THE MYSTERY OF NORTH KOREA

What kind of society did East Asian peasants consider just and proper? Primarily, they envisioned a society whose economic life was based on the equal distribution of all goods. Peasants regarded any social inequality as evil and viewed trade and, to some extent, craftsmanship with suspicion. In their perception, those who engaged in these activities made money out of thin air or undertook unduly easy work. In the traditional hierarchy of societal occupations that emerged in East Asia as early as the beginning of our era, scholars and officials occupied the highest tier followed by peasants. Artisans held the third tier, and traders belonged to the lowest, the fourth tier. Although traders had money, this wealth did not earn them respect in Confucian societies.

The ideal of peasantry was equal distribution, a situation where everyone worked roughly the same for approximately the same reward for their labor. In principle, peasants everywhere had a negative view of officials (one can recall here the famous formula about a ‘good king and bad lords’). However, in East Asia, this disapproval was not as strong as in many other regions of the world. Peasants were willing to tolerate officials and even considered it acceptable that officials lived noticeably better than the peasants themselves. At the top of the social pyramid was the head of state, the monarch. ‘Naive monarchism’ is rightly considered the characteristic feature of a peasant's idea of a well-ordered society.

However, in North Korea during Kim Il Sung's time, one could see traits that were clearly alien to traditional peasant utopian ideals. In particular, Kim Il Sung strongly emphasized the rapid development of heavy industry. This was partly a response to the dreams of those modernizers in colonial Korea who aspired to transform their country into a modern industrial power. However, his inclination toward heavy industry had other motives. The country remained divided, and until the end of his life, Kim Il Sung never abandoned hope that South Korea would eventually be annexed to the North. In propaganda terms, it was said that reunification, of course, should be peaceful, but he harbored no illusions regarding this. For Kim Il Sung and his circle, it was clear that reunification would require military force. In the modern world, the foundation of military power could only be developed by developing heavy industry.

Thus, we see the roots of the North Korean leadership's persistent reluctance to follow Soviet advice and focus on the development of light industry and the extraction of minerals. The North Korean leadership wanted to smelt steel—partly because this steel could be used to make projectiles and tanks.

Another distinctive feature of the North Korean model was the significant role played by nationalism in the official North Korean worldview. Nationalism began spreading in East Asia in the late nineteenth century, and by the mid-twentieth century, it was arguably the central ideology in all countries of the region. Despite their theoretical commitment to internationalism, communist regimes practically demonstrated no less nationalism than their bourgeois neighbors. Japan pioneered the spread of modern nationalism in the region, influenced in turn by German nationalism of ‘blood and soil’. This influence was also evident in North Korean nationalism, where, departing from the Soviet and broader Marxist tradition, there was a tendency to emphasize the cultural and genetic unity of the nation, the ‘commonality of blood’.

The foundation of North Korea's foreign policy from 1960 to 1990 was its maneuvering between the Soviet Union and China, which were in a state of severe conflict at that time. The conflict between North Korea's two main sponsors was highly advantageous for the country. It allowed North Korea to receive assistance from both the USSR and China simply by hinting during negotiations that a refusal from Moscow or Beijing to provide aid would force Pyongyang to turn to the opposite side with a similar request. Such intimations usually worked, enabling North Korea to receive external support. Over time, this support became increasingly necessary as the North Korean economy, as we will discuss now, faced growing difficulties.

In closed-door discussions, in materials studied in countless political classes but not subject to publication in open media, the leadership of North Korea spoke critically of both Soviet and Chinese policies (many of these materials were later declassified and published). Code words were even developed: Soviet policy and theory were considered ‘revisionism’, while Chinese policy was labeled ‘dogmatism’.

The need to navigate between the Soviet Union and China forced the leadership of North Korea to take an unusual step and declare the creation of its own version of radical revolutionary ideology: the Juche idea.

Subsequently, North Korean propaganda claimed that Kim Il Sung formulated the Juche idea during the period of guerrilla warfare, but such claims should not be taken seriously. All works supposedly written by Kim Il Sung during the years of anti-Japanese resistance are later forgeries. The first verifiable instance of the term ‘Juche’ being mentioned in Kim Il Sung's speeches dates back to December 1955. However, it took another ten years for this term to be reinterpreted and become the name of the future official ideology of North Korea.

Nevertheless, considering Juche a full-fledged ideology is impossible simply due to its lack of specificity and clarity. North Korean works on the Juche philosophy usually refer to the endless repetition of a few theses, such as the notorious: ‘Man is the master of all things.’ In practice, an ordinary North Korean understands Juche as a combination of the ideas and speeches of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il.

