Download Making Democracy Korean: American Ideals and South Korean

Making Democracy Korean:
American Ideals and South Korean State-Building, 1919-1960
By
Jooyoung Lee
B.A., Seoul National University, 1999
M.A., Brown University, 2004
A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree
of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of History at Brown University
PROVIDENCE, RHODE ISLAND
MAY 2012
© Copyright 2012 by Jooyoung Lee
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This dissertation by Jooyoung Lee is accepted in its present form by
the Department of History as satisfying the dissertation requirement
for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy
Date
Naoko Shibusawa, Advisor
Recommended to the Graduate Council
Date
Robert G. Lee, Reader
Date
James McClain, Reader
Date
Kerry Smith, Reader
Approved by the Graduate Council
Date
Peter M. Weber, Dean of the Graduate
School
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CURRICULUM VITAE
Jooyoung Lee was born in Jeonju, South Korea, on October 3, 1972. He
received a B.A. (1999) in History at Seoul National University, and an M.A. (2004) in
History at Brown University.
He entered the Ph.D. program in History at Brown University in 2003. His
Ph.D. education was supported by Brown University through a university fellowship,
teaching assistantships, a research travel fellowship, and a dissertation fellowship.
His major publications include “Underdevelopment of American Studies in
South Korea: Mutual Willful Ignorance,” The Journal of American-East Asian
Relations 18, no. 3-4 (November 2011): 274-294 and “‘American’ Ideas and South
Korean Nation-Building: U.S. Influence on Korean Education,” Cross Cultural
Studies 20 (September 2010). He has also reviewed Karen J. Leong’s book The China
Mystique: Pearl S. Buck, Anna May Wong, Mayling Soong, and the Transformation of
American Orientalism for H-Net Women. (October 2007).
He has been a teaching assistant in a variety of classes including American,
Japanese, and Korean history. He also received the Teaching Certificate I (2006), II
(2011), and III (2012) at the Harriet W. Sheridan Center for Teaching and Learning at
Brown University.
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I owe a profound debt of gratitude to the members of my dissertation
committee. Naoko Shibusawa has been a superb mentor since 2005. She has been a
pillar of support every step of the way, who gave me insights into U.S. history,
prepared me for the preliminary exam, guided me to fine-tune my research topic,
encouraged me out of difficulties, and frequently gave up her weekends to edit my
drafts. She has been not only an academic advisor, but also a wonderful life mentor
throughout my time at Brown. As another valuable advisor, Kerry Smith provided me
with critical and constructive comments on my chapters. I gained indispensable
insight into Korean history by discussing Japanese history with him. Robert G. Lee
has been a great source of creativity: just a few hours of brainstorming with him
easily replenished my exhausted ideas. James McClain helped me look at Korean
history from a multitude of perspectives. His keen understanding of the field inspired
me to approach Korean history in a new way and to develop a more balanced view of
U.S.-Korean relations. Omer Bartov, my former advisor at Brown, gave me
immeasurable help. I also do not forget Deborah Cohen’s guidance and
encouragement during my graduate years.
Professors Amy Remensnyder, Richard Jones, and Robert Self in my
department have each played a truly marvelous role as Director of Graduate Studies
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during my program. The academic managers in the history department, Cherrie
Guerzon and Mary Beth Bryson, have been genuinely supportive. Moreover, their
hearty cheers have always reinvigorated me.
I have been able to find relevant and necessary for my work thanks to the
support of many people. Dr. Pang Sunjoo at the National Archives at College Park
kindly helped me to locate numerous documents, otherwise difficult to access. Ms.
Frances O’Donnell at the Andover-Harvard Theological Library was also incredibly
supportive during my research on the American Education Mission in 1950s South
Korea. Many other archivists both in the United States and South Korea were always
extremely generous to assist me.
Outside Brown, numerous scholars have helped me become a historian.
Professor George Iggers not only pushed me to relocate to the United States, but also
gave acute comments on my works. Professor Gregg Brazinski’s book about U.S.Korean relations and his deep passion for historical research were great stimuli to my
own studies. I still remember my surprise and delight at his fluent Korean when I first
met him at the National Archives. I also would also like to express my heartfelt
appreciation to my advisers and mentors in South Korea. Professor Ahn Byung-Jik
taught me the fundamentals of historical scholarship. Professor Jou Kyung-Chul
expanded my historical perspective by introducing me to various topics and
approaches. Professor Lim Sangwoo, who I consider my mentor, gave me invaluable
advice and encouragement and inspired me to direct my focus to U.S. history. I still
benefit from my conversations with Professor Lee Yong-Wook when he was a
postdoctoral fellow at Brown. Professors Kim Hyun-wook, Kim Sangsoo, Bae
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Youngsoo, Lee Bo-hyung, Park Tae-gyun, and Chung Yong-wook all deserve my
thanks for their input.
I would not have been able to complete this dissertation without the invaluable
emotional and intellectual support of my friends and colleagues at both Brown and
Seoul National University. Roh Kyung-duck has been my friend, mentor, and
motivator. He helped overcome difficulties as a graduate student. Byun Woo-hee’s
encouragements never failed to restore my optimism and confidence. Erik Anderson
has been like a brother to me since our first year at Brown. His great culinary talents
always made me feel at home. Aiko Takeuchi, who has been a supportive friend since
our years at Miller Hall, made contributions even until the last stages of this
dissertation. I thank Patrick Chung and Jo Eunseo for reading my dissertation and
giving me constructive suggestions. They voluntarily and enthusiastically proofread
my drafts. I must note other fellow graduate students at Brown as well: Cho
Chunhyung, Park Jun Young, Han Eunseon, Bae Jinsuk, Meltzer Paige, Heather Lee,
Derek Seidman and Roger Shih Chieh Lo.
Thankfully, I made many wonderful friends while studying in the United
States. Pastor Chun Jinwoo’s spiritual and emotional support made my graduate life
much more joyful. I spent most of my last year at Brown with Won Chiwook who
kindly shared his office with me. He was my study buddy, gym partner, and a friend
who sympathetically listened to my complaints. Kim Daeho, now a professor at Ohio
State University, is a friend with whom I shared many hardships and joys. Park
Chanmo, my spiritual advisor, has become my best friend. He gladly provided
accommodation whenever I visited Harvard University. Professor Hong Chang-Seong
was a great life mentor as well. Dr. Daegon Oh and Professor Inchon Kim helped me
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develop a long-term vision of my career. I will also mention John Shone who
contributed with resourceful opinions. Katrina Avery, who made my life much easier
by proofreading my drafts, has been a faithful supporter. I am also heartily grateful to
my church friends who have prayed for me. Many others helped me through this
strenuous journey: Professor Shin Seung-Kyoon, Professor Choi Kyungsub, Pastor
Chang Sungwoo, Park Hongsik, Park Chansok, Cho Jun Hee, Kim Dong-Gyu, and
Yang Myungji.
Finally, I am grateful to my parents Dr. Kyu-Ha Lee and Young-Nam Jeon,
and my brother, Jaeyoung Lee, for their support and love. My father, a professor of
European history, encouraged me to pursue this demanding but rewarding career. I
could not have made this possible without my mother’s sound encouragement and
Jae-young’s belief that I could ultimately become a great scholar. I owe an
inestimable debt to my parents-in-law who, patiently waiting for my graduation,
raised my children in Korea. My successes could not have been realized without their
understanding and contributions. The encouragement of my grandparents-in-law in
L.A. has also been truly uplifting.
Above all, my wife, Kyunghwa Ji merits all my love and gratitude. I would
not have been able to complete this dissertation without her love and support. Making
trips back and forth between the United States and South Korea, Kyunghwa had the
dual task of managing a family and maintaining a full-time career. But all the while,
she has trusted me and never lost her smile. Also, I regret that I could not be there for
my son, Choonghun, who has now entered elementary school, and Suhjin, my threeyear old daughter.
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When I realize how many people have supported and encouraged me as I
wrote this dissertation, I am humbled and grateful. I know that the only way to repay
my debts is to continue to pursue my passions with unmatched fervor. In all, I thank
God who led me to this place, gave me the support of all these valuable people, and
showed me visions of my future.
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NOTE ON KOREAN NAMES AND WORDS
I have adopted the Korean convention of placing surnames first before given names. I
have also used the Revised Romanization of Korean, which replaced McCuneReischauer as the official Romanization system in South Korea in 2000. I made
exceptions to this when referring to Korean words that are commonly used in English
vocabulary (such as Seoul) or Korean names in citations that authors have written in
English for the American audience. All translations from Korean language sources are
mine unless otherwise noted.
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TABLE OF
CONTENTS
Signature Page …………………………………………………………………… iii
Curriculum Vitae ………………………………………………………………… iv
Acknowledgements ………………………………………………………………. v
Note on Korean Names and Words ………………………………………………. x
Introduction ………………………………………………………………………. 1
Chapter 1 ………………………………………………………………………… 17
Struggling with Modernity:
Korean Intellectuals’ Understanding of Western Ideas
Under Japanese Colonial Rule
Chapter 2 ………………………………………………………………………….. 68
Trusteeship, Not Democracy Promotion:
America’s Plan for Postwar Korea
Chapter 3 ………………………………………………………………………
U.S. Influence and Limitations:
America on South Korean Nation-Building During the Occupation
100
Chapter 4 ……………………………………………………………………….. 148
Transferring Democracies:
Eisenhower’s New Information Policy and
Democracy Promotion in South Korea during the 1950s
Chapter 5 ……………………………………………………………………….. 201
Competing Democracies:
South Korean Nation-Building in the 1950s
Conclusion ……………………………………………………………………… 247
Bibliography ……………………………………………………………………. 257
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For Mom and Dad
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Introduction
On April 19, 1960, policemen fired upon a mass crowd in front of the
Gyeongmudae, the South Korean presidential residence, protesting Syngman Rhee’s
authoritarian regime. Approximately two hundred students and citizens died and more
than a thousand were wounded on what became known as the April Revolution or the
April 19th Movement. This event was the culmination of a series of student
demonstrations that had begun on February 28, with a small demonstration in Daegu, a
city 148 miles southeast of Seoul. Within two months of that first demonstration, South
Koreans saw the end of Rhee’s 12-year rule, which dated back to their national
independence in 1948. Rhee resigned on April 26th, was whisked away two days later on
a plane owned by the CIA, and lived his life out in exile in Honolulu. This dramatic turn
of events, which occurred just seven years after the Korean War armistice, could not have
happened without massive student mobilization. What made so many South Korean
students, not only college but also middle- and high-school students, risk even their lives
for democracy? How were they able to nurture dreams of democracy while struggling to
emerge from the aftermath of the war? What did democracy mean to the students who
died for it? These questions will serve as the points of departure for this dissertation.
In their analyses of this April Revolution, historians both in South Korea and the
United States have underlined the great discrepancy between Rhee’s authoritarian
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governance and the democratic ideals Korean students had learned in school. This
explanation stems from the common understanding of 1950s South Korea as a political
and economic “dark age.” However, this dark age narrative leaves a significant gap in our
understanding of the students’ motives. How did the students go from merely accepting
notions of democracy to actively bringing them to fruition? To say this is not to gainsay
how the existing scholarship has addressed various aspects of post-war Korea and has
enriched our understanding of Korea’s struggle to overcome its “dark age.” For example,
scholars have pointed to the Koreans’ strong passion for education as a partial
explanation for the students’ desire for democracy. And certainly, one need not look far to
grasp the students’ frustration at the politically corrupt and authoritarian rule. However,
we must then ask: where did their ideas of a model democracy come from? Clearly, the
United States, as the “ambassador” of free world ideals to Asia, made a decisive
contribution. And if we accept that this was the case, we must investigate how the United
States promoted democracy in South Korea. What were its goals and strategies in doing
so? What were their specific contributions to and limitations in South Korean
democratization? I have not been persuaded by the various answers to these questions
offered so far.
A dominant narrative in modern Korean history concerning American influence
on Korean democracy argues that the United States transplanted its idea of a model
democratic system onto this budding nation. Although it is difficult to deny the
significance of America’s role in South Korean nation-building, this idea does not
properly address the complexities of American policies and portrays the Koreans as
merely passive recipients. Furthermore, this history gives no leeway for non-U.S. foreign
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influence. Indeed, the problems and gaps riddling this notion of transplantation have
guided my inquiry. This study examines both the process by which American
policymakers shaped Korean politics and the Koreans’ active response to so-called
“American” ideas. It also considers how Korean traditional notions and colonial legacies
affected how Koreans received and shaped their own definitions of democracy.
Historian Gregg Brazinsky looks at the main actors in both South Korea and the
United States to explicate the American influence in Korea’s nation-building process. 1 He
argues that even though the United States supported authoritarian regimes in South Korea,
the seeds of democracy that Americans planted through cultural means sprouted later.
This study shows the dynamics in U.S.-Korean relations that buttress the formation of
democratic ideas. Brazinsky makes considerable mention of Korean actors, but by
making a distinct division of political and cultural spheres, he gives more credit to the
U.S. role. He does not pay as much attention to the complex dynamics between politics
and culture in the American-Korean relations. In order to overcome this limitation, my
study considers politics, society, and culture as inseparable factors.
Other studies related to my topic come from a group of U.S. political scientists
addressing American democracy promotion who believe that American democracy
promotion has not been sufficiently examined by scholars of U.S. foreign relations.
Radical or leftist political scientists have not credited the seriousness of U.S.
policymakers’ intention to disseminate democracy internationally, while realist political
scientists consider it worthless. While these scholars guided me to many critical issues in
1
Gregg Brazinsky, Nation Building in South Korea: Koreans, Americans, and the Making of a Democracy
(University of North Carolina Press, 2007).
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American democracy promotion, they seldom engage the complexity of the historical
process with the depth it requires. Furthermore, they examine only recent history and
rarely go as far back to the early or pre-Cold War era. 2 These scholars often consider the
establishment of the National Endowment for Democracy, founded in 1983, to be the
origin of American policy for democracy promotion. My study, however, goes back to the
pre-Cold War era in order to examine how the United States began to engage in
democracy promotion since the late nineteenth century.
Understanding the origins of U.S. promotion of democracy is significant for my
work in two ways. It helps us better understand the nature of American democracy
promotion during the Cold War. More specifically, it enhances our understanding of
America’s role and its limitations in the early stages of South Korea’s nation-building.
Scholars in Korea, however, have not paid sufficient attention to American democracy
promotion in Korea. While some Korean scholars assume great U.S. influence and thus
feel little need for serious study, others focus on the Korean context. This has led to the
rise of two extremist views: one exaggerating the American influence and the other not
fully appreciating the role of the United States, whether positive or negative. I believe
that modern Korean history cannot be fully understood without considering America’s
role and its limits in South Korean democratization.
Two theories have recently been proposed by Korean political scientists to explain
2
Michael Cox, G. John Ikenberry, and Takashi Inoguchi, eds., American Democracy Promotion: Impulses,
Strategies, and Impacts (Oxford University Press, USA, 2000); Tony Smith, America’s Mission (Princeton
University Press, 1995); Joshua Muravchik, Exporting Democracy (Aei Press, 1992); Andrew Shankman,
Crucible of American Democracy: The Struggle to Fuse Egalitarianism and Capitalism in Jeffersonian
Pennsylvania (University Press of Kansas, 2004).
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the peculiarities of Korean democracy. Kang Jeong In traces the distinct features of
Korean democracy to its particular Korean context, while criticizing scholars who
attempt to explain Korean democracy using Western theories and interpretations. He
argues that Korean democracy became conservative, focusing more on the “formal”
political system and institutions than on the original ideal of “rule by the people.” 3 Kang
attributes the institutional characteristics of Korean democracy to its being a late bloomer
in democracy. In this respect, democracy itself in the United States was already
conservative by the mid-20th century since Americans lived in a republic, not a pure
democracy of direct rule by all its citizens. South Korean leaders accepted this
conservative and narrower concept of democracy since they believed it would be to their
own benefit.
Another peculiarity of Korean democracy, Korean scholars note, is its collective,
top-down nature. The Korean people were unaccustomed to thinking in terms of
individual rights, and traditionally, their relationship to their government had been based
upon groups, rather than individuals. Consequently, they adhered to a more collective
concept of social relations without any keen sense of individuality. Koreans, who also
had long been ruled by monarchies and top-down governance, had long been concerned
with the monarch’s proper rule of his kingdom. Even after the monarchy was abolished,
Korea was under foreign authoritarian rule; even after liberation, it remained under
authoritarian leadership. Choi Jangjip divides people’s views on society into two
3
Kang Jung-in, et al., Minjujuuiui hangukjeok suyong: hangugui minjuhwa, minjujuuiui hangukhwa
(Adoption of democracy in South Korea: Korean democratization, Koreanized democracy) (Seoul:
Chaeksesang, 2002), 19–67.
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categories: individualistic Western views and organic Eastern views. According to Choi,
the Korean people, with their organic view of society, naturally understood democracy as
top-down. The government is expected to rule its people properly and people are
expected to grant priority to the development of their society and nation over their
individual rights. 4
Although the above views on Korean conceptions of governance and society help
us understand an important part of the peculiar Korean concept of democracy, they may
hinder us from looking at the changes in Korean society over time, and may also lead us
to pay less attention to the variations and competitions within South Korean society.
Kang’s explanation, though insightful, does not consider the other democratic ideas that
competed against the conservative one. And if we stick to the dichotomy of views on
society offered by the West and the East, we may fall into the trap of determinism. I
believe we need to pay more attention to the competition within society among various
groups with different ideas. Thus, instead of focusing on a dominant interpretation of
democracy, I trace its various interpretations embraced by different groups during the
1950s. While the “top-down” and “collective” nature of democracy was promoted by the
government and the conservative elites, different ideas and notions did challenge the
dominant ideology.
While based on the above-mentioned studies, my study also attempts to overcome
their limits by paying more careful attention to the following agendas. In order to better
4
Choi Jang-jip, Minjung-eseo simineuro: hanguk minjujuuireul ihaehaneun hanaui bangbeop (From
People to Citizen: One Way of Understanding South Korean Democracy) (Seoul: Dolbege, 2009), 19–20.
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understand the policies and activities in both nations, I examine the larger historical
contexts of both nations more carefully. On the U.S. side, I do not narrowly consider U.S.
policy toward Korea, but pay attention to how Korean policy was shaped in America’s
larger world politics. For example, America’s lack of will to promote its democracy in
post-liberation Korea and the diversified and strengthened information programs of the
Eisenhower administration in the 1950s South Korea cannot be understood without
considering larger U.S. global politics.
On the Korean side, I examine America’s promotion of democracy or lack of will
to transfer it to Korea as a part of the complex process of nation-building.
Democratization in Korea is a result of competition among various visions of nationbuilding, a process that continues today. Looking at the promotion of American
democracy in South Korea from this perspective, we see that U.S. influence has always
been indirect. Since democracy was the only ideology allowed in South Korea, a critical
front in the Cold War, people developed diverse versions of democracy instead of shaping
counter-ideologies. It was thus a matter of to what extent and in what ways “American”
democracy was transformed. Therefore we should ask how the United States affected the
ongoing competition among various groups, instead of trying to see how the United
States directly shaped Korean nation-building. However, since Koreans used a variety of
sources in their nation-building process, their democracy often became a mixture of
transformed “American” ideas and traditional Korean concepts.
Considering the historical context of the two nations help us see how the
“American” democracy promoted in South Korea in the early Cold War era was
misunderstood, transformed, and/or partially accepted by South Koreans. One of the
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significant differences between the two nations in their democratic ideas lay in the
relationship between individuals and the nation. Because Americans have long lived in a
stable civic society, they have had an expansive view of democracy that goes beyond
merely political rights. In other words, their civic society has supported and thus
guaranteed “the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” to a large segment of
the population. This non-governmental safeguard of these individual rights and liberties
has served to promote the citizenry’s stake in their system of governance. In that sense,
American civil society has served as a buffer or safety valve for the U.S. state. On the
other hand, South Korea in the 1950s lacked a civil society comparable to that in the
United States, and thus did not have a buffer or safety valve for the Korean state. Since
Koreans had few effective means to express their opinions, their frustrations could and
did pile up until they arrived at a flash point. More to the point, we should thus recognize
that Koreans generally understood democracy as a set of political rules defining the
relations between the ruler and the ruled, rather than as a practice encompassing social,
cultural, and political dimensions. Koreans thus could not understand or apply the
“American” concept of democracy in which individuals exercised their responsibility to
society and nation as they continued in their “pursuit of happiness.” Therefore, different
groups dismantled the idea and took only the parts they felt they needed. Some
individuals found the part on individual rights and freedom useful, while the state
adopted the view emphasizing individuals’ responsibility to the state.
Another approach adopted here is to consider the pre-liberation era. Except for
some writings about U.S. missionaries, most studies of the U.S.-Korean relations regard
Korea’s liberation from Japanese rule and the beginning of U.S. occupation in 1945 as the
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starting point of U.S-Korean relations and emphasize America’s attempt to “transplant”
its democratic system in South Korea. While exploring the U.S. military government
period, however, I found that leaders of the American occupation had neither a strong
desire nor well planned programs for promoting democracy in Korea, while Koreans had
plans for their nation-building based on diverse ideas. It was thus necessary to go back to
the pre-liberation era. In order to better understand the U.S. attempts to affect Korea and
the Korean response, I probed how the United States shaped its postwar plan for Korea
and also how Koreans struggled with new Western ideas under Japanese imperial rule
before they struggled with “American” democracy. By examining the pre-liberation
period, I intend to demonstrate the two mistaken assumptions of the “transplant” myth:
that the United States brought democracy into Korea and that Korea was a tabula rasa of
foreign ideas. Instead, this dissertation demonstrates that the United States did not bring
democracy to Korea and that Korean elites were already familiar with foreign ideas,
including “American” liberalism and democracy.
I also look at the American influence on Korean democracy in the frame of
“modernization.” In considering the “modernity” issue in the context of U.S.-Korean
relations, I do not follow Western theorists’ logic of modernization, but do not evade the
issue by trying to show something unique to Korea. The scholarly debates on whether the
changes in 20th-century Korea were “modern” or not, however, often misguide us into
accepting the basic assumptions of Western “modernity.” The modernity discourse
created in the West has been so overwhelming that even scholars who reject a universal
path to modernity and emphasize the variety of ways to achieve it still regard modernity
as a point of arrival. Walter D. Mignolo provides an insight into the question of why
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modernity discourse still “enchants” us by investigating the origin and the essence of this
discourse. 5 Christendom distinguished itself from others spatially and regarded infidels
not as less developed or primitive, but as people living in geographically distant places or
in different spheres of belief. During the eighteenth century, however, European
Enlightenment thinkers invented the idea of a “linear march of time and progress of
universal history” according to which non-European people were located not in a
different space, but in a different time. The idea of “infidels” was now replaced by that of
“primitives” who did not coexist with Europe but instead were situated in the past.
Using this new conceptual paradigm, Mignolo asserts that modernity is defined in
binary opposition to “coloniality” and is thus linked to imperialism. The discourse of
modernity endowed Europeans with a mission of forcibly bringing contemporary premodern places that lagged behind Europeans into the modern world. This is how the
discourse of modernity justified Western expansion to the East. We should be careful,
however, not to fall under the spell of modernity discourse and lose sight of the larger
picture. The debates about whether or not conveyers of Western civilization modernized
Korea during the late Chosun dynasty and the Japanese occupation are confined within
the paradigm of the Western discourse of modernity. In order to understand the attitudes
of the colonized towards Western ideas, the focus of debate should shift from
determining whether or not Korea was “modernized” to the question of how Koreans
struggled with the influx of Western civilization.
In this light, the process by which Koreans tried to understand various Western
5
Walter D Mignolo, “The Enduring Enchantment: (Or the Epistemic Privilege of Modernity and Where to
Go from Here),” South Atlantic Quarterly 101, no. 4 (December 31, 2002): 927–954.
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ideas was a response to the project of Western modernity. I thus carefully examine how
Koreans understood “modern” ideas transferred from the West, without trying to
determine if Korea under Japanese rule and American influence was modernized or not.
Whether favorable to or critical of Western ideas, Koreans could not simply avoid them.
Even those who criticized the Western ideas and emphasized Korean “tradition” also
could not help using the West as a point of comparison. Exploring how Korean
intellectuals responded to various foreign ideas in the particular context of colonial rule
and close relationship with the United States, instead of simply following the logic of
Western discourse of modernity, gives us a new view of Korean democracy. It is neither a
version of “American” democracy, nor a system developed from Korea’s traditional ideas
and institutions. Rather, it is a product of Koreans’ ongoing struggle with the foreign in
which they not only accepted and transformed foreign ideas and institutions, but also
continued to apply their own traditional notions.
This work makes contributions to existing U.S. and South Korean scholarship on
U.S. foreign policy, South Korean nation-building, and the relations of the two nations. It
enhances our understanding of American democracy promotion in the world by showing
how its dual nature of confidence and security concerns was shaped during World War II
and the early Cold War. It also adds to the growing body of work that considers how U.S.
foreign policies operated abroad. By investigating the gap between Americans’ intention
to spread “their own” ideas in South Korea and the ways in which Koreans accepted and
institutionalized these ideas, my work demonstrates the complex ways in which
American policies worked on the receiving end.
This dissertation also attempts to see nuances in South Korean nation-building by
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neither ignoring the role of the United States, nor simply presuming U.S. dominance in
Korean affairs. To achieve this goal, I pay special attention to how diverse and competing
groups of Koreans availed themselves of notions of democracy and took advantage of the
U.S. presence in South Korea in order to further differing visions for strengthening their
nation. Moreover, I show that as South Koreans struggled to overcome their colonial
legacies, they drew upon long-standing notions of just rule in addition to American ideas
of liberal governance.
Thus in Making Democracy Korean, I seek to enrich the so far understudied field
of U.S.-South Korean relations by more accurately assessing America’s role in South
Korean democratization. I demonstrate that while Americans contributed to spreading
democracy in South Korea, their limitations were also clear: they could neither mold
Koreans’ concept of democracy, nor could they determine the specific ways in which
democracy operated in South Korea.
This work draws on my research in state and private archives in both the United
States and South Korea, as well as on published material including magazines, memoirs,
and diaries. In looking at the shaping of U.S. foreign policy, I visited the National
Archives II in College Park, MD, the Truman Library in Independence, MO, and the
Eisenhower Library in Abilene, KS. I also worked at the Harvard Andover Theological
Library in Cambridge, MA to look at the sources on the American Education Mission,
which came to South Korea in the early 1950s to support South Korean education reform.
In South Korea, I spent much time in the National Library of Korea and the National
Assembly Library in Seoul. In addition to the 4.19 Revolution Library and the Seoul
National University Archives in Seoul, I also conducted research at the Daejeon Hanbat
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Library, to look at the Kyungsung Imperial University graduates’ journal Shin-Heung.
Arriving at the current shape of this dissertation was a long journey. In order to
understand how the student demonstrators of the April Revolution embraced democracy,
I began to trace how the U.S. military government tried to shape South Korean nationbuilding during the immediate post-liberation period. However, I only found America’s
lack of will and absence of prepared programs for promoting democracy in South Korea.
This finding was quite surprising, even though I had not believed the myth that the
United States transplanted its system in South Korea starting in 1945. In order to
understand this, I thus traced the origins and nature of U.S. democracy promotion back to
the pre-World War II period. At the same time, I felt the need to investigate how the
Korean intellectuals understood foreign ideas during the Japanese colonial era in order to
better understand their response to the “American” democracy in the post-liberation
period. In Chapter I, “Struggling with Modernity: Korean Intellectuals’ Understanding of
Western Ideas Under Japanese Colonial Rule,” therefore, I examine the pre-colonial and
colonial period in order to demonstrate the familiarity of Korean elites’ with Western
ideas prior to liberation. Focusing on debates at Kyunsung Imperial University, I trace
how Korean intellectuals understood and used such Western ideas as liberalism,
socialism, and nationalism in the late Chosun Dynasty and Japanese occupation era.
Kyungsung Imperial University was the only four-year university operating during the
colonial era (it became Seoul National University after liberation) and one of the major
sites of discussions regarding Korea’s future and modernity. Much of this chapter draws
13
upon an analysis of a scholarly journal, the Shin Heung [Newly Rising], published
between 1929 and 1937 by Kyungsung graduates.
Chapter II, “Trusteeship Instead of Democracy Promotion: America’s Plan for
Postwar Korea,” investigates how American policy makers understood the situation of
pre-liberation Korea and what plans they made for postwar Korea against the backdrop of
the rise of internationalism in American foreign policy during the first half of the 20th
century. Through an investigation of U.S. post-war plans for promoting its ideas of
democracy and liberalism to Koreans, I demonstrate that the United States had neither
specific programs nor strong motivations to promote democracy in South Korea. I argue
that this U.S. inattention explains how the Korean people were able to play significant
roles in shaping democratic ideas and institutions despite the strong U.S. presence.
The next chapter, “U.S. Influence and Limitations: America on South Korean
Nation-Building During the Occupation,” turns to the three years of American military
occupation from 1945 to 1948: the first time these two nations forged a full-scale
relationship. It focuses specifically on two important issues resulting from U.S.
disorganization and detachment: the failed attempts to promote American progressive
education in South Korea and America’s limited influence in drafting the new
constitution of the Republic of Korea. Moreover, despite the U.S. democracy talk, the
U.S. military government enacted policies unilaterally in South Korea without South
Korean consultation. This contrast between rhetoric and reality understandably offended
the postcolonial nationalist pride of South Koreans. I show how Korean intellectuals, who
were already familiar with Western political theories, were especially critical of U.S.
policies and practices.
14
The fourth chapter, “Transferring Democracies: Eisenhower’s New Information
Policy and Democracy Promotion in South Korea during the 1950s,” examines the
process by which U.S. policy makers enacted a plan to spread “their” ideas and
institutions to the world in general and to South Korea in particular. Through an analysis
of the reformed information policy of the Eisenhower administration and its
implementation in various channels, I demonstrate the breadth of democratic ideas
promoted by American information and cultural agencies. They spread not only
institutional and ideological notions of democracy, but also more fundamental aspects of
the concept such as desirable relations between individuals and the society and nation. By
investigating the activities of the American Education Mission and Korean educators’
response to them, I also show the gap in understanding of democracy between the two.
My final chapter, “Competing Democracies: South Korean Nation-Building in the
1950s,” traces how the different levels and concepts of “American” ideas were received
by Koreans after the U.S. military occupation. The diversified programs and channels of
the U.S. information service, while contributing to wide dissemination of democracy,
allowed greater room for Koreans to interpret and use them for their own agendas.
Exploring various texts produced by different groups, I find that, while “American” ideas
were crucial sources of reference, they were often transformed or used only in part. Using
the fact that these texts targeted students, I further assess to what extent these competing
discourses about democracy influenced the “democratic” April Revolution that ended
Syngman Rhee’s regime. Some may argue that student demonstrators’ use of democratic
discourse was an evidence of American influence. Yet “American” democratic ideas
were too broad to be clearly identified. The Korean students’ understanding of
15
democracy was a mixture of loosely defined “American” ideas and “traditional” Korean
notions of good governance. Indeed, “American” ideas were far from the only driving
force in students’ resistance against the government: their protest was in line with the
long tradition of peasant uprisings during the Chosun dynasty and student resistance
against Japanese colonial rule. Furthermore, the student protestors not only used
democratic ideas, but also drew from post-colonial nationalist discourses and their own
sense of patriotism.
16
Chapter I. Struggling with Modernity:
Korean Intellectuals’ Understanding of Western Ideas Under
Japanese Colonial Rule
This chapter examines the peculiar ways in which Korean intellectuals responded
to Western “modernity” in the national crisis of the late Chosun and Japanese occupation
eras. Western imperialist powers brought into Korea various “modern” ideas and culture
while trying to expand their influence there. Examining the ways in which Korean
intellectuals responded to Western ideas in the pre-liberation era is important in
understanding their interactions with the United States after liberation. Existing studies
on U.S.-Korean relations, except some works on American missionaries, mostly consider
the post-liberation era. In order to better understand the effects and limitations of
American efforts to promote democratic ideas in South Korea after liberation, however, it
is necessary to examine how Korean elites understood Western ideas before liberation.
Liberated Korea was not a tabula rasa in terms of knowledge of foreign ideologies, as the
myths about American transplanting democracy in Korea generally assume. I
demonstrate that many Korean intellectuals had tried very actively to understand, criticize,
transform, and/or utilize various “modern” ideas in handling their national crisis. Despite
their significance, not enough attention has been paid to intellectual trends in the preliberation period. One of the reasons for this neglect was the strong influence of
17
nationalism on the writing of Korean history. Even the few studies on Korean intellectual
history of the pre-liberation era have the many limitations, as detailed in this chapter.
Most Korean scholars studying the colonial era have focused on Japanese
exploitation and Korean resistance, and studies departing from these topics have been
attacked by nationalist scholars. While a few scholars have recently provoked debate by
challenging the current nationalist view of the colonial era, the intellectual history of the
colonial era still remains an underdeveloped field. Although not devaluing the
significance of the studies on nationalists who stubbornly resisted or collaborators who
opportunistically supported the colonial power, I believe that their responses were rather
exceptional and ignore most of the people who existed somewhere between the two
extreme positions. Instead of adding to the already rich literature on the independence
movement leaders or collaborators who accepted Western modernity, this chapter
illuminates a gray area that has so far received little scholarly attention.
Another problem in existing debates about the colonial era is related to the
discussions of “modernity” that I introduced in the Introduction. The “modernity” issue
has been one of the most sensitive and controversial topic in the studies of colonial era.
As Walter Mignolo suggested, scholars have been “enchanted” by Western discourse on
modernity 1: they have studied whether or not Korea was “modernized” under Japanese
colonial rule and whether the “modernity” of this period, if any, was positive or
negative. 2 Some scholars regard the new Korean experience in this period as modern and
1
Walter D. Mignolo, “The Enduring Enchantment: (Or the Epistemic Privilege of Modernity and Where to
Go from Here),” South Atlantic Quarterly 101, no. 4 (December 31, 2002): 927–954.
2
Some scholars so-called “the new right” have recently opposed nationalist and leftist understandings of
18
argue that they began to modernize their nation. Others criticize Western influence as
hindering Koreans’ existing efforts to modernize their own nation. However, both
arguments fall under the spell of modernity discourse and fail to see the larger picture of
how Koreans responded to Western civilization. In order to break this spell and
understand how this “enchantment” worked in Korea’s pre-liberation era, we must ask
how Koreans of this period responded to different Western ideas, instead of trying to
determine whether or not Korea was modernized by foreign influence.
As I find the boundaries among different ideas in this period less clear than many
current scholars assume, I reject the existing distinctions among liberalism, nationalism,
and socialism. My concern is more to highlight the complexity of the ways in which
Korean intellectuals understood Western ideas than to focus on specific intellectual trends.
The first part of this chapter surveys the effect of national crisis on how early Korean
intellectuals understood Western liberalism. I trace the compromise and tension between
individualism and nationalism in the liberalism of these early intellectuals. Although the
two points of view are not necessarily contradictory, the peculiar historical conditions of
the time created conflicts between them.
After the influence of liberalism was markedly reduced, socialist ideas began to
emerge in the 1920s. The second part of this chapter investigates how Korean
intellectuals who were attracted to socialism nevertheless embraced other ideologies such
modern Korean history by attempting to “objectively” examine the history without “nationalist prejudice”
or “leftist bias.” Park Jihang, et al., Habang jeonhusaui jaeinsik (Re-interpretation of Korean modern
history), vol. 1 and 2 (Seoul: Chaeksesang, 2006) is among the most often cited works in this scholarly
faction. On the other hand, liberal scholars criticize this approach by pointing out that they hide the dark
side of Japanese rule and overestimate “modernism.”
19
as nationalism and liberalism. This part closely examines Kyungsung Imperial University,
the only four-year university operating during the colonial era (which after liberation
became Seoul National University), as a locus of debate about Korea’s future and
modernity. While exploring the university and its students, I analyze in some depth a
scholarly journal, Shin Heung [Newly Rising], published by Kyungsung graduates.
Essays in Shin Heung are a useful window through which to observe how Korean elites
tried to understand and utilize various foreign ideas in the particular reality of
colonization and “modernization.”
Although my analysis of Shin Heung covers many authors, I focus on the writings
of Yu Chin-o (1906-1987), one of the most prominent figures among Kyungsung Imperial
University. He will appear several times later on in this dissertation. A well-known
university ‘genius,’ Yu Chin-o obtained the top score in the Kyungsung Imperial
University entrance exam in 1924. He was one of the best students in many Korean
student activities during his school years. After receiving his degree in 1929, he became a
research assistant to professors at his alma mater. However, he could never become a
professor there due to the school’s regulations discriminating against Chosun students
and scholars. 3 This experience of discrimination made him pessimistic about idealistic
nationalism and caused his move further to the left. His complex understanding of
various foreign ideas, however, prevented him from becoming a hardcore communist.
Although he briefly became pro-Japanese at the end of the Japanese occupation, he
transformed himself into a promoter of democracy and became the main drafter of the
3
Yu Chin-o, Naui insaenggwan: jeolmeumi gichilttae (My view of life: when youthfulness flapped) (Seoul:
Hwimun Chulpansa, 1984), 101–103.
20
first South Korean Constitution under the U.S. military government.
Understanding foreign ideas is often limited by the peculiar cultural context.
Koreans were no exception: they understood Western ideas not only within the
framework of their particular colonial experience but also selectively so as to further their
larger goal of national independence and individual success. A deeper understanding of
how colonial intellectuals accepted foreign ideas thus requires examination of the larger
historical context. My analysis begins by exploring political, social and cultural changes
and their impact on Koreans’ daily life during the late Chosun and Japanese colonial eras.
Historical Context: Collapse of the Chosun System and Influx of Western
Culture
The Chosun dynasty, founded in 1392 by Lee Seong-Kye, had been kept
relatively stable by maintaining an appropriate balance between kings and the nobility
and by maintaining a four-status system. 4 It was also firmly based on neo-Confucian
values transferred from China. The solidity of the Chosun dynasty, however, began to
crack when in the late nineteenth century neighboring countries and Western imperial
powers began to intervene in its internal affairs. The dynasty had to reform its systems in
order to survive. One of the most crucial changes in this reform was the abolition of the
existing status system in the Gabo gaehyeok [reform] of 1894. 5 This naturally affected
4
The four classes were the nobility (yangban), middle people (Jung in), commoners (seomin), and the
lowly people or slaves (cheonmin or nobi).
5
The Gabo Reform, the biggest reform in the late Chosun dynasty, was carried out during the reign of King
Gojong between 1894 and 1896. It is often compared to the Meiji Restoration in Japan.
21
many other social institutions and fundamentally transformed Korean life by causing
extensive damage to the existing value system based on neo-Confucianism and providing
a platform for the intrusion of Western influence.
Since most historical narratives of this era are painted in black and white,
focusing on nationalist movements and the oppressive rule of the Japanese, we often
forget that this is the era when Koreans for the first time experienced various Western
cultures and civilizations. Although Western influence had begun during the late Chosun,
the Japanese annexation of Chosun in 1910 further advanced Western influence on
Chosun society and accelerated the changes in Korean daily life. Western influence in
daily life during the colonial era is not difficult to find. Whether or not we call the society
modern, it was rapidly becoming different from that of the Chosun dynasty.
One of the biggest of these changes in Korean daily life was in religious life.
Although Confucian values did not disappear immediately with the collapse of the status
system, Christianity, a new Western value, began to spread. As early as 1907, there were
about 1,000 Christian churches, 30,000 missionaries, and 120,000 believers. Christianity
became more popular during the Japanese occupation and by 1935 the number of
believers had quadrupled. 6 Although Christian believers still made up less than 5% of the
total population, their influence was far from small. Many Korean Christians were
educated at missionary schools and became influential elites in various fields during and
after the Japanese occupation. These missionary schools were another important change
6
Horace Grant Underwood, The call of Korea, political--social--religious (New York: Fleming H. Revell
Co., 1908), 109–110. The number was a little less than 1% of the total population at this time, which is
estimated at about around fifteen million.
22
in Korean society. When Japan annexed Chosun in 1910, there were more than 500
mission schools with over 25,000 students. 7 These were the places where many Korean
students directly acquired Western ideas and knowledge. More importantly, educational
opportunities previously given only to the Yangban class became open to all, regardless
of previous status. In addition, post-secondary educational institutions were established
by American missionaries and Korean nationalists, including Ewha Hakdang [School]
(1886), Soongsil Hakdang (1897), and Bosung Hakgyo [School] (1905). 8
Many new Western-style technologies were introduced in this era. Western-style
medicine, for instance, was an important new product of Western civilization. There were
at least fifteen Western hospitals throughout the nation at the turn of the century, and
more and more Koreans benefited from Western medicine. 9 In addition, a variety of new
technologies and consumer goods were introduced during the late Chosun period:
automobiles, the water supply system, telephones, radios, electricity, the electric car,
telegrams, cigarettes, wines, canned foods, and western-style clothing. These
technological products demonstrated the “advancement” of the West.
Korean people enjoyed 10many other new Western cultural products. Movies
rapidly become one of the most popular forms of entertainment. The total number of
7
Kim Deokho and Won Yongjin, Amerikanaijeisieon: haebang ihu hangugeseoui migukhwa
(Americanization of Korea after liberation) (Seoul: Pureun Yeoksa, 2008), 73.
8
Surviving suppression by the Japanese colonial government, these became leading universities after
liberation.
9
Kim Deokho and Won Yongjin, Americanization, 72.
10
Gong Jewook and Jeong Geunsik, eds., Singminjiui ilsang: jibaewa gyunyeol (Daily lives in the colony:
rule and fissure) (Seoul: Munhwa Gwahaksa, 2006), 432–488.
23
movie-goers doubled in the five years between 1937 and 1942, from about 1,196,000 to
2,640,000. 11 About two thirds of the movies shown in this era were imported from the
West. Western-style music, dances, and sports were also popular among many Koreans,
and upper-class people also enjoyed coffee and shopped in department stores. 12
There were, however, clear limitations to the Korean experience of Western ideas,
culture, and technologies in this era. Most of the new Western facilities were
concentrated in Seoul, so that few people in rural areas had the opportunities to
experience them. Furthermore, Koreans’ contact with the West in this era was in many
cases indirect: they observed Western life or watched it in the movies without imitating it
in their own lives. Despite these limitations, the influence of Western ideas on Korean
intellectuals in this era was in no way negligible. The new Western culture and
technologies of this era shows a rapid departure from traditional Chosun society. These
advanced technologies and the material abundance of the West became an important
window through which Koreans viewed and understood the West. Having lived through a
serious dearth of material things, many Koreans viewed the wealth of the Western world,
especially of the United States, as a dream.
Again, I will emphasize that my purpose is not to enter into the debate on whether
the changes were “modern” or not. Instead, I use these changing daily lives of Korean
11
Yu Seonyoung, “Hwangsaek singminjiui seoyang yeonghwa gwallamgwa sobiui jeongchi, 1934-42”
(Western Movies and Consumer Politics in the Yellow Colony, 1934-42), in Singminjiui ilsang: jibaewa
gyunyeol (Daily lives in the colony: rule and fissure), eds. Gong Jewook and Jeong Geunsik. (Seoul:
Munhwa Gwahaksa, 2006), 432–488.
12
Pak Jihang (et al.), Revisiting the History, 272-283; Kang Junman, Hanguk geundaesa sanchaek (Stroll
in modern Korean history), vol. 9 (Seoul: Inmulgwa Sasangsa, 2007). 163-222.
24
people as a background against which to investigate their response to Western ideas.
Whether they experienced Western civilization directly or indirectly, Korean intellectuals
and students became eager to understand the ideas that created this “advanced” culture.
That said, Koreans’ interests in Western civilization did not always lead them to serious
intellectual exploration of Western ideas, but it often made them enjoy Western-style
consumer culture. “Modeon boi (modern boy)” and “modeon geol (modern girl),”
widespread terms in the 1920s and 1930s, reflect one aspect of the colonial reality:
Koreans’ desire for the “modern” Western culture. 13
Contradictions in Early Korean Liberalism
The existing literature on the development of liberalism or liberal democracy in
Korea often assumes that it was transplanted by the United States during the period of the
U.S. military government. 14 Although the great influence of the United States on Korea
cannot be denied, this view fails to consider the pre-liberation era. Current scholarship
has also not paid enough attention to the role of Koreans in accepting and utilizing
liberalism. Korean intellectuals not only actively accepted Western liberal ideas, but had
also transforming and utilizing them for their own goal of strengthening and enriching
their nation since the late 19th century.
When the Confucian value system that had buttressed the Chosun dynasty for
13
The words “modeon boi” and “modeon geol” may have been influenced by the Japanese terms, “mo-bo”
and “mo-ga.”
14
Moon Jiyoung, “Hangukesoeui jayujuuiwa jayujuui yeongu: munjewa daeanjeok sigagui mosaek"
(Liberalism and its studies in Korea: problems and a suggestion), Hanguk Jeongchi Hakhoebo 38, no. 2
(2004): 76–77.
25
about 500 years appeared to become helpless in the country’s late 19th century crisis, the
Korean elite and intellectuals looked for alternative ideas and values. A group of
intellectuals, most of them from the middle-class, took an interest in Western liberalism.
Unlike in the West, where an emerging bourgeois class embraced liberalism, in Korea the
Western idea was imported and spread by a few reform-minded intellectuals during the
late Chosun. These so-called gaehwa sasang-ga [Enlightenment thinkers], including Park
Younghyo, Yu Kil-Chun, Seo Jaepil, and Yun Chiho, believed that the Chosun was only
half-civilized and could progress into a stage of full civilization only by accepting
Western ideas and institutions. 15 Like Western intellectuals, they idealized the
economically independent individual who was supposedly freed of feudal restraints. 16
The Independent, a newspaper published by Enlightenment thinkers between 1896 and
1903, used the concept of independence at the individual level, not at the national or
political level. 17 These thinkers, however, did not advocate independence for all
15
Park Chanseung, “Hanmal iljesigi sahoejinhwaronui seonggyeokgwa yeonghyang” (Characteristics and
influence of Social Darwinism during the late Chosun Dynasty),” Yeoksa Bipyeong 34 (February 1996):
339–354; Lee Song-hee, “Hanmal sahoejinhwaronui suyonggwa jeongae” (Reception and development of
Social Darwinism in the late Chosun Dynasty), Pusan Sahak 22 (June 1996): 99–139; Jeon Bok-hee,
“Sahoejinhwaronui 19segimalbuteo 20segichokkaji hangukeseoui gineung" (The role of Social Darwinism
in Korea from the late 19th to early 20th century), Hanguk Jeongchi Hakhoebo 27, no. 1 (October 1993):
405–425.
16
These Enlightenment theorists, however, did not clearly define themselves, nor were they defined by
their contemporaries, as liberals, democrats, or social evolutionists, and these various ideas were often
mixed in their understanding. It was scholars of the later periods who named them liberals, since they
embraced the core values of liberalism such as individualism, freedom, competition and right. For example,
Moon Jiyoung calls them liberals in her articles including “Gaehwagi joseonui jayujuui suyoungron?"
(Discourses on Koreans’ reception of ‘liberalism’ in the late 19th-century Chosun?), Sahoegwahak Yeongu
11 (2003): 213–232. Some scholars, however, call the Enlightenment theorists democrats, among whom are
Yun Soon-gap and Ahn Oi-soon.
17
Lee Nami, Hanguk jayujuuiui giwon (The origin of Korean liberalism) (Seoul: Chaeksesang, 2001), 45–
48.
