Abstract
As extensively discussed in part I, Stalin’s overriding policy objective concerning Korea after Japan’s defeat in World War II was that Korea would never be used by Japan or any other power as a platform for an attack on the Soviet Union. What this meant in concrete policy terms was that any Korean regime to be set up would need to be, at a minimum, not hostile to the USSR. As we now know, Stalin’s Korea policy ended up with the creation of a separate communist North Korean state in 1948 that was finely allied to the USSR. However, this actual outcome was by no means a foregone conclusion in fall 1945 as the Soviet 25th Army rolled into northern Korea and established its headquarters in Pyongyang. Although the USSR had been preparing a group of Korean partisans led by Kim Il Sung in the area near Khabarovsk in Siberia since the early 1940s as the possible nucleus of leadership for a future independent Korea, when the Red Army arrived in August 1945, it was by no means clear Kim would be able to achieve a dominant position in the new political order to be created, whatever form this was to take.
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Notes
These include: Dae-sook Suh, Kim Il Sung: The North Korean Leader (Columbia University Press, 1988)
Wada Haruki, Kin Nichisei to Manshū kōnichi sensō (Tokyo: Heibonsha, 1992)
Yi Chongsŏk, Chosŏn rodongdang yŏn u (Seoul: Yŏksa Pip’yŏngsa, 1995). Besides, there is Kim Il Sung’s own autobiography, in eight volumes, which covers his life up to his return to Korea in 1945. Volume 8, which covers from 1942 up to fall 1945, provides information on his time in the USSR and his return to Korea. See: Segi wa ttiburti: Kirn listing tongji hoegorok (Pyongyang: Chosŏn Rodongdang Ch’ulp’ansa, 1998). Obviously, the scholar examining Kim’s autobiography needs to sift out fabrication from fact.
Charles Armstrong, The North Korean Revolution, 1945–1950 (Cornell University Press, 2003), ibid., pp. 74–86, 148–165.
For concise information on the activities of these southern leftists in 1945–1948, see: Kim Hakchun, Haebang konggan ŭi chuyôktŭl (Seoul: Tonga Ilbosa, 1996)
Chŏng Pyŏngjun, Mongyang Yŏ Unhyŏng p’yŏrtgjŏn (Seoul: Hanul, 1995)
Kim Namsik and Sim Chiyŏn, Pak Hônyŏng nosŏn pip’an (Seoul: Segyesa, 1986)
Sim Chiyŏn, HO Hŏn yen’gu (Seoul: Yŏksa pip’yŏngsa, 1994)
Yi Kongsun’s essay on Paek Naniun in Palgul han’guk hyŏndaesa inmul vol. 2 (Seoul: Han’gyŏre Sinmunsa, 1992), pp. 229–235
Kim Sŏnggŏl’s essay on Hong Myŏnghŭi in Palgul han’guk hyŏndaesa inmul vol. 3 (1992), ibid., pp. 71–78
Kang Yŏngju, “Hong Myŏnghhi yôn’gu 8: Hong Myŏnghŭi wa nambuk yŏnsŏk hoeŭi,” Yŏksa pip’yŏng, Summer, 1998
Kim Chonggu’s essay on Kim Wŏnbong in Palgul han’guk hyŏndaesa inmul vol. 3 (1992), ibid., pp. 163–169.
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© 2006 Jongsoo Lee
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Lee, J. (2006). The Koreans, the USSR, and the United States. In: The Partition of Korea after World War II. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781403983015_4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781403983015_4
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