Anti-communist mass terror. South Korea - Gwangju Uprising Jeju Uprising

Following the December 12, 1979 coup in Seoul, General Chun Doo-hwan declared martial law in the country on May 17, 1980 in order to quell student unrest. The next day, Gwangju students demonstrated at the gates of Cheongnam National University against the decision to close it. The university was blocked by army units, and the students moved towards the city center, where they were met by armed government forces. Firearms were used, which resulted in the death of several participants in the procession.

On May 20, as a sign of revenge, protesters burned down the headquarters of the MBC television and radio company, which, in their opinion, incorrectly covered the reasons for the student protests. By May 21, about 300 thousand people had joined the student movement, protesting against the dictatorial military regime in the country. Military warehouses and police stations were captured and the rebels managed to push back army units. Gwangju was hastily blocked by the regular army. In the city itself, a new government was formed to maintain order and negotiate with the central government.

On May 27, aviation and army units consisting of five divisions burst into the city center and captured it in just 90 minutes. With a city population of 740 thousand people, the number of soldiers exceeded 20 thousand. Several hundred civilians died.

During Chun Doo-hwan's reign, the Gwangju incident was officially treated as a communist uprising. However, after his resignation as president in 1988, the uprising was seen as an attempt to establish democracy. The state apologized for the brutal suppression of the unrest, and a special cemetery was built for the victims of the incident.

There are different estimates of the number of victims of the uprising. An official investigation by the government of the Sixth Republic put the figure at 207 people killed. In addition, they found 987 “other casualties,” which included seriously injured people. However, a report by the British BBC says that these figures are underestimated. The participants in the incident themselves at the end of the 80s cite figures of 2,000 dead. However, they do not provide precise information about the identities of the victims.

In art

The uprising is depicted in Korean feature films:

1. Old Garden (South Korea, 2006)

2. Great Vacation (South Korea, 2007)

In Korean music videos:

1. SPEED - "It's Over"

2. SPEED - "That"s my Fault"

see also

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Excerpt describing the Gwangju Uprising

While awaiting notification of his enrollment as a member of the committee, Prince Andrei renewed old acquaintances, especially with those persons who, he knew, were in force and could be needed by him. He now experienced in St. Petersburg a feeling similar to what he had experienced on the eve of the battle, when he was tormented by a restless curiosity and irresistibly drawn to higher spheres, to where the future was being prepared, on which the fate of millions depended. He felt from the embitterment of the old people, from the curiosity of the uninitiated, from the restraint of the initiated, from the haste and concern of everyone, from the countless number of committees, commissions, the existence of which he learned again every day, that now, in 1809, was being prepared here in St. Petersburg, some kind of huge civil battle, the commander-in-chief of which was a person unknown to him, mysterious and who seemed to him a genius - Speransky. And the most vaguely known matter of transformation, and Speransky, the main figure, began to interest him so passionately that the matter of military regulations very soon began to pass into a secondary place in his mind.
Prince Andrei was in one of the most favorable positions to be well received into all the most diverse and highest circles of the then St. Petersburg society. The party of reformers cordially received and lured him, firstly because he had a reputation for intelligence and great reading, and secondly because by his release of the peasants he had already made himself a reputation as a liberal. The party of dissatisfied old men, just like their father’s son, turned to him for sympathy, condemning the reforms. Women's society, the world, welcomed him cordially, because he was a groom, rich and noble, and almost a new face with the aura of a romantic story about his imaginary death and the tragic death of his wife. In addition, the general voice about him from everyone who knew him before was that he had changed a lot for the better in these five years, had softened and matured, that there was no former pretense, pride and mockery in him, and there was that calmness that purchased over the years. They started talking about him, they were interested in him and everyone wanted to see him.

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Material from Wikipedia - the free encyclopedia

Gwangju Uprising(광주 민주화 운동) were protests in the city of Gwangju, South Korea, which took place from May 18 to May 27, 1980, and were brutally suppressed by government forces.

Following the December 12, 1979 coup in Seoul, General Chun Doo-hwan declared martial law in the country on May 17, 1980 in order to quell student unrest. The next day, Gwangju students demonstrated at the gates of Cheongnam National University against the decision to close it. The university was blocked by army units, and the students moved towards the city center, where they were met by armed government forces. Firearms were used, which resulted in the death of several participants in the procession.

On May 20, as a sign of revenge, protesters burned down the headquarters of the MBC television and radio company, which, in their opinion, incorrectly covered the reasons for the student protests. By May 21, about 300 thousand people had joined the student movement, protesting against the dictatorial military regime in the country. Military warehouses and police stations were captured and the rebels managed to push back army units. Gwangju was hastily blocked by the regular army. In the city itself, a new government was formed to maintain order and negotiate with the central government.

On May 27, aviation and army units consisting of five divisions burst into the city center and captured it in just 90 minutes. With a city population of 740 thousand people, the number of soldiers exceeded 20 thousand. Several hundred civilians died.

During Chun Doo-hwan's reign, the Gwangju incident was officially treated as a communist uprising. However, after his resignation as president in 1988, the uprising was seen as an attempt to establish democracy. The state apologized for the brutal suppression of the unrest, and a special cemetery was built for the victims of the incident.

There are different estimates of the number of victims of the uprising. An official investigation by the government of the Sixth Republic put the figure at 207 people killed. In addition, they found 987 “other casualties,” which included seriously injured people. However, a report by the British BBC says that these figures are underestimated. The participants in the incident themselves at the end of the 80s cite figures of 2,000 dead. However, they do not provide precise information about the identities of the victims.

