Korean modernization and peasant mobilization in the 1960s and 1970s

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Korean modernization and peasant mobilization in the 1960s and 1970s

Kim Chang Jin

Kim Chang Jin, DSc (Political Science), Professor

Sungkonghoe University. Guro-gu, Seoul, South Korea

Annotation

In the contemporary world history, rural communities and small producers did not naturally disappear due to the loss of economic competitiveness, but were artificially constrained and destroyed by the state laws, institutions, and policies. South Korea, which is considered a representative success case of the late capitalist industrialization after the World War II, can be an important example to examine the relevance of this challenging perspective. Korea's economic success was largely determined by the NACF (National Agricultural Cooperatives Federation) lack of integrity: it was to be a voluntary and autonomous organization of farmers, but became a subordinate partner of the agricultural policy of the military government. The Saemaul (New Country) Movement developed by the government to promote rural innovations actually accelerated the decline of agriculture for it was used to control farmers. In the 1960s and 1970s, the Korean rural society was deeply dependent on the state power. At the same time, the farmers resistance developed as a reaction to the military government policies, and the NACF became the target of the farmers collective resistance movement. Thus, under the Park Chung Hee's regime, Korean farmers were to participate in the national economy and become a part of the mandatory social-economic movement; however, they never managed to achieve a true class/collective political representation.

Key words: Korean modernization, peasant mobilization, Park Chung Hee's regime, NACF, Saemaul Movement, peasant movement, state power, autonomous modernization power

Корейская модернизация и крестьянская мобилизация в ±д6ое -- ±97ое годы

Чан Чжин Ким, доктор политических наук, профессор Университета Ендонг-ро, Гуру-гу, Сеул, Южная Корея.

Аннотация

capitalist industrialization rural renewal

В современной мировой истории сельские сообщества и мелкие сельхозпроизводители не исчезли естественным путем вследствие утраты экономической конкурентоспособности, а стали жертвой искусственных ограничений и были уничтожены государственными законами, институтами и политическими решениями. Южная Корея, которая считается репрезентативным кейсом успешной поздне-капиталистической индустриализации после Второй мировой войны, может быть и показательным примером для оценки обоснованности высказанной точки зрения на причины разрушения сельских сообществ. Экономические успехи Кореи были в значительной степени обусловлены тем, что НФСХК не была единой интегрированной организацией: вместо того, чтобы выступать добровольным и самостоятельным объединением фермеров, она стала подчиненным партнером военного правительства в его сельскохозяйственной политике. Корейское движение за новую деревню, формально развиваемое правительством в интересах сельского обновления, на самом деле ускорило разрушение сельского хозяйства, поскольку использовалось исключительно для контроля фермеров. В 1д6ое-197ое годы сельские сообщества Кореи полностью зависели от государственной власти. В то же время нарастало крестьянское сопротивление -- как реакция на политические действия военного правительства, и НФСХК стало целью солидарного крестьянского протеста. Таким образом, в рамках политического режима Пак Чон Хи корейские фермеры формально должны были стать частью национальной экономики и обязательного социально-экономического движения за модернизацию, но на самом деле им так и не удалось добиться реального классового/коллективного политического представительства.

Ключевые слова: корейская модернизация, крестьянская мобилизация, политический режим Пак Чон Хи, НФСХК (Национальная федерация сельскохозяйственных кооперативов), Корейское движение за новую деревню, крестьянское движение, государственная власть, автономная модернизационная сила

Introduction

In the countries that succeeded in modernization, why are farmers, who contributed the most to the successful modernization, still pushed to the social periphery? Since the Industrial Revolution, agriculture has been considered inferior in terms of low productivity and poor competitiveness; therefore, it was forced to take a path of contraction or extinction compared to other industries. Both liberals and Marxists, who admit the institutional superiority of the capitalist market economy and the technological superiority of industrial productivity, would say that “this is an economic law.” The article questions this statement. Could it be so that the `laws of the economy' would work even if there were no state powers that would actively, legally, institutionally and financially support the Bourgeoisie in making an современность alliance with them as a new ruling class. Since the 19th century, in Europe and North America, the urban upper class used state power to marginalize agriculture.

The Russian anarchist P.A. Kropotkin and American critical jurist R.M. Unger (who aligned with Kropotkin in his claims) provided completely different perspectives. Unger argued that the answer to the question whether the family farming, which was a viable alternative to agricultural concentration in the modern European economic environment, could play a progressive role in the industrialization and mechanization era, depended on the government rather than on technology or economy (Kropotkin, 1902; 2004; Unger, 1997: Chapter 5). This is a powerful challenge for the dominant view that presents modernization mainly in terms of technological development and economic efficiency. Although it is possible to speak of modernization without referring to the core system of the state, such an approach is insufficient or biased. Korea, a representative success case of the late capitalist industrialization after the World War II, can prove the relevance of the challenge.

