<Chronology>
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1) Liberation and Formation of a Divided Nation: 1945-1950
A. Liberation and Division at the Thirty-Eighth Parallel[1], and Military Government
At noon on August 15, 1945, the voice of Japanese Emperor Hirohito was heard on the radio. The Korean people could not fully comprehend his Japanese speech, but one thing was clear. Japan had been defeated and Korea was liberated.
In February of 1943, the United States, the Soviet Union, Great Britain and China held a summit in Cairo, Egypt, where leaders addressed the issue of the enslavement of the people of Korea and proclaimed that in due course, Korea shall become free and independent. Nonetheless, the defeat of Japan did not necessarily guarantee the independence of Korea.
The people of Korea believed they had inherited the 5,000 year-long history and cultural assets. For this reason, thirty-million Koreans who cherished the long history of the royal kingdom, the order of the centrally organized bureaucracy and the cultural pride expected an immediate independence. Since the forceful annexation to Japan in 1910, the Koreans continuously sought to regain their national independence, and toward the end of the World War II, Korean independence movements were organized in various parts of the world, such as in Chongqing and Yanan, China; the vicinity of Vladivostok, the Soviet Union; and Washington, DC, the United States. Each party had its own political and military arms. They were the influential players in the modern Korean history, such as Kim Gu’s Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea[2], Kim Dubong’s Korean Independence Union, Kim Il Sung’s Anti-Japanese Partisan Unit and Syngman Rhee’s Korean Commission in Washington. The overseas activists, longing to regain their independence, were at last about to attack the Peninsula, backed by allied nations. At the same time at home, three allied powers, the United States, the Soviet Union, and China, set to attack the colonial government, while clandestine organizations that would attempt to lead armed uprisings across Korea appeared one after another. However, with Japan’s sudden defeat, Korea was liberated when least expected.
At this time, around the midnight of August 10, 1945 to be exact, the fate of Korea was in the hands of the State-War-Navy Coordinating Committee in Washington DC. Soon after the United States dropped atomic bombs in Nagasaki and Hiroshima of Japan, the Soviet Union declared a war against Japan on August 9, 1945, beginning to advance onto Manchuria and the Korean Peninsula. Having its forces in Okinawa of Japan, the U.S. leaders decided to reach a compromise with the Soviet Union in order to stop its attacks. The U.S. judged that it could not allow the Communist superpower to conquer the whole Peninsula. The two colonels, ordered to draw a borderline dividing the Peninsula into two parts for the U.S. and the Soviet Union to each occupy, unfolded the map of <the National Geographic Magazine>. It took just thirty minutes for the two parties to draw an artificial line of demarcation at the thirty-eighth parallel of north latitude. Later, Dean Rusk, who became the Secretary of the U.S. Department of State, claimed he decided the fate of Korea.
Although Korean peninsula seemed evenly divided, the South had more advantages. It had two-thirds of the population, capital city of Seoul with a 500-year history, and strategically crucial harbors including Busan, Incheon, Mokpo and Jinhae. With the support of the allied powers, General Order No.1 on September 2, 1945 proclaimed that the Japanese forces above the Thirty-Eighth Parallel would be disarmed by the Soviet Union while the U. S. forces would disarm the Japanese forces below the Thirty-Eighth Parallel. Although the Soviet Union had the power to take over the entire peninsula, it accepted the U.S. proposal to maintain its cooperative relationship with the U.S. and ultimately occupy some parts of Japan after occupying portions of the Eastern Europe and the Korean Peninsula.
The ideological Thirty-Eighth Parallel at the heart of the Korean Peninsula, severed twelve rivers and more than seventy-five creeks while hovering over numerous mountain peaks. In addition, the line disconnected many transportation routes: 181 bull-drawn carriage drives, 104 country roads, 15 all-weather highways, eight expressways, six North-South railways. Already from the moment of liberation, the tragic disaster that this Thirty-Eighth parallel would bring was unquestionable.
The Thirty-Eighth parallel was a temporary line for the convenience of the U.S. and the Soviet forces in their efforts to disarm the Japanese forces on the peninsula. However, after the mission was accomplished in 1946, the parallel became a demarcation line between the two occupying powers and the Korean people were banned from crossing it. Technically, the Thirty-Eighth parallel became invalid under the international law when the disarmament operation was completed in the spring of 1946.
At the end of August, 1945, Colonel General Ivan M. Chistiakov's 25th Army under the Soviet Far Eastern Command completed the occupation of the Korean peninsula north of the Thirty-Eighth parallel. On September 6th, 1945, America's XIV Corps under General Douglas MacArthur who was ordered to take charge of the occupation of the southern Korea landed on Incheon and soon completed the tactical occupation of the South.
The U.S. immediately set up the Headquarters of the U.S. Army Military Government and put the South under its military government. The occupation policies of both the U.S. and the Soviet Union were similar in principle which was that the future Korean government should be favorable to the Korean people, but in fact, were quite different in detail.
During 1944-1945, top political advisors from the U.S. State Department and the War Department had already set military occupation, military government and multi-power trusteeship through the United Nations as the key element in the U.S. policy toward Korea. This was found in the memorandum prepared for the Potsdam Conference held in July, 1945. The U.S. wanted to solve the problems in Korea by utilizing its diplomatic advantages and was mindful of the power balance between the U.S., Britain, China and the Soviet Union as three to one which played well with the idea of a multi-power trusteeship for the Korean Peninsula. The U.S. governed Korea directly after the occupation.
Meanwhile, the Soviet Union viewed the political situations on the Korean Peninsula as highly volatile and radical after the long period under the Japanese colonial rule. In the eyes of the Soviet Union, the national resentment against Japan combined with deepening of ideological and class divisions among the Koreans was a good breeding ground for a natural establishing of a pro-Soviet socialist and communist regime in Korea even if it does not deeply intervene in Korea’s domestic politics. In fact, the Soviet had a political advantage in Korea over other powers. It is true that the Soviet occupational forces did not establish a military government in Korea, but they could successfully create a pro-Soviet regime sufficiently adapted to the region by backing the North’s Communists.
The United States wanted to establish a U.S.-led interim government while the Soviet Union sought for a pro-Soviet government. For both of them, the Korean people's aspiration for independence and unification was merely a secondary issue.
Action plans, such as military occupation and military government were originally planned for governing Japan. However, these plans were successfully implemented to only South Korea. Japan was neither divided for occupation nor was placed under a military government. Japan's sovereignty was not denied either because the purpose of the occupation was not to unite Japan’s territory. Thus, Japan could continue to exercise their sovereignty under the control of the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers with the newly elected inner Cabinet members.
By contrast, Korea's sovereignty was yet to be restored even after the liberation. None of the organizations was recognized as representing its sovereignty either such as the Great Han Empire that had collapsed, the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea in Chongqing, which the Allied Powers did not recognize as the legitimate government, or the Preparation Committee for National Construction organized autonomously after the liberation and had since been ruling over the country. The Allied Powers thought that Korea's liberation itself was enough for the Korean people to secure their basic rights for the time being.
