September 25, 2024 • 46 mins
Margaret concludes talking with Mia Wong about the deep history of Korean anarchism and how it led to one of the great experiments with antiauthoritarian social structure of the 20th century.
Part 4/4
Sources:
Shin Chae-ho, "Declaration of the Korean Revolution;"
Ha Ki-rak, "A History of the Korean Anarchist Movement;"
Dongyoun Hwang, Anarchism in Korea;
Peter Gelderloos, Anarchy Works;
dogej63, "Summary of the Sinmin Prefecture."
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Whole Zone Media. Hello, and welcome to Cool People did
cool stuff. Your podcast, it's yours, it's yours. Now you
can do it.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
What do you mean? You know?
Speaker 1 (00:13):
Fine, I'll do it. I'm your host, Margaret Kiljoy doing
my podcast. It's my podcast, but I have a guest,
and my guest is Mia wong Am.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Yeah. Hello, also doing a bit of this podcast, like
five percent of this podcast.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
That's true, and then also doing an awful lot of
the podcast at least as much as me. It's Sophie, Hi,
Sophie Hi. Also doing this podcast is Rory, our audio engineer. Hi, Rory, Hi, Rory, Sophie.
We can't continue until you say it. Oh my gosh,
(00:48):
Hi Rory. I was just so I was thinking about
other things. I'm so sorry, Rory, my brain. Sophie was
thinking about dog costumes.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
I kind of was. I won't lie. You're very cute.
I was thinking about dog costumes and hats. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
And our theme musical was written forced by un Woman.
Welcome to the Rousing, part four of our deep dive
into Korean anarchism.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
You did it, you did it, Joe.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
Wait, I don't get it. Wait, that's okay, that's happening,
It's okay. Was I being compared to Joe Biden for
not having a memory?
Speaker 2 (01:24):
Oh I was so dark? Oh my god.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
No, you were being compared to Kamala Harris finding out
Joe Biden beat Donald Trump out and calling him.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
And going you did it, Joe.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
Hooray.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
That was so much funnier than it was supposed to be.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
So to sum up where we're at Korea in case
people are like just checking in on the last episode,
that's fine. It's fine if you did that, although you
miss a lot. Korea was a Japanese collum in the
nineteen tens until World War Two, and a lot of
Korean rebels, including a lot of anarchists, fled Tomentaria. This
is my little like, little like. If you're catching up
on the Batman episode, here's the recap. You know, a
(02:10):
lot of Korean rebels, including a lot of anarchists, fled
Tomentaria immediately north of Korea. Korean anarchists developed a lot
of skills and ideas and philosophies and connections in China
and Japan with comrades there. And I have been trying a
bunch of stuff to make Korea both independent and also
a horizontal society. They opened a ton of schools, they
organized a ton of labor unions, they wrote a ton
of books and newspapers, they organized gorilla bands. And that's
(02:33):
the part I know at least about, and I want
to know more about. But generally they were cool people
doing cool stuff. And so there's two million Korean people
living in Manchuria by the mid nineteen twenties or so,
and they were at war on a lot of fronts.
They were at war against starvation because they're in an
incredibly inhospitable land like well, we'll talk about more in
(02:53):
a second. They're at war against the Japanese military who
wanted to destroy them as Korean rebels, but also wanted
to colonize Manchuria. They were also fighting against the pressures
from the constant warring in China, most specifically raids by
bandits and acting like bandits Chinese Communist Party. Manchuria countries
(03:14):
are fake and borders are fake. But Menoria is usually
presented as a region of China, but what could get
called Manchuria also extends up into what's currently Mongoli in
Russia because borders regions alfake. I have seen the Korean
presence in Manchuria described a lot of ways. I know
that's the theme of this fucking episode. A whole gradient
goes from oh, this is just warlordism whatever, They're just
(03:37):
the same as everyone else too. This is an anarchist
utopia of two million people who prove that all of
our ideas are right and there's nothing wrong with any
of them. I suspect that the truth is not just
in the middle, but like a dialectical third thing.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
Ooh in narco warlordism.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
Oh no, yeah, yeah, a narco nationalist warlordism. No, it's
funny and messy. It also, when I'm trying to read
about all of it, it doesn't help that every text
(04:14):
transliterates everyone's names differently.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
Yeah, that's a whole thing. Oh yeah, And.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
Then a lot of the people are like related to
each other and just their names will be extra similar.
And then like translator, So I basically mean like, is
this two guys, this one guy? Is this eight guys?
Because I'm looking at eight names. You know that happened
a lot, But I believe I have a clear picture.
I'm going to present you a fairly clear picture. Koreans
(04:41):
have been moving into Manuria since about nineteen ten. This
is rugged mountains, which is usually the kind of place
historically with the least government, and that is totally honestly
part of why I live in West Virginia.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
Just be real.
Speaker 1 (04:54):
One source claims that the area was under warlord rule.
One claims that the areas that they were in wasn't.
And I suspect that the source claiming warlord rule was
claiming the Korean generals as warlords. But there's also this
thing where the Korean population was largely living in these
very remote areas, and so the warlords that would rule
(05:15):
mostly which were mostly Japanese aligned at this point, or
at least the main particular war war that they came
up against a bunch of times as Japanese aligned until
they killed him.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
Which warlord is it? I remember him.
Speaker 1 (05:26):
I didn't write his name in and I feel so
bad the Japanese eventually assassin I was like, I have
too many names in the script. The Japanese assassinated him.
I kind of actually didn't include him at all in
the script. But eventually he didn't like successfully stop the
nationalist enough Chang Kai Shek enough, so the Japanese who
were his allies just like assassinated him by bombing the
train he was on.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
Yeah, okay, so I will say this about that guy.
I remember this guy from the Warlers episode that I did,
and the source I was reading was claiming that he
wasn't actually a Japanese asset. It's just that everyone accused
him of being one because they assumed that he was
because he was fighting the nationalists and he kind of wasn't. No,
that would make sense because they yeah, they blew his
ass up. So I'm blinking at his name because it's
(06:07):
been like several years. Yeah, I really right to this stuff.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
No, and I considered him a side quest that I
decided to abandon. He's like one of the trimmed branches. Yeah, No,
there's so much.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
Also, one thing I do want to mention that I
think is kind of important to this story that isn't
talked about that much is that like Mansuria is by
Chinese standards, like fairly close to like it's not that
far away from from Beijing, Like it's kind of remote
in the sense that like it's not it's I mean,
it's it's a different power center than most of the
sort of like traditional Chinese power centers, right. I mean,
it's make sure he is the place where the manchees,
(06:39):
which is the the Qing dynasty came out of. But
it's close enough to Beijing that it's kind of an
issue for people.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
No. See, that's like, that's a good context. So overall
the Korean people living there. Because I was trying to
figure out, I was like, there's two million people here.
It's not Tara Knollys right. I was like, how is
it two million in Korean people in Korean societies? And
the answer is that they best as I can tell,
they did sort of find the areas that weren't super
(07:08):
populated because they're in the mountains and shit. But overall,
the Korean people are living outside of the Chinese state
and outside of external warlord rule, and they are outside
of control by Japanese or Russian forces. By nineteen twenty five,
they set up three self governing prefectures, the jiong Chen,
the Chanren, and the shin Men. These were set up
(07:29):
by various gorilla groups that were all doing the fighting.
They collectively had a militia basically those gorilla units, right,
and they defended the area and they were occasionally raiding
into Korea against the Japanese. As best as they understand,
this was the Korean Independence Army, not to be confused
with the other Korean Independence Army, which existed from nineteen
(07:50):
nineteen to nineteen twenty one and is the main thing
you find when you try to do more research about this.
But it's also called the Army of the North, which
is a sick name, that's true. And it grew out
of these righteous armies, right, the original one, the one
that disbanded in nineteen twenty one, the Korean Independence Army.
It dissolved because the fucking Russian Red Army ordered them
(08:11):
to integrate into the regular Red Army. Oh no, and
the Koreans who joined the USSR were later betrayed during
the forced ethnic cleansing of Manchuria in nineteen thirty seven,
when one hundred and seventy two thousand people were deported
to Kazakistan, which.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
Is, oh, they're those people.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
Oh no, yeah, it's not close. These are not nearby.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
No. I guess we should also mention geographically, like in
terms of just what kind of like Vladivlastok is like
technically it's not technically EVENTUREI yet depending in terms of
where you're how you're doing the borders.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
There's like two maps if you look it up on Wikipedia.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
Yah. Yeah, yeah, Like Latavastok is like right there, right,
So it's it's just like like in terms of like
you know, we talked about Korea being sort of like
the shatter zone, like Manchuria is an even bigger one
because it's literally like it is bordered directly by China, Mongolia, Russia,
and then Japan is very very close by sea, and
then you know also like borders of Korea, etcter, et cetera.
(09:06):
So like there's all of these sort of imperial influences
are like literally right there. And like if the red
arby in flat of Astok is like, hey, we're gonna
do ethnic cleansings, deport you to whatever place that's some
like Stalinist or whatever decides to send you to, it's
exact Dania.
Speaker 1 (09:22):
They they have the ability to do that, which is
completely on the other side of the country, and Russia
is a very big country.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
Yeah. Also I want to mention the Stalinist line on
that was that they were scared that those people were
Japanese spies, which is i know, the most like out
of all of the Stalinist lions I've ever seen about anything.
That is the single most unhinged one, Like yeah, that,
I mean, it's like their excuse for doing it is
we are racist. That's what they're that's their excuse, their excuses.
(09:52):
We don't trust Koreans because they might be friends with
the Japanese. The fuck is wrong with you? Just me
and they're the same, Like you think they look the same,
that's what you're saying. Yeah, it's like you literally, these
are a bunch of anti Japanese gorillas that you forcibly integrated,
and then the anti Japanese guerrilla is that you integrated
(10:12):
into your army. You are now sending a you are
now ethnically cleansing across the country because you think they're Japanese.
By was like, what is going? Oh god, So this
just makes me very angry because this is one of
the things there's a lot of kind of like weird
denialism about I'm sure on the left, and it's infuriating
to me. Yeah, no, I'm certain. I Like I read
one hundred thousand of the Koreans from Entrereo removed, and
(10:34):
then I also read that the whole thing was one
hundred and seventy two thousand, and so I don't know
whether that's like other people were also being moved.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
I don't know enough about that. And also some of
the numbers that are wildly disparate, but none of them
are small numbers. Is that between sixteen and fifty thousand
of those people died. Yeah, so between a tenth and half,
depending on how you calculate it all.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
Because it turns out that being an ethnic cleansing, even
if they're technically not literally shooting you all, still kills
enormous numbers of people. Yeah, deeply evil stuff.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
It also goes to show the primary lesson of history
of the twentieth century is when you make friends with tankies,
they kill you, even if you're a tanky. Maybe especially
if you're a tanky. Yeah, but that's not what we're
talking about. I just love a little side quest to
point out that you shouldn't trust the fucking USSR. Yep,
those earlier armies are gone. There's this new army, and
(11:26):
I'm sure it's a lot of the same people. Actually,
I learned some from Joshua that one of the reasons
that a lot of these uh coming out of the
Righteous Armies. A lot of these armies were people who
had been part of like the Korean government and even
like putting down the dong Hak rebellion in eighteen ninety four,
and even some of them have been like kind of
fighting for the Japanese. And we're like, no, never mind,
(11:46):
and if I get anything wrong, it's not Joshua's fault
to my own inferences. I want to be clear about that.
