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History of the Communist Revolutionary Movement in Manchuria and Korea

The history of the communist movement in East Asia was not shaped by revolutionary leaders and great-power politics alone. It was also a history of local communities, armed groups, and myriad individuals whose actions on the ground influenced its course. My research explores this often-overlooked dimension through two interconnected themes: (1) the relationship between bandit groups in early twentieth-century Manchuria and the communist movement, and (2) the formation of the North Korean state in the context of the revolutionary movement in Manchuria, the Second World War, and the onset of the Cold War. While existing scholarship mostly emphasised international politics and high-level decision-making, I draw on multilingual archival sources to reconstruct these historical processes from the perspective of local actors to provide a more nuanced understanding of both the communist movement in East Asia and the historical processes that gave rise to the North Korean state.

Soviet Red Army Propaganda Poster

Soldiers of the Anti-Japanese National Salvation Army and a member of the Big Sword Society (Dadaohui) in the Jiandao region (Diplomatic Archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan).

Principal areas of interest

• The Formation of the North Korean State
• Kim Il Sung's Revolutionary Activities
• Banditry and the Communist Movement in Manchuria
• Banditry and the Anti-Japanese Movement in Manchuria during the 1930s