cross-posted from: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/11443912
A while back, I shared an excerpt from the memoir My Life and Faith by Ri In Mo, which I am currently proofreading for the ProleWiki library. I feel that this memoir provides a lot of information and context about modern Korean history, spanning the author’s youth and radicalization during the last years of Japanese colonial rule in Korea, to the early years of the DPRK, to his decades of imprisonment in south Korea, and his eventual repatriation to DPRK in the 1990s.
The part I’m sharing today is an estimated 15-20 minute read.
After guerrillas executed a hated colonial cop in town, Ri In Mo begins visiting with Jong Un Gil, a radical that his teacher warned him to stay away from. Jong Un Gil helps radicalize and educate the children.
“Our Korean nation is not dead but alive,” he said. “Armed guerrillas in the mountains, workers with hammers in their hands in factories and peasants with hoes in the countryside are fighting the Japanese. In schools students demonstrate and go on strike. If they continue to fight our nation will definitely win independence.” […] I still remember that I could not fall asleep for a long time that night because Jong’s words reverberated in my mind: “The Korean nation is not dead but alive and fighting…” […] That night I dreamed of joining the guerrillas of Mt. Paektu on horseback and chasing away the Japanese. This dream became my lifelong vision. Later almost every day I and my friends visited Jong Un Gil after school. He instilled socialist ideas into us, telling us about capitalism, socialism, Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin.
Ri In Mo and the other children form a society for helping poor villagers gather firewood. Later, they form the “Red Reading Society.” However, in 1932, the imperial police begin a crackdown…
The First Trial
Click to read excerpt: The First Trial
In the 1930s more than half of the Korean peasants eked out a bare existence by eating pine bark in spring, in the aftermath of the world economic crisis. The workers who lost their jobs in cities owing to the economic disaster streamed back to their native villages, and the number of starving farmers increased day by day.
Moreover, the Japanese intensified their plunder as never before to expedite their invasion of China. They took away hemp, hops and other produce, to say nothing of potatoes, which were the only staple food for the Phungsan people and which they used to exchange for salt or matches.
The farmers, finding it almost impossible to live, often held life-and-death struggles with the police, when they came to collect farm rents and agricultural produce levies. In this fast-changing situation the Korean Communist Party, Korean Peasants’ General Association and the like were dissolved or weakened due to suppression by the Japanese imperialists and virtually lost the lead of the peasants’ struggle.
In this situation, progressive youths and other people pinned their hopes on the appearance of an organization which could give effective guidance to the struggle.
In my native Phungsan, too, there sprang up various secret groups and their front organizations—associations of youth, children and women.
I, too, became a member of such an organization. It happened as follows: After graduating from the primary school in March 1931 I helped my uncle and aunt in their work, staying at home. In the meantime, I came to be acquainted with Ri Hyon Uk, who taught at a school in Wapho in Chonnam Sub-County. He often visited Phabal-ri, in a horse-drawn cart. So I obtained middle-school readers and Leftist books through him. Ri Hyon Uk was on intimate terms with Comrade Jong Un Gil. That was why he often came to Phabal-ri.
At around noon one day a friend called on me at home and said that Comrade Jong Un Gil wanted me. That was in August 1931, one year after the Phabal-ri incident. Following him, I went up the hill in front of the house which overlooked the memorial to “Opasi”. There I found Ri Hyon Uk, Sin Jae Guk, and children of about my own age including Kim Tok Ryong gathered there.
Jong Un Gil asked me what I had done with the spent cartridges I had picked up in the police station and told me to fetch them right away. I ran to my house, took them from the wardrobe where I had hidden them and took them to him.
Placing them before us, we formed the “Red Reading Society” (Anti-Japanese Reading Society) led by Jong Un Gil.
We’ll fight the Japanese like the guerrillas! That was our vow.
Jong Un Gil was put in charge of the organizations in the county, Ri Hyon Uk of the members in Chonnam Sub-County, Sin Jae Guk of the village people and the organizations in Nunggwi Sub-County, and Jon Chol Sik of the members in Ansu Sub-County. Comrade Jong Un Gil concurrently took charge of the members in Ansan Sub-County.
