President Kim Il Sung’s
Reminiscences “With the
Century”
3. The Choice
between the Soviet and the People’s Revolutionary
Government
(From Chaper 7 of Volume 3
)
Leftist abuses were
most rampant in the establishment of structures of political power, and
Leftist deviation in the building of political power found its most
glaring expression in the line of building the Soviet and in some of its
policies, which were the products of the petty bourgeois rashness of
people steeped in dogmatism, sycophancy and
adventurism.
Political power had been a major
subject of discussion among us from the days of the Down-with-Imperialism
Union , a subject which nobody had ever
ignored. Some people contended that the question of power was a question
for the future, which could be taken up by the young people of
Korea after the country became
independent, the question of a concept of government the construction of
which could wait until the sovereignty of the state was restored. We were
not in agreement with this view, maintaining that views on the correct
form of government directly affected the nature of the revolution which
was to be carried out.
While we were in
Jilin political
power was the subject of extremely heated argument. There was hardly a
political forum in
Jilin that did not discuss the type of
state to be established after the country became independent. While the
leaders of the Independence Army who were affiliated with the three
nationalist organizations vehemently supported royalist government or
bourgeois republicanism, politicians who had belonged to the old Korean
Communist Party such as Kim Chan, An Kwang Chon and Sin Il Yong advocated
the immediate introduction of socialism and a proletarian
dictatorship.
Pak So Sim adhered to the classic
schema and argued over the question of a worker-peasant dictatorship. He
supported the idea of the workers and peasants becoming the masters of
state power, but he shook his head, saying that he did not like the word
“dictatorship.”
Differences in the degree of their
political awareness and their interests led some of the young people in
Jilin to express their support for
royalist government, while some had a lingering interest in bourgeois
republicanism and others applauded the Soviet
Union ’s type of socialism.
Kim Hyok, Cha Kwang Su, Kye Yong
Chun, Sin Yong Gun and other communists of the younger generation did not
like the old men of the Independence Army who spoke out for the
restoration of royalist government. They also had doubts about the
proponents of immediate socialism.
This state of affairs obliged us to
engage in heated polemics about political power as a major question in the
students and young people’s forum, which dealt mainly with
political affairs.
Later, at the meeting held in Kalun,
we defined the nature of the Korean revolution as anti-imperialist,
anti-feudal and democratic. On this basis, we emphasized that the Korean
communists must establish a political system for the people in liberated
Korea , a democratic government
which would champion the interests of the broad working masses including
the workers, peasants, working intellectuals, national capitalists and
religious believers, and would reject royalist government or bourgeois
parliamentarism.
We maintained essentially the same
position when the question of power was discussed at the meeting held in
Mingyuegou in December 1931.
With the establishment of guerrilla
bases in the Jiandao area, the type of political power to be established
became the subject of wide-scale discussion. In order to maintain and
administer those guerrilla zones which were liberated areas, it was
necessary to set up a government which would organize the economic
activities of the people, educate them and develop culture in the area
under its jurisdiction. Without establishing a government in the guerrilla
zones, which were the embryo of a state, it would be impossible to provide
the people with a livelihood and mobilize them in the
struggle.
From the autumn of 1932, therefore,
the communists in east Manchuria
undertook the historic task of establishing the government in the
guerrilla zones. On the occasion of the anniversary of the October
Revolution in the same year, a mass meeting was held in Gayahe,
Wangqing
County , and the establishment of a
Soviet government was proclaimed. Almost simultaneously, Soviet power was
established in Wangougou and Sandaowan in
Yanji
County . The establishment of the
revolutionary government in the guerrilla zones must be regarded as a
significant step towards realizing the people’s cherished
desire.
In its initial
stage,
I, too, was pleased at the
establishment of Soviet power in the guerrilla zones. I considered that
the name of the government was not important as long as the government
championed the people’s interests.
In those days “Soviet enthusiasm” was
sweeping throughout east Manchuria . The
establishment of Soviet power was recognized as a historical trend by
revolutionaries and progressive people in all countries which aspired to
socialism and communism. This hot wind swept through Europe and
Asia . The establishment of the Chinese Soviet in
Ruijin and of the Nghe Tinh Soviet in
Vietnam are clear
examples.
Even those who regarded the Korean
revolution as a bourgeois democratic revolution spoke about a
worker-peasant Soviet government.
The “Action Programme of the
Communist Party of Korea” which had been drafted by Choe Song U, a Korean,
and other people working at the Comintern headquarters, in cooperation
with the officials in charge of the Oriental Department of the Executive
Committee of the Comintern (Kuusinen, Magyar and Okano), proposed the
immediate task of “establishing a Soviet state of workers and peasants,”
along with the complete independence of
Korea.
Unconditional support and acceptance
of the Soviet line in revolutionary practice was a matter 01 common sense
beyond dispute in the international communist movement and was regarded as
a criterion for distinguishing between the stances of communist revolution
and opportunism. The establishment of a Soviet government was regarded as
the most important task by the communist parties and communist
organizations in capitalist countries, to say nothing of the colonies and
semi-colonial countries. In fact. Soviet power became the ideal of the
entire world proletariat.
