Already it was clear that neither humble apologies from the head of state nor scare-mongering from his 'kept' press could have the effect such things used to. Towards the end of February, the trade union leaders were still under pressure not to settle for any partial changes the parliamentarians might care to make to what they called the "Bastard Laws". They maintained the threat of resuming hostilities with a renewal of full, indefinite strike action.

By the middle of March, President Kim had not only seen fit to 'dispense with' another of his prime ministers (the fifth since his administration began) but a whole swathe of his cabinet was replaced. Nothing he did now, however, would be sufficient to restore his credibility. By May, the press was speculating as to whether he would be able even to serve out his remaining months of office. Maneuverings at the top of society, corruption, intimidation are all viewed by ever wider layers of society with a growing contempt. A new atmosphere has been created by the powerful movement of December - January.

Photo opportunities abounded. Captured on film was the programmed brutality of the riot police going into action against peaceful and orderly demonstrations, the tall masts of trade union banners dipping this way and that as the "pepper pot" canisters emitted white clouds of gas into the staggering, scattering crowds. The cameras could not help but convey the calm dignity of the shaven-headed trade union leaders holding their daily press conferences in the courtyard of the tall redbrick cathedral. Even the fixed smile of South Korea's president became familiar to millions in far distant lands.

But reporters come and go and the contending forces have to weigh up what has happened. Around the world, sensational headlines referring to the plight of the South Korean "Tiger" would be greeted with different emotions, depending on the class standpoint of the reader. Representatives of the employing class and all those who have tried to maintain that South Korea is a model of capitalist development began to shudder. Were their theories now in ruins? Why had the economy been slowing down and suffering record trade deficits? And now the strikes. France, with its powerful movements against austerity measures, had come to South East Asia.

Workers, on the other hand, would feel their hearts leap at the news from Seoul. Here was a ruling class that had overstepped the mark getting it where it hurts. They willed the legendary Korean working class on to victory, frustrated by moves to the right of their own labor leaders that held them back from a generalized political assault on their exploiters. A blow for one is a blow for all. Who knows what the implications might be for the bosses and their defenders throughout the world? They would surely all feel weakened and workers everywhere emboldened.

There is no unemployment benefit to speak of in South Korea. All education and health care must be paid for. The basic wage is way below subsistence and workers are totally dependent on premium bonuses and overtime payment. (The minimum wage, which only a minority of the workforce can claim anyway, is less than £1 an hour.) Giving the bosses a free hand to sack workers, replace strikers and ignore the new unions would swell the army of the unemployed and crush the hopes of those organizing the fight for a better deal.

Not for nothing does the hymn of the KCTU - "Workers of Iron" - swear revenge for the "blood and sweat" that has been wrung from them. This strike hardly appeared out of a clear blue sky of harmonious class relations. There had been many an earlier strike struggle - against the gruelling hours and arduous conditions, for decent pay and for national insurance cover. (In 1996 industrial disputes had already cost the employers over $3billion). Almost without exception, strike battles have been met with heavy police action - beatings, arrests, the imprisonment and sacking of the leaders. Now there was no alternative but to make a stand; the workers' unions and their very capacity to fight back were on the line - not only because of the changes to the labor laws.

Other changes pushed through the Assembly that December morning, restored to the hated NSPA (National Security Planning Agency, previously the Korean CIA) the wide-ranging powers of surveillance and interrogation it had exercised with such cruelty under the military dictators. South Korea must have the most repressive and paranoic regime of any so-called advanced country. Hundreds of trade unionists, socialists and student activists still languish in South Korean jails. Torture in police cells continues. Leaders of the movement, at factory, campus or national level seem resigned to the fact that a spell in prison is 'par for the course'. But the international labor movement, if it is anything, must shout from the rooftops about it.

A solidarity campaign must be taken to the activists in the unions and workers' political organizations worldwide. The tops of the international trade unions are remote in income and life-style from the workers they are supposed to represent and seem to have suddenly discovered the horrific abuse of democratic rights in Korea. Enough of their delegations flying in like dignitaries with the cameramen, staying in expensive hotels, making their speeches and flying out again! The Korean workers need genuine solidarity from their own kind, not the grandiose pledges of international 'leaders' whose track records show them to be more interested in making peace with the employers than in supporting strikes. It just so happens that their political counterparts in the Social Democratic, Labor or "Socialist" parties of the world have been prominent amongst the worshippers of the South Korean "miracle".

The enormous 'advantages' enjoyed by Korean capitalism are now turning into their opposite. What were its strengths have now become its weaknesses. Its foundations are riddled with contradictions that could prove its downfall. Far from defying the laws of capitalist development worked out by Karl Marx and others, Korean capitalism has already demonstrated their validity. It has shown itself incapable of avoiding the crises endemic in the system.

If workers in the factories of Korea, after a decade and more of struggle, now receive higher wages than those working for the same firms in Poland or in Wales - and this is far from proven hour for hour - this is not the reason for the problems they face today. They have generated enormous wealth for the owners of the giant 'Chaebol' conglomerates that dominate the economy. But these new capitalists have not been carrying out the 'traditional' role of investing to keep their machinery up to date. They have not been constantly 'revolutionizing the means of production', as Marx put it.

