Under the Loving Care of the Fatherly Leader: North Korea and the Kim Dynasty (101 page)

Statesmen approaching death—even the most vicious tyrants among them—look to their reputations, their places in history. Kim Il-sung was no exception. “Just as in the past, I still feel nowadays the greatest pride and joy in enjoying the love of the people,” he wrote in his memoirs. “I consider this the true meaning of life. Only those who understand this true meaning can be the genuine sons and faithful servants of the people.
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Kim wrote—as if-writing it could make it true—that he would be leaving behind a “revolution progressing triumphantly and our country prospering, with all the people singing its praises.
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The people indeed had no choice but to sing the revolution’s praises, and Kim’s. But conditions had reached the point where no one could ignore the stark evidence that the country was descending deeper and deeper into poverty and hunger.

Economic conditions only grew worse in the early 1990s. Food distribution became increasingly irregular, with much smaller quantities of inferior grains such as millet substituted for the usual rice rations. People survived by using their cash savings to buy grain in the private sector—especially in a black market dealing in grain that had been held back illegally from collective-farm harvests. (This form of corruption had taken hold by the mid-1980s.) Beef, the Korean meat of choice, had become a once-a-year delicacy for most North Koreans. More than 50 percent of manufacturing had been idled due to shortages, and the workers who showed up had nothing to occupy them but cleaning the facilities. Even new factories built in the late 1980s were not operating. A largely military work force built an immense factory complex at Sunchon to make the synthetic fabric vinalon; it had its opening ceremony in 1991, but could not go into production. Supplying the clothing needs of the populace had been one of the prides of the Kim Il-sung regime, but now people’s clothing was growing shabby.
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Word certainly was getting back to substantial numbers of North Koreans from relatives and others who had traveled or lived abroad that life in
South Korea and the West—and even in China—-was richer. Getting caught saying so brought a one-month sentence in a reeducation camp.
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The economy could hardly improve if the regime’s nuclear gamble scared off anyone considering significant investment from outside. No doubt it was significant that the government had been at pains to patch even tiny holes in the tight lid it kept on information from outside. Reports told of a crackdown on contact even with Chinese.
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What was the need for all the frantic unity campaigns and rallies pledging loyalty to Kim Jong-il if there was not a growing recognition of a split in interests between the ruling pair and other groups of North Koreans? In particular, we now know, some people in the elite—civilian and military alike— wished that they were permitted to reform the system enough to preserve their status. That is not to say there were fully developed factions in high places in North Korea. Factions could not flourish for want of strong leaders who had not yet been purged. Nevertheless, some influential members of the elite possessed survival skills and were more amenable to change than some of their colleagues and they did engage in power struggles.

The record of“change” under the Kims could only dismay such people: In the 1970s, the North had begun to lag behind South Korea, but had rejected major change. In the 1980s, the economy had remained stagnant and the ideology ofegalitarianism and altruism had started to ring hollow to North Koreans. Reform had been the watchword in other communist countries, but Pyongyang had redoubled its commitment to its hard-line ideology. Now it was the 1990s and European communism was dead, while in North Korea the stench offailure had become almost overpowering.

Experience had shown how difficult it was for North Korea to change while the Kims remained in power. Kim Il-sung, his longevity, his identification with the system and the lies on which he built his personality cult seemed to stand in the way of even Chinese-style reforms. The regime feared that reform of the system would imply criticism of Kim Il-sung. Opening the country to foreign ideas and information would admit views critical of Kim Il-sung. But clearly the Great Leader could not be seen to have told or condoned lies, behaved brutally toward his subjects or made mistakes. Therefore, the regime had viewed opening and fundamental reform as out of the question. Limited to halfway measures, the ruling class had been helpless to take the serious steps many believed were needed to prolong their rule—as, for example, Chinese economic reformers under Deng Xiaoping had been able to extend Communist Party rule. With Kim Il-sung and son occupying the status of permanent royalty, their more expendable subordinates in the bureaucracy felt the pressure from above and below to perform—or, barring that, to find someone else to blame for the system’s failures.

