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Lesson 10 The Two Koreas Part I: The Korean War Study Plan & Contents Study Plan This part deals with the Korean War, its origins, its progress, and its aftermath. Study Contents Underground activities of the South Korean Workers’ Party On the eve of the war The War and Aftermath Underground Activities of the South Korean Workers’ Party As the separate governments are established in North and South Korea, the Soviet occupation forces in the North withdrew in late 1948, and the U.S. troops in the South followed suit in June 1949. The South Korean Workers’ Party, the underground communist group in the south, challenges Syngman Rhee’s Republic of Korea by fomenting sedition and armed rebellion (such as that at Yosu and Sunchon in 1948). Although he is an uncompromising anti-Japanese nationalist, President Syngman Rhee resorts to reemploying some of the experienced colonial police collaborators in order to crack down on the underground activities of the communists. On The Eve of War In October 1949, Mao Zedong’s People’s Army triumphs over Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalist forces in the Chinese Civil War. The fact that the U.S. did not get involved in the Chinese civil war is duly noted by Stalin, Mao, and Kim Il Sung. Kim Il Sung & Park Hŏnyŏng plan to subdue the Republic of Korea by force. They were further encouraged on January 12, 1950, when U.S. Secretary of State Dean Acheson told the National Press Club in Washington that Korea was outside the U.S. “defense perimeter” in the Pacific. As for the origins of the Korean War, some scholars with a pro-north Korea bias had contested the fact that Kim Il-sung had started the war. But the documents from the Soviet archives made public in the 1990s clearly establish that Kim Il Sung obtained Stalin’s approval of his war plan prior to invading the South. On The Eve of War Cont’d According to these documents, Kim implored Stalin and his diplomats in March, August, September 1949 and January 1950 to authorize an invasion of the South. (“The Two Koreas,” Don Oberdorfer). On at least two occasions in 1949, Stalin turned down Kim’s requests, but the documents establish that in early 1950 he approved Kim’s war plan due to the “changed international situation.” Soviet military advisers soon arrived with weapons and equipment. The North Korean forces now included 10 combat divisions, a tank brigade, and a motorcycle regiment equipped with 1,600 artilleries, 258 T-34 tanks, and 172 airplanes. The ill-equipped 100,000 men of the South Korean Army were no match for them. The War From June 10 to 19, 1950, seven combat divisions of the North Korean People’s Army moved to the 38th parallel for their ‘war of liberation.’ In the early dawn of June 25, 1950, the North Korean troops launched a surprise attack by crossing the 38th parallel. As an official excuse for its invasion, North Korea claimed retaliation against an imaginary “full-scale South Korean attack.” The North Korean forces, strengthened by Soviet aid, immediately overwhelm the South Korean defense, capturing Seoul in only three days and advancing rapidly southward. Against North Korea’s expectations, however, the United States acted swiftly. On the 25th (New York time, a day after the invasion), the UN Security Council, convened at the request of the United States, adopted a resolution to condemn North Korea’s actions. A second resolution was adopted to send troops to help repel the aggression. U.S. navy and air force were dispatched on the 27th and ground troops on the 30th. Fifteen other nations also sent troops to join the UN Forces led by U.S. General Douglas MacArthur. The War Cont’d Gen. MacArthur. Seoul was recaptured. On September 30 the U.N. forces poured across the 38th parallel and continued to push northward, before long capturing Pyongyang and advancing to the Yalu River. The UN and South Korean armies continued to retreat down the Naktong River line, which bordered the southwestern tip of the peninsula. However, the tide was turned by the successful amphibious landing at Inchon on September 15, orchestrated by Gen. MacArthur. Seoul was recaptured. On September 30 the U.N. forces poured across the 38th parallel and continued to push northward, before long capturing Pyongyang and advancing to the Yalu River. But the fighting took a sharp turnabout with the intervention of Communist Chinese armies.The U.N. forces for a time retreated to positions south of the Han River, but then the Communists were driven back above the 38th parallel, suffering huge losses in the process. The