Communist Party of Korea
조선공산당
Korean communist party founded in secret in Seoul on 17 April 1925. Operating clandestinely under the Peace Preservation Law, it was repeatedly broken up by arrests and rebuilt, and after years of factional feuds it was disbanded by the Comintern in December 1928. Pak Hon-yong re-established it in September 1945, and in 1946 its northern organisation merged into the Workers' Party of North Korea and its southern organisation into the Workers' Party of South Korea.
In depth
The first attempt to organise a communist party inside Korea was made by Chŏng Chae-dal in 1923, but he was arrested in 1924. On 17 April 1925, 15 people founded the Communist Party of Korea at the Chinese restaurant Ya Shue Yuen in Seoul, on a day when the Japanese police were focused on the All-Korea Press Reporters' Conference. The Korean-language source names Pak Hon-yong, Kim Tan-ya and Cho Pong-am among the founders. On 18 April the Central Executive Committee met in Kim Ch'an's home and elected Kim Chae-bong as chair, and the same day the Koryŏ Communist Youth Association was formed with Pak Hon-yong as its secretary. The party sent Cho Tong-ho to the Soviet Union to seek Comintern recognition, which it received in May 1926; it was formally admitted at the Comintern's 6th World Congress on 1 September 1928.
In November 1925 a brawl between party members and Japanese police in Sinuiju led to the discovery of party documents; about 100 people were arrested and 83 convicted (the first Communist Party incident). Kang Tal-yŏng took over the leadership in December, and Kim Chae-bong was arrested. By March 1926 the party had 130 members. It prepared for the June Tenth Movement at the funeral of Emperor Sunjong, but around 160 people, including Kwon O-sŏl, were arrested and Kang was seized on 17 July (the second incident). The Declaration of Chŏng-u-hoe issued by the January Association in November 1926 called for a united front with nationalists, and the party reorganised at the Second Party Congress in December (the so-called ML party) was also hit by mass arrests in February 1928. Ch'a Kŭm-bong, secretary from March 1928, was arrested in the round-ups of July–August and died in prison. The English-language source puts those arrested at around 175, the Korean-language source at over 170.
Following Comintern policy, the party had its members join Singanhoe, founded in 1927. But because of the feuds between the Tuesday, Seoul and ML factions that had plagued it from its foundation, the Comintern disbanded the party in December 1928; the Korean-language source describes this as a temporary dissolution under the December Theses. Later attempts to rebuild it in Manchuria and Korea failed under repeated arrests, and in 1930 the Comintern assigned the task to the Manchurian Provincial Committee of the Chinese Communist Party.
Right after liberation in August 1945 Yi Yong and others formed the Changan group, and Pak Hon-yong re-established the Communist Party of Korea on 11 September; the Changan group dissolved itself and joined Pak on 23 November. On 13 October the North Korea Bureau of the party was set up in Pyongyang under Kim Yong-bom, whom Kim Il Sung replaced in December; official North Korean historiography celebrates 10 October as the party's foundation day. The party at first opposed the Moscow Conference's trusteeship plan but switched to supporting it on 3 January 1946. The North Korea Bureau became the Communist Party of North Korea in 1946 and merged with the New People's Party to form the Workers' Party of North Korea; the English-language source dates the renaming to April 1946, the Korean article on the Workers' Party of Korea to 22 June. In the south, a general strike led by the party in September drew more than 250,000 workers and grew into the Autumn Uprising; Pak Hon-yong fled north in October to escape an arrest warrant, and on 23 November the party merged with the New People's Party and part of the People's Party to form the Workers' Party of South Korea.