New People's Party of Korea
조선신민당
Party founded in Pyongyang on 16 February 1946 by Kim Tu-bong and the Yan'an communists returning from exile in China, on the basis of the Korean Independence League. Its more moderate positions than the Communist Party of Korea won it broad support, but in August 1946 it merged with the Communist Party of North Korea to form the Workers' Party of North Korea. Its southern counterpart, the South Korean New People's Party, took part in founding the Workers' Party of South Korea in November.
In depth
Kim Tu-bong, after working in the Korean National Revolutionary Party and the Korean Volunteer Corps, settled in Yan'an in North China in April 1942. There he was joined by Choe Chang-ik's group and Kim Mu-chong, and in July that year he formed the Korean Independence League as a political organisation and the Korean Volunteer Army as its military arm. He returned to Korea with his organisation on 13 December 1945, but the Volunteer Army was disarmed. The Independence League issued a statement supporting the Moscow Conference, and in February 1946 it set up a Seoul special committee in the south under Paek Nam-un.
Elected vice chairman of the Provisional People's Committee of North Korea on 8 February 1946, Kim Tu-bong founded the New People's Party on 16 February on the basis of the Independence League. According to the Korean-language source, the name came from Mao Zedong's New Democracy. Kim was chairman, Choe Chang-ik and Han Pin vice chairmen, and Paek Nam-un, Ho Jong-suk and Pak Hyo-sam were among its leading cadres. Its more moderate positions than the Communist Party made it popular with a wide range of people.
On 22 July the Communist Party of North Korea joined the New People's Party, the Democratic Party and the Chondoist Chongu Party to form the United Democratic National Front. According to the English-language source, on Stalin's direct orders the two parties held a joint plenum of their central committees on 29 July and agreed to merge, and the founding congress of 28–30 August created the Workers' Party of North Korea. Of its more than 170,000 members, 134,000 came from the Communist Party and 35,000 from the New People's Party. The Korean-language source says the merger was pursued under Soviet pressure.
On 13 July, ahead of the merger, the party turned its Seoul special committee into the independent central committee of the South Korean New People's Party. This party discussed a merger with the Communist Party and the People's Party in the south, but split when Pak Hon-yong founded the Workers' Party of South Korea in November. The central cadre faction was absorbed into the WPSK, while the anti-cadre faction formed the Socialist Workers' Party with the congress faction of the Communist Party and the group of 31 from the People's Party, and the South Korean New People's Party ceased to exist.