In art

The uprising is depicted in Korean feature films:

1. Old Garden (South Korea, 2006)

2. Great Vacation (South Korea, 2007)

In Korean music videos:

1. SPEED - "It's Over"

2. SPEED - "That"s my Fault"

see also

Write a review of the article "Gwangju Uprising"

Notes

Links

• // "Skepticism"

Excerpt describing the Gwangju Uprising

After the Korean War (1950-1953) and the creation of the American military government on the territory of the Republic of Korea, the population longed for democratic changes, but the country was under the rule of military dictator Park Chung-hee for 18 years. Park Chung-hee (1917-1979) is one of the most controversial figures in the entire history of Korea. Despite his successful economic policies (development of heavy and chemical industries, import controls), disregard for human rights and the establishment of a dictatorship made his rule one of the most tragic pages in Korean history.
The Yusin system, which Park created, legally justified the irremovability of presidential power and denied citizens their rights and freedoms. Military rule was explained by official propaganda: in the North there is an “ideological enemy” in the person of the DPRK, which could attack at any moment; this was also the official reason for maintaining American military bases on the territory of the Republic of Kazakhstan.

Park Chung-hee was shot in October 1979, and his murder was associated by the Koreans with the liberalization of the regime and the implementation of democratic reforms, but in December, military general Chun Doo-hwan (born 1931) carried out a coup d’etat, and all the people’s hopes for a softening of the regime disappeared into oblivion. A logical continuation of the policy of violence was the reaction of the population, which, watching one military government being replaced by another, could no longer sit idly by: student rallies and demonstrations began to take place throughout the country. The main demand of the protesters was the abolition of martial law, which was extended to almost the entire country.
On May 17, 1980, martial law was declared throughout the country, and Decree No. 10 banned any demonstrations and rallies of a political nature and established strict censorship of the media; universities were ordered to suspend work, and absence from work was severely punished; it was decided to dissolve Parliament and create a special organization - the Emergency Security Committee.
Moreover, the famous oppositionist, ardent opponent of the military dictatorship Park Chung-hee and human rights activist, Nobel Peace Prize laureate and future President Kim Dae-jung (1924 - 2009) was arrested by government order at his residence on false charges of collaborating with the communists from North.

This appears to have been the catalyst that precipitated the outbreak of a powerful uprising in Gwangju, the capital of South Jeolla Province, from which Kim Dae-jung came. Why did this particular factor become decisive? Because in Korea, regionalism has traditionally played and continues to play a decisive role in politics, and the residents of this very underdeveloped province, unlike others, pinned their future and hopes for a better life on Kim Dae-jung, who was in fact the only strong political player from the South. Cholla.
Thus, on May 18, students at Chonnam National University, located in Gwangju, were unable to approach the library building on campus, where they had previously agreed to meet. The police warned the demonstrators that they had weapons and asked them to return home immediately, but the students ignored the soldiers' words and about a hundred of them moved to the Main Gate, where they began to demonstrate. In the city one could hear slogans being chanted: “Free Kim Dae-jung!”, “Abolish martial law!”, “Go away, Chun Doo-hwan!”
The government set itself the task of suppressing the uprising as quickly as possible so that it did not spread to neighboring regions; It was decided to carry out an operation code-named “Great Holiday”: by the morning of the next day, troops were pulled into the city. All shops in the center were closed and traffic was prohibited. There are almost no resisters left in the country; Everywhere where martial law was in force, the streets were empty, only traces of blood could be seen on the sidewalk. Gwangju remained the only city where people still hoped for a positive outcome to their struggle.
The police used tear gas; reinforcements of 1,140 troops arrived. They all began to attack demonstrators and civilians indiscriminately, regardless of gender or age. Many of those who managed to escape formed huge queues at local hospitals: there were not enough medicines and nurses for everyone. Those who could not participate in the demonstration donated their blood, and even prostitutes stood outside the Red Cross hospital and shouted: “Take our blood too! She's clean!. By the afternoon, the crowd had gone from defense to offense and began attacking the police and soldiers. Despite the madness going on in Gwangju, the government made no official statements regarding the situation.
Across the city, small groups of people, often led by former military personnel, continued to demonstrate. Even though they did not have proper weapons, they used whatever they could find. By the end of the day, even taxi drivers and street vendors, who are usually indifferent to socio-political movements, began clashing with the troops.
Around 7 pm, taxi drivers moved through the city in their cars, turning on their headlights as a sign of protest. The police smashed cars with guns and beat drivers. The crowd burned down the MBC and KBS TV stations because they were not broadcasting real events in the city.
The riots continued into the night. The demonstrators moved on to more thoughtful actions: they set fire to the tax office building, since it was obvious that the population’s taxes were not used to meet social needs, but to purchase weapons and stimulate the military regime in the country.

On the morning of May 21, the soldiers were supplied with ammunition. The bodies of the two killed in Gwangju the previous day were wrapped in the Korean flag and placed on stretchers, which the crowd carried slowly through the city center. On May 21, the People's Army began to form, the gathering center of which was Gwangju Park.
The townspeople, who had military experience behind them, organized the most basic physical training because they could no longer watch inexperienced students get injured or die in strikes with the police. Small groups of volunteers were formed and placed by the People's Army in key positions in the city.
By the night of May 21, there were almost no military personnel left in the city. Of course, the residents of the city wanted to believe that the reason for this was their courage, but in reality it turned out to be a tactical move - a decision was made from above to block the city: all 7 highways leading to Gwangju were under the control of the military, who shot at everyone who tried to escape .
At 4 am on May 28, the sounds of shots began to be heard, and, in fact, in an hour and a half, the struggle of the townspeople, which lasted about ten days, was suppressed with the help of weapons; people had no way of retreat. The mayor's office was handed over to the 20th division, and everyone who continued to fight was arrested. The uprising was suppressed.
Particular attention should be paid to the role of the United States in suppressing the uprising. The participants in the uprising proclaimed as their ideal the American version of democracy, imposed on them by propaganda and the idealized image of the United States, and therefore believed that Washington, as the world guarantor of democracy, would do everything possible to support the movement and establish a legal democratic regime. During the uprising, there were up to two hundred American citizens, mostly military, in Gwangju, who left for Seoul on May 21, and military aircraft were transported to bases away from the city.
The commander of the combined ROK and US forces, General Don Wickham, authorized the Korean government to use soldiers to suppress the uprising, even despite the statement that there was no movement from the DPRK.

