All Monsters Must Die

by Magnus Bärtås

  But there is no room in the North Korean historical record for a monster dwelling in the depths of Heaven Lake. It is not denied that there are large animals living in the lake, however: the Arctic char must have mutated into giant fish over time.

  BEFORE WE LEAVE Mount Baekdu we meet a group of uniformed men and women, some of whom are carrying red flags. They look important in their caps, with their stern expressions, but when the guard sounds his whistle they rush back. It turns out they are regular workers being ordered to the top of the mountain, where they have a job to do.

  * * *

  IT IS ALMOST thirty-seven years to the day that three Swedish leftist radicals were invited to visit North Korea. In 1971, journalists Villy Bergström and Kurt Wickman and photographer Arne Hjort were naive enough to believe that they would be meeting with Kim Il-sung, and would be able to wander freely in Pyongyang and converse with workers and farmers. Instead, they were taken along a prescribed path of drawn-out visits to cult sites dedicated to Kim Il-sung and his dynasty, as well as the Korean Revolution Museum, exemplary daycare centres, and ironworks.

  Ironworks aren’t on our itinerary, but generally speaking, the trip the journalists took and ours match up: the obligatory monuments in Pyongyang, Kaesong, and Panmunjom, for example. Going by other travel accounts, not much has changed — the same routes and the same rhetoric for the past forty years.

  Bergström, Wickman, and Hjort published an account of their journey called Pictures from North Korea (Bilder från Nordkorea). At the time, the book was criticized for taking too hard a stance against North Korea, but in later years it was held up as a grotesque whitewashing of a horrific dictatorship.

  Pictures from North Korea isn’t at all the whitewashing that critics make it out to be. Rather, it unfolds as an ironic reportage on the cult of personality around Kim Il-sung and his family, which had already reached monumental proportions by 1971. Sure, there’s a desire among the three leftists to see the positive in the North Korean model, but it is worth noting that the book was written before the catastrophic famine, in a period when South Korea was a severe military dictatorship and North Korean industry was operating at full throttle. And though the three travellers wanted to find a utopia on the other side of the earth, a place where socialism had succeeded, they were soon driven to madness by their guides’ evasion tactics and the droning speeches about Kim Il-sung’s achievements.

  Bergström wrote about their visit to Kim Il-sung University in Pyongyang. (The same stop was on our itinerary, but for some reason it was cancelled.) He and his friends had made a special request to meet professors of economics in order to discuss the North Korean economy. But the professors held their tongues, and instead the dean took their guests to the so-called “animal room,” where jars of fish, and stuffed foxes, wolves, and bears were on display. Each specimen had been caught and killed by Kim Il-sung himself, who had then sent them to the university so that the students could study these rare examples of Korean fauna. The dean then explained that brave comrade Kim Il-sung had also shot an enormous tiger, “the largest tiger ever to be brought down in Korea.” The leader’s hunting rifles and dog were proudly displayed, together with the taxidermied animal.

  Bergström, who was a hunter, noticed that the shotgun was a twelve-calibre, double-barrelled Sauer & Sohn from East Germany, “one that’s fit for pheasant and hare, possibly a deer at an extremely close range.” The hunting dog turned out to be “an Irish Setter, a so-called pointer, known for its ability to point to partridges, pheasants and grouse.”

  Later, Bergström learned the history of the hunting dog from some Finnish friends. In the 1950s, the pro-Communist Australian war correspondent Wilfred Burchett had been in the demilitarized zone of Panmunjom, reporting on the ceasefire negotiations between the North and South. There, the journalist came across a wretched mutt. He adopted the dog, caring for it until it recovered and in time became a handsome hound. Then one day the dog disappeared, never to return again.

  Burchett returned to North Korea in the mid-1960s, as a guest at an international congress of journalists in Pyongyang. Like Bergström and his friends, he was taken on the obligatory guided tour of Kim Il-sung University. When Burchett entered the animal room, he caught sight of the hunting dog that was displayed next to the tiger. He exclaimed: “Oh, there’s Prince!”

