Kim Il Sung biography briefly. Kim Il Sung is the great man of the century! When the people were lucky with the leaders! Start of political activity
July 8 marks the 15th anniversary of the death of Kim Il Sung in North Korea. By tradition, on this date, the central media of the DPRK publish stories from the life of the leader. "Vlast" chose seven, if not the brightest, then very characteristic.
VYACHESLAV BELASH
Kim Il Sung and the constitution
"The founder of the DPRK, Comrade Kim Il Sung, while working on the construction of a new state, paid great attention to such issues as the name of the state, its flag and coat of arms, and especially the country's constitution. In the autumn of 1947, he created a commission to which he entrusted the development of a draft constitution.
Since nothing like this had been done in the country before, he gave detailed instructions to the members of the commission in which direction the work should be carried out, what the content of the constitution should be ... Thanks to his deep attention, the draft constitution was drawn up in a month.
Comrade Kim Il Sung organized a discussion of the draft constitution... He asked the audience to express their opinion on the arrangement of its chapters. There was no answer. Nobody had any objections. Looking around those present, Comrade Kim Il Sung said that in this respect the draft constitution does not correspond to the real state of affairs in the country. In the constitution, the main place should be occupied by the democratic rights and freedoms of citizens, and therefore it is necessary to put the chapter on the rights of citizens at the beginning. In the draft constitution, the fundamental rights and duties of citizens were discussed in the last part.
Then we moved on to a more detailed discussion. Different opinions were expressed. In particular, it was proposed to delete the word "nationality" from Article 11 "...regardless of...nationality", since the Koreans belong to the same nation, and call the highest state body not the Supreme People's Assembly, but Parliament.
Comrade Kim Il Sung said that the word "nationality" should be left, because if foreigners take the citizenship of the DPRK, they cannot be limited in their rights ... He also said that the name "supreme people's assembly" should be left, since the best form of parliament is the supreme people's assembly. Thus he gave important instructions on the composition and content of the constitution."
Kim Il Sung and the forest
On April 6, 1947, when the construction of a new democratic Korea was underway on a large scale after the liberation of the country, Kim Il Sung, together with the people of Pyongyang, took part in a tree planting ceremony on Mount Munsu.
Planting one sapling after another, he told the workers accompanying him that by organizing work on planting forests, the consequences of the colonial rule of the Japanese imperialists should be quickly eliminated. Emphasizing that making the mountains green is an important task ... he pointed out the need to afforest wisely, plant economically useful species, and take good care of the trees.
The heroine of the anti-Japanese struggle, Kim Jong Suk, together with her young son Kim Jong Il, also climbed Mount Munsu and, setting an example for others, planted trees.
On this day, Comrade Kim Il Sung highlighted the fundamental issues of planting forests on all mountains and the continuous expansion of natural resources countries. After that, a nationwide movement to turn all the mountains into gold was widely developed in Korea. Today, all the mountains of the country have become wooded, park areas and places of cultural recreation for the population have been arranged in picturesque places.
Kim Il Sung and Carter
"Jimmy Carter, the 39th President of the United States, who met with President Kim Il Sung in mid-June 83 (1994) during a visit to the DPRK, expressed his impressions as follows:
“President Kim Il Sung is the greatest of the people that George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln combined cannot be compared with ... I can say with confidence that Kim Il Sung is the god of the Sun and the arbiter of destinies, superior in greatness to Helios and all the combined founders of the states of the world.
An old-timer in US political circles, considered the leader of the Western world, Carter was proud ... But he did not hesitate to praise President Kim Il Sung ... Why?
We can find the answer to this in what he experienced during his stay in the DPRK.
June 17. President Kim Il Sung, together with J. Carter, went on a ship to the West Sea Hydro Complex. On board, he arranged a dinner in honor of the guest. Inviting the guest to the table, the president said that the dishes were prepared taking into account his allergy to soy products.
Carter... was deeply moved by the president's attention.
President Kim Il Sung spoke casually. About the life expectancy of the population ... about the prospects for the harvest, about the direction of development of international relations, about the struggle of the Korean people to implement the Juche idea, about the prospect of Korean unification, about international world and the future of mankind... There was no end to the topics of conversation.
Carter was captivated by the wealth of knowledge and erudition of the president... Suddenly Carter's gaze... stopped on two small silos in the distance.
He asked curiously:
- Mr. President, can you tell me what is stored there?
Comrade Kim Il Sung answered him in detail...
- Just amazing! Carter said. “There are many heads of state in the world, but none of them would be as knowledgeable as you are, knowing even about the contents of some silo ...
The President called one of the escorts and told him to reduce the speed of the ship. Carter asked in bewilderment what was the matter.
President Kim Il Sung pointed to the shore with one hand and said:
“Look, there are people fishing on the shore. You can't disturb them...
Carter was delighted...
From the editor. In this version, the story about Carter's admiration is placed in the Russian and French editions of the magazine. In the Spanish edition, the story appeared without Carter's quote. The story is missing from the English edition.
Kim Il Sung and weather forecast
“It happened at the beginning of June 70 (1981), when President Kim Il Sung went to the collective farm to lead on the spot. Looking around the surroundings of the collective farm, for some time he kept his eyes on the crown of a tall tree where a magpie made a nest.
Having carefully looked at the magpie, the president asked the workers accompanying him why the magpie builds a nest so that the entrance to it was from the side, and not from above.
He told workers who were puzzled by this unexpected question that the rainy season would be especially rainy and would be accompanied by not the usual, but heavy rains. And the fact that magpies make nests with an entrance to the side should protect them from such heavy rains.
He stressed that all collective farms in the country must take all measures to protect themselves from rainstorms and floods.
The workers... were deeply moved by the President's words, who clarified the matter with all scientific depth and extraordinary wisdom, seeing a natural phenomenon in what seemed ordinary to others.
As he predicted, heavy rains of extraordinary force fell upon the country. At the direction of the president, officials and agricultural workers completed preparations to prevent losses from heavy rains in advance ... and were able to save the entire crop."
Kim Il Sung and Bruno Kreisky
"Bruno Kreisky was a well-known political figure in Austria, who for many years held the post of Federal Chancellor, and then became the honorary chairman of the Social Democratic Party.
Unfortunately, in old age he lost his legs. The doctors' verdict was terrible: Kreisky would never be able to walk. He told major specialists invited from the USA, France, Japan, Germany and other countries that he was very fond of skiing, but he knew very well that now it was impossible. He asked them to help him at least go to the toilet.
The doctors examined the patient, but shook their heads in disappointment.
Upon learning of this, President Kim Il Sung sent Korean traditional medicine specialists to Austria. The patient's condition was really serious. But Korean doctors did not lose hope and began treatment. They put jars, did massages... used medicines made in accordance with the requirements of national medicine. There were tense days of intensive treatment. Soon signs of improvement began to appear, and after a while the paralysis was removed.
In September 1986, Kreisky came to Pyongyang to personally express his gratitude to President Kim Il Sung. He said the doctors different countries unsuccessfully treated him, but Korean doctors with traditional medicine helped a lot, for which he is sincerely grateful to President Kim Il Sung.
Kreisky asked to leave Korean doctors in his country for some more time, so that they could pass on their knowledge and experience to their colleagues in Austria... and continue to treat him. Comrade Kim Il Sung granted his request. When Kreisky was leaving home, Comrade Kim Il Sung presented him with valuable medicines and arranged for the Korean doctors to continue helping Kreisky while staying in Austria. Later, Kreisky, having fully recovered, was able to play his favorite sport again.
Kim Il Sung and death
"To commemorate the third anniversary of the death of the great leader, President Kim Il Sung, the Workers' Party of Korea Publishing House released the book The Last Days of a Great Life. It tells that before his death, President Kim Il Sung finished his work as if he knew what would happen to him. The book is divided into seven chapters.The first chapter tells about the president's unceasing efforts to ensure the continuity of the revolutionary line of the Workers' Party of Korea and the people of Korea, the Juche line.The second chapter tells how the president has shaped the history of the nation over the past five thousand years.For example, he discovered founding father of the country, corrected the origins and development of ancient Korea and the history of Goguryeo, led the work of rebuilding the tombs of the first kings... The third and fourth chapters include stories about how the president met with all the people he had to meet, and immortalized the deeds of the fallen soldiers.The fifth chapter tells about the President's teachings to achieve the revolutionary goal of Juche under by Secretary Kim Jong Il. Included in chapters six and seven of the book are stories of the president dying in the line of duty, as well as the precious relics he used in his final days."
Kim Il Sung and Eternal Life
"In July 1997, a joint resolution of the WPK Central Committee, the WPK Central Military Committee, the DPRK State Defense Committee, the DPRK Central People's Committee, the DPRK Administrative Council "On perpetuating the revolutionary life and immortal merits of the great leader Comrade Kim Il Sung" was adopted. According to this resolution, the the Juche chronology, which began in 1912, the year Comrade Kim Il Sung was born, and established the Day of the Sun - his birthday, April 15 ... On September 5, 1998, the first session of the Tenth Supreme People's Assembly of the DPRK adopted a new edition of the socialist constitution that determined the first President Kim Il Sung as the eternal President of the DPRK... Thus, even after his death, Kim Il Sung remains the eternal President, enjoying the absolute support and trust of the people.
"The great leader Comrade Kim Il Sung is always with us." These words contain the firm will... of the Korean people, determined to be devoted to the cause of Comrade Kim Il Sung, in whose person the people met the great leader for the first time in 5,000 years of history... The Korean people... built towers everywhere with these words and called them towers of immortality. In 1997, the monumental Tower of Immortality was built in Pyongyang. Its height is 82 m, which corresponds to the age of Comrade Kim Il Sung in Last year his life. Above, the star of the Generalissimo shines, under it the words are carved: "The great leader Comrade Kim Il Sung is always with us." On the sides and bottom of the obelisk are magnolia and azalea flowers, which Comrade Kim Il Sung loved.
Chapter six
DEAR COMMANDER
The night of June 25, 1950, Kim Il Sung spent in his office without a wink of eyes. Outwardly, he kept calm, but his nerves were taut as a string. The tension of recent months has reached its climax. Sitting at the table, he again and again drew a map of Korea on a piece of paper, drawing arrows of tank attacks that drove Rhee Syngman's army into the mountains and threw it into the sea. Here is the biggest thick arrow stretched to Seoul, from it is smaller - to Daegu, to Busan ... Suddenly, the red pencil, on which Kim, without noticing it, pressed with redoubled force, broke in his hands.
