Stalin and the Division of the Korean Peninsula

Abstract

If there had been no division of the peninsula, then there would have been no war. The division of the Korean peninsula, as was in the case of the Korean War, was decided in accordance with the strategic interests and the geopolitical calculations of the Great Powers that surrounded Korea with no consideration of the opinions of the Koreans themselves. It will therefore be difficult to approach the fundamental issues surrounding the division of the Korean peninsula without understanding the Korea strategy of these Great Powers, as it is also the case with the Korean War. Why did Stalin accept the 38th parallel proposal? Stalin may have assumed that he would be able to control the north of the 38th parallel by himself. The proposal, if it meant that the Soviets would control the north while the United States, Britain and China would share control of the south, would have been very attractive to Stalin. Another reason for explaining Stalin’s acceptance of the 38th parallel is American nuclear weapons. The period in which General Order No. 1 was sent to Stalin was just after the deployment of nuclear bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Recent research has revealed that Soviet intelligence activities concerning American military affairs from 1943 to 1953 was very successful. Even though Stalin had feigned ignorance of American military capabilities during the Potsdam and London conferences in order to prevent the Americans from using its state of military superiority to attain an advantageous result for the US, Stalin felt that it would be dangerous to reject America’s 38th parallel proposal when there was a serious imbalance of power owing to American nuclear dominance. Stalin had actually attached a condition for his agreement to the 38th parallel – the occupation of all Kuril Islands and the northern part of Hokkaido. However, Truman was not ready to accept the Soviet’s intervention in Japan. After the dropping of the atomic bomb, the US administration’s foreign policy on the Soviet Union became more rigid and forced Stalin to concede southern Korea. It would take another five years to resolve this issue.