power and the elite in north korea

Power and the Elite in North KoreaThis book explores how political power has shaped the elite and theirdevelopment in North Korea by examining changes of the elite, theirinteractions, an

Power and the Elite in North Korea

This book explores how political power has shaped the elite and their

development in North Korea by examining changes of the elite, their

interactions, and specific elite figures, based on the transformation of thepower structure and characteristics of the North Korean regime since August1945

As a socialist state where the party guides the state, the ruling core is theparty cadre in North Korea This book distinguishes the development of theNorth Korean power into five periods: power structuration of the Sovietforces (1945 to the late 1940s), socialist oligarchic power (late 1940s to mid-1950s), limited personal power (mid-1950s to late 1960s), personal power(late 1960s to mid-1970s) and patrimonial power (mid-1970s to the present)

In parallel with the power factor, it also analyses four distinct generations,sorted based on their birth cohort and each cohort’s shared experience in itsearly youth, to explain their political development

As an examination of the composition and internal dynamics of the NorthKorean elite, particularly those in the Korean Workers’ Party Central

Committee, this book will be of interest to students and scholars of NorthKorea and Asian politics

Jae-Cheon Lim is a professor at Korea University (Goryeo Daehakgyo),

South Korea His main research interests include North Korean politics and

inter-Korean relations He is the author of Kim Jong Il’s Leadership of North Korea (2009) and Leader Symbols and Personality Cult in North Korea: The Leader State (2015).

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58 Power and the Elite in North Korea

Paektu and Kanbu

Jae-Cheon Lim

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Power and the Elite in North Korea

Paektu and Kanbu

Jae-Cheon Lim

First published 2024

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British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN: 978-1-032-73184-1 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-1-032-73188-9 (pbk)

ISBN: 978-1-003-42713-1 (ebk)

DOI: 10.4324/9781003427131

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Generations of the North Korean Elite

Structure of the Book

Bibliography

2 The Power Structuration of the Soviet Forces: 1945 to Late 1940s

Soviet Policy in North Korea

Origins of the North Korean Elite

Founding of the Korean Workers’ Party

Founding of the Government

Founding of the Military

Technocrats

Summary

Bibliography

3 Socialist Oligarchic Power: Late 1940s to Mid-1950s

Kim Il Sung–Hŏ Ka-i Disputes

Purge of Pak Hŏn-yŏng and the Indigenous Group

Beginning of the Party’s Control over the Military

Policy Debates and Elite Changes After the Korean War

Summary

Bibliography

4 Limited Personal Power: Mid-1950s to Late 1960s

The August Factional Incident

The 1958 Purge in the Military

Summary

Bibliography

5 Personal Power: Late 1960s to Mid-1970s

The Kapsan Faction Incident

The Purge of Military Hardliners in 1969

The Beginning of the First Patrimonial Succession Summary

Bibliography

6 Patrimonial Power 1: Mid-1970s to Mid-1990s

Indoctrination of the Entire Society with Kimilsungism Establishment of the Monolithic Guidance System Pragmatic Economic Technocrats

Kim Jong Il’s Elite Policy

Summary

Bibliography

7 Patrimonial Power 2: Mid-1990s to Early 2010s

State Control by Cronies

A Purge in Socio-economic Crisis

Military-First Politics

The Second Patrimonial Succession

The North Korean Patrimonial Elite

Summary

Bibliography

8 Patrimonial Power 3: Early 2010s to The Present

The Power Transition

Purge of Chang Sŏng-t’aek

Rising Status of Military Industry Experts Gradual Generational Change

Summary

Bibliography

9 Conclusion

Index

2.1 The Leadership of the North Korean Bureau of the Korean

Communist Party, October 1945

2.2 The North Korean Workers’ Party Central Committee Leadership atthe Founding Congress, August 1946

2.3 Change of Party Representatives’ Social Class from the North

Korean Workers’ Party First Congress to its Second Congress

2.4 The North Korean Workers’ Party Central Committee Leadershipafter the Second Congress, March 1948

2.5 The Korean Workers’ Party Central Committee Leadership after theJune Founding Meeting, 1949

2.6 The Leadership of the Administrative Bureau of the Five NorthKorean Provinces, November 1945

2.7 The Leadership of the North Korean Provisional People’s

Committee, February 1946

2.8 The Leadership of the North Korean People’s Committee, February1947

2.9 The DPRK First Cabinet, September 1948

2.10 The Korean People’s Army Leadership Structure, February 19483.1 The Indigenous Group Members Officially Tried

4.1 The Korean Workers’ Party Leadership at the Third Congress, April1956

4.2 The Korean Workers’ Party Leadership at the Fourth Congress,September 1961

4.3 Former Guerrillas in the KWP Central Committee at the FourthCongress, September 1961

4.4 The Korean Workers’ Party Leadership at the Second Conference,October 1966

5.1 The Korean Workers’ Party Leadership at the Fifth Congress,November 1970

7.1 National Defense Commission Leadership, 1990–2016

7.2 Korean Workers’ Party Leadership Comparison between the SixthCongress (October 1980) and the Third Conference (September 2010)8.1 Party Leadership Change from the Third Conference (September2010) to the Fourth Conference (April 2012)

8.2 Party Leadership Change from the Fourth Conference (April 2012)

to the Seventh Congress (May 2016)

8.3 Party Leadership Change from the Third Conference (September2010) to the December 2019 Plenum of the Central Committee

8.4 Party Leadership Change from the December 2019 Central

Committee Plenum to the Eighth Congress (January 2021)

