Propaganda actions taken by the South Korean Labor Party members in North Korea, examined through the The Warrior Newspaper(Tusa Shinmun) from 1948~1950

Analyzed in this article is the full text of The Warrior Newspaper(Tusa Shinmun), secured in the archive of documents captured and collected by the U.S. Army. This effort of the author marks the first time this material was ever examined. And according to research, it does seem that the South Korean Labor Party members who were residing in North Korea, and certain culture personnel who had earlier moved over to the North, were behind the publication of this newspaper.<br/> The Warrior Newspaper was a North Korean media which served primarily as an anti-South Korea propaganda journalism, and it employed two major propaganda strategies. First, the newspaper highlighted the Yeosu-Suncheon Incident and the Partisan activities in South Korea as a valiant struggle for the Joseon Democratic People Republic(North Korea). And as a media, it put an extreme focus on propagating the stunning accomplishments of the armed struggle inside South Korea. Then secondly, the newspaper created dichotomous comparisons between North and South Koreas, with the intention to argue that North Korea was immensely better than the South. It was also designed that way so that the South Korean Labor Party line, which had no independent support base in North Korea, could elevate their political status as entities in charge of the supposedly successful South Korean Revolution.<br/> Meanwhile, the culture personnel who chose to live in North Korea were crucial in the task of making comparisons between both Koreas. The case of Oh Gi-yeong, who had earlier adamantly opposed division and a civil war but later ironically joined the propaganda projects designed to further breed animosity and conflict between the two Koreas, vividly shows us that the political situation of the time was leading the culture personnel in North Korea to limit their actions and narrow their identity to become mere beings placed in an extreme standoff situation. Their move to the North, or their joining the propaganda effort were not a result of simple coercion. They were never just mobilized or forced to do it, as it was their own political choice to do so, in a Cold War situation and within a reality of a divided peninsula.<br/> After the foundation of the South Korean government in 1948, neutral ground within the South Korean society considerably shrank, and ensuing political oppression of the opposition served as a reason and an excuse for the culture personnel who had already moved to the North, to form their own dichotomous perspective. The propaganda messages that we can find from The Warrior Newspaper shows us that even before the Korean War a hostile notion toward South Korea had been being systemically produced and later circulating inside the North Korean society. The division of the Korean peninsula was -in a waya process during which both Koreas formed a particular image of the other, and systematic propaganda overtaken by personnel who ‘chose the other side’ manifested itself as sort of psychological warfare even before the war began.