Communism in Korea
Encyclopedia
The Communist movement in Korea emerged as a political movement in the early 20th century. Although the movement had a minor role in pre-war politics, the division between the communist North Korea
and the anti-communist South Korea
came to dominate Korean political life in the post-World War II
era. North Korea, officially the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, continues to be a socialist state under the rule of the Workers Party of Korea. In South Korea, communism remains illegal through the National Security Law
.
, a Korean living in Russia
, is sometimes credited as the first Korean communist. She had joined the Bolsheviks in 1916. In 1917, Lenin sent her to Siberia to mobilize Koreans there against the counter-revolutionary forces and the Allied Expeditionary Forces. In Khabarovsk
Kim was in charge of external affairs at the Far-Eastern Department of the Party. There she met with Yi Dong-Wi, Kim Rip and other Korean independence fighters. Together they founded the Korean People's Socialist Party in Khabarovsk on June 28, 1918.
was founded during a secret meeting in Seoul in 1925. The Japanese had banned communist parties under the Peace Preservation Law
, so the party had to operate in a clandestine manner. The leaders of the party were Kim Yong-bom and Pak Hon-yong
. The party became the Korean section of the Communist International at the 6th congress of the International in August–September 1928. But after only a few months as the Korean Comintern section, the perpetual feuds between rival factions that had plagued the party from its foundation led the Comintern to disband the Communist Party of Korea in December the same year. However, the party continued to exist through various party cells. Some communists, like Kim Il-sung
went into exile in China
, where they joined the Communist Party of China
. In the early 1930s Chinese and Korean communists began guerrilla activity against the Japanese forces.
occupation zones, and the working conditions for the party were very different in the two zones. In the US-occupied South, the Communist Party leader Pak Hon-yong, who had been a prisoner of the Japanese, and became active in Seoul
upon his release in 1945. He reorganized a Central Committee
, of which he became the Secretary. Being based in Seoul, his group had limited contact with the Soviet occupation forces in the north.
The Soviet Red Army
liberated northern Korea from the Japanese occupation in August 1945. At the time there were very few Communist cadres in the Soviet occupied zone. The practice of the Soviets in most countries it occupied after World War II
was to rely on the domestic Communist Party to transform the occupied state into first a pro-Soviet and then a Soviet style socialist state but this was initially difficult in what became North Korea because of the lack of a strong domestic Communist presence. The Soviets began to rely largely on exiled Communists who returned to Korea at the end of World War II as well as ethnic Koreans who were part of the large Korean community in the USSR
and therefore Soviet citizens. Kim Il-sung became a prominent figure of the party in the northern areas. After his years as a guerilla leader, Kim Il-sung had moved to the Soviet Union and had become a Captain in the Red Army
. His battalion arrived in Pyongyang
just as the Soviets were looking for a suitable person who could assume a leading role in North Korea.
On October 13, 1945 the North Korea Bureau of the Communist Party of Korea was established. Though technically under the control of the Seoul-based party leadership, the North Korean Bureau was had little contact with Seoul and worked closely with the Soviet forces (termed the Soviet Civilian Authority). The first chairman of the Bureau was Kim Yong-bom who had been sent to Korea by the Comintern
in the 1930s to conduct underground activity. Kim Il-sung was a member of the Bureau at its founding and replaced Kim Yong-bom as chairman in December, 1945. Official North Korean historians later disputed this, claiming that Kim Il-sung had become its chairman from the onset of the Bureau. Moreover, official North Korean sources claim that the meeting was held on October 10. October 10 is regarded as the 'Party Foundation Day' in North Korea, on which Kim Il-sung formed the first genuine Marxist-Leninist party in the country. Official North Korean historians tends seek to downplay the role of early communist leaders like Pak Hon-yong. Official North Korean sources claim that the name of the Bureau was changed to 'Organizational Committee of the Communist Party of North Korea' (often simply referred to as the 'Communist Party of North Korea').
On July 22, 1946, following a similar united front
formula that was implemented in Eastern Europe after the Second World War, the North Korea Bureau joined with the New People's Party
, the Democratic Party
and the Chondoist Chongu Party
(supporters of an influential religious movement) to form the North Korean Fatherland United Democratic Front
.
of the Central Committee
s of both parties and agreed to merge into a single entity. A founding conference of the Workers Party of North Korea
was held on August 28–30. Kim Tu-bong
, the leader of the New People's Party, was elected Chairman of the party. Vice Chairmen of the party were Chu Nyong-ha and Kim Il-sung
. At the time of establishment, the party is believed to have had about 366 000 members organized in around 12,000 party cells.
The merger of the North Korea Bureau of the Communist Party of Korea and the New People's Party can be seen as analogous to similar mergers taking place in Eastern Europe
in the years following the Second World War, such as the formation of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany
and the Hungarian Working People's Party. The merger of the two parties was not uncomplicated. Between the two there were differences in terms of social background of cadres and ideological profiles. The New People's Party had a significant following of intellectuals whereas the Communist Party was mainly based amongst workers and peasants. Moreover, the Korean communists had been riddled by internal differences, and different communist fractions were present in the new unified party. At the time of the founding of the new party discussions emerged on the role of Marxism-Leninism
as the ideological foundation of the party. At the inaugural congress of the party, Kim Il-sung stated that "…the Workers Party is a combat unit and the vanguard of the working masses. We must fight with our utmost to maintain the Party's purity, unity, and iron discipline. If we were to fight against the enemy without meeting these conditions within our ranks, it would be nothing less than folly.", arguing in favor of maintaining a Marxist-Leninist orientation.
