한반도 분단과 6.25사변 발발 책임은 누구에게 있는가? 포스트 상세 정보

Review Essay

 

Korea's Partition: Soviet-American Pursuit of Reunification, 1945-1948

JAMES I. MATRAY

 

ⓒ 1998 James I. Matray

 

It became fashionable more than a decade ago for scholars to portray the Korean War as a civil conflict, rejecting the traditional interpretation of the war as an example of Soviet-inspired, external aggression.[1] But the recent release of previously classified Soviet and Chinese documents has brought an abrupt end to this emerging consensus. This has made possible renewed emphasis on international factors in reexaminations of the Korean War. Kathryn Weathersby signaled that this shift was well underway in 1993 when she concluded that the war's origins "lie primarily with the division of Korea in 1945 and the polarization of Korean politics that resulted from . . . the policies of the two occupying powers. . . . The Soviet Union played a key role in the outbreak of the war, but it was as facilitator, not as originator."[2] This essay reviews and compares traditional and revisionist perspectives on the origins of the Korean War.

 

The Historical Debate

 

President Harry S. Truman provided the touchstone for the debate surrounding the reasons for the Korean War just two days after the start of hostilities.[3] on 27 June 1950, he told the American people that North Korea's attack on South Korea showed that world "communism has passed beyond the use of subversion to conquer independent nations and will now use armed invasion and war."[4] This assessment reflected Truman's firm belief that North Korea was a puppet of the Soviet Union. Acting on instructions from Moscow, Kim Il-sung had sent troops southward as part of the Soviet plan for global conquest. In his memoirs, Truman equated Joseph Stalin's actions with Adolf Hitler's in the 1930s, arguing that military intervention to defend the Republic of Korea (ROK) was essential because appeasement had not prevented but ensured the outbreak of World War II.[5] Top Administration officials, as well as the general public, fully shared these assumptions. This traditional interpretation provided the analytical foundation for insider accounts of the origins of the Korean War.[6]

 

Surprisingly, some observers challenged Truman's assessment even before the Korean War ended on 27 July 1953. For example, Wilbur Hitchcock published an article in 1951 asserting that Kim Il-sung, not Stalin, "pulled the switch" initiating the Korean conflict. He emphasized in particular the Soviet boycott of the Security Council that prevented Moscow from vetoing resolutions authorizing UN military action to defend the ROK. In addition, North Korea's attack sparked a number of unwelcome developments for the Soviet Union, including a massive US military buildup, rearmament of West Germany, and the strengthening of NATO. Thus, according to Hitchcock, Kim Il-sung "jumped the gun" and attacked the ROK before the Soviets were ready for the invasion. I. F. Stone, in contrast to Hitchcock, focused his 1952 study of the Korean War on South Korea's responsibility for the outbreak of hostilities. ROK President Syngman Rhee was provocative, Stone contends, instigating many border clashes at the 38th parallel before 25 June 1950. In response to North Korean retaliation, Rhee portrayed the orderly retreat of his forces as a military debacle, thereby persuading Truman to commit troops. General Douglas MacArthur, John Foster Dulles, and Chiang Kai-shek were participants in this conspiracy to reverse the process of US military disengagement from East Asia after World War II.[7]

 

Neither the Hitchcock nor Stone interpretation had won many adherents as the fighting in Korea ended. Thereafter, the Truman assessment prevailed for a decade largely because Soviet-American relations remained acrimonious. Early studies of the Korean War blamed the United States for the North Korean attack, invariably charging that the Truman Administration had abandoned South Korea publicly and thus gave Kim Il-sung a green light to launch his invasion. For proof, these writers pointed to Secretary of State Dean Acheson's National Press Club speech excluding the ROK from the US "defensive perimeter," congressional rejection of the Korean aid bill, Senator Tom Connally's public prediction that Soviet or Chinese communist conquest of all Korea was inevitable, and limits on the military capabilities of South Korea.[8] This traditional analytical approach survived into the 1960s;[9] some recent detailed studies still reflect this viewpoint.[10]

 

Consensus regarding the reasons for the Korean War brought a predictable shift toward the investigation of other issues. If the United States had decided to abandon South Korea before 25 June 1950, it begged the question of why Truman would reverse the policy and order US military intervention. Glenn D. Paige and Ernest R. May provided answers to this riddle in two studies that each stressed international factors to explain American behavior. The United States, they wrote, had to act against Soviet-inspired aggression or risk irreparable damage to American credibility and prestige.[11] Other writers evaluated and offered judgments on the way that the United States conducted the war following Truman's commitment of ground troops. These studies extolling the virtues of fighting limited war in a nuclear age were elaborations of the traditional interpretation. While critical of the UN offensive across the 38th parallel because this brought Chinese military intervention, these writers applauded the Truman Administration for rejecting MacArthur's proposals for widening the war.[12]

 

Meanwhile, a New Left revisionist interpretation had emerged to challenge the traditional view that assigned responsibility to the Soviet Union for starting the Cold War. According to these writers, the United States had used its superior economic power and an atomic monopoly in an effort to establish global political dominance in the postwar era. Ironically, Korea at first escaped reinterpretation at the hands of the revisionists. For example, Richard J. Barnet accepted the traditional view that North Korea initiated the Korean War, although he condemned the United States for intervening to save Rhee's dictatorial regime. Denna Frank Fleming advanced a New Left assessment of Korea in his two-volume study of the Cold War, but few considered his account credible.[13] US involvement in Vietnam would transform "left revisionism" into both a plausible and legitimate explanation for US foreign policy, not only with regard to Korea, but just about every other major event in US history. Thus, Joyce and Gabriel Kolko could charge boldly that South Korea struck first in June 1950 and North Korea's invasion was an act of self-defense. Karunakar Gupta added the details of how the ROK's army ignited the Korean War with an assault on Haeju, a North Korean city on the ongjin peninsula.[14]

