북녘 | [Reminiscences]Chapter 1. The Country in Distress 1.My Family
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작성자 편집국 작성일20-05-05 14:13 댓글0건관련링크
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[Reminiscences]Chapter 1. The Country in Distress 1.My Family
Preface
It is extremely moving for a man to look back on
his past in his latter years. People lead different lives\and their experiences
are varied, so it is with different feelings that they look back on their past.
I look back on my life with deep emotion\and I have
strong memories as an\ordinary man\and as a politician who has served his
country\and people. The country\and people I have served always occupied an
important position in world politics.
I was born in the first period of the country’s
ruin in the great national tragedy\and spent the early years of my life in the
vortex of the rapidly-changing situation at home\and abroad,\and I came to join
my fortune with that of the country\and share good times\and bad with the
people in my childhood. Following this path, I have now reached 80 years of
age.
My whole life, which has flowed with the current of
the 20th century when the life of mankind has undergone unprecedented
vicissitudes\and the political map of the world has changed beyond recognition,
is the epitome of the history of my country\and my people.
Naturally, the course of my life has not been all
joy\and success. There have been heart -breaking sorrows\and sacrifices,\and
many twists\and turns\and difficulties. While I made many friends\and comrades
on the path of my struggle, there were also many people who stood in my way.
My patriotic spirit made me as a
teenager cry out against Japan on the streets of Jilin\and carry on a risky
underground struggle dodging the enemy’s pursuit. Under the banner of
anti-Japanese struggle I had to endure hardships going hungry\and sleeping
outdoors in the deep forests of Mt. Paektu, push my way through endless
snowstorms\and wage long bloody battles convinced of national liberation,
fighting against the formidable enemy scores of times stronger than our forlorn
force. After liberation I had to spend many a sleepless night in an effort to
save the divided country\and again go through indescribable difficulties\and
distresses in the days of building\and defending the people’s state.
In this course, however, I never once shrank back\or hesitated. I have always held a steady helm in my life’s rough voyage,\and I owe this to my comrades\and to the people who have helped me in good faith.
“The people are my God” has been my constant view
and motto. The principle of Juche, which calls for drawing on the strength of
the masses who are the masters of the revolution\and construction, is my
political creed. This has been the axiom that has led me to devote my whole
life to the people.
I lost my parents at an early age\and have spent my
whole life amid the love\and expectations of my comrades. I hewed out the path
of bloody struggle together with tens of thousands of comrades,\and in this
process I came to realize keenly the real value of the comrades\and
organization that shared their lot with me.
I
remember my early comrades of the
Down-with-Imperialism\union who believed in me\and came to follow me on the
hill at Huadian in the 1920s when there was no telling as yet if we would ever
liberate our homeland,\and then those splendid comrades
who shielded merom the enemy’s bullets\and who laughed as they took
their comrade’s place on the scaffold. They never returned to the liberated
homeland; they are now lying as spirits of revered memory in the fields\and
mountains of a foreign country. The many patriots who started on a different
path of struggle but joined up with us in the end are no more by our side.
As I witness our revolution progressing
triumphantly\and our country prospering, with all the people singing its
praises, my heart aches with the thought of the comrades who laid down their
lives unhesitatingly for this day; often I lie awake at night with their images
before my eyes.
In fact, I little thought of writing my
reminiscences. Many people, including celebrated foreign statesmen\and
well-known literary men, urged me to write my reminiscences, saying that my
life would serve as a precious lesson for the people. But I was in no hurry to
do so.
Now that a large part of my work is done by
Secretary for\organizational Affairs Kim Jong Il, I have been able to find some
time. With the change of generations, veteran revolutionaries have departed
from this life\and the new generation has become the pillar of our revolution.
I came to think that it was my duty to tell of the experiences I have gained in
the common cause of the nation\and of how our revolutionary forerunners gave
their lives in their youth for this day. So I came to put down in writing what
has happened in my life, a few lines each time I found a spare moment.
I have never considered my life to be
extraordinary. I am content\and proud to think that my life has been dedicated
to my country\and nation\and spent in the company of the people.