The Soviet idea was so very
influential because it was recognized as the only type of government
capable of putting an end to all manner of exploitation and oppression and
building a welfare society that would regard the interests of the working
masses as absolute.
A free and peaceful new world without
exploitation and oppression was the age-long dream and ideal of
humanity.
The newborn Soviet government in
Russia had proved its
unprecedented effectiveness in suppressing the insurrection of the
overthrown exploiting class, defending the country from the invasion of
allied imperialist forces, rehabilitating the economy, and pressing
forward with the building of socialism. The triumphant advance of Soviet
socialism aroused an admiration among the people which was little short of
belief in an illusion.
It was by no means unreasonable for
mankind to regard the Soviet Union as a
beacon-light and accept the Soviet as the best and most advanced of all
forms of government. It was natural that the people of Jiandao, which was
adjacent to the Soviet Union and subject
to its influence in many ways, should be swayed by illusions about Soviet
power.
On my return to Wangqing from the
campaigns in south and north Manchuria , I
was dumbfounded at the complaints against the Soviet policy that could be
heard in all parts of the guerrilla zone.
These complaints indicated serious
problems that we could not overlook.
I saw instantly that the rumours
spread by disgruntled people contained some
truth.
As I travelled around the guerrilla
zone, I learned about the people’s attitude towards Soviet power in
greater detail. My constant contacts and candid conversations with
hundreds of people gave me a full picture of the consequences of Leftist
Soviet policy.
The inhabitants of the guerrilla zone
began to be disillusioned by Soviet power from the time when the
government, following the slogan of the immediate introduction of
socialism, proclaimed the abolition of private property, and brought all
personal property and real estate under communal ownership. Everything was
communalized, from land and provisions to the farming tools and implements
such as sickles, hoes and pitchforks that had belonged to individual
peasants. After this sweeping introduction of communal ownership, the
Soviet government subjected all the inhabitants of the guerrilla zone-men
and women, young and old-to the new order of communal life, communal
labour and communal distribution. This was the life of the artel
proclaimed by the Soviet radicals.
This policy amounted to sending
kindergarten children to university without giving them primary and
secondary education. The Soviet government also expropriated, without
compensation, all the rich farmers and landowners, regardless of whether
they were large landowners, small landowners, pro-Japanese landowners or
anti-Japanese landowners, and even confiscated their cattle, horses and
provisions.
Those landowners who remained in the
guerrilla zone even after the land of east
Manchuria had been divided into “Red territory” and
“White territory,” were in general patriotic and strongly opposed to the
Japanese. They gave enthusiastic support to the guerrilla army when the
communists were raising an army in Wangqing.
One of those progressive landowners
was a Chinese named Zhang Shi-ming. At the time of its large-scale
“punitive” invasion, in the spring of 1932, the Japanese Jiandao task
force even burnt down his grain store. Even though the “punitive” forces
ordered a forced evacuation at bayonet-point, Zhang Shi-ming remained in
the guerrilla zone, instead of moving to Daduchuan. His previous
grievances against the Japanese were augmented that spring. Landowner
though he was, he had given unstinting material and moral support to the
people in the guerrilla zone.
“Officers and men from the guerrilla
army,” he would say to the guerrillas who came to him for contributions.
“I am remaining here in this valley because I hate to see the Japanese.
Please at least drive them away from
Daduchuan!”
The people in the guerrilla zone were
on good terms with him.
But the Soviet government drove even
this landowner away to the enemy-ruled area. He pleaded with the Soviet
government for permission to live in the guerrilla zone, but the Soviet
rejected his request.
“The Soviet government has decided to
expropriate the property of all landowners,” the Soviet informed him. “It
is true that your anti-Japanese spirit is strong and you have given
generous support to the work of the guerrilla zone, but you are a member
of the exploiting class, and we are obliged to eliminate you. Leave this
place quickly.”
All the property of this landowner
who had given wholehearted support to the revolution was confiscated there
and then and put into a storehouse which was at the disposal of the Soviet
government The beggared landowner left in tears to go to Daduchuan, where
the Japanese forces were stationed.
Those who obeyed the order to carry
out a purge at that time even took the children’s flower-patterned shoes
from the chests at landowners’ houses. The Chinese people had an
interesting custom according to which, when a female baby was born to
them, they prepared the shoes for the children the female baby would have
when she grew and married. Such shoes were called “flower-patterned
shoes.” They used to make shoes of various sizes for babies younger than
one year, for one-year olds, two-year olds and so on upwards, and then
store them in chests. The chests contained some shoes as small as
thimbles.
Having meekly allowed even these
shoes to be taken away, what thoughts would these landlords carry with
them as they left the guerrilla zone? The
valley of
Xiaowangqing was
crowded with cattle and horses that had been confiscated from propertied
people. There were more than enough of them to stock a sizable farm, and
every young person in the guerrilla zone went about on horseback. It was
what one might call a fashion under Soviet
rule.
