Workers' Party of South Korea 남조선로동당 | |
|---|---|
| Chairman | Ho Hon |
| Vice Chairman | Pak Hon-yong Yi Ki-sok |
| Founded | 23 November 1946 (1946-11-23) |
| Dissolved | 24 June 1949 (1949-06-24) |
| Merger of | CPK NPPK |
| Merged into | WPK |
| Newspaper |
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| Membership | 360,000 (1947 estimate) |
| Ideology | |
| Political position | Far-left |
| Party flag | |
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| Workers' Party of South Korea | |
| Hangul | 남조선로동당 |
|---|---|
| Hanja | 南朝鮮勞動黨 |
| RR | Namjoseon rodongdang |
| MR | Namjosŏn rodongdang |
TheWorkers' Party of South Korea (Korean: 남조선로동당) was acommunist party inSouth Korea from 1946 to 1949. It is also sometimes colloquially referred to as the "Namro Party" (남로당;南勞黨).
It was founded on 23 November 1946 through the merger of theCommunist Party of South Korea,New People's Party of Korea and a faction of thePeople's Party of Korea (the so-called 'forty-eighters').[1] It was led byHo Hon.[2][failed verification] The clandestinetrade union movement, theAll Korea Labor Union (Chŏnp'yŏng) was connected to the party.
The party was outlawed by theUnited States occupation authorities due to the party being an aggravating opposition to South Korea and the US, but the party organized a network of clandestine cells and was able to obtain a considerable following. It had around 360,000 party members.[3] In 1947, the party initiated armedguerrilla struggle. As the persecution of party intensified, large sections of the party leadership moved toPyongyang.
The party was opposed to the formation of a South Korean state. In February–March 1948, it instigatedgeneral strikes in opposition to the plans to create a separate South Korean state.[4] On 3 April 1948, the party led aninsurgency onJeju Island, against the United Nations and South Korean government. In the suppression of the revolt, thousands of insurgents and their sympathizers were executed and massacred, respectively, by the South Korean government.[citation needed] In one of its first official acts, theSouth Korean National Assembly passed theNational Security Act in September 1948, which among other measures, outlawed the Workers' Party of South Korea.[5]
On 24 June 1949, the party merged with theWorkers' Party of North Korea, forming theWorkers' Party of Korea.[6] The WPNK leaderKim Il Sung became party chairman, whereas Pak Hon-yong became deputy chairman. In theKorean War, 60,000 to 200,000 members of the party and suspected communist supporters, many of them civilians, were massacred by the South Korean Army with supervision of the US army[7] in what became known as theBodo League massacre. Pak Hon-yong and other leaders of WPSK in North Korea were laterpurged.[8][9]
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