A History of Korea (67 page)

Japan’s “Cultural Policy,” on the other hand, did encourage new developments in Korean cultural life in the 1920s. For example, it brought about the emergence of the “New Literature.” Immediately before Japan’s annexation of Korea, the “new novel” appeared. Although the new novel retained remnants of the older literary form in that it was still didactic and written entirely in han’g
ŭ
l so as to be easily read by everyone, the new novels reflected the values of the contemporary enlightenment movement by advocating Korean independence, educational reform, family ethics based on equality between the sexes, the eradication of superstitious beliefs, and the construction of a rational, enlightened Korean society.

The pioneer among the new novelists, Yi In-jik, authored such representative works as
Hy
ŏ
l
ŭ
i nu,
or Tears of Blood;
Ch’iaksan,
or Pheasant Mountain; and
Kwi
ŭ
i s
ŏ
ng,
or Voice of a Demon. The new novels also included Yi Hae-jo’s
Chayu chong,
or Liberty Bell, and
Moran py
ŏ
ng,
or the Peony Screen; Ch’oe Ch’an-sik’s
Ch’uw
ŏ
l saek,
or Color of the Autumn Moon; and An Kuk-s
ŏ
n’s
K
ŭ
msu hoe
ŭ
i rok,
or Proceedings of the Council of Birds and Beasts. Following Western and Japanese models, the new novel constituted the mainstream of fiction writing in Korea until the end of the 1910s, reaching its peak with the publication of Yi Kwang-su’s
Muj
ŏ
ng,
or the Heartless, in 1917.
¹⁰

Following the March First Movement modern literature, often called the “New Literature,” appeared, exemplified by a group of writers active in the 1920s. These new literary men launched the publication of several writers’ magazines such as
Ch’angjo,
or Creation (1919);
P’yeh
ŏ
,
or Ruins (1920);
Paekcho,
or
White Tide (1922); and
K
ŭ
ms
ŏ
ng,
or Gold Star (1923). The pioneer of the new literary movement was Kim Tong-in, whose main work,
Kamja,
or Potatoes, introduced the genre of naturalism in its portrayal of the environmental influences on dehumanization. On the other hand, the realistic works of Y
ŏ
m Sang-s
ŏ
p, such as
Samdae,
or Three Generations, dealt with the dilemma facing Koreans in the transition from a traditional society to a modern society. A literature of sentimentalism, or romanticism, represented by Na To-hyang’s
Mullebanga,
or A Waterwheel, also appeared in the early 1920s.

In the mid-1920s two new trends were added to the existing literary corpus: one seeking to promote Korean self-identity during the dark colonial period and the other designed to awaken a social consciousness. Representing the former trend was Han Yong-un, one of the 33 signers of the Declaration of Independence, whose poem,
Nim
ŭ
i ch’immuk,
or The Silence of My Beloved, embodied the spirit of love for one’s fellow countrymen. Another poet in this genre was Yi Sang-hwa who, in his
Ppaeatkkin t
ŭ
l edo pom
ŭ
n on
ŭ
n’ga
?, or Does Spring Come to a Lost Field?, sang of his endless love for his country. The other trend was influenced by the socialist and communist movements, and described the Japanese infiltration of capitalism into Korea and the resultant poverty of the Korean people. The pioneering work of this genre was Ch’oe S
ŏ
hae’s
T’alch’ulgi,
or The Account of an Escape, in which the author vividly portrayed the misery of a poor family that migrated to the Jiandao region. Another representative work was Yi Ki-y
ŏ
ng’s novel
Kohyang,
or The Home Country, describing the misery of the villagers and a student’s effort to organize them. In his lengthy novel,
Im Kk
ŏ
k-ch
ŏ
ng,
Hong My
ŏ
ng-h
ŭ
i dramatized the activity of Im Kk
ŏ
k-ch
ŏ
ng, a bandit leader of the early sixteenth century, Korea’s version of Robin Hood, who fought corrupt government officials, and thus he tried to rally the Korean people against their Japanese colonial masters. These works soon evolved into a proletarian, politicized literature, and in August 1925 left-wing writers established the Korea Artista Proleta Federatio, or the Korean Proletarian Artists’ Federation (
KAPF
), which lasted until Japanese authorities dissolved it in May 1935.

