Journal of Korean Studies

Participatory Anti-Imperalism: The 1919 Independence Movement FRANK BALDWIN lhe March First Movement of 1919 was a mass political effort against the Government General in Korea and the central government in Tokyo to repudiate Japanese rule and demand Korean independence. The Government General administration was highly authoritarian, maintained order by a military police system and army troops, and granted Koreans no political rights. Although Koreans were nominally subjects of the emperor and equal to Japanese, in fact they were not represented in the Diet and were permitted no elective representation of any kind in Korea. The one token advisory organ composed of Koreans, the Central Council, had been appointed in 1910 but never convened. The absence of elected or advisory bodies was compounded by a total ban on political activity. Koreans were not allowed to assemble or form organizations for political purposes. No rights of publication or free speech were granted. A siege mentality pervaded the Japanese military and civilian officials in Korea. The Government General regarded all political activity as potentially a threat to Japanese control. Koreans had not forgotten that their country had been independent until the protectorate of 1905 and annexation of 1910; Japanese remembered that it had required three years of bloody counterinsurgency warfare to defeat the üibyöng (righteous soldiers) resistance .1 Government General policy was to maintain tight security to prevent rebellion, literally using the whip against "recalcitrants," while sponsoring social and economic changes to make Japanese rule ac1 . Kuksa p'yonch'an wiwcmhoe [National History Compilation Committee, hereafter cited as NHCC] , ed., Han 'guk tongnip undong-sa [History of Korean independence movement] , vol. 1. 123 124Journal of Korean Studies ceptable to the populace. Any hopes for restoration of Korean sovereignty were discouraged. Koreans were told that their only future was assimilation into the Japanese Empire. The most serious challenge to Japanese policy was the advocacy of independence. For Koreans to discuss independence was to threaten the stability, prestige, and ambitions of the Japanese Empire. The independence movement began on March 1 in Seoul and Pyongyang with the proclamation of the declaration of independence and street demonstrations. Religious leaders were prominent in the first stage of the movement. Christian and Ch'öndogyo (Religion of the Heavenly Way) leaders planned the first actions, arranged for the drafting of the declaration of independence and organized the first demonstrations. Informed about political developments and the Paris Peace Conference , the Christian and Ch'öndogyo leaders had the prestige to influence and enlist supporters. Equally important, they were also part of organizational structures. Their churches, religious associations, and schools provided personnel and a communications network. Religious groups were virtually the only private institutions with regional organizations. The paucity of intermediate institutions in the highly centralized Yi dynasty has been ably examined by Gregory Henderson. When new political and educational groups formed in the late 1890s, first the monarchy and later the Japanese disrupted and repressed them. Only the religious organizations, protected by their nonpolitical vocation, freedom of worship, and foreign connections (in the case of the Christians) survived the protectorate and annexation largely intact. While the Government General was highly suspicious of both the Christians and Ch'öndogyo and kept both under surveillance, religious leaders had sufficient freedom of movement and organizational security to launch the independence movement without being detected by the police. Religious leadership cast the movement in a nonviolent mold. The March First Movement began almost as a petition for the redress of grievances; the emphasis was on ethics and justice. The leadership eschewed violence, militancy was confined to peaceful demonstrations, and there was no suggestion of radical anti-imperialist revolutionary struggle. The moderate tactics and style may also have been influenced by the Koreans being unarmed, while Japan had powerful police and military forces on the peninsula. Yet the religious groups could not control events or sustain the movement by themselves. Neither the Christians nor the Ch'öndogyo Political Participation: Baldwin125 had large or nation-wide organizations. Total membership in both was approximately 432,000 in a population of about 16 million.2 Members were scattered in small clusters around the country. To succeed the independence movement had to attract support from Koreans not affiliated...