Then came Pochonbo.
Whenever Mother mentioned the town’s name, her entire body tensed with excitement. To hear her discuss the battle was to actually be there on that historic day. On June 3, 1937 the main KPRA unit broke through the enemy’s border guards outside Pochonbo. They organized and planned and waited, watching the town from atop a hill. The following night, at precisely 10 p.m., General Kim Il Sung fired his pistol into the air. The gunshot was a greeting to the Korean motherland—and a challenge to the Japanese imperialists who were about to be punished.
At the sound of his signal, the KPRA soldiers started their attack. In an instant, the police substation was destroyed and set ablaze. The raging fire quickly spread, consuming the Japanese edifices of oppression one after another. The subcounty office fell first, followed by the forest protection office, the fire station and the post office. Soon Pochonbo was a sea of flames.
The Pochonbo victory shook the colonial ruling system to its very foundation. Prior to that night, the Japanese imperialists had bragged that there wouldn’t be any more “disturbances” in Korea. They believed that they had everything under complete and utter control—until the large KPRA force brazenly swept away the enemy’s ruling machinery. The haystack that the Japs had been carefully building for decades went up in flames in a single instant. The light it gave off—the light of national liberation—blazed over the Korean peninsula.
After Pochonbo, everyone in Korea knew that General Kim Il Sung and his army had come to set the nation free. The people looked up to him with unbounded respect and reverence, while the Jap imperialists trembled with uneasiness at the mention of his name. The Korean revolution was no longer a mere guerrilla struggle. This was war, and it was the first national-liberation war in colonial countries in world history. Publicly humiliated and running scared, the Japs responded with ever-increasing brutality. A bounty was placed on General Kim Il Sung’s head, one that grew larger and larger as the Japanese desperation grew.
Then the crafty Jap bastards changed their plan. It was no longer enough for them to simply rule, exploit and enslave the Korean people. Now they tried to destroy the very idea of Korea itself. Korea has always been a homogenous nation that hated assimilation with alien countries and took pride in her pure blood. The Jap propagandists began to spread the lie that Koreans shared the same ancient progenitor and bloodline as the Japanese themselves. They claimed that both peoples belonged to one “imperial” race. Their dominant slogan was “Japan and Korea as one body!” The Japs forced every Korean to take a Japanese name, and introduced the alien religion of Shinto into the Korean nation.
In a final humiliating attempt at domination, the Japs even outlawed the Korean language itself. Schools became taught exclusively in Japanese, and a nationwide campaign was launched to “encourage” the Korean people to abandon their language of thousands of years. Korean newspapers were outlawed. Mass media, literary works and music: all were subverted for the purpose of disseminating Japanese. Those who studied Korean were arrested, imprisoned or killed. The Japs’ scheme to exterminate the language was an unprecedented threat to the Korean culture.
Sensing a final victory in their grasp, in late 1938 the Japanese sent an unprecedented number of their men to find General Kim Il Sung and the KPRA—and to exterminate them once and for all. As the Japs threw everything they had against the guerillas, the men began an Arduous March to safety. During this hard trek, the guerillas fought tight battles against the enemy almost every day, sometimes more than twenty battles a day. Worse, an unusually heavy snowfall completely covered the mountains and made travel near-impossible. In some places the soldiers rolled on the ground to make a path; in others, they had to tunnel through. The guerrillas’ boots grew so worn that the soles began to come off. Their torn uniforms exposed their bodies to temperatures that often hit -40 degrees. Yet the KPRA could not stop even for an instant, or else they would be set upon and killed on the spot.
As the march progressed, General Kim Il Sung employed a variety of tactics suited to the rising challenges. He combined large-unit action with small-unit operation. He concentrated and dispersed forces, using both zigzag and telescope tactics. As the KPRA battled the elements and the demon Japs, another foe emerged: hunger. Marching through deep forest, the guerrillas’ meals consisted of handfuls of corn or a few spoonfuls of parched-rice flour. When those reserves were consumed, they choked down grass roots and the bark of trees. Soon even those were not available; there was only snow to allay their hunger. The men collapsed one after another, exhausted from fighting ceaseless battles without food or rest.
