Politics15 February 1927

Singanhoe

Uncompromising nationalists and socialists joined to found the Singanhoe, the largest legal national organization of the colonial period.

When a home-rule (autonomy) movement — national reformism seeking self-government within Japanese rule — arose in the mid-1920s with ideas such as Yi Gwang-su’s "National Policy" (1924), nationalists who rejected them and socialists suppressed under the Peace Preservation Law sought cooperation. After the socialist Jeonguhoe declared for alliance with nationalists in 1926, the Singanhoe was launched on 15 February 1927 with Yi Sang-jae as president and Hong Myeong-hui as vice-president. Its platform was "to awaken political and economic consciousness, strengthen unity and reject all opportunism". The women’s organization Geunuhoe was its sister body.

With some 140 branches and 40,000 members it held lectures and supported labour, peasant and student movements. During the 1929 Gwangju student movement it sent an investigation team and planned a mass rally, and many leaders were arrested. As the new leadership turned moderate and the Comintern changed line, socialists called for dissolution and it was dissolved in 1931.

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States and rulers at the time: Korea under Japanese rule — Governor-General Saitō Makoto

People

Yi Sang-jae1850 – 1927
leader · Independence Club veteran who led the national university campaign and was first president of the Singanhoe
An Jae-hong1891 – 1965
participant · General secretary of the Singanhoe who led the Joseon Studies movement with Jeong In-bo and others, and after liberation was vice-chairman of the Committee for the Preparation of Korean Independence
Han Yong-un1879 – 1944
participant · Buddhist monk and poet, one of the 33 representatives who signed the Declaration of Independence; author of "The Silence of Love"
Yi Gwang-su1892 – 1950
related figure · Drafted the February Eighth Declaration and wrote the novel "Mujeong"; argued for home rule in "National Policy" and later collaborated with the Japanese authorities (listed in the Dictionary of Pro-Japanese Collaborators)

Before and after

Earlier: 1926 Premiere of Na Un-gyu’s Film "Arirang"
Later: 1927 Geunuhoe

Themes that include this event

Republican China and Imperial Japan1912 – 1949
The age when the Republic of China, born of the 1911 Revolution, passed through warlord division, the May Fourth Movement, the United Front and the Northern Expedition, fought Japan’s invasion and split in civil war — as Japan moved from Taishō democracy through the Manchurian Incident and military coups to the war in China and the Co-Prosperity Sphere, and colonized Korea resisted through the March First Movement and armed struggle