His revolutionary credentials were eulogised. A short biography translated from the Komsomolskaya Pravda in 1946 harped on about the supernatural powers that ordinary villagers attributed to the guerrilla fighter who for so many years had eluded capture by the Japanese: he could fly through the air, tunnel his way through mountains. His parents were introduced to the population by Gitovich and Bursov, two Russians who interviewed Kim and his partisan fighters. His father was a devoted teacher and professional revolutionary who had been imprisoned twice, his mother a crafty accomplice who provided her son with weapons hidden around the house. But it was a Korean writer named Han Chae-tok who first hailed the ‘triumphal return’ of Kim to the motherland, portraying him as an ‘all-Korean hero’ who had stood at the forefront of the liberation movement from the age of seventeen onwards. His account appeared in book form in 1948.8
The raid in Pochonbo was elevated to legendary status, most of all in an epic published by Cho Gi-cheon, a poet sometimes referred to as ‘Korea’s Mayakovsky’. Mount Paektu, published in 1947, depicted the region as a mystical area abounding in fantastical tales, with stories of sleeping warriors waiting to rise and free their land and revolutionary leaders jumping from one mountain to the next.9
By 1948 an iron curtain was coming down, dividing the world into two camps. In Korea two very different governments had emerged on either side of the 38th parallel. Peaceful reunification looked increasingly unlikely. In the south Syngman Rhee, an opponent of communism, won the first presidential elections in May with the backing of the United States. A few months later, on 15 August 1948, exactly three years after the country’s liberation from Japan, the Republic of Korea was declared in Seoul. In the north, Kim Il-sung proclaimed the Democratic Republic of North Korea on 9 September.
From general he became premier, reigning supreme. Another title that appeared after the establishment of the Democratic Republic was surong, the equivalent of the term vozhd used for Stalin. His photograph now appeared as a frontispiece in books and journals. His speeches, which were numerous, were printed in the newspapers. On May Day tens of thousands of people assembled to praise Stalin and Kim. As the propaganda machine never tired of intoning, the people were united behind their leader.10
North Korea was a heavily militarised country, but as conflict with the south became increasingly likely, a Korean People’s Army was established in February 1948, equipped and advised by Moscow. The Soviet troops withdrew by the end of the year. Two hundred tanks were delivered, together with lorries, artillery and light weapons.
As in all one-party states the army belonged to the party, not to the people. Its supreme commander was Kim Il-sung, and he was bent on extending the revolution, liberating the south from Syngman Rhee and his ‘US reactionary faction’ to unite the country. He approached Stalin in March 1949, but his master demurred. Kim had to watch in frustration as Mao took over China, bringing a quarter of humanity into the socialist camp while his own country remained partitioned.
Kim repeatedly badgered Stalin, who was in no hurry for an open conflict involving the United States. But by the end of 1949 he had begun to waver. The Americans had not intervened in the civil war in China and had all but abandoned Chiang Kai-shek in Taiwan. In January 1950, after the United States indicated that Korea no longer fell within their defence perimeter in the Pacific, Stalin gave the green light. But he refused to commit any troops: ‘If you should get kicked in the teeth, I shall not lift a finger. You have to ask Mao for all the help.’ Mao agreed, needing Stalin in turn to acquire the sea and air power necessary to invade Taiwan.11
On 25 June 1950 a comprehensive air and land invasion was launched from the north. The south was ill prepared, with fewer than 100,000 soldiers, as the Americans had deliberately denied Syngman Rhee armour, anti-tank weapons and artillery heavier than 105mm. His troops crumbled within weeks. For a brief moment, Kim Il-sung looked like a military genius. His portrait went up everywhere in the liberated areas.12
Kim, however, had miscalculated on a staggering scale. He and his advisers had initally counted on popular support, but most people in the south remained neutral. There were no cheering crowds waving red flags. The United States did not turn a blind eye, fearful of a larger conflict with the Soviet Union. Instead they rallied the United Nations, proclaiming that peace had been broken, and sent troops in support of South Korea. They turned the tide in August 1950. Two months later General Douglas MacArthur reached the 38th parallel. He could have stopped there, but decided instead to push all the way to the border with China, ignoring the most basic security concerns of the People’s Republic.
