ВРЕМЕННОЕ ПРАВИТЕЛЬСТВО РЕСПУБЛИКИ КОРЕЯ В ПОИСКАХ СОТРУДНИЧЕСТВА С СОВЕТСКОЙ РОССИЕЙ: 1920–1922 ГОДЫ

Abstract

As a result of the March 1st uprising, which swept colonial Korea in the spring of 1919, Korean nationalists established the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea in Shanghai. One of the main tasks of the Provisional Government was to achieve international recognition and receive financial assistance for the implementation of anti-Japanese resistance. To this end, it tried to establish contacts with the Soviet government, which expressed support for the national liberation movement of Koreans against Japanese imperialism. Based on the documents from the Archive of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation and published sources of the Russian Archive of Socio-Political History, the article analyzes diplomatic correspondence between the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea and the government of the RSFSR, and identifies the key stages and problems of bilateral relations in 1920–1922. Initially, the relations between two sides were developing on a friendly basis. The Soviet government was interested in deepening cooperation with all groups of the Korean anti-Japanese resistance. But, as the situation on the Far Eastern Front changed and contradictions between different groups within the Korean left movement in Russia and abroad intensified, the Soviet position towards the Korean nationalists was rethought. However, the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea was still interested in recognition and financial assistance from the Bolsheviks. The dispatch of two emissaries of the Provisional Government to Russia over only two years testifies to serious contradictions within the national liberation movement, which directly affected the government’s image in the international arena. Finally, the People's Commissariat of Foreign Affairs decided that the power of the Provisional Government was not legitimate and that it could not be fully considered a representative of the Korean people.