Daehwan Ju - North Korea Modern History 2024
Daehwan Ju - Last fall, in Gwangju, I organized a story about modern history. Kim Dae-sik, a professor at KAIST, a modern history of North Korea... | Facebook
Daehwan Ju
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Last fall, in Gwangju, I organized a story about modern history.
North Korea's modern history
Professor Kim Dae-sik of KAIST wrote a book called [Brain Science in Wonderland], and when I read it, he seemed like a very knowledgeable person. There are many interesting stories about how he explains our country's socio-political phenomena using brain science theories. It is said that the reason modern humans won the survival competition with Neanderthals, who had larger brains and were stronger, was because they had the ability to create fiction, or myths. By creating myths, they were able to form large groups, or human communities, bound together by a single identity. The myths about the ancestors of a tribe and the founding myths of ancient nations are said to be necessary for creating large groups. The history of the founding of modern nations is not much different in terms of function.
How different are history and myth?
For example, Americans place great importance on the history of the founding of the United States. The history of the founding of the United States is not a completely made-up story, but it is not much different from the Goguryeo founding myth in that it is composed of one story. Americans are a group of people who share the history of the United States and share pride and patriotism as Americans. Our country also has a history of independence movement and founding of the country. Recently, there was a movie called [Assassination] that was a box office hit and was seen by over 10 million people. How much of that movie is true to reality? How much is it true? Maybe 1~2%? (Laughs) It should be considered almost fiction. However, I feel good when I watch this movie. Our independence activists fight in the middle of Jongno, Seoul and defeat the Japanese and pro-Japanese collaborators. It is natural to want to have such a proud history and to remember only those scenes. I think that movie succeeded by tapping into that psychology.
In South Korea, however, movies are made for entertainment, but history is not taught in this way. However, in North Korea, history is almost like a movie, exaggerated and embellished. No, it is more than a movie for adults, it is like a cartoon for children or a founding myth of an ancient country, and it is distorted into a story centered on a single protagonist. North Korea's modern history is a complete myth. Even obvious lies are used to make a myth or story more interesting. For example, the story that Kim Jong-il was born in a secret camp on Mt. Baekdu is a fiction, but it is clearly recorded as fact. When Chairman Kim Jong-il inherited power from Chairman Kim Il-sung, anti-Japanese guerrillas continued to congratulate Kim Jong-il on his birth near the secret camp on Mt. Baekdu, and 'slogan trees' with slogans carved on them implying that the child would become a leader like the bright star who would lead the nation were discovered(?). That is the course for North Korean students' school trips. “Our leader was born here,” they teach.
It is said that the March 1st Movement was started by Kim Il-sung's father, Kim Hyong-jik, his mother, Kang Ban-sok, led the women's independence movement, and the General Sherman, which was an American pirate ship, merchant ship, or both that sailed up the Taedong River, was burned by the Pyongyang people led by Kim Il-sung's grandfather. All of this is far from the truth. So it is just like Yongbieocheonga, which states that Lee Seong-gye's 4th great-grandfather was a national hero and a leader of the people. Only then will Kim Il-sung's bloodline, not Kim Il-sung himself, be considered great, and the basis for his son and grandson to rule the country for 3 generations will be created. The official North Korean modern history that North Korea teaches its students is an absurd myth or cartoon, so it is unbelievable. Perhaps if we do not ban those books and allow our people to listen to and watch North Korean televisions and radios that broadcast their contents, there will be no better 'anti-communist education' than that.
The difficult thing about talking about North Korea is that, as you know, in our country right now, people are divided into conservatives and progressives depending on whether they criticize North Korea or try to understand North Korea as much as possible. For example, if you are interested in the North Korean human rights issue, you are immediately classified as a conservative. This is a very unique Korean phenomenon. Actor Cha In-pyo himself starred in a movie called [Crossing]. Watch that movie. It is well-made. After that, he is classified as a conservative. In fact, his wife Shin Ae-ra and Cha In-pyo are exemplary married couples among celebrities, and they are Christians who have adopted two orphans and are praised. However, if you call him a conservative, he might feel a little wronged. I think he is just interested in and helps out with the North Korean human rights issue and the defectors’ issue according to his conscience, and he does not have any particular political background. However, he is classified as a conservative, and as he actually meets with conservatives and helps each other, he gradually becomes a true conservative.
If defectors risk their lives to avoid the eyes of soldiers guarding the border and cross the Amnok or Duman Rivers to China, they become illegal residents who are chased by the police. Since such people are being chased, they are practically human traffickers, and young women are forced to marry old Chinese bachelors and work hard. Those who specialize in sending such people to South Korea are called “brokers” who do this for the purpose of making money, and those who do it for humanitarian reasons. In most cases, they are both. In any case, if you cross the Mongolian, Vietnamese, or Laotian borders with the guidance of such people and enter the Korean embassy in that country, you can go to South Korea. There are currently about 30,000 defectors in South Korea . It is a considerable number, and I heard that they make money in South Korea and send money to their families in North Korea and make phone calls with the help of brokers who travel back and forth between North Korea. Now that many defectors have come to South Korea, almost all of the internal situation in North Korea has become known. I also believe that among them, there will be people who will play a big role in unification in the future. Despite this situation, the progressive, labor, and opposition parties still pretend not to know about North Korea, are indifferent to the North Korean human rights issue, and refrain from criticizing North Korea, which is why the people look at them strangely . I will ignore this long-standing progressive habit and speak freely, only according to my conscience, about North Korea and its modern history today.
When did the idolization of Kim Il-sung begin?
Kim Jong-un's official title is First Vice Chairman of the National Defense Commission. Since his father Kim Jong-il was the Chairman of the National Defense Commission, the position is left vacant. Although Kim Jong-il was the supreme ruler, he did not become the Chairman of the State. This means that the position will forever belong to his father Kim Il-sung. No, we should consider that Chairman Kim Il-sung is still alive, and Chairman Kim Jong-il is also still alive. In reality, we should consider this country to be ruled by ghosts and genes. The so-called Baekdu Bloodline DNA is in control. The reason Kim Jong-un was able to kill his uncle Jang Song-taek, who is supported by China, is because Jang Song-taek does not have Kim Il-sung's DNA. Because they worshipped Kim Il-sung so much, they had no choice but to choose a leader from among Kim Il-sung's descendants, and eventually, they became a dynasty, and after Dangun Joseon and Yi Seong-gye Joseon, Kim Il-sung Joseon was created.
Kim Il-sung ascended to power in February 1946. He became the chairman of the North Korean Provisional People's Committee. He ruled North Korea for a whopping 48 years, from 1946 to 1994. This is quite a record. Among the kings of the Joseon Dynasty, only Yeongjo, who reigned for 52 years from 1724 to 1776, was in power longer than this. In fact, until now, it has been said that Syngman Rhee was responsible for the division of North and South Korea because he made the Jeongeup speech in June 1946 and insisted that a separate government should be established in South Korea first. However, this was only because he made such a statement too soon in South Korea. In North Korea, the North Korean Provisional People's Committee, which was a de facto government, was established in February 1946, and Kim Il-sung took office as its chairman and implemented land reform.
North Korea's land reform , based on the principle of 'free confiscation and free distribution', was carried out quickly and thoroughly, and was compared to South Korea's sluggish land reform, which was limited to farmland. Of course, when we looked into it more deeply recently, we found that farmers who received farmland paid 40% of their yields to the state as taxes, so there is criticism that from the farmers' perspective, it was almost like the landowner changed from an individual to the state. And in the mid-1950s, it was collectivized, and from the perspective of individual farmers, their land was taken away again, so it is true that it is not comparable to South Korea.
It is known that Stalin called Kim Il-sung to Moscow before liberation for an interview, created the Korean Workers' Corps, and appointed Kim Il-sung as its leader. It is known that the Northeast Anti-Japanese United Army, including Kim Il-sung, stopped its guerrilla war against the Kwantung Army in 1941 and entered Soviet territory, resting for four years until 1945. It is said that Koreans such as the Chinese brigade commander Zhou Bo-jung, Choi Yong-geon, Kim Il-sung, and Kim Chaek got married and had children there and rested for a long time in the Maritime Province near Vladivostok. At that time, the Soviet Union had a non-aggression pact with Japan in order to focus all its efforts on the war against Germany. Therefore, the Maritime Province was a safe haven. As Japan's surrender approached, the Soviet Union selected Koreans there and created the Korean Workers' Corps. Scholars such as Wada Haruki compiled a list of about 140 people, but it is generally believed that there were about 150 people. The leader of the Korean Workers' Corps was Kim Il-sung.
Choi Yong-geon, who was 12 years older than him and the same age as him, was also a veteran who had made comebacks, but the Soviet Union put forward the young Kim Il-sung as its leader. And since the team was supported and led by the Soviet Union, which had a lot of experience in taking power and wielding power, it seems that they knew well the system of mass politics by highlighting one person as a hero and making a star and utilizing him. Other teams were barely able to create one team after a long struggle, and in Korea, the Gyeongseong Comgroup led by Pak Hon-yong seems to have barely created one team. However, in fact, the domestic faction was not able to completely overcome the chronic factional struggle and did not seem to be able to unite as a cohesive group. And the Yan'an faction (Korean Independence Alliance) in China had a star, Mu-jeong, but it seems that they were not able to create a team centered around him. Mu-jeong seems to have been capable as a soldier, but not as talented as a politician.
Kim Il-sung and Jo Man-sik
Kim Young-hwan, known as the godfather of the Juche faction, went up to North Korea in a semi-submarine and met Chairman Kim Il-sung, who was so ignorant that he didn't even know much about the Juche philosophy. In fact, Kim Il-sung dropped out of Yumun Middle School in Jilin. However, at the time, he was relatively educated within the guerrilla unit of the Northeast Anti-Japanese United Army. The majority of the unit members were illiterate. Scholars believe that the illiteracy rate was over 80%. That's why Kim Il-sung became a company commander and a company commander in the Northeast Anti-Japanese United Army under the Chinese Communist Party at the age of 24. In fact, age is not that important in the anti-Japanese guerrillas. In fact, young men with strong physiques were advantageous.
Kim Il-sung became famous for the Battle of Pochonbo . In fact, it was not a large-scale battle, but it was an incident in which he crossed the Yalu River, attacked a police station, and killed several Japanese police officers. The Dong-A Ilbo reported it in detail, and Kim Il-sung's name became widely known in Korea. It was the first major incident reported in Korea since the Battle of Cheongsanri by Hong Beom-do, General Kim Jwa-jin, and others. In fact, it also meant that it was an incident carried out in conjunction with underground organizations in Korea such as the Fatherland Restoration Association , and in 1937, the anti-Japanese movement in Korea was very difficult. The Dong-A Ilbo deliberately reported it in detail because it happened at a time when the anti-Japanese movement was almost extinct due to Japanese oppression. Even after that, the Northeast Anti-Japanese United Army continued its guerrilla warfare in Manchuria and harassed the Kwantung Army, but suffered a major blow from the Japanese army's large-scale suppression operation, and eventually signed the Japan-Soviet Neutrality Pact, stipulating that Japan and the Soviet Union would maintain neutrality even if the other country was at war. Following Soviet instructions, in 1940, they withdrew to the Maritime Province across the Soviet-Manchurian border.
