Under the Loving Care of the Fatherly Leader

by Martin, Bradley K.

  2. Kim Jong-min, quoted by Cho Gap-jae in “Interview of Former High-level Official of DPRK Ministry of Public Security Who Defected to South Korea” (see chap. 6, n. 88).

  3. Tak, Kim and Pak, Great Leader Kim Jong Il (see chap. 5, n. 15), vol. 1, p. 108.

  4. Kim Myong Chol, “Biography of an Infant Prodigy,” Far Eastern Economic Review, March 5, 1982. An informal spokesman for North Korea in Japan, Kim Myong Chol at the time he wrote this article was editor of the pro-Pyongyang Tokyo weekly People’s Korea. He had translated Baik Bong’s Kim Il-sung biography into English. He is not to be confused with the ex-bodyguard defector of the same name.

  5. Cho Gap-jae, “Interview of Former High-level Official” (Interviewer paraphrases Kim Jong-min’s remarks:) “Since the 1970s, Kim Jong-il began to prepare all-out to become his father’s successor. As such, his relationships with those surrounding him became rigid. Meetings between him and [Kim Jong-min] also became infrequent.”

  6. See Scalapino and Lee, Communism in Korea (see chap. 2, n. 28), pp. 608–612.

  7. Tak, Kim and Pak, Great Leader Kim Jong Il, pp. 109–110. The authors continue that Kim Jong-il “thought that establishing a revolutionary view of the leader among Party members was the key to closing the ranks of struggle for the revolution.” Thus, he “developed an original theory on the Juche-oriented view of the leader.”

  8. Hwang Jang-yop, Problems of Human Rights (1) (see chap 2, n. 1).

  9. Kang Myong-do testimony in JoongAng Ilbo, April 12, 1995.

  10. A memoir credited to a purged North Korean official and published posthumously in Seoul in 1989 said the author in the course of his work in Pyongyang had access to a file of newspaper clippings from the pre-1945 period. In them, the author said, was an account in the leading newspaper Dong-A Ilbo of Kim Yong-ju’s capture in 1938. Broken by the authorities, he supposedly signed a pledge of loyalty to the Japanese and went to work for them as an interpreter. Other accounts say Yong-ju worked for U.S. intelligence. For a discussion of all of those accounts see The True Story of Kim Jong-il, pp. 67–78. The account cites Ko Bong-ki, Posthumous Manuscripts (Seoul: Chunma Printing House, 1989); Lee Yong-sang, “My Friend Kim Yong-ju,” JoongAng Ilbo (May 1991); and a book by Lee Myong-yong, Kim Il-sung Stories.

  11. Lim Un (Founding of a Dynasty [see chap. 2, n. 59], p. 258) cites the claim from Kim Yong-ju’s autobiography. “This is obviously dreamy talk,” says Lim.

  12. True Story of Kim Jong Il, pp. 78–79. The official biographies do not mention Kim Jong-il’s having worked under Kim Guk-tae—or under anyone else except his father, for that matter.

  13. True Story of Kim Jong-il, pp. 78–80.

  14. Choe In Su, Kim Jong Il, vol. 2 (see chap. 10, n. 43), pp. 22–26.

  15. Ibid., vol. 2, p. 12.

  16. Ibid., vol. 2, pp. 40–42. I use the term “draft-dodger” loosely, to evoke a comparable American situation for Americans of that generation. North Korea did not have the military draft per se, since there was no shortage of willing recruits. Enlistment was considered an honor, and career-enhancing, so most young men who were not members of the very top elite wanted to serve.

  17. True Story of Kim Jong-il, pp. 78–80; Kong Dan Oh, Leadership Change (see chap. 10, n. 32), p. 7.

  18. Tak, Kim and Pak, Great Leader Kim Jong Il, vol. 1, pp. 119–120.

  19. Suh, Kim Il Sung (see chap. 2, n. 35), p. 223.

  20. See ibid., pp. 128–129. Also note the claim of an unofficial North Korean spokesman in Tokyo that the junior Kim “played a leading role in the watershed ideological and theoretical campaign to defend the present leadership” (emphasis added). See Kim Myong Chol, “Biography of an Infant Prodigy.”

  21. “True Picture of North Korea According to a Former Workers’ Party Secretary,” in Testimonies of North Korean Defectors.

  22. Tak, Kim and Pak, Great Leader Kim Jong Il, vol. 1, pp. 121–125.

  23. Suh, Kim Il Sung, pp. 228–229. Suh reports, “In his lecture to party cadres on October 11, 1969, Kim Il Sung said that a number of ‘bad fellows’ who had been in charge of ideological work had failed to propagate the party’s great achievements and had not taught young cadres the great successes the people had achieved.”