Because Koreans were only allowed to organize themselves in limited ways, officially approved organizations sprang up like mushrooms after rain in a variety of areas in the early 1920s. This period also witnessed the emergence of distinctively modern Korean traditions in literature, drama, music, film, and historiography, which profoundly influenced cultural developments of the subsequent era.
¹¹

Japanese colonial policy in Korea remained practically unchanged, despite the fancy appellation of “Cultural Policy,” which was, of course, used only to gloss over Japan’s harsh colonial strategies after the March First Movement. With Korea already a virtual police state, Japan continued to build up police strength in Korea by rapidly adding to the number of officers. Indeed, the depth of police penetration among the general Korean populace was obvious in that there was one policeman per 722 persons, whereas in Japan there was one policeman per 1,150 persons. Budgetary appropriations for the police force was also greatly increased to the point where the police budget quadrupled in the 1920s, comprising 12 to 13 percent of the Government-General’s total budget.

The national police had headquarters in Seoul with main divisions in each province. Within the province, local stations were set up in each municipality, county, or island, with as many substations as needed in towns or townships. The Japanese police possessed broad powers, with a highly centralized system that dominated virtually every phase of Korean life through terror and intimidation. This included maintaining civil order, preventing and detecting crime, and even controlling people’s thoughts. The Japanese police were also empowered to make precautionary arrests and imprison individuals without trial, whenever they saw fit. The Korean people were not protected by the writ of habeas corpus or other safeguards against arbitrary police actions. Searches without warrants were commonplace, as was torture. As a result, the police were universally hated and feared, but the people were so intimidated that no one dared complain.

After the March First Movement the general crime rate slowed, but a rapid increase occurred in the arrests of civilians for political offenses, reflecting intensified ideological oppression by the police. To completely crack down on political offenses, along with the appointment of “thought prosecutors” and “thought judges,” “special high police” squads were added to each police unit. By targeting communist circles, which had spread rapidly in Korea, the police effectively frustrated communist efforts from 1928 until liberation. Thought control was introduced in December 1936, and the “thought police” were increasingly strengthened.
¹²

The rise of Korean nationalism as a political ideology can be traced to the 1920s, when Koreans mounted a nationalist movement in various forms. They became
involved in educational enlightenment activities, patriotic economic activities, tenancy and labor disputes, armed resistance, guerilla warfare, and even terrorism. But this period also saw the beginning of the left-right split in postwar Korea.

In Korea, as in other colonial countries, many disparate forces with different ideological orientations developed nationalist movements, united only in the common cause of resistance to colonial rule but largely divided into moderates and radicals. Moderate nationalists, a loose collection of educated and influential Koreans, were rightists who accepted the reality of Japanese colonial rule and stressed a gradual path to independence through encouraging Koreans’ innate abilities. The moderates, specifically Ch’oe Nam-s
ŏ
n and Yi Kwang-su, espoused the doctrine of “remodeling the Korean people,” urging that Koreans should be reborn as “modern citizens” to sustain an independent, modern nation. The gradualists, or “cultural nationalists,” believed that Koreans should devotedly strengthen themselves through education. Emphasizing the need to awaken the ignorant masses, many of these gradualists launched campaigns to educate the masses and eradicate illiteracy. In 1923 Korean educational leaders, led by Han Kyu-s
ŏ
l and Yi Sang-jae, began a fund-raising drive to establish a private university, which failed because of Japanese interference and lack of finances. Moderate nationalists also mounted the buy-Korean campaign aimed at supporting Korean-owned businesses. This “Korean Products Promotion Campaign” succeeded a movement launched in 1907 to repay national debts. In July 1920 Cho Man-sik, often called “Mahatma Gandhi of Korea” because of his doctrine of nonviolence, organized the Korean Products Promotion Society in Pyongyang. The organization was enlarged in January 1923, when it moved its headquarters to Seoul. It campaigned to persuade Koreans to refrain from buying Japanese goods and instead purchase their own Korean products, employing the slogan “Let’s wear, eat, and use Korean-made products.” The campaign began in large cities such as Seoul and Pyongyang, and developed into a nationwide movement in a short time.

