wide range of technical questions and giving instructions of his own.12 He made several return visits until the construction was completed in 1962, on each occasion meeting with the East German specialists and inquiring about their grievances. For the Korean leadership, the main problem seemed to have been to prevent Hamhung from becoming more advanced and attractive than Pyongyang. To avoid this politically unacceptable eventuality, they diverted substantial material designed for Hamhung to the capital.13

In contrast to Moscow's commitment to preserve its North Korean creation by mobilizing the Chinese as a military substitute, the Soviet Union did not unequivocally guarantee the existence of the GDR until after the failed domestic uprising in East Germany in June 1953.14 As a consequence of this uncertainty, contacts with East Asian states were not on the political agenda of the communists in East Berlin for quite some time. The first high-ranking communist leader from East Asia to pay an official visit to the GDR after 1949 was Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai, who was in the country 23-26 July 1954. His East German counterpart Otto Grotewohl led a return trip seventeen months later in December 1955 to the capitals of the People's Republic of China, the DPRK and Mongolia the first visit by a GDR state and party delegation to their Asian comrades.

15

First Observations and Patterns, 1956-1961

When Grotewohl and his delegation returned from their mission to East Asia, the Prime Minister reported the results at the next session of the GDR Politburo, on 2 January 1956. He emphasized the joint bilateral declarations issued with all countries visited and the Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation concluded with the People's Republic of China (PRC). The conclusions the East German leadership drew at this time marked the beginning of the GDR's modest "Asia Policy," the first stage of which consisted of creating a basic awareness of the situation in East Asia. This meant intense work for GDR embassies and multiple forms of internal and public propaganda, all of which the Politburo ordered in detail dur

buro sent a two-member delegation to the Congress from Berlin, headed by Deputy Foreign Minister Otto Winzer."7 The East German embassy in Pyongyang received advance copies of the draft party statute that was to be discussed at the congress, and it obtained the texts of all the speeches given by the North Korean leadership. GDR officials paid particular attention to the party statute, subjecting it to a very meticulous and somewhat arrogant exegesis. The East Germans criticized the absence of a reference to a "peaceful way" to reunite Korea and the party's "shallow" notions of how to bring about reunification. They also judged the requirements imposed on members of the KWP as hardly sufficient in light of the allegedly poor qualifications of the vast majority of its membership. GDR officials also cited the lack of an appropriate awareness of the danger allegedly posed by many "hostile agents" supposedly still present in the DPRK after the chaotic transfer of people across the 38th parallel during the war. On the other hand, they sensed from the statute an awareness of the imminent danger posed by influential factions of "party enemies" within the KWP itself. They also noted critically that the obvious "problem" of personality cult in the DPRK had not been addressed.18 This "problem" had, of course, been tackled by Soviet leader Nikita S. Khrushchev in shocking detail before the worldwide communist movement just two months earlier at the CPSU 20th Party Congress in Moscow.

Khrushchev's de-Stalinization initiative was particularly problematical for Kim Il Sung since the North Korean leader had shaped and "Koreanized" his autocracy and personality cult according to the model he had learned from the now suddenly demystified Joseph Stalin. Kim had lived as a Korean partisan in the Soviet Union during World War II and had arrived in Pyongyang only on 19 September 1945, after the Soviet liberation of Northern Korea from Japanese occupation had been completed. In subsequent years, he skillfully played to Korean nationalism and exceptionalism, minimizing the Soviet role in defeating Japan and posing instead as the triumphant liberator of the country from its foreign

19

yoke. He invented fictional battles against the Japanese in the North Korean Paekdu Mountains, followed by a military liberation campaign led by himself that culminated in a widely cheered public victory speech in Pyongyang. Even though he had advanced to the top position in the Korean Workers Party as a consequence of Soviet support, in November 1950 he purged Soviet-leaning members from the party leadership, primarily because of Moscow's failure to send troops to Korea during the Korean War. After the 1953 armistice, he turned against indigenous former partisans of Korea.20

Since Kim Il Sung had criticized many failed practices and many functionaries at the Third Party Congress without suffering any openly voiced challenges to his leadership, he embarked soon afterwards on a lengthy tour to the USSR, Eastern Europe, and the GDR. The DPRK delegation was scheduled to stay in East Germany from 1 June through 11 June, visiting factories, memorial sites, and tourist attractions in all parts of the country, following the usual pattern of a "friendship visit." The East German Politburo carefully prepared the itinerary for the Korean guests and drafted a bilateral contract on cultural and economic cooperation as well as a joint government declaration stating, among other things, a determination to overcome the "imperialist" division of their respective countries by peaceful means.2

