NORTH KOREA – A CHARADE ATTACHED TO A  RIDDLE INSIDE AN ENIGMA

Where does one begin to describe the “Was that real or was that Memorex?” Alice in Wonderland charades that are the essence of The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea?  The world’s ultimate quirky rabbit society crossed with the most xenophobic leadership on the planet.  That “Crazy Hermit Nation” we know globally as North Korea …

Let us start with the name.  There is nothing Democratic about the northern half of the Korean Peninsula.  Nor are its citizens thought of in any manner whatsoever during political decision making in the most secretive society presently known to man.  Nor is it a Republic.  More like an enduring personality cult, devoted to hero worship and deity making of Kim Il-sung and his patri-linear successors.

This hero worship is mandated in many forms and is reinforced night and day.  It is manifested constantly in martial music broadcasts in public places, patriotic posters, movies, radio, TV, film clips, slogans, photos, statues, and monuments.  There is only one purpose and one subject: homage to The Kims – Kim Il-sung, “The Great Leader” (1912 to1994), his son Kim Jong-il, “The Supreme Leader” (1941 to 2011) and now his grandson Kim Jong-un, the “Brilliant Comrade” and “Great Successor” (born either 1980 or 1981).

Unusual lengths are extended to play out this hero worship.  There is some question about who the intended audience is.  Is it the world stage, to show North Korea can not only flirt with nuclear weaponry and splashy rockets and the world’s largest monuments but also create a great society?  Or is it a captive audience of 24 million citizens, needing assurance that their starvation diets to support an overbearing military machine and a government controlling every aspect of their lives can truly lead them down a better path?

It is difficult to say, though my read leans toward the latter.  Those rare North Koreans who have been allowed to travel outside their own borders know the outside world is not as painted for them.  They know South Korea has one of the most productive economies in the world.  They have seen photos of modern Seoul.  They have seen satellite pix of South Korea at night, lit up like a torch while North Korea hibernates in near darkness.

No.  My studied guess is that an elaborate and continuous stage play of one-upsmanship of everything South Korean or American, is to reinforce for the northern populace that their sacrifices are not in vain, their pitiful standard of living is for a greater cause, and that continued hero worship of the all-knowing Kims is the only way forward in a hostile world lurking with predatory enemies.

I will detail my personal observations of five days in North Korea in my next post.  But for the moment, I wish to provide some necessary background on the three megomanical Kims that have led the country since 1945 (when the Soviet Union handed supreme political power to the senior Kim in their zone of control in the northern half of the Korean Peninsula, following Japanese surrender in World War II).

It is hoped this review might help explain the unique brand of leadership exercised by the Kims that somehow blinds the North Korean people, whose willing acceptance of regime proclamations contrasts so sharply with what they actually see, hear, feel, and experience in their daily lives.

There is much controversy about Kim Il-sung's political career before the founding of North Korea.  Some sources report he was an impostor assuming the name of a Korean war hero who died leading early Korean resistance against the Japanese.  One Russian officer who helped train Kim in Manchuria claimed he was essentially "created from zero." For one, his Korean was marginal at best -- he'd had only eight years of formal education, all of it in Chinese after being raised in Manchuria.

In 1935 Kim took the name Kim Il-sung, meaning "Become the Sun". Kim was appointed commander of a resistance troop in 1937 at the age of 24, controlling a few hundred men. While in command of this group he executed a raid on and briefly captured Poch’onbo, a small Japanese-held town just across the Korean border.  This minor victory was nevertheless considered a notable success at the time, when guerrilla units had experienced difficulty in capturing any enemy territory. This accomplishment elevated Kim among Chinese guerrillas, and North Korean biographies would later expand on it as a great victory for Korea (the Japanese themselves always lauded Kim as a fighter).

It was while fighting the Japanese that Kim met the man who would become his mentor as a Communist, Wei Zhengmin, his immediate superior officer. Wei reported directly to Kang Sheng, a high-ranking communist party member close to Mao Zedong unil Wei’s death in battle early in the war.

By the end of 1940, Kim was the only Korean guerilla army leader still alive. Pursued by Japanese troops, Kim and what remained of his guerilla army escaped into the Soviet Union. Kim was sent to a camp where Korean communist fighters were retrained by the Soviets. He became a Major in the Soviet Red Army and served in it until the end of the war.