War Cont’d U.S. President Truman, who, like Stalin, did not want to escalate the conflict into the third world war, relieved General MacArthur, who had urged the bombing of Manchuria to retaliate against the Chinese communists. The fighting gradually fell into a stalemate, and eventually (on July 27, 1953) an armistice agreement was signed by General Clark, commander of the UN forces in Korea) on one side, and Kim Il Sung (commander of the Korean People’s Army) and Peng Dehuai (commander of the Chinese Volunteer Army) on the other. President Syngman Rhee vehemently opposed it. But the United States appeased the South Korean leader by signing a mutual defense treaty in October 1953. The War: Aftermath The Korean War was a holocaust in terms of human casualties. The suffering that it caused was cruel beyond expression. The war cost a great number of human lives. In the North, 2,720,000 were reported dead or missing (including 500,000 soldiers killed in battle and more than 1 million civilian casualties). 1 million of the missing North Koreans are assumed to have migrated south). In the South, 1,330,000 dead or missing (237,686 military casualties; about half a million civilians abducted to North Korea; about 600,000 civilians dead or missing). U.S. casualties: 33,629 killed, 103,284 wounded, and 9 missing. Other UN force casualties: 3,143 killed, 11,532 wounded, and 525 missing. Chinese Volunteer Army: 116,000 killed, 220,000 wounded, and 29,000 missing (actual casualties assumed to be greater). The War: Aftermath (Cont’d) The war devastated both halves of a country that had only just begun to recover from four decades of Japanese occupation and the sudden shock of division. South Korea’s property losses were put at $2 billion, the equivalent of its gross national product for 1949; North Korean losses were estimated at only slightly less. But the damage wrought by the Korean War cannot be measured in material terms alone. The war produced many separated families, who are still unable to have free reunions and has made reunification of the Korean nation, which had been one country for almost 1,300 years, an even more remote possibility. The War: Aftermath (Cont’d) On the other hand, the Korean War helped greatly bolster Syngman Rhee’ s legitimacy and enabled him to lead a strong centralized government with his party winning a majority in the National Assembly. It also empowered him to carry out a constitutional revision to provide for direct presidential election. On the diplomatic front, the war enabled South Korea to form a strategic alliance with the United States, leader of the Western bloc. And the United States has since made a significant contribution to modernizing the Korean military, educational and bureaucratic system. Review The Korean conflict was considered the prototype of a limited war in that none of the big powers used the nuclear weapons available to them, and the United States refrained from attacking Soviet or Chinese territory. Internationally, the Korean War was a historic turning point. It led the United States to shift decisively from post-World War II disarmament to rearmament to stop Soviet expansionism. The war also cemented the alliance between South Korea and the Unites States and made the United States and China bitter enemies for more than twenty years. The battle for Korea firmly established the cold war. Lesson 10 The Two Koreas Part II: Syngman Rhee vs. Kim Il Sung Study Plan & Contents Study Plan The uncontested leadership of the North and South Korean leaders following the Korean war resulted in the hardening of ideological and political lines between the North and South. Syngman Rhee, who had a messianic belief that he was destined to reunite Korea under an anti-Communist banner, became increasingly autocratic. In the North, Kim Il Sung systematically purged his political opponents, creating a highly centralized system that accorded him unlimited power and generated a formidable cult of personality. Study Contents Uncontested leadership “Autocratic democracy” Stalinist purges & Kim Il Sung cult Chŏllima Movement Students & soldiers Uncontested Leadership In South Korea, Syngman Rhee emerged as the uncontested leader. His charismatic leadership derived from his ardent patriotism, nepotism-free integrity, and his unusual foresight and intellect, among other things. Moreover, he was credited with saving the nation from the communist aggression. A man of dual background, Confucian upbringing and American education, Rhee, like his entourage, had innate limitations as he tried to introduce Americanstyle democracy