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Land Reform, Collectivisation and the Peasants in North Korea

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2009

Chong-Sik Lee
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Extract

In a speech delivered at the rally commemorating the fifteenth anniversary of the liberation of Korea, the North Korean Premier announced that the peasants in North Korea were now the owners of large-scale collectivised farms and that they had the firm technical foundation for bumper crops every year without strenuous efforts. He declared: “This is the beginning of a world for our farm villages.” Another spokesman of the North Korean regime has stated: “It is easy (or good) to work and enjoyable to live in the co-operativised North Korean farms. There is a bumper crop every year in the constantly changing collectivised fields and the peasants' work and living are literally song and dances.”

Type
Research Article
Information
The China Quarterly , Volume 14 , June 1963 , pp. 65 - 81
Copyright
Copyright © The China Quarterly 1963

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References

1 Il-Song, Kim, Choson inmin ui minjokjok myongjol 8.15 haebang IS chunyon kyongch'uk taehoe eso han pogo.Google Scholar (A Report Delivered at the Rally Commemorating the Fifteenth Anniversary of the Liberation of August 15 which is the national Holiday of the Korean People) (Pyongyang: Korean Workers' Party Press, 1960), p. 7. Kim Kwang-hyon, in his Ch'ollima Choson (Korea of the Flying Horse) (Pyongyang: National Press, 1961), p. 61.Google Scholar

2 Facts about Korea (Pyongyang: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1961), p. 9.Google Scholar

3 Il-song, Kim, “What Should the Parties and Social Groups Demand on the Occasion of the Establishment of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea,” dated 06 14, 1947, in Kin Nichisei Senshu (Selected Works of Kim Il-song), (Kyoto: Sanichi Shobo, 1952), I, p. 217.Google Scholar In his speech of April 20, 1948, Kim revised the statistics to 6-8 per cent, of the landlords holding 58·8 per cent, of land: ibid. Supp. Vol., p. 114.

4 See Thought Section, Prosecutor's Bureau, High Court, Shiso iho (Ideological Report Series), No. 11, (06 1937), pp. 146–170.Google Scholar

5 “Political and Organisational Policies of the Workers' Party,” 12 25, 1947Google Scholar, Kin Nichisei Senshu, I, pp. 264–265.Google Scholar

6 Kwahakwon Yoksa Yonguso (Academy of Science, Centre for Historical Studies), Choson t'ongsa (Outline History of Korea) (Pyongyang: Academy of Science Press, 1958) [Hak-u Sobang reprint edition, Tokyo, 1959], III, p. 31.Google Scholar

7 Ibid. p. 32. For an English text of the land reform ordinance see Report of the United Nations Commission for the Unification and Rehabilitation of Korea (New York: United Nations, General Assembly, Official Records: Sixth Session, Supplement No. 12 (A/1881), 1951), pp. 59–60.Google Scholar

8 The estimated number of refugees in South Korea of North Korean origin on Dec. 31, 1947, was 1,116,600. First Part of the Report of the United Nations Temporary Commission on Korea (New York: General Assembly, Official Records: Third Session, Supplement No. 9 (A/575), 1948), I, p. 23.Google Scholar

9 Kin Nichisei Senshu, III, p. 48.Google Scholar The party members of worker (proletariat) origin at this time were 73,000 and the total membership was 366,000. Ibid. p. 47.

10 The figures for April are from his speech on land reform, Apr. 13, 1946, at the first enlarged committee meeting of the North Korean Provisional People's Committee. Kin Nichisei Senshu, I, p. 18.Google Scholar The figures for July are from his report on the establishment of Democratic People's United Front, July 22, 1946. Ibid. p. 64.

11 A report on the People's Economic Development Plan for 1947, at the conference of North Korean provincial, municipal and prefectural People's Committees. Kin Nichisei Senshu, I, p. 180.Google Scholar

12 Ibid. p. 16.

13 Ibid. Supp. Vol., p. 116, speech of Apr. 20, 1948.

14 Ibid. p. 198, speech of Jan. 25, 1950.

15 For the text of the ordinance see Report of the United Nations Commission for the Unification and Rehabilitation of Korea, 1951, p. 60.Google Scholar See also U.S. Department of State, North Korea: A Case Study in the Techniques of Takeover, p. 57.Google Scholar “Fire field” indicates the areas cleared for cultivation by fire but abandoned in a few years when fertility of soil was exhausted.

16 For Kim Il-song's report on the economic development plan of 1947 see Kin Nichisei Senshu, I, pp. 170–183.Google Scholar Kim noted in this connection that the number of workers, engineers, technicians and office clerks must be increased by 156,000 or 20 per cent. in 1947, as compared to 1946. This additional labour force was to be drawn from the farms.

