The Birth of the Republic of Korea — 4-part series

• Part 1: Losing a Nation, Building a Nation (1897–1945)
• Part 2: The Joy of Liberation and the Shadow of Division (1945–1947) (current)
• Part 3: The Establishment of Government and the Tragedy of Jeju 4.3 (1948)
• Part 4: Success and Forgotten Voices

The Birth of the Republic of Korea, Part 2: The Joy of Liberation and the Shadow of Division (1945–1947)

In the early hours of August 9, 1945, two young U.S. Army colonels spread a National Geographic map across a conference table in the offices of the State-War-Navy Coordinating Committee (SWNCC) in Washington, D.C. Their names were Dean Rusk and Charles Bonesteel. The Soviet Union had declared war on Japan two days earlier and was rapidly pushing south through Manchuria and northern Korea. The two men had only a few hours to define the boundaries of the American occupation zone. Rusk studied the map and found the most convenient line that would keep Seoul within the American sector. It was the 38th parallel.^[1]

That line was drawn in roughly thirty minutes. No one gave serious thought to Korean geography. No account was taken of language, culture, or the interconnected communities that had existed for centuries. There was not a single Korean in the room.^[1]

This is where the story of the Republic of Korea begins. Liberation did come. But from the very start, it was a liberation decided without Korean hands. This article traces how, between August 1945 and the end of 1947, a single people came to be placed under two entirely separate orders.

An Indigenous Attempt at Nation-Building: The Committee for the Preparation of Korean Independence

On the morning of August 15, 1945, just before news of Japan’s surrender reached the public, a quiet negotiation was taking place in Gyeongseong (Seoul). Endo Ryusaku, the Secretary-General of the Japanese Government-General, summoned the nationalist leader Lyuh Woon-hyung to the Government-General building. With Japan’s unconditional surrender imminent, Endo wanted guarantees of safety for Japanese residents in case unrest broke out on the peninsula. Lyuh set conditions: the immediate release of all political and economic prisoners, three months’ worth of food supplies secured, and no interference in political activities. Endo agreed.^[2]

That same evening, Lyuh Woon-hyung launched the Committee for the Preparation of Korean Independence (Geonjun). He had been laying the groundwork since 1944, when he organized the clandestine Korean Independence League. Geonjun expanded with extraordinary speed. By August 31, 145 branch offices had been established across the country, simultaneously maintaining public order, managing food supplies, and taking over administrative functions.^[2]

On September 6, Geonjun convened the National People’s Representative Conference and proclaimed the establishment of the Korean People’s Republic. The proclamation named Syngman Rhee as chairman and Lyuh Woon-hyung as vice-chairman — a deliberate attempt to encompass both the left and the right.^[3]

Yet this indigenous attempt at nation-building ran headlong into a wall the moment American forces landed at Incheon. On October 10, 1945, U.S. Military Government commander Lieutenant General John R. Hodge issued a statement declaring that “the U.S. Military Government is the sole legitimate government in southern Korea” and that the Korean People’s Republic was an organization with “no authority and no substance.”^[3] In less than two months, the committee had been negated by an external power.

The 38th Parallel: The Weight of a Drawn Line

When Lieutenant General Hodge first arrived in Korea, he knew almost nothing about the country. He did not speak Korean, was unfamiliar with Korean history, and had little sense of what decades of colonial rule had meant for ordinary people. He was, in every respect, a field commander.^[4]

Soviet forces had already entered northern Korea. Units under the command of General Ivan Chistiakov had seized Pyongyang by the end of August 1945 and had advanced to the 38th parallel by early September. The Soviets accepted the line that Dean Rusk had drawn on a map with a compliance that surprised the Americans.^[1] It appears Stalin was already more interested in what lay north of the line than south of it.