In general, the Western-style modernization is a complex process of social changes based on industrialization and urbanization. Agriculture, on the one hand, provides raw materials for industrialization; on the other hand, agriculture is forced to turn into commercial farming. Large numbers of rural populations move to cities that require workforce. Farmers, who stay in the countryside, usually choose passive adaptation to structural economic and social changes. Some peasants, who refuse to become `industrialized' or victims of large national and foreign capitals (Mexico, Russia, China, Vietnam, Algeria, Cuba and South Asia), choose social movements, revolts or revolutions (Wolf, 1968; Paige, 1975; Scott, 1976). However, despite temporary success, peasant protests are usually suppressed by national and/or imperialist forces who serve landlords or bourgeois classes.

In 1894, for about a year, the Donghak (the name of the national religion) Peasant Revolution or the Gapoh (the Asian sexagesimal system) Peasant War, controlled the province of Jeolla in Southern Korea, but eventually defeated by the Joseon Dynasty (13921910) army with the help of Chinese and Japanese troops. There are different interpretations (Kim Sangki, 1975; Shin Yongha, 1993; Jeong Changryeol, 2014; Woo Youn, 1993) of the nature and historical impact of this peasant revolution/war. The understanding of factors that determined the peasant uprising has changed: in addition to exploitation as a part of the traditional landlord-farmer relations, such factors as peasants anger due to the local officials' abusing authority, greed and tyranny are debated. However, I believe that the 1894 Peasant Uprising is a decisive event in which the ruling elite of Korea, which strived to keep its power, trampled its autonomous modernization initiative. If the people and the ruling elite would have succeeded in making a kind of modernization alliance, Korea might have taken a different path in the early 20th century.

Since the forced colonization of Korea in 1910, the Japanese imperialism tried to `modernize' the Korean economic system to build an East Asian economic sphere connecting Japan-Korea-Manchuria and to facilitate structural exploitation for the benefit of Japan. In the 1930s, the `Rural Promotion Movement' in colonial Korea started the project of `Rural Modernization' which aimed at increasing agricultural productivity and changing the lifestyle of farmers. `Modernization' meant improving the standard of living for Korean farmers, but in fact it was the imperial looting policy of peasant mobilization implemented by the Governor General of Joseon, which became a model after the Japanese national agricultural policy. This policy was to ensure significant benefits for Japanese businesses in Korea and for Korean landlords who cooperated with Japan, and to keep farmers in terrible poverty.

In the early 1970s, 40 years after that and 10 years after Park Chung Hee, when the former Japanese military officer became the president of Korea through a military coup, a new rural movement, the Saemaul Movement, developed in the Korean village. It was the Korean-style rural development policy declared by the national leaders, and it was the nation's large-scale farmer mobilization policy. The colonial policy of rural modernization was implemented in 19321940, when Park worked as a teacher in the countryside. About the Saemaul Movement, there is still a myth that the majority of the older generations of rural Korea remember -- that it was the most successful national policy since the liberation in 1945. However, a comprehensive historical study of the Saemaul Movement needs further research for it is still one of the most controversial issues in the Korean contemporary history.

In general, the research of the Saemaul Movement follows the official (influenced by the state propaganda) position insisting on its great achievements. It is also considered a representative achievement of the Park Chung Hee's successful modernization policy. But the critical academic analysis should take into account different multidimensional aspects of the issue, which include political motives, and social and economic effects of the Korean rural society modernization. The previous research based on the official position began in the 1980s and was published in English (Park Jin Hwan, 1998; Kim Edward, 1980; Lee Mangap, 1980). This research determined the public and foreign-scholar positive perception of the Saemaul Movement. The later more complex research, especially in the late 2000s, contributed to a more comprehensive study of the Saemaul Movement focusing on (1) the achievements and limitations of the Saemaul Movement in terms of modernization and rural development; (2) critical analysis of the Saemaul современность Movement in terms of Park Chung Hee's social control and peasant mobilization; (3) specific aspects of the Saemaul Movement in rural areas and villages; and (4) the Korean farmers' autonomous modernization capabilities and traditions (Ha Jaehoon, 2014; Kim Youngmi, 2009; 2014).

I would like to reconsider the 1960s and 1970s, when Korea's modernization strategy was fully developed in terms of social continuity and the second wave of case studies addressing contradictions and paradoxes of the data. The majority of studies focusing on the Saemaul Movement in the 1970s excluded or nearly neglected the National Agricultural Cooperatives system that was the core of the rural community since the early 1960s and was deeply involved in the Saemaul Movement in the 1970s. Moreover, previous studies mainly examined the institutional evolution of the National Agricultural Cooperatives beyond overall social changes, which made them overlook the political and historical role of the Korean agricultural cooperatives. The interaction of the state and farmer is the key in the studies of the modernization strategy in the Third World and developing countries. In Korea, the National Agricultural Cooperatives are to be `farmers' independent organizations', but act as government public corporations. This contradiction is an interesting and important dimension for the analysis of the Korean modernization.