Water splashed outside the window. The rainy season has begun. Kim Il Sung remembered how, on exactly the same June rainy night ten years ago, he sat in a tent with a flashlight over a map and puzzled over how to deceive the punitive detachments and get out of the encirclement. The war is not over until Korea is unified. If then his guerrillas were fighting such a powerful enemy as the Japanese, then now, having a serious regular army on his own land, will he not be able to defeat the troops of the miserable Seoul puppets? They will crumble to dust under the attacks of the KPA columns. You just need to hit harder. The war for the liberation of the motherland will come to an end only when the regime in the South falls and the red-blue flag of the DPRK rises over the entire native land stretching for three thousand miles.
The dawn was cloudy, the rain merged with the gradually dissipating fog. Footsteps in the corridor, a knock on the door. Defense Minister Choi Yong-gon entered the office. The fifty-year-old fit general saluted and minted: “Dear Commander! I report. The troops reached their original position by 24:00 on June 25. After intensive artillery preparation, they got up and went on the attack in unison at 5.00 in the morning. In the first hours they managed to advance several kilometers. The enemy, defending himself, retreats in all directions.
Kim breathed a sigh of relief and wiped the sweat from his forehead. Now hurry forward, forward, to Seoul ...
The Korean War has been one of the most discussed topics in world historiography for more than half a century. Questions about who and to what extent is responsible for unleashing it, how to evaluate the course of hostilities and their results, and even who should be considered losers and winners, are still debatable. At the same time, from the very beginning, the war was perceived as a conflict between the communist and free (in terms of American historians) or imperialist (in Soviet literature) camps. The role of the Korean states themselves and their leaders in such a formulation of the issue fades into the background. And absolutely in vain. Both Kim Il Sung and Lee Syngman were by no means blind executors of the will of Moscow and Washington, but played their own active role in the events. The Korean War was at its core a civil war, although in the context of a confrontation between the two camps, it grew to the participation of nineteen states and almost spilled over into the third world war.
The desire to unite the country by force under their rule was not hidden either in Pyongyang or in Seoul. Lee Syngman was a particularly ardent supporter of such a solution to the issue. Moreover, he did not hesitate to express his views in public. He perceived the coming war as a kind of crusade against the Reds and tried his best to win over the Americans. Back in the summer of 1949, he wrote to his adviser Robert Oliver: “The Korean people passionately desire a military campaign to the North ... We will push back part of Kim Il Sung’s people to the mountainous region and starve them to death, then our line of defense should be created along the Tumen and Yalu rivers” one.
In an interview with the United Press in October 1949, Lee explained to the world community what the role of the UN in Korea should be: "We object to any negotiations with the leaders of the Communist Party of North Korea, as we are fighting the Communist Party for democracy . The mission of the UN is to help a democratic government fight the communists.”
“In North Korea, it is necessary to destroy the regime created with the support and assistance of Soviet Union the armed forces created there, and hold general elections in the North of Korea,” PK Prime Minister Lee Beom Sok echoed his boss.
Some members of the South Korean elite thought more globally. So, in 1948, Lee Syngman's adviser on foreign affairs, Yun Peng Gu, presented to the chief a war plan with the joint participation of the troops of the United States, Japan, South Korea and Kuomintang China. According to this document, the offensive was to develop in three main directions: the South Koreans with the Americans "liberate" North Korea and Manchuria, the Kuomintang restores its power in mainland China, and the Japanese move to the northeast and take over the Soviet Primorye with Vladivostok.
A month and a half before the start of the war, General Kim Sok Won announced that the liberation of the North was not far off and that he would soon "have breakfast in Haeju, lunch in Pyongyang, and dinner in Wonsan." Curiously, South Kim was an old enemy of North Kim. In the 1930s in Manchuria, he led a special anti-guerrilla unit and clashed with Kim Il Sung's detachment. His activities were marked by the Order "For Bravery", received personally from the hands of Emperor Hirohito. And now Kim Sok Won was one of the commanders of the troops on the 38th parallel, where his fighters constantly distinguished themselves in skirmishes with the northerners.
In 1949 - the first half of 1950, clashes between the armies of the North and South on the border reached such strength that a number of researchers (for example, the American Bruce Cummings) consider this period the initial stage of the war. During this time, 1,800 armed conflicts took place in the area of the 38th parallel, that is, on average, two or three per day. There were also major battles with the use of artillery. The area of the city of Kaesong and the peninsula of Onjin on the west coast of Korea became a zone of especially fierce confrontation. In most cases, the South Korean side was the initiator. The American historian W. Styuk believes that by aggravating the border, Lee Syngman wanted to influence the US authorities. However, Washington eventually began to wonder if the requests for more arms supplies were simply a ploy on Lee's part and was he actually preparing a campaign to the North?2
The Americans treated the plans of their protégé differently. He irritated many in the White House with his stubbornness and uncontrollability, as well as fears that he could provoke a conflict, and then big war into which the United States will be drawn. On the other hand, the army "hawks" had their own point of view. “The trip plan is a done deal. Although we will launch the attack, we still need to create a pretext in order to have a just cause, ”said at the beginning of 1950 the head of US military advisers in South Korea General Roberts 3.
In the North, Lee Syngman was preparing a symmetrical response. Kim Il Sung passionately wanted to unite Korea under his rule. Before his eyes were examples of winners who were worth emulating - Stalin and especially Mao. The chairman of the Chinese Communist Party confidently led his troops to victory in a civil war that lasted almost 20 years. The days of Chiang Kai-shek's army were numbered. America did not dare to intervene directly in the civil war between the Chinese. So why would she interfere in a war between Koreans? Kim believed that if necessary, Stalin and Mao would help, would not leave the DPRK in trouble. And he persistently convinced the “elder brothers” that the time had come to act.
In the spring of 1949, Kim Il Sung arrived in Moscow with a government delegation and, at a meeting with Stalin, said that the Korean communists "are determined to carry out the unification by military means." At the same time, he asked the Soviet leadership to provide economic, financial and military assistance to the DPRK and assistance in the training of specialists. And his representative, the head of the political department of the army, Kim Il Sung, went to Beijing for consultations with Mao, where he also asked for assistance with officer cadres and weapons.
In principle, Mao accepted the plans of the Korean comrades favorably and promised to help. However, given that a civil war was still going on in China itself, he proposed to launch an offensive no earlier than the beginning of 1950. Stalin, however, was completely skeptical of this idea, advising only to accumulate strength.
Despite the refusal, Kim Il Sung continued to raise the question of an offensive in the South, passing on relevant messages to Moscow through Ambassador Shtykov. But it would be wrong to consider Kim the main "militarist" at the top of the DPRK. He represented the consolidated position of the party leadership, and there were no pacifists in the Central Committee of the TPUK.
The most vehement supporter of the war was Park Hong-young. He was sure that as soon as the North Korean tanks entered Seoul, his people would raise a massive uprising throughout the country and Syngman Rhee's regime would fall by itself. The former leader of the Communists of the South convinced Kim of this, and ultimately Moscow and Beijing. Pak could also insist on the imminent start of the war because in the event of a successful unification of the country and an infusion into the party of communists of the South, his position would have sharply strengthened. Perhaps he could really argue with Kim for leadership.
At the end of the summer, Stalin instructed to study the situation in Korea, to compare the forces and capabilities of the North and South, and to submit to him a memorandum on this issue. This note was discussed at the September meeting of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks. In a directive sent to Pyongyang, Shtykov was instructed to meet with Kim and inform him that an offensive to the South was not prepared either from a military or political point of view. In addition, the document shrewdly stated that if hostilities began from the North and became protracted, this could give the Americans a pretext for all sorts of interference in Korean affairs. In conclusion, the North Korean leadership was asked to focus on helping the guerrilla movement in the South and strengthening the army. “Kim Il Sung did not expect such a reaction. He looked offended, ”Shtykov noted.
However, the offended North Korean leader did not have the character to calm down. Kim Il Sung stubbornly stood his ground. In January 1950, he appeared at a reception on the occasion of the departure of a Chinese representative from Pyongyang. The Soviet ambassador also came to see off his colleague. After drinking heavily at the buffet table, Kim went up to Shtykov and frankly spoke to him: “Terenty Fomich! Now that the liberation of China is complete, the next step is the liberation of Korea. The guerrillas will not solve the case. I don't sleep at night, thinking about reunification... Mao said that there was no need to advance to the South. But if Lee Syngman advances, then it is necessary to go on the counteroffensive. But he is not advancing ... I need to visit Comrade Stalin and ask permission to attack to liberate South Korea. Mao promised help, and I will meet with him. I need to make a personal report to Comrade Stalin ... "
Kim spent the whole of April 1950 with Pak Hong Yong in Moscow and finally received the go-ahead from Stalin. On May 14, he telegraphed Mao: “Comrade. Mao Zedong! In a conversation with the Korean comrades, Filippov and his friends expressed the opinion that, due to the changed international situation, they agreed with the proposal of the Koreans to begin unification. At the same time, it was agreed that the issue should be resolved jointly by the Chinese and Korean comrades, and if the Chinese comrades disagree, the solution of the issue should be postponed until a new discussion. The Chinese comrades can tell you the details of the conversation. Filippov"4.
What made Iosif Vissarionovich, who carefully signed his letters to Mao and Kim with the pseudonyms Fyn Xi (West Wind), Filippov and Chan Fu, change his mind? The international environment has indeed changed. The USSR successfully tested a nuclear bomb. In China, the civil war ended and the People's Republic was proclaimed. (It is worth noting the cautious tone of the letter: Stalin left the final decision of the issue to the Chinese.) Thus, the positions of the socialist countries were significantly strengthened.
On the other hand, US Secretary of State Dean Acheson delivered a keynote speech at the National Press Club, which implied that Korea was not part of the US defensive perimeter in the Far East. This means that the States may not intervene in the war on the peninsula - they made a conclusion in the socialist camp.
K. Asmolov cites another important argument: Kim Il Sung and especially Pak Hong Yong convinced Stalin that a revolutionary situation had already taken shape in the South. And the USSR, which was an ideocratic state, could not but help the cause of the revolution5.