But you have all of these like cops and soldiers,
shit and shit showing up at like anarchist schools to
be like, all right, here's how you organize the military
to kill the japan Ris. History is very weird, yes,
(12:07):
and ideological borders are like real borders, they're fake, you know.
I mean there's also different places are different whatever. Anyway,
the general of this army was a guy named Kim
Joe jin, and he was pretty rat He's not an
anarchist yet at the start of all this, and there's
(12:28):
some stuff that I wonder about. He is talked up
as like he's one of the big national heroes of
all this, right because he's a general who like, well,
i'll talk about what he did in the second If
you read articles about him as soon as he turned eighteen,
which is around like nineteen in the middle of the night,
like nineteen oh five, nineteen oh six. I forgot to
write down what year he was born. But when he
(12:49):
turned eighteen, he's from this rich family. He freed all
fifty families of slaves his family owned and gave them
land and shit and burned the slave registry and this
gets called the first act of a man's patient of
modern Korea. The confusing thing about that, you're shaking your
head a little, right, I could see you think. And
didn't we just say in the last episode that slavery
(13:11):
was outlawed in eighteen ninety four in Korea?
Speaker 2 (13:13):
Yes, we did.
Speaker 1 (13:14):
Yeah, so huh myth making. Yeah, you know, I mean
he still might have done it. He's still might his
family probably still enslave people after it was illegal for
them to do it, you know, yeah, I.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
Mean, see, for example, the entire history of the United States.
Speaker 1 (13:30):
Yeah, exactly why we celebrate Juneteenth instead of just the
fucking yeah. Well and also, yeah, though, what fourteenth the
fuck the amendment that means that slavery is still legal
if you're in prison anyway, Kim jo Jin was cool,
whether or not he's mythologized in this way or that right,
or at least what I know about him is fucking cool.
He served about three years in prison in Korea for
(13:51):
rebellion and shit, and then he moved to Venturia and
started taking up arms there, and this is like kind
of he's pretty early on the scene there, and he's
a really good general, and he kept killing all the
Japanese soldiers who were sent after him and shit, including
the first military victory by the Koreans against the Japanese
of the entire colonial period.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
That rules. We simply love to see it.
Speaker 1 (14:12):
Yeah, exactly. And as far as I can tell, these
autonomous prefectures get set up in nineteen twenty five, and
they're already pretty dang cool. I can see why non
political historians refer to them as being under rule by
war lords because they are created and supported by the military, wait.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
Which by theirs? Whose military? Yes?
Speaker 1 (14:35):
These gorilla groups, right, these like yeah, okay, these the
descendants of the Righteous Armies are like, okay, we are
defending this territory. So it is a militarily set up
political structure, which is sort of warlordism, right. But the
anarchists in the area, and there are a lot of
them supported the militarily constructed societies. And Kim Joe Jin
(15:00):
had a relative named Kim Jongjin, and he's one of
the major figures of the Korean Anarchist Federation. I can't
figure how they related. Everything's like a close relative. I've
seen it called like in three different sources. And this
is that federation that formed in northern Korea, right and
had to be like super underground, and they kept trying
to have conventions, and so I love that, like cause
you kind of have this like wacky when you're like, oh,
(15:22):
we're gonna call ourselves the anarchists and try and have
conventions and everyone's gonna get deported. Like no, they're like
doing shit. There's armies involved, you know, like yeah, And
so as these autonomous prefectures are getting set up, they're like, hey,
I'm pretty good at like killing Japanese soldiers, you know what.
I don't have any experience in constructing a society from scratch.
(15:45):
Ah yeah, hello, my close relative who talks about this
shit constantly, Like can't get you to shut up at
family dinner. You got any ideas? And the anarchists are like, yeah,
we have some fucking ideas, the rules, So this is
how you have a like constructed from the top down,
bottom up society. And the generals are like, all right,
(16:09):
let's do it. Let's make an anarchist society. Let's fucking go,
and they they did it. It seems to be the
case from nineteen twenty five, but it's usually credited as
nineteen twenty nine, which is when the Shinman District was
renamed the Korean People's Association of Manchuria. It called itself
quote an independent, self governing cooperative system of the Korean
(16:30):
people who assembled their full power to save our nation
by struggling against Japan. And if that isn't the most
anarchist nationalist statement ever made, because they're not calling themselves
a government. They're like, we are a self governing cooperative
you know, like King I didn't, I don't whatever. I'm
trying to do the mud farmer thing for Monty Python,
but I can't do it off the top of my head. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:53):
Like, I'm kind of less sympathetic to the non political
historians who are just calling the warlords because like the
warlords have sort of two organizational modes there's one that's
just almost pure banded army, and then the second one
is that they're just straight up being the state, right,
I mean, like there is like a Republic of China
and in training the worlord period, and who has control
over it depends on sort of like who you know,
(17:14):
like but like like there's like people going through positions,
people are getting appointed to stuff, so like they tend
to be like parasitic on the existing state. And this
is very very.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
Different from that even from the beginning totally. But you know,
it isn't different from our current economic system.
Speaker 2 (17:32):
Is it the products of services?
Speaker 1 (17:34):
Well, interrupting a podcast about non capitalist societies with advertisements
is an example of something that I don't know how
to finish my sentence, but.
Speaker 2 (17:43):
Here's ads and we're back, okay.
Speaker 1 (17:54):
So, and you have this sea of complications happening where
an anarchist structure was designed and implemented from the top down,
and basically representatives from the anarchist non government though like
cooperative structure or whatever, would go around and teach people
how to set up horizontal structures in their villages, and
it seems like people were into it. I don't think
(18:14):
this was at gunpoint. Nothing I have read argues in
that direction, and also nothing I have read argues that
they were like extracting from these communities much in fact,
specifically they were building infrastructure within these communities. How it
worked is it used a federated system, seemingly similar to
how like democratic and federalist systems like the one in Roshava.
(18:37):
Work power is invested in village councils, who then sent
delegates up to regional assemblies. The sort of bureaucrats working
at the highest level were paid the same as everyone else,
and they had executive departments working on agriculture, education, propaganda, finance, military, social, health, youth,
and there's one for general affairs. They did voluntary collective,
(19:00):
which is what the Spanish anarchists did not six years
later in Catalonia, where you know, they were like, let's
set up collective farms if you want. You know, I
don't think that they actually like destroyed like the market economy.
I don't get the impression that that happened. And I'll
give you my reason why I think that. In a minute.
They set up free education for everyone up to the
age of eighteen. Ongoing adult education was available to anyone
(19:23):
who wanted it, and there was arms training for all
responsible adults, which makes sense.
Speaker 2 (19:27):
They're in a war. Yeah, it's really a war that
is going to last from what like nineteen eleven to
nineteen forty nine. No, that's not even true because like,
well it's still technically going on. Yeah, yeah, it's just Yeah.
(19:48):
There were mutual aid banks, is how I saw them described,
and which I'm guessing these are sort of like the
people's banks advocated for by Prudon and many other anarchists,
which is basically a way for people to get capital
to build cooperatives without creating a society built on the
exploitation of capital. It's uncertain how many of their plans
were implemented or just planned or in progress. And by
(20:10):
that I mean of the like four or five sources,
one says, hey, I don't actually know how much they
actually pulled off, and then everyone else is like, they
did all this stuff, you know. Yeah, this is also
one of the records, one of the most of all
time records are fragmentary of all uh huh. It's like
the worst possible place on earth you're trying to get
(20:33):
records out of. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:34):
Absolutely, to quote that book Anarchism in Korea, There quote
plans for agricultural development, education, and military training within its jurisdiction,
as well as for its representative system along with its
administrative body, have all been praised as a reflection of
the anarchist idea of a government without compulsory government that
assured the principles of no rule, no naked power, and
(20:55):
no exploitation. It is unclear, though, whether they had a
substantial chance to implement these or related principles, programs or
policies during the short span of its existence, or just
to only had them planned on paper. That's the only
source that actually questions how much of it they got done.
But I think it's worth highlighting just because there's so
much myth making happening everywhere.
Speaker 2 (21:15):
You know, yeah, yeah and so, and anarchists are not
immune to that, right.
Speaker 1 (21:20):
Totally totally, because I could just be trying to add
to the like, here's the pantheon of perfect societies that
absolutely would have worked if it wasn't for the Dang
Kamis and the Dang imperialists. Yeah, you know which is well,
we'll get to it. It's like not that far from true,
but like, who knows, who fucking knows. You know, they
started off doing that thing that is doomed Horizontalist project.
(21:40):
After horizontalist project, they decided that the Japanese Empire was
the greater enemy, and so they didn't stop Bolsheviks from
organizing in their areas. Younger anarchists, either more worldly or
more hot headed, were like, no, we've seen the USSR
and we can't let that happen here. But Kim chuijin
that general was like, I don't know, I say we
deal with Japan first, And I don't know whether that
(22:03):
was like his call or not.
Speaker 2 (22:05):
I don't know. Spoiler alert.
Speaker 1 (22:07):
The most common belief of historians is that it was
a communist who assassinated Kim Joi Jen soon after he said.
Speaker 2 (22:12):
This, Yeah, you know, it's it's funny we talked about
this happening in Vietnam on this show, where in Vietnam
is like the rare example with the Communists in Vietnam
genuinely want to do this. But the problem is that, like,
and this is the problem for all of these deserted
bution of communis stuments, is that like they're not actually
(22:33):
in control of their run movements, like they can have
totally orders can come down from Russia from the common
turn And this is totally I've talked about this with
like in other podcasts, but like this is what like
orders coming down from Russia to work with Like the
nationalists gets a million Chinese workers killed, yeah, I in
nineteen twenty seven, like in this period, like actually the
(22:54):
communists finally pull off a revolution in Shanghai in twenty seven,
and then they get ordered by Moscow to like let
the nationalists the nationals kill everyone. Yeah, and this you
know the result of blood bath of this kills a
million people. And like this this issue, right, this issue
of sort of these groups a like almost purely being
in this for their own influence and be their willingness
(23:14):
to just like accept orders from Moscow and murder everyone
is just such a fiasco for just everyone in basically everywhere,
but like particularly in East Asia. It's just complete fiasco.
That makes sense to me.
Speaker 1 (23:28):
And I think that that's like one of the things
that it's like, well, look, I can trust this person's intentions,
but if they're part of an authoritarian structure, it doesn't
matter how much I trust their intentions. It matters how
much I trust the intentions of the person on top. Yeah,
you know, and it's sad, and like Vietnam is a
perfect example of that, where like, overall, I think the
(23:49):
Vietnamese Communists are you know, we're trying to do right.
