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

Another paradox related to the change in farmers' values was their exodus. Contrary to the government's goal to create a `good life in the village' by improving rural life and increasing farmers' income, their policies led to many farmers' outmigration to the city. Since Korean farmers were not limited in moving (as Soviet peasants), the population outmigration from the countryside reached the level of farmers' striving for a `good life in the city'. Thus, in the 1970s, the rural population decreased by a third, and a large share of emigration consisted of the relatively young and highly-qualified workforce. Moreover, according to the government data, residents of `self-sufficient villages', which were relatively successful in the Saemaul project, showed stronger willingness to leave the countryside than the less successful villagers (Hwang Injung, 1980: 87-88; Kim Youngm, 2014: 329).

The NACF, which was very effective in mobilizing farmers before and during the Saemaul Movement, failed to disseminate the values of cooperation and horizontal solidarity among farmers. Instead of being a partner of the peasant movement, the NACF became an enforcement agency of the national agricultural policy and a target of the farmers' resistance. Farmers did not consider the NACF as `their cooperatives', and the NACF was engaged primarily in increasing the debts of farmers, which made local cooperatives profitable financial organization. Under the disintegration of traditional rural communities, agricultural cooperatives did not contribute to creating new innovative community institutions. The NACF has been a stronghold of statism in rural communities. In the early 1960s, the NACF started as a public enterprise; due to the path dependency, even after the direct election of the union leader in 1988, it did not manage to escape the `cooperative dilemma', i.e. the controversy between goals and means, the role of principal and the role of agent.

Finally, it should be noted, that the symbolism attributed to the Korean peasants by the Park Chung Hee's regime before and after the Saemaul Movement was dramatically different. Park Chung Hee, who came to power through the military coup in May 1961 and declared the `escape poverty' national policy, at first criticized the poverty of the Korean rural community as determined by its laziness and `irrational lifestyle'. In the 1960s, the Korean village was considered a symbol of feudality and backwardness; therefore, rural traditions were declared an awkward obstacle to modernization, which had to be removed quickly; farmers were criticized for their old-fashioned behavior. However, after the Saemaul Movement started to create basic rural units in the 1970s, Korean farmers suddenly turned into national actors capable of saving the country from the decadent, urban, Western-style attitude and consumerism (Hwang Byeongju, 2011: 172-173). This was due to the definition of farmers' voluntary mobilization as the key to success of the Saemaul project with its slogan “Action field of the Korean democracy”, i.e. the peasantry was called to action as a patriotic flag bearer. The government searched for a social-political suport in the countryside, because the Western-style modernization of the Park Chung Hee's regime was not fully supported in the cities. However, the government's duplicity (criticizing and making heroes of the peasant) showed that the government did not really care about fundamental reasons of rural poverty and about rural survival. This contradiction of the Park Chung Hee regime's policy led to fundamental problems in its agricultural policy. The regime pursued and promoted national industrialization and capitalist system, which sacrificed agriculture, despite Park Chung Hee's discourses on farming and peasants.

Korea's economic success in the strong modernization policy in the 1960s and 1970s is internationally recognized. However, it was at the cost of the NACF's lack of integrity: serving the government first rather than its members, dismantling the autonomy of the rural community, and determining the collapse of agriculture and rural areas. The Nonghyup, which was to be a voluntary and autonomous organization of farmers, became a subordinate agricultural partner of the military government. The Saemaul Movement that was to promote rural innovation actually accelerated the decline of agriculture and rural areas, because it was used as a mobilization strategy of farmers. In 1960s and 1970s, the Korean rural society was dependent on the state power. At the same time, the resistance of farmers was a reaction to the military government policy. Under the Park Chung Hee regime, Korean farmers were made a part of the national economy as a mandatory social-economic movement in the 1970s. However, during this period, there was no farmers' class/collective political representation.

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