21

As it turned out, however, the Korean guests were much more practical and went straight to what their mission to Europe was really about; at their meeting with the GDR Politburo on June 8 they asked for extensive aid. The startled East German Politburo had to call an extraordinary session to discuss the new situation as soon as the North Korean delegation departed.22 In sharp contrast to his report at the KWP Party Congress a few weeks before, in his meetings with the East German communists Kim Il Sung painted a bleak picture of the economic situation in North Korea. The North Koreans were presently struggling to accomplish their three-yearplan to achieve the pre-war standard of 1950, Kim explained. They lacked sufficient quantities of many basic utilities, products, and goods: coal, electricity, fertilizer, textiles, iron, cement, and grain. Livestock breeding was inadequate, as were the catches of fish, and the country faced a grave housing shortage.

East German leader Walter Ulbricht asked the North Korean delegation to submit their requests in writing and the East Germans asked some tentative questions about North Korean reunification policy and living conditions in South Korea. The GDR was neither willing nor able to meet all the costly North Korean demands, but the Politburo was worried that their failure to do so would prompt the North Koreans to complain to the Soviet Union and the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (Comecon).23 East German negotiators had sensed some disappointment in the DPRK delegation as some of its expectations were not fully met.24 Consequently, at their extraordinary session on 12 June the Politburo decided to inform Comecon in detail about the GDR's limited capacity to support the DPRK. East Germany was ready to send various technical experts to North Korea and to deliver basic goods worth 54 million rubles between 1956 and 1958,

in place of the assistance it had earlier pledged to the construction of a diesel engine factory and a metallurgical plant. But the GDR refused to grant North Korea the financial credits it requested and it postponed a decision on sending steel to the DPRK due to problems in domestic production. The Politburo also turned down the even more far-reaching Korean requests made later in 1956 and in subsequent years.25 Altogether the GDR delivered roughly 500 million rubles of aid to the DPRK between 1950 and 1962.26

Soon after returning from his visit to the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe in 1956, Kim Il Sung had to face an internal revolt in the KWP. Kim's leadership was called into question because of the country's economic problems, differences over strategies for achieving national unification, and, most importantly in the eyes of his opponents within the party, his personality cult, which continued to increase despite the new policy coming out of the USSR after the CPSU's 20th Party Congress. In two extraordinary plenary sessions of the KWP Central Committee in Pyongyang on 30-31 August and on 23 September, Kim and his loyalists managed to suppress the revolt of their opponents, who were officially denounced as "splittists." Some of them had walked into the Soviet embassy in P'yongyang and complained about Kim, and subsequently the Moscow leadership had asked Kim for an explanation of these events.27

After a joint Soviet-Chinese intervention by a delegation sent to Pyongyang, some party functionaries ousted from the Central Committee in the August session were readmitted for "reeducation" purposes three weeks later only to be finally "purged" in March 1958.28 Using a method adopted from the Soviet Union for organizing comprehensive "purges,” in 1956 and 1957 all members of the KWP had to re-apply for party membership in order to “exchange party documents.”29

Kim Il Sung also demoted his ambassador to Moscow, Yi Sang-cho, who had criticized the North Korean leader's personality cult and refused to distribute official North Korean propaganda in Moscow. Yi Sang-cho decided to remain in exile in the Soviet Union, and Moscow refused Pyongyang's demands for his extradition.30 In March 1958, after the final withdrawal of the Chinese "volunteers" who had been in the country since their intervention in the Korean War, Kim Il Sung removed his main rival, Chairman of the Supreme People's Assembly Kim Tu-bong, a well-respected partisan leader who operated from China during World War II and became the first chairman of the KWP in 1946. Even though Kim Il Sung had prevailed over all internal rivals, he nonetheless never lost his vindictiveness against perceived "enemies" in the party. In the changed political environment of 1962, for example, on a North Korean request the PRC extradited four former KWP Central Committee members. The four had been denounced as "enemies of the party" in 1956 and had fled the country to the North,31 only to be sent back six years later, presumably to their deaths.

