본문 바로가기
  • Home

Stages of Genocide in the National Guidance Alliance Incident : A Study on the Extermination Process of Communist in South Korea

  • The Journal of Northeast Asia Research
  • Abbr : NEA
  • 2015, 30(1), pp.171-206
  • DOI : 10.18013/jnar.2015.30.1.006
  • Publisher : The Institute for Northeast Asia Research
  • Research Area : Social Science > Political Science > International Politics > International Relations / Cooperation

Taewoo Kim 1

1서울대학교 통일평화연구원

Accredited

ABSTRACT

This study focused on the process of extermination concerning communists in the South Korean territory from 1945 to 1950. In accordance with the internationally recognized theory on the universal “stages of genocide,” this study examined how the communists in the southern Korean peninsula were collectively alienated and denationalized and in the end, exterminated by genocide. This study argued that the communists in the southern portion of the Korean peninsula had gained a strong political influence and public support directly after liberation. The communists, however, soon went through eight stages of genocide and were exterminated within the South Korean society. The eight stages of genocide are as follows: ① stigmatization and alienation, ② organization ③ local mass murder ④ ghettoization ⑤ symbolization ⑥ treatment of the infected ⑦ extermination ⑧ repression of memories. This case in Korea follows the same pattern as the four stages of genocide (alienation, preliminary extermination, full-scale extermination and denial) shown in cases from other countries. As former research on the stages of genocide equally suggest, the alienation or denationalization of a certain group of people which, in this case, is communists, was pivotal in justifying and legalizing the nation’s use of indiscriminate violence on its people.

Citation status

* References for papers published after 2023 are currently being built.

This paper was written with support from the National Research Foundation of Korea.