After the liberation from Japan, there were three major conflict situations on the Peninsula. First, there was the confrontation between the two great powers: the U.S. and the Soviet Union. Koreans had to deal with these two countries that had helped liberate but at the same time occupied Korea. Second, Korea was divided between the North and the South. Third, the right wing and left wing were in confrontation with each other.
During the colonial rule, ideological difference between the right and the left was not a serious issue. Many understood both Communism and Nationalism to be instruments to achieve independence. Both factions fought together for the common goal of independence although there were some conflicts that arose from time to time. The cooperation between the two factions is symbolized by the Singanhoi or New Trunk Association (1927 - 1931) which they both established together.
Korea had been a single political and social entity with its borderline almost unchanged since Silla had unified the Three Kingdoms in 688. During Goryeo and Joseon Dynasty and even during the colonial period, Korea’s national and territorial unity remained intact. But after being liberated from the Japanese, the unity that had remained for over thirteen hundred years began to shake. The divide between the North and the South was not a mere division of territory. Hostility between Capitalists and Communists were displayed by the U.S. and the Soviet Union respectively, and directly affected the Korean Peninsula. In other words, Korea, which is already suffering from the territorial divide had to face the ideological confrontation between the powers surrounding the country. The Koreans did not have the political power to speak for themselves which made it more vulnerable to be under the influence of the U.S. and the Soviet Union. In fact, the U.S. and the Soviet Union were wrestling over the hegemony of Japan and China, and Korea was directly related to the matter. The Cold War in Europe had a direct impact on the Cold War in Asia, and the fate of China and Japan was directly linked to that of Korea.
In 1946, the Cold War skirmishes started in Greece and Turkey. In April 1946, the Chinese civil war between the Chinese Communist Party and the Nationalist Party became intense in Manchuria. In Germany, the U.S. organized the Berlin Airlift in response to Soviet Union's measure of blocking roads to the western Berlin, which accelerated the Cold War. Finally, the Cold War was declared by long telegram written by George Kennan under the pseudonym "X" from Moscow, by Winston Churchill's ‘Iron Curtain’ speech in Fulton, Missouri, and by President Harry Truman’s Truman Doctrine under which Greece and Turkey would receive economic aid. In Japan, the U.S.'s intention to eliminate militarism in Japan took a reverse course. The Cold War ended the Moscow Agreement, under which the U.S. and the Soviet Union would cooperate to unify Korea and to grant the nation an independent status. Korea emerged as an outpost of the Cold War.
B. Conflicts between North and South, U.S. and Soviet Union, and between Right and Left in Founding of the Nation
Right after the unconditional surrender of Japan, Korea wanted an immediate independence. Some were convinced that the Allied Powers already agreed to the immediate independence of Korea at the 1943 Cairo Conference. Various approaches to rounding of the government was being discussed until the Allied Powers finally decided on Korea's independence in the late December of 1945.
<Photo: the Convention of Preparatory Committee for National Construction held in Gwangyang, Jeonnam>
The Preparation Committee for National Construction organized by Yeo Unhyeong[3] had 145 branches across South Korea as of late August, 1945. Thanks to the creation of the Preparation Committee, the Koreans could form political parties, social groups and organization. However, the Committee began to turn more radical when it reorganized into the People’s Committee and independent movement activists returned to Korea early September 1945. During 1945-1948, Korea was in a revolutionary mood. Freed from the harsh Japanese colonial rule, Korea was in high spirits with escalating hopes for liberation and social transformation. People yearned to establish their own government and achieve political and ideological growth.
Before the Korean Empire was forcefully annexed to Japan in 1910, Republicanism had been strictly banned and during the colonial period, Koreans were not allowed to create any political parties or social organizations. In particular, after 1930, Japanese imperialists banned Korean people from engaging in social activities based on the infamous Public Security Maintenance Law. Koreans had to pay taxes, but no political rights including the right to vote were allowed. After the liberation, in Seoul alone, about 45 political organizations were created by September of 1945. Desires for political rights and the number of political groups clearly showed the social atmosphere of Korea at the time.
In the mean time, many Korean people began to return to Korea from China, Manchuria, Japan and the South Pacific. Annually since 1937, more than one million Korean people including young students and women had been mobilized for compulsory labors, military services and sex slaves. They had been deployed in battles as well as forced to work at mines and factories. They had clearly learnt how inferior the status of Korea was on the world stage from their first-hand experience during the World War II. The return of those who had fought against the fear of death brought the revolutionary spirits to the relatively quiet rural villages. Since 1935, the farming society had begun to break away from its traditional order in the wake of the unstable industrialization and harsh mobilization policy by Japanese imperialists. Such forceful mobilization became the main cause for internal conflicts and disturbance in Korean society after the liberation. Hostilities between landlords and peasants, factory owners and laborers were heightened even further when Japanese imperialists adopted a discrimination policy against Korean nationalities. The atmosphere at the time was well described in the comment by Merrell Benninghoff who was dispatched by the U.S. State Department in September 1945 as a political advisor for Gen. Hodge, the commander of the U.S. military occupation of southern Korea. He commented that "Southern Korea can best be described as a powder keg ready to explode at the application of a spark…Korea is completely ripe for agitators..."
Many overseas activists also returned to Korea after the liberation. Members of the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea such as Dr. Syngman Rhee, the U.S.-based activist (October 16th, 1945) and Kim Gu[4], the China-based activist (around November-December 1945) returned to southern Korea. Partisan groups including Kim Il Sung’s who had been trained by the Soviet forces (September 1945) and the Joseon Independence Union including Kim Dubong and Mu Jeong (December 1945) sponsored by the Chinese Communist Party returned to northern Korea. The return of such activists whose patriotic activities were described as charismatic and heroic brought a fume to the already heated Korean politics. The Korean Peninsula was on the verge of explosion, seething with hatred toward Japan, aspirations for eliminating the remains of the colonial period and hopes for a new era while it was also under the influence of the occupying powers.
In December 1945, foreign ministers from the U.S., the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union had a meeting in Moscow and agreed on the measures for Korea's independence: a provisional government and a five-year trusteeship. Some Koreans who lived in the U.S. and China already knew from the 1943 Cairo Declaration that the Allied Powers’ policy toward Korea did not mean an immediate independence but a trusteeship. Even after the liberation, Carter Vincent, the Director of the Bureau of Far Eastern Affairs had mentioned of the trusteeship. But the Korean people who thought the country would be ruled independently were furious at the news. The idea of a multi-power trusteeship initiated by President Roosevelt was painfully humiliating to the Korean people.