The status of agriculture and the peasantry during the Korean modernization

Korea survived the `Korean War' in 1950-1953 and was one of the poorest countries in the world until the 1960s -- a typical Third-World economy. However, Korea joined the OECD in 1995, and became the world's 10th largest economy by GDP in 2005. The per capita income of Koreans surpassed $30,000 in 2019 ($82 in 1961). The economic development of Korea, which achieved such astonishing results, began in the 1960s -- 1970s.

The Park Chung Hee's regime succeeded due to the Miracle of the Han River by implementing the state five-year economic plan. However, this regime was the result of the military coup on May 16, 1961, which destroyed the democratic government of the April Revolution in 1960. From the Korean War to the 1970s, the country relied on foreign aid from nations such as the United States and Germany, and eventually moved from poverty to the late 1980s, when it could provide assistance to developing countries (through the Economic Development Cooperation Fund (EDCF) and the Korean International Cooperation Agency (KOICA)). Therefore, Korea was defined as a miraculous example of the successful Newly Industrialized Countries (NICs) and the first country to follow the Japan's Developmental State.

However, the results of this splendid accelerated modernization were achieved at the cost of the continued contraction of rural areas and sacrifices of farmers for the urban industrialization, and further subjugation of the peasant class under the state pressure, despite the relative increase in agricultural productivity. Park Chung Hee as the president named oneself a `son of a farmer' and advocated the rhetoric of balanced development of the city and the countryside (Park Chung Hee, 1978). In fact, in the 1960s and 1970s, agriculture was shrinking as the export industrialization expanded. The share of agriculture in the GDP fell from 38.7% in 1961 to 26.85% in 1970, and, finally, to less than 10% in 1990. The average annual growth of the GDP in industry was 7.7%, and in mining and manufacture -- 14.1% under the first Five-Year Plan (1962-1966), while agriculture, forestry and fishery remained at 5.1%. Under the second Five-Year Plan (1967-1971), the shares were 10.5%, 20.3%, and 2.3%, respectively, proving the stagnation of agriculture as compared to the growth of industry (Park Jindo, Han Dohyun, 1999: 44). The growth rate of agriculture, forestry and fishery was only 1% when the GNP growth rate was 8.4% in 1977-1988, which were defined as the `stable economic growth period' by the government (Korean Rural Economic Institute, 1999: 3-5). In the first half of the 1960s, the income per rural household was higher than the income per urban worker; the situation changed in 1965, and by 1968, the income of rural households decreased to 62.6% of the urban workers income.

The unbalanced growth strategy focused on industrialization made rural peasantry poor, many of them left their homes and headed to the city. In the first half of the 1960s, the annual `Net Rural Exodus Population' was 190,000, while in the late 1960s -- 500,000. Thereby, the share of urban population increased from 29.9% in 1960 to 41.2% in 1970 (Park Jindo, Han Dohyun, 1999: 45). On the other hand, the share of rural population decreased from 58.3% in 1960 to 51.6% in 1968 and 28.9% in 1979 (Jeon Kwanghee, 1999: 128). The factors mentioned above led to the disintegration of the rural society, small towns and the Korean countryside.

It should be noted that lower incomes and outmigration were not determined by the exclusion of farmers from the state modernization of Korea, but by the government policies that tried to promote farmers' participation and the government's control of agricultural production and distribution. From 1962 to 1981, under the four Five- Year Economic Development Plans, there was a substantial growth in both agricultural productivity and farmers' debts, i.e. a contradictory consequence of the fast economic growth. The government's intervention in the agricultural production was facilitated by two reform: in 1970, the Agricultural Promotion Corporation was established as a legal entity according to the Farming Modernization Promotion Act; in 1972, the Innovative Development of Rural Economy policy was adopted.

Since the 1960s, the top priority of the Korean agricultural policy has been to increase food production, especially self-sufficiency in rice -- Korea's staple grain. The government promoted agricultural reforms in irrigation, rearrangement of arable land, education in agricultural technologies, distribution of agricultural machinery, provision of chemical fertilizers, dissemination of new high- yield varieties (Green Revolution), and the preservation and expansion of agricultural land. The government's intervention in the agricultural distribution was extensive and involved distribution of grains (especially rice), fertilizers, and pesticides (Hwang Byeongjoo, 2014). Such extensive intervention was to achieve broader goals of the economic development. In the one hand, the government had to reduce food imports to meet the high demand for foreign exchange for industrialization (Park Jinhwan, 2005: 24); on the other hand, it had to supply food to the rapidly increasing urban population.