Appearing late on the scene as a class and, again for special reasons, being given a 'helping hand' by the Japanese older brother, South Korean capitalism got used to using production techniques developed elsewhere. It made great progress for a whole period without spending much on research and development. In spite its reputation for being extremely 'modern' and 'high tech', Korean capitalism lags behind with its technology. Productivity or output per worker remains much lower than that of most of its rivals and is just half that of Japan. Vast sums have been spent on equipment but it is out-dated often before it goes into operation. As much as 30% lies idle as the economy runs out of steam.

Through the new legislation, the Chaebol and their political mouthpieces are simply demanding once again that workers pay with more of their blood and sweat for Korean products to become competitive again in the world marketplace. They throw at them the arguments about 'globalization' and the threat to their hard-earned living standards from cheaper labor elsewhere. They try to intimidate them into accepting lower wages and labor standards and hide their own hypocrisy and naked greed. The South Korean Chaebol are themselves already up to their necks in the global economy, using all kinds of methods to undercut their competitors' market share as well as the old trick of playing one country's workers off against another.

The double figure growth rates of the late 1980s (12% in 1986, 15% in 1987) were not achieved without enormous human cost. The ten-hour day, the six-day week is still the norm for male and female workers alike. Longer shifts and 'Third World' working and living conditions are the lot of millions. Korean capitalism has come into the world dripping with blood. It is the worst country in the world for industrial accidents and diseases. Activists put things graphically: "At least six lorry-loads of fingers are severed each year". Every day seven workers are killed in work. Still unidentified thousands are dying from incurable afflictions contracted at work or from the barely checked poisoning of the air, the earth, the seas and the rivers.

There are the dismissed workers' organizations, the injured workers, the disabled, the working women's associations, the families of the tortured, the foreign workers' associations. There are the long-standing unions of the teachers that defy the law and now the civil servants and the 'export zone' workers who are battling for the right to organize and strike. There are the legions of blue-collar and white-collar workplace unions, banned from linking up but forging ahead with local and national federations.

There is a multitude of workers' education groups, of 'Labor', 'Social' and 'Welfare' research institutes, student organizations, agricultural workers' organizations and there are the almost totally suppressed "revolutionary" organizations. There is the "People's Solidarity for Participatory Democracy" organization, the "Alliance of the Environmental Movement", the "University Teachers for Democracy", the "Association of Lawyers for a Democratic Society" and the "Medical Association for Humanism"....

In the absence of a mass workers' party, as so often happens in the most oppressed societies, religious organizations use their particular "immunity" to channel and succor the movements of protest. In Korea they are numerous - Protestant, Buddhist, Catholic - and many of them have opposition within their own churches to contend with. Some of their members, priests included, have also found that they are not after all exempt from punishment and often brutal treatment at the hands of the state. Many have done their terms of imprisonment with the usual rations of torture and isolation.

Perhaps most important politically, are the 'umbrella' organizations like the "National Alliance for Democracy and the Reunification of Korea" that brings together many of the most defiant and left-leaning organizations, together with the KCTU and some broader community bodies. Within it there will be much talk of 'civil society' which seems to mean variously non-military, non-trade union or even the false notion of non-class society. But playing an active part in such bodies are also many convinced socialists, young and old. Similar in composition are the bodies that appear on the scene for specific purposes like the "National Committee for the Revocation of the Labor Law and National Security Planning Agency Amendment and the Preservation of Democracy" (the NCPD or campaigning "Task Force" mentioned earlier) and the committee set up to commemorate the tenth anniversary in June of the 'Great Democracy Struggle'.

Many of these bodies feature in the pages of this pamphlet but there will no doubt be much interest in the nature and role of the KCTU or 'Minju Nochong' . This is the organization best known worldwide, especially since the great strike movement it has led. The independent and combative national trade union federation has truly come of age through this battle and emerged strengthened and growing. Only disastrous tactical mistakes in the future could see it broken. For the moment it looks set to eclipse its rival, the establishment-orientated and much less militant Federation of Korean Trade Unions (FKTU) or 'Hankook Nochung'.

The question inevitably arises of what are the prospects for the formation of a workers' party in a country where such a party has not, until now, been permitted by law? With a presidential election in December 1997, local elections in 1998 and Assembly elections in 1999, the question has been hotly debated in many circles. There has been a dramatic opening up of the situation and a general political ferment has ensued. Much of the old fear - of being either crushed or humiliated - has gone. But even amongst the most seasoned of campaigners, hesitations on the best way to proceed, delays and even diversions are only to be expected before agreement can be reached.

One thing is certain: the 'Winter Offensive' against Kim Young-sam's bogus democracy has meant that Korean society will never be the same. It has created a new situation. Like all general strikes, as Engels the famous socialist insisted, it requires "a painstaking analysis".