As the government in Japan grew illiberal once more under increasing pressure from the military in the mid-1920s, colonial rule in Korea itself became even more repressive. After 1925 most moderate nationalist campaigns rapidly lost momentum. The promulgation of the Peace Preservation Law, in May 1925, marked the beginning of harsher repression. Moderate nationalists were especially vulnerable to Japanese manipulation, and later many of them became Japanese collaborators including Ch’oe Nam-s
ŏ
n and Yi Kwang-su. Radical
nationalists, in contrast, took an unyielding stand on Japanese colonial rule and advocated direct confrontation with the colonial masters. But most of them had already gone into self-exile abroad. Many were imbued with socialist and communist ideas, and whereas moderate nationalists became less active in the face of severe Japanese pressure after 1925, socialists and communists sought more direct forms of action, including labor and peasant organization, agitation against the Japanese in Korea, and guerrilla and terrorist activities abroad.

Korean nationalists abroad also quarreled among themselves, which seriously weakened the nationalist movement itself. Many prominent nationalist activists participated in the Korean Provisional Government, which had formed in Shanghai in April 1919. But these mutually antagonistic elements worked together only until 1921. During that decade and the next they accomplished little more than simply to exist, as they were weak and did not forge ties with the nationalist movement inside Korea.

Korea had one of the oldest communist movements in Asia, and after the March First Movement some nationalists sought to forge ties with international socialism. They were helped by the Bolshevik Revolution, by Vladimir Lenin’s pledge to fully support independence struggles among the oppressed peoples of the world. Following up on this pledge, in August 1920, Yi Tong-hwi, a veteran independence fighter, and his loyalists secured substantial financing from the Soviet Union to organize the Kory
ŏ
Communist Party in Shanghai.
¹³
Thereafter Yi devoted himself to the Korean communist movement in Russian Siberia. In February 1921 some 30 Korean nationalists, including Y
ŏ
Un-hy
ŏ
ng and Kim Kyu-sik, attended the Congress of the Toilers of the Far East in Moscow, where they met Lenin and Leon Trotsky. In April 1925 the Korean Communist Party was established in Seoul but soon dissolved as a result of internal strife. Within Korea, communists directly confronted the Japanese in tenant struggles, labor disputes, and occasional acts of violence.

The growing number of tenant farmers increased tenancy disputes, which further intensified as the farming population became more and more organized. All the farmers’ misery, including extreme poverty, widespread debt, and usury, as well as the constant renegotiation of leases to the detriment of the tenant and utter insecurity of the farming family—all this was closely associated with the concentration of land ownership.
¹⁴
Tenants comprised a clear majority
of the rural population, and, as landlords became the primary beneficiaries of increased agricultural output and higher prices, tenant farmers became more assertive, tenant-landlord antagonism intensified, and the number of tenancy disputes multiplied.

Tenants mainly resisted the landlords’ unilateral transfer of their tenancy rights to others and firmly demanded reductions in their tenant rents. Their resistance to the landlords often took the form of organized disputes. The year 1922 saw 124 disputes involving 2,539 tenant farmers, and this number grew to 204 cases with 4,002 participants in 1925 and to 726 incidents involving 13,012 tenants in 1930. Many of the tenancy disputes occurred on the farmlands of the giant Japanese landholding corporations, such as the Oriental Development Company and the Fuji Industrial Promotion Company. The disputes were not only a struggle for economic justice but took the form of a resistance movement against Japan.
¹⁵
Following a huge dispute regarding Oriental Development Company land at Chaery
ŏ
ng, Hwanghae province, in 1924, area resident Na S
ŏ
k-chu threw a bomb at the company building in Seoul and later, in December 1926, took his own life. With the founding of the Korean General Farmers Union in 1927, tenancy disputes broke out with greater intensity.