The Nature of Yoon’s December 3 Self-Coup

 

On December 3, at 10:23 p.m., Yoon Suk-yeol, the president of South Korea, unexpectedly declared emergency martial law, vowing to “crush anti-state forces.” An hour later, the martial law commander issued Decree No. 1. But at 1:01 a.m., the National Assembly passed a bill calling for the lifting of martial law. According to the Constitution of South Korea, the National Assembly can call for the lifting of martial law. If it does, the president must immediately comply. On December 3, Yoon violated the Constitution by sending police and troops to prevent the National Assembly from convening, but this failed.At 4:27 a.m., Yoon declared the martial law lifted. This was six hours after Yoon’s declaration.

 

The Crushing of Bourgeois Democracy

 

Yoon pointed to the Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) as the core of the anti-state forces in his December 3 speech, as well as in his December 12 speech, which called on the Far Right to rise up. He also cited the investigation of election fraud as the main reason for declaring martial law. On the night of December 3, 38 agents from the Intelligence Command, including the High Intelligence Division (HID), were on standby to arrest 30 National Election Commission (NEC) employees who were going to work the next day and take them to Bunker B1. The arrest list, presented by the Counter-intelligence Commander to the National Intelligence Service’s first deputy director and the national police chief, included people who had been identified by conspiracy theorists as key players in the election fraud. It seems that Yoon had a plan to torture NEC officials and arrest people to fabricate evidence of election fraud and then annul the April general election and dissolve the National Assembly, thereby wiping out the DPK. The fact that DPK figures, including Lee Jae-myung, the leader of the party, dominate the arrest list also indicates that the DPK was the primary target.

 

Yet the arrest list also included Han Dong-hoon, the leader of the ruling People Power Party (PPP). This shows that Yoon’s intention was to eliminate all political opposition, regardless of party affiliation. Han Dong-hoon revealed that shortly after martial law was declared, someone called him, saying, “If you go to the National Assembly, you will be arrested and your life may be in danger.” The inclusion of the speaker and vice speaker of the National Assembly, some former and current Supreme Court justices, and the judge who recently acquitted Lee Jae-myung on the arrest list shows a blatant intention to completely neutralize the legislature and intimidate the judiciary.

 

The decree issued shortly after Yoon’s declaration stated that the government would deprive South Korean citizens of their fundamental rights through a wide range of measures. These included banning the activities of the National Assembly, local councils, and political parties; banning all political activities, such as associations, meetings, and demonstrations; placing the press and publications under the control of the martial law command; banning strikes, lockouts, and assemblies; and authorizing arrests, detentions, and searches without warrants. It also authorizes the suppression of all criticism and resistance. It prohibits anyone from questioning the liberal democratic system or calling for its overthrow, and it prohibits what the government defines as fake news, the manipulation of public opinion, and false propaganda. It calls for the punishment of those who violate the decree, who are understood as subversive, anti-state forces.

 

Suppressing the Basic Rights of the Workers and People

 

If Yoon’s self-coup had succeeded, the workers and people would have suffered the most. The arrest list included Yang Kyung-soo, the president of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU). The decree sought to sweep away the rights of the workers and people, especially by crushing their freedom of strike, assembly, speech, and political activity.

 

If Yoon’s self-coup had succeeded, strikes and democratic unions would have become impossible. There would be no democratic trade unions, no left political organizations, no progressive parties, no labor organizations, and no civil society organizations. Naturally, the capitalists would then set out to strip the working class of all the gains it has made since the great strike wave of 1987.

 

An Attempt to Revive Military Fascism

 

On the afternoon of December 3, Defense Minister Kim Yong-hyun made a remark over lunch that he would “crush the National Assembly with tanks.” The commander of the 2nd Armored Brigade, which commands the tank unit closest to Seoul, was on standby at the Intelligence Command, where agents were waiting to attack the NEC on the night of December 3. If Yoon had gone ahead with his self-coup, tanks would have rumbled through the center of Seoul.

 

Yoon’s December 3 coup attempted to replicate Park Chung-hee’s coups of May 16, 1961, and October 17, 1972, and Chun Doo-hwan’s coups of December 12, 1979, and May 17, 1980. If Yoon had succeeded, it would have been a full-scale revival of the military fascism of 1961–87.

 

The military regime that ruled South Korea from 1961 to 1987 was (arguably, depending on how you define fascism) a form of fascism, that is, military fascism, in that it not only smashed bourgeois democracy but also stripped the working class of all its rights, including the right to organize and strike. (Here, there is an important difference between the classical fascism that emerged in Italy and Germany in the 1920s and 1930s and the military fascism that existed in South Korea from 1961 to 1987. Classical fascism in Italy and Germany emerged as a means to subdue the working class when it was on the verge of revolution. Military fascism in South Korea, however, emerged as a means to maximize the oppression and exploitation of the working class while its capacity was still very weak.)

 

Yoon’s December 3 martial law closely resembles the 10-17 martial law imposed by Park Chung-hee in 1972 to establish the Yushin system, or the 5-17 martial law extension that crushed the Seoul Spring and the Gwangju People’s Uprising imposed by Chun Doo-hwan in 1980 to reestablish a military-fascist regime.

 

In conclusion, Yoon’s December 3 martial law was a self-coup aimed at reviving military fascism by depriving the workers and people of all the rights they had won with their own blood. It was also an “insurrection” against the people that sought to overthrow the country’s constitutional system based on the limited democratization of 1987 through anti-democratic conspiracy and force.

