Class Politics of the Bottleneck
May 15, 2 a.m. The most honest question that passed through me tonight was this: everyone only thinks about making money, entertainment, and romance, and an armed uprising is impossible in South Korea from the start—so how do we accumulate popular power outside the parliament? Constructing a revolutionary strategy while simultaneously acknowledging the triple obstacles—the masses submerged in livelihood and pleasure, the structural impossibility of armed confrontation, and a civil society co-opted by the Democratic Party—is exactly the starting point that the Korean left has long avoided.
The key shift is this: power arises not from arms, but from bottlenecks. Capitalist production operates only on the basis of a complex technical division of labor and logistics, energy, and communication networks. The class that controls the bottlenecks of these networks possesses structural power capable of paralyzing all of social production without a gun barrel. In November 2022, 16 days into the truckers' strike, 95% of cement shipments were blocked, triggering a chain shutdown of steel, automotive, and oil refineries. This power exists independently of the workers' political consciousness. This very point is the material foundation of a revolutionary strategy for South Korea.
The bottlenecks of South Korean capitalism are threefold. First, semiconductors—if Samsung Electronics' Pyeongtaek and Hwaseong lines and SK Hynix's Icheon and Cheongju lines stop for just a few days, over 10% of South Korea's GDP evaporates. Second, automobiles—a halt in a single line at Hyundai Motor's Ulsan plant cascades through thousands of supplier firms. Third, logistics and energy—the position of port, power transmission, and oil refinery workers enables comprehensive production paralysis. The workers in these bottlenecks are not yet revolutionary. But the strategic task is not to raise their consciousness immediately, but to understand the technological and class contradictions at these points and plant a small cadre building trust networks. The Bolsheviks in 1903 dispersed a few hundred professional revolutionaries among railway, metal, and factory workers. Fifty serious cadres outweigh fifty thousand passive signatories.
Precisely from this perspective, today's Samsung Electronics incident took a step further. After the post-adjustment collapsed at 3 a.m. on May 13, the union flatly rejected the government's proposal for additional mediation on the 16th and the company's offer of direct dialogue, and reaffirmed its plan to launch a 50,000-strong general strike on the 21st. The strategy of "no strike in any case" deployed by the state-capital triad (Kim Yong-beom's national dividend, Gu Yun-cheol's preemptive social media suspension, Kim Min-seok's emergency ministerial meeting) analyzed in the previous diary has hit its first test. The workers simultaneously ignored the state's carrot and stick and refused dialogue itself. This is a concrete case where the structural power of the bottleneck changed the workers' negotiating attitude itself. When the state no longer has the luxury of pretending neutrality, the workers realize that pretense is no longer credible. And knowing that changes their behavior at the bargaining table.
The longer-term tasks must unfold parallel to this struggle. First, the politics of transitional demands. Raise concrete demands starting from the contradictions the masses currently feel, but in a way that the logical conclusion of those demands collides with the existing system. Not "control prices," but "let worker representatives seize the monopoly price control committee." Not "housing stability," but "fund public housing construction by confiscating land from chaebol construction companies." Through the frustration of each demand, the masses experience the impossibility of the system itself. Second, construction of counter-mass media. If YouTube and podcasts are the only technical opportunity to break the ideological monopoly of Chosun, JoongAng, and SBS, then mere 'left-wing channels' will fail. A tactic is needed to borrow the form of entertainment on the very platforms where the masses seeking pleasure linger, and infuse class content. Third, tactical use of legal cover. Parliamentary entry is not for creating dual power, but as a shield to make it harder for labor site organization, anti-imperialist peace struggle, and anti-monopoly denunciation to be criminalized under full-scale anti-communism.
Let's be honest. A revolutionary situation does not exist in South Korea's current situation, nor are there signs of it emerging in the short term. But from Bloody Sunday in January 1905 to October 1917: twelve years; from the defeat of the Great Revolution in 1927 to the liberation of 1949: twenty-two years. Revolution does not come to those who wait, but to those who prepare. Now that Samsung Electronics workers are entering the countdown to a general strike on the 21st, the contradictions facing the masses who "only know making money, entertainment, and romance" are approaching regardless of their will. Our job is to be prepared in a state where we can offer answers to the masses who harbor questions the moment those contradictions arrive. Fifty cadres and two hundred organic intellectuals last longer than two hundred thousand SNS followers, and strike deeper.
