Having learned that the book of the historian Vadim Damier "Anarcho-syndicalism
in the 20th century" is being translated into Korean, members of the Russianregional section of the International Workers' Association in the fall of 2021interviewed the South Korean anarcho-communist organization "AnarchistSolidarity" about the modern anarchist movement in Korea ( Anarchist yondae).---- Q: The most recent coherent information about anarchism in Korea was withthe "Korean Anarchist Federation" in the 1980s and early 1990s. around Ha Ginak(Ha Ki-rak). It seems that he was more of a Proudhonist, a "market anarchist" byconviction. What was the fate of this federation? Did she break up? When and how?Answer: The name of Professor Ha Ginak gives us ambivalent feelings. Professor Hawas one of the remnants of colonial-era anarchism that existed as one of thesectors of the national liberation movement. We are not sure that he was aProudhonist, but undoubtedly he did a great job academically, writing severalanarchist materials and translating anarchist classics such as Fields, Factoriesand Workshops by P. Kropotkin, A Brief History of Anarchism by M. Nettlau or"Anarchism" by J. Woodcock.(The following are quotes from Ha Ginak:)"We call a person who wants to be his own master a 'libertarian'. A person whoseeks to control others with his authority or power is what we call an"authoritarian." These two types of people cannot bear each other. People whohate and reject authoritarianism and live in a libertarian way, we call"anarchists" (from the translation to the introduction to the book "Anarchism" byJ. Woodcock)." We are libertarians in control of ourselves. We must build a free society,coordinated by libertarians of their free will. (...) All people are equal interms of sovereignty. We reject any political concept that divides people intotwo types: the ruler and the ruled ."" We call for the reform of today's economic system, which turns the result ofthe labor of the majority into the wealth of the few. This means that we mustreturn what the minority appropriated by exploiting the majority. (...) It hasbeen proven that hierarchical bureaucracy is not suitable for efficient andrational control of industrial development. The local councils of producers,organized according to professions and enterprises, and the Central Council ofLocal Councils should assume the role of managing industry. (...) We demand theself-government of industry by the working masses ."However, in stating this loudly, were the anarchists or Professor Ha trying toorganize the working masses of post-colonial Korea? No. Did anarchists take partin the establishment of the Joseon nodong chehap cheongguk pyonggihwe (NationalTrade Union Council of Korea, 1945), which was the nationwide center of radicaltrade unions? No. It was the Marxists who took an active part in the creation ofthe council, achieved influence and made the "workers' movement" their own. Theanarchists did nothing against it. They could neither build an alternativeconfederation nor become the "left" wing of the existing trade unions. Instead,they created the Donnim Nonondan (Independent Workers and Peasants' Party)political party. They joined the Daehan nocheon (Korea Confederation of NationalIndependence Trade Unions), which was a right-wing trade union confederationunder the auspices of the government,Did the anarchists or Professor Ha take any part in the creation of militantunions in the 1970s and 1980s? No. We know that Ha and his followers participatedin the international syndicalist conference that took place in Stockholm. Buthave they done anything "syndicalist"? No.We believe that Professor Ha's life followed exactly the same path of thedownfall of the Korean anarchist movement: neglect of the working class movement,neglect of the people's movement, collusion with the state, collusion with thespirit of nationalism, and so on. That's why what the Ha organization is today isexactly the same as the anarchist movement in Korea today.Question: We have sketchy information about the activities of subcultural andpunk anarchists in Korea in the early 2000s. In your interviews, you mentionvarious strange and false "anarchists" that existed in the years leading up tothe creation of your organization. What were these "groups" (if they had groupsat all)? What they were doing?Answer: The leading figures of the subcultural and punk anarchists of the early2000s. were probably Cho Yakgol and his followers. They actively participated inthe peace movement, environmental movements, movements in support of immigrants,etc. But it's hard to find out what they did after the 2010s. We know thatAnarchist Summer is held every year. But this year it was not (possibly due tothe pandemic).Cho Yakgol wrote that there are three generations within the Korean anarchistmovement: the 1st generation of the post-colonial national liberation movement,the 2nd generation is represented by the Korean Libertarian Federation or theNation's Cultural Study, and the 3rd generation is themselves. However, we seethree main weaknesses in their actions: 1) neglect of the class movement of theworking people; 2) inability to organize, remaining an association of unorganizedindividuals; 3) lack of orientation towards the masses; orientation towardssubcultural minorities. Therefore, mainly due to their inability to organize,there was another gap between "third generation anarchism" and today'sanarchists. We cannot detect any continuity with the movements of earliergenerations.Some of the "false anarchists" we have mentioned are historically descended from"third generation anarchists" or from their remnants. If you are asking aboutwhat they "do", then we have nothing to say. I wouldn't use the word "do" when itcomes to internet mumbling or twitter memes. If you are interested in theactivities of "third generation anarchists", you can visit this page on theInternet http://anarclan.net/index.htm or this bloghttp://blog.jinbo.net/dopehead?page=3Question: How and when did your organization start? Do you have a website,newspaper