North Vs South Korea Essay

While considering the development of the North and South Korea after Korea got its liberation from Japan, the main cause that made the difference between the North and South is the division of the country by Soviet Union and USA. Post-liberation period was rather chaotic period to begin with since “this prodigious mass of humanity – everyone from elite exiled political leaders to common laborers and former peasants – returned to a land reeling from the effects of forty years of Japanese Rule” (Robinson 100). People returning to their homeland including the intellectuals with different ideology cause the political power struggle in Korea. There was also a “potential for class conflict as it emptied the countryside of its landless, unemployed …show more content…
Although 38th parallel line at that time was not a military border to divide Korea into two totally different countries, it made a significant role for people start to recognize the country not as a whole. As a country of democracy, USA tried to increase the democratic ideas in the South Korea by accepting the leader such as Syngman Rhee; however, Russia differentiated its strategy to develop North Korea in order to promote the communism. “The North followed a plan that differed dramatically from what was happening in the South”; especially, “in the North, a thorough land reform was carried out in February 1946” (Robinson 106). While a land reform was a complicated issue since the political leaders with power themselves wanted to keep their lands, North Korean policy of land reform made the land redistribution more evenly and peacefully. Another factor that caused the difference was that while Russia recognized the peoples’ committees formed under the CPKI, “General Hodge’s first decision was to not recognize the authority of the peoples’ committees in the South” (Robinson