 

 

Why Yoon’s December 3 Self-Coup Occurred

 

Yoon’s Political Crisis

 

When Yoon won the March 2022 presidential election by a narrow margin of 0.73 percent and took office in May, the DPK and other opposition parties controlled 63 percent of the National Assembly (189 seats). In the April 2024 general election, held two years after his inauguration, the opposition swept to control 64 percent of the National Assembly (192 seats).

 

Yoon lost the April general election largely because of his reactionary policies. Yoon launched a vicious crackdown on the freight and construction unions. He tried to introduce a 69-hour workweek, but was stopped by a strong public backlash. He continued to push for policies against gender equality, including the abolition of the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family, claiming that “there is no longer structural gender discrimination.” He supported Japan’s dumping of contaminated water at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, neutralized the Supreme Court ruling that Japanese companies had to pay compensation for forced labor, and escalated the war crisis by strengthening the U.S.-Japan–South Korea alliance and expanding joint war drills. In the name of fairness and common sense, he has steadfastly refused to investigate the allegations against him and his wife.

 

After his crushing defeat in the April general election, Yoon had to endure a minority position in the National Assembly from his inauguration in May 2023 to December 3, 2025, leading to a two-year, seven-month period of unprecedented fragile governance in South Korean politics. During this time, Yoon vetoed 25 bills initiated by the DPK, including the special prosecutor bills. The prosecution, acting as Yoon’s henchman, conducted a sweeping investigation of Lee Jae-myung, including 376 raids, and referred him to five criminal trials, while thoroughly avoiding investigating the allegations against Yoon and his wife, Kim Gun-hee. Yoon’s vetoes included several bills for special prosecutors to investigate his and Kim’s allegations. The DPK, on the other hand, has suspended government officials from office through 22 impeachment cases. The DPK’s impeachment targets included prosecutors who avoided investigating Yoon and Kim Gun-hee, and prosecutors in charge of the Lee Jae-myung investigation. This process was one of the countless struggles in the bourgeois political system in which bourgeois political forces expose each other’s corruption and mobilize the judicial system to seize power.

 

In this struggle, the situation became increasingly unfavorable for Yoon. This was largely due to his conflict with Han Dong-hoon. Han was Yoon’s closest confidant, but after entering politics with the dream of becoming the next president, he attempted to differentiate himself from Yoon over the solution to the Kim Gun-hee allegations. The relationship between Yoon and Han continued to deteriorate, and it became increasingly likely that Han’s faction in the PPP would vote for the Kim Gun-hee special prosecutor bill, pushing it over the two-thirds threshold and neutralizing Yoon’s veto power as president.

 

Another variable was the revelation of Myung Tae-gyun, a political broker who was deeply involved in Yoon’s presidential campaign. On October 31, a recording was released that indicated Yoon’s illegal interference in the process of designating the PPP candidate in a by-election. On December 2, Myung Tae-gyun, who was detained, said he could provide his cell phone to the DPK, putting pressure on Yoon and Kim Gun-hee.

 

These factors show how Yoon’s political crisis deepened in the days leading up to December 3, the day martial law was declared. But Yoon’s political crisis cannot be directly linked to the declaration of martial law, which has not taken place in the past 44 years. Many connections can be made between the two. Yoon’s personality and temperament are important factors. But more important are the social and political changes that influenced Yoon and made it possible for him to choose martial law as a way out of his crisis.

 

The Regrowth of Far-Right Forces on the Remnants of Fascism

 

The workers’ and people’s struggle for democracy, which began with the Gwangju People’s Uprising in 1980 and culminated in the June 1987 Uprising, was stopped with only a half victory by the betrayal of the liberal bourgeois forces that were in league with the military regime. Democracy was won only in a shell, and military fascism was never completely liquidated. The far-right forces, which were the mainstay of the pro-Japanese forces during the Japanese occupation and supported Park Chung-hee and Chun Doo-hwan during the military regimes, remained strongly entrenched in the state apparatus, including the military, police, administration, and judiciary, even after the formal democratization of 1987. Remnants of fascism seeped into the limited bourgeois democracy of the “1987 system” and persisted.

 

In 1990, the Democratic Liberty Party (the origin of today’s PPP) was formed through a coalition of Chun Doo-hwan and Roh Tae-woo’s Democratic Justice Party, Kim Jong-pil’s New Democratic Republican Party (the remnants of the Park Chung-hee regime), and Kim Young-sam’s Unification Democratic Party, that is, a combination of the leaders of the military regimes and the moderate faction of the liberal bourgeois forces. Initially, descendants of the military regime were the mainstay of the Democratic Liberty Party, but after the Hanahoe faction within the military was purged by the Kim Young-sam regime in 1993, and Chun Doo-hwan and Roh Tae-woo were punished for treason for their 1979 and 1980 coups in 1995, the leadership of the party shifted to the republican conservative faction, which represented the liberal bourgeois forces. The remnants of the military regime, which had lost its leadership and seen its core disintegrate, turned to the republican conservatives for political survival.

 

Around the 1997 IMF crisis, the radical faction of the liberal bourgeois forces led by Kim Dae-jung redefined itself as the neoliberal center-right, while the republican conservative faction (including remnants of the military regime) redefined itself as the neoliberal right. From the Kim Dae-jung government in 1998 to the Yoon government in 2024, the two forces dominated South Korean politics. They had similar characteristics, not only in their fundamental nature as capitalist parties but also in their core policies of implementing neoliberal offensives.

