Preface to the Korean edition
preface

Part 1 Background

Chapter 1: Class and Ruling Institutions in Colonial Korea
Colonial governance | Development of the railway network | Commerce | Mobilization of labor | Resistance movement
Chapter 2: Landlords and Tenant Farmers in Colonial Korea
Agriculture during the Japanese Colonial Period | The Emergence of Korean Farmers and Markets | Population Outflow from Korea | Mobilization and Rebellion | Conclusion
Chapter 3: Revolution and Backlash: August–September 1945
End of Japanese Colonial Rule | Preparatory Committee for the Establishment of the Korean Nation | The People's Republic of Korea | Opposition to the People's Republic | Conclusion
Chapter 4: Korea Policy in the Crucible: The Conflicts Emerging in U.S. Policy toward Korea, 1943-1945
The Emergence of the Trusteeship Plan? March 1943 | Cairo Conference: Independence "at the Right Time" | Yalta and Potsdam: The Uncertainty of Trusteeship | The First Postwar Blockade: The Division of Korea in August 1945 | "Hurrying" from Okinawa to Seoul | Pre-Departure Policies and Planning | Conclusion

Part 2: Political Situation in Central Asia, 1945–1947

Chapter 5: Building a New Order: The US Military's Presence and Government, Police, and Defense Policies
Incheon and Seoul: New Allies and Enemies | Rebuilding the Colonial Bureaucracy | Judicial and Police Organizations | Launch of the National Guard
Chapter 6: Towards a South Korean Independent Government
The Provisional Government's Return and the "Political Affairs Committee" | Suppression of the Left | Land and Rice Policies | Conclusion
Chapter 7: International Cooperation and the Logic of National Monopoly: The Rigid Attitude of the Central Government, 1946
Guardianship and Independence, Traitors and Patriots: The Confusion Surrounding the Trusteeship | Haji in a Corner | From the US-Soviet Joint Commission to the South Korean Interim Government | Negotiations under the US-Soviet Joint Commission | Left-Right Suppression Before and After the US-Soviet Joint Commission | The Left-Right Joint Committee and the Interim Legislative Assembly | Conclusion: "Voices of Discontent"

Part 3: Conflicts between Koreans and American troops in the provinces, 1945–1947

Chapter 8: Overview of the Local People's Committee
Population changes | Transportation and communication conditions | Land ownership | Geographic location | Length of the interregnum | Political history and indicators | Occupation of each province by the US military
Chapter 9: The Fate of the Local People's Committee
South Jeolla Province People's Committee | North Jeolla Province People's Committee | South Gyeongsang Province People's Committee | North Gyeongsang Province People's Committee | South and North Chungcheong Province People's Committees | Gangwon Province and Gyeonggi Province People's Committees | Jeju Province People's Committee | Conclusion
Chapter 10: The September General Strike and the October Uprising
September General Strike | October Uprising | Methods of Suppression | Causes of the Strike and Uprising | Conclusion
Chapter 11 The Wind Blows from the North
Soviet occupation | Bottom-up politics | Top-down politics | Kim Il-sung's rise to power | North Korea's centralization | Social revolution | United Front policy | The north wind blowing south | Conclusion
Chapter 12 Conclusion: Denied Liberation

Appendix / Notes / References / Translator's Note / Index

Significance of the publication of the Korean edition

What does it mean to publish “The Origins of the Korean War” at this point in time?
As Professor Shin Bok-ryong said, the Korean War has a very complex and subtle nature.
It was a war without a declaration of war, a war without victory or defeat, the first war in which the United States failed to win, a war that failed to eliminate evil but instead solidified division, maximizing the tragedy of national history, a war that accelerated the ideological confrontation (Cold War), and above all, it was the war with the greatest controversy over responsibility for its outbreak.
This war is still ongoing, and North Korea, the opposing party, has now completed its nuclear armament. The Korean Peninsula remains wedged between major powers, and in a society where even minor provocations near the 38th parallel make headlines, this war can never become history.
It is still a pressing issue that strongly defines our reality.
In a land where the term "division system" still holds true, the Korean War needs to bring to the forefront the social dynamics of the long period of time obscured by the apparent combat patterns and the debate over responsibility for the outbreak of the war.
Bruce Cumings's The Origins of the Korean War is an outstanding achievement in this regard.

