| Publication |
2009.
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| Summary/Abstract |
The rout of Japan and the liberation of Korea by the Allied Forces, which ended in the unconditional surrender of the Japanese army on August 15, 1945, opened a new epoch in the political history of Korea. The long-awaited collapse of the Japanese colonial power was received by the Korean public as the beginning of a new stage in the country's history1 and an opportunity to create a new independent society on the basis of an anti-imperialist, anti-feudal foundation.2 Thus, the national task as it was understood by the public forces did not fully correspond to the drafts of the solution of the Korean problem on the principle of international trusteeship as suggested at international conferences at the time of World War II. It was only the political situation that could change the position of the leaders of the nationalist and left-wing movements on the question of ending colonization and creating a genuinely independent Korean nation.
Prior to 1948, the Korean nationalists and representatives of left-wing organizations believed that Korea's future could and should be determined by the joint efforts of the political parties of Korea themselves, but not by international conferences and their participants. But there were too many obstacles in the way of the implementation of that strategy, the main ones being the presence of foreign troops on Korean territory.
The liberation of Korea was not a result of the straggle of the Koreans against the Japanese militarists. It was achieved with the help of outside forces which in turn, began to claim administrative power in the occupied zone. The Koreans found themselves in the position of outsiders in deciding the question of power and its legal existence.
Another, no less important, obstacle was the absence of political unity among
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