Kim Il Sung in the Khrushchev Era: Soviet-DPRK Relations and the Roots of North Korean Despotism, 1953-1964 PDF

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szalontai front 5/3/05 1:58 PM Page i Kim Il Sung in the Khrushchev Era szalontai front 5/3/05 1:58 PM Page ii COLD WAR INTERNATIONAL HISTORY PROJECT SERIES James G. Hershberg series editor Brothers in Arms The Rise and Fall of the Sino–Soviet Alliance, 1945–1963 edited by Odd Arne Westad Economic C...

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Kim Il Sung in the Khrushchev Era

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COLD WAR INTERNATIONAL HISTORY PROJECT SERIES

James G. Hershberg series editor

Brothers in Arms The Rise and Fall of the Sino–Soviet Alliance, 1945–1963 edited by Odd Arne Westad

Economic Cold War America’s Embargo against China and the Sino–Soviet Alliance, 1949–1963 By Shu Guang Zhang

Confronting Vietnam Soviet Policy toward the Indochina Conflict, 1954–1963 By Ilya V. Gaiduk

WOODROW WILSON CENTER PRESS STANFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

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Kim Il Sung in the Khrushchev Era Soviet–DPRK Relations and the Roots of North Korean Despotism, 1953–1964

Balazs Szalontai

Woodrow Wilson Center Press Washington, D.C. Stanford University Press Stanford, California

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EDITORIAL OFFICES

Woodrow Wilson Center Press One Woodrow Wilson Plaza 1300 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20004-3027 Telephone 202-691-4029 www.wilsoncenter.org ORDER FROM

Stanford University Press Chicago Distribution Center 11030 South Langley Avenue Chicago, Ill. 60628 Telephone 1-800-8621-2736; 773-568-1550

©2005 by Balasz Szalontai All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper 2 4 6 8 9 7 5 3 1 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data [TK]

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WOODROW WILSON INTERNATIONAL CENTER FOR SCHOLARS Lee H. Hamilton, President and Director The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, established by Congress in 1968 and headquartered in Washington, D.C. is a living national memorial to President Wilson. The Center’s mission is to commemorate the ideals and concerns of Woodrow Wilson by providing a link between the worlds of ideas and policy, while fostering research, study, discussion and collaboration among a broad spectrum of individuals concerned with policy and scholarship in national and international affairs. Supported by public and private funds, the Center is a nonpartisan institution engaged in the study of national and world affairs. It establishes and maintains a neutral forum for free, open and informed dialogue. Conclusions or opinions expressed in Center publications and programs are those of the authors and speakers and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Center staff, fellows, trustees, advisory groups, or any individuals or organizations that provide financial support to the Center. The Center is the publisher of The Wilson Quarterly and home of Woodrow Wilson Center Press, of dialogue radio and television and the monthly newsletter “Centerpoint”. For more information about the Center’s activities and publications, please visit us on the web at wilsoncenter.org. BOARD OF TRUSTEES Chairman, Joseph B. Gildenhorn; Vice Chairman, David A. Metzner. Private Citizen Members: Joseph A. Cari, Jr., Carol Cartwright, Robin Cook, Donald E. Garcia, Bruce S. Gelb, Charles L. Glazer, Tami Longaberger. Ex officio members: James H. Billington, Librarian of Congress; Allen Weinstein, Archivist of the United States; Bruce Cole, Chairman, National Endowment for the Humanities; Michael O. Leavitt, Secretary of Health and Human Services; Condoleezza Rice, Secretary of State; Lawrence M. Small, Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution; Margaret Spellings, Secretary of Education.

