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The Gwangju People's Uprising and the

Construction of Collective Identity: A Study on the
Fighters' Bulletin

Kim Young-khee & Han Sun

To cite this article: Kim Young-khee & Han Sun (2003) The Gwangju People's Uprising and the
Construction of Collective Identity: A Study on the Fighters' Bulletin, New Political Science, 25:2,
207-223, DOI: 10.1080/07393140307199

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New Political Science, Volume 25, Number 2, June 2003

The Gwangju People’s Uprising and the Construction of

Collective Identity: A Study on the Fighters’ Bulletin

Kim Young-khee
Chonnam National University

Han Sun
Gwangju Women’s University

Abstract This paper explores the Fighters’ Bulletin (Tusahoebo), which was ini-
tially published by a student organization during the Gwangju People’s Uprising and
later became a kind of official newspaper of the struggle headquarters. Through an
analysis of the contents of the Fighters’ Bulletin, this study reconstructs the trajectory
of the collective identity construction. The Fighters’ Bulletin informed Gwangju
citizens of the meaning and development of the Uprising and earnestly devoted itself to
construct the collective identity of “we,” defining the object and the subject of the
resistance and guidelines for action. Concentrated on constructing the collective identity
at the beginning, it tried to resist the stigmatic framing of the dominant discourses, to
highlight the true meaning of the struggle. In the later stage of struggle, it devoted itself
to investing in the emotional framing through the participants’ willingness to sacrifice
their lives for the struggle. It concludes that, even though the Gwangju Uprising was
a failed 10-day long revolution, its collective identity, which was constructed and
manifested through the Fighters’ Bulletin, has been appropriated as a major framework
for subsequent political struggles in South Korea.

Introduction
Beyond the political significance of the May 18 Gwangju People’s Uprising,1 the
Uprising as a research theme of collective behavior has been analyzed in a
variety of ways. The dominant thrust of the research concerning the Uprising
has focused on (1) the political and socio-economic background, (2) the process
of the development of the Uprising in terms of its chronological order, (3) the
individual participants’ motivations, (4) the psychological traumas of its after-
math, and (5) the distorted or biased media representations of the Uprising.2
Significantly, the Uprising continues to be a rich source for further research,
1
For the significance in the democratization of contemporary South Korean politics, see
Kim Yong Cheol’s article in this special issue. For an international perspective, see George
Katsiaficas, “Remembering the Kwangju Uprising,” Socialism and Democracy 14⬊1(2000),
pp. 85–108.
2
For more detailed references, see Ahn Jong-cheol, “Materials and Researches on the
May 18 Gwangju Uprising,” The History of the Gwangju Uprising (Gwangju City Bureau of
Compilation of Historiographical Materials of the Gwangju Uprising: 2001), and refer to the
articles cited in Kahn-chae Na, “A New Perspective on the Gwangju People’s Resistance
Struggle: 1980–1977,” New Political Science 23⬊4(2001), pp. 477–491; In particular, for the

ISSN 0739-3148 print/ISSN 1469-9931 online/03/020207–17  2003 Caucus for a New Political Science
DOI: 10.1080/0739314032000081577
208 Kim Young-khee and Han Sun

an untapped terrain for the study of collective behavior or social movements. In

this study, we focus primarily on the process of the construction of a collective
identity during the Uprising. The importance of this area has frequently been
mentioned and emphasized in previous research, but its kernel has rarely been
analyzed.
Neither the macro-structural models nor the micro-structural models may be
enough to afford realistic pictures of the Uprising or the various individuals’
dedicated involvement in it. The macro-structural model, on the one hand, tends
to ignore the processes that enable the participants to define the given environ-
ment that enabled common action or forced the entire city to involve itself in
some sort of common action. On the other hand, the models based on individual
differences and motivations never suffice to explain how certain individuals
come to recognize themselves as members of, and to join and become part of an
“absolute” we.3 What is lacking between the analyses of structural determinants
and individual preferences, as Alberto Melucci suggests, is the analyses of an
intermediate level,4 which is concerned with the processes by which individuals
evaluate and recognize what they are faced with in common, for example, “the
unbelievable brutality of the army” during the Uprising, and joining together,
even “fighting to the death.”
In this vein, we regard the Uprising as one in which the individual partici-
pants collectively constructed their action by means of cognitive and emotional
investments. That is, the participants in the Uprising actively defined, in cogni-
tive terms, the situation and the field of possibilities and limits which they
perceived, while at the same time actively facilitating their personal relation-
ships so as to give a sense to their feelings of “we” and a sense to the goals they
pursued, that is, the goals “of democratization and human dignity.”
The definitions that participants in collective action in general construct,
Melucci says, are not linear but actively produced by interaction, negotiation,
and opposition from different orientations. Individuals contribute to the forma-
tion of an integrated “we” according to types of action, by making common and
adjusting to at least three orientations:
those of the ends of actions (i.e., the sense the action has for the actor); those
relating to the means (i.e., the possibilities and the limits of the action); and finally
those relating to relationships with the environment (i.e., the field in which the
action takes place).5

Collective identity, Melucci says, is the process of collectively producing the

cognitive and emotional definitions about what actors sense when commonly

(Footnote continued)
psychological trauma of the victims, see Juna Byun and Linda S. Lewis (eds), The 1980
Gwangju Uprising after 20 Years: the Unhealed Wounds of the Victims (Dahae: Seoul, 2000).
3
The concept of “absolute” is borrowed from The Sociology of May (Seoul: Poolbit, 1990)
written by Choi Jeong-woon who defined “the absolute community” as a completely
autonomous community established by the full participation of the Gwangju citizens in
order to defeat the military troops.
4
Alberto Melucci, “Getting Involved: Identity and Mobilization in Social Movements”
in B. Klandermans, H. Kriesi and S. Tarrow (eds), International Social Movement Research,
Vol. 1 (JAI Press Inc, 1988), pp. 338–339.
5
Melucci, op. cit., pp. 332–333.
 The Gwangju Uprising and Collective Identity 209

confronted with an environment, which leads eventually to a collective action

system.
The construction of a collective identity involves continual cognitive and
emotional investment and occurs as a process. Collective identity involves three
fundamental dimensions that are closely interwoven:
(1) formulating cognitive frameworks concerning the ends, means, and the field of
action, (2) activating relationships between actors, who interact, communicate,
influence each other, negotiate and make decisions, (3) making emotional invest-
ments, which enable individuals to recognize themselves.6

