Lee family devoted to Korean liberation
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A painting shows Lee Hoe-yeong and his five brothers discussing their plan to move to western Gando in northeast China for independence movement at their home in central Seoul in 1910. / Courtesy of Rep. Lee Jong-kul
Exhibition features anarchist's legacy and achievement
Rep. Lee Jong-kul of the New Politics Alliance for Democracy, grandson of independence activist Lee Hoe-yeong.
By Kim Hyo-jin
Lee Jong-kul, a three-term lawmaker of the main opposition New Politics Alliance for Democracy, is proud of his grandfather Lee Hoe-yeong as he gave up his privileged lifestyle and devoted himself to fighting Japanese colonialists.
“My grandfather believed his family was obliged to pay back the privileges that they had enjoyed for the sake of a dying nation,” Rep. Lee said. He added his family dedicated itself to the independence movement.
Lee made the remarks in an interview with The Korea Times on the occasion of an exhibition featuring Lee Hoe-yeong’s achievement and his legacy. His memorial foundation organized the event at Deoksu Palace in Seoul.
Trainees do farm work at the Baekseo Farm belonging to the Sinheung Military School. The guerrilla training camp ran the farm for self-sufficiency presumably between 1914-1917.
Lee Hoe-yeong, the anarchist
A picture of Lee Hoe-yeong presumed to be taken either in Shanghai in 1932 or in Vladivostok in 1919.
Lee Hoe-yeong and his five brothers led the charge for independence against colonial rule that began in 1910. They left everything behind, liberated their own servants and set up a guerilla training camp in China to train freedom fighters.
They were one of the most prominent and wealthy families throughout the Joseon Kingdom (1392-1910), which produced 11 ministers over hundreds of years. They amassed a huge fortune but gave it back to society.
On a cold December day in 1910, 40 family members left their aristocratic based and set off for western Gando, which was then empty land between Liaoning and Jilin Provinces in northeast China. It was a base for Korean independence fighters and their liberation movement.
Lee’s previously liberated servants accompanied them and later became comrades in the independence movement.
They sold their 7.3 square kilometers of land to raise money for the movement.
“It amounted to as much as 60 billion won ($5.5 million), which is now worth tens of trillions of won,” Lee explained.
With the money, Lee Hoe-yeong established the Sinheung Military School, a guerilla warfare training camp in Manchuria, and trained soldiers. About 3,500 independence activists graduated from the school until it closed down in 1920. Their activities in Manchuria and China contributed to the Japanese defeat in 1945.
Such devotion to the independence movement made for a tough life for the Lee family. All the aristocrat-turned-guerilla brothers died during their fight.
The third-oldest brother, Cheol-yeong, died of disease in 1925 after serving as principal of Sinheung Military School. The second oldest, Suk-yeong, died from starvation in Shanghai in 1934, and the sixth-oldest, Ho-yeong, went missing with his family in Beijing in 1933. The fourth-oldest, Hoe-yeong, died in China’s Lushun prison from severe torture by Japanese police.
Only one of the six brothers, the fifth-oldest, Si-yeong, made it back to Korea in 1945, after which he became the first vice president in President Syngman Rhee’s administration.
Lee Hoe-yeong, a handsome young anarchist, refused to join the Korean provisional government in exile, not because he disagreed with the necessity to foster solidarity, but because he was concerned about the possibility that corrupt power may hinder the independence movement.
He argued that what they needed at that time was not another government, but rather a federation of various independence movements.
He also believed, instead of pursuing diplomacy, an armed struggle was the only way to free the country from Japanese rule.
When Syngman Rhee petitioned the U.S. to put Korea under American mandatory rule in 1919 after the March 1 Independent Movement, Lee denounced him, saying, “It is like selling off the nation even before its liberation.”
“For him, I believe being an anarchist meant an intense struggle to achieve liberation,” Rep. Lee said.
For Lee Hoe-yeong, anarchism was viewed as a genuine way to realize freedom and equality of all men. Until he died, he fought not only for Koreans but also for people of other Asian countries in their struggle against the Japanese Empire.
Liberation and Lee’s offspring
There was little left of Lee’s family after the liberation in 1945.
Of the 40 men and women who left to fight for Korea’s independence, only 20 came back.
All that was left of their once huge assets were five books that had been sold to a secondhand bookseller and bought back by a concerned neighbor.
A new society under U.S. military rule gave the cold shoulder to the few offspring who came back to Korea and branded most of them communists.
Rep. Lee recalled that his uncle, who served a 13-year jail term for his independence activities, was monitored round the clock by police under U.S. military rule.
“Those policemen were pro-Japan collaborators who served the Japanese colonial government. It was a heartbreaking experience for my family,” Lee said, expressing disappointment toward the then-government, which failed to completely rid itself of those collaborators.
Lee Hoe-yeong’s daughter, Lee Gyu-sook, is the last survivor of the Lee family members who fought against Japan. When she died in 2009, the generation of independence activists in the Lee family ended.
She was less than a year old when exiled to Gando in 1910 and grew into a young hard-core fighter who mainly carried weapons.
But she had to struggle to survive and became a street vendor in Korea’s post-liberation society. Her husband died of a stress-related disease, let down by the situation that deprived him of work and education.
“Poverty has long lingered in my family,” Rep. Lee said.
He said currently, his family members live ordinary lives as a taekwondo teacher, mechanic and office worker.
Rep. Lee is one of the few who became successful. Lee Jong-chan, a former chief of the National Intelligence Service, was another.
“I entered the political sphere after vowing to never harm the reputation of my grandfather,” He said. “However, the more I learned about him, the more I realized that he is someone with whom I would hardly measure up.”
He admitted that in his young life, he was not familiar with the life of his grandfather. The history of the independence movement seems to have been embedded in his family, something they did not have to speak about.
In Deoksu Palace, an exhibition titled “Lee Hoe-yeong and Six Brothers” is on display through March 1. The exhibit started on Nov. 17, which was the day when Japan forced Korea to sign the Eulsa Treaty in 1905, which denied the country’s sovereignty and set the stage for the 1910 annexation of the nation.
Lee Hoe-yeong was killed on the same day in 1932 by Japanese police.
The aristocrat-turned-freedom fighter left nothing behind except drawings of an orchid; he picked up drawing as a hobby and later used it as a means to earn money for the independence movement.
He was known to burn letters or documents he had in fear of revealing his contacts or plans, and consequently harming the independence movement.
Lee Eun-sook, his late wife, who was left alone without a husband, wrote an autobiography recalling her days during the independence movement with her husband in Gando. The book, “Western Gando Record,” is also displayed at Deoksu Palace.
“As an anarchist, Lee Hoe-yeong was appreciated by neither South nor North Korea,” exhibition director Suh Hae-sung said. “I hope that, at least, people recognize his devotion, as he is the one who brought the liberation we take for granted now.”