THE MYSTERY OF NORTH KOREA

However, in history, this individual is known by a different name—by his military pseudonym, Kim Il Sung. He chose it in memory of and to emulate several other partisan commanders who had used it in the 1910s, and this circumstance led to confusion. Periodically, there were rumors suggesting that the North Korean leader Kim Il Sung had been ‘replaced’ and that he was not the ‘real Kim Il Sung’, implying he was not the same person who had fought with the Chinese communists in the 1930s. However, documents published in recent decades have shown that such claims have no basis.

The future leader of North Korea was born in 1912 near Pyongyang into a family considered part of the first generation of the modern Korean intelligentsia. While the family was not impoverished, labeling them as wealthy would be a stretch. They could be described as ‘moderately prosperous’, belonging to the ‘upper 10 per cent’ of Korean rural society. His mother hailed from one of the most influential Christian families in the district of the future North Korean capital.

His father, Kim Hyon Chik, graduated from a missionary school where he received a Western-style education. He earned a living through teaching but also engaged in other activities. For instance, at one point, he supplemented his income by making and selling traditional Eastern medicine preparations.

Kim Hyon Chik was also Protestant and actively collaborated with Christian organizations.

Kim Il Sung's parents were staunch opponents of the colonial regime. In present times, for the sake of dynastic propaganda, official North Korean historiography claims that Kim Hyon Chik was supposedly one of the most influential leaders of the entire Korean national liberation movement, but this is not the case. However, in 1919, he took part in mass anti-colonial protests, got arrested, spent some time in a Japanese prison, and emigrated to Manchuria after his release.

Kim Il Sung, who lived with his parents in Manchuria, enrolled in a Chinese school. In his senior years, he became involved with the local communist underground, got arrested, and spent several months in prison. After his release in the summer of 1932, he joined one of the squads created by the Chinese Communist Party. Around the same time, he also became a member of the Communist Party of China—a fact that North Korea later preferred not to mention. From the perspective of official nationalism, a leader, by definition, could not be a member of the communist party of another country.

However, given the circumstances of that time, this course of action was entirely expected. According to the rules prevailing in the communist movement of that era, it was anticipated that a communist would be active within the communist party of the country of their residence.

Kim Il Sung's decision to join a partisan squad was undoubtedly a courageous one. The young man went to fight for the ideals that he believed in—ideals in which Korean nationalism, the traditional concepts of Korean peasant justice, and the ideas of Marxism-Leninism in their Soviet and Chinese variants were intricately, and sometimes even whimsically, intertwined.

It's crucial to remember that Kim Il Sung graduated from a modern high school, a qualification that practically guaranteed entry into the spheres of the political, economic, and business elite by the standards of that time. While Kim Il Sung could have pursued a successful career in colonial Korea, he made a different choice—he opted to join the war effort.

A comprehensive discussion of Kim Il Sung's partisan career is possible, given that over the last three decades, many documents directly related to these events have been declassified and partially published in China, Russia, and Japan. Despite his youth, Kim Il Sung quickly emerged as a prominent leader in the anti-Japanese resistance in Manchuria.

However, assertions made by official North Korean propaganda about Kim Il Sung creating his own Korean forces, independent of the Chinese Communist Party yet collaborating with it—the so-called ‘Korean People's Revolutionary Army’—have no basis in fact. In reality, until his departure to the Soviet Union in late 1940, Kim Il Sung served in the partisan formations of the Chinese Communist Party, and his autonomy was no greater than that of any commander leading a partisan unit within the armed forces of the Chinese Communist Party.

In 1937, Kim Il Sung's squads executed a successful raid on the small village of Pochonbo situated on the Korean side of the border river Amnokkan. Since guerrillas rarely conducted raids within Korea itself, this audacious operation brought attention to the young commander. It was covered in both Korean newspapers and publications from other countries, including the Soviet Union.

