Requesting information on Autonomous Shinmin (1929)

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Champion Ruby
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Sep 7 2011 09:23
Requesting information on Autonomous Shinmin (1929)

Hi

I'm from Brisbane Community Action and am engaged in transcribing and editing 'A History of the Korean Anarchist Movement' by Ha Ki-Rak in order to make it more easily available to groups around the world. There is mention of an enormous anarchist region in Manchuria, Shinmin, which was founded by the Korean Anarchist Communist Federation and consisted of as many, if not more than, two million people. In the end, this region was destroyed by the Japanese and Bolsheviks. There is very little mention of it, from what I can find, it's only briefly talked about by Alan McSimoin from the Workers Solidarity Movement in Ireland and in Non-Western Anarchism by Jason Adams. I've come across a document by Dongguan Hwang, 'Korean Anarchism before 1945' in Anarchism and Syndicalism in the Colonial and Postcolonial World, and it correlates a lot of what Ha Ki-Rak says concerning transnational links with the Japanese and Chinese anarchists of that era, but again, doesn't mention Shinmin. I was hoping someone could help dig up more information about this period.
This is about the limit of the information currently available (from Adams)

Quote:
Over two million Korean immigrants lived within Manchuria at the time when the KACF declared the Shinmin province autonomous and under the administration of the Korean People’s Association. The decentralized, federative structure the association adopted consisted of village councils, district councils and area councils, all of which operated in a cooperative manner to deal with agriculture, education, finance and other vital issues. KACF sections in China, Korea, Japan and elsewhere devoted all their energies towards the success of the Shinmin Rebellion, most of them actually relocating there. Dealing simultaneously with Stalinist Russia’s attempts to overthrow the Shinmin autonomous region and Japan’s imperialist attempts to claim the region for itself, Korean anarchists by 1931 had been crushed.

edit; just found I can't respond to topics because captcha boxes don't load. how does this work?

revolut
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Sep 7 2011 10:48

Not sure if this helps, as it uses mostly the same sources [Google translation]:

Quote:
THE TOWN AND GUERRILLA WARFARE IN MANCHURIA

The area came to be the scene since the early 20 'of the anti-colonial war of independence. As mentioned three fronts carried out guerrilla raids against Japanese troops: the National Front, the front led by the Communist Party (Stalinist trend) and the front anarchist, led by a group of veterans led by General Kim Jwa Jin. "Baekya" knew Kim as Jin Jwa (also nicknamed the Korean Makhno) decided to put the energy into defending the liberated areas of Shinmin now. He and other generals as Lee Bom-sok dissolved the northern army and joined the military to command the raid anarchist liberated in a rural region where they lived more than 2 million Korean immigrants. The guerrilla army, it was structured as libertarian militias.

In this context is favorable in August 29 'in Shinmin Korean People's Association in Manchuria. An administration with "a deal for a loose federation based on the spontaneous freedom of people." This type of administration allowed its 2 million inhabitants constitute a federal and decentralized organization. It came to be 3 major types of advice: Municipal Councils and Village (according to each location), District Councils (a group of localities close together) and Area or Regional Councils (covering the region with all Districts ). This will eliminate a Central State, United States Provincial and Municipal. Also structured cooperative councils in each locality for each vital necessity or social issues: Agriculture, Education, Finance, Propaganda, Military Affairs, Youth, Health, among other tips. While the original idea was that through education, society as a whole was to understand the different phases and levels of federalism, the bounded time of war in the region hastened the formation of these structures: in many cases delegates came other municipalities and urged councils to organize quickly and assemblies of the people as they choose a delegate to the APCM.

As for the organizational system of work were tested agricultural cooperative projects (rice and corn) and utilities. In this instance, through delegations from the APCM (using funds gathered by the FACC) came large mills for processing rice, some up to 1000 tons.

Korean women in this context was devoted mostly to the smuggling of weapons to the guerrilla army.

Organizational development and expansion of the Commune were the Stalinists Shinmin Korean and Japanese pro-bourgeoisie began to look askance at this revolutionary new test to see their bases threatened. The young anarchists near Yu-Rim wanted to give an ideological dispute with Stalinism to anticipate future contingencies. The guerrillas lined the commander-Jin Kim Jwa argued that the dispute with Marxism was to be given once given independence. On January 24, 1930 when the commander Kim Jin Jwa helped repair a rice mill, a militant communist Korean PC Youth murdered him in cold blood. After the murder of Kim, FACC began to devote all their members spread across Korea, China and Japan to focus on the area of ​​the Commune in Manchuria. The same happened with all the resources.

At that time Japanese troops simultaneously began to systematically attack from the southern front and troops supported by the Stalinist Soviet Union and the Chinese PC (formerly allied with the FACC) from the northern front.

By 1931 the Stalinists began sending infiltrators to assassinate the referents of the FACC. A mid-year kill Kim Jong Jin, sixth reference for FACC murdered by the communists between 1930 and 1931. The Communists believed that killing the anarchist commune concerning would soon fall.

By the end of 1932 Japanese troops had taken control of all Manchuria, turning it into a puppet state of his empire. The militancy of the FACC was persecuted, if not destroyed, throughout Korea.

Original: http://www.anarkismo.net/article/15711

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Rob Ray
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Sep 7 2011 12:36

Few bits and pieces on it here:

http://libcom.org/history/articles/anarchism-in-korea

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Steven.
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Sep 7 2011 16:52

I'm afraid I don't know anything about this (there are a few articles in the "more like this" section below, from Libero, and Asian anarchist historical journal which we have in the library.

But basically we would love to host this text in our history section if possible so please bear that in mind for your work!