The remainder of the Communist Party of Korea, still functioning in the southern areas, worked under the name of Communist Party of South Korea. The party merged with the New People's Party of South Korea and the fraction of the People's Party of Korea
(the so-called forth-eighters), founding the Workers Party of South Korea
on November 23, 1946.
The Workers Party of South Korea was outlawed by the U.S. occupation authorities, but the party organized a network of clandestine cells and was able to obtain a considerable following. It had around 360 000 party members. The clandestine trade union
movement, the All Korea Labor Union was connected to the party. In 1947 the party initiated armed guerrilla struggle. As the persecution of party intensified, large sections of the party leadership moved to Pyongyang
. The party was opposed to the formation of a South Korean state. In February–March 1948 it instigated general strike
s in opposition to the plans to create a separate South Korean state. On April 3, 1948 the party led a popular uprising on Jeju island, against the unilateral declaration of the foundation of the Republic of Korea. In the suppression of the revolt, thousands of islanders were killed (see Jeju massacre
).
The factions were represented proportionately in the leading bodies of the WPNK. In the first politburo
of the party the Soviet fraction had three members, the Yanan fraction had six, the domestic fraction had two and the guerrilla fraction had two. The guerrilla faction was actually the smallest of the fractions in the Central Committee
but they had the advantage of having Kim Il-sung, who led the North Korean government and was highly influential within the party. Moreover, Kim Il-Sung was backed by the Soviet Union.
The first five years of the WPK's rule were dominated by the Korean War
. By October 1950 United Nations
forces had occupied most of the DPRK and the WPK leadership had to flee to China
. But in November, Chinese forces
entered the war and threw the U.N. forces back, retaking Pyongyang in December and Seoul in January 1951. In March U.N. forces retook Seoul, and the front was stabilised along what eventually became the permanent "Armistice Line" of 1953. The WPK was able to re-establish its rule north of this line.
Kim Il-sung also attacked the leadership of the Yanan faction. When the North Koreans were driven to the Chinese border, Kim Il-sung needed a scapegoat to explain the military disaster and blamed Mu Chong, a leader of the Yanan faction and also a leader of the North Korean military. Mu Chong and a number of other military leaders were expelled from the party and Mu was forced to return to China where he spent the rest of his life. Kim Il-sung also removed Pak Il U, the Minister of the Interior and reputedly the personal representative of Mao Zedong
.
The sacking of Hegay, Mu and Pak reduced the influence of the Chinese and Soviet factions, but Kim Il-sung could not yet launch an all out assault on these factions because he would risk the intervention of Moscow
and Beijing
when he was still dependent on their support.
As the Korean War
drew to a close, Kim Il-sung first moved against the Domestic faction. While the Soviet faction had the sponsorship of the Soviet Union and the Yanan faction was backed by China the Domestic faction had no external sponsor who would come to their aid and was therefore in the weakest position. With the end of the Korean War the usefulness of the Domestic faction in running guerilla and spy networks in South Korea came to an end. Former leaders of the Workers Party of South Korea were attacked at a December 1952 Central Committee meeting. In early 1953 rumours were spread that the "southerners" had been planning a coup. This led to the arrest and removal from power of Pak Hon-yong (who was foreign minister at the time) and Yi Sung Yopo the minister of "state control" who was charged with "spying on behalf of the United States
".
In August 1953, following the signing of the armistice
that suspended the Korean War, Yi and eleven other leaders of the domestic faction were subjected to a show trial
on charges of planning a military coup and sentenced to death. In 1955, Pak Hon Yong, the former leader of the WPSK and deputy chairman of the WPK, was put on trial on charges of having been a US agent since 1939, sabotage, assassination, and planning a coup. He was sentenced to death, although it is unclear if he was shot immediately or if his execution occurred some time in 1956.
The trials of Yi and Pak were accompanied by the arrest of other members and activists of the former WPSK with defendants being executed or sent to forced labour in the countryside. The domestic faction was virtually wiped out, though a few individual members who had personally allied themselves to Kim Il-sung remained in positions of influence for several more years.
as a slogan in a December 28, 1955, speech titled "On Eliminating Dogmatism and Formalism and Establishing Juche in Ideological Work" in rejection of the policy of de-Stalinization
(bureaucratic self-reform) in the Soviet Union
. The Juche Idea itself gradually emerged as a systematic ideological doctrine under the political pressures of the Sino-Soviet split
in the 1960s. The word "Juche" also began to appear in untranslated form in English-language North Korean works from around 1965. Kim Il-sung outlined the three fundamental principles of Juche in his April 14, 1965, speech “On Socialist Construction and the South Korean Revolution in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea”. The principles are "independence in politics" (chaju), "self-sustenance in the economy" (charip) and "self-defense in national defense" (chawi).