 

But the two forces were not entirely the same. Each time the neoliberal right came to power, it revealed its inherent far-right nature and repeatedly launched harsher attacks on the workers and people. Typical examples include the murderous suppression of the Ssangyong Motors strike in 2009, the harsh attacks on democratic unions in the metal industry in 2010–12, the control of KBS and MBC broadcasting that continued throughout the Lee Myung-bak and Park Geun-hye regimes, the blacklisting of cultural figures during the Park Geun-hye administration, the labor reform offensive during the Park Geun-hye administration in 2015–16, and the ruthless repression of the freight and construction unions during the Yoon administration in 2022–24.

 

The state’s far-right attacks have provoked strong counterattacks of the workers and people. The explosion of the campaign to oust Park Geun-hye in 2016–17, which eventually led to her impeachment, resulted from the accumulation and mobilization of counterattacks of the workers and people against the far-right attacks of the Lee Myung-bak and Park Geun-hye regimes.

 

Park’s impeachment, however, sparked a backlash that saw a renewed growth of the Far Right. By the time Park’s impeachment was finalized by the Constitutional Court in March 2017, the so-called Taegeukgi rallies organized by the Far Right had taken over the streets. The voices of the Far Right, which for two decades after 1997 had maintained a veneer of right-wing neoliberalism, began to echo loudly in the streets, including open calls for a military coup. The regrowth of the Far Right was led by the Christian evangelical Right, represented by Pastor Jeon Kwang-hoon, and joined by descendants of the military regime, including retired military generals. The momentum of the Far Right continued throughout the Moon administration, with far-right YouTubers and election fraud conspiracy theories playing a central role in maintaining and expanding its popular base.

 

The Far Right attempted to establish itself as an independent political force in the 2020 general elections, but it failed to produce a single member of the National Assembly. It had considerable success, however, in strengthening its influence within the PPP through its recruitment tactics. For a time, the growing influence of the Far Right in the PPP paralleled the growing influence of the republican conservative faction. Yoon, who gripped the prosecution, the core bureaucracy, emerged as the centerpiece of the Far Right when he was recruited as the PPP’s presidential candidate, but he organized his presidential campaign under the guise of a republican conservative. Yoon revealed the true nature of the Far Right when he ousted the young leader of the PPP and seized control of the party shortly after taking power, and the leadership of the PPP clearly shifted to the Far Right around Yoon.

 

Since then, Yoon has continued his illegal and anti-republican interference in party affairs, including blatantly interfering in the PPP presidential election and forcing the party’s presidents to resign. But in the name of the pro-Yoon faction, many PPP politicians blindly supported Yoon and lined up behind him. In 2023–24, while Yoon repeatedly shouted “crush the anti-state forces” in public and became an increasingly outspoken voice of the Far Right, the pro-Yoon faction also increasingly moved toward shedding the veneer of republican conservatism and exposing the true nature of the Far Right.

 

Thus, Yoon’s December 3 self-coup reflected the social and political changes that had been taking place since 2017, in which the Far Right was growing again on the remnants of military fascism. It can also be seen as having fully realized the latent aspirations of the Far Right to revive military fascism under such conditions.

 

Relevance to the Rise of the Global Far Right

 

How does Yoon’s December 3 self-coup, and the resurgence of the Far Right since 2017 as its social underpinning, relate to the global trend of the rising Far Right in the United States and elsewhere over the past decade?

 

The first thing to note is that in South Korea, as in the United States, Christian fundamentalism, or the evangelical Right, has played a leading role in the recent growth of the Far Right. The evangelical Right in South Korea has waved Israeli flags alongside the American flag at rallies and fought fiercely against anti-discrimination laws, just as the evangelical Right in the U.S. has been a strong Zionist and anti-LGBTQ+ force.

 

The fact that election fraud conspiracy theories have become an important part of the logic of the Far Right is also consistent with what we have seen in the United States and Brazil. Yoon’s December 3 self-coup, which cited “exposing the truth about election fraud” as one of its causes, was similar in this respect to the 2021 U.S. Capitol Hill riots and the 2023 riots at the Brazilian Congress, Supreme Court, and presidential palace.

 

But there are also important differences. The rise of the global Far Right has paradoxically been fueled in large part by the economic impoverishment of the workers and people in the wake of the deepening capitalist crisis, and it has gained a fairly broad social base in many countries, as Trump’s reelection shows. And while the coming to power of the Far Right represents an extreme socioeconomic attack on the workers and people, it does not easily develop into fascism, or a total rejection of bourgeois democracy.

 

In contrast, the rise of the Far Right in South Korea is still dominated by elements of political consciousness linked to the remnants of fascism, and its social base is heavily weighted toward the over-60s who are nostalgic for the military fascism of the past. The history and remnants of military fascism in South Korea also make it possible for the Far Right to quickly develop attempts to revive fascism, such as the December 3 self-coup, without intermediate steps.

 

 

Why Yoon’s December 3 Self-Coup Failed

 

Poor Preparation and Lack of Self-Justification

 

Why did Yoon’s December 3 self-coup fail? The primary reason is that the military and police were outpaced by the speed with which thousands of workers, people, and lawmakers rushed to the National Assembly to lift martial law immediately after it was declared.