26
individuals, but only for the elite class. Although they realized they needed popular
support, they still did not want the populace to become independent citizens. This elitism
and distrust of the people were partly due to their Confucian notions, and partly due to
the nature of liberalism itself, which originally served the interest of the European
bourgeoisie.
As their nation’s independence grew more and more precarious, Korean
Enlightenment thinkers came to be more active in pursuing the path of Western progress
to develop Korea into a wealthy and powerful nation. The Korean intellectuals’ respectful
attitude toward Western civilization made them generally accept the West blindly,
without seriously asking what flaws it contained or whether it was truly desirable for
Korea. 18 One of the best evidence of this blindness was their acceptance of Social
Darwinism, whose logical conclusion suggested that “uncivilized” non-Western nations
should reform themselves to be “civilized” like the Western nations. Ideas of social
evolution appeared in many articles in various journals, books, and newspapers of that
period.
One of the most distinguished Enlightenment theorists and the first Korean who
studied in the United States, Yu Kil-Chun, was also among the advocates of the theory of
social evolution. In his famous travelogue of the West, he discussed this theory and one
of its most prominent theorists, the American scholar Edward S. Morse. 19 The theory was
first imported from Japan to late Chosun in the 1880s when Korean Enlightenment
18
Moon Jiyoung, “Hangugui geundae gukga hyeongseonggwa jayujuui" (Korean nation-building and
liberalism), Hanguk Jeongchi Hakhoebo 39, no. 1 (March 2005): 190.
19
Yu Kil-Chun, Seoyugyeonmun (Travelogue of the West) (Seoul: Sahae Munjip, 2004).
27
theorists spread the works of various Japanese scholars, among them Fukuzawa Yukichi,
the most prominent Japanese modern thinker. Fukuzawa’s social evolutionist book,
Survey of Civilization Theories, became a bestseller during the late Chosun. Yu Kil-Chun
came to know of Professor Morse when he studied in Japan and became Morse’s student
when he went to the United States for study. 20 The idea of social evolution appealed to
Yu Kil-Chun and many other late Chosun reformers, since it not only explained the gap
between Korea and the Western nations, but also suggested a clear road for Korea to
follow. 21 For this reason, social evolutionist theory remained popular in Korea until the
end of the Japanese occupation. Korean liberals of the late Chosun and Japanese
occupation, in this sense, accepted the basic assumption of Western “modernism”
concerning the linear development of societies. This rather blind adherence to Western
liberalism rendered them vulnerable to a racial and imperial discourse that dichotomized
the world between the civilized and the uncivilized. 22
Despite the uncritical reception of the Western liberalism by the early liberals, the
liberalism accepted by Korean intellectuals was transformed in its particular Korean
context. This was partly because they received Western ideas indirectly through China
and Japan. In particular, early enlightenment theorists such as Yu Kil-Chun and Park
20
Kang Junman, Hanguk geundaesa sanchaek (Stroll in modern Korean history), vol. 1 (Seoul: Inmulgwa
Sasangsa, 2007), 284–291.
21
Kang Jeongmin, “Jachirongwa singminji jayujuui" (Autonomy theory and colonial liberalism), Hanguk
Cheolhak Nonjip 16 (March 2005): 17.
22
Lee Nami, “19segimal hanguk jayujuuiui chinjegukjuuijeok seonggyeok" (The pro-Imperialism of
Korean liberalism in the late 19th century), Asea Yeongu 105 (2001): 159–160, 163-169.
28
Younghyo were greatly influenced by Fukuzawa Yukichi. 23 However, a more important
reason for the refraction of the idea was the peculiar historical context of the late Chosun
dynasty and the Japanese colonial occupation. The liberal idea was transformed when the
intellectuals attempted to use it to change society. 24 The Enlightenment theorists who
wanted to use the idea to reform Korean society paid special attention to the institutional
aspects of the Western liberal idea such as suffrage and the division of powers. 25
Individual economic independence also became less of a priority than the greater cause of
increasing national wealth and power due to the fact that their country was in danger of
losing its sovereignty. 26 Although individual freedom and rights were regarded as
important, Enlightenment theorists subordinated them to the larger goal of national
development. For example, Shin Chaeho, one of the best-known nationalist scholars,
advocated liberal reform not necessarily because it would increase individual rights, but
because he believed that the liberal ideas would ultimately strengthen his nation. 27 He
embraced liberalism as an instrument to achieve the nationalist goal. In this sense,
Korea’s early liberalism made an alliance with nationalism that continued even after
23
Lee Nami, “19segimal gaehwapaui jayujuui sasang: dongnip sinmuneul jungsimeuro" (Liberal idea of
the 19th century Korean enlightenment theorists: examination of The Independence),” Hanguk Jeongchihak
Hoebo 35, no. 3 (2001): 2–3.; Moon Jiyoung, “Discourses on Koreans’ reception of liberalism,” 225-226.
24
Moon Jiyoung, “Discourses on Koreans’ reception of liberalism,” 229-230.
25
Jeong Yong-hwa, “Jayuwa jaju: hanguk gaehwagi jayu gwanyeomui ihae (Freedom and independence:
understanding the Koreans’ concept of freedom during the enlightenment era),” Hanguk Jeongchi Sasang
Hakhoe and Ilbon Jeongchi Sasang Hakhoe Je 1 Hoe Gongdong Haksul Hoeui Balpyo Nonmun (2002): 6–
7.; Moon Jiyoung, “Discourses of Koreans’ reception of liberalism,” 219.
26
Moon Jiyoung, “Korean nation-building and liberalism,” 191.
27
Lee Jijung, “Danjae Shin Chaeho gyoyukgwan gochal” (Study of the educational philosophy of Shin
Chaeho), Gyoyuk Sasang Yeongu 21, no. 2 (2007): 81–83.
29
liberation.
However, the potentially contradictory goals of early liberalism in Korea became
more and more apparent as their nation was doomed to lose its independence. One set of
goals encompassed individual economic freedom without regulations, yet the other goals
of national and political independence demanded certain restrictions on individual rights.
Moreover, the intellectuals’ liberal idea in this era was clearly distinguished from the idea
of democracy. Even though they focused on suffrage and the division of powers, they did
not regard the people as principal agents of governance, but instead as subjects to be
persuaded and governed. These inner contradictions deepened and the paradoxical
coexistence of liberal and national ideas finally ended when Chosun was annexed by
Japan in 1910.
A small number of liberals who did not want to compromise with the Japanese
colonizers moved to foreign nations such as Russia, China, and the United States to
pursue nationalist movements by focusing on either diplomatic methods or armed
struggle. The expatriates who went to the United States reaffirmed their belief in
liberalism by living in a liberal democracy and strongly advocated liberal democracy
when they later returned to Korea after liberation. Also, as a recent study reveals, some of
the important supporters of liberalism went to China and became leaders in the militant
nationalist movement and helped draft the constitution of the provisional government
based in Shanghai, which was democratic and liberal. 28 These expatriates would later
come back to Korea after liberation and affect Koreans’ understanding of liberalism and
28
Moon Jiyoung, “Korean nation-building and liberalism,” 194-196.
30
democracy.
However, most liberal intellectuals tried to survive the Japanese occupation by
discarding their political aspiration for national independence, concentrating instead on
improving Korean education and the economy. We can see that this was a variation of the
social evolutionist theory; those who had advocated the idea of social evolution now
emphasized that education and the economy could be strengthened by cultivating national
ability. Ahn Chang ho, as a vanguard of this theory, argued that liberation would be
achieved not by other nations’ help, but only through the evolution of Korea’s own power.
By this, he meant that Koreans needed to increase their own capacity to self-govern
before they could be liberated from Japan. This concept suited the Japanese as they could
cast themselves as tutors to Koreans. It is not surprising, therefore, that the so-called
“new intellectuals” who studied in Japan during the Taisho Democracy of the 1910s and
1920s followed this trend. 29 Within the context of colonization, these Korean intellectuals
rejected the approach of early liberals as unrealistic and attempted to focus on efforts to
cultivate ability. 30
While striving to enhance national capacity, the new intellectuals also embraced
and spread democratic ideas in the colonized Chosun. The idea of democracy discussed
29
The Taisho period in Japanese history went from July 30, 1912 to December 25, 1926, coinciding with
the reign of the Taisho Emperor. The health of the new emperor was frail, which prompted the shift in
political power from the old oligarchic group of elder statesmen (genro) to the Diet of Japan and the
democratic parties. Thus, the era is considered the time of the liberal movement known as the “Taisho
democracy” in Japan; it is usually distinguished from the preceding chaotic Meiji period and the following
militarism-driven first half of the Showa period.
30
Lee Tae-hun, “1920nyeondae cho sinjisigincheungui minjujuuiron-gwa geu seonggyeok” (Discourse and
nature of democracy embraced by the new intellectuals of the 1920s), Yeoksawa Hyeonsil 67 (2008): 23–24.
31
by the new Japanese liberal intellectuals, for instance Yoshino Sakujo and Ohyama Ikuo,
tried to resolve the tension between individual rights and national needs by emphasizing
the role of society. While they still gave priority to individuals over the nation, they
claimed that individual rights should be harmonized with social interests. The new
intellectuals who had lost their nation found this emphasis on society useful in
understanding and solving present problems. Abandoning the elitism of early liberals, the
new intellectuals embraced the value of social equality, advocated by Japanese liberal
intellectuals, for the greater realization of individual freedom. 31
Another important influence on the spread of democratic idea in the colonized
Chosun of the 1910s was Wilsonianism. Korean nationalists operating abroad who had
been paying keen attention to the changing international circumstances took note of
Wilson’s declared principles on the new international relations in the aftermath of World
War I. Believing that the Wilsonian principle of self-determination would apply to Korea
as well, these nationalists tried to seize the opportunity seemingly offered by the
developing postwar international order. Although Wilson himself did not consider the
independence of colonized nonwhite nations, the Wilsonian principle of selfdetermination spread rapidly in Chosun, despite strict censorship by the Japanese colonial
government. 32 Yu Chin-o reminisces in his memoir about hearing such words as selfdetermination, Paris Peace Treaty, and President Wilson.33 Koreans’ high expectations
31
Ibid., 33.
32
Erez Manela, The Wilsonian Moment: Self-Determination and the International Origins of Anticolonial
Nationalism, 1st ed. (Oxford University Press, USA, 2009), 128-131.
33
Yu Chin-o, My view of life, 42.
32
that Wilsonian principles would help their nation achieve national independence also
made Koreans favor the liberal democracy the United States was advocating. 34 Many
articles discussed the concept of democracy before and after the March First
Movement. 35
The March First Movement broke out in 1919 amid these optimistic expectations
for the U.S. role in world politics. It was planned and initiated by thirty-three religious
leaders but soon spread nationwide. In the following two months, more than two million
Koreans attended more than 1,500 demonstrations. About 7,500 people were killed and
more than 15,000 were wounded. The movement succeeded in surprising the Japanese
leaders, but it failed to liberate the Korean people. It was not long before Korean
nationalist movement leaders and people realized that their nation was not included in the
new international political order that Wilson had presented. Their hope turned into
frustration. The absence of the expected support from the United States, a representative
of the Western “liberal” nations, contributed to the further decline of early liberalism.
Thus, as explained above, the liberals turned their attention to moving toward a “modern”
civilization by focusing on the economy, in particular, on developing a capitalist system
in Korea. They decided to wait for national independence until Korea could complete its
transition to capitalism and become fully “civilized.” Thus the leadership of the liberal
movement now passed to the emerging bourgeoisie and the landowning class. As
Japanese colonial rule continued, the liberals became pro-Japanese and students of
34
Manela, The Wilsonian Moment, 126–127.
35
Song Byeong-heon et al., Hanguk jayuminjujuuiui jeongaewa seonggyeok (Development and nature of
Korean liberal democracy) (Seoul: Minjuhwaundong ginyeomsaeophoe yeonguso, 2004), 77.
33
modernity under the Japanese. 36 It was at this historical juncture that socialism gained
popularity among many Korean intellectuals, including students at Kyungsung Imperial
University. As I will outline shortly, the ways in which Korean intellectuals understood
socialism were far from monolithic, much as the Koreans’ diverse interpretations of
liberalism.
The trajectory of liberalism described above disproves the prevalent assumption
that liberated Korea was devoid of foreign ideas of political economy; it was not a tabula
rasa on which Americans wrote their ideas and system when they occupied the southern
half of Korea. More importantly, Korean intellectuals not only tried to understand
liberalism and democracy prior to American occupation, but also transformed and
utilized the ideas for their own purposes in the particular Korean historical context.
Although liberal and democratic ideas declined when Japanese oppression increased, they
did not disappear completely. A faith in a linear evolution towards “civilization” or
modernity remained in many intellectuals’ minds throughout the occupation era.
Socialism’s Appeal to Korean Intellectuals
While the “liberal democratic” West, represented by the United States, bitterly
disappointed Koreans who had high expectations of Woodrow Wilson’s principle of
national self-determination, socialism appealed to a wide range of Korean people under
36
Kim Gyeong-il, Hangugui geundaewa geundaeseong (Modern Korea and Its Modernity) (Seoul:
Baeksan Seodang, 2003), 123; Lee Nami, The origin of Korean liberalism.
34
Japanese rule. 37 The success of the Russian Revolution had a great impact on Korea. The
liberal nationalist movement that focused on improving the capacity of Korean people
had produced few results, and the Soviet Revolution demonstrated to Koreans that an
idea could really change society. Koreans thus began to cherish the hope that socialism
would change the harsh reality of Japanese oppression. Moreover, unlike the Western
liberal nations, which paid little attention to the desires of colonized peoples, the Soviet
government seemed very supportive of colonial independence movements. 3839 One of the
declared goals of the Soviet 1919 Comintern was to support decolonization movements
against imperial powers. At this point, the Soviet Union’s promises of support seemed
full of promise, not as hollow as it would seem in later years.
Meanwhile, the colonized government instituted a new policy of appeasement that
allowed socialist ideas an entrée into Korea. In the wake of the 1919 March First
Movement, popular movements began to grow in the 1920s, especially among laborers
and farmers. To placate them, the new policy allowed group activities among the
colonized, and thus in the pages of Shin Heung and elsewhere, Koreans were able to
explore socialism rather freely. 40 Korean intellectuals had contact with socialist ideas,
37
Jeon Sang-suk, “Singminji sidae jwapa jisigine gwanhan yeongu" (Study on leftist intellectuals during
the Japanese occupation era) (Ph.D. Diss., Ewha Womans University, 1997), 12–35.
38
Park Hyeon-chae and Jeong Chang-yeol (eds), Hanguk minjokjuuiron je III gwon (Korean Nationalism,
vol. III) (Seoul: Changjakgwa Bipyeongsa, 1985), 284–285.
39
Seo Jung-seok, “Iljesidae sahoejuuijadeurui minjokgwangwa gyegeupgwan” (Socialist view on nation
and class under Japanese colonial rule) in Hanguk Minjokjuuiron je III gwon (Korean Nationalism, vol. III),
ed. Park Hyeon-chae and Jeong Chang-yeol (Seoul: Changjak-gwa Bipyeongsa, 1985), 284–285.
40
Kim Chang-sun, Hanguk gongsanjuui undongsa (History of Korean communism) (Seoul: Bukhan
Yeonguso, 1999), 101–110.
35
then popular around the world, through various routes. Especially important was the role
of Koreans in the Soviet Union and Japan, who were in favorable position to receive
information about socialism. Hanin Sahoedang (The Korean Socialist Party) and Koryeo
Kongsandang (the Korean Communist Party) were the first socialist groups established in
1918 in the Soviet Union and China respectively. Although both were dissolved in 1922,
the two parties were important in promoting socialism in the beginning stages of the
movement. 41 If the socialists in the Soviet Union and China were active in forming
socialist organizations, Korean students in Japan contributed to popularizing socialism in
Korea by importing more systematically formulated socialist ideas and theories. Having
had many opportunities to hear socialist theories under the liberal atmosphere of the
Taisho democracy, students studying in Japan actively introduced socialist ideas to
Koreans on their return. 42
With the support and influence of Koreans abroad, socialist ideas became
widespread among intellectuals and students during the 1920s. The intellectuals and
students, not the laboring class, became the vanguard of socialism, not only because the
laboring class lacked enough collective power and class consciousness, but also because
socialism was transferred to Korea mainly by students in the form of knowledge. 43
Korean intellectuals and students tried to spread socialist ideas to laborers and farmers by
organizing socialist circles and reading clubs, conducting lectures, and publishing books
41
Ibid., 48-54.
42
Jeon Sang-suk, “Study on leftist intellectuals," 198.
43
Jin Deokgyu, “Hangugeseoui sahoejuui jisigingwa nongmin nodongja munje" (The question of socialist
intellectuals and peasants/labors in Korea), Dong-a Yeongu 13 (1988): 109–110.
36
and articles. Their efforts to attract laborers and farmers, however, could not succeed
because the Japanese colonial government became harsher after the establishment of the
Chosun Communist Party.
The early socialist movement in Korea, however, had other challenges. The lack
of strong support from the laboring class, socialist groups during the Japanese occupation
of course lacked the power to change society. But the make-up of the laboring class at
this time made efforts to indoctrinate them especially difficult. The number of laborers
had increased as Japanese rule tried to draw its colony into its capitalist economic system.
Most of the workers, however, were not regular workers hired in factories, but nonregular and unskilled labors working on piers or construction sites. The inaccessibility
and shifting work force could not be easily organized or instilled with class
consciousness. 44 Therefore, in most cases, socialism remained a form of knowledge
instead of becoming a guide to social change.
Early socialism’s lack of a solid base in the workforce also made the identity of
the socialist movement ambiguous in the colonial reality. 45 Some accepted socialism as a
weapon for national liberation with which to fight against the Japanese colonizers, but
other radical communists paid more attention to the class contradictions that had begun to
appear under Japanese rule. Other Korean socialists could not decide between the two,
whether to prioritize a nationalist movement or a class one. This ambiguity of socialist
44
Mun Yun-geol, “Ilje chogi imgeum nodongja gyegeup hyeongseong gwajeonggwa geu jonjae hyeongtaee gwanhan yeongu" (The conditions of the wage working class of Korea in the period of early Japanese
imperialism) (M.A. Thesis, Jeonbuk National University, 1987), 38–59.
45
Seo Jung seok, “Socialist view,” 272-339.
37
identity made it difficult to connect with nationalism and to achieve coalition-building.
The shared goal of opposition to the Japanese rule made socialists and nationalists
collaborate in an association called the Shinganhoe [New Korea Society]. However,
tensions between the two groups could not be fundamentally resolved, and thus
Shinganhoe did not last long.
Another limitation of the socialist movement in Korea was the deference of
leading socialist intellectuals and students to the leadership of the Soviet Union or the
Comintern, in providing clear ways to change their society. 46 The problem arose from the
Comintern’s ignorance of local political and social contexts. For example, the more
extreme leftist leadership of the Sixth Comintern directed Korean leaders to dissolve the
Shinganhoe. The Shinganhoe association was created in February 1927 by Hong Myunghee and dissolved in May 1931. This organization had more than 100 chapters and 40,000
members. One of its main purposes was to consolidate socialist and nationalist
movements. Although the Shinganhoe had played an important role not only in the
growth of the movement, but also in increasing the capacity of the nationalist movement,
its leaders followed the Comintern’s instructions. The obedience of Korean socialist
leaders to the instructions of the Comintern turned many other socialists away from the
movement and ultimately divided it.
Although I have surveyed the peculiar nature and its limitations of socialism of
the 1920s and 1930s during the Japanese occupation, my broader goal is to underst how
Korean intellectuals in this era responded to Western ideas. Against the background
46
Jeon Sang-suk, “Study on leftist intellectuals," 199.
38
knowledge of socialism’s popularity, therefore, I now focus on students at Kyungsung
Imperial University for a deeper analysis of how Korean intellectuals and students, under
Japanese rule, struggled with these new foreign ideas.
Kyungsung Imperial University
Kyungsung Imperial University was founded in 1924, during the period of
transition in Japanese colonial policy from the strict mudan tongchi [Military Rule] to the
so-called munhwa jungchi [Cultural Rule]. In response to the nationwide March First
Movement, Japanese colonial leaders adopted an appeasement policy not only to pacify
the Korean people but also to accelerate their assimilation into the Japanese empire. The
university, one of the important products of Cultural Rule, thus can be a good window
through which to consider how Korean intellectuals and students struggled with colonial
realities and responded to the influx of foreign knowledge and ideas. Considering the
importance of the university in Korean intellectual history, existing study of the
institution is surprisingly thin: only a few volumes and articles have been written about it,
and even those focus primarily on the motives of the Japanese leaders in establishing the
university and pay little attention to the students themselves. 47 I will therefore focus on
the kinds of Western knowledge and ideas the students received and how this affected
their lives under Japanese occupation.
Understanding this group of intellectuals is also important in that they would
assume key roles after liberation. Many of the post-liberation politicians, educators,
47
Most of the work about Kyungsung Imperial University has been cited in the above footnotes.
39
lawyers, and writers graduated from this school. 48 It remains, however, a question
whether Kyungsung Imperial University students and graduates represent Korean
intellectuals of the time. Some might argue that they were exceptional in being almost
guaranteed high social positions by entering the university. I, however, chose to look at
this group since they lived in a gray area: they had to struggle with the colonial reality in
their daily lives, instead of devoting all their efforts to the independence movement. They
were in a situation similar to that of most colonized intellectuals in experiencing a
conflict between their Korean identity and the colonial reality. Although Kyungsung
students and graduates were somewhat extreme models of colonial intellectuals, they still
felt and behaved as other students did. Though elites among the Korean people, they were
discriminated against by the Japanese government and were denied the high-status
positions in their own country; such were reserved only for the Japanese. Kyungsung
Imperial University students can thus be a lens through which to observe how Korean
intellectuals struggled with colonial realities.
Japan’s education policy in Chosun had the clear goal of transforming Koreans
into loyal subjects of the Japanese emperor by assimilating them into his empire. In order
to do this, Japanese teachers forced Koreans to use the Japanese language throughout
their education and taught them Japanese history, geology, and moral training. 49 This
assimilation policy, however, does not mean that Koreans had equal opportunities to the
48
Jeong Seoni, Gyeongseong jeguk daehak yeongu (Study on Kyungsung Imperial University) (Seoul:
Muneumsa, 2002), 163–167.
49
Park Cheol-hui, “Ilje gangjeomgi hanguk jungdeung gyoyuk" (Korean middle school education during
the Japanese occupation), Gyoyuksahak Yeongu 14 (2004): 142–146.
40
Japanese. Japanese discrimination against Korean students continued in many ways until
the end of the occupation. In particular, Korean students had fewer opportunities for
higher education than did Japanese students. Education for Koreans was focused on the
elementary level and vocational training. Not a single university existed until the
establishment of Kyungsung Imperial University, and existing post-secondary education
institutions that had been founded by Western missionaries or Koreans were either closed
or downgraded to training schools during the 1910s. 50 Even when Kyungsung University
was established and Korean students began to receive higher education, the number of
Korean students admitted to the university was very small. 51 In addition, Korean students
were under the surveillance of school authorities, and their activities were often
controlled by the teachers. 52
The educational system in Korea fundamentally changed during the course of
Japanese rule. In the first ten years of colonial rule, Koreans were in a separate
educational system from the Japanese and received fewer years of education than
Japanese students. 53 Starting in the early 1920s, Japanese rulers began to integrate once
50
For example, Ewha, Soongsil, and Bosung were not licensed even to become colleges. There were only
four public and two private schools licensed as colleges in 1919, including the newly founded Yeonhee
Colleges and Severance Medical Colleges. Existing schools became colleges only after “Cultural Rule”
began in the 1920s. These schools, however, were not permitted to become universities until the end of
Japanese rule.
51
Jeong Seoni, Study on Kyungsung, 150-159; Gocheonseonja, “Iljesidaeui jung-godeung gyoyuk"
(Middle- and high-school education during the Japanese occupation era), Gyoyuksahak Yeongu 6 (1996):
66–67.
52
Park Cheol-hui, “Korean middle school,” 146-150.
53
Attending separate schools from Japanese students, Korean students had only four years of elementary
and four years of secondary education and were prevented from getting higher education.
41
separate Korean education system to become a part of the Japanese. 54 Kyungsung
Imperial University was born in this transitional period. Scholars, however, do not agree
on specific motives for its establishment. Some Korean and Japanese scholars argue that
the foundation of Kyungsung Imperial University was a response to the increased
demands of Korean people for higher education in the wake of the March First
Independence Movement. 55 Korean nationalist leaders organized the Chosun Gyoyukhoe
[Society for Korean Education] in June 1920 and began to conduct a fundraising
campaign to establish a Korean civil university. 56 Scholars emphasizing Korean
initiatives claim that the colonial government, by establishing an imperial university, was
trying to appease Korean discontent over their lack of opportunity for higher education,
while at the same time putting higher education under its own control. 57
Other scholars pay attention to the changes in Japanese political culture and
imperial policy. They contend that the Korean movement to establish a civil university
was affected by the Japanese plan to found an imperial university in Chosun, and not vice
54
Gocheonseonja, “Middle- and high-school education,” 45-51.
55
The following articles take this point of view: Kim Ho-il, “Iljeha millipdaehak seollip undonge daehan il
gochal" (Study of the establishing movement of private college), Jungang Saron 1 (1972): 31–58; Son Insu,
“1920 nyndae joseon millip daehak seolchie gwanhan yeongu" (Study of the establishment of Chosun
private university in the 1920s), Gyoyukhak Yeongu 5, no. 1 (1967); Jeong Jae-cheol, “Ilbon jegukjuui
chimryakgiui gyoyuk (Education under the Japanese occupation),” in Hanguk gyoyuksa (History of Korean
education) ed. Hanguk Gyoyuksa Yeonguhoe (Seoul: Gyoyuk Chulpansa, 1990).
56
This was called “millip daehak seollip undong” (Establishing movement of private college).
57
Yu Chin-o, My View of Life, 73-75; Song Han-yong, “Ilbonui singminji daehakgyoyuk jeongchaek bigyo
yeongu" (Comparative study of the Japanese colonial education policy – based on Kyungsung Imperial
University and Manchu Jiankuo University), Jungguksa Yeongu 16 (2001): 264.
42
versa. 58 It is helpful to remember that Japanese mainland was in the era of Taisho
Democracy and that the first commoner prime minister of liberal tendencies, Hara
Takashi, was a critic of separatism and a strong supporter of the “mainland extension
policy.” He appointed liberal-leaning Saito Makoto as the new governor general in
Chosun, who changed the existing oppressive militaristic policy to a reconciling one
called “Cultural Rule.” 59 Viewed from this perspective, the establishment of Kyungsung
Imperial University was a result of changes in Japanese colonial policy.
Whether it was the petition of Korean people or changes in Japanese imperial
policy that contributed to the establishment of the imperial university in Chosun,
Japanese leaders had specific and clear goals. First, they intended to train Korean elites to
become pro-Japanese and to help Japanese leaders rule Korea. With more and more
students going abroad to study and escape colonial government control, Japanese rulers
in Korea felt that the existing policy of prohibiting Koreans from getting higher education
was no longer useful. They wanted to find a way to train Korean students under their own
control by setting up a university in Chosun. 60 The first president of the university,
Hattori Unoske, emphasized in his inauguration speech that studying at the university
58
Jeong Gyu-yeong, “Gyeongseong jegukdaehagui seollip gwajeong" (The process of the establishment of
Kyungsung Imperial University), Cheongju Gyoyuk Daehakgyo Nonmunjip 35 (1998): 144; Baek Yeongseo, “Sangsangsogui chaiseong, gujosogui dongilseong" (Difference in imagination, identity in structure –
comparison between Korea and Taiwan), Hangukhak Yeongu 14 (2005): 176; Song Han-yong,
“Comparative study,” 259-260.
59
Jeon Sang-suk, “1920nyundae Saito chongdogui jeoseon tongchigwangwa ‘naeji yeonjangjuui'”
(Governor-General Saito’s view of ruling Korea and ‘the mainland extension policy’ in the 1920s),
Damron201 11, no. 2 (2008): 9–14.
60
Jeong Gyu-yeong, “The process of the establishment,” 137–140.
43
should serve the nation. 61 That many of Kyungsung Imperial University graduates
became government officials or teachers shows that the Japanese leaders in a way
achieved their goal. 62
Another important motive of Japanese leaders in creating Kyungsung Imperial
University was to acquire knowledge about their colonies. They promoted Oriental
studies and Chosun studies at the university in order to use the knowledge thus gained to
support colonial rule and expansion of their empire. 63 The first president, Hattori himself,
had been a professor of Oriental philosophy at Tokyo Imperial University. 64 A
department of Chosun language and literature was set up and Japanese experts such as
Takashi Tohoru began to study Chosun seriously. 65 The Beopmun Hakhoe [Society of
Faculty of Law and Literature] published several scholarly journals containing
knowledge of Chosun in various fields. The research subjects of the professors expanded
into the Chinese continent after Japan waged war against China from the 1930s,
especially on Manchuria and Mongolia. Several research institutions were established for
61
Park Gwang-hyeon, “Gyeongseong jegukdaehak anui ‘dongyangsahak’” (‘Oriental history’ as a
discipline in Kyungsung Imperial University – a study of the discipline system from the viewpoint of
cultural history), Hanguk Sasanggwa Munhwa 31 (2005): 285.
62
Jeong Seoni, Study on Kyungsung, 141–164.
63
Park Gwang-hyeon, “Oriental history,” 285-313; Kim Jae-hyeon, “Hangugeseo geundaejeok
hangmuneuroseo cheolhagui hyungseonggwa geu teukjing” (A study of the formation processes and
characteristics of modern philosophy in Korea - by focusing on Kyungsung Imperial University during the
Japanese occupation), Sidaewa Cheolhak 18, no. 3 (2007): 192.
64
Park Gwang-hyeon, “Oriental history,” 285-286.
65
Park Gwang-hyeon, “Gyeongseongjedae ‘joseoneohak joseon munhak’ gangjwa yeongu” (Study of
‘Chosun linguistics and Chosun literature’ course in the Kyungsung Imperial University), Hangugeo
Munhak Yeongu 41 (2003): 343–375.
44
continental studies and some scholarly investigation committees were sent to Manchuria
and Mongolia in order to support the Japanese war with China. 66
At the same time, Japanese leaders had other motives. Looking at the increasing
number of Korean students since the 1920s going abroad for study, mainly to Japan,
Japanese colonial leaders hoped to reverse that trend by giving them the opportunity for
higher education in Chosun. 67 The colonial government also intended to meet the
requests of Japanese residents of Chosun for a university in Chosun so that they need not
go to Japan for higher education. 68 Kyungsung Imperial University thus tried to recruit
highly qualified scholars who had studied abroad and invited native speakers to teach
foreign languages.
Although it tried to attract Korean students, the admission rate for Koreans was
very low. The university served the families of Japanese settler colonists as well as
Japanese colonial officials. Although the university denied discriminating in the entrance
assessments, admitted Korean students did not exceed a third of the total, a proportion not
at all reflecting the total number of Japanese and Korean students within Korea. 69 Those
66
Jeong Gyu-yeong, “Colonialismgwa hangmunui jeongchihak” (Colonialism and the Politics of
Scholarship), Gyoyuksahak Yeongu 9 (1999): 21–36.
67
Jeong Gyu-yeong, “The process of the establishment,” 138.
68
Scholars generally assume that the Japanese in Korea wanted a good higher education institution in
Korea. Also, the duration of education in Korea during the early occupation era was shorter than in Japan.
Thus students who finished secondary education in Korea still needed one or two more years of further
education to get into the four-year colleges in Japan. Han Yong-jin, “Ilje Singminji godeunggyoyuk
jeongchaekgwa Gyeongseong jegukdaehagui uisang” (Japanese policy on colonial higher education and the
status of Kyungsung Imperial University), Gyoyukmunje Yeongu 8 (1996): 171; Jeong Seoni, Study on
Kyungsung, 19-20; Kim Jae-hyeon, “A study of the formation,” 192.
69
In total 150-200 students were admitted to the university every year.
45
Koreans who passed the entrance exam in this bitter competition were thus the most
gifted students.
The university had two years of preparatory courses and four years of regular
courses. During the preparatory courses, students studied foreign languages intensively
including Japanese, Chinese and other foreign languages, and learned basic subjects such
as mathematics, moral training, psychology, and gymnastics. In addition, students in the
sciences learned zoology, botany, chemistry, physics, and drawing, while liberal arts
students learned sciences, history, philosophy, law, and economics. 70 The regular courses
provided in the university included law, history, economics, politics, sociology,
philosophy, psychology, education, Asian Studies, Japanese, Korean, Korean literature,
and medicine-related lectures. Notably, professors showed a wide spectrum of ideologies.
While one prominent Japanese liberal professor tried to instill anti-nationalist thinking
into his students, another Japanese scholar, a radical Marxist, criticized the Japanese
colonial government’s exploitation of the Korean people. 71
The general atmosphere of university life was liberal. 72 Once students entered
university, they learned various subjects, read literature they were interested in, and
enjoyed sports just like the Japanese students. Although Korean and Japanese students
did not get along very well, the Korean students were not daunted, or at least tried not to
be. When Korean students ranked higher in tests, they swelled with pride. Although there
70
Lee Chung-u, Kyeongseong jegukdaehak (Kyungsung Imperial University) (Seoul: Darakwon, 1980),
70–71; Jeong Seoni, Study on Kyungsung, 81.
71
Lee Yeong-lok, Yujino: Heonbeop sasangui hyeongseonggwa jeongae (Yu Chin-o: Shaping and progress
of constitutional idea) (Seoul: KIS, 2006), 33.
72
Ibid., 32-33.
46
were professors who discriminated against Korean students, the university in general
tried not to make them feel discriminated against. 73 Most Korean students enjoyed their
privileged college lives quite freely by exploring various areas of foreign knowledge.
Korean students at Kyungsung were in a peculiar situation. Although feeling great
pride in being Kyungsung students and confident they would move up in society, they
also felt inferior to Japanese and Western powers. In an inquiry about student hobbies,
many students responded that they enjoyed Western music and sports. Many Kyugsung
University students—both Korean and Japanese—also had a “Tokyo Imperial University
complex:” although they were the best in Chosun, they felt that they were not the best in
the whole Japanese empire. And although the Korean students wanted to be the best in
the empire, most Korean students still harbored anti-Japanese sentiments, to greater and
lesser degrees. They organized Korean students’ circles, reading clubs, and sports teams.
As mentioned, they sometimes had conflicts with Japanese students. The clear goal of a
resistance group called the Anti-Imperialism League was to oppose Japanese imperialism
and establish a relationship with communists.
The overall attitude of the Korean students to Japanese imperialism might best be
described as passive resistance. They were indignant at the Japan’s colonization of Korea
and hoped their country would soon be liberated. However, they did not cross the line to
decry the Japanese colonial government. The Anti-Imperialism League Incident was an
isolated episode: most Korean students did not even know about the league. They
generally studied hard while associating with other Korean students. Some focused more
73
Yu Chin-o, My View of Life, 76-78.
47
on their schoolwork and others on general reading, including the socialist literature
popular among intellectuals of the period.
The newly coined terms “Marx boy” and “Engels girl” show the popularity of
socialist ideas at the time. 74 The existence of many socialist study groups also shows that
socialism was widespread among students. Students read and discussed socialist literature
by Marx, Engels, Lenin, Bukharin, and Plekhanov. The largest leftist study circle,
Kyungje Yeonguhoe [Society for Economic Study], was legally organized under the
liberal atmosphere of the university in 1926. 75 Yu Chin-o and Lee Hyo Suk, who later
became a noted novelist, were leading members of the circle. The society also had
students who later became core members of Namrodang [the South Korea Labor Party]. 76
As it attracted more and more students, the university attempted to exercise control over
this party by prohibiting contact with outside groups.
There were also more radical socialist groups that operated secretly and actually
put their ideas into action by participating in anti-Japanese movements. Sahoe Gwahak
Yeonguhoe [Society for the Study of Social Science], organized by Korean students at
several schools including Kyungsung Imperial University, was involved in the 6.10
Independence Movement in 1926. The Anti-Imperialism Movement was also carried out
by members of secret reading clubs. Although these were somewhat exceptional cases,
the colonial government felt threatened by them and began to strengthen its surveillance
74
Jeong Seoni, Study on Kyungsung, 150.
75
Yu Chin-o, My View of Life, 92-94.
76
Lee Chung-u, Kyungsung Imperial University, 127.
48
of socialist movements. 77
Most Korean students, however, did not translate socialist ideas into action. While
many Korean students accepted socialism as a way to defy the colonial government and
Japanese empire, they had no clear intention of taking part in actual subversive activities.
Although many Kyungsung students seem to have read Marx and Lenin to find a way to
resist the Japanese empire, few of them acted upon what they read. There seems to have
been a conflict between the socialist ideas themselves and the students’ nationalistic goals.
Whereas socialism is basically concerned with class issues, Korea had pressing national
issues. The students’ elite status, in particular, meant they were in an awkward situation
in putting their socialist ideas into practice. Students in an advantageous position to
“succeed’ socially were vulnerable to the temptation to become members of a higher
class. In addition, despite their strong feelings, they seem to have lacked realistic
strategies for change. Except for the few students who led the groups, most students were
somewhat naive and satisfied with reading and discussing “resistance” literature. 78
Their difficulties increased as Japanese rule continued and its empire expanded.
Japan’s aggressive imperial policy in the 1930s intensified the Korean students’ antiJapanese nationalist sentiment, but the harsher reality ultimately strengthened their
conformity. Japanese colonial rule became more oppressive when the Japanese political
landscape changed in the metropolis. Beginning in the 1930s, Japanese domestic and
foreign policy became more and more aggressive as military groups emerged as political
77
Ibid., 181.
78
Ibid., 158.
49
leaders. Some Korean students then became absorbed in the leftist study groups operating
underground; others concentrated on such ‘decadent’ behaviors as drinking, dancing, and
gambling. In general, however, they became less and less interested in overt resistance to
Japanese colonial rule, which seemed to be getting firmer as Japan expanded its empire in
the continent. Socialist students became more frustrated when the colonial government’s
rule became coercive, but many students, including socialists, took a realistic point of
view: the number of students preparing for the Higher Civil Service Examination
increased. 79
It is also worth pointing out that that while socialism was widespread, not all
students accepted socialist ideas. Many were still fascinated by the liberal ideas and
democratic values of the West. Because they lived in a colonized country, the nation
became an important element to consider, whatever ideas or values they embraced. Since
the Western ideas they accepted often differed from the original ones, Western
definitions of socialism, nationalism, and liberalism cannot properly explain how students
understood Western thoughts and values. In order to better understand how the elites of
the colonized country struggled with Western ideas, I further trace their specific writings
in detail. My analysis now turns to Shin-Heung, a journal launched in 1929 by
Kyungsung graduates.
Shin-Heung: Blended Ideas: Socialism, Nationalism, and Liberalism
The main goal of the scholarly magazine Shin Heung was to discuss issues in the
79
Jeong Seoni, Study on Kyungsung, 152; Lee Chung-u, Kyungsung Imperial University, 151.
50
social sciences, philosophy, Chosun studies [Korean studies], and foreign culture. Shin
Heung meant “newly rising,” and the essays in it show how these intellectuals understood
not only various Western ideas, but also contemporary international relations and their
colonial reality under the Japanese. 80 Yu Chin-o was the main editor and a prolific writer
for Shin Heung. In total nine volumes were issued irregularly between 1929 and 1937,
when Japanese colonial policy was transitioning from somewhat relaxed atmosphere of
the “Cultural Policy” to a more drastic policy of annihilation of the Korean nation and
Japanization of the Korean people.
Despite the caveat above, Shin Heung demonstrates the popularity of socialist
ideas among Kyungsung graduates. Many of their articles on social sciences and
philosophy were based on socialism. Among the important elements of socialism that
attracted Kyungsung students was its opposition to imperialism. 81 However, some recent
Korean scholars have criticized that the students embraced socialist ideas only for their
psychological satisfaction. The truth, however, may lie between those two extreme
judgments. Students living in a colonized country may have been fascinated by socialism
because its world view was, unlike liberal ideas, very critical of capitalism and
imperialism and also because it did not pose difficult questions about whether to follow
the path of Japan and other imperialist Western nations. On the other hand, many Korean
students did not want to risk going beyond reading and discussing socialist ideas and
80
Although I could not find original copies of Shin Heung, a local public library in Daejeon has a facsimile
edition. In the following, I will note the original volume and year below when I cite the articles in the ShinHeung.
81
Lee Chung-u, Kyungsung Imperial University, 120, 180.
51
remained passive in resisting Japanese colonial rule. As a result, socialist criticism of the
capitalism of the imperialist nations, including Japan, gave Korean students not real
weapons to fight with, but rather the personal satisfaction that they were opposing Japan
in some way. Although the students did not intend to study socialism simply for a
psychological reward, they ended up doing so and did not contribute significantly to the
anti-Japanese nationalist movement. 82
Whether they viewed socialism as a tool of resistance or a psychological salve,
most writers in Shin Heung entertained its feasibility. They explored various political,
economic, social and cultural issues generally by focusing on the contradictions in the
capitalist system. Their criticism targeted the bourgeoisie, those regarded as the biggest
beneficiaries of the system. Most of the issues are thus explained in terms of class
conflict. For example, Yu Chin-o, defining national culture as the culture of the bourgeois
class, showed how the class that owned the means of material production also
appropriated the means of spiritual production. 83 Choi Yong-dal (1902 ~ ?) claimed that
property rights were designed to serve the interests of the bourgeois class. 84 He further
argued that development of capitalism would damage democracy by showing how the
principle of separation of the three governmental functions, one of the core principles of
82
Jeong Seoni, Study on Kyungsung, 136-137.
83
Yu Chin-o, “Minjokjeok munhwawa sahoejeok munhwa (National culture and social culture)” ShinHeung 2.
84
Choi Yong-dal was a prominent socialist nationalist theorist during the Japanese occupation. He
participated in the nation-building of North Korea after liberation, but is known to have been purged after
the Korean War.
52
democracy, was destroyed by bourgeois class interest. 85 They thus focused on economic
questions and materialist issues. Even when touching on political issues, they analyzed
them from an economic point of view. They criticized existing bourgeois theory about the
establishment of the legal system from a class-centered socialist perspective. 86 The
socialist view, in this sense, confronted the liberalism embraced by the bourgeois class.
Most of the journal’s authors also took an international perspective in criticizing
the capitalist system. They did not limit their views to Korea, but expanded them to
consider international relations. Following the Marxists’ critical analysis of capitalism,
they explored the contradictions of capitalism as it spread across the globe. They were
well aware of the interdependence of core and periphery in the world system. While
setting out a general theory of the world capitalist system, they paid special attention to
the particular issues of colonial Chosun. For example, Kim Chan-hyeok argued that
capitalism now had become strong enough to infiltrate even the periphery of the world
economy, like Chosun, where agriculture still accounted for 80% of the economy. 87 Park
In-soo traced how Japanese financial capital was associated with the feudal capital of
colonized Chosun, after explaining the general phenomenon that imperial nations exploit
economically underdeveloped nations by using them to sell their products and invest their
capital. 88
85
Choi Yong-dal, “Samgwon bullipron” (Principle of three powers), Shin-Heung 3.
86
Yu Chin-o, “Beopryure jaehan sahoe minjujuui” (Social democracy in law), Shin-Heung 4.
87
Kim Chan-hyeok, “Joseonui gong-eop munje-e daehayeo” (On the question of manufacturing industry in
Chosun), Shin-Heung 1.
88
Park In-soo, “Bonggeon yujewa geumyung jabonui yahap” (Coalition of feudal remnants and financial
capital), Shin-Heung 4.
53
One of the most peculiar ways in which Shin Heung’s contributors used socialism
was as a lens through which Korean intellectuals understood complex domestic and
international affairs, rather than as a template for carrying out a revolution. The socialist
lens was attractive to Korean intellectuals as it “scientifically” explained current social
and economic phenomena, unlike liberalism, which seemed simply to emphasize what
should be considered the ideal values of society. Korean intellectuals also mined socialist
ideas to point out problems in current domestic and international affairs, rather than
adhering to the logic of the imperialist Western nations. Korean socialism of this period
can also be seen as a lens in a sense that it did not ask people to act. Most of the works
published in Shin Heung focused on analyzing Korean society, world politics, and the
economy, but they went no further to persuade people to put such knowledge into
practice. This was, of course, partly due to Japanese censorship. Yet the fact that Korean
intellectuals themselves seldom participated in the political movement against imperial
Japanese rule demonstrates that under Japanese rule they received socialist ideas as
knowledge about the world they were living in, not as a code of conduct. 89
Another reason for the intellectuals’ non-action or passivity was related to the fact
that Korean socialism during this period was a kind of faith, a hope, for a brighter future.
Korean socialist intellectuals at this time believed, or wanted to believe, Karl Marx’s
prediction that the capitalist system would fall at the hands of a world communist
89
Yu Chin-o, “National culture and social culture,” Shin-Heung 2; Choi Un-hae, “Gambong cheolpye
munje” (On the question of salary reduction), Shin-Heung 5; Yu Chin-o, “Chusanggwa yumul
byeonjeungbeop” (Abstraction and materialistic dialectic), Shin-Heung 6; Lee Seong-yong, “Gyeongjejeok
dongmaengpaeopgwa jeongchijeok tujaeng” (Economic strikes and political strife), Shin-Heung 6.
54
revolution. 90 The authors in Shin Heung therefore assumed that the capitalist system was
already headed for downfall. 91 The collapse of the system for them was not something to
be achieved with great effort, but a logical and natural result of the development of
capitalism. This belief was based on their confidence that the socialist theory was so
“scientific” and “logical” that it could predict the future. Moreover, the socialist picture
of the future was positive and hopeful, unlike the liberal idea, which lacked a clear
solution for Japanese colonial rule in Korea. This socialist theory thus allowed them to
bear the harsh colonial reality by keeping alive a dream of future liberation from
imperialism. Korean students and intellectuals were attracted to the positive picture
espoused and backed by “scientific” theory.
Not all Shin Heung’s contributors were drawn to socialism, however. Some
authors can be called nationalists since they focused on promoting native Korean
thoughts and culture. For example, Cho Yun-je highlighted the importance of restoring
authentic Korean culture while criticizing the tendency of Koreans to accept Western
ideas uncritically. 92 He did not, however, oppose the introduction of Western ideas
themselves, but rather emphasized a critical understanding of them. Furthermore, the
mere fact that nationalists published their articles in the same magazine as socialists
indicates that the relationship between the two parties was not necessarily antagonistic.
After all, most socialists were also nationalist in that they longed for national liberation as
90
Yu Chin-o, Jeolmunnarui jahwasang (A self-portrait of my youth) (Seoul: Pakyoungsa, 1976), 33–34.
91
Park In-soo also argued, in his article “Coalition of feudal Remnants and Financial Capital,” that
capitalism was in the process of extinction and the era of proletariat revolution had begun in Chosun.
92
Cho Yun-je, “Hyangto yesul buheung undong” (Restoration movement of birthplace), Shin-Heung 2.
55
well. That was foremost in their minds, not the worldwide downfall of capitalism.
Experiencing discrimination in their daily lives under colonial rule, students at
Kyungsung Imperial University could not help but develop a national consciousness.