However, by the end of the 1930s, the situation in Manchuria deteriorated rapidly. The guerrillas suffered increasing losses under the pressure of the Japanese oppressors and their local supporters. Consequently, partisan units began withdrawing from Manchuria. One possible direction for the retreat was northward and involved crossing the Soviet border. At the end of 1940, Kim Il Sung, accompanied by about a dozen fighters from his unit and his wife Kim Jong Suk, who was already pregnant with their first child, Kim Jong Il—according to Soviet documents, Kim Jong Il was born in 1941, not in 1942, as officially stated by North Korea—left Manchuria via this route.

Upon his arrival, Kim Il Sung was placed in a filtration camp where he underwent standard screening. In 1942, the 88th Separate Rifle Brigade was formed from the former guerrillas of Manchuria, and Kim Il Sung, having attained the rank of captain, became the battalion commander. From 1942 until the end of the war, Kim Il Sung remained at the brigade's base near Khabarovsk—he did not leave the territory of the USSR during this period.

In 1945, as the war in Europe neared its end, the Soviet Union began preparations for the conflict with Japan. Military actions commenced on 9 August 1945. Despite fierce resistance from Japanese forces in Korea, the Soviet Army's overwhelming numerical and qualitative superiority allowed them to gain control over the northern part of the Korean Peninsula within approximately ten days. Initially, the plans included the participation of former Manchurian guerrillas, then fighters of the Soviet 88th Brigade, in military actions in Korea and Manchuria. However, they never had the opportunity to engage in battle as Japanese resistance was swiftly quelled (although North Korean propaganda asserts that Kim Il Sung's fighters played a decisive role in the liberation of the peninsula). Kim Il Sung and the soldiers of his battalion only arrived in Pyongyang at the end of September.

Anticipating that military actions on the Korean Peninsula would last several weeks or months, a decision was made to divide the peninsula into two operational zones. On 14 August 1945, two young American colonels, both of whom went on to have impressive careers, were tasked with developing proposals. After a quick glance at a map in the popular magazine National Geographic, for just ten or fifteen minutes, they decided that the 38th parallel would be the most suitable dividing line to roughly divide the Korean Peninsula into two equal parts in terms of territory. The Soviet Union agreed to this proposal.

It was anticipated that the Soviet Army would conduct military operations in the northern part of the peninsula, while American forces would be in the southern part. However, the announcement of Japan's surrender on 15 August 1945 occurred when American troops had not yet arrived in the southern part of the peninsula. At that moment, everyone assumed that the division would be temporary and that the line would exist for only a few weeks or even days. However, history took a different turn, and this line was destined to become an actual state border.

Thus, by the end of September 1945, Soviet troops found themselves in control of the northern part of Korea, a country about which they knew practically nothing. In the pre-war period, Soviet policy in the Far East primarily revolved around their relations with Japan and China, with Korea being on the periphery of Moscow's attention. Additionally, in the late 1930s, almost all Korean specialists working in intelligence, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and other state organizations were repressed. The majority of these specialists were ethnic Koreans, who, as mentioned earlier, faced particularly harsh repression. Initially, the Soviet Union seemingly had no clear plans regarding what to do with North Korea.

The Cold War had not yet begun, but relations with the United States were already quickly deteriorating by then. In addition, during those times, the Soviet Union hoped to be allowed to participate in the occupation of Japan. Considering this, it preferred not to escalate tensions with the United States in Korea—at least not initially.

In the first weeks after the fall of the colonial regime in North Korea, numerous governing bodies emerged, eventually named People's Committees. Initially, these committees were typically formed by local nationalists. However, the Soviet military administration, which quickly took control of the situation in the country, insisted that representatives of local communist groups also be included in the People's Committees. These communist groups, emerging from underground activities, actively established connections with Soviet military authorities. However, at that time, there were very few communists in the northern part of the Korean Peninsula. Strange as it may seem now, by 1945, the northern part of Korea was predominantly influenced by right-wing nationalists, while the communists were more prominent to the south of the 38th parallel.

Following standard strategic logic, Soviet leadership believed it desirable to establish a state on the Korean Peninsula, at least in the northern part, that would adopt a friendly position toward the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) and ideally be controlled from Moscow.

