Ideological Schism in the Korean Nationalist Movement, 1920-1930: Cultural Nationalism and the Radical Critique

Ideological Schism in the Korean Nationalist Movement, 1920-1930: Cultural Nationalism and the Radical Critique MICHAEL ROBINSON THE WEAKNESS OF KOREAN NATIONALISM AND ITS CAUSES !Nationalism remains the focus for the bulk ofscholarship and popular writing on the Korean colonial period. Yet in spite of the volume of material produced in recent years, we are really no closer to understanding the inner dynamics of the nationalist movement. Most studies of Korean nationalism treat the subject as a narrative of anti-Japanese political movements.1 By including anything remotely anti-Japanese or otherwise vaguely connected with the pre-liberation independence movement at home or abroad within the boundaries of nationalism, postwar writers have attributed to the nationalist movement a unity and focus it never possessed. The Korean nationalist movement was, in fact, weak and failed in its political mission to create a nation. Early nationalist reformers of the late Yi dynasty failed to alter the traditional political system. What reforms were attempted came too late and with insufficient effect to bolster the Yi state against outside encroachment. Korea fell into colonial status in 1910 and under harsh Japanese rule national consciousness grew and was channeled into cultural, educational, and political activity that stimulated the rise of 1. The few studies of Korean nationalism in English have laid out the basic outline of nationalist activity in the modern era. See Chongsik Lee, 7"Ae Politics of Korean Nationalism (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1965); Gregory Henderson, Korea: Politics of the Vortex (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1968). Korean secondary material on the nationalist movement is plentiful: /ZcAe üi munhwa ch 'imt'alsa, Ilcheha ui minjok undongsa, Ilcheha ui minjok saenghwalsa, and Ilcheha üi munhwa undongsa (Seoul: Koryo taehakkyo, asea munje yon'guso, 1971-73). 241 242Journal ofKorean Studies a more broadly based nationalism in Korea. The massive anti-Japanese demonstrations in March 1919 signaled the advent of mass nationalism in Korea.2 Yet for all of its hopes and in spite of its broad-based support , the March First Movement failed to alter the reality of colonial rule. The emphasis of postwar historians to the contrary, post-1919 nationalist activities were never able to recreate a movement of the scale of the March First demonstrations or make any significant inroads in opposing Japanese rule. There was, however, potential for success during the colonial era. Korean nationalism as a movement with clear broad-based support and a more specific political program grew to maturity in the 1920s. The demonstrations of March 1919 caused the Japanese to adjust their colonial policies.3 Within strict limits Koreans won the right to publish, organize, and participate nominally in colonial governance. Expansion of educational opportunity, especially in the growing urban sector, and a concomitant rise in literacy and political consciousness expanded the base of the movement.4 The 1920s also witnessed the arrival of new political ideologies in the form of Marxism and socialism.5 In spite of Japanese harassment, radicalism took root in colonial society. Although Socialists and Marxists were seen by many moderate nationalists as a threat to the movement, a united front, the Singanhoe, was formed. The unifying force of anti-Japanese sentiment was seemingly powerful enough to spawn a potentially powerful anticolonial coalition. The united front, however, failed to sustain itself or even marginally advance the cause of independence. There are, of course, many reasons advanced for this failure but few of them question purity of motive, strength of national identity, or the possibility of ambivalence with regard to the goal of independence within the nationalist leadership or in the movement at large.6 The fall 2.Frank Baldwin, "The March First Movement: Korean Challenge and Japanese Response" (Ph.D. diss., Columbia University 1969), passim. 3.Ibid., chaps. 7 and 8. See also Henderson, Politics of the Vortex, pp. 8588 ; Lee, Politics ofKorean Nationalism, pp. 226-27. 4.See Karl Deutsch's well-known argument on the relationship between rates of social mobilization and the growth of political consciousness and participation in Nationalism and Social Communication (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1953). 5.The standard history of the Korean Communist movement is Robert Scalapino and Chongsik Lee, Communism in Korea, vols. 1...