During the uprising, Korean activists learned that the USS Coral Sea had entered Korean waters, but was actually sent by the United States to provide support to soldiers behind the lines. The US Ambassador to Korea called the suppression of the uprising by Korean soldiers under the command of American officers "maintaining order and the rule of law," and on May 31, President Carter said in an interview with CNN that “...to restore order sometimes you have to sacrifice human rights”.
Experts believe that the reason for this position of the White House is “Washington’s imperial desire for world dominance through the establishment of a neoliberal system of governance” in allied countries, which allowed the United States to actively intervene in their economies. The economic model created by Park Chung Hee included a system of family business conglomerates - chaebol (Korean: 재벌, 財閥), which did not allow the White House to have the desired influence on capital in the Republic of Korea. The ideological meaning of suppressing the uprising for the United States was to try to legitimize the power of Chun Doo-hwan and, with his help, destroy the chaebol system and create an opportunity for American banks and insurance companies to occupy key positions in the South Korean economy.
Considering that Chun Doo-hwan called the events in Gwangju “red,” such actions by the United States in Gwangju on their part seemed quite obvious and justified. However, in June 1989, when the investigation into the May events was in full swing, official White House documents stated that “the United States had no knowledge of government plans to suppress the uprising” and that they "did not have the authority to order Korean soldiers to participate in it."
As a result, Gwangju became a turning point for the development of anti-Americanism in the Republic of Korea, which acquired broad social and, subsequently, political significance.

In 1989, the Gwangju Uprising trial began and Jung Doo-hwan was sentenced to death but pardoned; he is under house arrest for life.
Despite the fact that with the coming to power of a democratic government, active measures were taken to clarify the true circumstances of what happened in Gwangju, the truth still remains largely a mystery to us.
The official position of the May 18 Memorial Organization insists that the events of 1980 should not be perceived as a sad page in the country's history, but as the starting point of the development of the democratization movement, which marked the beginning of an active struggle for human rights.

Anti-communist mass terror- well-known cases of political crimes committed by “right-wing” reactionary regimes, which resulted in mass murders of communists, persons suspected of belonging to them, other figures of the leftist movement, as well as their supporters.

Timeline of terror

1919 - 1921, Hungary

White terror

1927, China

Shanghai massacre

During the Shanghai Massacre of 1927, up to 12 thousand people were killed in China.

1933 - 1945, Germany

In Hitler's Germany and in the occupied territories, the Nazis committed mass murders of communists and their supporters.

1936 - 1945, Spain

White terror

In Spain, mass executions of communists began during the Civil War in 1936 and continued until 1945, as a result of which, according to various estimates, from 150 thousand to 400 thousand people were killed.

1948 - 1953, South Korea

Rebellion in Jeju

On April 3, 1948, an uprising broke out on Jeju Island (South Korea), called “communist.” According to a report prepared by US experts, about 60 thousand people, that is, 20% of the island's population, were members of the communist ideology, and another 80 thousand were sympathizers. A month before the event, on March 1, the Workers' Party of South Korea organized a mass rally to commemorate the struggle to liberate the island from Japanese rule, and also to condemn the UN decision to hold general elections in Korea, which was perceived as an attempt at unilateral US interference in internal affairs. affairs of Korea under the guise of the UN. Despite the arrest of 2,500 party activists and the killing of at least three of them, the rally went ahead. Police units (from the mainland) opened fire on the demonstrators, killing six people. This sparked an uprising that began on April 3. As a result of military clashes with government forces, according to various estimates, from 14 thousand to 30 thousand people died. The suppression of the uprising was brutal: tens of thousands of people were killed, hundreds of villages were razed to the ground, and tens of thousands of houses were destroyed. Several hundred employees of the 11th police regiment, sent to suppress the rebellion, went over to the side of the rebels. Fighting continued until May 1949, but small pockets of resistance took place until 1953.

According to an investigation by a South Korean government organization created by President Roh Moo-hyun's liberal government in 2005, called the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, there are 14,373 known deaths, of which 86% were killed by government forces and 13.9% by armed rebels. . The total number of deaths, according to other estimates, reaches 30 thousand people. Approximately 70% of the island's villages were completely burned, and over 39 thousand houses were destroyed.

Execution of the Bodo League

Execution of political prisoners by South Korean police

In the summer of 1950, members of the Bodo League were executed in South Korea. This organization was created in 1949 by the government of South Korea within the framework of the so-called. rehabilitation programs. The real purpose of the Bodo League ("Bodo" ​​literally means "care and guidance") was to track down and control untrustworthy citizens suspected of communist sympathies. The total number of citizens registered in the Bodo League is estimated at 200 thousand to 300 thousand people. According to police records, about 10 thousand people were killed in 1950. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission suggests that this figure is not true: according to commission member Professor Kim Dong Chun, at least 100 thousand people were executed on suspicion of collaborating with the Communists.

In the first months of the Korean War (1950 - 1953), several hundred people died at the hands of South Korean police in the southeastern city of Ulsan: in July - August 1950, 407 civilians were summarily executed. On January 24, 2008, then-South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun issued an official apology for these crimes.

In addition to these atrocities, there were massacres of political prisoners in prisons located in cities such as Busan, Masan and Jinju.

1965 - 1966, Indonesia

After an unsuccessful attempt to seize power in Indonesia, according to various estimates, from 500 thousand to 1 million people were killed.