However, the importance of the Juche idea lies not in being an independent philosophical system (this set of vague banalities is not a philosophy). The point is the declaration of North Korea having its own philosophy, different from imported Marxism-Leninism in both its Chinese and Soviet variants, gave the leadership of North Korea theoretical grounds to position itself as an independent political force. The proclamation of the principle of Juche served as justification for the policy of distancing from Moscow and Beijing, forming the basis of Pyongyang's entire foreign policy strategy from 1960 to 1990.

Henceforth, North Korean diplomats and officials could assert that neither the Soviet nor the Chinese version of Marxism held authority for them because they had their own ideology, deemed more advanced than the official ideologies of Moscow and Beijing. In the 1970s, North Korea frequently claimed that the Juche idea marked a new stage in the development of progressive ideology. During that period, Marxism was considered the most advanced form of this ideology amidst the formation of capitalism. Subsequently, Leninism, which followed, represented the next stage in the development of progressive thought corresponding to the era of imperialism. Kimilsungism (Juche idea), accordingly, was declared the highest stage in the development of progressive ideologies, surpassing both Marxism and Leninism. It was emphasized that while Kimilsungism resulted from the development of Marxism and Leninism, it should be perceived as a distinct ideology. However, North Korea abandoned this perspective around 1980, most likely because this could serve as a source of irritation to allies and sponsors that the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) heavily depended on. Nevertheless, for some time, North Korea actively engaged in costly propaganda of the Juche idea, primarily in African and Asian countries.

Regarding relations with South Korea, in the first ten years after the signing of the armistice, North Korea's leadership believed that the chances of a revolutionary situation arising in South Korea were almost nonexistent. However, the April Revolution of 1960, which overthrew the regime of Syngman Rhee, and the subsequent military coup on 16 May 1961 were perceived by Pyongyang as signs that a revolutionary situation could also arise in South Korea. Mass protests against the normalization of relations with Japan, unfolding in Seoul in the mid-1960s, further confirmed this perception.

In these circumstances, North Korea undertook a second attempt to liberate South Korea, which, however, was not as straightforward as the attack on Seoul in 1950. In this case, the idea was to emulate Vietnamese models. The situation in Vietnam, a country that shared many similarities with Korea, significantly influenced the worldview of the leadership of both North and South Korea at that time. The late 1960s marked a period of impressive successes for the Vietnamese communists. Utilizing both the communist underground in the cities of the South and the guerrilla movement in the jungles, coupled with the armed forces of the North, they exerted increasing pressure on the pro-American regime in Saigon. As we know, this regime collapsed in 1975, and Vietnam was reunified through military means.

The leadership of North Korea decided to apply the methods that had worked in Vietnam to their own country. In the mid-1960s, North Korean intelligence services actively began subsidizing the underground left-nationalist groups that occasionally emerged, primarily among the young intelligentsia, in South Korean society. Additionally, the leadership of North Korea attempted to establish partisan bases in South Korea. For this purpose, special forces groups infiltrated South Korea, tasked with creating partisan bases in relatively remote areas and initiating propaganda efforts among the local population to garner support.

Finally, in January 1968, North Korean special forces carried out a daring attack on the residence of South Korean President Park Chung Hee. It was believed that this attack would be presented in the press as an operation by ‘South Korean partisans’. The attack failed—it was repelled, but nonetheless, the special forces were stopped just a few dozen meters from the gates of the president’s residence.

All of this was accompanied by a sharp escalation of tension along the border between the North and South along with attacks on American military facilities. In April 1969, North Korean Air Force fighters shot down an EC-121 American reconnaissance plane, and in January 1968, North Korean sailors seized the American reconnaissance ship, the USS Pueblo. The calculation was that the American public, already weary from the Vietnam War, when faced with growing issues in Korea, would demand the withdrawal of US troops from the country. Subsequently, it was also hoped that instability could be created in South Korea and a mass partisan movement could be unleashed.

However, this strategy did not work; the Korean Peninsula did not become the ‘second Vietnam’. South Korea differed from South Vietnam in several crucial parameters. Geography played a significant role, notably the landscape of barren, treeless hills in South Korea at that time (the forests that now cover the country's mountainous areas were artificially planted only in the 1970s). Clearly, this landscape, vastly different from the jungles of Vietnam, did not favor guerrilla warfare. Moreover, a more substantial factor was that by the mid-1960s, South Korea had entered a period of rapid economic growth. By the end of the 1960s, the South, which had significantly lagged behind the North in terms of living standards and economic development at the time the country was divided, caught up with the North and quickly surpassed it. Additionally, a considerable portion of the population of the South retained unfavorable memories of the few months in the summer and fall of 1950 when their villages and cities were under North Korean control. Those who had enjoyed North Korean authority and its orders simply left with the retreating North Korean forces in the fall of 1950.

