The Reunification Movement

    After liberation on August 15, 1945, Korea came out from under the rule of Japan only to find its territory divided into North and South by two victorious countries in the war, the United States and the Soviet Union. Thus, while the forces within Korea that slavishly followed and imitated the foreign Powers gained in influence, the forces for nationalism once again suffered the hardship of being pushed aside. At this time, Chondogyo, the main force behind the modern nationalist movement, kept the spirit of the Samil Movement alive by working to impede and obstruct the north-south division of the nation by the two foreign powers.
    After the fifteenth day of the eighth month in the 86th year of Podeok(1945) the decision for a trusteeship in Korea was agreed upon at the tripartite Moscow Conference. It set a goal of establishing a unified provisional government, to be accomplished between the 87th year of Podeok(1946) and the following year. A Soviet-US joint commission met twice during this period but negotiations ultimately broke down. The United Nations General Assembly then called for free general elections in both the north and south in order to set up a unified government. However, the north rejected this idea, and began the unilateral establishment of a communist dominated regime centering on Kim Il Sung(Gim Il-seong). Following the north's rejection of free general elections, the establishment of an independent government in the south was propelled forward. With the establishment of two separate governments Korea became completely divided along north and south lines, and came face to face with the sad and unavoidable prospect of fratricidal war.
    In such tense and strained times Chondogyo engaged in activities in support of north-south unification. These were called the "Anti North-South Division Movement?(nambukbunyeoljeojuundong) and the ?ure Friends Party Movement?Cheongudangundong).

 1) The Movement Against the Partitioning of North and South

    Fearing that, with north and south having been divided, the nation would remain partitioned by the foreign Powers, Chondogyo religious workers in the north hopeful of obstructing the tragedy of such a partition appealed to the Chondogyo Central Headquarters in Seoul to carry on the spirit of the Samil Independence Movement and make arrangements for an anti-north-south division demonstration. In response to this appeal, Chondogyo Central Headquarters assembled elder leaders for several secret conferences over a twenty-day period between the first and twentieth day of the first month in the 89th year of Podeok(1948), at the end of which a resolution was passed to issue a church directive ordering its 200,000 church members living in the north to join forces with the common people and, using the opportunity of the upcoming anniversary of the Samil Independence Movement, to declare Korea unified, and to carry out demonstrations.
    Following this decision the Chondogyo Central Headquarters sent to the north by secret messenger the text of the unification declaration and other written orders pertaining to the planned demonstrations. On the seventh day of the second month, two messengers, Bak Hyeon-hwa and Yu Eun-deok, departed Seoul setting out for Pyeongyang by different routes. Of the two, Bak Yeon-hwa arrived in Pyeongyang on the fourteenth day of the second month, making contact with Gim Il-dae(at the time Chairman of the P'yeongnam Province branch of the Pure Friends Party), who handed the secret documents over to Gim Deok-rin(a the time a high ranking functionary of the Spiritual Clan Assembly in the north). On the following day Gim Deok-rin and Gim Il-dae held a meeting with top Chondogyo leaders at the Gangdong Monastery. Afterwards Gim Deok-rin and Gim Il-dae held their own discussions and decided to devise a way to separately carry out the demonstrations through the offices of the Chondogyo Spiritual Clan Assembly. Following this, together with Gim Myeong-heui(Vice Head of Religious Affairs in the north), all leadership members in each province able to do so(Bak Yong-wan, Ju Myeong-deuk, Bae Eui-chan, Ji Seong-ryul) were urgently dispatched from outlying areas to the cities and township centers in order to mobilize people for the demonstrations.
    However, in the end these highly secret plans for the mobilization of all north Korean Chondogyo members to perform a mass protest were detected by the North Korean Communist Party. Beginning on the night of the twenty-fourth day of the second month, approximately 17000 leadership-class religious workers were subjected to utterly unjustified imprisonment. At that time as well, the second secret messenger, Yu Eun-deok, was arrested in Haeju. Among the numerous people taken into custody, 87 leaders were transferred to prison in Pyeongyang where, on the basis of absurdly trumped up charges, the highest were sentenced to death and the rest to four years in prison. Thus the event in north Korea planned for Samil Anniversary Day was halted in all respects. The mass rally was never staged. And yet, even under such circumstances, in such areas as Yeongbyeon, Hoecheon, and Gaecheon, people's demonstrations of considerable size were carried out despite shootings and other restraining measures of the Party authorities.
    Although this movement met with failure, it was of great significance in the movement for unification. In ways strongly reminiscent of the Declaration of Independence that was read during the Samil Independence Movement, the leaders of this movement had made plans to read the Declaration of a Unified Korea(Tongilseoneonmun) and the Five Pledges of Unification(Tongilgonyak 5jang).

