Liu Zhihe: Workers’ Party of Korea; a Brief Introduction to the 70-years-Brutal Inner-party struggle

May 2015 , Author is a senior researcher of Korean Issue and Cold War

Translated by Kemal Okur

Recently, it was reported that North Korean People’s Armed Forces Minister Hyon Yong Chol was killed for being disloyal to the leader.  If the news is true, Hyon Yong Chol has become another victim of the North Korean inner-party struggle. This news reflects a fact from the side, that is, the Workers’ Party of Korea, which is full of personality cult, extremely strict organization, and with highly centralized leadership, is not monolithic. Considering that Kim Jong-un has been constantly purging military generals and political veterans since he came to power, it can be seen that the struggle within the Workers’ Party is extremely fierce. Throughout the history of the Workers’ Party of Korea, the struggle within the party has been consistent, and almost all of the struggles within the party have been regarded as life-and-death class struggles. The losers are often uprooted and have a miserable end. The Workers’ Party launches a large-scale purge campaign almost every decade.

In the 1950s, it was mainly factional struggles, in the 1960s, it was mainly line struggles, in the 1970s and 1980s, it was mainly struggles among successors to power, and in the 1980s and 1990s, it was mainly economic policy struggles. With the successive changes of North Korean leaders this year, consolidating power and attacking political enemies have become the norm in North Korean politics.

1. At the beginning of the founding days of the Party, the Party cleared away the factions.

The Workers’ Party of Korea was not created by Kim Il-sung alone.As early as 1925, under the direct guidance of the Communist International, Korean communists established the Communist Party of Korea, led by Kim Jae-bong and Park Heon-young.However, due to the harsh suppression of the Japanese colonial authorities and the split within the party, it had to be revoked by the Communist International in 1928.Most of the communists who lost their organizational ties were scattered in Korea, especially in the southern part of the peninsula, engaged in underground struggles.Other Korean revolutionary patriots went to China and the Soviet Union respectively, and each developed into an independent faction.Some other cadres stayed in the northern mountainous areas of Korea to persist in guerrilla warfare. Kim Il-sung was just one of them.Later, due to the encirclement and suppression of the Japanese army, the guerrillas could not gain a foothold in Korea and had to enter China.They were led by the Northeast Anti-Japanese Democratic United Army.As the situation deteriorated, the Korean guerrillas retreated to the Soviet Far East with the Anti-Japanese United Army.At this time, Kim Il-sung gradually grew into the leader of the guerrillas and was recognized by the Soviet Union.

In August 1945, the Korean guerrillas invaded North Korea together with the Soviet army.Since there were few communists in the north, the Soviet Union designated Kim Il-sung, a former mid-level officer of the Northeast Anti-Japanese United Army, to reorganize the Communist Party of Korea.Because the guerrillas represented by Kim Il-sung had little influence and deep roots in North Korea, they had to rely on the prestige of Cho Man-sik, known as the “Gandhi” of North Korea.Cho Man-sik was selected as the nominal leader of the North Korean administrative authorities, and Kim Il-sung was only a deputy.After Kim Il-sung returned to his country, on the one hand, he expressed his acceptance of the leadership of the Central Committee of the Korean Communist Party in Seoul, Park Heon-young, and on the other hand, he established the North Korean Communist Party Bureau, but was criticized by the Seoul Central Committee.Party organizations in some parts of the north even once expressed their refusal to accept the leadership of the North Korean Bureau.

In October 1945, the Communist Party of North Korea, with guerrillas as the main body, was established, led by Kim Il-sung;in March 1946, the Korean Independence League, which was originally active in Yan’an and Taihang Mountains in China, was reorganized into the Korean New People’s Party, led by Kim Il-bong.In August of the same year, the Communist Party of North Korea and the Korean New People’s Party merged into the Workers’ Party of North Korea.In November 1946, the South Korean Communist Party (founded in September 1945, led by Pak Heon-young, who had been fighting against Japan in Korea), the Korean People’s Party (founded in November 1946), and the South Korean New People’s Party (founded in July 1946) also merged into the South Korean Workers’ Party.On October 10, 1949, the South and North Korean Workers’ Parties merged and unified, with Kim Il-sung as their leader.At the beginning of the founding of the Labor Party, the struggle within the party was very fierce.Those who insisted on domestic struggle included the Southern Faction and the Northern Faction, and those who insisted on foreign struggle included the Soviet Faction (also known as the Moscow Faction), the Yan’an Faction (also known as the Chinese Faction), and the Guerrilla Faction (also known as the Anti-Japanese United Army Faction).