It was a disaster for Kim. In October Mao came to the rescue, sending hundreds of thousands of troops across the border under the cover of night. They took the enemy by complete surprise. But after gaining a series of rapid victories, they, too, soon exhausted their supply lines. A blood-soaked stalemate emerged around the 38th parallel in the summer of 1951.
Kim had to find a scapegoat for the rout, and moved against the Number Two inside the party, a Korean born and raised in the Soviet Union named Ho Kai. Ho was an accomplished administrator who had built up the party machine from scratch. He had also become Kim’s closest ally, acting as patron and guardian. This alone would have been reason enough to get rid of him, but Ho was also Moscow’s man in Pyongyang. Now that the Chinese presence balanced that of the Soviets, Kim felt free to strike. First, he asked Ho to purge the party, then he turned around and accused him of having gone too far. Ho was humiliated in the presence of other leaders, stripped of his positions and expelled from the party. Kim reinstated hundreds of thousands of members who had been expelled. Many were barely literate villagers, and all of them embraced Kim as their saviour.13
War demanded unity and obedience to the leader whose cult was shored up in 1952, even as the bombing became more intense. On Kim’s fortieth birthday, celebrated on 15 April, a short biography was published that became required reading for all and sundry. Study sites appeared across the country, as people in factories and schools marked Kim’s birthday by ‘enthusiastically indoctrinating themselves’ with his thoughts. Memorial halls in his honour were established at Pochonbo and Mangyongdae, his birthplace on a hill just outside Pyongyang.14
Boundless enthusiasm from the masses went hand in hand with the ritual abasement of potential rivals. Three of the most prominent party leaders published paeans to Kim Il-sung, acclaiming him as a Great Leader on a par with Lenin and Stalin. The least effusive praise came from Pak Hon-yong, the founder of the Korean Communist Party in Seoul who had moved to North Korea in 1948 to become minister of foreign affairs.15
A ceasefire was finally proclaimed in July 1953, a few months after Stalin died. Stalin had prolonged the war by two years, pleased at the losses sustained by the imperialist camp. Kim had been merely a pawn in his great game of geopolitical chess.
The border remained the same, but up to three million people had lost their lives in one of the most vicious and deadly wars of modern times. Much of the peninsula was reduced to rubble, with little left standing in the north.
Kim proclaimed victory. From the beginning, the propaganda machine had presented the Fatherland Liberation War as a just war of defence, one in which the United States was the invader. The imperialist scheme to colonise the entire peninsula had been successfully foiled thanks to the brilliant foresight of the Great Leader. It was a great lie, but one made credible by endless indoctrination and complete isolation from the outside world. Over a decade, the one-party state extended control over what people could read, what they could say, where they could live and where they could travel. Security agents began keeping everyone under constant surveillance, sending dissenters to labour camps scattered across the remote, inhospitable mountains in the north.16
North Korea not only became a hermit kingdom, but also a society with a permanent siege mentality, living under the constant threat of invasion by hostile forces everywhere. It was a message endlessly rep
eated by the propaganda machine, but one widely shared by ordinary people who had endured years of devastation at the hands of the enemy.