Another dimension of the government's intervention in the lives of farmers was agricultural financing. The importance and effects of the state agricultural financing for farmers explain the reality of Korean rural communities and indebtedness of farmers. Since the 1970s, loans to local agricultural funds through National Agricultural Cooperatives Federation (NACF, Nonghyup) have grown exponentially, which allowed it to become an agency of the state agricultural policy. Agricultural financing (repayable loans) increased from about 77 billion Won in 1970 to 770 billion Won by the end of 1979 (Ministry of Agriculture..., 1980: 230; Hwang Byeongjoo, 2014: 46). The Park Chung Hee's regime tried to include the limited but improved rural households' income into national savings and reinvestments and mobilized the NACF and Community Credit Cooperatives (Saemaul Saving was established in 1963) as an instrument to collect rural savings. Since the 1970s, the NACF have been the main channel of collecting finances, purchasing agricultural materials and machinery, and selling agricultural products to Korean farmers. Due to the policy of encouraging the purchase of expensive machinery and commercial equipment by farming households rather than the village, farmers had to borrow huge money from the NACF, which was in excess of their annual income. The results of the Park Chung Hee's agricultural policy were an increase in the number of farmers with debts and the enlargement of the NACF that achieved the almost exclusive lending status in the countryside with government's preferences. The Table 1 shows the size of farms' debts and the continued increase in debts to the Agricultural Cooperatives.

Table 1. Farming households' debts by financial institutions, in 1,000 Wons and (%) (Hwang Byeongjoo, 2014: 46)

Further, I will consider the Korean modernization in the perspective that dramatically contrasts the `splendor of urban light' and `the shadow of the depressed rural village' through two lenses: first, through the agricultural cooperative which became an official organization controlled by the government in the 1960s; second, through the Saemaul Movement in the 1970s -- a government initiative to modernize the rural economy. The `successful' modernization of Korea was implemented by the state policies infiltrating rural areas and forcing farmers to allegiance by the NACF and Saemaul Movement's forced `participatory mobilization'.

The NACF as an instrument of the modernization policy: Institutional preferences and farmers' mobilization

The Korean NACF, which became a member of the ICA (International Cooperative Alliance) in 1972, has more than 1,000 units in each urban and rural district and is considered the world largest agricultural cooperative together with the one in Japan. The Korean Nonghyup Bank has more than 2.25 million members (2017) and about 14,000 employees (2014), its assets exceed 231 trillion won (2015) (NACF, 2014; 2015; 2017), which is impressive for the cooperative banking. However, this is only the quantitative dimension of the Korean Nonghyup, which does not indicate its contribution to the prosperity of agriculture, villages and farmers. Many Koreans say that agriculture and rural areas declined in the reverse proportion to the NACF's growth under modernization. During 60 years of the full-scale modernization, the NACF thrived while farmers suffered tremendous debts. The hollowization left rural areas almost completely bereft of the youth. The NACF should not be considered an independent современность cooperative that protects the rights and interests of its members or increases the social value of agriculture for the majority of farmers and rural societies.

NACF has been criticized for two main reasons: first, for the legacy of colonial policies of the Japanese rule; for the Park Chung Hee's reestablishment of cooperatives as state organizations or public corporations rather than member organizations. Therefore, despite its official definition as the `farmers' independent cooperative organization', it has been used by the government for mobilization and control of farmers (Kim Kitae, 2019: 15-17).

The first contemporary credit institution in Korea was established in the Daehan Empire (1907-1910), the last period of the Joseon Dynasty. In 1907, the Financial Mutual Union was established under the leadership of the state to provide financial services (loans, deposits, regular funds, and cargo storage) to local residents. In 1910, when Japan forcibly merged with Korea, it increased to 130 unions nationwide. The Financial Mutual Union played a very important role in the rural colonial strategy of the Governor-General of Japan. In 1933, the Federation of Joseon Financial Cooperatives was formed. In 1945, when Korea was liberated from the Japanese imperialism, there were 912 such financial (now called cooperative) unions. In 1958, the Agricultural Bank inherited the financial cooperative unions' assets and employees. Local agricultural cooperative unions (Li/Dong Unit) at the village level continued to provide non-financial services (Federation of Joseon Financial Cooperatives).

Figure 1. Historical origins of the NACF

The new Agricultural Cooperative Act was adopted in July 1961, immediately after the General Park Chung Hee got power through the military coup. Under this special law, the financial Agricultural Bank and the non-financial Agricultural Cooperatives were integrated to establish the Korean Agricultural Cooperative Federation, whose purpose was to provide savings and loans, operating practices and education services. The integration of the Agricultural Bank and the Agricultural Cooperatives was considered a desirable step, because for three years these two groups competed and failed to individually ensure activities for the benefit of farmers or agriculture. Thus, the government insisted on their merger and created a new organization called the NACF. However, the NACF kept the majority of former members of the two financial unions: out of 4,476 employees of the NACF and local unions, 3,656, or 72%, were previously employees of the Agricultural Bank and its financial unions (Korean National Agricultural Cooperative Movement 50 Years, 2017: 31; NACF Institutional Review Board, 1966: 47-54). These `old financial hands' had an important influence on the bureaucratic decision-making of the NACF.