WPK ideologists and speech writers began to openly use Maoist ideas, such as the concept of self-regeneration, in the 1950s and 1960s. Maoist theories of art also began to influence North Korean musical theater during this time. These developments occurred with the backdrop of the Sino-Soviet split
. The postwar Kim Il-sung regime had also emulated Mao’s Great Leap Forward
, his theory of the mass line
and the guerrilla tradition. Juche, however, does not exactly share the Maoist faith in the peasantry over the working class and the village over the city.
In official North Korean histories, one of the first purported applications of Juche was the Five-Year Plan of 1956-1961, also known as the Chollima Movement
, which led to the Chongsan-ri Method and the Taean Work System. The Five-Year Plan involved rapid economic development of North Korea, with a focus on heavy industry
, to ensure political independence from the Soviet Union and the Mao Zedong regime in China. The Chollima Movement, however, applied the same method of centralized state planning that began with the Soviet First Five-Year Plan
in 1928. The campaign also coincided with and was partially based on Mao's First Five-Year Plan and the Great Leap Forward
.
In 1972, Juche replaced Marxism-Leninism
in the revised North Korean constitution as the official state ideology, this being a response to the Sino-Soviet split
. Juche was nonetheless defined as a creative application of Marxism-Leninism. Kim Il-sung also explained that Juche was not original to North Korea and that in formulating it he only laid stress on a programmatic orientation that is inherent to all Marxist-Leninist states.
Current North Korean leader Kim Jong-il
officially authored the definitive statement on Juche in a 1982 document titled On the Juche Idea. After the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union
, North Korea’s greatest economic benefactor, all reference to Marxism-Leninism was dropped in the revised 1998 constitution. But Marxist-Leninist phraseology remains in occasional use. Kim Jong-Il incorporated the Songun
(army-first) policy into Juche in 1996.
North Korea
The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea , , is a country in East Asia, occupying the northern half of the Korean Peninsula. Its capital and largest city is Pyongyang. The Korean Demilitarized Zone serves as the buffer zone between North Korea and South Korea...
and the anti-communist South Korea
South Korea
The Republic of Korea , , is a sovereign state in East Asia, located on the southern portion of the Korean Peninsula. It is neighbored by the People's Republic of China to the west, Japan to the east, North Korea to the north, and the East China Sea and Republic of China to the south...
came to dominate Korean political life in the post-World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
era. North Korea, officially the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, continues to be a socialist state under the rule of the Workers Party of Korea. In South Korea, communism remains illegal through the National Security Law
National Security Act (South Korea)
The National Security Law is a South Korean law which has the avowed purpose "to restrict anti-state acts that endanger national security and to protect [the] nation's safety and its people's life and freedom."...
.
Early Korean communism
Alexandra KimAlexandra Kim
Alexandra Petrovna Kim was a Korean revolutionary political activist. Having joined the Bolsheviks in 1916, she is recognized as the first Korean communist.-Personal life:...
, a Korean living in Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
, is sometimes credited as the first Korean communist. She had joined the Bolsheviks in 1916. In 1917, Lenin sent her to Siberia to mobilize Koreans there against the counter-revolutionary forces and the Allied Expeditionary Forces. In Khabarovsk
Khabarovsk
Khabarovsk is the largest city and the administrative center of Khabarovsk Krai, Russia. It is located some from the Chinese border. It is the second largest city in the Russian Far East, after Vladivostok. The city became the administrative center of the Far Eastern Federal District of Russia...
Kim was in charge of external affairs at the Far-Eastern Department of the Party. There she met with Yi Dong-Wi, Kim Rip and other Korean independence fighters. Together they founded the Korean People's Socialist Party in Khabarovsk on June 28, 1918.
Founding of the Communist Party of Korea
The Communist Party of KoreaCommunist Party of Korea
Communist Party of Korea was a communist party in Korea. It was founded during a secret meeting in Seoul in 1925. The Japanese colonial regime had banned communist parties under the Peace Preservation Law , so the party had to operate in a clandestine manner...
was founded during a secret meeting in Seoul in 1925. The Japanese had banned communist parties under the Peace Preservation Law
Peace Preservation Law
The Public Security Preservation Laws were a series of laws enacted during the Empire of Japan. Collectively, the laws were designed to suppress political dissent.-the Safety Preservation Law of 1894:...
, so the party had to operate in a clandestine manner. The leaders of the party were Kim Yong-bom and Pak Hon-yong
Pak Hon-yong
Pak Hon-yong was a Korean independence activist, politician, philosopher and Communist activist. One of the main leaders of the Korean communist movement during Japan's colonial rule . his nickname was Ijung.During the Japanese occupation of Korea, he tried to organize the Korean Communist Party...
. The party became the Korean section of the Communist International at the 6th congress of the International in August–September 1928. But after only a few months as the Korean Comintern section, the perpetual feuds between rival factions that had plagued the party from its foundation led the Comintern to disband the Communist Party of Korea in December the same year. However, the party continued to exist through various party cells. Some communists, like Kim Il-sung
Kim Il-sung
Kim Il-sung was a Korean communist politician who led the Democratic People's Republic of Korea from its founding in 1948 until his death in 1994. He held the posts of Prime Minister from 1948 to 1972 and President from 1972 to his death...
went into exile in China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
, where they joined the Communist Party of China
Communist Party of China
The Communist Party of China , also known as the Chinese Communist Party , is the founding and ruling political party of the People's Republic of China...