And yeah, we did a whole episode about a Trotskyist
who had to flee from I think from the styles.
Oh god, it's been a while since I did that
fucking up episode anyway.
Speaker 2 (24:02):
Yeah, those stylists. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:03):
Yeah, So in the middle of this war on multiple fronts,
they worked on developing the kind of infrastructure that would
enrich small villages and give them more economic autonomy. For example,
they wanted to build a rice mill in this one
village so that rice could be milled locally instead of
being sold to middle men merchants, and like basically like
how to reverse economic extraction from these areas. And this
(24:25):
is the why I like that they worked to avoid
and counteract economic extraction.
Speaker 2 (24:30):
Is part of my life.
Speaker 1 (24:31):
They're not warlords.
Speaker 2 (24:33):
Also, I have an entire episode about the middle bitch
structure in East Asian agriculture. That's about the company that
poisoned one hundred thousand babies whoa really Yeah, just specifically
in the milk industry later on, Oh yeah, that's right. Yeah,
but that's very specifically that middle men structure is so
noxious and yeah, yeah, so it's glad to see the
(24:55):
like trying to knock out these things. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:00):
Well, Kim Juijin went in person to help build one
of these rice mills, and I get no impression that
this is like a photo op. I think he was
just like, this is what we're doing, is we're building
a society, and I'm going to go build it by
putting bricks on top of each other. Hell yeah, we
know about this particular rice mill and his work on
it because at the age of forty, while working on
a rice mill to cut out the middlemen, Kim Juijin
(25:23):
was assassinated on January twentieth, nineteen thirty. No, at first,
most historians say this assassin was sent by Japan. Most
modern historians agree that it was a communist. Oh, this
did not stop the Korean People's Association. One advantage of
even a sort of accidentally top down anarcha's structure is
that's still an anarcha structure. They kept going and it
(25:48):
continued to grow throughout most of nineteen thirty. It expanded
into nearby regions and eventually encompassed about two million people.
The Korean anarchists in China in particular basically decided that
they were like, all right, this is our thing, this
is what we're supporting, and so you have this like
all the like, yeah, not all of but you know,
a ton of the Korean anarchists in China are like,
(26:08):
there's all these women smuggling guns up to the area,
and folks all start moving up there.
Speaker 2 (26:13):
That rules.
Speaker 1 (26:15):
But eventually anarchist Manchuria felt the way that more or
less every anarchist project has fallen. The Bolsheviks and the
right wing informally teamed up to fight it at the
same time. Anarchists Ukraine, of course fell because while the
anarchists were busy fighting against reactionaries, the Red Army came
and destroyed it. Anarchist Spain fell, and this one's messier,
but it fell because while anarchists were busy fighting Franco,
(26:36):
the Stalins waged a dirty war against them, and the
cohesion fell apart. And I'm only saying that one's messier
because it's completely possible that if the anarchists and the
communists had stuck together, they still would have lost to Franco.
Speaker 2 (26:47):
Yeah, because well, I mean that's one way they were fighting.
They're fighting Franco, they were fighting the Italian Army and
they were also fighting the Germans at the same time.
Speaker 1 (26:54):
Yeah, which yeah, yeah. And Anarchist Shinman fell because the
Japanese attacked it from the south while the Stalinists attacked
it from the north. To quote historian Alan mcsimeon from
his speech to the Worker Solidarity Movement in Dublin in
nineteen ninety one, quote, in early nineteen thirty one, the
Stalinists sent assassination and kidnapping teams into the anarchist zone
(27:16):
to murder leading activists. By the summer of nineteen thirty one,
many leading anarchists were dead, and the war on two
fronts was devastating the region. It was decided to go underground.
Anarchist Shinman was no more. And just because I think
this person seems kind of cool, I want to point
out that another of the many people who was assassinated
was a man named Sim Yong Hay, who was a
(27:38):
Korean fluent in Chinese and Esperanto. Was murdered by the
Japanese in Manchuria in nineteen thirty and he'd been an
editor at National Customs Daily and he had lived in
the office.
Speaker 2 (27:48):
I just I like this, like news.
Speaker 1 (27:50):
This is a cool guy, right, yeah, yeah, he worked
at a newspaper called National Customs Daily that was an
anarchist newspaper and he lived in the office. What. Yeah,
it's amazing, I know, I know. And the other people
helping I mean and when you're like, oh, that sounds nationalist, well,
the other people who were working on it with him
was a Chinese anarchist and two Japanese anarchists.
Speaker 2 (28:11):
Incredible stuff. And the group of.
Speaker 1 (28:14):
Them when this paper spoke about how quote all under
Heaven comprises one family and the whole world is full
of whole brothers.
Speaker 2 (28:22):
Oh, it's funny. Like the reputation of anarchists is that
we're the ones who do assassinations, and then you actually
look at the history and every single other faction is
doing even more assassinations. Yeah, and it just like doesn't
stick at.
Speaker 1 (28:36):
All, And you're like, oh, anarchists are the mad bombers
of Like have you met countries?
Speaker 2 (28:41):
Yes?
Speaker 1 (28:41):
Like like the day before we recorded this, fucking Israel
just exploded pagers and radios to oh did it again
today too? Yeah, yeah, yeah, who knows what it'll be
by the time and that this comes out. But what
won't explode in your pocket is anything you buy from
(29:03):
our sponsors unless they're made in Israel.
Speaker 2 (29:06):
I don't know. Uh, it's Christ, here's ads and we're back.
Speaker 1 (29:20):
I'm under the impression that the pages are exploded weren't
made in Israel, even though they were obviously you know,
it's obviously orchestrated by.
Speaker 2 (29:27):
Yeah, there's a whole there's a whole debate right now,
but who made them? Probably you in the future will
know more about this than we do right now on
day two. Absolutely, so enjoy your knowledge and your FEELINGO
spoke superiority. It'll it'll get you through something. Hopefully the
work day.
Speaker 1 (29:41):
A week from now, everyone will have like opened every
piece of electronics they own with like a little thing
to like see whether or not there's fucking explosives and
planted into it.
Speaker 2 (29:51):
Anyway.
Speaker 1 (29:52):
After the Anarchist project went underground and the they weren't
able to hold the space, the Koreans fought a long retreat,
but Japan invaded and con Manuari in nineteen thirty one,
creating the region known as Menchukuo. China appealed to the
League of Nations who asked Japan to leave. Japan was like, no,
I don't want it. Though, yep, the US refused to
(30:13):
recognize Japan's presence there as legitimate, and that kicked off
a naval arms race. And this seems like not not
a factor in the US's trade embargo on Japan and
Japan's bombing of Pearl Harbor, in the US declaring war
on Japan, and World War two. This is not the domino,
I don't think. But no, yeah, I mean like it
was a kind of I know, I guess we don't
(30:34):
need to fully go to the causes of World War two.
Speaker 2 (30:36):
Year it did have some role. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (30:40):
After the fall of anarchist Shinman, the remaining anarchists largely
went underground. Some fought in World War Two. Most anarchists
were so deep underground that while their actions were seen,
there was no real trace of who they were, how
they organized, or what they believed. There was another big
push for a common front against Japan during the Second
Sino Japanese War, which was from nineteen thirty seven to
(31:01):
nineteen forty five, and anarchists seemed overall to sort of
deradicalize in order to fight what they saw as their
common enemy, anarchism. Probably as a result of this de
radicalization or just whatever, it declined overall through that the
nineteen thirties, Korean anarchists stayed active elsewhere in China, in
Minchuria and Korea. And I know, I keep separating China
(31:22):
in Minuria and it's not actually true, but we're complicating things.
Speaker 2 (31:26):
Well, it technically isn't this period in the sense that like, oh,
that's true because it's occupied by Japan.
Speaker 1 (31:32):
Yeah, they were involved in the war. They were bombing
endeming positions and such like the Shanghai Black Terrorist Group,
which in nineteen thirty three was a group of Korean
anarchists in China that attempted to assassinate the Japanese consular
and did a bunch of other shit, or the League
of Korean Youth in South China, which was organized in
nineteen thirty Shanghai. They killed Japanese high officials and military
(31:53):
commanders in Korean Traders, and this was the sort of
central group of Korean anarchists in China, many of whom
had lived in Japan. And like, this is the kind
of thing where I like, hope one day I'm going
to find a fucking book or two about and just
just talk about the League of Korean Youth in South China. Yeah,
you know, it's platform because of course they had a
platform too, right. They were like, even though they're underground,
(32:13):
they're all wild shit. They were, Oh, there must have
been pure anarchists. Their platform was included denying and rejecting
political and syndicalist movements, as well as the family system
and religion. They were into spontaneous alliances to build society
that provided from each according to ability, to each according
to need, and they developed theories about how to turn
cities into organic, complex structures that looked like farming villages,
(32:35):
but more complex and larger.
Speaker 2 (32:38):
That's cool, I know.
Speaker 1 (32:39):
I hope they don't all die at the end of
this christ work. I don't fucking no, they're all underground
if it's not. Yeah, yeah, living in China and being
involved in the fight against Japan is not a good
way to live a long life. But it's a oh yeah,
the way to die nice, you know, a way to
die proud. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (32:56):
I mean, it's like there were very few things in
world history that you could die fighting against where you
died like better than that, Yeah, Like it's totally.
Speaker 1 (33:05):
And so then in Japan there's still Korean anarchists. They
are in the belly of the beast, and they ran
Black Newspaper, which was a propaganda war in Japan by
Korean anarchists and it went hard. At the time, Japanese
anarchists were doing this thing called the Society of Youth
and Farming Villages movement, and the slogan was let's appeal
(33:27):
to the peasantry, which is like a thing that just
keeps recycling as of Yeah, a theme like every sixty years.
Speaker 2 (33:33):
Yeah, we're due for another one soon. Like you're gonna
see all these American kids being like it's time to
go to the farming villages or whatever.
Speaker 1 (33:41):
I thought I was worriing my camo hat or recording,
but I'm wearing a different hat.
Speaker 2 (33:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (33:47):
But then after the invasion of China they moved into
the combat period. Black Newspaper put out its first issue
in the summer of nineteen thirty and it lasted about
five years. It was funded by anarchist organizations and by
Korean labor unions. It was published by the Tokyo Labor
Alliance at first and later by the Federation of Black
Friends and Free Youth. It was regularly banned and confiscated.
(34:09):
Its editors went in and out of prison, and it
was sent out and sealed envelopes to readers in Japan, China,
and Korea.
Speaker 2 (34:16):
Are their rules?
Speaker 1 (34:17):
I know, I know, Like this ain't a safe thing
they're doing, you know, like yeah, yeah, the slogan was
rush with revolutionary actions at the irrational contemporary society.
Speaker 2 (34:29):
Oh, we love to see it. That's that's such a
good one.
