Currents on the Korean left
Management and government have somewhat successfully played on the idea that disruptive strikes may tip the balance against the possibility of saving jobs.
As a result, very different levels of militancy have emerged among different layers of society. Female students, male and female public sector employees, and male heavy industry workers are particularly militant at the moment. Women students can see that their job possibilities will be even more limited than in the preceding period. Older male workers can sense that their presence in particular key industries, such as steel and auto, leaves them wide open to lay-offs, given that these industries are the ones being immediately effected by global overproduction.
Meanwhile, during the public sector strikes in Myongdong Cathedral between July 14 and 16, more than half of the strikers were women workers of every age. Conversely, male students seem to believe that by keeping their heads down, they may yet get a job. Conclusion
The greatest problem facing the labour movement in Korea as it tries to struggle against this emerging leaner world is that workers will, in general, only mobilise for action when they feel directly threatened. Manufacturing and bank workers who have not been affected by closures, for example, were hesitant to take action in the third week of
For the time being, the FKTU and to some extent the KCTU will only move if they are pushed and then strongly supported by the rank-and-file, who in turn, start pressuring only when it is already getting late. Workers thus need to see that strike action brings results. The partial success in the face of the attack at Hyundai is positive in this respect, since it encourages the chaebols to think again about radical restructuring.
The union leadership must combine a concrete analysis of the present crisis with an ability to develop radical strategies that can channel the immediate demands of the rank and file toward the articulation of structural reform demands in the interests of the working class and small businesspeople. The development of such a perspective will be significant in the months ahead. as more workers begin to lose their faith in a rosy outcome to the crisis. *
Korean society is definitely turning to the left. But this gradual process of radicalisation is complicated by demoralisation resulting from job losses, unwillingness to struggle because of fear of lay-offs, and the urge to settle quickly for partial gains. These are all characteristic of workers' reactions in economically uncertain times. Another relatively unexplored factor complicating this situation, however, is the different currents on the Korean left that seek to explain what has suddenly gone wrong with the Korean
The paradox of the Korean left today is the gradual reversal of the traditional relationship between the intellectuals and the working class since the Great Struggle of the 1980s. At that time, the vast majority of young intellectuals were self-styled Marxists of one kind or another. While the working class sympathised with the intellectuals and students in their struggle against the dictatorship, workers were in favour of greater democracy rather than being supportive of the anti-capitalism cause.
Nowadays, things have changed. Most progressive academics are now post-Marxists, social democratic reformists or supporters of "civil society" working in NGOs. These people, who are in their 30s or early 40s, now form the dominant tendency of writers, TV talk show debaters and university left intellectuals in Korea. This "generation of defectors" also finds its supporters among the leadership of the KCTU as well as, more predictably, the FKTU.
During the same period, the Korean working class has become much more open to explicitly anti-capitalist ideas. Interestingly, the traditional suspicion that the organised working class had for the radical student movement collapsed a year or so ago. This has created an additional headache for the state, which now seeks to prevent students from reaching the sites of worker demonstrations through spot checks at the subways and Left explanations of the crisis
The Korean left can basically be divided into three broad currents.
The first is a reformist tendency, which is the major current, particularly among older intellectuals. The main problem with the Korean economy, they argue, is not its nature as a peculiar variant of a nevertheless universal capitalism, but its "bad" specificities.
bad presentices of the chaels and the
practices of the chaebols and the state bureaucrats. If the Korean people are led by Kim Dae-jung, a beneficial normal model of capitalism will result.
From this analysis follows a political and economic plan of action that is basically compatible with that of the IMF. "Democratic" corporatism and chaebol "rationalisation" , under the economic prescription of the IMF, will be linked to union compromises on the issue of labour flexibility.
In other words, the acceptance of the Tripartite Commission in good faith by all parties will result in renewed good times a year or two from now. This point of view is promoted by the whole FKTU; some white collar unions in the KCTU are also headed this way.