. In the early 1930s Chinese and Korean communists began guerrilla activity against the Japanese forces.
End of the Second World War
After the Second World War and the liberation from Japanese rule, the situation for the Korean communists changed considerably. The country was divided into US and SovietSoviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
occupation zones, and the working conditions for the party were very different in the two zones. In the US-occupied South, the Communist Party leader Pak Hon-yong, who had been a prisoner of the Japanese, and became active in Seoul
Seoul
Seoul , officially the Seoul Special City, is the capital and largest metropolis of South Korea. A megacity with a population of over 10 million, it is the largest city proper in the OECD developed world...
upon his release in 1945. He reorganized a Central Committee
Central Committee
Central Committee was the common designation of a standing administrative body of communist parties, analogous to a board of directors, whether ruling or non-ruling in the twentieth century and of the surviving, mostly Trotskyist, states in the early twenty first. In such party organizations the...
, of which he became the Secretary. Being based in Seoul, his group had limited contact with the Soviet occupation forces in the north.
The Soviet Red Army
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...
liberated northern Korea from the Japanese occupation in August 1945. At the time there were very few Communist cadres in the Soviet occupied zone. The practice of the Soviets in most countries it occupied after World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
was to rely on the domestic Communist Party to transform the occupied state into first a pro-Soviet and then a Soviet style socialist state but this was initially difficult in what became North Korea because of the lack of a strong domestic Communist presence. The Soviets began to rely largely on exiled Communists who returned to Korea at the end of World War II as well as ethnic Koreans who were part of the large Korean community in the USSR
Koryo-saram
Koryo-saram is the name which ethnic Koreans in the post-Soviet states use to refer to themselves. Approximately 500,000 ethnic Koreans reside in the former Soviet Union, primarily in the now-independent states of Central Asia. There are also large Korean communities in southern Russia , the...
and therefore Soviet citizens. Kim Il-sung became a prominent figure of the party in the northern areas. After his years as a guerilla leader, Kim Il-sung had moved to the Soviet Union and had become a Captain in the Red Army
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...
. His battalion arrived in Pyongyang
Pyongyang
Pyongyang is the capital of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, commonly known as North Korea, and the largest city in the country. Pyongyang is located on the Taedong River and, according to preliminary results from the 2008 population census, has a population of 3,255,388. The city was...
just as the Soviets were looking for a suitable person who could assume a leading role in North Korea.
On October 13, 1945 the North Korea Bureau of the Communist Party of Korea was established. Though technically under the control of the Seoul-based party leadership, the North Korean Bureau was had little contact with Seoul and worked closely with the Soviet forces (termed the Soviet Civilian Authority). The first chairman of the Bureau was Kim Yong-bom who had been sent to Korea by the Comintern
Comintern
The Communist International, abbreviated as Comintern, also known as the Third International, was an international communist organization initiated in Moscow during March 1919...
in the 1930s to conduct underground activity. Kim Il-sung was a member of the Bureau at its founding and replaced Kim Yong-bom as chairman in December, 1945. Official North Korean historians later disputed this, claiming that Kim Il-sung had become its chairman from the onset of the Bureau. Moreover, official North Korean sources claim that the meeting was held on October 10. October 10 is regarded as the 'Party Foundation Day' in North Korea, on which Kim Il-sung formed the first genuine Marxist-Leninist party in the country. Official North Korean historians tends seek to downplay the role of early communist leaders like Pak Hon-yong. Official North Korean sources claim that the name of the Bureau was changed to 'Organizational Committee of the Communist Party of North Korea' (often simply referred to as the 'Communist Party of North Korea').
On July 22, 1946, following a similar united front
United front
The united front is a form of struggle that may be pursued by revolutionaries. The basic theory of the united front tactic was first developed by the Comintern, an international communist organisation created by revolutionaries in the wake of the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution.According to the theses of...
formula that was implemented in Eastern Europe after the Second World War, the North Korea Bureau joined with the New People's Party
New People's Party
New People's Party may refer to:* Liberal People's Party , political party in Norway.* New People's Party , political party in Korea.* New People's Party , political party in Hong Kong....
, the Democratic Party
Korean Social Democratic Party
The Korean Social Democratic Party is a political party in North Korea, allied with the ruling Workers' Party of Korea. Initially a moderate social democratic party, it was formed on November 3, 1945, by medium and small entrepreneurs, merchants, handicraftsmen, petite bourgeoisie, peasants and...
and the Chondoist Chongu Party
Chondoist Chongu Party
The Chondoist Chongu Party is a united front party in North Korea and is labeled as democratic by the government of the country. The party was founded on February 5, 1946, by a group of followers of the Chondogyo religion...
(supporters of an influential religious movement) to form the North Korean Fatherland United Democratic Front
Democratic Front for the Reunification of the Fatherland
The Democratic Front for the Reunification of the Fatherland, formed on 22 July 1946, is a North Korean united front led by the Workers' Party of Korea. It was initially called the North Korean Fatherland United Democratic Front...
