Division and War

Liberation in August 1945 lasted a few weeks before the peninsula was split into two occupation zones. By 1948 there were two states, each claiming to be the only legitimate government of all Korea, and in 1950 one invaded the other. This chapter follows that sequence from the sources I could read, and gives North Korea one short factual note. As in the rest of this course, it has large gaps, which I list at the end.

Dividing the Peninsula, 1945

• The line. The Division of Korea article says that on 10 August 1945 two young US officers, Dean Rusk and Charles Bonesteel, chose the 38th parallel from a National Geographic map, consulting no Korea experts; the line put Seoul in the American zone and was accepted by the Soviet Union, written into General Order No. 1 (approved 17 August 1945). It gives 16 million Koreans in the American zone and 9 million in the Soviet zone. It quotes Rusk as saying he "almost surely" would have chosen differently had he known Korean history. The Allies had agreed at Cairo, Tehran and Yalta that Korea should be independent after an international trusteeship, and Stalin wanted it short.
• North. Soviet forces entered on 10 August and reached Pyongyang on 24 August, working with local People's Committees. Cho Man-sik led the Pyongyang committee and opposed trusteeship on 4 January 1946, after which he was put under house arrest (History of North Korea). A Provisional People's Committee was formed in February 1946 and land reform followed in March; Soviet forces withdrew on 10 December 1948.
• South. MacArthur's Proclamation No. 1 was issued on 7 September 1945 and Hodge landed at Incheon on 8 September, beginning the US Army Military Government in Korea. The division article describes the occupation as chaotic and run with little guidance from Washington.

The Military Government in the South

The Military Government article gives 9 September 1945 to 15 August 1948 in the lead (US troops from 8 September in the infobox). Hodge commanded; the governors listed are Arnold, Lerch, Dean and Helmick, with Ahn Chai-hong as a civil governor appointed by the US. It says the Military Government outlawed the People's Republic of Korea in the South soon after arriving, and did not recognise Provisional Government members, who entered as private citizens.

• Japanese officials. Hodge first announced on 9 September that the colonial government would stay intact; after an outcry he replaced the governor-general with an American and removed Japanese bureau chiefs, but hired former Japanese bureaucrats as advisers.
• Rice. The article says removing controls on rice production, prices and distribution led to profiteering, hoarding and hunger despite a 60% rise in crop yield the year before, and that rice rose "from 9.4 Yen to 2,800 yen" per bushel. It rests these economic claims partly on a 1983 undergraduate honours paper, a weak source.
• Unrest. Strikes were banned on 8 December 1945 and people's committees outlawed on 12 December. A general strike began among Busan railway workers in September 1946; on 1 October police fired on a Daegu protest and killed a worker, and demonstrations became the "Autumn Uprising", with martial law and troops firing into crowds, killing an unknown number.
• Claims with owners. The article cites Kornel Chang (2020) for the argument that the occupation managed decolonisation in ways that limited liberation, and cites Bruce Cumings and Martin Hart-Landsberg for the Hodge quote that Korea "was an enemy of the United States". A 1947 State-War-Navy Coordinating Committee assessment is quoted as saying the US had mostly held its own and improvised day to day. Several claims, including the 1949 US withdrawal, carry [citation needed].