Cummings' book has been met with much praise and criticism.
It is no longer necessary to emphasize that among them, the 'revisionists' were the first to challenge the traditionalist theory that the war began with a large-scale invasion by North Korea under Soviet command.
Re-examining Cummings's Jack within the framework of discourses such as traditionalism, revisionism, and neo-revisionism is something that should be avoided at all costs, as it would overly simplify this three-dimensional book.
The very act of adding the word "caution" to the word "correction," which means that the facts are wrong and need to be corrected, is an unreasonable grammar in the first place. In addition, there have been so many positions that have been discarded because they were proven to be erroneous that it is correct to say that the discussion itself has lost its validity.

Professor Jeong Byeong-jun, author of “The Korean War,” criticized Cumings’s claim that “it is impossible to say that the war started in June 1950 was anyone’s fault,” but if you read Cumings’ book in its entirety, you can feel that Cumings is heavily inclined towards the theory of American responsibility for the war.
There was also much criticism for overemphasizing the internal elements of the Korean War and defining it as a “civil war,” but a careful reading of this complete translation reveals that Cumings’ emphasis on “civil war” was intended to raise questions about viewing the issue solely as a confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union. He did not deny that the Korean War was an “international war with a civil nature,” but rather, he restored in detail the process that led to the war according to the United States’ global strategy.
Professor Park Myeong-rim, a strong critic of Cumings, pointed out that “Bruce Cumings is the one who has most strongly doubted the invasion theory and has tried to find a counterargument to it,” but Cumings had pointed out from the beginning that the invasion theory was absurd, and in a situation where small-scale guerrilla warfare and local warfare had been repeated for over a year since before 1950, resulting in over 100,000 casualties, he was skeptical as to whether North Korea’s transition to an all-out war could really be summarized as an invasion, and he only demanded a more accurate picture of the reality.


In 1952, he published “The Secret History of the Korean War” and claimed that Syngman Rhee, MacArthur, Dulles, and Chiang Kai-shek aided and abetted the war through a conspiracy of silence, even though they knew it would break out.
In addition to F. Stone's 'invasion inducement theory', this part is also being reexamined in Cummings' book.
Some have even labeled Cummings a "conspiracy theorist," but it is true that Dean Acheson, then a U.S. State Department official, later privately said, "Korea saved us." It is also well known that the Korean War played a significant role in increasing defense spending necessary for the U.S. pursuit of global hegemony after the end of World War II and in unifying a divided nation.
There were also criticisms from Professor Son Ho-cheol and others that the 'farmers' section was given too much importance in the process of analyzing Donghak within Korea, and the importance of the 'labor' and 'workers' sections was barely addressed.