In any case, by 1970, it became clear that the attempt to foment revolution in the South had failed, and corresponding efforts were rolled back. Moreover, in the early 1970s, negotiations began with South Korea, formally declared as ‘preparatory talks for peaceful reunification’, but aimed at finding opportunities for peaceful coexistence between the two Korean states. These talks, in general, ended without results, but they marked the first step in a series of inter-Korean contact, which, with breaks, continues to this day (Seoul and Pyongyang did not maintain contact with each other until 1972).

The political system in North Korea closely resembled the system in the Soviet Union. This is not surprising, as initially, the North Korean political system was consciously created along Soviet lines with the active participation of Soviet party workers. Until the elimination of the Soviet faction in the late 1950s, Soviet Koreans were mainly responsible for organizing the party apparatus in the country, having been professional party workers before they arrived in North Korea in 1945–48. However, in practice, significant differences arose between the two countries in the 1960s.

The basis of the power system in the country was the party-state. However, in North Korea, there were two official minor parties. But both of these parties, as acknowledged by North Korean official figures in conversations with Soviet diplomats, had ceased to exist by the late 1950s and were essentially banners occasionally used for diplomatic publicity. These parties played no independent role, had no apparatus at the local level, and their central apparatus was generally a nominal institution designed to serve foreign delegations by creating, where necessary, the illusion of party pluralism as supposedly existing in North Korea .

Under Kim Il Sung, North Korea partially overcame the characteristic dualism of state and party management organs found in communist countries, although in a somewhat unusual way. In most socialist countries, the duties and rights of party organs, especially when compared to state management bodies, were poorly defined, and often not at all. Official documents only vaguely indicated that the party provided general political guidance. In practice, the interaction between party and state organs was determined by a set of spontaneously developed institutional traditions.

In North Korea in the early 1960s, the so-called Taean system of economic management was introduced. One of the features of this system, which lasted until 2002, was that the chief administrator of an enterprise was not its director but the secretary of the party committee, to whom the director was obliged to report. In essence, this meant that within the enterprise, the director played a role similar to the relationship between the prime minister and the general secretary of the ruling party in most socialist countries.iin cases where different individuals held these two positions

One of the interesting features of North Korean policy at this time was the calls for the development of the so-called ‘revolutionary spirit of self-reliance’. This principle was primarily applied to the economy but was not limited to it. According to this principle, the ideal state was considered a state of autarky, where both the country as a whole and individual administrative units, and even individual production enterprises, produced everything they needed on their own. Sometimes, this spirit took quite unique forms. In particular, in the early 1980s, the North Korean press reported on the situation at the Pyongyang Elevator, an enterprise meant to ensure the transportation of incoming grain from the railway station to the storage facility. Instead of ordering the necessary locomotive, the employees, inspired by the ‘revolutionary spirit of self-reliance’ as reported in the press, independently designed and assembled the mini-locomotive. References to the ‘revolutionary spirit of self-reliance’ were primarily used to shift the responsibilities of central leadership on to the shoulders of local administrative bodies and production enterprises.

This principle also applied to foreign policy. The ideal situation was considered one where North Korea minimized its interactions, including trade and economic, with external forces. Autarky was perceived as a synonym for both political and economic independence.

Another specific feature of North Korean society was the extreme personality cult centering around Kim Il Sung. It essentially copied the models of the personality cults surrounding Stalin in the Soviet Union and Mao Zedong in China. However, in terms of intensity and, most importantly, systematicity, it far surpassed both the Soviet and Chinese examples. In the early 1970s, all adult Koreans were required to wear a specially issued badge with the portrait of Kim Il Sung attached to their clothing when going outside. A statue of Kim Il Sung or a large mosaic panel depicting the Leader had to be installed in the center of any North Korean city. On holidays, the population of the city had to gather at these monuments or panels, lay flowers, and bow, demonstrating their gratitude to the Leader. Any article, including those in scientific journals, had to begin with a quote from the Leader written in a special bold font. Portraits of the Leader had to be displayed not only in all official institutions but also in all residential buildings. There were strict rules for taking care of these portraits, and compliance with them was closely monitored.

As mentioned earlier, from the early 1960s, Kim Il Sung surrounded himself with people he trusted—comrades from the Manchurian partisan struggle and service in the Soviet Army. These individuals were dependent on him, partly because most of them lacked education and significant experience. Under different circumstances, they would hardly have risen to such heights of political power, let alone entrenched themselves at these heights for decades.

One distinctive feature of the North Korean regime under Kim Il Sung was the almost complete absence of purges of high-ranking officials (such purges were quite common in Soviet-type regimes in the early stages of their history). In principle, during the Stalin era in the USSR and Mao Zedong's time in China, holding a high position and being too close to the leader was more than dangerous. This can easily be verified from the biographies of various leaders in these two countries. Most of the prominent Chinese and Soviet officials who were in the immediate circle of the leader sooner or later encountered serious troubles—at best, they ended up in prison and, at worst, in the execution chamber.

