The August Plenum and its Consequences

Khrushchev's denunciation of Stalin at the 20th Party Congress in February 1956 certainly worried Kim Il Sung. Though some aspects of Kim's cult of personality were toned down in the following months, the North Korean press did❘ not directly criticize the phenomenon as such.52 To the chagrin of Soviet Ambassador Ivanov, at the 3rd KWP Congress the leadership stuck to the policy of rapid industrialization and economic autarky, and barely laid any emphasis on the improvement of living standards." The spirit of the 20th Party❘ Congress had no substantial effect on North Korean domestic policies. By contrast, CCP leaders were much less reluctant to follow Khrushchev's example. By May 1956, the Chinese Foreign Ministry had become more willing to provide the Communist embassies with information. In June the PRC adopted a conciliatory policy toward Taiwan.54 Security precautions aimed at protecting high-ranking officials were greatly relaxed.55 Mao's 10-point program placed a substantial emphasis on improving peasants' living standards. The party encouraged the children of "bourgeois" families to apply for admission to the universities." Whereas in December 1955 the CCP had characterized Confucius' teachings as thoroughly reactionary, four months later the Deputy Foreign Minister called him “a great thinker, politician, and philosopher."57 From 1954-1956 those Soviet and East European diplomats who harshly criticized North Korean policies often praised the correctness of Chinese measures, indicating that in this period the Soviets considered the North Koreans less cooperative than the Chinese (see Documents No. 9 and 10).58

By the end of 1955 the North Koreans had used up most of the bulk of Soviet and they had received Chinese aid.59 In the summer of 1956 the KWP leadership concluded that the country would need aid at least until 1958, and consequently dispatched a delegation led by Kim Il Sung to the USSR and Eastern Europe. The North Koreans seem to have been aware that the Kremlin's disapproved of their economic policies, since Nam Il informed the Romanian Ambassador before the delegation departed that they would ask for consumer goods instead of technical assistance. The visit proved quite successful. The Soviets granted a further 300 million rubles in aid to the DPRK, and cancelled a debt of 570 million rubles.60 Though the CPSU leaders may have criticized Kim's policies during the negotiations, in the end they decided to fulfill his request. While the Kremlin did not hesitate to unseat the local "little Stalins" in Hungary and Bulgaria in 1956, it acted otherwise in North Korea. The Soviets supported Kim Il Sung quite reluctantly, and repeatedly interfered in his policies, but they did not attempt to replace him. This crucial difference between Eastern Europe and the DPRK effectively sealed the fate of those KWP leaders who dared to criticize Kim at the famous August CC plenum.

The "conspiracy" of Pak Ch'ang-ok, Ch'oe Ch'ang-ik, and others, which culminated in their open attack on the dictator's policies on 30-31 August 1956, was a desperate attempt to turn the tide rather than a serious challenge to Kim's rule. As early as mid-1955 most ministerial posts of crucial importance were held by Kim loyalists like Pang Hakse (Interior), Ch'oe Yong-gon (Defense), Nam II (Foreign Affairs), Yi Chu-yon (Finance), Chong Il-yong (Metallurgical Industry), Chong Chun-t’aek (Chemical Industry), Yi Chongok (Light Industry), and Kim Il (Agriculture). Thus, Kim Il Sung's critics, despite their high party ranks, had already become marginalized to a considerable extent."1

The unprecedented cooperation between the Soviet and Yan'an Koreans may have been due to their realization of the gravity of the situation. Outnumbered in the Standing Committee and the CC, they had little chance to prevail over the dictator. They may also have made some tactical mistakes. Pak Ch'ang-ok allegedly wanted to read an 80-page speech describing the errors the leadership had committed. Ch'oe Ch'ang-ik characterized Japanese-trained intellectuals such as Chong Il-yong and the new intelligentsia created by the Communist regime as reactionaries and boors, respectively.62 Since Kim Il Sung had cultivated contacts with both groups in order to offset the expertise of the Soviet and Yan'an Koreans, Ch'oe had good reason to criticize them. By doing so, however, he became even more isolated. Kim's critics also pointed out that the government should have devoted greater care to the improvement of living standards. Kim skillfully countered this charge by enumerating the achievements of his recent visit to the Communist countries, and promising economic reforms. Already before the CC plenum, the regime had resolved to cut the price of some consumer goods, raise wages, and reduce agricultural taxes.63 On 20 August Ivanov told Hungarian Ambassador Károly Práth that the cult of Kim Il Sung had recently decreased significantly.64 Thus, the action of Pak Ch'ang-ok and Ch'oe Ch'ang-ik proved rather illtimed.