Anyway, now 『The Origins of the Korean War』 has revealed its massive body.
In particular, the second volume, which was not translated and was only rumored, is twice as long as the first volume, and compared to the first volume, which covered 1945-1947, it covers the period from 1947 to the outbreak of the war. Unlike the first volume, it takes a very detailed and specific look at the US foreign policy, world policy, Korean Peninsula policy, Soviet policy, and Japanese policy before the situation on the Korean Peninsula, and really painstakingly depicts the international aspect of this war.
Now, Cummings's book is being reread in Korean society, and by doing so, we must fully recognize that it is a detailed portrait of the times, meticulously depicting the various turbulent changes this society experienced from the colonial era to the Korean War, the social conflicts that resulted from them, and their eruptions.
And about the entry of the US military government, which was the starting point of the division system, and the specific actions the US took on this land to block the spread of communist forces and establish an outer boundary to pursue political and economic hegemony, etc.; about the strategies and mistakes they devised to control and take advantage of the countries and peoples that were rapidly gaining independence from colonies; about the social control, appeasement, and oppression that were carried out based on them; about the fact that the atmosphere of socialist revolution in the unoccupied area after the colonial power withdrew was stronger than we imagined due to the severe class conflict that could only be resolved through revolution during the late Joseon Dynasty and the Japanese colonial period; and that North Korea's ambition to communize South Korea was therefore not such a terrible imagination in the context of the time. I hope there will be much discussion about these from a realist perspective that is free from camps, ideologies, and mannerisms.
In a public atmosphere that is still overly emotional about national realities and mired in a sense of victimization, Cumings's position, which recognizes aspects of colonial modernization such as railroad construction and industrialization facilities as unique characteristics of Korea compared to other Southeast Asian countries that were colonies of the West, may be uncomfortable. On the other hand, the fact that he repeatedly and strongly criticizes the point in this book that the US military government tolerated pro-Japanese forces and gave them a soft landing through administrative power, and emphasizes this as the core element of civil war, clearly has something to suggest to us.


Volume 1: Liberation and the Emergence of the Division System, 1945–1947

Cummings says in the preface to Volume 1:

“This study will start from a different premise.
I believe that the origins of the Korean War should be sought primarily in the events that occurred from 1945 to 1950, and secondarily in the forces that formed during the Japanese colonial period and left a special mark on Korea from the end of the Pacific War until the outbreak of the Korean War.
The characteristic of this interlude—beginning with liberation from colonial rule, continuing through the establishment of a divided nation, and ending with the crackle of cannon fire in 1950—was that it was a period with a strong revolutionary character.

In August 1945, calls for comprehensive political, economic, and social change erupted across the Korean Peninsula.
The demand for political change was manifested in the self-organization of various organizations such as political parties, people's committees, trade unions, and mass organizations of peasants, youth, and women.
The demand for social and economic change, focused on the land situation after the Japanese colonial period, when most farmers were under a tenant farming system dominated by landlords, brought about this explosive political participation.
In other words, to study Korean politics during the turbulent years of 1945, we must address the fundamental issue that remained unresolved: the relationship between landlords and farmers.
This was an essential characteristic of Korean society when it emerged from Japanese rule.

The fundamental issues of the war that broke out in 1950 became clear just three months after liberation, and led to peasant rebellions, labor movements, guerrilla warfare, and fighting along the 38th parallel, which claimed more than 100,000 lives—all of which occurred before the Korean War broke out.
In other words, the conflict that began in 1945 and unfolded through the dialectic of revolution and reaction was domestic and revolutionary.
The conventional war that began in June 1950 was simply a continuation of the war by different means.

Although the war was essentially a civil war, Korea was not in a vacuum; it was caught in a whirlpool of great powers vying for dominance and external forces that Korea could not handle on its own.
Neither South nor North Korea achieved liberation unscathed.
Both countries experienced the Japanese colonial period.
That colonial shell had lasted for a long time and then shattered so suddenly.
Moreover, in 1945, when the latent contradictions within Korea's society became apparent, Korea did not attempt to resolve them alone, but rather sought to resolve them together with the two new superpowers that dominated the postwar period, the Soviet Union and the United States, and with two ancient nations: China, which was embroiled in a domestic revolution, and the fallen empire of Japan.
Korea, which had been under Japanese colonial rule for nearly 40 years, faced the misfortune of being divided after the end of the Pacific War.
The long and complex structure stretching from Japan to Manchuria was instantly dismantled, and the question posed on the Korean Peninsula for the next five years was to which side—Moscow, Washington, or Beijing—would its new allegiance lie?
Or will Korea realize the ideal of an independent, self-reliant, unified nation capable of choosing its own relationship with the world? The Korean War was also linked to this question. (pp. 27-28)

