1920년대 전반 사회주의사상의 수용과 맑스주의 원전 번역

The Introduction of Socialism and Translation of Marxist Texts in the First Half of 1920s : focusing on Wage Labor and Capital

In September 1923, Minjoongsa was organized in Seoul by the new socialists who had the experience to protest against the Movement of the Encouragement of Korean Products around ‘the New Life Group’. This publishing company translated Marxist texts as Wage Labor and Capital, and Wages, Price and Profit as Minjoongsa pamphlet, and after translating A Socialism Theory Outline by Sakai Toshihiko, it published this version on Gaebyeok and so on. And so it concentrated its efforts on popularizing Marxism through these publication activities. Wage Labor and Capital, which was published as the first of the Minjoongsa pamphlets, has the historical meaning in that it was the very second Marxist texts which was translated and publicly issued in the colonial Joseon after ‘The Handbook of Historical Materialism’ in the preface of For the Political and Economic Critic. It has the characteristic to be double-translated basically with the Japanese version by Kawakami Hajime and Sakai Toshihiko and English version and to have intention to help its reading with interpolating the translator’s annotation and then overcoming the direct translation. This reason, why the Minjoongsa published Marxist texts, was closely related to the Debate of the Encouragement of Korean Products in 1923, in which the members of Minjoongsa had actively participated. With a viewpoint of the history of Marxist thoughts, the Debate can be interpreted as the cognitive confrontation about Marxist revolutionary theory. But in the process the members of Minjoongsa opposed to the ‘determinism’ - the revolution through the productivity enlargement by the domestic Shanghai Group and rather maintained the revolution and the productivity growth through, while they emphasized on the positivity of the class struggle. In this very debate process, not the simple criticism of the capitalism, but the intrinsic understanding and analysis of its mechanism, and the necessity of the propaganda about it were raised up. In order to make satisfaction with this necessity, the Minjoongsa therefore commenced to translate Wage Labor and Capital and Wages, Price and Profit in Korean, especially because these were famous for its good arrangement of the Marxist economic theory. Conclusively, it has a historical meaning in that this critical mind of the Minjoongsa, which located in the same line with the debate of the Marxist revolution theory on the Debate of the Encouragement of Korean Products, should go in gear with the activities and discussions for the organization of the vanguard party by the communist groups after 1924.