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The Cold War International History Project

The Cold War International History Project was established by the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in 1991. The project supports the full and prompt release of historical materials by governments on all sides of the Cold war and seeks to disseminate new information and perspectives on Cold War history emerging from previously inaccessible sources on the “the other side”—the former Communist bloc—through publications, fellowships, and scholarly meetings and conferences. The project publishes the Cold War International History Project Bulletin and a working paper series and maintains a website, cwihp.si.edu. In collaboration with the National Security Archive, a nongovernmental research institute and document repository located at George Washington University, the project has created a Russian and East-bloc Archival Documents Database at Gelman Library, from Russian and other former Communist archives donated by the project, the National Security Archive, and various scholars. The database may be explored through a computer-searchable English-language inventory. For further information, contact the National Security Archive, Gelman Library, George Washington University, Washington, D.C. 20037. At the Woodrow Wilson Center, the project is part of the Division of International Studies, headed by Robert S. Litwak. The director of the project is Christian F. Ostermann. The project is overseen by an advisory committee that is chaired by William Taubman, Amherst College, and includes Michael Beschloss; James H. Billington, Librarian of Congress; Warren I. Cohen, University of Maryland at Baltimore; John Lewis Gaddis, Yale University; James G. Hershberg, George Washington University; Samuel F. Wells, Jr., associate director of the Woodrow Wilson Center; and Sharon Wolchik, George Washington University. The Cold War International History Project was created with the help of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

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Contents

Series Preface

ix

Preface

xi

Acknowledgments

xvii

Abbreviations

xx

Chapter 1. Historical Background

1

The Transformation of Traditional Korea 1 The Impact of Colonialism and the Birth of the Korean Communist Movement 4 The Emergence of the North Korean Communist Regime 13 Early Soviet–North Korean Relations and the Peculiarities of Kim Il Sung’s Dictatorship 18 The Political Consequences of the Korean War 25

Chapter 2. Arisen from Ashes

35

From War to Purge 35 “A Havoc Beyond Description” 43 Disagreements over Aid 47 “They Would Like to Curtail the Activity of the Whole Diplomatic Corps” 54

Chapter 3. Crisis and Confrontation “It Is Impossible to Get Rice in the Villages” Clashes at the CC Plenum 67 “The Personality Cult Is a Primary Factor in Every Mistake” 70 Kim Il Sung Takes the Offensive 77

62 62

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Contents

Chapter 4. A Challenge to the Leader

85

Coping with the Twentieth Congress 85 “Whose Party Is This?” 94 “The Koreans Ought To Be Brought Down a Peg or Two” 98 Deprivation and Discontent 103

Chapter 5. Ch’ollima and Repression

113

Pyongyang Regains the Initiative 113 Crushed by the Hooves of Ch’ollima 121 The Shadow of China 127

Chapter 6. Breezes of Reform

136

“They Already Speak About the Mistakes” 136 “We Will Unite Korea Next Year” 140 Cautious Corrections 147 The DPRK and the South Korean Revolution 155 Balancing Between Moscow and Beijing 161 The Chances of Reform and Reconciliation 166

Chapter 7. Defying the Kremlin

174

Pyongyang Welcomes Park’s Coup 174 “Peaceful Co-Existence Smells of Revisionism” 179 Arming the Whole People 188 “One Cannot Feed the People on Coal and Iron” 195 “You Have No Political Line of Your Own” 199

Chapter 8. The Matrix of North Korean Despotism Imported Despotism? 211 Inherited Despotism? 218 The Roots of Repression 229 The Decline of Soviet Influence in the DPRK “Corrections,” North Korean Style 248 Summary 259

210

241

Bibliography

267

Notes

281

Index

337

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Series Preface

[TK]

ix

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Preface

The despotic nature of the North Korean regime is common knowledge. Accounts of its repressive policies and leadership cult abound both in scholarly literature and journalistic reports. However, relatively few attempts have been made to explain the extraordinary persistence of despotism in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK)—a phenomenon that set Kim Il Sung’s dictatorship apart from most post-1953 communist regimes—although the characteristics of North Korea’s peculiar political system still produce a decisive effect on Pyongyang’s foreign and economic policies. Foreign observers often regarded the diplomatic and military actions taken by the DPRK merely as manifestations of the lunacy of a tyrant blinded by communist ideology and propelled by an insatiable lust for power and adulation. The real situation seems to have been much more complex, however. A simplified interpretation may hinder efforts to comprehend past or current North Korean actions or to craft adequate responses. Most scholars frame North Korean despotism as predestined by the 1945 Soviet invasion or by Korean political traditions. These factors undoubtedly played an important role in the development of the North Korean regime, but it should be kept in mind that most Soviet–occupied countries underwent at least a limited de-Stalinization under Khrushchev, while the South Korean dictatorships headed by Syngman Rhee, Park Chung Hee, and Chun Doo Hwan, in spite of their repressive policies, never reached the degree of political and ideological monolithism that Kim Il-sung achieved. It is thus useful to analyze the DPRK in a comparative perspective in order to grasp its peculiarities. This book deals with North Korean domestic and foreign policies from 1953 to 1964, a crucial period in the evolution of the Kim Il Sung regime. The first date marks the end of both the Korean War and the Stalin era. The postwar economic reconstruction of the DPRK was closely interlocked with Kim’s efforts to create a self-reliant economy, eliminate his opponents, real or potential, unite