Volume 1 mainly covers the first year after liberation.
Because during that period, the basic structures of both South and North Korea were formed and the seeds of war were sown.
As research has focused on understanding the nature of 1950 and the war, that year, and sometimes even the period leading up to 1948, has largely been ignored—as if the period before 1948 or 1949 were unimportant, or that the three years of US military government in South Korea should be briefly mentioned.
However, the establishment of divided governments in South and North Korea in 1948 was only the final expression of the events of 1945 and 1946, and the Korean War was the culmination of a conflict that had continued for over five years prior.
In short, the major events of August 1945 and June 1950 are intertwined in an unbroken chain.

The period from 1945 to 1950 also had its own background.
The 36 years of colonial rule that destroyed Korea's old order and the various methods mobilized during that period became the foundation for preparing and forming the new system that emerged after the collapse of Japanese imperialism.
Japanese rule had a profound impact on the class structure of Korean society, either promoting or suppressing change.
For example, it promoted the emergence of the Korean working class and hindered the development of entrepreneurial elements.
Japan modernized the Korean Peninsula for its own interests, and after 1931, it attempted to unify Korea and Manchuria, building roads, railroads, ports, and communications facilities.
They established major industrial facilities in the northern region.
All of these modern facilities were too advanced for Korea at the time and did not correspond well with the actual strengths (or weaknesses) of the Korean social structure.
In Korean society, peasants resisted the tenancy system, the yangban retreated to engage in educational activities that demanded patience or individual meditation, and nationalists and communist guerrillas attacked the empire's peripheries and gaps to resist the changes attempted by Japan.
In response, Japan used its closely and thoroughly infiltrated state apparatus to develop colonies and suppress resistance.
It drastically distorted the traditional role of the state in Korea, had a profound impact on the politics that unfolded in the interwar period, and left a legacy of a bloated and cumbersome bureaucracy in postwar Korea.
The changes in agriculture and industry left their most noticeable mark on the peasantry.
They were the most populous class in Korea and showed two characteristics in the liberation period: large-scale participation and widespread resistance.
Particularly significant in this regard were the changes in land ownership, the increase in international trade, widespread social mobility, and the massive population movements that resulted from the active and direct mobilization of Koreans into the war effort concentrated on the eve of Japan's defeat.
As a result, countless Korean farmers were uprooted and forced to emigrate overseas or work in industry.
These events are sudden, widespread, and cause the greatest damage when they first occur.
The impact was even greater after the Japanese returned to their islands, as those who had settled in Korea for generations lost their long-held routines and were released into society when the colonial system ended.

It was these peasants—or peasants with strong worker characteristics and returning soldiers—who provided the fundamental driving force behind the explosive public participation that emerged during the liberation period.
The changes that emerged during the Japanese colonial period were most evident immediately after liberation, when Japan had lost power but before the Allied forces completely took over.
That time was a time of intense change led by Koreans.
That time was dominated by newly formed leftist political organizations such as the National Preparatory Committee, the People's Committee, labor unions, youth groups, and local farmers' associations.


