La Marx International

Last Tuesday, December 3, 2024, the capitalist government of Yoon Suk Yeol declared martial law under the assumption of protecting the country from "communist forces and North Korea's allies" and that "the National Assembly has become a monster". Yoon, imitating the capitalist government of Castillo in Peru, attempted a Bonapartist coup to stop the wave of union and popular demands, such as a doctors' strike that has been demanding for more than a year against the unjust reform in the health system, or the strike of Samsung workers and their striking mobilizations for a wage increase and the right to unionize in July 2024. With martial law, the government sought to ban all political activities, civil gatherings and "fake news," in what it called an attempt to save the country from "pro-North Korean" and "anti-state forces."

But the attempted coup d'état lasted less than a breath. Thousands of people immediately mobilized on the steps of the Congress against the coup and the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, the largest trade union organization in South Korea, declared an indefinite general strike on Wednesday, demanding the immediate resignation of the president. The mass protests were called in Gwanghwamun Square, in the center of the capital, Seoul, which enabled the Korean Parliament to reject the government's measure. The defeat of the coup sets the stage for the fall of the Yeol government and his People's Power Party (PPP).

The events in Korea are a slap in the face of charlatans, analysts, opinionologists, and the 99% of the groups of the global left who lie by shouting that the world is on its way to the "advance of the ultra-right", or towards "coups d'état". Yoon Suk Yeol has a reactionary discourse like Trump, Modi, Bolsonaro, Meloni or Milei but all his anti-feminist and conservative "charlatanism" clashed with the people. Yeol won the last presidential election in 2022 by the narrow margin of 247 thousand votes (0.73%), but as soon as he tried to violate democratic rights, his government was blown up.

There is no room for coups d'état or fascism in the world

The fall of Martial Law shows that there is no room for fascism or coups in the world. As soon as Yeol's government wanted to advance to an anti-democratic regime, the mass movement in South Korea made the apprentice dictator aware of the revolutionary process that the world is experiencing. The coup attempt lasted barely a breath. The president's desperation failed, and his attempt turned against him like a boomerang. Six hours after announcing the declaration of Martial Law, he had to lift it, after which the government fell since all of Yeol's collaborators as well as 11 high-ranking secretaries, offered to resign from their posts.

The declaration of Martial Law was made for the first time in 44 years in South Korea. The thousands of people who gathered around the National Assembly in Seoul immediately demanded Yeol's resignation, so as soon as the end of Martial Law was announced, the popular mobilization turned into a street celebration. The images were shocking. Since 1988 that Korea has not had dictatorships, the last one had been that of the president-dictator of South Korea, Chun Doo-hwan who was overthrown by a democratic mobilization of one million people in Seoul. South Korean governments have defended the capitalist ruling classes and the chaebols mega-corporations such as Samsung, Hyundai, SK, LG and Lotte, which dominate 50% of the country's GDP. Yoon had tried to impose a brutal anti-worker labor reform that sought to extend the limit on the legal working day from 52 hours a week to 69 hours, but that policy was defeated by popular mobilization. From La Marx International we salute the defeat of the attempted coup d'état on the road of the struggle for global socialism.

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