Thread by @nodutdol

Yesterday, August 15 1945 marks Korean Liberation Day or 광복절 (Restoration of Light) after more than 30 years of oppressive Japanese colonial rule. A thread on what that history looks like:

100s of 1000s of Koreans died under the occupation. At the time Korea was mostly agrarian; 4/5 Korean peasants were subsistence tenant farmers, going hungry contributing to Japan's wartime effort. 30,000 Korean people were in colonial prisons, many of them for thought crimes.

August 15 is the day Japan surrendered and ended WWII, prompting massive celebrations. Liberation convinced millions of overseas Koreans to return home, from Manchuria, Japan, etc. But our homeland was soon occupied by foreign forces, and the fight for liberation continued.

Here are the people of Seoul cheering along with independence fighters from Seodaemun prison on August 15, 1945.

Koreans began organizing: they released political prisoners, provisioned food, and established the Committee for the Preparation of Korean Independence (CPKI) which would become Korean People's Republic. The group organized 145 Peoples Committees in all provinces within weeks.

Yo Un-hyong founder of the CPKI on August 16, 1945

On Sept. 14th, the People's Committees and the Korean People's Republic (KPR) put out a 27-pt platform which included confiscation of land from Japanese landlords & collaborators, an 8-hour workday, rent control, a minimum wage, and more.

Here's what the Korean People's Republic (KPR) flag looked like.

The KPR knew that the Allies were coming; in their platform, they stressed that Korea must be for Koreans. The primary concerns were Korean independence without foreign intervention, and to prevent Japanese collaborators from coming into power.

The KPR included a spectrum of belief systems which could be considered broad-based, but it was misleadingly labeled by the retreating Japanese and opposing Japanese collaborators as a "Soviet Stooge" govt. (i.e. Communist) to incoming US leaders, who believed them.

On 9/9/1945, U.S. forces led by Gen Hodge arrived to occupy and obstruct Korean independence. Hodge refused to acknowledge KPR & outlawed KPR and the people's committees on 12/12/1945. In contrast, people's committees became a central feature of political organization in the DPRK

Historian Martin Hart-Landsberg:

"The mood of the country [in 1945] was such that ... Without outside intervention, it would have been only a matter of months before the KPR and its sponsoring organizations succeeded in creating a functioning, popular national government."

We fought for liberation and won before; we will continue to fight for it today. #USOutofKorea #TrueKoreanPeace #KoreanPeaceNow #KoreaPeaceNow

Yo Un-Hyong was later assassinated by a right-wing Korean in 1947