Kim Chwajin

In this Korean name, the family name is Kim.

Kim Chwajin (Korean: ; Hanja: ; 24 November 1889 – 24 January 1930), also known by his art name Paegya, was a Korean military general, independence activist and anarchist. Born into a noble family, Kim was educated at a military academy shortly before the Japanese annexation of Korea. After spending three years in prison for freeing his family's slaves, he joined the Korean independence movement and went to Manchuria to fight against the Empire of Japan. There he established the Northern Military Administration Office and trained Korean soldiers in guerrilla warfare, before going on to lead the Korean Independence Army to victory in the Battle of Cheongsanri. He then co-founded the Korean Independence Corps and went to Siberia, but was forced back to Manchuria following the Free City Incident. Kim subsequently fell under the influence of anarchism, and in 1925, he established the New People's Administration, which he intended to follow egalitarian and libertarian principles. Following a split in the Administration, he joined together with young socialists and anarchists to establish the Korean People's Association in Manchuria, a self-governing federation of agricultural cooperatives. Only a year later, in 1930, he was assassinated by a young member of the Communist Party of Korea. Kim is considered a national hero in modern-day South Korea and has been compared to the Ukrainian anarchist Nestor Makhno.

Biography

Early life and education

Kim Chwajin was born in 1889, into a Korean noble family, in southern Korea's Hongseong County. He took the art name of "Paegya" (; ), and from an early age, he began to believe in social justice.

In 1905, Kim enrolled in the military academy of the Imperial Korean Armed Forces and specialised in the martial art of Yudo. He also became proficient in horseriding, marksmanship and sword fighting. Only two years later, the Japan–Korea Treaty of 1907 compelled the Korean armed forces to disband. The military academy was itself reduced to only 15 recruits, including Kim himself; he graduated as an officer before the military academy was dissolved by a royal decree in September 1909.

When he turned 18, he freed all his family's slaves; he burnt their slave register and even redistributed some of his own land to the more than 50 freed people. This was the first large-scale slave emancipation in modern Korean history, for which Kim was sentenced to three years' imprisonment.

Leadership in the independence movement

Following the Japanese annexation of Korea and the outbreak of the March First Movement in 1919, Kim went to Manchuria and joined the Korean independence movement. There he became a follower of Daejongism, a new religious movement which gained popularity among independence fighters in Manchuria. On 18 October 1919, Kim established the Northern Military Administration Office in Manchuria's Jilin province, where he began training Koreans to fight against the Imperial Japanese Army; he would end up training more than 400 soldiers for the cause. He also dispatched agents to Seoul, in Japanese-occupied Korea, to make contact with the underground resistance and gather funds for their insurgent operations in Manchuria. Before long, Korean independent fighters began clashing with Japanese troops along the border between Manchuria and Korea.

In 1920, Kim received intelligence that the Japanese were planning a raid into Manchuria, which forced him to transfer his Military Administration to the relative safety of the Changbai Mountains. In October of that year, following the Hunchun incident, 15,000 Japanese troops were dispatched into Manchuria to attack the Korean forces. Kim then led the Korean Independence Army to victory against the Japanese in the Battle of Cheongsanri; this was the first Korean victory against the Japanese since the Japan–Korea Treaty of 1876, which immediately made Kim into a national hero for many Koreans. Kim then gathered his forces at Mishan, where they combined with the forces of Chi Ch'ŏngch'ŏn, Cho Sŏnghwan, Hong Beom-do and Sŏ Il to establish one united organisation: the Korean Independence Corps. They then moved into Siberia and briefly allied themselves with the Red Army against the Japanese intervention. But after the Free City Incident, the Reds disarmed the Korean Independence Corps and Kim took his forces back to Manchuria.