There, Choi Yong-geon married a Chinese woman, and Kim Il-sung married Kim Jung-sook, and Kim Jong-il was born. The five years he spent there were the most leisurely and fortunate times in Kim Il-sung’s life. The fact that he was occupied by the Soviet Union was ultimately due to the fact that he lived in the Soviet Union for five years, observed and learned the politics of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, and gained the trust of the Soviet people there. And he became the representative of a strong team of about 150 people. In politics, a team must be formed to exert power. No matter how smart or capable a person is, he cannot do anything alone. A team must be united through trust and divide up roles to become a political force. Kim Il-sung’s team was not only a strong team united through guerrilla warfare, but also a team with a clear vision for success because the Soviet Union supported it. So they became more united and more people joined.
However, the coastal faction had more famous figures with more splendid careers, such as the old independence fighter Kim Du-bong, who was also a Korean language scholar; "female general" Kim Myeong-si; the sister of Gyeongseong Communist Group fighter Kim Hyeong-seon; Choi Chang-ik; and Park Il-woo, but they had several weaknesses. First of all, they entered the country late. In other words, the plan was already in place. Furthermore, there was an anti-Japanese hero who could have been highlighted as a popular star, Mu Jeong (born 1905; also known as Kim Mu-jeong (金武亭) by adding his surname), but he did not have a good relationship with his seniors, such as Choi Chang-ik (born 1896) and Park Il-woo (born 1903). Mu Jeong was the only one of the 20 Koreans who had participated in the Long March to survive until then, and he was a famous artillery commander in the Eighth Route Army and close friends with Chinese Communist Party leaders, including Zhu De and Peng Dehuai. However, the Chinese Communist Party did not have the time or strength to think about establishing a pro-Chinese government in North Korea against the Soviet Communist Party. The most urgent task was to win the Chinese Civil War. In fact, when World War II ended, few people in China believed that the Communist Party would be the final winner. Even Stalin valued his relationship with Chiang Kai-shek more than Mao Zedong.
As soon as it became clear that the Soviet Union was taking over Kim Il-sung, there was a movement to make him the Stalin of Korea. They believed that each country should have a Stalin like the Soviet Union. That is why, when Kim Il-sung first entered North Korea, the people who were at the forefront of idolizing Kim Il-sung were the Soviet faction. They thought that was natural. That was the only way to establish a regime that would be supported by the public. Kim Chang-man, the propaganda director of the Communist Party of Korea, and Park Chang-ok, a Soviet faction member, took the lead in pushing for this. Novelist Han Sol-ya wrote the novel [Hero General Kim Il-sung] . Poet Jo Gi-cheon wrote the epic [Baekdu Mountain]. Naturally, these were literary works praising Kim Il-sung. Such novels and poems were already published in 1946. It is very different from what we usually think. Literature idolizing Kim Il-sung did not come out later. It came out right after liberation. Among poets and novelists, there are those who are good at following trends.
Starting in 1946, Kim Il-sung began to be called the “Great Leader.” The North Korean Provisional People’s Committee was established and Kim Il-sung was elected as its chairman on February 8, 1946, which was less than five months before the Korean Workers’ Party entered Wonsan Port on September 19, 1945. Things progressed rapidly under the Soviet military government’s support. Kim Il-sung, who became the chairman of the North Korean Provisional People’s Committee, never stepped down from power for 48 years until his death. Kim Il-sung was born on April 15, 1912. It is said that Kim Il-sung’s ancestors were gravediggers from a landowner family. Since he was not a nobleman, I think he might have easily accepted Christianity. His father was Kim Hyong-jik, and he graduated from Sungsil Middle School, a famous Christian school and mission school in Pyongyang. His mother was Kang Ban-seok. Kang Ban-seok’s name, “Banseok” (盤石), is named after Peter. So, both of his parents were Christians. Isn't that ironic? It's as ironic as Stalin being a graduate of a theological seminary.
Kim Il-sung initially created the North Korean branch of the Korean Communist Party, which meant recognizing the Korean Communist Party headquarters in Seoul and its leader, Pak Hon-yong. On October 13, 1945, less than a month after returning home, the seizure of power proceeded rapidly. What is especially interesting is that Choi Yong-geon deliberately joined the Korean Democratic Party of Mr. Cho Man-sik and became its leader. As I have said repeatedly, Christianity was stronger than the communist movement in North Korea, and the power of the right wing was stronger. The Korean Democratic Party had 300,000 members, and Mr. Cho Man-sik’s influence could not be ignored by the Soviet military government. In addition, the Soviet military government initially tried to establish a coalition government with the right wing according to the strategy of the National Unification Front. However, the news of the Moscow Tripartite Conference in December 1945 threw North Korea into a whirlwind, just like South Korea. The Korean Democratic Party launched an anti-trusteeship movement, and the Soviet military government could no longer tolerate Mr. Cho Man-sik and imprisoned him. Then, through a scheme, Cho Man-sik was expelled from the Korean Democratic Party, and instead, Choi Yong-geon, a beloved disciple of Cho Man-sik when he was the principal of Osan School, joined the Korean Democratic Party and became the leader of the Korean Democratic Party. He was responsible for managing the Korean Democratic Party until 1955. It is a heartbreaking history. Choi Yong-geon must have done it out of political necessity, but how heartbreaking must it have been? Let’s take a moment to appreciate Kim So-wol’s poem and move on. The idea is to get a glimpse of the character of this man, Cho Man-sik.
JMS Kim So-wol
And on August 28, 1946, the North Korean branch of the Korean Communist Party and the Korean New People's Party of the coastal faction merged to form the North Korean Workers' Party. Look at the photo. It looks like the Soviet Military Government's Military Governor Shchikov, Kim Du-bong, Kim Il-sung, and Women's League Chairwoman Park Jeong-ae are sitting like this. Kim Du-bong is the chairman, and Hega-i and Kim Il-sung are the vice-chairmen. They took a commemorative photo with large portraits of Stalin and Kim Il-sung behind them. Mr. Kim Du-bong (born 1889), who was nearing his 60th birthday and was elected chairman, shouted "Long live General Kim Il-sung" at the convention hall. Finally, on September 9, 1948, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea was born, and Kim Il-sung took office as premier of the cabinet. And in June 1949, when the North Korean Workers' Party and the South Korean Workers' Party merged to form the Korean Workers' Party, Kim Il-sung became the chairman of the Central Committee. Pak Hon-yong and Hega-i both became vice-chairmen. In the tense situation just before the outbreak of the Korean War, Prime Minister Kim Il-sung and Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Pak Hon-yong devoted themselves to government affairs, while the party organization was mainly managed by He Ga-yi.
Purge of Soviet, Coastal and Domestic Factions
Here, let me briefly talk about Mr. Kim Du-bong . He was a famous Korean language scholar and a disciple of Joo Si-gyeong. After the March 1st Movement, he went into exile in China and worked in the provisional government. However, he differed from Kim Gu in his independence movement line, went to Yan'an, and founded the Joseon Independence Alliance, becoming its chairman. The Joseon Independence Alliance was a centrist leftist current that shared the same spiritual flow as the National Foundation Alliance (Yeo Woon-hyung) in Korea , and rather than being an orthodox communist , it seemed to sympathize with the New Democracy advocated by Mao Zedong . You can also tell by the name of the party he later founded, the Joseon New People's Party. Later, when Mr. Kim Gu and Mr. Kim Kyu-sik went to Pyongyang for North-South negotiations as a last attempt to prevent division, they held the Four Kims Meeting, and the Four Kims at that time referred to Kim Du-bong, Kim Il-sung, Kim Gu, and Kim Kyu-sik . The four people who played a role in the establishment of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea with Pyongyang as its capital were Kim Il-sung, Kim Du-bong, Pak Hon-yong, and He Ga-yi. These people represented the four groups of Manchurian, Yan'an, domestic, and Soviet factions, respectively. Jo Man-sik was the representative of the domestic right wing, but was excluded early on.
Heo Ga-i (born 1904) is a member of the Soviet faction. He was born as the son of a Koryo-saram who had moved to Primorsky Krai to farm, and he probably moved to Central Asia around 1937 when Stalin forcibly relocated Koryo-saram from Primorsky Krai to Central Asia. When the North Korean Workers' Party was created, he represented the Soviet faction and became vice-chairman alongside Kim Il-sung. Since he had served as a local party official in Tashkent, Uzbekistan before returning to Korea, he was the head of the party organization department since the days of the North Korean branch of the Communist Party of Korea, and was called the "Party Doctor" and took charge of the party organization after the birth of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. However, during the war, he came into conflict with Kim Il-sung in 1951, and lost his party power. He probably tried to apply the principles of party organization that he had seen and learned during his time in the Soviet Communist Party to Korea. Kim Il-sung publicly criticized him by putting forward Park Chang-ok, a fellow Soviet supporter, and was initially demoted to the position of Vice Minister of Agriculture, and continued to fall from power until he finally committed suicide in July 1953. His son, who had been sent to Harbin, Manchuria as a refugee during the war, is now alive in Russia, and came to South Korea around 1995 and claims that his father did not commit suicide, but was murdered by an assassin sent by Kim Il-sung. In fact, this is something that is unknown. However, the North Korean authorities announced that “He Ga-i committed suicide.”
In 1953, even before the end of the war, they began to hold the South Korean Workers' Party accountable for failing to achieve the goals of the unification war and the South Korean liberation war . As soon as the war began, Lee Ju-ha and Kim Sam-ryong were taken out of Seodaemun Prison by the South Korean Syngman Rhee regime and shot to death. Then, Lee Gwan-sul, who was imprisoned in Daejeon Prison for the Jeong Pan-sa counterfeit money incident, was massacred along with hundreds of others. As you all know, Lee Hyeon-sang died while fighting against the guerrillas in Jirisan.
However, a major change occurred in February 1956. At the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Khrushchev began to publicly criticize Stalin's personality cult. Stalin had already died in 1953. As Stalin's various evil deeds were exposed, small Stalins in many countries around the world found themselves in difficult situations. In Hungary, in October 1956, the Hungarian incident occurred, in which the people tried to break away from the Soviet Union and pursue Western-style democracy. Eventually, the Soviet Union sent in the army to suppress the situation, and 2,500 Hungarian citizens died. In fact, Stalin killed too many people. The number of people Stalin killed through purges is in the millions. He was a really tough fighter before the revolution succeeded. Later, when he took power after the revolution, he started to kill his comrades. It is said that Lenin knew Stalin's cruel nature and tried not to give him the position of successor in his later years. However, Stalin was an experienced man. He never asserted his own opinion or insisted on his own claims. After all the opinions of the party had been expressed and discussed, he agreed with the most moderate and most popular opinion. That is why the party members considered Stalin the most rational and sensible of the leaders, the least likely to think.