This book would not have been published without my courses taught at

Korea University Sejong Campus Course materials accumulated over thepast several years became the principal sources for the book Many peoplehelped me finish the book First, I would like to express deep gratitude to myresearch assistants Wonhee Jung, Junhee Lee, and Joo Hee Hwang, who

collected sources on the North Korean elite for me My appreciation alsoextends to my colleagues Ho-Yeol Yoo, Seong-Wook Nam, Balazs Szalontai,Yejoon Rim, and Tatiana Gabroussenko in Korean Unification, Diplomacyand Security Major Many thanks additionally go to my graduate students,including Sang Il Ryu, Sŭng-min Yu, Chu-ch’ŏn Kim, Hyewon Kim, Yu-hakChŏng, Y ŏng-sŏl Pak, Chong-bae Yi, Chŏng-ho O, Si-hyŏn Paek, Ch’ŏl-hyŏng Yim, Zion Kim, and Byung-nae Kim

Intellectual discussions with Eundak Kwon and Pil Ho Kim in Ohio werevery encouraging At Routledge, I would like to sincerely express my thanks

to Asian Studies publisher Stephanie Rogers This is my third work with her

I was very lucky to have her as publisher Asian Studies senior editorial

assistant Andrew Leach also deserves my appreciation for his assistance inthis publication Many thanks to Suba Ramya and Keith Povey as

copyeditors It was a pleasure to see my children—Taegyung and Sungjoo—growing while writing this book My wholehearted gratitude also goes to mywife Sun-Hee, who has looked after my children and supported me I verymuch miss my late parents This book is dedicated to them

North Korean Communist Party

Introduction

DOI: 10.4324/9781003427131-1

After the death of Kim Il Sung in July 1994, many outside watchers

anticipated that North Korea would collapse in the foreseeable future

Particularly when the North entered into a mass starvation period in the and late 1990s, the US government made a contingency plan to cope with apossible regime collapse in North Korea.1 However, contrary to much

mid-speculation, the Kim Jong Il regime sustained itself remarkably, despite thechronic economic difficulties of the post-Kim Il Sung era The former

Secretary of the Korean Workers’ Party (KWP), Hwang Chang-yŏp, was theonly top official from the regime to have defected to South Korea at the time.With the exception of Hwang’s exile, the power elites in North Korea weresolidly united around Kim Jong Il

Similar concerns, although less loudly expressed and more cautious,

emerged after the death of Kim Jong Il in December 2011, who left an

inexperienced successor, Kim Jong Un, who was only in his mid- or latetwenties at the time However, the regime demonstrated that Kim Jong Il’sdeath would not determine its future direction, and the power elites

implemented the young leader’s political succession smoothly, as if it hadbeen well planned before Kim senior’s death It is now more than 12 yearssince the death of Kim Jong Il, and the power elites in North Korea havesuccessfully upheld the authority of Kim Jong Un without being involved inany significant power struggle

How is it possible for the North Korean regime to maintain such firm

stability in the elite system? Why is it so uncommon, contrary to many expertpredictions, to hear about a political challenge or military coup against theleader in North Korea despite its long-term economic troubles? What are thereasons behind this leader–elite solidarity in internally and externally

unfavorable environments? The leader–elite relationship in North Korea hasbeen, and remains, one of the key factors in understanding the resilience ofthe regime This book examines these questions through a historical analysis

of the leader–elite relationships, considering two major factors—North

Korea’s political power and its elite class

This study examines the North Korean elites and their behaviors over thecourse of the development of political power in the country It may be thefirst attempt to focus entirely on the subject of the North Korean elites Thestudy pays particular attention to the development of ‘power structure andcharacteristics’ in the North Korean political system to understand the

formation and development of the elite, and seeks to explore how the

transformation of North Korea’s power structure and characteristics has

altered its elite system

Political Power

This study attempts to explain how political power has shaped the elites andtheir development in North Korea Specifically, it examines the historicaldevelopment of the elites and their interactions, based on the transformation

of power structure and characteristics in the regime since August 1945 whenthe Korean peninsula was divided into North and South Korea Here, ‘powerstructure’ refers to how political power is distributed among political actors.2This book distinguishes the development of the North Korean power

structure into four periods The first period is from August 1945 to the late

1940s, when the Soviet occupation forces structured political power in NorthKorea When the Soviet forces occupied North Korea at the end of WorldWar II, the country was in a state of anarchy, and several political groupscompeted for power during the state-building process These groups wereroughly divided into two—communist and nationalist Communists wereassembled into the North Korean Workers’ Party (NKWP) in August 1946under the guidance of the Soviet forces, while the nationalists were furtherdivided into two parties: Korean Democratic Party (KDP) and North KoreanYoung Friends’ Party (YFP) The former was organized in November 1945

by conservative and moderate nationalists, while the latter was formed inFebruary 1946 by indigenous religious organization Ch’ŏndogyo, originally

founded as Tonghak [Eastern Learning] by Ch’oe Che-u in 1860.

Under Soviet tutelage, the NKWP was able to dominate the political

system, while the two nationalist parties were dramatically weakened in ashort period When the North Korean regime was established in September

1948, the KDP and YFP were allowed to participate in the central

government It adopted a state system similar to a parliamentary one in whichthe legislative branch elected executive leaders The NKWP grew rapidlyafter it was changed to the KWP in June 1949 Until the late 1940s, the

regime maintained a nominal multi-party system in which political powerwas distributed, albeit unevenly, among multiple party actors In this firstperiod, it is difficult to say that North Korea was a socialist regime where acommunist party monopolized political power