Trusteeship, the UN and Two States

• Moscow, December 1945. The Allies agreed a trusteeship of up to five years, which the division article calls the "only agreed-upon framework" for a unified state. Reaction split: an anti-trusteeship movement in the South demanded immediate independence, while the Korean Communist Party supported it. The US–Soviet Joint Commission met in 1946 and 1947 and failed. The article says the Soviets proposed Lyuh Woon-hyung as leader of a unified Korea in 1946 and the US rejected it; Lyuh was assassinated on 19 July 1947.
• UN. The US took the matter to the UN in September 1947; a resolution of 14 November called for free elections and created UNTCOK, and the USSR boycotted the vote. The UN then decided on elections in the south only, over the objection of the commission chairman K. P. S. Menon. The 10 May 1948 election took place "amid widespread violence and intimidation", with a boycott by Rhee's opponents. On 12 December 1948 the General Assembly called the Republic of Korea the "only lawful government in Korea"; the article adds that no UNTCOK member considered the election to have produced a legitimate national parliament, and the Australian representative said he was "far from satisfied".
• The two states. The Republic of Korea was declared on 15 August 1948 with Syngman Rhee as president, and US forces began withdrawing. For the North, the division article says the People's Assembly approved the constitution on 10 July, elections were held on 25 August and Kim Il Sung became prime minister on 9 September 1948; the North Korea article says the People's Assembly voted on 10 July to implement the constitution, "establishing the Democratic People's Republic of Korea", and gives no 9 September.
• Claims. The article says "each government claimed sovereignty over the whole Korean peninsula", and that Rhee argued the North's attack had "obliterated the boundary".

The Jeju Uprising

The article dates it from 3 April 1948 to 13 May 1949 in the infobox. A leftist South Korean Workers' Party (WPSK)-led insurgency attacked police and right-wing targets; some sources say a military police fire on a commemoration set it off, others that it was planned, and the article does not resolve this. Causes it names: police firing on a crowd on 1 March 1947 that killed six (a State Department analyst first reported one); opposition to the separate May 1948 election, which the WPSK saw as making partition permanent; and the far-right Northwest Youth League, which Bruce Cumings is cited as saying held more authority than the police. Some South Korean liberal scholars and victims' families dispute that the Jeju People's Committee followed WPSK direction.

• Suppression. Martial law was declared on 17 November 1948 and an "eradication campaign" began in March 1949. The article reports atrocities by both sides, ROK forces and right-wing groups especially brutal toward civilians, and says the campaign killed 2,345 guerrillas and 1,668 civilians.
• Figures, with owners. The infobox gives 1,091 security and militia deaths and 14,373 civilians (86% by security forces, 14% by insurgents), about 30,000 including combatants, and says other estimates reach 80,000. The lead gives 14,000 to 30,000 (Chalmers Johnson). A footnote cites a governor's report of 60,000, and the final section says some estimates reach 100,000. The Korean War article gives 30,000 violent deaths including 14,373 civilians, but its attribution of 2,000 deaths to rebels and 12,000 to ROK forces adds to 14,000, not 14,373.
• Official findings. The article says a 2003 National Committee chaired by Prime Minister Goh Kun called it a genocide and found shared responsibility of the US military government and the Korean military, and that President Roh Moo-hyun apologised on 31 October 2003, saying "wrongful decisions of the government" caused casualties. In 2019 the police and defence ministry apologised at the 71st anniversary. The article gives two dates for the 2000 special act (26 December 1999 and 12 January 2000).
• Disputed. Cumings says the US bears responsibility; Heo Ho-jun claims US liaison aircraft helped locate and kill villagers; Kim Dae-jung called it "a communist rebellion" while also saying innocent people died under false accusations; a 1949 US investigation under Colonel Casteel called the strike "communist inspired".

A Short Factual Note on North Korea, 1945 to 1960

This is a brief note, from the History of North Korea article's 1945 to 1960 text, which says most of its account rests on scholarly works (Cumings, Buzo, Robinson, Lone and McCormack). Kim Il Sung arrived at Wonsan on 19 September 1945 with 66 other Korean Red Army officers and was introduced to the public on 14 October "as a guerrilla hero". The North Korean Communist Party formed on 18 December 1945, merged into the Workers' Party of North Korea in August 1946, and in 1949 merged with its southern counterpart to form the Workers' Party of Korea, with Kim as chairman. The Korean People's Army was built with Soviet advisers and equipment. Kim consolidated power against the Yan'an faction, the Soviet Koreans and Pak Hon-yong's group; Pak was dismissed in 1953 and executed after a show trial in 1955. After Khrushchev's denunciation of Stalin in February 1956, critics were purged in the August Faction Incident, and by 1960, the article says, 70% of the 1956 Central Committee were no longer in politics. It says Juche "began to displace" Marxism–Leninism and gives the 1954 to 1955 famine as killing about 800,000, with officials having exaggerated harvests.