1973 - 1975, Chile

"Caravan of Death"

"Operation Colombo"

1976 - 1983, Argentina

"Dirty War"

1980, South Korea

Gwangju Uprising

Suppression of the Gwangju uprising, May 1980

On May 18, 1980, a popular uprising broke out in the city of Gwangju (South Korea), which was immediately dubbed “communist.” A few months before the event, dictator Park Chung-hee, who had ruled the country for 17 years, was killed. The period of political freedom that began did not last long. As a result of the military coup, a new dictator came to power - General Chun Doo-hwan, who, using the rhetoric of “national security,” introduced martial law in the country: higher educational institutions were closed, political activity was prohibited, and pressure began on the press. To control the situation, army units were sent to all regions of the country.

A peaceful demonstration by students protesting the university's closure was planned for the morning of May 18 in Gwangju. About 200 students gathered at the entrance to Chonnam State University, whose path was blocked by special forces consisting of 30 paratroopers (due to the fact that the city police did not control the situation, special forces were previously brought into the city to suppress protests). Force was used against the protesters. Stones flew in response. To protect children, parents, workers, and small traders took to the streets. On the one hand, about 2 thousand citizens took part in the confrontation, and on the other, more than 600 soldiers. According to eyewitnesses, the military beat protesters and random onlookers with batons, and cases of using bladed weapons - bayonets - were recorded. The first to die was a bystander - a 29-year-old deaf man, beaten to death with batons. On May 20, the ranks of protesters increased to 10 thousand people. Due to the escalation of the conflict, the military used firearms. The violence peaked on May 21, when army units opened fire on a crowd of protesters gathered outside the city administration building.

In order to somehow resist the violence, the townspeople attacked police stations and warehouses with weapons (M-1 rifles, carbines, machine guns) and formed militia groups that were able to push the military out of the city. For five days there was no trade in the city: the townspeople prepared food and distributed food products for free, provided personal transport free of charge for defense needs; a spontaneously organized system of distribution of food, goods and services did not depend on either the state or capital. On May 24, 15 thousand city residents took to the streets to take part in a memorial service for the victims, and on May 25, 50 thousand people gathered at a rally to adopt a resolution demanding the abolition of martial law in the country and the release of political prisoners. Finally, on May 27, large army units entered the city and brutally suppressed the uprising in a matter of hours.

According to the official version, 144 civilians and 22 military and police personnel were killed, 127 civilians, 109 military personnel and 144 police officers were injured. Everyone who expressed criticism of the official version was arrested “for spreading false information.” According to other estimates, up to 2 thousand people were killed.

In Paris in 1871 and Gwangju in 1980, unarmed populations rebelled against governments, took control of urban space and held it, resisting military forces seeking to restore "public order", hundreds of thousands of people rose to the occasion and created a popular political self-organization that replaced state power.

Crime in the cities liberated from power fell sharply - people intuitively felt an unprecedented brotherhood among themselves. The reality of the Paris and Gwangju Communes refutes the propaganda myth that people are inherently evil and therefore require strong governments to maintain order and justice. The behavior of people in cities liberated from power showed the people's ability to self-government and mutual assistance. The authorities who suppressed the uprisings, on the contrary, demonstrated inhuman cruelty.

Reading the anarchist Peter Kropotkin's description of the actions of government troops in Paris in 1871, it is difficult to determine where this is happening - in Paris or Gwangju: “You must die, no matter what you do. If you are taken with arms in your hands - death! If you ask for mercy - death! Wherever you turn - right, left, back, forward, up, down - death! You are not just outside the law, you are outside humanity. Neither age nor gender can save you and your loved ones "You must die, but first you must experience the agony of your wife, your sister, your mother, your children! Before your eyes, the wounded must be taken from the first aid station and stabbed with bayonets or beaten to death with the butts of rifles. They will be dragged through the mud, still alive, for broken legs or bleeding hands and tossed like garbage into the gutters. Death! Death! Death!"

Events in Gwangju began with the assassination of South Korean dictator Park Chung-hee. After Park's death, mass student protests against the dictatorship began in Gwangju. But power in the country was seized by General Chun Doo-hwan, who threatened to use force if the protests continued. Throughout Korea, with the exception of Gwangju, people stayed home. Then the government, with the approval of the United States, sent paratroopers against the students to teach Gwangju a lesson. Government terror began in the city. People's heads were pierced, their backs were trampled, and their faces were kicked. When the soldiers were finished, their victims looked like piles of clothes in meat sauce. The bodies were dumped into trucks, where the soldiers continued to beat and kick the survivors. The students resisted. The soldiers used bayonets against them. One paratrooper, waving his bayonet in front of the captured students, shouted to them that he used this bayonet to cut out the breasts of women in Vietnam. The population was in shock. The paratroopers even beat to death the director of the police department, who tried to prevent too cruel treatment of people.

The students resisted steadfastly, and the next day the whole city supported them. The people mobilized. Stones were used against the 18,000 police and more than 3,000 paratroopers sent to suppress the uprising. sticks, knives, pipes, crowbars. The city refused to capitulate. On May 20, the rebels released their newspaper, the Fighter's Bulletin. That same day at 5:50 p.m., a crowd of 5,000 people drove the police from one of the barricades. The paratroopers pushed the rebels back. On the evening of May 20, more than 200,000 people took part in the uprising - out of the city's population of seven hundred thousand. The crowd brought together farmers, students, people from all walks of life. Nine buses and more than two hundred taxis headed to the city center.