They were especially frustrated by being prevented from joining the leading or honors
classes even when they demonstrated the ability to do so. They thus harbored animosity
against the Japanese for their occupation of Korea and seldom got along with Japanese
students at the university, sometimes getting into scuffles with them. 93 The Korean
students organized their own students’ association and even composed their own school
song. 94 For the students who embraced socialism, the nation was an issue of pride; they
did not conceive of it in terms of a specific political economy and thus did not find their
idea of the nation necessarily incompatible with their embrace of socialism.
The socialists did not oppose nationalistic ideas, and nationalists were as critical
of unreflective “bourgeois-nationalism” as the socialist writers. Moreover, they had
common enemies in imperial Japan and the propertied Korean class who collaborated
with the Japanese. The Korean nationalists opposed Japanese rule on the basis of national
interests and self-respect, while the socialists criticized Japanese rule because of
conflicting class interests. This common feature led them to collaborate in a joint
association called Shinganheo. Yu Chin-o later explained that many Korean people joined
leftist organizations regardless of their ideological orientation since they believed that
93
Lee Chung-u, Kyungsung Imperial University, 122-123.
94
Ibid, 168-169.
56
Japanese Empire could be broken only by communist revolution. 95
Contributors to this magazine were generally critical of Japanese imperialism
regardless of their ideological bases. As a sign of resistance to the university policy that
Japanese was the official language, they published the magazine in Korean. Their critical
attitudes toward Japanese colonialism were reflected in their writings indirectly, since the
magazine was based on their academic work. An important target of their criticism was
Japanese studies of Chosun. 96 For example, the writings of Lee Jaewook, Kim Taejoon,
and Ko Yooseop were critical of the current work of Japanese scholars of Chosun. At the
same time, they proposed alternative studies to those of Japanese scholars.
The writers in Shin Heung, however, did not support the narrow-minded
chauvinism of those who rejected the new wave of Western ideas and the “modern.” For
example, Yu Chin-o criticized blind nationalism because it did not consider the
fundamental personal and social relationships behind the scene. 97 Many students were
critical of the existing nationalism for merely holding fast to the nation itself without
questioning what kind of nation it should be. In their eyes, blind conservative nationalism
could not provide deeper knowledge of people and society because it was not based on a
scientific approach. As scientific views and methods were important for them in
understanding the world, “non-scientific” nationalism could not be a solution to Korea’s
difficulties.
95
Yu Chin-o, My View of Life, 92-93.
96
Park Gwang-hyeon, “Gyeongseongjedaewa Shin-Heung” (Kyungsung Imperial University and the
Newly Rising), Hanguk Munhak Yeongu 26 (2003): 254.
97
Ibid., 252.
57
Despite their criticisms of conservative nationalism, most of the students were
still nationalists. Many of those writing in Shin Heung showed affection for their national
culture. One of the editors also emphasized the independence of this knowledge from that
of the Japanese. 98 However, they regarded it as still more important to build a “modern”
nation. They believed that Korea should not go back to the Chosun dynasty, but instead
become a strong nation like Japan and Western nations. This kind of thinking was closely
related to the liberal theory on the cultivation of national ability. As liberation seemed
more and more difficult to obtain, the students paid increasing attention to how Chosun
could be modernized. Therefore, many Kyungsung students can be called “modern”
nationalists in a larger sense who were critical of conservative nationalists, although they
were not active nationalists who actively participated in anti-Japanese movements.
Except for a few radical communists who pursued class solidarity transcending
national borders, most Korean socialists living in a colonized nation could not simply
reject nationalist issues. They therefore endeavored to reconcile the two ideas. One of the
most common ways in which contributors to Shin Heung solved this problem was by
giving a different definition of nationalism from the Western one. Rather than nationalism,
they emphasized what they called “national consciousness.” The former, Yu Chin-o
argued, was a modern product that served bourgeois class interests. 99 In other words, they
did not reject the significance of the nation itself, but criticized the misunderstanding or
misuse of nationalism by a particular class. Cho Yun-je distinguished the “national
98
Ibid., 251.
99
Yu Chin-o, “ National culture and social culture,” Shin-Heung 2.
58
consciousness” embraced by all classes from the “nationalism” supported solely by the
bourgeois class. 100 By doing this, the writers in the magazine did not have to go so far as
to deny their nation, despite their emphasis on transnational cooperation of proletariat
classes. Korean socialists under Japanese rule argued that the cultural internationalism of
the proletariat was not necessarily anti-national. 101
Another important issue is the Shin Heung writers’ attitudes toward liberalism. Of
course, there were significant differences between socialism and liberalism. Many of the
authors in Shin Heung who accepted socialist ideas attacked bourgeois “liberal”
intellectuals and regarded the term “liberal” as negative. 102 The socialists focused on the
collective class interest of the proletariat while liberals set high value on individual rights.
They believed that too much emphasis on individual rights would damage the larger
public good and tend to infringe upon the rights of others who had less power or wealth.
Yu Chin-o predicted that collectivism would revive itself after the fall of “modern”
bourgeois society based on individualism while explaining the dialectic relationship
between individualism and collectivism. 103 Socialists also emphasized the inevitable rule
of historical development whereas liberals highlighted the will of individuals. 104 More
important differences between the two groups lay in the field of economics. Socialists
100
Cho Yun-je, “Restoration movement of birthplace,” Shin-Heung 2.
101
Yu Chin-o, “ National culture and social culture,” Shin-Heung 2.
102
Yu Chin-o, “ National culture and social culture,” Shin-Heung 2; Yu Chin-o, “Social democracy in law,”
Shin-Heung 4; Lee Seong-yong, “Economic strikes and political strife,” Shin-Heung 6; Shin Nam-cheol,
“Minjok ironui sam hyeongtae” (Three kinds of theories of the nation), Shin-Heung 7.
103
Yu Chin-o, “Yumul sagwan danjang” (Comments on historical materialism), Shin-Heung 1.
104
Choi Yong-dal, “Principle of three powers,” Shin-Heung 3.
59
made great efforts to reveal the contradictions of the capitalist system supported by the
liberals. They attacked the unlimited right to private property, the basis of capitalism and
one of the core values of liberalism, by arguing that it would not actually give equal
opportunity to all members of society. 105
However, Kyungsung University graduates generally accepted the values of
freedom and independence even though they had different concepts of freedom from the
liberals. They believed that a truly free culture could be achieved only when proletariat
culture was freed from liberal ideology and emancipated from the bourgeoisie’s attempt
to develop the capitalist system. 106 Many Korean socialists under Japanese rule criticized
not the value of freedom itself but the liberals’ appropriation of it. They were not
rejecting freedom, but correcting what they considered to be the misuse of the concept.
Yu Chin-o complained that the “freedom” of liberals was just the unrestrained will of the
people, and thus one’s “freedom” required another’s sacrifice. The real freedom, he
argued, was realized not by the unlimited satisfaction of one’s desires but by harmonizing
the subjective individual will with the universal social will. Reasonable ownership,
therefore, not simply satisfied one’s desires, but controlled one’s selfishness. 107
Another reason that socialist-leaning contributors of Shin Heung could accept
liberal ideas was that they embraced socialism as “modernity” opposing feudalism. For
example, Yu Chin-o could accept individualism since he understood it as the antithesis of
105
Yu Chin-o, “Hegerui beomnihage natanan sayujaesangwonui gicho” (Basis of the private property rights
presented in the jurisprudence of Hegel), Shin-Heung 3.
106
Yu Chin-o, “National culture and social culture,” Shin-Heung 2.
107
Yu Chin-o, “Basis of the private property rights presented in the jurisprudence of Hegel,” Shin-Heung 3.
60
feudalism. 108 They thus could selectively adopt the “modern” aspects of liberalism as a
weapon against feudalism by attaching some conditions. Yu Chin-o embraced liberalism
and individualism by putting individual freedom in a frame of larger society.
Socialist writers of Shin Heung could also accept liberalism due to their own class
positions. Although the intellectuals who espoused socialism at Kyungsung emphasized
proletariat class interests, many of them were from the petit bourgeois class, a
background that often influenced their interpretation of socialism. 109 Like liberals, they
basically favored democratic reforms because of their faith in liberal values such as
enlightenment and rationality. 110 A Korean scholar of the colonial era has even argued
that Korean socialists under Japanese occupation carried out an anti-feudalistic
democratic movement. 111
Favorable attitudes toward democratic ideas and institutions can also be traced
without difficulty in Shin Heung. The authors often pointed out that the core elements of
democracy such as the legislature, the judiciary, and the press were not doing their duty
when they served the class interests of the bourgeoisie. Yu Chin-o emphasized that
development of proletariat culture would equalize and thus democratize all nations. 112
Choi Yong-dal proved the contradictory relationship between democracy and capitalism
108
Lee Yeong-lok, Yu Chin-o, 38.
109
Many, in fact, aspired to high positions in the colonized society despite their opposition to colonial rule.
110
Kim Gyeong-il, Modern Korea and its modernity, 122.
111
Seo Jung-seok, “Iljesigi gungnae gongsanjuuijadeurui hyeongmyeong noseonui seonggyeok” (Character
of the Korean communists’ revolution line druing the Japanese occupation), Asia Munhwa 7 (1991): 19–20.
112
Yu Chin-o, “ National culture and social culture,” Shin-Heung 2.
61
by illustrating that, in reality, the principle of the separation of three powers was damaged
by the capitalist class. 113 One can easily note that the author supports democracy while
simultaneously criticizing capitalism. Choi Un-hae also pointed out that some of the core
institutions of democracy did not play their role properly. In his essay on salary reduction,
he criticized judges for not doing their job properly despite preferential treatment by the
government. He also demanded that the press play its part. 114
The various issues discussed above demonstrate that Korean intellectuals and
students struggled simultaneously with numerous ideas. As intellectuals in a colonized
nation, they were basically nationalists who longed for independence. They were at the
same time liberals who believed in the value of individual freedom and rights and
advocated a democratic system. In addition, many of the students embraced socialism
with the hope of seeing the collapse of the Japanese empire.
Therefore, Kyungsung graduates somehow managed to reconcile nationalism,
socialism, and liberalism in the struggle. Colonial reality was an important element that
made this reconciliation possible. In a colonized nation, those ideals could not be realized
in specific institutions or particular forms of government. Therefore, the students held the
ideas as beliefs or knowledge. The tensions existing among the students, or within one
particular student’s mind, did not develop into serious conflicts.
Another factor that made students simultaneously accept different ideas was that
they were selective in doing so. Although Marxist theory dealt mainly with the tensions
113
Choi Yong-dal, “ Principle of three powers,” Shin-Heung 3.
114
Choi Un-hae, “ On the question of the salary reduction,” Shin-Heung 5.
62
between classes, Korean students focused on national issues. The fact that one of the
most widely read Marxist writings was Lenin’s Imperialism shows that they were
concerned about the current international affairs. Therefore, socialist ideas were easily
combined with nationalism. Their liberal beliefs did not prevent them from accepting
nationalism as they focused less on individuals and gave priority to national freedom.
Students inclined towards liberalism also could accept socialism since they regarded it as
a useful way to understand the gap between their liberal ideals and reality. Having
different dimensions, those ideas were neither exclusive of each other nor simply
comparable in the minds of the students, but were related and mixed together in
complicated ways. The fact that many socialist-driven students in the end adapted
themselves to Japanese rule partly proves that they were in a way accepting “modern”
liberal development from the West and Japan. They were liberals as well as socialists.
This is why later scholars have difficulty in pinning down the ideological identities of the
many intellectuals of the Japanese era. Indeed, the students themselves were not sure
which idea they were embracing. For example, Korean students often disputed in their
reading clubs whether their activities were nationalist or socialist. 115
Furthermore, not all the Korean intellectuals in this era integrated various foreign
ideas. There were extreme socialists, communists, nationalists, and liberals who did not
want to compromise their ideas with others. Korean intellectuals’ efforts to reconcile the
different ideas also revealed limitations. They had trouble accepting the fact that the
Japanese imperialism that colonized Korea was a product of modernity. Their liberal
115
Lee Chung-u, Kyungsung Imperial University, 158.
63
ideals seemed too distant to achieve. In their colonial situation in which their nation had
lost sovereign power, they could not hold onto the ideal of individual freedom and rights.
They also found a fundamental contradiction between liberal and socialist ideas: the
former emphasized individual freedom and the latter attempted to restrict it. Marxist
theory ultimately aimed at communization of the world, and nationalist sentiment focused
on a nation. Some of the nationalists emphasized Korean tradition while others paid more
attention to establishing a modern nation.
These limitations finally led many Korean intellectuals to give up these foreign
ideas. The early Korean liberals in the end followed the modern discourse of the West and
accepted the logic of survival of the fittest and the theory of social evolution. These
liberals also had to abandon the political implications of their idea and focus on economic
issues because of the censorship of the Japanese colonizers. National independence
movements also lost their driving force, at least within Chosun, as Japan’s rule continued
and nationalists were exiled to pursue their movements. The Kyungsung University
graduates abandoned socialist ideas when they observed that history did not unfold as
they had believed it would. Except for a small number of extreme communists who
became increasingly subordinate to the Comintern and embraced more aggressive
strategies, many intellectuals who had favored socialism began to be skeptical of the idea.
The Japanese empire had been expanding in the Chinese continent since the early 1930s
and seemed to be turning into an unstoppable force. The capitalist system appeared so
solid and stable that the socialists were losing hope in their vision of its eventual collapse.
Socialist theory seemed “scientific” no longer, and its prediction of the fall of capitalism
sounded more and more empty. In addition, the intensified Japanese oppression of the
64
socialists and communists made it difficult for them to continue to publicly espouse
socialist ideas. Thus many Shin-Heung writers gave up, at least outwardly, their socialist
ideology and became more supportive of Japanese imperialism. Yu Chin-o, for example,
began to write a series of favorable articles on Japanese imperial expansion since the late
1930s. 116 This did not, however, mean that he indeed discarded his socialist ideas
completely: they would be later reflected in the Korean constitution that he drafted during
the U.S. occupation.
Conclusion
Let us return to the question I raised at the beginning: how did Koreans respond to
Western modernity in the harsh reality of the Japanese occupation? I demonstrated that
Korean responses to Western modernity during the colonial era were active, diverse, and
complex. Early intellectuals in the late Chosun and early colonization period had a goal
of catching up with the “advanced” West by actively learning their ideas and system.
When Japan annexed Korea and the contradiction between their ends and their means
widened, they were divided and transformed. Korean intellectuals in the 1930s accepted
socialism as a lens through which to see world politics and with the hope of
imperialism’s collapse. The colonial setting, however, prevented most of the socialists
from walking the talk and many of them even discarded their socialist ideals as they
observed the expansion of Japanese Empire since the late 1930s.
Rather than highlighting the “limitations” of Korean intellectuals in converting
116
Lee Yeong-lok, Yu Chin-o, 51-53.
65
their ideas into action, this chapter attempts to demonstrate their specific ways of
understanding and utilizing Western ideas. Most Korean intellectuals, regardless of their
preferences, had a good grasp of the various Western ideas. Although some people
narrowly devoted themselves to a particular ideology, many others selectively accepted,
blended, and/or transformed various Western ideas in order to use them against
difficulties in their daily lives under the colonial rule. Some used them passively to resist
the Japanese colonizers, while others used them to justify their submissive or supportive
attitude toward their Japanese colonizers. Still others found hope that the imperialistic
forces would collapse in the near future, while others saw the advances of Western
modernity.
These complex understandings of Western ideas produced two results that would
be significant in Koreans’ response to the new American occupiers. First, the diverse
ways in which different Koreans combined various ideas created a wide spectrum of
ideologies. Although this diversity of ideas was a cause of the social turmoil and
divisions in the post-liberation era, it also was an important driving force in building a
new Korean nation. Another result of Koreans’ complex understanding of Western ideas
in the Japanese occupation was in shaping peculiar Korean institutions based on mixed
ideas. For example, Yu Chin-o, who had been a socialist and later transformed himself
into a democrat after liberation, drafted the Korean Constitution by blending socialist and
liberal ideas.
Finally, this chapter highlights that Korean intellectuals during the Japanese
occupation were active rather than passive in responding to Western ideas. They were not
simply entranced by Western modernity. Korean elites’ actions were their own active
66
choices based on deep knowledge of “modern” ideas. Some Kyunsung students who were
very interested in and familiar with diverse Western ideas often used them to criticize
Japanese imperialism. Other students behaved more cautiously within the allowed limits
while still others who found the ideas useful in achieving their personal goals decided to
follow the Western path. Although the colonial reality constrained their decisions, the
students determined their own ways among different options.
The problem of the U.S. policy toward the liberated Korea was that it prevented,
instead of promoting, the free and fair competition of the various groups. This seemingly
suppressive (or unreasonable, or unwise) U.S. policy on postwar Korea was carried out
on the basis of what it had prepared for Korea: trusteeship. And this trusteeship plan was
shaped on the basis of malicious Japanese discourse about Korean factionalism, distrust
in the Korean ability in self-rule, and fear of leftist ideas. These are the topics of the next
chapter.
67
Chapter II: Trusteeship, Not Democracy Promotion:
America’s Plan for Postwar Korea
This chapter was originally intended to investigate what American policymakers
knew about pre-liberation Korea and what plans they had in store for postwar Korea.
When I dug deeper into U.S. postwar plans for Korea, however, I found that the United
States had neither specific programs nor much motivation for promoting democracy in
South Korea. This finding was quite surprising since experts and laymen alike still widely
presume that the United States actively sought to transplant its system of democracy in
Korea following World War II. Koreans and Korean experts have debated whether or not
the United States was successful in its effort, but did not question U.S. objectives in
South Korean state-building. In order to understand this conundrum, I examined how the
United States promoted democracy to places other than Korea prior to World War II. I
found the need to be more discerning about how we should discuss democracy promotion.
Even though the United States intervened in Latin America and Asia in the nineteenth
century, it sought to avoid being entangled in European imperialist power-plays, just as
Washington had advised in his “Farewell Address.” This—and its own imperialist
ambitions—meant, of course, that the United States was not trying to spread democracy
abroad during this period. Yet by the early 20th century, when the existing world political
system, based on a balance of power, was collapsing, American policymakers,
68
intellectuals, and opinion makers began to consider how to understand and respond to the
newly developing international order. It was at this point that democracy emerged as a
meaningful objective in U.S. foreign policymaking. Although the idea of promoting
democracy to the world had not yet been clearly articulated, there was much discussion in
this era about the relevance of democracy to the fate of civilization.
Upon examining the ways Americans discussed democracy and its relevance to
the larger world during this period, however, I found that Americans’ stance toward
democracy was defensive. That is to say, they were most preoccupied with protecting
democracy at home (or where it existed in Europe) rather than actively promoting it to
the rest of the world. This vision of democracy as something to protect rather than to
promote is pivotal in understanding U.S. postwar policy in Korea. Although American
policymakers ambitiously began to design and plan for a single, U.S.-led world order
based on capitalism and democracy, their plans for promoting democracy in the
immediate postwar era were still derived first and foremost from a concern for national
security. This partly explains why U.S. postwar democracy promotion was applied only
in the former enemy countries—that is to say, in nations that had posed a threat to
democracy. If we take this factor into account, we can see that U.S. priorities were not on
spreading democratic governance everywhere. In fact, U.S. actions during this period
suggest that American policymakers were more focused on Great Power relations and
still distrusted the ability of formerly colonized, non-white people to self-govern. Both
factors help explain why they came up with a trusteeship plan for Korea, which they
conceived to be a period of tutorship for the time being until they judged the Koreans to
be capable of self-rule. The trusteeship not only underestimated the Koreans’ desire for
69
national independence, but also proved unhelpful as it provided few specific programs to
alleviate pressing material concerns or to address pent-up hopes in the aftermath of war
and colonization.
One of the windows through which we can observe how Americans responded to
changing world politics is the debate between internationalists and isolationists. That said,
I want to be clear that I am not investigating these debates in detail. Not only have these
debates been widely studied, but highlighting the tensions between the two parties also
risks obfuscating their fundamental sameness. Since the United States was already
exerting its power around the world, it was rather a matter of when and how the United
States would expand its role in the world—not whether or not it should intervene in
world politics. Thus, this chapter turns to the ways in which Americans talked about
safeguarding democracy and then charts how the idea of promoting democracy gradually
came to be regarded as an instrument of foreign policy. I pay special attention to the
Council for Democracy, an internationalist organization that operated during World War
II. The activities of this group show how the security concerns of American
internationalists during the war shaped Americans’ postwar democracy-promotion efforts.
I argue that it was this defensive concern about security that made U.S. policymakers
decide upon trusteeship for Korea. The previous chapter discussed notions of democracy
and other political thought circulating among Koreans during the colonial period to lay
out the context of their responses to Americans in the post-liberation era. The objective of
this chapter is first to outline the ways in which Americans thought and spoke about
democracy before 1945 and then to turn to an analysis of U.S. policies (of lack thereof)
towards postwar South Korea.
70
Wilsonianism
As many are aware, it was President Woodrow Wilson who put the protection of
democracy as an objective in U.S. foreign policy. But I want to call attention to the oftrepeated Wilson phrase —“making the world safe for democracy”— and interrogate its
meaning more precisely. Oftentimes, scholars have interpreted the words to be a simple
statement of democracy-promotion: that Wilson was simply asserting that the American
liberal way of governance was the best and should be adopted by all. While not
gainsaying that Wilson believed that the American way was best, I submit that we must
take Wilson’s words literally. In other words, Wilson did not seek to have all others adopt
democracy as much as he desired to create a world order that would protect existing
democratic institutions. Witnessing how the Great War was dismantling the existing
balance-of-power politics made Wilson fear that the European crisis might jeopardize the
security of the United States. His suggested solution was the “global spread of
democracy,” but by this, Wilson was expressing his belief that principle of freedom
should replace the old principle of power. 1 As Erez Manela has argued, this new principle
began to change the norms of international relations by making each self-determined
“modern” and “enlightened” nation an independent actor in a new international society
that, Wilson believed, would significantly challenge the existing world order of
1
Frank Ninkovich, The Wilsonian Century: U.S. Foreign Policy since 1900 (University of Chicago Press,
2001), 12–15.
71
imperialism and colonialism. 2
As we also know, Wilson’s statements spread beyond Europe, the focus of his
concern, to colonized nations, where it raised the hopes of those seeking selfdetermination and sovereignty. 3 Korea’s March First Movement against Japanese rule
was one such example of a colonized people influenced by Wilsonianism to strike out for
independence. But Wilson did not expect nor approve of this reaction on the part of
nonwhite colonized peoples. Wilson was, as scholars have shown, a racist who had little
faith in nonwhite peoples. 4 It was during his presidency that Jim Crow laws were first
applied to federal government employees. While Wilson’s racism can partly account for
his attitudes and policies towards nonwhite peoples, we should also factor in Wilson’s
fundamental purpose of keeping the world safe for existing democracies to explain his
indifference in advocating for democracy outside Europe.
Wilson’s views on democracy and international world order had a great impact on
U.S. foreign policy after he left office. Despite his grand and concerted efforts, however,
Wilson’s internationalism did not take root during his presidency. Neither Congress nor
the American public embraced it; he was unsuccessful in persuading Congress to accept
his project of the League of Nations, and his ideas were often misunderstood by the
public. Republican politicians and many Americans remained fearful that the United
States would become “entangled” in world politics. Although his idealism invited much
2
Manela, The Wilsonian Moment, 21–23.
3
Ibid., 52–53.
4
Lloyd E. Ambrosius, Wilsonianism: Woodrow Wilson and His Legacy in American Foreign Relations,
(Palgrave Macmillan, 2002).
72
criticism and his policies were regarded as failures, Wilsonianism did not disappear. After
Wilson, democracy became not only a new principle for the newly arising international
order, but also a tool with which the United States could lead this new world order. The
notion of spreading democracy gradually emerged as an important element in U.S.
foreign policy in the years to come.
But before that day came, though, the strong “isolationist” sentiment in America
after the Great War prevented further discussions about America’s role in the world.
Therefore, private internationalist organizations became key in maintaining and
developing Wilsonian ideas during the interim. The League of Nations Non-Partisan
Association, for example, urged that the United States lead world affairs by promoting
collective security based on the values of democracy and freedom. 5 Leaders of these
groups like the League of Nations Non-Partisan Association often had close relationships
with foreign policymakers and cooperative relationships with others in the government.
During the 1920s, however, their voice did not resonate widely with the larger American
public. More meaningful internationalist activities were thus carried out in the cultural
realm. These “idealistic” internationalist organizations, believing that the world could
become more peaceful by increasing mutual understanding, tried to foster understanding
and trust among nations through cultural activities. The two most prominent institutions
during the 1910s and 1920s were the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace,
created in 1910, and the Rockefeller Foundation, established in 1913. There were also
other lesser organizations, including the International Education Board, the General
5
In 1929 this organization changed its name to the League of Nations Associations.
73
Education Board, the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Fund, and the Guggenheim Foundation,
all of whom resisted isolationist trends through cultural programs. 6 Unlike the political
issues raised by the League of Nations Non-Partisan Association, the cultural activities of
these groups did not seem to disturb the general public.
Yet the various internationalist groups in the 1920s often conflated
internationalism and Americanization. Although they saw themselves as embracing true
internationalism and sought to promote greater mutual understanding among nations
around the globe, they at the same time believed in America’s superiority and tried to
spread American values. 7 This effort to show American cultural superiority may in part
be explained by American feelings of inferiority vis-à-vis the Great European powers in
the cultural realm. Spreading American “civilization” and values in this period thus
reflected both Americans’ national pride and their sense of inferiority to Western
European nations. At this stage, democracy was not yet a prominent consideration for
American internationalists. In fact, it was only one of many features of American society
that these internationally-minded American sought to spread around the world.
1930s Internationalism
It was the rise of fascism during the 1930s that made democracy promotion a
more prominent component of official U.S. foreign policy. In response to the expansion
6
Frank A. Ninkovich, The Diplomacy of Ideas: U.S. Foreign Policy and Cultural Relations, 1938-1950
(Cambridge University Press, 1981), 8–15.
7
Emily Rosenberg, Spreading the American Dream: American Economic & Cultural Expansion 18901945 (Hill and Wang, 1982), 108–121.
74
of fascist forces, American began to define democracy in several related ways; as an
essence of American values to be strengthened; and as a link between the United States
and its European allies. The unifying motif or stance in these discourses was the necessity
to safeguard or defend American or Western Civilization. Since democracy emerged as
an item of policy in response to the crisis in Europe, the internationalists of this era took
the more defensive stance. In contrast to the cultural internationalist of the 1920s, who
focused on spreading American values and ideas, the defensive internationalists of the
1930s were more concerned with the security and maintenance of democracy at home.
As the fascist forces in Europe expanded in the mid-1930s, Americans were
divided into two camps, one for active support of the Allied nations and the other against
it. Although both the internationalists and isolationists emphasized keeping American
democracy safe, their reasoning differed. Internationalists argued that the United States
should aid Great Britain, the last fortress of Western civilization. Otherwise, they warned,
America itself would eventually fall to the Germans. Because they viewed the security of
the United States as inextricably linked to European events, internationalists reasoned
that peace could be guaranteed for America only if the Allies halted the spread of
totalitarianism. Their arguments were refuted by isolationists who claimed that aiding the
Allies would threaten America’s peace by bringing their nation into a war.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt was in the internationalist camp, but the isolationists
had the initial advantage through the Neutrality Act, which prevented U.S. involvement
in the European conflict until 1939. 8 While the government played only a limited role in
8
Walter Johnson, Battle Against Isolation (Da Capo Press, 1973), 19–21.
75
keeping peace in the world and in their nation, private internationalist organizations arose
to challenge isolationism. The first significant interventionist organization was the NonPartisan Committee for Peace through the Revision of the Neutrality Law (Non-Partisan
Committee). Clark Eichelberger, the director of the League of Nations Association (LNA)
and the Union for Concerted Peace Efforts, organized the Non-Partisan Committee and
invited William Allen White to be its chairman. Under the leadership of White, a social
reformer and outstanding liberal Republican who also had close relations with FDR, the
Committee succeeded in getting a bill to revise the Neutrality Act passed in the House of
Representatives on November 3, 1939. 9
Although the revision of the Neutrality Act signaled U.S. readiness to enter the
war, Germany continued to threaten its neighbors and seize territory. In April, several
months after the revision of the Neutrality Act, Germany defeated England’s army in
Norway, invaded Denmark, and seemed poised to take the Netherlands. This crisis
prompted Eichelberger and White formed the Committee To Defend America by Aiding
the Allies (CDAAA) in order to alert the American public to the danger of the Nazi
movement and drum up support in favor of aiding Britain.
As a bastion of western civilization, Britain was, the CDAAA argued, America’s
first line of defense. 10 This argument was elaborated upon in a volume put out by the
CDAAA called Defense for America. Included in the volume was an article by former
Yale president Charles Seymour insisting that the Allies must be assisted in order to
9
Andrew Johnstone, Dilemmas of Internationalism (Ashgate, 2008), 1.
10
Clark M Eichelberger, Organizing for Peace: A Personal History of the Founding of the United Nations,
(New York: Harper & Row, 1977).
76
defend the United States. 11 When Belgium and France fell to Germany in June, the
CDAAA chairman urged the still-hesitant President Roosevelt to send help to the Allies,
and a new slogan, “Stop Hitler Now,” was widely advertised. Meanwhile, local chapters
of the CDAAA gathered petitions and wrote letters to Congress, all calling for aid to the
Allies. The CDAAA did not see its efforts as idealistic do-gooding for friends in need:
helping the Allied nations, they believed, was necessary to protect the United States. But
a crucial distinction about this internationalist organization must be made: it was formed
not to bring the United States into the war, but to prevent it from involving itself in
another world war. In other words, the CDAAA recommended sending material aid, not
soldiers.
It is important to note here that as the conflict in Europe continued,
internationalist discourse was moving from emphasizing physical security to stressing an
ideological goal. Abstract terms such as “democracy,” “ freedom,” and “duty“—rather
than words that referred to territorial defense—appeared more frequently as the debate
between the two sides developed. It should be remembered that the isolationists’ fears
about the U.S. involvement in the war included harm not only to its soldiers abroad, but
also to people within the United States. From their perspective, their nation thankfully
entered the war too late for it to spread to their shores. Internationalists were initially
mindful of these concerns for physical safety, but began to speak more frequently of the
conflict in ideological terms that transcended the issue of territorial security. In his
famous December 29, 1940 address, “The Arsenal of Democracy,” Roosevelt linked U.S.
11
Charles Seymour, “Defense for America,” in Defense For America, ed. William Allen White (The
Macmillan Company, 1940), 19-31.
77
material capability to a fight for one idea, democracy, against another one, totalitarianism.
By the time of his January 10, 1941 address, the president was advocating that the United
States support the democracies abroad that were fighting for their continued existence.
This address earned White’s praise as a “New Magna Carta of democracy.” In the
introduction to the Defense for America, White presented the United States not as simply
a physical, territorial entity, but as an abstract concept of spirit and values. He feared that
the collapse of the European democratic nations would isolate the United States not only
geographically but, more importantly, ideologically. The crisis in Europe threatened not
merely American territorial security, but also American democracy. 12 The Citizens for
Victory, another internationalist organization, also starkly contrasted the essences of
democracy and totalitarianism. 13
Meanwhile, the isolationists began paying greater attention to ideological aspects
of the debate and also started discussing the need to safeguard democracy. America First,
the most prominent isolationist organization, emphasized that American democracy
should be perfected and its own domestic problems should be solved before protecting
democracy abroad. 14 For example, in his speeches in the spring of 1941, Charles
Lindbergh, a leading figure of the America First Committee (AFC), raised issues
regarding democracy. He emphasized the importance of following the democratic process
by claiming that Americans should be given a chance to vote on entry into the European
12
Ibid., v-xx.
13
Jackson Papers, Box 41, Citizen for Victory, Dwight D. Eisenhower Library, Abilene, KS.
14
Wayne S Cole, America First: The Battle Against Intervention, 1940-41 (University of Wisconsin Press,
1953), 35–39.
78
war. He also expressed his belief that the United States should not “impose (the
American) way of life, at the point of machine gun, on the peoples of Germany, Russia,
Italy, France, and Japan.” 15 Since both groups increasingly framed the issue in the
ideological rather than the physical and territorial realm, the ways in which isolationists’
attacked internationalists also changed. Isolationists, who had previously attacked
internationalists for bringing America into war, now condemned them for trying to
“transplant” democracy abroad by force. Although internationalists’ intention was not to
promote democracy abroad, isolationists often misread or distorted their claims.
Internationalists, on the other hand, asserted that the United States should support the
democratic nations in Europe in order to prevent totalitarianism from expanding
worldwide and ultimately endangering American democracy. The main difference
between the two groups was thus not about the necessity of defending American
democracy, but about how to defend it. An important outcome of the interwar debates on
how to respond to the European crisis, and especially the reframing of national security
from territorial to ideological terms, was that the general public, as well as policymakers,
began to link American democracy and world politics.
Council For Democracy
The activities of the Council for Democracy show how notions of democracy
began to influence the ways Americans viewed foreign policy. 16 We can see how
15
Charles A. Lindbergh, Autobiography of Values (Mariner Books, 1992), 193–194.
16
One of the leaders of the Council, C.D. Jackson, is an interesting figure who would later play an
79
concerns about defending American democracy animated this organization. Formed in
August 1940 in response to the fascist expansion in Europe, this organization sought to
foster greater awareness of the meaning among citizens and to wage an all-out morale
offensive on the home front. Although it did not directly address the issue of involvement
in the war, it was an internationalist group that competed with isolationist groups such as
the America First Committee. So the Council for Democracy was an internationalist
organization, but one focused on domestic issues, especially on revitalizing American
democracy. The activities of this organization also show a preoccupation with security in
the ways Americans applied notions of democracy in their foreign policy—a
preoccupation that explains American policymakers’ passiveness and unpreparedness in
promoting democracy in post-liberation Korea.
The Council for Democracy’s leadership included journalists, academics, and
business executives—in other words, those who played an active role in shaping public
discourse. The chairman, Raymond Gram Swing, was a well-known print and broadcast
journalist who became famous during World War I as a war correspondent. In the
interwar years, he acquired further renown for denouncing Hitler and fascism in his
broadcasts on European affairs. The Council’s president, Charles Douglas Jackson, was
Henry Luce’s right-hand man at Time Magazine. Carl Friedrich, the Chairman of the
Executive Committee, was a professor of government at Harvard University. Big
businessmen such as Ellsworth Bunker (president of National Sugar Refining Co.),
George Harrison (president of the Brotherhood of R.R. & S.S. Clerks), and Evans Clark
important role in shaping foreign policy in the Eisenhower administration as a special assistant to the
President.
80
(director of the Twentieth Century Fund) also were leaders in the Council for
Democracy. 17 These leaders made sure that the Council’s message was disseminated to
the American public through a wide range of media including radio, pamphlets, clipsheets,
newspaper advertising, rallies, meetings, conferences, lectures and the press in order to
attract attention to the threat of foreign despotism to the American way of life and to
strengthen pro-democracy attitudes. 18 The Council’s Committee of Correspondence
successfully solicited about three hundred social scientists to write articles for its print
publications and scripts for its radio broadcasts. 19
The organization maintained a mutually supportive relationship with the
government, trying to increase support for the government’s foreign policy and its efforts
to improve pro-democracy morale at home. 20 Government departments and agencies also
often asked the Council to accomplish specific tasks. 21 For example, after the United
States entered the war, the War Department asked the Council to take charge of the
Armed Service’s draftee orientation program. The Council distributed materials of the
Office of War Information (OWI) to citizens, and some Council members served as
consultants to the OWI. 22 The Council also had close relations with media organizations
17
Jackson Papers, Box 44, Future Plans, Dwight D. Eisenhower Library, Abilene, KS.
18
Jackson Papers, Box 42, Ernest Angell (2), Dwight D. Eisenhower Library, Abilene, KS.
19
Jackson Papers, Box 44, Future Plans, Dwight D. Eisenhower Library, Abilene, KS.
20
Jackson Papers, Box 42, Ernest Angell, Dwight D. Eisenhower Library, Abilene, KS.
21
Jackson Papers, Box 44, Council for Democracy Pamphlets - Misc., Dwight D. Eisenhower Library,
Abilene, KS.
22
Jackson Papers, Box 44, Future Plans, Dwight D. Eisenhower Library, Abilene, KS.
81
such as Time, Inc. and NBC; indeed, one of the criticisms of the Council was that Henry
Luce was a master puppeteer who ran the organization—at least its éminence grise. This
criticism was not completely off-base. Luce not only had a close relationship with the
chairman, C.D. Jackson, but also was a very generous contributor to the Council. Jackson
often wrote Luce regarding the Council’s programs and projects. The evidence does not
prove whether or not Luce secretly controlled the Council. It does suggest, however, the
Council and Luce had largely overlapping views on domestic and global politics and on
the solution to the challenges facing the nation. The Council also used the radio (NBC) as
a channel through which to reach ordinary citizens and sent clipsheets to 1100
newspapers to get its messages to the grassroots. 23
The leaders of the Council, most of whom were upper-class white professional
elites, tried to recruit non-elites into its general membership. This strategy of embracing
underrepresented people and non-citizens—including laborers, African Americans,
women, German and Italian immigrants–corresponded to its larger goal of helping people
understand American democracy and combat its weaknesses. 24 The Council was an
23
Jackson Papers, Box 42, Board Meeting, Dwight D. Eisenhower Library, Abilene, KS.
24
The Council firmly believed that in order to achieve the goal of strengthening American democracy
required admission of its weaknesses—such as intolerance and the lack of equal opportunity and civil rights
for all Americans—that were often discussed in the Council’s pamphlets. The Council paid special attention
to discrimination against African Americans, devoting a complete pamphlet to the issue. It also opposed
labeling everyone from enemy nations as “enemy aliens” and proposed that the Department of Justice
create a “friendly” alien category. The Council also tried to solve the problems between management and
labor. In its pamphlet “The Public and Strikes,” one of its most successful publications, the Council
suggests specific ways to reconcile the two groups. Another pamphlet used as a Council guidebook,
“Defense on Main Street,” argued that American loyalty to democracy was not completely solid and that
suspicion and skepticism still existed. In the face of imminent attack by anti-democratic forces, the Council
tried to realign the American democratic system in order to defend the nation effectively. See Jackson
Papers, Box 43, Defense on Main Street, Dwight D. Eisenhower Library, Abilene, KS.
82
internationalist organization in that it believed that the United States had to actively
confront anti-democratic forces such as Nazism, fascism, and communism. However,
while the CDAAA had the specific object of “defending America by aiding the Allies,”
the Council for Democracy gave top priority to dealing with American democracy and
solving problems at home. The Council tried neither to be directly involved in foreign
policy, nor to be a legislative pressure group, but made efforts to strengthen American
democracy before the fight with its enemy. “Citizens for Victory,” another internationalist
group also emphasized the importance of “teach(ing) our youngsters the ways of
democracy, and build(ing) their faith in a new world of free mankind.” 25
What specific kind of democracy did Council members embrace in their goal of
strengthening U.S. democratic processes? The core of the concept of democracy for
members of the Council was the participation of individual citizens. The Council’s
guidebook urges people to ask, “What can I do to help democracy in this crisis?” It
encourages people to show initiative without waiting for leadership. Most of the stories in
the booklets illustrate ways in which ordinary citizens took the lead in strengthening prodemocracy attitudes in their communities. For example, it recounts the story of Miss
Susan Driscoll who tried to find specific ways to help improve democracy in her
community. When she heard that an Austrian woman in her neighborhood was having a
hard time because of her falsely rumored relationship to Hitler, Driscoll realized that the
prejudice and suspicion was creating discord in her community and decided to help her.
She talked about the Austrian woman in her book club and urged its members to
25
Jackson Papers, Box 41, Citizen for Victory, Dwight D. Eisenhower Library, Abilene, KS.
83
eliminate their prejudices against her. Once convinced by Driscoll, the women of the
book club convinced their husbands of the error of their ways, and this finally brought
harmony back to the community. 26 As later chapters will show, this particular ways in
which Americans saw how democracy functioned—as individual citizens acting to realize
it—could not easily be applied in the South Korean context.
The Council, however, did not confine itself to local issues. While emphasizing
individual participation, the Council also defined democracy as the antithesis of
despotism as represented by Nazism and Fascism. In the view of Council members, the
world was divided between democratic and despotic camps, and the former was under
siege by the latter. They argued that the biggest difference between the two sides was that
democratic nations were governed by the people and despotic ones by tyrants. The
Council’s stark dichotomy between democracy and fascism was intended to help
American recognize the potential impact of the European crisis on their lives and the
need for them to prepare for possible war. By encouraging ordinary citizens’ to contribute
to strengthening democracy in their communities on the one hand and defining
democracy as diametrically opposite to despotism on the other, the Council tried to make
the general public realize the link between their own lives and the ominous events in
Europe. They therefore tried to convince Americans that fighting discrimination in their
own communities would strengthen U.S. democracy and was essential to preventing
fascism from expanding into the United States.
More than during World War I, democracy at this historical juncture was therefore
26
Jackson Papers, Box 43, Defense on Main Street, Dwight D. Eisenhower Library, Abilene, KS.
84
closely related to national security and became important in U.S. foreign policy as a
means of defense. This concern for security demonstrates that Americans were not yet
thinking of themselves as active promoters of democracy throughout the world. Although
internationalists wanted their nation to play a leading role in international relations, many
within organizations like the Council were still unsure of their nation’s power and thus
took a cautious stance on America’s role until the attack on Pearl Harbor. While the
CDAAA tried to help Great Britain defend itself from possible fascist invasion, the
Council for Democracy—like Citizens for Victory--tried to strengthen American
democracy for the same reason.
Thus while American domestic democracy became closely related to its foreign
policy, a defensive stance towards their democracy prevented Americans of this era from
working further to promote their democracy in the world. The interwar era thus can be
regarded as a precursor to democracy promotion. After the U.S. entered the World War II
and it became clear that Allies would win, Americans gradually became less concerned
about protecting democracy. After all, the fascist threats to democracy were being
eliminated. Still, this defensiveness did not disappear immediately. Postwar planning
during the war shows American concern with protecting democracy from future
challenges. Considering this mindset will help us understand some seemingly
contradictory aspects of U.S. postwar planning. Although the United States gained the
position to design a U.S.-led world order, the main motive for shaping the grand plan was
to protect American interests in the world and guarantee national security—not to
promote democracy per se. This is an important key to understanding not only U.S.
postwar planning in general, but also its policy toward postwar Korea in particular.
85
Wartime Changes in America’s Foreign Policy and Democracy Promotion
To fully understand U.S. postwar planning, we must look at another
internationalist organization, the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). 27 As an
organization of business elites, some of whom had close relationships with high-ranking
foreign policymakers in the State Department, the CFR was formed in response to the
initiation of hostilities in Europe with the goal of influencing U.S. foreign policy. It
launched the War and Peace Studies project right after Germany invaded Poland by
consulting the State Department officials. By producing policy papers on current issues
and long-term foreign policy agendas, the CFR played a crucial role in designing the
postwar world order. Many of the researchers for the War and Peace Studies project were
also chosen to participate in the planning staff later established by the State Department
in winter of 1941, the Division of Special Research. When the Department created an
Advisory Committee on Postwar Foreign Policies under the direction of Secretary
Cordell Hull and Undersecretary Sumner Welles, several former War and Peace Studies
members were brought in to participate. 28 Some members of the War and Peace Studies
even acquired influential positions in U.S. foreign policymaking circles. 29
27
C.D. Jackson, the President of the Council for Democracy, was one of the founding members of the
Council on Foreign Relations. Henry Luce, the supporter of the Council, was also a member of the CFR.
28
Council on Foreign Relations, The War and Peace Studies of the Council on Foreign Relations, 19391945 (New York: The Harold Pratt House, 1946), 1–6.
29
Michael Wala, The Council on Foreign Relations and American Foreign Policy in the Early Cold War
(Providence: Berghahn Books, 1994), 44–45.
86
In a study of the CFR, Laurence H. Shoup emphasized the close relationship
between the CFR and the State Department and thus argued that U.S. postwar planning
reflected the interests of business elites. Shoup posits that the ultimate goal of U.S.
postwar planning was to create a single world order based on the capitalist economic
system, which catered to interests of the upper class rather than the general American
public. 30 According to Shoup, the planners upheld capitalism as a core principle of the
world order and embraced democracy only as an idea and a system that would make the
world safer and more stable for capital investments. 31 To support this argument, he
pointed out how U.S policymakers created various international institutions to buttress
the “single world order.” Indeed, the United States strove to democratize Germany and
Japan in the postwar era, at least during the early stages. For my purposes, Shoup’s
argument is interesting because this single-world-order narrative also dovetails well with
the myth that the United States transplanted democracy in South Korea after liberation.
However, U.S. postwar planning was more complex than creating a single world
order: this grand postwar plan shows only one side of U.S. postwar policy. While postwar
planners generally agreed that the United States should use its outstanding economic and
military power to shape an international system guaranteeing American economic
interests and democratic system, this was more an idealistic long-term goal or wishful
thinking than a realistic plan. In reality, the world was too complex to be reduced purely
30
Laurence H Shoup, Imperial Brain Trust: The Council on Foreign Relations and United States Foreign
Policy (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1977), 117–176.
31
An international economic world order by a community of states formed on the basis of nationalist,
democratic self-determination. See Tony Smith, America’s Mission, 139-140.
87
to economic considerations and not pliable enough to be molded into a single world order.
The planners had to deal also with ongoing security issues, as well as the competing
interests of many different nations. Broadly speaking, the planners had to contend with
three groups of nations: the allied Western powers, their colonies, and the defeated enemy
nations. Regarding the first group, the United States did not want the Allied western
powers to keep their colonies, but also did not want to provoke them. American
policymakers were aware of the strong desire of the colonized peoples for independence,
but did not believe in their ability to rule themselves. In a series of conferences with other
Western leaders about the postwar world order, the United States strove to find ways not
only to shape a U.S.-led world order but also to satisfy the former imperial powers. That
meant pressuring them to relinquish their colonies when they could (the Dutch East
Indies), or allowing them to keep their colonies if they could not (French Indochina).
Regarding former enemies, U.S. policymakers’ top priority was making sure that they did
not threaten Western democracies or their interests again. This was the basic objective in
“democratizing” Germany and Japan. And this helps to explain why democracy
promotion in both Germany and Japan proved so shallow, with its reversal within two to
three years.
Also to consider is the fact that the United States did not back up its declarations
about the desirability of the democratic form of governance in the new world order with
specific plans for most other nations in the world. This would have been a tall order
indeed that required a greater expertise in history and contemporary issues around the
world than the United States could muster at the time. Thus, U.S. policymakers embraced
a general principle of trusteeship as a solution to appease both the colonized people’s
88
nationalist fervor and the colonizer’s fierce determination to maintain its overseas
possessions. This new framework was also seen as a way to serve to America’s larger and
ultimate goal of creating a U.S.-led liberal world order. Therefore, American postwar
planners concluded that trusteeship would satisfy these objectives. 32 Trusteeship for the
former colonies would differ from democracy promotion in “advanced” nations such as
Germany and Japan. The basic focus in former colonies was the establishment of a
capitalist economy and the teaching of basic skills needed for “democratic” self-rule.
Building a democratic nation was then to be a long-term goal. America’s overall
motivations and priorities explain why it did not actively promote democracy in South
Korea as it did in Japan. Let us now specifically examine what plans American
policymakers designed for postwar Korea.
U.S. Postwar Planning on South Korea
From the time of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and the U.S. entry into the
war, American policymakers began to consider the issue of postwar, liberated Korea.