 2) Post-Liberation and the Activities of the Pure Friends Party (Cheongudang, 靑友黨)

    In Korea, where people breathed in the air of freedom in the wake of Japan? defeat, political parties and organizations of every conceivable stripe and color, and pursuing every possible ideology and/or ?sm?sprang up throughout the country. Taking advantage of the times, Chondogyo too, in the 86th year of Podeok(1945) breathed new life into the Pure Friends Party. The resuscitated Pure Friends Party did not merely engage in religious activities, but was active in the 'construction of a new country?singukga geonseol).
    Over the days that followed, The Pure Friends Party, with its foundation rooted in Chondogyo religious doctrine, history, and pragmatic realism, put together a party ideology. Following this, at the first mass general meeting of the Pure Friends Party held on the thirty-first day of the tenth month in the 86th year of Podeok(1945) it was agreed upon to "cacilitate the forming of an organization to hasten unification?minjok-tongilgigwan gyeolseong chokjin). Following this, on the fifteenth day of the twelfth month, a joint motivational mass meeting for the purpose of hastening the unification of the country was held among Chondogyo, Protestant, Buddhist, Confucian, and Catholic delegations each represented by one hundred representatives. On the twentieth of the month, in the name of facilitating the completion of Korean independence these six delegations assembled and formally organized the Confederation of Religious Organizations to Hasten Korean Independence(朝鮮獨立促成宗敎團體聯合會).
    When, in the 86th year of Podeok, the Moscow accord stipulated trusteeship for Korea, it expressed its disapproval by issuing a declaration of rejection, determining to wage a bloody battle to the very last to prevent implementation of the accord. Later, when the Communist Party approved trusteeship, it issued, on the 16th day of the first month in the 87th year of Podeok, a declaration criticizing the Korean Communist Party. The Pure Friends Party was politically contributive to the causes of national independence and liberation, working in tandem with the Korean Provisional Government to stage anti-trusteeship demonstrations at the end of Podeok 86 and the beginning of Podeok 87.
    Later, when Left-Right divisiveness became an issue, the Chondogyo Pure Friends Party, on the ninth day of the second month in the 87th year of Podeok, issued a proclamation urging national unity, and, in the name of overcoming the crisis of the nation and building an independent nation, desist from straying from the original political party line to take positions to the left or right. Furthermore, in the middle of the third month, at the time the Soviet-U.S. Joint Commission was formed, it stood before the United States Army Military Government in Korea (USAMGIK) to demand that the Soviet Union and the United States withdraw their troops and stop interfering in internal governmental affairs. From this it can be seen that the fundamental political line of the Chondogyo Pure Friends Party was north-south reunification, the establishment of a provisional government through the joint efforts of the Left and Right, and opposition to trusteeship, and it actively worked for the advancement of all these issues.
    In the first month of the 88th year of Podeok(1947) around the time of the second meeting of the Soviet-U.S. Joint Commission, Syngman Rhee(Yi Seung-man) and like-minded leaders of the Korean Democratic Party(Hanmindang) held demonstrations against trusteeship and for the creation of an independent government in the south. The Pure Friends Party vehemently opposed this stand, insisting on the creation of a unified government of the north and south. However, this policy of the North Korean Chondogyo Pure Friends Party met with failure, in part because of criticism by forces of the right, namely USAMGIK and the KDP, and because most of the leadership was in prison in North Korea.
    Later, when USAMGIK was pushing for the establishment of an independent government in south Korea, all members of the Chondogyo Pure Friends Party, in order that this plan not succeed, made it their moral duty to "receive the directive of the North Korean Chondogyo Pure Friends Party to disperse the centralized power of the Chondogyo organization in the south, and support the power of the North Korean Pure Friends Party members for underground operations of destruction and assassination.?Thirty party members were arrested for supporting this policy. Later, on the twenty-sixth day of the twelfth month in the 90th year of Podeok(1949), the Pure Friends Party, on the basis of "ruling Party regulations?was relegated to the fate of reorganization and eventual dissolution.