Choguk Kwangbokhoe

Choguk Kwangbokhoe 

(Society for the Revival of the Fatherland), a people’s front organization founded by Korean Communists in May 1936 in order to unify the patriotic forces in their armed struggle against the Japanese occupiers of Northeast China and the northern regions of Korea. The chairman of the society was Kim Il-sung.

The program of the Choguk Kwangbokhoe, which was published on May 5, 1936, set forth in ten points the chief tasks of the antifeudal and anti-imperialist revolution in Korea. These tasks included the liquidation of Japanese colonial supremacy; the establishment of an independent, democratic Korean state; the formation of a people’s government; the confiscation of all enterprises, banks, railroads, and lands owned by Japanese imperialists and their Korean accomplices; and the realization of political, socioeconomic, and cultural transformations.

The Choguk Kwangbokhoe had sections in both Korea and Northeast China, where approximately 1 million Koreans were in residence and the main Korean partisan forces were operating. The society published illegal literature, including the journals Samil (The First of March) and Hwa cheng ming (Peasant of the Fiery Field). It also directed the activities of various mass social organizations. Supported by the Choguk Kwangbokhoe, Korean Communists intensified the armed struggle against the Japanese in Northeast China and Korea.

After the liberation of North Korea, the tasks set forth in the society’s program were further developed in the political platform of the people’s regime.

REFERENCES

Istoriia Korei, vol. 2. Moscow, 1974. Pages 123–29.
Choson t’ongsa (History of Korea), vol. 2. Pyongyang, 1958.