 

The most important effect of revisionist accounts of the Korean War was to stimulate interest in the civil origins of the conflict. Adding impetus to this trend was the publication of Nikita Khrushchev's memoirs. According to the Soviet leader, Stalin approved North Korea's attack only with great reluctance, fearing the prospect of US military intervention. But Kim Il-sung persuaded Stalin that South Korea's people would welcome the North Koreans as liberators, thus assuring swift conquest before the United States could respond. Robert R. Simmons advanced an intriguing explanation for the timing of the North Korean attack. Reviving the Hitchcock interpretation, he argued that Moscow and Pyongyang had agreed on an invasion date of 15 August 1950. The attack came two months earlier and before military preparations were complete, however, because of the internal political rivalry between Kim Il-sung and Foreign Minister Pak Hon-yong.[15] Without access to Soviet and North Korean records it is impossible to confirm the Simmons interpretation.

 

Revisionists have characterized the Korean War as a civil conflict, rather than a case of external aggression justifying an international response in the name of collective security. While traditional accounts concentrated on the events of 25 June 1950 and thereafter, revisionists insisted that it was vital to search for answers in an earlier period. In the first volume of his The Origins of the Korean War, titled Liberation and the Emergence of Separate Regimes, Bruce Cumings devotes an unprecedented amount of space to the era of Japanese colonial rule. According to this revisionist, a conventional war would start in Korea in June 1950 because the United States prevented a leftist revolution on the peninsula in 1945 and imposed a reactionary regime in the south during the years immediately following World War II. The Cumings study was controversial, but for many readers convincing because of the author's reliance upon Korean language sources.[16] More important, future studies of the war could not claim credibility without addressing the domestic origins of the conflict.

 

While Cumings discussed internal developments on the Korean peninsula immediately after World War II, other American scholars were reassessing US foreign policy toward Korea during the same period. The State Department's release of classified documents in 1976 for the year 1950 allowed researchers to produce detailed studies of US involvement in Korea from the start of World War II to the outbreak of hostilities a decade later. No conclusive evidence emerged, however, either to confirm or deny the validity of the traditional argument that North Korea attacked first and initiated the war. But the domestic origins of the war received greater attention.[17] New surveys of the Korean War acknowledged the importance of developments on the Korean peninsula during the five years after Japan's surrender in 1945. While accepting that Stalin was involved in planning the invasion, these writers insisted that Kim Il-sung was the primary decisionmaker. None challenged the assumption that North Korea struck first, but they did not condemn Kim Il-sung because of evidence that Rhee would have staged an invasion northward if he had held enough military power. Reflecting the effects of access to new research materials, these studies all either stated or implied that Korea was a civil war.[18]

 

Since about 1985, revisionism has peaked in popularity and begun to lose adherents. John Halliday and Bruce Cumings, in their study Korea: The Unknown War, insist that South Korea initiated the Korean War, contending that the "Fierce Tiger" unit of the ROK's 17th Regiment on the ongjin Peninsula launched an assault northward at around 0200 on 25 June 1950. Reviving Stone's interpretation, Halliday and Cumings claim that Rhee set a trap for North Korea. The South Korean attack would provoke a communist invasion and bring US military intervention, thereby setting the stage for the ROK conquest of North Korea. Cumings presents a detailed explanation of this "trap theory"--and much more--in the second volume of his Origins of the Korean War.[19] Despite the testimony of former communist military leaders, the North Koreans always have maintained that the ROK attacked first and initiated the war. But John Merrill observed in 1989 that the question of who started the Korean War no longer was a matter of debate. The size and scope of the North Korean offensive argued powerfully that Pyongyang planned the invasion in advance. William Stueck agrees, emphasizing the international dimensions of the conflict in the most recent full-length account of the Korean War.[20]

 

Revisionism and Korea's Division

 

Disagreement about the reasons for Korea's partition in 1945 developed in parallel with the historical debate surrounding the origins of the Korean conflict, although with far less intensity. Arguably, Korea's division at the 38th parallel as World War II ended was the most important event in the modern history of that nation. Had the United States and the Soviet Union not forcibly divided this East Asian country, there would have been no Korean War. A civil conflict was highly probable, however, after the surrender of Japan. This was because Japanese colonial rule had worsened mounting social, economic, and political inequities that Korea had endured during the 19th century.[21] Cumings relies on meticulous and exhaustive research to demonstrate that Korea was ripe for a radical restructuring at the end of World War II "because of the forces descending upon Korea in the period of colonial rule." As elsewhere in Asia, Cumings contends, revolutionary nationalism was the main political force in Korea even before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Those favoring radical change were leaders of a movement dedicated to destroying not just Japanese colonialism, but Korea's exploitive traditional system of economic, political, and social privilege as well.[22]

 

But there would be no civil war in Korea in 1945 because the United States and the Soviet Union prevented it. Ostensibly to accept the surrender of Japanese forces, the Soviets occupied Korea north of the 38th parallel in August, while the Americans would establish control south of that line the next month.[23] The revisionists condemn President Truman for arranging Korea's division into zones of military occupation. For example, Cumings advances the revisionist argument that dispatching US troops to South Korea was "an unprecedented act of ambition" and "the first postwar act of containment." US occupation officials followed thereafter a counterrevolutionary course, backing the political aspirations of reactionary conservative Korean politicians in the south, especially Syngman Rhee, and striving "through unilateral actions to build a bulwark against communism."[24] But traditional scholars have applauded the United States for acting to prevent the Soviet Union from occupying all of Korea and creating there a satellite modeled after Poland. Endorsing the traditional view, Charles Dobbs blames Soviet aggressive and expansionist ambition for making it necessary to partition Korea. Moscow, he writes, "had done little to deserve" a voice in the postwar reconstruction of Korea because the Soviets "had made no significant contribution to the defeat of Japan."[25]