in Korea. As he stayed on in power for more than 10 years, his increasingly autocratic leadership began to be challenged by his political opponents. To make matters worse, the Rhee regime was unable to provide a solution to the rising unemployment with the South Korean economy depending largely on agriculture and mining. A Student-led Revolt To prolong his authoritarian rule, Rhee and his entourage became increasingly autocratic and oppressed the opposition party. Rhee is reelected to a fourth-term in office by rigging the presidential election on March 15 in 1960. Demonstrations to protest the rigged election began to arise in the provincial cities. A high-school student is killed by police fire in Masan. This instigates a student demonstration in Seoul on April 19, with about 20,000 students shouting, “Down with dictatorship.” The police fired on them as they marched toward the presidential office, killing more than 100. On April 26, Syngman Rhee steps down, saying, “If the people want it, I will resign.” Thus, Syngman Rhee’s 13-year presidency, the first Korean experiment with a Western-style democracy, ends in disgrace. Stalinist Purges & Kim Il Sung Cult During and after the war, Premier Kim Il Sung consolidates his grip on the Korean Workers’ Party by purging the three rival factions. In October 1950, Hŏ Kai, head of the Russian-Korean faction, becomes the first victim of the purge. The next is Kim Mujŏng, the popular general of the Yanan faction. Then, Pak Hŏnyŏng and his faction of the former South Korean Workers’ Party are indicted and condemned to death on charges of spying for the Americans, because of which the “unification war is lost.” When Nikita Khrushchev’s criticism of Stalin’s personality cult led the Yanan faction to plot a change to collective leadership in North Korea, Kim Il Sung brand the faction as counter-revolutionary and purge its members, thus liquidating all dissension within the Korean Workers’ Party in March 1958. Thus, the Korean Workers’ Party and the North Korean government come under the sole direction of Kim Il Sung and his Manchurian guerrilla faction. Kim proclaims a policy of juche (self-reliance) in an apparent attempt to break away from either Russian or Chinese influence. The Chŏllima Movement As he consolidated his power base, Kim Il Sung now turned to the economy. Soon after the war, North Korea nearly restored its economy through its ThreeYear Plan. In 1957, Premier Kim launches a Soviet-modeled five-year economic plan dubbed the “Chŏllima (Flying Horse) Movement,” a North Korean version of Mao Zedong’s Great Leap Forward. Contrary to the propaganda, the Five-Year Chŏllima Movement hinders further economic growth due to its abuses of raw materials and facilities. The aftereffect of the socialist economy such as agricultural collectivization and industrial nationalization aggravates the situation. Nonetheless, by 1958, the nationwide socialist reforms at various production levels are completed in North Korea. Meanwhile, the Chŏllima Movement, initially an economic drive, is transformed into a political campaign to consolidate the Kim Il Sung cult. Students & the Military In June 1960, the South Korean National Assembly adopts a new constitution stipulating a bicameral parliamentary system, under which the prime minister is the head of government and the president becomes a figurehead of the state. Chang Myŏn, a U.S.-educated Catholic, is elected prime minister and Yun Posŏn, president by the National Assembly dominated by the Democratic Party, which was the opposition party in the Rhee regime. The Chang administration, plagued by factional rivalries in the Democratic Party, was incapable of solving unemployment in the cities and food shortage in the countryside. Students, teachers, labor unions, and other interest groups took to the streets to press their demands. Students & the Military Cont’d Furthermore, the students’ aspirations for national unification with North Korea prompted left-leaning politicians to agitate. The ideological adventurism of the students, coupled with the economic plight of the unemployed and rural population, provides a good pretext for Major General Park Chung Hee and his cohorts to stage a coup. Review Despite his historic role in the founding of the Republic of Korea and saving it from communist aggression, Syngman Rhee ended up as a disgraced dictator. The April Revolution was the first in the history of Korea wherein a non-violent uprising succeeded in overthrowing an oppressive government. Lesson 10 The Two Koreas Part III: ‘Korea, Inc.’ vs. Juche State Study Plan & Contents Study Plan Park Chung Hee’s vision of building the nation was the modernization of the agrarian South Korea. He implemented ambitious development plans, which laid the groundwork for South Korea’s industrialization, often at the expense of democratic freedom. In the North, Great Leader Kim Il Sung further consolidates his monolithic rule with juche philosophy, which meant political self-reliance, economic self-sufficiency, and self-defense. Contents Birth of the Third Republic Great Leader’s monolithic state Five-year economic development plans Birth of the Third Republic In 1961, the South Korean National Army had grown impressively to 600,000 troops that had been trained, equipped, and maintained by the U.S. aid and expertise. Modeled after the American military, it emerges as the strongest organization in South Korea. Park Chung Hee, who led the coup, was a graduate of the Japanese-run Manchukuo Military Academy as well as the Japanese Army Cadet School in Tokyo. In the early morning of May 16, 1961, the junta led by Park broadcast a sixpoint pledge of their “revolution.” 1) anti-communism; 2)strong ties with the U.S.; 3) elimination of corruption; 4) economic reconstruction; 5) competition with North Korea; and 6)a return to duties after completion of the stated mission. Birth of the Third Republic Cont’d The junta launches its ambitious First Five-Year Economic Development Plan in 1962, betraying its ambition to prolong its power. In December 1963, Park Chung Hee, now a civilian, wins the presidential election, and becomes the fifth president of the Republic of Korea. Thus, the Third Republic is born. The Great Leader’s Monolithic State Premier Kim Il Sung, who, by purging the rival factions, had consolidated his grip on both the party and the state by early 1957, learned to play off his communist sponsors against each other to his own advantage as the great communist divide between the Soviet Union and China emerged in the mid1950s. In February 1960, Kim Il Sung, the Great Leader (Suryŏng), visits a collective farm in Ch’ŏngsan Village of the Kangsŏ prefecture near Pyongyang, and there he shows an example of his ‘on-the-spot guidance.’ In October 1960, the Korean Workers’ Party begins to rewrite the history of Korean communism embellishing Kim Il Sung’s anti-Japanese guerrilla struggle in Manchuria, and denouncing the “petty-bourgeois” communist activities in the colonial Korea. The Great Leader’s Monolithic State Cont’d By exaggerating Kim Il Sung’s anti-Japanese guerrilla credentials, North Korea also attempted to project its legitimacy viv-a-vis South Korea, where former Japanese collaborators continued to be reemployed. The fourth Congress of the Korean Workers’ Party was held in September 1961 and endorsed the monolithic ideology of the party. In 1962, North Korea launched a Seven-Year Plan, encouraged by the success of the previous FiveYear Plan. Five-Year Economic Development Plans President Park Chung Hee’s vision of building the nation was the economic modernization of the agrarian South Korea. In order to implement a series of five-year economic development plans, President Park builds an efficiency-oriented government system, creating the Economic Planning Board, and recruiting competent technocrats including U.S.educated economists. Five-Year Economic Development Plans Cont’d To help finance the development plans, Park normalized diplomatic relations with Japan in 1965, receiving a total of $800 million in compensation for Japan’s colonial occupation and commercial loans. Park also decided to accept a U.S. request for the dispatch of South Korean troops to Vietnam in return for the U.S. supply of modern military equipment to Korea, together with a loan for economic development. During the First Five-Year Economic Development Plan (1962-66), the South Korean economy registered an annual average growth of 7.8%, thanks to a marked increase in the export of labor-intensive products such as textiles. Park Chung Hee is reelected president in May 1967. Park runs for a third term in April 1971. This time, he barely wins over opposition candidate Kim Dae Jung. Review In the South, Park Chung Hee sets out to modernize the hither-to agrarian country by implementing government-guided economic development plans. In the North, meanwhile, Kim Il Sung consolidates his personality cult and adopts juche philosophy as the guiding principle of his statecraft. The consecutive success of the two five-year economic development plans in the South is largely attributed to Park Chung Hee, who led the Korea, Inc., with the help of his technocrats.