KOREA —UN FLAG, US WAR

THERE IS a certain big factory, in NW London where you can see on the wall in the office a large map of the world.

It is shaded in various colours, and if you had just given it a casual _glance you might think it was an old political map of the world— 'British Empire in red' and so on; but take a closer look.

This factory belongs to a subsidiary of General Motors, the giant American corporation; and the map on the wall in the office is a map of the General Motors empire — countries where they own factories, subsidiaries, and whole industries.

Similar maps could be drawn for the world-wide interests of Standard Oil, the United Fruit company, the Chase Manhattan Bank, General Electric, Monsanto chemicals, and so on-add them up and you have United States imperialism, the strongest in the world, and the leader of the whole imperialist pack.

'What's good for General Motors is good for the United States' was the saying originating from one of the GM bosses.

With their 'friends' in Congress, in the Pentagon and the State Department, it is these vast business corporations whose requirements determine the aims of US policies.

Imperialism means giant monopolies and banks striving to control the world's sources of raw materials, to dominate world markets, to invest in exploitation of the world's labour-to.be masters of the whole world-wide system of capitalist exploitation and profit. • Bankers and monopoly capitalists take a profound interest in 'world affairs'.

Wherever you live, wherever you work, in you-your wages, they are very much your welfare, your political epinions.

MAIN IMPETUS

That is to say, they are interested in you, the worker — 'irrespective of race, creed ог colour'-because, whatever their newspapers tell you, they know that you are the source of their profits.

In that respect you are quite an important person - even though they treat you as a nothing, as a number on a clockcard. When the Chase Manhattan Bank published a report on investment prospects in S Korea in 1967, it spelled it out as follows:

'In fact, the main impetus for Korea's economic growth comes from the determination and drive of its businessmen and officials. Americans comment on the dexterity and aptitude of Korean In the last article we showed workers, who are available at how, over the Palestine issue in cash wage rates averaging cents a day in textiles and 88 able to see to it, by way of cents a day in electronics. These American domination, that US human characteristics produce foreign policy was adopted as UN industrial results.' policy.

Since the determination of S Together with the policy of the Korean businessmen and officials Soviet bureaucracy, America's is expresed in their dedication successful manipulation of the • ensuring the availability at votes of her financial colonies cheap rates of the Korean wor- ensured the fateful partition vote cers, the S Korean dictatorship by which the UN—an organizais regarded favourably by US tion for 'peace'-played its part imperialism. in launching the Palestine war. Like Franco's Spain, and S Africa, S Korea is included when In the war in Korea and the the politicians talk about defend- Congo intervention, US imperialing the 'free world'-free for ism used its domination of the exploitation. UN to make its blue 'peace' flag With its world-wide economic tion and imperialist war. interests, US imperialism has to have world-wide political and We can understand some more military power. And as the lead- if we look again at that General ing imperialist power, the US is Motors map of the world with not only concerned with looking which we started. after the world-wide investments of American capitalists, but takes In the middle of the map is a the main responsibility for main- blank white expanse. It is not a taining and extending the whole desert, nor is it unexplored. This imperialist system — it is the large area, against the boundaries world's banker and the world's of which the colours the policeman General Motors empire are i wouia uke intormation about Us capitalism runs the International Monetary Fund to create the right conditions for investment. When any governments seem to be risky debtors, or are not willing to take the IMF's 'advice', then nasty things can happen to them.

That is the speciality of the Central Intelligence Agency.

Where these cloak-and-dagger boys of the CIA cannot do the job or the masses of workers and peasants have to be dealt with, then the 'heavies' may be sent in - the US marines, the Sixth Fleet, the Seventh Fleet, all the massive forces standing by around the world.

However, as well as these traditional enforcers, US imperialism has developed other means of 'protection'.

Vot only the Green Berets' specialists in counter-revolutionary warfare, but the Blue Berets of the United Nations too, have been used to enforce the will of US imperialism. 1947, the State Department was into a cover for counter-revoludead L. é--L brought to a halt, is the area covered by the Soviet Union, China, E Europe, N Korea, and N Vietnam.

A whole vast area has been torn out of the imperialist system by the spread of revolution.

That revolution began in Octover 1917, in Russia. It was attacked by the combined forces of Britain, France, Japan, USA— all the imperialist powers united in armed intervention to try and crush the young Soviet state.

Ever since then, this has been the one issue on which the rival imperialist powers can be united —their fear of revolution, their Driving back and reading sheir "lost territories' from that spreading tide.

That is what the war in Korea was about.

Américan troops went into Korea in September 1945, occupying the country up to the '38th Parallel" in accordance with a War Department plan, and by agreement with the Russians. Soviet troops which had come into the war against Japan had occupied the country North of the Parallel.

There had been underground • political movements under Japanese rule and a communist guerrilla force had operated.. With the defeat of Japan, local People's Committees were set up throughout Korea.

On September 6, 1945, an assembly of these committees met in Seoul and decided to proclaim a People's Republic of Korea. Two days later, the American troops landed.

