The Representative Democratic Council(대한국민대표민주의원) was a group that emerged in Korea after

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

as an advisory group to the military government. It was led by

Syngman Rhee Syngman Rhee (, ; 26 March 1875 – 19 July 1965) was a South Korean politician who served as the first president of South Korea from 1948 to 1960. Rhee was also the first and last president of the Provisional Government of the Republic of Ko ...

, later to be the first leader of South Korea after the failure of unification. The group was against proposals made between the Americans and the Soviets to set up a Commission which would allow the country to be unified by elections only after a period of self-governance under the international trusteeship. Rhee opposed the measures because both he and

Kim Il Sung Kim Il-sung (; , ; born Kim Song-ju, ; 15 April 1912 – 8 July 1994) was a North Korean politician and the founder of North Korea, which he ruled from the country's establishment in 1948 until his death in 1994. He held the posts of ...

wanted to unify Korea which in some ways was an artificial division brought about by Cold War tensions between the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., federal district, five ma ...

and the Soviet Union. The fact that Korea had only just emerged from a period of being controlled by Imperial Japan also meant that nationalists such as Rhee were uneasy about another period of foreign involvement in Korea.

References

History of Korea Korean War {{korea-stub