Anti-trusteeship demonstrations broke out all over the country on December 28, 1945. The right wings led by Kim Gu organized massive anti-trusteeship demonstrations, calling for immediate independence free of foreign intervention. Korean people saw the trusteeship as another Protectorate Treaty of 1905 and wanted immediate independence. However, with incorrect news that a trusteeship was initiated by the Soviet Union spreading, the anti-trusteeship movement began to transform into an anti-Communist and anti-Soviet movement. Leftists who had participated in the anti-trusteeship movement in its early stage soon switched to pro-trusteeship, insisting that the Moscow agreement embraced the establishment of a provisional government, not a trusteeship. In the southern part of Korea, there was a severe political divide between the leftists and the rightists or proponents and opponents of a trusteeship. In the northern part of Korea, internal conflicts over the Moscow agreement deepened as well. Some nationalist activists like Cho Man shik [5]who opposed the trusteeship was arrested by the Soviet occupational forces. Rather than presenting Korea with its independence, the Moscow agreement triggered conflicts in Korea between right and left, the North and the South and proponents and opponents of a trusteeship.
Based on the Moscow agreement, the first U.S.-Soviet Joint Committee was held in March 5th 1946 discuss the establishment of a provisional government. Both powers disagreed on which political parties and organizations should be included in the provisional government. The Soviets insisted that the opponents of trusteeship should be excluded from the list while the U.S. argued every organization should be included. Both countries wanted to adopt policies favorable to their own interests and thus failed to reach an agreement. The Joint Committee adjourned without mention of a meeting resumption.
Even from the early stage of the occupation, the U.S. military government and the Soviet Union tried to establish a government that was more favorable to their own interests. The relations between the U.S. military government and the Soviet Union were complementary but at the same time contradictory. Their policies appeared to be very different from each other’s but were the same in principle. The U.S. military government’s strategy was to set up a pro-American interim government in southern Korea, and slowly extend its influence into the north. The Democratic Council (February 1946) and the South Korean Interim Legislative Assembly (November 1946) were established based on the strategy. Such strategy was could be called the Freedom Base Line.
The Soviet Union, however, was more aggressive. It established the Provisional People’s Committee for North Korea in February 1946 as a governing agency. It began implementing the so-called democratic reform from February 1946. This was similar to the land reforms and nationalization of major industries carried out in Eastern Europe during the soviet occupation of 1944 ~ 46. Through land reform, lands were confiscated from landlords and redistributed to the peasants. The aggressive nationalization efforts also threatened people with capital. These series of reforms were called the Democracy Base Line. It was also part of Soviet’s plan to expand its revolutionary activities farther to the South. While the strategy gained support from some people, landlords, capitalists, students and young people who were suppressed by the Soviets crossed the border into the south and became ardent anti-Communist activists in the South.
The Soviet Union and the U.S. Military Government influenced each other in pursuing their own policies and made it even harder for them to carry out international agreements such one agreed by the Joint committee. The occupational forces of both sides strove to establish the governments favorable to them, further intensifying the occupation efforts in their respective territories.
After the first U.S.-USSR Joint Committee was adjourned, Dr. Syngman Rhee suggested the idea of establishing a separate government in the South (June 1946). Though his stance was heavily criticized, his idea was actually originated from what the U.S. military government had suggested with respect to the interim government in the South. Moreover, it was not an out-of-the question idea, given the fact that the North already established a de facto government in February 1946.
<Photo: Yeo Unhyeong and Kim Gyusik>
In mid-1946, concrete moves were made to establish a provisional government first in the South integrating those in the left and the right, and then seek cooperation with the North. The main players were center-left Yeo Unhyeong and center-right Kim Gyusik[6]. By taking a central position, they agreed that the establishment of the provisional government should precede resolving the trusteeship issue. They supported land reforms and purging of the pro-Japanese collaborators. But faced with the far-left and far-right groups’ severe opposition, the right-left coalition whose foundation was weak already, began to break up. The U.S. Military Government formed the South Korean Interim Assembly based upon the Right-Left Coalition Committee (December 1946). This Assembly, chaired by Kim Gyusik, was a military advisory organization established in response to a series of Soviet-led movements promoted in the North. Later, the development of the Korean history became as tragic as the destiny of the creators of the Right-Left Coalition. Yeo Unhyeong was assassinated (July 19, 1947) and Kim Gyusik was abducted by the North during the Korean War and died of illness there. (December, 1950)
In May 1947, the Second U.S.-USSR Joint Committee was held. However, the world was already entering into a full-fledged Cold War era after the U.S. had declared war on Communism against the Soviet Union in the Truman Doctrine (March 1947). The Second Joint Committee that excluded Koreans ended after a quarrel between the U.S. and the Soviet Union.
C. Founding of the Republic of Korea
In August 1947, the agreement between the U.S. and the Soviet Union broke down, accelerating the division of the Korean Peninsula. The U.S. decided to discuss the issue of Korea in the United Nations. The Soviet Union demanded an immediate withdrawal of both the U.S. and the Soviet troops arguing that the Korean people could take care of themselves. In truth, the U.S. was hoping to gain an advantage in the United Nations while the Soviets were depending on its influence over the leftists on the Peninsula. The Soviet Union criticized the UN by labeling it a rubber stamp for U.S. policies. Based on the U.S. proposal, the UN dispatched the United Nations Temporary Commission on Korea[7] comprised of eight member countries. And after meeting with political leaders in the South, the Commission decided to hold a referendum in the South which was the region accessible to them.
For the Korean people who had shared identical land, history, language and culture over a thousand years, the national division was not acceptable. Hence, many opposed the founding of a separate government in the South in 1948, including both the lefts and the rights in the South and North. Even Kim Gu and Kim Gyusik, the leading rightist figures, opposed the establishment of a separate government, demanding unification of Korea. In April ~ May 1948, Kim Gu and Kim Gyusik held a negotiation for peaceful unification of Korea with Kim Il Sung and Kim Dubong. This meeting held significance in that it was the very first negotiation for peaceful unification between the North and the South before the Korean War broke out. But it failed to make a difference on the political situations in the Peninsula. From the spring of 1948, the opposition got more aggressive. On April 3rd, 1948, in Jeju Island located in the southernmost part of the Peninsula, massive riots broke out opposing separate election and government. The tragic insurgence later named the Jeju April 3rd Uprising[8] was triggered by various reasons: propaganda by the lefts in the South, deep-rooted resentment against the U.S. military government which governed the island after the Japanese Imperialists, as well as hostility towards the right wing groups like the West-North Youth Association. Before the outbreak of the Korean War, about 30,000-60,000 people had been slaughtered and almost 20 percent of the villages in Jeju had disappeared from the map.
On May 10, 1948, for the first time in Korean history, general election was held. The National Assembly enacted the Constitution. Based on this Constitution, the Republic of Korea was founded on August 15. It was the first republican government in Korea. The name of the nation came from the Korea (Daehanmingook) Provisional Government[9] (1919) whose name, in turn, was inherited from the Great Han Empire (Daehan-jaegook)[10] (1897-1910). The spirit of the Constitution was also based on that of the Provisional Government. The National Assembly elected 73-year-old Syngman Rhee as the President through an indirect vote. Dr. Rhee, widely known as an independence activist and educator had lived in the U.S. for more than 30 years after finishing his study there.