Li/Dong unit, i.e. the NACF in village absorbed by the Agricultural Bank, were originally a part of the Rural Action Association organized by the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry in the early 1950s (Fig. 2). The Ministry offered a week training camp course to teach the basic theory of agricultural cooperatives to agricultural personnel from the Li/Dong rural area. When the Integrated Agricultural Cooperative Act was adopted in 1961, there were about 20,000 Li/Dong Unit Cooperatives. The village cooperation promoted joint purchase of fertilizers, agricultural equipment, and small-scale sales, such as eggs. There were some successful cases, but most of these organizations suffered from their smallness that often meant a lack of leadership skills, business operating systems, and fund.

Thus, the Korean Agricultural Cooperatives started as a part of the modernization policy of the independent nation. However, the bureaucratic heritage of the colonial rule of the Japanese empire still affected Korean rural areas and peasant farmers. Under the name `cooperative', there were government-controlled public corporations under the `guidance and supervision' of the Ministry of Agriculture and Fishery -- the main department of the state agricultural policy (Ko Hyunseok, 1995: 112). From the perspective of the Park Chung Hee's regime, it was not important for the Agricultural Cooperatives to adhere to the `principle of farmers' cooperation' -- they were a desirable `institutional instrument for maximizing rural development within the balanced development of the national economy'.

Figure 2. System of the NACF leadership

It is not surprising that the president of the NACF was appointed by the government until 1988, i.e. the massive and explosive civil struggle for democratization in June 1987. At the county level of the Agricultural Cooperative unit, the head was appointed by the president of the NACF with the approval of the Minister of Agriculture and Forestry. At the lowest level of the Li/Dong Cooperatives, heads were appointed by the heads of the higher level with the consent of the Mayor or Chief of the county and with the approval of the Governor (Fig. 2). Thus, there was a high possibility that the local and national governance would be filled with people seeking political power without honesty, good intentions, management abilities, and objective qualifications for farmers' cooperatives. From the leaders of small cooperatives in rural villages to the president of the NACF in Seoul, and all key executives such as directors and auditors were appointed externally and on political grounds. This was confirmed by the official government report in the 1970s, according to which in the NACF, there were too many unqualified and ineligible leaders (Prime Minister Planning and Coordination Office, 1976).

From the late 1960s to the 1980s, the Korean Agricultural Cooperatives functioned as public corporations of rural development not aligned to farmers' interests but rather pursuing government interests in personnel management, organization, budgeting, and operation. This structure determined the following problems (Lim Kyungtaek, 1991: 120-121): the high share of business determined by the government policy; poor local representation due to the excessive government control through appointments; the inherent organizational enormity and bureaucracy that hindered national rural development projects; inefficiencies in the resource management, especially when numerous projects were implemented at the same time; limitations of farmers' ability to express local demands.

As was mentioned above, in 1962, the restructuring through integration of the NACF made it a government agricultural policy tool rather than an independent organization of farmers. Local agricultural cooperatives were to be affiliated with the NACF as the only national association without regional units, which did not change since the Korean political democratization in 1987. The NACF has grown under the supervision of the government, by receiving preferences in various legal and institutional ways. As a result, the NACF is still a sub-partner of the state agricultural policy. On the other hand, farmers' participation in local cooperatives was mandatory regardless of the produce grown, and local cooperatives became a comprehensive business model that offered credit, business, and education. Because it was impossible for the Korean independent small farmer to engage in the commercial agriculture without the agricultural support of the NACF, most farmers became members of local cooperatives: 90% of farmers joined the Agricultural Cooperatives, and the number of union members reached around 2 million farmers. Therefore, the NACF is considered a kind of the administrative institution. Furthermore, leaders of cooperatives also acted as if they were local power brokers with great influence on their communities. Local cooperative heads frequently colluded with local leaders of the Republican Party -- the ruling party supporting the regime of Park Chung Hee -- and functioned as one of the main pillars of the Korean rural policy. Being a NACF employee was perceived as the most stable job in the poor rural area and, thus, as a position to rule farmers.

Since the 1960s and 1970s, the NACF aimed at supplying chemical fertilizers to farmers, providing access to agricultural credits, and purchasing agricultural products. Its lowest subordinate unit, the village Nonghyup, was to ensure fertilizers distribution for the county Nonghyup, i.e. the main task of the village Nonghyup was to send money for fertilizers from farmers to the county and to deliver fertilizers to farmers. Some farmers, who did not consider the NACF as their organization, sold some of their mandatory produce to the NACF, but frequently sold the rest of their produce to merchants who paid in cash, which provided farmers with money to pay for fertilizers without the village cooperative access to credit. Thus, the Korean Agricultural Cooperative system was ineffective in stopping the middlemen merchants from getting excessive profits for distributing agricultural products.

The Korean farmers' choice (if it can be called so) of the NACF was a double-edged sword. Buying fertilizers on credit from the village Nonghyup and sending the cash to the county Nonghyup placed a heavy burden on small farmers -- individual debts and collective responsibility for the NACF debt. Certainly, without fertilizers cheaper than at the market they would not be able to farm commercially. The NACF's most important task was distribution of fertilizers. The dependence on fertilizers and both individual and joint debts led 120 to strife among villagers looking for someone to blame for the consequences. In other words, the NACF was not and is not an organization that promotes cooperation and solidarity of farmers to help them prosper, but rather generates conflicts due to the above-described indebtedness.