I was put in charge of the children’s section.
The images of those comrades who pledged to keep the secrets of the organization and uphold the great aim, clenching their small fists, on that dark night still appear in my mind’s eye.
The “Red Reading Society” openly advocated the elimination of illiteracy and the promotion of enlightenment while secretly circulating Leftist books, newspapers and journals and holding discussion sessions, during which we discussed what we had read. For example: What is socialism? How viciously do landlords and capitalists exploit poor people? And, how should national-liberation struggles be launched in colonies? But we children were more interested in the news about the anti-Japanese struggle in the Changbai region. The “A-Frame Carriers’ Society” mentioned above was one of the open organizations expanding the secret bodies under the children’s section of the “Red Reading Society”.
As far as I knew, the “Red Reading Society” covered a broad region, including many sub-counties of Phungsan County, and Hajigyong-ri, Naejung-ri and Yangphyong-ri. Ri Hyon Uk formed the “Proletarian Study Society” in Chonnam Sub-County and Sin Jae Guk set up the “Proletarian Sports Club” in Phungsan town. These bodies were both under the “Red Reading Society”. It goes without saying that all these associations were formed under the powerful influence of the anti-Japanese resistance which was rising in the Changbai area.
Alarmed at this, the Japanese imperialists cracked down with a flurry of arrests in the summer of 1932. This was immediately after the great leader Comrade Kim Il Sung declared the beginning of the anti-Japanese armed struggle by founding the Anti-Japanese People’s Guerrilla Army, I think.
The whirlwind of arrests engulfed my native village as well; over 200 patriots were arrested in Phungsan County alone. It was the biggest event in local history since hunter Hong Pom Do had started the volunteers’ struggle by shooting dead the vicious pro-Japanese sub-county head many years previously.
At that time I was only 16 years old. I was not yet ideologically awakened and stayed at home, thinking that these arrests concerned adults only.
But one night six policemen broke in and seized me. They then proceeded to ransack the room. When my uncle protested, “Is this the way for you to behave? What do you blame a mere child for?” they said, “He may be just a child, but he is Red to the marrow!”
With this, they continued searching, pushing my uncle aside.
“Red.”
That was what I was called most of the time I was in prison—not my prison number nor my name, I was “Red”.
If I had then known beforehand how many hardships were in store for me behind the appellation “Red” they used for the first time instead of the name my parents had given me, how could I have listened with interest and held up my head? I lived for 43 years from then to the August 15 liberation and then since the 1950s under the name which excited terror and hatred in the Japanese and US imperialists and pro-Japanese and pro-US flunkeys and traitors to the nation. Why did I, born as an ordinary son of Korea, have to go through all kinds of hardships almost all my life, being called “Red” instead of my name?
Eventually one of the policemen, who had been carefully looking at the ceiling paper, pierced it and scraped out a hole with his long sword. Immediately books on social science dropped down in a heap.
The police detective was elated and said to my uncle: “What do you have to say for him now?”
My uncle did not dare to protest any more, fearing that the journal of the “A-Frame Carriers’ Society” might be discovered. He had buried the journal near the entrance to the outside toilet and put an empty box over the spot, fearing that all the children would be incriminated if it fell into the hands of the police.
In fact, I was more elated than the police detective. I was proud that six policemen had come to arrest me and that those books had shocked them. That proved that I was a revolutionary, didn’t it?
My maternal grandmother and aunt wailed and made much ado, clinging to me as I was being marched away, but I swelled with pride as if I had now become a genuine revolutionary. I squared my shoulders and a smile came over my face.
When I think of that event now, it seems ludicrous, but I am not inclined to blame myself for my childish feelings at that time. The first step in revolution and pride in it, like the first step in life, encourages one to take the next step and helps one to follow the revolutionary road one’s whole life, in my opinion.
They took me to the police station the same evening. It was the one whose window panes we children used to break.
I found Jong Un Gil there.
“Are you afraid?” he asked with a smile as soon as the police were not watching us. When I smiled back at him, he encouraged me, saying, “Don’t be afraid. You must endure this with complete unconcern.”