 

Soviet-American partition of Korea after World War II meant that barring resort to war, reunification was possible only after an international diplomatic or domestic political agreement had paved the way for a negotiated settlement. Responsibility for the deadlock transforming the 38th parallel into a fortified boundary and thereby creating the circumstances necessary for the outbreak of the Korean War became a matter of concern. Recent studies accept without much discussion the revisionist argument that blames the United States for perpetuating Korea's division. If the Truman Administration had not manufactured a South Korea, these studies suggest, the popular preference for revolutionary political and economic change would have resulted in the establishment of a leftist government to rule a reunified Korea.[26] Recently, challenges to this interpretation signal the emergence in Korean War studies of a "revisionism from the right" that seeks to rehabilitate the traditional view. Newly available communist archival materials do not justify, however, a complete resurrection of traditional explanations for the postwar impasse preventing Korea's reunification. Rather, Weathersby's findings in particular argue for an abandonment of the revisionist versus traditionalist bipolarity that for over two decades has trapped Korean War studies in an analytical straightjacket.[27]

 

Uncertain Partners: Stalin, Mao, and the Korean War heads the list of important recent works on the Korean War for scholars striving to revive traditional judgments about the conflict. Its authors make extensive use of new documents, memoirs, and personal interviews to reveal that Kim Il-sung manipulated both Stalin and Mao Zedong to gain their consent for his plan to invade South Korea. But Uncertain Partners, on balance, revives and sustains traditional views about the origins of the Korean conflict. For example, the authors accept, without elaboration, the judgment that North Korea was "wholly dependent" on Moscow and was "justly called a Soviet satellite."[28] Erik van Ree provides abundant evidence and detailed analysis to support this traditional viewpoint in his 1989 study which points to the "presence of the Soviet army, the network of Soviet advisors, the stifling economic grip, the presence of an impressive propaganda machine, and the all-pervading adulation of Joseph Stalin" as proof that North Korea was a satellite. Van Ree assigns "most of the blame" to the Soviets "for the continuation of Korea's division in the two years after the Second World War."[29]

 

Van Ree challenges another fundamental tenet of left revisionism when he claims that Soviet occupation officials ignored the Korean People's Republic and rejected its legitimacy. Moscow instead transported to Korea from Siberia "loyal" Soviet Koreans and placed them in charge of "people's committees." He endorses Dae-sook Suh's description of early developments north of the 38th parallel, identifying the Soviet military as "the real authority" in North Korea. The Soviet Civil Administration delayed reforms and constructed a "classic `monolithic' model" closely resembling communist regimes in Eastern Europe.[30]

 

Socialism in one Zone depends heavily on research materials that suffer from ideological and political subjectivity, notably Soviet public papers, official memoirs, and secondary histories. Using these sources, Van Ree mounts a new defense of traditional assertions scholars advanced in assessing the Korean War decades earlier, but which revisionists managed to discredit without providing documentary proof. For example, he defines Soviet postwar goals in Korea as first the historic desire to acquire warm-water ports and second the creation of a buffer zone against an expected revival of Japanese aggression. During World War II, an "aloof" Stalin was "not enthusiastic" about a Korean trusteeship because he expected geographic proximity would assure Soviet control over the entire peninsula. He would not accept "a position as simply one trustee among four." Washington, Van Ree concludes, consistently advocated steps toward ending Korea's division, but Moscow always blocked progress because it preferred to maintain an "exclusive Soviet grip" on socialism in one zone.[31]

 

In the spring of 1946, a Soviet-American Joint Commission met in Seoul to implement the Moscow Agreement of December 1945. Its main task was to select a representative cross-section of Korean leaders to form a provisional government that then would cooperate with the establishment of a trusteeship before the restoration of Korea's independence. According to Van Ree, Stalin was responsible for the failure of these negotiations because he inflexibly demanded the exclusion of right-wing politicians. Extreme conservatives such as Syngman Rhee and Kim Ku were required to "cooperate" but not support trusteeship, Van Ree insists, and their participation was "not inimical to Moscow." The charge that pledges from Rhee and Kim Ku of cooperation were insincere was "probably true, but it was also irrelevant." Moscow knew that the vast majority of Koreans opposed unification under a communist or leftist regime. Van Ree speculates that Stalin wanted a stalemate, anticipating that this would split the conservatives and force Washington to accept the flawed Soviet interpretation of the Moscow Agreement. Stalin, fearing that South Korean communists might strike a deal with moderates, opposed peasant uprisings in the south because he was obsessed with retaining control of North Korea.[32]

 

In an article appearing in 1993, the late John Wilz tried to revive the traditional explanation for the failure of postwar Soviet-American talks to end Korea's division. During World War II, he wrote, although President Franklin D. Roosevelt did see that because of the "realities of geography, the prospect of Soviet domination of . . . Korea was transparent," Roosevelt did not want to anger Stalin. Truman wisely dropped Roosevelt's misguided trusteeship plan in favor of joint military occupation. He then advocated elections and quick reunification, but Stalin refused to cooperate because only Korean communists and leftists supported Soviet aims. Wilz, a champion of traditional views regarding US policy in Korea, dismissed the Cumings interpretation as "leftist," blaming Moscow for transforming the 38th parallel "into a fortified frontier" and North Korea into "a bastion of Sovietism."[33] William Stueck further encourages a revival of traditional judgments in a recent article blaming Moscow for blocking Korea's postwar unification. Occupation policies in South Korea, he asserts, may have been "shortsighted or self-serving," but "it is uncertain that they influenced events and policies north of the 38th parallel."[34]

 

New Documents and Renewed Debate

 

