Person1898 – 1959

Cho Bong-am

First Minister of Agriculture; ran for president in 1956 and founded the Progressive Party calling for peaceful unification. Executed in 1959 in the Progressive Party case, acquitted on retrial in 2011

Active in the socialist movement under Japanese rule, he broke with the Korean Communist Party after liberation. He was elected to the Constitutional Assembly and, as the first Minister of Agriculture and Forestry, pushed land reform. He ran for president in 1952 and 1956, winning a large share of the vote in 1956. That year he founded the Progressive Party, calling for peaceful unification. In the Progressive Party Incident of 1958 he was arrested on charges of violating the National Security Act.

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1 related event

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1958Progressive Party Incidentrelated figure
Cho Bong-am of the Progressive Party, which called for peaceful unification, was executed on espionage charges and the party dissolved; he was acquitted on retrial in 2011.

Related works

Documentary: Now It Can Be Told Episode 3: Cho Bong-am and the Progressive Party IncidentDocumentary · 1999 · Park No-eop · MBC

People who appear alongside

Syngman Rhee1875 – 1965
First President of the Provisional Government, who worked through diplomacy in the US; later first President of the Republic of Korea

Themes this person appears in

Changing Unification Policies1948 – 2018
From “march north” to the Panmunjom Declaration — inter-Korean relations from confrontation to dialogue, through joint statements and agreements to summits (up to 2018)