What was important to him was not opinions, but his own seizure of power. In terms of policies, he would kill his political enemies and calmly implement their policies. He would kill Trotsky and implement the policies Trotsky advocated, and he would kill Bukharin and implement the policies Bukharin advocated. Trotsky was too smart and boasted that he had contributed the most to the revolution after Lenin, so he could have been purged, but Bukharin was the youngest of his comrades, a very obedient and intelligent junior, and he would never let him live. In that respect, he is incomparable to Mao Zedong, who let Deng Xiaoping live. It is said that Mao Zedong even knew that after his death, the right wing, including Deng Xiaoping, would take power, not the Gang of Four. However, he did not kill Deng Xiaoping, although he sent him down to suffer. In the end, Deng Xiaoping, who returned later, made a decision to overturn Mao Zedong's line, a huge change that no one but the first generation of revolutionary authority could have made. In the meantime, many people died in the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, and many intellectuals suffered, but they just brushed Mao Zedong aside with the theory of seven merits and three faults. This aspect of the Chinese people is definitely different.
Anyway, when Khrushchev criticized Stalin's personality cult, the atmosphere of the communist movement around the world suddenly changed. Since the Soviet Union was criticizing the personality cult, there was an atmosphere that we should do the same. Inevitably, the Soviet faction was greatly influenced and agitated. The coastal faction also agreed. That is why the 'August Factional Incident' occurred. On August 30, 1956, at the plenary session of the Korean Workers' Party, Yun Gong-heum criticized Kim Il-sung's dictatorship. However, although there were many people who complained behind the scenes, there were too few people who actually came forward and responded at the meeting. Everyone was afraid and did not speak up actively. Instead, Kim Il-sung's loyalists rose up, and the meeting became a mess, with Choi Chang-ik, Yun Gong-heum, Seo Hui, Lee Pil-gyu, Park Chang-ok, and others being expelled from the party or stripped of their party or government posts. Yun Gong-heum, Seo Hui, Lee Pil-gyu, and Kim Kang fled to China.
In October 1956, the Hungarian incident occurred, and in 1957, the Sino-Soviet conflict began. Then, in the March 1958 plenary session, hundreds of people from all factions of the Korean communist movement under Japanese colonial rule, including the coastal faction, the Soviet faction, the Tuesday faction, and the ML faction, were purged. As a result, all those who had complaints about Kim Il-sung's dictatorship were eliminated, and although the theoretical dictatorship of the proletariat had long ago degenerated into a one-party dictatorship in the Soviet Union, in North Korea, the one-party dictatorship degenerated again into Kim Il-sung's personal dictatorship. Usually, stars are put forward due to the needs of mass politics, but internal decisions are made collectively through relatively free discussions at Politburo meetings, Central Committee meetings, etc., which is the custom of many communist parties, but in North Korea, such party organs are under the authority of Kim Il-sung personally.
Is Juche ideology a religion and North Korea a theocratic system?
And in the midst of the Sino-Soviet conflict, Kim Il-sung began to advocate Juche ideology. Since China and the Soviet Union were at odds, he decided to maintain neutrality in the gap and not allow interference from the Soviet Union and China. So from that time on, he began to advocate Juche ideology in earnest. In the 1970s, I listened to the broadcasts sent from North Korea to South Korea out of curiosity. At that time, if you were caught listening to the broadcasts to South Korea, you could be put in jail for violating the Anti-Communism Act. And I had a hard time finding banned books. However, many of the contents of Juche ideology were copied directly from Mao Zedong ideology. There was no particular difference from Mao Zedong ideology in terms of the perspective of viewing East Asia as a colonial semi-feudal society or in terms of discussing how to bring about a revolution in that society. I read all of Mao Zedong's complete works, and the main contents of Juche ideology were almost all there. In other words, when I looked at the world through the new ideology of Juche ideology, nothing seemed particularly different . So, honestly, I still don’t know what the Juche ideology that Professor Hwang Jang-yeop and others talk about contains other than an idealistic humanism.
Juche ideology is sometimes categorized as a kind of religion. There is even talk that it ranks 10th among the world's religions in terms of the number of believers. In fact, North Korea has returned to the days when there was no separation of religion and state. 'Fatherly Leader' has replaced 'Father God'. A one-party dictatorship was originally practiced in most countries where the Communist Party was in power, but the creation of a one-man dictatorship dynasty is unprecedented in the world, and furthermore, in order to support the dynasty, a religion was created with Kim Il-sung as the founder and god, completing a very unique system. Political scientist Jeon In-kwon called Joseon, the country of Neo-Confucianism, the 'country of truth', but in that sense, North Korea seems to be an even more intense 'country of truth'. This kind of system seems too rigid and inflexible to change on its own. There are various evaluations of President Kim Dae-jung's Sunshine Policy, but because the opponent is the North Korean system, which is such a unique system, it seems that foreign theories, rational inferences, and expectations do not fit. A cold wind or a warm sun can make you take off your coat, but in the end, it is you who takes off your coat at the last moment. Unfortunately, if your coat is made of hard metal, you cannot take it off even if you want to.
The fact that North Korea, which people all over the world laugh at and make fun of and use as a source of comedy, is our fellow countrymen and exists just a few dozen kilometers north of Seoul by car, always makes us deeply concerned. Veteran movie actress Choi Eun-hee and director Shin Sang-ok were kidnapped and taken to North Korea for several years. One of the two went first. At first, they were kidnapped by force, and later, director Shin Sang-ok may have gone half voluntarily and half involuntarily, since they were a married couple. Later, they escaped to the United States and lived there. Now, director Shin Sang-ok has died, but Choi Eun-hee is still alive. What Choi Eun-hee saw of Kim Jong-il was that he himself was having a very hard time. In particular, she did not understand why he had to go, why he had to give orders to create something, and why people did not create things on their own and act voluntarily. There were mountains of documents for approval. No one took responsibility. Kim Jong-il had to make a decision to do something. That is different from the human nature of Juche ideology. That is a terrible contradiction. People are passive. The leader is the brain of the republic. The people are the hands and feet. So, the brain must be calm and make decisions before the hands and feet can move.
They go on field trips. Then, surprisingly, the factories and farms run well for several days. The leader’s brilliant leadership is truly amazing. He gives detailed instructions one by one, and the executives write them down. However, the factories that the leader goes on field trips are supplied with raw materials and electricity from nearby areas. So they run for a while. Everything can be operated by the leader’s brilliant leadership. They say that there are tens of thousands of statues of the three Kim Il-sungs scattered throughout North Korea. If they were all torn down and melted down after unification, wouldn’t we be able to obtain a lot of copper and iron? However, I don’t know whether to erase all the letters praising the three Kim Il-sungs carved on large rocks such as Myohyangsan, Geumgangsan, and Chilbosan or just leave them alone. It’s really questionable. Why didn’t North Korea follow China’s reform and openness or Vietnam’s Doi Moi policy? “They will definitely do it, no, they have no choice but to do it” is the premise of the Sunshine Policy. It started from the very common-sense premise that “Let’s help North Korea, and it will definitely reform and open up.” But North Korea went the other way. Instead of reforming and opening up as expected, it developed nuclear weapons, and President Kim Dae-jung’s Sunshine Policy lost its luster.
The most painful word in North Korea's modern history is the 'Arduous March'. The 'Arduous March' originally refers to the 100-day march that Kim Il-sung's guerrilla unit endured in Manchuria from late 1938 to spring 1939, while suffering from cold and hunger, to avoid the Japanese military's punitive operation. The idea is to revive the spirit of that time and overcome the difficulties of the food shortage caused by the collapse of the rationing system. It is often said that the food shortage and large-scale starvation in North Korea in the mid-1990s were directly caused by the great floods of 1995 and 1996 and the drought of 1998. However, according to Amartya Sen, an Indian economist who won the Nobel Prize in Economics, no matter how large the drought or flood, there are no cases of starvation in democratic countries. This is because if the truth is known to the international community, emergency relief is provided. However, in a dictatorship, the outside world is not informed of what is happening. North Korea was also not properly known, and relief was not provided in a timely manner. So many people starved to death. The number of starving people is claimed to be anywhere from 300,000 to 3 million. People who were growing up at the time are said to be a head shorter than South Koreans. How can a politician who starved so many people to death avoid responsibility? How can he sit there with such a face?
North Korea suffers from chronic food shortages even when there are no major droughts or floods. Why is that? Deeply, if you are a socialist, you cannot help but agonize and reexamine our view of humanity. The core of Deng Xiaoping's reform and opening up was the dismantling of collective farms. Deng Xiaoping, who witnessed the tragedy of tens of millions starving to death during the Great Leap Forward, proposed the "black cat, white cat theory" that cats, whether black or white, should catch mice. His black cat, white cat theory was not something he made up while sitting at his desk. Dismantling collective farms was his great decision. In fact, the Soviet Union, which had the vast black soil of Ukraine and the endless lands of Russia, never achieved self-sufficiency in food for even a single year from the 1917 revolution until the dissolution of the federation in 1992. There is also an argument that North Korea's agricultural production could double if collective farms were dismantled. However, North Korea has hesitated to dismantle collective farms because it was afraid that the foundation of the Kim Il-sung dynasty would be shaken. Recently, they say they are experimenting with dividing collective farms into five-household groups to create a single management unit, but we will have to wait and see. In the meantime, instead of dismantling collective farms, North Korea has reclaimed terraced fields up to the highlands of the mountains, and has also cut down all the trees for cooking and heating, turning all the mountains into bare ground. As a result, the mountains cannot store water and have become more vulnerable to droughts and floods.
It is known that North Korea had greater national power than South Korea until the early 1970s. An exact calculation is impossible. First of all, the legacy left by Japanese imperialism was different. If we go back to the time of liberation, North Korea and South Manchuria were the most industrialized regions in East Asia at the time, following mainland Japan. When Japanese imperialism invaded China and attempted to compete with the United States for hegemony in the Pacific, the resources of the Japanese mainland were not enough, so they developed the Su-pung hydroelectric power plant and the Fushun coal field and operated factories in Changchun, Shenyang, etc., and operated the Heungnam nitrogen fertilizer plant with electricity from the Jangjin River and Pujeon River power plants that pumped water from the Gaema Plateau into the East Sea, and developed the Musan iron mine to operate the Cheongjin Iron and Steel Company. Heavy chemical factories were also built in Wonsan, Seongjin, and Najin. Naturally, many Japanese technicians came to the Hamgyeong Province, and there were also many technicians among the Korean people. In the movie [Ode to My Father], the father of the main character, who went back to find his daughter and was separated from her and never met her again, appears as an executive at the Heungnam fertilizer plant.
However, after the national power of North and South Korea reversed in the early 1970s, the gap has been widening at a very fast rate. Now, there are comparative figures of 30:1 or 40:1, but once it exceeds 10:1, it seems that comparing them from the perspective of competition between systems is no longer meaningful. The North Korean economy seems to be developing in a strange way. Since they don’t receive their rations or salaries properly, they go to work, stamp their seal, and then go out to the market to do business. They have to make a living that way, so it is said that markets are developing in North Korea. It is just like the phenomenon we saw in the Joseon Dynasty, where markets developed in an attempt to find the seeds of capitalism. Maybe the seeds of capitalism are growing in North Korea too.