If there ever had been a possible way out of this historical bind for Kim Il-sung since the time it became apparent his system was losing the race, that
may have been somehow to recreate himself. Could he remake his image through positive tactics such as replacing lies with truth or through destructive tactics such as blaming subordinates and evil advisers for the excesses of his system? If he could do that, then maybe, just maybe, he could permit his technocrats to go for something resembling a Chinese-style economic reform— while leaving the political system and leadership relatively unchanged for the time being. Like Mao Zedong, then, he could retain his place in history as a towering patriotic figure and the father of the republic. Evidence suggests that something like that actually occurred to Kim and that he made a beginning in that direction.

Kim’s memoirs were one indication that an image makeover was under way The first two volumes, covering the period from his birth in 1912 until early 1933, nearly twenty-one years, went on sale in Pyongyang during his birthday celebration in 1992. Those turned out to be a partially revisionist work containing a number of attempts to distance Kim from earlier fabrications and embellishments and lies by commission and omission, as well as from some of the most widely condemned aspects of his system.
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An example of distancing himself from old lies: Kim had been a legitimate hero of the anti-Japanese struggle of the 1930s—but only one of a number of heroes.
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To justify a personality cult, however, he had to outshine the others vastly. For his greater glory Pyongyang over the decades had downgraded or deleted the roles of others involved in the struggle—not only fellow Koreans but Chinese and the agents of the Soviet Union as well. In the memoirs, however, Kim acknowledged that he had worked as a cadre of a Chinese Communist Party organization and fought in a “joint struggle” with Chinese forces. He recalled by name many previously ignored comrades, including Korean and Chinese guerrilla leaders. And he revealed that he had accepted appointment by representatives of Moscow’s Communist International as a youth organizer in Manchuria’s Eastern Jilin Province in 1930.

Besides those modest efforts to respond to outside challenges regarding his historical record, Kim also tried to distort that record further. In his new incarnation as revealed in the memoirs he miraculously appeared, for example, as a lifelong, staunch opponent of discrimination against people on account of their class or ideological background. It would be hard to banish the suspicion that Kim’s self-portrayal as the soul of tolerance was designed to shift the blame for his police state. Some of his claims to having uttered pro-tolerance views can be interpreted as almost a plea for Koreans of subsequent generations to honor him and his anti-Japanese guerrillas, and treat their descen-dents well, even if the communist system should be tossed on the rubbish heap of history. Thus, he complained that, after liberation, some communists had re-
jected people with other ideologies, including the non-communist nationalist independence fighters. Kim said he admonished such “narrow-minded” people: “Even if we are in power, we communists must not fail to appreciate our patriotic seniors. The trend of thought differs from age to age; then why do you ostracize them, guard against them and avoid them? Are they guilty for fighting for Korea’s independence at the risk of their lives when others were living with their families in warm houses, eating hot rice?”
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Beyond the pure public relations effort that his memoirs represented, there is evidence that Kim also concluded he could risk—and his legacy might gain from—some significant substantive changes of policy. After all, the regime’s grip was so tight that hardly anyone thought it would collapse while Kim Il-sung was alive. Most foreign and South Korean scholars ruled out a Ceaucescu scenario for Kim. Partly due to brain-washing but also because he was seen as a genuine nationalist hero, his subjects’ personal loyalty to their Respected and Beloved Great Leader remained “too great for them to butcher him like a pig,” one American professor remarked. Indeed, since they loved Kim Il-sung so much, it seemed he might be able to tell them he had decided the world was not yet ready for North Korea’s exalted version of socialism. (Recall that it took anti-communist zealot and longtime China-basher Richard Nixon to establish U.S. relations with Mainland China.) Wouldn’t North Koreans gratefully accept whatever Kim Il-sung proposed as an imperfect interim system?

In the end, while he did not propose a new system, he did seek a shift in emphasis within the old system. According to defector Kang Myong-do, the event triggering Kim’s belated efforts to change policy occurred in April of 1992—coincidentally the month I was in the country for the Tumen River conference. “Every morning when Kim Il-sung awoke, he liked to look at the Pyongyang skyline to see the chimneys of the power plants,” Kang told reporters for Seoul’s
JoongAng Ilbo.
“In April 1992, Kim Il-sung was really angry because smoke was coming from only two of the smokestacks. The reason, he found after investigation, was that the Anju mines were not supplying coal. So Kim Il-sung became really curious. The reports claimed 120 percent overproduction compared with the planned goal. Kim secretly sent to the mines someone who found that the miners had nothing to eat. ‘How can we work?’ they asked. They were supposed to get 1,100 grams of rice, 200 grams of meat, 100 grams of corn oil per day. But for a week they had eaten only salt soup. It shows how little Kim Il-sung knew. It was the first time he realized the people were not getting their rations. He was surprised.”
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Kim pursued the matter and received an accurate report on horribly grim conditions in mountainous North Hamgyong province, which adjoins the Chinese and Russian borders in the northeastern part of the country.