The Leftist elements even regarded
Chinese women’s customs of wearing earrings and wrapping their feet tight
to check their growth as evils to be
combatted.
During the first half of the 1930s,
Leftist abuses were rampant in east
Manchuria , and this Leftist tyranny subjected the
sacred revolutionary principles to a severe test. How did this Leftist
wind come to sweep the whole of east
Manchuria ? Were all the revolutionaries in the
guerrilla zones in Jiandao hooligans or lunatics? No. The overwhelming
majority of the communists who were administering the guerrilla zone were
good people with noble revolutionary ideals and warm
hearts.
They loved people and nourished the
aspiration to justice more warmly than others. How was it, then, that
these sympathetic and discreet people committed the irretrievable error of
advocating and implementing this Leftist policy? We identified the cause
in the policy itself and in the ideological immaturity of the people who
had determined the line. These absurdities in revolutionary practice were
produced by the unrealistic directives issued by people at the top of the
hierarchy who, in ignorance of specific circumstances, aped the
ill-digested principles of the classics and lessons of earlier
experience.
In those years, the blind rejection
of people, indiscriminate elimination, overthrow and ostracism were
considered to be in keeping with a thoroughgoing class approach, the
qualities of the most advanced
revolutionaries.
The instance of a widow who lent at a
small rate of interest the money she had earned by weaving cloth by hand
was labelled as a usurer, so that her promissory note was thrown into fire
and even her capital confiscated by some peasants in Wangqing, shows what
a sacred cow this Leftist practice had become. Unless they were misled by
some of their leaders, the simple peasants could not have resorted to such
absurdities.
Once I was surprised to hear how a
company commander, Ri Ung Man, had joined the guerrilla army in
Wangqing.
In the early days of recruiting, only
people from the working class, poor peasantry and hired farm hands were
admitted to the armed ranks. Ri Ung Man’s father had owned a little more
than three hectares of sterile hillside land, so he had not been
considered a poor peasant. He had applied to join the ranks more than
once, but his earnest requests had been turned down because he came from
an undesirable family. He had been told that a man with more than three
hectares was a middle peasant.
After many days of mental torture, he
had sold his father’s land without his parents’ knowledge, bought a box of
Browning pistols, and taken it to the armed group, begging to be admitted.
Only then had he been accepted. He was glad that he had become a
guerrilla, but his family was at a loss, left without any means of
livelihood.
My resolve to combat Leftist evils
grew still firmer after I moved to Jiandao. I have been combatting them
all my life ever since. My experience in those days has been of great help
in my postliberation struggle to counter Leftist evils and eliminate
bureaucratic tendencies.
Under the cloak of slick
revolutionary phrases and ultra-party slogans, the Leftists continually
mock the masses, abuse and deceive them, in pursuit of their own glory and
advancement. From these selfish motives, they depict themselves as tanks
or armoured vehicles advancing in the forefront of struggle. Thus
counterrevolutionaries make use of the cloak of Leftism. So all communists
must always be highly vigilant and not allow the Leftists to get a
foothold in their camp.
The Leftist Soviet policy plunged the
guerrilla bases into a state of vacillation and confusion which was
difficult to rectify. A large number of families, disillusioned and
discontented with the Soviet policy, departed for enemy-ruled
territory.
One night, on our way to Sancidao
where Choe Chun Guk, the political instructor of the 2nd company, was
working, my men and I met a middle-aged man and his family who were
fleeing from the guerrilla zone. The man was leaving by night for fear of
being labelled a counterrevolutionary if he was caught travelling in
daylight. The five members of his family were carrying a few bundles or
almost empty-handed. The three children were helped by their parents as
they hobbled along.
The man, who looked about 50,
trembled at the sight of our armed group. He seemed struck with dismay at
having been discovered by a guerrilla
commander.
“Have you done anything wrong?” I
asked in a gentle voice, drawing the three shivering children to me one by
one.
“No,
nothing.”
“Why, then, are you leaving the
guerrilla zone?”
“It is too hard to live
here....”
“Where are you going, then? Things
will be even worse in the enemy area, won’t
they?”
“We have been living here because we
couldn’t endure the Japanese atrocities, so why should we go back to them?
We are going deeper into the mountains to live by slashing and burning the
land where no one will disturb our peace.”
At his words my heart felt weary with
oppression. I wondered if they could find the peace of mind they sought in
a deeper recess of the mountain than Macun, a recess which offered no
guarantee of a livelihood in the days to
come.
“The thaw has not yet set in, have
you food enough to last until it does?” I
asked.
“No. We shall live as long as we can,
and we may die.... That’s all there is to it. My very life is a nuisance
to me now.”
As she listened to him, the sobs of
the man’s wife shook her shoulders. The three children who were in my arms
also burst into tears.
I fought back my own tears as I was
standing blankly in the darkness. If all the people left one by one in
this manner, on whom could we rely in making the revolution? Why had our
revolution entered this dead end? The consequences of the reckless Soviet
policy had been too destructive.