Release of additional Soviet archival materials will decide whether a revived traditional explanation for the creation of two Koreas will become conventional wisdom. If this occurs, a "right revisionism" will replace the "left revisionism" that for nearly a generation has dominated Korean War studies. Starting in 1992, Weathersby began to publish translations of Soviet documents that verify a number of traditional interpretations. For example, she points to "thousands of pages of documents on postwar Korea in the Russian Foreign Ministry archive" as proof that "North Korea was utterly dependent economically on the Soviet Union." Kim Il-sung's persistent requests for the services of Soviet economic specialists reveals that "to an unusual degree, North Korea was dependent on the Soviet Union for technical expertise."[35] Van Ree has argued correctly, Weathersby's findings have confirmed, that "Stalin was not in a hurry to crash into Korea" during 1945. Moreover, the Soviet Union had no "well-prepared plans" for civil administration north of the 38th parallel, requiring considerable improvisation. once in control of the north, the "operation was an investment" for the Soviet Union. Moscow rebuilt the railroad system and then restored metal, chemical, and glass plants to serve the enormous needs of a recovering Soviet economy.[36]

 

Other traditional judgments regarding Soviet policy in Korea are no longer valid in light of newly available Soviet documents. For example, Weathersby presents persuasive evidence that Stalin followed a "cautious policy toward Korea" in pursuit of "limited aims."[37] His objective "was not simply to gain control over the entire peninsula, as with Poland." "Poland was too vital to the U.S.S.R.," she writes, "but Korea was not." Weathersby believes that the Soviet Union "would have been content with the Finland solution."[38] Moscow's wartime support for a trusteeship in Korea then was sincere, especially because it would ensure Japan would "not have the right to industrial or any other concessions." In September 1945, after Soviet-American partition of Korea, Moscow continued to favor "some sort of joint administration of Korea." "Upon the conclusion of the occupation regime, presumably after two years," a Foreign Ministry report stated, "Korea must become a trust territory of the four powers."[39] But the Soviets would never permit either Rhee or Kim Ku to assume power over a united Korea because both had "dreams of creating an independent Korea in which, in place of Japanese oppressors, Korean landlords and capitalists . . . will sit on the neck of the Korean people."[40]

 

Weathersby's findings demonstrate that strategic interests dominated Stalin's thinking regarding Korea. First, the Soviet leader thought North Korea might be a bargaining chip during his negotiations to determine the postwar security structure in East Asia. Moscow was willing in September 1945 to place a key Korean port in a Chinese zone of occupation and approve US acquisition of several naval bases in the Pacific if the Soviet Union gained access to three Korean ports and a united Korea secured control over the island of Tsushima.[41] Second, Stalin's primary concern was "to prevent Korea from being turned into a staging ground for future aggression against the USSR."[42] He especially feared a resurgence of Japanese power. A Foreign Ministry briefing paper describes US policy in southern Korea as very alarming because American occupation officials "not only have retained in Korea the old administrative apparatus, but they have also left in leading posts many Japanese and local collaborators."[43] Third, Weathersby underscores "the impact of the relative poverty of the Soviet Union." Moscow wanted access to Korea's rich mineral and other natural resources to help offset "an enormous [economic] disadvantage" in "its competition with the first world."[44]

 

Soviet policy papers for the Moscow Conference of December 1945 reveal that, contrary to Van Ree's characterization, Moscow "felt it had to support the demands of the Koreans and Americans to create a unified government in Korea."[45] one background paper for the Moscow Conference noted the importance of "working out . . . a single occupation policy" aimed "at the encouragement of the democratic movement of the Korean people and preparing them for independence."[46] In another background paper, a Soviet official foresaw creation of "a Korean government on the basis of agreement between the governments of the USSR, USA, and China." This would prevent Korea from being "turned into a breeding ground of new anxiety . . . in the Far East."[47] Jacob Malik, later Soviet delegate to the United Nations in the Korean War, drafted a report, which became the Moscow Agreement, advising that "it would be politically inexpedient for the Soviet Union to oppose the creation of a single Korean government."[48] But at the Joint Commission, Weathersby writes, the Soviets were unable to resolve the "dilemma about how to create a government for Korea that would be politically acceptable to the US, but that would also safeguard Soviet strategic interests."[49]

 

Without question, the Joint Commission negotiations offered the best opportunity to reunite Korea following World War II.[50] Soviet documents seriously undermine the argument that Moscow was responsible for the deadlock perpetuating Korea's division. The emerging postwar Soviet-American rift caused the United States to be pessimistic about the chances for successful implementation of the Moscow Agreement.[51] Significantly, the Truman Administration was in fact preparing in late January 1946 to carry out a program of "Koreanization" south of the 38th parallel.[52] After agreeing that Korea required a period of preparation before regaining its sovereignty, Washington also signaled before the Joint Commission even convened that it no longer wanted a trusteeship. Throughout the negotiations, the Soviets maintained the reasonable position that implementing the Moscow Agreement would be impossible unless those Koreans who served in a provisional government demonstrated support for trusteeship. Far worse for the Truman Administration was the knowledge that since "the southern political structure includes almost equally left . . . and moderate-rightists," the United States would "either have to nominate an unrepresentative slate for the south or expect its being outnumbered by [the] combined strength of North and South controlled groups."[53]

 

Negotiations at the Joint Commission adjourned in May 1946 when the United States refused to disqualify for consultation the Korean parties that belonged to the "Anti-Trusteeship Committee." Talks resumed a year later after Washington and Moscow agreed to exclude any party or group that "fomented or instigated" active opposition to the Moscow Agreement.[54] During June 1947, Koreans submitted questionnaires providing input on the composition of a provisional government. The result revealed that most Koreans now accepted trusteeship as the price for reunification, except for followers of Rhee and Kim Ku. In the north, three parties and 35 social organizations, representing about 13 million people, filed for consultation. In the south, over 400 parties registered and claimed an incredible total membership exceeding 62 million--three times more than southern Korea's entire population. Slightly more than half of the respondents were conservatives. The right was primarily responsible for the inflated figures, since two thirds of the groups registered were conservative. If the Joint Commission disqualified only a small number of rightist parties, a leftist majority was certain.[55]

