Pre-Korean War

Post WWII

Until the end of World War II, the Korean peninsula was fully unified. Japan had annexed Korea in 1910 after the Russo-Japanese War, and 35 years later in 1945, after Japan was defeated by the Allies, Korea was liberated from Japanese colonization. In the 2nd week of August 1945, the Soviet Union and the US decided to split the country in half along the 38th parallel: communist USSR had control over the North, and capitalist US had control over the South.

*Fun Fact: the division was hastily decided by two young officers Dean Rusk and Charles Bonesteel who used a National Geographic map to decide on the 38th parallel which roughly cut the peninsula evenly but gave Americans jurisdiction over Korea’s capital Seoul.

Trusteeship

At the December 1945 Moscow Conference, the Allies agreed that the US, the USSR, China, and Britain would hold a trusteeship over Korea for up to 5 years until independence. This upset many South Koreans, who demanded immediate independence, but many in the North (the Communists) accepted the trusteeship.

The Soviet Union proposed a few times that the Koreas figure out their conflicts on their own, but the US, in fear of communism, rejected their ideas.

Soviet North Korea

In February 1946, the Provisional People’s Committee for North Korea was established under Kim Il-Sung, who began centralizing the nation, starting with land reform. Land was distributed amongst poorer civilians for a more equal distribution. This evidently upset the wealthier civilians, many of whom fled south to avoid the North Korean government. About 400,000 northern Koreans escaped to the south. The Soviets left the north in 1948.

American South Korea

The US appointed Lieutenant General John R. Hodge to manage Korean affairs, who promptly rejected the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea and the People’s Republic of Korea. Many South Koreans, upset about the US controlling the south, rose up against the military government but were constantly shut down. One major figure was anti-communist Rhee Syngman, later the first president of the Provisional Government, pressured the US to dissemble the trusteeship and establish an independent nation Over the next few years, up to 100,000 people were killed between protestors and American forces.

Some Comments:

Evidently, the US’s policy of containment was a good reason to not fully trust the Koreans to solve their issues on their own. However, excessive foreign intervention (or rather, forced control) has played a major role in shaping the current North-South Korean relations we see today. The US still holds a lot of influence over Korean affairs and is one of the main reasons why the North and the South cannot fix their problems.

Sydney P