Indeed, the principle of international solidarity among socialist countries should not be discounted. The USSR was the leader of the communist world. Stalin could have doubts and drag out the process, he could shift some of the responsibility onto the shoulders of another country (which he eventually did), but he could not, in principle, refuse the DPRK in an attempt to bring socialism on bayonets to the South of the Korean Peninsula. Especially when its leader himself insisted on it. Confirmation of this can be found in the memoirs of Nikita Khrushchev, who cannot be suspected of sympathy for the “father of nations”: “I must clearly state that this action was proposed not by Stalin, but by Kim Il Sung. He was the initiator, but Stalin did not hold him back. Yes, I believe that no communist would have kept him in such a rush to liberate South Korea from Syngman Rhee and American reaction. This would be contrary to the communist worldview. I'm not judging Stalin here.
After their visit to Moscow, Kim and Park traveled to Beijing, where they were received by Mao. The Chairman fully supported their plans and assured them that all necessary assistance would be provided. Preparations for the war entered its final stage.
According to the Harper Encyclopedia military history, by the time the hot phase of the conflict began, North Korea had ten divisions with a total number of 130 thousand people and had another 100 thousand reservists in reserve. In service there were 180 aircraft (Il and Yak), 258 tanks (T-34), about 1600 guns and mortars. The South Korean army consisted of eight divisions of about 100 thousand people (in addition, there were police forces in about the same number). Southerners experienced an acute shortage of tanks, combat aircraft, medium and large caliber artillery. However, they had a serious superiority over the northerners in anti-tank guns and mortars7.
The armed forces in the North have been rebuilt according to the Soviet model since 1946. By 1950, the Korean People's Army was an effective fighting mechanism. Shortly before the start of the war, several divisions of Koreans who fought as part of Mao's army in China joined its ranks. This experienced contingent became the main strike force KPA. The weak side was the youth and inexperience of the KPA personnel, the insufficient training of the officer corps. Even from the high command, few received a systematic military education. AT best case- experience in guerrilla warfare or training in the 88th brigade.
In the Republic of Korea, things were much worse. With constant internal tensions, priority was given to the police force over the army. Seriously, its formation was taken up only with the departure of American troops in 1949. The backbone of the officers were former servicemen of the Kwantung Army and fighters of the Independence Army and the Army of the Shanghai Provisional Government, who often treated each other with distrust, since they had previously stood on opposite sides of the front line. Lee Syngman did not particularly rely on his own strength and counted on the help of the Americans, rightly believing that the South, in the event of a conflict, would not hold out for long on its own.
In May 1950, a group of Soviet and North Korean officers, led by General Nikolai Vasilyev, drew up a combat plan. They were going to end the war in 50 days by hoisting the flag of the DPRK in Busan, in the very south of the peninsula, on August 15 - the fifth anniversary of the liberation of Korea. Kim Il Sung made his own adjustments to the document: first, he demanded to postpone the start of the operation from July to June, then - to change its course, attacking not only in the Seoul direction, but along the entire perimeter of the dividing line. In June, the transfer of troops to the border began. By the twenties, the North Koreans managed to assemble an impressive grouping on the 38th parallel: the ratio of ground forces was 1:2, tanks - 1:6, machine guns -1:13, aircraft - 1:6. Everything was ready to be thrown.
For South Korea, the rapid offensive of the northerners, which began on the morning of June 25, was a complete surprise. The troops covering Seoul, which is only 60 kilometers from the border, began to roll back. At the same time, propaganda claimed that the PK army was conducting a successful counteroffensive and would soon take Pyongyang. The seriousness of the situation was first understood by the American ambassador John Muccio * who ordered the immediate evacuation of American citizens.
Syngman Lee realized what was happening only on the night of June 26, and called the commander of the American forces in the Pacific, General Douglas MacArthur in Tokyo. He slept peacefully. The adjutant refused to wake him, to which Lee shouted: "The American citizens in Korea will die one by one, and I wish the general pleasant dreams!" - and hung up the phone. A day later, he was already forced to evacuate from the capital, having recorded a patriotic speech before leaving: they say that Seoul will not be surrendered under any circumstances. The flight of Lee and the army command had a demoralizing effect on the troops and the population. In the confusion, bridges over the Han River were blown up before many military and ordinary Seoulites could evacuate. People crawled to the other side along their ruins.
Wartime dictated its terms, and the scheme of leadership in North Korea changed dramatically. On June 26, at a meeting of the Political Committee of the Central Committee of the TPUK, the Military Committee of the DPRK was formed as the highest state governing body. Kim Il Sung became its chairman. It also included Vice Chairman Park Hong Yong, Hong Myung Hee and Kim Chak, Defense Minister Choi Yong Gon, Minister of the Interior Pak Il Woo, and Chairman of the State Planning Committee of the DPRK Cheon Chung Taek. Martial law was declared, and general mobilization began in the country. Soon Kim also became the Supreme Commander of the KPA, concentrating all power in his hands.
“Dear brothers and sisters! - in Stalin's style he began his radio address to the nation. - On June 25, the troops of the puppet treacherous Lisynman government launched an offensive along the entire front into the territory north of the 38th parallel. The bravely fighting guard detachments of the republic took upon themselves the blow of the enemy and, in stubborn battles, halted the advance of the puppet army of Rhee Syngman. After discussing the situation, the government of the DPRK issued an order to our People's Army to launch a decisive counteroffensive and defeat the armed forces of the enemy. Fulfilling the order of the government of the Republic, the People's Army pushed the enemy back from the territory north of the 38th parallel and advanced 10-15 kilometers to the South, thus freeing the cities of Ondin, Yenan, Kaesong, Pyakchen and a number of other settlements.
The North Korean army advanced rapidly. Already on June 28, on the third day of the war, Seoul was taken, and the banner of the DPRK flew over the former residence of Lee Syngman. The 3rd and 4th divisions and the 105th tank brigade, which distinguished themselves during the capture of the city, received the honorary title of "Seoul", and their commanders and servicemen were presented for awards.
Soon the city began to improve new life. Portraits of Stalin and Kim Il Sung began to appear on the streets. Kim himself addressed a greeting to the people of Seoul, congratulating them on "the liberation from the fascist yoke of the treacherous Lee Syngman clique" and urging them to quickly restore the people's committees "dissolved by the reaction." About 60 members of the PK National Assembly, including Kim Po Sik, remained in the city and welcomed the new government.
The communist leaders of the South are back. Pak Hong Yong left for the city, and his colleague Lee Seung Yup, the Minister of Justice of the DPRK and one of the leaders of the local faction, was appointed mayor. The new government was not able to establish a normal life, the work of factories and factories in the conditions of war. According to South Korean historian Kim Song-chil, the city stopped the centralized food supply, introducing a coupon system only for civil servants. As a result, many Seoulites starved. Any discontent Pak and Lee suppressed with an iron fist. It soon became clear that something had to be done with the one and a half million inhabitants of the city. Kim decided to draft part of the population into the army, use part of it in the industrial enterprises of the North, and resettle part of it in the countryside.
Kim's North Korean biographers write that he visited Seoul several times, led the transformations in the provinces of the South occupied by the KPA, and even personally went to the front line to re-educate commanders "infected with servility and clinging to methods of combat that did not meet the conditions of Korea"11.
Despite the success of the offensive, from the very first days of the war the KPA faced serious problems. Shtykov wrote to Moscow that communication between the headquarters, divisions and other units was immediately lost, commanders often acted at their own peril and risk. Besides, command staff in terms of combat, he turned out to be inexperienced, poorly organized the use of artillery and control of the battle.
After the capture of Seoul, the troops unexpectedly paused for several days without developing the offensive. This fact is interpreted in different ways, explaining it by difficulties in transport progress, difficulties with command and control of troops, and, finally, by the confusion of Kim and his associates due to the fact that a general uprising did not start in the country and the final fall of the Rhee Syngman regime did not take place. . In any case, precious time was wasted. Stalin, who was closely following the events, anxiously asked Shtykov why there was no information about the advance, and insisted that the offensive should have continued immediately.
Meanwhile, the situation has changed radically. The Americans intervened in the course of the war. Upon learning of the outbreak of hostilities, President Harry Truman, according to eyewitnesses, exclaimed: "In the name of God, I'm going to teach them a lesson!" Washington concluded: "Uncle Joe" is trying to test the fortress of the Western powers. If Korea is ceded to the Reds today, tomorrow the Soviets will try to take over the whole world.
Truman, who later described the decision to enter the Korean War as the most difficult decision of his presidency, did not engage in a lengthy congressional debate about declaring war on the DPRK, but preferred to act through the United Nations. He always gave great importance The UN as a structure capable of resolving international conflicts. Now it was all the more convenient because the USSR boycotted the meetings of the Security Council, protesting against the fact that China was represented in the UN by the Kuomintang government, and not by the Communists. On June 26, an urgently convened Security Council passed a resolution condemning the North Korean attack and called for the withdrawal of troops beyond the 38th parallel. On the same day, Truman ordered the use of the US Air Force and Navy in the Far East to support South Korea. American planes began to strike at the advancing troops of the DPRK.
North Korean historians Kim Chang-ho and Kang Geun-jo argue that Resolution No. 82 contradicts a number of articles of the UN Charter and is unfair, since it was an act of interference in the internal affairs of the Korean people12. Indeed, the UN intervened in the Korean Civil War. Not to mention the fact that this "peacekeeping" organization acted as a participant in hostilities, supporting one of the conflicting parties. At the end of July, in an interview with Humanita, Kim Il Sung argued that if it were not for foreign intervention, the war would have ended by now. He was not far from the truth: the fate of Lee Syngman and his regime was a foregone conclusion, but thanks to the intervention of the UN, the war dragged on for three long years, claimed millions of human lives and ended with zero results.
