North Korean state formation, 1945-1950

This is a study of North Korean state formation during the period 1945 to 1950. I have attempted to explicate the structural constraints and opportunities of North Korean state formation; resources and capabilities the North Korean state makers obtained; strategies and policies they employed; the interaction of domestic and international factors; and similarities and differences between North Korea's experiences with state formation and those of the Eastern European countries.; I have combined theories of state formation with a conceptual framework based on an actor-structure relationship and conducted a thorough investigation of the North Korean records seized by U.S. forces during the Korean War and the intelligence reports of U.S. army forces and U.S. military advisory group in Korea.; I have examined the party and state apparatuses, security and military forces, agriculture, labor, industry, state budgets and finance, and united front and popular elections. I have interpreted North Korean state formation in terms of the progress of the Kim Il Sung group toward attaining coercive, war-making, and resource-extracting capabilities within the favorable political opportunity structure provided by the Soviet Union.; The most salient feature of North Korean state formation was the Soviet Union's close supervision of the entire process of the creation of the new state. All the major policies and strategies of Kim Il Sung were within the purview of Soviet geopolitical strategic objectives and economic interests in North Korea. The Soviet advisors and the North Korean state makers copied the Soviet experience faithfully as the guideline for North Korean state formation, but on a more refined, selective basis. Another salient characteristic was the minimum societal resistance to the state-making activities of Kim Il Sung in the domestic realm, owing to the "exit" of most of the landlords, industrial capitalists, and Christians to South Korea.; Contrasts between processes of state formation in North Korea and the Eastern European countries are found in pre-existing institutional breakdown, societal resistance. the character of Soviet objectives in each area, and the international structural context surrounding both regions.