.
Formations of separate Workers parties
On July 29, 1946 the New People's Party and the North Korea Bureau held a joint plenumPlenary session
Plenary session is a term often used in conferences to define the part of the conference when all members of all parties are to attend.These sessions may contain a broad range of content from keynotes to panel discussions and are not necessarily related to a specific style of delivery.The term has...
of the Central Committee
Central Committee
Central Committee was the common designation of a standing administrative body of communist parties, analogous to a board of directors, whether ruling or non-ruling in the twentieth century and of the surviving, mostly Trotskyist, states in the early twenty first. In such party organizations the...
s of both parties and agreed to merge into a single entity. A founding conference of the Workers Party of North Korea
Workers Party of North Korea
The Workers Party of North Korea was a communist party in North Korea, a predecessor of the current Workers Party of Korea. It was founded at a congress on August 28–30, 1946, by the merger of the North Korea Bureau of the Communist Party of Korea and the New People's Party. Kim Tu-bong, the...
was held on August 28–30. Kim Tu-bong
Kim Tu-bong
Kim Tu-bong was a Korean linguist and politician. He formed the New People's Party. After the New People's Party merged into the Workers Party of North Korea in 1946, he became Chairman of the Workers Party. He was the first head of state of North Korea from 1948 to 1957...
, the leader of the New People's Party, was elected Chairman of the party. Vice Chairmen of the party were Chu Nyong-ha and Kim Il-sung
Kim Il-sung
Kim Il-sung was a Korean communist politician who led the Democratic People's Republic of Korea from its founding in 1948 until his death in 1994. He held the posts of Prime Minister from 1948 to 1972 and President from 1972 to his death...
. At the time of establishment, the party is believed to have had about 366 000 members organized in around 12,000 party cells.
The merger of the North Korea Bureau of the Communist Party of Korea and the New People's Party can be seen as analogous to similar mergers taking place in Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe is the eastern part of Europe. The term has widely disparate geopolitical, geographical, cultural and socioeconomic readings, which makes it highly context-dependent and even volatile, and there are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region"...
in the years following the Second World War, such as the formation of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany
Socialist Unity Party of Germany
The Socialist Unity Party of Germany was the governing party of the German Democratic Republic from its formation on 7 October 1949 until the elections of March 1990. The SED was a communist political party with a Marxist-Leninist ideology...
and the Hungarian Working People's Party. The merger of the two parties was not uncomplicated. Between the two there were differences in terms of social background of cadres and ideological profiles. The New People's Party had a significant following of intellectuals whereas the Communist Party was mainly based amongst workers and peasants. Moreover, the Korean communists had been riddled by internal differences, and different communist fractions were present in the new unified party. At the time of the founding of the new party discussions emerged on the role of Marxism-Leninism
Marxism-Leninism
Marxism–Leninism is a communist ideology, officially based upon the theories of Marxism and Vladimir Lenin, that promotes the development and creation of a international communist society through the leadership of a vanguard party over a revolutionary socialist state that represents a dictatorship...
as the ideological foundation of the party. At the inaugural congress of the party, Kim Il-sung stated that "…the Workers Party is a combat unit and the vanguard of the working masses. We must fight with our utmost to maintain the Party's purity, unity, and iron discipline. If we were to fight against the enemy without meeting these conditions within our ranks, it would be nothing less than folly.", arguing in favor of maintaining a Marxist-Leninist orientation.
The remainder of the Communist Party of Korea, still functioning in the southern areas, worked under the name of Communist Party of South Korea. The party merged with the New People's Party of South Korea and the fraction of the People's Party of Korea
People's Party of Korea
People's Party of Korea was a moderate left-wing political party created on November 12, 1945 by Lyuh Woon-Hyung. The People's Party did not claim to exclusively represent a particular class, instead it tried to represent the entire Korean people....
(the so-called forth-eighters), founding the Workers Party of South Korea
Workers Party of South Korea
The Workers Party of South Korea was a communist party in South Korea from 1946 to 1949. It was founded on November 23, 1946 through the merger of the Communist Party of South Korea, New People's Party of South Korea and a fraction of the People's Party of Korea...
on November 23, 1946.
The Workers Party of South Korea was outlawed by the U.S. occupation authorities, but the party organized a network of clandestine cells and was able to obtain a considerable following. It had around 360 000 party members. The clandestine trade union
Trade union
A trade union, trades union or labor union is an organization of workers that have banded together to achieve common goals such as better working conditions. The trade union, through its leadership, bargains with the employer on behalf of union members and negotiates labour contracts with...
movement, the All Korea Labor Union was connected to the party. In 1947 the party initiated armed guerrilla struggle. As the persecution of party intensified, large sections of the party leadership moved to Pyongyang
Pyongyang
Pyongyang is the capital of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, commonly known as North Korea, and the largest city in the country. Pyongyang is located on the Taedong River and, according to preliminary results from the 2008 population census, has a population of 3,255,388. The city was...