The second tendency on the Korean left is represented by those who promote an "traditional" far left analysis. It is influential among a few labour institutes and the rank-and-file of the KCTU, for whom it is an immediate response to the opportunist union leadership. The present crisis, it is suggested, is part of the general crisis of world capitalism. There is therefore no need for further analysis. There is also no need for concrete demands or for an intermediate programme for a alternative society to be
This kind of empty analysis helps to explain one of the paradoxes of Korean unionism. In outward form, there appears to be impressive levels of union
International Viewpoint #305 November 1998 23
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* Disney/Haiti Justice Campaign, PO. Box 755, Fort Washington Station,
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* South Korea militancy, complete with red headscarves, clenched fists, stones and molotov cocktails and the playing of traditional workers' and peasants' music. Since the collapse of the main features of authoritarianism, this rich pageantry represents more often than not only the typical Korean displays of labour
Transformation and regroupment
But reactions to the current socio-economic crisis all too often take the form of reactionary tendencies of an ethnic, nationalist, racial or religious character. Hence the urgent need to rebuild a world-wide movement of anti-capitalist struggle, taking account of the recomposition of the workers' movement which is underway as a result of the double failure of social democracy and Stalinism.
Regroupments of forces determined to learn the lessons of the historical abomination that was Stalinism and to continue, against the winds and the tides, to fight against capitalism are being realised in a number of countries.
In all the countries where such possibilities exist, the organisations of the Fourth International are ready to be part of the re-groupment process. We consider this as an important step towards the recomposition of the anti-capitalist left on a world scale. At the international level the Fourth International is an active participant in re-groupment, bringing with it the advantages of a long tradition of combat against capitalism and Stalinism. *
Price: E5/$10. International Viewpoint, PO Box 27410, London SW9 9WQ, Britain.
International Viewpoint@compuserve.com> militancy. It is not, as some Westerner observers seem to believe, evidence of a fully-formed independent working class
This colourful rhetoric has certain very obvious limitations. The sudden about-face of the union movement in signing the Tripartite Agreement in February shows the problems of the lack of a concrete alternative plan. Refusing to negotiate and calling for a general strike without undertaking the necessary preparations is simply a form of temporary bureaucratic evasion. Eventually the movement will be forced to come to the table unprepared, and the bourgeois perspective will prevail.
One of the major reasons for this lack of an intermediate programme is the continuing absence of a left political party based on the unions in Korea. The KCTU has had to take on what are basically political tasks isolated from alternative political groupings or the input of
Compared with the situations in South Africa or Brazil, where political parties already existed or emerged alongside new labour movements in the struggle against military dictatorship, the Korean panorama appears underdeveloped. A high price will be paid if this situation is not changed soon.
There is a third current on the Korean left, including some left scholars, and some labour institutes, including the Institute for a Democratic Trade Union
This Institute attempts to combine an analysis involving an explanation of the present crisis application of Marxism to an historical analysis of South Korea.
Since it emerged from nationalist current, the Institute still has some ambiguous positions on the national question.
It believes, for example, that the model of economic development promoted by Prime Minister Mahathir in Malaysia offers an anti-imperialist alternative for Asia.
Some members of the Institute believe the Korean bourgeoisie can escape the present crisis by becoming a junior partner in a basically multinational corporation-dominated world.
In other words, by accepting one of several possible versions of global neoliberalism on offer for the non-G-7 part of the world, Korea can re-enter the path of economic development.
Within the union movement itself, the Conference of Workplace Organisation, (CWO) a group of militant shop stewards in the metal industry, is currently playing an important role against the neo-liberal consensus.
Its major accomplishment to date was helping to replace the rightward-moving leadership of the KCTU that signed the Tripartite Agreement in February without consulting the membership. The new KCTU leadership of Lee Kap-young, Ryu Duk-sang and Koh Young-joo are all considered to be healthy militants and conscious left
The CWO in its early days had some links with the Korean Institute for Labour Studies and Policy. Though this Institute is significant, some of its leading intellectuals promote an old-style Marxist analysis, reducing everything to the universal contradictions of capitalism, suggesting, for example, that the present crisis can be described simply as a crisis of overproduction.
For this reason, the Institute urges the KCTU to concentrate on a single demand - a shorter work week and sharing jobs with no loss of pay. In our opinion, it's open to question whether one can advance this slogan without also putting forward other demands relating to the structural reform of the Korean
This third current believes it is necessary to put forward its own medium-term alternative programme. Among the elements of the programme are proposals for the democratic control of the financial system; socialisation of the market or mixed economy; taxing the chaebols; state control of foreign trade; workers' active participation in managing industry; nation-wide indexing of wages; and a shorter work week.
Although this goes by the name of the "Democratic Alternative", it is closer in spirit and prescription to Trotsky's Transitional Programme than Eurocommunist notions of alternative
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24
International Viewpoint #305 November 1998
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