North Korea was a society traumatised by war. The propaganda presented the Great Leader as a fatherly figure around whom his shell-shocked people could gather, looking for direction in their lives. Still, rivals inside the party were emboldened by the failed war. Kim was wary of Pak Hon-yong, the minister of foreign affairs who had been tepid in his praise a year earlier. Pak retained a large personal following among members who had worked in the underground resistance in Korea before 1945. Kim had them placed under arrest in March 1953. Always an eager student of Stalin, Kim orchestrated a show trial, as twelve of the accused obediently confessed to the most outlandish crimes in front of the international press. They were found guilty and sentenced to death. It was a great diversion from the destruction of war.17
Kim also followed Stalin in rebuilding his country. North Korea became the beneficiary of large amounts of aid from the socialist camp, all of which was spent on rapid industrialisation and the collectivisation of the countryside. But Kim, as always, was in a hurry, and by 1955 there was evidence of a widespread famine, with children frequently seen begging barefoot in the snow. Entire villages in the north huddled together, trying to hibernate through the winter months. Again, the Soviet Union and China stepped in, sending 200,000 tonnes of grain in emergency aid.18
Even as North Korea depended on the Soviet Union, portraits of Marx, Lenin and Stalin came down. There were none on display in the parade organised to celebrate National Day on 15 August 1954. On the other hand, complained the Russian ambassador, ‘In every railway station, in every ministry, in every hotel there are images larger than life of Kim Il-sung.’ His wisdom was celebrated in songs and poems. His slogans were plastered in bold script, hanging from banners in schools, factories and offices. Films celebrated not only the sites he had visited, but even a rock on which he had rested.19
Kim was ubiquitous. He was a restless, energetic leader, who concerned himself with every detail. There were inspections of schools, tours of cooperatives, visits to factories, even impromptu appearances at local meetings that he would chair, all of them reported in minute detail with numerous photographs in the newspapers. The expression ‘on-the-spot guidance’ began to emerge, as Kim dispensed advice on beekeeping, orchard maintenance, irrigation techniques, steel production and construction work. By one estimate he made more than 1,300 trips between 1954 and 1961. His teachings were published and closely studied across the nation. The Sinuiju Pulp Factory held daily meetings on the Great Leader’s teaching after a visit in early 1956.20
He showed himself to countless workers and villagers, turning himself into a living legend. He was a listener, always concerned with the welfare of his people, questioning them closely about their lives, taking notes as he visited their homes and met their families. He bestowed benefits. Workers wrote to thank him for his leadership. He, in turn, wrote to congratulate them on their achievements.21
Beneath the gleaming surface of propaganda, however, fear accompanied the cult, as the slightest sign of disrespect towards the Great Leader was harshly punished. One victim was sentenced to five years for wrapping a book in a newspaper containing a photograph of Kim Il-sung. Another went to a labour camp for five years for touching up a poorly executed poster. A villager who complained about grain requisitions by pointing a finger at a portrait of the leader, shouting, ‘You are tormenting the people in vain’ was packed off for seven years. There were thousands of victims sentenced for similar crimes.22
The more visible the leader became, the more his peers were forced to dwell in his shadow. Constant adulation deflected potential criticism from his rivals inside the party. But in 1956, the moment Khrushchev denounced the cult of personality, they saw an opportunity to bring Kim down by a notch or two. Yi Sang-jo, North Korea’s ambassador in Moscow, complained to officials in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs that his leader had surrounded himself with sycophants, accumulating ever more power while the official press extolled him as a genius who had led the revolutionary struggle from the age of twelve onwards. Kim, on a visit to Moscow a month later, was reprimanded by Khrushchev and asked to reform. He humbly accepted his recommendations.23
Emboldened, his critics at home confronted Kim at a meeting of the Central Committee in August 1956. They savaged his economic record, mocked the incompetence of his underlings and accused him of concentrating too much power in his own hands. Above all they criticised the cult of personality, invoking the Twentieth Congress to advocate reform. But over the years Kim had packed the Central Committee with young, loyal followers. They heckled his opponents, yelling and whistling as they delivered their speeches, then voted down their proposals.
Kim turned the showdown to his advantage. He denounced his rivals as ‘factionalists’, dismissing them from their posts or expelling them from the party. Many of them had been born in the Soviet Union or in China. Fearing for their lives, several fled the country, seeking refuge in their countries of birth. Their persecution rattled Moscow and Beijing, who realised that their influence in Pyongyang was on the wane. They sent a joint delegation to Korea to increase the pressure. Kim, again, humbly accepted their advice, convening another meeting of the Central Committee in September. He rehabilitated his rivals and made token gestures towards de-Stalinisation.