“Things will be put to rights soon.
So don’t feel too discouraged. Let’s wait till things are smoothed over.”
I sent him and his family back home
with an escort of my men. I changed my plan of staying overnight in the
barracks of the 2nd company and called on old man Choe Ja Ik at Xidapo.
The heart-rending incident of the miserable family prompted me to try to
dig into the depths of the people’s minds. Choe Ja Ik was the father of
Choe In Jim, who, after joining the Wangqing special detachment, had been
promoted to company commander and then to regimental commander of an
independent brigade before he fell in battle. Whenever I visited Sancidao,
I had paid a call on Choe Ja Ik.
Being a well-informed man, he had
even served as secretary of the northern political and military
administration headed by So Il. Moreover, he was open-minded and candid,
and told me many instructive things whenever I met
him.
“Old man, how are you getting along
these days?” I greeted him.
“I think I am living just because I
am alive,” he said bluntly in reply to my
greetings.
Believing that his intonation
expressed the people’s mind, I asked again, “Is your life in the guerrilla
zone so hard?”
At this question, the old man flew
into a rage and began to grumble, saying:
“I put up with the Soviet government
when it took away my work animals and farm implements. I guessed that we
were following the example of collective farming in
Russia , for which the Russians
had collected such things. But when I saw the people from the Soviet
collecting spoons and chopsticks a few days ago for what they called a
communal eating house, I spat at them. I said, ‘Shall we old people leave
our under-floor-heated rooms and walk to and from the public eating house
in the cold weather three times every day? I cannot live in this manner
any longer. If you are going to create a hell and call it a kommuna or
artel, do it yourselves, young men. We are already out of breath and can’t
keep up with you any longer.’ And then there was what they called the
purge of feudalism, when old people were subjected to criticism by their
daughters-in-law at mass meetings. Has anything so ridiculous ever
happened in the five-thousand-year-long history of our country? And still,
my son. In Jun, told me not to slander the Soviet. So I was going to break
his back.”
If the father of a commander of the
guerrilla army could spat on Soviet policy, there was clearly no need to
probe the attitude of other people any
further.
Later, during the terrible days of
the ultra-Leftist struggle against the “Minsaengdan,” and during the sad
days when the soldiers and the people were bidding a tearful farewell to
one another prior to the break-up of the guerrilla zones, I often recalled
the old man lamenting over the things that were happening, pounding his
breast with his fists, at the time when I met
him.
Less than half a year after the
establishment of the Soviet government, the relations between the Korean
and Chinese peoples had deteriorated again. Most of the landowners who had
been expropriated were Chinese, so it was natural that a situation similar
to one at the time of the May 30 Uprising should recur. The Chinese
nationalist army, which was opposed to the Japanese, once again became
hostile to the Korean communists. The national salvation army and Chinese
landowners were now our enemies, in addition to the Japanese and
Manchukuo
armies.
The anti-Japanese guerrilla army
found itself once again in the restricted circumstances of the days of its
establishment, when its small units had to hide in the back-rooms of other
people’s houses. The guerrillas once again had to be billeted cautiously
on Korean settlements. It was quite impossible to rename ourselves as
Chinese special detachments. Whenever they met us, the national salvation
army units would attack us, calling us “gaolibangzi” (a Chinese derogatory
term for the Koreans-Tr.). Guerrilla activity was effectively reduced to a
semi-underground struggle.
Everything that had been built up by
our year-long struggle was being brought to
nought.
Our comrades began to develop
divergent opinions of Soviet policy. Some of them said that, since things
had come to this. we should go to Russia to learn the methods of
revolution and then make a fresh start; some of them insisted that, since
the way the people in Jiandao were doing things would make a mess of the
revolution, we should return to our own ground and fight in our own way;
and another man let slip that it would be better to go home and fulfil his
filial duty to his parents than to fight for something which was not much
like a revolution. The Chinese comrade who wished to go home was allowed
to do so, and another Chinese comrade who wished to study in the
Soviet Union was sent
there.
Even in this state of affairs, the
people in charge of the guerrilla zone could not bring themselves to
change their policy. The east Manchuria
ad hoc committee which was in a position of leadership had no defined line
of its own with which to amend the policy of the
Comintern.
Somebody had to smooth over this
chaotic situation and save the guerrilla zone from collapse, even at the
risk of being stigmatized as a Rightist. This task required determination
and the formulation of new theses capable of countering the Leftist Soviet
line. It was about this time that I wrote a thesis on eliminating
factionalism and strengthening the unity of the revolutionary ranks and
published it in a pamphlet.
I had made up my mind to take issue
with Tong Chang-rong at Macun over the type of government to be
established. However, county party secretary Ri Yong Guk and a few others
dissuaded me from doing so. They said it would be useless to argue with
him because the “Decision of the East
Manchuria ad hoc Committee on the Great Programme of Building
the Soviet” had already been issued to its subordinate units and a Soviet
government had been established at Sishuiping. They even warned me that if
the argument went the wrong way, I might be punished. Ri Yong Guk told me
briefly how Kim Paek Ryong had been charged as a Rightist because of his
careless criticism of the Soviet.