The second period in the development of the power structure in NorthKorea is from the late 1940s to mid-1950s During this period, the politicalsystem became a socialist one in which political power was concentrated inthe KWP The KDP and YFP became its puppet parties, completely losingtheir identity as political parties In this period, the KWP as the single ruling

party monopolized policy decision-making There were four communist

factions within the KWP that shared political power at the time—the

indigenous, the Soviet Korean, the Yanan, and the guerrilla groups The

indigenous group (I) included the activists who conducted underground

communist activities within Korea during the Japanese colonial era, while theSoviet Koreans (S) were the members of the Soviet Communist Party whocame to North Korea to assist Soviet occupation forces in the post-liberationperiod The Yanan group (Y) was composed of returning Korean communistswho were involved in anti-Japanese activities near Chinese Yanan and hadrelationships with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leadership Lastly,the guerrilla faction (G) included former guerrilla fighters and their civilianassociates The former guerrilla fighters were those who had been involved inguerrilla warfare under the CCP’s guidance in Manchuria in the 1930s, andsome members of this group were non-guerrillas with a communist careerwithin Korea during the colonial era Kim Il Sung was the leader of this

guerrilla group By the late 1940s, with the country under the control of theKWP, these four groups shared political power, meaning that the KWP wasoligarchic in power structure This oligarchic power structure remained untilthe mid-1950s The specific elite members of each KWP faction will be

explored in detail in Chapter 2 During this oligarchic period, the Korean Warbegan and the power struggle among the four KWP factions intensified

Specific cases of the power struggle will be examined in Chapter 3

The third period, which concerns the change of power structure in NorthKorea, lasted from the mid-1950s to the late 1960s In August 1956, Kim andhis rivals were engaged in a direct power clash, ultimately leading to thevictory of Kim and his guerrilla faction Kim Il Sung’s rival groups werevirtually eliminated by the late 1950s, and the power structure of the NorthKorean political system became ‘personal’ from then on However, this

period of personal rule was similar to what Myron Rush described as a

‘limited’ personal rule Rush outlined the main features of limited personalrule as the following:

… … In the central arena of political struggle during periods of

limited personal rule, the ruler is dominant but not absolute He may

have to consult with the politburo, particularly when proposing majorpolicy innovations He may be opposed on particular questions by

individuals or ad hoc factions, and this opposition may bring about

substantial modification of his proposals before their final adoption oreven, on occasion, outright rejection Such opposition is permitted and isnot in itself considered a challenge to his position as ruler An individualwho goes too far in opposition can, however, be removed from the

politburo by the leader, …, the limited ruler frequently shifts his

subordinates from position to position in order to preserve their sense ofdependence on him and to prevent them from forming “family circles”which might become foci of resistance to his will.3

In this third period, Kim Il Sung was able to establish his personal power,disrupting the oligarchic power structure in the KWP However, his powerwas not yet absolute because there were oppositional elements within theparty The elite relations during this third period will be explored in Chapter

4

The fourth period of North Korea’s power structure development began inthe late 1960s with Kim Il Sung’s deposition of oppositional elements fromthe KWP in 1967, and continued until the mid-1970s when the regime beganits first political succession from Kim Il Sung to Kim Jong Il By the late1960s, the divisions that had existed in the party since the guerrilla group’svictory over the other factions in the mid-1950s led to the purge of the non-

guerilla members During this period, North Korean political power becamecompletely ‘personal’ as Kim Il Sung established his absolute power over theparty His power leveled most opposition in the political arena During thisperiod the personality cult of Kim Il Sung that had begun in the post-

liberation period by the Soviet forces expanded to include his family

members.4 The power structure of the North Korean system has remained apersonal one up to the present

In this fourth period, Kim Il Sung’s younger brother Kim Yŏng-ju emerged

as a potential political successor A primary reason for power struggles in thisperiod was related to the power elites’ check on Kim Yŏng-ju who, however,abruptly retired from politics in the early 1970s for health reasons In hisabsence, Kim Il Sung’s wife Kim Sŏng-ae and his eldest son Kim Jong Ilcontended for future power, resulting in the latter’s victory with support fromthe former guerrillas who dominated North Korean politics This period will

be addressed in Chapter 5

The fifth period of development began in the mid-1970s and continues tothe present In this period, the power structure has not altered, remaining apersonal one However, the characteristic feature of North Korean politicalpower was transformed from a non-patrimonial to a patrimonial one, passingthrough two patrimonial successions—from Kim Il Sung to Kim Jong Il, andagain from Kim Jong Il to Kim Jong Un Kim Il Sung’s selection of KimJong Il as a political successor was a critical juncture after which the powerbecame hereditary in the North This patrimonial power characteristic wasstrengthened when Kim Jong Il’s son Jong Un took over leadership positionsafter his father’s death in December 2011 Since Kim Jong Il’s designation assuccessor in the mid-1970s, one of the most widely articulated symbols forthe patrimonial power in North Korea has been the Paektu (or Paekdu), thehighest mountain in the Korean peninsula In North Korean propaganda, this

first image of Paektu as the highest mountain is combined with its other

images such as Kim Il Sung’s alleged guerrilla war theater during the colonialera, Kim Jong Il’s alleged birthplace, and the mythical origin of the Koreannation in the Tan’gun myth In the propaganda, the ‘Paektu bloodline’ hasbecome synonymous with the Kim Il Sung family and its descendants inNorth Korean society, representing the greatest political influence of the Kimfamily in the country, which also directly relates to its patrimonial power.5This fifth patrimonial power period is again sub-divided into three phases

in this book The first patrimonial phase is from the mid-1970s when the Kim

Il Sung–Kim Jong Il succession process began to the mid-1990s with thedeath of Kim Il Sung in July 1994 This phase is addressed in Chapter 6 Thesecond patrimonial phase, which is covered in Chapter 7, includes the whole