 

But if the mobilized military and police had wanted to paralyze the National Assembly through ruthless violence, it was not physically impossible. In fact, Yoon ordered the special warfare commander to “break down the door and take out the people inside,” the capital defense commander to “go in and drag them out one by one,” and the police chief to arrest lawmakers six times. The military commanders and the police chief basically carried out Yoon’s orders to blockade the National Assembly, yet they did not carry out orders that would have caused bloodshed. They were not consciously prepared to risk the bloodshed and the subsequent liability.

 

Another important reason why the military commanders and the police chief were unwilling to risk bloodshed was that they could not rule out the possibility that frontline soldiers and police officers would mutiny in the event of bloodshed. In this regard, Defense Minister Kim Yong-hyun, who was the overall planner of the December 3 martial law, responded to a DPK lawmaker who raised suspicions of martial law preparations during a parliamentary personnel hearing on September 2. “In the current situation in South Korea, if martial law is imposed, will any people tolerate it? Would our military follow? I don’t think so,” he replied. His answer was a lie to conceal the fact that he was preparing for martial law, but it backfired badly by suggesting that elements of the military would disobey and refuse to implement martial law.

 

These facts show that Yoon’s December 3 self-coup was so poorly prepared that even its key organizers were unsure of its legitimacy. Despite discussing and preparing for the coup for more than a year, they were unable to come up with a plausible cause beyond Yoon’s overcoming a personal crisis or conspiracy theories about election fraud.

 

The growth of the Far Right had reached the point where it had taken over the highest office in the country, the presidency, and dozens of National Assembly members of the ruling party, and the history and legacy of military fascism led to a rapid attempt to revive fascism, but the lack of competence and impulsiveness of the self-coup leaders led to a haphazardly prepared and executed coup that failed.

 

The Historical Power of the Gwangju People’s Uprising

 

But what would have happened if Yoon’s December 3 self-coup had succeeded in any way? One thing can be said for sure. The uprising of the workers and people, similar to the one in Gwangju in May 1980, would have taken place, this time in Seoul and other parts of the country.

 

We don’t know if it would have succeeded. But even if it had been crushed once again by the violence of the military, the blood of the massacred victims would have ushered in a new revolutionary era against the tyranny of military fascism, just as the revolutionary defeat of Kwangju in May 1980 ushered in the revolutionary era of the 1980s in South Korea. The process by which the defeat of the Gwangju People’s Uprising in May 1980 was revived and carried forward in the June 1987 Uprising and the July-September Workers’ Great Struggle would have been repeated.

 

In the process, however, the struggles of the workers and people would have likely been much more explosive and massive than they were in the 1980s. In Gwangju in 1980, nameless workers took the lead in the uprising, but they had no organizational weapons. In the run-up to 1987, the working class also lacked organizational weapons and thus could not play an independent role. Now, however, 1.1 million workers are organized in the KCTU, centered in the key sectors of South Korean capitalism. Although it has suffered severe bureaucratic setbacks, the potential of the democratic trade union movement is still alive. In the workers’ struggle against the self-coup, or in their struggle to overcome defeat, the strength of the workers now organized in the KCTU would have played a huge role.

 

Therefore, even if Yoon’s December 3 self-coup had succeeded, military fascism would not have lasted long. A huge revolutionary wave would have swept through South Korea, far surpassing that of the 1980s, and the working class would have advanced much further than it did in the 1980s.

 

But this is precisely what the military commanders and the police chief who were mobilized to blockade the National Assembly must have instinctively felt: that even if they succeeded, they could not last long. No South Korean can ignore the dramatic resurgence and triumph of the 1980 Gwangju People’s Uprising in history, albeit with limited democratization.

 

That must have been the real fear that made the military commanders and the police chief hesitate. Without that fear, it would have been much easier to risk bloodshed for a flimsy cause. But if the self-coup could not last long even if it succeeded, the cause would have to be much clearer to risk bloodshed.

 

Failure to Provoke a Local War

 

The plotters of the December 3 coup tried to create their own rationale. The idea was to provoke North Korea into a local war.

 

On October 11, North Korea announced that South Korea had flown drones over Pyongyang on three separate occasions on October 3, 9, and 10, dropping leaflets into North Korea. In the aftermath of the failed December 3 coup, it became clear that the drone infiltration was an intentional provocation by the Yoon regime to provoke a local war and secure the rationale for martial law. On November 18, the defense minister ordered an attack on some points in North Korea from which the garbage balloons were launched, but he was reportedly blocked by the Joint Chiefs of Staff. In the notebooks of Roh Sang-won, the man who worked on the December 3 coup, a memo was found that read, “to induce North Korea to attack the Northern Limit Line” in the sea.

 

Why did the Yoon regime’s attempt to provoke a local war fail? North Korea’s October 31 launch of the Hwasong-19 intercontinental ballistic missile sums up why. North Korea, emboldened by its military ties with Russia and the functioning of the China-Russia–North Korea alliance, did not rush into a local war but rather boldly sent a message to the United States (not the Yoon regime) that “if you want war, let’s have an all-out war.”

 

In fact, in the current international situation, if war breaks out on the Korean Peninsula, it is very likely that it will not be limited to a local war. In recent years, the imperialist hegemonic confrontation between the United States and China has intensified significantly, with wars continuing in Ukraine and the Middle East. In this context, the Korean Peninsula, along with Taiwan, has been considered the most likely place for a third war.