Among them, the domestic faction had the greatest influence due to its long-term persistence in domestic struggle and was the main force of the Worker’s Party.The Soviet Faction was mainly composed of Koreans who were born in the Soviet Union and obtained Soviet citizenship and was mainly concentrated in the propaganda system and technical arms of the army.The Yan’an Faction was large in number and had participated in China’s revolutionary struggle and had rich combat experience and was the main force of the army.Although the guerrilla faction was the weakest, it had a political advantage because it was familiar with the Soviets and was the first to receive the support of the Soviet army.Soon, Kim Il-sung began to launch an internal struggle within the party, deliberately eliminating political dissident forces.

The first to be eliminated was Cho Man-sik, who had the highest prestige but the shallowest foundation.Kim Il-sung, with the help of the Soviet army, arrested Cho Man-sik, a representative of nationalists, in 1946.In 1950, as the Korean People’s Army was defeated, Cho Man-sik, who had been under house arrest, was secretly killed by Kim Il-sung.

The second group to be attacked was the Northern faction, which had a shallower foundation.Before and after the establishment of the Worker’s Party, the representatives of the Northern faction, Wu Qixie and Zhu Ninghe, were repeatedly criticized by the Anti-Japanese United Army and the Soviet Union faction at party meetings.Subsequently, Wu Qixie was labelled an “anti-Soviet element” and was demoted.The other members of the Northern faction were dismissed from their posts.In April 1958, Wu Qixie was demoted to the deputy director of a local farm and then disappeared from the political arena.As the struggle within the party deepened, Kim Il-sung maneuvered, won over and beat his opponents, and gradually expanded his power.

In 1950, the Korean War broke out, providing Kim Il-sung with a rare opportunity to concentrate power and strike at his political enemies.Three days after the war began, the Military Commission, the highest authority during the war, was established.Kim Il-sung served as chairman and became the supreme commander of the People’s Army.Through the wartime system, Kim Il-sung monopolized the power of the party, government and army, and began to purge other factions on a large scale.As the Korean People’s Army was gradually defeated in the war, Kim Il-sung put the blame for the defeat on his political enemies.

The first to be attacked was the Soviet faction.In 1951, Xu Jiayi, a member of the Soviet faction, was dismissed from his post as the Central Secretary on the grounds of ineffective party expansion.In April 1953, when revealing Lee Seung-ye’s “treason group”, Kim Il-sung claimed that Xu Jiayi supported and participated in the domestic faction’s attempted coup.Kim Il-sung presided over an emergency meeting of the Central Committee and criticized Xu Jiayi in an interrogation-style manner.Not long after the meeting, Xu Jiayi committed suicide, and other relevant personnel were purged one after another.The Soviet faction suffered a serious blow.When the North Korean army collapsed across the board, Kim Il-sung began to attack Wu Ting, the most powerful figure of the Yan’an faction.Wu Ting had joined the Communist Party of China in 1925, served as the commander-in-chief of the Shanghai workers’ riot in 1929, participated in many Red Army battles, and was the only Korean who had walked the entire Long March.He was deeply trusted by Peng Dehuai, one of the earliest founders of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army artillery, and the leader of the Koreans who participated in the Chinese revolution. In 1950, Kim Il-sung denounced Wu Ting for “warlordism”, accused him of being responsible for the initial defeat of the war, and pushed the responsibility for the loss of Pyongyang to Wu Ting, revoked his position as a member of the Central Committee, and expelled him from the party forever.Wu Ting later went to Changchun, China for treatment due to illness.Peng Dehuai arranged for him to go to the best local hospital.In 1953, Wu Ting died alone in a military hospital in North Korea.Kim Il-sung and Chinese Marshal General Peng Dehuai developed a grudge because of this incident.After learning that Peng Dehuai was criticized at the Lushan Conference in 1959, Kim Il-sung took the opportunity to add insult to injury and called the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, “indicating that Kim Il-sung strongly agreed with the treatment of Peng and asked to meet Mao Zedong in person, saying that he had a lot to say to him.”

Kim Il-sung then purged Park Il-woo and Fang Hushan, two important leaders of the Yan’an faction.Park Il-woo and Fang Hushan were both experienced old revolutionaries.Park Il-woo was the deputy political commissar of the Sino-North Korean Joint Command at the time (the commander and political commissar was China’s Peng Dehuai), equivalent to the general political commissar of the People’s Army.He was considered Mao Zedong’s personal representative in North Korea and served as the Minister of Internal Affairs at the time.Fang Hushan was the commander of the Fifth Corps, which had the most outstanding military exploits and had fought to the southernmost tip of the Korean Peninsula.He was the commander and political commissar of the 166th Division of the Northeast Field Army.At that time, the Yan’an faction generally doubted Kim Il-sung’s military command ability because of the failure in the early stages of the Korean War. Park proclaimed himself as the representative of the Korean revolutionaries who returned from China, forming cliques and factions, and had a tendency to confront Kim Il-sung.After the end of the Korean War, Park was demoted and dismissed.At the 16th Plenary Session of the Second Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea held in April 1955, Park Il-woo and Fang Hushan were removed from their positions inside and outside the party as “anti-party sectarians” and expelled from the party.Their subsequent life and death were unknown.