General Kim Il Sung did what he could to inspire his men onward. “Please think of the homeland at every step!” he implored. “Never forget that you bear the destiny of the country on your shoulders. Brace up, a little more. Just a little more!” His warm care gave the soldiers the conviction and strong will they required to overcome this most severe trial.
After one hundred days, the men finally broke through to safety. The Arduous March was over, and victory was on the horizon. Rather than regarding the Japanese as invincible, now it became clear that it was the guerrillas who could not be stopped. It was no longer a boast that the KPRA could handle everything that the Japanese had. Each of the men had personally handled it—and they had survived. This filled them with great morale and a firm conviction to see the revolution through to the end.
Though the worst was over, there was never a moment where danger was eliminated; it only differed in degree. No one felt this danger more than General Kim Il Sung, for the Japs and their lackeys knew that defeating him would end the revolution and crush the spirits of the Korean people, possibly for good. During one skirmish, the General suddenly found himself tackled by one of his own men. Then, a shot was fired in the direction behind where he’d been standing. General Kim Il Sung was stunned, for he knew that he’d been seconds away from death. He moved to thank the soldier and compliment him on his marksmanship.
Yet when General Kim Il Sung turned around, he saw not a rugged guerrilla but a beautiful woman. “Are you all right, General?” she asked, scanning the trees for any other snipers.
“I’m fine,” he said. “Thank you, Comrade Jong Suk.”
Mother always claimed that she took no particular pride in saving General Kim Il Sung’s life, but the fact that she repeated this same story so frequently and in such an animated fashion told me otherwise. In fact, it was probably the story about herself that she told the most. She was always far more interested in telling me about the General than in discussing her own upbringing.
In her own childhood, I learned, Mother had lost both her parents to the hands of the enemy. She soon joined the revolution, and venerated General Kim Il Sung as did all the other guerrillas. On the one hand, Mother was extremely traditional and deferred to Father in everything. She used to cut her hair, for example, and line Father’s shoes with it. Another time, she washed his clothes and found it far too cold for them to dry outside—so she put them on herself and walked around in an effort to dry them out.
Mother insisted such behavior was a revolutionary following her leader, not a wife simply obeying her husband. She wasn’t the weak submissive type that a stereotypical “dutiful wife” brings to mind. Known for her marksmanship, Mother was as comfortable holding a pistol as she was cradling a baby. She was just as much of a guerrilla fighter as any of the men in the KPRA.
Mother always discussed her relationship with the General in terms of revolution, not romance. But sometimes she couldn’t help herself and the truth came out. The two were married in 1941, at the height of the revolution. Most newlyweds look forward to a peaceful beginning to the rest of their lives. But by the time they said their vows in the Paektusan Secret Camp, the war in Korea had spread to engulf the entire world. The Nazis and the Italian fascists were battling in Europe. In Asia, Mao’s revolutionaries were marching against both the nationalist Chinese and the Japanese forces. Russia and the United S
tates were in the mix as well. It was truly a world at war—and this is the world into which I was born.
On February 16, 1942 the cry of a newborn was heard from the log cabin at the Paektusan Secret Camp, like a baby giant’s yell piercing through the ancient stillness of the mountains. That night, a new star emerged in the sky over Mt. Paektu. This lodestar was special in its significance. When a beam of light from that star passed by a place, the land turned out to be fertile. If the beam shined over a region, all kinds of treasures gushed out from beneath the soil in torrents. The scene into which I was born has never been told in any of the myths of any hero in history, both on this earth or elsewhere.
The guerrillas at the camp swiftly exchanged the news of my birth. They’d been wishing from the bottoms of their hearts that another hero of the nation would be born, someone who would embody the General’s character, genius and virtues. As if by mutual consent, the guerrillas gathered around the revolutionary flag and pledged once more to fight for the speedy liberation of our fatherland.
