Dear Reader: The Unauthorized Autobiography of Kim Jong Il

by Michael Malice

  I wanted to build a new kind of literature, one whose main content would be the artistic portrayal of the Prime Minister. I gathered many prominent writers and encouraged them to realize Marshal Kim Il Sung’s greatness in their work. “Knowledge of the greatness of the leader leads one to be attracted to him,” I explained. “Attraction to him inspires one to worship him, and worshipping him makes one faithful to him.”

  To a man, the writers instantly understood the implications of what I was saying, and immediately applied my direction to their work. I thought the matter settled—but I was wrong. Because of my kind-hearted and benevolent nature, I tend to see the best in people. 99 times out of 100, people corrected mistakes after I pointed them out, and were careful not to repeat them. But there still came that 100th time.

  North Korea was to receive a delegation from the Soviet Union at a certain point in 1967. I personally checked the itinerary to make sure that the visiting dignitaries’ trip was as efficient as possible. Of course the schedule included some recreational events, so that our guests could experience Korea’s world-famous culture for themselves. One of the listed entertainments was watching a dramatic play entitled An Act of Sincerity. I’d never seen the play and knew nothing about it. In fact, I laughed to myself, I’d been so busy that I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been to the theatre.

  I decided to go watch the play to ensure that it was appropriate. Normally I would have felt guilty about taking an evening off, but in this case I was seeing the performance in advance of a visiting delegation. The good part was, the play was very well orchestrated and performed. But the bad parts far outweighed the good.

  The play told the life story of Pak Kum Chol, vice-premier of the DPRK and fourth-highest ranking member of the government. It described how he didn’t choose to join General Kim Il Sung’s guerrillas during the days of Japanese colonial rule. Instead, he “heroically” operated the rival Kapsan Operations Committee. The implication was that there was more than one path to revolution.

  This was an outrage.

  There’s no question that there were many profound and great men who assisted the General in liberating Korea from the Japs. There were many women as well (my mother, anti-Japanese heroine Kim Jong Suk, being foremost among them). But to preach that there were different paths to revolution was to make a mockery of the entire Juche idea. The course of revolution had been set by General Kim Il Sung as the leader. He certainly entertained ideas from others, and counted on them to provide him with valid data. But it was he and he alone who had set the course. Progress would otherwise be impossible. It would be like two—or more!—men operating a tank at once. Or it would be like two generals commanding an army to achieve one goal: The soldiers would be defeated before the first shot was fired, not knowing whose orders to obey or which direction to go in.

  This autobiographical play was based on the most decadent bourgeois concept imaginable: the egoistic desire for “self-expression.” One need only think of a factory where, instead of everyone working together to ever-greater feats of production, all the factory workers were “expressing themselves.” Production would soon grind to a halt. Morale would be utterly destroyed, as the workers’ frustration reached a maximum level.

  The play’s problem, I realized, was whom the act of sincerity was for. Yes, Pak Kum Chol “sincerely” chose not to help the General—in other words, he was a “sincere” traitor! Some “hero”! It was my view that the only sincerity that the Party needed to advocate was sincere loyalty to Prime Minister Kim Il Sung.

  I chastised myself for not having seen this play sooner, and wondered how many citizens of Pyongyang had been exposed to the farce. I certainly couldn’t have the visiting Soviets attend, especially in the company of the Prime Minister. I was thankful that I’d managed to see it when I had. The consequences could otherwise have been disastrous.

  In a broader sense, however, it felt like I was the only one who noticed that there was a problem with the play. Hundreds of people must have watched it since it had first been performed. Did no one else have loyalty to Marshal Kim Il Sung in mind at all times—or was there something else going on? How could a play such as An Act of Sincerity be released to the public? And how could it have been approved as an example of Juche art for visiting dignitaries?

  The following day, I went to Pak Kum Chol’s office to see if he himself could give me some answers. Amazingly, his secretary ushered me right in to speak with him. Here I was, working until all hours to relieve the Prime Minister as much as I could, and our vice-premier had time for a young comrade’s impromptu visit! This wasn’t a good sign, but I held my tongue in deference to his position. Oh, how hard it was to keep quiet!

  “I saw your play,” I told him when I sat down. “I found it to be of great interest. It gave me a lot to think about.”

  “That’s very good to hear.”

  We made chitchat for a few moments as I looked around at his desk. There were barely any papers, whereas in the Prime Minister’s office the stacks and stacks of documents only seemed to increase. By the side of Pak Kum Chol’s desk I noticed a book. From the spine I could see that it purported to be a history of the Korean revolution, but I was unfamiliar with this particular volume. It was baffling, since I was extremely interested in any publications that were being released in the DPRK. “What’s that book you have there?” I asked, as casually as I could muster.

  “Oh, it’s just been printed,” he explained. “It’s a history of people who fought the Japanese occupation.”

  “We already have Memoirs of the Anti-Japanese Guerrillas,” I said. “The four volumes have been printed in millions of copies.”

  “Yes,” he smiled, “but this book contains the memoirs of those who fought the Japanese in other ways. Kind of a supplement to those other four volumes. Would you like to read it? You can borrow it, if you like.”