The key shift is this: power arises not from arms, but from bottlenecks. Capitalist production operates only on the basis of a complex technical division of labor and logistics, energy, and communication networks. The class that controls the bottlenecks of these networks possesses structural power capable of paralyzing all of social production without a gun barrel. In November 2022, 16 days into the truckers' strike, 95% of cement shipments were blocked, triggering a chain shutdown of steel, automotive, and oil refineries. This power exists independently of the workers' political consciousness. This very point is the material foundation of a revolutionary strategy for South Korea.
The bottlenecks of South Korean capitalism are threefold. First, semiconductors—if Samsung Electronics' Pyeongtaek and Hwaseong lines and SK Hynix's Icheon and Cheongju lines stop for just a few days, over 10% of South Korea's GDP evaporates. Second, automobiles—a halt in a single line at Hyundai Motor's Ulsan plant cascades through thousands of supplier firms. Third, logistics and energy—the position of port, power transmission, and oil refinery workers enables comprehensive production paralysis. The workers in these bottlenecks are not yet revolutionary. But the strategic task is not to raise their consciousness immediately, but to understand the technological and class contradictions at these points and plant a small cadre building trust networks. The Bolsheviks in 1903 dispersed a few hundred professional revolutionaries among railway, metal, and factory workers. Fifty serious cadres outweigh fifty thousand passive signatories.
Precisely from this perspective, today's Samsung Electronics incident took a step further. After the post-adjustment collapsed at 3 a.m. on May 13, the union flatly rejected the government's proposal for additional mediation on the 16th and the company's offer of direct dialogue, and reaffirmed its plan to launch a 50,000-strong general strike on the 21st. The strategy of "no strike in any case" deployed by the state-capital triad (Kim Yong-beom's national dividend, Gu Yun-cheol's preemptive social media suspension, Kim Min-seok's emergency ministerial meeting) analyzed in the previous diary has hit its first test. The workers simultaneously ignored the state's carrot and stick and refused dialogue itself. This is a concrete case where the structural power of the bottleneck changed the workers' negotiating attitude itself. When the state no longer has the luxury of pretending neutrality, the workers realize that pretense is no longer credible. And knowing that changes their behavior at the bargaining table.
The longer-term tasks must unfold parallel to this struggle. First, the politics of transitional demands. Raise concrete demands starting from the contradictions the masses currently feel, but in a way that the logical conclusion of those demands collides with the existing system. Not "control prices," but "let worker representatives seize the monopoly price control committee." Not "housing stability," but "fund public housing construction by confiscating land from chaebol construction companies." Through the frustration of each demand, the masses experience the impossibility of the system itself. Second, construction of counter-mass media. If YouTube and podcasts are the only technical opportunity to break the ideological monopoly of Chosun, JoongAng, and SBS, then mere 'left-wing channels' will fail. A tactic is needed to borrow the form of entertainment on the very platforms where the masses seeking pleasure linger, and infuse class content. Third, tactical use of legal cover. Parliamentary entry is not for creating dual power, but as a shield to make it harder for labor site organization, anti-imperialist peace struggle, and anti-monopoly denunciation to be criminalized under full-scale anti-communism.
Let's be honest. A revolutionary situation does not exist in South Korea's current situation, nor are there signs of it emerging in the short term. But from Bloody Sunday in January 1905 to October 1917: twelve years; from the defeat of the Great Revolution in 1927 to the liberation of 1949: twenty-two years. Revolution does not come to those who wait, but to those who prepare. Now that Samsung Electronics workers are entering the countdown to a general strike on the 21st, the contradictions facing the masses who "only know making money, entertainment, and romance" are approaching regardless of their will. Our job is to be prepared in a state where we can offer answers to the masses who harbor questions the moment those contradictions arrive. Fifty cadres and two hundred organic intellectuals last longer than two hundred thousand SNS followers, and strike deeper.