North Korea founded

On September 9, 1948, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea was proclaimed in Pyongyang, with Kim Il Sung as premier. Less than a month earlier, on August 15, the Republic of Korea had been founded in Seoul under Syngman Rhee. Both governments claimed to be the only legitimate rulers of the whole peninsula, and both prepared to unify it on their own terms.¹

Korea had been a Japanese colony from 1910 to 1945. When Japan surrendered in August 1945, two American officers proposed dividing the country at the 38th parallel so that Soviet troops would accept the Japanese surrender in the north and U.S. troops in the south. The line was meant to be temporary, but the growing Cold War made agreement on a single government impossible. Talks between the occupying powers failed, and the United Nations supervised elections only in the south in May 1948.²³

In the north, Soviet authorities backed Kim Il Sung, a former guerrilla in his mid-thirties who had fought the Japanese in Manchuria and later served in the Soviet army. Under Soviet guidance, a provisional committee seized and redistributed land from landlords, nationalized major industry, and built a communist party and army. Soviet troops withdrew at the end of 1948, leaving a disciplined, well-armed state. Less than two years later, with Stalin's approval, Kim invaded the south, starting the Korean War.¹