History of Korea

Liberation and Occupation

By the beginning of August, 1945, Japanese authorities in Korea saw the end of the war in sight. What they saw was not a Japanese victory. The energies of the Japanese authorities in Korea was now focused on the maintenance of law and order, more specifically, the protection of Japanese lives and property in Korea. In order to maintain peace and order before the arrival of any Allied occupational command, the Japanese authorities quickly surmised that they needed the help of Koreans themselves during the interim phase between Japanese occupation and the arrival of Allied forces.

On the morning of August 9, the Japanese Governor-General, General Abe, turned to Song Chin-u to head an "interim administrative committee" that would insure law and order. Song was the ideal man for the Japanese; he had connections with both the Japanese and Korean elite. Moreover, Song had established himself as a nationalist in the minds of many Koreans as far back as the March First Movement in 1919. Despite the invitation of General Abe, Song refused to head an interim committee to preserve law and order. The reasons for Song's refusal are not all that clear, but some say that Song declined the offer to work with the Japanese authorities for fear of tainting his "nationalist" image. On the morning of the Japanese surrender, August 15,, General Abe made the same offer given to Song to Yo Un'hyong. Yo Un'hyong was considerably farther to the left of Song Shin-u, but he was not by any means a communist. Yo was highly respected among his countrymen and was a devout nationalist with a populist bent. This time around, the offer was accepted by Yo on the condition that the Japanese immediately free all political prisoners, refrain from interfering in any peaceful Korean demonstration and guarantee a rice supply that would last at least three months. The Japanese complied with all of Yo's conditions. In return, Yo promised that he would help to deter any violent reprisals against Japanese lives and property.

With Japanese agreement of the conditions mentioned above, Yo moved quickly to form the Committee for the Preparation of Korean Independence {CPKI} which became the genesis for the first Korean government in forty years --- the Korean People's Republic. The CPKI established provincial chapters in each of the thirteen provinces of Korea. Local branches of the CPKI were known as "people's committees" and they took control of local administrative functions from the local Japanese authorities. Three weeks after liberation, representatives from each of the "people's committees" throughout the land met in Seoul to establish the "Korean People's Republic {KPR}. The first act passed by the KPR was to schedule elections in the immediate future.

Dispute exists concerning the nature and political makeup of the Korean People's Republic. The traditional view holds that the KPR was little more than a communist front posing as a government representing the interests of the Korean people, but in reality setting the stage for the eventual communization of the Korean peninsula. The counter-interpretation of the Korean People's Republic was that the KPR was a popular government that genuinely reflected the sentiments of the Korean people. In this light, the Korean People's Republic was a leftist-led coalition government that sought to include the moderate and conservative segments of Korean society so that national unity would be preserved. The KPR leadership was, without question, left leaning, but the KPR cabinet did include moderates like An Chae-hong and Koreans who belonged to the right end of the political spectrum like Kim Song Su and Syngman Rhee.

Further evidence in support of the latter view can be seen in the twenty-seven point platform that the KPR announced on Sept. 14th. The essentially moderate nature of the twenty-seven reforms did not constitute a socialist revolution in Korea. On the contrary, the mild reforms which included rent control, confiscation of land owned by Japanese and openly collaborationist Koreans, nationalization of major industries that had already been nationalized under the Japanese occupation, reduction of the work day to eight hours, and the creation of a minimum wage were seen as echoing the demands of most Koreans after the liberation and not precursors of a Marxist revolution within Korea.

Whether the Korean People's Republic was destined to become a communist dominated government will forever remain a matter of conjecture. The arrival of the American military command headed by General John Reed on September 8th, 1945, for all intents and purposes, meant the end of the KPR (The Soviets who had already been in northern Korea for over a month expressed their willingness to work with the KPR). Heeding the advice of conservative Koreans as well as Japanese occupational authorities who both claimed that the KPR was nothing more than a "Soviet Stooge", General Hodge refusal to recognize Yo Un'Hyong, leader of the coalition government, signaled a death toll for the KPR (Hodge was also under orders from Washington to not grant recognition to any Korean government that he encountered). The opportunity to form a broad based coalition government that would represent the entire nation was now lost.

