Welcome back to part two of our double podcast about the 1987 struggles in South Korea.

If you haven't listened to Part 1 yet, I'd go back and listen to that first.

So, Sarrant no one yet,

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As a content note, this episode contains a brief mention of suicide.

Where we left off last time, the US-backed military dictatorship in South Korea had been

racked by protests for two and a half weeks. Repression had just made them grow, and the government

decided against calling in the military. So, there was only one option left to them, which they

announced on the 29th of June, which was to cave to the protesters'

primary demand to introduce direct presidential elections.

A few days later, Lee Hanyol, the student who'd been in a coma since being hit in the head

by a tear gas canister, died, and a million people took to the streets to attend his funeral.

The fall of the regime also prompted a huge burst in labor organizing, which had been

underground and very difficult for a long time.

Although labor movements had started in Korea before independence from Japanese colonial rule,

there were suppressed severely.

The so-called leftist camp saw a resurgence of large-scale labor movement,

...