Have you heard of the term 'flower swallows'? They are beggars who become orphans after their parents die and live by begging in the market. It seems that kindness disappeared and human nature became harsh after the Arduous March. In this living hell where people starve to death, people seem to have become very savage and try to survive on their own. They began to trust money rather than the party. Also, it seems that bribery, especially dollars, are very effective in our society. If you have money, you can take people out. Brokers can bribe soldiers guarding the border and take the families of defectors out. Many defectors also send money to their families in North Korea. When you send money to a Chinese broker, they contact a Chinese broker in North Korea and immediately give the money to the family in North Korea after deducting a commission. The commission is said to be as high as 30%. Then, the Chinese broker in North Korea calls the defector in South Korea who sent the money and transfers it to the family in North Korea. That way, they can confirm that the money has been delivered. So now, North Korean defector families are the envy of their neighbors because foreign money is coming in.
You might think that discipline has collapsed to this extent, and why is the democratization movement not happening? But it makes you think again about the existence of people. People with a small amount of power, such as low-level party officials or people with power similar to the head of a group, live while enjoying that small amount of power. And by the way, in North Korea, if you make even the slightest anti-regime remark or do something strange, your entire family will be wiped out, so collective or organized democratization movements are out of the question. In fact, I participated in the democratization movement when I was young, but the oppression at that time may have been just right for the youth to grow their courage. It was a special time called the “Spring of Seoul,” but when I was released after the Busan-Masan Uprising, I became a minor hero. You need that kind of taste to participate in the democratization movement, but North Korea’s oppression is so harsh that the democratization movement cannot take place. (Laughs)
The most unsolved question when observing North Korea is why it did not collapse during the Arduous March. There is still no clear explanation. There have always been claims that North Korea will collapse soon and claims that it will not collapse easily. So far, the claim that it will not collapse has been correct. It actually did not collapse. But how long will it not collapse? Some say that the ruling class in North Korea is very united. Professor Lee Young-hoon of Seoul National University said that it is similar to the Goryeo military regime during the Goryeo War against the Mongols. At that time, 100,000 people living in Gaeseong were called nationals. They were a privileged class like the citizens of Pyongyang today. They were very united and did not even blink when other people were trampled by the Mongol army or suffered from a long war. That is why, contrary to expectations, even when the Mongol army swept through the entire country except Ganghwa Island, Goryeo resisted tenaciously for several decades. So, the story is that Mongolia was unable to occupy Goryeo like other regions and make it its own territory, and instead ended up acknowledging its status as a vassal state.
Usually, when inter-Korean relations improve, South Korean officials visit North Korea and come back. The most common story they tell after their visit is, “Oh, that’s where people live too.” However, all they saw was downtown Pyongyang. The people they met were privileged. They went to Pyongyang and met only the people shown to them by the North Korean authorities, and they talked as if they had seen all of North Korea. However, outside of Pyongyang, or even inside Pyongyang, there is a completely different world outside of the world shown to them by the North Korean authorities. Rather than making vague guesses, we should be more interested in facts. Everyone, there are over 50,000 North Korean workers currently working in the Kaesong Industrial Complex. Do you know how much they are paid? The minimum wage at the Kaesong Industrial Complex was initially agreed to start at $50 and increase by 5% each year. The first products were produced at the Kaesong Industrial Complex in 2004, so it’s been about ten years. This year, the minimum wage was negotiated between the South and the North and set at $74. What is the current exchange rate? Then, would it be roughly 80,000 won in our currency? Of course, from the company's perspective, they also have to pay overtime pay and social insurance premiums by adding 15% each, so they say they pay an average of $155 per worker. The wages are not paid directly to the workers. The North Korean authorities receive them and distribute some in cash and some in ration cards. Of course, the authorities also take a lot of the money.
I remember that in 2007, the minimum wage in the Kaesong Industrial Complex was around $57. I went on a New Year’s hike with the pro-North Korean members of the Democratic Labor Party, the so-called “injection faction,” and when we came back, I offered a small prize and posed a quiz. I said, “Guess how much the Kaesong Industrial Complex workers are paid. I’ll give a gift to the person who got the closest answer.” Aren’t they people who have a special affection for their fellow North Koreans and who cry whenever unification is mentioned? But the person who got the closest answer, the person who received the gift I prepared, gave an answer that was ten times the correct answer. So the other people ’s answers were even more different. Their ideas were more than ten times different from reality. However, I don’t think any of them realized that the gap between their ideas and reality was that big, reflected deeply, and changed their worldview. Such reflection is extremely dangerous for an individual. The entire group may be in danger later, but the risk of being ostracized from the group is more certain than that risk . Therefore, no matter how absurd the doctrines of a religious group or sect are, once a group of more than 150 people is formed, it does not seem to be easily broken.
Professor Han Hwa-ryong of Baekseok University discovered in the late 1990s through interviews and essays written by defectors from North Korea that the consciousness of North Korean residents is composed of four myths.
The drama is not over
There is another term that I hear a lot while studying North Korea. Military-first politics . You’ve heard it a lot, right? Do you know what it means? Some people confuse it with the sage-king government. He is famous for being a labor movement fighter. To those who expect it to have such a profound meaning, it may seem incredibly simple and childish. It means prioritizing the military. It is a policy of allocating supplies and manpower to the military first. Now, a passage from the Analects of Confucius suddenly comes to mind. It is in Chapter 7 of the Yan Yan Chapter. It is a passage where Confucius says that among the military, food (economy), and people’s trust, the most important thing in politics is the people’s trust, and the next most important thing is the economy. North Korea’s military-first politics, contrary to Confucius’ teachings, gives up the economy first, not the military. Nevertheless, I think the reason North Korea has not collapsed today is because it has kept the most important ‘people’s trust.’ Of course, that 'people's faith' was based on a myth that was far from the truth. So if the myth collapses, the people's faith will also be shaken. If you look at it from the people's perspective, not the position of the ruler, then faith is dangerous if it is blind faith based on a myth. "So, people, doubt everything!" (Laughs)
Our country’s history has been a truly dramatic drama so far. However, the drama is not over yet. Unification remains. The current income gap between North Korea and South Korea is probably about 30 to 1. But what is even more horrifying is that there is no concept of “human rights” in North Korea. Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1948, stipulates that “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.” Article 1 of the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen from 1789 also states the same thing. That very concept of human rights does not exist in North Korea. An unknown number of political prisoners are living like animals in political prison camps because of trivial remarks. No, the entire country of North Korea is one giant prison. There are hundreds of thousands of people in China who escaped from that country, and among them, there must be many people who help those people who have come to South Korea via third countries. They are doing it both in the private sector and in the government, but it is difficult. These people have no sense of civic consciousness or self-reliance, which we usually talk about. At first, they don't even want to separate their trash, and they are good at thinking about solving problems through relationships with powerful people. I think that's because North Korean society works that way. Since people don't have free and dignified rights, they can't be independent.
This is already a story in the Analects. It is important to become an independent person . Confucius emphasized the character 立 (立). He said that establishing equal relationships with others, not being subordinate to anyone, and becoming independent through one's own efforts is 立. Confucius himself was a person who became independent through hard work. Have you all read the autobiography of Monk Hwang Seung-woo of Hyedang, [Even a field of thorns becomes a path if you step on it]? Hyedang learned English and became independent even in poverty. But if this does not happen, then one cannot become a modern person , a modern citizen. I think there will be many things we have to solve in order to achieve unification in the future. However, I am still optimistic. Our country's history has created many stories. It has been full of twists and turns, and even in the most desperate moments, something we do not know about has appeared.
Daehwan Ju
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Last fall, in Gwangju, I organized a story about modern history.
North Korea's modern history
Professor Kim Dae-sik of KAIST wrote a book called [Brain Science in Wonderland], and when I read it, he seemed like a very knowledgeable person. There are many interesting stories about how he explains our country's socio-political phenomena using brain science theories. It is said that the reason modern humans won the survival competition with Neanderthals, who had larger brains and were stronger, was because they had the ability to create fiction, or myths. By creating myths, they were able to form large groups, or human communities, bound together by a single identity. The myths about the ancestors of a tribe and the founding myths of ancient nations are said to be necessary for creating large groups. The history of the founding of modern nations is not much different in terms of function.
How different are history and myth?
For example, Americans place great importance on the history of the founding of the United States. The history of the founding of the United States is not a completely made-up story, but it is not much different from the Goguryeo founding myth in that it is composed of one story. Americans are a group of people who share the history of the United States and share pride and patriotism as Americans. Our country also has a history of independence movement and founding of the country. Recently, there was a movie called [Assassination] that was a box office hit and was seen by over 10 million people. How much of that movie is true to reality? How much is it true? Maybe 1~2%? (Laughs) It should be considered almost fiction. However, I feel good when I watch this movie. Our independence activists fight in the middle of Jongno, Seoul and defeat the Japanese and pro-Japanese collaborators. It is natural to want to have such a proud history and to remember only those scenes. I think that movie succeeded by tapping into that psychology.
In South Korea, however, movies are made for entertainment, but history is not taught in this way. However, in North Korea, history is almost like a movie, exaggerated and embellished. No, it is more than a movie for adults, it is like a cartoon for children or a founding myth of an ancient country, and it is distorted into a story centered on a single protagonist. North Korea's modern history is a complete myth. Even obvious lies are used to make a myth or story more interesting. For example, the story that Kim Jong-il was born in a secret camp on Mt. Baekdu is a fiction, but it is clearly recorded as fact. When Chairman Kim Jong-il inherited power from Chairman Kim Il-sung, anti-Japanese guerrillas continued to congratulate Kim Jong-il on his birth near the secret camp on Mt. Baekdu, and 'slogan trees' with slogans carved on them implying that the child would become a leader like the bright star who would lead the nation were discovered(?). That is the course for North Korean students' school trips. “Our leader was born here,” they teach.
It is said that the March 1st Movement was started by Kim Il-sung's father, Kim Hyong-jik, his mother, Kang Ban-sok, led the women's independence movement, and the General Sherman, which was an American pirate ship, merchant ship, or both that sailed up the Taedong River, was burned by the Pyongyang people led by Kim Il-sung's grandfather. All of this is far from the truth. So it is just like Yongbieocheonga, which states that Lee Seong-gye's 4th great-grandfather was a national hero and a leader of the people. Only then will Kim Il-sung's bloodline, not Kim Il-sung himself, be considered great, and the basis for his son and grandson to rule the country for 3 generations will be created. The official North Korean modern history that North Korea teaches its students is an absurd myth or cartoon, so it is unbelievable. Perhaps if we do not ban those books and allow our people to listen to and watch North Korean televisions and radios that broadcast their contents, there will be no better 'anti-communist education' than that.
