history

After occupying Korea in the last century, the Japanese imperialists resorted to vicious moves to realize political and economic domination over their colony. One of their means for this was extensive plundering of land.

At that time, more than 80 percent of the Korean population were peasants whose basic means of production was land. Under these circumstances, the Japanese imperialists considered that they should dominate the peasants in order to maintain their colonial domination over Korea and, for this purpose, it was important economically to seize the land, their main means of production.

Therefore, the Japanese resorted to every possible means and method to attain their goal.

After paving the way for legally owning the land of the country by adopting several draconian laws, they cooked up the “provisional regulations governing the organization of land survey bureau” in March 1910 and appointed a Japanese as the survey department chief of the land survey bureau to conduct a comprehensive survey of land in the country.

In August 1912 the Japanese imperialists issued the “Land Survey Act” and its “enforcement regulations” in order to plunder the peasants’ land and establish the colonial rural plundering system.

On this basis, the Japanese imperialists declared the land ownership previously recognized by the feudal government of Korea as null and void and legalized that the land ownership was “recognized” only to the land which was “declared” to them and “licensed” by them.

Since the method and procedures for the declaration of land ownership were complicated, the land of many Korean peasants fell into the hands of the Japanese and pro-Japanese stooges. The peasants’ land which the Japanese imperialists seized through the “land survey” amounted to more than one million hectares.

On the other hand, many Korean peasants who had been farming on their own land, which had been handed down from their ancestors, were deprived of their land and reduced to tenants.

In the course of ensuring the legal guarantee of land ownership, the Japanese imperialists hindered the development of agriculture in the country and turned the Korean countryside into their source of raw materials and food supply base. After the “land survey”, they enforced a policy of plundering the Korean peasants. 

The Japanese imperialists’ plunder committed under the pretext of “land survey” was a hideous criminal act of mercilessly trampling on the right to existence of the Korean nation by seizing the economic lifeline of the country.

The DPRK people never forget the criminal atrocities committed by the Japanese imperialists and will make them pay dearly for the crimes.