Wonsan General Strike

Workers in Wonsan held a general strike for nearly four months after a Japanese foreman beat Korean workers. It was the largest labour dispute of the 1920s.

Sparked by a Japanese supervisor’s assault on Korean workers at the Rising Sun oil company in Munpyeong in 1928, the Wonsan Labour Federation called a general strike in January 1929. The company and police tried to break it, but the workers held out until April, receiving encouragement from groups across Korea and from labour organizations in Japan, China, France and the Soviet Union.

Tenant disputes over rents (such as on Amtae Island, Sinan, 1923–1924) and labour disputes over wages and conditions multiplied in the 1920s. In the 1930s repression drove them underground into revolutionary peasant and labour unions.