During this period, the concept of a new 'People's Republic' and the reality of numerous autonomous organizations emerged for all Koreans.
Although it had not received much attention, this liberation system and its fate became a central issue in Korean politics until 1950.
The conflicts of this period, without any significant foreign intervention, have been a key factor in later investigations into the origins of the Korean and civil wars.
The situation at the time was closer to the truth than Korea choosing a side in the confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union, with the United States and the Soviet Union opposing each other, infringing upon the existing fissures in Korea at the time.
The circumstances under which the United States and the Soviet Union bear significant responsibility for the fate of the Korean Peninsula are unclear, especially with regard to the Soviet Union.
In the absence of data, this book can only speculate on Soviet motives.
However, recent releases of a wealth of material in the United States have provided us with the earliest possible view of postwar American intervention in Asia.
Whatever conclusions readers draw about the United States after digesting such material, they should keep in mind that it is in the spirit of democracy to make secret documents available to all interested parties.
This means that not only do individuals have the right to know, but people can learn from their past.
These two are progressive beliefs of the world we live in.
These documents show that less than two years after the Pearl Harbor attack, the United States reversed its long-standing policy of non-intervention in Korean affairs, began to recognize the Korean Peninsula as crucial to its own security, and established a typical international approach to dealing with the Korean issue after the war.
It was a multinational trusteeship of the four great powers that the United States believed would dominate the post-war world.
The emphasis on involving multiple powers and accommodating diverse interests became a trend in subsequent U.S. policy toward Korea, and this thinking manifested itself in the form of the United Nations Command, which signified U.S. intervention in the Korean War.
This trend also had an anti-communist intention to limit and suppress the opponent through various intersecting methods that could obstruct or manage the impulse to rebellion rather than directly confronting it from beginning to end.
The opponent was, of course, Stalin, and the policy took into close consideration his desire to make the Soviet Union one of the great powers.
However, it failed because it did not take into account Korea's revolutionary nationalism.
Faced with Korean revolutionaries rather than Soviet ones, the United States abandoned its internationalist approach and adopted a policy based on nationalism, pushing for unilateral measures to build a bulwark against communism in Korea.
This trend pursued a self-centered solution: the establishment of a separate South Korean government that could form a blockade and confrontational front and create an anti-communist society.
Of course, this means that a global Cold War was underway.
What's interesting about Korea is that it appeared very early—less than three months after Japan's defeat.


Between September and December 1945, the US military government made the important decision to maintain the Japanese-created Governor-General's Office, police system, and the Koreans assigned to them, and to establish a national defense guard only in South Korea, moving toward establishing a separate government in South Korea.
It was a routine procedure that was pushed forward unilaterally, unaware that North Korea had made a similar decision, and it often ran counter to existing U.S. policy.
If there was one aspect in which the Korean occupation policy resembled the Japanese occupation policy, it was this last aspect.
Apart from this, it was a stark contrast to American policy toward Japan until it turned to a “reverse course” in 1948, and at times took on a radical aspect.
Regressive policies were immediately implemented in Korea.
Whether supported by Washington policymakers or negotiated with the Soviets, the events of the first few months of the occupation significantly distorted and biased the future prospects for resolving Korea's division.
The reason was that to pursue a different or better approach, the actions taken in the last three months of 1945 would have had to be reversed.
The decision was not reversed, and as a result, the most important choice was made in the conduct of U.S. policy toward Korea during this period.
Except for the small number of Koreans who argued that independence was not necessary, this crucial choice was made amidst the chaos in which Korean aspirations almost always clashed with American visions.
For workers, farmers, students, and those who had been mobilized by the Japanese and returned to their hometowns, the liberation system was worth fighting for and protecting.
People's participation has spread over time.
The unrest was most severe in areas heavily influenced by Japan, where demographic change and agrarian conflicts occurred simultaneously, and where geographically sufficient time had been given for the organization to take root.
North Korea, on the other hand, was a quiet island.
Soviet policy supported a thorough but not overly violent social revolution with the full participation and leadership of left-wing Koreans.
After an initial period of undisciplined frenzy, the Soviets handed over power to the Koreans and retreated.
In the short term, it was a fairly successful policy that was efficient and inexpensive.
Of course, in the long run, the Soviet Union failed to create the docile satellite states it intended, a situation quite different from that of some Eastern European countries today.
This was the result of the Soviet Union's support of radical nationalist forces that fought against Japanese rule and rejected Soviet control.
Matters related to this will be covered in more detail in Volume 2.
The author says that recently available data on North Korea are very useful for examining the period from 1947 to 1950.
However, Volume 1 mainly deals with South Korea in the immediate aftermath of 1945, when it was occupied by the world's most powerful nation, with a capital and a larger population.
Immediately after liberation, more important events occurred in South Korea.
However, since North Korea's political system has been widespread in South Korea since its inception, understanding South Korea's leftist politics can also help us understand the situation in North Korea.