Kim Paek Ryong was working as a
member of a county party committee in north
Manchuria . At the time when propaganda was at its
height prior to the formation of the Soviet in Jiandao, he came, by way of
the east Manchuria ad hoc committee, to
Wangqing district No. 5, which had been selected as the first
demonstration unit for the establishment of the Soviet
government.
When he heard that a Soviet
government was going to be set up in the district, he said that it was
premature to have it in east Manchuria .
Because of this single statement, he had been stigmatized as a Right
opportunist and became the target of active measures. The incident ended
with his escape to north
Manchuria .
In the winter of 1934, two years
after I heard the story of his case from Ri Yong Guk, I met Kim Paek Ryong
at Badaohezi,
Ningan
County . At the time he was the
secretary of the district party committee.
He recollected with sadness the
incident in the autumn of 1932 in which he had been branded as a Rightist
capitulator because of his statement that a Soviet government was
premature. By the time I met him, the Leftist Soviet policy had been
rectified, and the people’s revolutionary government had long been
administering the guerrilla zone, so he did not hesitate to criticize the
proponents of the reckless. Leftist Soviet line. In my talk with him I
found him an extremely intelligent and upright
man.
I asked him why he had said that it
was premature to establish the Soviet.
“The reason is simple,” Kim Paek
Ryong replied. “When I was in Gayahe, I talked with a lot of peasants and
found that they did not even know the meaning of the word Soviet. So I
said it was premature to create a Soviet which was beyond the people’s
comprehension.”
In fact, the people in those days did
not understand the meaning of the word, and this fact indicated their lack
of preparedness.
The old people in Gayahe who
participated in the election to the district Soviet took the word “Soviet”
to mean soksaepho (automatic gun-Tr.).
“I watched the platform after the
election,” one of them remarked, “for I had been expecting automatic guns
from the Soviet, the guns that would kill many Japanese. But it produced
only a red flag.”
Some of the people from Macun, who
attended the ceremony for the establishment of the Soviet at Wangqing
district No. 2, mistook the word “Soviet” for soebochi (tin pail-Tr.).
Another villager was said to have asked voters to take a close look at the
Soviet and see whether it was large or small. Some other villagers were
said to have gone out with baskets to gather wild vegetables, because they
had nothing special to offer the Soviet, an important
guest.
These subjective interpretations of
the meaning of the word or comical mistakes were due, of course, to the
people’s ignorance, and in particular to ineffective propaganda on the
part of their leaders. The titles of public lectures, for instance, were
full of loanwords such as Soviet, kolkhoz and kommuna which were beyond
the people’s comprehension. As for the Soviet itself, the propagandists
themselves had no clear idea of what it was.
After the establishment of Soviet
power everywhere, the radical elements who had been poisoned with Leftist
ideas swaggered about, shouting loudly about the dictatorship of the
working class, poor peasants and hired farm hands, as if the revolution
had already been carried through.
In spite of the advice of the
comrades at Wangqing, I did challenge Tong Chang-rong to a debate about
the appropriate form of government.
“The birth of the revolutionary
government in Jiandao and its proclamation is an event to rejoice at. But,
Comrade Tong Chang-rong, I cannot remain a silent onlooker when our policy
of the united front is being encroached upon by the Soviet
line.”
Tong Chang-rong looked at me in
surprise.
“It is being encroached upon? What do
you mean by that?” he asked.
“As I told you at Mingyuegou, we have
adopted the line of rallying all the patriotic, anti-Japanese forces, who
are interested in our revolution, into a strong political force, and we
have striven to implement this line at the cost of our blood in the
homeland and Manchuria over the past
years. In the course of this struggle, we have united many people,
including patriotic believers, shopkeepers and manufacturers, junior
officials and even landowners. But the Soviet policy has rejected them all
indiscriminately. Until yesterday, they supported or sympathized with the
revolution, but now they turn away from it or are opposed to it. The
relations between the Korean and Chinese peoples have been aggravated once
again.”
Tong Chang-rong smiled, patting me on
the wrist.
“That is quite possible, but it is
not a matter of great importance. What is important is that the Soviet
government has met all the requirements of the people. The revolution is
triumphing. The workers and peasants, the vast majority of the masses, are
following the Soviet government. What is there to be afraid of? I believe
that, with the support of the workers and peasants, we can carry out
whatever revolution we need. We have to be prepared to lose a minority,
don’t we?”
“I admit that there may be losses.
But why should we reject people who can be won over? Our general strategy
is to isolate the enemy as far as possible and win over as many people as
possible. That is why we have risked our lives working among the
anti-Japanese nationalist forces over the past year. We communists have
managed to recover the prestige that was damaged by the May 30 Uprising,
and we have resolved the discord between the Korean and Chinese peoples by
dint of painstaking effort. But now there is the danger again that the
results of these great efforts may be brought to nothing
overnight.”