In the context of the 1940s, this meant that communists would play a significant, or rather decisive, role in the state. However, since there were clearly not enough communists in North Korea itself, beginning from the end of 1946, Soviet authorities began importing communist activists and future personnel to the north of the peninsula. Four factors contributed to the formation of the North Korean state apparatus: the community of ethnic Koreans in the USSR, Korean party workers in the Communist Party of China, communist activists from the South, and, finally, soldiers and officers of the 88th Brigade of the Soviet Army.

Among the first to arrive in North Korea were the Soviet Koreans, numbering a few hundred by the end of the 1940s. Although this figure is small, it is essential to remember that the vast majority of these individuals were qualified specialists in management, engineers, party workers, and government officials holding very high positions. Their arrival in North Korea was not an act of spontaneous enthusiasm. From September 1945, individuals among the local Korean population in the Soviet Central Asian republics were being selected based on their potential usefulness in North Korea.

Some of these candidates were formally drafted into the army and sent to Pyongyang through the military, while others were sent there by special resolutions of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). These individuals played a significant role in shaping the new Korean state and party apparatus. Important figures among these Soviet Koreans were the former secretary of the Posyet district committee A.I. Hegai (Ho Ka I) and the former employee of Soviet military intelligence Pak Chang Ok.

In late 1945, Korean communist leaders, who had been operating from Yan'an, the headquarters of the Chinese command, also began returning to Korea. It was crucial for subsequent events that, in the following years, a large number of Koreans who held significant positions in the Chinese armed forces and possessed considerable combat experience arrived in North Korea. These senior officers and generals, who had previously served in the Chinese armed forces, became the foundation of the future North Korean Army. Among the communist activists arriving from China, notable figures included Choe Chang-ik and the distinguished linguist Kim Tu-bong.

Additionally, many Korean communists came to the North from Seoul in the South. In August 1945, a meeting of local communists took place in Seoul, where it was announced that the Communist Party of Korea, disbanded by the Communist International (Comintern) in 1928, was being re-established. Pak Hon-yong, a veteran of the Korean communist movement, led the party, having been involved in illegal activities in Korea since the early 1930s. Initially considered a pan-Korean organization, the reconstituted party's jurisdiction extended to the North. As mutually agreed upon, the separate Communist Party of North Korea was officially established in the spring of 1946.

However, in the southern part of the country, the American military administration, favoring local right-wing nationalists, began displacing local communists from the legal arena as early as 1946. The communists' inclination toward illegal activities certainly contributed to this. As a result, a significant number of communist activists started moving to the North. Many of these individuals played a prominent role in shaping North Korean statehood, with Pak Hon-yong ranking among the top five most influential figures in the early years of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea’s (DPRK) existence.

Nevertheless, the decisive control over the situation in North Korea still belonged to the Soviet Army. Therefore, the Soviet military had to make the decision about the future leader of the country. Among the likely candidates, Kim Il Sung was ultimately chosen, although other people were considered. For instance, intelligence advocated for Pak Hon-yong to be chosen.

It is not hard to understand why Kim Il Sung was perceived by Soviet generals as the best candidate for the leadership of a regime friendly to the Soviet Union. He had a military background and had served in the Soviet Army, which impressed the generals. He was not closely tied to the Comintern and the international communist movement in general, and by that time, Moscow had become suspicious of these dreamers of worldwide revolution, viewing them as crypto-Trotskyists (usually without grounds). Kim Il Sung spoke Russian decently and could establish common ground with Soviet officers. Finally, he was a real hero of armed resistance against the colonizers—surveys showed that his name was quite well-known throughout Korea.

Thus, in December 1945, Kim Il Sung headed the so-called North Korean Bureau of the Communist Party of Korea, on the basis of which a new, independent Communist Party of North Korea was formed in the spring of 1946. In early 1946, he also assumed the position of the leader of the North Korean ‘proto-government’, which began to take shape under Soviet control and with Soviet support. By that time, the Cold War was rapidly intensifying, and it became increasingly clear to the Soviet leadership that the reunification of Korea was hardly possible and, most importantly, did not align with the interests of the Soviet Union. In the face of confrontation with the United States, it seemed better to establish full control over half of Korea than to deal with an uncertain situation in the entire peninsula.