Kim Il Sung promptly purged his challengers, but his repressive measures provoked a joint Soviet-Chinese intervention. Most probably, Moscow and Beijing interpreted the purge as a manifestation of North Korean nationalism and willfulness. According to the memoirs of Albanian Enver Hoxha, at that time Boris Ponomarev Head of the International Department of the CPSU Central Committee, told him "things are not going very well with the Koreans. They have become very stuck-up and ought to be brought down a peg or two." In 1955 Kim had skillfully exploited the rivalry between the Soviet and Yan'an Koreans, and his purges did not affect the two groups simultaneously. By contrast, in August 1956 he clamped down on both factions, and this act of repression, which ran counter to the new trend in Soviet and Chinese policies, could not pass unnoticed. Following a visit by Anastas Mikoyan and Peng Dehuai, on 23 September the purged leaders were readmitted to the CC. The Soviets and the Chinese were content with restoring the status quo ante;6 it was the purge, rather than Kim Il Sung's rule as such, that they disapproved of.

Beijing seems to have played a crucial role in the success of the diplomatic intervention. In April 1956 a group of Albanian party leaders criticized Hoxha in the same way Pak Ch'ang-ok and Ch'oe Ch'ang-ik would condemn Kim Il Sung's policies in August. Although Khrushchev sympathized with the dissidents, he proved unable to protect them from the wrath of Hoxha. When Khrushchev sent Mikhail Suslov and Petr Pospelov to Tirane to persuade Hoxha to rehabilitate Koci Xoxe, the most prominent victim of the Albanian show trials, the dictator flatly refused to do so.67 Had Moscow not joined forces with Beijing, Kim similarly might have gotten away with the purge. Judging from the support the CCP leadership gave to the Kremlin, in the summer and early fall of 1956 Mao did not yet consider Soviet de-Stalinization a threat. In fact, Hoxha stresses in his memoirs that Mao attempted to convince him in September that Stalin had made mistakes towards both the CCP and Yugoslavia.68

On 3 October Ivanov told Práth that the North Korean leaders had finally begun to re-examine their economic policies, but it was not easy to eliminate the various deficiencies. For instance, the leadership had insisted on producing bicycles, watches, and sewing machines, even though the DPRK could have imported such products as part of the aid it received. Korean-made consumer goods were of poor quality, yet their prices were unaffordably high.69 Contrary to widely held assumptions, Ch'oe Ch'ang-ik, Pak Ch'ang-ok and the Soviets had proposed the importation, rather than the local production, of consumer goods. Kim Il Sung seems to have opposed this proposal partly on the grounds that the DPRK's serious foreign trade deficit necessitated the rapid resuscitation of the country's industrial capacity."

Pyongyang Regains the Initiative

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The Hungarian revolution of October 1956 stunned the KWP leaders, who were at a loss to understand the causes of the uprising. South Korean reactions to the Hungarian events also contributed to Pyongyang's anxiety. Certain high-ranking officials of the ROK Ministry of Defense allegedly made preparations for a military intervention in case a similar revolt took place in the DPRK." Kim did not regard this potential threat lightly. Factory-building came to an abrupt halt as the regime reassigned workers to the construction of underground plants." Of the North Koreans studying in Hungary, at least one took the opportunity to emigrate to the West, whereupon the regime hurriedly summoned most of the students home. On the other hand, Kim also took advantage of the Hungarian crisis. He demonstrated his dependability—and thus countered Soviet criticism of his policies-by offering economic aid such as 10,000 metric tons of cement to the newly-installed regime of Janos Kádár as early as 12 November. 73

