Kim Yak-su (金若水; 21 October 1890 – 10 January 1964) was a socialist independence activist and unification movement figure during the Japanese colonial period, and a politician of South Korea and North Korea.
During the Japanese colonial period he organized socialist groups and engaged in anti-Japanese activities. After national liberation on 15 August 1945, he joined the organization of the Korean Democratic Party, but grew weary of the party's political line and left it in October 1946. He worked within the political line associated with Kim Kyu-sik and took part in the Left-Right Coalition Movement. After the establishment of the government of the Republic of Korea, he was elected to the First National Assembly of South Korea and served as a National Assembly member, but was later implicated in the National Assembly Spy Incident. During the Korean War, he defected to the North together with the Korean People's Army. He was from Gijang County, Gyeongsang Province, and his birth name was Kim Du-jeon (金枓全).
Biography
Early life
He was born in Dongbu-dong, Eupnae-myeon, Gijang County, Gyeongsang Province, Joseon, as the son of Kim Eun-hong, and his birth name was Kim Du-jeon.
He moved to Seoul and entered the Gyeongseong Industrial School after attending Hwimun Academy. After the Gyeongseong Industrial School, he went to Japan to study and enrolled in the Department of Social Sciences at Nihon University. Immediately after graduating from Nihon University, he returned home and devoted himself to anti-Japanese independence activities, serving as president of the Gijang Restoration Association. He was close to Kim Won-bong and Lee Yeo-seong, friends from his childhood. In 1918, while carrying out anti-Japanese independence activities in his hometown of Gijang, he resolved together with them to pursue independence and decided to flee to China, and in 1918 he went to Nanjing.
It is said that he was known by the names Kim Du-jeon or Kim Du-hee, and at this time, as he felt the need to change his name to avoid pursuit by Japanese police, he was renamed Yak-su and Yak-san, respectively, with the help of a relative of Kim Won-bong who knew about naming.
After arriving in Nanjing, China, Kim Yak-su entered the English Literature Department of Jinling University in 1918 and studied English. Meanwhile, he went with Kim Won-bong to Jiandao (Xijiandao), organized an army, returned to Shanghai, published a magazine, and planned to send a Korean representative to the Paris Peace Conference. Accordingly, Kim Yak-su left for Manchuria's Jilin Province to secure farmland for raising troops and funds. However, upon hearing news of the March 1st Movement in Korea, he decided to pursue independence activities based on the masses, bade farewell to Kim Won-bong and Lee Yeo-seong, and returned home in 1920. Kim Won-bong organized the Uiyeoldan in Manchuria and took the path of armed struggle, while Lee Yeo-seong followed the ML faction, and Kim Yak-su followed the Bukpunghoe faction, each pursuing independence activities along different paths.
Independence activities
In 1920 he was appointed a standing secretary of the Chosun Labor Mutual Aid Society, and in 1921 he went to Japan and, together with Park Yeol, Cho Bong-am, Kim Sa-guk, Won Jong-rin, Jeong Tae-seong and others, organized the Heukdohoe. In February 1922 he returned home, went to Seoul, and issued the Donguhoe Declaration. Afterward, when the Heukdohoe showed signs of collapse, in December 1922 he broke with the anarchists within the Heukdohoe, including Park Yeol and Baek Mu, withdrew from the Heukdohoe, organized the Bukseonghoe, and then engaged in activities to spread the ideology of Socialism. In November 1924 he founded the Bukpunghoe, the domestic headquarters of the Bukseonghoe. The name Bukpunghoe is said to have been derived from the folk saying, "When the north wind blows once, bedbugs and all parasites are blown away." The Bukpunghoe gathered the divided communists and socialists and grew into the largest socialist movement organization in the country.
In 1925 communists and socialists from across the country gathered and took part in organizing the first Communist Party of Korea. He served as master of ceremonies at the founding congress of the Communist Party of Korea and was appointed head of personnel, but immediately after the party's founding, amid conflicts over leadership within the party, he lost his power to the Hwayohoe faction, including Kim Chan, Cho Bong-am, Pak Hon-yong and Kim Tan-ya, who were rivals. Kim Yak-su was defeated in competition with the Hwayohoe faction, criticized, and expelled from the party in October of that year. Soon after, he was caught in the net of Japanese police intelligence, who learned of the founding of the Communist Party of Korea, and was caught in the first round of arrests of Communist Party of Korea members, tried, imprisoned, and served six years in prison.