of Kim Jong Il’s regime from the mid-1990s to his death in 2011 The thirdphase, dealt with in Chapter 8, is the Kim Jong Un era from the early 2010s

to the present early 2020s

Generations of the North Korean Elite

In parallel to the power factor, this study also gives attention to the

generations of the elite in North Korea to explain its political development

To be clear, North Koreans do not use the term ‘elite’ because the word

carries negative connotations of a ruling class that exploits the masses

Instead, they use a North Korean term, kanbu,6 which can be translated as

‘cadre.’ In North Korean society, the cadre refers to those “who are

responsible for the party, the state, and social organizations,” “nuclei andleading figures who implement the party policy,” and those “who educate themasses.”7 There are several types of cadre—party cadre, state cadre, andmass organization cadre As a socialist state where the party guides the state,the ruling core in North Korea is the party cadre This study focuses on high-

level cadres in the party, particularly those in the KWP Central Committee(CC), which is similar to C Wright Mills’ understanding of the ‘power elite’

as individuals who “are in the command of the major hierarchies and

organizations” and “run the machinery of the state.”8

The cadre is an upper echelon of party members who mostly belong to the

‘core class.’ The core class is one of the three North Korean social classes:core, basic, and complex Its members are composed of anti-Japanese

activists and their families, Korean War veterans and their families, socialheroes and heroines from the building of the socialist economy, and otherloyal elements that the KWP can rely on This core class is likely to be

identified with KWP membership, although there is a possibility that theother classes can be given an opportunity to rise socially under certain

conditions On the other hand, the ‘basic class,’ whose members can be

considered potentially opportunistic by the party, includes most ordinaryworkers and peasants The ‘complex class’ includes the families of previouslandlords and businessmen, previous pro-Japanese collaborators, religiouspeople, South Korean prisoners of the Korean War, the purged politically, thepeople whose family members went to South Korea or came from Japan inthe post-liberation period, and those who are potentially considered hostile.The classification of the entire North Korean population into groups

according to their political reliability is known to have been implementedthrough the KWP CC’s intensive guidance from late 1958 to late 1960 in thesocial context of a widespread political purge known as the ‘August FactionalIncident’ in 1956, and the enforced collectivization of agricultural farms inmid-1958, in order to step up social control The North Korean authoritiesagain screened all residents to sift out impure elements in 1966–1967 in theprocess of militarization through the ‘four-military lines’ adopted in 1962.After another screening from 1967 to 1970, the authorities established a

social class system based on the three main classes described above, witheach class divided into some sub-classes.9 The three-class classification

appears to have been maintained since then, although it has been elaboratedand the number of its sub-classes has varied

The word ‘generation’ can be employed to mean several things For

example, Duane F Alwin and Ryan J McCammon classify the meanings ofgeneration into three types.10 The first is ‘generation as kinship,’ which isdefined as the “natural line of descent from a common ancestor” such aschildren, parents, grandparents, great grandparents, etc The second type is

‘generation as cohort’ in which individuals are categorized on their birthcohort The third classification is ‘generation as historical participation,’shaped according to “the participation of individuals in the social and

historical process at a given point in time.”11 This study employs the term

‘generation’ to mean the second type in Alwin and McCammon’s

classification to explicate the North Korean elite’s generational development

On the premise of the cohort effect that “a distinctive formative experiencethat members of a birth cohort (or set of birth cohorts) share that lasts—andindelibly marks them for the remainder of their lives,”12 the study here

groups the North Korean elite into four distinct generations In analyzingthem, it also considers social events that each generation experiences duringits early youth, believing that they are “assumed to exert an important, evendecisive, influence on the later attitudes and actions of its members.”13

Here, the four North Korean generations are sorted based on their birthcohort and each cohort’s shared experience in its early youth The first-

generation elite refers to the people who were born before the mid-1920s andwere involved in party- and state-building in North Korea during the post-liberation era Some were born and spent their early youth before the

Japanese colonial era, and some were born before the colonial era and spent

their early youth during the colonial era, while others were born and spenttheir early youth during the colonial era Most of them were pro-communistideologically and some were radical nationalists Many became pro-

communist only after the liberation from Japan Some were anti-Japaneseactivists during the colonial era The first generation had diverse social

backgrounds In terms of family background, for example, most were frompeasant families, but some were working class, while others came from thelandlord class In terms of career background, some were engaged in anti-Japanese activity in China, Japan, or colonized Korea Others came to NorthKorea from the Soviet Union with the Soviet occupation forces As regardstheir educational background, some were well educated, but most of themwere barely educated This first generation was the key political actor untilthe 1970s in the Kim Il Sung regime The mainstream of the first-generationelite was the guerrilla faction whose leader was Kim Il Sung

The second-generation elite were composed of those who were born

between the mid-1920s and mid-1940s Some were born and spent their earlyyouth during the Japanese colonial era and others were born during the

colonial era and spent their early youth after the liberation The social eventsthat this generation experienced were diverse This generation spent theiryouth in a series of sociopolitical vortices like the national liberation in 1945,the Korean War in 1950–1953, and the Ch’ŏllima Movement, the socialistmass mobilization campaign in the late 1950s Kim Jong Il belongs to thisgeneration Like the first generation, the second generation was very

ideological, advocating communism, but, unlike the first, this generationwere well educated under the communist education system in North Korea.Many of them studied abroad in the Soviet Union or Eastern European

countries during the 1950s and 1960s Most of them were Kimilsungists (orKimists), extremely loyal to Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il Unlike the first

generation, some of whom were ambitious enough to challenge the highestauthority, Kim Il Sung himself, the second-generation elite was mostly

technocratic This generation became an important political actor in the

1970s, particularly when Kim Il Sung began to prepare for his political

succession to Kim Jong Il Its members became key supporters of Kim JongIl’s authority in the 1980s and 1990s as well as during the entire period of theKim Jong Il regime They also acted as key guardians for Kim Jong Un in thepost-Kim Jong Il era

