Korean War Begins (1950) On this day in 1950, the northern Korean People's Army crossed the 38th parallel in an offensive to crush the Republic of Korea, an imperialist puppet state established by...
Korean War Begins (1950) On this day in 1950, the northern Korean People's Army crossed the 38th parallel in an offensive to crush the Republic of Korea, an imperialist puppet state established by...
Korean War Begins (1950)
Sun Jun 25, 1950
Image: Marking the beginning of the "independence" of the Republic of Korea, Syngman Rhee, President of the Republic of Korea, embraces his guest U.S. General Douglas MacArthur, who commanded UN troops in Korea during the war, unknown year
On this day in 1950, the northern Korean People's Army crossed the 38th parallel in an offensive to crush the Republic of Korea, an imperialist puppet state established by the U.S., marking the beginning of the Korean War.
Although June 25th, 1950 is where the beginning of the Korean War is traditionally marked, other interpretations of the conflict exist.
Historian Stephen Gowans, author of "Patriots, Traitors and Empires: The Story of Korea's Struggle for Freedom", notes that some analysts, including a member of the U.S. State Department, consider the Korean War to have begun with the creation of the U.S.-imposed Republic of Korea on August 15th, 1948, and some consider the conflict of 1950-53 an extension of a civil war that began in 1932, when Kim Il-sung formed his first guerrilla unit to fight Japanese colonizers.
In any case, the Korean War of 1950-53 was fought between two states that both lay claim to all of the Korean Peninsula, the northern Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) and the southern Republic of Korea (ROK).
The ROK had been established by the occupying U.S. military government in 1948. In 1945, the same military government had banned the left-leaning People's Republic of Korea, which was based on a network of worker's committees whose program consisted of pro-labor reforms, such as the abolition of child labor and the eight hour day.
On June 25th, 1950, the DPRK People's Army crossed the 38th Parallel into ROK territory, intending to crush the state of U.S.-collaborationists. Two days later, the United Nations Security Council, then boycotted by the Soviet Union for not acknowledging the People's Republic of China (PRC), recommended member states provide military assistance to the Republic of Korea.
The conflict became a proxy war between global superpowers, with the DPRK supported by the Soviet Union and PRC and the ROK supported by the U.S. On July 27th, 1953 the Korean Armistice Agreement was signed, creating the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) to separate North and South Korea. Despite this, no peace treaty was ever signed and the two governments remain at war to this day.
The Korean War was among the most destructive conflicts of the modern era, with approximately 3 million war fatalities, 10% of the total Korean population, a larger proportional civilian death toll than both World War II and the Vietnam War according to historian Charles Armstrong.
The U.S. led a massive, scorched earth bombing campaign against North Korea, making North Korea one of the most heavily bombed countries in human history. Armstrong writes "U.S. planes dropped 635,000 tons of bombs on Korea - that is, essentially on North Korea - including 32,557 tons of napalm, compared to 503,000 tons of bombs dropped in the entire Pacific theatre of World War II. It incurred the destruction of virtually all of Korea's major cities."
This campaign of destruction was essential to the success of U.S. intervention: American General Matthew Ridgway stated that, except for air power, "the war would have been over in 60 days with all Korea in Communist hands".
- Date: 1950-06-25
- Learn More: en.wikipedia.org, www.kfausa.org.
- Tags: #Labor, #Imperialism, #Terrorism.
- Source: www.apeoplescalendar.org
If this post is going to frame south Korea as a US controlled puppet state and kinda set up north Korea as the good guys, I feel like more context is needed 😅
North Korea is, today, a brutal authoritarian regime... If you wanna say everyone sucks here, I could see the case for that, but then why is it on a celebratory calendar? Who are we celebrating?
If you wanna say that the political agenda of northern Korea has changed a lot and they didn't used to be a horrifying dictatorship then I feel like you need to provide some additional info; I'm admittedly ignorant on Korea's history, but I think most people who see this comm probably are too... Providing any info at all to convey that idea and substatiate it would probably help (assuming that's the narrative this post is suggesting)
Well according to tankies north Korea is the will of the people
So they are dancing around it being propped up by China and Soviet Union. They are also glossing over that NK is the aggressor here lol
It is also unclear how brutal commie regime has any relationship to the westoid working class. That's straight up delulu level of understanding of the class struggle.
Might it be that North Korea is bad, and also the US is bad? It is OK to state that the brutal proxy war inflicted a lot of casualties and war crimes were definitely committed by the US. PBS aired a great doc about the Jeju uprising and massacre. It could be described as a genocide, of which the US played a critical role.
History is not that simple but you can't just say "North Korea bad" and wash the rest away.
Sorry this reply is so ludicrously long, I kinda suck at being concise 😅
My second paragraph is about exactly that possibility. But if the argument is "everyone here is a villain" why is it on the working people's calendar? What working people's event are we celebrating or remembering? That both the US and North Korea suck, and have done horrible things? That the US funds proxy wars that do a lot of damage? To me, those don't make a lot of sense to put on a working people's calendar
I feel like the point of the post is more likely the second possibility I floated, that they believe north Korea used to represent something different before descending into dictatorship, but that seems like the kind of thing you need to at least say in the post, since if that's true most people who see the post will have never heard that idea. Ideally they'd state that and then also substantiate it with any reasons to believe it's true.
But as it stands now it feels like the post is on the calendar in remembrance of the US villainously entering a proxy war that denied north Korea (a brutal authoritarian regime) control of the Korean peninsula... Which like... Why is that on the working peoples calendar.
The post described the north Korean camp as being labor activists, describing their labor reform goals, and included that their name was the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. Those seem like accurate historical details- my point is really just that the post would make a lot more sense if they expanded on how north Korea apparently used to be pro-labor and how they ended up descending into dictatorship. And then you'd have no issue of "why are we faming a horrible dictatorship as good guys", and no "why is this on a working people's calendar?"