Worldwide ‘Red Age’ and Colonial-era Korea An Attempt at Meta-historical Analysis

Abstract

The present article is an attempt at a meta-historical analysis of the ‘Red Age’ (1923 to the late 1930s) experiences in colonial-period Korea. The article focuses on contextualizing the experiences of colonial-age Korea’s Communist movement internationally and distinguishing these traits of this movement which are definable as universal. As this article argues, in the wider historical context the ‘Red Age’ Communist movements, the Korean one included, fought, in the end, for deeper democratization of the existing world- system on the social and cultural levels. These movements ―usually led by revolutionary intelligentsia and staffed on middle- and lower-cadre level by the cadres of working-class origins ―had the evolving Party-state in early Soviet Union as their model of the desirable future. They saw an overtake of the industrial economy by a revolutionary state as the ‘transition to socialism,’ hoping, on more practical levels, that revolutionary nationalizations and dirigiste economic policies would provide more space for underprivileged majority’s social and cultural advancement. While the Party-state would eschew the orthodox parliamentarism, its workings were supposed to bring forth a more equitable society. Despite the gaps between the ‘Red Age’ Communist dreams and the realities of historical Party-states, the movement played an important role in laying the foundations for the postwar changes, in Korea and elsewhere.