I nodded vigorously.
About 20 persons had also been arrested in the sub-county administrative centre and more had been caught in neighbouring villages. They were members of the Red Peasants’ Union.
Jong Un Gil had had some contacts with the Union, and I had often gone to those people on errands for him. So many of them were familiar to me.
The next morning they put us all in a lorry to transfer us to the Phungsan police station.
When the lorry passed by my mother’s old home, my maternal grandmother lay down in the middle of the road and shouted, “Hand over my child!”
For over 30 minutes the policemen struggled with my grandmother before they managed to get her out of the way.
At about noon we arrived at the Phungsan police station and were put into a cell. It had high concrete walls which were speckled with mould. Sunlight seeped in through a small iron grill. There was a chamber pot in a corner. The cell looked utterly dismal, but I felt elated.
The next day the interrogations began. The first investigation of me, the so-called “Rea”, started.
I could not see Jong Un Gil. He was said to be lying almost paralysed because of harsh torture. I was reminded of his remark, “A revolutionary should not be afraid of such trifling matters.” So, when policemen kicked and beat me I ignored the pain and refused to cooperate with their investigation. They seemed to regard me as a tough nut to crack, and shouted at me:
“You Red urchin, do you want to taste the peppered water?”
But I felt proud and elated, as if I had become a full-fledged revolutionary, and answered without fear:
“Administer it to me if you dare. I am not afraid of it.”
“You brat!”
A policeman slapped me hard on my cheek. Nevertheless, I glared fiercely back at him. He was perhaps amazed at my stubbornness and threw me back into the cell. I said to myself: “l won!” and felt extremely pleased.
But I did not know how leniently I had been treated compared to the others. In another investigation room Jong Un Gil and the other people of about his age were suffering from harsh torture unimaginable to me.
The police frantically tried to find out who had formed the “Red Reading Society” and other secret organizations, and for almost one and a half months subjected their prisoners to all kinds of torture.
Jong Un Gil and four other comrades involved in the case of the “Red Reading Society”, as well as myself, remained in the cell. Jong was charged with setting up the “Red Reading Society”, and I was accused of being in charge of its children’s section. This was all based on the evidence of the books on social science discovered in my uncle’s house. Just before the conclusion of the investigation of our case the underground organization “Proletarian Study Society” in Chonnam Sub-County was exposed, and over 20 persons were arrested. Chonnam Sub-County was adjacent to my native place. The leader of the organization was Ri Hyon Uk.
Later the “Proletarian Sports Club” in Phungsan town was exposed, and over 50 persons, including Sin Jae Guk and Ri Si Ho, were arrested. The cell was too small to accommodate all of them, so they were shackled and locked up in an office. So all those implicated in our case were held together in the same cell.
Many people were also arrested in Nunggwi Sub-County as well. But by that time people were on the alert, and some comrades had the chance to hide or escape. Among them was Ju Pyong Pho, who later became my closest comrade and friend. Later, when we became acquainted with each other, we recalled the affair of that time. I was beside myself with joy because I and dear comrades were confined to the same cell. I was more pleased because I got together with Jong Un Gil.
When Jong Un Gil was thrown back in the cell after being tortured, his face was covered with bruises. But he smiled at me. The smile reminded me of our first meeting in the police station when he had said, “Are you afraid?”
As I was the youngest, I volunteered to take care of the chamber pot and run errands. Jong Un Gil told me stories and encouraged me. This greatly helped me survive that terrible time.
Even now I shudder at the thought of what happened on December 25. That day was the birthday of the Japanese emperor, and so was a red-letter day for the Japanese. It was also Christmas, the birthday of Christ for the Christians.
So while the other policemen enjoyed a holiday a policeman named Miura was left on duty.
He swaggered along the corridor in front of the cell, now sneering at the prisoners and now idly whistling. Then he took out his revolver from its holster and began to clean it with a piece of cloth.
Then he levelled the revolver at this person and that behind the prison bars and pretended to shoot them.
Then suddenly a shot rang out, and Jong Un Gil, who was right beside me, suddenly fell down dead.
