea/uiyuldan.htm Korean History: Yiyoldang
2) The Song of Arirang - A Korean Communist in Chinese Revolution - Nym Wales and Kim San (real name, Jang Ji Rak), Ramparts Press, San Francisco, 1941; a memoir of a revolutionary patriot - 1900 to 1935.
3) http://www.dalgu.net/55815/w-48.htm Yiyoldang Bombing Mission
4) http://www.dalgu.net/55815/total.htm Korean Nationalists Info
5) http://mnum.mokpo.ac.kr/cspark/lecture/persons/김원봉.htm Kim Wong Bong bio
6) http://user.chollian.net/~fly12/2904.htm Life Story of Yak San, Kim Wong Bong
7) http://my.netian.com/~turnleft/Review/review2000/The-Anarchists.htm The Anarchists, a documentary film
8) http://soback.kornet.net/~sk9505/inmool/cho13.html Shin Chae Ho, Korean anarchism theorist.
For information on the early communist movements, see:
1) Communism in Korea - The Movement - Robert A. Scalapino and Chong Sik Lee, University of California, Berkeley, CA, 1972; includes information on anti-Japanese movements during the first three decades of the 20th century.
2) Edgar Snow's China - Louis Wheeler Snow, Random House, New York, 1981; an eye witness history of the modern China with a large selection of rare photographs.
3) The Origins of The Korean War - Bruce Cumings, Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, 1981. This masterpiece on Korea (1945 - 1947) details US Army's continuance of the Japanese colonial rule using the Japanese personnel and Korean traitors.
4) Kim Il Sung - The North Korean Leader - Dae Sook Suh, Columbia University Press, NY 1988: an authoritative treatise on Kim Il Sung's biography with extensive references to Japanese, Chinese and Russian archives.