Speaker 1 (34:34):
Yeah, and so yeah, the imperial country had anarchists sending
out information to its wartime enimy being like hell yeah,
fight us win, fuck us a lot like Russian anarchists. Honestly,
that's the main Well, we'll talk about more in a second.
And this newspaper it also covered news from around the world.
(34:55):
It kept people up with revolutionaries and also reactionaries, so
like people were like learning Hitler and Stalin and shit
while this is happening. They also actively worked to communicate
worldwide and break down East versus West. And it was
also run in partnership, probably run in partnership with Japanese
language anarchist papers available at that time. Eventually, basically, as
(35:17):
like the cycles of oppression against it kept happening, many
or perhaps most of its editors had to move to
China to avoid persecution. Imagine being like, I got to
go to the country we're invading.
Speaker 2 (35:29):
It's safer there. Yeah, jus christ, Oh, I mean I
hope they got to like, like, I hope they got
the Western China because yeah, totally.
Speaker 1 (35:40):
Oh boy, honestly, I think most of them went and
joined the like Black Friends, Murder Club or whatever. You know.
Speaker 2 (35:48):
Yeah, I mean many, many such cases.
Speaker 1 (35:52):
Korea won its independence when the Japanese Empire fell. Some
assholes are a random line across the middle. The US
imperialized the South, the US the North, and they've been
in a cold war ever since. Both sides claimed the anarchists.
Both sides persecuted the anarchists. In nineteen forty five, the
anarchists in Korea de radicalized fully because they are easy
targets from the anti democratic governments. They launched an anarchist
(36:15):
political party. I think in South Korea this did not work.
This is also in part due to the rise of
the National Front that had tried to unite everyone from
the nineteen thirties onward, and they figured they could fight
for a society without government along the way, but for
now they need to fight against a common enemy. And yeah,
the closest parallel I can see is that there's anarchist
Ukrainian involvement in the Ukrainian War, like and they're part
(36:37):
of the traditional Ukrainian military alongside everyone else, because they're like,
we can deal with that when that man is not
murdering my family, you know.
Speaker 2 (36:47):
Yeah, And I mean it's like, especially in these conditions,
it's like like you are fighting you were fighting Japan,
You're you're finding go cheap who were going to kill
thirty billion people? Like it's you know, totally, things are
going extremely badly for everyone here. And it's yeah, yeah,
it's like are people making the best decisions? Maybe not?
(37:08):
But also like the scale of the slaughter is just
sort of incomprehensible, no, totally.
Speaker 1 (37:12):
It's like we did an episode about the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, right,
and for most of that conflict there was three different factions.
There's the anti Zionist Left, there was the Zionist Left,
and there was the essentially fascists who were happened to
be Jewish, and those three sides did not like each other.
And then when there's like we're just all dying, we
(37:35):
are just being exterminated. At that point, they coordinated their
actions together. Still to the very I think it's been
a while since the episodes. I think to the bitter end,
the anti Zionist left was like, we're not fighting alongside fascists,
but we will coordinate with them. We will coordinate our
attacks together because we need to not die.
Speaker 2 (37:51):
We need to you know.
Speaker 1 (37:52):
Yeah, things can always be worse, you know, yep, And
so yeah. After nineteen forty five, during deradicalization, they were
more about autonomous government and autonomous people, and they moved
away from more specifically anarchistic ideas. Overall, this is the
way it's presented when it's a vey. I'm sure there's
people who stayed anarchist or whatever, and they were about
(38:14):
building social movements to show how important rural life was
alongside industrial development in cities, especially in the sixties and seventies,
and they worked hard to distinguish themselves from the communists.
Anarchism started to rise again in Korea in nineteen ninety
after the collapse of the USSR, and I've read about
how people are working to disentangle it from nationalism while
still being proud of the enormous legacy of anarchist freedom
(38:34):
fighters involved in a national liberation struggle. I heard from
that listener Joshua King about the complicated mythologization of Korean anarchists. Basically,
the role of the provisional government can't be downplayed, right,
and that was full of anarchists, and this has been acknowledged.
The previous president of South Korea, Moon jay jin, gave
(38:55):
a speech in twenty nineteen that explicitly shouted out anarchist
involvement in the struggle, which the right wing.
Speaker 2 (39:01):
Was not excited about.
Speaker 1 (39:03):
Yeah, imagine just like the president of your country being like, look,
we gotta admit the anarchist did something.
Speaker 2 (39:10):
You know, Yeah, I mean this is like a whole
other story. But like he's like Mija In's like from
a like I mean, he doesn't like an incredible president,
but he's like he's from a sort of like student movement,
democracy movement, like organize your background and you know those
people like you know, you could say what you want
(39:31):
about them politically, but all like a lot of those
people got machine gunned by by the Korean army, so
like they have more of a like.
Speaker 1 (39:41):
They got some cred.
Speaker 2 (39:43):
It's like a little bit more like I respect him
a little little tidy bit bore that I would like
his equivalent in a country where like his people didn't
get like absolutely bowed down with the backing of Jimmy Carter.
Speaker 1 (39:56):
So whow the first jim Carter slander on cool Zone media. Oh,
one day I'm going to write the Jimmy Carter episode
I Hate You Jimmy. Jimmy Carter was the first American neoliberal.
Speaker 2 (40:08):
People don't remember this because Reagan came afterwards and we
got Reagan neoliberalism instead of like the Socialist Party of
Italy and neoliberalism, which was what we were sort of
like angling towards. But he has that man has a
body count and it's no I believe it's largely in Korea. Yeah, No,
I like I always sort of knew. I was, like,
I assume there's some like you don't be president of
the United States without skeletons, like not even in your closet,
(40:31):
but like dancing around in the street. Yeah, So for
people who don't know what I'm talking about. There was
there was a giant so I mean, it's called pro
democracy uprising, but it was like more leftist than that
uprising in Korea, which is under that time like ruled
by actually was it. I'm forgetting which configuration of dictatorship
this was, but Jimmy Carter basically green lighted that, like
(40:52):
it's called like the Guansha Uprising. They basically formed like
a commune for a bit, and then Jimmy Carter green
lights the Korean army just killing the ball and cool.
Speaker 1 (41:02):
Yeah, also cool that the United States can green light
another I mean this is not surprising to any listener
of this show, but like, yeah, this is the thing
we're pointing out, like, yeah, that's not our country. It
turns out that's that's Korea. It's a different place. I
know all countries are fake, but uh, that's over there.
But what also is over there is the script because
(41:26):
it's now behind us because we finished it. Because we
talked about the Korean People's Association of Menuria and Korean anarchism.
Speaker 2 (41:32):
Oh I promised us getting revenge on Japan by aheorg
hw Bush throwing up for the Japanese prime mitistry. Oh yeah,
let's do it now. I need to explain that, okay.
So the arc of this is that one of the
things that you know, the when the Japanese like Congress
Venturia and destroys the anarchist movement, kills all of these people, like,
that's one of the things that crystallizes I guess one
(41:54):
of the Japanese fascist movements, but just the one that's
going to take power. I did a bunch of episodes
on u Ki Kishi, who was the prim to serve Japan.
He's the guy who founded the Liberal Democratic Party, which
is basically like effectively has ruled Japan as a one
party state for basically since it was founded in the
fifties until.
Speaker 1 (42:10):
Like now, I love how words just don't mean anything
as soon as you get into politics.
Speaker 2 (42:14):
Uh huh, yeah, it's why. I mean, there's literally a
line where k she walks out of prison and he said,
he's kidding, he's about to run for office, and he goes,
I guess we're all Democrats now. But so like they
get installed by literally the CIA, and CIA has individual
guys who are like running the election campaigns of individual
LDP candidates to make sure they win their election and
(42:34):
keep left out of power. Yeah, and so they do this.
It works, and the LDP holds onto power. But it
means that Japan is sort of like Semi's basically permanently
subordinated to sort of American imperial control. And the lasting
consequence of this is that when George H. W. Bush
vomits on the Japanese Prime minister at a dinner, there's
nothing they could really do about it, because this is
a party that was put in charge by the institution
(42:56):
that George H. W. Bush ran, the CIA. So and
now you know, there's a lot of there's a lot
made of the fact that the US sense as an
ambassador to Japan Raba Manuel. But like I don't know,
if you guys didn't what rab A manual is your ambassador,
you should have taken all that CIA money in the
fifties and sixties. So you know, this, this is our
this is our Our small amount of revenge is that
(43:18):
the head of the fascist party getting vomited on but
George W. Bush and not being able to do anything
about it. There's video of this, by the way, you
can find you can find the video. I'm into it.
Speaker 1 (43:28):
I'm so into it.
Speaker 2 (43:31):
Well that's it. Uh, did you got plugs?
Speaker 1 (43:34):
We want we want to talk about it.
Speaker 2 (43:35):
You're on a podcast, Yeah, I have have the podcast
that could happen here we do it. It comes out
five Oh my god. Six No wait, I guess technically
because the episode that's all of the episodes for the
week comes out on Saturday. It's every day. It's a
true daily, yes, so it is now literally every day
there is an episode, including including you can find Margaret
(43:56):
on there too. It's true. It's it's good. We we do.
We do good stuff and.
Speaker 1 (44:00):
We're never tired as a result of running a daily
Sometimes I explain to people like people are like, what's
your writing schedule like, and I'm like, well, I write
between five to nine thousand words of podcast script, two
thousand words of substack post. Still have to stay on
top of my fiction writing. And then yeah, I run
(44:22):
two other podcasts.
Speaker 2 (44:25):
It's fine.
Speaker 1 (44:26):
I totally have a social life. His name is Rentraw
and he is three years old and forty five pounds
and barks dreamy.
Speaker 2 (44:34):
Yeah, I'm happy with it.
Speaker 1 (44:37):
Well, the other thing I do is I'm on tour
right now while this is released.
Speaker 2 (44:42):
I'm I think I'm in Philly today. I don't know.
Speaker 1 (44:45):
I guess I could look out the window if I
were in the future like you are, but I'm not,
and I'm on tour around some of the mid Atlantic.
I'll be going up to Boston and Maine next weekend,
and then the weekend after that, I'm gonna head up
to Pitsburg, over to Cleveland, up to ann Arbor and
points west. So you can catch me talking about the
(45:07):
Sapling Cage, and then during Q and A you can
ask me about the show. That's fine, I don't get mad.
That's not sarcasm. I genuinely don't mind talking about it,
even if I'm doing a different talk. So if you
guys think you want to plug behind my Bastards is
on YouTube, Daniel keeps telling me to plug that so
you can see videos of our normal episodes every Wednesday
(45:28):
and Friday.
Speaker 2 (45:29):
Hell yeah.
Speaker 1 (45:29):
Oh, and if you want this without ads, if you
want all of cool Zone Media without ads, which is
becoming a better and better deal as time goes on,
because cool Zone Media has so many podcasts and they're
also good. You can sign up for Cooler Zone Media
and then you don't have to listen to ads and SOTAD.