I hope that what I write will convey to posterity the truth\and the lessons of life\and struggle that if one believes in the people and relies on them, one will regain one’s country\and win victory every time,\and if one ignores people\and is forsaken by them, one will surely fail.
Praying for the souls of the
departed revolutionaries, The Myohyang Mountains April 1992
CONTENTS
CHAPTER 1. THE COUNTRY IN DISTRESS
1. My Family
2. My Father\and the Korean National Association
3. An Echo of Cheers for Independence
4. Repeated Removal
5. The Song of the River Amnok
6. My Mother
7. The Inheritance
CHAPTER 2. UNFORGETTABLE HUADIAN
1. Hwasong Uisuk School
2. Disillusionment
3. The Down-with-Imperialism\union
4. My Mind Turning towards a New Theatre of Activity
5. Ri Kwan Rin, Heroine of the Independence Army
CHAPTER 3. IN JILIN
1. The Pursuit of Progressive Thoughts
2. Mentor Shang Yue
3. The Young Communist League of Korea
4. The Expansion of the\organizatio
5. The Demonstration of Unity
6. An Chang Ho Delivers a Political Lecture
7. The Merger of the Three Nationalist\organizations
8. The Path Taken by Cha Kwang Su
9. The Lessons of Wangqingmen
10. Behind Bars
1. My Family
My life began in the second decade of the 20th
century when Korea was going through the bitterest period of its national
tragedy. Before my birth my country had been reduced to the colony of Japan.
With the signing of the “annexation of Korea by Japan” the sovereign power of the King
had passed to the Japanese Emperor\and the people of this country had been made
slaves who were compelled to act under the “Decrees of the Government-General.” Our country, with its long
history, rich natural resources\and beautiful mountains\and rivers, found
itself trampled underfoot by the Japanese military.
The people were deeply grieved\and trembled with
indignation at being robbed of their state power. In the fields\and houses of
this land,\where there was “wailing all day after the nation’s fall,” many
loyalists\and Confucian scholars killed themselves, unable to bear the agony of
the country’s ruin. Even nameless peoplerom the lowest class, lamenting the
tragic fate of the country, responded to the disgraceful “annexation of Korea
by Japan” by committing suicide.
A barbaric system of rule by gendarmerie\and police was established in our country,\and moreover even primary schoolteachers, to say nothing of policemen\and civil servants, wore gold -laced uniforms, regulation caps\and sabres. On the strength of Imperial\ordinances the governor-general controlled the army\and navy\and exercised unlimited power to stop the ears\and mouths of our people\and bind them hand\and foot. All political and academic\organizations founded by Koreans were forced to disband.
Korean patriots were thrashed with lead-weighted
cowhide lashes in detention rooms\and prisons. Law-enforcement agents who had
adopted the methods of torture used in the days of the Tokugawa shogunate
burned the flesh of Koreans with red-hot iron rods.
Successive decrees of the government-general that
were issued to blot out all that was Korean, even forced Koreans to dye their
traditional white clothes black. The big businesses of Japan that had come
across the Korean Strait carried off heaps of treasure\and the riches of our
country in the name of various\ordinances such as the “Company Act”\and the “Survey
Act.”
While visiting various parts of the world I have
had the opportunity of seeing many former colonial countries, but I have never
seen imperialism so hideous that it deprived people of their language\and
surnames\and even plundered them of their tableware.
Korea in those days was a living hell. The Korean
people were no more alive than dead. Lenin was absolutely correct when he said,
“...Japan will fight so as to continue to plunder Korea, which she is doing
with unprecedented brutality, combining all the latest technical inventions
with purely Asiatic tortures.”
My boyhood coincided with the time when the
imperialists were struggling fiercely to redivide their colonies throughout the
world. In the year of my birth successive sensational events took place in many
parts of the world. That year a US marine corps landed in Honduras, France made
Morocco its protectorate\and Italy occupied the Rhodes of Turkey.
In Korea the “Land Survey Act” was published\and the people were restless.
In short, I was born at an uneasy time of upheaval\and passed my boyhood in unfortunate circumstances. This situation naturally influenced my development.
After hearingrom my father about the
circumstances of our country’s ruin, I felt a profound bitterness against the
feudal rulers\and made up my mind to devote my life to the regaining of our
nation’s sovereignty.