North Hamgyong, throughout North Korea’s economic decline, suffered more than most other provinces. (I suspect a census of refugees who were desperate enough to flee to China would show that a majority of them hailed from North Hamgyong.) Kang Myong-do told one interviewer that his father-in-law, Kang Song-san, then the governor of that province, had leveled with the president. Shocked into action, the semi-retired Kim re-involved himself in domestic issues, author Don Oberdorfer relates. Kang Song-san, who had held the prime ministerial portfolio earlier, was brought back in the same capacity that year. Meetings on economic policy the following year led to a dramatic admission at the end of 1993 that the country was in trouble economically. The regime would move to new policies de-emphasizing heavy industry in favor of activities that would more directly improve the people’s livelihood.
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In the meantime, the standoff with the United States continued. Kim Jong-il was busy consolidating his position with the military—often at the expense of the civilian economy. Eventually Kim Dal-hyon, perhaps the government’s most promising reformer, fell afoul of powerful military interests. In the atmosphere of the time, that meant he had to go. “Even in the party there was conflict,” Kang Myong-do said. “They didn’t have a specific guideline for opening up and reforming.” That set the stage for the clash, a personal one between Kim Guk-tae and Kim Dal-hyun. Kim Guk-tae, a second-generation revolutionary, eldest son of partisan and fallen Korean War general Kim Chaek and a graduate of Mangyongdae Revolutionary School, reportedly had been Kim Jong-il’s supervisor when the younger man was starting his career. (See chapter 13.) Kang described him as “not very bright—he doesn’t know what ‘opening’ means.” Kim Dal-hyon was also a second-generation revolutionary, said Kang, who described him as Kim Il-sung’s nephew-in-law. “He’s very smart,” Kang said. “He’s a very powerful, gutsy figure.”

The conflict between the two, according to Kang’s account, began in 1992 when the regime was selecting the chairman of the external economic committee. “Kim Dal-hyon had been the chairman. With his promotion he wanted Yi Song-dae to be his successor. Yi was vice-head of the governments’ trade department. Kim Guk-tae wanted Choe Jong-keun. Kim Guk-tae was secretary of the party Central Committee department in charge of personnel.” In December 1992, there was a meeting of the Supreme People’s Assembly, Kang said. “During a break, Kim Jong-il called out Kim Dal-hyon for a chat and told him, ‘We decided on Choe.’ Kim Dal-hyon’s face became contorted and he said if Choe became the next chairman he would quit as vice-premier. Kim Jong-il asked whom he wanted. Yi Song-dae,’ Kim Dal-hyon replied. Kim Jong-il didn’t know him, but since Kim Dal-hyon
was so adamant he agreed to appoint Yi. When they returned to the assembly, Choe was very surprised to learn he had lost it.”

At that point, “Kim Guk-tae started maneuvering to oust Kim Dal-hyon.” His strategy was to show his adversary as an opponent of the military-first policy. Kim Dal-hyon, while serving as acting prime minister, “wanted to salvage the North Korean economy so he diverted to the mines 30 percent of the energy that was to be supplied to the military equipment factories,” Kang said. “He is on bad terms with Kim Chol-man and Chon Byon-ho, high officials in charge of armaments. They were involved in a power struggle complicated by personal dislike. Kim Jong-il in a meeting asked “why there had been no innovations in armaments. They answered, ‘Because Kim Dal-hyon took over our energy supply’ Kim Jong-il is very smart. He knows how things work, knows what happens in the world. But he’s very rash. If someone under him makes a mistake he makes a hasty decision to get rid of that person. He also doesn’t like anyone else having too much power. He will get rid of such a person.” Kim Dal-hyon was demoted, becoming manager of a synthetic fabric factory complex. His absence from Pyongyang probably slowed the impetus for change. “Kim Dal-hyon is for opening,” Kang said. “There are bright people among the elite, but nobody else as gutsy as Kim Dal-hyon. When he’s abroad he’s even bold enough to say things opposed to Kim Jong-il’s views.”
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