You can just directly feed introl. Yeah, all right, see
(45:50):
y'all next week. Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff is
a production of cool Zone Media.
Speaker 2 (46:00):
For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website
folzonemedia dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Whole Zone Media. Hello, and welcome to Cool People did
cool stuff. Your podcast, it's yours, it's yours. Now you
can do it.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
What do you mean? You know?
Speaker 1 (00:13):
Fine, I'll do it. I'm your host, Margaret Kiljoy doing
my podcast. It's my podcast, but I have a guest,
and my guest is Mia wong Am.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Yeah. Hello, also doing a bit of this podcast, like
five percent of this podcast.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
That's true, and then also doing an awful lot of
the podcast at least as much as me. It's Sophie, Hi,
Sophie Hi. Also doing this podcast is Rory, our audio engineer. Hi, Rory, Hi, Rory, Sophie.
We can't continue until you say it. Oh my gosh,
(00:48):
Hi Rory. I was just so I was thinking about
other things. I'm so sorry, Rory, my brain. Sophie was
thinking about dog costumes.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
I kind of was. I won't lie. You're very cute.
I was thinking about dog costumes and hats. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
And our theme musical was written forced by un Woman.
Welcome to the Rousing, part four of our deep dive
into Korean anarchism.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
You did it, you did it, Joe.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
Wait, I don't get it. Wait, that's okay, that's happening,
It's okay. Was I being compared to Joe Biden for
not having a memory?
Speaker 2 (01:24):
Oh I was so dark? Oh my god.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
No, you were being compared to Kamala Harris finding out
Joe Biden beat Donald Trump out and calling him.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
And going you did it, Joe.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
Hooray.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
That was so much funnier than it was supposed to be.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
So to sum up where we're at Korea in case
people are like just checking in on the last episode,
that's fine. It's fine if you did that, although you
miss a lot. Korea was a Japanese collum in the
nineteen tens until World War Two, and a lot of
Korean rebels, including a lot of anarchists, fled Tomentaria. This
is my little like, little like. If you're catching up
on the Batman episode, here's the recap. You know, a
(02:10):
lot of Korean rebels, including a lot of anarchists, fled
Tomentaria immediately north of Korea. Korean anarchists developed a lot
of skills and ideas and philosophies and connections in China
and Japan with comrades there. And I have been trying a
bunch of stuff to make Korea both independent and also
a horizontal society. They opened a ton of schools, they
organized a ton of labor unions, they wrote a ton
of books and newspapers, they organized gorilla bands. And that's
(02:33):
the part I know at least about, and I want
to know more about. But generally they were cool people
doing cool stuff. And so there's two million Korean people
living in Manchuria by the mid nineteen twenties or so,
and they were at war on a lot of fronts.
They were at war against starvation because they're in an
incredibly inhospitable land like well, we'll talk about more in
(02:53):
a second. They're at war against the Japanese military who
wanted to destroy them as Korean rebels, but also wanted
to colonize Manchuria. They were also fighting against the pressures
from the constant warring in China, most specifically raids by
bandits and acting like bandits Chinese Communist Party. Manchuria countries
(03:14):
are fake and borders are fake. But Menoria is usually
presented as a region of China, but what could get
called Manchuria also extends up into what's currently Mongoli in
Russia because borders regions alfake. I have seen the Korean
presence in Manchuria described a lot of ways. I know
that's the theme of this fucking episode. A whole gradient
goes from oh, this is just warlordism whatever, They're just
(03:37):
the same as everyone else too. This is an anarchist
utopia of two million people who prove that all of
our ideas are right and there's nothing wrong with any
of them. I suspect that the truth is not just
in the middle, but like a dialectical third thing.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
Ooh in narco warlordism.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
Oh no, yeah, yeah, a narco nationalist warlordism. No, it's
funny and messy. It also, when I'm trying to read
about all of it, it doesn't help that every text
(04:14):
transliterates everyone's names differently.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
Yeah, that's a whole thing. Oh yeah, And.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
Then a lot of the people are like related to
each other and just their names will be extra similar.
And then like translator, So I basically mean like, is
this two guys, this one guy? Is this eight guys?
Because I'm looking at eight names. You know that happened
a lot, But I believe I have a clear picture.
I'm going to present you a fairly clear picture. Koreans
(04:41):
have been moving into Manuria since about nineteen ten. This
is rugged mountains, which is usually the kind of place
historically with the least government, and that is totally honestly
part of why I live in West Virginia.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
Just be real.
Speaker 1 (04:54):
One source claims that the area was under warlord rule.
One claims that the areas that they were in wasn't.
And I suspect that the source claiming warlord rule was
claiming the Korean generals as warlords. But there's also this
thing where the Korean population was largely living in these
very remote areas, and so the warlords that would rule
(05:15):
mostly which were mostly Japanese aligned at this point, or
at least the main particular war war that they came
up against a bunch of times as Japanese aligned until
they killed him.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
Which warlord is it? I remember him.
Speaker 1 (05:26):
I didn't write his name in and I feel so
bad the Japanese eventually assassin I was like, I have
too many names in the script. The Japanese assassinated him.
I kind of actually didn't include him at all in
the script. But eventually he didn't like successfully stop the
nationalist enough Chang Kai Shek enough, so the Japanese who
were his allies just like assassinated him by bombing the
train he was on.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
Yeah, okay, so I will say this about that guy.
I remember this guy from the Warlers episode that I did,
and the source I was reading was claiming that he
wasn't actually a Japanese asset. It's just that everyone accused
him of being one because they assumed that he was
because he was fighting the nationalists and he kind of wasn't. No,
that would make sense because they yeah, they blew his
ass up. So I'm blinking at his name because it's
(06:07):
been like several years. Yeah, I really right to this stuff.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
No, and I considered him a side quest that I
decided to abandon. He's like one of the trimmed branches. Yeah, No,
there's so much.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
Also, one thing I do want to mention that I
think is kind of important to this story that isn't
talked about that much is that like Mansuria is by
Chinese standards, like fairly close to like it's not that
far away from from Beijing, Like it's kind of remote
in the sense that like it's not it's I mean,
it's it's a different power center than most of the
sort of like traditional Chinese power centers, right. I mean,
it's make sure he is the place where the manchees,
(06:39):
which is the the Qing dynasty came out of. But
it's close enough to Beijing that it's kind of an
issue for people.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
No. See, that's like, that's a good context. So overall
the Korean people living there. Because I was trying to
figure out, I was like, there's two million people here.
It's not Tara Knollys right. I was like, how is
it two million in Korean people in Korean societies? And
the answer is that they best as I can tell,
they did sort of find the areas that weren't super
(07:08):
populated because they're in the mountains and shit. But overall,
the Korean people are living outside of the Chinese state
and outside of external warlord rule, and they are outside
of control by Japanese or Russian forces. By nineteen twenty five,
they set up three self governing prefectures, the jiong Chen,
the Chanren, and the shin Men. These were set up
(07:29):
by various gorilla groups that were all doing the fighting.
They collectively had a militia basically those gorilla units, right,
and they defended the area and they were occasionally raiding
into Korea against the Japanese. As best as they understand,
this was the Korean Independence Army, not to be confused
with the other Korean Independence Army, which existed from nineteen
(07:50):
nineteen to nineteen twenty one and is the main thing
you find when you try to do more research about this.
But it's also called the Army of the North, which
is a sick name, that's true. And it grew out
of these righteous armies, right, the original one, the one
that disbanded in nineteen twenty one, the Korean Independence Army.
It dissolved because the fucking Russian Red Army ordered them
(08:11):
to integrate into the regular Red Army. Oh no, and
the Koreans who joined the USSR were later betrayed during
the forced ethnic cleansing of Manchuria in nineteen thirty seven,
when one hundred and seventy two thousand people were deported
to Kazakistan, which.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
Is, oh, they're those people.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
Oh no, yeah, it's not close. These are not nearby.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
No. I guess we should also mention geographically, like in
terms of just what kind of like Vladivlastok is like
technically it's not technically EVENTUREI yet depending in terms of
where you're how you're doing the borders.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
There's like two maps if you look it up on Wikipedia.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
Yah. Yeah, yeah, Like Latavastok is like right there, right,
So it's it's just like like in terms of like
you know, we talked about Korea being sort of like
the shatter zone, like Manchuria is an even bigger one
because it's literally like it is bordered directly by China, Mongolia, Russia,
and then Japan is very very close by sea, and
then you know also like borders of Korea, etcter, et cetera.
(09:06):
So like there's all of these sort of imperial influences
are like literally right there. And like if the red
arby in flat of Astok is like, hey, we're gonna
do ethnic cleansings, deport you to whatever place that's some
like Stalinist or whatever decides to send you to, it's
exact Dania.
Speaker 1 (09:22):
They they have the ability to do that, which is
completely on the other side of the country, and Russia
is a very big country.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
Yeah. Also I want to mention the Stalinist line on
that was that they were scared that those people were
Japanese spies, which is i know, the most like out
of all of the Stalinist lions I've ever seen about anything.
That is the single most unhinged one, Like yeah, that,
I mean, it's like their excuse for doing it is
we are racist. That's what they're that's their excuse, their excuses.
(09:52):
We don't trust Koreans because they might be friends with
the Japanese. The fuck is wrong with you? Just me
and they're the same, Like you think they look the same,
that's what you're saying. Yeah, it's like you literally, these
are a bunch of anti Japanese gorillas that you forcibly integrated,
and then the anti Japanese guerrilla is that you integrated
(10:12):
into your army. You are now sending a you are
now ethnically cleansing across the country because you think they're Japanese.
By was like, what is going? Oh god, So this
just makes me very angry because this is one of
the things there's a lot of kind of like weird
denialism about I'm sure on the left, and it's infuriating
to me. Yeah, no, I'm certain. I Like I read
one hundred thousand of the Koreans from Entrereo removed, and
(10:34):
then I also read that the whole thing was one
hundred and seventy two thousand, and so I don't know
whether that's like other people were also being moved.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
I don't know enough about that. And also some of
the numbers that are wildly disparate, but none of them
are small numbers. Is that between sixteen and fifty thousand
of those people died. Yeah, so between a tenth and half,
depending on how you calculate it all.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
Because it turns out that being an ethnic cleansing, even
if they're technically not literally shooting you all, still kills
enormous numbers of people. Yeah, deeply evil stuff.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
It also goes to show the primary lesson of history
of the twentieth century is when you make friends with tankies,
they kill you, even if you're a tanky. Maybe especially
if you're a tanky. Yeah, but that's not what we're
talking about. I just love a little side quest to
point out that you shouldn't trust the fucking USSR. Yep,
those earlier armies are gone. There's this new army, and
(11:26):
I'm sure it's a lot of the same people. Actually,
I learned some from Joshua that one of the reasons
that a lot of these uh coming out of the
Righteous Armies. A lot of these armies were people who
had been part of like the Korean government and even
like putting down the dong Hak rebellion in eighteen ninety four,
and even some of them have been like kind of
fighting for the Japanese. And we're like, no, never mind,
(11:46):
and if I get anything wrong, it's not Joshua's fault
to my own inferences. I want to be clear about that.
