A short-lived attempt (1929–1931) by Korean anarchists and nationalist independence fighters in northern Manchuria to turn a Korean exile administration into a federation of self-governing village councils and cooperatives, ended by assassinations and the Japanese invasion of Manchuria. Sources are scarce and partisan.
After Japan annexed Korea in 1910, hundreds of thousands of Koreans migrated to Manchuria, where they farmed land rented from Chinese landlords and lived under weak and competing authorities: Chinese warlord administration, Japanese consular police and Korean independence groups. In the 1920s Korean nationalists organised three "prefectures" (bu) that taxed and governed Korean settlers and supported armed resistance. One of them, the Shinmin-bu (New People's Prefecture, from 1925), operated in the north among settlers around Ning'an and Hailin. Its military leader was Kim Jwa-jin, known for the victory over Japanese troops at Cheongsanri in 1920.
At the same time, Korean anarchists in China and Japan, influenced by Kropotkin and by Chinese and Japanese anarchism, were looking for a place to build a society based on mutual aid. Dongyoun Hwang describes their turn to Manchuria as "place-based anarchism": an effort to ground the independence movement in self-governing Korean communities rather than in a future state.
In July 1929 anarchists founded the Korean Anarchist Federation in Manchuria at Hailin. In August, with Kim Jwa-jin's support, the Shinmin-bu was reorganised as the Korean People's Association in Manchuria (KPAM, Hanjok Chongyonhaphoe), with Kim as chair. Its stated principles, as reported in movement histories, were:
How far these principles were put into practice is hard to establish. Most detailed accounts come from participants and sympathisers, notably Ha Ki-rak's movement history, and from later anarchist literature. Popular accounts sometimes credit the region with a population of two million, a figure that exceeds most estimates of the entire Korean population of Manchuria at the time and should not be relied on.
The settlers were mostly poor tenant farmers growing rice on land rented from Chinese landlords. KPAM's programme aimed to reduce dependence on landlords and merchants through cooperatives and mutual banks, to fund schools, and to finance armed units through contributions rather than the compulsory levies of the earlier prefecture. Given the region's poverty and insecurity, resources were very limited.
KPAM faced enemies on all sides. Korean communists competed for the same settlers and denounced anarchists and nationalists; Japanese consular police and agents hunted independence fighters; Chinese authorities alternately tolerated and suppressed Korean organisations. In January 1930 Kim Jwa-jin was shot dead, by most accounts by a Korean communist; responsibility and motive are still debated. Other leaders were arrested by Japanese police or killed in 1930–1931. Internal tensions between nationalists who wanted a disciplined independence army and anarchists who wanted voluntary federation also weakened the association.
After the Mukden Incident of 18 September 1931, the Japanese army occupied Manchuria and in 1932 created the puppet state of Manchukuo. The KPAM could not survive; surviving anarchists moved to Chinese cities and later joined anti-Japanese resistance. The episode is remembered in anarchist histories as one of the few attempts at anarchist territorial self-government in Asia, alongside the Ukrainian Free Territory and revolutionary Catalonia. Historians such as Hwang treat it as a serious experiment but stress how little reliable documentation exists.
Korean anarchists and nationalist commanders reorganised an exile administration into an association committed to village self-government, cooperatives, free schools and self-defence. How much of the programme was implemented is uncertain; the evidence comes mostly from participants and sympathisers.
The association was squeezed between Japanese police, Korean communists and Chinese authorities. Kim Jwa-jin was assassinated in January 1930 and other leaders were arrested or killed. The Japanese occupation of Manchuria after September 1931 ended it; survivors fled to Chinese cities.
In 1929 Korean anarchists and the nationalist commander Kim Jwa-jin reorganised the Shinmin-bu in northern Manchuria into the Korean People's Association in Manchuria, committed to village self-government, cooperatives and free schooling.[1][2]
The Korean People's Association in Manchuria governed an anarchist society of about two million people.[1][2]
The association was undermined by the assassination of Kim Jwa-jin in January 1930 and the arrest or killing of other leaders, and ended with the Japanese occupation of Manchuria from September 1931.[1]