While other people were travelling the world by
warship\and by train, our country’s feudal rulers rode on donkeys\and wore
horse- hair hats, singing of scenic beauties. Then, when aggressive forcesrom
the west\and east threatened them with their navies, they opened the doors of
the country that had been so tightly closed. The feudal monarchy then hosted a
contest for concessions in which the foreign forces had their own way.
Even when the country’s fate was at stake, the
corrupt\and incompetent feudal rulers, given to flunkeyism towards the great
powers for generations, indulged in sectarian strife under the manipulation of
the great powers. So, when the pro-Japanese faction gained the upper hand,
Japanese soldiers guarded the royal palace,\and when the pro- Russian faction
was more powerful, Russian soldiers guarded the Emperor. Then, when the
pro-Chinese faction got the better of the others, Chinese guards stood on
sentry at the palace.
As a result, the Queen was stabbed to death by a
terrorist gang within the royal palace (the “Ulmi incident” of 1895), the King
was detained in a foreign legation for a year (“Moving to the Russian legation”
in 1896),\and the King’s father was taken away as prisoner to a foreign country;
yet the Korean government had to apologize to that country.
When even the duty of guarding the royal palace was left to foreign armies, who was there to guard\and take care of this country?
In this wide world a family is no more than a small\drop of water. But a\drop of water is also a part of the world\and cannot exist apartrom the latter. The waves of modern history that spelled the ruin of Korea swept mercilessly into our house. But the members of my family did not yield to the threat. Rather, they threw themselves unhesitatingly into the storm, sharing the nation’s fate.
Our family moved northrom Jonju
in North Jolla Province in search of a living at the time of my ancestor Kim
Kye Sang.
Our family settled at Mangyongdae
at the time of my great-grandfather Kim Ung U. He was born at Jungsong-ri in
Pyongyang\and worked as a farmerrom his early years. He was so poor that he
became a grave keeper for the landlord Ri Phyong Thaek in Pyongyang\and moved
to the grave keeper’s cottage at Mangyongdae in the 1860s.
Mangyongdae is a place of great
scenic beauty. The hill by our house is called Nam Hill,\and when you look out
over the River Taedongrom the top of the hill you command a view that is like
a beautiful picture scroll. Rich people\and government officials vied with one
another in buying hills in the Mangyongdae area as burial plots because they
were attracted by the beautiful scenery there. The grave of one governor of
Phyongan Province was at Mangyongdae.
Working as tenant farmersrom generation to
generation, my family eked out a scanty living. The family line had been
continued by a sole heir for three generations before my grandfather Kim Po
Hyon produced six sons\and daughters. Then the number of members of the family
increased to nearly ten.
My grandfather worked hard to feed his children. At early dawn when other people were still in bed he would go round the village to collect manure. At night he would twist straw ropes, make straw sandals\and plait straw mats by lamplight.
My grandmother Ri Po Ik spun thread every night.
My mother Kang Pan Sok weeded the fields all day
long\and wove cotton by night with my aunts Hyon Yang Sin, Kim Kuilnyo, Kim
Hyong Sil\and Kim Hyong Bok.
Ours was such a poor home that my uncle Kim Hyong Rok
was unable to attend school\and helped my grandfather in farmingrom his
boyhood. A slight knowledge of the Thousand-Character Text (a primer of Chinese
characters) he learned at the age of nine was all the education he got.
All the members of my family toiled as hard as they
could, but they could never afford enough gruel. Our gruel was preparedrom
uncleaned sorghum,\and I still remember that it was so coarse that it was
difficult to swallow.
So such things as fruit\and meat were way beyond
our means. Once I had sore throat\and grandmother obtained some pork for me. I
ate it\and my throat got better. After that, whenever I felt like eating pork I
wished I had a sore throat again.
While I was spending my childhood at Mangyongdae,
my grandmother always regretted that we had no clock in our house. Although she
was not a covetous woman, she was very envious of clocks hanging on the walls
of other houses. In our neighbourhood there was one house with a clock.
I have heard that my grandmother began to speak
enviously of that clock after my father began attending Sungsil Middle School.