The third-generation elite includes the North Koreans who were born

between the late 1940s and early 1970s and rose to elite circles They spenttheir early youth in the socialist North Korean society Like the second

generation, this generation was also well educated Some went to the SovietUnion, China, and Eastern European countries to study, while others wereraised solely within North Korea The members of the third generation were

systematically indoctrinated with the state’s ruling ideology of chuch’e that

had been developed since the mid-1950s They were also raised in the socialatmosphere of the extreme Kim family cult, including those of Kim Il Sung,Kim Jong Il, and their family members Like the second generation, theywere loyal Kimists and raised to become technocrats in support of the

patrimonial power During their period of growing up, North Korean societywas relatively stagnant internally and isolated externally They emerged tofill key power posts in the Kim Jong Un regime

The fourth-generation elite consists of those who were born between themid-1970s and early 1990s This generation is similar to the second in thatboth went through a series of social upheavals in their youth, including eventslike the collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989 followed by the downfall of theSoviet Union in 1991, Kim Il Sung’s death in 1994, the collapse of the

socialist North Korean economy and the mass starvation that followed in the

mid- to late 1990s, and the first inter-Korean summit between Kim Dae Jungand Kim Jong Il in 2000 However, unlike the second generation who werevery optimistic about socialism, the fourth generation lost much of the

conviction of such optimism They assumed a more pragmatic and less

ideological outlook than the previous three generations This generation’spragmatic orientation is mainly caused by internal reasons, such as the

collapse of the socialist North Korean economy and the long-term faminefrom the mid-1990s Markets that dramatically spread into the entire NorthKorean society and replaced the state-directed food distribution system

during the famine have also strengthened the fourth generation’s pragmaticattitudes The present North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and his sister KimYŏ-jŏng belong to this generation

This study examines these elites, including their emergence in politics,involvement in policy activity and change, based on the development ofpolitical power It uses the membership of the KWP CC to select specifichigh-level elite figures because most influential figures in North Koreanpolitics belong to this committee

Structure of the Book

As noted above, this book aims to analyze the development of the NorthKorean elite along with its power structure and characteristics Each chapterfrom Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapter 7 and

Chapter 8 is divided according to the changes in the regime’s power structureand characteristics

Chapter 2 ‘The Power Structuration of Soviet Forces,’ will explore Sovietpolicy in North Korea and the origins of the North Korean elite by examiningparty and governmental organizations, and main elite figures from August

1945 to the late 1940s The Soviet occupation forces guided the creation of

the North Korean state from 1945 to 1948, recruiting and educating elitefigures for a new regime The Soviet forces began to organize a semi-centralgovernment, known as the North Korean Provisional People’s Committee(NKPPC), in 1946 in which both communists and nationalists participated.Several political parties—communist NKWP (KWP in 1949), conservativenationalist KDP, and radical nationalist YFP—sprang up, competing forpower during this period They participated in the founding of the centralgovernment in 1948 The Soviet forces chose Kim Il Sung as the leader ofNorth Korea and behind the scenes structured the political power, centering

on the NKWP, although the power structure in this period ostensibly lookedlike a multi-party one This chapter will address the Soviet policy, the mainelite figures in the parties and the government, and their interactions in thenew state

Chapter 3 ‘Socialist Oligarchic Power,’ will look at elite figures and theirinteractions by considering the power structure of the KWP from the late1940s to the mid-1950s Before the Korean War, the nominal multi-partystructure had already collapsed into a socialist one-party structure in whichthe KWP dominated the North Korean political system, and the other partieswere relegated to stooges for the communist party In this period, the powerstructure of the KWP was oligarchic in the sense that the indigenous, theSoviet Korean, the Yanan, and the guerrilla factions shared political powerwithin the party Power struggles among these factions began and intensifiedduring the Korean War This chapter will examine the development of theKWP, power struggle cases, elite debates, and the specific elite figures

concerned

Chapter 4 ‘Limited Personal Power,’ will deal with elite issues from themid-1950s to the late 1960s Power struggles that had been continuous in theoligarchic power structure culminated in the August Factional Incident in

1956 in which the guerrilla faction was successful in winning over the others.With this faction dominating the political system, Kim Il Sung was able toestablish his own, albeit limited, personal rule The political purge of the mid-1950s within the party spread through the whole of society through the state’sinspections of most social members, weeding out anti-Kim elements in themilitary in the late 1950s By the early 1960s, North Korea had become a

‘guerrilla state’ in which Kim Il Sung and his former guerrillas determinedthe regime’s policy-making This chapter will explain the August FactionalIncident and its social impact, and the main elite figures and their roles afterthe incident under Kim Il Sung’s limited personal power

Chapter 5 ‘Personal Power,’ will examine the main elite figures and theirinteractions from the late 1960s to the mid-1970s After the guerrilla factionacquired hegemony in politics, internal struggles between former guerrillasand non-guerillas in the late 1960s ended in the former’s victory The latterwere purged in 1967 in what has been called the ‘Kapsan Faction Incident’because most of the purged were former members of the Kapsan OperationCommittee and their allies The incident was partially related to competitionfor power succession between the Kapsan group and Kim Yŏng-ju A purge

of a military faction in 1969 was also instigated by this competition Politicalsuccession was one of the primary factors that caused dramatic change in theelite system during this period, with Kim Yŏng-ju first emerging as a

potential successor in the mid-1960s However, Kim Yŏng-ju himself

abruptly retired from politics in the early 1970s due to health problems In hisabsence, Kim Il Sung’s second wife, Kim Sŏng-ae, and Kim Jong Il

competed for the successor status, ultimately leading to the latter’s victory inthe mid-1970s owing to the support of former guerrillas This chapter willprovide details about the Kapsan Faction Incident in 1967, the purge of amilitary faction in 1969, Kim Yŏng-ju’s political rise and fall, the

competition between Kim Sŏng-ae and Kim Jong Il, and other elite issues inthe personal power structure.