Ends, means, and environment in the process of collective identity, however,

according to Melucci, continually create tension: for example, in the definition of
ends, between short- and long-term objectives; in the choice of means, between
the use of resources to achieve efficacy and to consolidate solidarity; and in
relation with the environment, between internal balances and exchanges.7
At this point, it should be underscored that collective identity is not based
solely on a cost-benefit calculation and a collective identity is never entirely
negotiable. Some elements of it are endowed with meaning but cannot be
reduced to instrumental rationality: they are not irrational, but neither are they
based on calculation logic.8
The very concept of collective identity, theoretically and practically, leads us
to understand why the citizen participants in the struggle at last decided to take
up arms, breaching a long-held Korean tradition of never rising with swords
against government, a decision that constructed “an absolute community”9 in
which self-government and organic solidarity prevailed, and led to the decision
to fight to the death for democracy and human dignity.
Every participant, however, does not have the same capacity to define an
identity. Different resources influence an individual’s roles as they are played
out in the interactive process of constructing a collective identity. In this sense,
the student leaders in the Uprising, compared with the other groups, were
relatively resourceful for identity building. They were well stocked with a
“cultural kit” for protest, a concept applied from works by both Ann Swidler
and Mayer N. Zald’s.10 Since liberation from Japanese colonial rule, the student
movements in South Korea took on leading roles in the various forms of social
movements. Throughout the history of the student movements, the kit had been
well equipped. It includes skills and techniques of communication and reper-
toires of contentions. The former included, acts like creating posters, publishing
newsletters and bulletins, giving speeches and taking on leadership roles in
demonstrations, and maintaining secrete liaison networks. Students were also
involved in organizing violent and nonviolent protests and/or demonstrations,
from sit-ins and marches, to throwing Molotov cocktails when confronted with

6
Melucci, op.cit., p. 343.
7
Ibid.
8
Ibid.
9
Choi Jeong-woon, op. cit.
10
Ann Swidler, “Culture in Action: Symbols and Strategies,” American Sociological
Review, 51⬊2(1986), pp. 240–273; Mayer N. Zald, “Culture, Ideology, and Strategic Framing,”
in Doug McAdam, John D. McCarthy, and Mayer N. Zald (eds), Comparative Perspectives on
Social Movements (New York, N.Y.: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1996), pp. 261–274.
210 Kim Young-khee and Han Sun

the police. Student groups, in fact, were the main leading organizations in the
beginning of the Uprising.11
In this context, this paper explores the Fighters’ Bulletin (the Tusahoebo), which
became the official newspaper of the headquarters of the Uprising and was
published by a student organization for evening school for workers, the Deulbul
(“wildfire”).
Through an analysis of the activities of the Deulbul and the contents of the
Fighters’ Bulletin, in relation to the development of the Uprising, we try to
reconstruct the process of the collective identity construction in which the
trajectory of cognitive and emotional dynamics are revealed.
For analytical purposes, we use the term frame or framework, and the
theoretical assumption of this study follows the concepts of frame analysis. In
Goffman’s work, frames are a cognitive mapping which allows individuals to
locate, perceive, identify, and label within their life-space or world at large.
Frames are the specific metaphors, symbolic representations and cognitive cues
used to render and cast behavior or events in an evaluating mode and to suggest
alternative modes of action.12 Frames in collective action provide shorthand
interpretations of the environment, locate blame, and suggest lines of action.13
All the pamphlets, newsletters, bulletins, and street speeches during the
Uprising contributed to the formation of citizens’ collective identity as various
types of frames. The Fighters’ Bulletin, especially, was critical in deriving practi-
cal behavior by organizing communal cultural statements and by legitimating
the people’s resistance against the Martial Law Army.14

The Press in May 1980 and the Fighters’ Bulletin

After the assassination of President Bak Jeong-hee on October 26, 1979, the
government gagged the national press through clamping down with a “news
censorship.” Held in check by the imposed censorship for almost seven months
since the assassination, the national press in Korea was little more than a
mouthpiece of the new military authorities that had grabbed power. For
instance, most metropolitan newspapers on May 16, 1980 printed front page
stories stating that the acting president, Choi Gyu-ha, who was on a tour of
countries in the Middle East, would suddenly return home one day ahead of
schedule and make a serious decision of some sort. Included in this serious
decision were a rescinding of the martial law and the implementation of a bill
amending the constitution by the National Assembly. In addition to the news,
there was also a request from the government for students to restrain themselves
from demonstrating. The students, however, had already tentatively decided to
stop demonstrating on May 14, and had decided to wait and examine
11
For more detailed aspects of the various organizations in the Uprising, see Na’s article
in this issue.
12
Erving Goffman, Frame Analysis: An Essay on the Organization of Experience (New York:
Harper Colophin, 1974).
13
David A. Snow and Robert D. Benford, “Master Frames and Cycles of Protest”, in
Aldon Morris and Carol M. Mueller (eds), Frontiers in Social Movement Theory (New Haven,
Conn.: Yale University Press, 1992), pp. 133–155.
14
Jeon Yong-ho, “Reports on the May Publicity Activities,” National Reality and the
Literature Movements (Gwangju, 1990), p. 94.
 The Gwangju Uprising and Collective Identity 211