  “How many copies have been issued?”

  “So far, there’s only this copy and the one sent to the library.” “The library?” I said, almost with a gasp.

  “Yes, I’ve sent it there. The message is an important one. As Marshal Kim Il Sung himself has demonstrated in the past, different approaches can come together to find the one best solution.”

  “But how will people know which lessons are the right ones?” I asked. “Should they live as the guerrillas did—or as the men in this book?”

  “There are no wrong answers when it comes to heroes,” Pak Kum Chol insisted—no doubt including himself in that category.

  I thanked the vice-premier for his time and left. I headed directly to the library, my head swimming. Pak Kum Chol had explicitly stated everything that I’d feared. Here was a man who wanted differing ideas from that of the Prime Minister. It wasn’t because he preferred foreign ideas, and it wasn’t because he had learned ideas from days gone by. He was neither a flunkeyist nor a dogmatist. No, Pak Kum Chol wanted differing ideas merely to have them. And if Prime Minister Kim Il Sung’s ideas were right—and they certainly were—then the Paks Kum Chol of the world could only be wrong. They were preaching wrong ideas for their own sake. They were opposed to the Prime Minister on principle, the principle of opposition simply for the sake of opposition.

  This was factionalism.

  When I got to the library, I quickly found the shelf where the new book had been filed. As I opened it I could tell I was the first person to do so; the spine cracked with that pleasant sound that we booklovers know so well. I stood there and scanned the text quickly.

  It was worse than I had suspected.

  There, in print, was a passage denying the purity of the revolutionary tradition of the Party. When I followed the footnotes, I saw that this assertion was based on another book. The other book was one that I hadn’t read, though I knew that many others had—and none of them had noticed anything wrong. Or perhaps none of them had felt the need to say anything. Even worse, I realized with fear, they might have agreed with the book’s assertions!
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br />   I placed the book back on the shelf and went up to the librarian. “Can you tell me which are the newest publications?” I asked her. “Say, within the last six months?”

  “Of course,” she said. Very helpfully, she went through the catalog and found all the most recent volumes.

  I took the stack to a desk and looked through them, as well as through all the current periodicals. It didn’t comfort me to find that the counterrevolutionary anti-leader references were very infrequent and often downright trifling. Many dangerous things appear trifling at first. The world is full of spiders which are small yet still venomous enough to kill. It takes a discerning observer to spot their danger.

  After I finished sorting through the recent publications, I stood up and looked down the library racks. There were rows upon rows of books, so many even I couldn’t count them. I had read a fair percentage of the holdings—but I had read them all in the context of the Juche idea, and in service to the Great Leader and the cause of revolution. Now, as I stood there, matters seemed entirely different.

  I imagined walking into the library if I hadn’t been a fervent pupil of the Great Leader’s works. It wouldn’t have felt as if I were in a library. No, it would be more akin to being lost in some forest. The shelves of books were like the trees, crowded and ominous, and the books themselves were the fruit. How could I possibly know which fruit were nourishing, which were merely unpalatable—and which were deadly? Or what of fruit with mixed value? Some fruit have edible meat but toxic seeds, for example. These were both nourishing and dangerous, depending on context and preparation.

  As I looked around at all the books, I realized how treacherous they were. Even if a book was right in the main, that one sinister idea might be enough to poison a mind against the revolution, the Party—or even the Great Leader himself. It wasn’t enough for the Party to declare some ideas to be incorrect. Toxic ideas could still slide in subtly, as with the play that no one else had a problem with.

  Someone with a thoroughgoing understanding of the Juche idea and the writings of the Great Leader needed to make an inquiry, to decide which books were the right books and which were the wrong ones. I had no choice but to be that person, for no one else had made such an understanding the basis of their entire university study. No, the basis of their entire life.

  No one but Kim Jong Il.

  I realized that the Party could never achieve unity and cohesion as long as any factionalists remained in power. I returned to my desk and worked out which officials had authorized the various disloyal publications. Thankfully, there was only a small group of men who had been infected, all with ties to Pak Kum Chol. I had to launch an all-Party struggle to expose them—and then I had to smash them organizationally.

  I informed the Great Leader that I needed to speak with him and his most trusted allies. He didn’t even ask what the matter was, knowing how solicitous I was of his precious time. The next day, I sat down in a conference room with him and his men—and noticed that none of Pak Kum Chol’s Kapsan faction had been invited. I wasn’t sure if this was because Prime Minister Kim Il Sung suspected them of factionalism, or if he didn’t trust them for some other reason. Regardless, it made my task that much easier.

  “Comrades,” I said, “I come here to expose treachery. This is not something I take lightly and it brings me no joy. Quite the opposite. I’ve prepared a report that details the goings-on.” I handed everyone copies, then waited a moment for the men to skim the contents.

  “Pak Kum Chol?” sputtered one of the officials.

  “He and his factionalists,” I said, “have caused incalculable harm to the Party’s organizational and ideological work. This affects national reunification, it affects foreign affairs and it affects many other spheres.”