The 38th parallel was initially conceived as a temporary military boundary for administrative convenience. But in practice, two distinct systems began taking shape almost immediately. In the north, pro-Soviet forces took control of the administration with Soviet backing. In the south, the U.S. Military Government retained and repurposed the colonial bureaucratic structure that Japan had left behind.^[4]

A broader comparison is worth making here. The division of the Korean peninsula was not an isolated event in world history. At the same time, Germany was divided among four Allied powers — the United States, Britain, France, and the Soviet Union. Vietnam was split along the 17th parallel, with Ho Chi Minh’s Democratic Republic of Vietnam in the north and French-controlled territory in the south. All three divisions nominally arose from the postwar settlement following Japan and Germany’s defeat, but each was driven by the emerging Cold War logic of American and Soviet spheres of influence.^[5]

The key difference from Germany: Koreans were present at none of the meetings that decided their fate. Germany was partitioned as a defeated aggressor state. Korea was the victim of colonial rule. Yet Korea’s future was decided entirely without Koreans.

The Trusteeship Dispute: What Lay Behind the Divide

In December 1945, the foreign ministers of the United States, Britain, and the Soviet Union gathered in Moscow. The conference produced a decision on Korea: the peninsula would move toward independence gradually, through a four-power trusteeship involving the United States, Britain, the Soviet Union, and China, lasting up to five years.^[6]

The way this news reached Korea became a pivotal variable in history. On December 27, 1945, the Dong-A Ilbo reported that “the Soviet Union supports trusteeship, while the United States supports immediate independence.” But the story had it exactly backwards. It was the United States that had first proposed the trusteeship arrangement; the Soviet Union had put forward an amendment that gave priority to establishing a provisional democratic government.^[7]

This false report fundamentally reconfigured the Korean political landscape. To a people who had endured thirty-five years of colonial rule, the prospect of “another trusteeship” felt like an outright humiliation. The outrage was immediate and widespread. The right wing launched an anti-trusteeship movement. The left, including the Korean Communist Party, initially joined the opposition — then reversed course once they grasped the actual terms of the Moscow Agreement and swung behind the trusteeship plan.^[7]

This reversal proved decisive. The equation became fixed in the Korean public mind: anti-trusteeship equaled anti-communism equaled anti-Soviet; pro-trusteeship equaled pro-communism equaled pro-Soviet. The original Moscow Agreement goal of establishing a unified provisional government was pushed aside. The trusteeship debate instead cleaved the nation in two.^[7]

The U.S.-Soviet Joint Commission and the Attempt at Compromise

In March 1946, as a follow-up to the Moscow Agreement, the First U.S.-Soviet Joint Commission convened in Seoul. Its purpose was to negotiate arrangements for establishing a unified provisional government for Korea. But the sessions were troubled from the start. The United States and the Soviet Union clashed over which political parties and social organizations should be included in consultations. The Soviets insisted that only organizations supporting the Moscow Agreement should participate; the Americans countered that anti-trusteeship forces must also be included. In May 1946, the First Joint Commission broke down without result.^[8]

In the immediate aftermath of this failure, the U.S. Military Government began supporting a new approach: the Left-Right Coalition Movement. Led by the moderate leftist Lyuh Woon-hyung and the moderate rightist Kim Kyu-sik, the movement sought to bring together centrist forces outside the two extremes to establish a unified provisional government.^[9]

In October 1946, the Left-Right Coalition Committee published the Seven Principles of Left-Right Coalition, calling for the resumption of the Joint Commission, free distribution of land to farmers, nationalization of key industries, and the establishment of local self-government. Both Syngman Rhee’s right wing and Pak Hon-yong’s left wing rejected the principles. Rhee was moving toward a separate government, while the left deemed the principles incompatible with their own line.^[9]

The Collapse of Coalition: Kim Gu, Lyuh Woon-hyung, and an Unfinished Dream

As the Left-Right Coalition Movement lost momentum, the paths of two key figures diverged in striking contrast.

Kim Gu, the chairman of the Korean Provisional Government, had initially taken a hard anti-trusteeship stance before pivoting to opposition against a separate government. In a February 1948 statement titled “A Tearful Appeal to Thirty Million Compatriots,” he called on Koreans to “tear down the 38th parallel in your hearts and build a self-reliant, unified government.”^[10] To Kim Gu, a separate government meant the permanent entrenchment of division. He kept searching until the end for a way to return to the state of affairs that had existed before the 38th parallel was drawn.