Volume 2 covers the period 1947-1950.
During this period, Korean politics and social forces underwent significant, if not fundamental, changes.
As the Cold War deepened, the United States sought to break away from its previous policies, which had led to disastrous consequences, by supporting South Korea's policies, this time with the help of the United Nations and other countries.
When the Republic of Korea was established in 1948, the United States sought to distance itself from this visibly vulnerable government and its leader, Syngman Rhee.
The troops withdrew and relations between the two countries became strained.
The US promise to protect South Korea has been questioned and used to tame the South Korean government.
However, it is believed that America's promise to protect South Korea has not been broken.
This is because it was clear that this government was the result and responsibility of the policies pursued by the United States after liberation.
It was a far more American creation than any other government established in postwar Asia.
The emergence of a powerful right-wing populist movement in South Korea, drawing support from those expelled and persecuted in the North, also changed relations between the two countries on the Korean Peninsula.
In North Korea, the possibility of peaceful unification has been dashed with the left wing seizing power.
After the tumultuous summer of 1947, the left was virtually annihilated in South Korea, but indigenous guerrilla warfare developed in areas previously swayed by the People's Committee.
This internal conflict swept through the mountainous region and the entire island of Jeju, leading to a unique battle situation.
The South Korean rebels responded by expanding their influence.
After seizing power, Syngman Rhee handed over key military command to North Korean officers who had served in the Japanese military.
Meanwhile, North Korea expanded its military, centering on the Manchurian unit, by absorbing tens of thousands of soldiers who had participated in the Chinese Civil War as part of the People's Liberation Army.
The guerrilla warfare continued until late 1949, when fighting broke out along the 38th parallel.
However, this situation ended with the virtual defeat of the southern guerrillas.
As we will see, this was a sign that the conflict between the North and the South was escalating into a conventional military approach.
The effectiveness of large-scale conventional warfare was clearly demonstrated in the final stages of the Chinese Civil War in 1949, a phase that the Korean conflict also entered.


However, a period of waiting and testing followed in the early 1950s as both sides sought support from their respective patron states for a conventional offensive.
Volume 1 also examines several lines of evidence suggesting that the Cold War's origins were conceived within the Korean issue.
The typical Cold War relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union first appeared in Korea, the only country in Asia where the United States directly confronted the Soviet Union after the war.
The containment policy was pursued from the beginning, although it did not receive approval from Washington.
At several critical junctures in the first year after liberation, blockade activists in Seoul were John J.
He gained the support of McCloy, Avery Harriman, and George Kennan.


In 1945, Korea was an unimportant periphery for the United States, but it later showed the way for other countries and regions.
The adventurous and preemptive policies pursued by the US Military Government in Seoul provoked unrest and criticism in Washington, but ultimately won its favor and support.
It seemed that Seoul, not Washington, held the reins.
In other words, what Washington judged to be a wrong policy around 1945 or 1946 was judged to be a prescient insight by 1947 or 1948.
Of course, as Washington's response to the perceived Soviet invasion of Korea in 1950 shifted to a global scale, South Korea moved front and center, and the sense of urgency became palpable.
However, the influence related to the armed conflict and its decisions appears to have been held by the US military government from the beginning.
Also, Korea has not received much attention in relation to the Asian revolution.
In 1945, the revolutionary atmosphere on the Korean Peninsula was ripe.
Even if the Soviet Union and the United States had not invaded, revolution would have swept Korea within a few months.
The Korean communist movement, with its many experienced leaders, has one of the longest traditions in Asia.
The land issue in South Korea, in particular, showed signs of revolution.
However, Vietnamese-style communism did not develop in North Korea, and persistent rebellions did not occur in South Korea.
Uncovering the cause is another major goal of Volume 1.