 

Like Taiwan, the Korean Peninsula involves direct U.S. and Chinese interests, but unlike Taiwan, the international confrontation between the U.S.-Japan–South Korea and China-Russia–North Korea is already in full swing, and a vast array of powerful weapons have been pointed at each other for decades. If a war were to break out on the Korean Peninsula, it could easily escalate into an international war of mass destruction involving the U.S.-Japan and China-Russia, and possibly even World War III.

 

The exact course of events remains to be seen, but the risk of uncontrollability that war on the Korean Peninsula carries is likely why Yoon’s attempt to provoke a local war failed. The United States could not afford to be drawn into a war on the Korean Peninsula that it was unprepared for during a regime change.

 

On the one hand, the Yoon regime’s attempt to provoke a local war shows how poorly it understands international affairs, but on the other hand, it also reminds us of how dangerous a world we live in. It’s hard not to shudder at how close we are not only to fascism but also to war.

 

Yoon’s December 3 self-coup shows once again that we are living in an era of crisis, war, and revolution, an era in which the extreme crisis of capitalism calls for fascism and war, and therefore the workers and people have no choice but to rise up in revolution if they want to survive.

 

 

The Nature and Prospects of the New Class Struggle Terrain

 

A Front against the Far Right

 

Yoon’s December 3 self-coup radically changed the terrain of class struggle in South Korea overnight. The Far Right attempted to revive military fascism, which would wipe out bourgeois democracy and strip the workers and people of all their rights. On this new terrain, the working class is forced to fight on the same side with the DPK and other bourgeois democratic forces to confront the Far Right. The current situation is similar to that of the Kornilov coup in Russia in late August 1917, when the working class was forced to fight on the same side with the bourgeois Provisional Government. It is also the same terrain as that of the 1980s, when the working class and the liberal bourgeois forces were on the same side against the military regime.

 

Yet the previous terrain of class struggle was different. The workers and people fought against two capitalist forces: the neoliberal right (PPP) and the neoliberal center-right (DPK). There were some differences between the two, but they were not decisive for the workers and people. In the previous terrain of class struggle, it was necessary to develop the struggle of the workers and people against both capitalist forces while firmly adhering to the independence of the working class.

 

This previous terrain of class struggle was formed with the limited democratization in 1987. It was stabilized in the mid- to late 1990s, when the remnants of the military regime were transformed into republican conservatives and the bourgeois political order was reorganized into a configuration of neoliberal right versus neoliberal center-right. The previous terrain of class struggle, which had lasted for about 30 years, was transformed into a new one with the December 3 self-coup.

 

Even in the new terrain, the most important starting point is to develop the independence and fighting power of the working class. Of course, the struggle against not only the Far Right but also the bourgeois democratic forces such as the DPK must continue. But the characteristic of the new terrain is that the struggle against the Far Right is a key task. The more the working class can surpass the DPK and seize the initiative in the struggle against the Far Right, the more it can gain hegemony among the broad masses, and the more successfully it can develop the struggle of the workers and people against the DPK.

 

In Russia in late August 1917, the Bolshevik-led soviets played a decisive role in neutralizing the Kornilov coup. This achievement maximized the confidence of the workers and people, who rallied to the soviets and ultimately led to the October Revolution two months later, when the soviets easily defeated the fragile bourgeois Provisional Government and established a socialist republic. The same principle is now at work on the front against the Far Right.

 

The Goals and Methods of the Far Right

 

Yoon’s December 3 self-coup provocatively opened a new front, but its immediate failure left the Far Right in a very unfavorable position. Yet the Far Right, which has a significant political and social base, is mounting a formidable resistance and counterattack.

 

At first, Yoon and other far-right forces tried to compromise with Han Dong-hoon to avoid impeachment and buy time to rearm. But when Han demanded that Yoon surrender and “retire early within three to four months,” they broke off the compromise and moved toward a head-on confrontation. Yoon vowed to “fight to the end” in a December 12 speech, and on December 14, the PPP’s 85 members of the National Assembly voted against the impeachment motion. Those who oppose Yoon’s impeachment or believe that the December 3 martial law was not a treason have remained at 20 to 25 percent in public opinion polls. Jeon Kwang-hoon and others launched a frenzied campaign to organize a far-right uprising in the streets.

 

Even now that the impeachment motion has passed, Yoon and the Far Right are looking for a chance to reverse the balance of power by holding out. Yoon has refused any investigation of treason while seeking to delay the impeachment trial at the Constitutional Court as long as possible. The PPP boycotted the process of appointing additional judges to the Constitutional Court and reorganized its leadership in Yoon’s favor, ousting Han Dong-hoon. Acting President Han Deok-soo blatantly sabotaged the impeachment trial and treason investigation by refusing to appoint additional constitutional judges and to recommend a permanent special prosecutor for the treason case.

 

In the current situation, the core goal of the far-right forces, including the PPP, is to prevent Yoon’s final removal from office and punishment for treason by any means. Their logic can be summed up as “the December 3 martial law was not an act of treason because it was an act of presidential rule.” They are essentially defending the December 3 martial law, which was an attempt to revive military fascism, and trying to defeat the severe punishment. This is partly because they fear the repercussions for themselves if Yoon’s dismissal and treason charges are confirmed, but it is also because the Far Right intends to legitimize its attempt to revive military fascism, leaving the way open for another try in the future.