But you have all of these like cops and soldiers,
shit and shit showing up at like anarchist schools to
be like, all right, here's how you organize the military
to kill the japan Ris. History is very weird, yes,
(12:07):
and ideological borders are like real borders, they're fake, you know.
I mean there's also different places are different whatever. Anyway,
the general of this army was a guy named Kim
Joe jin, and he was pretty rat He's not an
anarchist yet at the start of all this, and there's
(12:28):
some stuff that I wonder about. He is talked up
as like he's one of the big national heroes of
all this, right because he's a general who like, well,
i'll talk about what he did in the second If
you read articles about him as soon as he turned eighteen,
which is around like nineteen in the middle of the night,
like nineteen oh five, nineteen oh six. I forgot to
write down what year he was born. But when he
(12:49):
turned eighteen, he's from this rich family. He freed all
fifty families of slaves his family owned and gave them
land and shit and burned the slave registry and this
gets called the first act of a man's patient of
modern Korea. The confusing thing about that, you're shaking your
head a little, right, I could see you think. And
didn't we just say in the last episode that slavery
(13:11):
was outlawed in eighteen ninety four in Korea?
Speaker 2 (13:13):
Yes, we did.
Speaker 1 (13:14):
Yeah, so huh myth making. Yeah, you know, I mean
he still might have done it. He's still might his
family probably still enslave people after it was illegal for
them to do it, you know, yeah, I.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
Mean, see, for example, the entire history of the United States.
Speaker 1 (13:30):
Yeah, exactly why we celebrate Juneteenth instead of just the
fucking yeah. Well and also, yeah, though, what fourteenth the
fuck the amendment that means that slavery is still legal
if you're in prison anyway, Kim jo Jin was cool,
whether or not he's mythologized in this way or that right,
or at least what I know about him is fucking cool.
He served about three years in prison in Korea for
(13:51):
rebellion and shit, and then he moved to Venturia and
started taking up arms there, and this is like kind
of he's pretty early on the scene there, and he's
a really good general, and he kept killing all the
Japanese soldiers who were sent after him and shit, including
the first military victory by the Koreans against the Japanese
of the entire colonial period.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
That rules. We simply love to see it.
Speaker 1 (14:12):
Yeah, exactly. And as far as I can tell, these
autonomous prefectures get set up in nineteen twenty five, and
they're already pretty dang cool. I can see why non
political historians refer to them as being under rule by
war lords because they are created and supported by the military, wait.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
Which by theirs? Whose military? Yes?
Speaker 1 (14:35):
These gorilla groups, right, these like yeah, okay, these the
descendants of the Righteous Armies are like, okay, we are
defending this territory. So it is a militarily set up
political structure, which is sort of warlordism, right. But the
anarchists in the area, and there are a lot of
them supported the militarily constructed societies. And Kim Joe Jin
(15:00):
had a relative named Kim Jongjin, and he's one of
the major figures of the Korean Anarchist Federation. I can't
figure how they related. Everything's like a close relative. I've
seen it called like in three different sources. And this
is that federation that formed in northern Korea, right and
had to be like super underground, and they kept trying
to have conventions, and so I love that, like cause
you kind of have this like wacky when you're like, oh,
(15:22):
we're gonna call ourselves the anarchists and try and have
conventions and everyone's gonna get deported. Like no, they're like
doing shit. There's armies involved, you know, like yeah, And
so as these autonomous prefectures are getting set up, they're like, hey,
I'm pretty good at like killing Japanese soldiers, you know what.
I don't have any experience in constructing a society from scratch.
(15:45):
Ah yeah, hello, my close relative who talks about this
shit constantly, Like can't get you to shut up at
family dinner. You got any ideas? And the anarchists are like, yeah,
we have some fucking ideas, the rules, So this is
how you have a like constructed from the top down,
bottom up society. And the generals are like, all right,
(16:09):
let's do it. Let's make an anarchist society. Let's fucking go,
and they they did it. It seems to be the
case from nineteen twenty five, but it's usually credited as
nineteen twenty nine, which is when the Shinman District was
renamed the Korean People's Association of Manchuria. It called itself
quote an independent, self governing cooperative system of the Korean
(16:30):
people who assembled their full power to save our nation
by struggling against Japan. And if that isn't the most
anarchist nationalist statement ever made, because they're not calling themselves
a government. They're like, we are a self governing cooperative
you know, like King I didn't, I don't whatever. I'm
trying to do the mud farmer thing for Monty Python,
but I can't do it off the top of my head. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:53):
Like, I'm kind of less sympathetic to the non political
historians who are just calling the warlords because like the
warlords have sort of two organizational modes there's one that's
just almost pure banded army, and then the second one
is that they're just straight up being the state, right,
I mean, like there is like a Republic of China
and in training the worlord period, and who has control
over it depends on sort of like who you know,
(17:14):
like but like like there's like people going through positions,
people are getting appointed to stuff, so like they tend
to be like parasitic on the existing state. And this
is very very.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
Different from that even from the beginning totally. But you know,
it isn't different from our current economic system.
Speaker 2 (17:32):
Is it the products of services?
Speaker 1 (17:34):
Well, interrupting a podcast about non capitalist societies with advertisements
is an example of something that I don't know how
to finish my sentence, but.
Speaker 2 (17:43):
Here's ads and we're back, okay.
Speaker 1 (17:54):
So, and you have this sea of complications happening where
an anarchist structure was designed and implemented from the top down,
and basically representatives from the anarchist non government though like
cooperative structure or whatever, would go around and teach people
how to set up horizontal structures in their villages, and
it seems like people were into it. I don't think
(18:14):
this was at gunpoint. Nothing I have read argues in
that direction, and also nothing I have read argues that
they were like extracting from these communities much in fact,
specifically they were building infrastructure within these communities. How it
worked is it used a federated system, seemingly similar to
how like democratic and federalist systems like the one in Roshava.
(18:37):
Work power is invested in village councils, who then sent
delegates up to regional assemblies. The sort of bureaucrats working
at the highest level were paid the same as everyone else,
and they had executive departments working on agriculture, education, propaganda, finance, military, social, health, youth,
and there's one for general affairs. They did voluntary collective,
(19:00):
which is what the Spanish anarchists did not six years
later in Catalonia, where you know, they were like, let's
set up collective farms if you want. You know, I
don't think that they actually like destroyed like the market economy.
I don't get the impression that that happened. And I'll
give you my reason why I think that. In a minute.
They set up free education for everyone up to the
age of eighteen. Ongoing adult education was available to anyone
(19:23):
who wanted it, and there was arms training for all
responsible adults, which makes sense.
Speaker 2 (19:27):
They're in a war. Yeah, it's really a war that
is going to last from what like nineteen eleven to
nineteen forty nine. No, that's not even true because like,
well it's still technically going on. Yeah, yeah, it's just Yeah.
(19:48):
There were mutual aid banks, is how I saw them described,
and which I'm guessing these are sort of like the
people's banks advocated for by Prudon and many other anarchists,
which is basically a way for people to get capital
to build cooperatives without creating a society built on the
exploitation of capital. It's uncertain how many of their plans
were implemented or just planned or in progress. And by
(20:10):
that I mean of the like four or five sources,
one says, hey, I don't actually know how much they
actually pulled off, and then everyone else is like, they
did all this stuff, you know. Yeah, this is also
one of the records, one of the most of all
time records are fragmentary of all uh huh. It's like
the worst possible place on earth you're trying to get
(20:33):
records out of. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:34):
Absolutely, to quote that book Anarchism in Korea, There quote
plans for agricultural development, education, and military training within its jurisdiction,
as well as for its representative system along with its
administrative body, have all been praised as a reflection of
the anarchist idea of a government without compulsory government that
assured the principles of no rule, no naked power, and
(20:55):
no exploitation. It is unclear, though, whether they had a
substantial chance to implement these or related principles, programs or
policies during the short span of its existence, or just
to only had them planned on paper. That's the only
source that actually questions how much of it they got done.
But I think it's worth highlighting just because there's so
much myth making happening everywhere.
Speaker 2 (21:15):
You know, yeah, yeah and so, and anarchists are not
immune to that, right.
Speaker 1 (21:20):
Totally totally, because I could just be trying to add
to the like, here's the pantheon of perfect societies that
absolutely would have worked if it wasn't for the Dang
Kamis and the Dang imperialists. Yeah, you know which is well,
we'll get to it. It's like not that far from true,
but like, who knows, who fucking knows. You know, they
started off doing that thing that is doomed Horizontalist project.
(21:40):
After horizontalist project, they decided that the Japanese Empire was
the greater enemy, and so they didn't stop Bolsheviks from
organizing in their areas. Younger anarchists, either more worldly or
more hot headed, were like, no, we've seen the USSR
and we can't let that happen here. But Kim chuijin
that general was like, I don't know, I say we
deal with Japan first, And I don't know whether that
(22:03):
was like his call or not.
Speaker 2 (22:05):
I don't know. Spoiler alert.
Speaker 1 (22:07):
The most common belief of historians is that it was
a communist who assassinated Kim Joi Jen soon after he said.
Speaker 2 (22:12):
This, Yeah, you know, it's it's funny we talked about
this happening in Vietnam on this show, where in Vietnam
is like the rare example with the Communists in Vietnam
genuinely want to do this. But the problem is that, like,
and this is the problem for all of these deserted
bution of communis stuments, is that like they're not actually
(22:33):
in control of their run movements, like they can have
totally orders can come down from Russia from the common
turn And this is totally I've talked about this with
like in other podcasts, but like this is what like
orders coming down from Russia to work with Like the
nationalists gets a million Chinese workers killed, yeah, I in
nineteen twenty seven, like in this period, like actually the
(22:54):
communists finally pull off a revolution in Shanghai in twenty seven,
and then they get ordered by Moscow to like let
the nationalists the nationals kill everyone. Yeah, and this you
know the result of blood bath of this kills a
million people. And like this this issue, right, this issue
of sort of these groups a like almost purely being
in this for their own influence and be their willingness
(23:14):
to just like accept orders from Moscow and murder everyone
is just such a fiasco for just everyone in basically everywhere,
but like particularly in East Asia. It's just complete fiasco.
That makes sense to me.
Speaker 1 (23:28):
And I think that that's like one of the things
that it's like, well, look, I can trust this person's intentions,
but if they're part of an authoritarian structure, it doesn't
matter how much I trust their intentions. It matters how
much I trust the intentions of the person on top. Yeah,
you know, and it's sad, and like Vietnam is a
perfect example of that, where like, overall, I think the
(23:49):
Vietnamese Communists are you know, we're trying to do right.
And yeah, we did a whole episode about a Trotskyist
who had to flee from I think from the styles.
