35.3.2: Occupation by the US and USSR

End of World War II: Division of Korea

In November 1943, Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and Chiang Kai-shek met at the Cairo Conference to discuss what should happen to territories occupied by Japan and agreed that Japan should lose all the territories it had conquered by force. In the declaration after the conference, Korea was mentioned for the first time. The three powers declared that they were “mindful of the enslavement of the people of Korea, … determined that in due course Korea shall become free and independent.”

At the Tehran Conference in 1943 and the Yalta Conference in 1945, the Soviet Union promised to join its allies in the Pacific War within three months of victory in Europe. On August 8, 1945, after three months to the day, the Soviet Union declared war on Japan. Soviet troops advanced rapidly and the U.S. government became anxious that they would occupy Korea. On August 10, 1945, two young officers – Dean Rusk and Charles Bonesteel – were assigned to define an American occupation zone. Working on extremely short notice and completely unprepared, they used a National Geographic map to decide on the 38th parallel. They chose it because it divided the country approximately in half but would also place the capital city Seoul under American control. No experts on Korea were consulted. The two men were unaware that 40 years earlier, Japan and Russia had discussed sharing Korea along the same parallel. The division placed sixteen million Koreans in the American zone and nine million in the Soviet zone. To the surprise of the Americans, the Soviet Union immediately accepted the division.

General Abe Nobuyuki, the last Japanese Governor-General of Korea, had established contact with a number of influential Koreans since the beginning of August 1945 to prepare the handover of power. Throughout August, Koreans organized people’s committee branches for the Committee for the Preparation of Korean Independence headed by Lyuh Woon-hyung, a moderate left-wing politician. On September 6, 1945, a congress of representatives convened in Seoul and founded the short-lived People’s Republic of Korea.

In December 1945 at the Moscow Conference, the Allies agreed that the Soviet Union, the U.S., the Republic of China, and Britain would take part in a trusteeship over Korea for up to five years in the lead-up to independence. Most Koreans demanded independence immediately, with the exception of the Communist Party, which supported the trusteeship under pressure from the Soviet government. A Soviet-U.S. Joint Commission met in 1946 and 1947 to work towards a unified administration, but failed to make progress due to increasing Cold War antagonism and Korean opposition to the trusteeship. Meanwhile, the division between the two zones deepened. The difference in policy between the occupying powers led to a polarization of politics and a transfer of population between North and South. In May 1946, it was made illegal to cross the 38th parallel without a permit.

U.S. Occupation of the South

On September 7, 1945, General Douglas MacArthur announced that Lieutenant General John R. Hodge was to administer Korean affairs and Hodge landed in Incheon with his troops the next day. The United States Army Military Government in Korea (USAMGIK) was the official ruling body of the southern half of the Korean Peninsula from September 8, 1945, to August 15, 1948.The Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea, which had operated from China, sent a delegation with three interpreters to Hodge, but he refused to meet with them.

The USAMGIK tried to contain civil violence in the south by banning strikes and outlawing the People’s Republic of Korea and the people’s committees. Things spiraled quickly out of control, however, with a massive strike in September 1946 by 8,000 railway workers in Busan, which quickly spread to other cities in the South. On October 1, police attempts to control protesters in Daegu caused the death of three student demonstrators and injuries to many others, sparking a mass counter-attack that killed 38 policemen. In Yeongcheon, a police station came under attack by a 10,000-strong crowd on October 3, killing over 40 policemen and the county chief. Other attacks killed about 20 landlords and pro-Japanese officials. The U.S. administration responded by declaring martial law, firing into crowds of demonstrators, and killing a publicly unknown number of people.

Although the military government was hostile to leftism from the beginning, it initially tolerated the activities of left-wing political groups, including the Korean Communist Party. However, this period of reconciliation did not last long. Within a short time, the military government actively disempowered and eventually banned popular organizations that were gaining public support. The justification was the USAMGIK’s suspicion that they were aligned with the Communist bloc, despite professing a relatively moderate stance compared to the actual Korean Communist Party, which was also banned.

Among the earliest edicts promulgated by USAMGIK was to reopen all schools. No immediate changes were made in the educational system, which was simply carried over from the Japanese colonial period. In this area as in others, the military government sought to maintain the forms of the Japanese occupation system. Although it did not implement sweeping educational reforms, the military government did lay the foundations for reforms that were implemented later. In 1946, a council of about 100 Korean educators was convened to map out the future path of Korean education.

Soviet Occupation of the North

When Soviet troops entered Pyongyang, they found a local branch of the Committee for the Preparation of Korean Independence operating under the leadership of veteran nationalist Cho Man-sik. The Soviet Army allowed these people’s committees, which were friendly to the Soviet Union, to function. Colonel-General Terentii Shtykov set up the Soviet Civil Administration, taking control of the committees and placing Communists in key positions.

