The Justification of Revolution and Vanguard Party Theory (1)

Vanguard party theory is the method and doctrine of propaganda, agitation, and vanguard action for communist revolution that Vladimir Lenin developed out of Karl Kautsky's theory of worker organization.

Examples include the Bolsheviks, the Red Guards, the Red Militia, the Hungarian People's Front, the Fifth Column, and others of their kind.

Vladimir Lenin warned that in the communist movement, professional revolutionaries based among the industrial workers could themselves harbor petty-bourgeois prejudices born of their own ideals. His reasoning was simple enough: once the workers of each stratum began to speak for their own interests, revolutions from below led by industrial laborers were doomed, in the great majority of cases, to fail. A pure and spontaneous revolution grounded in the fragmentation of the working masses, he declared, was simply impossible. Worse still, some among those masses would take their half-learned scraps of knowledge and turn themselves into the bourgeoisie's running dogs — volunteering as shields and hired hands. Lenin pointed early to all of this as a social disease born of the masses' wretched education.

And so he demanded a small elite possessed of real leadership — a group such as the Bolsheviks — to take these ignorant, unstable masses in hand and lead them.

What kind of bullshit is that, you ask? Honestly, it is bullshit. Put simply, it is the claim that the revolution cannot succeed unless the Bolsheviks themselves are the ones to do it. Adolf Hitler's Nazi stormtroopers and Mussolini's Blackshirts belong to the same family of ideas.

Anyway. The reason I suddenly dragged out Bald Mustache No. 2's formula for a successful revolution is this:

"I would like our Mr. Kim Gi-beom — no. I would like our Mr. Kim Gae-nam to gather people for me."

A brief word of explanation. Not long after Kim Gi-beom began living with me, I realized he was Kim Gae-nam, the man whose name had thundered through South Jeolla during the Donghak Rebellion. When I asked him to change his name, he agreed without a flicker of hesitation. His reason: Because Teacher told me to change it. A more textbook posture for a zealous party member I have never seen.

At any rate, to return to the matter at hand: the time would have been roughly two months after the members of our secretly founded Dongmaenghoe — formed over drinks in Namwon — had thrown themselves into the work of printing and distributing the book. For the record, the characters in Dongmaenghoe carry the same meaning as Sun Yat-sen's famous Alliance Association.

"I beg your pardon?"

"I will be blunt. Can you, Comrade, honestly tell yourself that we are making a sufficient effort to discuss a genuine revolutionary enterprise? Are we doing everything in our power to deliver the people who groan under corruption, incompetence, and greed in every corner of this country's eight provinces? That is what I am asking."

"..."

"I already know the answer. We are not doing our best. We are not making a sufficient effort."

"E-even so, this humble one—"

"Comrade Kim Gae-nam."

I had summoned Kim Gae-nam alone into the room without warning, set the tone, and prepared to lay a heavy charge on his shoulders. The man — passionate, and in another light something close to a fanatic — forced his excitement down and asked me to repeat myself. He could see it plain as day: this was going to be a hard, thankless, complicated assignment.

"I-I am not certain I follow your meaning, Teacher. I am but an ordinary man. I am content simply to follow faithfully the guidance of our Teacher Unam, who shines like the full moon in the night sky."

I clapped both hands together and seized his in mine, raising my voice at a refusal so perfectly textbook it was almost admirable.

"A splendid attitude!"

"Of course that, too, is a splendid attitude! But what I am saying is this: for the purification of our people, for our reforms, and beyond that for the recovery of our ancestral lands to succeed, we will continue to need hundreds — thousands — of brave and clever young men who will support us with real fire and walk at the very head of the popular masses."

"I-I would never dare to presume upon Teacher's grand design, but I believe I grasp the general meaning."

I nodded, caught his gaze as it kept trying to slide away, and pinned it in front of me.

"I mean party members armed in ideology. Armed with what we will call the revolutionary spirit."

"..."

"In the revolutionary battles that lie ahead for our Dongmaenghoe, I personally hope that an outstanding party member like Comrade Kim Gae-nam will seize every chance to set the example!"

"!"

The moment I lifted him up, the eyes of a man starved for recognition shook wide.

The truth is that talking of "revolution" in broad daylight, in a country under absolute monarchy, is a considerably dangerous thing to do. It is more dangerous still when the man doing the talking is a convicted criminal sentenced to exile.

And so what?

Right. And so what?

