The aim of this paper is to do historical reconsideration of its influence on North Korea's nation-building in the early stage through the political and military trajectory of Yeonanpa. For this, it was to make an analysis of anti-Japan struggle from ...
The aim of this paper is to do historical reconsideration of its influence on North Korea's nation-building in the early stage through the political and military trajectory of Yeonanpa. For this, it was to make an analysis of anti-Japan struggle from the period when Yeonanpa was established to the emancipation period, and of the process of building relations with Hang Il Yon Kun, its political and military role and activities when the North Korean regime was established, and its influence on relations between North and China etc.
In the past 20th history which started from establishment of the socialist system, and ended with its collapse, not only the East-European bloc, but also North Korea and China were built according to the Soviet Union model based on Marxism-Leninism. Therefore, it is not easy to distinguish these nations' individual political, institutional and ideological characteristics and identities. Moreover, it is far more difficult to compare the armed struggle of Manjupa based on Hang Il Yon Kun and of Yeonanpa which is a general term for Korean Independence Alliance and the Korean Volunteers Army in the process of nation-building by North Korea in terms of political and military influence. The reason is that they are the same nation and share the same learning experience in China ranging from ideology, struggle doctrines and methods, to the process of armed struggle. For this reason, it can be said that it was difficult for the existing studies on North Korea to analyze the effect of Yeonanpa on the establishment of the North Korean regime. It is undeniably true that the occupation by the Soviet Union provided significant political environmental condition to North Korea. However, it is impossible to assert that the external and overall intervention by the Soviet Union was closely involved in the process of North Korea's nation building in the early stage in every aspect. In other words, it should be avoided to deductively reason the Soviet Union's policy toward North Korea without considering distinct characteristics in every sector when North Korea was established newly. Accordingly, we came to a conclusion that reexamination on Yeonanpa can contribute to expanding a new scope of studies on North Korea, which was degraded to a failed power group eventually despite their fierce anti-Japan struggle and considerable contribution on the process of North Korea's nation-building. With this need to study, we came to select the political and military activities and role of Yeonanpa as our research subjects.
The findings of the present paper are largely summarized as follows:
First, it rejected to follow the existing fragmentary studies, and traced the political and military activities of Yeonanpa throughout the whole process ranging from its beginning to its collapse. As a result, Yeonanpa was a political and military organization organized by the union of leftist nationalists of the Union of Korean People's Front and the Korean Volunteers Corps and socialist power, and it can be seen that the reason that it was supported by the Kuomintang(Nationalist Party) in the early stage of its establishment is because of its strategic choice using a chance resulted from ideological unification between the left and the right called Kuomintang-Communist cooperation and the united front. And its Hwa-Buk-Jun-Yi was inevitable because they could not help seeking independence of Chosun through cooperative relations with Chinese Communist Party and Yeonanpa's northeast alignment was implying the significance of political history to get means of armed struggle for building a socialist state supporting the independence and emancipation on the Korean Peninsula and nationalism.
Second, the nature of the combination between the Korean Volunteers Army and Hang Il Yon Kun in the North East region in the period of emancipation was comparatively analyzed through relations with Chinese Communist Party. It can be said these two armed groups went through the same ideological experience in that they were active in the region of China, and in that the armed struggle method of socialists was their means of Chosun independence. It means that both of them were affected by the line of Chinese Communist Party. And afterwards, in North Korea, Hang Il Yon Kun focused on Kim Il-sung held hegemony, and in China, Mao Zedong line won the final victory. But a new question brought out by the current paper is associated with whether the relation-building between North Korea and China is rooted in fundamental familiarity between Dong Book Hang Il Yon Kun and Chinese Communist Party. The study indicates that Yeonanpa shared the good times and the bad times together in the same region in the transitional period to Mao Zedong line in the 1940s rather than Hang Il Yon Kun which was active as a long distance in the period when Chinese Communist Party underwent trial and error through Wangmyung and Yilipsan in the 1930s was in closer relationships with Chinese Communist Party. The present study stressed that this factual evidence became a motive of the relationships forged in blood between North Korea and China.
Third, the effect of Yeonanpa on North Korea's state-building was re-elucidated. The ultimate goal Yeonanpa pursued through its anti-Japan struggle was constructing a completely unified independence nation on the whole Korean Peninsula after emancipation. It has been found that among them, the activities Yeonanpa of based on armed power of the Korean Volunteers Army and 20 party platforms of Korean Independence Alliance were involved in North Korea's state-building in many positive ways in the early stage. Although the policy line aiming to construct a democratic unified nation they pursued could not help being modified as it collapsed with the Factionalist Incident in the late 1950s, Yeonanpa provided theoretical frames in North Korea's national policy and ideology including the mass line, land reform, and establishment of changes in national ideologies from class struggle to ethnic strife etc., and it affected them in a qualitative manner. In particular, it was possible to infer that Kim Il-sung's popular line is what was designed accepting the mass line of Chinese Communist Party in alteration and it was a prototype of 'field supervision' which is characteristic of North Korea's rule until today. In addition, an analysis of the effect of Yeonanpa on Party and politics indicates although it is impossible to deny that it enjoyed its glory days during the Korean War after participating in the North Korean regime, which was possible with China's protection and political interference, basically it was possible thanks to intellectual infrastructure of Yeonanpa who could occupied major departments in the period when a state was formed in an early stage including propaganda ․ agitation, management, ministry of home affairs, board of censors etc. and actual abilities resulted from exerting its influence on the military accounting for 50% of it after the Korean War.
Based on the above findings of this paper, it was possible to do holistic re-evaluation regarding Yeonanpa as follows:
Yeonanpa was an alliance composed of left-wing nationalists and socialists aiming at Chosun independence. Yeonanpa's Hwa-Buk-Jun-Yi has a historical meaning to make it possible to have the same struggle nature as Chinese Communist Party. By this, Yeonanpa was able to have unified armed power, and to have political and military meanings to build a justification through international cooperation in a foreign country. And preoccupancy of Manju has a transitional nature in the struggle history of Yeonanpa aiming at Chosun independence. It came to prove its real worth of a role as policy brain and key armed power in the process of North Korea' state building. However, due to the weak cohesion between fractions, they had Chinese policy of mixing modified effects on party ․ politics ․ military in the process of North Korea' state building taken from them by Manjupa having similar struggle history of anti-Japan struggle in China, which led to its downfall in North Korean history.
However, as demonstrated in this paper, it can be said Yeonanpa as an axis of socialists' armed struggle during the Japanese colonial period left a significant political and historical trajectory ranging from the period of anti-Japan armed struggle to North Korea's state-building in the early stage, and in a sense to North Korean society and relations between North Korea and China today.