the prospective democratization plan. The Jung-ang Ilbo exhibited a somewhat

contradictory journalistic attitude by placing an article at the top of the local
news page with the headline, “Students Demonstration Heated … Clashes in
Urban Areas” and titling an article in the middle of the page, “Campus
Demonstration Almost Stopped… Wait and See While Attending School.”15
There were efforts by the national press, of course, to correct this situation
and to recover justice in the society. In early May 1980, the Journalist Association
in Korea was in a state of crisis about the censorship imposed by the new
military authorities and decided that they would report the news based on the
journalists’ own sense and judgment, and that they would refuse to work if the
government responded in a coercive manner. Each press company had a plan to
hold an assembly in support of a free press and to resist against the control
imposed by the new military authorities. This plan, however, ended in failure
through the nationwide expansion of an emergency martial law put into force at
midnight on May 17. Through the implementation of this new emergency law,
the press came under the complete control by the new military authorities.16
The national press first began to cover the Gwangju Democratic Uprising on
the evening of May 21, three days after the outbreak of the Uprising. The bulk
of the coverage of the Uprising actually began the morning of May 22. Although
the other metropolitan newspapers knew the severity of the situation in
Gwangju, as most of them had resident reporters in Gwangju, the news of the
Uprising could not be printed. This delay in reporting was not the only decision
of the metropolitan papers. Choosing to cite the “Gwangju Incident Report”
provided by the Martial Law Enforcement Headquarters, the press portrayed
Gwangju as “a city of rioters.” The national press was highly influential in
convincing the rest of the nation that what was happening in Gwangju was “a
riot by some mob,” the work of “masked and armed robbers, the result of citizen
discontent,” and with some possible “connection to North Korean spies.” The
press completely ignored the violent suppression of the city by the paratroopers,
the move which ignited the Gwangju Uprising.
The journalistic positions of the local papers in Gwangju, such as the
Jeonnamilbo and the Chonnam Mail, were little different from that of the other
metropolitan papers. Even though they witnessed the bloody suppression of the
demonstrations by the Martial Law soldiers, they could not report it because of
the government censorship. Reporters could only express their indirect resist-
ance by refusing to work. The situation was the same for local broadcast
companies.17
The Gwangju demonstrators’ mistrust and open hostility toward the press
were expressed through harsh criticism and anger at the journalists and their
companies. Reporters of the metropolitan newspapers were not even allowed to
enter the Jeonnam Provincial Hall where the settlement committee was orga-
nized. Further citizen rage manifested itself in the torching of the Gwangju MBC

15
Kim Seong, “The May 18th and Mass Communication,” The History of the May 18 People’s
Uprising (Gwangju: Gwangju City Bureau of Compilation of Historiographical Materials of
the Gwangju Uprising, 1997), p. 338.
16
Yim Jong-il, “The May 18th Gwangju People’s Uprising and the Press Reports,” a paper
presented at the Memorial Forum of the 21st Anniversary of the Gwangju Uprising, 2001.
17
Kim Seong, op.cit., pp. 338–341.
212 Kim Young-khee and Han Sun

and KBS broadcasting stations. It was in this vacuum of journalistic presence

and integrity that the Fighters’ Bulletin, an underground newspaper as well as
the official newsletter of the Uprising Headquarters, became established.18
The Fighters’ Bulletin had a certain media style and format and performed
well in the role of a journalistic organ during the extremely chaotic period of the
armed uprising. It provided Gwangju citizens with foreign and domestic
responses to the Uprising, on-the-spot coverage of the fighting, circumstantial
analysis, a citizen’s Code of Conduct, public information concerning mass rallies,
and educational materials to use at the rally places.
The Fighters’ Bulletin was composed of a single large sheet of paper with
information covering both sides folded 16 times to approximately the size of an
8 ⫻ 10 page. Five to six thousand copies of the Bulletin were printed in the early
stages of the Uprising, but the number later on increased to about fifteen to
twenty thousand. Six editions of the Fighters’ Bulletins are presently identifiable,
including edition No. 2, dated May 22 and Nos. 5, 7, 9 and 10. The Bulletin was
later renamed the Democratic Citizen’s Bulletin after May 26.
The Fighters’ Bulletin was published by the Deulbul Yahak. Ten to 20 people
worked on its publication, a team which was composed of teachers, the Gang-
haks,19 and students of the school. There were approximately five teams that
published the Bulletin in the early stages of the Uprising. They were the Deulbul
evening school team of Yun Sang-won, Jeon Yong-ho, Park Yong-jun et al., the
Sori team (a circle of students in Chonnam National University, CNU) of Jeon
Yong-ho et al., the Gwangdae (a students’ circle for traditional mask dance, CNU)
of Kim Yun-gi and Kim Seon-chul et al., the Baekje team of Son Nam-seung et al.,
and the Wolsandong team composed of high school students including Jo Gang-il
et al.20 Of the teams, the Deulbul was the only team that steadily published the
Bulletin. The other teams merged into Deulbul around May 21 or ceased publish-
ing altogether.
The period of the Uprising, for an analytical purpose, is broken down into
three phases, based mainly on situational context, publishing team’s activities, as
well as the contents of Fighters’ Bulletin.

Constructing Collective Identity

The Deulbul Yahak team, which published the Fighters’ Bulletin, experienced
numerous changes due to the rapidly changing circumstances of the Uprising.
To facilitate the research, our analysis is divided into three phases. Phase I is
defined as the period before the publication of the Fighters’ Bulletin, from May
18 to 20, when the Deulbul Yahak published a “declaration” and an “uprising
statement of the democracy safeguards.” Phase II starts from the 21st, when all
the leaflet-publishing teams were unified by the Deulbul, began to publish the
Fighters’ Bulletin under a specific title. Phase III is from the 26th to
18
Jeong Yong-ho “Essay for the Historical Evaluation of the Deulbul Yahak,” The History
of Deulbul, (Gwangju: Memorial Foundation for Deulbul Heroes, 2002), pp. 188–189.
19
A special term, Ganghak was used to distinguish teachers working at a night school.
It indicates that, although the teachers taught the working students, they still had to learn
from their students. Jeon Yong-ho, “A Short History of the Deulbul Night School,” op.cit.,
p. 26.
20
Bak Chan-seung, op. cit., p. 378.
 The Gwangju Uprising and Collective Identity 213

28th when the Fighters’ Bulletin was renamed Citizens’ Bulletin for Democracy. The
changes in the publishing teams and the composition of the citizens’ collective
identity are closely interwoven beyond the simple changes in the composition of
the manpower and the division of phases.