Since the Hungarian crisis temporarily discredited deStalinization, Mikoyan's intervention in September did not put North Korean intra-party conflicts to rest. On 14 February 1957 Kim Tu-bong, a venerable leader of the Yan'an faction who had sympathized with the conspirators in August 1956, made a speech that condemned Pak Ch'ang-ok and

Ch'oe Ch'ang-ik.74 This event revealed that Kim Il Sung was again in control of North Korean domestic politics. In February, Moscow summoned most of its technical experts home, and handed over the equipment of a joint-stock company called Sovexportfilm to the North Koreans. The Soviets also renamed the advisers remaining in the DPRK as consultants to demonstrate that their proposals were not binding on the North Koreans, as well as to prevent the North Koreans from blaming every setback on the Soviet advisers.75

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However, Soviet-North Korean friction continued. In the summer of 1957 Pyongyang invited foreign teacher deputations to spend their holidays in the DPRK. Seven smaller Communist countries did send deputations, but the Soviets and the Chinese were conspicuously absent. One may thus conclude that Pyongyang's conflict with Moscow and Beijing did not necessarily affect its relations with the other Communist regimes. While the Soviets did not call upon their satellites to condemn the KWP leadership, the North Koreans seem to have attempted to win the friendship of the smaller Communist countries. In 1957, Práth emphasized, that P'yongyang appeared much more cooperative than it had been in 1956. The ambassador had several long and amicable conversations with Kim Il Sung, the latter repeatedly asking Práth what he thought of North Korean domestic politics."

In the fall of 1957 Pyongyang and Moscow apparently reached a modus vivendi.78 Kim Il Sung took advantage of the events that had taken place in the USSR in June 1957. Since Khrushchev had also resorted to a purge in order to get rid of his opponents, he could no longer accuse Kim of violating the principle of "collective leadership." The KWP leadership publicly approved of the replacement of the Molotov group, drawing a parallel between the activity of the latter and that of the North Korean 'factionalists.' A CC plenum held in October expelled Yi Sang-cho, a dissident Yan'an Korean, from the party. Having been DPRK Ambassador to the Soviet Union in 1956, he decided not to return home after the August plenum. Since he continued to criticize Kim Il Sung, Pyongyang demanded his extradition. The Soviets refused the demand, but they reportedly told Yi Sangcho to keep silent. So Hui, another dissident Yan'an Korean, sought refuge in China, and Beijing similarly refused to hand him over to the North Korean authorities. Later Lee joined So Hui in the PRC, and their case troubled Chinese-North Korean relations as late as the fall of 1958. When a Chinese delegation headed by Guo Moruo arrived in the DPRK on 30 September 1958, it was given a cold reception.80 The CCP | leadership seems to have made every effort to conciliate Kim Il Sung. When the North Korean leader visited the PRC at the end of 1958, the Chinese told him that the assistance the CCP had recieved from Kim's guerrillas in the 1930s was far greater than the help Beijing gave to the DPRK during the Korean War.81

Problems of Industrialization

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In July 1957 the KWP leadership initiated a two-yearlong party purge that broke the influence of the Soviet and Yan'an factions once and for all.82 Since it coincided with the

the DPRK and his anger about the cancellation of the visit. In February 1959 Khrushchev allegedly promised Kim that he would visit North Korea that fall. The North Koreans took it for granted that the promise would be fulfilled. Although Soviet Ambassador Puzanov repeatedly stated that he did not know when the visit would take place, the North Koreans busily prepared for it from June on. In October Khrushchev told Kim that he would not visit the DPRK after all. This left the KWP leaders with the awkward task of turning the celebration into a non-event. The Soviets did not make it easier for them. "They have only themselves to blame if they were offended by that, .... as they make their bed so they must lie on it, ... they must realize that in the present international situation Comrade Khrushchev's visit to Korea would further increase, rather than ease, the tension," Soviet diplomats told their Hungarian colleagues.100