Early on, they adopted trusteeship as a basic policy for Korea, and generally scholars
have not looked into how this decision was made. But more recently, Bruce Cumings has
pointed out that some Foggy Bottom planners, worried that trusteeship would not give the
United States enough leverage in Korea, considered a full military occupation, which
32
RG 59 Records of Harley A. Notter, 1939-45, Records of the Advisory Committee on Post-War Foreign
Policy, Box 5; Eichelberger, Organizing For Peace, 202.
89
could have resulted in a serious conflict with the Soviet Union. 33 These options were,
however, rejected by FDR for fear they would undermine America’s relationship with the
Soviet Union. For the same reason, the U.S. government also rejected the requests of
Korean nationals in the United States, led by Syngman Rhee, to recognize the Korean
Provisional Government (KPG). Korean scholar Kim Seung-Young has speculated about
the alternative, perhaps dramatically different, outcomes that could have ensued had
Americans not made this crucial decision about Korea’s fate. He argues that the Korean
War would have been averted if American policymakers had chosen to support Korean
guerilla forces under KPG leadership in their fight against Japan. 34
The trusteeship plan for postwar Korea was first announced at the Cairo
Conference on November 23, 1943. It was agreed upon by the leaders of the three Great
Powers: FDR, Winston Churchill, and Chiang Kai-shek. The declaration said that the
three great powers were “determined that in due course Korea shall become free and
independent” from their understanding of the difficulties of the Korean people. This
trusteeship plan remained the basic postwar plan for Korea until the end of the war. 35 This
meant that Korea would not be included in the “U.S.-led liberal international system.”
33
34
Bruce Cumings, Korea’s place in the sun : a modern history (New York: W.W. Norton, 1997), 188.
KPG was established by Korean nationalists in Chungking in April 1919, after the failure of the
nationwide independence movement (March First Movement) against the Japanese colonial rule. Seungyoung Kim, American Diplomacy and Strategy toward Korea and Northeast Asia, 1882 - 1950 and After:
Perception of Polarity and US Commitment to a Periphery (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), 73-75.
35
RG 59 Records of Harley A. Notter, 1939-45, Records of the Advisory Committee on Post-War Foreign
Policy, Box 54; Office of Public Communication, Bureau of Public Affairs, The Department of State
Bulletin, IX,(United States Government Printing Office, 1944), 393; Harley A. Notter and United States.
Dept. of State. Office of Public Affairs, Postwar foreign policy preparation, 1939-1945. (Washington: [U.S.
G.P.O.], 1949), 202.
90
Unlike for the former enemy countries such as Japan and Germany, therefore, U.S.
policymakers did not view the creation of a capitalist, democratic government in Korea as
a pressing issue. In fact, America’s military and economic interests were much more
prominent considerations for American strategy in Korea. Reports on Korea prepared
during the World War II were intended primarily to understand the utility of Korea’s
military and economic potential. 36
Scholars have emphasized different issues in debating how the United States came
to adopt trusteeship: its biased view of the Korean people; its lack of attention to Korea;
its optimistic view of the collaboration of the Great Powers; and its concern for national
security. 37 While it is not my goal here to trace the origins of the trusteeship plan here, it
should be emphasized that American policymakers focused on creating a harmonious
relationship among the Great Powers, and the future of Korea was thus dependent on the
negotiations among those great powers. This was why no specific decisions were made
on how and by which countries the trusteeship would be carried out: such decisions could
not be made before agreement was achieved among the Great Powers.
The trusteeship plan for Korea also reflected U.S. policymakers’ distrust of
Koreans’ ability to self-govern. William R. Langdon, one of the few Korean experts who
had served as a consular representative in Korea in the 1930s, drafted a report
36
“Preliminary Economic Survey of Korea (Prepared for Division of Economic Studies, Department of
State, by Charles N. Henning, Far Eastern Unit, Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce, Aug 2,
1943),” RG 165 Records of the War Department, General and Special Staffs, Military Intelligence Division
“Regional File” 1922-44, Korea, Box 2261, National Archives II, College Park, MD.
37
Jongsoo Lee, The partition of Korea after World War II: a global history (New York: Palgrave
Macmillan, 2006), 14–15.
91
questioning Korea’s ability to rule itself and suggesting a generation of guidance and
protection. 38 This opinion corresponded to U.S. policymakers’ general attitude toward the
colonial nations. Trusteeship of Korea had been discussed in Washington since the
summer of 1942. A document concerning Korea and Sakhalin shows that Korea would be
liberated, but only after the Korean capacity for self-rule had been cultivated.
Policymakers’ distrust in Koreans’ ability to self-rule was, of course, derived from
their prejudice toward colonized people in general and not based on actual observation.
The Korean inability to govern itself was a recurring theme in the reports drafted in this
period. Many reports on Korea had been produced since the spring of 1942 when the
United States began to pay attention to the nation. Compared to Langdon’s reports drafted
in the 1930s when the United States was not concerned about Korea, the reports of the
early 1940s were much more detailed and contained a surprising number of positive
comments about the Korean character that, ostensibly, made them good candidates for
democracy and self-determination. For example, a report dated May 15, 1942, “Basic
Qualities of the Korean People,” described Koreans as intelligent, courageous, capable of
self-reliance, loyal and disciplined. The report continued that Koreans also kept their
traditions and customs and respected authority. Furthermore, it evaluated quite highly
Korean comprehension of political ideologies and economic principles and conceded that
Koreans were prepared to cooperate in these issues. The report also included other,
38
Langdon is one of the few Korean experts during the Japanese occupation. He served as a consul general
in Korea between 1933 and 1936 and became a political advisor in the U.S. military government after
liberation. Although having been skeptical about Koreans’ potential for self-governance during the
Japanese occupation, he later opposed the America’s trusteeship plan. See Seung-young Kim, American
Diplomacy, 75.
92
positive assessments of Koreans’ intelligence and morality. 39 Yet the conclusion of the
report was cautious and pessimistic about Koreans’ capacity for self-government. It
claimed that the Korean people, like the Chinese, needed training in nationalism,
democracy and livelihood in order to develop the ability to sustain their independence. In
other words, the report’s ultimate conclusion contradicted all its positive assessments of
the Korean people. Unlike earlier reports, which merely echoed Japanese official
discourse about Korea, the reports of this era sought more accurate understanding and
found many positive capacities. But still, in the end, even these reports did not challenge
the underlying assumptions of the trusteeship policy and recommended its
implementation in Korea.
While devised as a means to teach the “incompetent” Koreans how to rule
themselves, the trusteeship plan did not provide any concrete guidelines or specific
programs. This explains why the United States did not actively promote democracy
during its military occupation of South Korea in the immediate postwar era. Discussions
of the trusteeship plan for Korea focused on which great powers would participate and
how long the trusteeship should last while paying little attention to how they should
actually “teach” Koreans. When the U.S. Army entered South Korea in September 1945,
therefore, it had only the urgent goal of liberating Korea from Japanese rule in addition to
a vague plan of trusteeship. The U.S. military forces led by General John Hodge arrived
in Korea on September 4th, almost three weeks after the Japanese surrender. Hodge kept
39
“Basic Qualities of the Korean People (May 15, 1942),” Study in Far Eastern Branch, M.I.S., RG 165
Records of the War Department, General and Special Staffs, Military Intelligence Division “Regional File”
1922-44, Korea, Box 2260, National Archives II, College Park, MD.
93
asking and waiting for Washington to send instructions, but received no specific
directions until October.
The biggest drawback of this trusteeship plan for Korea was a serious
underestimation of the Koreans’ desire for immediate sovereignty. One of the main
planners for Korea, Hugh Borton, a Japan specialist, confessed later that he prepared the
Korean plan without sufficient knowledge of the country. His knowledge of Korea was
based on a few reports from Langdon in Korea, a short tour there, and personal contact
with a few Korean students in Japan. 40 In other words, the situation that Americans faced
in Korea was too complex to handle with their available knowledge. Nationalist fervor
was much greater than expected and, much to the Americans’ alarm, socialist influence
was widespread. During the weeks after liberation and before the U.S. armed forces
arrived, the Committee for the Preparation of Korean Independence was formed in Seoul
and made connections with the many self-rule organizations called “people’s
committees” that spontaneously emerged in provinces throughout the country. Changing
its name to the Korean People’s Republic (Chosun Inmin Gonghwaguk), the organization
operated as the nation’s de facto government until the arrival of U.S. troops.
Ironically, therefore, the Americans who came to Korea to “teach” selfgovernance ended up suppressing Koreans’ already-formed self-government. In order to
suppress the powerful influence of the leftists and others who took democracy into their
own hands, the U.S. military government allied itself with right-wing conservatives who
had administrative or business experience. Many of these conservatives had collaborated
40
Hugh Borton, Spanning Japan’s modern century: the memoirs of Hugh Borton (Lanham, Md.: Lexington
Books, 2002), 122–124.
94
with the Japanese colonial government and thus were on the defensive, trying to take
advantage of the postwar situation—which appeared confusing and disorderly to the
Americans. They threw their support behind the U.S. military fovernment, which pleased
and flattered the Americans, and were able to persuade General Hodge to bring back
prominent independence movement leaders from exile, Syngman Rhee and Kim Ku
among them. The conservatives hoped to cover up their unsavory past by forming
partnerships with the prominent nationalists who had operated abroad. 41 Kim Ku rejected
any collaboration with the conservatives or the U.S. military government. In contrast to
Kim Ku, Syngman Rhee, who not only lacked a personal network in Korea but also was
strongly anti-communist, was willing to work with the former collaborators.
Having Rhee on their side, however, was not enough to bury the conservatives’
past. They thus came up with another, more effective solution: democracy. Capitalizing
on the American occupiers’ fear of the leftist forces, the right-wingers attempted to
reframe the contest by redrawing the lines among the various Korean political factions.
As Cumings explains, the fault line among Koreans as of late 1945 and early 1946 was
“not right versus left, but patriot versus collaborator.” 42 The collaborators thus tried their
best to draw attention to a new division between right and left, that is, communism versus
democracy. Former collaborators with the Japanese colonial government now endeavored
to transform themselves into liberal democrats. It was not a coincidence that the political
party they formed was named the Korean Democratic Party (KDP). Kim Sung-soo, a
41
Cumings, Korea’s Place in the Sun, 192-197.
42
Ibid., 198.
95
well-known businessman, president of Bosung College (now Korea University), and
manager of Dong-A Ilbo (Daily Newspaper) during the Japanese occupation era, became
a leader of the KDP. He embraced democracy as a new ideology and supported Syngman
Rhee. Yu Chin-o, a friend of Kim Sung-soo and the main drafter of the Korean
Constitution, worked closely with the KDP members and Syngman Rhee while staying
aloof from the leftists. As demonstrated in Chapter I, Yu had embraced socialist ideas in
the 1930s, but later discarded them and became pro-Japanese. After liberation, he
accepted democracy as a way to erase his pro-Japanese activities.
Conservatives’ attempts to redefine themselves as guardians of democracy went
hand in hand with the U.S. military government’s efforts to promote democracy. Within a
year of liberation, the American occupation leaders were unable to carry out the prepared
trusteeship plan and felt threatened by Soviet propaganda proclaiming its great progress
in converting Koreans in the U.S.-controlled southern half of Korea. In response, U.S.
policymaker viewed the promotion of “American” democracy with increasingly urgency
lest a “Soviet concept of democracy” take hold, as Ambassador Edwin W. Pauley, the
President’s Personal Representative on the Allied Commission on Reparations, wrote
Truman in June 1946. Pauley emphasized to the president that the United States needed
therefore to strengthen propaganda and education about American-style democracy in
South Korea. 43 It is interesting to note that the reports drafted in Korea at this point often
depicted the ideology of the Soviet Union not as undemocratic or anti-democratic, but
merely as reflecting a different style of democracy from that in the United States. The
43
“Ambassador Edwin W. Pauley to President Truman (46, 6, 22),” FRUS (1946) VIII, 706-709.
96
terms, the “Soviet form of democracy” and the “U.S. concept of democracy” were
prominent in the reports. 44 Calling attention to the strong influence of the “Soviet concept
of democracy” that emphasized the welfare of the masses, the report by Ambassador
Pauley mentioned above urged the United States to find ways to cope with this Soviet
propaganda. 45 His suggestion was to highlight the advantages of “American” democracy.
Truman responded, agreeing with Pauley and saying that Americans would “carry
on an informational and educational campaign to sell to the Koreans our form of
democracy and for this purpose to send American teachers to Korea and Korean students
and teachers to this country.” 46 The Truman-Pauley correspondence between
demonstrates a significant point about U.S. democracy promotion in Korea: its local
origin. It shows that promoting democracy in Korea was not a crucial agenda item until
the summer of 1946. It was only then that events on the ground in Korea that made the
promotion of democracy a critical component of America’s plans. Nevertheless, it should
be noted that promoting or “selling” American democracy did not necessarily mean that
U.S. policymakers would attempt to build an independent democratic government in
Korea. As Cumings has pointed out, an ideological battle had already started in Korea
before the global Cold War began. Democracy promotion in Korea began not as a
program of U.S. Cold War policy, but in response to local problems. Nor did American
occupying forces unilaterally lead democracy promotion. Their Korean counterparts, the
44
FRUS (1946) VIII, 670, 695.
45
“Ambassador Edwin W. Pauley to President Truman,” FRUS (1946) VIII, 707.
46
“President Truman to Ambassador Edwin W. Pauley (46, 7, 16),” FRUS (1946) VIII, 713-714.
97
conservative faction who shared the same leftist enemy, also actively utilized American
democracy.
Another important feature of American democracy promotion in Korea at this
time was, again, its felt need to defend democracy. This chapter has already shown that
democracy arose as a defensive measure during the interwar era and the Second World
War. While this same defensiveness also prepared the United States to promote
democracy in the former enemy nations, Americans came to Korea with no spelled out
plan for democracy promotion since they felt no particular need for it. Democracypromotion only became an agenda item when local problems within Korea prompted
American policymakers to believe they needed to protect their version of democracy on
the Korean peninsula. The U.S. home government responded to this situation by directing
the military government to intensify its information activities. 47 Thus this defensiveness
led to a new policy of actively teaching democracy.
This chapter has debunked the myth that the United States simply transplanted
democracy to South Korea by showing that the United States brought no specific
programs to democratize Korea except for a vague notion of trusteeship. Although
democracy emerged as a meaningful agenda during the interwar era, it did so only
because the Americans sought to protect it in places where it already existed; they did not
go so far as to actively promote it. Having entered the war and fought against fascist
forces, Americans became more confident about the security of their democracy at home
47
“Summation (Korea), no 13 (October, 1946),” RG 331 SCAP Supreme Commanders for the Allied
Powers, Civil Intelligence Section, Civil Censorship Detachment, Press, Publication and Broadcast Div.
(1945-49), Box 12, National Archives II, College Park, MD.
98
and designed an ambitious plan to create a single world order based on capitalism and
democracy. However, since the U.S. plan to promote democracy in the immediate
postwar era still privileged national security concerns, it was applied only in former
enemy countries. American policymakers, who not only focused on the relationship
among the Great Powers, but also distrusted the ability of the former colonial peoples to
govern themselves, came up with a trusteeship plan for Korea. The trusteeship was soon
to be abandoned while the U.S. military government struggled with local issues.
While using ad-hoc policies, the U.S. military government underwent many
conflicts with its home government, which viewed local Korean issues in a larger global
context. More importantly, the U.S. military government had to solve complex political
issues in competition with various Korean ideological groups and also the general public.
Severe tensions among contending Korean groups made the issues more difficult.
Chapter III examines how the U.S. military government and various Korean political
groups competed to determine the direction of the newly liberated nation.
99
Chapter III. U.S. Influence and Limitations:
America on South Korean Nation-building During the Occupation
The myth about the United States transplanting democracy in Korea asserts that
the process began during the three years of U.S. military government, from 1945 to 1948.
This third chapter attempts to debunk this myth by paying closer attention to the diverse
American and Korean actors involved in South Korean nation-building. In previous
chapters, I showed how U.S. policymakers and Korean intellectuals tried to understand
newly developing world events and trends—how they struggled to find how best to
respond to them during the first half of the 20th century. Many Korean intellectuals
looked for ways to interpret and adapt western ideas for their greater goals of national
independence and nation-building. Meanwhile, American policy makers came to realize
the necessity of actively protecting democracy in the face of fascist expansion. My point
in the last chapter is that we must distinguish this advocacy of democracy from a
concerted effort to promote or spread democracy to new areas. This was why U.S.
policymakers prepared a trusteeship plan, not democracy, for postwar Korea. American
occupation leaders who came to Korea after the end of the war, however, were quick to
see the irrelevance of the trusteeship plan. In response to what they saw on the ground in
100
Korea, the U.S. military government discarded the trusteeship plan and concentrated on
fighting leftist forces.
Current studies—especially in Korea—tend to highlight the positive or negative
aspects of American influence, depending on whether they focus on American policy or
on Korean actors. Yet the relations among various agencies and actors of both nations
were never simple. The U.S. military government was in conflict with the State
Department, as well as with various Korean political groups, but it worked closely with
Korean conservatives whose goals the American military leaders thought they shared. It
was within this context of rivalries and alliances that the American military government
tried to shape both the nature and outcome of Korean nation-building efforts.
I explore two topics that help elucidate the dynamics between American occupiers
and various Korean groups: the establishment of the Constitution of the Republic of
Korea and educational reform. Investigating these two topics demonstrates that American
influence in Korean nation-building, while comprehensive, was neither deep nor, in the
end, very successful. Although the U.S. military government seemed to be successful in
ousting the leftist forces in Korean politics, it should be recognized that the South Korean
Constitution reflected many socialist elements, among them a concern for labormanagement relations. And while the New Education Movement promoted by the U.S.
military government seemed to be popular, it was unable to change the Korean education
system.
101
The United States and Creation of the Constitution of the Republic of Korea
Unlike in postwar Japan, the U.S. military government in Korea did not directly
involve itself in drafting a constitution. 1 As mentioned, the Korean Constitution
contained socialist elements, and this was true even though it was established in a
Constitutional Assembly composed mainly of conservatives. The lack of direct U.S.
involvement meant not only that the U.S. military government in Korea paid less
attention to Korean nation-building process than its counterparts in Japan. It alsoshows
that the agendas of the U.S. Army Military Government in Korea (USAMGIK) differed
from those of the Supreme Command for the Allied Powers (SCAP) in Japan. This
difference in agendas stems in part, as the previous chapter points out, from the differing
plans U.S. policymakers laid out for its former enemy nations and for colonies and newly
decolonized nations. But the distinction between USAMGIK and SCAP also derives from
the varying circumstances the American military governments encountered in each nation.
When the U.S. Armed Forces occupied the southern half of the Korean peninsula, there
was already fierce competition among various Korean political groups, which included
very strong leftist factions. In order to understand America’s role in forming the South
Korean Constitution, therefore, we need to understand how the U.S. authorities dealt with
1
As John Dower demonstrates, even the Japanese constitution “reflected Japanese ideals,” despite the
direct involvement of the Supreme Command for the Allied Powers (SCAP); John W. Dower, Embracing
Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II (W. W. Norton & Company, 2000), 374–404.
102
the complexities of the Korean situation. By considering not only the process by which
the South Korean Constitution was drafted and passed, but also the competing American
and Korean actors in this process, we will be better able to assess America’s role and
limitations in South Korean nation-building.
The Constitution of the Republic of Korea has not attracted sufficient scholarly
attention in South Korea. Moreover, existing studies on the South Korean Constitution
seldom examine the role of the U.S. military government in its creation. 2 Perhaps this is
understandable, as my research also found little evidence of America’s direct intervention
in drafting and establishing the Korean constitution. The process by which Yu Chin-o
drafted the constitution seems, at first glance, to be rather simple. Yu Chin-O, a legal
scholar, was given the task of drafting a constitution by several political groups. His draft
was reviewed in the Constitutional Assembly and ultimately passed with no major
amendments and no active intervention from the American military government. This
straightforward narrative, however, needs to be challenged. For one, Yu-Chino’s political
philosophy needs to be further examined. As we saw in Chapter I, he was a Kyungsung
Imperial University graduate and served as an editor of the left-leaning Shin Heung
magazine before becoming more conservative. But before getting to the development of
Yu-Chino’s political ideas, we must also understand the context in which the South
2
In his recent study on Yu Chin-o, Lee Yeong-lok, a scholar of the Constitution of the Republic of Korea,
emphasizes the need for further study of the U.S. influence on the Constitution, although he believes that
this influence was limited.
103
Korean Constitution was written and accepted. In doing so, we will see that the
Constitution was the product of competition among various Korean political groups;
conflicts between the U.S. military government and Korean leaders; and differing
agendas on the part of U.S. civilian and military leaders.
Fundamentally, the State Department and the U.S. military government in South
Korea disagreed about the nature and purpose of trusteeship in South Korea. The 24th
Corps of the U.S. Tenth Army under Lt. General John R. Hodge arrived at Incheon on
September 8, 1945. Two days afterwards, General Hodge proclaimed that the U.S. Armed
Forces would control the area south of the 38th parallel. Under an agreement with the
Soviet Union, the Americans were to occupy the southern half of the peninsula whereas
the Soviets would oversee the northern half of Korea. For the first several weeks, the U.S.
occupation forces operated without clear objectives or directions from the home
government beyond the general instruction to take control over Korea below the 38th
parallel. The first directive from Washington, SWNCC 176/8, finally came on October 17,
but it was vague and gave few specifics. It called for a long-term trusteeship as part of a
grand plan for a new world order and stipulated that America’s ultimate goal was to build
an independent and self-reliant Korea that would be a member of a world of peaceful
nations. Without providing directions on how to achieve this, SWNCC 176/8 nonetheless
pointed out the need for a gradual transition from the legacies of colonialism to
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democratic nation-building. 3 A week later, on October 24, the occupation forces received
another directive, SWNCC 101/4, stating that the purpose of the trusteeship was to see a
unified Korea in the future and that to this end, the trusteeship should be centralized and
run in coordination and cooperation with the Soviet Union and the United Kingdom.
SWNCC 101/4 stated that the ultimate objective was ultimately to extend the political
administration fostered in the south to the north, but again, it gave no directions as to the
plan’s implementation. 4
General Hodge and the leadership of the occupation forces were displeased, to say
the least, with both directives. They were late; they were patently unhelpful; and they
were potentially harmful. What Hodge and the U.S. forces had found in South Korea was
chaos. Or so it appeared to them, since Koreans, now freed of the yoke of the Japanese
imperial overlords, had taken it upon themselves to create a multitude of self-governing
bodies in the villages, in the factories, and elsewhere all over South Korea. At the same
time, left-leaning and conservative factions were not merely in friction, but indeed openly
fighting. Those Koreans who had collaborated with the Japanese were attempting to keep
their positions of privilege and/or trying to defend themselves from reprisals. Hodge
therefore believed that order had to be restored to a disorderly scene and that the
3
“Basic Initial Directive to the Commander in Chief, U.S. Army Forces, Pacific, for the Administration of
Civil Affairs in Those Areas of Korea Occupied by U.S. Forces” (SWNCC 176/8), FRUS (1945) VI, 10731091.
4
SWNCC 101/4, FRUS (1945) VI, 1096-1103.
105
trusteeship plan would hurt this objective. He thought the plan would only add confusion
to the scene as it called for more political plurality than he believed wise. Deeply
suspicious of leftists, he had already begun to remove them from positions of authority.
Therefore, he was particularly alarmed by the directive from Washington calling for
shared governance with the Soviets. Most importantly, being on the ground in South
Korea made him see that a trusteeship plan would not be well received by Koreans, who
plainly wanted immediate independence. Hodge thus feared that a trusteeship plan could
possibly turn all Koreans into enemies of the United States.
Back in Washington, however, officials in the State Department did not feel the
same urgency about restoring order, but focused on the grander vision of integrating
Korea into the world community. They anticipated some Korean resistance to the
trusteeship plan, but remained optimistic that it could work because they were convinced
that it was in the Koreans’ best interests. Thus they conjured a vision of vibrant, stable,
democratic Korea that looked an awful lot like their own U.S. political system—a
predominately centrist system largely comprised of moderates, both liberals and
conservatives. Establishing a foundation for this sort of governance in South Korea was
thus their objective. They believed that their goal could be achieved through liberal
reforms that would transform South Korean society, which would then inspire Koreans in
the North to desire and ultimately establish the same form of governance and civil society.
The political and economic advisors sent to South Korea by the State Department
106
shared this vision. Most were New Dealers who hoped to implement liberal reforms such
as land reform and, as will be discussed in the next section, educational reform. Arthur C.
Bunce, an economic advisor to the U.S. military government, was one such person. 5
Bunce had argued in 1944 that a social, democratic system would work very well in
Korea and was therefore critical of what he saw as General Hodge’s rigid antiCommunism. To Bunce, this bias seemed so strong that Hodge appeared to be conflating
liberals with Communists. 6
Thus the U.S. home government and U.S. officials on the ground in South Korea
disagreed on the breadth of the ideological spectrum allowable in shaping future Korean
political leadership. The State Department and its officials in Korea prioritized
transferring liberal democratic institutions to Korea, whereas the military occupation
government focused on building an anti-Communist bulwark there. The military
government believed that the idea of cooperating with the Soviets was naïve and
dangerous, but the State Department held on to its trusteeship plan until the Cold War
began intensifying in early 1947. Even after that, however, a fundamental difference in
approach and overall objective between the U.S. civilian and military government
officials persisted until the end of the military occupation in August 1948. The military
5
Arthur C. Bunce, “The Future of Korea: Part I,” Far Eastern Survey XIII-8 (April 19, 1944): 68-69; “The
Future of Korea: Part II,” Far Eastern Survey XIII-10 (May 17, 1944): 85-86.
6
“Arthur C. Bunce to Edwin Martin (July 22, 1947), RG 59, Decimal File, 895.00: Records Relating to the
Internal Affairs of Korea, 1945-49, National Archives II, College Park, MD.
107
believed that purging the left would solidify a conservative, nationalist government that
they could leave in South Korean hands. The civilian home government and particularly
the civilian occupation officials continued to push for more liberal elements in South
Korean political life. This disagreement among Americans is important to recognize for it
significantly affected the Korean Constitution—a document which, despite the U.S.
military government’s success in suppressing leftists and moderates, nonetheless included
a mixture of liberal and socialist ideas, as we shall soon see. But before turning to the
Constitution, let us continue with the narrative of events regarding the trusteeship plan.
Just as Hodge predicted, news of the trusteeship was not well received by Koreans.
They learned of the plan in December, 1945 when the three foreign ministers of the
United States, the Soviet Union, and the United Kingdom formally agreed to establish a
provisional government and begin a five-year trusteeship based on America’s existing
plan. Koreans, regardless of their ideological backgrounds, showed an almost allergic
response to the trusteeship. 7 When Communists in the North and South later came to
accept the trusteeship plan, Koreans became divided not only between the North and the
South, but also in the South between pro-trusteeship and anti-trusteeship.
In response to this huge political outcry against trusteeship, General Hodge made
efforts to shape a conservative-led political structure in Korea. He reinforced the
7
“Summation (Japan and Korea), no 3 (December 1945),” RG 331 SCAP Supreme Commanders for the
Allied Powers, Civil Intelligence Section, Civil Censorship Detachment, Press, Publication and Broadcast
Div. (1945-49), Box 5, National Archives II, College Park, MD.
108
oppression of the leftists by outlawing inmin gonghwaguk [People’s Republic], the largest
leftist group in South Korea. Contrary to State Department policy of creating a Korean
government with moderates as a leading group, the military government continually
rejected and frustrated the Korean moderates’ requests. Thus not only leftists but also
moderates refused to participate in the political leadership group led by the U.S. military
government. The resulting minju uiwon [Representative Democratic Council], the first
Korean legislative body, created in February 1946, consisted mostly of rightists. Although
it did not last long, it established a pattern in South Korean governments in the postwar
period: the left would be excluded from politics and the right would dominate. Moreover,
Hodge’s goal of creating a conservative political order in Korea also conflicted with the
State Department’s vision of implementing extensive social and economic reforms.
Therefore while the State Department supported the Left-Right Collaboration Movement,
the movement failed because the U.S. military government refused to cooperate, making
the tensions among different Korean groups insurmountable. 8
Thus by the end of 1946, the political order in South Korea had been reorganized
around the right. Leftists were excluded from the political arena, mainly through the
efforts of the U.S. military government. However, in a way the leftists themselves invited
8
The Left-Right Collaboration Movement was carried out by moderates who felt sense of crisis that Korea
might be separated when conflict escalated between the rightists and the leftists. They established the
Committee on Left-Right Collaboration in July 1946 and elected Kim Kyu-sik a chairman. The
Committee’s goal was to form a moderate unified interim government that transcended ideological
differences.
109
exclusion by choosing to boycott the elections instead of actively participating in them.
Thus Korean legislative bodies in this period were peopled exclusively by the rightists
such as namjoseon gwado ibbeop uiwon [Korean Interim Legislative Assembly (KILA)],
established on December 12, 1946. This first elected legislative body in South Korea had
clear limitations. Only half of the members were elected by the Korean people in an
indirect election; the other half were nominated by the U.S. military government. Laws
drafted in the Assembly needed the military governor’s authorization. And again, KILA
did not proportionately represent the wide ideological spectrum of Korean people, but
instead over-represented the right. 9
The fact that KILA was mostly comprised of right-wing politicians indicated that
the Constitution would reflect rightist inclinations, but as remarked earlier, the
Constitution of the Republic of Korea contained many socialist elements. In order to
understand how this came about, we now need to trace the various attempts to draft
constitutions. From liberation to the end of 1946, while the military government was
struggling in a political vortex, various Korean groups were independently preparing their
constitutions. Thus Yu Chin-o was able to consult these various drafts in creating his own
version. As shown in Chapter I, Yu Chin-o, along with many other Korean intellectuals,
had discarded his socialist beliefs during the last five years of Japanese rule, when it
9
Choi Gyeong-ok, “Jeheongukhoe seongnipsa” (History of the establishment of the Korean Constitutional
Legislative Assembly), Gongbeop Yeongu 31, no. 5 (2003): 91–117.
110
appeared that the Japanese empire was becoming stronger and more solid. 10 But YuChino had not completely abandoned his favorable attitude toward socialist ideas, even
though he had become a liberal democrat after liberation. 11 This explains why sensitivity
to worker-management relations appeared in Yu-Chino’s draft. However, there still
remains a question of how this draft, among others, became the primary one and finally
passed the review process of a Constitutional Assembly dominated by conservatives.
As mentioned, American leaders in Korea were not actively and directly involved
in creating the new Constitution, focusing instead on excluding leftist groups from the
legislative body. The active movement to draft a constitution came instead from various
Korean political groups. The first attempt was made by a rightist group, gukmin daehoe
junbi wiwonhoe [Preparatory Committee for National Convention]. Appointed as
constitutional researchers, Kim Byeong-no (the future minister of justice) and Lee In (the
future prosecutor general) began work on drafting a constitution as early as December
1945 by collecting the constitutions of various nations, with the support of the military
government. Although they did not end up actually creating a constitution, these materials
they gathered were later consulted by Yu Chin-o, to whom they ultimately gave the task
of drafting the constitution. In early 1946 a leftist political group, minjujuui
minjokjeonseon [Front of Democratic Nationalism], also began to prepare to write its
10
Lee Yeong-lok, Yu Chin-o, 33.
11
Yu Chin-o, My view of life, 397-398.
111
own version of constitution. They, too, did not write a draft and gave their materials to Yu
Chin-o for his use in creating a constitution. 12
The U.S. military government did not completely keep its hands off Korea’s
constitution. The head of the Justice Department of the U.S. military government, E. J.
Woodall, drafted an early version of Constitution of the Republic of Korea in early 1946.
Because Woodall’s version was based on William Langdon’s Governing Commission
plan of indirect rule, it was discarded by the U.S. military government when the plan for
indirect rule was abandoned. But although it was not adopted, it nonetheless influenced
Yu Chin-o, who consulted it as he drafted his constitution. 13
Yet the group most active in drafting a new constitution during this early period
was the haengjeong yeonguhoe [Administration Group], composed of conservative elites
who had passed the civil service examination under Japanese rule. This group began
work in early 1946 and produced a constitution in March of the same year. This draft,
called hanguk heonbeop [Korean Constitution], drew from the Weimar Constitution and
the Constitution Draft of the Republic of China. 14 Although it could not be implemented
when it was written because an independent provisional government had not yet been
established, this document was also consulted by Yu Chin-o and later integrated into his
12
Jeon Gwang-seok, “Yujinowa daehanminguk heonbeop" (Yu Chin-o and the Korean Constitution),
Goryeo Beophak 48 (2007): 448.
13
Yu Chin-o, Heonbeop gicho hoegorok (Memoirs of constitution drafting) (Seoul: Iljogak, 1980), 22.
14
Lee Yeong-lok, Uri heonbeobui tansaeng (Birth of our constitution) (Seoul: Seohaemunjip, 2006), 65–66.
112
draft, thus becoming a part of the Korean Constitution.
Meanwhile, Yu Chin-o was not involved in constitutional efforts, but instead
worked in the field of education, trying to rebuild Bosung College (today’s Korea
University) and Korean education in general. While on the higher education
subcommittee of the Council of Education under the U.S. military government’s Bureau
of Education, Yu Chin-o created university and degree ordinances that would later
become a basis of Korean education. However, his important constitution-related activity
in this period was that as early as January 1946 he studied and taught constitutional law at
Boseong and Kyungseong Universities. Although various groups working on a
constitution, such as minjujuui minjokjeonseon [Front of Democratic Nationalism] and
haengjeong yeonguhoe [Administration Group], asked him to draft a constitution, he
refused their requests. As he later explained in memoirs, he feared that he might be
affected by the particular groups’ political orientations. 15 While teaching, though, he
researched the constitutions of various nations with no particular agenda in mind, he
claimed, and this research was very useful in his later constitutional work. 16
The first half of 1947 was a crucial transition period in U.S. occupation policy
that affected the formation of the Korean Constitution, though in different ways from
what the U.S. military government had anticipated. American liberal advisors within the
15
Yu Chin-o, Memoirs of constitution drafting, 13.
16
Ibid., 8-9.
113
U.S. occupation government and the few moderate legislators of the KILA attempted to
launch a series of reforms of state institutions including the police and the military. In
addition, Arthur Bunce prepared a plan in early 1947 to reorganize the U.S. military
government. He tried to strengthen the State Department’s political advisors within the
U.S. military government by uniting them in a single organization. More importantly, he
carried forward a plan to transfer administrative responsibility to the State Department in
Washington, D.C. He suggested that a high commissioner and another prominent figure
should be sent to South Korea to take charge of civil affairs and advise on occupation
policy. 17 Furthermore, the State Department made another attempt to reform Korea in
July 1947 by ordering the military government to carry out a reform plan that included
embrace of the moderates, social and economic reforms, and economic boost and
stability. 18
These reforms were mostly unsuccessful due not only to the opposition of General
Hodge and the Korean extreme right, but also to the developing geopolitical context. The
emergence of a global Cold War was the final blow to the State Department’s long-term
reform policy based on trusteeship in Korea. From early 1947, as cooperation between
17
Park Chan-pyo, Hangugui gukka hyeongseonggwa minjujuui: naengjeon jayujuuiwa bosujeok
minjujuuiui giwon (South Korean nation-building and democracy: origins of the Cold War liberalism and
conservative democracy) (Seoul: Humanitas, 2007), 228–231.
18
SWNCC 176/29, RG 353, Records of Interdepartment and Intradepartmental Committee (State
Department), SWNCC and SANACC Decimal Subject Files, 1944-1949, National Archives II, College
Park, MD.
114
the United States and the Soviet Union became more and more strained, the United States
discarded the trusteeship plan and considered establishing a separate government in
South Korea. Amidst these changes in international politics and in American policy
toward Korea, the military government in South Korea and the home government agreed
to Koreanize the occupation government and establish a Korean representative body.
Finally, in September 1947, the State Department transferred the Korean issue to the
United Nations. 19
In this situation, so favorable to the rightists, the conservative-dominated KILA
enacted a universal suffrage law for the upcoming Constitutional Assembly election that
was advantageous to the right. The State Department, however, did not give up its plan to
create a political system based on a wide ideological spectrum including moderates and
moderate left. Therefore, in order to ensure that the upcoming election would be
conducted democratically and include as wide a range of political groups as possible, the
State Department used the United Nations to check the extreme right’s monopoly on
nation-building. The United Nations Temporary Commission on Korea (UNTCOK)
arrived in Korea in January 1948 to supervise the election of the Constitutional Assembly,
and it tried to revise existing election laws to be less advantageous to the right. 20
19
SWNCC 176/30, RG 353, Records of Interdepartment and Intradepartmental Committee (State
Department), SWNCC and SANACC Decimal Subject Files, 1944-1949, National Archives II, College
Park, MD.
20
Park Chan-pyo, South Korean nation-building, 338 - 343.
115
The U.S. military government accepted the committee’s amendments to the
election laws because it wanted to hold the election as soon as possible. More importantly,
the U.S. military government acquiesced because it believed that the revision would not
greatly change the general political trend of domination by the right. The left had already
been effectively excluded from South Korean politics, and the moderate lefts were in
disarray after loss of their leader Lyuh Woon-Hyong. Confident that the situation was
under control, General Hodge even issued on April 5, 1948 a “Proclamation on the Rights
of the Korean People,” which declared various basic rights. It established equality for all
Koreans regardless of sex, birth, occupation or creed, and declared the inviolability of
personal liberty and property rights. This proclamation meant that the military
government abolished all the unjust Japanese colonial laws that it had so far preserved in
order to suppress the leftists.
Contrary to Hodge’s expectation, however, the election law revision had a
significant effect on the election held on May 10, 1948. By preventing a monopoly of the
Constitutional Assembly by the extreme right, including the Korean Democratic Party
and Syngman Rhee, the revised election law allowed many moderates to take part. In this
sense, the attempt of State Department liberals to shape Korean political forces toward a
wide ideological range centered on moderates was not a complete failure. More
importantly, the election of many moderates demonstrated the favorable attitudes among
116
the Korean populace to the leftist social and economic agendas. 21
These results of the election of the Constitutional Assembly were significant in
shaping the Korean Constitution. The many moderates elected to the Constitutional
Assembly contributed to the passage of Yu Chin-o’s draft without fundamental changes.
Not only did the moderates better represent the will of the Korean people than the
rightists, but they also shared Yu Chin-o’s ideological position: they all favored the
moderate middle road and supported left-right cooperation. This also demonstrates, of
course, that the U.S. military government’s attempt to create a conservative government
in Korea was less than successful.
With this knowledge of the political and ideological transition of 1947 and 1948, I
now turn to the actual process of drafting the Constitution. After the transition in
America’s Korean occupation policy and in international politics in the mid-1947, more
active attempts to draft a constitution were made. On September 21, 1947, right after the
issue of Korea was transferred to the U.N., the U.S. military government began to prepare
for the constitution by establishing the Constitution Drafting Subcommittee under the
Law Compilation Committee.
The Constitution Drafting Subcommittee, under the guidance of the military
government’s legal advisor, Carl Pergler, included several other American legal advisors
and several Korean law experts, including Yu Chin-o. The U.S. military government
21
Questionnaire about type and structure of a future Korean government prepared by Dept. of Pub. Info.
USAMGIK 10 Sept. 1946.
117
played no other active role in the drafting the constitution, a task that was left solely to Yu
Chin-o, who worked on it until the spring of 1948. In April 1948 as South Korea was
preparing to elect its Constitutional Assembly, the Korean experts on the Subcommittee
discussed Yu Chin-o’s initial draft and decided to make only few adjustments, to be
discussed shortly. The revised version was then submitted to Pergler and the rest of the
Americans on the Subcommittee, which accepted it with no further revision. 22 This leads
us to the question: why did the United States pay less attention to the content of Korea’s
constitution than to Japan’s? This can be answered at least partly by the different postwar
policies towards the two nations pointed out in Chapter II. American occupation leaders,
who came to Japan with the clear goal of democratizing the former enemy nation,
regarded establishment of a democratic constitution as one of the top policy priorities. 23
On the other hand, the U.S. military government in Korea did not have the same goal of
democratization, and focused its energies on responding to the local problems that they
believed important, namely, combating the leftist forces and restoring order under a
conservative government.
There was, however, a revised version of the Yu Chin-o’s constitution draft, which
is now known as Gweon Seung-ryeol’s draft since it was found in the papers of Gweon,
22
Yu Chin-o’s Constitutional Draft in Hyeonmin Yujino jeheonheonbeop gwangye jaryojip (Sourcebook
about Yu Chin-o’ constitution drafting), ed. Goryeodaehakgyo bangmulgwan (Museum of Korea
University) (Seoul: Korea University Press, 2011), 30–32.
23
Dower, Embracing Defeat, 346–373.
118
another member of the Subcommittee. Although it is still not clearly documented whether
this was an official draft of the Subcommittee or simply Gweon’s personal draft, it is
nonetheless quite similar to Yu Chin-o’s draft, except for some notable differences. It
provided for the punishment of pro-Japanese activities by Koreans, and this inclusion
seems to have reflected Gweon Seung-ryeol’s own critical attitude toward his
countrymen who collaborated with the Japanese. More importantly, a Korean legal expert
has found American influence in Gweon’s draft. The expert argues that, although
Gweon’s draft did not completely abandon the parliamentary cabinet system of Yu Chino’s original draft, it reflected American influence because it was designed to secure
independence of the executive and weaken the power of the national assembly. 24 Another
significant difference was Gweon’s attempt to undermine the socialist aspects of Yu Chino’s draft by relaxing state control of the economy. Gweon’s draft eliminated many of the
very detailed clauses in Yu chin-o’s draft regarding the cases in which individual
economic freedom might be limited for the public and national interest. For example, the
following clause in Yu Chin-o’s draft was removed in Gweon’s draft: “Individual
economic freedom shall be guaranteed within the boundary of this (realization of social
justice and development of national economy)” (Article 108). 25
24
Shin Yong-ok, “Yujino jeheonheonbeop gwangye jaryo haeje” (Explanation of Yu Chin-o’s constitutional
materials) in Museum of Korea University, Sourcebook about Yu Chin-o, 30.
25
Yu Chin-o’s draft and Gweon Seungyeol’s draft in Museum of Korea University, Sourcebook about Yu
Chin-o,176-177, 197-198.
119
This apparent American influence, however, should not be overemphasized. The
document was basically drafted by Koreans and was only one of various drafts prepared
by different Korean groups and individuals. Furthermore, when conflict arose between
the American legal advisors and Yu Chin-o on a constitution draft, the Americans made
no serious efforts to persuade Yu Chin-o to their opinions and approved the decision to
have him to draft a constitution by himself. 26 A reason for this may be that the United
States had already decided to refer the Korean issue to the U.N. Furthermore, the U.S.
military government, having successfully excluded the left, may have been expecting
Korean politics to be led by the right and thus felt no need to involve itself aggressively
in drafting the constitution.
Meanwhile, Yu Chin-o began revising his submitted draft after the May 10
election by cooperating with the conservative haengjeong yeonguhoe [Administration
Group]. The Administration Group had itself already completed a constitution draft
(hanguk heonbeop [Korea Constitution]) as early as March 1946, and the Group and Yu
Chin-o together consulted both drafts. Although Yu Chin-o and the members of the
Administration Group argued about whose contribution was greater, the joint draft is
generally regarded as authored by Yu Chin-o and is thus known as Yu Chin-o’s draft. 27
26
Yu Chin-o recalled that he had a hard time working in the committee. He must have felt frustrated in
discussions with the American legal expert and other committee members who favored the U.S. legal
system. As an American legal expert who advocated inviolable individual rights, Pergler was critical of Yu
Chin-o’s socialist ideas. Yu Chin-o, Memoirs of constitution drafting, 21.
27
Lee Yeong-lok, Yu Chin-o, 130-136.
120
The joint draft basically adopted Yu Chin-o’s parliamentary government system
and measures to prevent presidential exploitation of arbitrary power. More importantly,
the joint draft was based on Yu Chin-o’s earlier constitutional philosophy: balancing
political democracy with social and economic democracy. 28 He basically advocated a
democratic political system, like most other political leaders of all ideological positions.
However, the left and the right had different concepts of democracy, and Yu Chin-o had
to clarify his own notion of democracy. He had accepted socialist ideas during the
Japanese occupation and was very well aware of the drawbacks of the capitalist system,
as shown in Chapter I. He was also well aware of the efforts in foreign nations to solve
the problems of capitalism, such as the socialist trends in the constitutions of many East
European nations, Great Britain’s collectivism, and America’s New Deal. Thus Yu Chin-o
tried to put institutional devices into his draft that would help overcome capitalism’s
faults, and in this way he paid a good deal of attention to enhancing social and economic
equality. His solution was to empower the state to play an active role in realizing social
and economic equality. Article 5, specifying the state’s duty to adjust individual freedom
and equality for the advancement of public welfare, well represents Yu Chin-o’s concept
of social and economic democracy. 29
28
Yu Chin-o, Heonbeobui gicho iron (Basic theory of constitution) (Seoul: Iljogak, 1950), 13–22. Yu
Chin-o states only that there was no gap between his draft and the Administration Group’s draft on such
basic issues as the bicameral system, the parliamentary system, and the nationalization of crucial
companies. It may have been that these former officials did not have significant stakes or great interest in
the economic system.
29
Yu Chin-o’s Constitutional Draft, in Museum of Korea University, Sourcebook about Yu Chin-o, 145.
121
In the three weeks after the May 10 election, the Constitutional Assembly began
its deliberations on establishing the new constitution. Compared with the long and
complex process by which the Constitutional Assembly was set up, consideration of
constitutional drafts was quick and simple. The Assembly members chose the thirty
members to be on a new drafting committee, and this committee appointed ten panels of
experts, including Yu Chin-o, Gweon Seung-ryeol, some members of haengjeong
yeonguhoe [Administration Group], and some right-wing politicians. This new committee
did not draft a constitution itself, but simply reviewed existing drafts. Yu Chin-o’s draft
was the one primarily considered, and Gweon’s draft was consulted. Considering that
Gweon’s draft was itself based on Yu Chin-o’s draft, this process basically involved
revising Yu Chin-o’s draft.
Since the left had already been excluded from the Constitutional Assembly, there
was little debate. The committee members agreed on the fundamental issue that the new
nation should be a democratic republic. The gap between the conservative right and
reform-minded moderates was not too wide for compromise, as that between right and
left would have been. The best known sticking issue was over the proposed parliamentary
form of goverance. Assured that he would be elected president, Syngman Rhee
stubbornly persisted at the final stages of review in changing the largely agreed-upon
parliamentary government to a presidential system. His insistence was finally accepted,
and the constitutional draft prepared on the basis of parliamentary government was
122
changed abruptly to include a presidential system. The Constitution of the Republic of
Korea thus became a mixture of both systems, providing dictators with the constitutional
means to call for many constitutional amendments.
There was no little controversy between the right and the moderates over other
specific issues in the draft. 30 But the conservatives were able to successfully revise a few
provisions in Yu Chin-o’s draft related to human rights. Placing more importance on
order than on human rights, the conservatives increased the number of possible reasons
for requesting arrest warrants ex post facto and deleted the ban on torture. Still, the
conservatives could not win all the debates, even though they were superior in numbers
and organizational power. On issues related to the structure of power, both conservatives
and moderates compromised. The bicameral system of Yu Chin-o’s draft was changed to
a unicameral system, but the cabinet government and indirect election system were
maintained. They all agreed on Yu Chin-o’s distrust of ordinary Koreans’ ability in
political activities and his opposition to strong administration. Instead, they tried to give
ultimate power to the National Assembly. 31
Ultimately, the conservatives were successful in winning their points on most
political issues, but they had more difficulty on social and economic issues. They faced
strong resistance from the moderates and could not easily ignore the strong desires of
30
Constitutional Assembly, Heonbeop jejeong hoeuirok (The Minutes of Constitutional Assembly),
National Assembly Library, Seoul, South Korea.