The US occupation forces would not recognize the People's Committees. They established a US military sexernment.

PROCLAMATIONŚ General Douglas. MacArthur issued two proclamations. In the first it was stated that:

'All powers of government over the territory of Korea South of 38 degrees North latitude and the people thereof will be for the present exercised under my authority ... Persons will obey my orders and orders issued itself, on October I0, to be the only government in S Korea, and demanded an end to the pronouncements of irresponsible political groups'.

The USAMIGIK officers relied initially on Japanese officials, and then on Korean officials who had collaborated with the Japanese particularly to run the police On November 20, 1945, a Congress of the People's Republic met, and refused to dissolve itsell on American orders-whereupon the US , commander, Genéral Hodge, declared its activities 'unlawful'.

In the North, the People's Committees had begun nationalization of Japanese-owned industries. In the South, the US authorities set about suppressing the People's Committees. 'Law and order' had to be restored!

In December 1945, the foreign ministers oI Us, britain ana Daisain the USSR met in Moscow to discuss the fate of the Korean people.

Made homeless US intervention Korean family sets out to find a new home The US was insisting on division of the country. The Soviet bureaucracy sought a compromise, and a Joint Commission' was set up.

This Commission failed to reach agreement, and in May 1946 it was adjourned. Meanwhile, in Korea, the division of the country was becoming reality.

The 38th Parallel became not just a demarcation line between two occupying powers, but a front line between two different social orders.

In February 1946 the People's Committees in the North established a Provisional Government under Kim il Sung. The following month, this government in the North introduced an agrarian reform, distributing one half of the land 1 to 725,000 landless peasants.

On March 23, Kim il Sung announced a programme which he hoped would be adopted by the Provisional Government of Korea, once the Joint Commission had completed its work.

This programme included the eight-hour working day; fixed minimum wages; abolition of child labour; compulsory education; an end to forced marriages and concubinage; free elections by secret ballot; land reforms; and nationalization of banks, mines, forests, and big companies.

In the South, however, having ordered the disbanding of the people's Committees, the Americans sponsored a "Democratic Council', headed by the ageing conservative Syngman Rhee, who had spent most of his life in the United States.

Its backing came mostly from landlords and business interests, and it was extremely reactionary.

The US authorities proceeded to stage elections for an 'Interim Assembly, a step towards a separate government for the South.

The left opposed those elecnently to divide the country. In any case the elections were held on the same limited franchise as had existed under the Japanese — only taxpayers and landlords could vote.

It was a property owners election - and the conservatives The jails in the Americanoccupied zone were filling. with Syngman Rhee's political opponents, as opposition grew to him and his American backers.

The left demanded free elections for the whole country, to follow withdrawal of foreign troops.

There were strikes and demonstrations all over the Americanoccupied South, and in the city of Taegu over 100 people were killed. The US military government suppressed all leftwing movements, and in September 1946 it banned all left-wing The regime which US imperialism was imposing was one in which landlordism, corruption and inflation flourished. An opinion . poll, held by the US authorities themselves, showed that most people in S Korea felt they had been better off under the Japanese than they were under US rule.

Workers' wages in 1947 were worth less than a quarter of what they had been in 1936!

COMMISSION

A reporter for the American newspap reported in 1946: 'Christian Science Monitor posed opias and bom crist elements, enjoys far more popusingle political grouping: support than other The Joint Commission set up by the powers made no progress. The Americans refused to accept representatives of trade unions, peasants' organizations, and left-wing youth movements. The Joint Commission was adjourned in May 1946.

In June, the Provisional Government in the North decided to proceed with the labour law set out in Kim il Sung's programme. In August it announced the nationalization of mines, factories, railways, banks, communications, commercial establishments etc. Whatever its shortcomings, the government in the North was carrying out a social revolution.

Meanwhile in the South, a former official of the US military government, W. D. Reeve, had written:

'The Korean in the American area was lacking food, clothing and shelter and believed that his fellow man in the Russianoccupied area could not be so badly off as he himself was. Indeed his condition became much worse during the American occupation than it was before ... but the greatest cause of failure of the American occupation of Korea may be attributed to the inaction of American authorities in distributing land and homes and other real property to the Koreans' With growing discontent and unrest in the South, and the breakdown of the Joint Commission, the US made its next move in September 1947 — proposing that the Korean question should not be handled by the Big Four but by the United Nations.

The US could be confident, of course, that, with its immense economic grip on most of the member states, it would get its own way.

INTERFERENCE

On November 14, 1947, the UN General Assembly established a United Nations Temporary Commission on Korea (UNTCK).

Realizing that the US was dominating the UN, and worried that UN interference, if accepted Korea, could be the precedent for the UN to claim the right to 'settle' other issues, the Soviet Union refused to assist the Commission.

The UNTCK reported in favour of holding elections, in S Korea alone. This was opposed by wide sections of the people — liberals as well as the left -because they saw it as a step to