 

Since World War II, Rhee, Kim Ku, and their allies had been openly and virulently anti-Soviet. Security concerns were behind Moscow's persistent demand for the exclusion of the eight parties belonging to the "Anti-Trusteeship Committee." Further attempts to reunite Korea at the Joint Commission were pointless after the United States refused to approve disqualification of any group.[56] Lieutenant General John R. Hodge, the US occupation commander, defended Washington's behavior, declaring, in reference to the communists, that "we do not intend to stand by and see a minority group of a self-interested venal segment of people impose their shoddy power" on Korea.[57] But this would have been the probable outcome, if the Soviet Union had "grudgingly" dropped (a course of action Van Ree argues Moscow should have followed) its demand for exclusion of the extreme right.[58] Even Hodge admitted that "Rhee's activities . . . are comparable to those of Al Capone in Chicago."[59] The United States faced a painful dilemma because the situation in Korea contradicted a basic American assumption. It appeared that if the people had a truly free choice, there was no guarantee that a majority would elect to follow the US model for social, political, and economic development.[60]

 

During 1948, the Soviet Union and the United States sponsored respectively the creation of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and the Republic of Korea. Half the peninsula evidently was enough to satisfy each power's security needs. As one US journalist wrote, it was "better to have the division between the Communists and freedom drawn in Korea rather than, say, between North and South Dakota or at the Mississippi."[61] And the Soviets viewed the 38th parallel as preferable to the Tumen River--the border between Korea and the Russian Maritime Provinces. Both sides opted for a "nation-building" strategy. The United States would sell its brand of democracy in the south, while the Soviet Union had Kim Il-sung to impose his version of communism in the north. At first, Moscow seemed to have the advantage, especially following the Yosu-Sunchon rebellion in October 1948, which saw large numbers of South Koreans join a communist uprising against the Rhee government. But by the spring of 1950, South Korea was experiencing economic recovery, its army had crushed guerrilla insurgents, and elections had swept Rhee's supporters out of the legislature, replacing them with his leading critics.[62]

 

Both the United States and the Soviet Union were willing to be patient, awaiting the collapse of its rival's Korean client, rather than promoting a resort to force that risked a wider war. But the border clashes during 1948 and 1949 at the 38th parallel showed that the two Koreas already were waging a civil conflict, although Kim Il-sung's resort to conventional warfare on 25 June 1950 marked a clear change in the nature of the contest. Several factors contributed to Pyongyang's decision, but all suggest that Truman's containment policy was beginning to experience success. Stalin later would blame North Korea's failure to reunite the peninsula on Kim Il-sung's inability to destabilize the Rhee regime.[63] Significantly, the United States proposed in May 1950 a sizable increase in military aid to the ROK, which meant that delay would raise the odds against North Korea's conquest of the south. At the time, Dulles speculated that Stalin had ordered North Korea to attack because he could not tolerate the survival of this "promising experiment in democracy" in East Asia.[64]

 

Conclusion

 

Both the United States and the Soviet Union deserve blame for Korea's postwar division at the 38th parallel. Disregarding the desires of the Korean people, Washington and Moscow each believed that its security required a "friendly" Korea.[65] Some scholars still decry the North Korean attack on 25 June 1950 as a clear violation of international law.[66] No Korean, however, has ever accepted division as legitimate or permanent. There is only one Korea. Worth pondering is Cumings' reference to "the ultimate irony" of the words "Koreans invade Korea."[67] But any satisfying explanation for Korea's partition requires recognizing the role of irrational human behavior in historical events. The Koreans were not passive actors, but actively manipulated both the Americans and the Soviets to advance selfish goals and personal ambitions. Syngman Rhee, Stueck writes, should be remembered as the "father of a divided Korea."[68] But ultimately Soviet-American failure to cooperate prevented Korea's peaceful reunification. Korean War scholars now must abandon the outdated analytical dichotomy of traditionalism versus revisionism and use new communist archival materials to provide a better understanding of the reasons for Korea's division and why two Koreas still exist today.

 

NOTES

 

1. For example, see Bruce Cumings, The Origins of the Korean War, 2 Vols. (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton Univ. Press, 1981, 1990); Callum MacDonald, Korea: The War Before Vietnam (New York: Free Press, 1986); Burton I. Kaufman, The Korean War: Challenges in Crisis, Credibility, and Command (Philadelphia: Temple Univ. Press, 1986), Peter Lowe, The Origins of the Korean War (London: Longman, 1986); John Merrill, Korea: The Peninsular Origins of the War (Newark, Del.: Univ. of Delaware Press, 1989).

 

2. Kathryn Weathersby, "The Soviet Role in the Early Phase of the Korean War," The Journal of American-East Asian Relations, 2 (Winter 1993), 432.

 

3. There now are a number of excellent historiographical articles surveying the literature on the Korean War. Among the most useful are Rosemary Foot, "Making Known the Unknown War: Policy Analysis of the Korean Conflict in the Last Decade," Diplomatic History, 15 (Summer 1991), 411-31; James I. Matray, "Villain Again: The United States and the Korean Armistice Talks," Diplomatic History, 16 (Summer 1992), 473-80 ; Robert J. McMahon, "The Cold War in Asia: Toward a New Synthesis," Diplomatic History, 12 (Summer 1988), 307-27; Bruce Cumings, "Korean-American Relations: A Century of Contact and Thirty-Five Years of Intimacy," in New Frontiers in American-East Asian Relations: Essays Presented to Dorothy Borg, ed. Warren I. Cohen (New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 1983), 237-82; Hakjoon Kim, "Trends in Korean War Studies: A Review of the Literature," in Korea and the Cold War: Division, Destruction, and Disarmament, ed. Kim Chull Baum and James I. Matray (Claremont, Calif.: Regina Books, 1993), 7-34.