The official version of Kim's guerrilla life is believed to be heavily embellished as a part of developing his subsequent personality cult, particularly his portrayal as a boy-conspirator who joined the resistance at 14 and had founded a battle-ready army at 19.

The Soviet Union belatedly declared war on Japan in August 1945 in the final days of WW II following the drop of atomic bombs by the United States on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Red Army entered Pyongyang with almost no resistance a few days later, on August 15^th of 1945.  Red Army and Communist leader Joseph Stalin had instructed his chief of secret police to recommend a Communist leader for the Soviet-occupied territories.  Kim Il-sung was the party recommending to Stalin.

In December 1945, the Soviets installed Kim as chairman of the North Korean branch of the Korean Communist Party. With backing from the Soviets he became the premier Korean political leader in the North.  Kim needed considerable language coaching initially, including preparation to deliver a speech at a Communist Party congress three days after he arrived back in Korea.

To solidify his control, Kim established the Korean People’s Army (KPA), which was closely aligned with the Communist Party.  A core of guerrillas and former soldiers who had gained combat experience in battles against the Japanese and later against Nationalist Chinese troops provided its leadership. Using Soviet advisers and equipment, Kim constructed an oversized army skilled in infiltration tactics and guerrilla warfare.

Prior to Kim's invasion of the South in 1950 (triggering the KoreanWar) Stalin equipped the KPA with modern, Soviet-built heavy tanks, trucks, artillery, and small arms. Kim also formed an air force, equipped at first with Soviet-built propeller-driven fighters and attack aircraft. Later KPA pilot candidates were sent to the Soviet Union and China to train in jet aircraft at secret bases.

Despite United Nations plans to conduct all-Korean elections, the more heavily populated South Korea declared independence as the Republic of Korea in May of 1948.  With Kim as the Soviet puppet premier, North Korea followed suit and declared independence as the Democratic People's Republic of Korea on September 9^th, 1948. The Soviet Union recognized Kim's government a month later as sovereign of the entire peninsula, including the south.

By 1949, Kim and the Communists (called The Workers Party of Korea or WPK) had consolidated totalitarian rule in North Korea and all parties and mass organizations were either eliminated or consolidated into the WPK. Around this time, the Kim "cult of personality" was initiated by the Communists, the first statues of Kim appeared, and he began calling himself "Great Leader" – much like his counterpart in China, Mao Zedong.

The decision to invade South Korea was Kim's initiative and not a Soviet one, according to archival materials discovered since the fall of the Soviet Union. Soviet intelligence, through its espionage sources in the American CIA and British SIS, had obtained information on US limitations following decomissioning of troop levels and defense cuts at the end of the war, leading Stalin to conclude that the US Truman administration would not intervene in Korea.

The People’s Republic of China agreed reluctantly to the idea of Korean reunification after being told by Kim that Stalin had approved the action. The Chinese did not provide North Korea with direct military support (other than logistics) until United Nations troops led by the US had nearly reached China’s border at the Yalu River in late 1950.

At the outset of the war in June and July, North Korean forces captured Seoul and occupied most of the South except for a small section of territory in the southeast region of the South called the Pusan Perimeter. But in September, the North Koreans were driven back by a US-led counterattack which started with a UN flank landing at Incheon Island, followed by a breakout South Korean-US-UN offensive from Pusan.

By October, UN forces had retaken Seoul and invaded the North to reunify Korea for the first time since the end of WW II. On October 19th, US and South Korean troops captured Pyongyang, forcing Kim and his government to flee eventually into China.  North Korean history emphasizes that the United States had illegally occupied the South, with the intention of pushing north and eventually into the Asian mainland.  Based on these portrayals, it paints its invasion of the South as a defensive necessity.  

On October 25^th of 1950, after sending various warnings of their intent to intervene if UN forces did not halt their advance, one million Chinese troops crossed the Yalu River and entered the war as KPA allies. Yet tensions grew between Kim and the Chinese government.  Kim had been warned of a bypass amphibious landing at Incheon which was ignored. There was also a sense that the North Koreans had made little sacrifice in the struggle against “imperialism” compared to the Chinese who had fought for their country for decades against foes with superior technology.