In these circumstances, the pace of socialist transformations in the country began to escalate. In the spring of 1946, an agrarian reform policy was implemented in North Korea that was fully planned and executed by the Soviet military administration. By August 1946, industrial nationalization began to take place. Theoretically, it was assumed that only large enterprises should be subject to nationalization, while small businesses should only be confiscated from those who collaborated with Japanese authorities. Therefore, by the end of 1946—earlier than in most other so-called ‘people's democracies’—all of North Korea's industry was completely nationalized. Simultaneously, a new system of government bodies began forming in the country based on ‘People's Committees’ but under the supervision of communists and Soviet authorities. In August 1946, the Communist Party was transformed into the Workers' Party, and it operates under this name to this day.

Thus, starting from the spring of 1946, the Soviet leadership moved toward creating a separate (ultimately socialist), friendly state in the part of the Korean Peninsula they controlled. However, weak attempts were made to establish a joint coalition government that would govern the country under a temporary American-Soviet protectorate. A Soviet-American agreement on the creation of such a government was reached as early as December 1945.

However, in practice, none of the participants in this agreement showed much eagerness to achieve the stated goal, and everything ended in quite a predictable failure. During that period, the level of influence exerted by the USSR was immense. Until 1947, important political speeches by top North Korean leaders were subject to prior censorship by Soviet military authorities, who edited (and sometimes wrote) statements on behalf of them. Soviet consultants drafted the texts of crucial laws adopted between 1946 to 1948, including the laws on land reform, industrial nationalization, and elections. The constitution of the DPRK, prepared with active Soviet involvement between 1947 and 1948, was personally edited by Stalin—the relevant documents are preserved in Soviet archives.

Repressions against dissidents, among whom participants of the anti-Japanese legal-nationalist movement played a significant role, were also carried out by Soviet authorities. Until September 1948, those involved in protests against the emerging regime in North Korea were judged according to Soviet legislation and sent to serve sentences in the Soviet camp system.

Interestingly, soon after Stalin's death, those prisoners who survived until that time were released and given the choice either to return to Korea or to stay in the Soviet Union. Most of those who returned to North Korea soon found themselves in North Korean camps, where they perished. Those who stayed in the USSR lived prosperous lives and, at times, even built successful careers. South Korean historians of a conservative orientation often describe the events in North Korea from 1945 to 1948 as a foreign occupation and the establishment of a puppet regime in the country. In South Korea, they are countered by left-leaning, or rather left-nationalist, historians. Being ideologically sympathetic to North Korea (at least during the early years of its history), they consistently downplay the role of the Soviet Army, diminish the extent of Soviet control (often on the verge of outright falsification, ignoring long-published documents), and portray the events of 1945–50 as a mass popular revolution of an almost spontaneous character. The dispute between these two historical schools has been ongoing for a long time and is unlikely to be resolved in the foreseeable future, primarily because it is more a political dispute than an academic one.

However, it seems that both sides are right in this dispute. On the one hand, the Soviet Union undoubtedly controlled North Korea, and until the early 1950s, North Korean leaders, no matter how they felt toward the USSR deep down, were compelled to unquestioningly follow Moscow's directives. On the other hand, the reforms carried out in North Korea from 1945 to 1950 fully met the expectations of a significant portion (most likely the majority) of the country's population.

Kim Il Sung and, more broadly the leaders of the North Korean communist movement, aimed to build a society that, in general, corresponded to the aspirations of ordinary Koreans. It was intended to be a society of economic equality, where individuals from humble backgrounds would have opportunities for social advancement. The vision was of a society where the state would control all economic aspects of life and ideally be the owner of all means of production as is commonly referred to in Marxism. In this society, officials would have certain privileges, but these privileges would be of a moderate nature. At the helm of the society would be a wise leader whose image resonated with the naive monarchism of traditional peasantry.