  “I’ve never heard him say anything against the Party.”

  “Have they not been arguing to decrease military spending and to funnel those monies for social purposes?” I demanded.

  “Yes...”

  “So are we to understand that the threats to Korea are no longer real? Or are we to understand that the people are suffering? A party’s ideological unity and unity of will can only be strengthened when it is based on a single thought. If there are two—or more!—ideologies in the Party, the Party will disintegrate and become meaningless.”

  “Son,” the official said, “you forget yourself. Pak Kum Chol is a good comrade and an honest man.”

  “A sneeze is honest,” I said.

  “Pardon?”

  “A man is ill. He sneezes. That sneeze comes not from any lie. Yet it is still an honest indicator of the man’s illness.”

  “I don’t see your point.”

  “His point is simple,” interjected the Great Leader. “If we surround ourselves with sneezing men, we’ll all get sick. You can’t catch health from someone else—but you can catch their disease.”

  The protesting official looked back at my report, stunned. All the cadres then began to read it through from cover to cover, their brows furrowing. They began to realize that those who they’d considered to be comrades were actually anything but. The Party officials in that conference room were tough and hardened. By the time they finished reading my report, they knew what their next steps would be. The only question would be when.

  “I’m going to call a plenary meeting for early next month,” said the Great Leader. “There can be no delay in the struggle against these vicious elements, these men who scheme, unmindful of the Party’s care for them.” The 15th Plenary Meeting of the Fourth Party Central Committee was held beginning on May 4, 1967. At the Prime Minister’s signal, officials rose up to denounce Pak Kum Chol and his cohorts. As I watched, I imagined it was just like the shot that began the battle of Pochonbo—the shot that was the turning point during the days of anti-Japanese struggle. The vice-premier was at first stunned by the allegations, but immediately began to put on airs of innocence and loyalty. In light of the information that I’d provided, it was apparent that he was simply putting on an act.

  One might even call it an act of sincerity.

  The truth came out all at once. One official after another stood up to criticize the Kapsan faction. Many also engaged in self-criticism, for not seeing the harmful effects of factionalism sooner. The Kapsan traitors protested, claiming that these charges were completely out of proportion. In doing so, they proved my point—for in doing so, they were once again questioning the Prime Minister’s interpretation and analysis. As the men were denounced, it was very well understood that I’d been the one to expose the factionalists. And it was also understood that I’d be looking over everyone’s shoulder in the future, and could deliver them to the same fate if I uncovered any future transgressions.

  The factionalists were all systematically liquidated after the plenary meeting. Every official in the room, and then every citizen in the country, learned the significance of the events. They fully understood that the cohesion of the Party was centered on the Great Leader. It was time to dye the entire Party in one color: the color of Prime Minister Kim Il Sung’s revolutionary Juche idea.

  On May 25, 1967 the Great Leader gave a speech outlining Korea’s way forward under a monolithic system of thought. “Establishing a monolithic system is fundamental in building our Party,” he said. “Without a complete monolithic system, we cannot maintain our uniform ideological identity. Nor can we carry out our revolution.”

  THE MONOLITHIC IDEOLOGICAL SYSTEM

  If there were two or more ideologies in the Party, the Party would disintegrate and become meaningless. A multiparty system would lead to even further disunity. Multiparty systems are often described as “democracy,” when in actuality they are mere camouflage to conceal capitalism’s anti-democratic, anti-people nature. America, for example, spends an entire year holding primaries with the explicit goal of limiting who the people can vote into the presidency—while upholding this process as a function of “freedom” and “democracy”!

  In truth, multip
le parties are a mere reflection of the antagonisms intrinsic to capitalist society, such as those between exploiter and exploited and even within the ruling class itself. History clearly shows that if the activities of anti-socialist parties are tolerated, then class enemies and reactionaries eventually come to drive the working-class party out of power.

  Prime Minister Kim Il Sung called me into his office immediately after the speech, which was well-received—unanimously so. “You’ve played an important role in getting the Party to this point,” he told me.

  “I simply did what was right for the revolution and the masses,” I insisted.

  “Well, I want you to continue doing that. I am making you Section Chief in the Propaganda and Agitation Department, effective next week. You’re young but you’re also uniquely qualified. And your loyalty is without reproach—something that is often sadly lacking these days.”

  “But that means overseeing the art and culture of the entire nation!” I said.

  “That’s right. I want you to help establish the monolithic ideological system in the Party—and throughout all of Korea. Teach our artists, teach our writers, teach our filmmakers. Remake all of Korea’s art in the Juche line. We will be the envy of the world.”

  My mind reeled. Propaganda and agitation; theory and audio-visual education; commentaries and experiences: these and others needed to be combined in a proper way to fully develop educational work. It would be the best and quickest way to eliminate any lingering vestiges of flunkeyism, dogmatism and factionalism.

  I went back to my office and started making a plan that very day. I decided that there were three major tasks to carry out. The first was to lead Party members and working people to acquire the revolutionary ideas of the Great Leader. The second was to unite all Party members and working people around the Great Leader. The third was to carry out revolution and construction under the instructions of the Great Leader.