<Photo: Syngman Rhee>
In December of the same year, the 3rd UN General Assembly passed a resolution that the Republic of Korea was founded through a fair election held in the region to which the United Nations Temporary Commission on Korea had access to. The Korean government proclaimed that it had the sovereign power over the Peninsula under the recognition from the UN.
D. Founding of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea
Although North criticized the South for founding a separate government, the North was actually in the process of establishing a government of its own. The Provisional People's Committee for North Korea, established through an election in February 1947, had already served as the central government. According to a North Korean history book, it was not only ‘the governing organization’ but also ‘the legitimate government.’ Therefore, the question of which side founded the first government is a non-issue. The North criticized Republic of Korea and attempted to hold the North - South Negotiation. By that time, the North had almost completed a draft for its own Constitution under the guidance of Stalin. As soon as the Republic of Korea was proclaimed, the North began to establish its own government as planned. Asserting that they also elected the South Korean representatives through secret election, the North formed its own Assembly.
The Supreme People's Assembly of North Korea adopted the Constitution and proclaimed the establishment of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, a socialist state, on September 9, 1948. This proclamation was made only within a month after the establishing of the Republic of Korea. The North claimed that its government was legitimate throughout the Peninsula because it had conducted an election where the representatives from the two Koreas participated. Thirty six-year-old Kim Il Sung was elected as prime minister. He was a member of the Chinese Communist Party with the experiences of anti-Japanese guerilla activities. He was also a former military officer in the Soviet forces.
<Photo: Kim Il Sung>
Stalin and the Soviet Union had absolute influence in the Communist world. For Stalin who highly valued Eastern Europe which he had built, the founding of the North Korean government was another small victory for him in the Asian region. As the Chinese Communist Party won over the Chinese Nationalist Party in the Chinese Civil War (October, 10, 1949) and soon established its government, the Soviet Union, North Korea and China took the opportunity to form a tripartite Communist alliance in East Asia.
2) Korean War, 1950-1953
A. Outbreak of the Korean War and Its Nature
On June 25, 1950, in the early morning, the North Korean People's Army crossed the Thirty-Eighth parallel and invaded South Korea. The battle that started in Ongjin[11] soon extended to the region near the Thirty-Eighth parallel including Gaeseong and Chuncheon. The Soviet Ambassador to North Korea Shtykov sent Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the Red Army Zakharov a secret report on the military operations in the Peninsula as follows.
"All preparatory measures for the operation were completed on June 24th. On June 24th divisional commanders were given orders about "D"[day] and "H"[hour]. The political order of the Minister of Defense was read to the troops, which explained that the South Korean army had provoked a military attack by violating the Thirty-Eighth parallel and that the government of the DPRK had given order to the Korean People's Army to counterattack. The order was met with great enthusiasm by the soldiers and officers of the Korean People's Army.
The troops were ready at their starting positions by 24:00 hours on June 24th. Military operations began at 4 hours 40 minutes local time. Ten minutes of artillery firing and 20-40 minutes of direct fire was accompanied by attack firing. The infantry rose up and went on the attack full of energy. In the first three hours, individual units and formations advanced 3 ~ 5 kilometers. The attack of the troops of the People's Army took the enemy completely by surprise.”
Which side provoked the War remained controversial for a long time. However, the documents from the former Soviet Union disclosed in the mid-1990s and the North’s documents confiscated by the U.S. Army during the War clearly showed that the War broke out by pre-emptive strike of the North Korean Army. The War was launched after long preparation, and an all-out attack took place along the entire battle lines.
The Korean War in which about 20 countries including the two Koreas, the U.S. and China participated lasted 37 months (June 1950-July 1953). The nature of the war is clearly defined by the process of the war from the outbreak to the Armistice negotiation. The North’s invasion had started the War. According to the former Soviet document, North Korean leadership including Kim Il Sung[12] and Park Heonyeong[13], expressed their will to wage a war in early 1949 and led the entire preparations required to launch a war including starting with a few local battles of August 1949, requesting approval for an all-out war and making the final decision which all happened from January of 1950. Although the North wanted to start a war, they did not have the authority to make the decision. At the time when the war started, Stalin was the final decision-maker and the supreme commander. The war would never have been launched had it not been for Stalin’s permission, to supply weapons and equipment to the North, to dispatch military advisors and to open offensive battles. In other words, the North Korean leadership initiated the process, but it was Stalin who made the decision to wage the War.
In fact, North Korea was not in a position to initiate or lead the Korean War. Out of the three requirements for a war – weapons, soldiers, and operations – the North only had the soldiers. Major combat troops of the North were not local soldiers but Korean Chinese of the People's Liberation Army of China given permission by Mao Zedong. Most of the weapons and military equipments were provided by Stalin. The military operation plan for the attack had been designed not by the North Korean Army but by Stalin’s military advisors.
In the course of the War, it was clear that the war was an international proxy war rather than a civil war between the two Koreas. Before the intervention of the Chinese People's Volunteers (December 1950), Kim Il Sung had not been allowed to develop strategies or make operational decisions without approval of Stalin. After the Chinese army got involved, the North Korean Army was under the command of Peng Dehuai, the Commander-in-chief of Korea-China Coalition Command (December 1950). The command of the South Korean army was transferred to the United Nations at the request of President Syngman Rhee who delivered his opinion through a letter he had written in Daejeon. The U.S. forces took command of the Korean army. Thus, it was natural for Syngman Rhee and Kim Il Sung who had been excluded from the command control of the War to seek control in domestic politics rather than on the battle fields.
During the armistice talks, North Korea was not the main player but a lower rank participant after Soviet Union and China. The U.S. army did allow South Koreans or other UN allies to participate in the truce talks. Therefore, South Korea was not a signatory but an observer to the Agreement. Although the Korean War has the appearance of being a civil war when you look at the start of the war, in essence, it was an international war. The progress of the Korean War and the process of the Armistice Agreement all the more shows signs of an international war.
B. Progression of the War
Although Korean Peninsula was not a strategically critical region to the United States., the U.S. got actively engaged. The U.S. believed that the loss of the Korean Peninsula could severely damage its status and credibility in Asia, leading to the weakening of the United State’s political, psychological confidence and its influence in the international arena.
The UN Security Council held at the request of the U.S. recognized North Korea as the aggressor and adopted a resolution demanding that the North cease fire and retreat to the Thirty-Eighth parallel (June 26th, 1950). The U.S. and the UN condemned the North Korean invasion while Soviet Union and China supported the North. The Soviet Union boycotted the UN Security Council and sat on the sideline when UN decided to dispatch its forces to the Peninsula. In fact, Soviet Union was busy trying to conceal its own intervention, not even allowing its military advisors to cross the Thirty-Eighth parallel to the South. Stalin, the ruler of the Communist bloc was focusing on the possibility of a third World War and confrontation with the US. As a matter of fact, when the UN forces began heading North in October 1950, Stalin acted as if he was okay with the defeat of Kim Il Sung and the UN forces taking control of the Korean Peninsula. The Soviet Union's military advisors made their way to the Nakdonggang River along with North Korean commanders and after the UN forces moved into the North, the Soviet Union’s 64th Fighter Aviation Corps got engaged.
