제헌의회기 안재홍의 대한민국 輔成强化論

Abstract

The Republic of Korea was established on the legality granted by the international community via the resolution of the UN General Assembly. Nevertheless, due to the failure to unite the whole Korea, it was also an undeniable fact that it was a divided government of the partitioned Koreas. For this reason, the government of the Republic of Korea began with the historical task of completing a unified nation state of the Koreas. Between the legality granted by the international community and the limitation as a partitioned government, the legitimacy of the Republic of Korea could only be secured by practicing a true democracy and accomplishing the national unification of the two Koreas. In other words, the legitimacy of the Republic of Korea could be attained by strengthening democratic capability and taking a leading role toward unification. Even today, such a view based on a sense of history is called for the role of the Republic of Korea and it was originated from An Jae-Hong who, as a moderate right during the post-liberation period, actively supported and participated in the establishment of the Republic of Korea. After the establishment of the Republic of Korea, An Jae-Hong’s goal in the nationalist movement can be summarized as ‘establishing an independent nation state with a real democracy.’To An Jae-Hong’s view, however, the government of the Republic of Korea was quite alienated from its historical legitimacy when the conservative extreme right wing came to power. Nevertheless, he continued to assert that the new republic needed to be supported and promoted so as to achieve its legitimacy as ‘an independent nation state with a real democracy.’ An Jae-Hong believed that the Republic of Korea could play a leading role in unification by first becoming a real democracy and that the progressive nationalists must be united for that purpose. His effort to strengthen the progressive wing of the nationalists focused on the center-right camp who previously promoted the Right and Left Wing Coalition Movement and the right who favored North-South negotiation and now were in opposition to the new government. His sense of history identifying the practice and completion of democracy as a primary condition for unification is an important legacy of the Korean intellectual history, which remains pertinent to this day.