. The party was opposed to the formation of a South Korean state. In February–March 1948 it instigated general strike
General strike
A general strike is a strike action by a critical mass of the labour force in a city, region, or country. While a general strike can be for political goals, economic goals, or both, it tends to gain its momentum from the ideological or class sympathies of the participants...
s in opposition to the plans to create a separate South Korean state. On April 3, 1948 the party led a popular uprising on Jeju island, against the unilateral declaration of the foundation of the Republic of Korea. In the suppression of the revolt, thousands of islanders were killed (see Jeju massacre
Jeju massacre
The Jeju Uprising was a revolt on Jeju island off the south coast of the Korean Peninsula, beginning on April 3, 1948. Between 14,000 and 60,000 individuals were killed in fighting or execution between various fractions on the island...
).
Factional conflict
At the time there were four separate tendencies or factions in the Workers Party of North Korea.- The Soviet Koreans, led by Alexei Ivanovich HegayAlexei Ivanovich HegayAlexei Ivanovich Hegay was a Soviet political operative in North Korea and leader of the Soviet Korean faction within the early political structure of North Korea...
, were made up of waves of ethnic Koreans who were born or raised in Russia after their families moved there starting in the 1870s. Some of them had returned to Korea covertly as Communist operatives in the twenties and thirties but most were members of the Red ArmyRed ArmyThe Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...
or civilians who were stationed in North Korea following World War IIWorld War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. Many came as translators or as Russian language instructors. This grouping had played an important role in building up the party structure of the Communist Party in Pyongyang directly after the Second World War.
- The Domestic fraction, were Korean Communists who never left the country but engaged in a struggle against the Japanese occupation. Many members of the domestic faction had spent time in Japanese military prisons as a result of their activities. Prominent members of this fraction were O Ki-sop, Chong Tal-hyon, Yi Chu-ha, Chu Nyong-ha (Vice Chairman of the party), Kim Yong-bom, Pak Chong-ae, Chang Shi-u and Yi Chu-yon. This grouping was politically tied to the old leadership of the Communist Party of Korea based in SeoulSeoulSeoul , officially the Seoul Special City, is the capital and largest metropolis of South Korea. A megacity with a population of over 10 million, it is the largest city proper in the OECD developed world...
, at this point represented by the Workers Party of South Korea led by Pak Hon-yong.
- The Yanan faction, led first by Mu Chong and then by Kim Tu-bong and Choe Chang-ik, were those Korean exiles who had lived in China's ShaanxiShaanxi' is a province in the central part of Mainland China, and it includes portions of the Loess Plateau on the middle reaches of the Yellow River in addition to the Qinling Mountains across the southern part of this province...
province and joined the Communist Party of ChinaCommunist Party of ChinaThe Communist Party of China , also known as the Chinese Communist Party , is the founding and ruling political party of the People's Republic of China...
whose regional headquarters were at Yanan. They had formed their own party, the North-Chinese League for the Independence of Korea, and when they returned to North Korea from exile they formed the New People's Party. Many members of the Yanan faction had fought in the Chinese 8th and New 4th Armies and thus had close relations with Mao ZedongMao ZedongMao Zedong, also transliterated as Mao Tse-tung , and commonly referred to as Chairman Mao , was a Chinese Communist revolutionary, guerrilla warfare strategist, Marxist political philosopher, and leader of the Chinese Revolution...
.
- The Guerrilla faction, led by Kim Il-sung, was made up of former Korean guerillas who had been active in ManchuriaManchuriaManchuria is a historical name given to a large geographic region in northeast Asia. Depending on the definition of its extent, Manchuria usually falls entirely within the People's Republic of China, or is sometimes divided between China and Russia. The region is commonly referred to as Northeast...
after it was occupied by Japan in 1931. Many in this group ended up fleeing Manchuria, as their armed resistance was suppressed, and moved to the Soviet Union where many of them, including Kim, were drafted into the Red ArmyRed ArmyThe Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...
.
The factions were represented proportionately in the leading bodies of the WPNK. In the first politburo
Politburo
Politburo , literally "Political Bureau [of the Central Committee]," is the executive committee for a number of communist political parties.-Marxist-Leninist states:...
of the party the Soviet fraction had three members, the Yanan fraction had six, the domestic fraction had two and the guerrilla fraction had two. The guerrilla faction was actually the smallest of the fractions in the Central Committee
Central Committee
Central Committee was the common designation of a standing administrative body of communist parties, analogous to a board of directors, whether ruling or non-ruling in the twentieth century and of the surviving, mostly Trotskyist, states in the early twenty first. In such party organizations the...
but they had the advantage of having Kim Il-sung, who led the North Korean government and was highly influential within the party. Moreover, Kim Il-Sung was backed by the Soviet Union.
Founding of the WPK
On June 30, 1949 the Workers Party of North Korea and the Workers Party of South Korea merged, forming the Workers Party of Korea, at a congress in Pyongyang. Kim Il-sung became the party Chairman and Pak Hon-yong and Alexei Ivanovich Hegay became vice chairmen.The first five years of the WPK's rule were dominated by the Korean War
Korean War
The Korean War was a conventional war between South Korea, supported by the United Nations, and North Korea, supported by the People's Republic of China , with military material aid from the Soviet Union...
