He met Lenin and Sun Yat-sen, then staked everything on left-right unity: the last Korean unificationist before partition
“A revolutionary does not die in bed. I will die in the street.” He said this to his children after surviving multiple assassination attempts. On 19 July 1947, at the Hyehwa-dong rotary, a bullet from the White Shirts Society found him.
In 1918 he founded the New Korean Youth League and sparked the March First Movement through the February 8 Declaration of Independence. He co-founded the Korean Provisional Government, met Lenin and Trotsky in Moscow (1922), and joined the Chinese Nationalist Party at Sun Yat-sen's invitation. In August 1945 he secured peaceful transfer of authority from Japan's governor-general, formed the Committee for Preparation of Korean Independence, and became vice-chair of the People's Republic of Korea. In 1946–47 he led the left-right cooperation movement with Kim Kyu-sik, the last serious attempt at a unified Korea, before being assassinated by a right-wing terrorist. He is officially honored by both South and North Korea.
Career Timeline
- 1918Founded New Korean Youth League in Shanghai; became its leader
- 1919Led the February 8 Declaration of Independence; Deputy Foreign Minister of the Korean Provisional Government
- 1920–1922Joined Koryŏ Communist Party (Shanghai faction); met Lenin and Trotsky at the Congress of the Peoples of the East in Moscow
- 1925–1929Joined Chinese Nationalist Party at Sun Yat-sen's invitation; participated in First United Front
- 1933–1936President of Chosun JoongAng Ilbo; Chairman of Joseon Sports Council
- 1944Founded the secret Korean Restoration Brotherhood; built nationwide network
- 1945.8–9Chairman, Committee for Preparation of Korean Independence; Vice-Chair, People's Republic of Korea
- 1946–1947Led left-right cooperation movement with Kim Kyu-sik; Chairman, Labor People's Party
The Left-Right Cooperation Movement and Unitary Social Democracy
In July 1946, Lyuh joined Kim Kyu-sik and An Jae-hong in forming the Left-Right Cooperation Committee, where he served as the left-wing representative. The movement aimed to overcome the extreme polarization that had gripped post-liberation Korea over the trusteeship question, and to establish a unified provisional government through the revival of the US-Soviet Joint Commission. In October 1946, the committee announced the Seven Principles of Left-Right Cooperation, which included free land distribution to peasants, nationalization of major industries, liquidation of pro-Japanese collaborators, and guarantees of political freedom. These hard-won concessions from both sides won broad popular support: a 1946 US military government survey found 70% of respondents favored socialism and 85% supported representative democracy. Yet the Korean Democratic Party opposed free land distribution, the Korean Communist Party rejected compensated confiscation, and as the Cold War hardened, the US military government withdrew its backing in March 1947. Lyuh anchored the movement in his own philosophy of 'Unitary Social Democracy,' rooted in the egalitarianism of the Tonghak religion and Christian humanism, seeking to fuse socialistic welfare with democratic politics. His assassination by the right-wing White Shirts Society in July 1947 deprived the movement of its gravitational center; the committee formally dissolved that December. Though it failed, the spirit of left-right cooperation carried forward into the North-South negotiations led by Kim Kyu-sik.