“Comrade Kim Il Sung, surely
you are too pessimistic?”
“No. I am in the habit of always
looking on the bright side. The revolution will, of course, continue its
victorious advance. But, Comrade Tong Chang-rong, I cannot help being
deeply worried about the negative consequences of the Leftist policy in
east Manchuria . I believe that the party
in east Manchuria must give prudent
consideration to this matter.”
“So you mean that the policy should
be reconsidered?”
“Yes, the policy should be
reconsidered as well as the form of government that shapes the
policy.”
Tong Chang-rong frowned
disapprovingly and then said, “Comrade Kim Il Sung, there may
indeed be errors in the policy of the Soviet government, but the form of
the government is inviolable. The policy concerning the establishment of
Soviet power comes from the centre.”
The argument
continued.
He persisted in his opinion,
describing the Soviet as an absolute. He was a man of moderate character
and kind heart, but a die-hard. He was well-informed, but dogmatic in his
thinking and practice.
We resumed the argument on another
day, when the point at issue was whether to maintain the Soviet or abandon
it, and if it was to be discarded, what form of a new government should be
adopted.
I said that, since life had proved
that the Soviet was not suited to the guerrilla zone in east Manchuria
where the task of anti-imperialist, anti-feudal democratic revolution
should be addressed, the Korean and Chinese communists must resolutely
change the form of government, and adopt a policy capable of meeting the
requirements of the people in order to calm down the chaotic
situation.
In reply to my cogent argument, Tong
Chang-rong said, “I, too, admit that the Soviet does not suit the specific
situation of east Manchuria and that some
of its political measures have resulted in losses to the revolution. I now
understand why the other day you expressed your apprehension concerning
the united-front line being encroached upon by the Soviet line. Comrade
Kim Il Sung, the grave developments in east
Manchuria in recent months have compelled me to give
serious consideration to your warning. To our regret, however, we have not
yet decided on a form of government that can replace the
Soviet.”
I was pleased by this change m the
opinion of the secretary of the ad hoc committee. He was no longer the
same die-hard who had insisted that the Soviet was the only type of
government for the communists at the high tide of revolution when the
masses were in buoyant spirits.
“The Commune and the Soviet are the
only forms of working-class government that mankind has ever discovered,
aren’t they?” Tong Chang-rong asked, and gazed at me. His eyes seemed to
suggest that, if I had a form that might convince him, he would not choose
to object to it.
“If that is so, then let us make up a
suitable one for ourselves,” I said.
“For ourselves? I’m afraid that I’m
not such a great genius. How can we make up things that are not mentioned
in Marx’s classic works?”
I could not agree with this view or
attitude which regarded things as immutable and absolute, from which one
could not deviate.
“Comrade Tong Chang-rong, did the
French working class refer to any classics when they created the Commune?
Was the Russian Soviet proposed by the founders of Marxism in their
classic works? How can you regard the Soviet as the brainchild of a
genius? If the people had not required it, if the Russian situation had
not required it, I think the Soviet would not have emerged in the arena of
history.”
Without giving any sign of what he
thought, Tong Chang-rong produced a large tobacco pouch from his pocket,
filled his pipe and set it between his lips, then offered the pouch to me.
He used to carry the tobacco pouch and the pipe in his hand while
inspecting the guerrilla zone. When he met a peasant on the way he would
fill the pipe and then offer it to the peasant. He was a man of peculiar
character, and this simplicity of his won him love and respect from the
people in the guerrilla zone. In winter he went about in a fur cap like
those worn by local peasants.
His silence vexed me, but the fact
that he refrained from further argument was a good
omen.
Following my conversation with him, I
met Ri Yong Guk, Kim Myong Gyun, Jo Chang Dok and some other military and
political cadres, and discussed with them the question of replacing the
Soviet with a new revolutionary government. We debated the matter
seriously for several days.
For purposes of a smooth discussion,
we emphasized the importance of a criterion for defining the form of the
government.
I asserted that we must not make the
criterion too complicated, and that, since we were all fighting for the
people and were their faithful servants, determined to dedicate all our
lives to their cause, we must draw the criterion from the character of our
revolution at that stage, laying emphasis on whether the government we
were going to establish would be able to champion the interests of all
sections of the population and whether it would enjoy their enthusiastic
support.
On hearing this, my comrades cheered,
saying that everything was now clear to them, that a government which was
to champion the interests of all sections of the population must be a
united-front government, since the term “all sections of the population”
would mean not only the workers and poor or hired peasants, but other
broad sections of the people, that a united-front government would suit
the character of the anti-imperialist, anti-feudal democratic revolution,
and that they would welcome such a government with open
arms.
I again emphasized that the
united-front government must be a people’s revolutionary government based
on a worker-peasant alliance. Nowadays, this is known in the history books
as the line on the establishment of the people’s revolutionary
government.