I have taken a nuclear blast head-on. I have lived through every last cruelty of what modern weapons can do at their peak. A headsman's sword dance or a cup of poison is a drop in the bucket beside everything I remember from my last life.

So I looked Kim Gae-nam in the eye with a face full of confidence and drove my will home.

"Well? Is the comrade prepared for the great work?"

"I— I—"

Whether he was moved by the sheer nerve of a man who said every word he meant and did not care who heard it, I cannot say. Kim Gae-nam wrestled with himself, swallowed hard once, then again, and forced the answer out.

"...If you will only entrust it to me, I shall burn this body of mine to see the great work accomplished!"

"I thank you! From this day forward, you and I are one body!"

Kim Gae-nam accepted the charge. We confirmed in each other a will toward revolution as hard as steel, and threw our arms around one another.

And so was born the vanguard party of the Joseon Dongmaenghoe: the Joseon Youth Alliance.

It was the great founding of what came to be called the Youth Alliance.

Not long after receiving my secret orders, Kim Gae-nam toured not only his hometown of Taein but every major city in Jeolla — Jeonju, Naju, Namwon, and the rest — spreading my name as he went. When he came back, he brought a hundred young men with him.

"All right, all right, stand up straight! Teacher Unam is coming out!"

In the middle of the courtyard, busy with the printing and distribution of the book, Kim Gae-nam had drawn up a magnificent hundred in ranks and presented them to me.

"These are talents I chose and chose again, Teacher. Every one of them is a ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠hot-blooded young man who has heard your great name at least once, and who has dreamed of nothing but the day he might meet you."

At Kim Gae-nam's introduction I straightened my back on the wooden floor and looked, one by one, at these deranged young men who had poured in from every corner of Jeolla just to see my face. And I understood then that Kim Gae-nam had a considerable eye for people.

He picked them rather well.

Every one of them was big-boned and broad-shouldered — the sort this age would call a strongman. It was proof that Kim Gae-nam had grasped the point of what I had called a vanguard party with considerable accuracy. If our Dongmaenghoe was going to stand at the head of a revolutionary enterprise and drive off the Donghak and the conservative reactionaries, the Vanguard was going to need a great many young men with strong frames and outstanding bone.

I made no effort to hide how pleased I was. I praised Kim Gae-nam in front of every man present.

"This is excellent, Comrade Kim Gae-nam! This is perfect."

Then I clapped, jumped down from the floor, and stood in the dirt in my bare feet, taking the hand of each young man he had brought and greeting him in turn.

"Comrade, who are you, and where have you come from?"

"Th-this humble one is a Kim who tenant-farmed in Taein..."

"A champion of the agricultural struggle, then! Truly excellent! Thank you for coming all this way! And you, Comrade?"

"I'm a Choe who worked as a farmhand in Jeonju...?"

"A champion of household industry, I see? You too are a splendid young party member!"

"I-I am Scholar Kim, who was studying in ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Gwangju, though now I just—"

"Oh! A scholar in search of the truth is welcome at any hour!"

As I greeted them one by one and lifted each man up, the bewilderment that had first sat on their faces began to ease, and before long their eyes were full of a heat that was all for me.

Of course they were. Even in this age, do you think the unemployed young men who pick up odd jobs because there is no proper work in the house have nothing to feel cheated about? A politician is a commodity that stays popular for as long as he can sell the voters nothing but endless praise.

Something like that.

In politics, the show is what matters. And when the service is for the party members who will guard you until the day you die, what more is there to explain?

I left them simmering in the pot of their own emotion and opened my mouth.

"Well, the greetings are done. I have a small gift for all of you who came to find me today! Come this way and take one."

I climbed back onto the floor, brought out the neatly wrapped bundles waiting in the room, and began to place one in each man's hands. The faces of those who found themselves holding a gift they had not expected went wonderfully blank.

"Everyone, open them."

When the bundles came undone, what lay before them was a neatly pressed blue durumagi overcoat, a black paeraengi hat, and a crimson armband lettered in red with the word Justice.

It was the uniform of the Vanguard.

"What... what is all this?"

I let the party members murmur among themselves — bewildered, astonished, moved — and teased them with a lazy grin.

"These are your own special unit uniforms, wrung out of a budget that did not exist after a great deal of begging. I don't even have one of these myself."

A few of them laughed at the joke. Someone quietly wiped the red from the corner of an eye. Once I had confirmed that every party member had changed his clothes, I gave the order.

"Now then. Form a single line in front of me. We will hold the induction."