The difficult thing about talking about North Korea is that, as you know, in our country right now, people are divided into conservatives and progressives depending on whether they criticize North Korea or try to understand North Korea as much as possible. For example, if you are interested in the North Korean human rights issue, you are immediately classified as a conservative. This is a very unique Korean phenomenon. Actor Cha In-pyo himself starred in a movie called [Crossing]. Watch that movie. It is well-made. After that, he is classified as a conservative. In fact, his wife Shin Ae-ra and Cha In-pyo are exemplary married couples among celebrities, and they are Christians who have adopted two orphans and are praised. However, if you call him a conservative, he might feel a little wronged. I think he is just interested in and helps out with the North Korean human rights issue and the defectors’ issue according to his conscience, and he does not have any particular political background. However, he is classified as a conservative, and as he actually meets with conservatives and helps each other, he gradually becomes a true conservative.
If defectors risk their lives to avoid the eyes of soldiers guarding the border and cross the Amnok or Duman Rivers to China, they become illegal residents who are chased by the police. Since such people are being chased, they are practically human traffickers, and young women are forced to marry old Chinese bachelors and work hard. Those who specialize in sending such people to South Korea are called “brokers” who do this for the purpose of making money, and those who do it for humanitarian reasons. In most cases, they are both. In any case, if you cross the Mongolian, Vietnamese, or Laotian borders with the guidance of such people and enter the Korean embassy in that country, you can go to South Korea. There are currently about 30,000 defectors in South Korea . It is a considerable number, and I heard that they make money in South Korea and send money to their families in North Korea and make phone calls with the help of brokers who travel back and forth between North Korea. Now that many defectors have come to South Korea, almost all of the internal situation in North Korea has become known. I also believe that among them, there will be people who will play a big role in unification in the future. Despite this situation, the progressive, labor, and opposition parties still pretend not to know about North Korea, are indifferent to the North Korean human rights issue, and refrain from criticizing North Korea, which is why the people look at them strangely . I will ignore this long-standing progressive habit and speak freely, only according to my conscience, about North Korea and its modern history today.
When did the idolization of Kim Il-sung begin?
Kim Jong-un's official title is First Vice Chairman of the National Defense Commission. Since his father Kim Jong-il was the Chairman of the National Defense Commission, the position is left vacant. Although Kim Jong-il was the supreme ruler, he did not become the Chairman of the State. This means that the position will forever belong to his father Kim Il-sung. No, we should consider that Chairman Kim Il-sung is still alive, and Chairman Kim Jong-il is also still alive. In reality, we should consider this country to be ruled by ghosts and genes. The so-called Baekdu Bloodline DNA is in control. The reason Kim Jong-un was able to kill his uncle Jang Song-taek, who is supported by China, is because Jang Song-taek does not have Kim Il-sung's DNA. Because they worshipped Kim Il-sung so much, they had no choice but to choose a leader from among Kim Il-sung's descendants, and eventually, they became a dynasty, and after Dangun Joseon and Yi Seong-gye Joseon, Kim Il-sung Joseon was created.
Kim Il-sung ascended to power in February 1946. He became the chairman of the North Korean Provisional People's Committee. He ruled North Korea for a whopping 48 years, from 1946 to 1994. This is quite a record. Among the kings of the Joseon Dynasty, only Yeongjo, who reigned for 52 years from 1724 to 1776, was in power longer than this. In fact, until now, it has been said that Syngman Rhee was responsible for the division of North and South Korea because he made the Jeongeup speech in June 1946 and insisted that a separate government should be established in South Korea first. However, this was only because he made such a statement too soon in South Korea. In North Korea, the North Korean Provisional People's Committee, which was a de facto government, was established in February 1946, and Kim Il-sung took office as its chairman and implemented land reform.
North Korea's land reform , based on the principle of 'free confiscation and free distribution', was carried out quickly and thoroughly, and was compared to South Korea's sluggish land reform, which was limited to farmland. Of course, when we looked into it more deeply recently, we found that farmers who received farmland paid 40% of their yields to the state as taxes, so there is criticism that from the farmers' perspective, it was almost like the landowner changed from an individual to the state. And in the mid-1950s, it was collectivized, and from the perspective of individual farmers, their land was taken away again, so it is true that it is not comparable to South Korea.
However, in 1946, the shocking news of the 'bourgeois democratic revolution' in North Korea, such as the land reform and the purge of pro-Japanese collaborators, which were carried out like lightning in North Korea, was enough to divide South Korean society into pros and cons. In addition, as a result of the land reform and 'democratic revolution' in North Korea, 1 million people had already defected to South Korea before the Korean War. Since the Christian forces, Cho Man-sik's Joseon Democratic Party, and landowners had all defected to South Korea, there was little resistance to the land reform or the so-called democratic revolution. It may have been convenient for both sides because they had a refuge in South Korea. Instead, a huge anti-communist force was formed in South Korea. In Seoul's Gwangjang Market, Namdaemun Market, and Dongdaemun Market, North Koreans who had defected to South Korea took control of the market with tenacity. Even before liberation, they were from North Korea, famous as the 'Bukcheong water vendors.'
We often think that Kim Il-sung's sole leadership system was established after the mid-1950s and that the idolization of Kim Il-sung began after the purge of the coastal faction. However, that is not the case. Kim Il-sung University was established in Pyongyang in July 1946. It had not even been a year since liberation. Kim Il-sung was born in 1912. So what does it mean to have a national university named after a 35-year-old youth at the time ? Kim Il-sung was already the Stalin of Korea. If you look at the photos taken immediately after liberation in 1945, you can see large photos of Stalin and Kim Il-sung hanging side by side at political rallies. I wonder what Mr. Park Hon-young thought of the young Kim Il-sung, who was 12 years younger than him and the same age as him. I wonder if he was in a dilemma when he defected to North Korea to escape the oppression of the US military government. Doesn't going to North Korea mean that he had no choice but to follow the will of the Soviet Union, which had established Kim Il-sung as the Stalin of Korea? It seems like he had little choice. At that time, Stalin's authority in the world communist movement was probably similar to the authority of the Pope in the Catholic Church that we see today. No, he had real, physical power, that is, economic and military power, so he could be said to be several times more powerful than the Pope. The Comintern was under his command. So the world's communists considered it an honor to follow the orders of Generalissimo Stalin. In World War II, millions of Soviet soldiers died on the long Eastern Front from Stalingrad to St. Petersburg, shouting "Long live Generalissimo Stalin!" as they died.
We often think that Kim Il-sung's sole leadership system was established after the mid-1950s and that the idolization of Kim Il-sung began after the purge of the coastal faction. However, that is not the case. Kim Il-sung University was established in Pyongyang in July 1946. It had not even been a year since liberation. Kim Il-sung was born in 1912. So what does it mean to have a national university named after a 35-year-old youth at the time ? Kim Il-sung was already the Stalin of Korea. If you look at the photos taken immediately after liberation in 1945, you can see large photos of Stalin and Kim Il-sung hanging side by side at political rallies. I wonder what Mr. Park Hon-young thought of the young Kim Il-sung, who was 12 years younger than him and the same age as him. I wonder if he was in a dilemma when he defected to North Korea to escape the oppression of the US military government. Doesn't going to North Korea mean that he had no choice but to follow the will of the Soviet Union, which had established Kim Il-sung as the Stalin of Korea? It seems like he had little choice. At that time, Stalin's authority in the world communist movement was probably similar to the authority of the Pope in the Catholic Church that we see today. No, he had real, physical power, that is, economic and military power, so he could be said to be several times more powerful than the Pope. The Comintern was under his command. So the world's communists considered it an honor to follow the orders of Generalissimo Stalin. In World War II, millions of Soviet soldiers died on the long Eastern Front from Stalingrad to St. Petersburg, shouting "Long live Generalissimo Stalin!" as they died.
It is known that Stalin called Kim Il-sung to Moscow before liberation for an interview, created the Korean Workers' Corps, and appointed Kim Il-sung as its leader. It is known that the Northeast Anti-Japanese United Army, including Kim Il-sung, stopped its guerrilla war against the Kwantung Army in 1941 and entered Soviet territory, resting for four years until 1945. It is said that Koreans such as the Chinese brigade commander Zhou Bo-jung, Choi Yong-geon, Kim Il-sung, and Kim Chaek got married and had children there and rested for a long time in the Maritime Province near Vladivostok. At that time, the Soviet Union had a non-aggression pact with Japan in order to focus all its efforts on the war against Germany. Therefore, the Maritime Province was a safe haven. As Japan's surrender approached, the Soviet Union selected Koreans there and created the Korean Workers' Corps. Scholars such as Wada Haruki compiled a list of about 140 people, but it is generally believed that there were about 150 people. The leader of the Korean Workers' Corps was Kim Il-sung.
Choi Yong-geon, who was 12 years older than him and the same age as him, was also a veteran who had made comebacks, but the Soviet Union put forward the young Kim Il-sung as its leader. And since the team was supported and led by the Soviet Union, which had a lot of experience in taking power and wielding power, it seems that they knew well the system of mass politics by highlighting one person as a hero and making a star and utilizing him. Other teams were barely able to create one team after a long struggle, and in Korea, the Gyeongseong Comgroup led by Pak Hon-yong seems to have barely created one team. However, in fact, the domestic faction was not able to completely overcome the chronic factional struggle and did not seem to be able to unite as a cohesive group. And the Yan'an faction (Korean Independence Alliance) in China had a star, Mu-jeong, but it seems that they were not able to create a team centered around him. Mu-jeong seems to have been capable as a soldier, but not as talented as a politician.
Kim Il-sung and Jo Man-sik
Kim Young-hwan, known as the godfather of the Juche faction, went up to North Korea in a semi-submarine and met Chairman Kim Il-sung, who was so ignorant that he didn't even know much about the Juche philosophy. In fact, Kim Il-sung dropped out of Yumun Middle School in Jilin. However, at the time, he was relatively educated within the guerrilla unit of the Northeast Anti-Japanese United Army. The majority of the unit members were illiterate. Scholars believe that the illiteracy rate was over 80%. That's why Kim Il-sung became a company commander and a company commander in the Northeast Anti-Japanese United Army under the Chinese Communist Party at the age of 24. In fact, age is not that important in the anti-Japanese guerrillas. In fact, young men with strong physiques were advantageous.
Kim Il-sung became famous for the Battle of Pochonbo . In fact, it was not a large-scale battle, but it was an incident in which he crossed the Yalu River, attacked a police station, and killed several Japanese police officers. The Dong-A Ilbo reported it in detail, and Kim Il-sung's name became widely known in Korea. It was the first major incident reported in Korea since the Battle of Cheongsanri by Hong Beom-do, General Kim Jwa-jin, and others. In fact, it also meant that it was an incident carried out in conjunction with underground organizations in Korea such as the Fatherland Restoration Association , and in 1937, the anti-Japanese movement in Korea was very difficult. The Dong-A Ilbo deliberately reported it in detail because it happened at a time when the anti-Japanese movement was almost extinct due to Japanese oppression. Even after that, the Northeast Anti-Japanese United Army continued its guerrilla warfare in Manchuria and harassed the Kwantung Army, but suffered a major blow from the Japanese army's large-scale suppression operation, and eventually signed the Japan-Soviet Neutrality Pact, stipulating that Japan and the Soviet Union would maintain neutrality even if the other country was at war. Following Soviet instructions, in 1940, they withdrew to the Maritime Province across the Soviet-Manchurian border.