17 Ibid. p. 246.

18 Cho Chung ch'inson nongop hyoptong chohap nongmin dul ui munhwa wa p'ungsup (Culture and Customs of the Peasants in the Korea-China Friendship Agricultural Co-operative) (Pyongyang: Academy of Science Press, 1960)Google Scholar, Folklore Research Series, No. 4, p. 211. For a discussion of the inflated assessment of the crop for tax purposes and the quality of crop required for tax, etc., see U.S. Department of State, op. cit., pp. 57–59.

19 Kin Nichisei Senshu, II, p. 141.Google Scholar

20 The North Korean Communists were hard put to justify the collectivisation programme. Thus a North Korean theoretician, Cho Chae-son, was forced to admit that “The Socialistic transformation of the agriculture is a special (or unusual) application of the law of (interrelationship between) the characteristics of productive forces and the productive relations during the transitional period toward Socialism.” (Italics added.) In his explanation of this “special application” of the Marxist law, Cho cited the “positive reaction of the new superstructure,” i.e., the dictatorship of the proletariat, and the harmful effect of the imbalance between the Socialist industrial sector and the privately managed agriculture. He added further that the imbalance has been noticeable at the latter part of the two-year People's Economic Plan (1949–50). Chae-son, Cho, Choson Minjujuui Inmin Konghwaguk Sahoe Kyongje Chedo (The Sodo-Economic System in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea) (Pyongyang: Korean Workers' Party Press, 1958), pp. 38–39Google Scholar

21 According to a North Korean source, the sown area and grain output decreased as follows:

Data from Agricultural Co-operativisation in D.P.R.K. (Pyongyang: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1958), p 8.Google Scholar

22 U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Intelligence and Research, “Research Memorandum,” 06 21, 1962, RSB-105, p. 13. (Processed.)Google Scholar

23 Ibid. p. 14.

24 The percentages by occupation divisions of and total population of North Korea are reported to be as follows:

Facts About Korea (Pyongyang: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1961), p. 9.Google Scholar The population figures were taken from U.S. State Department, “Research Memorandum,” p. 14.Google Scholar

25 Pak Mun-gyu, the Minister of Agriculture from September 1948 to March 1954, was replaced by Kim Il-song's comrade of the partisan days, Kim Il, in March 1954. Kim Il served as Vice-Premier and Minister of Agriculture until September 1957. Kim Il became First Vice-Premier in 1959. Pak Mun-gyu, an agrarian economist of long standing, was relegated to a less important cabinet post.

26 For a detailed treatment of the process of collectivisation see my article, “The ‘Socialist Revolution’ in the North Korean countryside,” Asian Survey, II, No. 8 (10 1962), pp. 9–22.Google Scholar

27 Kim Il-song Sonjip (.Selected Works of Kim Il-song) (Pyongyang: Korean Workers' Party Press, 1960), VI, p. 185Google Scholar

28 See “Chungguk eso ui sahoejuui konsol ui taeyakchin” (“The Great Leap Forward in the Socialist Construction in China”), Kulloja (The Worker), No. 155, 10 15, 1958, p. 77.Google Scholar

29 Agricultural Cooperativization in D.P.R.K., pp. 37–38.Google Scholar

30 Kim Il-song Sonjip, VI, p. 175.Google Scholar

31 Agricultural Cooperativization in D.P.R.K., p. 43.Google Scholar

32 Cf. Nodong Shinmun, 12 25, 1961, editorial.Google Scholar

33 Kishadan, Ho-Cho (Reporters' Group Visiting Korea), Kita-Chosen no Kiroku (Record of North Korea) (Tokyo: Shin Dokusho-sha, 1960), pp. 200–201.Google Scholar

34 Ibid. p. 206.

35 Goro, Tera, 38 Dosen no Kita (North of the 38th Parallel) (Tokyo: Shin Nippon Shuppansha, 1959), p. 106.Google Scholar

36 Cho Chung Ch'inson Nongop Hyoptong Chohap …, p. 241.Google Scholar

37 Ibid. p. 237.

38 Ibid. p. 240.

39 Ibid.

40 See Control Figures for the Seven-Year Plan (1961–67) for the Development of the National Economy of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (Pyongyang: Korean Central News Agency, 1961), p. 18.Google Scholar The officially reported grain outputs in 1960 and 1961 were 3,803,000 tons and 4,830,000 tons, respectively. Approximately 40 per cent. of the total was rice. The adjusted estimates of the U.S. Department of State for these years were 2,781,000 tons and 3,378,000 tons, respectively. See Department of State, Bureau of Intelligence and Research, “Research Memorandum,” RSB-105, June 21, 1962, p. 11.