1883–1950
Death date and circumstances unconfirmed
Kodang Cho Man-sik, the Korean Democratic Party leader removed from the northern political stage in 1946
On 30 December 1945 Cho's party adopted its anti-trusteeship resolution despite pressure from the Soviet military command, and on 5 January 1946 the command confined him to the Koryo Hotel. From this point nationalists disappeared from the northern political stage and the left took the lead.
Cho Man-sik (1883-1950), pen name Kodang, was born in Kangso, South Pyongan Province, and worked as an educator, Presbyterian elder, journalist and politician. He graduated from Meiji University in 1913, taught at Osan School and became its headmaster in 1915, and later headed the Pyongyang YMCA, the Korean Product Promotion Society and the Chosun Ilbo. He pursued anti-Japanese activity on Gandhi's nonviolent line. After liberation he chaired the South Pyongan Committee for the Preparation of Korean Independence and then the South Pyongan People's Political Committee, a left-right coalition that also included the South Pyongan Communist Party. He founded the Korean Democratic Party on 3 November 1945, and on 5 January 1946 the Soviet military command confined him to the Koryo Hotel. No confirmed reports of him remain and his death is reported rather than established.
Also known as: Kodang · Jo Mansik
Activities and affiliations
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1945–1946
Political and party leadership
Career Timeline
- 1913–1915Graduated from Meiji University in 1913, became a teacher at Osan School that year and its headmaster in 1915, working in national education
- 1920s–1930sGeneral secretary of the Pyongyang YMCA and elder at Sanjonghyon Church; president of the Korean Product Promotion Society, chair of the Sin'ganhoe Pyongyang branch and president of the Chosun Ilbo
- 1945.08Chaired the South Pyongan Committee for the Preparation of Korean Independence, then the South Pyongan People's Political Committee, a left-right coalition
- 1945.10–11Land reform and tenancy disputes over the 7:3 system exposed his position; right-wing members left the committee for the South, and on 24 November its name dropped "political", turning it into a left-led body
- 1945.11.03Founded the Korean Democratic Party and was elected its leader on an anti-trusteeship line
- 1945.12.30His party's central committee adopted an anti-trusteeship resolution rejecting trusteeship outright
- 1946.01.05Confined to the Koryo Hotel by the Soviet military command and removed from the political stage
- 1946.02Choe Yong-gon took over the party, and its first congress on 24 February elected him leader
- 1948–1950Kept in detention without trial amid failed exchange talks; confirmed reports end and his death is reported and presumed, its date and circumstances not established
Related historical events
Left-Right Relations and the Erosion of His Base, 1945
On 27 August 1945, under Soviet military influence, Cho brought the South Pyongan Committee for the Preparation of Korean Independence together with the South Pyongan Korean Communist Party into the South Pyongan People's Political Committee and took its chairmanship. Hyon Chun-hyok and O Yun-son became co-vice-chairmen, so left and right sat in one body. Cho acted on national interest rather than an ideological yardstick, and cooperated with the left under Soviet occupation whenever he judged the nation's interest to require it. Hyon was his channel to the Communist Party, but in September 1945, after a meeting, gunmen shot Hyon dead as the two rode in the same car. Cho lost that channel and suffered a personal loss.
Tenancy and land reform narrowed his base further. The communist group demanded the 7-to-3 tenant-landlord share and confiscation and distribution of land without compensation, while the right-wing nationalists around Cho would not accept even the 7-to-3 formula. In October 1945 Cho intervened to avert a break: only the 7-to-3 formula was adopted and uncompensated confiscation and distribution was deferred. Commentators read the episode less as a demonstration of his mediating skill than as an exposure of his limits, since he was placed in the position of defending landlord and capitalist interests. Nationalists left the committee and crossed south of the 38th parallel, and on 24 November the body dropped the word political from its name, turning from a left-right coalition into a left organization; his closest comrade O Yun-son effectively resigned.
When the trusteeship crisis arrived at the end of December, Cho had therefore already lost much of his political capital, though the Korean Democratic Party's influence remained broad enough to attract half a million members within three months of its founding, and he refused to bend on opposing trusteeship. Trusteeship was the turning point at which Cho and the Korean Democratic Party were removed from the political stage, yet scholars note that until then he had avoided a fundamental collision with the Soviet military command and Kim Il Sung and manoeuvred flexibly. The departures over the tenancy question, by contrast, show his failure to link organizationally with tenant farmers and workers, a condition that left the anti-trusteeship campaign without a mass base.