UN troops were forced to withdraw south and Chinese troops retook Pyongyang and then Seoul in January of 1951. In March, UN forces began a new offensive, retaking Seoul and advanced north once again, halting at a point just north of the now famous 38th Parallel. After a series of offensives and counter-offensives by both sides, followed by a grueling period of largely static trench warfare which lasted from the summer of 1951 to July 1953, the front was stabilized along what eventually became the permanent "Armistice Line" of July 27^th, 1953. Over 1.2 million people died during the Korean War.

Chinese and Russian documents from that time reveal that Kim became increasingly desperate to establish a truce, since the likelihood that further fighting successfully uniting Korea under his rule was increasingly remote with the UN and US presence. Kim also resented the Chinese taking over the majority of the fighting in his country, with Chinese forces stationed at the center of the front line, and KPA troops being mostly restricted to the coastal flanks of the front.

Restored as leader of North Korea after the armistice, Kim immediately embarked on a large reconstruction effort. He launched a five-year national economic plan to establish a command economy, with all industry taken over by the state and all agriculture collectivized. The economy was focused on heavy industry and arms production. Both South and North Korea retained huge armed forces to defend the 1953 DMZ, although no foreign troops were permanently stationed in North Korea (all Chinese troops that fought with the KPA during the war were removed from North Korea by 1957).

During the late 1950s, Kim was seen as an orthodox Communist leader, and an enthusiastic satellite of the Soviet Union. His speeches were liberally sprinkled with praises to Stalin. But Kim sided with China during the Sino-Soviet split, opposing the reforms brought by Nikita Khrushchev.  Kim distanced himself from the Soviet Union, removing mention of his Red Army career from official North Korean history, and began aligning the country along its own independent course.

Kim was seen by many in North Korea, and in some parts elsewhere, as an influential anti-revisionist leader in the communist movement. In 1956, anti-Kim elements encouraged by de-Stalinization in the Soviet Union emerged within the Party to criticize Kim and demand reforms. After a careful “wait and see” period, Kim instituted a purge, executing many who had been found guilty of treason and forcing the rest into exile.

By the 1960s, Kim's relationship with the great communist powers in the region had become difficult. Despite his opposition to de-Stalinization, Kim never severed his relations with the Soviet Union. He found the Chinese unreliable allies due to Mao Zedong’s shifting policies.  The net effect was to leave the DPRK somewhere in between both sides. The Cultural Revolution in China eventually prompted Kim to side with the Soviets, a decision reinforced by the policies of Leonid Brezhnev. This infuriated Mao and the anti-Soviet Red Guards. As a result China immediately denounced Kim, fomented anti-Kim propaganda, and warmed relations with the United States.

At the same time, Kim was expanding his already pervasive personality cult.  North Koreans were taught that Kim was the "Sun of the Nation" and could do no wrong. Kim developed the policy and ideology of Juche (“Two Chay,” meaning self-reliance) rather than having North Korea become another Soviet or Chinese vassal state.

In the mid-1960s, Kim became impressed with the efforts of North Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh to reunify Vietnam through guerilla warfare and thought something similar might be possible in Korea. Infiltration and subversion efforts were greatly stepped up against US and Korean forces and South Korean leadership. These efforts culminated in an attempt to attack the Blue House (South Korean equivalent of the US White House) and assassinate President Park Chung-hee.

North Korean troops thus took a much more aggressive stance toward US forces in and around South Korea, engaging US Army troops in frequent firefights along the DMZ. The 1968 capture of the spy ship USS Pueblo and its crew in international waters was part of this campaign.

A new constitution was proclaimed in December of 1972. Kim was named “Eternal President” of North Korea. In 1980, he had decided upon his son Kim Jong-il as his successor, and increasingly delegated  to him daily function of the government. The Kim family continued to be supported by the army, due to Kim Sr’s revolutionary record. 

From about this time, North Korea encountered increasing economic difficulties. The practical effect of Juche was to cut the country off from virtually all foreign trade in order to foster self-reliance. The economic reforms of Deng Xiaoping in China from 1979 onward meant that trade with the skeletal economy of North Korea held decreasing interest for China. The collapse of communism in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union starting in 1989 added to North Korea's increasing isolation.

To ensure full adherence to the leadership of his designated successor Kim Jong-il, Kim turned over his chairmanship of North Korea's National Defense Commission—the body mainly responsible for control of the armed forces as well as the supreme command of the country's now million-man strong military force (the KPA) — to his son starting in 1991.