Imitating foreign models while defining them as uniquely North Korean, Kim Il Sung imaginatively attempted to eternalize his autocracy by constructing a comprehensive nationalist ideology for domestic purposes the infamous

As the Sino-Soviet rivalry for leadership in the communist camp continued to grow, but before it had turned into an open split, the DPRK enjoyed the comfortable position of being politically wooed by both socialist neighbors. The GDR, however, was unable to match Pyongyang's position. The East German state relied heavily on Soviet political support throughout its existence, but it was especially dependent on Moscow during the Berlin crisis of 1958-1961. During those years, the ties between East Germany and North Korea were a mirror image of the USSR-DPRK relationship. In fact, the Soviet and the Eastern European ambassadors in Pyongyang banded together to exchange information and share assessments of developments in the domestic and foreign policy of the secretive North Korean state.32

For example, it was through his Soviet colleague Pusanov that GDR ambassador Kurt Schneidewind was informed in August 1960 about the trip Kim Il Sung took to the Soviet Union after his meetings with Mao Zedong in Beijing in May. In Moscow Kim had allegedly promised not to follow the Chinese on their course against the Soviets and had rejected Mao's overtures. Khrushchev had promised him more economic support if the DPRK gave up the Chinese-inspired "flying horse" (Chollima). The Soviet leader had also advised him to become more flexible towards South Korea by learning from the experience of the supposedly more sophisticated East Germans. According to Pusanov, the Presidium of the KWP followed these suggestions by refraining from disproportionate leaps in the economy, by creating a special office for South Korean affairs and by financially supporting the Socialist Mass Party in the ROK. After Ambassador Schneidewind received his confidential briefing on these developments, he noted privately that his Soviet colleague was too optimistic and had minimized the problems posed by the ongoing economic and political "mistakes" of the North Korean communists. Schneidewind shared this more realistic assessment with his ambassadorial colleagues from Czechoslovakia, Poland and with "other diplomats from socialist countries."33

In a meeting with Czechoslovak Ambassador Kohousek on 2 February 1961, Ambassador Schneidewind exchanged impressions about what the KWP rank and file knew about the conflicts between the USSR and the PRC. Both came to the conclusion that the North Korean leadership was hiding such information even from members of their Central Committee, not to mention regional and local officials, in order not to disturb the faithful party functionaries. Furthermore, Schneidewind and Kohousek noted North Korean hypoc

still not acknowledged the assistance the DPRK had received from the Soviet Union and East Europe since 1956, and instead maintained that they had achieved economic success "without foreign aid." While the North Koreans were pressuring the Eastern Europeans for further credits, they simultaneously increased the service fees charged to foreign embassies, which prompted the Czechoslovak ambassador to request that the North Korean embassy in Prague be charged the same amount. What disturbed the socialist ambassadors even more was the increasing level of investment and trade in North Korea by Japan, West Germany and other Western countries.34

In a report to the GDR Foreign Ministry the following month,[See Document 1] the Pyongyang Embassy noted that the DPRK still seriously underestimated the role of the Soviet Union and relied heavily on the Chinese Communist Party. The embassy harshly criticized the personality cult and the historical legends about Kim Il Sung displayed in the Museum of the Patriotic Liberation War, as well as all over the country. Instead of studying the works of Marx, Engels, and Lenin, the embassy reported, North Korean party propaganda was solely and completely oriented toward the "wise teachings of our glorious leader, Comrade Kim Il Sung." "Mystic ideas of Confucianism” were prevalent, as well as “nationalist tendencies" to falsely portray feats accomplished in the DPRK by foreigners as resulting from indigenous "heroism" of a sort found exclusively in North Korea. 35

In a report from June 1961, however, the GDR embassy reported significant improvement with respect to each of these problems, with the notable exception of the personality cult. The North Koreans had publicly acknowledged the leading role of the Soviet Union in world communism, had recognized the economic support they had received from their Soviet and East European allies, and had followed the latter's advice to distance themselves from the Chinese and Albanian communists. According to Ambassador Schneidewind's analysis, the massive economic problems created by the reductions in Chinese exports to the DPRK made the North Koreans increasingly turn to the Soviet Union for economic help. For political reasons the USSR was ever more eager to comply, although, suffering from domestic economic shortages, it was not to able to meet all the North Korean demands.36

In the wake of these concessions, there was a honeymoon period in North Korean-Soviet relations, and consequently in North Korean-GDR relations as well. From 29 June to 10 July 1961, a DPRK delegation led by Kim Il Sung visited the Soviet Union and signed a Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation that required both sides to fight with "Leninist unforgivingness against all forms of revisionism, dogmatism, sectarianism and deviations from the principles of socialist internationalism." The Soviet Union was very pleased with this anti-Chinese commitment and Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko generously declared that the earlier North Korean orientation toward China had been a temporary aberration. Soon after the visit to Moscow, Kim Il Sung and his delega

edged the international support North Korea had received. Kim proposed the creation of a Marxist-Leninist party for South Korea and made a commitment to the peaceful reunification of the country. With delegations from communist parties all over the world present and a second wave of de-Stalinization underway in the USSR, the KWP leadership made no reference to the personality cult. Even the display of propaganda in Pyongyang was toned down during the congress.38