 

4. Harry S. Truman statement, 27 June 1950, US Department of State, Bulletin, 23 (3 July 1950), 5.

 

5. Harry S. Truman, Memoirs, Vol. II: Years of Trial and Hope (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1956), p. 464.

 

6. Dean Acheson, Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department (New York: Norton, 1969); John M. Allison, Ambassador from the Prairie or Allison Wonderland (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1973); J. Lawton Collins, War in Peacetime: The History and Lessons of Korea (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1969); Douglas MacArthur, Reminiscences (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1964); Mark W. Clark, From the Danube to the Yalu (New York: Harper, 1954); Matthew B. Ridgway, The Korean War (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1967); C. Turner Joy, How Communists Negotiate (New York: Macmillan, 1955); Courtney Whitney, MacArthur: His Rendezvous with History (New York: Knopf, 1956).

 

7. Wilbur Hitchcock, "North Korea Jumps the Gun," Current History, 20 (20 July 1951), 136-44; I. F. Stone, The Hidden History of the Korean War (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1952).

 

8. John Dille, Substitute for Victory (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1954); Robert T. Oliver, Verdict in Korea (State College, Pa.: Bald Eagle Press, 1952); Rutherford B. Poats, Decision in Korea (New York: McBride, 1954); John C. Caldwell, The Korea Story (Chicago: H. Regnery, 1952); Carl Berger, The Korean Knot: A Military-Political History (Philadelphia: Univ. of Pennsylvania Press, 1957).

 

9. For more than a decade, David Rees' Korea: The Limited War (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1964) was the standard account. Other studies advancing the traditional interpretation are Soon-sung Cho, Korea in World Politics 1940-1950: An Evaluation of American Responsibility (Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 1967); Theodore Fehrenbach, This Kind of War: A Study in Unpreparedness (New York: Macmillan, 1963); Robert Leckie, Conflict: A History of the Korean War, 1950-1953 (New York: Putnam, 1962); Harry J. Middleton, The Compact History of the Korean War (New York: Hawthorne, 1965).

 

10. John Toland, In Mortal Combat: The Korean War, 1950-1953 (New York: Morrow, 1994); Richard Whelan, Drawing the Line: The Korean War, 1950-1953 (Boston: Little, Brown, 1990); James L. Stokesbury, A Short History of the Korean War (New York: W. Morrow, 1988); Bevin Alexander, Korea: The First War We Lost (New York: Hippocrene, 1986); Max Hastings, The Korean War (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1987); Clay Blair, The Forgotten War: America in Korea, 1950-1953 (New York: Times Books, 1987).

 

11. Glenn D. Paige, The Korean Decision June 25-30, 1950 (New York: Free Press, 1968); Ernest R. May, "Lessons" of the Past: The Use and Misuse of History in American Foreign Policy (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1973). See also, Denis Stairs, The Diplomacy of Constraint: Canada, the Korean War, and the United States (Toronto: Univ. of Toronto Press, 1974); Francis Heller, ed., The Korean War: A 25-Year Perspective (Lawrence: Regents Press of Kansas, 1977).

 

12. Morton H. Halperin, Limited War in the Nuclear Age (New York: Wiley, 1963); Robert E. Osgood, Limited War: The Challenge to American Strategy (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1957); John W. Spanier, The Truman-MacArthur Controversy and the Korean War (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press, 1959), Trumbull Higgins, Korea and the Fall of MacArthur: A Precis on Limited War (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1960); Leland M. Goodrich, Korea: A Study of U.S. Policy in the United Nations (New York: Council on Foreign Relations, 1956).

 

13. Richard J. Barnet, Intervention and Revolution: The United States in the Third World (New York: New American Library, 1972); Denna Frank Fleming, The Cold War and its Origins, 2 vols. (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1961).

 

14. Joyce and Gabriel Kolko, The Limits of Power: The World and United States Foreign Policy, 1945-1954 (New York: Harper & Row, 1972); Karunakar Gupta, "How Did the Korean War Begin?" China Quarterly, 8 (October-December 1972), 699-716.

 

15. Nikita Khrushchev, Khrushchev Remembers (Boston: Little, Brown, 1971); Robert R. Simmons, The Strained Alliance: Peking, Pyongyang, Moscow and the Politics of the Korean Civil War (New York: Free Press, 1975). See also, Frank Baldwin, ed., Without Parallel: The American-Korean Relationship Since 1945 (New York: Pantheon, 1975).

 

16. Cumings, The Origins of the Korean War, Vol. I: Liberation and the Emergence of Separate Regimes, 1945-1947.

 

17. William Whitney Stueck, Jr., The Road to Confrontation: American Foreign Policy Toward China and Korea, 1947-1950 (Chapel Hill: Univ. of North Carolina Press, 1981); Charles M. Dobbs, The Unwanted Symbol: American Foreign Policy, the Cold War, and Korea, 1945-1950 (Kent, Ohio: Kent State Univ. Press, 1981); James I. Matray, The Reluctant Crusade: American Foreign Policy in Korea, 1941-1950 (Honolulu: Univ. of Hawaii Press, 1985).

 

18. Kaufman, The Korean War; Lowe, The Origins of the Korean War MacDonald, Korea Joseph Goulden, Korea: The Untold Story (New York: Times Books, 1982); Gavan McCormack, Cold War, Hot War: An Australian Perspective on the Korean War (Sydney: Hale & Iremonger, 1983). For another example, see Bruce Cumings, ed., Child of Conflict: The Korean-American Relationship, 1943-1953 (Seattle: Univ. of Washington Press, 1983).

 

19. Jon Halliday and Bruce Cumings, Korea: The Unknown War (New York: Pantheon Books), pp. 71-73; Bruce Cumings, The Origins of the Korean War, Vol. II: The Roaring of the Cataract, 1947-1950.