Some farmers have participated in various meetings of the NACF and expressed their traditional identities and concerns about cooperative management and operations since the 1960s. When working within the Local Agricultural Cooperatives, these farmers supported reforms so that the NACF would become an organization that values the interests of its members instead of an administrative agency of the government. This farmers' intention was consistent with other trends of the time such as (Kim Youngmi, 2009; 2014): activities of the relatively young leaders of the Korean rural society; reforms to replace traditional hierarchical leadership; promotion of the village governance modernization. These trends imply that at the local level with the national policy imposed `from above' its implementation and effects can vary depending on the attitudes and capabilities of farmers (some mention that the kolkhoz (collective farms), established under the forced collectivization in the Soviet Union in the late 1920s, gradually evolved into an organization protecting peasants' interests). However, the support of reforms was not common.

On the other hand, in the early 1970s, the reform movement developed outside the NACF. Activist farmers were supported by the progressive Catholic priests who put pressure to promote agricultural cooperative reforms so that to revive `the identity of the NACF as a cooperative'. Thus, the NACF became the target of the farmers collective resistance movement. Their demands were clear, and the relevant legal statutes stated clearly that the Korean Agricultural Cooperatives were legal `peasant independent organizations' and that the Agricultural Cooperative Code allowed to promote both `the economic and social status of farmers' and agricultural productivity. Actually, the NACF-led consolidation and integration of small-scale unions in the 1960s and early 1970s triggered the reform movement. For instance, the number of Li/Dong cooperatives at the village level reached 21,246 in 1963, but due to consolidation was reduced to 1,549 in 1973; the average number of the consolidated union increased to about 1,400 members per unit.

The consolidation led to a significant increase in the number of the cooperative unit's functions, but cooperative members (farmers) felt that their ability to make decisions within the organization was reduced. In this situation, some clergy, social activists and farmers created the Catholic Farmers' Association to criticize the non-democratic nature of agricultural cooperatives and to mobilize farmers against the governance practices of the NACF and the government intervention. The farmers' movement become popular and received great grassroots support in some regions in the mid-1970s, which allowed it in the late 1980s to push for democratization of the NACF including the direct election of the leader of Agricultural Cooperatives and the awareness of how crucial such a reform would be for independent agricultural cooperatives in Korea (Kim Kitae, 2019: 20-37).

Saemaul Movement in the ±97os: State-led mass movement and peasant mobilization

The Saemaul Movement in Korea is considered an example of the international poverty eradication and rural development. Since the late 1990s, there have been attempts to apply the Saemaul Movement model to many development projects including in Vietnam, Indonesia, China, Mongolia, Nepal, Congo, Tanzania, Rwanda and Uganda. The United Nations World Food Program (UNWFP) noted the Saemaul Movement as an alternative solution to the problem of hunger and malnutrition. After the election of Park Geun Hye, the daughter of the former President Park Chung Hee, as the President of Korea in 2012, the second Saemaul Movement was started, including the attempts to expand this policy as a global movement.

The Saemaul Movement, which was promoted as a pilot project by Park Chung Hee in 1970 and was started in earnest in 1972, initially aimed at encouraging the voluntary participation of farmers in the improvement of rural living standards. At the national level, under the pressure of opposition parties and civil society, in October 1972, the personal dictatorship was established (`October Yushin') so that Park Chung Hee could hold power indefinitely. The Saemaul Movement became a government policy consisting of measures to increase the farming households' income, promote rural society development and support rural morale. At the same time, the Saemaul Movement' national network was refocused as a means of the national campaign-response to the October Yushin.

Within the Saemaul Movement, success and public participation varied greatly by regions and periods; therefore, effects of the Saemaul Movement were contradictory and paradoxical. However, the state initiative of the Saemaul Movement is recognized by all sides -- in either positive or negative way. When we say `the Saemaul Movement', it does not mean `a voluntary social movement that Korean farmers organized from below to realize their interests' -- it was rather `a farmers' response to the mass mobilization strategy organized from above to strengthen the social-political foundations of the top leaders'. In other words, the Saemaul Movement in the 1970s was basically an attempt to achieve the aims of the national policy through mass mobilization; politically, it was a successful example of the `rural developmental coalition' (Korean peasants showed higher support than urban residents for the Republicans -- the political foundation of the Park Chung Hee's regime -- in national and presidential elections in the 1960S-1970S) in the modernization process (Choi Jangjip, 2001). современность Throughout the era of Park Chung Hee, farmers' mobilization by the government was considered as voluntary or involuntary and as oppressive control (Aqua, 1981; Kim Dae-Young, 2004: 180-190). References to the voluntary mobilization can be found in the papers of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, which is a government department responsible for promoting the Saemaul Movement, i.e. this project is based on `the village funds' and the government's role as `developing the rural organization, and stimulating and motivating voluntary participation (of farmers)'. The Saemaul Movement was initiated by the government, but the choice of participation was given to farmers. According to empirical studies, farmers `did not voluntarily participate -- they rather formally sympathized, avoided or passively resisted' (Yoo Byeongyong, Choi Bongdae, Oh Yuseok, 2001: 102-юз). Such passive resistance (in the form of minimum participation) allowed to avoid negative consequences for the improvements in the village living standards.