The cancellation of Khrushchev's visit occurred immediately after his visit to the United States. At first Pyongyang attempted to pass over the latter event in silence, but the Soviet Embassy forced the North Korean media to deal "appropriately" with the visit (see Document No. 14). On 12 September, three days before the Soviet leader left for the US, Pyongyang had sided with China with regard to the SinoIndian border dispute. This may have been a veiled expression of Kim's dissatisfaction with Khrushchev's foreign policy, since as late as 31 August the DPRK Ambassador to Budapest emphasized that North Korea's relations with India were improving. He also stated that Pyongyang intended to carry on with this policy. 101

Breezes of Reform in North Korea

In May 1959 the KWP leaders asked the Kremlin to postpone the repayment of the credit the DPRK had received from the USSR, declaring that they intended to improve the living standards of the population. The Soviets consented to a four-year postponement. 102 On 8 May, Kim Il Sung informed a Hungarian party delegation that the leadership wanted to designate 1960 as a "buffer year," because the last three years

developed. The December CC plenum had resolved to reexamine the regime's economic policies. While in January the Hungarian diplomats had thought it likely that the government would eliminate the household plots of the peasantry by the end of 1959, now the leadership decided not to resort to such measures. 105

The Soviets welcomed these changes, but the DPRK's new economic course also included measures that did not please the "fraternal" countries. In 1959 the export of certain agricultural products was halted in order to retain them for domestic consumption, causing a foreign trade deficit. Pyongyang then drastically cut back its imports in order to restore the balance of trade. At the end of 1959 several East European trade delegations arrived in the DPRK. Though the North Koreans had originally intended to halve the volume of their foreign trade, they finally yielded to the East Europeans' pressure. While imports fell to a large extent in 1960, the overall reduction proved quite insignificant. The volume of agricultural exports decreased, while the importation of agricultural products and food increased.106

Since the DPRK leadership considered the shortage of skilled labor very grave, it felt compelled to relax certain discriminatory rules. In April 1959 Kim Il Sung declared that the country should involve "useful elements" of the pre-1945 intelligentsia in the modernization of the country, rather than slight and alienate them. 107 From mid-1959 on, the authorities permitted Hungarian-trained North Koreans to contact the Hungarian Embassy, and many of them were given jobs worthy of their qualifications. 108 "Communist universities" were set up in order to teach technical skills to persons of South Korean origin, who had hitherto been discriminated against. The repatriation of Koreans from Japan in 1959-1960 was also motivated, among other things, by Kim's desire to recruit skilled labor (see Documents No. 15, 18, and 19).

Preparations for Unification

On 8 May 1959 Kim Il Sung told a Hungarian party delegation that by 1958 the DPRK had become "strong enough"

to receive the Koreans willing to leave Japan.109 The rapid 109 The rapid development of North Korean industry also made the KWP leaders think that Pyongyang would soon overtake Seoul in every respect. Indeed, in 1958 the South Korean economy entered a period of stagnation. US aid flows began to decline in 1958, and it looked as if the ROK would be unable to survive without the American economic life-belt.110 Moreover, Pyongyang had good reason to believe that the Rhee regime would soon crumble. In 1959 the leaders of the Democratic Party [DP], the main opposition party in the South, also felt that "power was lying just around the corner, waiting for them to pick it up.'

In October 1959 the head of the North Korean Foreign Ministry's South Korean desk stated that the party leadership "considered the situation as ripe for the unification of the country." On 10 December a high-ranking KPA officer told a Hungarian diplomat that Pyongyang would unite Korea in 1960, supposedly by military means (see Documents No. 12 and 13). On 4 February 1960 the North Korean diplomat Paek Chong-won told the Hungarian Foreign Ministry that the KWP CC was of the opinion that due to various factors, it was possible to unite Korea in the immediate future. Among other things, he called the Hungarians' attention to the increasing tension between South Korea and Japan. The establishment of "Communist universities" for southern-born cadres therefore did not serve solely educational and economic purposes; they were also an effective tool of Pyongyang's Südpolitik. Apart from nationalist motives, the North Korean leadership's interest in unification may also have been for economic reasons. In November 1959 Romanian Ambassador to Pyongyang Dimitru Olteanu told Práth that national unification was crucial for both North and South Korea. Northern industrial products, because of their inferior quality, were not suitable for export; thus the North badly needed the industrially underdeveloped South as a captive market. 113