On June 27, the Security Council met again, approved the use of American troops in Korea, and recommended that other countries support these actions. Great Britain, France, Taiwan, Cuba, Ecuador, Norway, USA voted "for". Against - Yugoslavia. India and Egypt abstained. The formation of an international coalition under the UN flag began. In total, 16 states took part in it: the USA, South Korea, Great Britain, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Turkey, Belgium, Luxembourg, France, Greece, the Netherlands, as well as Colombia, Ethiopia, Thailand and the Philippines. The participation of exotic countries gave the war a special flavor: “On the battlefield one could meet two-meter Ethiopians, semi-wild Algerians from the French battalion, Turks who were fluent in the art of bayonet fighting, Thais who masterfully owned knives and other “melee” tools, and even Puerto Ricans, in rare moments of rest dancing incendiary dances”13. The main burden of the fighting fell on the shoulders of the Americans. In the ground forces, their share was 50.3 percent (South Korean - 40 percent), in the Navy - 85.9 percent and in the Air Force - 93.4 percent. The 70-year-old General Douglas MacArthur became the commander-in-chief of the UN troops.
Douglas MacArthur (1880-1964) was born in the American outback, in the state of Arkansas. His father was a military man, he himself was accustomed from childhood to traveling around the garrisons and could not imagine a career other than army service. Douglas managed to enter the prestigious military school West Point and graduate with honors. At the end of the First World War, he took part in the fighting in France and became the youngest general american army. Even then, many noted that he owed his brilliant career more to personal charm, the ability to get along with superiors and communicate correctly with the press than to success on the battlefield.
By the early 1930s, MacArthur became chief of the General Staff. In this position, he became famous for defeating his former comrades - veterans of the First World War. During the Great Depression, the authorities stopped paying them cash benefits. Many have lost their livelihoods. 15,000 veterans went to seek the truth in Washington, where they held demonstrations and rallies. MacArthur, tasked by President Herbert Hoover to solve the problem, immediately set to work and attacked their campground with regular troops. In the "battle of Anacostia" several dozens of peaceful demonstrators were killed, hundreds were wounded. The general himself said that - nothing less: "The march of the so-called veterans for benefits was a conspiracy of the Reds, and since I crushed this conspiracy, the Kremlin put me on the list of people to be destroyed."
MacArthur met World War II in the Philippines. There he was engaged in the creation of an army at the request of local authorities, receiving from them the rank of field marshal and the nickname Luzon Napoleon (from the second largest city in the archipelago - Luzon). In December 1941, the Japanese attacked the Philippines. In the midst of heavy fighting, the Luzon Napoleon abandoned his troops and flew to Australia. The remnants of his army surrendered, where tens of thousands of soldiers and officers died. However, after three years he managed to recoup. In early 1945, the Americans cleared the Philippines of the Japanese, and in the autumn he was already accepting the surrender of Japan aboard the battleship Missouri in Tokyo. It was MacArthur who led the American occupation troops in Japan, becoming the sovereign master of the country. He added a new one to his titles - in the media they began to call him the Proconsul of the East.
For millions of Americans, MacArthur was a national hero. So President Truman, though wary of him because of the general's political and personal ambitions, didn't think long. In fact, he had neither time nor choice. MacArthur was ordered to lead troops into battle and stop Kim Il Sung's soldiers.
American units began to hastily transfer to Korea. Despite the rapid advance of the KPA and the chaos in the South Korean army, the Yankees were confident that they would put the enemy to flight. “We will kick out the North Koreans, and if the Russians intervene, we will kick them out as well,” said Maj. However, the reality turned out to be quite different.
The ancient capital of the country, Taejon, was the next target for the North Korean forces. The operation to take the city was given exceptional importance. By decree of Kim Il Sung, the front was headed by Deputy Chairman of the Cabinet of Ministers Kim Chak, and another former partisan, Kang Gon, became the chief of staff of the front. It was planned to pincer the city with tank chains from two sides and create a “cauldron” there for the American and South Korean troops.
On July 5, the Americans and North Koreans first met on the battlefield. A column of tanks from the 105th Brigade and men from the KPA 4th Infantry Division approached the village of Osan between Seoul and Taejon. There, 400 infantrymen of Smith's American special squad were already waiting for them, lying on the hills along the road. First the artillery and then the soldiers opened fire on the tanks. They managed to knock out a few cars, but the rest proceeded ahead. Then the North Korean infantry stepped in and began to pursue the Americans. By evening, some of them were killed, some retreated through the surrounding rice fields.
On July 8, Kim Il Sung spoke again on the radio. His speech was entirely devoted to the United States and its intervention in the war. He appealed to the patriotic feelings of the Koreans, calling for rallying against an external aggressor:
“The American imperialists have launched an armed attack on our homeland and our people. Their aviation is barbarously bombing the cities and villages of our country, killing civilians. The naval squadrons of the American imperialists, which have illegally invaded our territorial waters, are mercilessly shelling our coastal towns and villages, while the units of the American troops that have landed on the part of our homeland that has not yet been liberated are trampling our native land with their bloody boots, expanding the front, and frantically trying to stop advance of our army to the south, commit all kinds of atrocities ...
In this sacred struggle for the freedom and independence of the homeland, the soldiers of our People's Army and all our people are inspired to heroic deeds by the glorious deeds and valor of our ancestors - commanders Ylti Mun Daek, Kang Gam Chan, Lee Sun Sin and others who selflessly defended our homeland from foreign invaders! Forward to the complete expulsion of the American imperialists from our native land, where the ashes of our ancestors rest and our beloved generation grows! Let us complete our just liberation struggle with victory, so that the glorious banner of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea may flourish in Busan, and in Mokpo, and on the island of Jedudo, and on Mount Hannansan.
Forward to the victory! Long live a free and independent Korea!”15.
The source of inspiration is guessed immediately. This is Stalin's speech during the battle for Moscow: "Let the banner of Suvorov and Kutuzov overshadow you!"
The "cauldron" around Taejong soon closed. The remnants of the troops defending the city were surrounded. During the Taejong operation, the North Koreans captured many prisoners. Among them was the commander of the 24th US Infantry Division, General William Dean. He became the first and only American general to be captured since World War II. Dean spent the entire war in captivity. By his own admission, the general had fun killing flies, which he destroyed 40,671 in three long years.
The next goal of the KPA was to reach the Naktong River and take the cities of Taegu and Gimcheon, which opened the way to Pusan. At first, the offensive developed successfully. By mid-August, 90 percent of the territory of the Republic of Korea was in the hands of the northerners. In Busan, crowded with refugees and soldiers, panic broke out. Everyone who could, sought to evacuate to Japan. It seemed that victory was close at hand.
However, here the North Koreans faced the most stubborn resistance of the Allied troops. The KPA soldiers were already exhausted to the limit. And the enemy constantly introduced fresh forces into the battle. By the end of August, the forces of the South Koreans and the allied coalition numbered 180 thousand people. This outnumbered the North Koreans by 2.5 times, with the Allies having an overwhelming superiority in artillery and ships. US aviation dominated the air, bombing both the KPA troops and the territories they occupied, and the cities of the DPRK. Like a bulldog in habits and appearance, the new commander of the US ground forces, General Walton Walker, was categorical: “We are fighting a battle for time. They are fighting for space. We have no other line to which we could fall back. The retreat to Busan will be the greatest meat grinder in history. We must fight to the end.”16 Desperate attempts by the North Koreans to launch an offensive against Busan were stopped, and by September 8, the KPA was forced to go on the defensive.
On the same day, Kang Gon died from a bomb explosion. The talented military leader, a pupil of the partisan children's company and the 88th brigade, was barely 32 years old. When in 1948 Kang Gon, who had just been appointed head of the KPA headquarters, went on a visit to the USSR, Soviet generals did not hide their surprise at his youth.
Despite the successes of the first weeks and months of the war, Kim Il Sung did not indulge in euphoria. He understood the danger of the situation. After all, from the very beginning it was necessary to fight not with Lee Syngman, but with the Americans and the coalition led by them. The young North Korean army could not defeat such an enemy. Therefore, Kim tried by all means to solve the main problem - to obtain help and support from the USSR and China. And they, unlike the United States, were in no hurry to actively intervene in the conflict on the Korean Peninsula.
Soviet Ambassador Shtykov regularly reported to Stalin on the course of hostilities, Kim's requests and his assessment of the situation. This correspondence shows how his mood changed. In a letter dated July 1, Comrade Feng Xi was interested in how the Korean leaders reacted to the American air raids on North Korean regions, whether they were frightened or whether they continue to stand firm. Shtykov replied that the leadership of the DPRK and the KPA, including Kim Il Sung, correctly assessed the current military-political situation in Korea, believed in complete victory, and directed all efforts towards a further broad offensive in the South. However, some leading figures, including Kim Du Bong and Hong Myung Hee, spoke out about the difficulties of waging war against the Americans by Korean forces and tried to find out from Kim Il Sung the position of the USSR on this issue.
On July 7, after the first clashes with the Americans, the number of those who hesitated increased: “A certain part of the leading workers began to fear for the success of their troops in combat operations against the American troops landing in Korea. Only a small group of senior officials (Kim Il Sung, Kim Chak, Pak Il Woo) show confidence and calmness.
In a conversation with me, Kim Il Sung, frankly, said that it was hard for him, since many ministers - Kim Du Bon, Kim Dar Hyun - cautiously expressed fears about the outcome of the war in connection with the intervention of the Americans.
He further revealed that Kim Doo Bong visits him daily and asks what action he intends to take. Soviet government; and Pak Hong Yong directly put before him the question of the need to officially ask the Soviet government to cover North Korea with aviation, and to the Chinese government - to bring the Chinese army into Korea.
Kim Il Sung did not express his opinion on these issues, but said that he scolded them and asked them not to upset him, since he himself would start to get nervous without it.
The North Koreans asked Moscow to use military advisers from the USSR in the KPA units advancing in the South. Kang Gon directly told Kim that without advisers he had nothing to go to Seoul, since he was not able to lead the troops. Shtykov saw Kim so “upset and somewhat confused” for the first time during the meetings. He offered to grant his request. But the Kremlin was silent.
On July 8, Kim personally addressed a letter to Stalin with a request to use 25-30 military advisers at the headquarters of the KPA front, since "national cadres have not yet sufficiently mastered the art of leading troops." However, the "father of nations" was adamant. Considering that the appearance of the Soviet military in the South or the capture of one of them could lead to a sharp aggravation of relations with the United States, he did not give such permission. As a result, for the entire period of hostilities, they never crossed the 38th parallel.
On the other hand, Stalin made efforts to another issue - the revitalization of contacts between Pyongyang and Beijing. Comrade Filippov pointed out to the Chinese leadership the need to have a representative in the DPRK, and also that it would be desirable to concentrate nine divisions on the border. Soon, the Chinese attorney arrived in Pyongyang and conveyed to Kim Il Sung that the PRC government was ready to help everyone needed in the war.