Because we had no clock, every morning she would wake up before dawn after a
restless night\and, guessing the time, quickly prepare breakfast. It was 12
kilometresrom Mangyongdae to Sungsil Middle School, so my father might have
been late for school if she had not cooked breakfast early enough.
Sometimes she would prepare a meal in the middle of the night\and, not knowing if it was time for her son to leave for school, sit looking out through the eastern window of the kitchen for hours. At such times she would say to my mother, “Go\and find out what time it is at the house behind.”
However, my mother would not enter the house,
reluctant to bother the people there, but would squat outside the fence waiting
for the clock to strike the hours. Then she would return\and tell grandmother
the time.
When I returned homerom Badaogou, my aunt
inquired after my father before telling me that\whereas my father had a hard
time walking a long way to school every day, it would be good for me to go\and
stay at my mother’s parents’ home at Chilgol, as the school was nearby.
My family could not afford the clock my grandmother
so desired until national liberation.
My family, though living only on gruel, were
warm-hearted\and ready to help one another\and their neighbours.
“We can live without money, but not without
humanity,” was what my grandfather used to say when admonishing his sons\and
daughters. This was the philosophy of my family.
My father was sensitive to new things\and had a
great desire to learn. He was taught the Thousand-Character Text at the private
village school, yet he was always anxious to go to a regular school.
In the summer of the year when the Emissary
Incident at The Hague took place, a joint athletics meeting was held in Sulmae village with
the participation of the pupilsrom Sunhwa, Chuja, Chilgol\and Sinhung
Schools. My father went to the athletics meeting as a champion of Sunhwa School
and took first place in many events such as the horizontal bar, wrestling\and
running. But in the high jump he lost first place to a competitorrom another
school. What happened was that his pigtail was caught in the crosspiece,\and
this prevented himrom winning.
After the sports meeting my father went up the hill at the back of the school\and cut off his pigtail. In those days it was no easy thing to cut off one’s pigtail without the permission of one’s parents and in disregard of the old convention that had been passed down over hundreds of years.
My grandfather took the matter very seriously\and
created a great fuss. By nature my family were strong in character.
Afraid of grandfather, my father dared not come
home that day. He hung around outside the fence, so my great-grandmother took
him to the back gate\and gave him a meal. She loved him dearly, he being the
heir to the family. My father would often say that he was able to attend
Sungsil Middle School thanks to her kind assistance. She persuaded my
grandfather Kim Po Hyon to allow my father to go to a modern school. In those
days when feudal customs still prevailed, my grandfather’s generation were not
very impressed by modern schools.
My father started at Sungsil Middle School in the
spring of 1911, the year after the country’s ruin. That was in the early period
of the introduction of modern civilization, so few children of the nobility
were receiving the new-style school education. It was very difficult for poor
families like ours that could hardly afford enough sorghum gruel to send their
children to school.
The monthly tuition fee at Sungsil Middle School at
the time was two won. To earn two won my mother went to the River Sunhwa
and collected shellfish to sell. My grandfather grew melons, my grandmother
young radishes,\and even my uncle who was only 15 years old made straw sandals
to earn money to help his elder brother with his school fees.
My father worked after school until dusk in a workshop run by the school to earn money. Then he would read books for hours in the school library before returning home late at night. After sleeping for a few hours, he would go to school again in the morning.
As is clear, our family was a simple\and\ordinary one the like of which could be found commonly in any farm village\or town in Korea in those days. It was a poor family that was not particularly outstanding\or remarkable in comparison with other families.
But my family were all ready to sacrifice
themselves without hesitation when it came to doing something for the country
and the people.
My great-grandfather was a grave keeper for another
family, but he ardently loved his country\and home town.
When the US imperialist aggressors’ ship General Sherman sailed up the River Taedong\and
anchored at Turu Islet, my great-grandfather, together with some other
villagers, collected ropesrom all the houses\and stretched them across the
river between Konyu Islet\and Mangyong Hill; then they rolled some stones into
the river to block the way of the pirate ship.
When he heard that the General Sherman had sailed up to Yanggak Islet\and was killing the
people there with its cannons\and guns,\and that its crew were stealing the
people’s possessions\and raping the women, he rushed to the walled city of
Pyongyang at the head of the villagers. The people of the city, with the
government army, loaded a lot of small boats with firewood, tied them together,
set them on fire\and floated them down towards the aggressor ship, so that the
American ship was set on fire\and sank with all hands. I was told that my
great-grandfather played a major role in this attack.