Leadership in the anarchist movement

File:Korean Anarchist Federation 1928.jpg

Members of the Korean Anarchist Federation in 1928

With the rising popularity of socialism among Korean independence activists in Manchuria during the 1920s, Kim began to synthesise the Korean nationalist philosophy of Na Ch'ŏl together with aspects of republicanism and anarchism. Kim particularly gravitated towards the political philosophy of anarchism, influenced by his relative, the Korean anarchist Kim Chongjin. In 1924, Kim received funding for his operations from the Bocheon religious leader Ch'a Kyŏngsŏk. In 1925, Kim established the New People's Administration in Northern Manchuria, where he aimed to establish an egalitarian and libertarian society.

The New People's Administration became the de facto government in northern Manchuria; it was governed by a separation of powers, with Kim leading its military committee. From this position, Kim oversaw the establishment of a military academy, commanded about 500 soldiers and cultivated a farm to feed his troops. By 1929, the Administration's civil government had joined together with the General Staff Headquarters and Righteous Government (two other de facto Korean governments in Manchuria) to establish the National People's Government. Meanwhile, Kim's military faction had joined together with the socialists of the Korean Youth League to establish the Revolutionary Assembly.

In August 1929, the Korean Anarchist Federation approached Kim's revolutionaries with a plan to establish a self-governing federation of agricultural cooperatives in Manchuria. Kim Chwajin agreed and together they founded the Korean People's Association in Manchuria. As general of the Korean Independence Army, Kim himself acted as the organisation's military leader. As the KPAM grew, it came under threat from the Communist Party of Korea, the Empire of Japan and the Chinese nationalist government. Kim himself thought that they could ignore the Stalinists and leave aside political struggle until after Korean independence was achieved.

Death and aftermath

Kim was assassinated in January 1930, while he was repairing a cooperative's rice mill. The assassin Pak Sang-sil – a member of the Communist Party of Korea – escaped, but his handler Kim Bong-whan was captured and killed. Soon after his death, the KPAM began to experience financial difficulties and lost more of its leading members. In September 1930, anarchist activist Yi Ŭlgyu () was arrested; and in July 1931, Kim Chongjin was killed. By 1932, the KPAM had collapsed under pressure from the Japanese invasion of Manchuria. The Korean anarchist movement was forced underground and continued resisting Japanese imperialism. Members of the Revolutionary Assembly established the Korea Independence Party, which came under the leadership of Hong Chin and Chi Ch'ŏngch'ŏn. The Korean Independence Army remained active in Northern Manchuria until 1933, when it moved south into China.

Legacy

In modern-day South Korea, Kim is considered a national hero of the independence movement and is remembered as a patriot. Kim's leadership in the Battle of Cheongsanri was the centre of in an exhibition in the Independence Hall of Korea, where visitors can walk through a recreation of the scene of the battle. His portrait, alongside that of his fellow commander Hong Beom-do, is prominently displayed among the photographs of the battle in the exhibition hall. Kim also has a statue in the Independence Hall, where it is placed alongside statues of Korean independence activists An Jung-geun and Yun Bong-gil.

His birthplace, in Hongseong County, was declared a national monument. In 1991, the local government of Hongseong County restored the house where Kim was born and built an exhibition building dedicated to him nearby. From 1998 to 2001, the county also constructed a shrine to Kim. Every October, in commemoration of his victory at Cheongsanri, the county holds a festival in Kim's honour.

Kim has often been compared to the Ukrainian anarchist revolutionary Nestor Makhno, and came to be known as the "Korean Makhno". Alongside Makhno, the South African sociologist Lucien van der Walt also compared Kim to the Mexican anarchists Julio López Chávez and Francisco Zalacosta, and the Nicaraguan revolutionary Augusto Sandino, due to their promotion of libertarian socialism and their rallying of the peasantry to revolutionary action.

Kim Du-han, a right-wing politician and gangster in South Korea, claimed to be the son of Kim Chwajin, although scholars have debated whether this is true. Kim Du-han and his alleged connection to Kim Chwajin was the subject of the film General's Son, which kicked off a wave of South Korean crime films.

See also

• Rustic Period – 2002 television series about the Korean independence movement