Kim was saved by the uprising in Budapest a month later in October 1956. As Soviet tanks extinguished Hungary’s bid for freedom, reform in the socialist camp came to a halt. Kim felt vindicated and eliminated every one of his critics over the following two years. The families of those who had fled abroad vanished, probably executed.24
In October 1957, as leaders of the socialist camp met to celebrate the fortieth anniversary of the October Revolution, Mao took Kim aside to express his personal regret over the joint delegation. Both leaders were opposed to de-Stalinisation. Never one to miss a good opportunity, Kim asked Mao to withdraw his troops. Some 400,000 Chinese soldiers had stayed behind in North Korea after the end of the war, and they appeared as an occupation force amidst a population of ten million. They left in October 1958. Kim, at long last, was master of his country, having outmanoeuvred his two most powerful backers, the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic.
In a nationwide witch-hunt reminiscent of the purge that followed the Hundred Flowers in China, tens of thousands of ‘factionalists’ and ‘conspirators’ of every hue were hauled before public denunciation meetings, accused, humiliated and sometimes beaten, occasionally executed in public. In the Academy of Science a suspect was denounced by his colleagues for twelve days for insisting, after the Twentieth Congress in Moscow, that the phrase ‘Our beloved leader Kim Il-sung’ be dropped from official publications. Countless others ended up in prison or labour camps.25
In 1957 the entire population was divided into three distinct groups according to their degree of loyalty towards the party. The system was called songbun, from the term chengfen used in the People’s Republic of China where it had been devised in 1950. Below the ‘core class’ and the ‘wavering class’ was a ‘hostile class’ of people encompassing some 20 per cent of the entire population. Their class status determined everything, from the amount of food a family was allowed to claim to access to education and employment. In North Korea, as in China, the label was passed on from parents to their children. People whose only crime was to have a relative who had moved to South Korea were deported from cities to the countryside. Loyalty to the party soon enough became loyalty to the Great Leader.26
The Chairman had his Great Leap Forward, the Great Leader his Thousand Mile Horse. The Chollima Campaign, named after a mythical winged horse that could gallop a thousand miles in a day, was launched in the summer of 1958. It was designed to propel North Korea into the future, but without economic assistance from the Soviet Union or the People’s Republic. Ideological incentives rather than material rewards, Kim believed, would motivate his people to w
ork harder and achieve economic self-sufficiency. ‘Rush at the speed of the chollima’ was his slogan, as North Korea would catch up and outstrip Japan in industrial output within less than two years. As in the Soviet Union and China, workers who failed to comply were denounced as ‘saboteurs’. With the Chollima Campaign came a new wave of repression, as some 100,000 people were exposed as ‘hostile and reactionary elements’ between October 1958 and May 1959 alone.27
As Kim’s rivals vanished, the past was rewritten. Already in March 1955 the propaganda machine had begun airbrushing the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China out of history, focusing instead on the contribution of the ‘revolutionary masses’ to the liberation of the country. In 1956 a revolutionary museum had opened its doors in Pyongyang. It had one section only, namely 5,000 square metres devoted to Kim Il-sung’s anti-Japanese activities. By 1960 the museum had more than doubled in size, but across its many rooms only a couple of display cases were devoted to the Soviet Union. Twelve large statues of Kim, now heralded as the ‘National Emancipator’, greeted visitors during their visit.28
A year later the Fourth Party Congress in September 1961 marked a watershed for Kim Il-sung. He had successfully eliminated all opposition and entrenched his followers across the party. A few months earlier he had exploited the Sino-Soviet rift to court both the Soviet Union and China, signing two back-to-back treaties that provided enhanced protection against South Korea and the United States. Kim’s struggle to consolidate his power seemed complete.29
How to Be a Dictator Page 16