Lacking an effective plan that devoid of specifics, General John R. Hodge and his XXIV Corps were sent to Korea and ordered to establish a United States Military Government in Korea. Unprepared and inexperienced in Korean affairs, General Hodge set out to create a military occupational government structure without a central plan issued from above. General Hodge's first course of action in Korea was to refuse to recognize the Korean People's Republic and its various "people's committees" as the legitimate governing body in Korea. Next, Hodge moved to "resurrect" former officials who had served under the Japanese and incorporated them into the USMGIK bureaucracy. The use of former pro-Japanese Koreans as officials in the new military government and the National Police alienated the great majority of Koreans. Hodge would later replace many of his "hand-picked" Japanese collaborators with Koreans who were not part of the former colonial governing structure because of heavy pressure emanating from the populace.

The refusal of recognition of theKorean People's Republic was followed by the outlaw of all the "people's committees" that made up the "vertebrate" of the Korean People's Republic. This decision by the USMGIK brought them into direct confrontation with the many labor unions and peasant associations that had backed the "people's committees". In some areas, violent clashes between the U.S. military (aided by the Korean National Police) and the "people's committees" occurred. A campaign to eliminate all the "people's committees" in southern Korea was implemented. By 1946, the campaign had succeeded in disbanding most of the "people's committees" in the South. One committee located in Cheju-do would survive until as late as 1949. In other areas, the USMGIK cooperated with the National Police and rightist paramilitary groups to squash labor strikes and political demonstrations. Unjustifiably, the USMGIK construed all labor strikes or political demonstrations as communist inspired. To be truthful, some indeed were, but a great many labor disputes and demonstrations were genuinely consistent with the demands of the people and were not staged by the communists to bring the nation closer to revolution.

Although the USMGIK did show many instances of favoritism towards those of the Korean right such as Kim Ku of the Korean Independence Party and Syngman Rhee, and the conservative landed aristocracy of the Korean Democratic Party, the U.S. military government did attempt to bridge the sharpening schism between the right and the left in southern Korea. Before the USMGIK left Korea, Hodge made sincere efforts to create a coalition between the right and left that would form the basis of a future government. Unfortunately for Hodge, the gap was much too wide to bridge. In December of first year of occupation, General Hodge warned that the USMGIK was "drifting towards a political-economic abyss. Furthermore Hodge correctly concluded that each passing day of U.S.-Soviet occupation "made the division of Korea more permanent."

Unlike the American occupation of the South, the Soviet occupation of the North had the effect of completely wiping out all remnants of the former colonial order, that had existed for forty years, in a matter of months. All collaborators of the Japanese were expelled from positions of power. In contrast with the American occupation, the North lacked a formal military occupational structure. Rather, the Soviets endeavored to cooperate and work with the already established "people's committees" instead of imposing a military occupational government on the North.

Involving the various "people's committees in the decision making process, the Soviets implemented a policy of land reform that ended centuries of landlord dominance in Korean society. Those landlords that were deemed to have been collaborators of the Japanese occupation had considerably more of their land confiscated and redistributed to the general populace. Korean landlords that were not accused of collaboration with the Japanese were able, under the new land reform, to keep enough land to live off of. Unlike the land reforms in China that would occur after the CCP victory over the Guomindang, the land redistribution in northern Korea under Soviet auspices were carried out with little violence. None of the brutal village denunciations, mock trials, and public executions of landlords, that were such a common sight throughout China, took place in the North after liberation. In addition to land confiscation and redistribution, other steps were made including the nationalization of the largest industries, reduction of the work-day to eight hours, the enactment of social security, and various labor reforms. These reforms in the North, under Soviet guidance, seemed to have mirrored the 27 point platform created under the Korean People's Republic. In areas where "people's committees" did not exist, the Soviets sought to create them. And in areas in which the local "people's committees" had an underepresentation of communists, the Soviets would recreate them "in their own image", so to speak. Indicative of careful planning on the part of the Soviets, the occupational forces brought with them many Soviet Koreans trained to act as an "advisory arm" for the Koreans of the North to help establish a Korean government, a Korean government that would be friendly to Soviet interests. Whereas the American occupation of Korea lacked foresight and a coherent plan, the Soviet occupation was better organized and carefully constructed to safeguard Soviet interests in Korea.

Liberation and the Korean War