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  WE ARE STANDING in a forest in front of a log cabin that is said to be the birthplace of Kim Jong-il. On the way to the cabin we passed a spring where Andrei took a water sample. A uniformed guide has been called over. She moves with choreographed revolutionary gestures — probably inspired by movies and parades — lengthening her neck and raising her arm ninety degrees, her palm flat and straight. With a strained, declamatory voice she recounts the story of how Kim Il-sung came up with the guerilla warfare strategy against the Japanese army.

  THE OFFICIAL NORTH Korean praise of Kim Il-sung is similar to how the first leader of unified China, the Emperor of Qin, was addressed by his people: “the First,” “radiant,” and “demi-god.” If you want a more realistic biographical description, you have to look beyond North Korea. American author and journalist Bradley K. Martin’s authoritative biography Under the Loving Care of the Fatherly Leader describes how Kim Il-sung was born outside Pyongyang in 1912, but was primarily raised in Manchuria. Early on, he became involved in the Young Communist League and was imprisoned as a teenager for anti-Japanese activities. When he was in his twenties, he joined the resistance movement in Manchuria, which was supported by the Soviet Union. In the Chinese army in the 1930s, he led a squadron of 200 men that raided a town occupied by the Japanese. It was also in this decade that he took the name Kim Il-sung, meaning “become the sun.” In 1942 — the official year that Kim Jong-suk (Kim Il-sung’s first wife, who was also a guerilla soldier) gave birth to Kim Jong-il — the family was living in a training camp in the village of Vyatskoye, north of Khabarovsk in the Soviet Union.

  The USSR declared war on Japan in 1945, and the Red Army rolled into Pyongyang on August 15 with little resistance. One week later, Kim Il-sung arrived from Moscow. That same year, at the Potsdam Conference, the Korean question didn’t make it onto the agenda. But a few weeks after the conference, Harry S. Truman suddenly made a suggestion to Joseph Stalin: Korea should be divided at the 38th parallel, because that was just about the middle of the peninsula. Truman hadn’t been prepared for Japan’s quick capitulation and was now worried that the Red Army would continue its march South. Surprisingly, Stalin accepted the suggestion of a divided protectorate in which the Soviet Union would take responsibility for North Korea and the United States for the South for a period of five years.

  In 1948, power in the South was turned over to Rhee Syng-man, South Korea’s first president, and one year later the U.S. Army began withdrawing troops from the region. That same year, the Soviet Army also withdrew from North Korea, and Kim Il-sung founded the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and was rechristened “the Great Leader.” Lavrentiy Beria, the marshal of the Soviet Union, had advised Stalin that Kim Il-sung would be a suitable puppet in Pyongyang. But they underestimated him. In a short period of time, Kim Il-sung built up the Korean People’s Army around a core group of former guerilla soldiers. The Soviets contributed heavy artillery and industrial support as an investment in their political control.

  Both leaders considered themselves the self-evident and rightful leaders of the entire Korean peninsula. Kim Il-sung wanted to liberate the South, and when his troops crossed the border on June 25, 1950, thereby signalling the start of the Korean War, the success of the North seemed imminent. In three days, the North Korean army took Seoul, and then continued south. By August, they had taken the entire country with the exception of a tiny point far down in the south. The United Nations agreed that the civil war should be considered an act of aggression by the North, and in September troops bearing the UN flag arrived in the city of Inche
on, just outside Seoul. This aspect of the Korean War — that there were a number of nations fighting alongside the Americans in Korea — has notably fallen into oblivion. Even though the United States orchestrated the war, Ethiopian, Turkish, Canadian, Australian, and Colombian soldiers fought alongside them, and countries such as Sweden and Norway ran field hospitals, manned by the Red Cross and overseen by the United Nations.

