How Communism Saved Capitalist Korea

[00:00:00]In 1959, South Korea executed the man who helped make it rich.

[00:00:05]They called him a communist spy.

[00:00:08]His name was Cho Bong Am.

[00:00:12]10 years earlier, he had drafted the plan that took the land from Korea's landlords and gave it to the peasants who worked it. One of the most sweeping land reforms of the 20th century.

[00:00:22]The kind of thing communists do.

[00:00:25]Except the communists didn't do it.

[00:00:27]The two most anti-communist powers on Earth did. The United States and the South Korean government it installed.

[00:00:35]Why?

[00:00:36]Across the border, the actual communists had already seized the land and handed it to the peasants free overnight.

[00:00:44]The South wanted the same.

[00:00:47]A revolution was coming.

[00:00:49]So, the anti-communists stole the revolution's best idea.

[00:00:53]With one hand, they gave the peasants their land. With the other, they hunted down and killed the leftists who might have led them by the tens of thousands.

[00:01:04]It worked.

[00:01:06]When the North invaded, the South didn't rise.

[00:01:10]One of the most unequal countries on Earth was now a nation of equals.

[00:01:14]The foundation of the Korean miracle.

[00:01:17]And the man who drew the map?

[00:01:19]Years later, he ran for president challenging the ruthless government he had once served.

[00:01:25]And he almost won.

[00:01:27]So, they arrested him, called him a communist spy, and hanged him.

[00:01:31]The state that used communism's plan to defeat communism killed the man who gave it to them.