Chapter 6 ‘Patrimonial Power 1,’ will analyze the development of the

North Korean elite system from the mid-1970s to the mid-1990s Since thebeginning of the first father-to-son succession, North Korean political powerhad become increasingly patrimonial In this period, the elite system

remained very stable without a large-scale purge While the Kim Il Sung–Kim Jong Il succession was under way, the second-generation elite emergedinto the political center in the 1970s, providing support for the successor’sauthority Gradually replacing the first-generation elite, the second generationoccupied most high-ranking posts in the party and government before Kim IlSung’s death in 1994 This chapter will address the elite figures and theirchanges in the process of the first patrimonial succession

Chapter 7 ‘Patrimonial Power 2,’ will observe the Kim Jong Il regime tounderstand its elites and their changes from the mid-1990s to the early 2010s.After the death of Kim Il Sung, North Korea fell into an economic crisis Tocope with the crisis, Kim Jong Il assumed a ‘military-first strategy,’

mobilizing the military for regime stability The military’s status grew underthis strategy in the post-Kim Il Sung era This chapter will examine the mainelite figures under the military-first strategy There was also a social purge inthe late 1990s during the post-Kim Il Sung era Another factor affecting theregime’s elite policy in this period was the second patrimonial successionfrom Kim Jong Il to Kim Jong Un, fully fledged in the late 2000s Kim Jong

Il appeared to employ descendants of former high-ranking officials to

implement the second patrimonial succession, which is dubbed ‘patrimonialelite’ in this study The second father-to-son succession strengthened thepatrimonial characteristic of the regime’s power This chapter will discuss thesocial purge in the post-Kim Il Sung era, the military-first strategy, and the

succession policy to examine main elite figures and other elite issues in theKim Jong Il regime.

Chapter 8 ‘Patrimonial Power 3,’ will study elites and their changes in theKim Jong Un regime from the early 2010s to the present early 2020s SinceKim Jong Un assumed leadership positions in the post-Kim Jong Il era, thethird-generation elites have gradually replaced the second-generation elitesover time The political purge continued against some of the elites under KimJong Un, as shown in the case of his uncle-in-law Chang Sŏng-t’aek in 2013.Revising his father’s military-first strategy, Kim Jong Un adopted the dualdevelopment strategy of economic and nuclear power This is a new defensestrategy in which the state injects considerable financial resources to developnuclear and missile capabilities rather than conventional ones The

economic–nuclear dual development strategy heightened the political status

of technocrats in the nuclear and missile technology sectors during the KimJong Un regime This chapter will examine elite issues such as the gradualgeneration change, the political purge of Chang, and elite policy in the post-Kim Jong Il era

and the failure to control nuclear weapons considered], Voice of

America, April 24, 2020,

https://www.voakorea.com/korea/korea-politics/north-korea-contingency-plan (accessed August 20, 2020)

2 Kenneth N Waltz, Theory of International Politics (New York:

McGraw-Hill, Inc., 1979), pp 79–101.

3 Myron Rush, How Communist States Change Their Rulers (Ithaca, NY:

Cornell University Press, 1974), p 15

4 Jae-Cheon Lim, Leader Symbols and Personality Cult in North Korea: The Leader State (London: Routledge, 2015), pp 21–25.

5 Ibid., p 44

6 Hyŏn Sŏng-il, Pukhan ŭi kukka chŏllyak kwa p’awŏ ellit’ŭ: Kanbu

chŏngch’aek ŭl chungsim ŭro [North Korea’s national strategy and

power elite: Focusing on its cadre policy] (Seoul: Sŏnin, 2007), pp 18–20

7 Chosŏn mal tae-sajŏn [Korean language dictionary], vol 1 (Pyongyang:

Sahoe kwahak ch’ulp’ansa, 1992), p 64

8 C Wright Mills, The Power Elite (London: Oxford University Press,

1975), p 4

9 2009 Pukhan kaeyo [An excerpt of North Korea in 2009] (Seoul:

T’ongil yŏn’guwŏn, 2009), pp 330–332 The four military lines

attempted to achieve four goals: arming the entire population, fortifyingthe entire country, training soldiers to be cadres, and modernizing thearmy

10 Duane F Alwin and Ryan J McCammon, “Rethinking Generations,”

Research in Human Development, vol 4, issue 3–4 (2007), pp 219–237.

11 Ibid., pp 221 and 229

12 Ibid., p 226

13 Howard Schuman and Jacqueline Scott, “Generations and Collective

Memories,” American Sociological Review, vol 54 (June 1989), pp.

359–360

Bibliography

2009 Pukhan kaeyo [An excerpt of North Korea in 2009] (2009) Seoul:

T’ongil yŏn’guwŏn

Alwin, Duane F and Ryan J McCammon (2007) “Rethinking Generations”

Research in Human Development, vol 4, issue 3–4, pp 219–237.

Chosŏn mal tae-sajŏn [Korean language dictionary], vol 1 (1992).

Pyongyang: Sahoe kwahak ch’ulp’ansa

Hyŏn Sŏng-il (2007) Pukhan ŭi kukka chŏllyak kwa p’awŏ ellit’ŭ: Kanbu chŏngch’aek ŭl chungsim ŭro [North Korea’s national strategy and power

elite: Focusing on its cadre policy] Seoul: Sŏnin

Lim, Jae-Cheon (2015) Leader Symbols and Personality Cult in North

Korea: The Leader State London: Routledge.