However, non-voluntary peasant mobilization and oppressive control were inevitable within the `national movement' advocated by the charismatic military leader. The rural units of the village and groups of villages were made parts of the centralized hierarchical organization. The forced mobilization according to the logic of the state administrative organization created a centralized hierarchical organization that controlled the metropolitan, provincial and village levels with the Ministry of Internal Affairs as its main department, while at the top of the administrative pyramid, there was the Blue House (President's Office). The Saemaul Movement Central Council was established under the leadership of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and its sub-organizations were organized through the whole pyramid down to rural units (Li and Dong). In addition, key people who worked at the village level were appointed `Saemaul leaders', and their activities were systematically developed, monitored and managed by the NACF together with the government policy.

The Park Chung Hee's regime empowered rural administrative organizations, including local units of the NACF, to supply and distribute technical and financial resources necessary for agricultural production and rural development. Thereby, the NACF remains a monopolistic company with national preferences in the rural society: it provided credits through deposits and savings to farmers on a daily basis, organized sales of agricultural machinery, fertilizers, pesticides, and industrial products, and acted as a government's proxy agency for purchasing grain from farmers. When farmers joined a group led by the NACF, it was easier for them to get farming funds, although actually the membership in the Agricultural Cooperatives was semi- forced due to its captive savings deduction program.

Park Chung Hee thought that the Saemaul Movement's goal of supporting and mobilizing the rural population was originally the NACF's goal, but due to the NACF's incompetence the President further increased the Saemaul Movement's control (Korean Economy Modernization..., 2005). The NACF supported the government's active involvement in the Agricultural Cooperatives and the Saemaul Movement by emphasizing the “similarity between these two” (Choi Sangho, 1986). In the early 1970s, the NACF, under the patronage and control of the Ministry of Agriculture and Fishery, established the department of Saemaul Leadership to systematically support the Saemaul Project and take on general planning and coordination. New subdivisions for each sector were established in provinces and counties. In Li/Dong unit at the village level, departments were formed, such as farming guidance, education, and income development; family counsellors were invited to village unit unions. By mobilizing these organizations and its own human resources, the NACF actively supported the government's Saemaul project by the Saemaul leaders' educational programs, by distributing agricultural technologies through the Saemaul Farmers' Association, Saemaul Women's Association, and Saemaul Youth Association, and by promoting farmers' cooperative work. In addition, the NACF reinforced the government Saemaul project by rationalizing the consumer life and by fostering rural farming succession. At the same time, these activities aimed at encouraging farmers' participation in the Agricultural Cooperatives.

The size of the NACF grew significantly -- in the number of both employees and activities -- during the Saemaul Movement. For example, from 1972, the number of employees per union unit tripled from 6 to 18, and the annual business turnover increased from 40 million Won to 2.3 billion in 1980. However, neither the NACF nor the Saemaul Movement had any influence on decision-making in agricultural policies -they did not have voting rights despite having the Saemaul Movement Central Council (Lim Kyungtaek, 1991: 121-125, 209).

Farmers were in the difficult position: in the 1960s-1970s, they experienced deepening dependence on government ministries, which determined their forced allegiance to the ruling party. Farmers lost their ability to solve agricultural and commercial problems in the traditional ways in their rural communities due to the destruction of mass agriculture by the modernization methods. Farmers had no other choice than to rely on the NACF and other administrative organizations that supplied the machinery and purchased their produce.

The oppressive control strengthened in 1972, when the ruling party was seriously challenged by Kim Dae Jung, the opposition leader, in the presidential election of 1971. In October 1972, the supra-con- stitutional emergency (for seven years the direct presidential elections were changed to indirect, the power of the parliament was limited, there was strong oppression of the civil society -- the media, progressive intellectuals, clergy, college students and workers;

this oppressive regime ended on October 26, 1979 with the murder of Park Chung Hee by the chief of the Central Intelligence Agency, who was his closest subordinate), the so-called `October Yushin', was initiated in the name of the `Korean democracy' and `peaceful reunification of North and South Korea'. It was during this very turbulent time that the Korean peasant movement was organized. The Park Chung Hee's administration modernization policy promoted the `Physiocracy First Policy', and some clergy and progressive intellectuals supported the resistance of farmers who were forced to sacrifice their livelihood and voice for the accelerated industrialization. The Park Chung Hee's regime oppressed peasant activists and their allies who insisted that the government policy had to be changes in favor of peasants. The government condemned them as rebels or communist sympathizers, and had them arrested. Farmers who criticized the government did not get access to credit and were excluded from the distribution of agricultural funds by the NACF and other administrative agencies.