There, Choi Yong-geon married a Chinese woman, and Kim Il-sung married Kim Jung-sook, and Kim Jong-il was born. The five years he spent there were the most leisurely and fortunate times in Kim Il-sung’s life. The fact that he was occupied by the Soviet Union was ultimately due to the fact that he lived in the Soviet Union for five years, observed and learned the politics of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, and gained the trust of the Soviet people there. And he became the representative of a strong team of about 150 people. In politics, a team must be formed to exert power. No matter how smart or capable a person is, he cannot do anything alone. A team must be united through trust and divide up roles to become a political force. Kim Il-sung’s team was not only a strong team united through guerrilla warfare, but also a team with a clear vision for success because the Soviet Union supported it. So they became more united and more people joined.
However, the coastal faction had more famous figures with more splendid careers, such as the old independence fighter Kim Du-bong, who was also a Korean language scholar; "female general" Kim Myeong-si; the sister of Gyeongseong Communist Group fighter Kim Hyeong-seon; Choi Chang-ik; and Park Il-woo, but they had several weaknesses. First of all, they entered the country late. In other words, the plan was already in place. Furthermore, there was an anti-Japanese hero who could have been highlighted as a popular star, Mu Jeong (born 1905; also known as Kim Mu-jeong (金武亭) by adding his surname), but he did not have a good relationship with his seniors, such as Choi Chang-ik (born 1896) and Park Il-woo (born 1903). Mu Jeong was the only one of the 20 Koreans who had participated in the Long March to survive until then, and he was a famous artillery commander in the Eighth Route Army and close friends with Chinese Communist Party leaders, including Zhu De and Peng Dehuai. However, the Chinese Communist Party did not have the time or strength to think about establishing a pro-Chinese government in North Korea against the Soviet Communist Party. The most urgent task was to win the Chinese Civil War. In fact, when World War II ended, few people in China believed that the Communist Party would be the final winner. Even Stalin valued his relationship with Chiang Kai-shek more than Mao Zedong.
As soon as it became clear that the Soviet Union was taking over Kim Il-sung, there was a movement to make him the Stalin of Korea. They believed that each country should have a Stalin like the Soviet Union. That is why, when Kim Il-sung first entered North Korea, the people who were at the forefront of idolizing Kim Il-sung were the Soviet faction. They thought that was natural. That was the only way to establish a regime that would be supported by the public. Kim Chang-man, the propaganda director of the Communist Party of Korea, and Park Chang-ok, a Soviet faction member, took the lead in pushing for this. Novelist Han Sol-ya wrote the novel [Hero General Kim Il-sung] . Poet Jo Gi-cheon wrote the epic [Baekdu Mountain]. Naturally, these were literary works praising Kim Il-sung. Such novels and poems were already published in 1946. It is very different from what we usually think. Literature idolizing Kim Il-sung did not come out later. It came out right after liberation. Among poets and novelists, there are those who are good at following trends.
Starting in 1946, Kim Il-sung began to be called the “Great Leader.” The North Korean Provisional People’s Committee was established and Kim Il-sung was elected as its chairman on February 8, 1946, which was less than five months before the Korean Workers’ Party entered Wonsan Port on September 19, 1945. Things progressed rapidly under the Soviet military government’s support. Kim Il-sung, who became the chairman of the North Korean Provisional People’s Committee, never stepped down from power for 48 years until his death. Kim Il-sung was born on April 15, 1912. It is said that Kim Il-sung’s ancestors were gravediggers from a landowner family. Since he was not a nobleman, I think he might have easily accepted Christianity. His father was Kim Hyong-jik, and he graduated from Sungsil Middle School, a famous Christian school and mission school in Pyongyang. His mother was Kang Ban-seok. Kang Ban-seok’s name, “Banseok” (盤石), is named after Peter. So, both of his parents were Christians. Isn't that ironic? It's as ironic as Stalin being a graduate of a theological seminary.
Kim Il-sung initially created the North Korean branch of the Korean Communist Party, which meant recognizing the Korean Communist Party headquarters in Seoul and its leader, Pak Hon-yong. On October 13, 1945, less than a month after returning home, the seizure of power proceeded rapidly. What is especially interesting is that Choi Yong-geon deliberately joined the Korean Democratic Party of Mr. Cho Man-sik and became its leader. As I have said repeatedly, Christianity was stronger than the communist movement in North Korea, and the power of the right wing was stronger. The Korean Democratic Party had 300,000 members, and Mr. Cho Man-sik’s influence could not be ignored by the Soviet military government. In addition, the Soviet military government initially tried to establish a coalition government with the right wing according to the strategy of the National Unification Front. However, the news of the Moscow Tripartite Conference in December 1945 threw North Korea into a whirlwind, just like South Korea. The Korean Democratic Party launched an anti-trusteeship movement, and the Soviet military government could no longer tolerate Mr. Cho Man-sik and imprisoned him. Then, through a scheme, Cho Man-sik was expelled from the Korean Democratic Party, and instead, Choi Yong-geon, a beloved disciple of Cho Man-sik when he was the principal of Osan School, joined the Korean Democratic Party and became the leader of the Korean Democratic Party. He was responsible for managing the Korean Democratic Party until 1955. It is a heartbreaking history. Choi Yong-geon must have done it out of political necessity, but how heartbreaking must it have been? Let’s take a moment to appreciate Kim So-wol’s poem and move on. The idea is to get a glimpse of the character of this man, Cho Man-sik.
JMS Kim So-wol
You, the person of character born in Pyongyang, hated me without JMS and loved me when I was rich. JMS who lived in Osan (五山) I think of you this morning after ten springs, the first time in years waking up from a dreamless sleep. With a sullen face, small stature and thin figure, only the eyes that seemed about to burst out with integrity like the tip of an iron were particularly bright. You, the one who knows no more passion for your people. Simple appearance, just like the kind old days, but, oh, why do you seek me, tangled up in alcohol, women and greed, for fifteen years, in your heart? This morning. Beautiful, great love can never die, remember, but always hide in my heart, put to sleep my madly tormented conscience, until I leave this painful world.
And on August 28, 1946, the North Korean branch of the Korean Communist Party and the Korean New People's Party of the coastal faction merged to form the North Korean Workers' Party. Look at the photo. It looks like the Soviet Military Government's Military Governor Shchikov, Kim Du-bong, Kim Il-sung, and Women's League Chairwoman Park Jeong-ae are sitting like this. Kim Du-bong is the chairman, and Hega-i and Kim Il-sung are the vice-chairmen. They took a commemorative photo with large portraits of Stalin and Kim Il-sung behind them. Mr. Kim Du-bong (born 1889), who was nearing his 60th birthday and was elected chairman, shouted "Long live General Kim Il-sung" at the convention hall. Finally, on September 9, 1948, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea was born, and Kim Il-sung took office as premier of the cabinet. And in June 1949, when the North Korean Workers' Party and the South Korean Workers' Party merged to form the Korean Workers' Party, Kim Il-sung became the chairman of the Central Committee. Pak Hon-yong and Hega-i both became vice-chairmen. In the tense situation just before the outbreak of the Korean War, Prime Minister Kim Il-sung and Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Pak Hon-yong devoted themselves to government affairs, while the party organization was mainly managed by He Ga-yi.
Purge of Soviet, Coastal and Domestic Factions
Here, let me briefly talk about Mr. Kim Du-bong . He was a famous Korean language scholar and a disciple of Joo Si-gyeong. After the March 1st Movement, he went into exile in China and worked in the provisional government. However, he differed from Kim Gu in his independence movement line, went to Yan'an, and founded the Joseon Independence Alliance, becoming its chairman. The Joseon Independence Alliance was a centrist leftist current that shared the same spiritual flow as the National Foundation Alliance (Yeo Woon-hyung) in Korea , and rather than being an orthodox communist , it seemed to sympathize with the New Democracy advocated by Mao Zedong . You can also tell by the name of the party he later founded, the Joseon New People's Party. Later, when Mr. Kim Gu and Mr. Kim Kyu-sik went to Pyongyang for North-South negotiations as a last attempt to prevent division, they held the Four Kims Meeting, and the Four Kims at that time referred to Kim Du-bong, Kim Il-sung, Kim Gu, and Kim Kyu-sik . The four people who played a role in the establishment of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea with Pyongyang as its capital were Kim Il-sung, Kim Du-bong, Pak Hon-yong, and He Ga-yi. These people represented the four groups of Manchurian, Yan'an, domestic, and Soviet factions, respectively. Jo Man-sik was the representative of the domestic right wing, but was excluded early on.
Heo Ga-i (born 1904) is a member of the Soviet faction. He was born as the son of a Koryo-saram who had moved to Primorsky Krai to farm, and he probably moved to Central Asia around 1937 when Stalin forcibly relocated Koryo-saram from Primorsky Krai to Central Asia. When the North Korean Workers' Party was created, he represented the Soviet faction and became vice-chairman alongside Kim Il-sung. Since he had served as a local party official in Tashkent, Uzbekistan before returning to Korea, he was the head of the party organization department since the days of the North Korean branch of the Communist Party of Korea, and was called the "Party Doctor" and took charge of the party organization after the birth of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. However, during the war, he came into conflict with Kim Il-sung in 1951, and lost his party power. He probably tried to apply the principles of party organization that he had seen and learned during his time in the Soviet Communist Party to Korea. Kim Il-sung publicly criticized him by putting forward Park Chang-ok, a fellow Soviet supporter, and was initially demoted to the position of Vice Minister of Agriculture, and continued to fall from power until he finally committed suicide in July 1953. His son, who had been sent to Harbin, Manchuria as a refugee during the war, is now alive in Russia, and came to South Korea around 1995 and claims that his father did not commit suicide, but was murdered by an assassin sent by Kim Il-sung. In fact, this is something that is unknown. However, the North Korean authorities announced that “He Ga-i committed suicide.”
In 1953, even before the end of the war, they began to hold the South Korean Workers' Party accountable for failing to achieve the goals of the unification war and the South Korean liberation war . As soon as the war began, Lee Ju-ha and Kim Sam-ryong were taken out of Seodaemun Prison by the South Korean Syngman Rhee regime and shot to death. Then, Lee Gwan-sul, who was imprisoned in Daejeon Prison for the Jeong Pan-sa counterfeit money incident, was massacred along with hundreds of others. As you all know, Lee Hyeon-sang died while fighting against the guerrillas in Jirisan.