 

20. Merrill, Korea William Stueck, The Korean War: An International History (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton Univ. Press, 1995). See also, William Stueck, "The Korean War as International History," Diplomatic History 10 (Fall 1986), 291-309.

 

21. Donald S. MacDonald, The Koreans: Contemporary Politics and Society (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1990); Takashi Hatada, A History of Korea (Santa Barbara, Calif.: ABC-Clio, 1969); Michael Robinson, Cultural Nationalism in Colonial Korea, 1920-1925 (Seattle: Univ. of Washington Press, 1988); George M. McCune and Arthur L. Grey, Jr., Korea Today (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press, 1950).

 

22. Cumings, Liberation and the Emergence of Separate Regimes, pp. xx, xxiv-xxv, 3-67.

 

23. Matray, The Reluctant Crusade, pp. 28-51; Donald W. Boose, Jr., "Portentous Sideshow: The Korean Occupation Decision," Parameters, 25 (Winter 1995-96), 112-29.

 

24. Cumings, Liberation and the Emergence of Separate Regimes, pp. 116, 130-31. See also, Michael Sandusky, America's Parallel (Alexandria, Va.: Old Dominion Press, 1983).

 

25. Dobbs, The Unwanted Symbol: American Foreign Policy, the Cold War, and Korea, 1945-1950, p. 65. See also, Cho, Korea in World Politics.

 

26. Cumings, Liberation and the Emergence of Separate Regimes, pp. 135-78.

 

27. For example, see Hakjoon Kim, "Russian Foreign Ministry Documents on the Origins of the Korean War," Korea and World Affairs, 20 (Summer 1996), 248-71.

 

28. Sergei N. Goncharov, John W. Lewis, and Xue Litai, Uncertain Partners: Stalin, Mao, and the Korean War (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford Univ. Press, 1993), p. 131.

 

29. Erik van Ree, Socialism in one Zone Stalin's Policy in Korea, 1945-1947 (Oxford, Eng.: Berg Publishing, 1989), pp. 174, 276.

 

30. Ibid., pp. 76-77, 79-80, 95, 105-107, 148-58, 219-22, 271-77. See also, Dae-sook Suh, "A Preconceived Formula for Sovietization: The Communist Takeover of North Korea," in The Anatomy of Communist Takeovers, ed. Thomas T. Hammond (New Haven, Conn.: Yale Univ. Press, 1975).

 

31. Van Ree, Socialism in one Zone, pp. 36, 40, 44, 51, 69, 73, 267-68, 275.

 

32. Ibid., pp. 196-211, 221, 230-31, 253, 264.

 

33. John E. Wilz, "Encountering Korea: American Perceptions and Policies to 25 June 1950," in A Revolutionary War: Korea and the Transformation of the Postwar World, ed. William J. Williams (Chicago: Imprint Publications, 1993), 37-49.

 

34. William Stueck, "The United States, the Soviet Union, and the Division of Korea: A Comparative Approach," Journal of American-East Asian Relations, 4 (Spring 1995), 1-27. See also, William Stueck, "The Soviet Union and the Origins of the Korean War," in Korea and the Cold War, eds. Kim and Matray, pp. 111-24.

 

35. Kathryn Weathersby, "Korea, 1949-50 To Attack, or Not to Attack? Stalin, Kim Il-sung, and the Prelude to War," Cold War International History Project Bulletin [CWIHPB], 5 (Spring 1995), 1-4; Notes on Conversation between Joseph Stalin and Kim Il-sung, 5 March 1949, ibid., pp. 4-6.

 

36. Van Ree, Socialism in one Zone, pp. 57, 95, 178, 186. Erik van Ree contends that Soviet military intervention in Korea during August 1945 "was a last-minute improvisation." Knowing that his military position was weak, Joseph Stalin accepted President Harry Truman's proposal for joint occupation of the peninsula. Had he refused, Van Ree claims, Truman could have airlifted US forces to Seoul and presumably compelled the Red Army to retreat. Ibid., pp. 62-64. Kathryn Weathersby finds no support for this interpretation in the Soviet archives, concluding that "Soviet troops could easily have occupied the entire peninsula before the Americans arrived." Stalin approved Korea's division because it "was a way to establish a balance of power, which was the ultimate goal." Chong-sik Lee and Kathryn Weathersby, "What Stalin Wanted in Korea at the End of World War II," Korea Focus, 1 (No. 5, 1993), 42.

 

37. Kathryn Weathersby, "The Soviet Role in the Early Phase of the Korean War: New Documentary Evidence," The Journal of American-East Asian Relations, 2 (Winter 1993), 431-32. According to Van Ree, Stalin was following a policy of "cautious expansionism." Van Ree, Socialism in one Zone, p. 268.

 

38. Lee and Weathersby, "What Stalin Wanted in Korea at the End of World War II," Korea Focus, pp. 43, 55.

 

39. Far Eastern Department report, Soviet Foreign Ministry, June 1945, and Soviet Foreign Ministry report, September 1945, ibid., pp. 41-43.

 

40. 2d Far Eastern Department report, Soviet Foreign Ministry, December 1945, ibid., pp. 52-53. Less than a year earlier, Andrei Gromyko, Soviet Ambassador to the United States, cabled Moscow that Syngman Rhee represented a group of "Free Koreans" that "was small and not influential in the United States." Andrei Gromyko to Andrei Vyshinsky, 6 April 1945, ibid., p. 55.

 

41. Saisui on the island of Cheju would be in the Chinese zone. Moscow wanted access to this port, as well as Pusan and Inchon. Soviet Foreign Ministry report, September 1945, ibid., pp. 42-43.

 

42. Far Eastern Department report, Soviet Foreign Ministry, June 1945, ibid., p. 41.

 

43. Soviet Foreign Ministry background paper, "Necessity for the Restoration of the Unity of Korea," December 1945, ibid., p. 51.

