There was a time when being labeled a “revisionist” was very dangerous. A lot of executed citizens of the Soviet Union were executed because they were supposed to be Trotskyites, but quite a few others were, apparently, “revisionists” or at least had “revisionist tendencies”. That was then.
Cover of Bruce Cuming: Korea's Place in the Sun
More recently revisionism was used as a term by fascists to push their version of “the truth” about the Holocaust. Understandably so: “deniers” just didn’t sound right, even though that was of course exactly what they were. But now a revisionist is apparently someone who has a new theory, which I guess is actually the most literal form the word can take. And Bruce CumingsW is in no way afraid to use the term, since it is on the back of his book “Korea’s Place in the Sun”.
The back of this book says this:
“When Korea’s Place in the Sun first appeared, Bruce Cumings argued that Korea had endured a “fractured, shattered twentieth century.” The new century has seen South Korea flourish after a restructuring of its political economy, and North Korea suffer through a famine that has cost the lives of millions of people. The United States continues to play an important role on the Korean peninsula, from the Clinton administration overseeing the first real hints of reunification to the Bush administration confronting a renewal of nuclear threats. On both sides Korea seems poised to continue its fractured existence on into the new century, with potential ramifications for the rest of the world.
For those who need a grounding in the tempestuous history surrounding Korea, or a context in which to understand its role in current global politics, this updated edition of Korea’s Place in the Sun is a must read.”
The book is rather one sided: after some time I really got annoyed by the fact that every single instance of an atrocity by the ROK or the US is being mentioned, but almost no mention is being made of anything nasty that happened in the DPRK either during (and before) the Korean War or after that war. But I guess that is what a revisionist does: giving a new idea about a history we all thought we knew. And since this new idea (new as in: been pushing it since the 80’s) must portray the US as the really bad guys and the ROK as the other bad guys (little Satan and big Satan anybody?) it means that we have to hear about all the bad stuff being done in the South, while only hearing generalized token critique of the North. Besides that, Cumings also has the typical problem of any postmodernist politically correct figure: he has to show everybody due respect (like the Koreans with their high culture), but at the same time can’t give anyone too much respect, because that would be racist or discriminatory to other cultures (which have done less in terms of development). Ah well, the life of the politically correct. Never mind, the book was nice enough to read. And with a cheap dollar and fast mail service, why not bother with buying this book yourself?
It is of course professor Myers who wrote the funniest but most damning review of this book and Cumings other books in general so far: http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200409/myers Basically, Myers calls Cumings a fellow traveler, not using the word but alluring to it with the reference to Moscow in the 30’s. Very true indeed. However, Myers is also something of a nutcase, see the article on Wikipedia about Brian Reynolds MyersW. But, I still did buy the book, and not just for the low price. The reason I bought the book is because of the Jeju UprisingW. And of course, there is some text in the book on this situation (pages 219-221):
Before 1950 no place suffered the political conflicts of liberated Korea like Cheju, a beautiful island covered with black volcanic rock, where guerrilla war began in 1948. The effective political leadership on Cheju until early 1948 was provided by strong, rooted people’s committees that first emerged in August 1945; as General Hodge once put it, Cheju was “a truly communal area . . . peacefully controlled by the People’s Committee without much Comintern [i.e., Soviet] influence.” An official investigation by the USAMGIK judge Yang WOn-il conducted in June 1948 found that “the People’s Committee of Cheju Island, which was formed after the liberation. . . has exercised its power as a de facto government.” He also found that “the police have failed to win the hearts of the people by treating them cruelly.” Shortly thereafter another USAMGIK investigation estimated that “approximately two-thirds of the populace” on the island were “moderate leftist” in their opinions. The chairman of leftist organization, a former Cheju governor named Pak, was “not a Communist and [was] very pro-American.” The people were deeply separatist and did not like mainlanders; their wish was to be left alone.
The survey determined, however, that Cheju had been subjected to a campaign of official terrorism in recent months. According to CIC information, the current governor, Yu Hae-jin, was an “extreme rightist,” a mainlander with connections to two right-wing youth groups; he was “ruthless and dictatorial in his dealing with opposing political parties.”
Governor Yu had filled national police units on the island with mainland.. ers and North Koreans, who worked together with “ultra rightist party terrorists.” When Americans interviewed Governor Yu in February 1948, he acknowledged that he had utilized “extreme rightist power” to reorient the Cheju people, “the large majority” of whom were leftist. He justified this by saying that “there was no middle line” in Island politics; one supported either the left or the right.
After a March 1, 1948, demonstration against the separate elections on the mainland, the police arrested 2,500 young people, and islanders soon fished the dead body of one of them out of a river: he had been tortured to death. But the affair that most inflamed the island population was the unleashing of the Northwest Youth. In late 1947 the American Counter-Intelligence Corps had “warned” this group about its “widespread campaign of terrorism” on Cheju. But under the American command, these same youths joined the police and constabulary in the Cheju guerrilla suppression campaigns. As a subsequent Korean press investigation put it,
Since the coming of a youth organization, whose members are young men from Northwest Korea, the feeling between the [island] inhabitants and those from the mainland has been growing tense.. . . They may have been inspired by the Communists. Yet, how shall we understand how over 30,000 men have roused themselves to action in defiance of gun and sword. Without cause, there can be no action.
The Northwest Youth Corps was said to have “exercised police power more than the police itself and their cruel behavior has invited the deep resentment of the inhabitants.” All this helped to touch off a guerrilla rebellion.
The guerrillas generally were known as the inmin-gun, or People’s Army, estimated to be 3,000 to 4,000 strong. But they were not centrally commanded and operated in mobile units of eighty or a hundred people who often had little connection with other rebels. The Japanese had left a honeycomb of caves, tunnels, and defensive bunkers on the island; caches of small arms were also left in some of the caves, which the guerrillas utilized. They hid in these emplacements, striking from mountains that commanded the coastal road and low-lying villages. By early
June 1948 most villages in the interior were controlled by the guerrillas; roads and bridges were destroyed throughout the island.
By the end of 1948 ROK authorities had recorded 102 battles, more than 5,000 combatants on both sides, nearly 6,000 islanders in custody, and a claimed total of 422 dead insurgents. By April 1949 some 20,000 homes on the island had been destroyed, and one-third of the island population (about 100,000) was concentrated in protected villages along the coast. In the same month the American embassy reported that “the all-out guerrilla extermination campaign . . . came to a virtual end in April with order restored and most rebels and sympathizers killed, captured, or converted.” Some American sources thought that 15,000 to 20,000 islanders died in the conflict, but the ROK news agency cited an official figure of 27,719; the North Korean figure was 30,000. The governor of Cheju, however, privately told American intelligence that 60,000 had died and that as many as 40,000 had fled to Japan; officially 39,285 homes had been demolished, but the governor thought “most of the houses on the hills” were gone: of 400 villages, only 170 remained. In other words, one in every five or six islanders had perished and more than half the villages been destroyed.
(To be honest, I don’t know if I am allowed to quote so much text without copyright infringement. For the time being I think I’ll just run the risk until someone tells me not to do this…)
By the way: another interesting article about the Jeju Uprising can be found on the Newsweek site: http://www.newsweek.com/id/85131 The layout is gone, but all the text is still there.
The details of the book can be found at Amazon’s website. Also, you may want to have a look at Cuming’s other books:
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