The news of my birth spread rapidly, like a legendary tale. Political workers throughout Korea grew so overjoyed that they inscribed messages on trees everywhere they went. This didn’t make the Japs happy, to say the least. The idea of a heaven-sent boy destined to bring independence to Korea gave lie to their myth of “one nation” unified forever under “one blood.”
Several months after my birth, in June 1942, I was finally able to see General Kim Il Sung for the first time. The soldiers at the camp welcomed him in delight, as he updated them on recent small-unit actions. Then he came up to Mother, cradling me against her bosom. The General took me in his strong arms, holding me close to his heart and gazing into my lovable face.
“We shall bring him up to be an heir to the revolution,” he told Mother. “I want to see my son carry forward Mt. Paektu’s red flag.”
Mother couldn’t agree more, and raised me accordingly. The battlefield that was Mt. Paektu had no blankets with which to wrap up a newborn. Instead, it had camaraderie. The KPRA women tore cotton out of their uniforms, each contributing a piece of cloth to make me a patchwork quilt. When Mother had duties, she handed me over to other women in the camp for safekeeping. I was even breastfed by other guerrillas on many occasions.
Some children spend their boyhood days pampered, living in an environment that nurtures in them a vague, poetic yearning for an unknown world. I grew up in an era of violent upheavals unparalleled in the thousands of years of Korea’s history. Due to the revolution, my childhood was replete with ordeals. My young mind was dominated by the stark and solemn reality of war, destruction and violence. Day in and day out, fierce battles raged on. Any breaks in combat were filled with military and political training sessions. Everybody had to tighten their belts because of the training camp’s supply shortages. Though the soldiers tried their best to obtain food for me, I often had to eat army rations or even flour-gruel as I got older.
The image I grew most familiar with was that of Mother in her military uniform, and the sounds I grew most accustomed to were raging blizzards and ceaseless gunshots. My childhood friends were battle-hardened guerrillas, my nursery a secret military camp deep in a primeval forest. My playthings were ammunition belts and rifle magazines, and my clothes were always impregnated with powder smoke. In those days, suffocating hot winds, biting snowstorms and strong rainstorms were more frequent than clear skies and warm spring breezes. I grew up amidst cold, hard reality: the reality of a fatherland which could be rebuilt only through struggle.
The world knew no one like me, bred on the field of fierce and grim battle, with so many family members devoted to the cause of the motherland and the revolution. I couldn’t have grown up otherwise, being born on patriotic and revolutionary soil without parallel in the world. Can’t we call this the will of history?
From my very infancy I was precocious and full of guts. In part, I was fortunate enough to be endowed with such qualities. More importantly, I learned the truth of life from fighters who had the strongest sense of justice in the entire world. The guerrillas’ noble feelings became rich nourishment for my young mind; their mettle, as soaring as the height of Mt. Paektu, added flesh and blood to my manly personality. These brave men and women were the greatest that mankind had to offer—the precise opposite of the craven Jap bastards.
THE NAZIS OF THE ORIENT
Wherever they went, the Japanese troops engaged in murder, plunder and destruction. The Japanese committed every atrocity and every crime against humanity that their German counterparts did. Like their Nazi brethren, the Japs also experimented on live, human subjects. The notorious 731st Unit conducted such work in secret, tying prisoners to surgical tables and quartering their bodies without anesthesia. Those who weren’t dismembered were subjected to germ-warfare experiments—once again, exactly as the Nazis did.
Yet the Japanese managed to do the Nazis one better. At first, Japan’s soldiers raped or gang-raped women in occupied areas, often killing them brutally as well. The Japanese officers insisted that it was good for morale, claiming that “one must be able to rape in order to be a strong soldier.” This attitude gave rise to strong anti-Japanese sentiment. Caring more about their reputation than the innocent women that they defiled, the Jap devils decided to draft women into becoming sex slaves—the first and only people to do so in history. Their victims of choice were the daughters of Korea, who made up of 90% of the total number of these “comfort girls.”