The paratroopers attacked the convoy. The whole city resisted them. The army attacked all night. Especially many people died in the area of ​​the station and near Democracy Square, where paratroopers opened fire on the crowd with automatic rifles. Government-controlled media did not report these killings. Then thousands of people surrounded the information management building. The soldiers guarding it retreated, and the crowd occupied the building, which it burned down. At one o'clock in the morning, the tax office was set on fire - taxes were used to support the army, which was killing people. In addition, the labor inspectorate office and 16 police stations were burned. The decisive battle took place at the station at about 4 am. The soldiers fired at the crowd advancing on them, but the people attacked over the bodies of their dead comrades. The army retreated. The next morning, May 21, more than 100,000 people gathered again on the main street. That same morning, the rebels captured more than 350 vehicles, incl. three armored personnel carriers. The departure of rebel groups to neighboring villages was organized. Several trucks returned to the city with bread. The hope that appeared in the morning for a peaceful outcome was again killed by the army - the paratroopers opened fire on the crowd to kill. In the carnage, many people were killed and more than 500 were injured. The rebels responded. Two hours after the start of the shootout, a police station was attacked in order to seize weapons. Combat groups are formed to seize weapons. With the help of the miners, they managed to get dynamite and detonators. Seven busloads of textile factory workers traveled to the nearby town of Naja; where they managed to capture hundreds of rifles and ammunition. The rifles were brought to Gwangju. Such expropriations of weapons were carried out in four districts adjacent to the city. The movement is spreading to at least 16 counties in southwestern Korea. Hoping to spread the uprising to Seoul, some rebels went there but were stopped by troops blocking highways and railroads. The Gwangju uprising failed to turn into the Korean revolution. The Free Commune in Gwangju lasted 6 days. May 27 - the day of the death of the Paris Commune - Gwangju, despite heroic resistance, fell.

The Gwangju rebels, creating their free Commune, acted in the same way as Kropotkin believed it necessary to act. After the military left the city on May 21, markets and shops were open. Food, water and electricity did not become an insoluble problem. People shared cigarettes with their newfound comrades in arms. When hospitals needed blood for transfusions, many people were willing to give it. When the need for money arose, thousands of dollars were quickly raised through voluntary donations. For several days the people themselves voluntarily cleaned the streets, distributed free food in the market and kept a constant guard against the expected counterattack. Everyone found their place in liberated Gwangju.

The Gwangju rebels made decisions at daily meetings around a fountain in the center of the city. Residents gathered there every day in the tens of thousands. Everyone had the right to vote in the square - traders, teachers, followers of various religions, housewives, students, farmers. The city was united.

Resistance to the authorities in Gwangju began spontaneously, without prior organization. Most of the rebels had no political experience. Almost all opposition leaders were arrested or fled before the uprising began. Nevertheless, people managed to organize themselves - first in hundreds, then in thousands. The city's residents rebelled and overthrew the government without conscious planning and without leaders. True, some of the participants in the uprising (in particular, the group that published the “Fighting Bulletin”) were part of Kim Nam Ju’s group, which had previously studied the experience of the Paris Commune.

Chung actively sought US approval for his presidency while trying to play the North Korean card. As part of this strategy, on May 13, he declared that the DPRK was behind the student movement and left-wing radicals. In response, a massive student demonstration began in Seoul on May 14, 1980, called the “Seoul Spring” and proclaiming commitment to the “grand march of democratization.” On May 15, the demonstration reached its climax, with 100 thousand people gathering in front of Seoul Station. The last time protests of this magnitude took place in the country was during the April Revolution, but on May 17-18, 1980, Chun Doo-hwan carried out large-scale arrests among opposition members, dispersed the National Assembly and declared full martial law instead of the partial one that had existed before.

The reaction to these events was the uprising in Gwangju, where it all began with the dispersal of a demonstration associated with the arrest of Kim Dae-jung. It was not the police, but the army forces that were sent to suppress the protest. In principle, this was not the first time that special forces were used against demonstrators - in October 1979 they were used in Busan and Masan, but then serious beatings were not carried out in front of large crowds of people. In Gwangju, things came to the point of using bayonets and flamethrowers, and soldiers not only dispersed demonstrations, but also burst into cafes or buses, beating all young people of about student age.

Such unprecedented brutal suppression of a purely peaceful demonstration pushed students to take active retaliatory measures. The situation was aggravated by the rumor that those responsible for such an outbreak of violence were all from Daegu (remember, the residents of Gwangju and Daegu are traditionally hostile to each other).

When it became known that many civilians had died in the clashes, townspeople joined the students and the unrest grew into a large-scale uprising. On May 21, 1980, students and townspeople seized weapons warehouses and, fearing mass bloodshed, the authorities withdrew special forces from the city. The rebels seized the Provincial Administration Office and demanded the lifting of the state of emergency and the resignation of Chun Doo-hwan.

Those who seized power in the city were dominated by young radicals, whose plan was to hold out as long as possible and either die heroically, thereby demonstrating the barbarity of the military regime, or achieve intervention from the United States, which would stand up for democracy.

On May 25, President Choi Gyu Ha arrived to negotiate with the rebels, but since he had no real power, the negotiations did not end in anything. In the early morning of May 27, the city was stormed by tanks, and within an hour and a half, the main government institutions were taken by government troops. The capture of the city took place very quickly and in an organized manner.

Thus, Korean history was “enriched” by a significant event, which for a long time became a symbol of the suppression of the opposition. No one believed the rumor that these were communist provocations, especially since no direct evidence of North Korean influence on the events in Gwangju was discovered even subsequently. Japanese television covered the uprising extensively, capturing large amounts of footage showing the regime's war crimes, including images of people being run over by tanks. It is naturally compared to another “tank suppression” in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square, and it is even argued that the Korean case was bloodier. Cumings refers to an investigation conducted by the National Assembly under Kim Young Sam. Although this investigation was somewhat biased, according to its results, at least a thousand people died in Gwangju, while in China, according to updated data, the number of victims was about 700 people.

Reports on the total number of casualties vary. Liu Yong Ik writes that there were 2000-2300 people killed. S. Kurbanov cites information from government sources, which indicate that 150-200 people died, 90% of them in the first stage of the uprising, May 18-21. Korean dissidents and opposition representatives spoke of ten thousand victims, without, however, specifying how many of them were killed, how many were wounded, and how many were subjected to reprisals. If we analyze the general statistics of deaths in the city for May 1980, then it amounted to 4,900 people. against the usual figure of about 2000 people. This suggests that approximately 2,000 of the townspeople died. And if we count all the wounded, arrested and missing, then the total number of victims is about 4,000 people.