The rite was simple. Starting with each man who had finished changing, I bestowed a Justice Staff prepared in advance and fastened the crimson armband around his arm. The staffs with which they would stand against wicked cultists and corrupt officials were made of precious ash wood.

"There!"

And so a ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠hundred grown men, with Kim Gae-nam's help, put on their uniforms as crisply as soldiers in a barracks, hung the Justice Staffs at their belts, and wore the crimson armbands on their arms. To my eye they could not have looked more excellent, or more reliable.

From a distance, the great elder of the Confucian literati, Choe Ik-hyeon, had been watching us in silence. He sidled over as if by accident and murmured in my ear.

"I never imagined you had a gift for the art of employing men as well."

"Hm? Didn't you already know that?"

"Aigoo. Very clever, aren't we!"

He squinted at my boasting, but the corner of his mouth was smiling.

Choe Ik-hyeon — grand elder of the literati, a former official of the court — had been worrying himself into a mountain over our Dongmaenghoe ever since we had begun to collide with the Donghak. Now that I had walked out with a solution of my own, that worry had washed off him as if it had never been there.

And then:

"Of late, the more stiff-necked gentlemen have been saying our conduct is far too light for what we claim to be."

"I thought they might."

One of the most important reasons for founding the Vanguard was precisely those high-nosed Confucian literati, and the yangban houses throughout the three southern provinces that had been patronizing us. The elderly heads of those families, their eldest sons and heirs, had begun to take a slow dislike to the way the young men of the house neglected the studies they were told to pursue and instead hovered around the Dongmaenghoe, beating Donghak bandits and Buddhist monks at our side.

"They do not want the blame themselves. They cannot stand the crowd in Hanyang that demands bribes every day. They cannot stand the barbarians across the sea. And they cannot stand to watch heretical cults and Buddhists run rampant while the nation is in disarray. So of course they need people who will do the dirty work in their place."

"You have it exactly."

Satisfied with my answer, Choe Ik-hyeon let his gaze sweep across the tide of crimson armbands.

"It is also your chance to obtain real power."

"Mm. You knew, then?"

I was a little startled that he had seen through my ambition to move these men as a private army. He laughed softly.

"Of course. I too once saw every filthy face the court had to offer."

"Ah. I have been putting on airs in front of a master, haven't I?"

"Not at all. It is a splendid piece of misdirection."

Around then, under the guidance of Kim Gae-nam and Yu In-seok, the members of the Vanguard each received a freshly printed copy of the book and headed for the inner quarters to learn their letters.

Watching them go, Choe Ik-hyeon murmured,

"I hear you are a sixteenth-generation descendant of Grand Prince Yangnyeong."

"!"

At those words I froze where I stood.

What is this? Does he think I mean to usurp the throne?

I opened my mouth in a hurry to set the misunderstanding right.

"Ch-Chan-gyeom, sir. I—"

"Let this stay a secret between us."

Before the shock had even left me, Choe Ik-hyeon was already gone. The place where he had stood was empty.

It was the end of winter.

Woo Beom-seon — former Major of the Special Skills Force, and a man who had lately taken to calling himself the right arm ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠of the ever more famous Teacher Unam — summoned Kim Gae-nam, commander of the Vanguard and a stone that had rolled in from nowhere, in the middle of the night.

His face, already frightening when it was merely crumpled, had become a degree more frightening still.

"A word with you."

"...The hour is—"

Yes. A stone that had rolled in. And that rolling stone had, day by day, been drawing closer to the sharp little brat from Hanyang, which sat in Woo Beom-seon's craw. He stood planted in the courtyard in the last thin flurry of dawn snow.

"What the hell is this."

Woken in the night, and in a fouler mood still for having confirmed that snow was blowing outside, Kim Gae-nam turned a crooked look on the man who had called for him.

"What is it?"

"No particular business. Just something I needed to say."

The man who had summoned him did not look any more pleased about it himself.

A few minutes crawled by. Woo Beom-seon's throat worked several times. At last he shut both eyes, borrowed against his patience, and managed to open his mouth.

"I was here first..."

"?"

The tension that had wound Kim Gae-nam tight fell apart on his face. Woo Beom-seon, whether the other man recovered or not, felt a great deal better. He ducked his head once and started back toward his room.

"Take it as you will."

"Wait—you woke me at this hour just to say that? And 'I was here first'? What the hell is that supposed to mean?!"

It was the petty jealousy of men.