31
Ibid.
123
ordinary Koreans. A big hurdle was Article 86, which stated that individual economic
freedom should be guaranteed only when it serve the larger goals of social justice and a
balanced national economy. Some conservatives emphatically resisted this provision,
considering it too socialist. However, the right-wing members, who had been unified on
power-related issues, were divided on this social and economic issue and thus the article
remained unrevised.
In fact, a new socialistic provision was even proposed at the main session of the
Constitutional Assembly: a clause was added to Article 18 guaranteeing laborers a share
in the companies for which they work, in accordance with specific laws and restrictions.
Despite strong rightist resistance, this pro-labor rule was finally passed. Although the U.S.
military government had successfully excluded the leftists from South Korean politics,
their influence was not so easily eliminated. Most Korean people at the time favored
socialistic economic policies, as Yu Chin-o reflected in his constitution draft. Neither the
U.S. military government nor the conservative Korean right could easily reject popular
opinion. 32
We have so far examined the role of the United States in framing the Constitution
of the Republic of Korea. While it has been generally understood that America’s impact
on the Constitution of the Republic of Korea was slight, I have shown that this view is
mistaken, and that the U.S. military government’s influence was not easy to discern
32
Opinion Trends, Department of Public Information, Aug 13, 1946, RG 554 General Correspondence
USAFIK, Box 5, G-2 Periodic Reports, National Archives II, College Park, MD.
124
because it was indirect. The American military officials in Korea focused more on
shaping a conservative-dominated political topography than on direct involvement in the
drafting. And though the efforts to drive the leftist forces out of Korean politics seemed to
be successful, leftist ideas were not excluded from the Constitution. The Constitutional
Assembly election resulted in the inclusion of many “moderates” who were not
necessarily hostile to leftist ideas. It was they who helped pass Yu Chin-o’s draft
comprising some socialist elements. Thus the fact that the State Department insisted on
UNTCOK oversight of the election was crucial to this outcome.
The election of many moderates and their support of Yu Chin-o’s draft reflected
the Koreans’ favorable attitude toward leftist ideas. How did Koreans come to be
attracted to these socialist ideas? The origin of this attitude can be traced to the Japanese
colonial era. While liberals came to cooperate with the Japanese occupiers, socialists
resisted the colonizers. The socialist emphasis on equality appealed to many peasants and
laborers, who made up the majority of the population. The socialists were also wellorganized and operated effectively in local communities.
The Constitution of the Republic of Korea thus looks the way it does due to the
struggles among both Americans and Koreans about the future of South Korea. The U.S.
military government’s anti-leftist policy notwithstanding, the lobbying of the more
liberal-minded State Department advisors at least ensured wider representation in the
Constitutional Assembly. Most important, of course, was the desire of most Koreans for a
125
more egalitarian concept of democracy. While no side could claim complete victory, the
complex competition in this period had significant legacies in South Korean political life.
Since then, Korean political groups have had to compete on a severely narrowed political
stage, making the competition more intense. Although they all invoked democracy, they
envisioned different concepts of democracy. The right-wing conservatives used the
rationale of protecting anti-Communist democracy to oppress their opposition forces,
while left-wing progressives criticized the conservatives as anti-democratic for denying
political and civil liberties. Chapter V will explore how the political competition within
the narrow field ended in the collapse of Syngman Rhee’s regime; for now, let us turn to
the issue of educational reforms.
U.S. “Democratic” Educational Reforms in South Korea
Another window through which we can understand America’s influence and
limitations in promoting democracy in South Korea is the U.S. military government’s
“democratic” educational reforms. While these educational reforms, which are usually
seen as among the most successful policies of the U.S. military government, had some
positive aspects, Korean scholars’ assessments of them have been largely negative.
Positive views of this period usually emphasize that Korean education became
democratized by eliminating the remnants of Japanese military and bureaucratic
126
education and modernized by providing more equal opportunities for Koreans. 33 Critical
views of these reforms assert, on the other hand, that American reforms did not go far
enough in expunging Japanese influence and used education as a means of ideological
indoctrination. 34
All these views have some merit and cannot easily be rejected. However, they do
not give an accurate picture of what happened because they focus upon revealing
America’s intention or evaluating the results without paying enough attention to the
process by which American education policy was carried out. My analysis focuses
instead on how Americans coped with two related obstacles in implementing education
policy: Korean post-colonial nationalism and the legacy of Japanese education policy.
This research shows how American efforts at nation-building in South Korea were
influenced by local historical conditions.
The officially declared goal of the American occupation government in the newly
liberated Korea was to prepare Koreans for complete independence and a democratic
way of life. American officials in both the United States and the occupied southern part of
33
United States Armed Forces in Korea, History of the United States Army Forces in Korea (HUSAFIK),
the National Assembly Library, Seoul, South Korea; Donald K. Adams, “Education in Korea, 1945-1955”
(Ph.D. Diss., University of Connecticut, 1955); Hyung-gu Park, “Social changes in the educational and
religious institutions of Korean society under Japanese and American occupation” (Ph.D. Diss., University
of Utah, 1964); Dong-gu Kim, “Educational reorganization in South Korea under the United States Army
Military Government, 1945-1948” (Ph.D. Diss., University of Pittsburgh, 1984); Jeong-Kyu Lee, “Korean
higher education under the United States Military Government: 1945-1948,” Radical Pedagogy 8, no. 1
(2006).
34
Lee Gilsang, 20segi hanguk gyoyuksa (A history of Korean education in the 20th century) (Seoul:
Jimmundang, 2007), 186–187.
127
Korea believed that Koreans needed U.S. guidance for the time being to prepare for full
independence. In order to appease Koreans, however, they emphasized ideals that
Koreans had long desired: independence and democracy. In the field of education, the
U.S. military government claimed that it would liquidate the Japanese system and
practices and provide broad and equal educational opportunities. 35 Such a democratic
education system was precisely what Koreans had yearned for under the oppressive and
discriminatory Japanese colonial education system. All children between six and twelve
were now to be registered in a public elementary school (Ordinance 6, Sep 17, 1945). 36
The Elementary School Subcommittee under the Korean Committee on Educational
Planning passed several resolutions in January 1946 aimed at establishing compulsory
education for elementary school-aged children. The January resolution went further than
the Ordinance 6, as it contained budgeting details and step-by-step plans. The Department
of Education accepted the resolutions and decided to invest $6.6 million over the next six
years in reorganizing elementary schools to achieve the goal of educating four million
southern Korean children. Under this policy, the number of elementary school aged
students registered in schools quickly increased during the three years of American
military government, from only 1,372,883 (45%) in August 1945 to 2,224,113 (73%) in
35
“Department of Education History: Administrative and Structural Notes,” RG 554, Records of General
HQ, Far East Command, Supreme Commander Allied Powers, and United Nations Command, Box 36,
National Archives II, College Park, MD.
36
Jeong Taesu, ed., Migunjeonggi hanguk gyoyuk saryojipseong (Published sources of Korean education
under the U.S. Military Government) (Seoul: Hongjiwon, 1993), 818.
128
March 1948. 37
In addition to this expansion of elementary school education, Korean students
could now access higher education without institutional or legal obstacles. 38 At liberation,
there were only nineteen institutions of higher education in southern Korea and of these,
only one was a four-year-university; the others were two-year colleges. Each of these
colleges specialized in particular fields such as law, medical science, engineering,
commerce, education, mining, and fisheries. Under the American occupation, most of
these colleges were upgraded to universities, and several national and public universities,
including Seoul National University (formerly Kyungsung University), were established.
The U.S. military government encouraged the creation of many private universities as
well, and by the end of direct American rule, the number of higher education institutions
had increased to thirty-five.
Koreans, at least in the beginning, generally welcomed the education policy of
expansion and equal opportunity. A public opinion poll in March 1946 revealed that the
education policy of the U.S. military government was received positively by 85% of the
respondents in Seoul, although there were more negative responses in rural areas. 39 This
particular poll also showed that American efforts in education were receiving more
37
Lee Gilsang, A History of Korean education, 265-266.
38
Lee Jeong-Kyu, “Korean higher education,” 4-5.
39
“Opinion Trends, Department of Public Information, March 31, 1946,” RG 554 General Correspondence
USAFIK, Box 5, G-2 Periodic Reports, National Archives II, College Park, MD.
129
positive feedback than their political and economic reforms. However, this initial, highly
favorable opinion did not last very long. In an opinion poll taken a few months later in
August 1946, positive responses about the education policy dropped to 26% whereas
negative ones rose to 51%. 40 How can we explain this loss in popularity? One of the
reasons was the deteriorated educational conditions of the time. The serious lack of
facilities, teachers and textbooks could not be remedied in such a short period. 41
Educational infrastructure could be improved only over the long term, and many Koreans
were probably disappointed at the slow pace of reform.
The more significant reasons for the decreased approval rate, however, lay in the
Koreans’ anti-Japanese and anti-foreigner sentiment. Anti-foreigner nationalism was the
first obstacle that American occupying forces had to deal with. Nationalism in the newly
liberated countries after World War II was expressed in various ways in different
postcolonial contexts. In liberated Korea, the most important issue was self-determination.
Koreans, who had long desired autonomy under Japanese rule, began to put this desire
into action right after liberation by forming various autonomous organizations to fill the
vacuum of political authority and police forces, keep public order and prepare for nationbuilding throughout the country.
The most prominent organization was geonguk junbi wiwonhoe [Preparatory
40
Ibid., August 2, 1946.
41
Ibid., May 10, 1946.
130
Committee for National Construction], formed by a moderate leftist national leader, Yuh
(Lyuh) Woon Hyung. The organization later evolved into Chosun inmin gonghwaguk
[People’s Republic of Korea], spearheaded by the leftists. This organization included
many autonomously created local councils called jibang inmin wiwonhoe [Local Council
of People’s Commissars], which played important roles in the self-government of many
local areas. The rightists formed a separate organization that later became Hanguk
Minjudang [Korean Democratic Party], but leftist organizations had a greater role in
regional self-government.
American occupying forces, like many American officials in the United States and
missionaries in Korea, believed that Koreans were unable to govern themselves. Koreans
under Japanese rule, believing in President Woodrow Wilson’s principle of selfdetermination, had looked to the United States for help in their struggle for independence.
This hope, however, was frustrated when the United States showed no interest in Korea’s
independence. A quarter of a century later, Koreans felt the same frustration under the
American occupation government and many came to distrust the United States. The U.S.
military government outlawed the spontaneously organized committees that had ruled the
liberated Korea prior to U.S. arrival. 42 To many Koreans, therefore, American forces were
not liberators but another set of foreign occupiers. 43
42
Kim Seokjun, Migunjeong sidaeui gukkawa haengjeong (The state and administration in the era of U.S.
military government) (Seoul: Ewha Womans University Press, 1996), 126–136.
43
Kim Wonsik, Interview by Gang Myeongsuk in a project led by Professor Kim Gisuk in April and May
of 1998 about the nationwide turmoil surrounding the establishment of Seoul National University, Seoul
131
American occupation leaders were not unaware of this anti-Japanese and antiforeigner sentiment. For example, General John Hodge said that he heard anecdotally
from a Korean source that anti-Japanese sentiment among Koreans was so strong that
every Korean believed that every other Korean was pro-Japanese. 44 However, the U.S.
military government depended on many pro-Japanese personnel in South Korean nationbuilding, which aroused great indignation among the Korean people. For efficiency,
American occupation leaders preferred people with experience as a civil servant. More
importantly, the pro-Japanese officials, who transformed themselves to pro-American
rightists after liberation, were the ones in whom the occupation leaders could place their
ideological trust. Americans were vigilant against the leftists and distrusted the moderates.
Many important high official positions, such as Justice of the Supreme Court, chief of the
National Police Agency, mayors of many cities including Seoul, and governorship of
many provinces, were filled with people who had previously worked for the Japanese
colonial government. 45
The U.S. military government also depended on such people to carry out
educational reform. Its Committee on Education was comprised of Korean members who
National University Archives, Seoul National University Archives, Seoul, South Korea.
44
RG 332, Records of General HQ, Far East Command, Supreme Command Allied Powers and UN
Command, USAFIK XXIV Corps, G-2, Historical Section 1945-48, Box 27, National Archives II, College
Park, MD.
45
Son Insu, Migunjeonggwa gyoyuk jeongchaek (U.S. military government in Korea and its education
policy) (Seoul: Minyeongsa, 1990), 139–173.
132
had studied either in the United States or Japan and favored foreign influence. 46 The close
relationship between the U.S. military government and the rightist pro-American group
was an enormous source of distrust and complaint within the Korean populace. Korean
people thus came to regard pro-Japanese and pro-American Korean officials as one and
the same. This was one of the main causes of the decline of the U.S. military
government’s overall popularity.
We can see the tension aroused by the peremptory way in which U.S. occupying
forces carried out their policies in the series of events around the foundation of Seoul
National University. On August 22, 1946, the U.S. military government issued Ordinance
102 establishing Seoul National University by consolidating Kyungsung University and
nine other colleges. This so-called gukdae-an [plan for the establishment of a national
university] had two goals. First, the U.S. military government wanted to establish U.S.style universities. According to the official U.S. Armed Forces history of the U.S. military
in South Korea, the plan for the establishment of Seoul National University “followed
closely the general trend in similar institutions in the United States.” 47 Second, the new
national university was to address the current problems in higher education, to create a
great national university capable of producing high-quality human resources, and to
46
Ibid., 169.
47
U.S. Armed Forces, History of the United States Army Forces in Korea (HUSAFIK), the National
Assembly Library, Seoul, South Korea.
133
liquidate the legacy of the Japanese higher education institutions.48
This attempt to create a great national university faced very severe resistance by
many professors and students throughout the nation for nearly a year. The resistance
originated in the affected colleges and spread to other colleges and even many secondary
schools. The opponents of the proposal had several important demands. 49 The professors
and the colleges in question were unwilling to accept the plan because it meant that their
schools would disappear. These faculty members believed that the new university would
be controlled by the government and thus infringe upon their academic freedom. Many
students who had been involved in administrative committees within those colleges also
worried about their loss of autonomy as governmental control of higher education was
strengthened. Koreans were also provoked by the fact that all the university’s board
members would be appointed by the Department of Education, and that the first president
of the Seoul National University was an American, not a Korean. The Americans were
surprised at this fierce Korean opposition. 50 Needless to say, there was a huge gap
between American ideals and Korean expectations at the start of the U.S. occupation
government.
48
Choi Hyaeweol, “’Gukdae-an padong” (Turmoil surrounding the plan for foundation of Seoul National
University), Nonjaengeuro bon hanguksa 100nyeonsa (100 Year history of Korea reviewed through
debates), ed. Yeoksabipyeong Pyeonjip Wiwonhoe (Seoul: Yeoksa Bypyeongsa, 2000), 172.
49
Heo Daeyeong, Ocheonseokgwa migunjeonggi gyoyuk jeongchaeck (Auh Chun Suk and education policy
of the U.S. military government) (Seoul: Hanguk Haksul Jeongbo, Inc., 2009), 142–151.
50
Son Insu, U.S. Military Government, 376.
134
Studies of this event focus on two issues. One is whether it was Korean educators
supporting the occupation government or American governmental staff who first
designed the plan. It has been widely accepted that the main agent in proposing the plan
was Auh Chun Suk, Korean deputy head of Department of Education and a leading figure
in the Korean Committee on Education and National Committee on Educational
Planning. 51 Auh himself claimed that it was he who initiated the proposal. 52 On the other
hand, a revisionist scholar argues that the main actors were American administrators in
the occupation government, and that Koreans were merely their supporters. 53 The second
issue of debate has been whether or not the opposition was initiated and led by the leftists.
Officials in the U.S. military government and some later historians have interpreted the
unexpected large-scale resistance by Korean professors and students as being instigated
by communists; other scholars pay more attention to other issues and give less
importance to the role of the leftists or communists. 54 While these two issues are
important in understanding the tensions between the drafters of the proposal and the
professors and students involved in the plan, they do not sufficiently explain why the
opposition spread to the whole nation and continued for such a long time.
51
Kim Giseok, Hanguk godeunggyoyuk yeongu (Study on Korean higher education) (Seoul: Gyoyuk
Gwahaksa, 2008); Son Insu, U.S. military government; Heo Daeyeong, Auh Chun Suk.
52
Auh Chun Suk, Oeroun Seongju (Lonely Castellan) (Seoul: Gyoyuk Gwahaksa, 2001), 117–121.
53
Lee Gilsang, A history of Korean education, 322.
54
Ibid., 326-328.
135
Rather than attempting to determine who initiated the plan or who led the
opposition, we focus here on why Koreans widely supported those resisting the American
plan. Kim Giseok’s argument should be noted: that the essential issue in the turmoil was
the question of autonomy. He documents the tension between Korean professors who had
been running their own schools since liberation and American military forces that tried to
control the schools. He argues that the professors and students who opposed the proposal
did so because they believed it would allow the government to control their schools and
thus violate their right to rule their own schools. 55 The gist of the conflict, according to
Kim, was thus the tension between control and autonomy, but he traces the origin of these
efforts for autonomy to the colonial period, when Kyungsung Imperial University was
allowed broad autonomy. That may be true, although Kim may be overstating his case, as
Kyungsung was being run by the Japanese even if some autonomy was allowed.
Moreover, I believe it is important to frame the professors’ claim for autonomy in the
immediate context of overall Korean desire for autonomy. 56 Already frustrated that
Americans were violating their self-determination, Koreans came to regard the American
decision to create Seoul National University as one more instance of American
authoritarianism.
55
Kim Giseok, Study on Korean higher education, 99-201.
56
Kim Wonsik argued that the opposition to the plan to establish Seoul National University was opposition
to the military government. (interview by Gang Myeongsuk), Seoul National University Archives, Seoul,
South Korea.
136
Evidence for this position can be seen in the fact that most of the colleges that had
reasserted independence after Japanese colonial rule by running their own selfadministration committees were the ones that refused to accept the proposal for the
establishment of Seoul National University. Even though they were relatively favorable
toward the U.S. military government’s education policy of more and equal opportunities,
as Koreans, the students and the faculty were very sensitive to issues related to selfdetermination. Since the opposition to the plan touched on the issue of autonomy, it could
spread over inter-school boundaries. Of course, this conflict was in a sense a turf war
among the professors of the related schools. However, many other Koreans outside the
academy participated in or were sympathetic to the opposition to gukdae-an because they
agreed with opponents’ claim that the proposal aimed at compromising the autonomy of
Korean schools. The U.S. military government’s crack-down on Korean resistance in the
early stages aggravated the situation. Having endured 35 years of Japanese colonial rule,
Koreans vehemently refused to tolerate American attempts to exercise control or to
dominate cherished institutions.
This was why one of the biggest sources of grievance was that an American
would be the first president of their new national university. American occupiers, whose
policy was primarily concerned with ideology and efficiency, did not take Korean
nationalism seriously enough to be attentive to what this selection symbolized. And the
Koreans’ postcolonial sensibilities prevented them from cold-heartedly evaluating the
137
pros and cons of the overall educational reform proposal. A participant in the protest
recalled decades later that many were against the plan simply because they did not want
the American system transplanted to Korea. 57
The situation took a favorable turn when the U.S. military government changed its
coercive style and attempted to negotiate with its opponents. 58 Seoul National University
became normalized after a year of turmoil when the U.S. military government announced
a revised proposal allowing considerable, though not complete, faculty autonomy. The
reform of higher education was carried out by the U.S. military government and proAmerican—many of whom were formerly pro-Japanese—Korean educators, and thus
achieved only partial success. The president and the board of directors were to be
Koreans and the disbanded faculty council was restored. 59 While the U.S. military
government put the higher educational system under its control, it also left room for
autonomy. This outcome bequeathed two contradictory legacies to Korean higher
education. On the one hand, governmental control of higher education prevented the
autonomous development of universities and colleges. On the other, the small space
remaining for autonomy would later become a place to cultivate anti-dictatorship
democratic movements.
57
Go Byungik, Interview by Yu Sungsang in a project led by Professor Kim Gisuk in April and May of
1998 about the nationwide turmoil surrounding the establishment of Seoul National University, Seoul
National University Archives, Seoul, South Korea.
58
Son Insu, U.S. military government, 370-382.
59
Kim Giseok, Study on Korean higher education, 124-125.
138
Another obstacle to the U.S. military government’s education policy and nationbuilding project in South Korea included the vestiges of Japanese imperialism. The
strong influence of the Japanese system could not be nullified in such a short period of
time. The U.S. military government’s dependence on pro-Japanese personnel also
contributed in some ways to maintaining the influence of the Japanese system, and thus
made it harder for the more liberally-minded Americans in the military government to
promote their democratic ideals. An example is the failure of the New Education
Movement.
In this collision of American ideals and Korean nationalism in which the two
different American and Japanese systems were interwoven, new movements for
educational reform emerged: the New Education Movement and the Liberal Education
Movement. The Liberal Education Movement, which was inspired by socialism and
criticized the negative aspects of capitalism, stressed the importance of political and
vocational education. Its adherents were strongly against the privatization of education
and argued that it should be supported by the state. Although the U.S. military
government established a state-supported public university, the political philosophy of
this movement was at odds with the objectives of the U.S. occupying forces. The
ideological difference and the movement’s critical attitudes toward the U.S. military
government’s education policy meant that the movement could not be effective during the
139
period of American rule. 60
Another important school of thought was the New Education Movement. The
educators belonging to this movement, unlike those in the Liberal Education Movement,
supported the U.S. military government policy. They actively accepted American theories
of democratic education and tried to apply them to Korean education. They embraced the
progressive education theory pioneered by John Dewey that was popular in the United
States at the time. Many of the educators leading the New Education Movement
participated in the military government or in advisory committees and were advisors on
education policy.
Auh Chun Suk, one of the leading figures in the movement, pioneered the
introduction of the educational theory of John Dewey by writing a summary of Dewey’s
philosophies and translating his works. 61 He and other Koreans, including Jang Ih-Wook,
Cho Byung-Ok, and Kim Heung-Jeh, had actually taken classes with Dewey at Columbia
University during the Japanese occupation. In addition, several Koreans such as Helen
Kim, Seo Eunsuk, Jang Seok-Young, Yun Seong-Sun, and Noh Jae-Myung trained under
one of Dewey’s best pupils, William Heard Kilpatrick. After liberation, these individuals
60
Lee Gilsang, A history of Korean education, 191-208.
61
Auh Chun Suk’s book, Minjujuui gyoyugui geonseol (Building democratic education) (Gwangmyeong
Chulpansa, 1975) deals with John Dewey’s education theory. He also translated John Dewey’s books,
Democracy and Education (1916) and Experience and Education (1938). Lee Ingi and Seong Naewoon
also respectively translated The School and Society (Dewey, 1899) and Group Education for a Democracy
(William Heard Kilpatrick, 1940) into Korean.
140
spread the theory of progressive education in Korea by giving college lectures,
participating in the government’s education policy, and establishing leading universities
of which they often became presidents. 62
Many who belonged to this New Education Movement also held demonstration
classes introducing a new “democratic” way of education. In these demonstrations,
students did not listen passively to what teachers told them, but rather actively
participated in teacher-led discussions. Moreover, the Department of Education opened
its exhibition “Building New Education” and displayed reports and material related to the
New Education Movement. 63
Despite these tireless efforts and state support, the New Education Movement was
not very successful in reforming Korean education along the lines of Deweyan
philosophy during this period of direct U.S. rule. Why did it fail? Auh Chun Suk, one of
the leading figures of the movement, attributed its failure either to the teachers’ lack of
passion or to their misunderstanding of the democratic idea. 64 Sohn Insoo, who agrees
with Auh, also argues that Korean teachers on the ground, who were not ready to
accommodate U.S. educational theory, had neither a clear understanding of nor strong
faith in the “democratized” classroom or forms of pedagogy. 65 Another scholar, Lee
62
Auh Chun Suk and Helen Kim were members of the Korean Education Committee during the U.S.
Military Government.
63
Lee Gilsang, A history of Korean education, 212-218.
64
Heo Daeyeong, Auh Chun Suk, 181-183.
65
Son Insu, U.S. Military Government, 358-364.
141
Gilsang, criticizes the movement for focusing on the liberty of children to speak,
challenge, and debate in the classroom, while ignoring greater and more pressing societal
problems. 66 His criticism targets the prominent educational administrators, including Auh,
the leader of the New Education Movement. He points out that the leaders were
dependent on foreign theories not congruent with Korean realities and that they
implemented educational reform in top-down style that contradicted their own democratic
principles. Thus these evaluations of the movement show that the New Education
Movement, based as it was on foreign theory, was doomed to failure, and they do not
suggest deeper causes for this failure. The shallowness of their analyses arises from their
focus on actors without sufficiently looking at the system level.
A more important point to consider is the discrepancy between the educational
systems in America and South Korea. While the former was based on democracy and
capitalism in a strong civic society, the latter was under strong and centralized military
rule that did not completely remove Japanese authoritarian and bureaucratic legacies.
Besides this difference in governance, there was also a gap between the two nations in
regard to education style or culture. Traditional Korean education itself had been
basically hierarchical and paid little attention to individual peculiarities, and this trend
had been further intensified under the more systematically centralized modern Japanese
colonial rule. The New Education Movement promoting individualism and relativism
66
Lee Gilsang, A history of Korean education, 219.
142
could not easily merge with this centralized system. The hierarchical university system
created fierce competition and thus sustained teaching by cramming. The teachers’
authoritarian attitude in the classroom also did not allow each individual student to
exercise his or her personality. Therefore, the crucial point is not that the teachers simply
did not understand the democratic method of teaching, but rather that they had difficulty
in understanding American educational theory and in applying it to their teaching due to
their experience of the Japanese system during the occupation and its persistent influence.
Education does not operate by itself, but rather in conjunction with the administrative
system of the nation and societal culture. The New Education Movement could not
succeed without a parallel philosophy, structure, and process for administering and
supplying education in South Korea.
The failure of the New Education Movement also demonstrates the limitations of
the U.S. military government’s rule in South Korea. We can see that its goal of
liquidating the vestiges of Japanese colonialism was not achieved. On the contrary, the
U.S. military government’s policy of preserving pro-Japanese personnel contributed to
the persistence of the Japanese system in post-liberation South Korea and incurred the
suspicion of Korean people of its democratic ideals. American attempts to reform Korean
education consistently ran up against a contradiction: trying to promote democracy on the
one hand, but on the other doing so in a way that seemed to Koreans patently
undemocratic. As mentioned, many teachers, policemen, and administrators who had
143
worked for the Japanese were rehired by the Americans, despite public protest. The ways
in which the U.S. military government officials carried out their policies were not always
“democratic.” Those resisting the National University Establishment Plan criticized the
U.S. military government as undemocratic. 67 Thus the more the U.S. military government
wanted to carry out reform in the name of democracy, the more Korean suspicion about
American intentions grew and the gap between American democratic ideals and Korean
nationalism widened. A Korean staff member in the U.S. military government, for
example, said in an interview that students accused professors closely allied with
American advisors and the Department of Education of being dictatorial and fascistic. 68
The gap between American intentions and Korean expectations gave birth to the irony
that many democratic student activists became anti-American. The tension between the
American military government and Koreans on the issue of education reform also shows
an important and persistent feature of South Korean society: the division of political
forces between pro-American conservatives and anti-American liberals. 69
Conclusion
67
Lee Gilsans and Oh Manseok, eds., Hanguk gyoyuksaryo jipseong: migunjeonggipyeon I (Published
sources of Korean educational history: U.S. military government era I), vol. I (Seoul: Hanguk
Jeongsinmunhwa Yeonguwon, 1997).
68
Jeong Taesu, ed. Published Sources of Korean Education, 1019.
69
For example, student activists who fought for democracy in South Korea during the 1970s and 1980s
embraced socialist and/or communist ideas and strongly criticized U.S. imperialism and the U.S. led global
capitalist system.
144
American policymakers concerned about Koreans’ strong nationalist fervor and
inability to rule themselves brought a trusteeship plan to Korea on the principle that
Korea needed guidance before it was given self-determination. The U.S. military
government, however, encountered obstacles it had not anticipated. First, it had to
struggle with many different Korean groups, each with its own plans for Korean nationbuilding. Most of these groups not only had good understanding of various foreign ideas,
but also proficiently used them by adapting them to serve their own agendas. Another
hurdle that the American occupiers had to clear was colonial legacies. The widespread
postcolonial nationalism of the Korean people made the U.S. military government discard
the trusteeship plan and respond to urgent local issues. Colonial legacies were also
embedded in many institutions, including the educational system. American education
reforms thus remained superficial: their individual-based democratic education principles
could not penetrate the existing solid education system emphasizing society and nation
and the hierarchies within them.
The new global scale Cold War and the appearance of another Korean government
in the North added complexity to this already complicated post-liberation Korean politics.
The U.S. military government and its Korean right-wing partners who shared an antiCommunism ideology managed to establish a bottom line of democracy: antiCommunism and popular elections. Americans, however, could not go beyond drawing
this bottom line of democracy. As shown by the Constitution of the Republic of Korea,
145
the Americans were least successful in determining the specific ways in which democracy
operated in South Korea.
Many scholars regard this bottom line of Korean democracy as a distinct feature
of early Korean democracy. In order to understand Korean democracy, however, we
should delve further into what happened above the bottom line. In the narrowed political
stage from which the leftists had been ousted, various Korean groups continued to
compete with each other to shape democracy into their own visions. Although American
principles were transferred only a little to Korean students through the new democratic
education movement, their policy of expanding education increased student exposure to
democratic ideals. The increasing gap between the democratic ideals and the reality of
Syngman Rhee’s authoritarian rule ironically made Koreans more and more aware of the
value of democracy. It was the students who had learned democratic principles in school
in the 1950s who were to lead the pro-democracy demonstrations in April 1960. The
concept of democracy embraced by the students, however, did not necessarily originate
from “American” democracy. The final chapter of this dissertation will trace the origins
of the democratic ideas for which the student demonstrators in the April Revolution
clamored.
Before examining this, however, I turn my attention in the penultimate chapter to
the United States and explore how U.S. democracy promotion policy in Korea changed in
the 1950s after the Korean War. Knowledge of how and what kind of democratic ideas
146
were transferred in Korea in the aftermath of the Korean War will enable us to better
understand the Korean response.
147
Chapter IV. Transferring Democracies:
Eisenhower’s New Information Policy and Democracy Promotion
in South Korea During the 1950s
Chapter III showed that the U.S. nation-building project in liberated Korea was
poorly conceived in Washington and thus poorly executed by the U.S. military
occupation government so as to create a right-wing, anti-Communist government.
Unwilling to fulfill vague NSC directives somehow to create an attractive democracy in
South Korea, the military government purged leftists and moderates with the aim of
establishing an orderly, conservative rule. General Hodge and his staff thus flouted the
civilian order to encourage political plurality and to promote democratic governance. On
the other hand, a policy of democracy promotion—rather than democracy protection—
was fairly new. Indeed, up through World War II, U.S. policymakers did not embrace a
policy of democracy promotion. During the war, these policymakers came to see the
protection of democracy as a necessary response to fascist expansion, but still did not
rank highly the need to promote democracy in areas without existing democratic
governance. Therefore in the immediate aftermath of the war, democracy promotion was
carefully applied only to the former enemy nations that had threatened western
democracies. Americans were aware that colonized peoples had been clamoring for selfdetermination, but believed the Koreans, the Vietnamese, and others were not yet ready to
148
be fully independent, democratic states. If the U.S. military occupation government
touted democracy to Koreans, they largely did so only in the context of casting it as being
the diametric opposite of Communism. Moreover, the military government’s purge of
leftists and left-leaning moderates from South Korean political life, as well as its
peremptory educational reforms, presented Koreans with a rather skewed view of
“democracy.”
The rise of Cold War tensions, however, made democracy promotion beyond
Germany and Japan a more serious and urgent agenda item in U.S. foreign policymaking.
Regarding Soviet expansion as not simply territorial but also ideological, U.S.
policymakers came to see the psychological implications of that expansion. 1. At the same
time, they paid increased attention to international public opinion of their own democratic
system. 2 Thus when President Harry Truman officially declared that the only useful
weapon against a Communist offensive was democracy, he was talking about promoting
democracy to new areas in order to inoculate them against the Soviet ideology. 3 The
emergence of the Cold War also contributed to the development of the tools and channels
to transfer American ideas under the Truman administration. Various propaganda and
information agencies were created to counter the expansion of Communism. Using their
wartime experience in running psychological warfare machines, U.S. policymakers
1
John Lewis Gaddis, “The insecurities of victory: the United States and the perception of the Soviet threat
after World War II,” in The Truman Presidency, ed. Michael James Lacey (Cambridge University Press,
1989), 264.
2
Mary L. Dudziak, Cold War Civil Rights: Race and the Image of American Democracy (Princeton
University Press, 2002).
3
J. Michael Waller, ed., The Public Diplomacy Reader (The Institute of World Politics Press, 2007), 152.
149
widened the existing military-focused concept of psychological warfare to include nonmilitary activities that could influence public opinion through overt and covert
propaganda operations; foreign economic and technical aid; and various cultural activities,
including educational exchange programs. 4
Yet the expansion of psychological warfare during the early Cold War period led
the larger psychological effort into confusion rather than improving its effectiveness.
Information and propaganda operations were conducted by diverse organizations
including the State Department, the military, the CIA, and economic aid agencies. These
U.S. information and propaganda agencies operated without clearly defined jurisdiction
and proper coordination. In order to solve this bureaucratic confusion, the Truman
administration created a Psychological Strategy Board (PSB) in April 1951. But this
coordinating body, made up of representatives from Departments of State and Defense,
the CIA, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), still did not work as intended. One serious
problem was that it was divided into two groups: foreign policy professionals and
psychological warfare officials. 5 These problems and limits of U.S. psychological
warfare became quite apparent during the Korean War. A JCS assessment report on U.S.
psychological warfare operation that was circulated a few months after the war’s end
concluded that a lack of centralized command center for propaganda and related
informational activities hurt the conduct of military operations. 6
4
Kenneth Osgood, Total Cold War: Eisenhower’s Secret Propaganda Battle at Home and Abroad
(University Press of Kansas, 2008), 33–35.
5
Ibid., 43.
6
Report for the National Security Council on Psychological Warfare Operations Under Military Auspices,
150
Another, perhaps more fundamental reason as to the ineffectiveness of democracy
promotion in the Truman era was, ironically, the U.S. response to the intensification of
the Cold War. As shown by its resolute policy in Greece and Turkey in 1947 to ward off
the Communists, the United States decided it was urgent to contain Communist
expansion. This sense of urgency, however, put U.S. policymakers on the defensive,
which meant they put more energy into attacking Communist ideas than into showing the
merits of democratic ideas and systems. According to John Lewis Gaddis, this may have
resulted, at least partly, from American fear and anxiety about Communist expansion. 7
However, this fear was nothing new, as we have just reviewed: it was in line with
American concern about the expansion of fascism before and during World War II.
Although victory in World War II enhanced American confidence, the extension of the
front line against Communism also increased America’s security concerns.
The security concerns made U.S. policymakers still think primarily in terms of
defending democracy and hence made its democracy promotion during the Truman
administration relatively rigid and narrow. Indeed, the psychological warfare operatives
in Eisenhower administration later made criticisms about this rigidity and narrowness. 8
Its priority on protecting democracy was the reason why the Truman administration’s
Records of White House Office, National Security Council Staff: Papers 1948-1961, OCB Central File,
Box 49, Eisenhower Library, Abilene, KS.
7
John Lewis Gaddis, “The insecurities of victory,” 265-72.
8
“The President’s Committee on International Information Activities Report to the President, June 30,
1953.” Eisenhower, Dwight D.: Papers as President of the United States, 1953-61 (Ann Whitman File),
Miscellaneous Series, Box 5, Dwight D. Eisenhower Library, Abilene, KS.
151
democracy promotion efforts were largely limited to anti-Communist propaganda. In
other words, democracy promotion remained at the discursive level; they largely lacked
specific programs that tried to address material realities. It was only when President
Eisenhower entered White House that the United States actively promoted democracy
through more concrete programs.
The first part of this chapter traces how the Cold War led the Eisenhower
administration to elaborate and expand its foreign information policy and how this
affected the ways in which American democracy was promoted in South Korea. After
examining how the Eisenhower administration renovated U.S. overseas information and
cultural policies, I will delve further into the effect of the new policies on democracy
promotion in South Korea after the Korean War during the 1950s. Special attention will
be given to how the various U.S. democracy promotion programs were transformed in
response to the peculiar local circumstances. My research shows that the diversification
of overseas information programs and channels, lacking clear definition or effective
policy coordination, resulted in promoting various concepts of democracy. I will thus
argue that this plurality of democratic ideas contributed to its broad effects in South
Korea and allowed room for diverse interpretations.
Against this backdrop, the last section of this chapter will analyze the activities of
the American educational experts who visited South Korea in the 1950s to help rebuild
the educational system. The activities of the American education experts show the more
sophisticated and diversified efforts of the Eisenhower administration’s democracy
promotion. More importantly, the interaction between American and Korean educators
demonstrates the gap between the ways in which Americans and Koreans understood
152
democracy.
Elaboration of Information Policy in the Eisenhower Administration
U.S. information policy was significantly reformed during the administration of
Dwight D. Eisenhower. Even before entering the Oval Office, the new president firmly
understood the value of an information policy. As head of Allied forces in Europe,
Eisenhower had created the Psychological Warfare Branch in order to respond to the
ideological attacks of the totalitarian Axis powers. Because he was aware of the
psychological dimensions of warfare, Eisenhower emphasized—even before becoming
President—that the United States must develop more elaborate and diverse psychological
weapons in order to win the Cold War. In a presidential campaign speech in October 1952,
Eisenhower proclaimed that he would make psychological warfare a main goal of U.S.
foreign policy. Changing international circumstances convinced him that conventional
methods of exerting political power were no longer adequate and bolstered his
commitment. The success of both superpowers in developing hydrogen bombs ironically
diminished the possibility of a third world war significantly. The process of
decolonization in the third world accelerated during the 1950s. The long-enduring truce
negotiations in Korea were finally settled in July. Most importantly, Soviet leader Joseph
Stalin died in March 1953, and his successors adopted a policy of “peaceful
coexistence.” 9 Within the United States, McCarthyism began to wane and people were
9
Osgood, Total Cold War, 46–48.
153
becoming tired of reckless anti-Communism. These events within and without the United
States together convinced Eisenhower and his administration of the importance of
psychological warfare in the Cold War competition.
Entering the White House, Eisenhower found that neither the PSB nor the
International Information Administration (IIA) was operating effectively. In order to
reform the existing information system, two presidential committees were established:
the President’s Committee on Governmental Organization and the President’s Committee
on International Information Activities. The latter was called the Jackson Committee for
its chair, William H. Jackson—not to be confused with C.D. Jackson, who also played a
crucial role in the committee. The committee began work even before the President’s
inauguration and operated for about six months. After reviewing American international
information policies and activities and evaluating the intentions and capabilities of the
Soviet information system, the committee produced a report suggesting directions for the
future of American information policy. 10
Defining the nature of the Soviet threat as more ideological than military, the
Jackson Committee’s report portrayed the Cold War conflict as a fundamental clash
between America’s ideal of leading a world order of free and peaceful nations and the
Soviet drive for world domination. 11 The committee did not underestimate the need to
defend their democratic system given the political warfare capabilities of the Soviet
10
Ibid., 76.
11
“The President’s Committee on International Information Activities Report to the President (Jackson
Committee Final Report), June 30, 1953,” Eisenhower, Dwight D.: Papers as President of the United States,
1953-61 (Ann Whitman File), Miscellaneous Series, Box 5, Dwight D. Eisenhower Library, Abilene, KS.
154
Union, but suggested that the United States change its overseas information policy from
defending democracy to actively promoting it. By pointing out that the Communist
apparatus did not work properly in the “Free World,” the committee recommended that
the United States should actively help the “free” nations build their strength in order to
resist Communist offensives. In other words, instead of simply offering rebuttals to the
Communists’ anti-U.S. propaganda, the United States needed to be a more engaged leader
in the “Free World” coalition. Taking a pro-active stance, then, must be a central
component of U.S. Cold War policy. The report thus urged that U.S. leadership go beyond
military assistance to launch a variety of moral, political and economic programs in the
“free” nations. 12
According to the Jackson Committee, the Eisenhower administration’s new
information policy thus required a significant reform of the existing U.S. information
system. As the committee saw it, the major problem of the existing U.S. information
system was that there was no “unanimity of opinion regarding the over-all mission of the
U.S. information agencies.” Without central direction and clear coordination, the national
information program could not wage an offensive propaganda campaign against
Communism and could only take a defensive stance. Furthermore, it pointed out that the
U.S. information programs, which were characterized by diffuse, sometimes
contradictory views, could not match the tightly controlled, well-coordinated Soviet
propaganda. The committee determined that these weaknesses stemmed from the way in
which the PSB was established. Because it was created as an autonomous independent
12
Ibid.
155
body to coordinate all non-military psychological activities, the PSB was “placed outside
the normal policy-making channels without sufficient statutory authority” and was,
moreover, regarded by the State Department as a rival. A more serious problem related to
the bureaucratic wrangling was the PSB’s false belief in the existence of “overall national
psychological objectives” separate from the national objectives. 13 This misconception not
only obscured the role of the PSB, but also inspired the jealousy of other departments,
especially the State Department.
The Jackson Committee’s report therefore concluded that the United States should
abolish the PSB and establish a new organization called Operations Coordinating Board
(OCB) that would “coordinate departmental execution of national security policies,”
“assign detailed planning responsibilities to departments,” and “examine the resulting
plans.” 14 Further claiming that psychological warfare was part of larger national policies,
the committee strongly recommended that this new coordinating board should be created
within the National Security Council so that it could play its coordinating role without
departmental competition. By operating within the NSC, the OCB was expected to work
hand in hand with the national security policies. One of the main tasks of the newly
created OCB was to coordinate the various aspects of American foreign policy from the
standpoint of national security. Inclusion of the United States Information Agency
(USIA) in the OCB shows that information activities had come to be regarded as a crucial
component of American security.
13
Ibid.
14
Ibid.
156
Yet another problem in American foreign information programs, according to the
Jackson Committee’s diagnosis, was the suspicion of those on the receiving end of the
information. It thus suggested various ways to avoid such suspicion: conducting
unattributed operations, working closely with American private organizations and
personnel operating abroad, and utilizing international organizations such as the United
Nations. We can see from today’s vantage point that all these suggestions carried the
potential of exacerbating the existing suspicions, to say the least, but the committee, of
course, did not benefit from hindsight of the Vietnam-era secrecy scandals. So the
committee recommended that the existing programs and activities engaged in overt
propaganda activities—such as the VOA, Wireless File, magazines and government
pamphlets—be replaced by unattributed publications, movies, and TV programs. Another,
longer-term strategy to remove the doubts of the locals was to establish cooperative
relationships with them by expanding cultural relations such as various exchange
programs. Thus the committee advocated the expansion of covert operations that
intentionally blurred the activities of government and non-government activities. 15 This
appealed to Eisenhower, a fiscal conservative who, as we know, came to embrace covert
operations as a nimbler and cheaper way to achieve U.S. foreign policy goals.
The new Eisenhower administration accepted most of the recommendations of the
Jackson Committee. The PSB was abolished and OCB was established within the NSC.
The existing information bureau, IIA, which had been operating within the State
Department, was also replaced by the more independent USIA created outside that
15
Ibid.
157
department. In order to reduce local suspicion, the government tried to obscure its
presence in information policy: it employed covert operations and also cooperated more
actively with private agencies. 16
The Eisenhower administration’s acceptance of these new overseas information
strategies closely connected psychological warfare activities to national security. The new
information policy also made American policymakers more sensitive to the responses of
the local people and made them realize that the United States would be judged less by its
propaganda than by popular attitudes. They thus often modified their programs according
to specific local conditions. Furthermore, U.S. policymakers began to actively employ
culturalists’ long-term “idealistic” approach—that is, one that advocated certain ideals—
in order to win the Cold War. Idealistic in this sense did not mean, of course, embracing a
romantic or fanciful view. 17 Accordingly, the government worked closely with various
cultural organizations such as International Voluntary Service (IVS) and Korea Advisory
Council. 18 American policymakers now believed the values of democracy could not sell
themselves and that Americans had to actively persuade people that their democratic
ideas and system were better than the Communists’.
The new information policy was significant in America’s promotion of democracy
in the “Free World.” Following the advice of the Jackson Committee, the new
16
White House Office, Office of the Special Assistant for National Security Affairs: Records, 1952-61,
OCB Series, Subject Subseries, Box 3; Eisenhower, Dwight D.: Records as President, White House Central
File (Confidential File), 1953-61, Subject Series, Box 99, Dwight D. Eisenhower Library, Abilene, KS.
17
Eisenhower, Dwight D.: Records as President, White House Central Files (Official File), 1953-61, Box
130, Dwight D. Eisenhower Library, Abilene, KS.
18
White House Office, Office of the Special Assistant for National Security Affairs: Records, 1952-61,
OCB Series, Subject Subseries, Box 3, Dwight D. Eisenhower Library, Abilene, KS.
158
information agency concentrated on positive themes targeting the Free World nations, and
it mostly abandoned the smear tactics of directly attacking Communism. 19 The new
information policy thus stressed Americans’ high standard of living and made greater
efforts to explain the merits of “American” liberalism and democracy. Democracy
promotion, which had been only one of the anti-Communist propaganda tools in the
Truman era, now became a main component of the psychological warfare and also an
important part of the new American Cold War policy. 20
Another feature of the new information policy on U.S. democracy promotion,
despite attempts to have a central coordinating office, was that it was conducted by
diverse agencies with their own specific goals. Since there were no specific programs that
could be called “democracy promotion,” democracy was promoted as a part of the larger
agendas of each information and cultural program. The specific concepts of democracy
focused on by a particular agency therefore depended on that agency’s specific mandates,
whether it be about civil rights, economic concerns, or health issues. In this respect, we
should recognize that while the U.S. federal government now put resources behind
promoting democracy, there was no consistent, comprehension definition of democracy.
Linked to a variety of programs with differing agendas, the United States during the
Eisenhower era began promoting what we may call democracy in action. There was no
particular interest in promoting a definitive view of democracy because doing so would
19
Eisenhower, Dwight D.: Records as President, White House Central File (Confidential File), 1953-61,
Subject Series, Box 99, Dwight D. Eisenhower Library, Abilene, KS.
20
Laura A. Belmonte, Selling the American Way: U.S. Propaganda and the Cold War (University of
Pennsylvania Press, 2010), 95–100.
159
undermine its very significance. Moreover, we should also consider that the diversity
reflected in American agencies was mirrored in its counterpart nations. These diverse
groups in other nations responded differently to American democracy promotion
according to their own goals. Therefore, in order to understand how Americans
democracy was promoted and accepted in South Korea, we must consider these
complicating factors. In what follows, I trace how diverse concepts of democracy were
promoted in South Korea during the 1950s through a variety of channels and how
policies regarding democracy promotion changed according to local circumstances.