The Gwangju uprising raises the very important question of US responsibility for the massacre. Let us recall that according to the Daejeon Agreement of 1950, the Korean army was subordinate to the American command, and therefore the use of military force against civilians had to be approved by Washington.

Oberdorfer tries to carefully obscure the US participation in these events, presenting the matter as if America from the very beginning advocated a peaceful resolution of the problem. He even mentions that the South Korean authorities not only ignored and did not publish a statement from the US government calling for a peaceful settlement, but, on the contrary, trumpeted that the United States had given the go-ahead to suppress the uprising. However, from the point of view of M. Breen, although the United States did not provide direct support to Chun Doo-hwan, it did nothing to keep the regime from bloodshed.

South Korean historians of later times also note that although no evidence of secret US involvement in these events was found, neither the US military nor the State Department tried to counteract the coup: representatives of the City Council created by the rebels immediately contacted the American embassy with a request to intervene in the situation, but it did not intervene and, moreover, gave the military a free hand - it was possible to send a division removed from the DMZ to suppress the uprising only with the consent of the Americans.

Cumings believes that, despite President Carter’s efforts to actively promote human rights in the world, the embassy was simply afraid to create a dangerous precedent and support the townspeople in their fight against the regime. Of course, this caused a certain ferment of minds in the United States, but the decisive role in developing the decision that was made was played by Richard Holbrooke, who stated that the issue was attracting too much attention, while it needed to be considered more broadly and from the point of view of interests national security. It is curious that after the Republican victory in 1981, Holbrooke, who, moreover, convinced Carter not to withdraw troops from the Republic of Korea, received a job as a highly paid consultant at the Hyundai Corporation.
However, one should not assume that US diplomats did nothing. The Americans used their influence to once again save Kim Dae-jung, who, despite being under arrest at the time, was accused of organizing a rebellion and sentenced to death. However, thanks to a secret agreement, the life of the honored dissident was saved in exchange for Chun Doo Hwan's visit to the United States, which turned out to be the first visit of a foreign president during the Reagan era.

South Korea: Legacy of the Gwangju Uprising

From May 15 to 18, 2009, the International Peace Forum was held in the South Korean city of Gwangju to celebrate the successes of the struggle for democracy in South Korea and to support similar initiatives in other Asian countries. Christopher Kerr, a representative of the South Korean organization Venceremos, met with George Catsificas to discuss the consequences and impact on the subsequent history of the 1980 Gwangju Uprising. J. Katsificas is a professor of sociology, a lecturer at Honam National University, and the author and editor of many books on international social movements, including South Korean Democracy - The Legacy of the Gwangju Uprising and Unknown Uprisings: South Korean Social Movements after World War II).

K. Kerr: What happened in May 1980 in Gwangju and how significant were these events for the democracy movement at that time?

J. Katsificas: Although today South Korea is a democratic state, in 1980 a military dictatorship was established there. There were protests across the country by students trying to encourage the government and citizens to move towards democratic change. The government has threatened drastic measures if the demonstrations do not stop. Strikes in defense of democracy continued only in Gwangju.

Brute army force was used to disperse the demonstrations. Thousands of paratroopers were transferred from the demilitarized zone (the area between South Korea and North Korea), and soldiers were told that the Gwangju uprising had become a "North Korean" anti-government uprising. The arriving special forces brutally attacked people on the streets, including taxi and bus drivers, used bayonets to pacify demonstrators, and killed taxi drivers who were trying to take wounded students to hospitals.

The most impressive thing is that the entire city rose up and defeated the army, drove the troops outside the city limits and held them for five days. On each of these five days, rallies were held in the provincial administration building, which attracted tens of thousands of people. Thus, there was a manifestation of direct democracy in Gwangju, and part of this process was the self-organization of the citizen army to expel regular troops from the city.

Medical teams were formed to help the wounded, students washed the bodies of the dead and laid them in the judo hall so that relatives could come for identification. Volunteers cooked food on the streets, others produced a daily newspaper, which appeared after the various daily leaflets were combined. The whole city amazingly united into a single whole.

All the rallies that took place (sometimes there were two of them in one day: one began at 11 a.m. and the next at 5 p.m.), action plans were thought out for the whole city. So, at the same time, 30,000 people headed to the city’s borders, expressing their desire to hold back the troops and prevent them from breaking into the city. At other times, when there was a general need to take some action, a small group was formed and made a collective decision.

For example, people wanted the release of prisoners. After all, thousands of people were arrested. And there were cases when, at general meetings, people agreed to exchange some weapons seized from the military and police for prisoners. Some weapons were even exchanged for coffins. But the arguments of the “voluntary surrender groups” in favor of surrendering all weapons and a peaceful solution to the problem were not supported by the majority at general meetings, and the example was given of the miners in Sabuk, who, after surrendering their weapons, were treacherously attacked by the military. People said: “No, we are not going to give up our weapons until all our demands are met.”

The strength of Gwangju was that it was mostly ordinary people, because all the activists were either detained or left the city before the siege and were unable to return. This means that there is more space within the city for the democratic movement and for the emergence of new leaders. At that time, there was no person who would control the people and say: “And now we will do this.” And the people rose to the occasion. The army surrounding the city used helicopters to kill demonstrators and also blocked people trying to enter the city to help the rebels.

The American government sent the aircraft carrier Coral Sea to Busan in support of the South Korean army. And on the morning of May 27, 1980 (coincidentally, the day the Paris Commune fell), the army attacked the city; Hundreds of people throughout the city protested against the troops, but resistance was mainly concentrated around the provincial administration building.

We will never know how many people were killed during the uprising, but what we do know is that despite the hundreds killed, many more who were wounded or sentenced to long terms did not stop fighting. At trials, they sang the national anthem and revolutionary songs, threw chairs at the judges, refused to remain silent, and when the bailiffs tried to subdue them, they refused to sit and meekly accept their fate. They fought for the next 16 years and eventually secured prison sentences for dictator Chun Doo-hwan, his top military commander Roh Dae-woo, and about a dozen other army officials for their role in the extermination of people.