With the arrest of Kim Yak-su and the main leaders, the Bukpunghoe fell into disarray in the 1930s and collapsed. After his release, in May 1931 he published the magazine "Bipan" together with Song Tae-u of the Bukpunghoe line. Afterward, he was a dependent of the lawyer Yi In, who later served as the first Minister of Justice after the government's establishment. According to the testimony of Yi Sang-don, a member of the First National Assembly who was then a reporter for the Dong-a Ilbo, Kim Yak-su left his wife and children and lodged and ate at the house of Yi In, his lawyer during the Communist Party of Korea case, and often appeared at cafés in Myeongdong, mingling with former Bukpunghoe people and close literary figures.
Japanese police surveillance continued, and because of his fame as a socialist activist, he was continuously subjected to preliminary questioning and detention under Japanese police surveillance. After the outbreak of the Pacific War in 1942, he was urged by the Japanese to join the Imjeon Bokgukdan, but he refused. He was detained for several months on the grounds that he did not take part in the Imjeon Bokgukdan, an organization formed by pro-Japanese figures.
Activities after liberation
Immediately after liberation in August 1945, he was elected an executive of the Committee for the Preparation of Korean Independence by the faction of Lyuh Woon-hyung, but when the committee was leftward-leaning due to the communist faction of Pak Hon-yong, he resigned in protest against Pak Hon-yong, and when the committee was reorganized into the People's Republic of Korea, he strongly criticized Pak Hon-yong and at the same time opposed the establishment of the People's Republic cabinet.1 In September he left and defected from the left-wing camp, joined the right-wing Korean Democratic Party as a founding member, and served as head of its organization department.
In December 1945, when Kim Koo, chairman of the Korean Independence Party, opposed the Moscow Conference of Foreign Ministers and vigorously pursued an anti-trusteeship movement, he became a member of the National Mass Mobilization Committee against Trusteeship, which was formed on 30 December.2
Afterward, he grew weary of the political line of the Korean Democratic Party and left the party in October 1946. Then he took part in the founding of the National Independence Federation, chaired by Kim Kyu-sik, served as a standing committee member, and engaged in the Left-Right Coalition Movement. However, the Left-Right Coalition Movement was dissolved in December 1947 after the failure of the Second US-Soviet Joint Commission, and afterward the establishment of a separate government became apparent. At this time Kim Yak-su turned to a more realistic line and took part in the movement to establish a separate government.
After the establishment of the government of the Republic of Korea
In the May 10, 1948 general election, he ran in the Dongnae constituency of South Gyeongsang Province and was elected as a member of the First National Assembly, and on 30 May, when the National Assembly convened, he was elected the first Deputy Speaker of the National Assembly.
In early February 1949, together with about 70 junior members, he drafted a "Petition of Members" calling for the withdrawal of US troops and a "Proposal for a No-Confidence Vote in the Government," and announced opinions including demands for the resignation of all ministers. In the National Assembly he actively participated in the activities of the Special Committee for the Investigation of Acts of Pro-Japanese Collaboration and guided junior members, but he was branded as a leftist and incurred the enmity of President Syngman Rhee.
In June 1949 he was indicted in the so-called National Assembly Spy Incident. At the first trial, since there was no evidence to prove the facts of the prosecution, he was released at the trial, but he was made to appear at trial fifteen times, and Kim Yak-su and five other National Assembly members, along with more than ten others, were all found guilty and imprisoned. He appealed and while the case was pending at the Seoul High Court, during the North's invasion on 25 June 1950 he was held in a prison, and afterward he defected to North Korea.
Political activities in North Korea
After being taken to the North, in 1956 he served as a standing committee member and executive committee member of the Pyongyang Council for the Promotion of Peaceful Unification, but while engaging in an anti-Kim Il-sung movement, in 1959 he was designated an anti-party, counter-revolutionary element, tried, purged, and exiled to a mountain area in North Pyongan Province, where he suffered hardship until his death.
Career
- Born to Kim Eun-hong as the eldest son in Dongbu-ri 240, Gijang-eup, Dongnae.
- Moved to Seoul and graduated from Hwimun Academy and the Gyeongseong Industrial School.
- Graduated from the Department of Social Sciences at Nihon University in Japan.
- In August 1945, elected an executive of the Committee for the Preparation of Korean Independence (CPKI) by the faction of Lyuh Woon-hyung, but resigned.
- In September 1945, after the founding of the Korean Democratic Party, appointed head of the party's organization department on 21 September.3
- In October 1946, left the Korean Democratic Party, joined the founding of the Minjung Alliance, and was elected a standing committee member.
- In December 1946, elected as an appointed member of the South Korean Interim Legislative Assembly.
- 10 May 1948: Member of the First National Assembly (Dongnae, South Gyeongsang), elected Deputy Speaker of the National Assembly.
- In 1950, during the Korean War, defected to the North.
References
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