Phase I: Identifying the Antagonists (18th–20th)

Situational Context The beginning of the Uprising is a period in which para-
troopers’ indiscriminately killed and wounded students, who had been demon-
strating peacefully, and the Gwangju citizens’ indignation exploded into an
armed struggle. The first fatalities occurred on May 19, following the so-called
The Bloody Sunday (May 18) when the paratroopers brutally suppressed a
student demonstration.21
On May 20, drivers of 200 taxicabs conducted a car-demonstration in front of
the gate of Mudeung Stadium, and a car demonstration by drivers of 50 taxicabs
followed in front of the Gwangju Train Station. As public sympathy for the
Uprising gradually spread to the entire Gwangju citizenry, the so-called “the
Battle in the New Gwangju Station” occurred. Paratroopers, who had formed a
defensive line at the intersection in front of Gwangju Station, fired indiscrimi-
nately at demonstrators who were approaching them at around 11 p.m. that
night. This armed altercation continued until the dawn of May 21.
Elsewhere, the citizen’s hostility and distrust of the press raged and they
completely destroyed the Gwangju MBC office building by fire. Consequently,
its television and radio broadcasts discontinued at 8⬊25 p.m. and 9⬊05 p.m.
respectively on the 20th. Although the Gwangju KBS station was burnt down
and its television broadcasting discontinued at 10⬊05 p.m., the radio remained in
continuous service. This was to be the only remaining broadcast service in
Gwangju area during the Uprising.
After the killing and wounding of demonstrators by the paratroopers,
mimeographed announcements, memos and bulletins of various kinds were
published, and street broadcasts began.
Mimeographed papers of A4-sized paper, such as “the Petition” under the
name of the Gwangju Citizen’s Democratic Struggle Group and “Democratic
Citizens, Arise!” published by the Chosun University Democratic Struggle Group,
were distributed on May 19, after the first fatalities occurred. The former tried
to inform the citizens of the paratroopers’ killing of the demonstrators, and
sought to explain the political situation behind the incident while at the same
time making an appeal for a patriotic citizen’s uprising. This mimeographed
notice seems to have been made by the Deulbul team.22 The latter contained
similar information but reported on the urgent situation of that time with brief,
extremely propagandistic words.
On the 19th, street broadcasts appeared for the first time. The broadcasts
were made by a woman activist who continued to broadcast during the entire

21
Nah Eui-gap, “The Development of the May 18th Uprising,” The History of the Gwangju
Uprising (Gwangju City Bureau of Compilation of Historiographical Materials of the
Gwangju Uprising: 2001), pp. 225–238.
22
Bak Chan-seung, op. cit., p. 383.
214 Kim Young-khee and Han Sun

Uprising.23 Jeon Yeong-ho, who had previously taken an active part in the
Gwangdae at Chonnam National University, and who participated in the Fighter’s
Bulletin team publishing and distributing mimeographed copies from May 18,
testified about the situation of that time as follows:24

In early morning of the 18th I came to Gwangju with my friends to keep my

promise that, if an urgent situation developed, I would meet my friends in front
of Chonnam University at 10 a.m. We got off the bus in front of the Provincial
Hall to observe the situation downtown before going to the campus. About 200 to
300 students rushed toward Geumnamro street. When I coming down through the
street, I encountered colleagues of the Gwangdae team near the back wall of
Jungang Elementary School. While we discussed what should we immediately do
in such a situation, there was a suggestion to make mimeographed copies and
distribute them. Thus, we decided to use the stencil board and mimeograph
machine that The Voice of the University team had used to publish
mimeographed copies and we went to Kim Dong-gyu’s residence near the back
gate of Chonnam National University. We composed the draft through a dis-
cussion and printed about 500 copies in his boarding room until 3 p.m.

After the outbreak of the Uprising, while the Deulbul team was looking for
some actions to break through the situation, rather than simple participation in
the demonstrations, they decided to publish papers as a part of a propaganda
activity. They began publishing on the 19th. Yun Sang-won, who was the virtual
leader and a teacher at Deulbul, played an important role. Since he worked for
the Nokdu bookstore, which was located near the Provincial Hall, and as he was
very active in the demonstrations, he had a good grasp of details about the
downtown situation and other pertinent information. On the 19th, Yun Sang-
won described for other Deulbul team members the casualties caused by the
Martial Law Army soldiers and described the citizen’s fighting situation. They
immediately decided to publish mimeographed papers believing that informing
the citizens of the events was essential in order to publicize the truth of the
massacre and the citizens’ ongoing resistance so as to concentrate the citizen
forces on effectively developing their resistance. Yun Sang-won composed the
draft and other members wrote it on stencil-paper and stenciled it in a
Gwangcheon-dong citizen’s apartment in which their evening school was
located. Other members organized teams of two, printing the leaflets and
distributing them in various downtown areas.
The Deulbul team was relatively easily able to publish the Bulletin because
they were closely connected with the Sori team, a group which had already been
equipped themselves with basic printing devices such as stencil-writing board
and a mimeograph machine for the publication of an underground paper.25

The Contents of the Fighters’ Bulletin in Phase I This was the period when
various kinds of fliers were sporadically published by many different publishing
teams that later merged into the Fighters’ Bulletin. The efforts to pass down the
news of the Uprising, to urge people to gather in rallies, and to define the
23
Kim Seong, op. cit., p. 345.
24
Jeon Yong-ho, “Fight to the End,” in Institute of Korean Modern History (ed.), Gwangju
People’s Uprising (Seoul: Poolbit, 1990), pp. 831–834.
25
Jeon Yong-ho, ibid., pp. 831–834.
 The Gwangju Uprising and Collective Identity 215

citizens’ uprising as a democratic revolution as a part of political strife are all

represented in the fliers.
Through the publication of these things, the teams constantly opposed the
major national newspapers’ dominant discourse that framed the Gwangju Upris-
ing as a riot led by a mob, and tried to engrave an identity as “we” into the
Gwangju citizens’ minds. They sought to anti-frame the Uprising as a movement
for democracy.
The process of the Uprising evolved into a civil movement for democracy as
more and more Gwangju citizens joined the protest. The petition in the flier
began by disclosing the slaughter of the Gwangju citizens by the soldiers:
What on earth is going on? What are all these calamities? Who are these bastards
who stabbed innocent students to death or clubbed them and took them some-
where in a truck, and stripped girls and women and stabbed them? Now, the only
way for us to live is for all the citizens to be united to protect our students and
to fight off the remnants of Yushin and the troops of the atrocious, bloodthirsty
murderer Jeon Doo-hwan.