. By October 1950 United Nations
United Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...
forces had occupied most of the DPRK and the WPK leadership had to flee to China
People's Republic of China
China , officially the People's Republic of China , is the most populous country in the world, with over 1.3 billion citizens. Located in East Asia, the country covers approximately 9.6 million square kilometres...
. But in November, Chinese forces
People's Liberation Army
The People's Liberation Army is the unified military organization of all land, sea, strategic missile and air forces of the People's Republic of China. The PLA was established on August 1, 1927 — celebrated annually as "PLA Day" — as the military arm of the Communist Party of China...
entered the war and threw the U.N. forces back, retaking Pyongyang in December and Seoul in January 1951. In March U.N. forces retook Seoul, and the front was stabilised along what eventually became the permanent "Armistice Line" of 1953. The WPK was able to re-establish its rule north of this line.
Purges
In the early years of the party Kim Il-sung was the acknowledged leader, but he did not yet have absolute power since it was necessary to balance off the interests of the various factions. To eliminate any threats to his position, he first moved against individual leaders who were potential rivals. He drove from power Alexei Ivanovich Hegay (also known as Ho Ka-ai), leader of the Soviet faction, first demoting him during the Korean War in 1951 and then using him as a scapegoat for slow repairs of a water reservoir bombed by the Americans to drive him from power (and to an alleged suicide) in 1953. In part, it was possible for Kim to do this because the intervention of "Chinese People's Volunteers" in the war reduced the influence of both the USSR and the Soviet faction and allowed Kim Il-sung the room he needed to dispose of his main rival.Kim Il-sung also attacked the leadership of the Yanan faction. When the North Koreans were driven to the Chinese border, Kim Il-sung needed a scapegoat to explain the military disaster and blamed Mu Chong, a leader of the Yanan faction and also a leader of the North Korean military. Mu Chong and a number of other military leaders were expelled from the party and Mu was forced to return to China where he spent the rest of his life. Kim Il-sung also removed Pak Il U, the Minister of the Interior and reputedly the personal representative of Mao Zedong
Mao Zedong
Mao Zedong, also transliterated as Mao Tse-tung , and commonly referred to as Chairman Mao , was a Chinese Communist revolutionary, guerrilla warfare strategist, Marxist political philosopher, and leader of the Chinese Revolution...
.
The sacking of Hegay, Mu and Pak reduced the influence of the Chinese and Soviet factions, but Kim Il-sung could not yet launch an all out assault on these factions because he would risk the intervention of Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
and Beijing
Beijing
Beijing , also known as Peking , is the capital of the People's Republic of China and one of the most populous cities in the world, with a population of 19,612,368 as of 2010. The city is the country's political, cultural, and educational center, and home to the headquarters for most of China's...
when he was still dependent on their support.
As the Korean War
Korean War
The Korean War was a conventional war between South Korea, supported by the United Nations, and North Korea, supported by the People's Republic of China , with military material aid from the Soviet Union...
drew to a close, Kim Il-sung first moved against the Domestic faction. While the Soviet faction had the sponsorship of the Soviet Union and the Yanan faction was backed by China the Domestic faction had no external sponsor who would come to their aid and was therefore in the weakest position. With the end of the Korean War the usefulness of the Domestic faction in running guerilla and spy networks in South Korea came to an end. Former leaders of the Workers Party of South Korea were attacked at a December 1952 Central Committee meeting. In early 1953 rumours were spread that the "southerners" had been planning a coup. This led to the arrest and removal from power of Pak Hon-yong (who was foreign minister at the time) and Yi Sung Yopo the minister of "state control" who was charged with "spying on behalf of the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
".
In August 1953, following the signing of the armistice
Armistice
An armistice is a situation in a war where the warring parties agree to stop fighting. It is not necessarily the end of a war, but may be just a cessation of hostilities while an attempt is made to negotiate a lasting peace...
that suspended the Korean War, Yi and eleven other leaders of the domestic faction were subjected to a show trial
Show trial
The term show trial is a pejorative description of a type of highly public trial in which there is a strong connotation that the judicial authorities have already determined the guilt of the defendant. The actual trial has as its only goal to present the accusation and the verdict to the public as...
on charges of planning a military coup and sentenced to death. In 1955, Pak Hon Yong, the former leader of the WPSK and deputy chairman of the WPK, was put on trial on charges of having been a US agent since 1939, sabotage, assassination, and planning a coup. He was sentenced to death, although it is unclear if he was shot immediately or if his execution occurred some time in 1956.
The trials of Yi and Pak were accompanied by the arrest of other members and activists of the former WPSK with defendants being executed or sent to forced labour in the countryside. The domestic faction was virtually wiped out, though a few individual members who had personally allied themselves to Kim Il-sung remained in positions of influence for several more years.
Launching of Juche
Kim Il-sung advanced JucheJuche
Juche or Chuch'e is a Korean word usually translated as "self-reliance." In the Democratic People's Republic of Korea , "Juche" refers specifically to a political thesis of Kim Il-sung, the Juche Idea, that identifies the Korean masses as the masters of the country's development...
as a slogan in a December 28, 1955, speech titled "On Eliminating Dogmatism and Formalism and Establishing Juche in Ideological Work" in rejection of the policy of de-Stalinization
De-Stalinization
De-Stalinization refers to the process of eliminating the cult of personality, Stalinist political system and the Gulag labour-camp system created by Soviet leader Joseph Stalin. Stalin was succeeded by a collective leadership after his death in March 1953...