On August 19, unable to withstand the constant stress, Kim fell ill and went to bed. He conveyed to Shtykov a request to send "international flying forces" to provide air cover for the troops being attacked by the Americans. “Recently, Kim Il Sung has been somewhat depressed. He is very worried about the bombing of industrial facilities and railroads by American aircraft. transport, declaring that the Americans will destroy the whole industry and we will not be able to create such factories for a long time. And now, in connection with the intensification of raids on the troops, he is worried that we have nothing to cover the troops, ”wrote Shtykov.
However, in response, Stalin expressed only words of support: “There are no continuous successes in such a war. There were no continuous successes among the Russians during civil war and even more so during the war with Germany ... In addition, Comrade. Kim Il Sung must not forget that Korea is no longer alone, that she has allies who are and will continue to help her. The position of the Russians during the Anglo-French-American intervention in 1919 was several times worse than the position of the Korean comrades at the present time.
It is unlikely that these words, instead of real help, which was expected in Pyongyang, consoled Kim. Moreover, very soon the situation at the front changed and became much worse than that of the “Russians in 1919”.
MacArthur, thinking about how to ensure a turning point in the war, came to the conclusion that the blow must be struck at the stretched communications of the KPA. For an amphibious landing behind enemy lines, he chose Incheon Bay on the west coast of Korea, not far from Seoul. Surprise was to be decisive. An attack here was considered unlikely, since only a few hours a day were suitable for landing, and at that time the coastline was filled with liquid mud. Incheon was defended by only 3,000 North Koreans, and Wolmi Island, which covered the harbor, was defended by two companies of marines.
From September 10 to 12, Allied aircraft and ships subjected Wolmi and Inchon to intense bombardment. For several days, the defenders of the island, who had only two guns and one machine gun left, did not allow the 45,000-strong US contingent to start landing. The Americans were able to set foot on the island only on September 15, when almost all the sailors defending it died. Wolmi was called the "Korean Brest Fortress".
The second period of the war began, which in the DPRK is called "strategic retreat". The Americans landed in Inchon and moved towards Seoul. At the same time, the 8th US Army went on the offensive from the Pusan bridgehead. Seoul fell on September 24th. Soon the two fronts connected, and in early October the allies reached the 38th parallel.
The question of whether to transfer fighting to the North, was discussed in the American establishment and in the UN. The successfully launched offensive led to the fact that both there and there the point of view of the "hawks" prevailed: to move forward until the complete defeat of the communists. On September 29, the UN adopted a corresponding resolution (however, this time the Americans passed it not through the Security Council, where the Soviet representative returned, but through the General Assembly, where decisions were made by a simple majority of votes). MacArthur appealed to the North Korean authorities to lay down their arms and surrender, as well as to assist the UN in establishing a united, independent and democratic government of Korea.
Kim Il Sung, however, was not going to give up. “If necessary, I will go again to partisan in the mountains,” he said to his generals with a smile. On October 11, he spoke on the radio, demanding "to protect every inch of our native land with blood and to direct all forces to crushing blows against the enemy." Staying in Pyongyang became dangerous, and Kim, along with his Cabinet of Ministers, as well as diplomats and military advisers, evacuated to the northern regions of the country, closer to the Chinese border.
Soviet citizens in these difficult days have heard very unpleasant words addressed to them. In a conversation with one of the military specialists, the head of the political department of the army, Kim Il, shouted in his face: “We do not need advisers and their advice, but real help!” Shtykov informed Kim about this, and he promised to take action: to appoint Lee Seung-yop to the place of Kim Il, since he had to be relieved of his duties as the mayor of Seoul.
The allies advanced in two main directions: to Pyongyang and further to the Amnok River, and along the east coast - to Wonsan and Chongjin. MacArthur used his favorite tactic of air and water landings. On October 20, American planes dropped a large group of paratroopers north of Pyongyang, near Sukchen. General My Jeong, who was defending the city, preferred to leave it without a fight so as not to be surrounded. The capital was taken, but it was not possible to capture the North Korean leadership, which MacArthur had counted on.
From 20 to 25 October amphibious assault was landed in the port of Wonsan. By this time, however, there were already South Koreans in the city. The Americans lost a lot of time clearing the water area from mines. After a successful landing, the troops advanced to the northern regions of the DPRK, towards the Soviet border.
On October 24, the allies in some areas reached Amnok. The South Koreans collected a flask of water and sent it to Syngman Rhee, while the Americans, according to their military tradition, urinated into the river. It seemed that MacArthur's words that the war would end by Thanksgiving (November 23), and that the soldiers would celebrate Christmas at home, had almost become a reality. During a meeting with Truman on Wake Island, the general convinced the president that neither China nor the USSR would intervene in the conflict. However, neither he nor his interlocutor knew about the intense negotiations that were going on in those October days between Kim, Mao and Stalin.
As early as September 29, Kim Il Sung and Pak Hong Yong wrote a letter to the Soviet leader: “At the time of the enemy troops crossing north of the 38th parallel, we really need direct military assistance from the Soviet Union. If for some reason this is not possible, then help us create international volunteer units in China and other people's democracies to help our struggle.
Stalin's reaction was immediate. In the dead of night on October 1, he dictated a telegram. But not to Pyongyang, but to Beijing: “I am away from Moscow on vacation and somewhat out of touch with the events in Korea. However, according to the information that has come to me today, I see that the position of the Korean comrades is becoming desperate. Comrade Filippov advised Mao to "immediately move at least five or six divisions to the 38th parallel."
“MacArthur demands that we raise our hands. But we never had that habit,” Kim told the Chinese ambassador the same day. He gave Mao a telegram expressing his hope that the People's Liberation Army of China would provide direct assistance in the fighting.
On October 3, Chinese Premier and Foreign Minister Zhou Enlai invited the Indian Ambassador to his office and told him that China would be forced to intervene in the conflict if American troops crossed the 38th parallel. This information was passed on to the US authorities and ignored by them. MacArthur was sure the Chinese were bluffing.
In Beijing, long, detailed discussions began among the party leadership. Mao was not the sole ruler, he had to listen to his associates from the CPC Central Committee before making a decision. Over a cup of green tea, arguments “for” and “against” were endlessly discussed and weighed. On the issue of the Korean War, opinions differed radically. Opponents of the intervention had weighty arguments: China had just ended a long-term civil war. It was necessary to restore the country that lay in ruins, and not to fight with such a strong enemy as the Americans.
Zhou Enlai argued that an active offensive is the best defense. Mao also leaned towards helping Kim Il Sung, believing that the Chinese "will feel a heavy heart if they only stand by and watch when another nation is in a crisis." The Chairman's point of view eventually prevailed. On October 13, Zhou informed Stalin of the decision to immediately send troops to Korea. Leaning back in his chair, he said with satisfaction: "Still, the Chinese comrades are good, still good!" And then he promised to speed up the supply of weapons and provide air cover for the offensive in Korea in the future.
A. Pantsov believes that Mao took part in the Korean War "only to appease Stalin"20. It is hardly possible to agree with this statement. For both pragmatic and ideological reasons, China could not stand aside. It was the Korean direction that was most vulnerable to him. It was impossible to allow the presence of American troops on the border of Manchuria, from where the northeastern regions of the country and the capital were endangered. The presence in Taiwan of the troops of Chiang Kai-shek, who did not hide his desire to regain the main part of China and even bombed the territory of the PRC, created a direct danger of a war on two fronts. "Korea and China are connected like lips to teeth, like gates to home," China's political parties and organizations said in a statement. Having broken their lips, the Americans could also knock out their teeth. This was well understood in Beijing.
In addition, the same international solidarity played a significant role: the Chinese communists could not leave the Korean communists to their fate. The leader of Manchuria, Gao Gang, in February 1951, spoke as follows: “We must proceed from the fact that the existence of Korea and the existence of China are phenomena of the same kind, that both these countries belong to the same camp. Therefore, China will send its troops to help Korea and fight America. He did this to protect his home and his country.”21
Sending troops to Korea looked like a kind of debt that big China was paying back to its small neighbor. And the debt is double. After all, Kim Il Sung, firstly, was a member of the CPC for ten years and fought with his detachment as part of the United Anti-Japanese partisan army for the freedom and unity of China, like many other Korean guerrillas. Secondly, immediately after the liberation of North Korea by the Soviet troops and the creation of the KPA, he sent detachments of volunteers to help the communists, who actively participated in the hostilities.
In order not to get involved in a big war with the United States, Beijing decided to send troops to Korea under the guise of people's volunteers. Kim Il Sung remained the Supreme Commander of the Sino-North Korean coalition, and Marshal Peng Dehuai headed part of the volunteers.
Peng Dehuai (1898–1974) was a native of Hunan Province and a countryman of Mao Zedong. He was born into a simple peasant family. He spent his childhood in need: after the death of his parents, he became a beggar, worked in a mine and at construction sites. At less than 18 years old, he entered the military service - first in the army of local militarists, and then in the People's Revolutionary Army of the Kuomintang. After graduating from officer courses, Peng quickly made a career, going from company commander to regiment commander. Soon, however, he became disillusioned with the policies of the Nationalists and in 1928 joined the Chinese Communist Party. He did not understand the communist ideology and joined the CCP out of a desire to build a more just society. However, the young commander was not required to be a Marxist theorist.
During the years of the civil war in China, Peng took part in many battles and battles, including the Long March of the Chinese Communists. During the war with Japan, he was deputy commander of the 8th Army. In 1949, after the founding of the People's Republic of China, he was appointed a member of the Central People's Government and deputy chairman of the People's Revolutionary Military Council.
Even during the civil war, Peng often showed independence and allowed himself to argue with Mao. However, the Chairman appreciated him as a talented commander and military leader. The experience of many years of guerrilla warfare was useful to the marshal in Korea.
On October 19, the Chinese began to cross the border. Peng informed Kim that he had 260,000 men under his command, and that in the future it was planned to increase their number to 600,000. They were supposed to operate in conjunction with parts of the KPA, which at that time had about 100,000 fighters. The Sino-North Korean coalition had a noticeable advantage in manpower, but it was significantly inferior to the allies in terms of the number of tanks, large-caliber guns and aircraft.
