Reposted: The Path to Succession- Can the Dynasty Survive?
This was posted on the old blog ages and ages ago. I am going through the oodles of old posts and reposting them in their original form.
Original Post: Probably one of the least things known in North Korea is how the inner government works. Sure, a lot of the books, papers and scholarly articles may give some very intelligent insight but nobody really knows other than the Dear Leader himself and what he chooses to tell his cronies and the outside world (which is next to nothing for that matter). So why should we worry about a possible succession if one does not know much at all about it? For me personally, it is to see how it will even be done and/or how it would survive the next handover. In the last post, I tried to decipher the first handover, and that was mind numbingly complex. Further, the process was slow and it was not until 1998 Kim Jong Il grabbed the Chairman of the National Defense Commission spot. And of course, the title of president was done away with because Kim Il Sung will probably be front and center to any succession and the all pervasive personality cult, so he would remain president and encased somewhere in a mausoleum.
Now that the last posting barely looked at the complexity of the succession to the first dynasty in the history of communism, perhaps we should look at why the dynasty took place, and why such a huge cult of personality exists. Yes, I also understand to write about the Kim family cult of personality would take an entire book, just like Juche idea is many volumes. However, perhaps one can gain a better understanding about how part of the successful leadership recipe of North Korea requires such a cult of personality. Absolute power requires absolute conformity, and what better to get that absolute conformity without the exploitation of long held cultural traditions?
I mean, why not? It has been done for the last 60+ years since the inception of the Korean Worker’s Party, and I have to say it has been pretty darn successful (not economically or freedom-wise). Despite the apparent dynastic handover problems to Kim Jong Il, he seems to be well established in power, and despite the rumors of possible inner political struggle and rumors of government collapse (and other things of that nature), Kim’s main goal is to keep grip on power no matter what, and that includes tyranny, torture, gulags, starvation, blackmail and lies. Then if Kim Jong Il are all these horrible things, then why do the people seem to buy into it? Why do they stick around and continue to pile praises on these leaders? That is hard to say, but one can take a guess, so I might as well try it too. Perhaps this can be the key to who might be next in line, but it could also pose some serious problems because of the same traditions. Could bending of the already bent Confucian traditions mess things up? Is Kim Jong Il running out of time to name a successor? Yes, he may be grooming the next leader, but it seems to me the adoring masses need to be groomed too. I have not seen any official grooming of the masses from KCNA, monuments or other items so central to DPRK life.
This posting asks the question: Can the dynasty survive after Kim Jong Il?
Juche is a curious type of government, and is different from the other types of communist regimes because it bundles Marxism/Maoism with Confucianism (officially, it is denied and Kim Il Sung is the sole author along with Kim Jong Il). This page talks about this in a very detailed way and explains it better than I could ever hope to. With this in mind, it makes sense why North Koreans seem to accept this ideology and how the crushing cult of personality came to be. It is basically taking the traditional customs and twisting them to gain absolute authority and mold the leaders as a father to the nation. Also, according to The Guerilla Dynasty: Politics and Leadership in North Korea gives some more details on the cult of personality, leadership and the differences from tradition:
THE FATHERLY LEADER, CHARISMATIC PRACTICES
While some of the cathartic expressions of loyalty to the fatherly leader invite participants to indulge in practices that appear to have antecedents in Korean popular religions such as shamanism, Kim Il Sung departed significantly from the ideal of Confucian kingship in his reliance on charismatic leadership. First with reference to Weber’s three ideal types of leadership (Weber 1964:328), the Chosun kings conformed to the bureaucratic-legal ideal, as opposed to the charismatic ideal. Second, although the monarch was a revered figure whose relationship with subjects could be described as a father-children relationship, this was a normative, passive relationship. By contrast, the DPRK cult of personality politics is proactive in constantly seeking overt, emotional displays of loyalty and affection. Third, the image of the kindly, caring father figure (oboi-suryongnim) conforms to the Stalinist model but contrasts with the role of the father within the traditional Korean household, who was a stern, remote figure who did not encourage displays of emotion. (page 47)
This is very evident from the propaganda that is all over the place in North Korea from billboards, lapel pins, media, portraits that adorn every building, the mass games, marches, and every aspect of life. There is no room for dissent, differing opinion, and everything seems scripted. Children are taught from an early age to love the leaders, and the ideology is carried from cradle to grave. Now if people buy the stories is another thing altogether, but if they do, few dare to do it. if they do, harsh punishments for political mis-steps are the understatement of the century. take for instance, Mr. Park who posted a defaced portrait of Kim Jong Il (source: Undercover in the Secret State) and had to run for his life and remain in hiding. Those offenses are taken very, very seriously, and the punishment is death or life in the gulags.
So how did this cult of personality get inherited to his son Kim Jong Il when Kim Il Sung was so central to life? It seems Kim Jong Il seemed to legitimize himself on the heels of his father, and they appeared together as carrying on the cause for the so called revolution and construction (this phrase is used over and over again). To summarize, the long grooming process with the masses were central because since people looked to Kim Il Sung for so long, Kim Jong Il had to appear as if he was in perfect agreement with his father, showed them working together, and had the wide, smiling faces as they did the on-spot inspections and office work. What may have really happened behind closed doors is another thing altogether, but that could not be said because the ideology seemed to follow a set script in the propaganda machine. So it seems the propaganda was developed during the grooming phase and during the passing of power, Kim Il Sung’s son was like the son of god. Today, Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong il are all over, and seem to hold the same reverence with the hearts and minds of North Koreans regardless if they buy it or not.