or magazine?Answer: The original members of our organization met at the BLM protest in June2020. Among them were one of the organizers of the militant union, a person whowas previously active in the student movement, a university freshman who wantedto participate in social movements. After the protest, we remained in contactwith each other and initiated the creation of a reader group, reading Bread andFreedom. The group has grown in size a bit.In August 2020, far-right Christian fundamentalists staged a mass demonstrationand covid spread. We found it necessary to criticize both the fascistdemonstration and the government's suppression of people's freedom of speech. Wealso published on behalf of Anarchist Solidarity the text "And pigs have thefreedom to grunt too" (https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/anarchist-solidarity-covid19 ).We post a weekly roundup of news on our blog (blog.naver.com/anarchistleague) orfacebook ( https://www.facebook.com/PeriodicTableNo.30 )Question: It is more or less clear from your interviews what your organizationdoes. As we understand, you attach great importance to work in the labormovement. Are you focusing on activities in existing unions or are you planningto create anarcho-syndicalist unions in the future?Answer: First of all, we would like to explain the position of anarchism withinthe ranks of the Korean People's Movement as a prerequisite for our "plan". Thepopular movement in Korea is strong both quantitatively and qualitatively. Thereis a militant trade union with 1.2 million workers, not led by any politicalparty. Before Korean society was affected by the pandemic, it was not unusual tosee popular demonstrations or mass strikes.However, anarchists never had a noteworthy position in the popular movement. Itwould be even better if the populace dismissed the anarchists as "ultra-left","extremists", "individualists (egoists)", or at least as "dreamers". But withinthe ranks of the transformative popular movement, anarchism is considered"counter-revolutionary", "reactionary", or "right-wing". Even worse, given thehistory of the anarchist movement in Korea, this was not a misrepresentation or alie.The existing Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, KCTU, is the symbol, and theonly symbol, of the transformative trade union movement. Anyone who wants totransform their lives through a union, or anyone who wants to fight for a changein working conditions, simply joins the KCTU.These are the circumstances that we face: anarchism is not considered a means oftransforming society, and there is only a militant, transformative independenttrade union. Circumstances in Korea are historically similar to those of theearly history of the French CGT, in terms of having a "politically neutral" unionand compromises to protect the militant union movement from reformist, statist,authoritarian tendencies.Therefore, we cannot "focus" on the creation of a new trade union based onanarcho-syndicalism or "plan" its creation. We may "dream" about it, but webelieve that the "plan" should be a more concrete thing. We feel that "planning"or building an anarcho-syndicalist union would take 50 years.We must focus on the task of promoting to the Korean people that anarchism canalso be a movement to transform society. To achieve this concentration, we needto meet with the masses of the people. The people who are ready to listen to usare gathered in the existing independent confederation. Logically, we can findonly one possible "plan" if we want to build a mass anarchist movement.Question: How do you work in other social movements - environmental,anti-militarist, student, squatter?Answer: We define ourselves as an organization that was born as a reaction to theprevious "failures" of the Korean anarchist movement. Therefore, ourorganizational "priority" is given to the mass movement of the working class. Wepay relatively little attention to the environmental, anti-war, and citizenmovements, because previous anarchists (the "3rd generation") put all theirefforts into them. So, since we are a newly formed organization and ourorganizational capacity is weak, we do not have the opportunity to activelyparticipate in these movements. We limit ourselves to propaganda and support forthe activists of these movements.Moreover, the situation in these movements resembles the movement of the workingclass in Korea. The environmental movement is taken over by the reformist wing.The anti-war movement is dominated by left-wing nationalists (since the US armyis based in Korea, the anti-war movement has an anti-imperialist (against USimperialism) and nationalist orientation. The housing movement has been takenover by the reformist wing of the nationalist left. With our limited resources,we have done everything in our power to speak loudly about the possibility ofalternative environmental, anti-war and citizen movements.Q: Are there other anarchist groups in Korea besides your organization?Answer:We met several "anarchist groups", not in the "real world", but on socialnetworks. There is an anarcho-feminist group called the Heungmyodang (Black CatSociety) but we have never met them in real life. There is an organization fortransgender rights called the Sahwe Hyungmyeong Turensychendey Union (TransgenderSocial Revolutionary Union). We met one person who claimed to be one of themembers of this union, but we never met them in their entirety. There is aloosely connected group that calls itself the "Anarchist Group". There is a groupthat calls itself Miradan Anarchist Moi (Anarchist Collective of Supporters ofthe Our Future Party) - as you can see from their name, these are parliamentaryanarchists. We know that there is also Cho Yakgog and a few people around him whohost the annual "Anarchist Summer". Well, we knowhttps://aitrus.info/node/6011_________________________________________A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C EBy, For, and About AnarchistsSend news reports to A-infos-en mailing listA-infos-en@ainfos.ca
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