They composed a song about Chinese volunteers in Korea (known in Russia performed by Yegor Letov and Civil Defense):
Through the mountains on grasses and sands, Past the quiet steppe Manchurian villages, To the waters of the blue river Amnokkan The young volunteer walked. He came to us, that young Chinese, Our brother went to help us in the battle, To help us get through this trouble: Drive the Americans away!
And they drove! The Chinese turned out to be an extremely unpleasant opponent for the UN troops. They were poorly armed and equipped, but unpretentious and hardy. Soldiers and officers wore a simple, strict uniform without insignia, thereby emphasizing the equality of all volunteers. The fighters were shod mostly in sneakers. In the icy winter of 1950/51, in order not to freeze their feet, they rubbed them with pepper - and quickly and silently moved long distances - up to 25 kilometers per night. The Chinese were well camouflaged, they knew how to go without food for a long time. And in the attack they took by surprise. They did not advance in the traditional sense of the word, but penetrated the front line in small groups, surrounded the enemy units and attacked them at night, suddenly flying with torches, whistling and shouting. In fact, the Allies were faced with a huge army that fought with guerrilla methods. And they learned to resist it effectively not immediately.
Air support, as promised by Stalin, was provided by the USSR. The Soviet 64th Fighter Aviation Corps, one of whose divisions was commanded by the best fighter pilot of the USSR three times Hero of the Soviet Union Ivan Kozhedub, was based at airfields in Manchuria. Even earlier, Soviet fighters arrived in southern China to fight Taiwanese aircraft. The 64th Corps and the anti-aircraft artillery units attached to it covered the northeast of China, irrigation facilities and bridges on the Amnok, as well as the border regions of the DPRK. At the same time, they were forbidden to fight over the sea, to appear south of Pyongyang and beyond the 38th parallel. For conspiracy in the air, they had to talk on Chinese. True, during the battles this turned out to be impossible, and the “great and mighty” sounded on the air, interspersed with selective obscenities.
Our pilots entered the first battles in early November. In the skies of Korea, they had a chance to get even with the Americans for a raid on October 8, when two fighters invaded Soviet airspace and bombed the Dry River air base near Vladivostok. Washington issued an official apology after the incident, but the aftertaste remained.
The latest Soviet jet fighter, the MiG-15, quickly gained air supremacy, showing its superiority over the American F-80 Shooting Star, F-84 Thunderjet and F-86 Saber. The best Soviet aces Nikolai Sutyagin and Evgeny Pepelyaev during the war shot down 21 and 20 enemy aircraft, respectively. The area from the Amnok River to the Cheongchon River was nicknamed "MiG Alley" by American pilots, trying not to appear there unless absolutely necessary.
Thus, despite the fact that the USSR did not officially take part in the hostilities, this war was ours too. Soviet pilots fought in the skies of Korea, Soviet officers they helped to organize the command and control of troops on the ground, not to mention the supply of weapons, ammunition and food, without which it was impossible to fight.
Soviet people closely followed the situation in Korea. The Korean theme was the main one on the pages of the press. Newspapers published en masse letters of support for the DPRK, as well as poems by ordinary workers and employees:
We demand: hands off Korea, American Freedom Stranglers! The working people do not want war!
No, they will never reach Good luck in their daring venture. I, like everyone else, throw the cry: Away, murderers, from Korea!
However, not everyone shared the point of view of the party and the government. As the competent authorities recorded, G. Grichuk, a state farm worker from the Tyumen region, said that “the war in Korea was started by the communists themselves, who want to spread their influence everywhere, but America does not want to allow this, and it is doing the right thing that it is waging war in Korea. The Americans will defeat the communists in Korea, then they will begin to destroy this infection on everything the globe". And the rabbi of the Vladikavkaz synagogue, N. Denenberg, even asserted that “the Soviet government does not care about its people, but exports everything to Korea”22. Of course, such talk at the end of the Stalin era was followed by a conviction under the infamous Article 58.10 and sent to a camp.
On October 25, the Sino-North Korean coalition struck the first blow against the allies. And from the end of November, an offensive began on the South along the entire front. “The Chinese are already here. World War III has arrived! exclaimed General Church after one of their surprise attacks. Allied troops were often surrounded. “Gentlemen, we are not retreating, we are simply advancing in the other direction,” the officers cheered. However, when attacking in the opposite direction, they suffered huge losses. The situation was aggravated by the onset of cold weather and partisan detachments of North Korean soldiers who remained in the rear and opened a second front there.
Realizing that there were no forces left for the defense of Pyongyang, General Walker gave the order to leave the city, after blowing up the bridges across Taedong. On December 6, Pyongyang was liberated, and by the New Year, Chinese-North Korean troops reached the 38th parallel. On the east coast, parts of the 10th division of General Almond had to be transported from the port of Hungnam to Busan by ship. This largest naval evacuation in US history reminded many of Operation Dynamo, when beached at Dunkirk in 1940 German troops English and French units were hastily exported by sea to Great Britain.
During the offensive of the volunteers, the UN troops lost about 23 thousand people killed, wounded and captured. The Chinese and North Koreans also suffered heavy losses. Even the son of Mao himself was not saved.
Mao Anying, 28, died in late November during an American air raid on Peng Dehuai's headquarters, where he served as an interpreter. Anyin was brought up in the Ivanovo interhouse in the Soviet Union, where his name was Seryozha. During the Great Patriotic War, he wrote three letters to Stalin with a request to send him as a volunteer to the front. In the end, he managed to get into the school of sergeants, then - in military academy and, already at the end of the war, - to the 2nd Belorussian Front, where he participated in the battles. After the victory, Anying returned to China, and in the fall of 1950 he again asked to volunteer for the war, now for the Korean War. The father did not stop him.
Upon learning of the death of his eldest son, Mao sat in an armchair for several days, smoking cigarette after cigarette. He was haggard and thinner, but he didn't show it. “This is the war, it can’t do without casualties ... A simple fighter died, there is no need to make a special event out of this, because this is my son.”
This case, like the similar behavior of Stalin, who sent his sons to war, one of whom, Yakov, died in captivity, is often considered an example of the cruelty of both communist rulers. Like, they didn’t even spare their children. However, the very fact that their children fought, and did not sit in the rear, causes respect. And they both felt sorry for their sons, they simply believed that the leader had no right to show weakness.
The entry of the Chinese into the fighting sparked a discussion in Washington about what to do next. MacArthur proposed expanding the scale of the war: opening a second front against the PRC with the help of Chiang Kai-shek, as well as conducting nuclear bombardments of its territory. Truman did not rule out the possibility of using nuclear weapons. As a result, such a scenario was abandoned, but not at all because of humanism. The main priority for Washington remained the containment of the USSR. On the one hand, there were not enough nuclear bombs to scatter in Korea. And on the other hand, the inevitable in this case, the spread of the war to China would involve the United States, in the words of one of the generals, "in the wrong war, in the wrong place, at the wrong moment and with the wrong enemy."
The question of the use by the Americans of bacteriological weapons, of which the DPRK and the USSR were accused, has not been finally clarified. But bombs stuffed with white phosphorus, thermite and napalm were actively used. In the movie Apocalypse Now, there is a famous scene of the destruction of the jungle during the Vietnam War with napalm. However, long before that, in Korea, American pilots flooded villages and cities with them, burning their inhabitants alive. The Soviet diplomat Viktor Tarasov recalled how the city of Sinuiju looked before and after the “chemical treatment” from the air: “I didn’t want to leave Sinuiju. The city already seemed to be its own, albeit temporary, home. I studied its central streets, small restaurants serving unpretentious local snacks of chicken and kimchi - juicy Korean cabbage and beans, sprinkled with liquid soy ... But what soon happened to Sinuiju was hard to imagine: the city was literally wiped off the face of the earth ... When I got there again, the area was unrecognizable. As it turned out, American planes ruthlessly doused the city in a circle with a sea of napalm and then methodically swept away every living thing quarter after quarter. All around lay scorched and dead earth, in places covered with frost after a cold night.
With the withdrawal of UN troops from North Korea, the question arose of who would be responsible for the miscalculations and defeats of the KPA in recent months. Stalin believed that Ambassador Shtykov and military advisers should be primarily responsible. After discussing the Korean question at a special meeting of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks on September 27, he sent a telegram to Pyongyang, in which he blamed them for the following strategic mistakes: failure to comply with the order to withdraw four KPA divisions to the Seoul area during the Inchon landing; incorrect tactics of using tanks in battle, without preliminary artillery strikes, as a result of which they were easily destroyed by the enemy; illiteracy and blindness in intelligence; misunderstanding of the strategic importance of the Inchon landings; exceptionally weak assistance to the Korean command in matters of communications, command and control, organization of reconnaissance and combat, as a result of which the KPA troops are almost uncontrollable.
Stalin paid special attention to the fact that military advisers who went through the Great Patriotic War were even more to blame for the failures of the war than the inexperienced Korean command. Was he right to harshly criticize his people in Pyongyang?
In general, Stalin's assessments of the course of hostilities, his recommendations, analysis of the situation and foreseeing the ways of its development show the depth of his strategic thinking. And those mistakes that he pointed out to Shtykov and Vasiliev took place. Someone had to answer for the defeat of the satellite country of the USSR. However, it is also obvious that the DPRK could not stand alone against the United States and the allied coalition. And our military advisers, who did not even have the right to go to the troops beyond the 38th parallel, could not fundamentally change anything. It was still impossible to do without the Chinese ...
At the end of November, Shtykov and Vasiliev were suspended from their duties "for miscalculations in their work that manifested themselves during the counteroffensive of American and South Korean troops in the northern regions of Korea" and recalled to Moscow. Kim Il Sung and the Soviet Ambassador managed to get closer and even become friends. “Well, apparently, I also need to resign from the post of commander in chief,” he said to Shtykov in farewell24.
Stalin's punishment was not particularly severe. Shtykov was demoted to lieutenant general and fired from the Armed Forces of the USSR, but he continued his party career, becoming deputy chairman of the executive committee of the Kaluga Regional Council. Later, Terenty Fomich was reinstated in military rank, worked as the first secretary of the Novgorod regional party committee, and then returned to the Far East as the first secretary of the Primorsky regional committee of the CPSU.
