Minjung (Korean: 민중) refers to the Korean pro-democracy movement of the second half of the 20th century.

Minjung is a Korean word that combines the two hanja characters min (民) and jung (衆). Min is from inmin (인민; 人民), which may be translated as "the people", and jung is from daejung (대중; 大衆), which may be translated as "the public". Thus, minjung can be translated to mean "the masses" or "the people."

However, in the Korean political and cultural context, "the public" is not an adequate translation, and "the people" carries a communist connotation that makes its use dangerous in anti-communist South Korea. Nonetheless, "the people" is close to what minjung seeks to convey, both sociologically and politically. For Koreans, minjung are those who are oppressed politically, exploited economically, marginalized sociologically, despised culturally, and condemned religiously. For example, the Minjung Party founded in October 2017.

Thus, the notion of minjung came to identify and inform the struggle for democracy in South Korea. In other words, the concept of minjung functions as a type of worldview that offers the categories in which social reality is organized and comprehended. One of the basic precepts of this worldview is that history should be understood from the point of view of the minjung, or that the minjung are the subjects (and not victims) of history.

The idea of Minjung can be traced back to the late Joseon dynasty's Silhak movement through the works of Chŏng Yagyong and Yi Hwang.

After the Korean War ended and South Korea ran its own government under their first president, Syngman Rhee, there were several military coups and forces involved in a reformation of the new government. Notably, there was President Park Chung Hee (1961–1979, namely the Third and Fourth Republic) and President Chun Doo-hwan (1980-1988, namely the Fifth Republic).

While Minjung (the mass of people) was suffering and struggling from a decade of mismanagement and corruption by the Rhee presidency (aka First Republic era), a major student uprising, and some American interference, managed to oust Syngman Rhee. Afterwards, a group of military officers led by General Park Chung Hee seized power in South Korea through a coup d'état, and declared himself chairman of supreme council. Under pressure by the United States, Park finally resign his post and narrowly won the Presidential election in October 1963. The period from 1965 to 1971 was one of rapid economic growth and comparative political stability. To achieve economic stability, Park Chung Hee created the first Five-Year Economic Development Plan (to start in 1962), the first such overall development program ever prepared for Korea. The five-year plan gave priority to the following things:

Park ran for reelection in 1967, and became the president of the Third and Fourth Republic of Korea; he served for 16 years.^{[citation needed]}