It was an eventful summer south of the 38th Parallel. The Republic of Korea came into being on 15 August, and on that day the American military government ended. John J. Muccio was appointed by President Truman to represent the United States in Korea with the rank of ambassador. Plans were made to withdraw the 50,000 United States occupation troops during the next 8 months, leaving only 500 officers and men as military instructors for the training of a Republic of Korea security force. In the northern zone the Communists organized demonstrations against the United Nations Commission. Strikes and disorders were fomented south of the 38th Parallel, and 200,000 North Koreans marched in protest at Pyongyang. 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.