1920~30년대 경상북도 영일 지역의 사회주의운동 = Socialist Activism and Regional Dynamics in North Gyeongsang Yeongil, 1920s–1930s

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

This article examines the formation, development, and characteristics of socialist movements in Yeongil County, Gyeongsangbuk-do, during the 1920s and 1930s, with particular attention to the so-called “Pohang Communist Party Incident.” After the March First Movement, legal spaces such as youth associations, labor unions, and boys’ groups were organized in the region. Initially functioning as meeting places for local notables and relatively privileged youths, these organizations were gradually transformed as overseas-educated students returned from Japan and Russia and promoted popular enlightenment through night schools, lectures, and theatrical activities. In this process socialist ideas spread, and socialist intellectuals in Pohang-myeon and Heunghaemyeon—most notably Jeong Hak-seon, Park Pil-hwan, and Song Yeon-su—played a leading role by organizing groups such as Sayeolhoe, the Pohang Yacheika, Heunghae Youth Association, Shinheung Youth Association, Yeongil Youth Alliance, and the Yeongil branch of Singanhoe.
The article further reinterprets the Pohang Communist Party Incident—originating in an investigation of a nationalist secret society centered on Pastor Park Mun-chan—as a politically constructed case designed by the colonial authorities to suppress socialist-oriented youth and broader local nationalist movements, rather than as a full-fledged attempt to rebuild the Communist Party. Finally, it shows that although the Yeongil socialist movement was severely weakened by the dissolution of the Korean Communist Party and repeated waves of arrests around 1930, the organizational and political experiences accumulated in this period provided an important foundation for the rapid establishment of local Committees for the Preparation of Korean Independence and People’s Committees in the immediate post-liberation era.

국문 초록 (Abstract)

본 논문은 1920~30년대 경상북도 영일 지역에서 전개된 사회주의 계열 민족운동의 형성과 전개, 그리고 포항공산당 사건의 성격을 규명하고자 한다. 청년회·노동조합·소년회 등 합법단체의 성장과 유학생·지역 청년들의 귀향을 통해 사회주의 사상이 포항면과 흥해면으로 확산되고, 정학선·박필환·송연수 등 사회주의자들이 四月會, 야체이카, 흥해청년회·신흥청년회, 영일청년동맹, 신간회 영일지회 등을 매개로 대중운동을 이끌어 간 과정을 분석했다. 또한 민족주의 비밀결사 사건에서 출발해 공산당 사건으로 재규정된 포항공산당 사건이, 실상은 지역 사회주의·청년 민족운동을 일거에 제압하려는 식민권력의 탄압이었음을 재판기록과 신문 자료를 통해 검토했다. 마지막으로 조선공산당 해체와 연이은 검거로 1930년대 중반 이후 운동이 약화되었으나, 이러한 경험이 해방 후 건국준비위원회·인민위원회 활동으로 이어졌음을 밝힘으로써 영일 지역 사회주의운동을 지역 민족해방운동의 중요한 축으로 재평가했다.