There is no need to mention the
result of our vote, for they believed that the form of people’s
revolutionary government we chose suited to east Manchuria, where Koreans
were the overwhelming majority of the inhabitants, was ideally suited to
the character of the Korean revolution which was directed at democracy and
against imperialism and feudalism, and that it met the requirements of the
people. We discovered the criterion for the form of government in the
people’s requirements and in a means of championing and representing the
people’s interests.
After deciding on the form of
government, we agreed to set an example in one district and, if the result
was accepted as good, to extend the example to other revolutionary
districts. District No. 5 was chosen as the unit in which to set an
example.
Ri Yong Guk, Kim Myong Gyun and I
visited Wangqing district No. 5 and attended the meeting to elect the
district committee of the people’s revolutionary government. The meeting
was held at the
village of
Xiamudan , two and half a miles away
from Sishuiping. The day was the anniversary of the MOPR, a Russian
acronym for the International Organization for Assisting Revolutionaries.
The Executive Committee of the Comintern decided in 1923 to establish this
organization for the purpose of assisting the families of revolutionary
martyrs, and set March 18 as the international anniversary of the MOPR.
Jo Chang Dok, chairman of the fifth
district Soviet government, showed us into the office of the Soviet, where
I talked to about 20 peasants from Gayahe.
“We have decided to set up a new
government to replace the Soviet government. It must represent your will.
What kind of government would you like to set up?” I
asked.
An old man rose and answered, “If the
government to be set up will make our life easier, we’ll ask for nothing
more.”
I declared excitedly that a people’s
revolutionary government would be established in place of the Soviet
government, and that the new government would be the first genuine
people’s government in the world history of political
power.
“This government will represent and
champion the interests of all the people who love their country and their
fellow people. It will fulfil their most cherished desires. What are your
cherished desires? The people’s revolutionary government will fulfil all
of your desires to own land, to have the right to work, to educate your
children, and to have equality for all.”
The people from Gayahe fully
supported the line of the people’s revolutionary government which I
explained to them.
Prior to the ceremony to proclaim the
establishment of the people’s revolutionary government, we saw to it that
all expropriated private property was returned to the former owners. In
order to compensate for what had been damaged or consumed after
expropriation, Ryang Song Ryong even organized an armed raid on a lumber
station. The cattle and horses captured from the enemy in that battle were
used by the peasants to cultivate the land distributed to them in the
spring of that year.
At the meeting I made a speech to the
effect that the people’s revolutionary government was truly a people’s
government, and then the government’s ten-point programme was
announced.
This programme was later incorporated
almost without amendment into the Ten-point Programme of the Association
for the Restoration of the Fatherland.
Still vivid in my memory is the image
of the county party secretary, Ri Yong Guk, during the meeting at the
village in Sishuiping. While everyone was enjoying themselves dancing
together, he sat in a corner, shedding tears.
I slipped away from the dancing party
and walked over to him.
“Comrade Secretary, why are you sad
when everyone is dancing?”
Without even attempting to dry the
tears trickling down his cheeks, Ri Yong Guk heaved a deep
sigh.
“I can’t see why these people do not
spit at me. The Wangqing people have suffered from Leftist evils entirely
because of me. But they thanked me. Commander Kim, you are the man who
should receive thanks from them.”
“Our people are generous and
good-natured. The fact that instead of settling accounts with you the
people thanked you. Secretary, means that they have accepted the line of
the people’s revolutionary government wholeheartedly. From now onwards,
let us give our minds only to the future.”
“I have not been living in my right
mind, but in some other man’s. You have opened my eyes to a truth of
genuine value. Let us live for the people! What profound meaning there is
in this simple motto! I will remember it all my life,” Ri Yong Guk firmly
resolved, squeezing my hand.
He was not able to live up to his
pledge, for the east Manchuria ad hoc
committee dismissed him from his post of secretary of the county party
committee. The ad hoc committee said that Ri Yong Guk was dismissed
because he had belonged to the M-L group and the Wangqing county party
committee was guilty of an ultra-Leftist error in implementing the Soviet
line. It also said that he was suspected of having been involved in the
case of the “Minsaengdan.”
The charge that Ri Yong Guk had
belonged to the M-L group was not true. When involved in youth work at
Xilinhe he had been recommended for the post of secretary of the Young
Communist League under the east Manchuria
ad hoc committee by a man who had been involved in the M-L group. That was
all. It was unreasonable and immoral that the secretary of the county
party committee was alone held responsible for all the evils resulting
from the ultra-Leftist Soviet line. If Ri Yong Guk had deserved the
punishment of dismissal, then what punishment should have been meted out
to the people who had imposed the Soviet line upon their subordinates and
the men who had forced him to implement the line? The charge that Ri Yong
Guk had been a “Minsaengdan” member was totally
unfounded.
I stated on several occasions that he
had been neither a factionalist nor a “Minsaengdan”
member.
However, while I was in Luozigou for
negotiation with Wu
Yi-cheng , Ri Yong
Guk was executed on a false charge of being a “counterrevolutionary.” His
records contained no evidence to prove him to be a “Minsaengdan” member.