  General Douglas MacArthur, the commander of the UN forces, thought that intervening in Korean affairs would be smooth and simple, but the North Koreans were supported by China, and Mao’s guerilla soldiers had been hardened by decades of unending war. They protected China’s borders at any cost and were successful in pushing the UN troops back.

  Over the course of the three years of war, the regime in Seoul changed four times, and the border continually shifted, extending and contracting until it was finally locked back in place at the 38th parallel, where it remains today. Both countries were devastated by the war, particularly the North. The American air force dropped up to 800 tons of bombs each day on North Korean cities. At a critical point, MacArthur requested the use of atomic bombs against China, but he was denied by Truman. Peace was never declared, only a ceasefire that took effect on July 27, 1953, which is still in place today.

  IN THE 1950S, Kim Il-sung wrapped an iron fist around the North Korean government. Supported by the army and the secret service, and with a heavy dose of strategic thinking, he managed to eliminate his rivals for power and established the ultra-patriotic cult of personality as a tool to unify the people.

  During the 1960s, Kim Il-sung sent his troops on a number of guerilla raids in South Korea, but over the following decades he rarely left the country. Instead, he devoted himself to on-the-spot guidance — that is, like a Renaissance-era prince he travelled the land and imparted wisdom on issues large and small. Soon all inventions, all research, all agricultural methods, and many medical treatments and artistic expressions would in principle be attributed to Kim Il-sung’s personal engagement and general brilliance, just as in times past all decrees, laws, and rules of conduct bore the emperor’s seal. To live the ideal, virtuous life was to live as Kim Il-sung advocated. The vestiges of his visits were cared for like sacred relics: the chairs he sat on were placed on pedestals; the routes he took to factories were recreated in models with blinking lamps showing the way. It was at this time that the tender image of Kim Il-sung emerged: a hard-working parent who came home from work and embraced all of his children.

  In 1972 Kim Il-sung took the title of president, but by that time his son Kim Jong-il had most likely taken over many of his duties. Kim Il-sung had fathered a total of nine children, three of whom were illegitimate. One of them drowned at the age of five while playing with his brother Kim Jong-il; in 1949, a daughter died at birth along with her mother. Each child, even the illegitimate ones, was given a high-ranking position within the government, but none could compete with Kim Jong-il for power.

  In 1980, the political situation in South Korea was in crisis. President Park Chung-hee had been assassinated in late 1979, leaving the country in a state of political instability. Shortly after, General Chun Doo-hwan took control of the government through a military coup d’état. Students and professors led nationwide pro-democratization movements in response. In May 1980, a large uprising in the city of Gwangju was brutally quashed by armed soldiers. The peaceful demonstrations against President Chun Doo-hwan incited the military to react with sadistic violence against the young and the old, resulting in more than 200 civilian casualties. The massacre in Gwangju is still the deepest wound in the history of the nation.

  In spite of the impressive economic growth over the past decade, the violence, along with government corruption and various financial scandals, caused the rest of the world to look upon the country with distrust. Now it was feared that civil war would break out in South Korea. In response, North Korea mobilized their troops along the border. If the chaos continued, the troops would only have to march southward. But the situation in the South stabilized, while the economy in the North weakened.

  ON MONDAY NOVEMBER 17, 1986, the South Korean government announced that Kim Il-sung had been assassinated while on a train. The information is said to have come from the North Korean loudspeakers that had been set up near the demilitarized zone to spread propaganda to the South. Flags waving at half mast had also been spotted, and doleful music could heard playing in the North. The reaction in the South was strong and chaos ensued. Kyodo News, the Japanese news agency, reported that the Workers’ Party of North Korea had sent a message to Vietnam’s Communist Party that Kim Il-sung had been assassinated. Contradictory reports from North Korea followed, but the South Koreans insisted that something had happened, possibly a military coup. It was later speculated that Kim Il-sung’s doppel­ganger had been murdered.

