this post was submitted on 04 Oct 2023
1047 points (95.9% liked)
Memes
45730 readers
1722 users here now
Rules:
- Be civil and nice.
- Try not to excessively repost, as a rule of thumb, wait at least 2 months to do it if you have to.
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
They were not though, neither the communists nor the Japanese collaborators believed the line was a legitimate or permanent division of the country. The plan was always reunification and no Korean party accepted the terms you're talking about.
Ironically there was an independent government emerging in the wake of the collapse of Japan but the US occupation outlawed it when they came in.
The People's Republic of Korea was basically the Korean government in exile during World War II. I think they merged into the DPRK after the US refused to let them take control of South Korea, even though they were the legitimate government of Korea.
I think that's a slight exaggeration, although I get what you're saying. But I think it's important to demonstrate to libs that I'm being consistent so I'll explain what I mean.
I don't think the communal decision making bodies that spun up in the wake of the Japanese evacuation were necessarily completely aligned with Kim or the communists in exile, it was virtually impossible to maintain a functioning domestic apparatus and what I've read makes it seem like these were mostly improvisational.
That said, I think in the long run you're right, I see it as similar to Vietnam later: because US foreign policy was aligned with elements that were naturally unpopular to the population of the country (in Korea's case, the Japanese and domestic collaborators) a democratic resolution of the question of what sort of government a united Korea would chose for itself was not going to be an acceptable outcome to the US.
But we don't know what they would organically choose for themselves because that decision was foreclosed by US occupation. I suspect a popular referendum was the best possible outcome but I think it would probably look very different from the current DPRK, for understandable reasons.
It is true that there are big differences in the ideology of the PRK and the DPRK, but the DPRK still was made as a sort of reconstitution of the PRK government