American Democracy Promotion in South Korea
South Korea, which had occupied a low priority in America’s post-WWII foreign
policy, moved up in this priority list as the Cold War escalated. When war broke out in
the Korean peninsula and the United States decided to participate in it, the Korean
peninsula became a testing ground for the competition between democracy and
Communism.21 After the armistice, the Korean peninsula remained one of the critical
Cold War fronts. In their policy toward South Korea, U.S. foreign policymakers thus had
to consider not only geostrategic factors, but also the psychological impact on other
countries. 22
21
Eisenhower, Dwight D.: Records as President, White House Central File (Confidential File), 1953-61,
Subject Series, Box 34; “Korea Story Film,” Eisenhower, Dwight D.: Records as President, White House
Central File (Confidential File), 1953-61, Subject Series, Box 99; White House Office, Office of the
Special Assistant for National Security Affairs: Records, 1952-61, OCB Series, Subject Subseries, Box 3,
Dwight D. Eisenhower Library, Abilene, KS.
22
“US Tactics Immediately Following an Armistice in Korea,” White House Office, Office of the Special
160
It is not difficult to find American foreign policymakers who emphasized the
continuing strategic importance of South Korea. In March 1953, the Director of Bureau
of Information and Liaison of the United Nations Korean Reconstruction Agency claimed
that “Korea offered the West its most promising single opportunity to strike a major
political blow against Communism, at relatively light cost, through a positive
demonstration of democratic methods.” In making this case to C.D. Jackson, Don Pryor
further argued that “the opportunity in Korea for a thoroughgoing renascence along
democratic lines, which can be a most important propaganda demonstration for our side
throughout the Far East, arises from a number of factors which are peculiar to Korea and
to Korea’s strategic situation.” 23 Henry J. Tasca, the President’s Special Economic
Advisor on Korea, agreed. Tasca visited South Korea in April 1953, just before the
armistice, to investigate the regional economic and military situation, and he reported that
the Republic of Korea should be an example to the rest of free Asia and the “Free World”
generally. 24 Since both Pryor and Tasca held Korea-related government positions, they
may have had a vested interest in touting the importance of Korea to U.S. policy, but
others in policymaking circles agreed with them.
Two reports created before the cease-fire agreement also reflected U.S.
Assistant for National Security Affairs: Records, 1952-61, NSC Series, Policy Papers Subseries, Box 5,
Dwight D. Eisenhower Library, Abilene, KS.
23
“Don Pryor to C.D. Jackson (19 March, 1953),” Eisenhower, Dwight D.: Records as President, White
House Central File (Confidential File), 1953-61, Subject Series, Box 34, Dwight D. Eisenhower Library,
Abilene, KS.
24
“Henry J. Tasca (Special Representative for Korean Economic Affairs) to the President,” White House
Office, Office of the Special Assistant for National Security Affairs: Records, 1952-61, NSC Series, Policy
Paper Subseries, Box 5, Folder: NSC 156/1-Strengthening Korean Economy, Dwight D. Eisenhower
Library, Abilene, KS.
161
policymakers’ increased attention to South Korea. NSC-154, titled “U.S. Tactics
Immediately Following an Armistice in Korea,” and created in June 1953, stated that a
large policy objective for South Korea was to “strengthen the government and democratic
institutions” and “contribute to the economic recovery and rehabilitation of the ROK.”
This report was supplemented by a more detailed NSC report, numbered 156-1 and titled
“Strengthening Korean Economy.” 25 Based on Tasca’s report, this document asserted that
economic aid to ROK would have an “important psychological effect on both the
Koreans and the rest of the world as concrete evidence of United States determination to
help revive an economy shattered by the ravages of war against the Communist
aggressor.” 26 On the basis of this assumption, the report regarded building stable political
and economic system in South Korea as a way to achieve U.S. security objectives. 27 Thus
in order for South Korea to become a model nation in the America-led free world, the
United States needed to help South Koreans not only build a strong military force, but
also develop democratic institutions and create a dynamic capitalist economy. Democracy
promotion and economic aid in South Korea thus came to be linked to U.S. security.
The main task of the information operatives in South Korea was to explain
America’s multi-level policy objectives to the South Korean people in order to develop
their understanding and support for the U.S. position. Information activity about
25
Ibid.
26
“NSC 156-1 (July 17, 1953),” White House Office, Office of the Special Assistant for National Security
Affairs: Records, 1952-61, NSC Series, Policy Paper Subseries, Box 5, Folder: NSC 156/1-Strengthening
Korean Economy, Dwight D. Eisenhower Library, Abilene, KS.
27
“NSC 154 (June 15, 1953),” White House Office, Office of the Special Assistant for National Security
Affairs: Records, 1952-61, NSC Series, Policy Paper Subseries, Box 5, Folder: NSC 154-U.S. Tactics
Immediately Following an Armistice in Korea, Dwight D. Eisenhower Library, Abilene, KS.
162
America’s multiple tasks in South Korea required various channels targeting a broad
spectrum of audiences. By using various channels to spread their ideas and institutions,
American information and cultural agencies tried to reach more people from diverse
fields and regions. For example, NSC 170-1 emphasized that the “economic aid message
and the theme of Free World unity in the face of the Cold War” should be “directed at the
more sophisticated groups through books and publications, motion pictures and personal
contacts.” 28 But while the elites were their main target, the general public was not
ignored. Americans operated not only in the cities where most elites resided, but also in
rural areas where most of the population lived. 29
Branch posts and cultural centers were the main basis of their official
informational and cultural operations in South Korea. As of 1953, there were six United
States Information Service (USIS) branch posts and nine local cultural centers supported
by the USIS. 30 The number of local cultural centers rapidly increased in the late 1950s
and reached almost fifty in 1960. 31 These posts and centers directly promoted America’s
superior life-styles and democratic ideas in various ways.
Notwithstanding the Jackson Committee’s recommendation, the Voice of America
28
“NSC 170-1: US Objectives and Courses of Action with Respect to Korea (Nov 20, 1953),” White House
Office, Office of the Special Assistant for National Security Affairs: Records, 1952-61, NSC Series, Policy
Paper Subseries, Box 7, Dwight D. Eisenhower Library, Abilene, KS.
29
“NSC 170-1: US Objectives and Courses of Action with Respect to Korea (Nov 20, 1953),” White House
Office, Office of the Special Assistant for National Security Affairs: Records, 1952-61, NSC Series, Policy
Paper Subseries, Box 7, Dwight D. Eisenhower Library, Abilene, KS.
30
Heo Eun, Migugui hegemoniwa hangugui minjujuui: naengjeonsidae (1945-1965) munhwajeok
gyeonggyeui guchukkwa gyunyeorui dongban (U.S. hegemony and Korean nationalism: establishment of
cultural border accompanying rupture) (Seoul: Research Institute of Korean Studies, 2008), 184.
31
Ibid., 192-193.
163
(VOA) remained an important propaganda tool. 32 Following the new information strategy,
it devoted more time to projecting positive images of the United States and the free world
than to spreading anti-Communist propaganda. The American information agency also
published various journals including World News, Daily Overseas News Bulletin, KoreaEnglish USIS Press Features, Free World Magazine, Cartoon Weekly, and Saehim (New
Strength). Among others, Saehim was distributed in rural areas to “enlighten” farmers. In
rural areas where the illiteracy rate was still high, motion pictures and posters were also
often used. 33 Twenty-four mobile film units and 229 projectors were operated by USIS in
Korea as of July 1953. A motion picture production center at Sangnam produced two
newsreels and one documentary a month. USIS also adapted films sent from Washington
for use in Korea. 34 In addition, the USIS in Korea distributed a daily file of international
and local news and photographs to ROK newspapers, government agencies, and ROK
military units. Various kinds of exhibitions were also arranged by the American
information operators.
These types of overt propaganda instruments, however, were being reduced as per
the Jackson Committee’s recommendations and replaced with a more sophisticated
information policy. Pessimistic assessments of the effectiveness of the VOA also came
32
“Our Broadcast to Korea: A comparative analysis of one week of broadcasting to Korea by the Voice of
America and the Far East Command,” RG 306, Records of the United States Information Agency (USIA),
Office of Research, Country Project Files, 1951-64, Box 67, Folder: Korea-VOA Content Analysis (AprMay 1953), National Archives II, College Park, MD.
33
“Progress Report on NSC 170-1: United States Objectives and Courses of Action with Respect to Korea
(December 29, 1954),” White House Office, Office of the Special Assistant for National Security Affairs:
Records, 1952-61, NSC Series, Policy Paper Subseries, Box 7, Dwight D. Eisenhower Library, Abilene, KS.
34
“Information and Propaganda Capabilities and Other Facilities in Korea,” Jackson, C.D.: Records, 195354, Box 4, Folder: Korea (2), Dwight D. Eisenhower Library, Abilene, KS.
164
from the local agency. For example, J. R. Higgins, Chief of the USIA in Korea, claimed
in a report dated August 6, 1953 that radio was a weak and unreliable medium. 35
Following both the new information policy and the opinions of the local agency came
attempts to produce more sophisticated cultural programs. In the field of publishing, the
U.S. information agency began to make more efforts to support South Korean publishers
than producing publications created by Americans or American employees. So rather than
writing textbooks to be translated into Korean, American educators became involved in
textbook publication by acting as consultants to the Ministry of Education. 36 Many
textbooks thus emphasized democratic ideals and contained examples of institutions and
great men in U.S. history. Americans also funded and/or ran diverse non-governmental
organizations that were involved in educational, religious or charitable activities, such as
Korean-American Foundations headed by Dr. Milton Eisenhower (the president’s
brother), missionary societies of all denominations and various foundations.
Other American private citizens went to South Korea to support its nationbuilding project. Various NGOs contributed to diversifying the concepts of democracy by
transferring different aspects of “American” democracy from those promoted by official
information agents in South Korea. While they focused mostly on building democratic
institutions and restoring the economy, they also explained how democracy should be
practiced in daily life. One important field was education. Starting in 1952, many
35
“J. R. Higgins, Chief USIA, Seoul to Mr. Roderic L. O’Connor, Special Assistant to the Secretary,”
Jackson, C.D.: Records, 1953-54, Box 4, Folder: Korea (1), Dwight D. Eisenhower Library, Abilene, KS.
36
“Expanding Educational Frontiers by Elizabeth C. Wilson,” Unitarian Service Committee Records, bMS
16103, Box 15, Folder: 1953-55 Reports, Andover-Harvard Theological Library, Harvard Divinity School,
Cambridge, MA.
165
American education teams visited South Korea to support educational reform and teacher
training. I will return to this topic later in this chapter.
At the same time, U.S. leaders were encouraging current and future Korean
leaders to be educated in the United States via various exchange programs. Exchange
projects between the two nations had been in abeyance during the Korean War due not
only to the chaotic situation of the war, but also to the lukewarm attitude of President
Rhee. 37 After the armistice in 1953, the new Eisenhower administration more actively
carried forward exchange programs targeting Korean opinion leaders. Soldiers, students,
engineers, and experts in various fields were sent to the United States after careful
selection processes. 38
Information activities about America’s multiple tasks in South Korea increased
the scope of diverse concepts of democratic ideas by using a variety of instruments and
targeting a broad spectrum of South Korean audiences. The various American
information agencies employed different strategies and contents in accordance with their
different targets. Each American group also had different agendas despite their shared
belief in the larger concept of democracy. NGOs operating in South Korea that were
relatively free of home government control in their specific activities often promoted
notions about democracy as they applied to different levels of society. Examining the
diverse concepts of democracy promoted in South Korea will help us understand how a
number of South Korean groups came to embrace different and sometimes even
37
Heo Eun, U.S. hegemony, 174.
38
Ibid., 221-244
166
conflicting concepts of democracy. So let us pause here to outline the varying concepts
about democracy that Americans presented to South Koreans.
First, Americans often presented democracy as the most characteristic aspect of
American civilization and the American way of life. For example, when President Rhee
visited the United States just before the armistice agreement in 1953 and met with
Senator Arthur Vandenberg, a bi-partisan leader, the senator promised to build South
Korea in to a modernized republic modeled after the United States with modern highways,
schools, communication, sanitation, western-type improvements, etc. The material
benefits of this “American way of life” were suggested to Koreans as what democracy
could offer to their people. 39
Second, as mentioned earlier, Americans promoted democracy in the ROK as
anti-communist ideology, or even the diametric opposite to Soviet-style Communism.
After the United States entered the Korean War, the Korean peninsula indeed became a
symbolic ideological battleground. Not only the Cold War but also the “hot war” between
the North and South Koreas made U.S. policymakers identify anti-Communism with
democracy. Realizing that it would be a hard blow to the U.S.-led liberal world order if
South Korea “fell” to Communism, American policymakers considered it necessary to
promote its ideas such as liberty, freedom, and democracy as fundamentally distinct from
Communism.
Third, American policymakers also tried to establish stable democratic institutions
39
“Report of George H. Mains,” Eisenhower, Dwight D.: Records as President, White House Central Files
(Confidential File) 1953-61, Subject Series, Box 34, Folder: Korean Emergency (2), Dwight D. Eisenhower
Library, Abilene, KS.
167
in South Korea since they believed them the best system to counter the Communist
offensive. By this, they attempted to establish institutions either with elected
representatives or likewise comprised of a healthy cross-section of Korean society.
Democracy was explained as a political system firmly based on popular election. But
since the ROK was already a “democratic” nation in terms of its institutions, the focus
was on the proper operation of the established democratic system.
Fourth, as mentioned above, the U.S. version of democracy was part and parcel of
the larger goal of creating a single capitalist world economy. American policymakers
provided considerable economic aid aimed drawing the new nation into the America-led
capitalist world order. This was a lesson that Americans promoted through various aid
projects in many local communities. 40 Americans engaged in economic aid programs in
Korea received publicity and support for their efforts from the information agencies. For
example, an Information Policy Coordinating Committee was formed in 1954 by those
involved in economic aid and information programs and produced a unified publicity
campaign on all U.S. civil and military aid programs. 41 In this process, capitalism and
democracy were often promoted as a pair in the larger theme of “Free World unity in the
face of the Cold War.” 42
40
Linwood, L. Hodgdon, Community Development in Korea – An Evaluation Survey, 13-14; “Report of
George H. Mains,” Eisenhower, Dwight D.: Records as President, White House Central Files (Confidential
File) 1953-61, Subject Series, Box 34, Folder: Korean Emergency (2), Dwight D. Eisenhower Library,
Abilene, KS.
41
“Progress Report on NSC 170/1: US Objectives and Courses of Action with Respect to Korea (December
29, 1954),” White House Office, Office of the Special Assistant for National Security Affairs: Records,
1952-61, NSC Series, Policy Paper Subseries, Box 7, Dwight D. Eisenhower Library, Abilene, KS.
42
Heo Eun, U.S. hegemony, 279.
168
A fifth concept presented to Koreans about American democracy was
individualism. Since this feature was so obvious or naturalized to Americans, they
sometimes did not pay particular attention to this issue. Most official U.S. agencies in
war-torn South Korea felt no keen need to emphasize individualism as they focused on
fighting Communism, building democratic institutions, and developing the economy.
NGOs thus filled the gap and were mostly responsible for transmitting ideas about
respect for individuals and the relationship among individuals and their society and
nation. While these NGO workers were not necessarily in Korea for the purposes of
democracy promotion, they nonetheless transferred ideas about democracy as they
carried out their respective missions. Notions about democracy that such individuals
spread in these cases concerned more daily practices and attitudes than ideologies and
institutions. For example, when American education experts explained their “democratic”
education system, they emphasized respect for the individual and individual rights rather
than repeating official anti-Communist ideology or explaining the institutional aspects of
democracy. 43
These five general democratic ideas were components of a larger ideology of
American democracy. Living in a nation where democracy was stabilized and indeed
largely internalized, Americans lacked a keen sense of the different aspects of democracy.
Even though different individuals and groups in American information agencies dealt
with one or more of these five different aspects of democracy, they believed that they
43
“Unitarian Service Committee, INC.: Korean Education Project” Unitarian Service Committee Records,
bMS 16011, Box 4, Folder: Korean Education Team-1953 Child Care and Youth Project, Andover-Harvard
Theological Library, Harvard Divinity School, Cambridge, MA.
169
were talking about the same phenomenon. Moreover, the Americans would not
necessarily disagree with the other ways in which their countrymen defined democracy.
But this was not the case with Koreans, who lived in a different society that had not
internalized these notions of democracy. Koreans tended to understand those different
aspects of democracy fragmentarily rather than components of a putative whole. That
Americans understood democracy holistically, whereas the Koreans did not, had
significant outcomes for U.S. democracy promotion efforts in South Korea.
What made American democracy promotion in South Korea even more complex
was the fact that American policymakers often changed its direction, focus, and/or details
of policy according to local situations. For instance, the promotion of anti-Communism
became less important in the particular 1950s South Korean context. Koreans who had
experienced the cruelties of Communists during the war now naturally internalized antiCommunism, reducing the necessity for its propaganda after the war. 44 And during the
immediate post-armistice period, USIA activities in South Korea followed the principle
of trying “to avoid renewed fighting” and “to tie the Republic of Korea into the U.S.
security system and develop it as a military ally.” But after the Progress Report of March
31, 1954 noted that the likelihood of unilateral military action by the ROK had
diminished, the U.S. information program shifted its focus to emphasize U.S. economic
aid programs by using the “theme of Free World unity in the face of the Cold War.”
Democracy, then, seemed to have differing emphases that were not always entirely clear
44
Letter from Don Pryor, Director, Bureau of Information & Liaison to C.D. Jackson, Eisenhower, Dwight
D.: Records as President, White House Central Files (Confidential File) 1953-61, Subject Series, Box 34,
Folder: Korean Emergency (1), Dwight D. Eisenhower Library, Abilene, KS.
170
to those on the receiving end of these efforts.
It is also important to point out that the targets of American information also
changed according to the changing South Korean context. Since the top-level Korean
officials were not easily persuaded by the USIA’s propaganda, U.S. information agencies
in Korea changed their main target to be press and radio personnel, second-level officials,
education, business and professional leaders, students, ROK Army and ROK police, and
the general agricultural populace. 45
American efforts were also stymied by President Rhee and his lukewarm attitude
toward their democracy-promotion program, as well as his refusal to create plans to use
the exchange students or experts. Rhee’s obstructionism made American policymakers
pessimistic about the effectiveness of the program. In addition, Koreans who came to the
United States through the program often did not want to return home. Many preferred to
start reaping the benefits of democracy than to work towards building it. Economic
opportunities and civil liberties were both more readily available in the United States than
in Rhee’s ROK, and the students were tempted to stay abroad. Those exchange students
and participants who did come back to South Korea found that their role in promoting
American ideas and culture was smaller than they had expected. Seeing these results, the
USIS agencies reduced the number of Korean students invited to the United States and
modified their policy to send more technical and educational experts to South Korea. 46
45
“Progress Report on NSC 170/1: US Objectives and Courses of Action with Respect to Korea (December
29, 1954),” White House Office, Office of the Special Assistant for National Security Affairs: Records,
1952-61, NSC Series, Policy Paper Subseries, Box 7, Dwight D. Eisenhower Library, Abilene, KS.
46
Heo Eun, U.S. hegemony, 174.
171
President Rhee became an even greater headache to American policymakers, who
gradually realized Rhee might stop at nothing to reunify the North and South and
possibly start another world war. Rhee’s illegal and undemocratic political actions were
also a great concern to the United States. His authoritarianism, far from maintaining order
in South Korean society, engendered more disorder as Koreans bristled and rebelled
against his rule. Complaints arose over the illegal behavior of his party members in
elections, and throughout the 1950s the voices demanding true democracy grew louder
and louder. Rhee’s weakening leadership made him a liability to American policymakers
who began to doubt his ability to stand up to Communism. His anti-Communism proved
too strong and his undemocratic activities counterproductive for U.S. purposes. In fact,
Rhee’s unpopularity made anti-Communism unpopular among Koreans, reaffirming
American policymakers’ decision to deemphasize anti-Communism and instead highlight
democratic principles.
American policymakers thus came to consider President Rhee an obstacle to
South Korea’s stable development. Although Rhee and U.S. policymakers shared
democratic ideals and anti-communist ideology, the ultimate goal for Americans was not
the reunification of Korea as it was for Rhee. Therefore, they saw Rhee’s hardline attitude
toward North Korea as problematic and dangerous. U.S. policymakers were thus forced
to approach anti-communist propaganda in South Korea carefully. In 1955, promoting
anti-Communism was removed from the list of the main tasks of the USIS agencies in
South Korea. 47 American Cold Warriors in South Korea believed that Rhee’s aggressive
47
“Semi-Annual USIS Report, Jan 1-June 30, 1955,” RG 469, Records of the U.S. Foreign Assistance
Agencies, 1948-61, Office of Far Eastern Operation, Korea Subject Files 1953-59, Box 36, National
172
anti-Communism was too blunt and deleterious to their objectives. This change also
corresponded to the Eisenhower administration’s changed Cold War policy from
containment of Communism to an emphasis on the coalition of the free world. 48
American agencies in South Korea also began to pay careful attention to how they
presented American individualism after they realized that Koreans did not necessarily
have a positive attitude towards the concept. A common criticism in Korea was that
Americans were too egoistic and selfish, and Koreans had difficulty separating such
criticisms from American individualism. Even South Koreans who ended up working
closely with Americans held this view. Seong Nae-un, an American Education Movement
assistant who later traveled to the United States, confessed that he, too, had carried antiAmerican prejudices. 49 That Americans would tout individualism only seemed to reaffirm
their egoistic and selfish natures. This prejudice about American egoism may have
originated from malicious Japanese propaganda during the colonization era—Seong Naeun blamed his former Japanese teachers for his views—but it persisted even after
liberation. Thus in order to avoid or overcome the Korean prejudice against individualism,
American agencies in South Korea either deemphasized it or gave Koreans more
elaborate explanations of individualism and democracy. Americans also attempted to
demonstrate that their democratic concepts based on individualism did not mean selfish
disregard for others. For example, as they taught democratic education to Korean
Archives II, College Park, MD.
48
“Jackson Committee Final Report,” Eisenhower, Dwight D.: Papers as President of the United States,
1953-61 (Ann Whitman File), Miscellaneous Series, Box 5, Dwight D. Eisenhower Library, Abilene, KS.
49
Unitarian Service Committee Records, bMS 16011, Box 22, Folder: USC Home Office-Korea-Misc 1954
(2), Andover-Harvard Theological Library, Harvard Divinity School, Cambridge, MA.
173
educators, American educational experts emphasized respecting others, cooperation
among individuals, and individual responsibility for the society and nation. 50
Let me now focus on an organization that deserves closer investigation among the
various groups that promoted democratic ideas in South Korea during the 1950s: the
American Education Mission (AEM) and American Education Team (AET), which came
to South Korea between 1952 and 1955 to help rebuild South Korean educational
system. 51 While carrying out their education mission, the American educators also
transferred democratic ideas to their Korean “pupils.”
American Education Missions and Korean Teachers
South Korean scholars have largely overlooked the American educational projects
in South Korea during the 1950s. The few studies that do exist focus more on criticizing
the missions’ “imperialistic” intentions than on seriously analyzing their operations and
their influence on Korean education. The main point of such criticism is that the AEM
ultimately prevented the development of a healthy Korean-style education system by
forcing the South Korean educational system to be American in orientation. 52 One study
50
“Curriculum Handbook for the Schools of Korea,” Unitarian Service Committee Records, bMS 16040,
Box 7, Andover-Harvard Theological Library, Harvard Divinity School, Cambridge, MA.
51
The first AEM operated between 1952 and 1953 and the second between 1953 and 1954. In their third
(1954-55) mission, its name became American Education Team (AET). In this chapter, I use AEM as a
general name for three American educational missions unless specified as “first” or “second.” The
Andover-Harvard Theological Library houses the records of the activities of the Unitarian Service
Committee. Call numbers bMS16011, bMS16040, bMS16103, bMS16118, bMS16135 contain the records
related to their missions to South Korea.
52
Kim In-hui, “Miguk gyoyugi hanguge kkichin yeonghyang" (Influence of the U.S. education on Korea),
174
taking this perspective even explains the American educational mission by using
Dependency Theory. She explains that the American education missions in South Korea
were a way of establishing America’s neocolonial rule by strengthening Korea’s
dependency on the United States. 53 Most of this scholarship, written in the strong antiAmerican atmosphere of South Korea during the 1980s, neglects the American context of
the missions and does not consider how Koreans received them. Basing their studies on
the belief that the United States was imperialist, they often fell into a teleological trap and
thus did not examine how the AEM affected South Korean education and nation-building.
Instead of simply criticizing the American educators as imperialistic, then, I use
this education mission project to examine both how the Eisenhower administration
promoted democracy in the free world and how Koreans reacted to these efforts. As
alluded to above, democracy-promotion was not the AEM’s primary mission, but my
point here is that we see nonetheless that American educators tried to inculcate
democratic principles as they helped rebuild the Korean education system. In particular,
the AEM tried to impart a sense of what was a desirable relationship between individuals
and the larger society and nation. At the same time, the AEM tried to be sensitive and
adapt to local needs as they perceived them. I also highlight how Korean educators not
only endeavored to learn the democratic teaching methods that the AEM tried to teach
them, but also strove to apply these methods in their schools. But despite the passion and
Saegyoyuk (1975); Park Jun-hui, Hanguk gyoyuk: nuga chaegimjil geosinga? (Korean education: who will
be responsible?) (Seoul: Gyoyuk Gwahaksa, 1984).
53
Lee Jini, “1950nyundae migugui daehan gyoyuk wonjo-e gwanhan yeongu” (Study on the American
educational missions to South Korea in the 1950s) (Master thesis, Ewha Womans University, 1988).
175
will of the educators of the two nations, the educational missions were not successful. I
argue that an important cause of the project’s failure was the different ways in which
American and Korean educators understood democracy.
Education was one of the main channels through which the United States
transferred its notions of democracy to South Korea. Indeed, American educational
experts thought that education was essential to building a democratic South Korean
nation. Dr. Thomas Benner, former Dean of Illinois University’s College of Education,
was the first United Nations Korean Reconstruction Agency (UNKRA) education
specialist who was sent to Korea as chairman of the UNKRA/United Nations Educational,
Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) educational mission in early 1952. He
diagnosed a serious problem in Korean education as its inheritance of the “undemocratic”
Japanese educational system. In order to shape Korea into a democratic nation, Benner
believed that Korea’s educational system needed to be rebuilt to be more like the
America’s system. 54 Dr. Donald P. Cottrell, Dean of the College of Education at Ohio
State University and a successor to Benner, believed that the United States should
promote democracy in the world and regarded education as the most useful way to fulfill
America’s duty of helping people worldwide establish democracy. 55 AEM members also
believed that “the educational system should be designed to develop the attitudes and
skills that make democracy work” and “democracy schools in Korea (would) make
54
James Sang Chi, “Teaching Korea: modernization, model minorities, and American internationalism in
the Cold War era” (Ph.D. Diss., University of California, Berkeley, 2008), 20–21.
55
Ibid., 32-34.
176
Korean democracy stronger, broader and more enduring.” 56
I demonstrated in Chapter III that American-style education reform—or the New
Education Movement (NEM)—carried out under the military government in South Korea
largely failed due to the persistent legacies of the authoritarian and bureaucratic Japanese
education system. But American democratic educational reform had even more difficulty
in the newly established Republic of Korea. The first Ministry of Education was Ahn HoSang, a German-educated scholar and firm Rhee ally. Ahn authored the official
ideological frame for the newly established nation, Ilminism/Ilminjuui (One People
Principle). The “One People Principle” was an elaboration of President Rhee’s nationalist
slogan, “united we live, divided we die” and emphasized national solidarity and antiCommunism. Despite its ostensible support of democracy, the “One People Principle”
justified the undemocratic suppression of oppositional ideas and activities. Ahn tried to
restrain and stifle the NEM, even though it was sponsored by Americans, because he
regarded its emphasis on individual uniqueness as a great threat to national unity. Thus
this American educational philosophy was sustained only by some progressive school
commissioners within the Ministry of Education and some elementary school teachers.
They survived this difficult time by avoiding direct confrontation with the government
and claiming that their education also could contribute to national development.
When Paik Nak-Jun (George Paik), a Yale Ph.D., succeeded Ahn Ho-Sang in May
1950, American-style education system and philosophy became easier to promote.
Korean educators favoring the NEM began to raise their voices and operate more actively.
56
“Curriculum Handbook for the Schools of Korea,” Unitarian Service Committee Records, bMS 16040,
Box 7, Andover-Harvard Theological Library, Harvard Divinity School, Cambridge, MA.
177
Thus the more significant and full-scale U.S. influence on Korean education came during
the middle of the Korean War. Meanwhile, the war itself had also inspired U.S. policy
toward Korea to become more active. As historian Charles Armstrong argues, America’s
increased attention to the Korean peninsula also affected its “cultural cold war globally as
well as in Korea itself.” 57 The United States began sending more material and educational
support, such that even the paper used for textbooks during the Korean War was imported
from the United States.
In addition to financial support to rebuild the war-torn education system, a series
of educational mission teams composed of American professional educators visited South
Korea throughout the 1950s in order to help Koreans rebuild their war-devastated
education system. The first mission started in 1952 when the war was still going on.
While most records of American Education Mission indicate that the request for the
project came originally from Education Minister Paik, another source shows that Paik
was consulted by a Cultural Affairs attaché named Scherbacher at the American Embassy
in South Korea. 58 This is evidence that the United States was beginning to involve itself
more seriously in the South Korean “cultural cold war.” Minister Paik asked the U.S.
government to send a team of educational experts to assist South Korean educational
reform. He specifically requested a group of educators with experience in school
administration, curriculum and teaching methods at the elementary and secondary levels
57
Charles K Armstrong, “The cultural cold war in Korea, 1945-1950,” The journal of Asian studies 62
(2003): 74.
58
“Report on a Visit to Korean Education Mission,” Unitarian Service Committee Records, bMS 16103,
Box 15, Folder: 1953 Korea Education Mission Report (Helen Fogg, May 11, 1953), Andover-Harvard
Theological Library, Harvard Divinity School, Cambridge, MA.
178
be sent, not to survey or make recommendations, but to work directly with Korean
educators. 59
The U.S. State Department decided to turn the project over to the Unitarian
Service Committee (USC), a humanitarian volunteer group that mainly operated abroad.
The USC recruited education experts and sent its first mission members to Korea in
October 1952. The USC experts worked closely with the Korean Ministry of Education
and the Education Division of United Nations Civil Assistance Corps Korea (UNCACK)
and held a series of workshops. About 600 teachers from all parts of the ROK attended
the workshops to learn “democratic” education methods. Instead of lecturing, the AEM
members demonstrated a different pedagogy that emphasized cooperative decisionmaking and a presentation of material through discussion rather than the lecture format to
which the Korean educators were accustomed. The Korean participants were then sent
back to their communities to organize the same kind of workshops in order to disseminate
this new pedagogy. AEM members traveled around the country to provide support and
expertise. The five American educators in the first mission team reportedly reached, in
one form or another, about a third of Korea’s 54,000 teachers. 60
When the first mission returned home, the second team arrived in Seoul in
September 1953. The second AEM, with the longer-range goal of developing teachertraining institutions, focused on pre-service training by working in the College of
59
Ibid.
60
“Teacher Training in Korea (July 1954 Report),” Unitarian Service Committee Records, bMS 16103,
Box 15, Folder: Teacher Training in Korea, 1952-1955, Andover-Harvard Theological Library, Harvard
Divinity School, Cambridge, MA.
179
Education of Seoul National University and Seoul Normal School. They also continued
the in-service training work begun by the first mission members. 61 The third mission,
now using the name American Education Team (AET), began in 1954. The AET
increased the number of educators and expanded their activities with increased financial
support from American Korean Foundation (AKF). While continuing the previous inservice and pre-service training, they also actively supported the Ministry of Education in
developing textbooks and reforming curriculum. 62
Following the three USC education missions, the Peabody Educational Mission
Teams visited South Korea between 1956 and 1962. In addition to teacher training, they
focused on such programs as early childhood education, school building construction,
librarian training, and the establishment of educational colleges. During the six years of
the Peabody mission, thirty-nine team members carried out the various programs
mentioned above, spending about $8.7 million in total. Hundreds of Korean education
administrators and thousands of public-school teachers participated in these programs. 63
In this series of education missions, American educators emphasized democracy
and touted their methods as democratic. It is interesting to note that both American
educators and their Korean counterparts regarded the legacies of Japanese educational
practices and system as the main obstacles to developing a democratic education system.
61
Ibid.
62
“Letter from American Education Team to Advisory Committee, Ministry of Education, Seoul, Korea (7
March 1955),” Unitarian Service Committee Records, bMS 16103, Box 16, Folder: 1954-55
Correspondence, Andover-Harvard Theological Library, Harvard Divinity School, Cambridge, MA.
63
Park Nae-bong, “Miguk gyoyuksajeoldane gwanhan yeongu” (A study of the U.S. educational missions
to Korea), Nonmunjip 16 (1993): 31; Kim Seong-suk, “Pibadi sajeoldane gwanhan yeongu” (Study of
Peabody educational mission teams), Johyeong Gyoyuk 15 (1999): 48.
180
All the negative features of the Korean system were regarded as undemocratic and
attributed to the Japanese colonial rule. An American educator claimed that the Japanese
educational system had kept the Koreans in a mental strait-jacket of indoctrination and
imposed “bookish learning,” and Dr. Kim Beop-rin, Dr. Paik’s successor as Minister of
Education, asserted that Koreans must remove the Japanese-style devotion to bookish
knowledge. 64 As a way to overcome this “undemocratic” colonial legacy, the AEM, AET,
and Peabody Mission members believed that Korean students needed to cultivate virtues
they claimed were democratic, such as open-mindedness, co-operation, sense of
responsibility, and respect for the rights of others. More specifically, they emphasized
originality and critical thinking while criticizing rote memorization. 65
It is worth pointing out that while the educators focused on democracy in action,
they still shared the official U.S. line regarding anti-Communism and modernization.
After all, a main goal of democratic education was to develop strength to fight the
Communist offensive. 66 That said, however, in their daily interactions with Korean
educators, the AEM members focused less on the larger ideological and theoretical issues.
The most frequently mentioned notion of democracy was the relationship among
individuals, the society and the nation.
This notion about individuals and their relationship to democracy is important to
consider here at some length for reasons that will become clearer in the next chapter. For
64
Unitarian Service Committee Records, bMs 16011, Box 4, Folder: Korean Education Team: 195 Child
Care and Youth Project, Andover-Harvard Theological Library, Harvard Divinity School, Cambridge, MA.
65
James Sang Chi, “Teaching Korea,” 38-40.
66
Ibid., 40-43.
181
now, I want to lay out how the Americans explained the importance of an individual to a
thriving democracy and how this was interpreted by South Koreans.
As mentioned, Koreans had a preconceived notion that Americans were
individualistic and selfish, ideas encouraged by the Japanese colonizers, but contrary to
these notions, AEM members emphasized cooperation among individuals. They tried to
demonstrate techniques of cooperative decision-making by operating their own team as a
unit. 67 The purpose of the AEM’s team approach and workshop procedures was to
provide “an opportunity not only to plan, to think, to reason, to exchange ideas, to make
choices, and reach decisions together, but also to act on these decisions cooperatively.” 68
The Curriculum Handbook that they left for South Korean educators also stressed that the
schools of Korea needed to help students respect the rights of others and learn the value
of cooperative enterprise. 69 This emphasis on cooperation seems to have been well
received by the Korean participants: one of them recalled his admiration of the mission’s
reciprocal respect for others and cooperative spirit. 70
In practice, the American educators’ concept of democracy was not restricted to
cooperation among individuals but included efforts to highlight social and national
awareness in the classroom. They made great endeavors to explain the relationship
67
Unitarian Service Committee Records, bMS 16103, Box 15, Folder: Korea Guide and News Bulletin
1953, Andover-Harvard Theological Library, Harvard Divinity School, Cambridge, MA.
68
Unitarian Service Committee Records, bMS 16103, Box 15, Folder: Korea Education Mission Report,
Andover-Harvard Theological Library, Harvard Divinity School, Cambridge, MA.
69
“Curriculum Handbook for the Schools of Korea,” Unitarian Service Committee Records, bMS 16040,
Box 7, Andover-Harvard Theological Library, Harvard Divinity School, Cambridge, MA.
70
Unitarian Service Committee Records, bMS 16103, Box 15, Folder: 1954 Korea Interim Report of AEM
(1953-54), Andover-Harvard Theological Library, Harvard Divinity School, Cambridge, MA.
182
among individuals, society and nation. The following paragraph clearly shows the
concept of democracy embraced by the American educators:
All members of any society have to live together…. There is,
(therefore), a vital need for developing social sensitiveness and
responsibility for social reconstruction in this country. Students
must learn to commit themselves to the common good by
working together for common purposes. 71
This emphasis on the individual’s obligations to his or her society was not, of course,
alien to Korean culture. Moreover, belying the Koreans’ preconceived notions of them as
Americans, the American educators themselves criticized egoistic individuals. Indeed, the
American democracy promoted by the AEM was more complex than most Koreans at the
time—or since—have given it credit for: it was not simply about establishing institutions
and electoral processes, but also included ideas about how individuals should relate to the
larger society and nation. This was consistent with the stated goal of American
educational missions in South Korea was to teach Korean educators how to cultivate their
students into “democratic citizens” who would contribute to their society and nation.
But the American educators’ emphasis on mutual obligations differed from that of
Koreans in that individual rights were as important as the individual responsibilities.
Cooperation among individuals and their contribution to society and nation, they believed,
would be a house of cards unless founded on “sound” individualism. Their philosophy of
progressive education shared the belief that “every person is valuable in himself, and that
he has a unique contribution to make because he is a unique personality, and that he has
71
“Curriculum Handbook for the Schools of Korea,” Unitarian Service Committee Records, bMS 16040,
Box 7, Andover-Harvard Theological Library, Harvard Divinity School, Cambridge, MA.
183
rights and privileges as a human being which no power can properly take from him.”
They were, therefore, critical of Korean education on the grounds that it was more
concerned with teaching “obedience to commands and loyalty to imposed ideals,” while
putting little emphasis on individual rights. 72 They argued that this kind of “authoritarian”
educational practice in South Korea would be “dangerous to democracy” not only for its
illiberal features, but also for fostering a different type of irresponsibility: a lack of
personal accountability. They thus maintained that students who could defend their ideas
and behavior with their own reasoning powers were potential assets to democracy, while
students who simply followed higher authority could be dangerous to democracy. 73 A
Korean educator who had been an assistant to the AEM members, visiting the United
States later at the invitation of former AEM members, confirmed this individualist
concept of democracy. He found that American children were learning how to cooperate,
but that each child was “looked at and helped as an individual.” 74
Espousing an “individualist” concept of democracy, the American educators
maintained that education should focus on helping each student cultivate his or her
personal talents and should “develop a feeling of adequacy, a belief in themselves and a
personal pride.” Democracy, they believed, could grow with the contributions of
individuals who had developed their own abilities to look beyond what the state’s
72
Ibid.
73
Ibid.
74
Unitarian Service Committee Records, bMS 16011, Box 22, Folder: USC Home Office-Korea-Misc 1954
(2), Andover-Harvard Theological Library, Harvard Divinity School, Cambridge, MA.
184
bureaucrats could see. 75 The following excerpt well summarizes their individualist notion
of democracy:
There is nothing mysterious about democracy, in spite of the
disguises of glittering words that are often draped around it. A
democracy is that kind of society in which the people order
their own ways for their own benefit. Neither is there anything
mysterious about the education for such a society. It is the
institution, the instrument, whereby the people change their
own ways in the direction of their own ideals. 76
Thus AEM members made ‘responsibility’ a crucial mediator between individuals and
society. As much as they highlighted individual talents and experiences, the American
educators also emphasized personal and social responsibility. According to their lesson,
individual freedom always should accompany responsibility. People should respect others
as much as they want to be respected. Schools should therefore give their students the
opportunity to learn how to respect and consider others when they work together for
common purposes. Students are also expected to develop respect for work and learn the
social skills to live with others in their society. 77 This was why the AEM members
insisted on teamwork and stressed cooperation. They also strove to teach Koreans about
responsibility by holding workshops in which Korean teachers were given opportunities
to learn responsibility and cooperation. Another way to connect individuals to the society
and nation was to highlight that democracy was not knowledge or system but actions.
75
“Curriculum Handbook for the Schools of Korea,” Unitarian Service Committee Records, bMS 16040,
Box 7, Andover-Harvard Theological Library, Harvard Divinity School, Cambridge, MA.
76
Ibid.
77
Ibid.
185
AEM members themselves tried to explain democracy not by words but through their
democratic behavior. This behavior, the American educators believed, would turn each
individual into an active agent in shaping their society and nation. All in all, the
progressive AEM members’ concept of democracy, while firmly based on the individual,
also modeled the desirable relationship among individuals and the society and nation.
How did Koreans respond to these “American” democratic ideas in action? In
order to assess the influence of the AEM, we should start from the fact that most Korean
participants in the programs provided by American educators were not, on balance,
opposed to the American educators and their programs, as we see from AEM members’
evaluations. Why did the Korean participants respond positively to the AEM? The
following comments from a participant provide a clue to this question. The participant
compares the different approaches of the educational mission team with those of the
American educators who tried to reform Korean education under the military
government:
We had once American educators who taught and introduced to
us so-called democratic education at the time of the Military
Government. But many of the attendants then, as I heard, were
disappointed by the ways of their teaching and introducing
which were too far away from the real situations we lived in. . .
But you have been different from the beginning. You have
come to us to help set up the modern and newer education
system of ours on a long-term basis. 78
It is always difficult to assess the sincerity of words written from a beneficiary to a donor,
78
Unitarian Service Committee Records, bMs 16011, Box 4, Folder: Helen Fogg-Child Care and Youth
Project, Andover-Harvard Theological Library, Harvard Divinity School, Cambridge, MA.
186
but nothing in my research suggested that most Korean AEM participants felt other than
gratitude for these American efforts. What is notable, furthermore, is the generally
positive responses to the AEM efforts as opposed to the education reforms attempted by
the U.S. military government.
Was there, perhaps, a fundamental difference between the educational reforms and
missions carried out by American educators during the two different periods? Did the
AEM programs do a better job reflecting reflect Korea’s “real situation” based on “a
long-term” perspective, as the quote above claims? After all, in terms of educational
philosophy and goals, there was no fundamental difference between the two groups of
American educators. American educators in both periods tried to pave the way for the
development of Korean education according to the model of the American educational
system with programs designed based on liberal democracy, America’s core ideal. Both
sets of educational reformers followed John Dewey’s progressive educational philosophy.
Since the basic educational philosophy, goals and content of the programs during
the military government and in the 1950s were similar, there must be other factors that
made Koreans assess the later American educational reforms so positively. First of all, the
historical backgrounds against which the American educational reforms were carried out
were far from identical. During the U.S. military government era, various ideological
voices still were heard and much criticism of the government was expressed by different
political and ideological groups. But in the latter period, when no ideologies were
allowed other than liberal democracy, there were far fewer criticisms, allowing AEM
members to concentrate on their democratic education program without becoming
entangled in ideological conflicts.
187
In the 1950s, when “democracy” was no longer one ideological option among
several but was the only choice offered, Koreans concerned themselves with developing a
“democratic” system. Both the authoritarian government and the anti-government critics
emphasized the democratic ideal. American educators were often surprised by the Korean
participants’ passion for democracy. For example, an American educator stated that
Korean educators were unafraid to use the word democracy quite freely, and were eager
to know its implications in such phrases as “democratic administration” and “democratic
classroom procedures.” 79 Another American educator praised Korean educators by saying
that “outstanding among their characteristics was a passion for learning more about the
democratic way of life.” 80 The AEM’s chances for success were enhanced by the
enthusiasm of both American “teachers” and Korean “students” for the education
programs. Indeed, most AEM members believed that their mission was successful. It did
not seem to dawn on them that the Koreans’ passions were so strong because
understanding “democracy” had such high stakes in South Korea at the time.
Understanding what “democracy” meant was arguably an attempt to figure out the
parameters of the possible. Thus, most Korean participants actively tried to learn more
about democracy from the Americans—who were presumed to be authorities on
democracy since their nation was the first modern democracy.
Another clear difference between the two periods was the U.S. relationship to the
Korean state. Whereas the military government had been an occupation force, the United
79
Unitarian Service Committee Records, bMS 16103, Box 15, Folder: Korea Guide and News Bulletin
1953, Andover-Harvard Theological Library, Harvard Divinity School, Cambridge, MA.
80
Ibid.
188
States in the 1950s was considered a savior who had protected Koreans from the
Communist assault and supported their efforts to rebuild a war-torn nation. Korean
educators therefore were not reflexively dubious of U.S. motives; in fact, they were
seldom suspicious of American intentions. Instead, they were grateful for American
support and told them that wanted to repay them by developing their nation into a strong
and wealthy democratic state. 81
While this improved relationship between the United States and South Korea
generated a favorable Korean response, it was Americans’ changed attitude that more
decisively affected the Korean people. Although the educational programs in both periods
were based on American ideals (and the educators were not free from America-centered
perspectives), there was a significant difference in the Americans’ attitudes. AEM
members were very careful not simply to transplant their own system to South Korea and
tried to listen to what Korean educators told them. Thanks to its previous experience in
foreign projects, the Unitarian Service Committee was well aware of the sensitive issues
that might arise between the nations and did its best to recruit educators who understood
those issues. The carefully chosen AEM members acted with prudence in South Korea,
thus eliciting favorable responses from their Korean “pupils.” For example, Helen Fogg,
one of the USC headquarters staff members who organized the Korean educational
missions, received many comments from Koreans during her 1953 visit that they
“worked with Americans without being made to feel inferior.” 82
81
Unitarian Service Committee Records, bMS 16103, Box 22, Folder: 1956-59 Korea, Andover-Harvard
Theological Library, Harvard Divinity School, Cambridge, MA.
82
Unitarian Service Committee Records, bMS 16103, Box 15, Folder: Korea Interim Report of AEM,
189
The importance of attitude is also revealed in the evaluations of the mission by
both American and Korean educators. One of the reasons AEM members adduced for
their success in their first mission was the Koreans’ trust and the warm and friendly
relationships created between the American educators and their Korean pupils. 83 Koreans,
for their part, also had favorable attitudes toward the American missions due to the
progressive and considerate attitudes of the American educators. For example, Yoo
Hyungjin judged that the USC mission had had great success since AEM members
developed “good human relations with Korean people” and “lived among, with, and for
the Koreans.” Therefore, he added, Korean participants liked and followed their
American teachers. 84 Americans’ emphasis on attitudes in their relationship with foreign
people well reflected the cultural aspects of the Eisenhower administration’s more
sophisticated foreign policy that placed a premium on cordial relationships between nongovernmental actors.
The favorable attitudes toward each other and enthusiasm of the two parties for
the mission, however, did not necessarily guarantee any practical impact on Korean
education. In order to trace in what ways and to what extent the AEM actually affected
Korean education, we should examine the Korean educators’ activities after they returned
to their schools. Many Korean educators who had attended the American educational
programs were eager to practice the new democratic education methods and principles in
Andover-Harvard Theological Library, Harvard Divinity School, Cambridge, MA.
83
Unitarian Service Committee Records, bMS 16103, Box 15, Folder: Korea Education Mission Report,
Andover-Harvard Theological Library, Harvard Divinity School, Cambridge, MA.
84
Unitarian Service Committee Records, bMS 16103, Box 22, Folder: 1956-59 Korea, Andover-Harvard
Theological Library, Harvard Divinity School, Cambridge, MA.