  24. Hwang Jang-yop, Problems of Human Rights (1).

  25. Tak, Kim and Pak, Great Leader Kim Jong Il, vol. 1, pp. 125–126.

  26. Kim Myong Chol, “Biography of an Infant Prodigy.”

  27. Hwang Jang-yop, Problems of Human Rights (3) (see chap. 9, n. 25).

  28. Choe In Su, Kim Jong Il, vol. 2, pp. 16–21.

  29. “True Picture of North Korea.”

  30. Choe In Su, Kim Jong Il, vol. 2, pp. 31–35.

  31. In With the Century, Kim Il-sung gives an example of his personal involvement in the rewriting of history. The incident involved assessment of an 1884 coup attempted by reformist Kim Ok-gyun against the decrepit Yi Dynasty. Kim Il-sung says that in his own boyhood, “most of my teachers in Korean history regarded Kim Ok-gyun as pro-Japanese … because he had received help from the Japanese in his preparations for the coup.” After assuming power, Kim Il-sung relates, “I told our historians that … assessing him as pro-Japanese simply because he had drawn on the strength of Japan would lead to nihilism …” (vol. 1, pp. 26–27). I cannot help smiling at the image of a platoon of obedient scribes, earnestly jotting down their instructions from the Great Historian.

  32. Baik I (see chap. 4, n. 25), preface.

  33. Ibid., p. 23. Kim backed off a bit from such claims in his later memoirs. Likewise he steered clear of such extravagant tales as Baik Bong’s David-and-Goliath account (vol. 1, p. 145) of a sturdy Kim knocking down with “a single blow” a Chinese policeman’s son named Beanstalk who displayed contempt for Koreans and possessed “Herculean strength.” Yet another story that bit the dust in later versions was Baik’s claim that Kim at the age of sixteen—while still a middle-school pupil himself—established an elementary school in a Manchurian village that he was trying to organize. “The General”—even as an elementary school pupil Kim rates this rank in Baik’s reverential account—“provided education free of charge for peasant children who had been unable to study because of poverty and conducted classes at night to educate youth and the middle-aged and women. On the basis of such activities, the General then rallied the residents around organizations formed according to each stratum of society, and trained them politically. He gathered them into the Juvenile Corps or the Juvenile Expeditionary Party and youth into the Youth Association (Anti-Imperialist Youth League), women into the Women’s Association and peasants into the Peasants’ Union.” Kim organized the people into a military unit to defend their village, taught .Marxism-Leninism, published a political magazine called Bolshevik; in short, Baik related, the adolescent General was “tireless.” And when he was older, was it not Kim Il-sung who had returned to Korea in 1945 as “the greatest hero Korea has ever produced, the Leader of the nation, who had promised a resurrection and a shining victory to the .Mother Earth of Korea”? (Baik II, p. 53).

  34. February 15, 1994, interview with Kim Nam-joon, a former Korean People’s Army second lieutenant who said it was only after he defected to South Korea in 1989 that he learned who the real author was.

  35. Tak, Kim and Pak, Great Leader Kim Jong Il, vol. 1, pp. 140–159.

  36. Buzo, Guerilla Dynasty (see chap. 11, n. 39), p. 43.

  37. Choe In Su, Kim Jong Il, vol. 2, pp. 49–54. The Chinese had lapel badges with portraits of Mao earlier.

  38. Kang Myong-do testimony in JoongAng Ilbo.

  39. Choe In Su, Kim Jong Il, vol. 2, pp. 55–57.

  40. Ibid., pp. 59–64.

  41. Ibid., vol. 2, p. 74.

  42. Kim Jong Il, Some Problems Arising, pp. 10–13. He is described as having given the talk April 6, 1968.

  43. Tak, Kim and Pak, Great Leader Kim Jong Il, vol. 1, pp. 172, 191–192.

  44. Choe In Su, Kim Jong Il, vol. 2, pp. 64–70.

  45. Tak, Kim and Pa
k, Great Leader Kim Jong Il, vol. 1, pp. 172–175.

  46. See Koh Chik-mann, “‘Theory of Cinema—’ Offers Clues to Kim Jong-il’s View on Arts, Politics,” Korea Times, July 13, 1994.

  47. Choe In Su, Kim Jong Il, vol. 2, pp. 70–74.

  48. Ibid., pp. 78–83.

  49. Ibid., pp. 84–87.

  50. Ibid., pp. 89–90.

  51. Tak, Kim and Pak, Great Leader Kim Jong Il, vol. 1, p. 197.

  52. Kang Myong-do, Pyeongyangeun mangmyeoneul kumgungda (Pyongyang Dreams of Exile) (Seoul: Joongang Daily News, 1995).

  53. See Choe In Su, Kim Jong Il, vol. 2, photo facing p. 88.

  54. Kim Jong Il, Let Us Create More Revolutionary Works Which Meet the Requirements of Our Socialist Life (Pyongyang: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1988).