Mills, C Wright (1975) The Power Elite London: Oxford University Press.

Paek Sŏng-wŏn (2020) “Chŏn Paekakkwan kwalli ‘Miguk, Pukhan kŭppyŏnsat’ae chang-gigan taebi… K’udet’a-haengmugi yuch’ul tŭng yŏrŏ sinario”[A former White House official, ‘U.S lays out a long-term contingencyplan for North Korea… Several scenarios such as a coup and failure to

control nuclear weapons considered] Voice of America, April 24:

plan (accessed August 20, 2020)

https://www.voakorea.com/korea/korea-politics/north-korea-contingency-Rush, Myron (1974) How Communist States Change Their Rulers Ithaca,

NY: Cornell University Press

Schuman, Howard and Jacqueline Scott (1989) “Generations and Collective

Memories” American Sociological Review, vol 54, pp 359–381.

Waltz, Kenneth N (1979) Theory of International Politics New York:

McGraw-Hill, Inc

When Japan abruptly surrendered to the Allies in World War II on August

15, 1945, the Korean peninsula that had been colonized by Japan since 1910quite literally turned into anarchy The power vacuum in Korea created byJapan’s sudden surrender was soon filled by the US and the Soviet Union,with the Soviet forces occupying the northern part of Korea above the 38thparallel line, while the American forces administered its southern part In thisstate of anarchy, the Soviet Union was able to direct state-building and

structure political power in North Korea on its own terms

Soviet Policy in North Korea

After the Soviet Union declared war on Japan on August 8, 1945, Sovietforces on the Far Eastern Front invaded Manchuria to disarm the Japanesearmy, and the Soviet 25th Army under the command of General Ivan M.Chistiakov advanced further into Korea to take on the Japanese The Sovietstook up the US proposal to occupy the northern part of Korea above the 38thparallel line The 25th Army was able to enter Pyongyang by August 25 andcontinued its presence in the North until late December 1948

While the Soviet authorities occupied North Korea, they determined thecourse of North Korea’s development in the post-liberation era Immediatelyafter entering the North, the Soviets established garrison bases in six

provinces, seven cities, and 85 counties, establishing social order, economicrehabilitation, and supplies for the Soviet forces In addition, to engage incivilian affairs, they introduced the position of deputy commander for civiladministration in late November 1945 Major General Andrei A Romanenkofilled this position and handled most civilian affairs shortly after the

occupation The post was transformed into the head of the Soviet Civil

Administration in North Korea in 1947 Romanenko assumed this role andColonel Alexandre M Ignatiev was appointed deputy head of political affairs

to assist him According to a Soviet source, the Soviet Civil Administrationwas composed of 13 bureaucratic sections and 78 personnel engaged in

developing political parties and governmental organizations, implementingsocio-economic reforms, and making contacts with North Korean

politicians.1 Of Chistiakov, Romanenko, and Ignatiev, the latter two wereparticularly active in North Korean state-building during the occupation

Soviet Maritime Province in late August 1945 before traveling to Pyongyang

to arrange the first meeting between the nationalist Cho Man-sik and Kim Il

Sung at a Pyongyang restaurant on September 30, 1945.2 Balasanov andShabshin, who belonged to the Soviet intelligence services,3 worked as

political advisors for Soviet generals in North Korea Balasanov, who used towork in Japan, became a senior advisor, while Shabshin, who had worked asdeputy consul at the Soviet consulate in Seoul, did not move to Pyongyanguntil 1946.4

In addition, at the head of these Soviet masterminds in North Korea wasLieutenant General Terentii F Shtykov, who was a member of the MilitaryCouncil (political commissar) of the Far Eastern Military District Loyal toJoseph Stalin and Andrei Zhdanov, Shtykov had direct access to the topleaders of the Soviet Union.5 According to Mekler, it was Shtykov who

ordered him to meet with Kim Il Sung and several other Korean guerrillas atKhabarovsk in late August 1945 and who made him go to Pyongyang ahead

of Kim Il Sung on September 22 to pave the way for Kim Mekler reporteddirectly to Shtykov a plan for Kim Il Sung’s political activity in the North,and his reports were sometimes delivered down to the 25th Army

headquarters for implementation.6 Lebedev also recalled that, two or threedays after he arrived in Pyongyang in late August 1945, he received

instructions from Shtykov that he should provide Kim Il Sung with a

residence, a car, and other supplies when Kim entered Pyongyang.7 Behindthe scenes, he appears to have been involved in most North Korean state-building affairs between 1945 and 1948.8 According to Andrei Lankov,

Shtykov was “the real supreme ruler of North Korea” and “the principalsupervisor of both the Soviet military and the local authorities.”9

Although it is not clear why Shtykov chose Kim Il Sung as the North

Korean leader, Kim recalled in his memoirs that he had often contacted thecommander of the First Far Eastern Front, Marshal K A Meretskov, and itspolitical commissar Shtykov when he lived in the Soviet Maritime Province,

and that he had an alleged interview with Zhdanov (and Shtykov) in Moscow

in the summer of 1945, before Japan surrendered.10 Kim’s relationships withShtykov and Meretskov must have been critical for his future career in theliberated North Korea After the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea(DPRK) was established in September 1948, Shtykov served as the first

Soviet ambassador, while Ignatiev became his advisor Shtykov appears tohave been the person who planned to install Kim Il Sung as a political leaderimmediately after the Soviet forces occupied the North and who played a keyrole in selecting him as the North Korean leader during the occupation

