Ithaca; London: Cornell University Press, 2013. xiii, 296 pp. (Tables, maps, B&W photos.) US$45.00, cloth. ISBN 978-0-8014-5041-9.
The most notorious Korean organization, denounced by many (then and today) for its “treasonous” role in the 1910 Japanese annexation of Korea, was the Ilchinhoe, translated by the author of this full-fledged study as “Advance in Unity Society.” Yumi Moon’s is a bold and meticulously argued study, with incontrovertible evidence filling up all its substantive chapters. Yet ultra-nationalists on either side of divided Korea today are not likely to take kindly to her findings, for while never questioning the Ilchinhoe’s odious role in Japan’s takeover of Korea, the author also shows it to have been a reformist organization that was able to rapidly build a truly mass following, ranging anywhere from 100,000 to 500,000 members.
It combined a sharp critique of the corruption, incompetence, and “tyranny” of the Chosŏn dynasty’s moribund years with concrete actions for reform, designed not only to ameliorate grass-roots economic distress but also to empower the dispossessed and disenfranchised sections of society, especially in the rural areas. Its early reform platform, stressing people’s “natural” rights, popular participation in government, a limited monarchy, and a national assembly, recalled the writings of Western-inspired reformist elites in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, especially the failed movement of the Independence Club (1896–1898). The Ilchinhoe also incorporated, however, the more widely based elements of another failed movement called the Tonghak Uprising (1894–1895).
During the late nineteenth century, the Chosŏn Dynasty feebly limped along due to internal factional squabbles, foreign meddling and plots, palace upheavals, assassinations, revolving-door politics of rather bewildering sequences, and reforms announced and reforms quashed. Amidst all this, many Koreans came to admire the Japanese achievements in political, social, educational, cultural, economic, technological and military advancement. The weakness and defeat of Qing China in the 1894–1895 Sino-Japanese War had made China an unreliable ally for the Korean reformists. Russia, looming large, was aggressive, untrustworthy and beyond the average Korean’s cultural pale. Japan, with its Confucian-Buddhist-Daoist threads of affinity with Korea, which in ancient times had served as an intellectual and cultural bridge from continental Asia to the island nation, assiduously cultivated Korean supporters for its own ambition in the country and on the continent by presenting itself as a model that Koreans could profit from. Beyond that, many Japanese leaders, some inside the government and others outside, and some more subtly than others, also championed the concept of Pan-Asianism, under which Japanese tutelage would offer Korea shared prosperity and progress over time while keeping the predatory Western imperialisms at bay.
Thus when the Russo-Japanese War (1904–1905) broke out, the Ilchinhoe emerged as a vocal and active supporter of Japan while steadily gaining adherents for its tax-resistance, tax reform and other significant economic plans for the masses. And plans quickly translated to action. Though inevitably there was some disarray in its rank and file, some uncoordinated action at the bottom with its central leaders, some heavy-handedness by its followers bordering at times on wanton behaviour and lawlessness, the Ilchinhoe in some areas acted like a mini state within a state, flexing its political muscle through both legal and extra-legal means, collecting taxes according to its own pragmatic definitions of right and wrong, and channeling funds for its own aims, including modern educational schools. In all this, its activists from below commanded as much power as its national leaders. In this respect, it seemed to be Korea’s first modern mass organization. Moon does not go to the extent of calling the Ilchinhoe a democratic organization, for its ideology was not articulated beyond some rhetorical flourishes in that direction, but she justifiably calls its campaign a “populist” movement.
Awakening to the overwhelming power of Japan in the wake of its victory over Russia and then seeing its relentless political juggernaut in Korea, the Ilchinhoe leaders ultimately took the path of least resistance to Tokyo. Persuaded by Japanese professions of friendly goals for Korea, they naively opted for calls seeking Japan’s annexation of Korea. They had made so many enemies among the traditional conservatives as well as among modern nationalists that they almost seemed to have left no other choice for themselves. The new Japanese rulers of Korea decided, on the other hand, that having softened up the Korean monarchy for their own machinations, the Ilchinhoe had exhausted its usefulness to them. After all, any organization aimed at reforming Korea from below could easily challenge the highly centralized structures and methods of Japan’s own designs for Korea. The Japanese rulers could not countenance such a fraught possibility. Thus soon after their goal of annexing Korea was accomplished, they ordered the disbandment of the Ilchinhoe. With various blandishments added, its leaders were neutralized by the Japanese, though many of its followers were not. Neither were masses of other Koreans who now had to decide how to face the prospect of their national identity becoming nothing but a hand-maiden of Japan. Pan-Asianism seemed only a cover for Japanese empire-building.
Upon reading this book’s section about the Ilchinhoe’s dealings with Japan, one is left with an impression not so much of any nefariousness on the part of its leaders as of their folly. And though in its domestic reformist activity, this body clearly had its villains and rogues, one could just as easily put together a rich portrait gallery of crooks and thugs on the other side as well. Overall, this book revalidates my own research years ago, when I wrote a short, preliminary article on this body (in Occasional Papers on Korea, The University of Washington, Seattle, 1974). Author Moon makes a gracious reference to it in her extensive, richly documented book.
Finally, other than some repetitive parts causing a bit of tedium that better editing could have easily reduced, Moon has written a very nuanced work that is sure to be the subject of many animated discussions in Korean history circles.
Vipan Chandra
Wheaton College, Norton, USA
pp. 872-874