 

The Goals and Methods of the DPK

 

In the current situation, the core goal of the DPK is to reestablish a DPK regime. On the one hand, the DPK is sincere in its desire to remove Yoon and punish him for treason, because the DPK’s leaders would have suffered terrible personal hardship and the destruction of bourgeois democracy if the December 3 self-coup had succeeded. But for the DPK, this is not a means to fully advance democracy and win broader rights for the workers and people, but only a means to return to power. A DPK regime, as an enforcer of neoliberal policies, would continue to attack the workers and people. Obviously, the reestablishment of a DPK regime is a goal that the workers and people cannot share.

 

In fact, it was none other than Moon Jae-in’s DPK regime that created the Yoon PPP regime. The Moon administration took the opposite path from the aspirations of the workers and people, as expressed in the 2016–17 candlelight protests: it crushed the minimum wage, allowed housing prices to skyrocket, and covered up the corruption of the privileged class. It was the Moon Jae-in administration that started the Yoon administration’s ferocious crackdown on the construction union. Yoon was able to come to power only on the back of widespread disappointment and disillusionment with the Moon administration.

 

What created the Lee Myung-bak and Park Geun-hye regimes were also the Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun regimes of the DPK. The neoliberal offensive waged by the Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun regimes for a decade, starting in 1998, led to the shock of mass layoffs and the rapid spread of irregular workers. Having tasted the sweetness of power, the DPK became part of the mainstream of the reactionary ruling forces. The widespread disappointment and disillusionment of the workers and people with the decade of the DPK regimes made it possible for the Lee Myung-bak and Park Geun-hye regimes to come to power and remain there.

 

The DPK’s preoccupation with returning to power even in such a tense situation was evident in its attempt to act like a ruling party by proposing a national stability council to acting President Han Deok-soo immediately after the impeachment motion against Yoon was passed. This was the result of a shallow calculation that providing stability would be the way to win the votes of the center in the upcoming presidential election. This, however, turned out to be a big mistake that only gave Yoon, Han, and the PPP the time and pretext to retool.

 

The DPK wants its parliamentary power, with 170 seats (56.7 percent) in the National Assembly, to be seen as decisive. It wants the mass rallies to work only as a tool to legitimize the exercise of its parliamentary power, and only within the political limits it has drawn. If the DPK’s intentions are realized, the struggle against the Far Right will be decisively weakened. The power to defeat the Far Right, which dreams of overthrowing bourgeois democracy itself, does not come from a parliamentary majority. Only when the working class takes the lead in the people’s uprising, mobilizing the unique means of the general strike, will it be able to completely defeat the Far Right.

 

The Goals and Methods of the Working Class

 

In the current situation, the key objective of the working class is to remove Yoon from the presidency, to have him arrested and punished for treason in the most decisive and thorough way, and to dismantle or deal a devastating blow to the PPP, which has become a nexus of the Far Right and which shamelessly defends Yoon’s attempt to revive fascism. In this way, we must destroy the attempt to revive military fascism so that it cannot be attempted again in South Korean society. In addition, by shifting the political landscape of South Korea significantly to the left, we must pave the way for broad gains in the rights of the workers and people and a dramatic advance in the workers’ movement and workers’ politics.

 

At the same time, the working class must fight for the broad demands of the workers and people in the open spaces that have opened up since the defeat of the December 3 self-coup. Even before the December 3 martial law, the working class has been essentially deprived of basic rights. The lives of the workers and people have already been severely violated by the overexploitation of irregular workers and the denial of basic labor rights, the oppression and discrimination of women and LGBTQ+ people, the acceleration of the climate crisis and environmental destruction, and the hegemonic confrontation between the imperialist camps and the war crisis. No wonder South Korean society has the highest suicide rate and the lowest fertility rate in the world, and it hasn’t changed much under Yoon’s regime or the previous DPK regimes. The same forces that crushed Yoon’s self-coup must now be mobilized in a massive struggle for the broad rights of the workers and people.

 

The working class must also fight for radical democratic demands related to the recent events. Martial law, thought to have been nullified, was suddenly reinstated and used as a tool to try to revive military fascism. To prevent a recurrence, the martial law system itself must now be removed from the Constitution. It is unreasonable to leave the impeachment of a president to a minority of constitutional judges when there is a 75 percent approval rating for impeachment. We need a referendum to remove the president from office. Eighty-five members of the National Assembly voted against the impeachment, but there is no way to punish them until the next election. Members of the National Assembly can be recalled by the people at any time. Faced with a clearly illegal order to blockade the National Assembly, the military and police hesitated but carried out the order. The military and police should be required to refuse illegal orders. Yoon gained control of the prosecutorial organization, a bureaucratic state apparatus, to become president and used the prosecutorial power at will for his own benefit. The prosecutor’s office should be divided and decentralized to allow for checks and balances, and their leadership should be elected and recallable by the people.

 

Further, the working class must take the lead in an explosive people’s uprising by mobilizing the unique means of a powerful general strike. On the one hand, this is the only way to actually defeat the far-right forces, including Yoon and the PPP, who are intensely resisting. On the other hand, only by actually leading the struggle against the Far Right can the working class gain the hegemony over the 70–75 percent of the broad masses who support impeaching Yoon and punishing him for treason, and gain the power to achieve the demands of the workers and people and a future that guarantees a powerful advance of the workers’ movement.