In early 1994, Kim began investing in nuclear power to offset energy shortages brought on by continuing economic problems. This was the first of many nuclear related crises in the DPRK. In May of 1994, Kim ordered spent fuel to be unloaded from western contested nuclear research facilities at Yongbyon. Despite repeated chiding from Western nations, Kim continued to conduct nuclear research with uranium enrichment. To the astonishment of the United States and the International Atomic Energy Agency, Kim later agreed to stop his nuclear research program in exchange for economic aid and seemed to be opening up to the West.

By this time, North Korea was isolated from the outside world, except for limited trade and contacts with China, Russia, Vietnam and Cuba. Its economy was crippled by huge expenditures on armaments, and the agricultural sector was unable to feed its population. Floods and storms contributed to North Korea’s demise. At the same time, the state-run North Korea media continued to heap praise on Kim and crow about the nation’s status among nations.  Kim passed away July 8 of 1994.

There are over 500 statues of Kim Il-sung in North Korea. The most prominent are at Kim Il-sung University, Kim Il-sung Stadium, Mansudae Hill, Kim Il-sung Bridge and the Immortal Statue of Kim Il-sung at his mausoleum in Kamsusan Palace. Some statues have been reported to have been attacked by explosions or damaged with graffiti by North Korean activists.

Yŏng Saeng ("eternal life") monuments have been erected throughout the country, each dedicated to the departed "Eternal Leader", at which citizens are expected to pay annual tribute on his official birthday or the commemoration of his death. It is also traditional that North Korean newlyweds, immediately after their wedding, go to the nearest statue of Kim Il-sung to lay flowers at his feet.

Kim Il-sung's image is especially prominent in places associated with public transportation, and is visible at every North Korean train station and airport. It is also placed conspicuously at the border crossings between China and North Korea. Thousands of gifts to Kim Il-sung from foreign leaders (primarily tinhorn dictators) are housed in the DPRK’s International Friendship Exhibition.

The most telling legacy attributable to Kim Sr however, according to R.J. Rummel, an analyst of global politically-caused deaths, is Kim Il-sung's record with over one million regime deaths resulting from concentration camps, forced labor, and executions.

Soviet records show that his son Kim Jong-il was born Yuri Irsenovich Kim in the village of Vyatskoye in 1941, where Kim Il-sung commanded the 1st Battalion of the Soviet 88th Brigade (made up of Chinese and Korean exiles). Inside his family, Kim Jong-il was nicknamed Yura, while his younger brother Kim Man-il (born Alexander Irsenovich Kim) was nicknamed Shura.

However, Kim Jong-il's official biography states he was born in a secret military camp on Baekdu Mountain in Japanese occupied Korea on February 16^th, 1942. Biographers claim that his birth at Baekdu Mountain was foretold by a swallow, heralded by the appearance of a double rainbow across the sky over the mountain, and a new star in the heavens.

At the time Kim Jr had been appointed his father’s successor the title "Dear Leader" and “Supreme Leader” was adopted as the government began building another personality cult around him patterned after that of his father, the "Great Leader." Kim Jong-il was regularly hailed by the media as the "fearless leader" and "the great successor to the revolutionary cause."

In 1994, North Korea and the United States signed an accord designed to freeze and eventually dismantle the North's nuclear weapons program in exchange for funding of two power-generating nuclear reactors. Eight years later, Kim Jong-il's government admitted to having produced nuclear weapons since the 1994 agreement. Kim's regime argued the secret production was necessary for security purposes — citing the presence of US controlled nuclear weapons in South Korea and renewed tensions with the United States under President George W. Bush. On October 9^th, 2006, North Korea's Korean Central News Agency announced that it had successfully conducted an underground nuclear test.

Kim Jong-il was the beneficiary of the elaborate personality cult developed for his father. Defectors have reported that North Korean schools deify both father and son. One defector wrote, "To my childish eyes and to those of all my friends, Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il were perfect beings, untarnished by any base human function. I was convinced, as we all were, that neither of them urinated or defecated. Who could imagine such things of Gods?"

Kim Jong-il was always the focus of attention during his reign in the DPRK. On his 60th birthday, mass “spontaneous” celebrations occurred throughout the country. Many North Koreans believed that he had the "magical" ability to control the weather. North Korea media reported in 2010 that Kim’s distinctive clothing had set worldwide fashion trends.