The Saemaul Movement, at first promoted by the state from above, pursued three goals: (1) improvement of rural life, (2) spiritual development of farmers, and (3) increase in rural incomes. The Saemaul Movement in rural areas was mostly led by public officials and followed the military-style mobilization that aimed at the compulsory achievement of goals set by the central government. Some peasants were active `Saemaul leaders', but their activities were usually limited to the village development committee (the lowest unit). In the late 1970s, farmers resented again the coercive and overpowering behavior of the government, for instance, they criticized the house remodeling reform and excessive distribution of the `Reunification Rice' (a high- yield crop). In October 1979, the murder of Park Chung Hee marked the end of the October Yushin regime and the beginning of the Sae- maul Movement decline.

Although the Saemaul Movement was promoted by the government, the state did not provide enough resources and did not cover all costs of the project; nor was the project uniformly implemented or administered. Several case studies show that the effects of the project were not evenly distributed by regions. For example, from 1971 to 1979, of the total investment in about 33,000 villages, only 28% were provided by the government, while more than 70% -- by village residents (Hwang Injung, 1980: 42). The living standards improvement project included housing, fences, sewerage, water supply facilities, and electric/telephone cables; the joint project for each village implied the expansion of the village entrance and roads, construction of the town hall, common kitchen, and public bath. The government provided some of the surplus cement for the project, but it was a very limited stimulus for the Saemaul Movement, and the Park Chung Hee's regime tried to compensate for the shortage of state inputs by village competitions.

The participants of the Saemaul Movement were to offer direct labor input and take on the financial burden per household, and further to donate or contribute land without compensation to build new roads and construct shared facilities (Lee Hyunjeong, 2014: 172-176). The demand for farmers' resources and labor inputs was estimated locally at the village meeting. However, the degree of revitalization of villages depended on various social-cultural, geographic and economic factors, including the compliance with the program at large. Such factors as historical memories about participation in the country's rural and agricultural policies since the Japanese colonial period, the influence of traditional communities and the reputation of village leaders, distance from the cities, and effects of the initial project had different impact depending on the village's circumstances. According to the comparative study of two villages in Gyeonggi-do near Seoul (Gye, Pumasi), the institutional (rules, procedures, punishments, regulations, etc.) and cognitive (trust, reciprocity, and norms) social capital (kinship ties, weakening traditional authority of adults, organization of the youth, effective management of joint property and funds, reciprocal community traditions, etc.) had a positive effect on the successful implementation of the Saemaul Movement. In some rural areas and villages, farmers kept traditions established in the 1930s and resisted their local Saemaul Movement unit, which is a proof of the successful Saemaul Movement from below (such examples can be found in the 1960s too).

On the other hand, these cases show the villagers' autonomous modernization power confronted the one that was `imposed by the administrative power of the national policy from above', was the most common approach of the Japanese government-generals in Korea and was repeated by the Park Chung Hee regime's modernization strategy. There is an assumption (Kim Youngmi, 2009; 2014) that the Saemaul Movement was possible due to the national appropriation of its voluntary energy, even though this does not apply to the whole Korean rural society; nevertheless, the Saemaul Movement is crucial for understanding the Korean modernization, especially its complexity.

Conclusion

According to researchers and farmers-participants, the Saemaul Movement projects exceeded its three main goals in improving rural areas and agricultural production infrastructure. However, the results of the income-increase project, which was a priority for farmers, were disappointing, which led to the rural exodus. Ha Jaehoon (2014: 279280) argues that the Saemaul Movement incorporated various types of traditional rural organizations and used cooperative traditions of the rural society, which, on the contrary, weakened both its self-help capacity and autonomous community spirit.

The Saemaul Movement economic effects were not impressive and its social impact was paradoxical. As was mentioned above, the Saemaul Movement encouraged innovations in the rural lifestyle, but they were imposed on the traditional community from above. In other words, the Saemaul Movement was promoted as promising greater cohesion of the village community, but, on the contrary, contributed to its disintegration (Kim Youngm, 2014: 329) due to the regime's ultimate goal to alleviate poverty so that `the farmer lives well” and to promote this pilot policy by selecting `the best village' that succeeded in `increasing income'. Therefore, farmers, who internalized materialism based on competition and efficiency, as required by the government, eventually created its most desirable model of individual profit-seeking farmer outside the community, who was cut off from its traditional kinship and reciprocity. Thus, the traditional network of Korean rural communities was disintegrated by the 1980s and replaced by selfish interests for farmers who could not escape/migrate to the city. This top-down policy ensured the dramatic government's intervention in agriculture and farming. Instead of augmenting and nurturing the autonomy of farmers, the national policy often used the `carrot-stick' approach that controlled various policy benefits for the agricultural sector.