With this in mind, I often wonder; with Kim Jong Il’s reported bad health, not naming a successor the same time his father did, and why he is reported to ban talks of a successor is beyond me. There could be all sorts of reasons from not picking one yet, inner struggles, ego, plans to do something else, etc. However, what I have noticed in all the speculative reports on successors and passing on the totalitarian crown is the lack of getting the masses eyes on the next leader. According to the Kim Jong Il’s Life Expectancy writeup:
[...]
If Kim Jong Il is in fact diabetic, and if he might otherwise have expected to live to the age of 82 like his father Kim Il Sung, he might be expected to survive not to the year 2023, but to somewhere in the 2018 to 2020 time frame. Thus Kim Jong Il might calculate that as of 2005 he has between 13 and 18 years to confirm the succession, a process that took him 22 years.
Kim Jong Il has three sons, born between 1971 and 1985. If Kim Jong Il survived to the year 2023 those sons would be between the ages of 38 and 52, but if Kim Jong Il only survives to the year 2018, his sons would range in age from 33 and 49. Kim Jong Il was 53 years old at the time Kim Il Sung died.
That does not leave a lot of time for him to name a successor, and since Kim Jong Nam appears to out of favor with his father, there is no telling how it is going to work out. Now comes some questions I cannot answer. Perhaps somebody else can, so here they are:
1. If Kim Jong Il were to die tomorrow, who would take the helm? I cannot seem to find any replacements in case he should kick the bucket anywhere in the constitution. Perhaps it is buried on some law somewhere, that I have no idea about.
2. It seems to me without a long grooming process with the masses and since the cult of personality is so central to the regime, would a sudden leader appearing out of nowhere have less legitimacy? If that is so, would people reject him (I say him because I do not see any evidence of a woman in line)? And if they do reject him, would that mean the government start to dissolve? Does it even in fact work that way?
3. Is this why Kim Jong Il uses the military first policy? It seems to me it could mean if something should happen, could the KPA take over? Also, could the KPA keep the people in check in case hysteria does take place? Again, is this even how it works?
4. Next, since the KPA relies on Kim Jong Il as the supreme commander and if he should die suddenly, could somebody in the upper echelons declare themselves ruler? Could the KPA and other officials split and fight for power? Could people finally get the nerve to stand up and start a coup, or would they just be tired of it and just mass defect (or both)?
This seems to be the worst case scenario, and it seems to outline a possible dissolution of the government, but that is the only thing I can think that would happen if in fact a successor is not legitimized in some fashion. Yes, there seems to be reports of officials wearing the lapels of Kim Jong Chol and the motherly cult somewhere:
Beginning in 2002, the North Korean military initiated an idolization campaign of Kim Jong-chol’s mother, Koh Young-hee, calling her the country’s “respected mother” and “most loyal companion” to Kim Jong-il. This resembled similar efforts to promote Kim Jong-il’s own mother. That the motherly praise is from inside the military establishment is important, as it is the key source of power in the North’s politics and served as a key base of support for Kim Jong-il’s own ascent.
Sons Kim Jong-un, 22, and Kim Jong-chol, 24, have the same mother, who was Kim Jong-il’s third wife (some suggest mistress) and who died in 2004, while the eldest son, Kim Jong-nam, who will be 35 on May 10, is the product of his first wife. A second marriage produced a daughter who is not thought to be factor in the succession.
but it does not seem to be in the mainstream. That is the reason why I was looking to see if the cult of personality was established before Kim Jong Il was named or after he was named. It seems from reading it was after and explains why it took so darn long for Kim Jong Il to gain foothold in legitimacy. As stated before, absolute power requires absolute conformity, and I have no clue if that conformity is instant or is fed a little at a time. I happen to think it is the latter because if it were the former, one would think Kim Il Sung would have one day said “This is your new leader, worship this guy instead”and that would have been that, correct? Again, something I am not all too sure about.
In November 2003, during a visit to the United States, Hwang Jong Yop revealed for the first time his thinking that Kim Jong Il’s successor will not be a North Korean military officer. If Kim were to suddenly die, “the military have no capability to rule the nation,” Hwang said. Kim Jong Il knows this too, Hwang suggested, otherwise he would not risk giving so much power to the military, who Kim dismisses as “mechanics.” Hwang also suggested that the border between North and South Korea should remain closed even if North Korea should collapse “until the economic gap between the North and South is closed.”
So what does that mean? If the military cannot rule in case he should suddenly die, what then? I cannot even begin to imagine the complexity of such a loaded question. Since Hwang Jong Yop is the highest level defector to the South as of late, does his testimony really reflect what is going on? What amount of information does he know? That I am going to have to research, but if he did know more, I am guessing the things he said would be regarded widely as confirmed. I am not too sure about that either.
Another interesting story is Kim Jong Il’s chef and his reported personal conversations with Kim:
Kim Jong-un, the youngest son, is considered too callow for political work, though South Korean intelligence analysts have carefully considered him as a successor despite his age. In 2003, Kim Jong-il’s former chef published a book under the pseudonym Kenji Fujimoto that suggested Jong-chol was unfit for leadership – making Jong-un the default successor (see Cook and tell: Another chef spills the beans, July 2, 2003).
So as you can see, there are all sorts of unknowns here, and researching this posting, I learned a lot. There is still a lot more to learn, and I found tons more material to read from to perhaps gain a better understanding of traditional Korean customs vs. the DPRK indoctrination. There seems to be parallels, but also seems to be twisted. That is another subject altogether, but the lingering question still remains unanswered even after trying to look through the opaque glass. Will the dynasty survive?
Related: DPRK Studies perhaps he could have more insight, so stay tuned for the next part in his series.
More to come…
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