190
their classes. 85 For example, a Korean participant in a USC program said, “Now I know
that my belief in democratic education is right and I have to go in that direction.” 86 The
following observation by an AEM member about the post-USC program activities of the
Korean participants shows that Korean teachers indeed tried to apply what they had
learned not only in their schools but also in their local communities:
Perhaps the most encouraging single aspect of the work of the
Mission in Korea was the manner in which Korean educators
who had participated in the six-week workshops went back
into their schools and communities and tried to put into
practice, without coercion or too much haste, the ideas which
had cooperatively evolved in the longer workshops. Members
of the Mission were amazed and delighted at the many
evidences of sincere effort to modify outmoded techniques of
working which they saw among school personnel and between
school people and school patrons. 87
Expecting their Korean pupils to continue their workshop projects, the AEM members
established the Central Education Research Institute (CERI) in 1953. They also invited
some of the Korean teachers to observe and experience the U.S. educational system. 88
Some principals who had attended the AEM program proudly mentioned that the
atmosphere of their schools had changed significantly after they put democratic education
85
Ibid.
86
Unitarian Service Committee Records, bMS 16011, Box 22, Folder: USC Home Office-Korea-Misc 1954
(2), Andover-Harvard Theological Library, Harvard Divinity School, Cambridge, MA.
87
Unitarian Service Committee Records, bMS 16103, Box 15, Folder: Korea Guide and News Bulletin
1953, Andover-Harvard Theological Library, Harvard Divinity School, Cambridge, MA.
88
“Teacher Training in Korea (July 1954 Report),” Unitarian Service Committee Records, bMS 16103,
Box 15, Folder: Teacher Training in Korea, 1952-1955, Andover-Harvard Theological Library, Harvard
Divinity School, Cambridge, MA.
191
into practice. 89 The AEM’s influence on Korean education can also be found in some
Korean texts of the 1950s. For example, a 1958 teachers’ study guide to middle school
civic education confirms the popularity of the new democratic educational movement
thanks to the activities of the AEM members. The guidebook further explained that a
child-and life-centered American educational philosophy had strongly influenced the
elementary education curriculum. 90 Indeed, some AEM innovations remain features of
contemporary South Korean education, such as homeroom, the concept of wholesome
development of the entire person, and the criticism of teaching by rote.
The positive appraisal of both AEM members and Korean participants, of course,
was made at the time and thus says nothing about its long-term impact on Korean
education. More importantly, American educators’ positive assessment of their missions
was based more on the Korean participants’ enthusiasm and passion than on an analysis
of its impact on Korean education.
Despite both parties’ positive assessment of the education mission, the Korean
education system and teaching methods changed little. The Korean educational problems
identified by both American and Korean educators during the educational missions
persist to the present. Korean education today still focuses on preparing students to get
high scores in their college entrance exams. Teachers usually lecture, and discussions are
seldom attempted. The characteristics of the individual student are rarely considered. The
89
Unitarian Service Committee Records, bMS 16103, Box 22, Folder: 1956-59 Korea, Andover-Harvard
Theological Library, Harvard Divinity School, Cambridge, MA.
90
Mungyobu (Ministry of Education), Junghaggyo sahoe sanghwalggwa: gongmin bubun hakseup jidoseo
(Middle school social studies: Teachers’ study guidebook to civic education) (Seoul: Daehan Gyogwaseo
jisikhoesa, 1958), 8–9.
192
relationship between teachers and students remains much more hierarchical than it is in
the United States, even though teachers’ authority has weakened. That there has been so
little change might not surprise the 1950s reformers. Even when the New Education
Movement was widespread, many were pessimistic about the movement’s success. The
teachers’ study guide mentioned above suggested that the life-centered theory should be
mixed with knowledge-focused education as by itself it could not easily take root in the
ground of Korean education system. 91
What were the obstacles in transferring the new democratic education to South
Korea? The members of the third education mission admitted the limitations of their
mission and attributed those failures to the lack of adequate space. 92 They believed that
improvement of the educational environment would give teachers more scope to
experiment with democratic methods. The poor physical conditions of these schools,
however, were only one of the many obstacles. The limited success of the AEM, despite
the enthusiasm of American and Korean educators, cannot be understood without
considering these obstacles.
Basically, there were too few AEM members to handle the large number of
Korean educators. Due to the lack of funds, the small number of team members had to
cover a great number of Korean teachers. For example, the first mission’s six members
taught about 18,000 teachers during their nine months in South Korea. 93 In order to have
91
Ministry of Education, Teachers’ study guidebook, 10-11.
92
Unitarian Service Committee Records, bMS 16103, Box 22, Folder: 1956-59 Korea, Andover-Harvard
Theological Library, Harvard Divinity School, Cambridge, MA.
93
“Teacher Training in Korea (July 1954 Report),” Unitarian Service Committee Records, bMS 16103,
193
more Korean educators in their programs, the American educators could not avoid tight
schedules. Many of the Korean participants only attended three-day workshops and could
thus get only a superficial introduction to American education. An assistant to a member
of the second mission pointed out the time limitations and regretted the few contacts
between the AEM and Korean educators. 94 This might be one reason why some
workshop programs were replaced by lectures in the third mission. 95
Another limitation of the AEM came from the members themselves. A recent
study of the AEM shows that the American educators were not always as progressive as
they claimed. 96 Although they argued that they would come without preconceived
knowledge about Korea, they actually studied hard to understand Korea and its education
system before they arrived. This study also demonstrates that the American educators,
despite their liberal tendency, were not free from the conservative cultural biases of the
time in gender- and race-related issues. The author pointed to the example of failure to
recruit Dr. Idabelle Yeiser, the first and only African American candidate for the
education projects.
A more important limitation can, I believe, be found in their programs themselves.
Although the AEM members emphasized that they should listen to what Korean
Box 15, Folder: Teacher Training in Korea, 1952-1955, Andover-Harvard Theological Library, Harvard
Divinity School, Cambridge, MA.
94
Unitarian Service Committee Records, bMS 16103, Box 15, Folder: 1954 Korea Interim Report of AEM
(1953-54), Andover-Harvard Theological Library, Harvard Divinity School, Cambridge, MA.
95
Unitarian Service Committee Records, bMS 16103, Box 16, Folder: 1954-55 Correspondence, AndoverHarvard Theological Library, Harvard Divinity School, Cambridge, MA.
96
Sang James Chi, “Teaching Korea,” 216-220.
194
educators said and cooperate with them instead of “transplanting” their educational
system to South Korea, they did not make serious efforts to adapt their programs to
Korea’s educational realities. While they listened carefully to Korean educators and
understood the problems of Korean education, they did not consider carefully enough
how to apply their ideal methods in the South Korean educational reality, so very
different from theirs. Their education programs carried out in South Korea instead stayed
mostly within what they believed fundamental to “good education practices: respect for
the child or the young person as an individual, and an understanding that there are stages
in the mental and emotional development of a child, as there are in bodily growth; respect
for freedom of speech and inquiry which encourages the child or the young person to
challenge statements made by the teacher, a respect for learning by doing as opposed to
the parrot-like memorizing of words from a textbook.” 97 An AEM’s review report claims
that members modified their plans according to Korean needs. 98 The changes were,
however, limited to minor issues.
This is not to question the American educators’ sincerity, which cannot easily be
denied. Their limitation was more fundamental than their intentions. For them, the only
solution to the problems of South Korean education was to apply their own democratic
educational principles and methods in South Korean classes. In other words, even though
they knew they should not be using the American system as normative, they could not
97
Elizabeth C. Wilson, “Expanding Educational Frontiers,” Unitarian Service Committee Records, bMs
16011, Box 4, Folder: Helen Fogg-Child Care and Youth Project, Andover-Harvard Theological Library,
Harvard Divinity School, Cambridge, MA.
98
Unitarian Service Committee Records, bMS 16103, Box 22, Folder: 1956-59 Korea, Andover-Harvard
Theological Library, Harvard Divinity School, Cambridge, MA.
195
envision alternatives. Limited in experience, knowledge, and imagination, they were less
open-minded than they believed themselves to be. An AEM member revealed her view on
her mission in South Korea in an article she contributed to the alumni magazine of her
alma mater:
The year’s work has intensified my feeling that this is indeed a
frontier – a frontier in the physical sense, yes – but far more
importantly, a psychological and spiritual frontier. It is a
wilderness which is virtually unexplored and which tests daily
our belief in the possibility of professional teamwork between
groups of people whose customs and heritage are almost
totally dissimilar. On this frontier the woods are deep and thick.
Much of the forest is virgin timber, uncharted and unblazed.
Hazards are unexpected and precarious. It is only too easy to
get lost on what may seem a well-defined trail. 99
This “frontier view” resulted from their belief in their duty to expand American
educational and cultural frontiers. They were “modernists” who believed that the
“underdeveloped” nations should follow “advanced” America. In another document, they
also betrayed their pride in having the “privilege of molding young minds in a Service
Camp.” 100
The limited effectiveness of the AEM can also be attributed to Korean educators
themselves. Despite their passion for learning about democratic education, their old
teaching habits were not easily changed in a short period of time. Most of their teaching
focused on imparting knowledge without seriously considering individual differences.
99
Unitarian Service Committee Records, bMS 16103, Box 15, Folder: 1953-54 Reports, Andover-Harvard
Theological Library, Harvard Divinity School, Cambridge, MA.
100
Ibid.
196
Their attitudes toward students were generally rather authoritarian. Although AEM
members believed that these attitudes of Korean educators would change, it was not so
easy for many Korean teachers to abandon their old practices. Even when they tried to
apply the new teaching methods learned in the American programs, the poor educational
conditions worked against their successful implementation. In a class of more than a
hundred students, discussion was an unattainable ideal. The excessive competition for
entrance exams also impeded teachers’ efforts to respect their students’ individuality. 101
These obstacles were crucial, but not sufficient to explain the limited influence of
the AEM on Korean education. The education system’s problems were arguably beyond
the ability of educators alone to correct. Educational problems cannot easily be solved by
simply applying new educational skills or reforming some institutions, since education is
closely linked to other elements of the larger society and operates within a broader
culture. No fundamental transformation of the South Korean education system in the
1950s could have been achieved without larger social and cultural changes that went far
beyond the ability of the AEM members.
We now trace the “structural” obstacles that existed between American educators
and Korean students. There is a notable issue in Korean participants’ response to AEM
programs: the concept of democracy. One of the most frequent questions Korean
educators asked AEM members was, “What do you mean by the democratic process?”
Korean teachers with their own understanding of institutional and ideological concepts of
democracy could not easily grasp how to apply democratic ideas to educational practice.
101
Unitarian Service Committee Records, bMS 16103, Box 15, Folder: 1954 Korea Interim Report of AEM
(1953-54), Andover-Harvard Theological Library, Harvard Divinity School, Cambridge, MA.
197
For their part, American educators had a hard time answering this kind of question. Many
believed that the answer could not be given in words. They thus tried to show the
meaning of democratic process by making it implicit in their own behavior. 102
However, the Americans’ efforts to help Korean participants understand the
democratic process not through words but through deeds do not seem to have worked
well. Korean participants in the workshop program asked their American “teachers” to
give them lectures instead of leading discussions. 103 They wanted to learn an unequivocal
definition of “American” democracy and democratic education, which seemed to be
different from theirs. Thus, despite the positive evaluation of the mission on both sides,
Korean educators still could not easily imagine how education could be democratic. Their
institutional concepts prevented them from understanding “life-centered” democratic
education.
Some might want to take this as an example of Koreans’ ignorance of foreign
“democratic” ideas, an assertion supporting the myth that Americans transplanted their
ideas into the minds of the South Korean people. Koreans were not ignorant of such ideas
of liberty, individual rights, and democracy. I showed in Chapter I that Korean
intellectuals already had a deep understanding of these concepts during the late Chosun
and Japanese occupation eras. These ideas, especially freedom and self-governance,
rapidly became popular among South Koreans after liberation, regardless of age, political
102
Unitarian Service Committee Records, bMS 16103, Box 15, Folder: Korea Guide and News Bulletin
1953, Andover-Harvard Theological Library, Harvard Divinity School, Cambridge, MA.
103
Unitarian Service Committee Records, bMS 16011, Box 4, Andover-Harvard Theological Library,
Harvard Divinity School, Cambridge, MA.
198
orientation, and intellectual level. In this situation, the process of promoting “American”
ideas could not but become more complex than mere transplantation.
With this knowledge of Korea, we can see why Koreans did not easily understand
the idea of democratic processes taught them by AEM members: it was not that they did
not know about democracy, but that they had different ideas about it. Therefore, we
examine the Korean concepts of democracy in the 1950s and how those understandings
of democracy affected their response to the American concept of democracy.
In order to make a more satisfactory analysis of American influence on
democracy in South Korea, I do not simply ask how American democracy influenced
South Korea, or how Koreans accepted American democracy. Instead, I examine how
various Korean groups responded to American democracy in differing ways and thus
came to compete as to how Korean could best build their nation. By investigating how
diverse Korean groups utilized American ideas in different ways, we may be able to
properly assess both their influence and its limitations. This will be the topic of my final
chapter.
Conclusion
In this chapter, we have explored how the newly reformed information policy of the
Eisenhower administration affected the ways in which the United States promoted
democracy in 1950s South Korea. I demonstrated that the diversified information
programs and channels imparted various conceptions of democracy. The new information
policy’s careful efforts not to arouse the suspicions of people in target nations also
199
resulted in transferring American democracy by piecemeal. The loosely defined diverse
notions of democracy were, therefore, widely promoted in South Korea by being linked
to other American agendas. Koreans were thus exposed not only to institutional and
ideological notions of democracy, but also to such more fundamental aspects as the
desirable relations between individuals and the society and nation.
The American policy examined in this chapter was, however, only a part of the
whole picture of U.S. democracy promotion in South Korea. And these widespread
attempts to promote democracy did not necessarily guarantee its acceptance by the
Korean people. In order to complete the picture, we need to trace further how American
ideas were received, transformed, and utilized by South Koreans. This will be the topic of
my final chapter. As demonstrated by the gap between AEM’s positive assessment and its
limited impact on Korean education, there was a gap between Americans and Koreans in
understanding what democracy means. I thus pay special attention to how the different
notions of governance affected how Koreans understood and used the democratic ideas
promoted by Americans in the 1950s.
200
Chapter V. Competing Democracies:
South Korean Nation-Building in the 1950s
On Sunday, February 28, 1960, more than a thousand high school students in
Daegu rushed out into the streets to protest an order by the local education authority
requiring them to attend school that day. Several hundred policemen brutally put down
the student demonstration, injuring scores of students and arresting more than a hundred
of them. An added day of classes was not what caused the mass student uprising. The
students understood that classes were made compulsory so as to prevent their attendance
at a campaign event scheduled that day for the opposition party’s vice-presidential
candidate. Fully aware that the purpose of the “Sunday directive” was political, not
educational, the students decided to stage a demonstration. This event in a provincial city
triggered demonstrations nationwide, culminating in the April 19th demonstration in
Seoul that finally toppled Syngman Rhee’s U.S.-backed authoritarian regime.
Although tens of thousands of students participated in the democracy movement
of early spring 1960 and were crucial in Rhee’s downfall, scholars have not closely
examined the students’ understanding of democracy. The earliest Korean scholarship on
these events focused on whether they constituted a true social and political revolution, or
simply helped usher in a different authoritarian regime. After all, it was not until the June
democracy movement of 1987 that South Koreans were able to vote directly for their
201
president. Starting in the early 1980s, however, some scholars began celebrating the
earlier popular mass movement of 1960, seeing it as an unfinished democratic revolution,
but even they have largely ignored how Korean students came to embrace the idea of
democracy. Some scholars have presumed that these notions of democracy came from the
United States, whereas others have simply neglected to investigate the matter. But we
should wonder: did the students truly risk their lives and die for a foreign idea that they
had internalized? Common sense and history say that foreign ideas rarely become
widespread without some mediation or transformation. Yet the dominant political
narratives about the period prior to the April Revolution have been largely onedimensional, focusing primarily on the anti-democratic nature of Syngman Rhee’s regime.
So pervasive have been these critiques of the 1950s that even South Korea’s present-day
political shortcomings are often attributed to Rhee’s misrule. This perception has been
further reinforced by the fact that most Koreans lived in dire poverty after the war. Few
could earn a living wage and the limited resources were exploited by the more powerful. 1
Korean scholars have thus generally regarded the 1950s as a “dark age” characterized by
endemic poverty, corruption, and authoritarian rule. This perspective has overshadowed
the fierce struggle for “democratic” nation-building that actually did take place. 2 This
1
Lee Yeong-hun, Daehanminguk iyagi (Story of the Republic of Korea) (Seoul: Giparang, 2007), 287–290.
2
An exception is the recent dissertation of Charles R. Kim, “Unlikely revolutionaries: South Korea’s first
generation and the student protests of 1960” (Ph.D. Diss., Columbia University, 2007); Also, a group of
scholars who label themselves the “New Rights” are shedding new light on President Rhee’s rule, in part by
examining how he contributed to democratic nation-building in South Korea, but of course, but this narrow
and close focus on Rhee himself has its own drawbacks. See: An Bogil, Yiseungman dasibogi (Re-viewing
Syngman Rhee) (Seoul: Giparang, 2011); Robert T. Oliver, Yiseungman eopsseoddamyeon daehanminguk
eopdda (Without Syngman Rhee, there is no Republic of Korea), trans. Park Il-yeong (Seould:
Dongseomunhwasa, 2008); Rhyu Yeong-ik, Yiseungman daetongnyeong jaepyeongga (Reevaluation of
202
oversight may also be due to Korean scholars’ reliance on the model of European
bourgeois revolutions to see the events of spring 1960 as an almost accidental,
exceptional event that cannot be linked to the preceding and following eras. 3
Democratic nation-building during this period can be better understood when we
consider not only how the Rhee regime operated, but also how various groups responded
to his authoritarian rule. In other words, we need to examine how notions of democracy
developed and spread in the particular political topography left by the American military
occupation. As examined in Chapter III, South Korea’s political spectrum had been
narrowed by the U.S. military government’s anti-Communist policy and its heavy-handed
intervention in the post-liberation competition among various Korean political groups.
The Americans’ intercession put the right-wing in power, excluded the leftist forces, and
weakened the solidarity of moderates. The Korean War narrowed South Korean political
topography still further as the regime strengthened its anti-Communist stance by harshly
suppressing leftist and even liberal ideas. With the possibility of Communist North Korea
invading South Korea at any time, South Korea’s conservative leadership was able to
reinforce its power and consolidate its authoritarian rule.
In order to understand how students embraced democracy, I thought it necessary
to trace the diverse interpretations of “American” democracy that must have shaped the
students’ understanding of it by 1960. The first part of this chapter thus delves into how
President Syngman Rhee) (Seoul: Yeonsei University Press, 2006).
3
These scholars did not regard the April Revolution as a true revolution, using their understanding of the
European model in which the bourgeois took the first step in the transformation of society into a capitalist
one. Korea did not a have such a bourgeois or developed capitalist society.
203
the different levels and concepts of “American” ideas circulating during the U.S. military
occupation were understood and modified after the Americans handed the reins of
government to Syngman Rhee. I do so by examining three types of texts targeted to
students: government-issued textbooks; Hagwon, a popular student magazine produced
by conservative elites; and Sasang-gye, a liberal intellectual journal. All these texts show
the imprint of the wide-ranging U.S. programming that had thoroughly disseminated
notions about democracy in South Korea. At the same time, the texts also reveal how
different groups of Koreans interpreted and used these ideas for their own respective
agendas. Neither ignorant nor passive consumers of Western ideas, Koreans understood
American democracy on their own terms and utilized them to achieve their own specific
goals. This chapter thus argues that while American ideas about democracy were crucial
sources of reference, the notions were too diffuse and ambiguous to be clearly identified
and implemented in actionable policies. The ideas about democracy were often
transformed or used only in part by various groups of South Koreans competing to mold
and direct their new republic. And, to be sure, the government officials, the conservative
elites, and the progressive intellectuals—all had different approaches to the concepts of
democracy.
The latter part of this chapter further assesses to what extent these competing
discourses about democracy influenced the student protesters of the April Revolution.
Students, of course, read textbooks every day, and they used them as a frame of reference
when they protested against what they believed to be injustice. In fact, one of the Daegu
student leaders quoted from a civics textbook as he argued with his school’s principal
204
about the unfairness of the local education bureau’s order. 4 Another Korean activistscholar recalled that he learned more from Hagwon than he did from school. He also
claimed that Sasang-gye also gave students an opportunity to overcome the gloomy
reality of Rhee’s dictatorship and harbor hope for the future. 5 And as historian Charles
Kim has recently pointed out, Lee Dae-u, another Daegu student leader, read and
discussed Sasang-gye with his friends in his boarding house. 6
I argue that Korean students' understanding of democracy during the “dark times”
of the 1950s was a mixture of loosely defined “American” ideas and the traditional
Korean notion of good governance. Indeed, “American” democracy was far from the only
driving force in student anti-government resistance: their protest was in line with the long
tradition of peasant uprisings during the Chosun dynasty and student resistance during
Japanese colonial rule. The student protesters not only used democratic ideas, but also
drew from post-colonial nationalist discourses and their own sense of patriotism. It is,
moreover, important to consider how Koreans attempted to cope with the era’s bleak
reality. As recent studies of South Korean popular culture during the 1950s have shown,
many Koreans indulged in mass entertainment and leisure activities such as movies,
music, and dance. 7 People gained vicarious satisfaction by producing and consuming
4
Son Jinhong,, “Bujeong-e hang-geohaneun jeolmeumdeul” (Youth Resisting Injustice) in 2.28 minju
undongsa II (History of 2. 28 Movement for Democracy II) (2.28 minju uigeo 40 junyoen teukbyeol
ginyeomsaeophoe ,2000), 258.
5
Hagwon Kim Ik-dal jeon-gi ganhaeng wiwonhoe, ed., Hagwon saedaewa gimikdal (Hagwon generaion
and Kim Ik-dal) (Seoul: Minjuilbo and Hagwonsa, 1990), 258–259.
6
Charles R. Kim, “Unlikely revolutionaries,” 10.
7
The following books reflect this trend. Gwon Bodrae et al., Apregeol sasang-gyereul ikda: 1950nyeondae
munhwaui jayuwa tongje (Après girl reads sasang-gye: freedom and regulation of the 1950 culture) (Seoul:
205
popular culture. Unsurprisingly, American culture and life were among the most common
sources of this popular culture. Korean consumers were attracted to the affluent lives and
“advanced” culture in American movies. America thus became both a refuge and an
object of envy. Yet at the same time, this envy coexisted with disdain of America’s
“materialism” and “individualism.” As this chapter will explore, this duality can also be
found in Korean understanding of “American” democracy. Many Koreans thought of
American liberal democracy as an ideal concept and institution but also were critical of
its “materialistic” and “individualistic” nature. This chapter thus seeks to show not only
the context in which “American” ideas about democracy were received, but also how
competing Korean groups selectively adopted and molded these ideas to fit their own
particular needs. It asks us to stop thinking that Americans sowed seeds of democracy
that eventually came into fruition on South Korea soil. If seeds were sown, then the
Koreans were active gardeners: weeding, watering, fertilizing, cross-pollinating, and
pruning. Democracy was neither an exotic, foreign fruit nor a wholly indigenous plant,
but an organic product that Koreans tended under the particular conditions of long-term
weather patterns.
Textbooks: Government
Government-issued textbooks are indispensable in tracing how Koreans thought
through and even tried to apply “American” ideas of democracy. After all, schools are the
Dongguk University Press, 2009); Sangheo Hakhoe, ed., 1950nyeondae midieowa miguk pyosang (1950s
Media and Representation of America) (Seoul: Gipeunsaem, 2006); Oh Yeong-suk, 1950nyeondae hanguk
yeonghwawa munhwa damron (1950s: Korean movie and cultural discourse) (Seoul: Somyeong Chulpansa,
2007).
206
principal means by which a society inculcates its values, ideologies, and nationalist pride
in its youth. Rhee’s administration was no exception. An evaluation of the American
Education Mission (AEM) shows that the Korean schools and colleges were under strong
governmental control and regulation. 8 During the 1950s both teachers and officials within
the Ministry of Education paid considerable attention to curriculum design and textbook
publications. During the military government era, Americans, with the support of proAmerican Korean scholars, directly controlled the whole process of writing, producing
and distributing the textbooks and were intimately involved in curriculum design. 9
American education missions continued after the occupation ended, at the Korean
government’s request, and American mission members continued to advise on the content
of South Korean curricula and textbooks. The first job of one American education
mission member, Nora Beust, was to mount an exhibit of Korean and American
children’s books and textbooks. Held with the support of the Central Education Research
Institute, the Ministry of Education, the U.S. Embassy, and Korean publishers, Beust’s
exhibit in Seoul was attended by more than 12,000 Korean children and teachers and
impressed the members of the Korean Bureau of Textbooks. Encouraged by this success,
the exhibition team put on the same exhibit in Busan, Daegu, and Gwangju. 10
American educators, including Beust, also were dispatched to the Bureau of the
8
“1954 Korea Interim Report,” Unitarian Service Committee Records, bMS 16103, Box 15, AndoverHarvard Theological Library, Harvard Divinity School, Cambridge, MA.
9
Lee Yuri, “1950nyeondae ‘do-eui’ gyoyugui seonggyeok” (The formation and characteristics of moral
education in the 1950s), The Journal of Korean History 144 (2009): 10–11.
10
“Reports 1953-55,” Unitarian Service Committee Records, bMS 16103, Box 15, Andover-Harvard
Theological Library, Harvard Divinity School, Cambridge, MA.
207
Textbooks of Ministry of Education to provide advice on preparing textbooks and to
supply materials for the editors to study. American educators updated textbook designs
and illustrations, upgraded their illustrations and typography to make them more
appealing and suitable for younger children, created more realistic teaching materials,
and revised the units so as to base them on children’s life experiences rather than on
formal knowledge. 11 The third mission (1954-55), including Beust, also consulted with
the Textbook Bureau in the Ministry of Education, discussed with authors what textbooks
and children’s books were needed, and conferred with book publishers. 12 Scholars of
South Korean education generally agree that AEM’s progressive educational theories
were reflected in South Korea’s first curriculum reform in 1954-55. 13 Before analyzing
the government textbooks, it is necessary to pause and discuss this curriculum reform
because it not only determined textbook content but also reveals the contending political
stakes of the Korean educators.
The curriculum reform movement began when progressive educator Paik Nak-Jun
(George Paik) succeeded Ahn Hosang, a very strongly nationalistic Minister of Education,
in May 1950. In this new situation favorable to progressive, American-style education
system and philosophy, Korean advocates of the New Education Movement (NEM) now
raised their voices since they no longer felt restricted by the nationalist approach. A group
11
“1954-55 Ministry of Education ,” Unitarian Service Committee Records, bMS 16103, Box 16, AndoverHarvard Theological Library, Harvard Divinity School, Cambridge, MA.
12
“1954-55 Correspondence,” Unitarian Service Committee Records, bMs 16103, Box 16, AndoverHarvard Theological Library, Harvard Divinity School, Cambridge, MA.
13
Kang Il-Guk, “Saegyoyuk undong yeongu: 1950nyeondae chodeung gyoyukgwajeong-eul jungsimeuro”
(A study of the New Education Movement in 1950s South Korea) (Ph.D. Diss., Seoul National University,
2002), 71.
208
of reform-minded teachers on the ground began to discuss how to improve the existing
curriculum to embrace the child- and life-centered pedagogical theory of American
progressive education. The former emphasized education focused on each child’s needs,
and the latter highlighted the importance of knowledge acquired in and applicable to an
individual’s life. 14
Curricular reform became a battleground of competing educational philosophies
among various parties. American education mission members regarded this as a good
opportunity to influence South Korean education and participated in the discussion about
curricular reform. The education experts in the Ministry of Education were split into two
groups: progressive school commissioners who favored the American education
philosophy and conservative editorial officers who were critical of the American concept
of child- and life-centered education. 15 The former, represented by Shim Tae-jin and
backed by the American education mission members, approved and supported the
grassroots initiative of the progressive teachers who began the curriculum reform
movement. The latter, represented by Lee Sang-seon and Chio Hyeon-bae, criticized the
movement as disorderly and promoting chaos in Korean education. One main issue was
whether the existing division of subjects should be maintained, changed, or totally
abolished. While progressive educators preferred a so-called “core curriculum” with no
division into subjects, conservatives tried to keep the existing divisions.16
14
Ibid., 62-65.
15
Ibid., 65-70.
16
Ibid., 67-70.
209
After serious debates between the two camps during the early 1950s, the First
Curriculum Guidelines were promulgated in 1954 and 1955. These guidelines appear to
be a compromise between the two educational philosophies. While keeping the existing
subject-centered curriculum that emphasized imparting systematic knowledge, they also
partly employed life-centered progressive educational theories to a certain extent. 17 It is
interesting to note that, while both parties agreed on the life-centered principle, they had
different aims: while progressive educators believed that students could learn better
through their daily activities, conservative ones expected that this could divert students’
attention from politics.
The battle between the two ended as more a victory for the conservatives than as a
compromise, however. The child-centered approach, the core of progressive educational
theory, was abandoned. The new guidelines by and large maintained the existing
nationalist perspective and strengthened anti-Communism education. The ideals specified
in the guidelines removed references to children’s autonomy and freedom and
emphasized the needs of the state. Thirty-five hours of education in moral justice became
mandatory. Let us examine more carefully how democracy was presented in the newly
published textbooks under the rubric of the First Curriculum Reform. I pay special
attention to how the government used “American” democracy as an instrument to
inculcate its own ideology into its citizenry.
Democracy was a very prominent topic in many 1950s textbooks on politics,
social studies, civics, morals, and moral justice. However, in my survey of more than
17
The First Curriculum Guidelines (April 20, 1954 and August 1, 1955)  ????
210
twenty morals and civics textbooks of the 1950s, I detected little influence of the
“individualistic” concept of democracy that the American educators tried to transfer to
South Korea. The textbooks published prior to the AEM mission and the first curriculum
reform were clearly nation-centered. A 1950 middle-school textbook written by Yu Chino, the main drafter of the Korean Constitution, shows this clearly. It deals with
institutions of a democratic nation including the government, the National Assembly,
courts, elections, parties, education, and the press. There is not a single chapter dealing
with individual rights and responsibilities.
This nation-centered perspective did not fundamentally change after the
curriculum reform. Despite the enthusiastic support and counsel of progressive American
educators, the individual-centered concept of democracy was still not reflected in the
newly published textbooks. Most descriptions of democracy concerned the political
system and institutions and focused not on individuals’ rights or abilities, but on the
centrality of the nation. For example, while the first chapter in a 1955 high-school civics
textbook also authored by Yu Chin-o was called “The Individual and Government,” it
emphasizes the role of the government while devoting little space to individual rights and
responsibilities. 18 Although the 1956 version of the same text added a chapter about the
people, they are treated not as individuals, but as a group. 19 The remaining pages are
devoted to political and institutional aspects of democracy, as in Yu Chin-o’s earlier
textbooks. Most of the other textbooks of this era show a similar trend.
18
Yu Chin-o, Godeung sahoesaenghwalgwa jeongchimunje: gongmin bubun ilhangnyeonyong (Social
studies textbook for high school freshmen: political problems) (Seoul: Iljogak, 1955), 1–2.
19
Ibid., 17-41.
211
This sampling of textbooks, though limited, does suggest nonetheless that the
textbooks of the 1950s were more the ideological tools of the Korean government than
instruments of America’s democracy promotion. For instance, a 1956 textbook on moral
education, published by a private publishing company but approved by the Ministry of
Education, explicitly declares its opposition to the “democratic education” and “life
education” promoted by pro-America scholars since liberation. Instead, its authors hold
up as a goal a life-based moral justice suitable for Korean-style democracy. 20 The authors
of this moral textbook emphasize that students should obey their teachers in order to
become competent men and women who can contribute to national wellbeing. 21 The
textbook also stresses that people should act for the nation’s sake and criticizes the
individualistic behavior of those who confuse liberty with license and ignore their nation
and state. In order to enjoy freedom, individuals must first obey the orders of the
organizations they belong to: their home, school, society, and nation. 22
Yet the Korean bureaucrats did not reject all of the American educators’
suggestions. Although the American core concept of democracy based on individualism
was not accepted, their emphasis on cooperation and social responsibility was embraced
by the Korean government’s curriculum reformers. The editorial officials who led the
curriculum reform accepted and utilized the life-centered concept of American
progressive education while rejecting its child-centered education theory based on
20
Sim Taejin and Gwon Sang-cheol, Junghakkyo sahoe saenghwalgwa: dodeok (Middle school social
studies: morals) (Seoul: Mingyosa, 1956), 1–2.
21
Ibid., 8.
22
Ibid., 27-32.
212
individualism. Given that Koreans have long valued cooperation and social responsibility,
this is not surprising. In other words, the Korean government incorporated the American
recommendations that they themselves had been promoting. Thus the democracy in the
textbooks, lacking a basis in individual rights and freedom, was a different concept from
that promoted by American educators.
A useful text in showing the subtle and skillful ways in which Korean officials
utilized American educators’ theories and ideas, including life-centered education, is a
1958 teachers’ guidebook to middle-school civics. The manual gives teachers very
sophisticated ways of explaining democracy by adopting and transforming “American”
ideas. Unlike the textbooks, this teachers’ manual reflects some of the AEM’s ideas and
concepts. It treats individualism rather positively by saying that the basic idea of
democracy is to respect individual rights and liberty. It also encourages teachers to put
life-centered education theories into practice. Yet one of the guidebook’s most prominent
strategies was to divert attention from politics to the daily lives of citizens via the AEM’s
“life-centered” concept of democracy. Teachers were now encouraged to lead discussions
about how individuals could practice democracy in their daily lives in their treatment of
others, but not in their relationship with their government. 23 In the United States and
Canada, the guidebook suggested, a democratic person was now someone who treated
people as equals without showing off his or her superior position. The authors treat the
issue of individual rights and liberty in more detail and as more important than most of
the textbooks of the time, but not for the purposes of educating students about their
23
Ministry of Education, Teachers’ study guidebook, 359.
213
political rights. Thus the authors of this manual availed themselves of American
examples familiar to Korean students, but with a shift in emphasis to the individual level.
The authors claim that Abraham Lincoln’s famous definition of democracy as
“government of the people, for the people, by the people” referred to a social or moral
mind-set or psychological attitude, not a political contract between a government and its
citizenry. 24
Some might advance the guidebook’s employment of American educational
theory and examples as a sign of American influence. In some ways, the notions of
democracy introduced in the guidebook were similar to the AEM’s individual-based
concept. However, this Korean text describes individual rights and liberty in a passive
way as a state that should be respected and protected. While touching on individual rights,
the main focus of the manual was still on the overarching importance of society and the
nation. Thus, while the AEM’s concept of democracy privileged individuals over the state,
the Korean manual does the opposite. The guidebook’s use of U.S. theories shows how
the Korean government used American ideas as instruments to its own ends. In order to
understand why and how the guidebook used American education theory, we need to
understand the political and social context of the day.
Popular discontent with Rhee’s government had been building up since the
outbreak of the Korean War, and the corrupt practices of the ruling party (Democratic
Party) in the 1956 election further deepened distrust of the regime. Written at this
historical moment, the teachers’ manual dealt with the idea of democracy with great care.
24
Ibid., 366.
214
It selectively adopted and transformed “American” ideas with the intention, it appears, of
calming students’ anti-government complaints. While employing the discourse of
individual liberty, therefore, the guidebook did not go so far as to put it before the nation.
The guidebook also used various other discursive strategies to downplay the gap between
actual politics and the idealized portrayal of democracy in the textbooks. For example, it
recommends that teachers in dealing with democracy should admit the backwardness and
difficulties of Korean democracy as a reality by reminding students of the brevity of the
Korean experience of democracy in order to convince them that democracy could not be
achieved in so short a time. 25 The authors of the guidebook must have been well aware
that they could not completely divert students’ attention from politics. But they
unequivocally state that teachers should not be so “thoughtless” as to encourage students
to compare reality with an ideal concept of democracy. Instead, teachers should instruct
students not simply to criticize Korea’s “backward democracy” but to think how they
could contribute to its improvement by being better, more respectful citizens. In order to
relieve students of the illusion of democratic ideals, the guidebook even introduces
various criticisms of democracy: that the democratic system is weak, insecure, and
inefficient. The democratic system rejects heroes because of its emphasis on equality, and
it costs a lot of money. Democracy also implies a possible lack of respect for national
sovereignty and the possible tyranny of the majority.
This treatment of democracy’s negative aspects in the teachers’ guidebook is
25
Ministry of Education, Teachers’ study guidebook, 359, 364.
215
surprising at a time when most textbooks portrayed only the positive. 26 The guidebook
did not stop here, but went further to relativize the concept of democracy. In explaining
democracy, the manual argues that we cannot clearly distinguish democracy from nondemocracy, but can only tell the degree to which a nation is democratic. This was a way
to convince students that their nation was not undemocratic, just less democratic than
some other states. In order to support their arguments, the authors even go so far as to
relativize Communist nations by arguing that Soviet-style and Western-style democracy
cannot be clearly distinguished, and should be evaluated only on how much the ruler and
the ruled agree on policy and how much freedom is guaranteed. Although the purpose of
this argument was not to paint the Soviet Union as democratic, it was nevertheless a
radical departure from the existing official anti-Communist ideology that drew a clear
line between the “democratic” West and “undemocratic” Communism. 27
The 1950s textbooks and the related curricular reforms and teachers’ guidebook
together show how the government tried to mold people to be loyal to the state. While
most of the 1950s textbooks presented a state-centered concept of democracy, the ways in
which the textbooks described democracy became more nuanced after the curricular
reforms of 1954 and 1955. In the historical context of increasing distrust of the mid1950s government’s democratic governance, the government also gave teachers various
ways to calm students’ anti-government complaints. The guidebook’s authors not only
had comprehensive understanding of various foreign ideas, but also knew how to use
26
Ibid., 371-372.
27
Ibid., 365-366.
216
them to fulfill their aims. They actively made use of “American” ideas and also showed
the multi-faceted aspects of democracy in order to try to stabilize the students’ complaints.
However, they accepted “American” ideas not as a goal, but as a means. While they
utilized the life-centered, individual concept of democracy, their focus was still on the
nation and the state. Cooperation and collaboration were treated as precious values in a
democratic society. Unlike the AEM members, who used “responsibility” as a mediator
between individuals and the state, the Korean government appealed to individuals’
patriotism and asked them to sacrifice for the state.
Hagwon: Conservatives
Another text showing how ideas about democracy were discussed and circulated
in South Korea is Hagwon, a conservative pro-American magazine. 28 Targeting at
middle- and high-school students, this conservative magazine shared the antiCommunism and pro-Americanism of the government-issued textbooks. However, while
textbooks focused on cultivating patriotic people, Hagwon’s goal was to educate young
students to become builders of the nation. Whereas the ideal citizen in the textbooks was
a passive follower of the state, Hagwon wanted to shape students to become active
contributors to making a strong and wealthy nation. Students were treated more as
individuals in this magazine than in textbooks: their individual abilities were regarded as
important. This, however, does not mean that Hagwon accepted the individual-based
democratic idea promoted by the AEM members. The individualities it embraced were
28
The magazine is microfilmed at the National Library of Korea in Seoul, South Korea. The citations of
this magazine below specify the month and year of publication.
217
important only when they were useful to the nation.
First published during the war in Daegu by a leading figure in the postwar South
Korean publishing world, Kim Ikdal, the magazine soon became very popular among
young adults and continued publication as late as 1979. By 1954, only two years after it
first appeared, it had a circulation of 80,000, far surpassing the most popular newspaper
of the time with circulation only 50,000. So influential was the magazine that the term
“Hagwon generation” refers to the students who grew up reading it. In an era with a
dearth of reading materials, Hagwon was a crucial source for students. 29 It carried literary
works by many prominent writers of the times, including Jeong Biseok, Kim Raeseong,
Yun Baeknam, Kim Gwangju, and Choi Jeonghee. And such well-known poets as Jo
Jihun, Park Dujin, Park Mokwal, and Jang Manyeong commented on students’ articles.
Hagwon also introduced works of foreign literature and encouraged many student-writers
by giving them opportunities to publish their own work.
Hagwon’s publisher, Kim Ikdal, was a conservative elite intellectual, anticommunist and pro-American, but he was not a government puppet. As he essentially
supported the government’s anti-Communist propaganda, Kim did not criticize the
government’s authoritarian rule. But when Hagwon published a few articles about
sensitive political issues, it sought neutrality. For example, in an article about the
confrontation between the ruling and opposition parties over December, 1958 National
Security Law, the magazine described the situation “neutrally” by simply explaining what
29
Kim Han-sik, “Haksaeng japji hagwonui seonggyeokgwa uiui” (A study of Hagwon, a young students’
magazine), Sangheo Hakbo 28 (2010): 291–293.
218
happened without comments favoring or criticizing either side. 30 And when the
government forced a major newspaper to stop publishing in 1959, the magazine
objectively explained the positions of both government and newspaper company. 31 That
said, however, the fact that the magazine tried to be neutral on events in which the
government made grave errors reveals its pro-government, conservative position. On
other issues, the magazine revealed its pro-government tendency more openly. An article
in August 1953 praises President Rhee, depicting him as heroic for his decision to release
North Korean anti-Communist prisoners of war. 32 In 1959, a year before Rhee was forced
to flee the country, the magazine also celebrated his 84th birthday and reported
enthusiastically on the ceremonies held throughout the country. 33
Hagwon’s overall purpose was to educate the nation’s future leaders. It was an
educational magazine that served as a platform for South Korea’s conservative elites.
While devoting ample space to literature, it offered academic advice to its student readers,
and it frequently dealt with domestic and international politics, as well as other current
world affairs. Through these articles, the editors of the magazine wanted to give its
readers a sense of domestic and world politics beyond their schoolbooks. For such
perspectives, however, the magazine relied on contributions from government officials
30
Go Jegyeong, ”2.4 padonggwa guknae jeongguk” (2.4 upheaval and domestic political situation),
Hagwon (March 1959).
31
”Guknaeui umjigim segyeui umjigim” (Domestic and foreign affairs), Hagwon (June and July, 1959).
32
Jeong Injun, ”Hyujeongwa hangugui unmyeong” (Armistice and South Korea’s destiny), Hagwon
(August 1953).
33
”Rhee daetongryeong 84hoe tansin chukka ginyeomsik” (President Rhee’s 84th birthday ceremony),
Hagwon (May 1959).
219
and conservative politicians. Thus the magazine’s articles serve as a useful window
through which to see how the conservative elites tried to form the younger generation’s
worldviews. At the same time, the magazine lets us understand the sorts of ideologies and
ideas students may have discussed outside school. Its articles may have had no small
influence on students who bought it and shared it with their friends who could not afford
it.
While Hagwon’s authors, editors, and writers focused on a variety of topics, most
of them promoted nationalism and patriotism since they shared a vision of enhancing
national prosperity and power and promoted nationalistic and patriotic discourses. For
example, the Minister of Education, Kim Beop-rin, emphasized in an opening article to
the fourth issue that the goal of education was to develop Korean culture and make Korea
great. 34 In the special issue for the magazine’s first anniversary, the same author also
strongly urged students to serve their nation. Publisher Kim Ikdal stressed in the same
issue that students should contribute to the development of a healthy nation-state by
creating a national culture. 35 Even the student contributors to the magazine repeated this
kind of nationalistic discourse.
….My success and prosperity are my nation’s success and
prosperity and my nation’s peace and comfort mean my
peace and comfort. Therefore, loving the nation equals
loving myself and loving myself is to love the nation.
Therefore, people should voluntarily love their nation…We
must discard our selfishness and learn to understand the
nation. We must be patriotic, altruistic, and ready to
sacrifice our lives for the development of our state and
34
Hagwon (April 1953).
35
Hagwon (November 1953).
220
nation…Let’s unify ourselves!...We should avoid the
problems caused by laissez-faire…We must realize that
restricting personal freedom by law is to make our lives
better in the end. (Seo Daenam, Sunsan High School) 36
By equating the fate of the nation and individuals, this student faithfully echoed the
magazine’s nationalism, which of course is why it was chosen for publication. While
criticizing laissez-faire, the student even argued that individuals’ lives would be improved
by having their freedom restrained. Overall, Hagwon praised patriotism, altruism, and
sacrifice, but it is important to note once again that their messages were not identical with
those used in the government-issued textbooks examined above. Unlike the textbooks
demanding students to become obedient to the state, this magazine expected each
individual student to become an active contributor to building a strong and wealthy
nation. They were not viewed simply as collective “people,” but treated as individuals.
Overemphasizing individual aspects of the magazine’s democratic ideas, however,
should not cause us to misunderstand its nature. Although Hagwon emphasized
individuals’ roles, its ultimate aim was not to foster individual freedom and rights. While
it did not treat students as passive and obedient people, its focus was still not on the
individual student but on the nation. And while individual students were encouraged to
develop their own abilities, they were expected to do so not to pursue their own happiness,
but to contribute to the nation. In this aspect, Hagwon shared the ultimate goal of the
textbooks.
The goal was not the only element that Hagwon had in common with the
36
“Naneun ireoke jujanghanda” (I argue this), Hagwon (October 1958); Hagwon (December 1958; March
1959).
221
textbooks. Like them, the magazine highlighted American democracy as an ideal model
of a strong and wealthy nation. The various articles about the United States cover not
only political, economic, diplomatic and ideological issues, but also such topics as history,
education, sports, science, travel, school life, and literature. The magazine featured
articles on many great Americans past and present. While President Eisenhower was a
frequent subject, many others appeared in the magazine such as Secretary of State John
Foster Dulles, Albert Einstein, Thomas Jefferson, Dr. Brown (who successfully launched
America’s first satellite), Charles Lindbergh, Abraham Lincoln, Henry Ford, and
prominent men of letters including Ralph Waldo Emerson, Walt Whitman, and Mark
Twain. Some American officers in South Korea also contributed articles, such as Arthur L.
Bunn, the director of USIS in Daegu, Thomas A. Cassilly of the American Cultural
Center in Daegu, and a Cultural Affairs Officer in the U.S. embassy, M. W. Scherbacher.
The magazine not only adopted the United States as a model for Korea to aspire to,
but also actively accepted key American Cold War ideologies: liberal democracy and
anti-Communism. For example, the magazine ran an article by a U.S. embassy official
that encouraged students to “strive to make their society and nation prosper” and also
clarified that “democracy should be firmly based on individuals.” 37 His concept of
democracy closely resembled that of the AEM members. Bunn, the USIS director in
Daegu, also emphasized the role of individuals in a democratic society. 38
However, even when modeling U.S. democracy, the magazine did not lose its
37
M. W. Scherbacher,“Nagabon hanguk munhwa” (Korean Culture in My Eyes), Hagwon (March 1957).
38
Arthur L. Bunn, “Hanguk haksaeng yeoreobunege” (To Korean students), Hagwon (January 1953).