Lyuh Woon-hyung did not live to see the outcome. On July 19, 1947, he was shot and killed at a roundabout in Hyehwa-dong, Seoul. The identity of those behind the assassination was never established. It is said that approximately half a million people attended his funeral.^[11] The streets that day were filled with the sense that it was not merely a politician who had died, but the symbol of a unified Korea.

After Lyuh’s assassination, the Second U.S.-Soviet Joint Commission also collapsed in October of that year, and the Korean question was transferred to the United Nations. The internal path — coalition — had failed. The external path — U.S.-Soviet negotiation — had also crumbled.^[8]

Looking back at this moment, it is difficult to attribute the failure of the coalition effort simply to ideological conflict. There is a compelling argument that neither the United States nor the Soviet Union genuinely wanted a unified Korea. Each side was reluctant to give up the half of the peninsula within its own sphere of influence. The efforts of centrist figures were simply too small a force to overcome those structural interests.^[6]

America’s Choice: Syngman Rhee as the Preferred Card

On October 16, 1945, Syngman Rhee returned to Korea. He stopped first in Tokyo to make contact with MacArthur’s headquarters, then landed at Incheon with the support of General Hodge.^[12]

Rhee was seventy years old at the time. He was the only Korean independence activist to hold a doctorate from Princeton University, and he had wide-ranging contacts in the U.S. Congress and government. Above all, he had never once concealed his deep hostility toward communism.^[12]

The U.S. Military Government faced a dilemma. In the immediate aftermath of liberation, left-wing forces were far stronger in southern Korea. Geonjun’s organizational network blanketed the country, and both labor unions and farmers’ unions were dominated by the left. The right, by contrast, was poorly organized and lacked popular support. Moreover, segments of the right-wing factions had histories of collaboration with the Japanese Government-General during the colonial period.^[4]

The U.S. Military Government chose Syngman Rhee as its vehicle for building an anti-communist bulwark. But the choice also meant placing at the forefront a figure whom the military government itself could not fully control. Rhee moved toward the establishment of a separate government far faster than the Americans wanted.^[12]

In June 1946, in what became known as the Jeongeup Speech, Rhee declared that “something like a provisional government or committee must be established, even if only in South Korea.” It was effectively the first time a Korean political figure had publicly advocated for the permanent entrenchment of division. The U.S. State Department was caught off guard. General Hodge attempted to dissuade Rhee. But the logic of division was already running on its own momentum.^[12]

Late 1947: The Turning Point

The latter months of 1947 marked the closing of a particular chapter.

Lyuh Woon-hyung was assassinated in July. The Second U.S.-Soviet Joint Commission collapsed in October. The United States placed the Korean question before the United Nations General Assembly. The UN passed a resolution calling for all-Korean elections, but the Soviet Union refused to permit the UN Temporary Commission on Korea to enter North Korea.^[8] The only path remaining was a separate election in the South.

Looking back on this period, certain questions arise almost involuntarily. What if the misleading trusteeship report had never been published? What if Lyuh Woon-hyung had not been assassinated in 1947? What if the Joint Commission had been given one more chance?

History does not entertain hypotheticals. Yet it is worth remembering that division was not, from the beginning, an inevitable fate. Germany was divided — and was eventually reunified. Vietnam was divided — and was eventually reunified. The possibility that the Korean peninsula’s division might have taken a different course was not entirely absent. But that possibility was foreclosed, one by one, in the autumn of 1947.

This story does not end here. In 1948, a separate election was held in South Korea and the government of the Republic of Korea was established. In that same process, a violent armed conflict erupted on Jeju Island, claiming the lives of tens of thousands of civilians. That chapter continues in Part 3.

Previous: Part 1: Losing a Nation, Building a Nation (1897–1945)

Next: Part 3: The Establishment of Government and the Tragedy of Jeju 4.3 (1948)