By the end of 1961, however, the honeymoon was over. Although Moscow and its allies counted the DPRK in the Soviet camp in September 1961, on 12 December Soviet Ambassador Pusanov reported to his communist colleagues in P'yongyang (except those from the PRC, Albania and Vietnam, who were pointedly excluded from his briefing) that the recent KWP Central Committee session had made unsatisfactory commentaries on the 22nd Party Congress of the CPSU, where excessive personality cult had been condemned. The Soviet ambassador further noted that nationalistic propaganda was again appearing in the DPRK. For example, the North Koreans had boasted that they had created an entirely new type of tractor within one month. In fact, the tractor in question was an exact copy of a model from a factory in the Soviet city of Kharkov, a blueprint of which had been brought back by North Korean specialists who had been trained there. Such examples were not rare: "The present comrades ambassadors confirmed this by providing additional cases."39 Three days later the ambassadors of Bulgaria, Poland, Hungary, and the GDR met as a small group to further discuss the recent developments in the Soviet Union and in their host country. All of them agreed that the influence of the proChinese forces in the KWP leadership had increased and that Kim Il Sung had made concessions to them. Since Kim was wedded to his own "personality cult," he naturally viewed the Soviet critique of this phenomenon as a threat and thus shifted to an anti-Soviet, pro-Chinese stance.40

Taking Sides in the Sino-Soviet Conflict, 1962-1965

Pro-Chinese tendencies markedly increased beginning in early 1962. Mirroring the PRC's aggressive stance toward

Soviet embassy to discuss the conversation. The East German reported that Park had stated that real "war cannot be separated from class warfare" and that "peaceful reunification" could only come about by driving the "US imperialists" out of the South by force. After news of this report circulated among the fraternal diplomats, they all became worried about the unpredictable North Koreans, who were apparently following the radicalism of the Chinese and Albanians in disregarding the principle of "peaceful coexistence" propagated by Moscow.[See Document 2] The communist countries of the Soviet camp, whose support for an armed incursion into South Korea the DPRK wanted to solicit, regarded such military action against the South as extremely dangerous and "adventurist."4 After the Soviet and East European governments signaled this position to Kim Il Sung in June 1962, the North Korean leader softened his rhetoric, and the talk about imminent military actions against the South subsided. A few months later Kim Il Sung again referred to the "peaceful solution" of the Korean question.

The DPRK leadership nonetheless did not completely abandon its anti-Soviet polemics and pro-Chinese stance. During and after the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962, the Chinese declarations on the crisis were widely reported to the North Korean public, along with declarations of DPRK solidarity with the Caribbean island, but almost no mention was made of Moscow's statements. Soviet reactions to the US ultimatum were portrayed as cowardly and defensive. One should not "beg the imperialists for peace, but fight them over it," Pyongyang declared. To the even further dismay of the USSR, the DPRK fully sided with the PRC during the Sino-Indian border clashes. Subsequently, the Soviet Union decided to defer a decision on the North Korean request made by a DPRK military delegation to Moscow to deliver modern anti-aircraft systems free of charge.42

Further evidence that North Korea was siding with the PRC came from reports the GDR embassy obtained from the new Czechoslovak ambassador to Pyongyang, Moravec, after he returned from the Party Congress in Prague in December 1962. The DPRK guest at the Czechoslovak Party Congress had fully supported the "provocative" statements

of the PRC delegation and the North Korean delegation's leader, Vice-premier Yi Chu-yon, had provided East European delegates with a telling performance. He had placed two apples on the table, defining the left one as China and the right one as the Soviet Union. He then placed a third one in the middle, called it "Korea" and cut it right through with knife. He asked the bystanders whether one half of "Korea" should go to the right and one to the left. Answering the question himself, he declared that to be impossible and asked his listeners for understanding of North Korea's difficult situation. After Sino-Soviet differences became public, the North Koreans were forced to make a decision, Yi explained, but they would have preferred to maintain friendship with both the PRC and the USSR.43

