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--></style><title>Re: [KS] assessing historical meanings - Mr.
Yoon</title></head><body>
<div>Dear Vladimir:</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>Yes, sure -- but below you are clarifying something that was not
stated otherwise. Korean communists have indeed succeeded to create
their very own little "purges" and "work camps" --
quite independent from Moscow, totally localized ones. (Irony
intended.) And they started to work on this early on, already during
the colonial period in Manchuria. ...Wasn't Helen Foster Snow's (Nym
Wales) romanticizing book on Kim San (Chang Chirak) just mentioned
here two weeks ago? It has the sub-title<i> A Korean Communist in the
Chinese Revolution</i>. And what happened to Kim San, and why
so?</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>In any case, what you say below is certainly not wrong.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div><br></div>
<div>Best,</div>
<div>Frank</div>
<div> </div>
<div><br></div>
<div><br></div>
<blockquote type="cite" cite>There is, however, one principal point on
which I will it difficult to<br>
agree with your position. It is the question of the relationship
between<br>
the world-historical phenomena and their local - that is, Korean,
-<br>
incarnation. I would view this relationship as rather dialectic (in
the<br>
Marxist sense of the word) than simply mechanical - that is, would
rather<br>
pay more attention to the quantitative (and resulting qualitative)
changes<br>
these phenomena undergo in the Korean context. After all, as even<br>
postcolonial studies tell us, all things are being negotiated, and
the<br>
"locals" are not simply recipients of global teachings or
trends - they<br>
have the agency of their own. You, for example, probably agree with
the<br>
statement that Christianity, while hardly seen as a progressive force
in<br>
late 19th C. Europe or USA, did play a certain progressive role in<br>
pre-colonial or early colonial Korea - by promoting female education,
for<br>
example. Then, why should we overlook the possibility of the
independent<br>
agency in the Korean Communists' case as well? After all, there<br>
programme-minimum including mostly the points on which their
potential<br>
electorate would enthusiastically agree (radical land reform, 8
hours<br>
working days etc.), regardless of any Comintern or Stalins'
wishes.<br>
Absolute majority of Communist-led strikes were fought on local,
concrete<br>
demands, first and foremost. And Pak Hônyông's dim view of
nationalist<br>
diehards and the ideological dangers their bomb-throwing tactics
might<br>
imply - could not it be as much a product of his own experience in
dealing<br>
with this sort of public as it was an outcome of Moscow-produced
theories?<br>
<br>
Best wishes,<br>
</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite>Vladimir/Noja</blockquote>
<div><br></div>
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</pre></x-sigsep>
<div>--------------------------------------<br>
Frank Hoffmann<br>
http://koreaweb.ws</div>
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