 

In this regard, it is worth reviewing the experience of the 2016–17 candlelight protests. These were made possible by the KCTU’s struggle against the Park Geun-hye regime’s labor reforms in 2015–16, but the protests failed to organize a general strike that could lead the people’s uprising, ceding the initiative to the DPK, which succeeded in impeaching Park. In the three months between the impeachment motion and the Constitutional Court’s final decision, a wide range of workers’ and popular demands were raised in the open square, but the movement never gained significant popular momentum. This was because the politics of the DPK, the winner of the candlelight protests, dominated and limited the consciousness of the masses in a great way.

 

The same is true now. The more the working class plays a decisive role in the core tasks of the front, namely the struggle to smash the resistance of the Far Right, to remove Yoon from the presidency, to arrest and punish him for treason, and to dismantle and collapse the PPP, the more the working class will have the power to raise and achieve the various demands of the workers and people. Conversely, if the working class again fails to play a meaningful role in the key tasks, and if the bourgeois parliamentary power of the DPK again functions as the decisive solution, the demands of the workers and people that go beyond the politics of the DPK will remain a cold response without popular support. This means that while various efforts must be made to raise the demands of the workers and people, they will be of no great significance if the working class does not play a decisive role in the core tasks.

 

Three Possible Scenarios

 

How will the new terrain of class struggle develop? Broadly speaking, we can think of three scenarios.

 

The first scenario is that Yoon is removed from the presidency, arrested and punished for treason, and the PPP is dismantled. In a word, the Far Right is destroyed, which is the goal the working class must pursue to the best of its ability. This cannot be achieved by centering the DPK’s bourgeois parliamentary power. It can be achieved only if the working class plays a decisive role by leading an explosive people’s uprising with a powerful general strike. If this scenario is realized, it would create huge momentum to push forward the various demands of the workers and people, including radical democratic demands. The workers’ movement and workers’ politics would begin to make a breakthrough. Even the working-class perspective of building a workers’ government and a workers’ world instead of returning the DPK to power would begin to emerge as a meaningful alternative among a significant mass of the population.

 

The second scenario is that Yoon’s removal from the presidency and his punishment for treason fail, and the PPP remains intact. Whether it takes the form of Yoon’s return or something else, the conclusion is the same. This is the worst-case scenario that the working class does not even want to imagine: the realization of the Far Right’s goals. Of course, this is highly unlikely, because 70 percent of the population strongly resents the December 3 self-coup, as reflected in the mass rallies, but we must not forget that the Far Right is desperately resisting and fighting back to prevent its annihilation. To avoid this worst-case scenario, we must continue to develop the struggle of the workers and people to defeat the Far Right not only through public opinion but also through physical force.

 

The third scenario is that Yoon is removed from the presidency and arrested and punished for treason, but the PPP remains intact. While Yoon’s punishment would send a significant warning to far-right attempts to revive fascism, the Far Right would also gain ground by preserving the PPP, which would allow it to fight back in the future. This is the most likely scenario if the current balance of power does not change significantly. If the struggle against the Far Right is centered on the bourgeois parliamentary power of the DPK, in other words, if the working class’s general strike and the people’s uprising are not strong enough, it will come down to this scenario.

 

If we go down this path, further developments could be very dangerous. The DPK could return to power, and the lives of the workers and people would remain essentially unchanged. It would not be long before massive disappointment and disillusionment would reignite among the workers and people. The surviving far-right forces could use this process to reorganize and rejuvenate their ranks and come back stronger than ever.

 

The fact that the global economy and the South Korean economy are sinking deeper into crisis may make the situation much more serious. Until now, the growth of the Far Right in South Korea has been largely concentrated among people over 60 who are nostalgic for the military fascism of the past, but now, as is happening globally, the Far Right may be able to build its forces from a new generation, paradoxically gaining a strong social base from the economic impoverishment of the workers and people. The relationship between the Far Right and the capitalist class may also change. So far, the growth of the Far Right in South Korea has occurred without the support of the capitalist class as a whole, which was one of the reasons why Yoon’s December 3 self-coup failed. But if the economic crisis deepens in the future, the capitalist class as a whole could see it as a solution for the Far Right to take power.

 

If the Far Right were to return to power, it would mean a severe socioeconomic attack on the workers and people, and it could even try once again to revive fascism. As we have seen, the history and remnants of military fascism in South Korea make it easy for the Far Right to develop very quickly into fascism.

 

But even in this scenario, the situation is not necessarily bleak. Even if the DPK returns to power, the course of events could be completely different depending on how successfully the working class develops its independence and militancy. After all, it was the workers’ and people’s disappointment and disillusionment with Moon’s DPK regime that led Yoon’s PPP regime to emerge. This was possible because the workers’ movement was weakened, thanks to its subordination to the DPK. If the working class had resolutely developed its independence and militancy under the DPK regime, its disappointment and disillusionment would have been a springboard for the workers’ movement and politics to take off, not the Far Right. The same is true for the future.

 

In the end, the practical point is this: Doing everything we can to make the first scenario a reality — that is, doing everything we can to lead an explosive people’s uprising with a powerful working-class general strike — is the best preparation for the third scenario, even if the struggle fails and the PPP remains intact.