  It would be another eight years until Kim Il-sung actually passed away. By the time Kim Jong-il took power in 1994, the situation in the country was catastrophic. Goods had not come in from Moscow for several years; manufacturing had severely diminished; the electrical grid was on the verge of collapse; and the country was completely isolated from the rest of the world. Since 1992, the people had been encouraged to eat two rather than three meals a day. For the four years following Kim Il-sung’s death, the country was paralyzed by mourning rituals, starvation, bad harvests, and inaction around the changeover of the throne. Kim Jong-il had isolated himself in his palace, ordering the building of monuments to his father and blaming the Americans — “the American imperialist pigs,” as he often called them — for the country’s hardships. Infrastructure broke down, the rationing system stopped working, and people were desperately searching for ways to survive.

  As democracy broke through in South Korea at the start of the 1990s, North Korea began to slip into the abyss. When Kim Dae-jung — a dissident who had been severely mistreated by the secret service and imprisoned with a death sentence hanging over him — was elected as president in 1997, it was an incredible moment. The Sunshine Policy, which drastically altered South Korea’s policy toward the North by offering financial, food, and developmental aid for the first time since the division of the two countries, marked a period of détente and culminated in an historic summit meeting with Kim Jong-il in Pyongyang. For opening up a dialogue with the North Korean enemy, Kim Dae-jung was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2000.

  AS HEAD OF state during the 2000s, Kim Jong-il took to the world stage, shaking hands with various other heads of state and ministers: Kim Dae-jung, U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, and in the spring of 2001, Swedish Prime Minister Göran Persson, who was then president of the European Council. Following his meeting with Kim Jong-il, Persson said in an interview on Sweden’s SVT channel: “If that was indeed Kim Jong-il who we met, I should say. I wouldn’t know, but we assume it was. Still, you can’t ever rule anything out.”

  After September 10, 2003, Kim Jong-il disappeared. He wasn’t seen in public for forty-two days. When he met Prime Minister Koizumi again in 2004, the meeting lasted only ninety minutes. Toshimitsu Shigemura, a professor at Waseda University in Tokyo who is considered an expert on North Korea, claimed that Kim Jong-il had died of diabetes and had been replaced by a doppelganger. This would explain the brief meeting with Koizumi — the doppelganger didn’t want to risk giving himself away. Professor Shigemura tried to support his theory by showing photos of Kim Jong-il where it appeared that he had grown nearly an inch taller. He also referred to pictures in which the leader’s four ever-present, highly ranked military men were, according to the professor, ferrying the doppelganger around like a puppet. These four men were actually the ones who were in power, said Shigemura.

  If this speculative theory was correct, it was the doppelganger who was now emaciated and ageing. Like the warlord in Akira Kurosawa’s Kagemusha, the doppelganger had inhabited his role
as leader so fully that he had become the leader. In Kurosawa’s film, as the illusion takes shape the environment around the stand-in warlord responds accordingly: family, servants, and subjects play along. The power of the performance finally causes him to lose his ability to differentiate between reality and theatre. Out of hubris, the doppelganger tries to ride the warlord’s horse but is thrown off. Even a powerful illusion has its limits.

  * * *

  WE ARE STARING incredulously at the log cabin on the slopes of Mount Baekdu, where the guide claims that Kim Jong-il was born. The cabin is at most twenty years old.

  When we walk back to the bus, we pass trees with protective coverings, placed there to preserve the revolutionary scrawls that Kim Il-sung is supposed to have carved into the trunks for posterity. These are the so-called “slogan trees,” a new form of cult site created in the 1980s, when revolutionary notes written in Kim Il-sung’s hand were suddenly discovered. It was reported in Rodong Sinmun that in October 2002, seventeen firemen died trying to protect a slogan tree with their bodies. Found in their charred hands were the pins that feature Kim Il-sung’s portrait, badges that all North Koreans wear on their chests. They held on to them until the end.