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
Kim San was an internationalist socialist who fought across the Korean independence movement and the Chinese Revolution. He left twenty-two interviews with American journalist Nym Wales in Yan'an that became Song of Arirang (1941), a first-person account of that struggle; in 1938 he was executed on false spy charges and rehabilitated by the CCP in 1983.
Activities and affiliations
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