To think that my dear first revolutionary comrade who had opened my eyes to the class struggle and awakened me to the truth of revolution and led me to the road of revolution died in such a manner!
I writhed in agony, hugging his dead body. Not only fellow prisoners in the same cell but also those in the neighbouring cell rose up in protest, clamoring for the police authorities to investigate this cold-blooded murder.
The police tried to hush the matter up, as an accident, but nobody believed it. Jong Un Gil had been the main leader of the secret organization in the Phungsan region. He steadfastly kept organization’s secrets and did not waver in his constancy in spite of torture.
They murdered him in such a mean and vicious manner in an attempt to dispose of the core element of the secret underground organizations, terrorise unprepared people and check the expanding revolutionary advance of the youth and other progressive people, I think.
It was the sort of deed the crafty Japanese were fully capable of.
We went on a hunger strike and refused to hand over Jong’s body until a coroner’s inquest brought the truth to light. The police said it would take time for a coroner to come from the public procurator’s office in Pukchong. But we still refused to yield up the body, weeping before it continually.
Three days later the coroner came and conducted an inquest on the body. Five of us gave evidence, but the coroner remained silent.
We never found out what punishment was meted out to Miura. He might even have been given an official commendation, for that time the Korean people could not even properly lodge a protest against a murder committed by a Japanese.
I went to work with the Party committee of Phungsan County together with our comrades with whom I had been engaged in the children’s struggle, immediately after the country was liberated from Japanese imperialism in August 1945.
We often visited Comrade Jong Un Gil’s grave, tidied it and planted flowers there. We were sad that his grave was in a desolate mountainous place, and so we decided to move it to the vicinity of the town.
My friends Kim Tok Ryong (chief of the organizational department of the Phungsan County Party Committee), Kim Kyong Mun (chairman of the democratic youth league in Phungsan County), Pak Hung Yun and I moved the grave with the utmost care and paid silent tribute to Jong’s memory at the new site.
Recently a woman of around 30 visited me and introduced herself as Jong Un Gil’s niece. Listening to her, I stared her in the face, and my eyes dimmed with tears in spite of myself.
lf Comrade Jong Un Gil had had sons or daughters he would have had a grandson or granddaughter of her age, I thought. This thought pained me greatly. How many comrades died unnatural deaths in those days!
After the inquest the whole cell was plunged into grief. One day a public procurator called me out.
“How old are you?” he first asked my age. I did not know why.
“Sixteen.”
“You rascal, don’t you want to suck your mother’s milk?”
“Did you call me out to talk such nonsense?” I was in deep grief over Comrade Jong’s death, and his absurd remark prompted me to make a blunt retort.
After a pause he again asked, “Don’t you want to see your mother?”
“Of course I do.”
“Then I will send you to your mother.”
I thought this was crazy, but the next day I was really released. There was no knowing what was the reason.
I walked 36 km from the police station to my mother’s old home and reached it late at night.
My maternal grandmother and aunt met me at the door, weeping. My uncle patted my shoulder and encouraged me, saying, “You held out admirably.”
Some time later I learned why I had bee released so easily.
lt was owing mainly to the efforts of Jong Un Gil, who had taken all the blame upon himself and done his best to get the children released.
In the meantime, my uncle had also made great efforts to save me.
He was known as the best calligrapher in Phungsan. So the sub-county office had once asked him to work there as a clerk. But he had declined, saying, “l refuse to serve as a lackey of the Japanese in that place.”
But when his cousin, my colleagues and I were arrested, he thought better of it and got transferred from the primary school to the sub-county office, where he altered the records, reducing my age from 16 to 14. Even according to Japanese law, a 14-year-old person was a minor, and could not be prosecuted.
Only then did I realize why the procurator had asked me my age before I was released.
At the news that I had been freed from prison, my mother, who lived in Joksu village, 12 km away, walked all night to my uncle’s house.
When my mother announced that she would go to the police station to see me, my uncle is said to have dissuaded her, saying, “The Japanese policemen will poke fun at you, so stay quiet at home. I will settle the matter.” Perhaps he feared that the sight of me bruised by torture would pain her too much.