Oh god, it's been a while since I did that
fucking up episode anyway.
Speaker 2 (24:02):
Yeah, those stylists. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:03):
Yeah, So in the middle of this war on multiple fronts,
they worked on developing the kind of infrastructure that would
enrich small villages and give them more economic autonomy. For example,
they wanted to build a rice mill in this one
village so that rice could be milled locally instead of
being sold to middle men merchants, and like basically like
how to reverse economic extraction from these areas. And this
(24:25):
is the why I like that they worked to avoid
and counteract economic extraction.
Speaker 2 (24:30):
Is part of my life.
Speaker 1 (24:31):
They're not warlords.
Speaker 2 (24:33):
Also, I have an entire episode about the middle bitch
structure in East Asian agriculture. That's about the company that
poisoned one hundred thousand babies whoa really Yeah, just specifically
in the milk industry later on, Oh yeah, that's right. Yeah,
but that's very specifically that middle men structure is so
noxious and yeah, yeah, so it's glad to see the
(24:55):
like trying to knock out these things. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:00):
Well, Kim Juijin went in person to help build one
of these rice mills, and I get no impression that
this is like a photo op. I think he was
just like, this is what we're doing, is we're building
a society, and I'm going to go build it by
putting bricks on top of each other. Hell yeah, we
know about this particular rice mill and his work on
it because at the age of forty, while working on
a rice mill to cut out the middlemen, Kim Juijin
(25:23):
was assassinated on January twentieth, nineteen thirty. No, at first,
most historians say this assassin was sent by Japan. Most
modern historians agree that it was a communist. Oh, this
did not stop the Korean People's Association. One advantage of
even a sort of accidentally top down anarcha's structure is
that's still an anarcha structure. They kept going and it
(25:48):
continued to grow throughout most of nineteen thirty. It expanded
into nearby regions and eventually encompassed about two million people.
The Korean anarchists in China in particular basically decided that
they were like, all right, this is our thing, this
is what we're supporting, and so you have this like
all the like, yeah, not all of but you know,
a ton of the Korean anarchists in China are like,
(26:08):
there's all these women smuggling guns up to the area,
and folks all start moving up there.
Speaker 2 (26:13):
That rules.
Speaker 1 (26:15):
But eventually anarchist Manchuria felt the way that more or
less every anarchist project has fallen. The Bolsheviks and the
right wing informally teamed up to fight it at the
same time. Anarchists Ukraine, of course fell because while the
anarchists were busy fighting against reactionaries, the Red Army came
and destroyed it. Anarchist Spain fell, and this one's messier,
but it fell because while anarchists were busy fighting Franco,
(26:36):
the Stalins waged a dirty war against them, and the
cohesion fell apart. And I'm only saying that one's messier
because it's completely possible that if the anarchists and the
communists had stuck together, they still would have lost to Franco.
Speaker 2 (26:47):
Yeah, because well, I mean that's one way they were fighting.
They're fighting Franco, they were fighting the Italian Army and
they were also fighting the Germans at the same time.
Speaker 1 (26:54):
Yeah, which yeah, yeah. And Anarchist Shinman fell because the
Japanese attacked it from the south while the Stalinists attacked
it from the north. To quote historian Alan mcsimeon from
his speech to the Worker Solidarity Movement in Dublin in
nineteen ninety one, quote, in early nineteen thirty one, the
Stalinists sent assassination and kidnapping teams into the anarchist zone
(27:16):
to murder leading activists. By the summer of nineteen thirty one,
many leading anarchists were dead, and the war on two
fronts was devastating the region. It was decided to go underground.
Anarchist Shinman was no more. And just because I think
this person seems kind of cool, I want to point
out that another of the many people who was assassinated
was a man named Sim Yong Hay, who was a
(27:38):
Korean fluent in Chinese and Esperanto. Was murdered by the
Japanese in Manchuria in nineteen thirty and he'd been an
editor at National Customs Daily and he had lived in
the office.
Speaker 2 (27:48):
I just I like this, like news.
Speaker 1 (27:50):
This is a cool guy, right, yeah, yeah, he worked
at a newspaper called National Customs Daily that was an
anarchist newspaper and he lived in the office. What. Yeah,
it's amazing, I know, I know. And the other people
helping I mean and when you're like, oh, that sounds nationalist, well,
the other people who were working on it with him
was a Chinese anarchist and two Japanese anarchists.
Speaker 2 (28:11):
Incredible stuff. And the group of.
Speaker 1 (28:14):
Them when this paper spoke about how quote all under
Heaven comprises one family and the whole world is full
of whole brothers.
Speaker 2 (28:22):
Oh, it's funny. Like the reputation of anarchists is that
we're the ones who do assassinations, and then you actually
look at the history and every single other faction is
doing even more assassinations. Yeah, and it just like doesn't
stick at.
Speaker 1 (28:36):
All, And you're like, oh, anarchists are the mad bombers
of Like have you met countries?
Speaker 2 (28:41):
Yes?
Speaker 1 (28:41):
Like like the day before we recorded this, fucking Israel
just exploded pagers and radios to oh did it again
today too? Yeah, yeah, yeah, who knows what it'll be
by the time and that this comes out. But what
won't explode in your pocket is anything you buy from
(29:03):
our sponsors unless they're made in Israel.
Speaker 2 (29:06):
I don't know. Uh, it's Christ, here's ads and we're back.
Speaker 1 (29:20):
I'm under the impression that the pages are exploded weren't
made in Israel, even though they were obviously you know,
it's obviously orchestrated by.
Speaker 2 (29:27):
Yeah, there's a whole there's a whole debate right now,
but who made them? Probably you in the future will
know more about this than we do right now on
day two. Absolutely, so enjoy your knowledge and your FEELINGO
spoke superiority. It'll it'll get you through something. Hopefully the
work day.
Speaker 1 (29:41):
A week from now, everyone will have like opened every
piece of electronics they own with like a little thing
to like see whether or not there's fucking explosives and
planted into it.
Speaker 2 (29:51):
Anyway.
Speaker 1 (29:52):
After the Anarchist project went underground and the they weren't
able to hold the space, the Koreans fought a long retreat,
but Japan invaded and con Manuari in nineteen thirty one,
creating the region known as Menchukuo. China appealed to the
League of Nations who asked Japan to leave. Japan was like, no,
I don't want it. Though, yep, the US refused to
(30:13):
recognize Japan's presence there as legitimate, and that kicked off
a naval arms race. And this seems like not not
a factor in the US's trade embargo on Japan and
Japan's bombing of Pearl Harbor, in the US declaring war
on Japan, and World War two. This is not the domino,
I don't think. But no, yeah, I mean like it
was a kind of I know, I guess we don't
(30:34):
need to fully go to the causes of World War two.
Speaker 2 (30:36):
Year it did have some role. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (30:40):
After the fall of anarchist Shinman, the remaining anarchists largely
went underground. Some fought in World War Two. Most anarchists
were so deep underground that while their actions were seen,
there was no real trace of who they were, how
they organized, or what they believed. There was another big
push for a common front against Japan during the Second
Sino Japanese War, which was from nineteen thirty seven to
(31:01):
nineteen forty five, and anarchists seemed overall to sort of
deradicalize in order to fight what they saw as their
common enemy, anarchism. Probably as a result of this de
radicalization or just whatever, it declined overall through that the
nineteen thirties, Korean anarchists stayed active elsewhere in China, in
Minchuria and Korea. And I know, I keep separating China
(31:22):
in Minuria and it's not actually true, but we're complicating things.
Speaker 2 (31:26):
Well, it technically isn't this period in the sense that like, oh,
that's true because it's occupied by Japan.
Speaker 1 (31:32):
Yeah, they were involved in the war. They were bombing
endeming positions and such like the Shanghai Black Terrorist Group,
which in nineteen thirty three was a group of Korean
anarchists in China that attempted to assassinate the Japanese consular
and did a bunch of other shit, or the League
of Korean Youth in South China, which was organized in
nineteen thirty Shanghai. They killed Japanese high officials and military
(31:53):
commanders in Korean Traders, and this was the sort of
central group of Korean anarchists in China, many of whom
had lived in Japan. And like, this is the kind
of thing where I like, hope one day I'm going
to find a fucking book or two about and just
just talk about the League of Korean Youth in South China. Yeah,
you know, it's platform because of course they had a
platform too, right. They were like, even though they're underground,
(32:13):
they're all wild shit. They were, Oh, there must have
been pure anarchists. Their platform was included denying and rejecting
political and syndicalist movements, as well as the family system
and religion. They were into spontaneous alliances to build society
that provided from each according to ability, to each according
to need, and they developed theories about how to turn
cities into organic, complex structures that looked like farming villages,
(32:35):
but more complex and larger.
Speaker 2 (32:38):
That's cool, I know.
Speaker 1 (32:39):
I hope they don't all die at the end of
this christ work. I don't fucking no, they're all underground
if it's not. Yeah, yeah, living in China and being
involved in the fight against Japan is not a good
way to live a long life. But it's a oh yeah,
the way to die nice, you know, a way to
die proud. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (32:56):
I mean, it's like there were very few things in
world history that you could die fighting against where you
died like better than that, Yeah, Like it's totally.
Speaker 1 (33:05):
And so then in Japan there's still Korean anarchists. They
are in the belly of the beast, and they ran
Black Newspaper, which was a propaganda war in Japan by
Korean anarchists and it went hard. At the time, Japanese
anarchists were doing this thing called the Society of Youth
and Farming Villages movement, and the slogan was let's appeal
(33:27):
to the peasantry, which is like a thing that just
keeps recycling as of Yeah, a theme like every sixty years.
Speaker 2 (33:33):
Yeah, we're due for another one soon. Like you're gonna
see all these American kids being like it's time to
go to the farming villages or whatever.
Speaker 1 (33:41):
I thought I was worriing my camo hat or recording,
but I'm wearing a different hat.
Speaker 2 (33:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (33:47):
But then after the invasion of China they moved into
the combat period. Black Newspaper put out its first issue
in the summer of nineteen thirty and it lasted about
five years. It was funded by anarchist organizations and by
Korean labor unions. It was published by the Tokyo Labor
Alliance at first and later by the Federation of Black
Friends and Free Youth. It was regularly banned and confiscated.
(34:09):
Its editors went in and out of prison, and it
was sent out and sealed envelopes to readers in Japan, China,
and Korea.
Speaker 2 (34:16):
Are their rules?
Speaker 1 (34:17):
I know, I know, Like this ain't a safe thing
they're doing, you know, like yeah, yeah, the slogan was
rush with revolutionary actions at the irrational contemporary society.
Speaker 2 (34:29):
Oh, we love to see it. That's that's such a
good one.
Speaker 1 (34:34):
Yeah, and so yeah, the imperial country had anarchists sending
out information to its wartime enimy being like hell yeah,
fight us win, fuck us a lot like Russian anarchists. Honestly,
that's the main Well, we'll talk about more in a second.