222
focus on the Korean nation. The individual-based concept of democracy that appeared in
the magazine was exceptional and addressed only by American contributors. Democracy
as presented in the magazine generally showed collective characteristics and focused on
the nation without emphasizing the individual. For example, Lee Jonghang in his article
“What is Social Life?” argued that individuals could do well when the society went well,
but not the other way around. In other words, individuals can make their lives better only
when their society becomes stable and flourishes. 39 The president of Chung-Ang
University, Im Yeongsin, also stressed that each individual should make continual efforts
to learn culture and refinement in order to become a great molecule in the democratic
nation. 40
While transforming U.S. democratic ideas, most Hagwon contributors accepted
anti-Communism as it was. Relying on their collective and nationalistic concept of
democracy, they further endeavored to convince students that democracy was the most
effective weapon against Communism and the best way to make the nation strong and
prosperous. For example, the president of Kyungpook National University argued that
South Korea could build a democratic nation only after it repelled Communist
aggression. 41 Kim Boep-rin encouraged students to study hard and believe in democracy
in order to defeat Communist attacks. 42 An editorial also stressed that a democratic mind
cultivated through democratic education would solve the problem of juvenile
39
Hagwon (April 1953).
40
Hagwon (February 1957).
41
Hagwon (February 1953).
42
Hagwon (April 1953).
223
delinquency. 43
Within the pages of Hagwon, individuals were seen only as members of the nation.
Individual duty was very strongly emphasized, while individual rights were seldom
mentioned. In accepting “American” democracy as an important source for South Korea’s
national building, the leaders and elites who wrote for Hagwon selectively utilized parts
of the various democratic ideas promoted by Americans. The magazine’s authors thus
saw democracy more as an ideal means to achieve strength and prosperity similar to that
of the United States; they were not as concerned with and did not seek to adopt
democracy as a political system that put equal emphasis on individual rights. They
accepted anti-Communism as it was, but transformed individual-based notions of
American democracy. All in all, Korean conservative leaders at this time, with their
“collective” and “nationalistic” concept of governance, accepted, transformed and
utilized democratic ideas in order to shape their people into dutiful and loyal citizens who
would willingly participate in building a strong, rich nation.
Sasang-gye: Liberal Intellectuals
Like the government and conservative elites, Korean liberal intellectuals also
utilized “American” democracy. However, their understanding and approach to the
“American” idea were different from the other two groups. Unlike the government and
conservatives who were more interested in using American ideas than understanding
them, these liberals made serious efforts to grasp the essence of American democracy. Yet
43
Hagwon (June 1958).
224
still, they approached the subject with a utilitarian purpose just like the other two groups
of Koreans. But in their case, they made use of the democratic ideas in criticizing the
government’s undemocratic governance.
How 1950s Korean liberal intellectuals understood and employed American
democracy can be traced in Sasang-gye (World of Thought), one of the most popular
intellectual journals in South Korea at the time. This journal’s main subscribers were
college students and intellectuals, but middle- and high-school students also read it.
Appearing monthly between 1953 and 1970, Sasang-gye not only covered political,
social, economic, and cultural issues, but also carried a variety of literary works. With
contributors who were mainly “liberal” theorists, critics, and writers, the magazine was
one of the most popular magazines among intellectuals and students during the 1950s and
1960s. It had a circulation similar to that of Hagwon, between 50,000 and 80,000 in the
1950s, although the number decreased under Park Jung Hee’s regime in the 1960s.
The publisher, Jang Jun-ha, had had a cordial relationship with the United States
since the Japanese occupation era. Jang had been conscripted by the Japanese Army in
1944, but deserted and went to the Korean Provisional Government in Shanghai, China.
There he had a chance to work with members of America’s Office of Strategic Services
(OSS). When he first published Sasang-gye in 1953, USIS Korea had supplied the paper
for it. 44 Jang’s company also distributed articles from U.S. journals such as Time, Life,
and many other American magazines, and it translated many American books. 45 Although
44
Kim Samung, Jangjuna pyeongjeon (Critical biography of Jang Jun-ha) (Seoul: Sidaeui Chang, 2009),
238-275, 328.
45
Namgung Gon, “Sasang-gyereul tonghae bon jisigindeurui naengjeonuisik yeongu” (Study of
225
pro-American, Jang Jun-ha was critical of the government not only of Syngman Rhee but
also of Park Jung Hee. Arrested several times under Park’s regime, he finally died a
mysterious death in 1975. 46
As the most popular intellectual journal in the 1950s and 1960s, Sasang-gye
operated in the narrow political topography of the post-Korean War era. Maneuvering on
a conservative-dominated political stage, Korean liberals in the 1950s, could not take
issue with anti-Communism, but deployed the only ideological weapon in their arsenal:
liberal democracy. The problem was that the government also used democracy as its
ideological weapon. Liberals thus had to elaborate on the democratic idea in order to
criticize the government’s misuse of it. Scholars have pointed out that the liberal
intellectuals of the 1950s, many of whom contributed to Sasang-gye, criticized not the
government’s ideological basis in democracy itself, but its failure to carry out this
ideology. 47
Although it is true that the magazine’s criticism of the government focused on its
failure to put democratic ideals into practice, the contributors did not direct all their
energies to attacking the government. In fact, their basic goal was to modernize the nation,
and unlike the government, which interpreted democratic ideals narrowly by limiting
them to anti-Communism, the liberals’ concept of democracy thus covered broader
political, social, economic and cultural issues.
intellectuals’ Cold War consciousness) (Master thesis, Seoul National University, 1987), 42–43.
46
Kim Samung, Critical biography, 20-21.
47
Choi Jang-jip, Hanguk minjujuuiui jogeongwa jeonmang (The condition and prospect of South Korean
democracy) (Seoul: Nanam Chulpan, 1996); Park Chan-pyo, South Korean nation-building.
226
Searching for the best ways to develop their nation, many of the magazine’s
contributors considered “American-style” modernization a worthy goal. Believing that
history advanced in a linear and universal mode of progress, they wanted to catch up to
the “advanced” and “modernized” Western nations by following their path. American
values and systems were generally presented in Sasang-gye as an ideal frame of reference.
Unlike Hagwon authors who utilized America simply as an instrument to demand that
students serve the nation, many Sasang-gye writers believed that the “American way”
was the best route for Koreans to follow. In this respect, they inherited the ideas and
practices of the cultural nationalists of the Japanese occupation era who focused their
energies on following the modernized and advanced Western nations. 48 Many Sasang-gye
articles concerned ideas, institutions, policies, and culture prevalent in the United States,
and the image of America projected was generally positive.
If government-issued textbooks and Hagwon simply romanticized and idealized
American ideas and culture, the liberals in Sasang-gye tried to present American realities
more accurately. Although the shared goal of the conservatives and liberals was to make
their nation wealthy and strong, the former focused merely on the goal itself, while the
latter also tried to better understand the process for achieving the goal. The liberal
intellectuals regarded South Korea’s “Americanism” in the 1950s as very superficial and
ignorant of the deeper aspects of the United States. They thus tried to pay careful
attention to presenting the “real” America. The liberals went further to actively attempt to
correct “false” Korean notions and images of America.
48
Kim Geonu, Sasanggyewa 1950nyeondae munhak (“Sasang-gye” and 1950s literature) (Seoul:
Somyeong Chulpansa, n.d.), 54–61.
227
The special features on Americanism in a 1959 issue are a good example of this
attempt. Kim Hatae, a theologian, argued that Koreans saw only negative images of the
United States such as materialism and dollar-ism and were unaware that the United States
had a humanistic moral culture. 49 Lee Bohyeong, the pioneer scholar of American history
in South Korea, also introduced an American scholar’s argument that while the United
States was materialistic, it had also developed moral aspects of civilization such as
philosophy and the arts. 50 Park Jong-hong, a philosophy professor at Seoul National
University, also discussed America’s philosophy in order to challenge existing prejudices
against American materialism. 51
The more critical issue was the accurate presentation of American individualism,
a concept closely related to democracy. Individualism, being almost identified in Korea
with egoism or selfishness, was a negative characteristic attached to U.S. ideas and
culture. Even positive portrayals of the United States tended to avoid dealing with its
individualism. Sasang-gye, however, confronted this issue directly. Many of its articles
daringly attempted to present positive aspects of American individualism and explain its
relations with democracy with the hope of rectifying Koreans’ negative notions of
American individualism and democracy. For example, Kim Hatae admitted that
Americanism was based on individualism: “do what one should do and do not care about
others.” He contended, however, that American individualism was neither selfishness nor
49
Kim Hatae, “Hanguge isseoseoui Americanism” (Americanism in South Korea), Sasang-gye 72 (July
1959).
50
Lee Bohyung, “Migukmunhwaneun yusandoelkka?” (Will American Culture be Aborted?), Sasang-gye
72 (July 1959).
51
Park Jonghong, “Miguk sasang-ui teukjing” (Peculiarities of American Ideas), Sasang-gye 72 (July 1959).
228
monadism. To support his argument, he cited a Harvard professor’s definition of
American individualism: that Americans were not isolated individuals but rather
collective individuals. Although Americanism was based on individualism, he stressed
that individuals in the United States also cooperated. He further connected this
Americanism to American democracy by suggesting that it was true democracy because it
was moral democracy aiming at justice and the common good.
While attempting to correct Koreans’ false images of American individualism,
Sasang-gye contributed to a deeper and more sophisticated understanding of American
democracy. By highlighting positive aspects of individualism, the magazine showed the
relations between individualism and democracy. From this point of view, its concept of
democracy appears to be similar to what the AEM members tried to promote in South
Korea: both not only understood that American democracy was based on individualism,
but also emphasized that individualism did not necessarily obstruct the integration of the
people.
However, for all their commonalities, the Sasang-gye writers’ concept of
democracy was not identical to that of the AEM members. Unlike the AEM members,
who believed that democracy should be firmly based on individual rights and freedoms,
the Korean liberal intellectuals presented American individualism not as an end in itself,
but as a means to achieving the larger goal of national consolidation and development.
The most important point in the negative image of individualism that the magazine tried
to correct was that it hindered cooperation within the community and integration of the
nation. As the government officials and conservative elites did, the writers for Sasang-gye
also utilized American ideas and knowledge, though in different ways: whereas the
229
former merely removed individualism from democracy, Sasang-gye authors strived to
better understand and embrace even the individualistic aspects of American democracy.
All in all, Sasang-gye authors were more interested in the impact of individualism
on their ultimate goal of nation-building than in its value per se. Concerned about Korean
“misconceptions” of individualism, for example, the Kim’s article cited above turned its
focus to Korea and claimed that it was not Americans but Koreans whose individualism
was selfish and isolated. 52 The liberals wanted to correct Koreans’ notion of
individualism because they believed “proper” individualism was important in
democratization and modernization. Whether their efforts were successful or not, they at
least contributed to broadening Koreans’ interpretation of “American” democracy by
clarifying individualism’s role in it.
All the three texts discussed above produced by different Korean political sectors
shared anti-communism as promoted by the United States. However, they all transformed
“American” democracy to meet their own needs and goals. The government, intending to
cultivate submissive and dutiful people as a collective body, fostered nation-focused
democracy through textbooks. The conservative magazine Hagwon aimed at nurturing
future leaders to make the nation wealthy and strong. The magazine thus emphasized
individual abilities, although it shared with the textbooks a nation-focused concept of
democracy. Liberal intellectuals, who had more serious intentions to follow the U.S.
example, promoted individual-based democracy through the progressive journal Sasanggye. Although their ultimate goal was, like the conservatives’, to build a strong nation,
52
Kim Hatae, “Americanism in South Korea.”
230
they believed the goal would be achieved by accepting U.S. democracy.
After all, despite their different approaches, all these texts were based on a nationfocused concept of democracy. However, although the texts did not embrace America’s
individual-based democracy, they all used it in ways to make their democratic discourses
more cogent and convincing. Even the government, while promoting a state-centered
notion of democracy, still used the concept of individual as a tool when necessary in
teachers’ guidebooks. In addition to the transformation by various groups of Koreans, the
United States itself did not focus its efforts on promoting what it truly believed about
democracy and thus ended up transferring diverse and loosely defined democratic
concepts. The notions of democracy promoted by AEM members were closer to most
Americans’ ideas of democracy, but they were only a part of larger project of U.S.
democracy promotion in South Korea. The result was fragmentary promotion of
American democracy. Democracy emphasizing individual responsibility to the society
and the nation was promoted without its correlated notion of individualism. Some used
only the individualistic part while others accepted only the responsibility part. In the
following section, I examine how students who participated in the series of
demonstrations of the April Revolution availed themselves of the different notions of
democracy they had learned from diverse sources.
The April Revolution: Students
Considering that the three main sources of pedagogical texts all put forth visions
of “American” democracy, it would be logical to think that these had some impact on
students and thus on Korean nation-building. Few studies, however, have seriously
231
considered American influence on the student revolution. What studies there are on the
subject point to the U.S. efforts in the later stages of the revolution to persuade President
Rhee to step down and to prevent the military from firing on the people. 53 However, the
American impact was broader and longer-term. A recent U.S. doctoral dissertation by
Charles Kim has greatly enhanced our understanding of the event by delving closely into
the students’ lives and carefully weaving together the particular social and political
conditions of the 1950s necessary for the student revolt and the series of specific events
that turned the potential into reality. Kim’s research also shows how student protesters
drew on democratic ideas promoted by the government through textbooks and on their
experiences of being forced by the government to participate in mobilizations supporting
the regime. 54 However, he stops short of investigating what kind of democratic ideas they
learned and how they understood and used them. I argue that the April Revolution cannot
be fully understood without considering both the influence and limits of “American”
democracy.
In assessing how the student demonstrators of the April Revolution accepted and
utilized notions of “American” democracy, I have so far shown that different concepts of
democracy were promoted in the three most influential kinds of texts read by Korean
students during the 1950s. This analysis has shown how that each of these texts had a
53
Lee Jaebong, “4wol hyeongmyeonggwa migugui gaeip (The April Revolution and U.S. intervention),”
Sahogwahakyeongu 18 (1995): 73–96; Jeong Il-jun, “4wol hyeongmyeonggwa miguk: Hanguk jeongchi
byeondonggwa migugui gaeip yangsik” (The April Revolution and the United States: Korean political
change and American way of intervention) in 4wol hyeongmyeonggwa hanguk minjujuui (The April
Revolution and Korean democracy), Jeong Geunsik and Lee Horyong, eds. (Seoul: Seonin, 2010).
54
Charles Kim, “Unlikely Revolutionaries,” 198-213, 241-242.
232
particular political agenda that shaped how it promoted democracy, but that all declared
American democracy to be their model and inspiration. If one did not carefully read and
consider the varying interpretations of American democracy being promoted, one might
simply conclude that indeed the students were inspired by the American model to fight
for democracy. Yet only Sasang-gye suggested that the current regime was problematic;
the other two promoted democracy as an ideology to encourage loyalty to the state. It was
unlikely that students were influenced only by Sasang-gye. By exploring below how the
student demonstrators in the April Revolution came to embrace democracy and how they
understood it, I will show both the role and limitations of “American” democracy in
South Korean nation-building: although it was widely spread among students through a
variety of routes, the specific ways in which it was used in South Korean nation-building
were determined not by Americans but by Koreans.
Most existing studies of the April Revolution point to textbooks to explain how
the students came to embrace democracy. They thus argue that students used the very
democratic ideas that the government tried to inculcate into them to attack the
undemocratic and corrupt government. The textbooks’ democratic ideas, therefore, not
only made students understood the undemocratic activities of the government, but also
gave them useful weapons for fighting against that government. Although I do not wholly
disagree with the above narrative, I find that the students’ concepts of democracy were far
more complex. By investigating the various discourses employed by students in the series
of demonstrations in 1960, I argue that students’ concept of democracy was large and
vague combining the various democratic concepts that they had learned from diverse
texts and traditional notions of good governance. Moreover, democracy was not the only
233
tool that they employed in their protest against the regime.
My analysis starts from the fact that the democratic idea with which students in
the 1950s had kept in touch was far from unitary. As shown above, students had been
exposed to diverse concepts of democracy including not only anti-Communism, nationcentered and institutional concepts but also child- and life-centered notions of democracy.
My research suggests that student demonstrators from February 28 through April 19,
1960 availed themselves of the various democratic ideas that they learned in and out of
school in order to achieve their goals.
It is generally understood that the direct cause of the April Revolution was the
election improprieties in the presidential and vice-presidential election of March 15, 1960.
However, the original event of crucial impact on the April Revolution took place in the
southeastern city of Daegu on February 28th. 55 In the campaigns for the upcoming
presidential election, illegalities by the ruling party were commonplace. One tactic was to
mobilize students for their election campaign but somehow prevent them from going to
the campaigns of the opposition party. In Masan, Gyeongbuk, the local education bureau
ordered the students to come to school on Sunday, February 28th (the so-called “Sunday
directive”) when a speech by the opposition party’s vice presidential candidate was
scheduled. Students resented this order not simply because they had to come to school on
a Sunday, but also because they knew it was part of the ruling party’s illegal
electioneering.
Organized by several student leaders the day before, the February 28 student
55
Charles Kim’s “Unlikely Revolutionaries” highlights the importance of the 2.28 student demonstration.
234
demonstrations became a city-wide movement. Some leaders of the high-school student
councils, including Lee Dae-u at Gyeongbuk High School and Son Jinhong at Daegu
High School, first complained to their teachers and principal about this unjustified
directive and demanded its withdrawal, a request that was not granted. 56 Frustrated by the
attitude of the principal and teachers and facing their schoolmates’ complaints, student
leaders began to prepare for demonstrations. 57 They made specific plans for the
demonstrations’ times and places for demonstrations, created a list of slogans, and
contacted their friends at other schools to mobilize as many students as possible.
Although things did not go exactly as planned, students successfully left their
schools and ran toward the provincial government building, shouting their prepared
slogans. Policemen brutally suppressed the demonstrators but did not fire on them.
Among the 1200-odd student participants in the demonstration, about 20 were wounded
and about another 200 arrested. 58 Although most were released that day, a few leaders of
the demonstration had several more days of hardship. Lee Dae-u was also caught and
interrogated. He was asked if he was a communist or controlled by the opposition party.
Even after Lee was discharged, he remained under the watchful eyes of a policeman until
56
2.28 minjuundong ginyeomsaeop 50nyeon, ed., 2.28 50nyeonsa (50 Years History of the 2.28 Movement
for Democracy) (Daegu: The Society for the 2.28 Movement for Democracy, 2010), 135–137.
57
Lee Dae-u, “Naui 2.28” (My February 28th) in Kyeongbuk jung-go je 42 hoe joreop 30 junyeon ginyeom
munjip (Thirtieth year anniversary commemoration anthology of Gyeongbuk Middle and High School’s
42nd graduating class) (Daegu: Gyeongbuk Jung-go je 42 hoe dongchanghoe, 1991), 217–221.
58
“1200myeong haksaengdeuri siwi (Demonstration of 1200-odd Students),” Dong-A Ilbo, February 19,
1960, accessed December 10, 2011,
http://newslibrary.naver.com/viewer/index.nhn?articleId=1960022900209103001&editNo=2&printCount=
1&publishDate=1960-02-29&officeId=00020&pageNo=3&printNo=11651&publishType=00010.
235
April 19th. 59
What were the demands of and justification for the demonstration? The February
28th or 2.28 student demonstrators did not directly criticize the government or touch on
any politically sensitive issues; instead they focused on the issue of the unreasonable
“Sunday directive.” The resolution of the Gyeongbuk High School students proclaimed
their purity and indifference to politics. They insisted that students should not be made
into political instruments, but did not mention the government, the Liberal Party or
President Rhee. 60 It is understandable that, fearing harsh suppression, they did not want
to provoke the authoritarian government. As memoirs by Lee Dae-u and Son Jinhong
show, the student leaders who planned the demonstration on the previous day were
concerned about the punishment they might receive, indeed fearing that they might be
sentenced to death. 61
The most important source of the students’ justifications and demands was not
postcolonial nationalism but democratic ideas. Most of their slogans were related to
freedom and democracy: “Guarantee democracy in schools! Protect democracy! Ensure
school democratization! Give schools freedom!” 62 They did not simply clamor for an
abstract and broad concept of democracy learned in school; instead, they applied their
knowledge to their particular problems. The slogans specifically pointed out that the
59
Lee Dae-u, “My February 28th,” 217-226; Son Jinhong, “Youth Resisting Injustice,” 261.
60
Hakminsa pyeonjipsil, ed., 4.19ui minjungsa: Sawolhyeokmyeong jaryojip (People’s history of 4.19:
sourcebook of the April Revolution) (Seoul: Hakminsa, 1983), 42, 55-56.
61
Lee Dae-u, “My February 28th,” 220-221.
62
Hakminsa pyeonjipsil, ed., Sourcebook of the April Revolution, 42.
236
Sunday directive violated their own human rights and the freedom of schools. Most
remarkable among the students’ demands is the suggestion of the individualistic
discourse of democracy promoted by AEM members. The students were well aware of
the hidden political agenda of the Sunday directive. However, they were able to turn that
sensitive political agenda into an issue of individual and schools’ rights and autonomy in
order to protest the directive effectively. The Gyeongbuk student leaders encouraged
other students to rise up to defend their sacred right to rest on Sunday. From the present
point of view, this ability to use the concept of individual rights may not seem worthy of
notice. However, considering the textbooks’ focus on national community from a topdown, institutional, and collective perspective, the students’ utilization of the discourses
of human rights and individual freedom is a noteworthy departure from what they learned
in school.
Although it is hard to trace exactly where the students got this individual concept
of democracy, it would not be difficult to imagine that the students used the various
democratic notions that they learned from the popular texts examined above. Among
these, Sasang-gye was most favorable to American individualism. The liberal
intellectuals who contributed to Sasang-gye spread American individualism when they
tried to correct South Koreans’ “false” notion of American democracy. The fact that the
2.28 leaders read Sasang-gye increases the probability that they were familiar with
America’s individual-based concept of democracy.
Students may have learned individual notions from other routes. Student
subscribers to Hagwon could have read articles contributed by Americans who introduced
individualism in democracy. The fact that Hagwon was first published in Daegu also
237
improves the chances that more students were exposed to the magazine. Furthermore, it
may not be a coincidence that the Daegu, Gyeongbuk region where the 2.28
demonstrations took place was known for liberal teachers who were more favorable
toward “American-style” education. 63 Daegu was also one of several places where AEM
members had held their education seminars. 64 The teachers in Daegu thus might have
tried in their classes the child- and life-centered education methods that placed a high
value on individualism.
While trying to avoid political issues, the student leaders also sought the best
ways to attract support from their fellow students and the general public. One way was to
appeal to postcolonial nationalist sentiment. The drafter of the Gyeongbuk students’
resolution used a line from a poem by Rabindranath Tagore, “Brighten your torches,
lights of the East!” Tagore, an Indian Nobel Prize winner in literature, was well known in
Korea, for he had consoled and encouraged them during the period of Japanese colonial
rule. 65 Although this verse was not directly relevant to the issue of the Sunday directive,
the students used it because they believed it could arouse post-colonial sentiments and
move the hearts of other students and the general public. More specifically, the student
leaders tried with this slogan to remind their fellow students and citizens about Japanese
colonial rule and to liken the Rhee regime’s authoritarian rule to it. Another advantage of
63
Jeong Geunsik and Gwon Hyeongtaek, eds., Jiyeogeseoui 4wol hyeongmyeong (The April Revolution in
local areas) (Seoul: Seonin, 2010), 43.
64
Seoul, Daegu, Gwangju most frequently appear in the records of American Education Mission in South
Korea.
65
2.28 minju uigeo 40junyeon teukbyeol ginyeom saeophoe (The Special Memorial Society for the 40th
Anniversary of 2.28 Movement for Democracy), ed., 2.28 minju undongsa II: Jaryopyeon (History of the
2.28 Movement for Democracy II: Sourcebook) (2000), 187–188.
238
slogans appealing to postcolonial sentiment was to prevent the student demonstrators
from being entangled in political issues.
The impact of the 2.28 movement on subsequent events was significant. Although
many students were arrested during the demonstrations, the local authorities released
them all for fear that the protests would spread further. Although some leaders were
tortured while under arrest and monitored after release, they had feared worse prior to the
demonstrations. This policy, however, had the reverse effect of expanding the student
demonstrations. Prior to the 2.28 demonstrations, people had no idea how severely
protesters would be punished. The soft response of authority encouraged students to take
bolder action thereafter. 66 The post-2.28 protests in Jeonju, Gwangju, Daejeon, Seoul,
Inchon, Suwon, Chungju and Busan generally followed the patterns of 2.28
demonstrations. Students went to the streets and clamored for individual rights and
schools’ freedom. 67
The corruption of the ruling Liberal Party (LP) on the very day of March 15
election further aggravated the situation. As more and more of the LP’s corrupt practices
were revealed during the campaign, students began to criticize it and to demand a fair
election. 68 The post-2.28 protests then escalated into another stage after the election,
which was rigged by the LP in various ways. Frustrated by this unprecedented election
fraud, local Democratic Party (DP) executive council members in Masan, Gyeongnam
66
4.19 hyeongmyeong busangjahoe (4.19 Association of the injured), ed., 4.19 30nyeonsa (30 Years
History of 4.19) (1995), 85–87.
67
Hakminsa pyeonjipsil, ed., Sourcebook of the April Revolution, 17-21.
68
Lee Jae-o, Haebanghu hangukhaksaeng undongsa (History of student movement after liberation) (Seoul:
Hyeongseongsa, 1984), 161–164.
239
decided on the morning of election-day to boycott the election. Local DP leaders then
went to the streets to protest the rigged election, and students participated in the DP
demonstration. About 10,000 people gathered for the protest, but the local policemen
fired at them, resulting in nine deaths and about 80 injured. Two hundred and thirty-five
people were arrested and tortured. Although the government blamed Communist
manipulation of the students behind the scenes, it was unable to substantiate those
claims. 69
The sporadic demonstrations carried out after the 3.15 election by middle- and
high-school students in various local areas such as Masan, Busan, Jinhae, Gwangju, and
Seoul, although not powerful enough to cause the collapse of the Rhee government, were
enough to trigger student protests throughout the country. It was not, however, until the
discovery on April 11 of a student’s corpse on the Masan seashore that the demonstration
became more intense and anti-government. 70 The news also directly stimulated college
students in Seoul, who had taken no action until that time. 71 Student slogans now focused
on criticizing the ruling party and the government for election fraud and authoritarianism
while still emphasizing individual and school freedom. Their discourse thus resorted
more to political and institutional notions of democracy.
On April 19, various college students took to the streets for demonstrations and
almost 200,000 citizens throughout Seoul joined them. Student councils in each college
69
Ibid., 165.
70
Kim Juyeol was a student who had gone missing amidst the 3.15 demonstration. His dead body with a
tear gas shell penetrating his eye was horrible enough to provoke fierce anger among the general public.
71
An Dong-il, ed., 4worui sori (Sound of April) (Seoul: 4wolhoe, 1993), 348.
240
played significant roles in preparing for the demonstrations and communicating with
other student councils. The government declared martial law and troops were sent to
Seoul and other major cities to put down the demonstrations. Almost 200 students had
died and about 6,000 were wounded nationwide by the time the demonstrations were
quieted late that night. 72 The protests, however, were not fully quelled and continued
sporadically throughout the country. In this final phase of the April Revolution, which
lasted until President Rhee’s 4.26 resignation, students’ slogans boldly demanded that
those in charge of the 3.15 election fraud should be punished and new elections held for
president and vice-president. They even demanded the president’s resignation.
The discourse of individual rights and freedom espoused by the 2.28 student
demonstrators gave way to more collective and institutional concepts of democracy. The
students boldly attacked the government and the ruling party by utilizing the discourse of
national community and ideal democratic institutions they had learned in textbooks. What
caused these changes in the concept of democracy used by student demonstrators over the
course of the student protests? More serious, larger-scale malfeasance was discovered in
the election and more and more student victims, including Kim Juyoel, became known to
the public. A more important factor in the changes, however, was the shift in the goals of
the student demonstrations. With their aims changing from regaining their rights to
criticizing election fraud and ultimately to overthrowing the government, the student
protesters transformed the content of their democratic discourses in order to achieve their
goals.
72
Lee Jae-o, History of student movement, 175.
241
The fact that students changed their rhetoric about democracy as circumstances
and goals shifted, demonstrates that they used the language of democracy as a tool.
Various sources were available. Not only had the U.S. information and cultural agencies
and their cultural agencies spread various concepts of democracy, as shown in Chapter IV,
but also diverse Korean political groups had transformed the “American” ideas and
inculcated them into students’ minds. However, students did not accept those ideas
passively. Instead, they skillfully used both the “American” individual-based concepts
and the “Korean” state-centered notions. The students also knew that they should not
touch the issue of anti-Communism. They strongly refuted the government’s accusation
of them as being controlled by the Communists, emphasizing that their actions were
voluntary and arose out of their sense of justice. Some students even used antiCommunism in their slogans. For example, such a chant as “Let’s overthrow the
Communism by setting democracy right” appeared in the demonstrations of Seoul
National University and Sungkyunkwan University students. 73
However, students did not use democracy only as a tool. Instead, they sincerely
and desperately wanted to achieve what they regarded as ideal democracy. What
democracy did the student demonstrators then embrace? To what extent did “American”
democracy influence students’ passion for democracy? I have shown, at least, that there
was no single definition of “American” democracy and that the ways in which students
understood democracy were not unitary or clearly defined. One might then argue that
students’ concept of democracy was a combination of the various transformed
73
2.28 minjujuui undongsa I (History of the 2. 28 movement for democracy I) (2.28 minju uigeo 40
junyoen teukbyeol ginyeomsaeophoe, 2000).
242
“American” democratic ideas that they learned from diverse sources. However, the
students’ concepts of democracy were more complex.
In order to better answer these questions, we should remember that the Republic
of Korea had been a “democratic” country since its birth. Therefore, students were
demanding not a whole new system, but proper operation of the existing democracy. This
is what they meant when they hurled accusations that the Rhee regime was
“undemocratic”—that it was violating Korean democracy. As shown in Chapters III and
IV, the political spectrum of South Korea had been narrowed under the U.S. military
government and after the Korean War so that “democracy” had become the only ideology
and political system allowed. Furthermore, both the reformed information policy of the
Eisenhower administration and the diverse Korean political groups’ utilization of
“American” democracy contributed to the wide dissemination of ideas about democracy
in 1950s South Korea. Students thus understood they lived in a “democracy,” and their
demands were not to argue for a democracy but revolved around the notion of how their
democracy should function, or the government should rule. This standard of governance
was, no doubt, influenced the democratic ideals that students learned from various
sources. The ideals that students had contacted, however, had already been transformed
by various groups in older generations who had transformed “American” democratic
ideas on the basis of their own idea of good governance. In other words, both the texts
and the students used “American” notions of democracy to project their varying ideas
about what constituted the traditional concept of good governance: the ruler (state) had to
take good care of the people and the people had to obey the ruler.
Student demands for democracy thus can be interpreted as demands for good
243
governance. Although the slogan became “democracy!” in the particular historical
context of the 1950s, the crucial issue was not democracy per se, but good governance. In
this way, the April Revolution was in line with the long tradition of peasant uprisings
demanding good governance. Korean peasants had protested against the regime when
they felt the rulers were not ruling as they were supposed to. Lee Dae-u, one of the
leading figures in the February 28th demonstrations in Daegu, argued that the April
Revolution was not only a student movement, but also a peasant movement:
Korea’s 4.19 cannot be understood from the Western
perspective…The April Revolution was comprised of two
parts. Although the external part was a student movement,
the student forces were supported by the peasants, the most
independent group of our nation. 74
He pointed out that most of the student leaders, not only the high-school student leaders
of 2.28 but also the college student leaders of 4.19, were from peasant families. He then
described the long history of peasant uprisings in Korea dating back to the 9th century
and linked that history to the 1960 student demonstrations. He further argued that
students had come to replace peasants in modern Korean society. The student movements
under Japanese colonial rule, including the Gwangju Students’ Movement in 1929,
continued the tradition of peasant uprisings. 75 The attempt to link the April Revolution to
74
“Symposium Discussion” in 2.28 minju uigeo je 37junyeon ginyeom munjip (Commemorative anthology
of the 37 years’ anniversary of the 2.28 Movement for Democracy) (Daegu: 2.28 minju uigeo
ginyeomsaeophoe, 1997), 99–100.
75
Ibid., 100-101; Lee Dae-u, “2.28 minju uigeoui sidaesajeok jaejomyeong (Reillumination of the 2.28
Movement for Democracy) in 2.28 minju uigeo je 39 junyeon ginyeom haksul hoeui nonmunjip (Collection
of dissertations of the commemorative academic conference of the 39 years’ anniversary of the 2.28
Movement for Democracy) (Daegu: 2.28 Minju Uigeo Ginyeomsaeophoe, 1999), 67–68.
244
the anti-colonial movements and students’ movements often appeared in the explanations
of the April Revolution by those who had participated in it. 76
Lee’s argument is also supported by the many slogans shouted by the student
protestors during the series of nation-wide demonstrations. Although the main slogan was
about democracy, students often criticized wrongful and unfair behaviors without using
the language of democracy. Such words as corruption, dishonesty, injustice, social evil,
and unscrupulousness frequently were used in student manifestos to describe the rulers.
Although students protested against the “undemocratic” governance of the Rhee regime,
they actually were resisting the “bad” governance of the regime. Like the peasants angry
about the corrupt behaviors of the governing class, students took to the streets to end the
prevalent and endemic corruption of the government and the ruling party, corruption that
many students believed undemocratic, but that also could be termed bad governance. The
students’ concept of democracy thus can be described as a mixture of loosely defined
“American” ideas and traditional Korean notions of good governance.
This chapter has attempted to show the influence and limitations of American
promotion of democracy in South Korea. Americans provided sources of ideas to
Koreans, but it was the various competing political and social Korean groups who
actively transformed and used these ideas. First of all, Americans promoted diverse
concepts of democracy, including anti-Communist, institutional, individualistic, nationcentered, and life-centered. Different Korean groups developed their own democratic
ideas by referring to various “American” democratic notions. Students who had been
76
Yun Sun-gap, “2.28 minjuundongui baegyeong” (The background of the 2.28 Movement for Democracy),
in History of the 2. 28 Movement for Democracy I, 79-81.
245
exposed to these various democratic ideas deployed these ideas and played crucial roles
in upending the regime of the “undemocratic” President Rhee. Furthermore, democracy
was not the only discourse used by the student demonstrators. They also availed
themselves of other discourses such as postcolonial nationalism, patriotism, and general
sense of justice. America’s credit for the April Revolution is further reduced when we
consider that the students’ protests had many parallels with the long tradition of peasant
uprisings during the Chosun dynasty and student resistance against Japanese colonial rule.
246
Conclusion
About 200,000 citizens and students participated in nationwide demonstrations
demanding democracy and constitutional reforms for direct presidential elections.
Demonstrators waved Taegeukgi, the Korean national flag and sang the Aegukga, the
national anthem. Finally, only with the cooperation of 60,000 policemen could the
protests be suppressed. In all 3467 were arrested. This violence, however, is not the wellknown event of the April Revolution. In fact, it was a demonstration staged on June 26,
1987 against another dictator, Chun Doo-Hwan. The 1960 April Revolution brought
about the downfall of Syngman Rhee, but democratic reforms did not come so swiftly to
the Republic of Korea. After the April Revolution, a new regime led by Chang Myon
governed for a brief period only to be soon overthrown by a military coup led by Park
Chung Hee. Park stayed in power for more than 18 years until his assassination in 1979.
In less than two months of Park’s death, another military leader, Chun Doo-Hwan, staged
yet another successful coup. It was this leader against whom the students and citizens
protested eight years later in 1987. Three days into the June mass demonstration, head of
the ruling party, Roh Tae Woo, announced that a direct presidential election would be
held that year for power to be transferred to the newly elected president. Also of military
background, Roh himself ran for presidency, and ultimately won because the opposition
party was split between two candidates. One of these candidates, however, came out
247
victorious in the next presidential election, which was held in 1993. This was Kim Young
Sam, the first legally and popularly elected civilian leader in South Korea’s history.
Many Korean scholars regard this period (1987 or 1993) as the starting point of
South Korean democratization. Existing studies on South Korea’s democracy therefore
tend to focus on the post-1987 era. This is understandable, but it is nonetheless based on a
narrow concept of democracy that examines only institutional aspects and the governing
sector. Instead, I have tried in this dissertation to see democratization as a much broader
process that includes the desires and efforts of the people. Although it took more than two
decades since the April Revolution to put an end to the chain of long dictatorships, this
was possible because of the deep and widespread desire for democracy and better
governance among the Korean people. Using this extended concept of democratization, I
felt the need to understand how Koreans came to embrace this strong desire, what
concepts of democracy they harbored, and how they used notions of democracy in their
resistance to the authoritarian regimes. My dissertation has thus been a journey to trace
the origins of South Korean democracy.
When I began research on this dissertation, I investigated the April Revolution as
the origin of South Korean democratization. I sought an answer to the question of how
South Korean students, within such a short period of time, came to embrace democracy to
the extent that they would even risk their lives in the April Revolution. Like other
scholars, I presumed the importance of the dissemination of American notions of
democracy in this uprising. While researching the series of student demonstrations,
however, I saw that impact of American ideas was not as straightforward as I had
expected. In order to better understand the complexity of American influence on South
248
Korean democratization, I turned my attention to the earlier U.S. occupation era of 19451948. As I examined the drafting of the Korean constitution and education reforms under
U.S. military rule, I found that American ideas had had only a limited impact on these
crucial nation-building efforts. In order to understand this limitation, I went further back
to examine the preceding history of each nation.
Therefore, my first chapter begins by examining Korea’s late Chosun and colonial
period in order to see how Korean intellectuals understood Western ideas. By focusing on
debates at Kyunsung Imperial University, this chapter shows that Korean intellectuals in
the late Chosun Dynasty and Japanese occupation era were familiar with such Western
ideas as liberalism, socialism, and nationalism, with a particularly good grasp of the
socialist criticism of liberalism and capitalism. Although most of the intellectuals
abandoned their socialist ideas at the end of Japanese rule, they were later reflected in the
Constitution of the Republic of Korea. How could socialist elements be included in a
constitution drafted under U.S. military rule? In order to answer this question, I shifted
my gaze to the United States and probed how American policymakers began to use
democracy as a foreign policy tool and what plans they prepared for liberated Korea. This
is Chapter II.
Democracy emerged as a meaningful agenda item in U.S. foreign policymaking
during the interwar era when American policymakers tried to understand the newly
developing world order and grappled with the expansion of fascism. My research
demonstrates, however, that Americans in this period were not concern with promoting
democracy in areas that lacked democratic governance; instead, it sought to protect those
democracies that already existed. Looking at this defensive stance toward democracy
249
helps us better understand U.S. postwar policy in Korea. U.S. policy was therefore
prepared to promote democracy only in formerly hostile nations that had been a threat to
democracy. Not only did American policymakers feel no pressing need to promote
democracy in Korea, but they also distrusted Koreans’ capacity for self-rule. Thus, they
chose for Korea a trusteeship, not a democracy. This trusteeship not only proved less than
helpful in developing democratic governance in South Korea, but indeed became a
significant obstacle to America’s efforts to shape post-liberation South Korean nationbuilding.
Now America’s limited role in South Korean nation-building became
understandable. It explained the mystery of why Americans were so ill prepared to
govern South Korea after World War II. The plans they brought into Korea were so vague
as to be utterly useless to a people who were eager and ready to build their nation. What
made the American occupation more difficult was the severe competition among different
political Korean groups, including leftists who had broad support from the populace since
it was well known that the conservative right-wing had collaborated with the Japanese
colonial overlords. But the American military leadership was deeply suspicious of leftists
and of the many self-governing Korean collectives that quickly developed upon liberation
from the Japanese. My third chapter demonstrates how the U.S. military government tried
to shape South Korean nation-building and how they had only limited success.
Overruling the more liberal reforms promoted by the U.S. State Department, the U.S.
military government focused on ousting the leftist forces from South Korea’s political
topography. Despite the apparent success in suppressing the leftists, however, Korea’s
constitution contained socialist elements and U.S.-style education reforms could not
250
easily replace traditional Korean culture and the legacies of Japanese rule. I demonstrates
that this limitation of American-style nation-building efforts resulted from the
combination of America’s lack of interest in preparing plans for postwar Korea; Koreans’
enthusiasm for building their own nation and their post-colonial sentiments; and the
persistent legacies of the Japanese colonial system.
With all these findings, I finally arrives at the period of my original interest: the
1950s. Chapter IV explores how the Eisenhower administration reformed America’s
existing information policy and tried to promote democracy in South Korea during the
1950s. As demonstrated in Chapter II, U.S. policymakers prior to World War II had not
yet seriously considered promoting democracy to the rest of the world. In the immediate
postwar period, therefore, American democracy promotion targeted only former enemy
nations such as Japan and Germany. The Cold War and America’s involvement in the
Korean War was what made South Korean democratization important in the U.S. foreign
policy agenda. The Eisenhower administration now began to promote democracy in
South Korea through a variety of programs and channels. The resulting loosely defined,
diverse notions of democracy became widespread in South Korea, but nevertheless left
room for Koreans’ arbitrary interpretations. “American” democracy was thus transformed
by different Korean groups in various ways to meet their own needs.
The final chapter traces how these various concepts of democracy ultimately
influenced the Korean students who waged the series of demonstrations in 1960. I do this
by investigating three types of texts that were most read by students and demonstrate how
the texts interpreted “American” democracy quite differently, with two of the major texts
defining democracy as loyalty to the state. An emphasis on individual citizenship rights
251
was not, however, wholly missing from this discourse on democracy, as it was one of the
key themes in the third major text. I argue that both themes can be seen in the student
protests and point out that the students’ concept of democracy also included Korea’s
traditional notions of good governance. Their demonstrations were in line with the
peasant uprisings during the Chosun era and student revolts under Japanese rule. Besides
democracy, they also appealed to Koreans’ post-colonial sentiments, patriotism and
justice. The Rhee regime, which utilized “American” democracy to justify its
authoritarian rule, was finally toppled by the series of demonstrations in the spring of
1960 staged by students who had learned “democracy” under that very regime.
How can we assess American influence in South Korea’s early nation-building
process? On the one hand, the U.S. military government hampered the development of
democratic processes by purging leftists and moderates. But at the same time, it helped
entrench the idea that the proper form of governance was democratic by its support of the
Rhee and subsequent authoritarian regimes—regimes that touted themselves as
democratic because they were anti-Communist. These authoritarian regimes rejected
conditions that Americans generally believed to be intrinsic to democracy, such as
political plurality and the individual rights of citizens. But because the U.S. government
valued the Republic of Korea as an anti-Communist bulwark, American policymakers did
not pay careful attention to the undemocratic elements of South Korean democracy.
Indeed, the U.S. military government ensured that the Korean government would be
authoritarian. Moreover, Koreans themselves were interested more in utilizing democracy
than in understanding what “American” democracy entailed. They thus tailored U.S.promoted democracy to be Korean by combining the useful parts of “American”
252
democracy with their own traditional notions of governance. All in all, while “American”
democracy was widely promoted in South Korea, it failed to take root there. Instead, it
was used as a tool by different Korean groups for different purposes. South Korean
democratization was shaped by their competition. Various aspects of “American”
democracy was embedded in it, but they are not easily identifiable as American.
Koreans’ strong desire for democracy, the particular ways in which they used
democracy, and the various notions of democracy they embraced—all provide insights
into Korean history and U.S.-Korean relations since 1960. First, the pattern continued
that Koreans used “American” democracy as a weapon against less than democratic
regimes. Thus in the years following the April Revolution, students continued to draw
upon selective notions of democracy and combine them with other modern and traditional
ideas. For example, during Park Chung-Hee’s dictatorship in the 1960s, student
movements became more focused on national unity and independence. They also turned
their attention to their fellow citizens and carried out mass-education campaigns and what
became known as the New Life Movement. Instead of attempting to check the Park
government’s rule, they focused on enlightening the general public. 1 Students also used
democratic discourse in the 1963 demonstrations against the Korea-Japan conference. 2
While the government’s humiliating diplomacy toward its former colonizer stirred
Koreans’ anti-Japanese sentiments, student demonstrators combined this nationalist issue
1
Lee Jae-o, History of student movement after liberation, 185-194.
2
Park Chung-Hee, who needed seed money for economic development, asked for recompense for colonial
rule from Japan and did not insist on an apology for their occupation.
253
with democratic discourse. For example, the main event the students held to show their
resistance against the regime was “the funeral of national democracy.”
We can see in the democratic movements of the 1980s how students continued to
combine ideas about democracy with other ideas. In this latter period, however, the
students began using socialist ideas against the Chun Doo-Hwan regime. Frustrated and
angered by America’s “approval” of Chun’s ruthless suppression of Gwangju
demonstrators, students in the 1980s abandoned “American” democracy and employed
socialist ideas, although their ultimate goal remained democratizing Korea. This
transition may appear to be a drastic break from the past, but they acted like the students
in 1960: they combined ideas that suited them. But the students during the 1970s and
1980s expanded the basis of resistance: as historian Namhee Lee has demonstrated, a
small number of minjung practitioners (or undonggwon) shaped the discourse of minjung
(common people) by incorporating peasants, laborers and low-income people. 3
Expanding the base of resistance greatly contributed to the successful attack on the
dictatorship. Their concept of democracy now became more tightly linked to anti-foreign
nationalism, and thus idealized an independent and unified Korea, free of foreign
influence. The concept of democracy embraced by the undonggwon during the 1970s and
1980s went beyond the narrow political realm to expand into the economic area. They
criticized capitalist exploitation and emphasized economic equality.
Still, we can find similarities between the 1970s and 1980s undonggwon with the
1950s students. Like their predecessors, they also used various “American” and
3
Namhee Lee, The Making of Minjung: Democracy and the Politics of Representation in South Korea
(Cornell University Press, 2009).
254
traditional ideas available at the time, though more extensively. Like the students in 1960
who toppled Syngman Rhee’s regime, they successfully resisted a dictator—in their case
by preventing Chun’s extension of power. A new problem arose, however, after “formal”
democracy was restored. Although dictators disappeared, conservative capitalists who
had long accumulated wealth and power now gained the power. Therefore, another
significant division between upper and lower classes, which had been obscured by the
frame of dictatorship versus democracy, now came to the forefront. Now progressives
began to challenge the conservatives. However, since they used democracy mainly as a
weapon against dictatorship, they lacked clear ideas or strategies to cope with the new
situation. In addition, various groups that collaborated against the same enemy now
began to pursue their own ends and became divided. The very diversity that provided
power in the anti-dictatorship democratic movement became a source of conflict. The
political and economic order long established by the conservatives was too solid for the
progressives to break.
Before ending my long journey, I want to return to the question of modernization
that I raised in the Introduction. I claimed that we should ask how Koreans responded to
the project of Western modernity—rather than whether or not or to what extent Korea
was modernized. My dissertation has demonstrated that Koreans did not march lockstep
through a linear and universal model of history. I am not asserting that any people have
ever done so, even in the West; my purpose has been to show South Koreans neither
simply followed nor totally resisted the Western model. South Koreans, of whatever
political stripe, nonetheless had to grapple with western modernity. As nationalists, they
held visions of a prosperous nation that could command international respect. Yet their
255
ideas differed on how to achieve prosperity and respect and on correct government. To
these differing ends, South Koreans found "democracy" a useful instrument in
constructing arguments for their various positions, whether it be authoritarian rule or
liberal individualism. What South Koreans will make of their democracy remains an
ongoing struggle today, as in all other democracies. As of this writing, conflict and mass
protests on Jeju Island over the government’s plans to build a naval base there are once
again testing the extent of citizenship rights in South Korea. We do not know what the
outcome will be, but we do know that whatever happens, all contending sides will be able
to justify their actions on the behalf of preserving democracy.
256
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