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You may know all about the liberation of Korea on August 15, 1945, and the division of the country into two parts by the United States and the Soviet Union.
The Korean Provisional Government settled in Chongqing, China in 1940 and began preparations to build an independent nation after the liberation.
It issued the Founding Charter, which aimed to build a democratic nation with national freedom and independence based on “Samkyunism”.
The Code laid out a blueprint for the ideal state that the Provisional Government hoped to realize after independence, and laid an important foundation for nation-building after liberation.
In 1942, the Korean Independence Alliance, organized from its base in Yan’an, China, with Kim Doobong as its leader, published the “Code of the Korean Independence Alliance,” which called for the establishment of a democratic republic through ordinary elections, gender equality, land distribution, and compulsory education.
Domestically, in 1944, the Korean National Founding Alliance was formed under Yeo Un-hyung, and in preparation for the defeat of Japan, it issued the Korean National Founding Alliance Manifesto, which aimed to overthrow Japanese imperialism and build a nation based on democratic principles.
In 1943, as the tide turned in favor of the Allies during World War II, the leaders of the major Allied powers, including Chiang Kai-shek of China, Roosevelt of the United States, and Churchill of the United Kingdom, held the Cairo Conference to discuss strengthening mutual cooperation and post-war handling.
The “Cairo Declaration,” issued at the conference, called for Japan to return the territories it had occupied before the war, and for Korea to become independent in due course.
“The Cairo Declaration was the first official statement by the Allies that guaranteed Japan’s territorial issues and the independence of our nation, and it played a significant role in the postwar reorganization of the international order in East Asia.
At the end of World War II, with the surrender of Italy and the defeat of Germany in sight, leaders of the United States, United Kingdom, and Soviet Union held the “Yalta Conference” in February 1945 in Yalta, Soviet Union.
The talks discussed how to deal with Germany after the war and the Soviet Union’s participation in the Great War. By agreement, the Soviet Union decided to declare war on Japan and enter the Pacific War within three months of the end of the war with Germany.
In July 1945, at the Potsdam Conference held after the German surrender, the Allies issued the Potsdam Declaration, which demanded Japan’s unconditional surrender and reaffirmed Korea’s independence by stating that all provisions of the Cairo Declaration must be implemented.
However, Japan refused to surrender, and the United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6 and 9, 1945.
The Soviet Union then declared its entry into the war against Japan, and the Emperor of Japan declared his unconditional surrender to the Allies on August 15, 1945, and our nation was liberated.
Although the victory was the result of the Allied victory, it was also the result of Korea’s ongoing independence movement. However, Japan’s sudden surrender disrupted the domestic vacuum prepared for independence, and the Allies regarded the Korean Peninsula as a colony of a defeated country, which greatly hindered the establishment of the self-government we longed for.
On August 11, 1945, after the “Yalta Conference,” Soviet forces entered the Korean Peninsula and quickly disarmed the Japanese army, rapidly occupying the northern part of the peninsula. In response, the United States imposed restrictions on the Soviet Union to divide the peninsula into northern and southern sections to prevent the Soviets from taking over the entire peninsula unilaterally.
This restriction was accepted and the peninsula was divided along the “38th parallel,” resulting in Soviet forces controlling the northern part of the peninsula and American forces controlling the southern part.
The “38th parallel” marked the beginning of the formal division of the Korean Peninsula, further cementing the separation of North and South Korea.
The United States established military, political, and governmental authorities in the southern part of the Korean Peninsula and imposed direct rule.
In doing so, the United States did not recognize any existing governmental entities, such as the People’s Republic of Korea or the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea, and maintained the bureaucratic and police organizations of the Japanese occupation of Korea to run the military government.
The Soviet Union, on the other hand, took the approach of indirect rule, transferring administrative power to “people’s commissars” already established in the northern part of the peninsula. The Soviet Union actively supported socialist forces to take control of the government, and purged nationalist figures such as Cho Man-sik to eliminate opposition and strengthen the influence of socialist forces.
These divergent political approaches by the United States and the Soviet Union further entrenched the division of the Korean Peninsula. How did the rest of Korea’s history play out?
We will tell you in great detail about the political situation in Korea immediately after the liberation and the Moscow Trilateral Foreign Ministers’ Conference.
Samkyunism (三均主義)
Samkyunism (三均主義) is a political ideology proposed by the Korean independence activist Cho So-ang (趙素昻) that aims to realize Korean independence and democracy. It is based on the idea of three kinds of equality: political equality, economic equality, and educational equality. The ideology was first presented systematically in Cho’s 1941 book, Samkyunism.
Political equality : This means that all citizens have equal political rights, and that a political system based on democratic principles should be established. It emphasizes that all citizens should be able to express their will through the right to vote.
Economic equality : ensuring that the economic resources of a society are not concentrated in the hands of a few, and that all citizens have equal opportunities economically. It aims to bridge the gap between rich and poor, and reduce economic inequality.
Educational equality : means that all citizens should have an equal right to education, and that education should enable them to develop to the best of their ability, regardless of their social class or status. It aims to raise the intellectual and cultural level of society as a whole, and focuses on realizing the potential of each individual citizen.
Samkyunism was highly influential in laying the foundation for the new Korea envisioned by Jo Soan, and was an important ideological foundation for the Korean Provisional Government and the independence movement. Most notably, the idea served as the ideological basis for the creation of the Korean Constitution and nation-building.
