North Korea without the Kims
- Thread starter Marklin
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Well, such a scenario would probably lead to a more "Orthodox" North Korea in terms of having a Soviet-style system as opposed to the insanity of Juche.
A post of mine from a few years ago:
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That obviously depends to some extent on who that "someone else" is.
The usual analysis is that there were four factions in the Korean Workers' Party: "the so-called “Soviet faction” composed of ethnic Koreans who lived in the Soviet Union and were sent to serve in administrative positions in northern Korea after 1945; the “Yan’an faction,” made up of those Koreans who lived in China during Japan’s colonial rule over Korea; the “domestic faction” of veteran communist Bak Heonyeong; and Kim Il Sung’s own “Gapsan faction” of former anti-Japanese guerrilla fighters." http://www.wilsoncenter.org/sites/default/files/CWIHPBulletin16_p51.pdf
(The article incidentally argues that the emphasis on factional rivalries is misplaced and that it "to a large degree mirrors North Korea’s official historiography in that it is narrated “in terms of Kim Il Sung’s supremacy over all […] political challenges, from within and without.”8 Factional rivalries, the documents suggest, were exaggerated by Kim Il Sung as a pretext to purge policy opponents..." However, while these factions might not be an adequate explanation of the events of 1956, it doesn't follow that they didn't exist ten years earlier.)
According to Wikipedia, "In the first politburo of the party the Soviet faction had three members, the Yanan faction had six, the domestic faction had two and the guerrilla faction had two. The guerrilla faction was actually the smallest of the factions in the Central Committee but they had the advantage of having Kim Il-sung, who led the North Korean government and was highly influential within the party. Moreover, Kim Il-Sung was backed by the SovietUnion." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Workers'_Party_of_North_Korea
It might be thought from the composition of the Politburo that the Yan'an faction had the advantage in 1946. However, the Soviet Union had far more influence in North Korea at that time than the CCP did--the latter was still three years from winning power. One might think that the Soviets would prefer a Soviet Korean like Alexei Ivanovich Hegai (Ho Ka-i). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ho_Ka-i Yet Hegai might have been too blatantly "Soviet" for the USSR's own taste; their choice of Kim seems to indicate they wanted someone with more plausible "nationalist" credentials to appeal to Koreans. The Domestic Faction in OTL was strengthened when Pak Hon-yong https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pak_Hon-yong moved to the North but that was not until 1948.
Obviously which faction takes over can be influential in determining how North Korea will take sides (if at all) in the eventual Sino-Soviet conflict.
OTOH it is hard for me to see *any* alternate Korean Communist leader coming up with the combination of extreme nationalism and glorification of a ruling family that happened in OTL.
Also, it is not clear to me that there would be a Korean War with an alternate North Korean leadership. Kim Il Sung had to go to great lengths to get Stalin's approval for armed reunification. Eventually, he did convince Stalin that he could defeat Rhee's regime before the US could do anything about it. It is certainly conceivable that another North Korean leader would have been just as persistent and successful in getting Stalin's approval, but it is not certain.
***
That obviously depends to some extent on who that "someone else" is.
The usual analysis is that there were four factions in the Korean Workers' Party: "the so-called “Soviet faction” composed of ethnic Koreans who lived in the Soviet Union and were sent to serve in administrative positions in northern Korea after 1945; the “Yan’an faction,” made up of those Koreans who lived in China during Japan’s colonial rule over Korea; the “domestic faction” of veteran communist Bak Heonyeong; and Kim Il Sung’s own “Gapsan faction” of former anti-Japanese guerrilla fighters." http://www.wilsoncenter.org/sites/default/files/CWIHPBulletin16_p51.pdf
(The article incidentally argues that the emphasis on factional rivalries is misplaced and that it "to a large degree mirrors North Korea’s official historiography in that it is narrated “in terms of Kim Il Sung’s supremacy over all […] political challenges, from within and without.”8 Factional rivalries, the documents suggest, were exaggerated by Kim Il Sung as a pretext to purge policy opponents..." However, while these factions might not be an adequate explanation of the events of 1956, it doesn't follow that they didn't exist ten years earlier.)
According to Wikipedia, "In the first politburo of the party the Soviet faction had three members, the Yanan faction had six, the domestic faction had two and the guerrilla faction had two. The guerrilla faction was actually the smallest of the factions in the Central Committee but they had the advantage of having Kim Il-sung, who led the North Korean government and was highly influential within the party. Moreover, Kim Il-Sung was backed by the SovietUnion." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Workers'_Party_of_North_Korea
It might be thought from the composition of the Politburo that the Yan'an faction had the advantage in 1946. However, the Soviet Union had far more influence in North Korea at that time than the CCP did--the latter was still three years from winning power. One might think that the Soviets would prefer a Soviet Korean like Alexei Ivanovich Hegai (Ho Ka-i). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ho_Ka-i Yet Hegai might have been too blatantly "Soviet" for the USSR's own taste; their choice of Kim seems to indicate they wanted someone with more plausible "nationalist" credentials to appeal to Koreans. The Domestic Faction in OTL was strengthened when Pak Hon-yong https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pak_Hon-yong moved to the North but that was not until 1948.
Obviously which faction takes over can be influential in determining how North Korea will take sides (if at all) in the eventual Sino-Soviet conflict.
OTOH it is hard for me to see *any* alternate Korean Communist leader coming up with the combination of extreme nationalism and glorification of a ruling family that happened in OTL.
Also, it is not clear to me that there would be a Korean War with an alternate North Korean leadership. Kim Il Sung had to go to great lengths to get Stalin's approval for armed reunification. Eventually, he did convince Stalin that he could defeat Rhee's regime before the US could do anything about it. It is certainly conceivable that another North Korean leader would have been just as persistent and successful in getting Stalin's approval, but it is not certain.
Even if the radicalization brought about by the NK-SK split would still push the North in a more hardline direction like how East Germany was among the more hardline members of the Eastern Bloc.