 

44. Lee and Weathersby, "What Stalin Wanted in Korea at the End of World War II," pp. 45-46.

 

45. Ibid., p. 53

 

46. Ibid., p. 50. "Necessity for the Restoration and the Unity of Korea," December 1945. Moscow instructed the Soviet delegation to oppose US attempts to facilitate economic unification of Korea, indicating that maintaining access to the natural resources of the peninsula was a major Soviet priority. Instructions for the Joint Commission Negotiations, Soviet-Foreign Ministry, ibid., pp. 43-44.

 

47. Zabrodin memorandum, December 1945, ibid., pp. 51-52. This background paper contradicts William Stueck's observation that "Moscow's sudden championing of trusteeship . . . was suspect" because "its implementation would add Nationalist China and Great Britain as factors in the Korean equation." Stueck, "The United States, the Soviet Union, and the Division of Korea," p. 23.

 

48. Jacob Malik, on the Question of a Single Government for Korea," December 1945, ibid., p. 52.

 

49. Lee and Weathersby, "What Stalin Wanted in Korea at the End of World War II," ibid., p. 58.

 

50. For a discussion of other missed opportunities to reunite Korea, see James I. Matray, "Civil War of A Sort: The International Origins of the Korean Conflict," in Korea and the Cold War, eds. Kim and Matray, pp. 35-62.

 

51. Van Ree advances the absolutely untenable argument that the United States would have accepted a leftist dominated government in a united Korea to achieve reunification. Van Ree, Socialism in one Zone, p. 276.

 

52. State-War-Navy Coordinating Committee policy paper, 28 January 1946, Foreign Relations of the United States [FRUS], 1946, Vol. VIII: The Far East (Washington: GPO, 1971), pp. 624-27.

 

53. Lieutenant General John R. Hodge to the War Department, 20 April 1946, US Army Staff Records, P&O 091 Korea, sec. I, cases 114, box 87, Record Group 319, National Archives, Washington, D.C. Lieutenant General John R. Hodge, the US occupation commander, stated flatly in one cable to Washington that the Communist Party "is the most powerful single political group in Korea." Hodge to War, 27 July 1946, US Joint Chiefs of Staff Records, 383.21 Korea (3-19-45), sec. 11, Record Group 228, National Archives.

 

54. "Soviet Position on Resumption of Joint Commission on Korea," US Department of State, Bulletin, 16 (18 May 1947), 995-96.

 

55. Joseph E. Jacobs to George C. Marshall, 26 June 1947, FRUS, 1947, Vol. VI: The Far East (Washington: GPO, 1972), p. 679; Hodge to Marshall, 26 June 1947, ibid., pp. 679-80.

 

56. Jacobs to Marshall, 3-4 July 1947, ibid., pp. 687-89; The New York Times, 6 July 1947, p. 22. Even Van Ree admits that the United States refusal to exclude those parties belonging to the "Anti-Trusteeship Committee" violated the compromise agreement for reconvening the Joint Commission. Van Ree, Socialism in one Zone, pp. 249, 254, 264.

 

57. Quoted in Wilz, "Encountering Korea," p. 48. For a detailed assessment of Hodge's performance as US occupation commander, see James I. Matray, "Hodge Podge: American Occupation Policy in Korea, 1945-1948," Korean Studies, 19 (1995), 17-38.

 

58. Van Ree, Socialism in one Zone, p. 249.

 

59. Hodge to Marshall, 3 January 1948, Department of State Records, 895.00/1-348, National Archives.

 

60. No foundation exists to substantiate Van Ree's claim that the chances were "extremely small" for the free election of a leftist government to rule a united Korea. Van Ree, Socialism in one Zone, p. 274.

 

61. Time, 30 May 1947, pp. 30-31.

 

62. Matray, The Reluctant Crusade, pp. 168-230.

 

63. Soviet Foreign Ministry staff report, on the Korean War, 1950-1953, and the Armistice Negotiations," 9 August 1966, CWIHPB, 3 (Fall 1993), 14-18. Soviet monthly reports on developments in South Korea indicate that, contrary to Stueck's contention, US policy had a direct effect on Stalin's policy toward Korea. Lee and Weathersby, "What Stalin Wanted in Korea at the End of World War II," Korea Focus, p. 47.

 

64. John Foster Dulles, "A Militarist Experiment," US Department of State, Bulletin, 23 (10 July 1950), 49-50; John Foster Dulles, "To Save Humanity from the Abyss," New York Times Magazine, 30 July 1950, pp. 5, 34.

 

65. Weathersby concludes that "the unjust division" of Korea was Stalin's "crude solution" to the Korean deadlock. But "the fatal flaw in Soviet policy" was that "the determination of the Soviet clients in the North to unify their country dragged Moscow into supporting a war on the peninsula that produced the very conflict with the U.S. that Stalin had sought to avoid." Lee and Weathersby, "What Stalin Wanted in Korea at the End of World War II," Korea Focus, p. 59.

 

66. John Norton Moore, "The Failure of Deterrence," Ninth Annual Seminar, "The Korean War in Retrospect: Lessons for the Future," University of Virginia School of Law, April 1990.

 

67. Cumings, The Origins of the Korean War, Vol. II: The Roaring of the Cataract, p. 619.

 

68. Stueck, "The Soviet Union, the United States, and the Division of Korea," p. 19.

 

The Reviewer: James I. Matray is a professor of history at New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, N.M. Historiographical portions of this essay first appeared in Peace Forum, 6 (November 1990). The remainder is a revised version of a paper presented at the 1995 annual convention of the American Historical Association, Pacific Coast Branch. He earned his doctoral degree from the University of Virginia in 1977. Greenwood Press will publish his Japan's Emergence as a Global Power in 1999 and Historical Dictionary of U.S.-East Asian Relations in 2000.

 

 

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