In the Battle of Osan, the North Korean forces defeated the 1st Battalion, 21st Regiment, 24th Infantry Division of the US Eighth Army (Task Force Smith) as well as defeated the US 24th Division in Daejeon. Commander, Maj. Gen. William F. Dean was captured by the North Korean forces and became a prisoner of war. The South Korean and the US forces tried to ward off the attack by the North while trying to reorganize the ranks but ended up being driven back to the Nakdonggang River. The South Koreans were pushed back to a small town surrounded by the River in Gyeongsang-do.
However, UN forces waged aggressive counterattack after getting control of the air and the sea, and the North forces lost more than half of their manpower by the time they reached the Nakdonggang River. It was impossible for them to break through the river, penetrate the defense line of the UN forces which was far superior and armed with overwhelmingly strong fire power, weapons and the will to fight to the death. At the end of August, the North Korean forces launched a major offensive attack and drove the UN forces into a corner but could not destroy the defense line. It was around this time when Mao Zedong suggested that since the US forces were expected to land on Incheon or Wonsan, utilizing the long extended North’s supply line and the dispersed military forces, the North Korean forces should ‘allure the enemy’ by smoothly withdrawing from the line.
General Douglas MacArthur, an outstanding strategist, conducted a surprise amphibious landing at Incheon (“Battle of Incheon,[14]” code name: Operation Chromite) in mid-September, 1950 in the same manner he had conducted the operations in the Battle of Leyte Gulf in the Philippines. At the end of September, the UN forces succeeded in recapturing Seoul and recovered the Thirty-Eighth parallel, a starting point of the North’s invasion. Since July, there had been discussions on whether to cross the Thirty-Eighth parallel and continue on to North Korea and becomes more specific by the National Security Council (NSC) Report 81. President Harry S. Truman endorsed MacArthur the authority to advance onto the North. In early October, the UN troops crossed the Thirty-Eighth parallel and moved deep inside North Korea. By mid-October, the UN forces occupied Pyongyang, the capital city, and advanced the battle line up to the Amnokgang River. The moment the UN forces broke through the Thirty-Eighth parallel, the War entered into a new phase: whether the move was an extension of policing activity or an extension of another war. In addition, there was the question of whether the ruling authority should be in the hands of the UN forces or the South Korean government which led to a friction between the ROK-US alliance.
Despite warnings from Gen. MacArthur that he was ready to use atomic bombs and the bombing attacks on China’s border region with North Korea, China decided to engage in the Korean War fearing collapse of their own regime. Asia was on the verge of becoming the battleground for World War III between the capitalist camp and socialist camp. Truman and MacArthur not only stated that they will use atomic bombs but in fact seriously reviewed the possibility of using them. Gen. MacArthur contemplated using 30 to 50 units of nuclear weaponry and Gen. Malinovsky of Soviet Union also stated that 12 nuclear bombs would be enough to put an end to the battle in the Peninsula.
China intervened in the form of providing military assistance with the slogan of ‘resisting America and protecting Korea.’ North Korea and China which already had solidarity during the Sino-Japanese War and the Chinese Civil War, took China’s engagement in the War for granted. Furthermore, the principle that China would help North Korea in need had already been agreed among Stalin, Mao Zedong, and Kim Il Sung. In the beginning of January 1951, the Chinese People's Volunteer Army (PVA) occupied Seoul before moving southward to the 37th parallel. Chinese aim was to restore the Thirty-Eighth parallel and secure the buffer zone for defending itself rather than expanding the War. There was discrepancy between the views of China and North Korea and the Soviet Union. China did not want the War to be further expanded whereas the Soviet Union and North Korea insisted on continuing the attacks. The United States also did not wish to lose South Korea and even set up plans for the Syngman Rhee government and its leaders to evacuate to another parts of the country such as Jeju-do island.
In March 1951, the War came to a deadlock of position warfare near the Thirty-Eighth parallel. The War was at a stalemate but dragged on for two more years for the sake of pride and prestige of the players. Gen. MacArthur was dismissed for the reasons of repeated insubordination and repeated attempts to use atomic bombs and to extend the War. (April 11, 1951)
The War was fought so fiercely that Seoul had been recaptured four times by the fighting players within seven months after the War began. Countless people had fallen victims to this tug of war. It caused more casualties among civilians than soldiers on the battlefield. Civilians were killed in air raids followed by massacres between the South and the North in order to prevent their people from joining the enemy side or out of revenge. This was a vicious circle of retaliatory killings, execution of prisoners and people of the National Guidance Alliance, an anti-Communist group consisting of converted leftists by the South, killings at the Seoul University Hospital and in Daejeon area by the North. Vindictive or preventative killings by local leftists and partisans under the North Korean occupation and massacre during reclaiming and defeating by the South or the US forces were also commonplace. There were also cases related to US forces such as Nogeun-ri massacre and mis-firing incidents. The Korean Peninsula turned into a sea of bloodshed and the life there was no longer dignified or honored. The lives of the grass-roots were miserable and life or death for them was often determined in split seconds or by chance.
North Korea tried to restore the People’s Committee of North Korea and went ahead with ‘anti-imperialistic and anti-feudalistic democratic reforms’ including land reform and the UN forces began to purge Communist Party officials and wartime traitors from the South while reviving the right-wing organizations.
At the end of 1951, North Korea and China accused the United States for staging a biological attack on the regions of North Korea and Manchuria spreading germs and bacteria. The United States responded saying that it was a false and groundless accusation. According to the documents recently disclosed by the former Soviet Union, this accusation is said to have been fabricated by the communists and was actually a spread of infectious diseases caused by the lack of hygiene and quarantine during the war.
As the war became prolonged, the two sides began to focus on maneuvering operations and commando units’ penetration activity to establish a second line of defense. The war of intelligence became more pronounced. Special and intelligence units under US forces were sent to the North while the North Korean soldiers left behind and indigenous leftists were engaged in guerilla style partisan fights in the South. After the armistice agreement in 1953, the US Special Forces ceased their activities and South Korean partisans were eliminated by the military police.
C. Armistice and Aftermath of War
The UN forces and the Communist Army commenced the truce negotiations in
early July of 1951. One of the most
contentious issues was the exchange of prisoners. The number of Communist prisoners captured by
the UN forces was greater than that of the UN forces held by their counterpart.
The prisoners held by the Communists
included South Korean soldiers as well as South Korean civilians who were forcefully
mobilized during the North Korean occupation of the southern regions of Korea. The method of repatriation, whether compulsory
or voluntary, became the biggest obstacle in advancing the negotiations.