  55. Choe In Su, Kim Jong Il, vol. 2, pp. 92–94.

  56. Ibid., pp. 115–120.

  57. Tak, Kim and Pak, Great Leader Kim Jong Il, pp. 110–111.

  58. Ibid., p. 116.

  59. Buzo, Guerilla Dynasty, pp. 40, 48.

  60. Ibid., p. 26.

  61. Hwang Jang-yop, Problems of Human Rights (3).

  62. Quoted in Lee Sang-min, “The Personality Cult in the North Korean Political Process (II),” Vantage Point (September 1989): pp. 1–2.

  63. I interviewed the diplomat, who asked not to be further identified. Another foreign resident, an Englishman who was employed by the Foreign Languages Publishing House as a reviser in 1987–1988, noted that comedy programs were not among the entertainment offerings on North Korean television. See chap. 8, p. 7, of Andrew Holloway A Year in Pyongyang (published in 2002 on the Internet Web site of Aidan Foster-Carter, http://www.aidanfc.net/a_year_ in_pyongyang.html).

  64. Kim With the Century, vol. 3, pp. 421–422.

  65. “New Book Adds Insights into Hitler’s Personality,” Bonn-datelined article by UPI-Kyodo, Japan Times, December 2, 1983.

  14. Eyes and Ears.

  1. Hwang Jang-yop, Problems of Human Rights (2 and 3) (see chap. 6, n. 104, and chap. 9, n. 25, respectively). Further details of the security organizations’ interlocking operations from Kim Jong-min, who rose to the brigadier-general level in Public Security, appear in Cho Gap-jae, “Interview of Former High-level Official” (see chap. 6, n. 88).

  2. An official biographer quoted Kim Il-sung as saying, “The consistent principle our Party adheres to in its work with people who have complicated social and political backgrounds, is that we should appraise them case by case, always attaching utmost importance to their present behavior, isolate hostile elements to the maximum and win even one by one over to the side of the revolution.” The biographer continued, “Introducing such a principle, he was able to educate and remold all the people except a handful of purposefully hostile elements of exploiting class origin, and brought all into the bosom of socialism. He … went deep among the people, embraced all warmly, trusted them and actively helped them to give full scope to their talents and exercise a passion for socialist construction, himself setting a practical example, and teaching this to Party organizations.”

  For example, Kim supposedly forgave the chief engineer of a steelworks who had come up under the Japanese and who, during the Korean War, had started to move south but thought better of it. “Noting that he had returned again to follow the Party after realizing that the U.S. scoundrels were bad, even though he had hesitated for a while during the war, the Leader held that it was possible to educate and remold him.”

  Visiting the wives left behind by some men who had fled south during the war, Kim noted that the men were from backgrounds of poverty. Thus, they must have been deceived by enemy propaganda. “Some of your husbands who have gone to South Korea are probably begging for some food with a tin [can] in hand,” he told the abandoned wives, who were described as repenting of their “inadvertent” failure to dissuade their husbands from fleeing. “Some are likely to be fighting against the Syngman Rhee clique. Achieving something in their fight, they may come back. Generally speaking, those who went there from the northern half are mostly saying frequently that the politics of the Republic is better. We know this well. Therefore, we cannot say that all the families are bad simply because their members went to the South.” He told the women, “When your infant children ask questions about their fathers, you must clearly answer. If their fathers went there after doing something wrong, tell them that their fathers are a class enemy. Educate them, telling them that they must become revolutionaries, taking the right road though their fathers took the wrong road. If their fathers went there unwittingly, please tell them that their fathers are guiltless and went there unwittingly. Inform them that it is because of U.S. imperialism and the Syngman Rhee clique that they cannot see their fathers. Teach them that U.S. imperialism and the Syngman Rhee clique are our sworn enemies. Educate them that ‘You receive equal treatment as citizens of the Republic. There is no discrimination against you simply because your family members went to the South. Don’t worry! You must study well, work well and become labor innovators.’ ” The women “shed copious tears” at his words, and after he had gone “they all gave more energy to the country’s service and came to enjoy a lively life. It was because of such personal education by Comrade Kim Il-sung that the people with complicated backgrounds took the road to hope, in countless cases. People who had a shameful past drew boundless inspiration from the wise policy and warm love of Comrade Kim Il-sung and learned to give all their energies to proud socialist construction, embraced to his broad bosom” (Baik II [see chap. 4, n. 24], pp. 530–543).

