There was an air of urgency about such attempts to prevent the election in South Korea. The exposure of the Agrarian Reform as a fraud had hurt the Communists, and the disinterested spirit of the United States occupation was gaining recognition throughout Korea in spite of initial blunders. Pyongyang could not afford to let South Korea take the lead in forming a government, and July 1948 dated the creation of a Communist state known as the People’s Democratic Republic of Korea. After adopting a constitution modeled after that of Communist Bulgaria, the Supreme People’s Council claimed to represent all Korea. In justification it was charged that “American imperialists carried out a ruinous separate election and organized a so-called National Assembly with the support of a traitor minority and with the savage oppression of the majority of the Korean people.”[15]
[15] _New York Times_, 12 Jul 48, quoted in Redvers Opie et al., _The Search for Peace Settlements_ (Washington: Brookings Institution, 1951), 311.
The Russians announced in December 1948 that they were withdrawing all occupation troops. It was no secret, however, that they would leave behind them an NK army that far surpassed the ROK military establishment.[16] Kim Il Sung, the Red Korean prime minister, referred to it pointedly as a “superior army” in an address at Pyongyang.
[16] ROK, of course, denotes the Republic of Korea, and NK (North Korea) is the abbreviation usually applied to the self-styled People’s Democratic Republic of Korea at Pyongyang. Both sets of initials are used more often as adjectives than nouns. See the Glossary in Appendix A for definitions of other symbols and military terms found in text.
“We must strengthen and improve it,” he declared. “Officers and men must establish iron discipline and must be proficient in the military and in combat techniques.”[17]
[17] FECOM, ATIS, _History of the North Korean Army_, 23.
Numbers at the end of 1948 were estimated at 60,000 regulars in addition to constabulary, railroad guards, and trainees. These troops were equipped by the Russians with captured Japanese weapons, and Russian arms were shipped into northern Korea to meet the needs of an expanding army.[18]