After the sinking of the General Sherman, the US imperialist aggressors sent another vessel, the warship Shenandoah, which sailed into the mouth of the River Taedong,\where its crew committed murder, incendiary attacks\and pillage. The people of Mangyongdae again formed a volunteers unit\and fought to defend their countryrom the Shenandoah.
My grandfather, who used to say, “A man should die fighting the enemy on the battlefield,” always told his family to live honourably for their country\and he offered his children unhesitatingly to the revolutionary struggle.
My grandmother, too, taught her children to live
uprightly\and stoutly.
Once the Japanese treated her harshly by dragging
her round the mountains\and fields of Manchuria in the depth of winter in\order
to make me “submit.” But she scolded them\and remained strong\and proud as
befitting the mother\and grandmother of revolutionaries.
My maternal grandfather Kang Ton Uk was an ardent
patriot\and teacher who devoted his whole life to the education of the younger
generation\and the independence movement, teaching the children\and young
people at the private school he had founded in his home village. My maternal
uncle Kang Jin Sok was also a patriot who joined the independence movement when
still young.
My father taught me tirelesslyrom my early
childhood to foster profound patriotism.rom his desire\and hope he named me
Song Ju, meaning that I should be a pillar of the country.
As a pupil of Sungsil Middle School he, with his
two younger brothers, planted three white aspens near the house to symbolize
the three brothers. In those days there were no white aspens in Mangyongdae.
That day my father told his brothers that the white aspen was a rapidly growing
tree\and that they, the three brothers, should grow rapidly\and strong like the
tree so as to win national independence\and enjoy a good life.
Later, my father left Mangyongdae to continue his revolutionary activities\and, following him, my uncle Kim Hyong Gwon took the path of struggle.
Then only my eldest uncle was left behind in Mangyongdae, but the three white aspens grew into tall trees. But their shadows fell across the fields of the landlord. The landlord said that the shadows would harm his crop,\and he felled one of the trees.Yet, our family could not protest. Such was the lawlessness of the time.
I heard of this when I returned home after the
liberation of the country. I felt really angry about it as I remembered my late
father’s beautiful dream.
This was
not the only cause of regret.
Several ash trees had stood in front of my old
home. As a boy, I would often climb the trees\and play in them with my friends.
When I returned home after 20 years’ absence, I discovered that the tree that
had stood closest to the house was no longer there.
My grandfather told me that my uncle had cut it
down. The story was really pitiful.
While I was waging the war in the mountains, the
police had tormented my family unbearably.
Policerom the Taephyong sub-station took turns to
keep our house under surveillance. Taephyong was some distancerom
Mangyongdae,\and in summer the shade afforded by the ash trees served as a sort
of guard post. As they sat in the shadow, they would call to the villagers\or
fan themselves to sleep. Sometimes they would drink alcohol\and eat chicken\or
harass my grandfather\and uncle.
One day my uncle, who was so good\and quiet, went
out with an axe\and cut down one of the ash trees,\and my grandfather told me
that he had not even thought of dissuading him. He added, “There’s a saying
that one is pleased to see the bugs die in a fire even though one’s house is
burnt down.”
His words
caused me to smile wryly.
My grandparents had a very hard time because of their revolutionary sons\and grandsons. But in spite of their bitter trials and persecution they never gave in but fought on stoutly. In the closing period of Japanese rule the Japanese imperialists forced Koreans to change their names to Japanese ones. But my grandparents refused to do so. In my home village only my family held out to the last without changing their names to Japanese ones.
All the other families changed their names. If they
did not change their names, people found it hard to survive because the
Japanese government authorities refused them food rations.
My uncle Hyong Rok was beaten\and summoned to the
police sub-station many times because he would not agree to change his name.
“Now you aren’t Kim Hyong Rok. What’s your name?”
the policeman in charge would demand. To this my uncle would answer, “It’s Kim
Hyong Rok.”
At this the policeman would leap on him\and slap
him across the face.