However, this did not apply to North Korea. In the late 1960s, the last noticeable purge of the top echelons of party-state power occurred, claiming several major figures from the partisan group. Since then, the composition of Kim Il Sung's inner circle remained practically unchanged—although, of course, former heroes of the partisan resistance gradually aged, were in bad health, and, from the late 1970s onward, began to die.

These circumstances posed a question for Kim Il Sung about the future of his regime. Observing what was happening around North Korea at that time did not add any optimism. He saw what had happened in the USSR, where, after Stalin's death, an active campaign of de-Stalinization was launched. One of its goals (although, it must be admitted, not the main one) was to place responsibility for many of the problems typical of the Soviet system on Stalin.

Kim Il Sung could not fail to notice that the anti-Stalin campaign in the Soviet Union was initiated by people who had risen thanks to Stalin and who, until the last hours of his life, unswervingly pledged their endless loyalty to him. The conclusion from these observations was clear. Kim Il Sung, who cared about his own posthumous reputation (perfectly natural for any politician), the preservation of his legacy, and the development of Korea in the direction he sincerely believed was right, could not help but be concerned about appointing a successor.

Thus, the question arose about who Kim Il Sung’s successor could be. Here, the events unfolding in China probably played a significant role. As is known, Mao Zedong appointed Lin Biao, the commander of the Chinese armed forces, as his successor. Lin Biao had been genuinely close to Mao for a long time, and Mao trusted him. However, Lin Biao did not wait for Mao to die. Instead, he conspired to seize power. The conspiracy failed; Lin Biao tried to flee to the Soviet Union (which was, at that time, China's main geopolitical enemy) and perished during this attempt.

Kim Il Sung, drawing on the Chinese and Soviet experience, realized that to preserve both his own reputation and, more importantly, the legacy of his entire life's work, he needed to appoint a successor. He understood that his successor needed to be someone with the least likelihood of challenging authority while he was alive, and after his death, would not attempt to shift blame on to the deceased leader for all the real and perceived issues in the country. The choice of such a successor was evident—it could only be his son.

At that time, Kim Il Sung had at least three sons. It's possible that there were more, as Kim Il Sung, once in power, conducted his personal life according to the standard practices followed by influential East Asian men for generations. In terms of only formal marriages, Kim Il Sung was married three times. His first wife, with whom he spent several years during the Manchurian resistance, was captured by the Japanese, and his relationship with her never resumed after 1945. His second wife was Kim Jong Suk, who bore him two sons (one of whom died as a child) and one daughter. After Kim Jong Suk died in 1949, Kim Il Sung married a staff member from his secretariat, Kim Song-ae, who bore him two sons.

Thus, by the end of the 1960s, Kim Il Sung had three surviving sons. Recognizing that preparations to appoint a successor were underway and understanding that the likely successor would be one of Kim Il Sung's children, Kim Song-ae launched an active campaign to secure this position for one of her two sons. However, this campaign ended in failure. In the end, Kim Il Sung settled on his firstborn, Kim Jong Il.

Kim Jong Il was born near Khabarovsk in 1941, lost his mother at an early age, and received an elite education by North Korean standards at that time. Unlike his father, Kim Jong Il rarely traveled abroad and did not speak foreign languages. North Korean propaganda often told the story of how driven by a sense of patriotism, he refused to study in the Soviet Union, where Soviet diplomats had indeed invited him to pursue his education. However, in the late 1950s, as relations between North Korea and the Soviet Union deteriorated, the son of the top North Korean leader could not afford to go to Moscow, the stronghold of world revisionism.

Kim Jong Il graduated from Kim Il Sung University, specializing in political economy. As a student, according to reviews, he was not the most diligent; he was more interested in books, lectures, girls, motorcycles, and foreign films. Nevertheless, Kim Jong Il had a sharp mind, charm, a good understanding of people, and, as it turned out later, a considerable work ethic. Those who knew the future North Korean leader in his younger years said that he usually won the sympathy of his interlocutors, and not just because of his ‘aristocratic’ background.

Kim Jong Il worked in various central party organs for some time, where he supervised Korean culture and, especially, cinema, a field for which he always had considerable fondness. In the early 1970s, to the displeasure of some of Kim Il Sung's old associates, he was admitted to the politburo, and by the end of the 1970s, he was confirmed as his father's successor. In the early 1980s, a cult began to take shape around him, largely mirroring his father's. Around 1980, portraits of Kim Il Sung in official institutions and residential buildings became part of a pair, complemented by symmetrical portraits of his son and successor.

Thus, North Korea became not only the first among socialist countries where the successor of the incumbent leader was appointed in advance,iChina holds the precedence here, although that attempt ended unsuccessfullybut also the first where the successor was the son of the incumbent ruler. Thus, North Korea began to transform into a monarchy. However, as we have already mentioned, this transformation raised no particular questions for a significant portion of the population—such an order of things seemed quite natural to many.