Examining the role of the Soviet occupation forces in shaping North

Korean leadership between 1945 and 1948, we can further divide this periodinto three The first is from late August 1945 to early January 1946 whenSoviet officers were aware of the popularity of the nationalist Cho Man-sikamong the North Korean people and thus utilized Cho without bringing

communists like Kim Il Sung to the fore until the communists grew

sufficiently to be a major force in the North At the time, the North Koreancommunists were directed to cooperate with nationalists.11 In late September

1945, Stalin himself ordered the officers not to establish a Soviet regime inNorth Korea, but instead to build up a bourgeois democracy along the

alliance of all anti-Japanese forces.12 On this principle of

nationalist-communist alliance, they established the first central administration, called

Puk-Chosŏn 5-do haengjŏngguk [Administrative Bureau of the Five North

Korean Provinces] on November 19, 1945

Along with the nationalist-communist alliance, Soviet officers undertookmeasures to strengthen communist forces by creating a political party in the

North The outcome was the establishment of Chosŏn kongsandang pukbu Chosŏn pun’guk [North Korean Bureau of the Korean Communist Party

(KCP)] in October 1945 Immediately after liberation, the indigenous group’s

leader Pak Hŏn-yŏng had already revived the KCP in Seoul in September

1945 The KCP had briefly existed in Korea from 1925 to 1928 Under the

‘one party in one country’ principle of the Communist International

(Comintern), North Korean communists had to be content with the KCP

North Korean Bureau in Pyongyang According to Romanenko’s

recollection, Kim Il Sung played a role of negotiating with Pak to establishthe North Korean Bureau13 and became its leading secretary later in

December 1945 The bureau was called the North Korean Communist Party(NKCP) by early 1946

However, the nationalist-communist alliance collapsed after the MoscowConference of Foreign Ministers on December 16–26, 1945, when the

foreign ministers of the US, the UK, and the Soviet Union agreed on a

trusteeship over Korea for up to five years Nationalists and communists alike

in both North and South Korea initially opposed the agreement, demandingimmediate independence Yet, under Soviet guidance the communists soonmoved to a pro-trusteeship position, leading to the collapse of the alliance.The nationalist Cho Man-sik’s opposition to trusteeship was particularlycritical and his non-cooperation with the Soviets led to his detention at KoryŏHotel in Pyongyang from January 5, 1946.14 This spelled the end of the firstperiod of the nationalist-communist alliance

The second period dates from early January to late July 1946 After theSoviet forces detained Cho at Koryŏ Hotel, they began to position Kim IlSung at the top of the newly established executive organization When theAdministrative Bureau of the Five North Korean Provinces became the

NKPPC in February 1946, Kim Il Sung was appointed as its head This

NKPPC can be considered as the inception of the North Korean executivebranch in the government that was later to be established in September 1948.Under Soviet guidance, in March 1946, the NKPPC implemented a land

reform program, a turning point of the broadening political base for Kim IlSung who had become the new leader just a month earlier.

The third period begins in late July 1946 when Stalin interviewed Kim IlSung and Pak Hŏn-yŏng at the Kremlin Since reviving the KCP in

September 1945, Pak had been the leader of the Korean communist

movement in Korea The Soviet forces brought Kim and Pak together toStalin for an interview According to Lebedev, Shtykov, Romanenko,

Shabshin, Kim Il Sung’s secretary Mun Il, and Pak’s secretary (unknown)attended this secret meeting, along with Kim Il Sung and Pak Hŏn-yŏng Atthe meeting, Stalin concluded that Kim Il Sung should fulfill the task of

Sovietization of North Korea with the cooperation of the Soviet occupationauthorities as quickly as possible, while he made positive comments aboutPak’s revolutionary struggle in South Korea under unfavorable conditions.15Stalin’s conclusion indicated who would assume the leadership position inthe North—Kim Il Sung Lebedev surmised that the reasons why Stalin

picked Kim, and not Pak, were that Kim had proved himself to be reliable inthe Soviet Maritime Province between 1941 and 1945 when he lived there,and, in addition, he had been known to the North Koreans as an anti-Japanesehero,16 which was advantageous for manipulating political legitimacy in thepost-liberation period

After Stalin’s meeting, the Soviet occupation authorities sped up economic reforms, such as the nationalization of the major industries in

socio-August 1946, and guided all North Korean communists to unite into oneparty, the NKWP The NKWP was created on August 28–30, 1946, by

merging Kim Il Sung’s NKCP with the Yanan group’s Korean New

Democratic Party (NDP) Under Soviet guidance, Kim Il Sung continued asthe North Korean leader when the NKPPC became the North Korean

People’s Committee (NKPC), becoming head of the NKPC in February 1947

and the premier of the cabinet in September 1948 when the establishment ofthe DPRK was announced By the time the Soviets completely withdrew inDecember 1948, their goal of establishing a pro-Soviet regime in North

Korea by installing Kim Il Sung appeared to have been achieved

Origins of the North Korean Elite

With the abrupt end of the Japanese colonial rule in August 1945, severalpolitical forces engaged in building a new independent state in the Koreanpeninsula The political center for this engagement at the time was Seoul.However, when Korea was divided into North and South Korea, politicalforces in the North were suddenly disconnected from Seoul in South Korea.When the Soviet forces occupied the North, they recommended that politicalforces in the North establish their own political party,17 separate from Seoul.These North Korean political forces can be roughly divided into two:

communist and nationalist

at least twice by the Japanese, and some of them abandoned communism inexchange for an early release This group represented the mainstream of theKorean communist movement in the post-liberation period, because it wasthe only communist group whose base was in Korea during the colonial era