But now that I think about it, the people who died the most miserably were those who crossed over to North Korea and joined the Korean Workers' Party. In early 1953, before the war ended, 12 members of the South Korean Labor Party, including Lee Seung-yeop, Lee Kang-guk, and Im Hwa , were arrested on charges of counterrevolutionary and anti-state espionage. This was a massive purge of domestic communists. Mr. Park Hon-yong was also sentenced to death in December 1955 in a trial presided over by Choi Yong-geon, who was the same age as him, on three fabricated charges: espionage for the United States, destruction of democratic forces in South Korea, and conspiracy to overthrow the North Korean regime. There is also a story that the executions took place right after the Soviet Communist Party sent a letter expressing regret to the North Korean leadership of Kim Il-sung about the trial of Park Hon-yong in the summer of 1956. In fact, the purge of the South Korean Labor Party placed all responsibility for starting the war on them, and by eliminating Mujeong of the Yan'an faction, Heo Ga-i of the Soviet faction, and even Park Hon-yong, potential challengers to Kim Il-sung's sole regime were almost eliminated.
However, a major change occurred in February 1956. At the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Khrushchev began to publicly criticize Stalin's personality cult. Stalin had already died in 1953. As Stalin's various evil deeds were exposed, small Stalins in many countries around the world found themselves in difficult situations. In Hungary, in October 1956, the Hungarian incident occurred, in which the people tried to break away from the Soviet Union and pursue Western-style democracy. Eventually, the Soviet Union sent in the army to suppress the situation, and 2,500 Hungarian citizens died. In fact, Stalin killed too many people. The number of people Stalin killed through purges is in the millions. He was a really tough fighter before the revolution succeeded. Later, when he took power after the revolution, he started to kill his comrades. It is said that Lenin knew Stalin's cruel nature and tried not to give him the position of successor in his later years. However, Stalin was an experienced man. He never asserted his own opinion or insisted on his own claims. After all the opinions of the party had been expressed and discussed, he agreed with the most moderate and most popular opinion. That is why the party members considered Stalin the most rational and sensible of the leaders, the least likely to think.
What was important to him was not opinions, but his own seizure of power. In terms of policies, he would kill his political enemies and calmly implement their policies. He would kill Trotsky and implement the policies Trotsky advocated, and he would kill Bukharin and implement the policies Bukharin advocated. Trotsky was too smart and boasted that he had contributed the most to the revolution after Lenin, so he could have been purged, but Bukharin was the youngest of his comrades, a very obedient and intelligent junior, and he would never let him live. In that respect, he is incomparable to Mao Zedong, who let Deng Xiaoping live. It is said that Mao Zedong even knew that after his death, the right wing, including Deng Xiaoping, would take power, not the Gang of Four. However, he did not kill Deng Xiaoping, although he sent him down to suffer. In the end, Deng Xiaoping, who returned later, made a decision to overturn Mao Zedong's line, a huge change that no one but the first generation of revolutionary authority could have made. In the meantime, many people died in the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, and many intellectuals suffered, but they just brushed Mao Zedong aside with the theory of seven merits and three faults. This aspect of the Chinese people is definitely different.
Anyway, when Khrushchev criticized Stalin's personality cult, the atmosphere of the communist movement around the world suddenly changed. Since the Soviet Union was criticizing the personality cult, there was an atmosphere that we should do the same. Inevitably, the Soviet faction was greatly influenced and agitated. The coastal faction also agreed. That is why the 'August Factional Incident' occurred. On August 30, 1956, at the plenary session of the Korean Workers' Party, Yun Gong-heum criticized Kim Il-sung's dictatorship. However, although there were many people who complained behind the scenes, there were too few people who actually came forward and responded at the meeting. Everyone was afraid and did not speak up actively. Instead, Kim Il-sung's loyalists rose up, and the meeting became a mess, with Choi Chang-ik, Yun Gong-heum, Seo Hui, Lee Pil-gyu, Park Chang-ok, and others being expelled from the party or stripped of their party or government posts. Yun Gong-heum, Seo Hui, Lee Pil-gyu, and Kim Kang fled to China.
In October 1956, the Hungarian incident occurred, and in 1957, the Sino-Soviet conflict began. Then, in the March 1958 plenary session, hundreds of people from all factions of the Korean communist movement under Japanese colonial rule, including the coastal faction, the Soviet faction, the Tuesday faction, and the ML faction, were purged. As a result, all those who had complaints about Kim Il-sung's dictatorship were eliminated, and although the theoretical dictatorship of the proletariat had long ago degenerated into a one-party dictatorship in the Soviet Union, in North Korea, the one-party dictatorship degenerated again into Kim Il-sung's personal dictatorship. Usually, stars are put forward due to the needs of mass politics, but internal decisions are made collectively through relatively free discussions at Politburo meetings, Central Committee meetings, etc., which is the custom of many communist parties, but in North Korea, such party organs are under the authority of Kim Il-sung personally.
Is Juche ideology a religion and North Korea a theocratic system?
And in the midst of the Sino-Soviet conflict, Kim Il-sung began to advocate Juche ideology. Since China and the Soviet Union were at odds, he decided to maintain neutrality in the gap and not allow interference from the Soviet Union and China. So from that time on, he began to advocate Juche ideology in earnest. In the 1970s, I listened to the broadcasts sent from North Korea to South Korea out of curiosity. At that time, if you were caught listening to the broadcasts to South Korea, you could be put in jail for violating the Anti-Communism Act. And I had a hard time finding banned books. However, many of the contents of Juche ideology were copied directly from Mao Zedong ideology. There was no particular difference from Mao Zedong ideology in terms of the perspective of viewing East Asia as a colonial semi-feudal society or in terms of discussing how to bring about a revolution in that society. I read all of Mao Zedong's complete works, and the main contents of Juche ideology were almost all there. In other words, when I looked at the world through the new ideology of Juche ideology, nothing seemed particularly different . So, honestly, I still don’t know what the Juche ideology that Professor Hwang Jang-yeop and others talk about contains other than an idealistic humanism.
Juche ideology is sometimes categorized as a kind of religion. There is even talk that it ranks 10th among the world's religions in terms of the number of believers. In fact, North Korea has returned to the days when there was no separation of religion and state. 'Fatherly Leader' has replaced 'Father God'. A one-party dictatorship was originally practiced in most countries where the Communist Party was in power, but the creation of a one-man dictatorship dynasty is unprecedented in the world, and furthermore, in order to support the dynasty, a religion was created with Kim Il-sung as the founder and god, completing a very unique system. Political scientist Jeon In-kwon called Joseon, the country of Neo-Confucianism, the 'country of truth', but in that sense, North Korea seems to be an even more intense 'country of truth'. This kind of system seems too rigid and inflexible to change on its own. There are various evaluations of President Kim Dae-jung's Sunshine Policy, but because the opponent is the North Korean system, which is such a unique system, it seems that foreign theories, rational inferences, and expectations do not fit. A cold wind or a warm sun can make you take off your coat, but in the end, it is you who takes off your coat at the last moment. Unfortunately, if your coat is made of hard metal, you cannot take it off even if you want to.
The fact that North Korea, which people all over the world laugh at and make fun of and use as a source of comedy, is our fellow countrymen and exists just a few dozen kilometers north of Seoul by car, always makes us deeply concerned. Veteran movie actress Choi Eun-hee and director Shin Sang-ok were kidnapped and taken to North Korea for several years. One of the two went first. At first, they were kidnapped by force, and later, director Shin Sang-ok may have gone half voluntarily and half involuntarily, since they were a married couple. Later, they escaped to the United States and lived there. Now, director Shin Sang-ok has died, but Choi Eun-hee is still alive. What Choi Eun-hee saw of Kim Jong-il was that he himself was having a very hard time. In particular, she did not understand why he had to go, why he had to give orders to create something, and why people did not create things on their own and act voluntarily. There were mountains of documents for approval. No one took responsibility. Kim Jong-il had to make a decision to do something. That is different from the human nature of Juche ideology. That is a terrible contradiction. People are passive. The leader is the brain of the republic. The people are the hands and feet. So, the brain must be calm and make decisions before the hands and feet can move.
They go on field trips. Then, surprisingly, the factories and farms run well for several days. The leader’s brilliant leadership is truly amazing. He gives detailed instructions one by one, and the executives write them down. However, the factories that the leader goes on field trips are supplied with raw materials and electricity from nearby areas. So they run for a while. Everything can be operated by the leader’s brilliant leadership. They say that there are tens of thousands of statues of the three Kim Il-sungs scattered throughout North Korea. If they were all torn down and melted down after unification, wouldn’t we be able to obtain a lot of copper and iron? However, I don’t know whether to erase all the letters praising the three Kim Il-sungs carved on large rocks such as Myohyangsan, Geumgangsan, and Chilbosan or just leave them alone. It’s really questionable. Why didn’t North Korea follow China’s reform and openness or Vietnam’s Doi Moi policy? “They will definitely do it, no, they have no choice but to do it” is the premise of the Sunshine Policy. It started from the very common-sense premise that “Let’s help North Korea, and it will definitely reform and open up.” But North Korea went the other way. Instead of reforming and opening up as expected, it developed nuclear weapons, and President Kim Dae-jung’s Sunshine Policy lost its luster.
The most painful word in North Korea's modern history is the 'Arduous March'. The 'Arduous March' originally refers to the 100-day march that Kim Il-sung's guerrilla unit endured in Manchuria from late 1938 to spring 1939, while suffering from cold and hunger, to avoid the Japanese military's punitive operation. The idea is to revive the spirit of that time and overcome the difficulties of the food shortage caused by the collapse of the rationing system. It is often said that the food shortage and large-scale starvation in North Korea in the mid-1990s were directly caused by the great floods of 1995 and 1996 and the drought of 1998. However, according to Amartya Sen, an Indian economist who won the Nobel Prize in Economics, no matter how large the drought or flood, there are no cases of starvation in democratic countries. This is because if the truth is known to the international community, emergency relief is provided. However, in a dictatorship, the outside world is not informed of what is happening. North Korea was also not properly known, and relief was not provided in a timely manner. So many people starved to death. The number of starving people is claimed to be anywhere from 300,000 to 3 million. People who were growing up at the time are said to be a head shorter than South Koreans. How can a politician who starved so many people to death avoid responsibility? How can he sit there with such a face?
North Korea suffers from chronic food shortages even when there are no major droughts or floods. Why is that? Deeply, if you are a socialist, you cannot help but agonize and reexamine our view of humanity. The core of Deng Xiaoping's reform and opening up was the dismantling of collective farms. Deng Xiaoping, who witnessed the tragedy of tens of millions starving to death during the Great Leap Forward, proposed the "black cat, white cat theory" that cats, whether black or white, should catch mice. His black cat, white cat theory was not something he made up while sitting at his desk. Dismantling collective farms was his great decision. In fact, the Soviet Union, which had the vast black soil of Ukraine and the endless lands of Russia, never achieved self-sufficiency in food for even a single year from the 1917 revolution until the dissolution of the federation in 1992. There is also an argument that North Korea's agricultural production could double if collective farms were dismantled. However, North Korea has hesitated to dismantle collective farms because it was afraid that the foundation of the Kim Il-sung dynasty would be shaken. Recently, they say they are experimenting with dividing collective farms into five-household groups to create a single management unit, but we will have to wait and see. In the meantime, instead of dismantling collective farms, North Korea has reclaimed terraced fields up to the highlands of the mountains, and has also cut down all the trees for cooking and heating, turning all the mountains into bare ground. As a result, the mountains cannot store water and have become more vulnerable to droughts and floods.