Stalin was opposed to truce because he
wanted the US to focus on the Korean peninsula while he would enjoy the stability
to Eastern Europe. Mao Zedong
also lukewarm about the truce because the war served him an opportunity for
China to obtain military aid from Soviet Union while modernizing the Chinese
army by testing it in the actual battlefield. Kim Il Sung
wanted a truce because casualties from air attacks by the US army was bigger
than the losses from the prisoner repatriation. However, he was not the
decision-maker. It was also difficult
for the US to agree on a truce without a valid cause.
In 1953, the negotiation began to make progress. In the US, Dwight David Eisenhower who made
the campaign pledge to end the Korean War was elected the President. In the Soviet Union, Stalin died suddenly in
March 1953. The Eisenhower administration
and the new Soviet leadership moved actively toward the truce. The negotiation, in the midst of military
skirmishes to gain favorable strategic positions, finally came to a conclusion
on July 27, 1953 after 575 official meetings. The Military Demarcation Line was agreed on
but in the land area only. The 13,469
prisoners captured by the South and UN were exchanged with the 83,000 prisoners
captured by the North and the Chinese Communists.
Meanwhile, the South Korean
government was against the truce and insisted on unification by moving on to
the North. The leverage held by the South
was to disrupt the truce negotiation, which excluded the South Korean
government, and to threaten to invade the North when it regains operational
command and to demand the release of anti-Communist prisoners. While deliberating a plan to eliminate Syngman Rhee,
the US signed the ROK-US Mutual Defense Agreement under the condition that the
operational command would be held by the UN forces. The operational command for the South Korean
army was handed over to the commander of the UN troops. In order to establish legal
grounds, the term ‘operational command’ was added to the ROK-US agreement in
1954. In return for accepting the Armistice
Agreement, the South had secured the US signature on ROK-US Mutual Defense Agreement
which entails provision of US army with 20 divisions as wella s military and
economic aid to maintain the force.
The Korean War did not end with victory or defeat, but was rather put in a pause with the Armistice Agreement. The result made a huge impact on the modern history of Korea in all dimensions of society including politics, economy, society, culture and ideology. In fact, the modern history of Korea was divided into the pre-war and post-war era.
The combined casualties to South and North Korea was estimated to be around
2.8 to 3.69 million lives, 10% of the total population, those defecting to the
North and kidnapped at around 300,000 and those defecting to the South at
between 450,000 and one million. There were massive dispersion of people causing
families to be separated between the South and the North. As for property
damage, around 40% of the South's manufacturing industries were ruined compared
to 1949 while in the North around 60% of the industry, 20% of the mining, 78%
of the agriculture were destroyed compared to 1949.
In politics, the North started
to reinforce the hegemony of Kim Il Sung
through purging of opponents on the pretext of having them held accountable for
the War. Meanwhile, in the South, Syngman Rhee succeeded in introducing
the direct election system of presidency taking advantage of the Pusan
political turmoil in the summer of 1952 during the War and strengthened the
anti-Communist ideology.
Both the North and the South decided to emphasize military power. The North maintained the wartime operation system based on the four major military lines. The South increased the scale of the regular army to over 600,000 from the pre-war number of 100,000. The South Korean army came to represent the anti-Communist armed forces of the Northeast Asia in addition to defending the South against the North, which gave more room for military intervention in politics.
In the economic sector, the North went for building a socialist economic system such as pursuing collective system of agriculture, nationalizing of commerce and industry emphasizing the heavy industry. On the other hand, the South started to establish the capitalist system aided by the US, and entered the path of industrialization through import substitution industrialization and export-led industrialization.
During the Korean War, the US armed forces accounted for the majority of power, taking up 50.3% of the UN forces’ ground army, 85.9% of the navy, and 93.4% of the air force. During three years of the Korean War, the US deployed 1,789,000 soldiers annually and suffered the casualties of 36,940 deaths, 92,134 wounded, 3,737 missing and 4,439 captured as prisoners.
After the War was over, the US became one of the most important allies of South Korea. The US was the only country to aid South Korea both military and economic terms through the 1950s to 1960s. The US was a donor of continuous resources for South Korea. On the other hand, even after the Armistice Agreement, the US forces continued to maintain the operational control over South Korea. This gave US the influence to control by providing security which was an unprecedented arrangement between allies. Under the circumstances, the South Koreans pushed hard to achieve economic growth and democratic development.
3) Korean Politics in the 1950s
Syngman Rhee was elected the first President of South Korea in 1948 and ruled for 18 years before he was forced out of office in the April citizen uprising of 1960. At a time when the Cold War structure was being established, he earned his reputation as the fighter against communism in Asia comparable to Chiang Kai-Shek [15] of Taiwan. He placed South Korea in line with anti-communist countries by signing the ROK-U.S. Mutual Defense Agreement with the US in 1953. South Koreans who experienced communism during the Korean War embraced anti-communist ideology. However, Syngman Rhee used the ideology to suppress the opposing groups and strengthening his dictatorship in the name of anti-communism which hindered the development of democracy in Korea.
A. Constitutional Amendments and Dictatorship
Syngman Rhee was elected through an indirect election by the National Assembly in 1948. Since establishment, the Korean government tried to purge the pro-Japanese collaborators and implement land reform, but it fell short of meeting the expectations of Koreans. The result of the general election held right before the outbreak of the Korean War (May 30, 1950), showed a substantial drop in support of Syngman Rhee. Therefore, Rhee’s proposal to amend the Constitution to a direct election system was rejected by a vote of 149 to 13 in the National Assembly in January, 1951. Facing low chances of being re-elected, Rhee launched the royal bodyguard Uprising in the midst of the Korean War and declared a state of martial law across the refugee capital, Pusan. He ordered 50 national assemblymen to be taken to the military police and created an atmosphere of fear by staging a government-led demonstration using gangsters and raiding newspapers critical of the government. The aim of this Uprising, called the Pusan political turmoil, was to push ahead with the direct presidential election system by amending the Constitution. While American young soldiers were giving up their lives to protect the freedom of Korea, a hinterland of the Far East, the 78-year-old president was destroying the order of democracy. Enraged officials of the US State Department, Joint Chiefs of Staff and high-ranking officials stationed in Tokyo and Pusan discussed ousting of Syngman Rhee but decided to leave the internal affairs to Koreans. In frustration, the National Assembly passed the bill to amend the Constitution through a standing vote. In accordance with the amended Constitution, the presidential election took place in August 1952, and Syngman Rhee was re-elected as the President.
Two years later, Rhee presented another bill to amend the Constitution to abolish the clause that restricts a President to hold three terms of presidency consecutively. The amendment would allow the first President to hold three consecutive terms. The National Assembly rejects this bill with a margin of only one vote but two days later, the ruling party Jayu-dang [16](Liberal Party) overturned the result and declared the passage of the bill in November 1954. The Constitution and the parliamentary democracy were completely tarnished. The constitutional amendment triggered strong resistance from the opposition party and resulted in solidarity among the politicians against Syngman Rhee. In 1956, the Minju-dang [17](Democratic Party), which is considered one of the most important parties in the history of Korean parliamentary politics, was established. The Party was originated from the Association for the Preservation of the Constitution organized in 1955 with a public pledge to defend the Constitution from being dismissed and monopolized by the Rhee regime. It was the first step taken to uphold the value and function of the Constitution. Within the frame of party politics, the Democratic Party was the main opposition party against the dictatorial rule between the1950s and 1980s, and ultimately became a political source that later produced two Presidents in the 1990s, Presidents Kim Young Sam[18] and Kim Dae Jung[19].
