REVIEW OF THE BOOK "MOTHER OF KOREA

REVIEW OF THE BOOK "MOTHER OF KOREA "

I recently read the book " Mother of Korea " which is a biographical novel about Madame Kang Ban Sok the mother of the great leader President Kim Il Sung and an early pioneer of the feminist movement and communist movement in Korea. This book published by an anonymous author in 1978 by the Foreign Languages Publishing House rather than being a standard historical and political biography is a well written and highly readable biographical sketch in the form of a novel . Of course it is based on real facts.
Reading the book one learnt a lot about Korean history as well as basic socialist ideas and the Juche idea. Kang Ban Sok was born into a poor farming family who were exploited by landlords. When she was growing up the Japanese imperialists were insidiously taking over Korea , Japan was not the only big power that coveted Korea and interfered in , the US and Britain were involved with the former sending spies and so-called "missionaries " into Korea . Other would be colonisers were China and Russia . Some of Korea's feudal rulers foolishly pinned their hopes on protection from these great powers but they were pushed aside by Japan who annexed Korea formally in 1910 though had already entered Korea in 1905.
Kang Ban Sok whilst growing up witnessed the oppression and enslavement by the Japanese imperialists, her family and other villagers suffered from the exploitation by the greedy useless landlord who each year took most of the crops for himself which was the product of their hardwork. Kang Ban Sok later realised that this was the reality of the exploiter system. Indeed one could not help thinking of the descriptions of capitalist exploitation in the famous British socialist novel "The Ragged  Trousered Philanthropists "( "The Great Money Trick) . The anonymous Korean author describes the exploiter system with great clarity and sharpness.
Kang Ban Sok dreamed of a world without landlords , without exploitation but when young did not know how to bring it about. It was realised in practice by her son the great leader President Kim Il Sung who carried out land reform and built a socialist system in the DPRK .
Kang Ban Sok married Kim Hyong Jik a revolutionary and a Korean nationalist who later turned to communism, She supported her husband's activities but also organised the women as well smashing down feudal taboos and promoted the liberation of women.
Kim Hyong Jik her husband was arrested by the Jap imperialist police and was tortured he died at an early age as a result . His son Kim Il Sung took up the baton of struggle. He rejected the abject flunkeyism and reformism of the bourgeois nationalists as well the chronic factionalism of the so-called communists. Kang Ban Sok loyally supported her son. She handed over to him the  2 pistols bequeathed to him by his father Kim Hyong Jik. This symbolised the start of the Songun revolution.
Tragically Kang Ban Sok also died at an early year before reaching 40 and was not able to see the liberated Korea she dreamed of.
All in all these is a marvellous story that should be read by all adherents of the Juche idea and socialists.