Foreign Relations of the United States, 1946, The Far East, Volume VIII

740.00119 Control (Korea)/3–2246: Telegram

Lieutenant General John R. Hodge to the Secretary of State

Seoul, undated.
[Received March 22—12:30 a.m.]

To SCAP Tfgbi 232. For your information following is text of statement of Colonel General Shtikov, head of Soviet Delegation opening session of US-Soviet Joint Commission 20 March 1946.⁷⁰ Request be passed to State Department.

“General Hodge, Gentlemen: Our Joint Commission representing the American and Soviet commands is called upon to carry out the historic decisions of the Moscow Conference of the Foreign Ministers of the Soviet Union, the USA and the United Kingdom pertaining to Korea. These decisions express the good will and the wishes of the great Allied powers to assist by all means in the rehabilitation of an independent Korea, and in the creation of conditions for the development of this country on a democratic basis.

The great armies of the United States of America and the Soviet Union, having crushed the Japanese imperialists, have forever eliminated Japanese domination in Korea and liberated the Korean people.

Korea has entered a new stage of her development—a stage of national rebirth and reestablishment of state independency.

Gentlemen: The people of Korea with their ancient culture vividly expressed national self-consciousness, year after year suffering hardships and the humiliation of colonial slavery, this people deserves the best future possible. With their blood and innumerable sufferings, the Korean people have earned the right for independence and a free way of life.

The Soviet people warmly support this right of the Korean people. The Soviet Union has always championed and will always champion their self determination and free existence of any nation without exception.

As all of us are convinced, the people of Korea are bent upon and have already shown their determination to create, with the help of the Allied powers, a free democratic Korean government, friendly to all the freedom loving nations.

The great aims of creating a democratic independent Korean state have brought to life wide political activity of the whole of the people of Korea.

The Korean people have formed their democratic parties, public organizations, people’s committees as an organ of democratic self-government.

However, in the way of gradual democratization of the whole of the internal life of the Korean people, there stand serious difficulties, brought about by the furious resistance of reactionary and anti-democratic groups and certain elements, whose object is to undermine the work of creating and firmly establishing a democratic system in Korea.

The task of the US-Soviet Commission is to help the Korean people create a provisional Korean democratic government capable of fulfilling the tasks arising from the democratization and reconstruction of the country.

The future provisional Korean democratic government must be created on a basis of wide unification of all the democratic parties and organizations, supporting the decision of the Moscow Conference of the Ministers of Foreign Affairs.

Only such a government will be able to abolish entirely the remnants of the former Japanese domination in the political and economic life of Korea, to launch a decisive battle with reactionary anti-democratic elements inside the country, to carry our [out?] radical measures in the rehabilitation of economic life, to give political liberties to the Koreans and fight for peace in the Far East.

The Soviet Union has a keen interest in Korea being a true democratic and independent country, friendly to the Soviet Union, so that in the future it will not become a base for an attack on the Soviet Union.

The task of the Joint US–Soviet Commission deriving from the decision of the conference of the three Ministers concerning Korea consists also in working out, with the participation of the provisional Korean democratic government and assistance of Korean democratic organizations, the measures of aid and assistance with respect to trusteeship in political, economic, and social progress of the Korean people and the development of democratic self-government and in establishing sovereign independence at [of?] Korea. Such temporary trusteeship [now?] corresponds with the fundamental [hopes?] of the Korean people, inasmuch as it assures the condition of a most rapid national reconstruction and a revival of an independent Korean state on a democratic basis.

General Hodge: Concluding my speech, I wish on behalf of the Soviet Delegation to extend my sincere greetings to you and your distinguished delegates and to express my deep gratification that we shall work together with the representatives of the American command in the interests and for the good of the Korean people.

I am fully assured that our joint work will proceed in a spirit of mutual understanding and friendship and that we shall successfully and honorably fulfill the will of our Governments, expressed in the decisions of the Moscow Conference of the Foreign Ministers concerning Korea.”

Hodge

70. Documents tabled at the first five sessions of the Joint Commission were sent as enclosures to despatch 10, March 28, from Seoul; received April 9.