The petition first defined the present situation as calamities, things which
cannot happen in a normal situation. In addition to this, it pointed out the target
of the fight, hidden behind-the-scenes: it is neither the police nor the troops who
are our enemies. In those days, many Koreans, including Gwangju’s residents,
were not familiar with the name Jeon Doo-hwan, who held sway over the
country after the assassination of the President Bak.
In the petition, the category of participants was broadened by using terms
such as “innocent students,” “all the citizens,” and “compatriots.” The collective
identity of the victimized and innocent “we” was also contrastively composed
by indicating the target of protest in a frame of “troops of the atrocious,
bloodthirsty murderer, Jeon Doo-hwan,” and by prescribing the characteristics
of the target.
It was suggested that the people should unite to fight until they had purged
the Jeon faction from the country forever. This showed the process of the
establishment of the collective identity, which provided goals of movement and
defined the target of the protest, based on self-reflection. While hostile language
such as “Tear Jeon Doo-hwan limb to limb!” was dominant in the protest, heroic
phrases such as “Let’s die together!” and “Kill us all!” began to appear from the
afternoon of the 20th.26 All these functioned to connect the collective identity,
established at the cognitive level, to the emotional level and to strengthen it.

Phase II: Constructing Our Community (22nd–25th)

Situational Context The period from May 22 to 25 was the so-called citizens’
self-governing period. The Citizens’ Army had control over the city when the
Martial Law Army withdrew after an intense battle in the morning of the 22nd.
The Citizens’ Settlement Committee was organized. As direct battles

26
Choi Jeong-un, The Formation and the Dissolution of the Absolute Community, The
History of the Gwangju Uprising, ibid., pp. 323–328.
216 Kim Young-khee and Han Sun

moved to outer areas, the city seemed to calm down, externally at least, perhaps
affected by the citizens’ united consciousness to confront the Martial Law Army.
In a kind of state of anarchy in which no security and administration
authorities existed, however, there was no panic at all; it was rather a liberated
space, a truly “our” community, or the opening of the Gwangju Republic, which
was sustained by the citizens’ consciousness.
At the morning of the 22nd, the Citizens’ Settlement Committee (CSC),
composed mainly of influential personages of the region, and the Students’
Settlement Committee (SSC), primarily students, were organized in the Provin-
cial Hall. The CSC took charge of dealing with the citizens of the city and with
negotiating with the Martial Law Headquarters. On the other hand, the SSC
carried out activities including collecting weapons, controlling vehicles, and
providing medical treatment. The SSC revolved around the hardliners of the
committee, such as Yun Sang-won, who opposed the idea of surrender. They
took the initiative in the self-government of Gwangju until the Students’ Settle-
ment Committee was changed to the Students’ Struggle Committee.
From the 23rd, the Deulbul team started to hold citizens’ rallies to systemat-
ically organize the citizens of the city. More than 150,000 people came to the first
rally. Three rallies were held from the 23rd to the 25th, through which grew the
citizens’ enthusiasm and support for the Uprising.
A number of fliers were produced during this period of time as the situation
went through numerous changes in the tensions between negotiation and
struggle. Approximately 50% of the handbills that still remain extant were
produced during this period. Such various groups that had produced fliers as
the Deulbul team, the Sori team, and the Gwangdae team merged into the Deulbul
team on the 21st. Yun Sang-won was in charge of the publication of the Fighters’
Bulletin. Ten to 20 other people participated in the production. Jeon Yong-ho,
who was working for the Sori team, then, joined the Deulbul team, remembers as
follows:
I went to Nokdu Bookstore in the morning of the 21st. After a meeting, Yun
Sang-won told me, “We agreed to take the Deulbul’s job, to publish the Fighters’
Bulletin.” The name, Fighters’ Bulletin, followed Yoon Sang-won’s idea, and the
organization was divided into four sections: supply section, drafting section, copy
section, and distribution section. We had all together ten people in the team. The
distribution section, however, was meaningless, as cars took them and distributed
them around the city and we just put the handbills in the streets.27

The Deulbul team published and distributed the second issue of the Fighters’
Bulletin on the 22nd, the fifth and sixth issues on the 23rd, and the seventh on
the 24th. On the 26th, they changed the title to the Citizens’ Bulletin for
Democracy, and issued the ninth and the tenth issues. As suggested at the time
of production, the Fighters’ Bulletin was produced with a certain frame under a
certain title, though the team decided when to produce and distribute the
Bulletin in accordance with the development of the situation, rather than produc-
ing it on a regular basis.
When the Martial Law Army withdrew, the Fighters’ Bulletin team distributed