It is known that North Korea had greater national power than South Korea until the early 1970s. An exact calculation is impossible. First of all, the legacy left by Japanese imperialism was different. If we go back to the time of liberation, North Korea and South Manchuria were the most industrialized regions in East Asia at the time, following mainland Japan. When Japanese imperialism invaded China and attempted to compete with the United States for hegemony in the Pacific, the resources of the Japanese mainland were not enough, so they developed the Su-pung hydroelectric power plant and the Fushun coal field and operated factories in Changchun, Shenyang, etc., and operated the Heungnam nitrogen fertilizer plant with electricity from the Jangjin River and Pujeon River power plants that pumped water from the Gaema Plateau into the East Sea, and developed the Musan iron mine to operate the Cheongjin Iron and Steel Company. Heavy chemical factories were also built in Wonsan, Seongjin, and Najin. Naturally, many Japanese technicians came to the Hamgyeong Province, and there were also many technicians among the Korean people. In the movie [Ode to My Father], the father of the main character, who went back to find his daughter and was separated from her and never met her again, appears as an executive at the Heungnam fertilizer plant.
However, after the national power of North and South Korea reversed in the early 1970s, the gap has been widening at a very fast rate. Now, there are comparative figures of 30:1 or 40:1, but once it exceeds 10:1, it seems that comparing them from the perspective of competition between systems is no longer meaningful. The North Korean economy seems to be developing in a strange way. Since they don’t receive their rations or salaries properly, they go to work, stamp their seal, and then go out to the market to do business. They have to make a living that way, so it is said that markets are developing in North Korea. It is just like the phenomenon we saw in the Joseon Dynasty, where markets developed in an attempt to find the seeds of capitalism. Maybe the seeds of capitalism are growing in North Korea too.
Have you heard of the term 'flower swallows'? They are beggars who become orphans after their parents die and live by begging in the market. It seems that kindness disappeared and human nature became harsh after the Arduous March. In this living hell where people starve to death, people seem to have become very savage and try to survive on their own. They began to trust money rather than the party. Also, it seems that bribery, especially dollars, are very effective in our society. If you have money, you can take people out. Brokers can bribe soldiers guarding the border and take the families of defectors out. Many defectors also send money to their families in North Korea. When you send money to a Chinese broker, they contact a Chinese broker in North Korea and immediately give the money to the family in North Korea after deducting a commission. The commission is said to be as high as 30%. Then, the Chinese broker in North Korea calls the defector in South Korea who sent the money and transfers it to the family in North Korea. That way, they can confirm that the money has been delivered. So now, North Korean defector families are the envy of their neighbors because foreign money is coming in.
You might think that discipline has collapsed to this extent, and why is the democratization movement not happening? But it makes you think again about the existence of people. People with a small amount of power, such as low-level party officials or people with power similar to the head of a group, live while enjoying that small amount of power. And by the way, in North Korea, if you make even the slightest anti-regime remark or do something strange, your entire family will be wiped out, so collective or organized democratization movements are out of the question. In fact, I participated in the democratization movement when I was young, but the oppression at that time may have been just right for the youth to grow their courage. It was a special time called the “Spring of Seoul,” but when I was released after the Busan-Masan Uprising, I became a minor hero. You need that kind of taste to participate in the democratization movement, but North Korea’s oppression is so harsh that the democratization movement cannot take place. (Laughs)
The most unsolved question when observing North Korea is why it did not collapse during the Arduous March. There is still no clear explanation. There have always been claims that North Korea will collapse soon and claims that it will not collapse easily. So far, the claim that it will not collapse has been correct. It actually did not collapse. But how long will it not collapse? Some say that the ruling class in North Korea is very united. Professor Lee Young-hoon of Seoul National University said that it is similar to the Goryeo military regime during the Goryeo War against the Mongols. At that time, 100,000 people living in Gaeseong were called nationals. They were a privileged class like the citizens of Pyongyang today. They were very united and did not even blink when other people were trampled by the Mongol army or suffered from a long war. That is why, contrary to expectations, even when the Mongol army swept through the entire country except Ganghwa Island, Goryeo resisted tenaciously for several decades. So, the story is that Mongolia was unable to occupy Goryeo like other regions and make it its own territory, and instead ended up acknowledging its status as a vassal state.
Usually, when inter-Korean relations improve, South Korean officials visit North Korea and come back. The most common story they tell after their visit is, “Oh, that’s where people live too.” However, all they saw was downtown Pyongyang. The people they met were privileged. They went to Pyongyang and met only the people shown to them by the North Korean authorities, and they talked as if they had seen all of North Korea. However, outside of Pyongyang, or even inside Pyongyang, there is a completely different world outside of the world shown to them by the North Korean authorities. Rather than making vague guesses, we should be more interested in facts. Everyone, there are over 50,000 North Korean workers currently working in the Kaesong Industrial Complex. Do you know how much they are paid? The minimum wage at the Kaesong Industrial Complex was initially agreed to start at $50 and increase by 5% each year. The first products were produced at the Kaesong Industrial Complex in 2004, so it’s been about ten years. This year, the minimum wage was negotiated between the South and the North and set at $74. What is the current exchange rate? Then, would it be roughly 80,000 won in our currency? Of course, from the company's perspective, they also have to pay overtime pay and social insurance premiums by adding 15% each, so they say they pay an average of $155 per worker. The wages are not paid directly to the workers. The North Korean authorities receive them and distribute some in cash and some in ration cards. Of course, the authorities also take a lot of the money.
I remember that in 2007, the minimum wage in the Kaesong Industrial Complex was around $57. I went on a New Year’s hike with the pro-North Korean members of the Democratic Labor Party, the so-called “injection faction,” and when we came back, I offered a small prize and posed a quiz. I said, “Guess how much the Kaesong Industrial Complex workers are paid. I’ll give a gift to the person who got the closest answer.” Aren’t they people who have a special affection for their fellow North Koreans and who cry whenever unification is mentioned? But the person who got the closest answer, the person who received the gift I prepared, gave an answer that was ten times the correct answer. So the other people ’s answers were even more different. Their ideas were more than ten times different from reality. However, I don’t think any of them realized that the gap between their ideas and reality was that big, reflected deeply, and changed their worldview. Such reflection is extremely dangerous for an individual. The entire group may be in danger later, but the risk of being ostracized from the group is more certain than that risk . Therefore, no matter how absurd the doctrines of a religious group or sect are, once a group of more than 150 people is formed, it does not seem to be easily broken.
Professor Han Hwa-ryong of Baekseok University discovered in the late 1990s through interviews and essays written by defectors from North Korea that the consciousness of North Korean residents is composed of four myths.
- (1) The ‘liberation myth’ that Kim Il-sung liberated Korea from Japanese imperialist colonial rule
- (2) The 'victory myth' that North Korea defeated the US imperialists and the South Korean puppet group that invaded in 1950.
- (3) The 'paradise myth' that North Korea has built a socialist country that is the envy of the world
- (4) The ‘unification myth’ that we must liberate the poor South Korean compatriots who are suffering under the oppression of the US and the South Korean puppet government.
These four myths are the four major myths that support the country of North Korea. In particular, the North Korean people had great pride in defeating the 'two imperialisms of the same era' (Japan, the United States). However, this myth seems to have been shaken somewhat as information from the outside world has entered the country. Up until now, North Korea's totalitarian system has been maintained by suppressing freedom of the press and controlling information. 25 million people live in one large cave. Truly, the most unique and bizarre country in the modern world, a theocratic system, exists in the North Korean region of our country.
The drama is not over
There is another term that I hear a lot while studying North Korea. Military-first politics . You’ve heard it a lot, right? Do you know what it means? Some people confuse it with the sage-king government. He is famous for being a labor movement fighter. To those who expect it to have such a profound meaning, it may seem incredibly simple and childish. It means prioritizing the military. It is a policy of allocating supplies and manpower to the military first. Now, a passage from the Analects of Confucius suddenly comes to mind. It is in Chapter 7 of the Yan Yan Chapter. It is a passage where Confucius says that among the military, food (economy), and people’s trust, the most important thing in politics is the people’s trust, and the next most important thing is the economy. North Korea’s military-first politics, contrary to Confucius’ teachings, gives up the economy first, not the military. Nevertheless, I think the reason North Korea has not collapsed today is because it has kept the most important ‘people’s trust.’ Of course, that 'people's faith' was based on a myth that was far from the truth. So if the myth collapses, the people's faith will also be shaken. If you look at it from the people's perspective, not the position of the ruler, then faith is dangerous if it is blind faith based on a myth. "So, people, doubt everything!" (Laughs)
Our country’s history has been a truly dramatic drama so far. However, the drama is not over yet. Unification remains. The current income gap between North Korea and South Korea is probably about 30 to 1. But what is even more horrifying is that there is no concept of “human rights” in North Korea. Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1948, stipulates that “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.” Article 1 of the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen from 1789 also states the same thing. That very concept of human rights does not exist in North Korea. An unknown number of political prisoners are living like animals in political prison camps because of trivial remarks. No, the entire country of North Korea is one giant prison. There are hundreds of thousands of people in China who escaped from that country, and among them, there must be many people who help those people who have come to South Korea via third countries. They are doing it both in the private sector and in the government, but it is difficult. These people have no sense of civic consciousness or self-reliance, which we usually talk about. At first, they don't even want to separate their trash, and they are good at thinking about solving problems through relationships with powerful people. I think that's because North Korean society works that way. Since people don't have free and dignified rights, they can't be independent.
This is already a story in the Analects. It is important to become an independent person . Confucius emphasized the character 立 (立). He said that establishing equal relationships with others, not being subordinate to anyone, and becoming independent through one's own efforts is 立. Confucius himself was a person who became independent through hard work. Have you all read the autobiography of Monk Hwang Seung-woo of Hyedang, [Even a field of thorns becomes a path if you step on it]? Hyedang learned English and became independent even in poverty. But if this does not happen, then one cannot become a modern person , a modern citizen. I think there will be many things we have to solve in order to achieve unification in the future. However, I am still optimistic. Our country's history has created many stories. It has been full of twists and turns, and even in the most desperate moments, something we do not know about has appeared.
In 1987, when Roh Tae-woo took power, it was absurd, DJ was bad, and YS was bad, but still, as time went by, they became presidents in order, and you can't know. This is how history is made up of big trends and small stories that weave together to create a story. I think it was around the time of the October Riots after the liberation, when Daegu was called the Moscow of Korea, and even before that, Pyongyang was called the Jerusalem of Joseon. It's a really long time ago. It's a story from the time when Christianity and communism were competing for hegemony over the initiative of modernization.
I think that history is something that shows such a variety of twists and turns. And a new era will write a new chapter with new conflicts. Right now, our country is facing the great challenges of overcoming the polarization of capitalism and achieving unification. So I think that the drama of modern Korean history is not over. However, we cannot know the future that the next generation will create. I was happy to spend time with you. Thank you. All reactions:5151 22 shares
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