“In every way, I reject dictatorial rules and tendencies. I shout to our compatriots. Be careful lest we find ourselves under a dictatorship. I shout that we should build a nation in which each individual among our people enjoys freedom of speech to its fullest and things are done according to opinions of our entire people. ... A nation that is as wide as the earth and as free as the sky.” - Kim Koo (1876-1949), “My Wish”

As evidenced by the above citation from Baekbeom’s 1947 statement of political philosophy titled “My Wish,” Kim Koo starkly forewarned Koreans never to permit the peninsula to succumb to totalitarianism. He would be most displeased with contemporary North Korea’s reality.

The Kim dynasty’s vile propaganda and bald-faced lies regarding Baekbeom (Kim Koo’s pen name) are aimed at sowing seeds of discord in the South and generating mass confusion as to his legacy -- the truth of which poses a formidable threat to the dynasty’s quest for profoundly unearned legitimacy.

For instance, the Kim dynasty has insolently libeled Kim Koo as having said, “If I knew you earlier, Kim Il-sung, I would have served him. Now, finally, I encountered the real patriot; even if it’s belatedly, I dedicate the rest of my life to thee.”

The Kim dynasty also nefariously propagandizes that during an encounter in 1948, Baekbeom fell upon his knees multiple times and worshipped Kim Il-sung while sobbing and begging for forgiveness because he had not been aware of him previously.

As was touched on in an earlier article headlined “Baekbeom and NK human rights,” an unsavory result of Kim Koo’s considerable popularity among Koreans is that he became one of the most tempting historical figures for the Kim despots -- or anyone seeking to amass political power or influence in Korea -- to misappropriate.

How could Baekbeom fall so far as to worship someone who Korea specialist Gregory Henderson described as the bewilderingly “obscure” Kim Il-sung? The young, ambitious and unprincipled Kim had no pathway to power except for the one that was exclusively imperialist and brought within reach by national division -- effectively handed to him on a silver plate.

Another Korea scholar who esteems objectivity, Chong-sik Lee, wrote in “Politics in North Korea: Pre-Korean War Stage” (1963), “Kim Il-sung was little known among the Korean people, and he could never have attained his present position without Russian help.”

Not so obscure was Baekbeom’s co-laborer for independence Cho Man-sik, who was unjustly imprisoned by the time of the said 1948 meeting.

As Lee noted, “the political group that had the most vitality and potentiality” in northern Korea circa 1945 was the “non-Communist,” population, which of their own volition had decided on Cho as chief. Even prominent Korean communists acknowledged “Cho Man-sik as the national symbol and supreme leader,” Lee and other scholars highlighted.

Celebrated across the peninsula, Cho was designated Korea’s Gandhi for his discipline and compassion, scrupulous commitment to peace and nonviolent methods, along with a singularly proven record of resistance to Japanese imperialism.

As Lee underscores, following Japan’s defeat in World War II, “the Japanese governor in South Pyongan Province, who had the best available information on the distribution of power among Korean political figures, transferred his authority to ... Cho Man-sik.”

“Even the Soviet Army that moved into North Korea ... found it expedient to appoint Cho as the chief of the Provisional Political Committee and later the Five Provinces Administration Bureau, a native governing body over the entire Soviet zone of occupation,” he added.

Besides referring to him as “previously obscure,” Gregory Henderson wrote concerning Kim Il-sung -- whose real name is Kim Seong-ju -- in “Divided Nations in a Divided World” (1974), “Virtually unknown inside Korea until liberation, the reasons behind choosing him are a closely held communist secret.”

Baekbeom never mentions Kim in his famous memoir, “Baekbeom Ilji” (1947). It seems he had never heard of him. The fellow was even obscure among Korean communists. For example, in Jang Ji-rak’s memoir “Song of Arirang” (1941), which chronicles the activities of such individuals, Kim Il-sung, under whatsoever moniker, once again isn’t mentioned, though a superior of his who later became a Japanese collaborator is referenced.

In a last-ditch endeavor to prevent war and what they feared would lead to the permanent division of the country, while also pursuing related objectives such as securing Cho’s freedom, Baekbeom attended a controversial April 1948 gathering in Pyongyang with associate Kim Kyu-sik. Kim Il-sung reportedly assured there wouldn’t be war.

Subsequently, Baekbeom and Kim Kyu-sik issued a joint statement indicating Kim Il-sung promised to “release Cho Man-sik,” who had been unethically and lawlessly incarcerated for his concurrence with the nationwide anti-trusteeship, pro-immediate independence movement.

For all its pretentious jargon about “independence” and opportunistic railing against “imperialism,” the Kim dynasty’s progenitor complied with “trusteeship,” knowing full well without Soviet patrons his unlikely bid for power would come briskly and comprehensively undone.

In reality, Korea’s division incubated and fathered the Kim family dynasty, which had no chance of succeeding in a free and democratic climate.

As Korea scholar Henderson, who was employed at the American Embassy over the Korean War’s outbreak, underlined in “Conflict in World Politics” (1971), “American planners operating in the face of both knowledge and warnings enabled the Soviets to achieve in Korea what they had denied them in Japan: a separate occupation zone in which they could, unhindered, work their separate will.”

In as much as necessitous promises -- apropos of life and death, as well as national survival -- were maliciously transgressed, Baekbeom would by no means have stood aloof while the people he cherished and devoted his entire life to aid were being massacred by the millions with modern armaments, culminating in a cease-fire and the Korean Peninsula still excruciatingly divided at war’s stoppage; he would be immeasurably appalled and aghast.

Pacifist hero Cho -- who played a pivotal role in March 1919’s peaceful demonstrations chasing freedom -- was murdered at Kim Il-sung’s behest during the horrendous war. If Koreans’ just, reasonable and consistently expressed wishes for a unified and independent government had been heeded -- instead of division, and other experimental policies history will forever frown upon -- the North could have turned out differently, conceivably as a kind of prototype advancing goals such as global harmony and world peace.

If Kim Koo were alive he would call for the immediate release of all the North’s political prisoners. Brave, noble and kindhearted Koreans such as Cho have received the most inhuman of punishments -- having been executed or held in lifetime-imprisonment death camps, along with their family members and children -- merely for holding fast to their integrity.

Kim Koo would speak against and counteract in the strongest, most unmistakable terms reports of the cruelest and most sadistic torture, the forced starvation of innocents made to do life-threatening, perilous slave labor -- including at nuclear test sites without any protective gear -- and arbitrary killings.

Today’s North Korea mirrors the fascist Japanese empire Kim Koo fought with all of his abilities, meager resources and might to expel from Korea -- and under which he was brutalized as a political prisoner.

Baekbeom would work to undermine such unjust totalitarianism and labor assiduously to effectively deliver the North’s political prisoners, who are citizens of the Republic of Korea and most deserving of ROK protection, life-saving assistance and freedom.


By Robert Park

Robert Park is a founding member of the nonpartisan Worldwide Coalition to Stop Genocide in North Korea, minister, musician and former prisoner of conscience. -- Ed.


(This article is second in a three-part series.)