27
Jeon Yong-ho, ibid., p. 833.
 The Gwangju Uprising and Collective Identity 217

the second issue to inform the citizens of the new phase in the development of
the situation. The second issue carried an appeal, “As the cry of our Gwangju
Democratic Uprising is echoing all over the country, we are getting support from
all parts of the country. Let us unite and fight till the day of victory.” It also
included the news of the 21st and guidelines for action for the citizens. They
included taking over the KBS broadcast station in order to inform the nation of
the truth of the situation in Gwangju, calling together men of like mind from
neighboring areas, participating in defending the city, and procuring supplies.
With these specific and practical contents of the guidelines of action, the Fighters’
Bulletin was encouraging that the citizens participate together.
The Composition for the Whole Jeonnam Residents’ Rally for Democracy Protection,
which was made and distributed on the 21st, also seems to have produced by
the Fighters’ Bulletin team. The head of the Deulbul, Yoon Sang-won, met
someone from the Association of the People from Seoul and then issued the
composition under the name of the Jeonnam Association of the People, in order
to spread the Uprising across the nation. As it was written to appeal to citizens
to participate in the Uprising, it was full of much more emotional and evocative
language than the Fighters’ Bulletin.
From the 23rd, a new idea appeared in the Deulbul team. The team felt that
the rally held by the Citizens’ Settlement Committee the day before was too
yielding and decided to hold a citizens’ rally at 1 p.m. that afternoon in order to
help the citizens to get a better understanding of the Uprising. They also
organized a new publicity section. As the rally-preparation team moved to the
YWCA building, the Fighters’ Bulletin team also moved its production base to the
YWCA. The following is Jeon Yong-ho’s testimony:

Several young people and Bak Hyo-seon and Yun Sang-won gathered and
composed a temporary publicity team. The publicity team decided to hold a
Provincial Square rally. The Gwangdae team formed the main members of the
publicity team for the rally. The Fighters’ Bulletin team asked me to advertise the
citizens’ rally. Later, we produced and distributed the Fighters’ Bulletin, and
carried out publicity activities driving the Chonnam University school bus around
the suburbs with microphones. Thus the first citizens’ rally was held.28

Ahead of the rally, the Deulbul team hurried to produce and distribute the
fifth and the sixth issues of the Fighters’ Bulletin. The fifth issue carried the news
that leading figures of Gwangju visited the Martial Law Headquarters in the
hopes of calming the situation, and other information, such as the citizens’ rally
being held at 1 p.m. that day. The sixth issue was different from the fifth in that
it carried reports, saying the democratization struggle were spreading across the
nation, and it also included guidelines of action for the citizens. This issue seems
to have intended to inspire the fighting consciousness of the citizens, and to
encourage their participation.
Meanwhile there was an internal tension. The Citizens’ Settlement Com-
mittee, organized by eminent people from various fields under the leadership of
the Vice-governor of the province, thought that the situation should be settled
calmly through negotiations with the Martial Law Army, on the one hand. On
28
Jeon Yong-ho, ibid., p. 833.
218 Kim Young-khee and Han Sun

the other hand, the Deulbul team insisted that kind of settlement that was
indicative of surrender was unacceptable unless certain conditions were met.
The seventh issue of the Fighters’ Bulletin, distributed on the 24th, delivered
news concerning the rally held the day before, resolutions from the rally, and the
level of damage at that time. It is remarkable that the seventh issue was
appealing to the citizens through strong emotional investment, describing the
damage and the brutality of the Martial Law Army.
For the next few days, until May 25th, three large rallies were held. Through
the rallies, the Deulbul team was able to confirm the citizens’ strong support for
the Uprising, and concluded that their struggle should become more combative
in nature in order to make the Uprising more organized and systematic. This
combative atmosphere of Gwangju grew even stronger when the interim Presi-
dent Choi Gyu-ha traveled to Gwangju on the 25th and announced a statement,
the contents of which severely criticized the people of Gwangju. He also chose
not to meet with the citizens of Gwangju who had been expecting his arrival to
bring a solution to the crisis. After the third citizens’ rally on the 25th, around
thirty students organized a new leadership and strengthen their determination
to fight to the death. Thus, a leadership for the last resistance was composed.
As the settlement committee was replaced with the Struggle Committee, the
Fighters’ Bulletin team decided to issue its last issue on the 24th and then they
dispersed.
Yun Sang-won and Kim Yeong-cheol came to the working site and told us that
there was no more need for the Deulbul team to publish the bulletin. They said
that the newly established leadership would take charge of producing all the
materials for publicity.29

The Contents of the Fighters’ Bulletin in Phase II The Fighters’ Bulletin during this
period showed a more intensified form of the collective identity which was
developed further from the cognitive level in Phase I. In Phase II this collective
identity strengthened through its emotional investment in a way as to say, “It
doesn’t matter whether I die while struggling.”
The object of their resistance continued to be the Martial Law Army and Jeon
Doo-hwan, while the self-identity became intensified and transformed from
innocent students and patriotic citizens to democratic fighters. The Fighters’
Bulletin defined the participants of the Uprising with general terms such as
students or citizens at first, then identified themselves as freedom fighters.
Furthermore, it extended the range of the participants to citizens, students,
laborers, and peasant farmers, so that the entire citizenry of Gwangju could
define themselves as participants in the Uprising, or collective “we.”
With this self-identification, the citizens gained the frame to understand the
Gwangju Uprising, in which they were already involved or would be involved,
as a democratization struggle, which solidified the justness of the Uprising. The
Fighters’ Bulletin also opposed the dominant discourses of the national press
system, and concentrated its efforts on the construction of the anti-framing that
endowed the Uprising with justice. They tried to construct an active anti-
framing, emphasizing that the Uprising was a democratization struggle and

29
Jeong Yong-ho, op.cit., p. 189.
 The Gwangju Uprising and Collective Identity 219

demanding that the government form a cabinet containing democratic figures in

order to save the nation.
Their constant demands for the retirement of Jeon Doo-hwan, the withdrawal
of the martial law, the release of the those arrested and students, and the
withdrawal of the Martial Law Army from Gwangju were frames to suggest
solutions for the situation.
Through its construction of the meaning of the Uprising, the Fighters’ Bulletin
carried out a diagnostic function to define the object of the resistance and the
cause of those responsible for the situation, as well as a prescriptive function to
suggest concrete solutions for the problems and guidelines of action. As shown
in the slogans, “Let us take over the KBS broadcasting station and inform the
nation of the truth of Gwangju,” “Cut off the outer roads and call together the
fighters of neighboring regions,” the Fighters’ Bulletin suggested concrete guide-
lines of action. The sixth issue also suggested five principles of action including,
“do not fire unless the Martial Law Army fires first, strengthen our arms until
our demands are met, and fight until the Choi Gyu-ha Administration retires.”
Five resolutions were suggested as prescriptive guidelines of action in the
seventh issue, including “Lift the emergency martial law,” and “Unregistered
weapons holders should follow the Citizens’ Army’s drive to collect arms.”
The seventh issue of the Fighters’ Bulletin, also, concentrated on the emotional
investment, different from the previous issues that tried to enhance the cognitive
dimension of the collective identity. This seems to have been a strategic choice
to lead the participants to the emotional investment where they could say, “I can
give up my life for the democratization struggle.” The ninth and the tenth issues,
now called the Citizens’ Bulletin for Democracy, concentrated on the emotional
investment even more, as the Uprising was nearing its end.