In the third Presidential election that took place in 1956, Syngman Rhee gained a mere 55.6 percent of the vote far lower than the previous 74.6 percent he had won in 1952 even with the death of his archrival Sin Ikhui, a candidate from the Democratic Party. Chang Myeon [20]from the Minju-dang was elected the vice president. Since Syngman Rhee was already 82 years old, the vice presidency that would succeed Rhee after his death became the most important position. For this reason, the Rhee side conspired to assassinate Chang Myeon and enacted a new national security law to suppress the political opposition. In 1958, the Jinbo-dang (Progressive Party) was dissolved, and Jo Bong Am, the head of the party and runner-up in the presidential election, was executed on fabricated charges of espionage for the North Korea. The Kyunghyang Daily, a Catholic newspaper critical of the government was forced to shut down. Amid the aftermath of the Korean War and the confrontation between the South and the North, anti-communist ideology was used as a means to repress the opposition and guarantee an extension of dictatorship. The civil society was put under an absolute control and oppression by the government.
B. Citizens’ Uprising of April 19, 1960
The government of Syngman Rhee lost support from the people with its corruption and unjust wielding of power. Not only in politics but the economy began to break down as the US reduced its financial aid to the South after the mid-1950s. Amid the growing resentment of the people, the forth Presidential election was held on March 15, 1960. Since the leading candidate from the opposition party had died of illness, the focus was placed on the vice presidential office. Determined to elect Yi Gibung [21] as the vice president, Rhee initiates a large-scale election fraud. Every imaginable tactics were used to rig the election: threatening voters, buying votes, switching votes, holding open poll and pre-poll, switching ballot boxes, forging invalid votes and vote numbers. On the day of the election, infuriated students and citizens staged protests against the government. In Masan of Gyeongsangnamdo Province, dozens of citizens were killed or injured by the police. Rhee further outraged the citizens by announcing that communists had masterminded the demonstrations. The city of Masan is known to be the starting point of massive demonstrations for democracy, which led to the collapse of Syngman Rhee in 1960 as well as that of Park Chung Hee [22] in 1970, serving as a milestone for democratic development of South Korea. Meanwhile, the US State Department opted for the status quo and stability by officially announcing that the election had been carried out fairly and peacefully.
On April 11th, off the shores of Masan, the dead body of a high school student Kim Juyeol, who had been missing for a month since the demonstration, was swept ashore. The death of the youngster, who died when a tear bomb stuck his eyes, became a tragic symbol foreboding the future of the dictatorial regime. The enraged citizens of Masan launched a large-scale demonstration. The government intimidated citizens saying that communists were behind the demonstrations but the situation had spiraled beyond control. The protests of students and citizens that started in Masan began spread nationwide. The protests initially staged by high school students soon spread to university campuses starting from Korea University on April 18th. The university student protestors were attacked by a mob affiliated with politicians on their way back from the National Assembly building. Since Korea has a strong Confucian tradition which considers university students as future leaders and the voice of conscience, the Korean people were outraged.
On April 19, protests were held throughout the country. In Seoul, university and high school students led massive demonstrations which were soon joined by citizens. This pattern of civil demonstrations – one that is first initiated by university students and then followed by regular citizens – have often determined the fate of governments in the history of Korean politics. The April 19 citizen uprising of 1960, the December 12 military coup of 1979 and the June 10 civil uprising of 1987 all followed this pattern of civilian uprisings. The Rhee government declared the emergency martial law. The protesters marched toward the Presidential Residence. One hundred eighty four people were killed and six thousand were injured by the police shooting across the country. The victims had offered themselves to the ‘altar of blood’ for the sake of democracy in Korea.
The US started to criticize the Rhee government after it announced the military martial law. Having lost support of the people as well as the US, President Rhee tried to appease the public anger by ousting all the ministers and elected vice president Yi Gibung. Rhee himself also stepped down from the head of the Liberation Party. However, the public demand became clearer when 300 professors, who had kept silent during the demonstrations and victimization of high school, college students and citizens, started to stage demonstrations nationwide. On April 26th, Rhee announced his resignation, putting an end to the 12 year-long dictatorship by the Liberation Party. The statue of Syngman Rhee, the largest one in Asia back then, was removed from the Namsan Mountain at the hands of the Korean citizens. Rhee found exile in Hawaii on May 29 and his successor Yi Gibung killed himself and his family.
This April 19th Uprising by the Korean people was a historic event that took Korea’s democracy a step forward by ousting the dictatorial regime. For the first time in history, Koreans experienced the power and strength of democracy. The value of democracy and the constitution left a significant mark on the minds of Koreans. The sacrifice and the unwavering spirit of resistance many students had shown served as the engine and cornerstone for the democratic development of Korea.
C. Chang Myeon Government
After the resignation of Syngman Rhee, Heo Jeong led the interim government. The Constitutional was amended to uphold a parliamentary cabinet system, and the National Assembly was dissolved and a general election was carried out on July 29, 1960. The opposition party, the Democratic Party won a landslide victory. According to the decision made by the majority party, Chang Myeon was elected as prime minister, the head of the parliamentary cabinet system and Yoon Bo Seon[23] was elected President, a symbolic head of state. The Chang government set forth the development and maintenance of the democratic system and economic development as its primary agenda.
The press, which had been oppressed under anti-communist policies became more active and civic movements among laborers, farmers, teachers, the youth and students regained their liveliness. In politics, emerging progressive groups joined by students put forward a radical movement for unification of the Korean Peninsula. Given that presidential candidate Jo Bongam had been executed on charges of demanding peaceful unification with the North only a year before, the newly embarked unification movements calling for direct inter-Korean talks and negotiation came as a fresh shock.
Diverse voices rang throughout the country in political and social fields, calling for the opening a new era. The citizens’ uprising of April 19, 1960 started as the anti-dictatorship and democratization movement expanded to demand basic human rights sacrificed in the name of anti-Communism. It also called for the resolution of the divided Korea, a major conflict facing the Korean Peninsula. The 12 year-long Syngman Rhee government left the legacy of the absolute power of the government and a one-man rule supported by the police force. Between the April 19th, 1960 Uprising that toppled the Syngman Rhee government to the May 16 military coup by Park, Chunghee, there were diverse attempts to clean off political, economic, and social remnants of the Syngman Rhee government. In particular, efforts were made to remove the remnants of the Rhee dictatorship in the political arena. The political remnants included Rhee’s dictatorial regime and fraud elections that had ignited the April 19 citizen uprising and unlawful accumulation of wealth during Rhee’s time in office. However, such movements to break away from the past and resolve the national division were put to an end with the military coup led by Park Chung Hee on May 16, 1961. The Democratic Party government was the biggest beneficiary of the April 19 citizen uprising but brought itself to collapse due to its failure to embrace students and citizens who had given it leadership. Some people claim that the Korean society of the 1961 was not yet prepared to embrace the politics of democracy at the time. But the democracy of Korea had not failed but rather was overturned by military force.
