DMZ 접경지역과 북한의 전후 복구

Abstract

This article presents a study of the North Korean side of the DMZ border areas. It extends its research subject to the norther side of the DMZ border areas and investigates the formation of the North’s border areas in the 1950s, as well as attributes of the areas. By doing so it attempts to create an opportunity for more comprehensive understanding of the inter-Korean border areas. In order to do so, this article cross-analyzes North Korean newspapers from the 1950s, North Korean documents seized by US forces, comprehensive data from North Korea’s agricultural collectivization, and Armistice Agreement maps. The formation of North Korea’s DMZ border areas was the result of experiences during the Korean War and North Korea’s internal necessity of postwar reconstruction. First, North Korea recognized the ceasefire of the Korean War as a victory for themselves, as well as the first step towards peace, and insisted on consolidating the ceasefire. This was not a simple propaganda slogan, but rather evidence of the vast amount of destruction that North Korea had suffered during the war and was an extremely substantive issue when it came to surmounting the devastation of the war. Second, in emphasizing the role of residents who were mobilized for the frontlines and the fixed Military Demarcation Line as ‘victors’ and ‘heroes’, North Korea was able to win public sentiment and actively use them for the swift restoration of the border areas. Third, though the collectivization of agriculture in the North’s border areas did follow the Soviet Union’s kolkhoz model, it was also directly rooted in the organizational experience and frontline relief efforts during the Korean War. The experience of residents of these areas maintaining their farmlands while simultaneously providing combat support while the war was still underway was a decisive factor that accelerated postwar agricultural collectivization. These second and third characteristics appear even more prominently in the middle and eastern regions of the border areas in Gangwon-do, in which many areas were captured and occupied by South Korea, than in the western border regions occupied by North Korea (known as ‘Newly Liberated Areas’).