Phase III: Fighting to the Death (26th–27th)

Situational Context In the morning of the 26th, the Martial Law Army made
their way downtown with two tanks in the lead. As the tanks crushed the
barricade set up by the citizens, the Citizens’ Army took an emergency action.
Faced with a human shield composed of the 17 members of the Citizens
Settlement Committee, as well as citizens standing unarmed in front of the
tanks, the Martial Law Army tentatively retreated. This, however, was not a
complete retreat, but only a prelude to the last decisive battle.
As the Martial Law Army tried to enter the city, the city was thrown into
turmoil and the situation became tense for the Struggle Committee. The Struggle
Committee held two citizens’ rallies in the morning and in the afternoon on the
26th, and prepared for the last struggle by sending detachments of the Citizens’
Army to various parts of the city. More than 200 people still remained inside the
Provincial Hall.
The next hours were passed in anxiety and fear until approximately 4 a.m. on
the 27th, when the sound and smell of gunpowder filled the city. In a fierce
hour-long battle the Martial Law Army retook the city and killed or captured the
last remaining fighters in the Provincial Hall. The Gwangju Uprising was at an
end.
As if to show the tenseness of the situation, and perhaps to suggest the
impending end of the Uprising, a number of newsletters and fliers were made
220 Kim Young-khee and Han Sun

on the 26th, more than on any other day during the Uprising. The Fighters’
Bulletin team published and distributed a handbill in the morning, which was
titled as “Urgent Message: Let Us Unite Together.” These fliers reported that “At
6⬊30, this morning (26th), the Martial Law Army advanced to Dolgogae (Stone
Hill) with tanks. However, they were defeated by the determined and united
power of the citizens.” It went on to appeal: “The victory of the Gwangju
citizens is near. Let us all unite and protect our own town.”
The Deulbul team produced and distributed the ninth and the 10th issues of
the Citizens’ Bulletin for Democracy in succession. The ninth issue informed the
citizens that the Citizens’ Settlement Committee was in negotiations with the
Martial Law Authorities, and persuaded the citizens to trust and follow the
Committee. The Bulletin also asked the citizens not to be deluded by the radio
and television broadcasting, and the press, which were distorting and concocting
stories concerning the Gwangju Uprising. In the 10th issue of the Citizens’
Bulletin for Democracy urged to struggle until the withdrawal of the emergency
martial law and the elimination of the Yushin forces, which ran counter to the
flow of history. The issue also summed up the Gwangju Uprising and stated six
requests, under the subtitle of “Mt. Mudeung Must Know Everything!”
Rewritten songs and poems that appealed to the citizens’ emotion are
assumed to have been carried from the eighth issue of the Fighters’ Bulletin,
however, only the two in the 10th issue are extant for identification. Rewritten
songs were very effective to confirm the community consciousness and raise
synergism from the collective identity in meetings with tens of thousands of
people gathered together. Changed lyrics in easily sung songs that everybody
would know, such as “the National Anthem” or “Our Wish, Reunification,”
were sung repeatedly at every rally and were inserted in the Fighters’ Bulletin
from the 25th.30
The Fighters’ Bulletin broadened its publicity issue by issue. As the demonstrations
grew in size and in the number of gatherings, not only students but also the
citizens started to join. Most of the students were aware of these songs, though the
citizens were not, and for this reason they decided to carry one or two songs.
Songs that could be shared with the general public were carried in the Bulletin,
such as “The Song of Justice,” “The Song of Fighters,” “Sanoramyeon (Someday),”
and “The War Song”.31

From daybreak of the 26th, when the Martial Law Army tried to enter the
city, the street broadcasts led the Gwangju citizens to the front of the Provincial
Hall. These broadcasts, however, came to an end at dawn on the 27th.
From zero hours on the 27th, tanks ran toward Dongmyeong-dong with a roaring
sound. When I looked out, soldiers were passing by my house. At the same time,
an urgent female voice was heard. “Gwangju citizens, please come outside. The
Martial Law Army is advancing toward the Provincial Hall. Let us come outside,
and repel the Martial Law Army together. At this moment, your fellow Gwangju
citizens are dying.” The sorrowful voice was so miserable. My wife was shivering
in fear, with my daughter in her arms. Outside the house, the Martial Law Army
was all over the alley.32

30
Jeon Yong-ho, ibid., p. 104.
31
Yun Soon-ho, ibid., p. 836.
32
Jeong Yeong-dong, ibid., p. 243.
 The Gwangju Uprising and Collective Identity 221

