Early Korean Communism Pt. 2 w/ Owen Miller

This is part two of a two-part episode.

Part one covered the origins of the Korean Communist movement and how they survived multiple splits and waves of repression by the Japanese Empire.

Now, with part two, we jump forward to 1945. World War II has just ended, taking the Japanese Empire with it. Korean communists have to deal with occupying American and Soviet armies, which help create the conditions for the long-term division of the peninsula. We also cover figures such as Pak Hon-yong (a prominent leader of the South Korean Workers Party) and the purges that plagued the movement in 1955.

The history of Korean Communism has long been obscured by the myth making of anticommunist regimes in the South, but also in the North, where Korean leftists outside of the partisan tradition have been erased. 

Owen Miler is a professor at SOAS University of London. His current research interests include: the social and economic history of 19th and 20th century Korea; urban history; Korean nationalist and Marxist historiographies; the economic history of North Korea; and state formation in Northeast Asia.

You can find him on twitter @SOASModernKorea or at his faculty page here: https://www.soas.ac.uk/staff/staff31439.php