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Korea under his rule, and impress upon the other communist countries, particularly the Soviet Union and China, the reality of North Korea’s sovereignty. These steps frequently clashed with the policies pursued by the Soviet leadership, and the process of de-Stalinization further aggravated the tension. The intensity of Soviet–DPRK conflict peaked in 1964, followed by a gradual, but partial, reconciliation. Over the entire history of Soviet–North Korean relations, the DPRK was the most substantially exposed to Soviet ideas proposing political and cultural liberalization from 1953 to 1964. During these eleven years, the nature of the Soviet–North Korean relationship changed once and for all, and the differences between Eastern Europe and the DPRK became even greater. A close examination of that era is thus essential if we wish to understand how and why the North Korean dictatorship fended off external and internal initiatives aimed at changing its political and economic structure. In fact, in the 1990s, Pyongyang often resorted to the same tactics vis-à-vis the United States and South Korea that it had effectively used against the Kremlin in the 1950s and 1960s. After the downfall of Khrushchev in 1964, Moscow usually put a good face on Kim Il Sung’s domestic and foreign policies so as not to push Pyongyang toward Beijing. Intraparty conflicts continued in the post-1964 years, but the leaders Kim purged in 1967–1969 were not as closely associated with a foreign country as those eliminated during the Khrushchev years—the so-called Soviet and Yan’an factions. Since North Korean history has been shrouded in secrecy to an unusual degree, my account of these events is more detailed than it might otherwise have been. Proceeding chronologically, I attempt to analyze the relationship among political, military, economic, and cultural issues, and to compare the measures taken by Korean Workers’ Party (KWP) leaders with the contemporaneous policies of other communist regimes. Rather than comparing the North Korean purges of 1957–1959 with the Soviet Great Terror or with the Chinese Cultural Revolution, I emphasize the historical context of events in order to study how Kim Il Sung reacted to the political and economic challenges that affected, by and large, the entire “communist camp,” and the extent to which his reactions differed from the steps taken by his Chinese, North Vietnamese, and East European comrades. Since North Korean internal and economic policies were more closely intertwined with Soviet and Chinese actions than with contemporary South Korean ones, a chronological description is less compatible with a comparison between the DPRK and the Republic of Korea (ROK) than with a comparison of the DPRK with various communist countries. Still, I found it necessary to compare the North and South Korean political and economic systems in the conclusion of my book.

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The book describes the genesis and evolution of the North Korean regime, the methods it used to control the population and keep foreign powers at arm’s length, the ideas motivating Kim’s economic and unification policies, and the living conditions of ordinary North Korean citizens. I was particularly interested in the relationship between the rulers and the ruled, including the effect that the regime’s steps produced on the population’s livelihood, reactions of various social groups to these measures, and the leadership’s attempts to reexamine and correct its own policies. For instance, North Korean intellectuals, students, and workers, at least in the decades that I studied, seem not to have been as “brainwashed” as a number of foreign observers believed. Another subject of central importance is the nature of Soviet–DPRK relationship: the sources of Soviet–North Korean conflicts, Kim’s ability to withstand Soviet pressure, and Soviet views on the policies of the KWP leadership. I argue that we should neither under- nor over-estimate the tension that existed between Moscow and Pyongyang. In the 1953–1964 period, Soviet–North Korean relations were never truly friendly, but the DPRK, unlike Albania, did not break with the Kremlin once and for all. I also conclude that while in most cases North Korean policies were more rigid and repressive than the contemporaneous measures of the East European, North Vietnamese, and Chinese regimes, it would be an error to assume that Kim Il Sung proved completely incapable of being more moderate than other Communist dictatorships. On certain occasions, Pyongyang was more flexible than Beijing, Tirana, or even Hanoi, although it consistently failed to initiate a political liberalization comparable to Soviet and East European de-Stalinization or the post-Mao reforms in China.