  3. June 1994 interview in Seoul.

  15. From Generation to Generation.

  1. Hwang Jang-yop, Problems of Human Rights (2) (see chap. 6, n. 104).

  2. “Can Kim Jong-il .Maintain His Father’s ‘Inviolable’ Authority?” Vantage Point (July 1981): pp. 11–15.

  3. Tak, Kim and Park, Great Leader Kim Jong Il, vol. 1 (see chap. 5, n. 15), pp. 222–223. Another report, by a North Korean spokesman in Tokyo, says it was in 1974 that Kim Jong-il formed a crisis-management task force to try to salvage the foundering six-year plan (1971–1976), which sought to complete the country’s “socialist industrialization” and—the “technical revolution” again—to mechanize or automate difficult, dangerous and dirty tasks in the factory, on the farm and in the home. At an extraordinary Politburo meeting called to discuss economic problems, “no one responded to the exhortations of Kim Il-sung. Then Kim Jong-il volunteered to take over the job. He organized young volunteers into shock brigades and led the six-year plan to fulfillment of its goals ahead of schedule. For this work he was awarded the title Hero of the Nation in 1975” (Kim Myong Chol, “Biography of an Infant Prodigy” [see chap. 13, n. 4]). Here we have either two different events or, perhaps, two conflicting dates for the same event.

  4. Tak, Kim and Pak, Great Leader Kim Jong Il, vol. 1, p. 226.

  5. Ibid., pp. 204–205.

  6. Choe In Su, Kim Jong Il, vol. 2 (see chap. 10, n. 43), p. 129.

  7. Tak, Kim and Pak, Great Leader Kim Jong Il, vol. 1, pp. 228–229.

  8. Ibid., pp. 248–250.

  9. “The north Korean government is well aware of the negative feeling of the people against the mobilization system and it, therefore, keeps the people always under strain North Korea has admitted that small-scale resistance activities of the people occur in a wide sphere of life. … According to a speech by Kim Il-sung, there are ‘workers and clerks who do not work hard and observe labor regulations’ as well as those ‘who waste the valuable social and national properties’ [including] those who lavishly use chemical fertilizer, leave foodgrains piled up on moist ground and those who do not keep their farm tools in good shape or plan to harvest chestnuts. In the case of factory workers, there are those who think only of the quantity, not the quality, of industrial products and who pack commodities without care. Kim Il-sung believes that these phenomena are related to individualism. In other words, he thinks such phenomena occur as workers
do not believe in the coincidence between the national interest and personal interest” (Choe Hong-gi, “Mobilization System and Labor Efficiency” Vantage Point [January 1979]: pp. 12, 13; no source, date, or place given for Kim Il-sung’s speech).

  10. Peoples Korea said in its February 13, 1982, edition that Kim Jong-il “proposed a Three-Revolution-Team .Movement and dispatched teams composed of party activists and young intellectuals to various branches of the national economy.” Other North Korean sources, however, say that Kim Il-sung initiated the movement early in 1973 and Kim Jong-il only took charge of the effort later that year when he was promoted to party secretary for organization and guidance.

  11. Among the many analysts taking this view was Pusan National University Professor Lee Sang-min, in “The Personality in the North Korean Political Process (I),” Vantage Point (August 1989): p. 7.

  12. Interview February 17, 1994.

  13. Yang Ho-min, “The Three Revolutions in North Korea,” Vantage Point (June 1978): p. 8.

  14. Interview March 15, 1995.

  15. “Pyongyang’s harshest attack on the Chinese appeared in an editorial of Nodong Shinmun on September 15, 1966. … Ostensibly attacking ‘Trotskyism,’ the KWP organ pointed out that the major departure and basis of the position of Trotsky’s left-wing’ opportunism was the theory of ‘permanent revolution.’ … The Trotskyites categorically opposed any combination of violent and nonviolent methods in the revolutionary struggle, and favored only ‘offensive and reckless rebellion.’ The North Korean leaders were apparently alarmed by the violence of China’s Cultural Revolution, which they did not want to follow. However, Pyongyang refrained from commenting on the Cultural Revolution in explicit terms” (Chin O. Chung, P’yongyang Between Peking and Moscow: North Korea’s Involvement in the Sino-Soviet Dispute, 1958–1975 [Tuscaloosa, Ala.: The University of Alabama Press, 1978], p. 128).

  16. Kulloja (Worker), no. 3, 1975, p. 16, cited in Yang Ho-min, “Three Revolutions in North Korea,” p. 11.

  17. This former official insisted on anonymity.