And this newspaper it also covered news from around the world.
(34:55):
It kept people up with revolutionaries and also reactionaries, so
like people were like learning Hitler and Stalin and shit
while this is happening. They also actively worked to communicate
worldwide and break down East versus West. And it was
also run in partnership, probably run in partnership with Japanese
language anarchist papers available at that time. Eventually, basically, as
(35:17):
like the cycles of oppression against it kept happening, many
or perhaps most of its editors had to move to
China to avoid persecution. Imagine being like, I got to
go to the country we're invading.
Speaker 2 (35:29):
It's safer there. Yeah, jus christ, Oh, I mean I
hope they got to like, like, I hope they got
the Western China because yeah, totally.
Speaker 1 (35:40):
Oh boy, honestly, I think most of them went and
joined the like Black Friends, Murder Club or whatever. You know.
Speaker 2 (35:48):
Yeah, I mean many, many such cases.
Speaker 1 (35:52):
Korea won its independence when the Japanese Empire fell. Some
assholes are a random line across the middle. The US
imperialized the South, the US the North, and they've been
in a cold war ever since. Both sides claimed the anarchists.
Both sides persecuted the anarchists. In nineteen forty five, the
anarchists in Korea de radicalized fully because they are easy
targets from the anti democratic governments. They launched an anarchist
(36:15):
political party. I think in South Korea this did not work.
This is also in part due to the rise of
the National Front that had tried to unite everyone from
the nineteen thirties onward, and they figured they could fight
for a society without government along the way, but for
now they need to fight against a common enemy. And yeah,
the closest parallel I can see is that there's anarchist
Ukrainian involvement in the Ukrainian War, like and they're part
(36:37):
of the traditional Ukrainian military alongside everyone else, because they're like,
we can deal with that when that man is not
murdering my family, you know.
Speaker 2 (36:47):
Yeah, And I mean it's like, especially in these conditions,
it's like like you are fighting you were fighting Japan,
You're you're finding go cheap who were going to kill
thirty billion people? Like it's you know, totally, things are
going extremely badly for everyone here. And it's yeah, yeah,
it's like are people making the best decisions? Maybe not?
(37:08):
But also like the scale of the slaughter is just
sort of incomprehensible, no, totally.
Speaker 1 (37:12):
It's like we did an episode about the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, right,
and for most of that conflict there was three different factions.
There's the anti Zionist Left, there was the Zionist Left,
and there was the essentially fascists who were happened to
be Jewish, and those three sides did not like each other.
And then when there's like we're just all dying, we
(37:35):
are just being exterminated. At that point, they coordinated their
actions together. Still to the very I think it's been
a while since the episodes. I think to the bitter end,
the anti Zionist left was like, we're not fighting alongside fascists,
but we will coordinate with them. We will coordinate our
attacks together because we need to not die.
Speaker 2 (37:51):
We need to you know.
Speaker 1 (37:52):
Yeah, things can always be worse, you know, yep, And
so yeah. After nineteen forty five, during deradicalization, they were
more about autonomous government and autonomous people, and they moved
away from more specifically anarchistic ideas. Overall, this is the
way it's presented when it's a vey. I'm sure there's
people who stayed anarchist or whatever, and they were about
(38:14):
building social movements to show how important rural life was
alongside industrial development in cities, especially in the sixties and seventies,
and they worked hard to distinguish themselves from the communists.
Anarchism started to rise again in Korea in nineteen ninety
after the collapse of the USSR, and I've read about
how people are working to disentangle it from nationalism while
still being proud of the enormous legacy of anarchist freedom
(38:34):
fighters involved in a national liberation struggle. I heard from
that listener Joshua King about the complicated mythologization of Korean anarchists. Basically,
the role of the provisional government can't be downplayed, right,
and that was full of anarchists, and this has been acknowledged.
The previous president of South Korea, Moon jay jin, gave
(38:55):
a speech in twenty nineteen that explicitly shouted out anarchist
involvement in the struggle, which the right wing.
Speaker 2 (39:01):
Was not excited about.
Speaker 1 (39:03):
Yeah, imagine just like the president of your country being like, look,
we gotta admit the anarchist did something.
Speaker 2 (39:10):
You know, Yeah, I mean this is like a whole
other story. But like he's like Mija In's like from
a like I mean, he doesn't like an incredible president,
but he's like he's from a sort of like student movement,
democracy movement, like organize your background and you know those
people like you know, you could say what you want
(39:31):
about them politically, but all like a lot of those
people got machine gunned by by the Korean army, so
like they have more of a like.
Speaker 1 (39:41):
They got some cred.
Speaker 2 (39:43):
It's like a little bit more like I respect him
a little little tidy bit bore that I would like
his equivalent in a country where like his people didn't
get like absolutely bowed down with the backing of Jimmy Carter.
Speaker 1 (39:56):
So whow the first jim Carter slander on cool Zone media. Oh,
one day I'm going to write the Jimmy Carter episode
I Hate You Jimmy. Jimmy Carter was the first American neoliberal.
Speaker 2 (40:08):
People don't remember this because Reagan came afterwards and we
got Reagan neoliberalism instead of like the Socialist Party of
Italy and neoliberalism, which was what we were sort of
like angling towards. But he has that man has a
body count and it's no I believe it's largely in Korea. Yeah, No,
I like I always sort of knew. I was, like,
I assume there's some like you don't be president of
the United States without skeletons, like not even in your closet,
(40:31):
but like dancing around in the street. Yeah, So for
people who don't know what I'm talking about. There was
there was a giant so I mean, it's called pro
democracy uprising, but it was like more leftist than that
uprising in Korea, which is under that time like ruled
by actually was it. I'm forgetting which configuration of dictatorship
this was, but Jimmy Carter basically green lighted that, like
(40:52):
it's called like the Guansha Uprising. They basically formed like
a commune for a bit, and then Jimmy Carter green
lights the Korean army just killing the ball and cool.
Speaker 1 (41:02):
Yeah, also cool that the United States can green light
another I mean this is not surprising to any listener
of this show, but like, yeah, this is the thing
we're pointing out, like, yeah, that's not our country. It
turns out that's that's Korea. It's a different place. I
know all countries are fake, but uh, that's over there.
But what also is over there is the script because
(41:26):
it's now behind us because we finished it. Because we
talked about the Korean People's Association of Menuria and Korean anarchism.
Speaker 2 (41:32):
Oh I promised us getting revenge on Japan by aheorg
hw Bush throwing up for the Japanese prime mitistry. Oh yeah,
let's do it now. I need to explain that, okay.
So the arc of this is that one of the
things that you know, the when the Japanese like Congress
Venturia and destroys the anarchist movement, kills all of these people, like,
that's one of the things that crystallizes I guess one
(41:54):
of the Japanese fascist movements, but just the one that's
going to take power. I did a bunch of episodes
on u Ki Kishi, who was the prim to serve Japan.
He's the guy who founded the Liberal Democratic Party, which
is basically like effectively has ruled Japan as a one
party state for basically since it was founded in the
fifties until.
Speaker 1 (42:10):
Like now, I love how words just don't mean anything
as soon as you get into politics.
Speaker 2 (42:14):
Uh huh, yeah, it's why. I mean, there's literally a
line where k she walks out of prison and he said,
he's kidding, he's about to run for office, and he goes,
I guess we're all Democrats now. But so like they
get installed by literally the CIA, and CIA has individual
guys who are like running the election campaigns of individual
LDP candidates to make sure they win their election and
(42:34):
keep left out of power. Yeah, and so they do this.
It works, and the LDP holds onto power. But it
means that Japan is sort of like Semi's basically permanently
subordinated to sort of American imperial control. And the lasting
consequence of this is that when George H. W. Bush
vomits on the Japanese Prime minister at a dinner, there's
nothing they could really do about it, because this is
a party that was put in charge by the institution
(42:56):
that George H. W. Bush ran, the CIA. So and
now you know, there's a lot of there's a lot
made of the fact that the US sense as an
ambassador to Japan Raba Manuel. But like I don't know,
if you guys didn't what rab A manual is your ambassador,
you should have taken all that CIA money in the
fifties and sixties. So you know, this, this is our
this is our Our small amount of revenge is that
(43:18):
the head of the fascist party getting vomited on but
George W. Bush and not being able to do anything
about it. There's video of this, by the way, you
can find you can find the video. I'm into it.
Speaker 1 (43:28):
I'm so into it.
Speaker 2 (43:31):
Well that's it. Uh, did you got plugs?
Speaker 1 (43:34):
We want we want to talk about it.
Speaker 2 (43:35):
You're on a podcast, Yeah, I have have the podcast
that could happen here we do it. It comes out
five Oh my god. Six No wait, I guess technically
because the episode that's all of the episodes for the
week comes out on Saturday. It's every day. It's a
true daily, yes, so it is now literally every day
there is an episode, including including you can find Margaret
(43:56):
on there too. It's true. It's it's good. We we do.
We do good stuff and.
Speaker 1 (44:00):
We're never tired as a result of running a daily
Sometimes I explain to people like people are like, what's
your writing schedule like, and I'm like, well, I write
between five to nine thousand words of podcast script, two
thousand words of substack post. Still have to stay on
top of my fiction writing. And then yeah, I run
(44:22):
two other podcasts.
Speaker 2 (44:25):
It's fine.
Speaker 1 (44:26):
I totally have a social life. His name is Rentraw
and he is three years old and forty five pounds
and barks dreamy.
Speaker 2 (44:34):
Yeah, I'm happy with it.
Speaker 1 (44:37):
Well, the other thing I do is I'm on tour
right now while this is released.
Speaker 2 (44:42):
I'm I think I'm in Philly today. I don't know.
Speaker 1 (44:45):
I guess I could look out the window if I
were in the future like you are, but I'm not,
and I'm on tour around some of the mid Atlantic.
I'll be going up to Boston and Maine next weekend,
and then the weekend after that, I'm gonna head up
to Pitsburg, over to Cleveland, up to ann Arbor and
points west. So you can catch me talking about the
(45:07):
Sapling Cage, and then during Q and A you can
ask me about the show. That's fine, I don't get mad.
That's not sarcasm. I genuinely don't mind talking about it,
even if I'm doing a different talk. So if you
guys think you want to plug behind my Bastards is
on YouTube, Daniel keeps telling me to plug that so
you can see videos of our normal episodes every Wednesday
(45:28):
and Friday.
Speaker 2 (45:29):
Hell yeah.
Speaker 1 (45:29):
Oh, and if you want this without ads, if you
want all of cool Zone Media without ads, which is
becoming a better and better deal as time goes on,
because cool Zone Media has so many podcasts and they're
also good. You can sign up for Cooler Zone Media
and then you don't have to listen to ads and SOTAD.
You can just directly feed introl. Yeah, all right, see
(45:50):
y'all next week. Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff is
a production of cool Zone Media.
Speaker 2 (46:00):
For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website
folzonemedia dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Host
Margaret Killjoy
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