North Korea's roots lie deep in Korean history.
For years, Korea had contained one of Asia's most active set of communist groups and activists. Leftist activists had gone to Manchuria to fight the Japanese and to China to fight with Mao Zedong against Chiang Kaishek. During Japan's 35-year occupation of the Korean peninsula (1910-1945), these same organizations had worked underground to reestablish Korea's independence.
In 1945, Korea was faced with a new set of foreign occupiers: Soviet forces in the north, American forces in the south. Irnically, the line chosen by the U.S. State Department to separate the two at the 38th parallel was the same boundary used by Japan and Russia in the early part of the 20th century to stake out areas of influence on the peninsula. As in the past, no Koreans were consulted.
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