North Korean polemics against "peaceful coexistence" continued as the DPRK now openly adopted Chinese positions. To the GDR, these statements were “un-marxist and adventurist," according to an analysis of April 1963. It was indeed "adventurist," when the KWP declared in December 1962 that only "massive strikes" against the "imperialist enemy" would eliminate the danger of war in the long run, and that nuclear confrontation should not be feared since the "power of revolutionary spirit is stronger than any nuclear bomb." When Yi Chu-yon led a North Korean delegation to the GDR in September 1962, he lectured the East Germans that the building of the Berlin Wall in August 1961 had been a half-hearted measure. Had they acted more aggressively, the moment would have arrived "to finish up Berlin." The "imperialists," according to Yi Chu-yon, would not go to war over Berlin. Now "the time had come" to courageously explore a favorable moment for action.44

9945

In October 1962 Kim Il Sung's speeches for domestic consumption again oriented the KWP towards the autarkic "Juche" policy, exhorting North Koreans that the proper course was to "create everything by one's own strength.' Aside from this rhetoric, however, which was intended for the general population and for lower-ranking party members, the North Korean leadership was actually quite pragmatic with regard to matters of foreign economic assistance. Their policy was to attempt to reap the utmost benefits from any socialist or capitalist country while giving as little as possible in return. In contrast to the political sphere, there were no real ideological predispositions in economic matters. In 1962 and 1963, despite all the pro-Chinese rhetoric, trade with the Soviet Union was greater than with the PRC. Such pragmatism, however, was rather the result of economic desperation than of astuteness.

When the Soviet ambassador in Pyongyang met with the first secretaries of the embassies of the GDR, Poland, and Czechoslovakia in October 1963, the Soviet representative complained about the difficult negotiations with the North Koreans, the futile attempts to agree on trade based on reciprocity (Korean exports of precious and non-ferrous metals vs. imports of basic goods) and the tendency of the DPRK to play the socialist countries off their capitalist partners. But the latter was not a realistic option. In 1964 the DPRK planned to have 10 percent of its foreign trade with non-socialist coun

46

tries but it fell far short of those ambitions. In actuality, despite the boastful rhetoric of "Juche," North Korea relied heavily on other socialist countries. It had to accept massive trade deficits and repeatedly admit that the goods it had promised to deliver to its partners were of low quality and in insufficient quantity. Overall the DPRK lagged behind such obligations by 15 to 20 percent. When GDR Ambassador Otto Becker invited a North Korean delegation to the bi-annual Leipzig Spring Fair in 1964, Deputy Premier Yi Chu-yon had to turn down this offer, explaining that it would be 1967 before the DPRK would reach a quality standard for its products high enough to qualify it to attend a fair in Europe.47

After 1963, North Korea's pro-Chinese policy resulted in its decision to significantly reduce its political contacts with all the East European socialist countries and the USSR, and the economic aid from those countries was consequently on the verge of expiring. Instead, the DPRK promoted contacts with "revolutionary" forces in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. The years 1963 and 1964 marked the lowest point in the relations between the DPRK and the GDR,48 notable for incidents of stone throwing, attempted burglaries and the "kidnapping" of the GDR embassy dog, named Dina.49 With regard to cultural contacts, the GDR had no exchange with North Korea besides official delegations. Instead, the DPRK promoted contacts with "revolutionary" forces in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Even marriages between Koreans and citizens from Eastern Europe were unwelcome. Without shying away from racism, the DPRK regime demoted Korean partners of such couples from Pyongyang to the countryside and pressured them to divorce their European spouses. 50 The GDR embassy, internally comparing those practices to Nazi Germany, sometimes obtained information about the fear, mistrust, poverty, and ignorance that increasingly characterized the DPRK. [See Document 5.] Their sources were North Koreans who had previously lived in the GDR or East German citizens who had joined them as spouses."1

In 1964, tensions between the DPRK and the Soviet bloc increased. Yi Chu-yon went on a tirade in an exchange with Soviet Ambassador Moskovski in June 1964, accusing the USSR, the GDR, and Czechoslovakia of unwillingness to help North Korea. The DPRK was poor, the vice-premier said, and in need of outside help. Even capitalist states would grant credits, but the socialist countries refuse them and “just like to see money." After having generously extended credits to North Korea for many years without realistic expectation of their being repaid, the East Europeans now turned a cold shoulder to the DPRK. Pyongyang's attempts to lure countries like the GDR from the Soviet orbit and improve economic relations with them one at a time were unsuccessful. The East Europeans and the Soviets resisted such pressure, calculating correctly that in the long run China's poor economic performance would aggravate problems within the DPRK and make Pyongyang reconsider its ideological leanings toward the PRC.52

In July, the CPSU Central Committee sent a letter to the KWP Central Committee calling for an international meeting of all communist parties to discuss current tensions. The