The prevailing point of view internationally is that the people's adherence to Kim Jong-il's cult of personality in the DPRK was solely out of respect for Kim Il-sung or out of fear of punishment for failure to pay homage. DPRK sources refer to this apparent awe and respect as inspired hero worship. The song "No Motherland Without You", sung by the KPA State Merited Choir, was created especially for Kim in 1992 and is frequently broadcast on the radio and from loudspeakers on public streets.

According to a 2004 Human Rights Watch report, the North Korean government under Kim was "among the world's most repressive governments," having up to 200,000 political prisoners.  Also cited in the report were no freedom of the press or religion, political opposition or equal education: "Virtually every aspect of political, social, and economic life is controlled by the government."  Kim's government was also accused of "crimes against humanity" for its alleged culpability in creating and prolonging the 1990s famine.

The field of psychology has long been fascinated with the personality assessment of dictators, a practice that resulted in a lengthy personality study of Kim Jong-il. The report, compiled by Frederick L. Coolidge and Daniel L. Segal (with the assistance of a South Korean psychiatrist considered an expert on Kim Jong-il's behavior), concluded that the "big six" group of personality disorders shared by dictators Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, and Saddam Hussein (sadistic, paranoid, antisocial, narcissistic, schizoid and schizotypical) were also shared by Kim Jong-il — coinciding primarily with the profile of Saddam Hussein.

Following his death on December 17^th of 2011, North Korea tagged Kim Jong-il the "Eternal Leader" and announced his body would be displayed along with his father at Pyongyang's Kumsusan Memorial Palace. Officials indicated they would also install statues, portraits, and "towers to his immortality" across the country. His birthday of February 16th has been declared "the greatest auspicious holiday of the nation", and has been named the “Day of the Shining Star.”

Before Kim Jong-il’s preservation wax had hardly settled the following announcement emenated from Pyongyang: "Respected Comrade Kim Jong-un is our party, military and country's supreme leader who inherits great comrade Kim Jong-il's ideology, leadership, character, virtues, grit and courage."  The Korean Central News Agency described Kim Jong-un as "a great person born of heaven", a propaganda term only his father and grandfather had enjoyed, while the ruling Workers' Party said in an editorial: "We vow with bleeding tears to call Kim Jong-un our supreme commander, our leader."

Many reports indicate that the human rights violations under the leadership of Kim Jong-il are continuing under Kim Jong-un and have in fact been amplified.  Such violations include ordering the killing of defectors, conducting public executions and sending large numbers of citizens to political prison camps. It is assumed that Kim Jong-un was involved in the sinking of a South Korean vessel and the bombardment of South Korean islands to strengthen his military credentials and facilitate a successful transition of power from his father.

A 2013 report on the status of human rights in North Korea by United Nations Special Rapporteur Marzuki Darusman proposed a United Nations commission of inquiry to document the accountability of Kim Jong-un and other individuals in the North Korean government for alleged crimes against humanity. The report of the commission of inquiry was published in February 2014 and recommends making Kim Jong-un accountable for crimes against humanity at the International Criminal Court.

One report by the Japanese Asia Press in January 2013 claimed that in North and South Hwanghae provinces more than 10,000 North Koreans had died of famine. Other international news agencies have begun circulating stories of cannibalism. One informant based in South Hwanghae, said: "In my village in May, a man who killed his own two children and tried to eat them was executed by a firing squad.”

After Kim Jong-Il's death in 2011, people who were deemed not to have mourned intensely enough, were sent to a labor camp for six months by Kim Jong-un.

In October 2013, it was reported that Kim Jong-Un ordered the execution of his ex-girlfriend Hyon Song-Wol because she had a popular hit song in North Korea. However, she appeared on North Korean state television the following May delivering a speech. Days after she reappeared in public, Kim ordered the execution of engineers and architects involved in the construction of a Pyongyang apartment block which had collapsed days earlier.  More than 500 people are said to have died in the collapse, which was blamed on shoddy workmanship.

Kim himself went missing from public view in early September of 2014, prompting claims that he may have been overthrown.  Upon his return six weeks later, defectors report he ordered the execution of six senior officials.  Kim was also accused in a rumor out of China to have removed his uncle as a threat to his leadership by stripping him naked and forcing him into a large room to be eaten alive by 120 starving dogs.