In 1946, a provisional government called the Provisional People’s Committee was formed under Kim Il-sung, who had spent the last years of the war training with Soviet troops in Manchuria. Conflicts and power struggles ensued at the top levels of government in Pyongyang as different aspirants maneuvered to gain positions of power in the new government. The government instituted a sweeping land-reform program: land belonging to Japanese and collaborator landowners was divided and redistributed to poor farmers. Landlords were allowed to keep only the same amount of land as poor civilians who had once rented their land, thereby making for a far more equal distribution of land. The farmers responded positively while many collaborators and former landowners fled to the south. According to the U.S. military government, 400,000 northern Koreans went south as refugees.

Welcome celebration for the Red Army in Pyongyang on October 14, 1945. Source: Korean People Journal from Japanese book The First Anniversary of Korean Liberation published by Shinkan Sha. The division of Korea, after more than a millennium of being unified, was seen as controversial and temporary by both regimes. From 1948 until the start of the civil war on June 25, 1950, the armed forces of each side engaged in a series of bloody conflicts along the border. In 1950, these conflicts escalated dramatically when North Korean forces invaded South Korea, triggering the Korean War.

Key industries were nationalized. The economic situation was nearly as difficult in the north as it was in the south, as the Japanese concentrated agriculture in the south and heavy industry in the north.

Failed UN Intervention

With the failure of the Soviet-U.S. Joint Commission to make progress, the U.S. brought the problem before the United Nations in September 1947. The Soviet Union opposed UN involvement but the UN passed a resolution on November 14, 1947, declaring that free elections should be held, foreign troops should be withdrawn, and a UN commission for Korea, the United Nations Temporary Commission on Korea, should be created. The Soviet Union boycotted the voting and did not consider the resolution to be binding, arguing that the UN could not guarantee fair elections. In the absence of Soviet cooperation, it was decided to hold UN-supervised elections in the south only.

The decision to proceed with separate elections was unpopular among many Koreans, who rightly saw it as a prelude to a permanent division of the country. General strikes in protest against the decision began in February 1948. In April, Jeju islanders rose up against the looming division of the country. South Korean troops were sent to repress the rebellion. Tens of thousands of islanders were killed and by one estimate, 70% of the villages were burned by the South Korean troops. The uprising flared up again with the outbreak of the Korean War.

On May 10, 1948, the south held a general election. On August 15, the Republic of Korea formally took over power from the U.S. military, with Syngman Rhee as the first president. In the North, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea was declared on September 9, 1948, with Kim Il-sung as prime minister. On December 12, 1948, the United Nations General Assembly accepted the report of UNTCOK and declared the Republic of Korea to be the “only lawful government in Korea.”

South Korean general election on May 10, 1948. Source: Korean book Departure of Republic of Korea Capital Seoul (1945-1961) published by Seoul Metropolitan City History Committee. Beginning with Syngman Rhee, a series of oppressive autocratic governments took power in South Korea with American support and influence. The country eventually transitioned to become a market-oriented democracy in 1987, largely due to popular demand for reform, and its economy rapidly grew. Due to Soviet influence, North Korea established a communist government with a hereditary succession of leadership, with ties to China and the Soviet Union.

Unrest continued in the South. In October 1948, the Yeosu–Suncheon Rebellion took place, in which some regiments rejected the suppression of the Jeju uprising and rebelled against the government. In 1949, the Syngman Rhee government established the Bodo League to keep an eye on its political opponents. The majority of the Bodo League’s members were innocent farmers and civilians who were forced into membership. The registered members or their families were executed at the beginning of the Korean War. On December 24, 1949, South Korean Army massacred Mungyeong citizens who were suspected communist sympathizers or their family and affixed blame to communists.

Soviet forces departed from North Korea in 1948 and American troops finally withdrew from South Korea in 1949.

Attributions

• Occupation by the US and USSR
  • “History of Korea.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Korea. Wikipedia CC BY-SA 3.0.
  • “Provisional People’s Committee for North Korea.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Provisional_People%27s_Committee_for_North_Korea. Wikipedia CC BY-SA 3.0.
  • “United States Army Military Government in Korea.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Army_Military_Government_in_Korea. Wikipedia CC BY-SA 3.0.
  • “People’s Republic of Korea.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People%27s_Republic_of_Korea. Wikipedia CC BY-SA 3.0.
  • “Division of Korea.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Division_of_Korea. Wikipedia CC BY-SA 3.0.
  • “South_Korean_general_election_1948.JPG.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Division_of_Korea#/media/File:South_Korean_general_election_1948.JPG. Wikipedia Public domain.
  • “Welcome_Celebration_for_Red_Army_in_Pyongyang2.JPG.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Division_of_Korea#/media/File:Welcome_Celebration_for_Red_Army_in_Pyongyang2.JPG. Wikipedia Public domain.