Entering the room, Mother gazed at me vacantly and said not a word. My uncle seemed distressed at this, and admonished her:
“Kye Sun (my mother’s name), In Mo is back, released from prison. Why are you standing dumbly like that?”
Only then did Mother say, “O yes,” as if awakened from a dream, and promptly hugged me and sobbed.
According to my aunt, while I was being detained, my mother nearly went out of her mind with worry. When harvesting oats in the fields she had simply lain on her face, sickle in hand, while grandfather and uncles all went on cutting oats.
When my uncle had asked her what was wrong, she had looked around and stammered out nonsense like a lunatic:
“My son came, so I was talking to him. Was it a dream? Where did he go? He was just here…”
So my mother stood, staring vacantly at me, doubting whether it was a dream or a fact.
After my release from prison I lay sick in bed for a while, as a result of the harsh prison conditions. This experience was, of course, very hard for a young boy like me. Nevertheless, what prostrated me in bed was the sense of frustration I felt because Jong Un Gil had left my side, dying an unnatural death, and the organization had been destroyed.
The death of comrades and the frustration of the struggle which followed were a really great trial for me, an innocent boy who thought that the road of revolution was something like a sweet dream full of adventures.
Some time later Comrade Jo Ul Rok returned home, leaving Taesong Middle School in Pukchong in mid-course in order to revive the organization which had been led by Comrade Jong Un Gil. He was my senior, as he had graduated from Phabal Primary School before me.
Under his guidance, while I was recovering from my harsh prison experience, I took part in the restoration of the secret organization. About four months passed before there was another whirlwind of arrests by the Japanese imperialists. I never found out how they got to know about our secret work again.
Comrade Jo Ul Rok hid in the mountains. In those days the Kaema Plateau was covered with slash-and-burn fields, where potatoes were grown. At the edges of the fields there were log cabins where large brass bowls and the like were beaten every night to drive away wild boars. Such a log hut was called a toddok in our native place. Comrade Jo UI Rok was said to have died in a toddok, hiding there when the temperature fell to 30 degrees below zero.
I wonder whether he died because he was too hasty in getting away and failed to take matches and food with him.
He was apparently found sitting on the doorstep of the toddok with his eyes open and a knife in his hand, just like a living man. I was told this in Hamhung prison, where we had been transferred from Phungsan police station. At that time we were so devastated that we could not even cry at the sad news. This happened in 1933, I suppose.
But, strange to say, I learned from comrades at the Party History Institute that Comrade Jo Ul Rok did not die in 1933 but was murdered while active as a member of the Pukchong region committee of the Association for the Restoration of the Fatherland, which was formed in 1937.
I heard the news from others in Hamhung prison. I wonder whether it was a wrong news.
Now I think that it might have been a false story Comrade Jo Ul Rok invented and spread to help us after we had been arrested. It might also have been a silent instruction to shift all responsibility on to himself.
Sorrow and resentment enabled us to withstand the enemy’s tortures and blandishments, and guard our secrets to the end. No one yielded. Many days passed but the Japanese could not make a case against us because of our silence and resistance. Consequently, Comrade Jo UI Rok’s “sacrifice” prevented greater sacrifices and enabled us to be released from Hamhung prison after three months by suspension of the indictment.
I was deeply grieved at the loss of this dear comrade. Our organization had lost a leader and I felt as if I was looking over a vast expanse of sea, aboard a boat which seemed to approach the shore but had then been made to drift back to the ocean, driven by a storm. Only a person who has taken the road of struggle can know how dear the organization is and will understand my feelings at that time.
What to do now? The comrades who had led me were all gone and the organization was destroyed. These great trials clouded my mind in darkness.
The spark the gun report at Phabal-ri had struck in my young mind and the flame Jong Un Gil and the organization had kindled in me were dying. Without recovering the source of that light I felt I could not breathe and did not find life worth living.
I rather missed prison life. At that time, nevertheless, I felt that I must continue to live and struggle.
I entered my young manhood with a sense of frustration.