A Note on Sources This book is based mainly on documents available in the Hungarian National Archives. These include records of conversations among Hungarian, North Korean, and Chinese Communist leaders, as well as reports, memoranda, and studies prepared by officials of the Foreign Ministry, the Ministry of Foreign Trade, and the Ministry of Education. Diplomats accredited to North Korea, North Vietnam, China, and Albania comprised the principal sources of information for the Hungarian leadership on these countries, aside from their consultations with the Kremlin. The diplomats’ reports make up the majority of the 1945–1964 documents declassified by the Foreign Ministry, and, unlike other archival documents, they pay considerable attention to issues of internal politics. As a consequence, such reports are much more frequently referred to in the book than any other type of primary source.

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The Hungarian diplomats who worked in the DPRK in the 1953–1964 period proved quite well-informed. To be sure, their access to highly confidential information was relatively limited if compared to that of their Soviet or Chinese counterparts. The Soviet Embassy provided them with news about recent developments in Soviet–North Korean relations, and therefore their reports invariably reflected the official Soviet view of the events in question. Nonetheless, the Hungarians often matched their Soviet colleagues in acquiring information about post-1958 North Korean internal politics. Moreover, most of the Russian and Chinese documents from this period are still unavailable for research, and North Korean archives are hermetically closed. The documents to be found in the archives of Hungary (and other East European countries) are therefore particularly valuable. The special worth of these documents lies, above all, in the deep insight that the authors often provide into the mentality, ideas, and intentions of the KWP leadership. Western and South Korean analysts, who had to depend on official North Korean publications and the occasional accounts of defectors, were in a less favorable position in that respect than the communist diplomats, who regularly communicated with both higher- and lower-level KWP officials, and sometimes could read secret intraparty brochures as well. Certain American and South Korean scholars, influenced by the atmosphere of the Cold War, regarded the behavior of KWP leaders as inherently irrational, an approach that hindered deeper understanding of Pyongyang’s motivations. The “fraternal” diplomats also meticulously described how their embassies were treated by the DPRK Foreign Ministry. From 1953 on, they frequently made mention of tension and veiled North Korean hostility, revealing that Pyongyang was much less subservient to its aid donors than Western analysts usually assumed. Since neither the North Korean nor the Soviet press covered these conflicts before the outbreak of the Sino–Soviet debate, in most cases they were not noticed by noncommunist observers. These reports also paid greater attention to the various economic “corrections” carried out by the regime than most Western authors did, and therefore are particularly valuable for research on de-Stalinization. The Hungarian reports do not, however, provide sufficient information about every subject related to North Korean foreign and domestic policies. For instance, in the pre-1962 period, the Hungarian diplomats rarely questioned the correctness and necessity of the party purges Kim Il Sung carried out, and they certainly knew much less about them than their Soviet colleagues, who, for their part, did not keep the Hungarians informed about that issue. By and large, Hungarian reports did not describe this or that North Korean politician as a

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member of a political group unless the leadership officially declared the person in question a “factionalist.” The regime did its best to isolate the diplomatic corps from the population, and the East European embassies were less able to withstand its restrictive measures than their Soviet and Chinese counterparts. In addition, only a handful of Hungarians spoke Korean. From 1957 on, a few Hungarian-sponsored students arrived in the DPRK, but the majority of the Hungarian diplomats accredited to the country had not dealt with Korean issues until the Foreign Ministry sent them to Pyongyang. Worse still, those who arrived there in the Stalin era basically lacked analytical skills, and uncritically repeated the statements made by North Korean officials. However, in 1954 the situation began to improve, and analysis gradually replaced propaganda in the embassy’s reports. Certain Western and South Korean scholars, such as...