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Activities and Limitations of the Chosun Peasants’ General League in the 1920s and 1930s

  • The Review of Korean History
  • 2026, (163), pp.325~360
  • Publisher : The Historical Society Of Korea
  • Research Area : Humanities > History
  • Received : August 11, 2026
  • Accepted : September 18, 2026
  • Published : September 30, 2026

CHOI EUN JIN 1

1한국외국어대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

The establishment of the Chosun Peasants’ General League in 1927, following the Chosun Laborers’ and Peasants’ General League, was driven not only by the need to separate the central organizations of the labor and peasant movements along occupational lines but also by changes in the socialist forces that led these organizations. The Chosun Peasants’ General League was repeatedly prohibited from holding public gatherings and subjected to strict surveillance and control by the colonial authorities, as had been the case with its predecessor. As a result, the League often made decisions through written resolutions or informal meetings. Its activities were further weakened when many of its leading members were imprisoned or went into hiding or exile due to their involvement with the Chosun Communist Party. Nevertheless, the Chosun Peasants’ General League established itself as the “central headquarters of the nationwide peasant movement.” As a unified national leadership organization, it contributed to the expansion of the peasant union movement in Chosun. The League’s principal activity was to support tenant disputes in different parts of the country. It also provided broader organizational and practical assistance to local peasant unions. However, the League failed to establish a coherent theoretical framework for unifying the nationwide peasant movement, leaving the movement in a state of considerable confusion. Even as peasant unions expanded across the country, the League, which was supposed to function as their unified central leadership, was unable to provide concrete guidance for their struggles. The primary cause of this limitation was the systematic repression imposed by the Japanese colonial authorities. At the same time, internal struggles among competing factions within the organization further exposed the League’s organizational limitations. Despite these difficulties, the Chosun Peasants’ General League continued to play a meaningful organizational role within the limited space available for legal movement in the early 1930s. During this period, its nominally legal status helped maintain, at least formally, the legal status of affiliated peasant unions. However, as the social and political environment increasingly made legal organizational movement impossible in the 1930s, the Chosun Peasants’ General League was eventually dissolved in 1935.

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