“Tell me again. What’s your name?” the policeman
would ask him once more. Then he would answer calmly, “It’s Kim Hyong Rok.”
Then the policeman would slap him even harder on
the face. Every time he replied, “Kim Hyong Rok,” he was boxed on the ears. Yet
he never submitted.
My grandfather said to his son: “It’s a truly good
thing that you haven’t changed your name to a Japanese one. When Song Ju’s
fighting the Japanese, you can’t change your name into a Japanese one, can you?
We mustn’t change our names on any account, even if it means we’re beaten to
death.”
When members of the family said farewell to my
grandfather\and grandmother\and left the house, they would walk out through the
brushwood gate in high spirits, saying that they would return after liberating
the country.
But I was the only one who returned.
My father, who devoted his whole life to the independence movement, died under a foreign sky at the age of 31. A man of 31 is in the prime of his life. My grandmother camerom home after his funeral. Even now I can see her before my eyes as she wept at the side of her son’s grave in the village of Yangdicun, Fusong, Manchuria.
Six years later my mother, too, passed away, in
Antu, without seeing the day of national independence.
My younger brother Chol Ju who joined a guerrilla
unit after our mother’s death\and fought the enemy was killed in battle.
Because he fell on the battlefield his body was never recovered.
A few years later, my youngest uncle who had been
sentenced to long years in prison\and was serving his term in Mapho gaol died
from cruel torture. Our family received notice that they should recover his
body but could not do so because they had no money. So, my uncle’s ashes were
committed to the earth in the prison cemetery.
Thus, over a period of 20 years many of the strong,
healthy sons of our family turned to ashes\and lay scattered in foreign lands.
When I returned home after liberation, my
grandmother hugged me outside the brushwood gate\and pounded me on my chest,
saying: “How have you come back alone?\where did you leave your father\and
mother? Did you not want to return with them?”
With her heart bursting with such deep grief, what
was my agony as I walked through the brushwood gate of my old home alone
without bringing with me even the bones of my parents who were dead\and lying
in a far-off foreign land?
After that, whenever I passed through the gate of someone else’s home, I would wonder how many members of the family had gone out through that gate\and how many of them had returned. All the gates in this country have a story about tearful partings\and are associated with a longing for those who have not returned\and the heart-rending pain of loss. Tens of thousands of fathers\and mothers, brothers\and sisters of this country gave their lives on the altar of national liberation. It took our people as long as 36 years to win back their country, crossing a sea of blood, tears\and sighs\and braving storms of shells\and bullets. It was 36 years of bloody war which cost us too high a price. But if it were not for this bloody war\and sacrifices, how could we ever imagine our country as it is today? This century of ours would still be a century of misery\and suffering with the disgraceful slavery continuing.
My grandfather\and grandmother were old country
people who knew nothing but farming. But truth to tell, I marvelled at their
firm revolutionary spirit\and was greatly inspired by it.
It is not easy to bring up children\and send them
all out on the path of the revolution\and then give them constant support while
enduring silently all the ensuing trials\and hardships. I think this is much
more impressive than a few battles\or some years in prison.
The misfortune\and distress of our family is the
epitome of the misfortune\and distress that befell our people after they lost
their country. Under the inhuman rule of Japanese imperialism millions of
Koreans lost their lives—dying of starvation, of the cold,rom burning\orrom
flogging.
In a ruined country neither the land nor the people
can remain at peace. Under the roofs of houses in a ruined country even the
traitors who live in luxury as a reward for betraying their country will not be
able to sleep in peace. Even though they are alive, the people are worse than
gutter dogs,\and even if the mountains\and rivers remain the same, they will
not retain their beauty.
A man who perceives this truth before others is called a forerunner; he who struggles against difficulties to save his country from tragedy is called a patriot;\and he who sets fire to himself to demonstrate the truth\and overthrows the injust society by rousing the people to action is called a revolutionary.
My father was a pioneer of our country’s national
liberation movement. He dedicated his whole life to the revolutionrom his
birth in Mangyongdae on July 10, 1894, until his death as he lamented the dark
reality of national decay on June 5, 1926.
I was born the eldest son of my father Kim Hyong Jik at Mangyongdae on April 15, 1912
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