The Contents of the Fighters’ Bulletin in Phase III The ninth and 10th issue of the
Fighters’ Bulletin, then changed into the Citizens’ Bulletin for Democracy, had less
reference to its self-identity and the object of resistance than the previous issues,
and placed more importance on emotional aspects. This was because the writers
hoped to revive the citizens’ flagging will to struggle and wanted to assure
others of their will to fight in the face of death, as well as appealing to the
citizens themselves to join in the struggle.
The ninth issue devoted a great deal of space to these appeals which read,
“Let us mourn for the souls of the deceased, who died struggling to protect
democracy.” To put stress on mourning for the dead was due to the growing
number of the dead to a certain degree, but it also hinted that the Fighters’
Bulletin team would take the same course as those who died for democratization.
In fact, a large number of the Fighters’ Bulletin team, including Yun Sang-won,
met their death in order to defend the Provincial Hall at the end. Moreover, the
Bulletin put intense investment in the community feelings, through words such
as “sacrifice, trust, corporation, or peace,” in their attempts to resist against the
Martial Law Authorities and to combat a national press that was trying to frame
the Uprising as merely riots. In other words, the ninth issue was asking the
citizens to trust and cooperate with the Citizens’ Army, urging the citizens to not
be deluded by the distorting and fabricating radio and TV broadcasting. This
was in support of their efforts through the Fighters’ Bulletin to form anti-framings
like a peaceful and orderly struggle, or a democratic martyrdom of the Gwangju
citizens.
The collective identity at the emotional level was amplified most in the song,
“The Funeral March of the Gwangju Citizens,” and the writing, “Mt. Mudeung
Must Know Everything.” The lyrics of “The Funeral March” were as follows:

Till the last moment for the nation,

My proud fighters for democracy, young spirits,
With your pure blood on the last day, we will win a victory.

Covered with fresh blood is the fountain in front of the Provincial Hall,
The grass harp sounds too sorrowful to bear
Democratic spirits are alive

Thirty million compatriots, raise your sword of justice,

Till the last moment for the nation.
My proud fighters for democracy, young spirits

These lyrics express the fighters’ mourning for the dead who led the
democratization struggle, their will to follow the dead, as well as an appeal to
the people of the entire nation to join the struggle. “The Funeral March of the
Gwangju Citizens” invited the Gwangju citizens, who sympathized with the
collective identity formed by the Fighters’ Bulletin, to accept the anti-framing of
the Fighters’ Bulletin.
The article with the title, “Mt. Mudeung Must Know Everything” went as
follows: “to rescind the unjust martial law and to uproot the anti-national and
history-reversing Yushin faction, we will fight to the end. This is what the
history of the nation is demanding.” It also articulated the objects of their
222 Kim Young-khee and Han Sun

resistance to definitions of an emotional level, such as the “Yushin fanatics,” or

“the mad Jeon Doo-hwan faction.” Moreover, the writing declared that “any
announcements of the Martial Law Enforcement Headquarters were false and
unreliable, and that the present government cannot be accepted, as the forces of
the coup d’état are in power.” These promises and declarations were made to
re-arm Gwangju’s citizens with the anti-framing to resist the dominant dis-
courses of the Martial Law Headquarters. On top of this, the writing proclaimed
that “not even a penny can be paid for tax, if it’s for the Yushin fanatics,” and
demanded that the citizens participate in this holy war for the nation, saying,
“You! Remember! Your revolt is the way to save the country and the nation.”

Concluding Remarks
Various organizations that produced and distributed handbills in the early
stages of the Gwangju Uprising became unified into the Deulbul team on the 21st
and started to produce the Fighters’ Bulletin.
The Fighters’ Bulletin was a spontaneous underground newspaper and the
official bulletin of the struggle headquarters. It came into existence when almost
all of the mass media, under the control of the New Military Authorities, ignored
the truth of what happened in Gwangju and represented Gwangju with the
stigmatic frame of the city of riots. Approximately ten to twenty people were
committed to publish the Bulletin. In the beginning, the team produced around
five to six thousand copies, and later fifteen to twenty thousand copies.
Being issued within a certain regular formula, the Fighters’ Bulletin carried
out the function of a true press organ in the chaotic period of the armed
Uprising, not only reporting on the general situation of the Uprising, but also
analyzing the situation, suggesting a code of conduct, publicizing rallies, and
offering educational materials for use in rallies. Furthermore, it took a critical
role in forming the anti-framing that defined the Gwangju Uprising as a
democratic struggle, opposed the national media that were framing Gwangju
with such words as “masked and armed robbers, anxious citizens, and possible
connection to North Korean spies,” while completely avoiding reporting the
paratroopers’ brutal actions.
In other words, the Fighters’ Bulletin informed the citizens of the Uprising’s
progress and constructed the collective identity of “we,” through its definitions
of the object and the subject of the resistance and guidelines for action.
To speak more specifically, the forerunners of the Fighters’ Bulletin and the
issues of the Fighters’ Bulletin in the first phase concentrated their effort on
clarifying antagonists and protagonists, and the guidelines of action. They
defined the protagonists of the Uprising as innocent students, whole citizens, or
patriotic compatriots, while identifying antagonists with brutal murderers or
paratroopers of the Jeon Doo-hwan faction. With these definitions, they could
form a collective identity as “we,” the innocent victims, or freedom fighters. This
collective identity led the citizens to the collective goal of uniting and struggling
together till they could expel the Jeon Doo-hwan faction out of the country
forever.
Through its issues, the Fighters’ Bulletin, which concentrated on constructing
the collective identity at the beginning, tried to resist the stigmatic framing of the
 The Gwangju Uprising and Collective Identity 223

dominant discourses, to highlight the true meaning of the struggle, and to invest
in the emotional framing through the participants’ willingness to sacrifice their
lives for the struggle in the later issues. For example, the issues in the second
phase were constantly demanding Jeon Doo-hwan’s retirement, the rescinding of
the martial law, the release of those arrested, and the Martial Law Army’s
withdrawal from Gwangju. These demands demonstrate that the Gwangju
Uprising was taking the frame of a democratic struggle. In its third phase during
the final stage of the Uprising, the Fighters’ Bulletin devoted a great deal of its
publishing space to emotional aspects: “Now that we are assured of the meaning
of the Uprising and the sacrifice of we, the innocent people, it doesn’t matter
even if we die fighting to the end.” This was an intention to revive the flagging
spirits of the Gwangju citizens through appealing to them in an emotional way.
Consequently, though the Gwangju Uprising was a failed 10-day long
revolution, it was a real, true revolution in a sense that its collective identity is
still carried on today. Appropriated as a major frame in the political struggles of
Korea, it manifested itself again in the June Uprising in 1987, which finally won
direct presidential elections.