The Asianist

Leftist South Korean groups are in ecstasy over the visit from North Korean officials for the joint celebration of Korea's liberation from Japanese colonial rule (hat tip: Judith Apter Klinghoffer):

Joint Liberation Day celebrations of the two Koreas in Seoul are turning into a platform for North Korea to publicize its views as the South Korean hosts are going out of their way to avoid offending their guests. The North Koreans are unabashedly airing demands for the withdrawal of the U.S. military and the rejection of “foreign influences,” while in the heart of downtown Seoul, participants from pro-North Korean labor, civic and student groups openly shout slogans in that vein. On Tuesday, the North Korean delegation gleefully waved sashes given them by South Korean supporters that read, "Withdraw USFK!"

These leftist -- frankly communist -- South Korean groups are basically dupes of the the North, South Korean "useful idiots." In the unlikely event that the North took over the South, these Southern communists would be some of the first people to be executed or sent to gulags (communists don't care for competitors or share power, see Vietnam and Cambodia c. 1975).

In fact, as the eminently sensible Andrei Lankov points out, what is often ignored in the South Korean intellectual circles is that the North Korean government of Kim Il-Sung started out as a pure puppet regime of the Soviet communists:

The textbook dedicates quite a few pages to the 1946 land reform in the North, whose radicalism is favorably contrasted with the sluggishness of similar measures in South Korea. Basically, it's true: the South Korean government of 1948-1950 included too many landlords to be enthusiastic about land redistribution. But there was something in the story that made one laugh: the book failed to mention that from beginning to end, land reform in North Korea was planned by Soviet military authorities.

Land reform was promulgated in the name of nascent North Korean authorities, but Kim Il-sung simply signed the documents that had been prepared for him by Russian officers. This is evident from Russian papers on land reform, which were declassified and published in South Korea years ago. But these facts do not fit the authors' concept and hence are not mentioned in the textbook.

In other words, Kim Il-Sung was hardly the heroic nationalist leader. He was, in fact, a young implant, a Soviet puppet (eventually he did develop a shrewd technique of exploiting the rivalry between Russia and China and managed something of a precarious "independence" from Soviet, or Chinese, rule).

More from Lankov:

South Korea was once the domain of knee-jerk anti-communism, but nowadays "progressive" (left-wing) academics increasingly have come to dominate the South Korean intellectual world. And these people badly want to play down the impact the Soviet Union once had on the North. They want it so badly that they sometimes even pretend to be ignorant of new material that clearly contradicts the version of history they want to have...

Thus, the left wants to show the illegitimacy of its opponents, insisting that the South Korean state from its inception was not "authentically national", instead it was compromised by the wide employment of former pro-Japanese collaborators and by close cooperation with the US military. Needless to say, such collaboration is always emphasized.

But to advance their ideas even further, those political intellectuals also need a positive example, which would be able to stand for everything good in their picture of national history. Hence, they chose to believe that the early North Korean state was a complete opposite to the allegedly corrupt and dependent Seoul government of the era. There are hard facts that demonstrate that until 1950 for all practical purposes the North Korean state was a Soviet puppet, but these facts do not fit into their world picture nicely, and hence are not mentioned.

Even a cursory look through now-available historical documents clearly indicates: In 1945-1950, the North Korean regime operated under complete control of Soviet supervisors. Who drafted the above-mentioned land reform law? Soviet advisers. Who edited and, after some deliberation, confirmed the North Korean constitution of 1948? Joseph Stalin himself. Who arrested all major opponents to the emerging communist regime? The Soviet military police. Where were the dissidents sent to do their time? To Siberia, of course.

The available papers leave no doubt that even relatively mundane actions of the North Korean government needed approval from Moscow. The Soviet politburo, a supreme council of the state, approved the agenda of the North Korean rubber-stamping parliament and even "gave permission" to stage a parade in 1948. The much-trumpeted conference of politicians from the North and South in spring 1948 was another Soviet idea, even if the leftist historians now love to depict it as yet another expression of Pyongyang's willingness to negotiate based on its alleged national feelings. The most important speeches to be delivered by the North Korean leaders had to be read and approved in the Soviet Embassy.

If all these do not give us a right to describe the North of 1945-1950 as a "puppet regime", what further evidence is needed. But such facts do not fit the agenda of many South Korean intellectuals who are allergic to the anti-communist propaganda of their youth.

All this reminds me of the leftist revisionist American academe. I guess freedom, McDonald's and rap music weren't the only things we exported to South Korea.

Having stated this, I do not think the US should simply withdraw from S. Korea. The Korean Peninsula, located in the nexus of Russia, China and Japan is simply too important strategically abandon to the rising influence of China.

There are also indications that the current leftist government in South Korea is not nearly as popular as the left-leaning American media portray -- in fact, it never was all that popular (more on that later). We should stick around in the region, but some judicious political maneuvering is in order.