Internationalist socialist who fought across the Korean independence movement and the Chinese Revolution, subject of Song of Arirang
"Even in death, I want to see Korea's independence and the victory of the socialism I have believed in all my life." — to Nym Wales in Yan'an, 1937
Born in Ryongchon, North Pyongan Province. After joining the March 1st Movement in 1919, he traveled to Japan and China, joining the CCP in 1922. He studied at Whampoa Military Academy and Sun Yat-sen University, fought with the Red Army in the 1927 Guangzhou Uprising, and founded the Alliance for the Liberation of the Korean People in Shanghai in 1936. In 1937 he gave over 22 interviews in Yan'an to American journalist Nym Wales; the resulting book Song of Arirang (1941) became a vivid first-person account of the Korean independence struggle and the Chinese Revolution. In 1938 he was framed as a 'Trotskyist and Japanese spy' by Kang Sheng's security apparatus and executed; the CCP formally rehabilitated him in 1983.
Career Timeline
- 1919Participated in March First Movement; detained by Japanese police for 3 days
- 1921Studied in Tokyo, then moved to China
- 1922Joined the Chinese Communist Party
- 1923Joined Communist Youth League; published magazine Revolution
- 1925–1927Studied at Whampoa Academy & Sun Yat-sen University; fought in Guangzhou Uprising
- 1936Founded Alliance for Liberation of the Korean People in Shanghai; elected Korean revolutionary representative
- 1937Lecturer at Yan'an Anti-Japanese Military Academy; interviewed by Nym Wales
- 1938Arrested by Kang Sheng's security apparatus; executed on false espionage charges