DPRK Forum

(Note: Sorry this took longer than expected. The research on this subject is ongoing)

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 65+ 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?

Continue reading ‘The Path to Succession: Can the Dynasty Survive?’

Maybe there could be some way to understand how the next leader (if the government remains until then) will be groomed for leadership by looking at how Kim Il Sung groomed Kim Jong Il for the job. While not a lot is known what went on behind closed doors in the decision making process, there are some interesting articles and papers on the path to leadership. We shall look at the Policy Elites paper which tells the story of the succession pretty well. Also, there is sopme new information I ran into on the history of how North Korea was formed by the Soviets. While this may not give insight to the next possible succession because of the differences on how things were handled with Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il, it is still interesting to see how the first dynastic succession in the history of communism took place.

We shall look into an interesting section called “Inside North Korea’s Black Box: Reversing the Optics” by Alexandre Y. Mansourov. I happen to disagree a lot with the assessments because it seems to disagree with other economic writings I happen to agree with. To me, North Korea has not really recovered from the famine of the mid-to late 1990’s, and only tried to present a paradise front. Of course, the current floods did not help either, but that happened after the paper was written, so that cannot be used against the author obviously. However, the economic changes in North Korea are not really the focus of this posting, it is how the transition from Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il took place.

Continue reading ‘The Path to Succession: Kim Il Sung to Kim Jong Il (totally re-written and revised)’