Lieutenant-General Vladimir Razuvaev was appointed new ambassador and part-time head of military advisers. A native of the Kursk region, a front-line soldier, during the Great Patriotic War, the commander of the 1st Shock Army, Razuvaev remained in Korea until the end of the war.
Someone in the North Korean leadership also had to be held accountable for the mistakes. Such is the logic of the system: either the leader will find and punish the guilty, or the leader himself will be quickly appointed guilty. This important task was accomplished by Kim Il Sung at the Third Plenum of the Central Committee of the TPUK of the second convocation, which opened on December 21 in the city of Kang. He made a long devastating speech at it, criticizing many high-ranking party members and the military. The report was so blunt that it was published with cuts.
Summing up the results of the five months of the war, Kim Il Sung dwelled in detail on the pros and cons of the path traveled. Among the positive results, he named the timely creation and organization of the KPA, the rallying of the people around the party and the army, the help received from the fraternal peoples of the USSR and China, and the heroism of the Korean people, which becomes "the banner of freedom movement peoples of the colonial countries. In addition, he noted, in the course of the war, the KPA gained serious combat experience, and the enemy's difficulties are increasing.
The list of shortcomings that led to the defeat at the first stage of the war was much longer:
not enough reserves were prepared;
the army and its leading cadres are young and inexperienced;
discipline is weak in military units and orders are often not carried out;
the enemy was often forced out of positions, and not destroyed his manpower;
units are not ready to conduct combat in specific conditions with the technical superiority of the enemy, do not know how to conduct mountain and forest battles;
insufficiently organized work on supply in the rear, many pests penetrated into the rear parts;
political work in the troops is poorly developed.
The last point was addressed to the head of the political department of the army, Kim Il. Shtykov's complaint about his arrogant conversation with a Soviet military specialist had an effect. He was removed from all posts and expelled from the TPSK. “Not only did we not launch a fight against the capitulatory trend, which consisted in the fact that it was allegedly impossible to fight the enemy without aircraft, moreover, Comrade Kim Il himself, who was in charge of political work in the army, adhered to the same trend,” said the Supreme Commander25. (After a while, he reinstated Kim Il in the party and returned all the regalia to him.)
Among the perpetrators, Kim named representatives of all party groups. Yan'an's My Zhong, who surrendered Pyongyang to the allies without a fight, aroused particular anger. Kim called him a coward and a capitulator, saying that he should be subjected not just to political disgrace, but to a criminal sentence.
The "local" and personally member of the Central Committee, Ho Song Tek, got it for the fact that a large guerrilla war was never launched in the rear of the southerners. The surname of Pak Hong Yong was not called, but everyone remembered the one who promised the failed uprising of 200 thousand of his supporters in the South after the start of the war.
Kim criticized the work of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the ministries of communications, education, culture and others for the lack of "iron discipline", announced the expulsion of the leaders of several provinces from the party and the removal of the commanders of two divisions for cowardice. "In the course of the current war, it has become clear who is the true and who is the imaginary member of our party," he summed up.
Kim Il Sung returned to the destroyed and burned Pyongyang at the very end of 1950. Since American air raids continued uninterruptedly and it was dangerous to stay in houses, almost the entire population of the city moved to the caves. The Pyongyangs themselves blew up their own dwellings in the rocks, extracting tol from unexploded American bombs. Kim also had to move to live underground: he settled in one of the bunkers, an extensive network of which was hollowed out deep in Moran Hill in the center of Pyongyang. A whole town with living quarters, a command post and even a theater hall was equipped there, where official receptions, meetings and performances were held. Knowing this, American pilots constantly attacked Moran, trying to drop a bomb on the stairs so that she rolled down the stairs. However, they failed to blow up a well-equipped fortification. According to the recollections of Vladimir Tolstikov, a representative of the Soviet Information Bureau, Kim at that time kept himself modest, ate little: “In the morning, as a rule, a bowl of rice or corn and a glass of mineral water. I didn’t drink tea or coffee at all, even at receptions.
Kim's other location during the war was the headquarters of the High Command in the Sopo Valley, near Pyongyang. Here, in the intervals between work, he cultivated vegetables and fruits in the garden and received fighters who had distinguished themselves at the front.
In January, Kim Il Sung's closest associate, Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the DPRK Kim Chak, died. Kim himself writes that he died in his office from heart failure. A. Lankov, in turn, claims that he died during an American raid on the crossing. Posthumously, Kim Chak received the title of Hero of the DPRK.
Meanwhile, the North Korean-Chinese coalition was faced with the question of whether to cross the ill-fated 38th parallel again. “Strike while the iron is hot” was the unofficial advice of Andrei Gromyko, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the USSR, to the Ambassador of China27. Needless to say, the cautious Andrei Andreevich expressed the opinion of the owner of the Kremlin, whose word was law? However, Mao also advocated the continuation of the offensive.
New, 1951, began with the flight of the South Korean units defending Seoul, under the pressure of the Chinese and North Koreans. General Matthew Ridgway, describing their panicked retreat, admitted that he had never seen anything worse than a fleeing army. “When the hell are we going to get out of this damned country?” the American infantrymen swore, looking at the Koreans scurrying from the battlefield. Neither the attempts of the general himself to stop the soldiers, nor even a visit to the front lines of Lee Syngman, helped. And again, as six months ago, the military and refugees blocked the bridges over the Han River, covered with thin breaking ice. On January 4, Seoul was taken, and then Incheon. UN troops entrenched twenty kilometers south of the former PK capital.
Combat General Ridgway, nicknamed Old Iron Tits in Korea for his habit of wearing hand grenades on his chest, has adopted a new tactic - destruction maximum number enemy manpower. No wonder it was called the "meat grinder". Making extensive use of artillery, aircraft and tanks, he began to gradually push the Chinese and North Koreans back to the 38th parallel.
In mid-March, the Allies occupied Seoul. In the city, out of 1.5 million people, 200 thousand remained, most of the buildings were destroyed. To top it all off, a typhus epidemic began, and the streets were littered with the corpses of the dead and the dead. As Time magazine put it, "Seoul's fourth take was a sad job, a bit like taking over a grave."28 By the beginning of April, UN troops controlled the entire territory of South Korea.
And again the 38th parallel ... MacArthur and Lee Syngman demanded to go to Amnok and beyond, to fight with China, and if necessary - with the Soviets. Truman was more careful: he did not want a limited war to escalate into a global one. In addition, protracted hostilities and the flow of coffins with the bodies of American soldiers did not contribute to the popularity of this war in America. MacArthur defiantly ignored the opinion of the White House, making statements about the war to a victorious end and predicting otherwise the fall of not only Korea, but also Europe under the onslaught of communism. All this was the last straw for Truman. On April 10, he signed a decree resigning MacArthur due to his failure to comply with the instructions of the president and the American government. In place of the "Proconsul of the East" was appointed General Ridgway.
In April and May, the Sino-North Korean coalition attempted to go on the offensive several times. And every time the allies were brought down by South Korean troops, who immediately took to flight at the first blows of the enemy. One of the most famous episodes of this period was the defense of the English Gloucestershire Regiment, which, due to the withdrawal of the South Korean units, was surrounded, but held the occupied height for two days, and then managed to break through to its own. True, the surviving Gloucestershires were shot by American tanks, mistaking them for the Chinese. Out of a regiment of 800 men, 40 survived.
By the beginning of summer it became clear that both sides did not have the strength to drive the enemy out of their positions. The front has stabilized. Against this background, peace negotiations began.
In June, Kim Il Sung secretly flew to Beijing for consultations and then to Moscow. There, together with Mao, Gao Gang and Stalin, he discussed the advisability of negotiating with the Americans. The decision was positive. On June 23, the Soviet representative to the UN, Yakov Malik, made a radio speech proposing a ceasefire and the withdrawal of troops from the 38th parallel. Truman soon commended the Soviet initiative, and Ridgway sent a telegram to Kim and Peng Dehuai. He offered to meet on board the Danish ship in the port of Wonsan. However, on the recommendation of Mao and Stalin, the northerners proposed the border town of Kaesong. The Americans agreed, and the first round of negotiations took place on 10 July.
On the North Korean side, the delegation was led by the new chief of staff of the KPA, young General Nam Ir. He came from Soviet Koreans, before moving to the DPRK, he worked as a dean Pedagogical Institute in Samarkand and was considered one of the most intelligent military in the leadership of the Korean army. In addition to him, the negotiators included two more Korean military and two Chinese generals. On the Allied side, the chief negotiator was Admiral Turner Joy, plus three other representatives from US troops and one South Korean general.
From the very beginning, the dialogue proceeded in a very nervous atmosphere. Both sides sought to demonstrate their superiority and determination not to yield to the enemy in anything. In fact, the negotiations were a continuation of the fighting, only in the room, and not on the battlefield.
Arriving in Kaesong, Joy found a "welcome party" armed to the teeth. He was seated at the negotiating table facing north opposite Nam Il (according to Korean tradition, the winner must face south). To top it off, the admiral was given a low chair, while Nam Ir, on the contrary, was given a tall one. As a result, the Korean, who was shorter than the American, was on the same level with him. Joey soon noticed this and demanded a normal chair for himself, but the necessary pictures from the negotiations had already been taken by reporters from North Korea and other socialist countries.
The very first serious question - about the dividing line - revealed the intransigence of positions. The Americans insisted that it should not pass along the 38th parallel, but along the front line that had developed at that time a little to the north, with a demilitarized zone of 20 miles in both directions. Nam Il called such proposals ridiculous and arrogant. Joy retorted that the North Koreans appeared to be participating in the negotiations "without any sincere or serious intentions."
By mid-August, the dialogue had stalled. One day, its participants sat in complete silence for two hours, looking at each other with hatred. However, at the negotiating table they still held back, and then took their souls away. The Chinese general Zhi Fan referred to Joe as nothing more than a "turtle egg", the Americans, in turn, spoke of the North Korean and Chinese delegates as "sons of bitches" and "hypocritical savages." Often in Kaesong, not far from the place of negotiations, there were armed incidents in which the parties blamed each other.
