Cho Man-sik
| Cho Man-sik | |
 |
|
| Korean name | |
|---|---|
| Chosŏn'gŭl | 조만식 |
| Hancha | |
| Revised Romanization | Jo Man-sik |
| McCune–Reischauer | Cho Man-sik |
| Pen name | |
| Chosŏn'gŭl | 고당 |
| Hancha | |
| Revised Romanization | Godang |
| McCune–Reischauer | Kodang |
Cho Man-sik (Korean: 조만식, pen-name Kodang) (1 February 1883 – October? 1950) was a nationalist activist in Korea's independence movement. He became involved in the power struggle that enveloped North Korea in the months following the Japanese surrender after World War II. Originally Cho was supported by the Soviet Union for the eventual rule of North Korea. However, due to his opposition to trusteeship, Cho lost Soviet support and was forced from power by the Soviet-backed communists in the north. Placed under house arrest in January 1946, he later disappeared into the North Korean prison system, where he is generally believed to have been executed soon after the start of the Korean War.
Cho was born in Kangsŏ-gun, South P'yŏngan Province, now in North Korea on 1 February 1883. He was raised and educated in a traditional Confucian style but later converted to Protestantism and became an elder. From June 1908 to 1913 Cho moved to Japan to study law in Tokyo at Meiji University. It was during his stay in Tokyo that Cho came into contact with Gandhi’s ideas of non-violence and self-sufficiency. Cho later used these ideas of non-violent opposition to resist Japanese rule.
After Japan's annexation of Korea in 1910 Cho became increasingly involved with his country's independence movement. His participation in the March 1st Movement led to his arrest and detention, along with tens of thousands of other Koreans. He is also famous for publicly rejecting Korean surname changes to Japanese ones. In 1922 Cho established the Korean Products Promotion Society with the objective of achieving economic self-sufficiency and that Koreans could obtain solely home-produced products. Cho intended the Society to be a national movement supported by all religious organizations and social groups, particularly ordinary Koreans. Due to the Korean Products Promotion Society, his strong non-violent resistance, and leading by example rather than political or social authority, Cho gained respect even from critics, and earned him the title “Gandhi of Korea”.
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