Now all these figures have been pardoned by President Kim Yang Sam, who was generally against their prosecution, justifying this with the statute of limitations, but after more than a million signatures were collected, mainly here in Gwangju, people forced the parliament to pass a special law and attract responsibility of Jung Doo-hwan and Roh Dae-woo.

That is, the uprising in Gwangju continued in the form of popular demands for an official apology, compensation for the victims and members of their families, for those who lost their loved ones, for those who were arrested, beaten, and wounded. The end result was to restore the honor and dignity of the people of Gwangju.

Everything that happened here became an example for the people who suffered in 1948 on Jeju Island, which was occupied by American troops. At least 30,000 of the island's 150,000 population were killed, some estimates say even more. We will never know how many tens of thousands of people actually died on Jeju.

But after the special law on Gwangju was passed, the people of Jeju also achieved the adoption of a special law and payment of compensation. They were able to receive joint compensation rather than individually calculated payments. Moreover, President Roh Moo-hyun apologized to the population twice and called Jeju an island of peace.

KK: How did the Gwangju Uprising affect the overall democratic movement in South Korea and what role did it play in overthrowing the military dictatorship?

JK: Gwangju was an aftershock for the democracy movement. Guilt for the hundreds, perhaps thousands, who died there was expressed in anger and rage, directed mainly at the American government and the South Korean army.

I am convinced that great things are achieved through uprisings, even if they fail. Thus, despite the fact that the Gwangju uprising was tactically defeated on May 27, 1980, it subsequently won a strategic victory.

The tactical defeat of Gwangju brought the fight to the next level. Molotov cocktails have already been used here as a means of protection against the brutal police. This is only a small change, but the most important thing is the emergence of the Mingzhong movement.

Mingzhong generally denotes the movement of all people, excluding military dictators and the rich. As an ideological movement, it thoroughly captured the whole of South Korea: there was Minjung theology, Minjung art, Minjung activists, the Minjung feminist movement - its followers arose in a wide variety of areas.

In 1987, the prospect of a revolution led by Minzhong was already looming. This is why the US supported the democratization of South Korea, as they feared that radical revolutionary movements might seize power and dictate their terms. They decided to lead these revolutionary movements under the sign of liberalization of the economy and political system. Gwangju played the main role in the 1987 uprising.

During the unrest in June 1987, one of the main slogans was “Remember Gwangju!” Shame and anger over those terrible killings were the driving forces. As a result of communicating with movement activists, I realized that this was the main incentive to sacrifice and fight.

Seven years after the Gwangju uprising, the June Blast took place, a 19-day nationwide unrest in which a broad coalition of democratic forces advocated for improvements to the constitution that Chun Doo-hwan had refused to revise. They demanded direct presidential elections, expansion of civil liberties, and by the end of the nineteenth day of rallies, hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets without permission and remained there. People attacked the police. Chun Doo-hwan wanted to call up the army again, and he actually called for mobilization, but even the military leaders refused to move against what they called the “ghost of the new Gwangju.”

That is, the fact that Gwangju resisted so violently frightened the army, and in particular frightened the United States, which repeatedly advised Chun Doo-hwan not to use military force, since it could radically change the trajectory of the uprising. It must be remembered that the victory of the June uprising led to the emergence of a labor movement, which subsequently was the basis for the sharp rise of social movements in South Korea.

In general, if not for the resistance shown by the residents of Gwangju, South Korea might still be under the military boot of dictatorship.

KK: Has South Koreans' perception of the American government changed since the Gwangju uprising?

JK: After Gwangju, an important change occurred in the popular consciousness of South Koreans because the real role of the United States government was revealed. Before this, in general, the United States was very popular in South Korea as a defender of democracy.

For example, when people in Gwangju learned that the US warship Coral Sea had entered Korean waters, many thought that the United States was coming to help them, when in reality it was coming to provide logistical support to the South Korean army. The US strongly demanded that no military action be taken against the defenders of Gwangju until the Coral Sea arrived.

Another example: at that time there was a very popular American TV show called S.W.A.T. (“Special Purpose Group”). During the uprising in Gwangju, one of the large detachments that formed took a 12-seater minibus, metal shields were welded onto its sides... Then they armed themselves with everything they could, from grenades and machine guns to anything that could serve as a weapon. Wherever they heard shooting, they rushed there to help the resisting troops. On the side of their car was written S.W.A.T., which they took from a TV show. Imagine these young people who loved America, wore American clothes, watched American shows, going out to fight for freedom “the American way.” And that's when America was actually against them, against democracy in their country, helping to fight against them.

Therefore, after Gwangju, people realized that America does not care about human rights in South Korea; it cares about its own economic and political interests.

KK: Why did the interests of the United States at that time not include democracy in South Korea?

JK: The suppression of the Gwangju uprising by the South Korean and American governments was simultaneously aimed at establishing a new neoliberal regime of capital accumulation. This is important because the same thing happened in Chile a few years earlier: the government of President Salvador Allende was overthrown by the military dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet. In the same year, 1980, a regime of neoliberal capital accumulation was introduced in Turkey through a military coup.

As the United States moved into the next phase of its attempts to establish world domination and impose neoliberalism around the world, the CIA openly overthrew undesirable governments, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the World Trade Organization carried out much more covert manipulations in favor of American corporations and consumers, which, after all, is imperialism. This is the benefit of the few at the expense of the sacrifices of the many.

That is, the point of suppressing the Gwangju uprising was to destroy the system of family business conglomerates (chaebol) in South Korea, which was built by Park Chung Hee, and to create an opportunity for American banks and insurance companies to take leading positions.