He had once taken refuge in the Maritime Province of Siberia from the
wholesale arrest and he could have lived there in peace as an exile for
the rest of his life. Nevertheless, he had returned to Jiandao and plunged
into the tempest in order to serve the cause of the
revolution.
I still do not understand why it was
necessary to label such a faithful and honest man a “Minsaengdan”
member.
Not long after the establishment of
the people’s revolutionary government in the district No. 5, Tong
Chang-rong came to me and said, with a pleasant smile on his face,
“Comrade Kim Il Sung, we are going to discuss the matter of a
change in me political line before long, with the participation of a man
sent from the Comintern. I hope that you, Comrade Kim Il Sung, will
make the keynote speech, since you have the experience of having
established the people’s revolutionary government in the district No.
5.”
In the summer of that year, an
important meeting was held to discuss the change in the political line.
The meeting was attended by a man who had been sent to east
Manchuria from the Comintern, who brought with him a
document concerning the change in the line.
At the meeting I proposed the line of
a people’s revolutionary government as a united-front government based on
a worker-peasant alliance, and explained once again the draft of the
governments policy, which included land reform and other democratic
measures to be implemented by the government in the fields of the economy,
education, culture, public health and military affairs. Our policy was in
agreement with the new line formulated by the Comintern. The man from the
Comintern expressed his full support for and approval of the line on the
establishment of the people’s revolutionary
government.
The meeting, which lasted many days
in an atmosphere of serious debate and ideological struggle, adopted a
decision to reorganize the Soviet in accordance with our line of the
people’s revolutionary government and to combat the evil consequences of
the Leftist Soviet line in all the guerrilla
zones.
After the meeting, all the Soviets in
east Manchuria were reshaped into
people’s revolutionary governments. In places where the conditions were
not ripe, measures were adopted to form peasant committees and gradually
reorganize them into a people’s revolutionary government. Property that
had been expropriated in the name of the abolition of private property and
consumed by the people in the guerrilla zones was compensated for by the
new government in cash and in kind.
The people’s revolutionary
government, which was run by the people, its masters, implemented
democracy for the popular masses, the overwhelming majority of the
population, and exercised dictatorship over the
enemy.
The establishment of the people’s
revolutionary government in Gayahe and the meeting that had adopted the
changed line led to the emergence of a people’s revolutionary government
in every district of the revolutionary organization in east
Manchuria , and also in every village. Each district
people’s revolutionary government had its own chairman and vice-chairman,
and nine to eleven executive committee members. It also had departments of
the land, military affairs, economics, food, communications, and medical
services.
This was the embryo and prototype of
the people’s government to be established in the liberated
homeland.
The people’s revolutionary government
distributed land to the peasants without compensation and enforced an
eight-hour working day in all the guerrilla zones. In those days there
were approximately a thousand workers in the Xiaowangqing guerrilla base.
Most of them were lumbermen, raftsmen and charcoal burners. Five hundred
of them worked at Sancidao, the administrative centre of the district No.
2, and the other five hundred at the foot of the
Fangcao
Mountains near Macun. They all
benefited from the eight-hour working day.
The people’s revolutionary government
took stringent measures to ensure that private entrepreneurs doubled the
workers’ pay.
The government also placed the
forests in and around the guerrilla zones under its control and prohibited
the felling of trees without its permission.
In these circumstances, the Japanese
manager of the Qinhe lumber station at Daduchuan and Chinese lumber
dealers came to the guerrilla-zone authorities to negotiate permission for
timber-felling. The matter was settled so that the purchasers paid one
yuan for a piece of lumber, but payment was made in kind, in items such as
clothing, food and other consumer items.
The people’s revolutionary government
established the Children’s Corps schools and gave the children free
education, and it ensured that all the population received free medical
care at the hospitals at Lishugou and Shiliping in the guerrilla zone. A
law on women’s equality was enforced and women participated in public life
and work, on a basis of equal rights with
men.
Printing works, tailors’ shops and
weapons repair works were operated in the guerrilla
zone.
Cultural activities in the guerrilla
zones produced many famous songs of lasting significance for our people,
and theatrical art flourished, producing many original works, which later
developed into such masterpieces as The
Sea of
Blood , The Fate of a Self-Defence
Corps Man, and so on.
The term “Soviet,” symbolic of
inhumanity and expropriation, remained only a memento of the past. The
people who had fled to the enemy-held area from the evils of the Soviet
policy began to return to the guerrilla zones one by one or in groups. Old
people freely visited their neighbours, carrying their pipes at their
waists. The guerrilla zone rang once again with the laughter of a large
and harmonious community of people who trusted, loved and relied on one
another.
The valleys and mountains of
Wangqing, which had withstood the severe winter, began to be adorned with
various kinds of rustling flowers: the throbbing of a new life was in
evidence.
This life roused such envy that the
son of a landowner, who had been held hostage at Xiaowangqing by Commander
Chat’s unit, begged to be allowed to live in the guerrilla
zone.
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