These ideals, rooted in the aspirations of traditional peasantry, were also influenced by contemporary nationalism.

The ideal Korea envisioned by Kim Il Sung and other Korean communists, including his future adversaries, was to be an industrially developed society that, if possible, was self-reliant, producing everything it needed internally for its own people.

Thus, the model of social organization brought to North Korea by Soviet tanks aligned with the desires and hopes of the majority of the Korean population. It is then not surprising that the measures implemented by Soviet authorities and their communist supporters enjoyed the support of most of the population, creating an atmosphere reminiscent of popular revolutions. In a sense, a revolution did occur in North Korea between 1945 and 1950, but it was not spontaneous; rather, it was initiated from outside.

The division of Korea was almost inevitable by 1948. In South Korea, the formation of its own statehood was underway, and those leading this process had similar preferences to Kim Il Sung and his circle. They aimed for full control over their ‘half’ of the country rather than partial control over all Korean territory. At the forefront of the developing regime in the South, supported to some extent by the United States, was Lee Seung Man. A leader of the right-wing nationalists, he was already mature and well-known by that time. He was also a devout Protestant, and he had spent a significant portion of his life as an immigrant in the United States.

While the authorities in North Korea sought to emulate Soviet models, the South Korean authorities built a state that outwardly resembled the United States, although it soon took on increasingly authoritarian traits, characteristic of regimes prevalent in Asia and Africa for much of the latter half of the twentieth century.

By the beginning of 1948, the division of Korea had become a reality. However, neither the North nor the South was willing to accept this division for the long term. Both Pyongyang and Seoul aimed at reunifying the country, viewing the split as a ‘step back’, which made it necessary to take ‘two steps forward’ at the earliest opportunity.

In 1948, the formal establishment of two states was proclaimed on Korean soil. In August, the Republic of Korea, with its capital in Seoul, was announced, and in September, the creation of the DPRK was declared in Pyongyang. Paradoxically, Seoul was also considered the capital of the DPRK at that time, while Pyongyang was formally designated as the temporary capital, fulfilling these functions until the liberation of Seoul.

This position, which formally persisted in North Korean legislation until 1972, was connected to the symbolic significance of Seoul, which had been the capital for over 500 years and held considerable cultural and historical value in the Korean consciousness. Each Korean government claimed to be the sole legitimate authority over the entire Korean Peninsula. From the official North Korean perspective, the South Korean government was a gathering of ‘American puppets’ with no legitimacy. From the South Korean authorities’ point of view, the North Korean authorities were the ‘puppets’ of the Soviets and ‘rebels’ to boot. Both sides actively prepared for war over the unification of Korea.

It's worth noting that, at that time, US control over South Korea was significantly less direct, less rigid, and less effective than the Soviet Union's control over North Korea. Therefore, the Americans feared (not without reason) that Lee Seung Man and his circle, having acquired a sufficient amount of modern weaponry, might initiate war and attempt to forcibly annex North Korea. Such plans were openly discussed in Seoul at the time, though subsequent events and documents made available over time clarified that these were empty declarations unsupported by capabilities or actual actions.

A conflict of this nature was not part of the United States’ plans, as it could lead to a confrontation with the USSR and, consequently, trigger a third World War. To prevent such a turn of events, the American leadership refused to provide the South Korean armed forces with modern offensive weaponry. As a result, by the beginning of the Korean War, the South Korean Army had virtually no tanks or combat aircraft.

In contrast, the Soviet Union sent a large quantity of arms to North Korea and actively engaged in training the North Korean Army. However, this was not because the Soviet leadership considered a conflict in Korea desirable—as we will see, quite the opposite was true. In Moscow, they were confident that without direct approval from the USSR, North Korea would not attack South Korea. Therefore, they were not overly concerned about the unauthorized use of the weaponry sent to North Korea.

From 1948, Kim Il Sung and other leaders of North Korea persistently sought Moscow's permission for an invasion of South Korea—or, as he stated (and likely thought), its ‘liberation’. However, Stalin and the Soviet leadership ignored these persistent requests from Pyongyang.