The young men of Korea didn’t have an easy time of it either. Japan did not let any “resource” go to waste in prosecuting the war. Nearly 8.5 million young Koreans—virtually the entire young labor force, a huge percentage of the 20 million total Korean population— were taken away to Japan, Manchuria and overseas areas occupied by the Japanese. The Japs detained such requisitioned Koreans in Nazi-style concentration camps. The Japanese worked the Koreans hard, with little rest, and without feeding or clothing them properly. Once a person was put in such a camp he would never come out.
The entire reform was carried out in under a month, a miracle. The General followed this up with measures such as the labor law, the law on the nationalization of key industries, the law on sex equality and measures for the democratization of judicial administration and education. Just like that, the anti-imperialist, anti-feudal people’s democratic system was established in a very short time.
One day in August of 1945, I was surprised to hear the guerrillas cheering with excitement outside the cabin. Mother swept me up and put me over her shoulder, dancing around with her comrades. “Jong Il,” she said, “the best possible thing has happened today!”
I didn’t dare say the words. I couldn’t believe what she was telling me. “Can this be?”
“Yes! Korea is free! The day we have been fighting for has arrived at last!”
With the destruction of fascist Germany and Japan’s repeated defeats on all fronts, the conditions had finally become right for one last national Korean offensive. The KPRA’s all-out attack began on August 9, simultaneous with the Soviet Union’s declaration of war against Japan. General Kim Il Sung led his army in a concerted push through the enemy’s border strongholds, at the same time ordering secret fighting units to rise up across the peninsula.
The KPRA units advanced like surging waves, working in close contact with the Soviet forces. Due to the fierce attack of the KPRA units and the all-people resistance, the Japanese imperialist troops were annihilated. One week later, on August 15, Japan hastily declared an unconditional surrender. Cheers of joy shook the entire nation. As the victorious KPRA advanced southward, people rushed from their homes to greet General Kim Il Sung. Forty years after its loss of sovereignty, Korea had put an end to her long dark night of stifling slavery.
Father was so busy attending to his great victory that he sent word for us to meet up with him in Pyongyang. It took two more months until Mother and I were able to make our way there, since so many of the travel routes were fraught w
ith confusion. Finally, we ended up taking a freight car with the other KPRA women. After the hardships of the Paektusan Secret Camp, the lowly freight car still felt like quite a luxury to me. I wasn’t sure where to look next as the train travelled through our beautiful motherland. I wanted to see every farm, every tree, every brave Korean that we went past. The villages put a bright smile on my face and filled my heart with joy. It was like I was living inside a fairy tale.
But inside the train car it was a different story. The proud KPRA women seemed more intense than delighted. “Why do they look so sad?” I eventually asked Mother.
She let out a deep sigh. “They’re thinking of all our comrades who didn’t live to see the homeland liberated. How nice it would have been if they were returning with us to the beautiful nation that the General has won back!”
As we approached Pyongyang the train sounded long, shrill whistles, as if it were to unable to hide its own excitement. When I caught my first sight of the city, I saw both the damage it had suffered—and the potential General Kim Il Sung always said that it had. But I was still a little boy, and seeing Pyongyang couldn’t compare to seeing my father again. When we were finally reunited, I sat very quietly on his knee while my parents discussed all the work that had transpired.
“You know,” Father said, “I’ve been meeting with important figures from Korea and abroad. I’ve been coordinating the transition to a free Korea, but the work has been very difficult. I almost found time to return to Mangyongdae to see my grandparents. I stood there at a fork in the road, wanting to go back, but I knew that my schedule wouldn’t allow it. Family could wait, but visiting the Pyongyang Cornstarch Factory could not. The people must always come first.”
“General, they surely know that you’re back by now,” Mother said.
My parents both laughed at this. “I suppose so,” Father said.
Dear Reader: The Unauthorized Autobiography of Kim Jong Il Page 2