(bureaucratic self-reform) in the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
. The Juche Idea itself gradually emerged as a systematic ideological doctrine under the political pressures of the Sino-Soviet split
Sino-Soviet split
In political science, the term Sino–Soviet split denotes the worsening of political and ideologic relations between the People's Republic of China and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics during the Cold War...
in the 1960s. The word "Juche" also began to appear in untranslated form in English-language North Korean works from around 1965. Kim Il-sung outlined the three fundamental principles of Juche in his April 14, 1965, speech “On Socialist Construction and the South Korean Revolution in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea”. The principles are "independence in politics" (chaju), "self-sustenance in the economy" (charip) and "self-defense in national defense" (chawi).
WPK ideologists and speech writers began to openly use Maoist ideas, such as the concept of self-regeneration, in the 1950s and 1960s. Maoist theories of art also began to influence North Korean musical theater during this time. These developments occurred with the backdrop of the Sino-Soviet split
Sino-Soviet split
In political science, the term Sino–Soviet split denotes the worsening of political and ideologic relations between the People's Republic of China and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics during the Cold War...
. The postwar Kim Il-sung regime had also emulated Mao’s Great Leap Forward
Great Leap Forward
The Great Leap Forward of the People's Republic of China was an economic and social campaign of the Communist Party of China , reflected in planning decisions from 1958 to 1961, which aimed to use China's vast population to rapidly transform the country from an agrarian economy into a modern...
, his theory of the mass line
Mass line
The Mass Line is the political, organizational or leadership method developed by Mao Zedong and the Chinese Communist during the Chinese revolution...
and the guerrilla tradition. Juche, however, does not exactly share the Maoist faith in the peasantry over the working class and the village over the city.
In official North Korean histories, one of the first purported applications of Juche was the Five-Year Plan of 1956-1961, also known as the Chollima Movement
Chollima Movement
The Chollima Movement was a state-sponsored movement in North Korea, analogous to the Chinese Great Leap Forward, intended to promote rapid economic development. It was launched in 1956. North Korea intensified the work-harder campaign by launching the "three-revolution movement" in 1973...
, which led to the Chongsan-ri Method and the Taean Work System. The Five-Year Plan involved rapid economic development of North Korea, with a focus on heavy industry
Heavy industry
Heavy industry does not have a single fixed meaning as compared to light industry. It can mean production of products which are either heavy in weight or in the processes leading to their production. In general, it is a popular term used within the name of many Japanese and Korean firms, meaning...
, to ensure political independence from the Soviet Union and the Mao Zedong regime in China. The Chollima Movement, however, applied the same method of centralized state planning that began with the Soviet First Five-Year Plan
First Five-Year Plan
The First Five-Year Plan, or 1st Five-Year Plan, of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a list of economic goals that was designed to strengthen the country's economy between 1928 and 1932, making the nation both militarily and industrially self-sufficient. "We are fifty or a hundred...
in 1928. The campaign also coincided with and was partially based on Mao's First Five-Year Plan and the Great Leap Forward
Great Leap Forward
The Great Leap Forward of the People's Republic of China was an economic and social campaign of the Communist Party of China , reflected in planning decisions from 1958 to 1961, which aimed to use China's vast population to rapidly transform the country from an agrarian economy into a modern...
.
In 1972, Juche replaced Marxism-Leninism
Marxism-Leninism
Marxism–Leninism is a communist ideology, officially based upon the theories of Marxism and Vladimir Lenin, that promotes the development and creation of a international communist society through the leadership of a vanguard party over a revolutionary socialist state that represents a dictatorship...
in the revised North Korean constitution as the official state ideology, this being a response to the Sino-Soviet split
Sino-Soviet split
In political science, the term Sino–Soviet split denotes the worsening of political and ideologic relations between the People's Republic of China and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics during the Cold War...
. Juche was nonetheless defined as a creative application of Marxism-Leninism. Kim Il-sung also explained that Juche was not original to North Korea and that in formulating it he only laid stress on a programmatic orientation that is inherent to all Marxist-Leninist states.
Current North Korean leader Kim Jong-il
Kim Jong-il
Kim Jong-il, also written as Kim Jong Il, birth name Yuri Irsenovich Kim born 16 February 1941 or 16 February 1942 , is the Supreme Leader of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea...
officially authored the definitive statement on Juche in a 1982 document titled On the Juche Idea. After the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
, North Korea’s greatest economic benefactor, all reference to Marxism-Leninism was dropped in the revised 1998 constitution. But Marxist-Leninist phraseology remains in occasional use. Kim Jong-Il incorporated the Songun
Songun
Sŏn'gun, often spelled Songun, is North Korea's "Military First" policy, which prioritizes the Korean People's Army in the affairs of state and allocates national resources to the army first...
(army-first) policy into Juche in 1996.