Pyongyang's unification plans became another source of conflict between the DPRK and the USSR in 1959-1960. As early as August 1959 Hungarian diplomats noted that the North Korean leaders "may harbor an idea that the division of Korea was caused by the Soviet Union, and thus its unification also depends solely on it." "When will North and South Korea unite?" Yi Chu-yon asked Soviet Chargé d'Affaires Pelishenko on 20 August. Caught off guard, Pelishenko gave an evasive answer (see Document No. 11). Pyongyang, in all probability, felt that the Soviets were not concerned about Korean unification. The post-Stalin CPSU leadership indeed preferred maintaining the status quo in Korea to a risky confrontation. Competition with the US induced the Kremlin to give North Korea economic and military support, but the Soviets were content to protect the "socialist achievements" of the DPRK (see Document No. 3). Washington, similarly did its best to prevent Rhee from provoking a new war between North and South.'

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Khrushchev's preoccupation with the German question implied a comparatively neglectful approach to Far Eastern problems.115 In essence, he required North Korea to support

his policies with regard to Germany, but he refused to commit himself to the cause of Korean unification (see Document No. 17). The declarations of the international Communist conferences held in Moscow in 1957 and 1960 highlighted the "special situation" of the GDR. The East German leadership, like that of the DPRK, considered itself entitled to preferential treatment in terms of economic relations and other issues. 116 This led to a conflict of interests between Berlin and Pyongyang. On 14 January 1960 GDR Ambassador Kurt Schneidewind told Práth that an East German government delegation headed by Heinrich Rau would soon arrive in the DPRK in order to "make the leading Korean comrades understand that today the main threat to peace is not in the Far East but... in West Germany.” That is, the DPRK should not press for a quick solution of the Korean problem." (In the fall of 1959 Pyongyang had declared that the Korean question was the most important issue in the world.118) Since Khrushchev did not hesitate to resort to ultimatums and threats in order to solve the German question, one may conclude that in 1959-1960 the different priorities of Soviet and North Korean foreign policy played a more important role in Soviet-DPRK friction than the conflict between Soviet "peaceful co-existence" and North Korean belligerence.

Pyongyang and the South Korean Revolution

The South Korean April Revolution that toppled the Rhee regime had a profound effect on North Korean policies. On 21 April 1960, two days after the so-called "4/19 Revolt," the DPRK diplomat Kim T'ae-hwa told the Hungarian Foreign Ministry that the KWP leadership did not consider South Korea to be ripe for an armed uprising, since neither the army nor the police supported the demonstrators. Nonetheless, the protests might lead to the downfall of Rhee, for "even the Americans are displeased with his brutal rule." Kim also anticipated Chang Myon's rise to prominence.119 Pyongyang's analysis of the South Korean situation proved remarkably objective and accurate, if somewhat tarnished by ideological views. Certain officials of the Foreign Ministry seem to have formed an accurate view of the southern media. Describing the participants in the April Revolution, Paek Chong-won frankly stated that both workers and peasants had kept aloof from the demonstrations (see Documents No. 16 and 28). On 5 July Paek predicted that the DP would win the coming South Korean elections, though he did not expect far-reaching political changes from it.

120

KWP leaders adopted a cautious policy with regard to the South Korean events. Although they sympathized with certain "progressive" southern parties, they did not provide public support to any of them in order not to compromise the favored party. favored party.121 In June Kim Il Sung paid a visit to Khrushchev and on the latter's advice proposed a confederation of the DPRK and the ROK. Although Chang Myon's government proved unresponsive, Kim did not give up. In November he reiterated his proposal. The northern leaders spoke about the South in a very moderate tone, calling it by its official name. They seem to have been ready for a temporary "peaceful co-existence" with Seoul in case unification