After the introduction of the initial phase of the neoliberal regime, the working class was “disciplined” through severe repression and the creation of labor camps, and subsequently through market mechanisms. During the 1997 IMF crisis, American banks were able to buy up Korean banks at extremely low prices, and a few years later sell them for billions of dollars.

If you look at the movements of capital over this period, they are truly enormous and were led, believe it or not, by George W. Bush and a small group of people closely associated with the Carlisle Group. What happened is obvious - this small group was able to benefit from all the major uprisings in Asia.

For example, look at the Philippines: it is obvious that Marcos made billions of dollars for the benefit of his godfathers, relatives and friends. This is why the IMF criticizes crony capitalism, because it is not the Carlisle Group that makes a profit, but local companies. For Jung Doo-hwan and Roh Dae-woo, the South Korean budget and parallel businesses brought in hundreds of millions of dollars. Ro Dae Woo, by the way, during his trial, as part of an agreement between the prosecution and the defense, returned most of the stolen 600 million dollars.

K.K.: In your book dedicated to the Gwangju uprising, you draw parallels between this uprising and the Paris Commune. Could you comment on this?

JK: In the book I noted the coincidence that these two events happened on the same day - May 27th. But there are also other, more important, similarities. In cities where uprisings took place, crime and other social problems practically disappeared, the spirit of unity was so strong that even foreigners were accepted. American Baptist missionary Arnold Peterson talked about how he first wanted to leave the city, and then drove in a car with American flags, and wherever he went, people greeted him with greetings and applause.

In both cities, banks remained untouched. Although the troops held out, the decision was made not to rob the banks. In my opinion, it was a mistake, actually. I believe that the citizen army in Gwangju and the National Guard in Paris should have robbed or seized control of the banks that the working people had been building for generations, instead of leaving them in the hands of the bankers.

There is also one significant difference between the Gwangju uprising and the Paris Commune. In Paris, the Prussian army defeated the French, and the French government surrendered to the Prussians. Despite this, the Parisians refused to submit to the Prussians. The drumbeat of the National Guard, a regular armed force, announced that the city would not surrender. Subsequently, elections were held in the city, this is a form of representative democracy.

There were no army units in Gwangju before the uprising. They had to fight tens of thousands of soldiers equipped with the latest technology. Helicopters and flamethrowers were used against the unarmed townspeople, but the men were able to defeat the army by capturing police armories, dislodging troops, and even shooting down one, possibly two helicopters, eventually forcing the army to retreat outside the city.

That is, the civilian army was able to defeat the regular army, this is a manifestation of direct democracy. Gwangju showed us that the phenomenal forms of unification of human masses - Minzhong - were much more developed at the end of the 20th century than they were in the 19th, that today people are capable of self-organization at a much higher level. We have also seen that in a civil war the population can prevail over the regular troops. Gwangju proved that civil disobedience could, at least for a time, provide effective resistance to the army without a single command center. Could the spirit of Gwangju spread to the entire nation, as the residents themselves hoped? In the June uprising seven years later, this is exactly what happened – a civil movement overthrew a dictatorial regime.

KK: Was Gwangju's legacy felt during the 2008 Light a Candle mass movement in South Korea?

J.K.: In general, it is difficult to directly connect things that are quite far from each other. The Light a Candle movement emerged 28 years after the Gwangju events and took completely different forms than the Gwangju movement. And yet, the idea that an ordinary person can influence government policy is one example of what was instilled in the younger generation of South Korea after Gwangju. The Light a Candle movement was not started by leftists, but by teenage girls who used a music fan site to initially mobilize the public against the government's decision to ease restrictions on American beef imports.

The movement was quickly picked up by the whole country. Therefore, although these facts cannot be directly linked, it is still possible to find arguments in favor of the fact that the example of Gwangju and the idea that an ordinary person can change public policy helped to create this movement. And by the way, from the interview I learned that at least one of the teachers who supported these girls was from Gwangju.

K.K.: What, in general terms, is the attitude of the Lee Myung-bak administration towards civil society in South Korea today?

JK: Basically, this relationship can be described as adversarial. Lee Myung-bak positions himself as a follower of Park Chung-hee and is also a friend of Park Chu-hwan; these are two former military dictators. Essentially, he is trying to roll back all the reforms that civil society was able to achieve in the 80s and 90s.

He suppresses the media and strives to make them as controlled as possible. For example, he arrested people who broadcast the first scandalous facts regarding American beef. He replaced the president of Radio Arirang, a station that has a large audience and often broadcasts programs in English. Cable news channel YTN was also given a new president, which the union opposed.

KBS, the second-largest radio station in South Korea, also appointed a new president, even though his predecessor refused to resign because, according to the station's internal rules, he could not be fired except for gross mismanagement. He refused to leave quietly. The administration of Lee Myung-bak sent the police to arrest the guy and escort him from the radio station building to the station for interrogation; they tried to find signs of criminal activity in his actions, but it didn’t work. And although the case is still in court, Lee Myung-bak has already appointed a new interim president.

Lee Myung-bak also fights against freedom of speech on the Internet. His government helped organize a boycott of newspapers that published articles it did not like, and then confiscated documents and brought charges against the direct organizers of the boycott of three major South Korean newspapers that published blatantly incorrect articles. Chosun Ilbo and Chanan Ilbo are the main newspapers. That is, even despite the fact that the government itself organized an online boycott of the publications of these newspapers, those people who participated in this had problems with the authorities.

The School Teachers' Association also fell out of favor. Lee Myung Bak put the names of all its members in such a light to intimidate other people to join the Association. Civil and criminal lawsuits have been filed against people who organized the peaceful Light a Candle movement last year. He recently declared any form of protest illegal, and demonstrations are now simply prohibited in South Korea. They must now fit within the framework of festivals, religious events, etc.

It is sad to think that the current regime is a step back in the development of democratic freedoms in South Korea, but I hope that the example of Gwangju will inspire people to resist this.