두 번의 토지개혁과 냉전: 한국전쟁 前後 ‘38선 이북 수복지구’ 인제의 토지소유구조 변화

Abstract

This study analyzes the characteristics of the Cold War that emerged during and after the two land reforms implemented in the reclaimed districts north of the 38th parallel. More to the point, a review of the features of the two land reforms carried out in local areas, and the impact of the Cold War thereon, is conducted based on an analysis of one of the reclaimed districts, namely Inje County in Gangwon Province. The change in the land ownership structure of the reclaimed districts in Inje was carried out in a multi-layered and complicated manner amid the clearing up of the structure and vestiges of Japanese colonialism and the advent of the Cold War. The transfer of the systems of the reclaimed districts north of the 38th parallel basically involved the incorporation from the North Korean system into the South Korean system. However, it was also related to the competition between the North and South Korean systems, as well as to the clearing up of the vestiges of Japanese colonialism. Right after liberation, North Korea sought to clear up the structure and vestiges of Japanese colonialism and to establish a people’s democracy as a means to showcase the superiority of their system over that of South Korea. For its part, South Korea intended to remove the people’s democracy that had been established under North Korean rule and to implement a capitalist system. This was accompanied by the management of the vestiges of Japanese colonialism as well as of the North Korean system. While the Cold War in Korea was a conflict and competition between North Korea and South Korea, or an element of the wider conflict and competition between the capitalist and communist systems respectively led by the United States and the Soviet Union, the transfer of the systems in the reclaimed districts can be regarded as the ‘intersection’ of the management of the structure and vestiges of Japanese colonialism and the Cold War. The hostile conflicts and confrontations between the two Koreas along the 38th parallel/military demarcation line that came as part of the wider Cold War exercised an overwhelming influence. The Cold War that erupted on the surface with the advent of the Korean War was the element that gave birth to the reclaimed districts. It also provided the cause for the failure to clear up of the vestiges of Japanese colonialism and to restore the nation after the war. The Cold War not only played a negative role in the clearing up of the vestiges of Japanese colonialism, but also in terms of the competition between the systems of the two Koreas. The two Koreas used agrarian and land reforms as a means to show off and prove that their respective system was superior to that of the other. However, the goals of these two reforms were only partially achieved and in some cases changed altogether.