During the war, Kim Il-sung needed the Southern Faction to cooperate with the frontal military struggle in the rear, so he valued the Southern Faction.Lee Seung-yeop, a capable general of the Southern Faction, took control of the Central Liaison Department of the Workers’ Party of Korea, which was responsible for handling matters related to guerrilla warfare in South Korea, and established the Kumgang Political Academy, which was not controlled by Kim Il-sung and was responsible for training political work teams and armed guerrilla force cadres to be sent to South Korea.However, as the front line gradually stabilized near the 38th parallel, Kim Il-sung saw that there was no hope of counterattacking the South and the strength of the Southern Faction in the South had greatly decreased.In early 1953, Kim Il-sung arrested Pak Heon-young and Lee Seung-yeop.Less than a week after signing the armistice agreement at Panmunjom, 10 people including Minister of Justice Lee Seung-yeop, Ambassador to China Jeon O-jik, Member of the First Supreme People’s Assembly Kim O-sung, Leader of the 10th Detachment of the South Korean Liberation Guerrilla Maeng Jong-ho, Liaison Minister of the Workers’ Party Park Seung-won, Liaison Minister of the Workers’ Party Bae Cheol, Social Minister of the Workers’ Party Kang Moon-seok, and Ministry of Internal Affairs cadre Baek Heung-bok were sentenced to death for the crime of “employed spies of the US imperialists”, and two others were sentenced to 15 and 12 years in prison.At the same time, many leading members of the Southern Faction were dismissed from their posts as Central Committee members and expelled from the party.Two years later, the leader of the Southern Faction Park Heon-young was sentenced to death for “anti-party treason” and was immediately executed.Thus, the Southern Faction was completely annihilated.

Since 1956, Kim Il-sung has vigorously promoted “politics from one’s own party”, which has caused backlash from other factions.At that time, the anti-personality cult of the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union also blew to North Korea, giving the Yan’an faction and the Soviet faction an excellent opportunity to fight back.At the plenary meeting of the Party Central Committee on August 30 of that year, the Yan’an faction attacked Kim Il-sung, proposed to oppose the personality cult, strengthen democracy within the party, and demanded to change the policy of focusing on heavy industry to improve people’s living standards.However, most of the participants were guerrillas, and the opposition went from criticizing to being criticized in less than a day, which was known as the “August Sectarian Incident”.

Kim Il-sung then immediately retaliated against the challengers of the Yan’an faction and the Soviet faction. The representatives of the Yan’an faction, Kim Il-bong and Choi Chang-ik, were criticized, expelled from the party, and removed from their posts.Even though China and the Soviet Union tried to mediate, Kim Il-sung still purged all the Yan’an faction on trumped-up charges.Kim Il-sung then carried out ideological purges throughout North Korea.The declassified Soviet internal documents recorded Kim Il-sung’s purge process as follows: within a month, more than 2,000 people were purged.By 1958, all the Yan’an faction members who remained in North Korea were purged, and the rest went into exile in China.After that, Sino-North Korean relations deteriorated sharply.Most of the party, government and military cadres who retained Soviet citizenship among the Soviet faction returned to the Soviet Union.Lee Sang-cho, the North Korean ambassador to the Soviet Union, had already sought political asylum in the Soviet Union.By 1961, the Soviet faction was also annihilated, and Soviet-North Korean relations turned cold.

After the purge of the domestic faction, the Soviet faction and the Yan’an faction, the leadership of the Workers’ Party of Korea basically no longer came from all corners of the country, but was dominated by the guerrilla faction represented by Kim Il-sung.Kim Il-sung eventually defeated other forces within the party and controlled the entire party. Kim Il-sung’s faction was the smallest, but he was able to finally seize power.Of course, there were factors such as timing and prestige, but it was mainly due to his political ability.He was able to obtain the support of major countries such as China and the Soviet Union, especially the Soviet Union, and used external forces to attack the opposition, and made China and the Soviet Union acquiesce to the fait accompli.At the same time, he used the power of the various factions of the Labor Party, which were constantly fighting, to make maneuvers, pull one faction against another, divide and rule, and eventually gradually eliminate the opposition.Most importantly, he grasped the fundamentals of North Korean society and gained the support of the largest class – farmers.At the same time, Kim Il-sung, who came from the guerrillas group, was deeply aware of the importance of the army and firmly controlled the army. In the struggle within the party, Kim Il-sung held high the banner of independence and autonomy, excluded the influence of China and the Soviet Union, and won the support of the North Korean people who had long lived under the shadow of foreign countries, especially the grassroots members of the Labor Party who were nationalistic.

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