The article marks its own cautions: Kim's guerrilla role and a National Reunification Prize rest on the North Korean state news agency, KCNA, and so reflect the official line; claims of coercive rule, "at least 300 suicides" and 30,000 prisoners are the allegations of Li Sangjo, an ambassador of the Yan'an faction; and some analyses are hedged ("by some accounts", "by some analysis"). I add nothing beyond this note.

The Korean War, 1950 to 1953

From the lead and infobox only: North Korea invaded South Korea on 25 June 1950 (the Korean War article names Operation Pokpung). The article says Stalin approved the invasion on condition that Mao would send reinforcements if needed. Seoul fell on 28 June; by early August the ROK and its allies held only the Pusan Perimeter. UN forces landed at Incheon on 15 September, retook Seoul and in October invaded the North and took Pyongyang. Chinese forces crossed the Yalu on 19 October (the battle table gives 25 October), UN forces retreated from the North in December, Communist forces retook Seoul in January 1951, and UN forces regained ground to roughly the 38th parallel. Armistice talks began in July 1951 and dragged on during a war of attrition marked by heavy UN bombing of the North.

The Armistice

• Signed. On 27 July 1953, at 10:00, taking effect at 22:00 local time the same day. The article lists Lt. Gen. William K. Harrison Jr. and Gen. Mark W. Clark for the UN Command, Nam Il for the Korean People's Army and Peng Dehuai for the Chinese People's Volunteer Army, but its Background says Nam Il and Harrison signed and does not say whether Clark or Peng did, and a photo caption says Kim Il Sung "signs the agreement". South Korea did not sign; the article attributes this to Rhee's refusal to accept that he had failed to unify Korea by force.
• Terms. A "complete cessation of hostilities and of all acts of armed force in Korea"; the Military Demarcation Line and the Demilitarized Zone, following the Kansas Line where the two sides actually faced each other, 2.5 miles (4.0 km) wide (the article gives no length); a Military Armistice Commission; a Neutral Nations Supervisory Commission with teams from Czechoslovakia, Poland, Sweden and Switzerland; and repatriation of prisoners "who insist on repatriation" under a commission chaired by the Indian General K. S. Thimayya. Over 22,000 KPA or PVA soldiers refused repatriation, along with 327 South Koreans, 21 Americans and 1 Briton on the UN side.
• Status. A purely military document and a ceasefire, not a peace treaty; no peace treaty has been signed. The Korean War infobox says a net 3,900 km² moved from North to South, the North gaining Kaesong and the South gaining Sokcho.
• Later. In March 2013 North Korea said it was scrapping its non-aggression pacts with South Korea, closing the border and cutting the direct phone line; a UN spokesman said the armistice could not be dissolved unilaterally. The article's claim that the DMZ is "the most heavily defended national border in the world as of 2018" is flagged [update] and [citation needed].
• Inconsistencies. The article calls Dulles Secretary of State in the lead and "Secretary of Defense" in a later section, and says China "signed a peace treaty" with South Korea in 1992 where its citation concerns establishing relations.

What to Take from This

My own reading, unverified: the three stages in this chapter, a line drawn quickly, two elections where one side did not vote, and a war ended by an armistice, each left the same question open, which government speaks for all Korea. The sources show the claims; they do not say the pattern, and I do.

What the Sources Left Open

• Which date counts as the start of the division (2 September, 17 August or earlier), and the DPRK's founding date (10 July or 9 September 1948).
• Who started the Jeju uprising, and how many died (14,373 civilians, 30,000, 60,000, 80,000 or 100,000).
• Every Korean War casualty total, the Chinese entry date, and the armistice signatories.
• The war's narrative sections, civilian massacres in detail, refugees and the aftermath: not read.
• North Korea after 1960, which the course leaves out.

Exercises

Next: Korean History 10 follows the Republic from the First Republic to the present: dictatorship, industrialisation and democratisation.