 

 

The Way Forward for South Korea’s Working Class

 

In the 2016 campaign to oust Park Geun-hye, the impeachment motion was passed 46 days after the revelation of Choi Soon-sil’s tablet computer on October 24. At that time, the line of “forcing Park to resign through the power of mass struggle,” which criticized the DPK for seeking a compromise with Park or impeachment within the bourgeois system, was supported by the majority at the candlelight mass rallies. But the mood shifted sharply toward a DPK-led push for impeachment after the November 30 general strike proved too weak. On December 9, the DPK led the impeachment drive and succeeded, taking all the gains of the candlelight protest.

 

This time, however, the impeachment motion was passed 11 days after the December 3 self-coup attempt. Unlike in 2016, the path was set from the beginning as “impeachment of Yoon by the bourgeois system” instead of “forcing Yoon to resign through the power of mass struggle.” Why? The first is the learning effect from the experience of 2016. The second is that, once again, the KCTU was unable to organize a general strike powerful enough to “force Yoon to resign through the power of mass struggle.” In fact, the KCTU was in worse shape before the December 3 self-coup than it was before the revelation of Choi Soon-sil’s tablet computer in 2016. The third reason is that the DPK rejected all compromises from the beginning and demanded impeachment. The fourth reason is that there was a very strong public consensus that Yoon’s presidential power should be stopped as soon as possible for fear of a second declaration of martial law.

 

Although the path of “impeachment of Yoon by the bourgeois system” was realized, the workers’ struggle did not follow the path of “forcing Yoon to resign through the power of mass struggle,” yet it has played a very important role since Yoon’s declaration of martial law on December 3. The decisive force that enabled the National Assembly to successfully pass a resolution demanding the lifting of martial law just two hours and 33 minutes after the declaration of martial law came from the thousands of workers and people who rushed to the National Assembly as soon as they heard the news, and the millions of workers and people who cheered them from all over the country. The mass rallies that have been going on since December 7 were the decisive force that led to the passage of the impeachment motion against Yoon, and they are the most important force in moving forward toward his removal from the presidency, his imprisonment and punishment for treason, and the dismantling of the PPP.

 

The KCTU’s role in the struggle has been contradictory. On the one hand, it has played a significant role, but it has been very limited compared to its potential. At 3 a.m. on December 4, the KCTU declared an “indefinite general strike until Yoon resigns from the presidency.” In reality, however, it was a limited general strike that took place three times on December 5, 6, and 11, involving 50,000 to 100,000 workers, mainly in the metal industry and railway. The KCTU is playing a leading role in the mass rallies, and many of its members are participating in the rallies. The KCTU has been able to push back police barricades and clear the way at the mass rallies, and this has made a strong impression on the broader unorganized masses. The KCTU, however, has not realized its true potential. If the KCTU were to organize a powerful general strike, the mass rallies could develop into an explosive people’s uprising. But this has so far gone undiscussed in the KCTU’s official meetings or among rank-and-file activists.

 

In the mass rallies, there was a noticeable increase in the initiative of young women in their 20s and 30s (2030 Women). Their representation in the mass rallies is similar to that of the 2008 and 2016 candlelight protests, but this time they were much more active than in the past. It is particularly impressive that militant solidarity from below, led by the 2030 Women, with the farmers’ protest against the police in Namtae-ryeong on December 21 and 22, won victory within 28 hours. Inspired by the “Namtae-ryeong Victory,” many South Koreans have spontaneously begun expressing solidarity with workers and people with disabilities fighting for their right to mobility. The 2030 Women, who have organized themselves in solidarity against discrimination and oppression and become the main actors in the square, are playing a vanguard role in the current situation.

 

The key now is for the KCTU to organize a powerful general strike with the movement’s core demands — Yoon’s removal from the presidency, his arrest and punishment for treason, and the dismantling of the PPP — as well as various demands of the workers and people. Through this, the working class will lead the explosive people’s uprising and take control of the situation. To realize this, we must urgently organize activities from below to call for a powerful general strike by the KCTU. Left political organizations, militant rank-and-file activists, and workers in struggling workplaces must take the initiative to appeal to and convince the broader membership of the urgent need for a general strike. At the same time, we must raise the issue in the official organs of the KCTU for a full debate and a decisive resolution for the general strike. The bureaucratic regression of the workers’ movement may prevent us from achieving sufficient tangible results in the immediate future. On the other hand, in this dynamic situation, leaps can be made in unexpected ways. Whatever the outcome, it’s time to put our best foot forward.

 

As we have seen, if the Far Right is not defeated this time, the global trend of economic impoverishment will paradoxically provide a broad social base for the further growth of the Far Right in South Korea. The most socially dangerous segment is young men in their 20s and 30s (2030 Men). The 2030 Men are generally considered quite conservative compared to the 2030 Women. If the economic hardship of unemployment and irregular work among 2030 Men worsens in the future, and misogyny and minority hatred intensify, it is possible that many of them will be captured as a strong social base for the Far Right. If this happens, the destructive power of the Far Right will multiply many times over. With the over-60s already an important base for the Far Right, it is also important to note that they suffer the worst elderly poverty among OECD nations. We must organize the struggle against these dangers, not only in the immediate situation, but also in the future. At its core, this means that the workers’ movement brings class demands to the fore to address youth unemployment, irregular work, and elderly poverty, and that the 2030 Women’s movement expands into an anti-capitalist, not separatist, movement to lead the 2030 Men.