Korean War

Fourth, the period of political violence, skirmishes, and guerilla warfare that followed soon after the establishment of the ROK, and peaked during the winter of 1949-50. Finally, a lull in the fighting as each side attempted to gain the support of their international counterparts, and the invasion by the DPRK in June 1950 (Cumings 1983:41, 138-139). .
             According to Bruce Cumings, "The first formal Korean policy-commitment to a multilateral trusteeship, from late 1943 until early 1947 sought to resolve security with capability by enrolling the Soviets into a four-power consortium that the United States would dominate" (Cumings 1983:4). But American foreign policy suffered a major setback in April 1945 when President Theodore Roosevelt died and President Harry S. Truman was forced to re-evaluate the future of the corporative relationship with Russia (Cumings 1983:68). The verbal agreements that Roosevelt and Stalin had come to were vague, and the new administration was forced to wait for future negotiations to sort the mess out. When the Japanese surrendered in August 1945 there was no clear cut manner to adopt trusteeship in Korea, so on August 11, 1945 Korea was split into two separate occupied zones along the thirty-eighth parallel (Lee 2001:21). The United States chose this line as the boundary so that they could control as much of Korea as they possibly could, including Seoul. This confusion over what to do with Korea and how to involve the Soviets would become an issue in the period leading up to the Korean War. The split of the Korean Peninsula in 1945 foreshadows the events yet to come. "If Korea had not been divided, its postwar history would have been very different; indeed, it is likely that the war would not have occurred" (Lee 2001:22). .
             When the Russian army moved into North Korea, the Koreans in Pyongyang welcomed them enthusiastically. The people of Korea had suffered extreme duress and hardships while the Japanese had occupied their country.