4) Korean Economy in the 1950s
A. From Colonized Economy to Divided Economy
When the Japanese colonial rule ended in 1945, Korean economy was not strong enough to stand on its own. The colonized economy had an asymmetric structure with the purpose to serve Japan’s political and economical interests. In other words, the economy of Korea was only viable through its connection to Japanese economy. While the norrthern region was top-heavy with heavy and chemical munitions industry including the electronic, iron, and chemical industries, south of Korea had rice agriculture and light industries. The North accounted for 98% of electricity generation, 92% of coal production, 90% of iron manufacture and 83% of the fertilizer and chemical industry. The economy of the South took a huge blow when it was severed from the Japanese economy which was followed by the national division, return of Japanese engineers to their homeland and discontinuation of electric supply and raw materials from the North. With more than two million people coming back to the South, the explosive population growth resulted in food shortage and rising unemployment.
In the agricultural sector, during the colonial rule, the share of tenant peasantry surged to around 75% in 1945 from only 40% in the 1910s. Since the Sino-Japanese War, around seven million Koreans annually had been forced to move to coal mines, factories and battle fields. When these people came back to Korea, they were no longer naïve farmers. During the period of US Army Military Government, the desires for land reform and revolution prevailed among South Korean farmers who had come to realize their miserable social status as well as the nation’s standing in the world during World War II. Out of concern that the South might be swayed by the communism due to North’s land reform in 1946, the US military government started to distribute the lands it had confiscated from the Japanese colonists back to South Koreans in early 1948. Around 12% of the arable land was sold to 420,000 peasants during a year.
[Land Reform]
After the establishment of the Korean government, major challenge facing the government was to stabilize the economy and curb inflation. The government’s imminent task was to carry out land reform. The Land Reform Law of June 1949 which was suspended during the Korean War was resumed during the War and completed in 1957. Some 33% of arable land was allocated to farmers and 49% of farm households were able to own their land. The farmers were required to repay the cost of 150% of average annual production in equal annual installments during a five-year period. The government played an intermediary role between the landowners and farmers.
The completion of the land reform played a significant role in the economic growth of South Korea. The class of landlords, which had long held the most dominant power in the Korean economy for hundreds of years, was completely demolished. The collapse of the landlord class was a predictable result of the land reform. But it was the Korean War that provided the opportune time for land reform to be implemented. Although the War had completely destroyed the already shaky industrial foundation, it provided the opportunity to remove the landlord class who had long dominated the country’s politics and economy. The government was able to pursue various economic growth strategies from the ground up after the devastation of the Korean War.
B. Post-war Economic Reconstruction
When the Armistice Agreement was reached in July of 1953, 42% of South’s manufacturing sector had been destroyed vis a vis 1949. The government spending during the war fueled inflation. The biggest challenge facing the South Korean economy in the 1950s was the post-war reconstruction. With the U.S. assistance, the South started to repair its destroyed streets, railroads and harbors and to construct water and thermal power plants, the sources of industrial development. It also promoted the development of the coal industry.
In the mid-1950s, the Eisenhower administration introduced the ‘New Look’ strategy designed to shift the focus from military power to economic strength. As a result, in 1958, the US began to sharply scale down its military aid to South Korea and shifted its aid from a grant-type to credit assistance or loans. The US wanted South Korea to accomplish economic independence by producing consumer goods. The Syngman Rhee government had pushed for economic development through investment in heavy industries and production of goods. While the South Korean government wanted to achieve import substitution through developing key heavy and chemical industries, the US government wanted Korea to focus on export-led industrialization with emphasis on specific goods. What the Rhee government demanded was simple: “Give to Korea all that US is giving to Japan.” Korea wanted to develop production goods industry rather than consumer goods industry, and heavy and chemical industries rather than light industries. The US believed that there should be a division of industries and labor among the countries in Northeast Asia. Such discrepancy in views between the two countries was not easily narrowed.
The main tasks facing South Korea in terms of the fiscal and financial policy was to raise money for defense budget and address the issue of the fiscal deficit. Between 1953 and 1964, 43% of US aid was directed to national defense. With the inflow of materials aid from the US, consumer goods industry developed in urban areas. The import substitution industries which meant reprocessing of aid goods became the engine for economic growth during this time. An example would be the so-called three white industries of cotton textiles, flour milling and sugar manufacturing. Based on the capital in the consumer goods industry, the so-called chaebol[24], industrial conglomerates started to emerge in Korea from the mid-1950s. The average annual GDP growth rate reached 5.1 % in 1950s. Through the post-war reconstruction, the Korean economy started to regain strong vitality.
While mainly funded from foreign aid, most capital was created by taking advantage of government bonds, high exchange rate and transfer of confiscated properties. This created an environment for corruption in addition to collusion between political and business entities. Government-vested properties were often illegally transferred to private owners which led to bribery scandals. Meanwhile, the agricultural sector and rural communities experienced huge transformation. The agricultural sector became the largest source of taxes as the government controlled grains supply, levying temporary land acquisition tax (1951) for the War and farm households having to pay back for farm land ownership. The inflow of American surplus farm produce in accordance with the US Public Law 480 (PL 480: the Agricultural Trade Development Assistance Act of 1954) helped South Koreans escape the wartime starvation but also contributed to dismantling the country’s agricultural foundation. The inflow of mass-produced American agricultural products including wheat, cotton and sugar caused the South to suspend its wheat and cotton production and pushed down the price of rice, weakening the overall agricultural production.
[1] 38선 (三八線) – Sampalseon
[2] 대한민국 임시정부 (大韓民國臨時政府) – Daehan Minguk Imsijeongbu
[3] 여운형 Yeo Unhyeong
[4] 김구 Kim Gu
[5] 조만식 Cho Man Shik
[6] 김규식 Kim Gyusik
[7] 유엔한국임시위원단
[8] 제주 4-3 사건
[9] 대한민국임시정부
[10] 대한제국
[11] 웅진
[12] 김일성
[13] 박헌영
[14] 인천상륙작전
[15] 장개석 Chiang Kai-Shek
[16] 자유당 the Jayu-dang
[17] 민주당 the Minju-dang
[18] 김영삼 Kim Young Sam
[19] 김대중 Kim Dae Jung
[20] 장면 Chang Myeon
[21] 이기붕 Yi Gibung
[22] 박정희 Park Chung Hee
[23] 윤보선 Yoon Bo Seon
[24] 재벌 Chaebol