Speaking on August 15 at a ceremonial meeting on the occasion of the sixth anniversary of the liberation of Korea, Kim Il Sung commented on the course of the dialogue: troops from Korea and a ceasefire by establishing a demarcation line along the 38th parallel. However, the Americans still continue to pursue their aggressive policy ... Representatives of the UN troops insist on establishing a demarcation line running 80 kilometers north of the 38th parallel from Songdovon through Kymchen to Kaesong, that is, they want to cut off from North Korea an area equal to 1/20 of the entire Korea Square. It is clear that the enemies want to turn this militarily important territory into a military base in order to launch a surprise attack on our republic from here, to invade the borders of the People's Republic of China and the Soviet Union.
After that, the negotiations were interrupted, and a few days later the allies launched an offensive in the central and eastern parts of the front. Especially serious battles unfolded in the area of strategic heights 1052 and 1211, which covered the Wonsan direction. The North Korean author narrates how Kim Il Sung personally, "passing through the powder smoke", went to a height of 1211 and led one of the battles. After that, he called the corps commander Choe Hyun and said heartily: “All fighters are an irreplaceable, priceless treasure, you need to feed them with warm porridge and hot soup, provide them with comfortable rest and surround them with heartfelt care so that they do not catch a cold, because it seems that in the yard, it's already chilly."
The UN troops failed to take the height and move north. Several of its defenders received the title of heroes of the DPRK. Including - Lee Su-bok, who covered the enemy machine gun with his chest, thereby repeating the feat of Alexander Matrosov.
Negotiations resumed at the end of October. They were now passing through the village of Panmunjeong, right on the front line. After some time, the parties managed to agree on a ceasefire line, but new problems arose in connection with the exchange of prisoners of war. The North Koreans put up a list of 11,559 people, the Americans - of 132,47,432. The first wanted to change "all for all", the second - "man for man". According to the Americans, many Chinese prisoners expressed a desire not to return home, but to move to Taiwan, and the Koreans - to stay in the South. (It should be borne in mind that many of the southerners were taken to the KPA during the first North Korean offensive and then became prisoners in the South.) Nobody wanted to give in, and by the end of 1951 the negotiations again reached an impasse.
Truman was furious. “The free world has endured enough. The Chinese must withdraw from Korea, and the Soviets must give Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania and Hungary their freedom and stop helping the thugs who attack the free world. Otherwise, a full-scale war will begin ... Moscow, St. Petersburg, Mukden, Vladivostok, Beijing, Shanghai, Port Arthur, Dalian, Odessa, Stalingrad and every industrial facility in China and the Soviet Union will be destroyed, ”the American president left such a record on January 27, 1952 years33. Fortunately, these dreams remained only in his personal diary. But involuntarily it seems that the North Koreans who called him a "fanatic", "fascist" and "war maniac" were not so far from the truth.
In the spring of 1952, Ridgway was replaced as commander of the UN forces by General Mark Clark. Wishing to force the enemy to accept the conditions of the allies in the negotiations, he developed a plan for conducting massive bombing strikes on the strategic targets of the DPRK - power plants, factories, dams, government sites, command posts of the KPA, diplomatic missions, as well as on the positions of troops and settlements. In June, the Americans bombed the hydroelectric complex on the Amnok River, leaving North Korea and northeast China without electricity. In August, Kim Il Sung's headquarters in Sopho was destroyed. Kim himself was not there at that moment, but Ambassador Razuvaev almost died. In October, a complex of buildings of the USSR embassy in Pyongyang was subjected to a massive bombardment using napalm. By the end of 1952, according to the American command, there were no targets left for bombing in North Korea. Everything on the surface of the earth was destroyed.
Kim wrote to Stalin: “I consider it necessary to report to you, Iosif Vissarionovich, on the following: based on a general analysis of the situation in Korea, the possibility is not ruled out that the negotiations on an armistice may drag on for an indefinite period. Over the past year of negotiations, we have actually curtailed hostilities and switched to passive defense. This situation has led to the fact that the enemy, suffering almost no losses, incessantly inflicts enormous damage on us in terms of manpower and material values.
For example, only recently the enemy has put out of action all power plants in Korea and active actions of the Air Force does not make it possible to restore them, which has caused and continues to cause enormous damage to the entire national economy of the DPRK. In just one day of the barbaric bombardment of only one city of Pyongyang (on the 1st and on the night of July 12, 1952), more than 6,000 civilians were killed and wounded.
Kim asked to strengthen the anti-aircraft defense and intensify the actions of the Air Force in order to cover North Korea with fighter aircraft, at least along the Pyongyang line, and also to provide assistance in the form of supplying equipment to the troops. In his opinion, the change in the nature of combat operations on the ground and in the air should have had a corresponding effect on the enemy.
The Korean and Chinese fighters gave their answer to the bombing. They began to burrow into the ground. The landscape of Korea in the region of the 38th parallel is hills surrounded by swampy rice fields. Soldiers turned every hill or hill into a fortified point, and the battles went on for the possession of one or another height. In conditions when American planes daily brought down their deadly cargo on their positions, they began to cover the trenches from above with trees and soil, dig "fox holes" to hide from shelling. Gradually, branched systems of passages, weapons depots, and living quarters began to appear inside the hills. Sometimes artillery was hidden in the underground galleries and even fired at the enemy from there. Almost all work was done by hand. All the more striking is the fact that the front, 250 kilometers long, included 500 kilometers of tunnels. In total, during the war, Chinese volunteers alone built more than 1,250 kilometers of tunnels35.
Providing the front, entire enterprises in the rear also went underground, moved to caves and bunkers, mines and mines. Chairman of the Presidium of the People's Assembly of the DPRK and Secretary of the Central Committee of the WPK, who later fled to the South, Hwang Zhang Yeop spoke about the scope of underground construction in the DPRK: “It is clear that our people have developed the technology of digging trenches. Since the war of 1950–1953, we have gone underground, created a powerful network of underground communications with all life support systems”36. (Although this experience is also characteristic of other socialist countries. Suffice it to recall Enver Hoxha, who covered the whole of Albania with a network of bunkers.)
Another invention of the Sino-North Korean coalition in military affairs was the appearance of detachments of hunters for aircraft and tanks. These were small mobile groups of fighters, armed with anti-tank rifles and mines, light and heavy machine guns, specifically aimed at destroying enemy equipment. And this semi-guerrilla method proved its effectiveness. At the beginning of 1952, Pyongyang even held a rally of exemplary groups of aircraft hunters, who entered into a social competition among themselves in terms of the number of downed enemy aircraft.
So gradually the war became protracted. A. Pantsov and some other historians believe that the blame for its delay lies entirely with Stalin, for whom "the Korean massacre was only part of a new global plan for the world revolution"37. However, in this case, it is not clear why Stalin always left the final word to Mao and Kim, without imposing any scenarios on them. But it was the Soviet leadership, through its plenipotentiary to the UN, who was the first to propose starting peace negotiations.
All parties are responsible for the prolongation of the war, and Stalin is least of all to blame here. Lee Syngman, for example, generally opposed negotiations in principle. Kim formulated his position as follows: “We will respond to delaying negotiations by the enemy with delaying, we will respond to his hostilities with hostilities, we will agree to a truce if the enemy really wants it, but in no case will we accept unfair terms of a truce - this is our principle in negotiations about a truce." The Americans and the Chinese wanted an honorable truce, but on their own terms. The participation of several players at once, mutual perseverance, bitterness and the desire to put the squeeze on the enemy and became the reason for such long way to a truce.
While the guns were talking, Party life went on as usual. In November 1951, the Fourth Plenum of the WPK Central Committee opened in Pyongyang. It passed under the sign of the fight against "leftist excesses", the personification of which was the secretary of the Central Committee of the WPK and the leader of the Soviet Koreans, Ho Ga Yi.
Kim Il Sung and Ho Ga Yi were classic antagonists. Kim could not stand this meticulous and boring apparatchik, a Marxist bureaucrat who had gone through the Soviet party school and looked down on poorly educated former partisans. They differed in their views on how the party should be built. Ho believed that no more than 60,000 people should be in the party, mostly industrial workers. And Kim called this cringing before other countries, which did not correspond to the real conditions of Korea, where the peasantry prevailed. Thus, Ho stood for the elitist character of the WPK, while Kim was for mass organization.
Finally, the removal of Ho Ga Yi from the political scene was due to the logic of factional struggle. He was one of the key figures in the WPK, in charge of party cadres. Kim could not leave this post to a person from the Soviet faction, whom he did not trust. And since the influence of the USSR fell during the war, his hands were untied. Yes, and the reason was just wonderful.
At the last plenum, Ho Ga Yi, who headed the Control Commission of the WPK, received a responsible assignment - to check those party members who temporarily ended up in the territories occupied by the Americans. Given that the UN troops in October-November controlled most of the country, there were quite a few of them. After the arrival of the allied troops, many threw away or burned party documents, because the South Korean special services preferred to shoot the communists first, and only then figure out if they were put up against the wall.
Nevertheless, Ho Ga Yi staged a brutal mass purge. He exchanged old party cards for new ones, while those who lost the document were automatically excluded. As a result, 450 out of 600 thousand party members were excluded and subjected to various penalties. At the same time, the rules for admission to the ranks of the WPK were sharply tightened.
In his report at the plenum, Kim Il Sung dwelled on a number of shortcomings in his work, among which he called the "closing the doors" to the party and the practice of imposing unreasonable penalties as the key ones. The WPK "often does not take workers and peasants because of insufficient political consciousness, they do not want to accept patriotic progressive people into its ranks, making various inappropriate demands," he said39. And he demanded to stop the repressions, to conduct an audit and to restore those unfairly expelled.
Kim ridiculed Ho for being a "Professor of Party Science" while demanding heightened political consciousness from others, and he himself can't even speak Korean properly. He accused him of trying to speak on behalf of all Soviet Koreans and falling into factionalism. And, finally, he mocked the rivalry of the factions: they say, Ho was picking off with the head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Pak Il Woo, since one preferred the Soviet way of warfare, and the other - the Chinese. Incredibly stupid argument during a national tragedy!
During the plenum, Ho Ga Yi was removed from the posts of party general secretary and head of its Control Commission. True, at the same time he received the post of deputy head of the Cabinet of Ministers, but this was a noticeable downgrade. And most importantly, he lost the key function of working with party cadres.
Ho's final removal from the political scene took place in 1953. As a result of an American air raid, the Sunan reservoir in the north of the DPRK was damaged, the protection of which was part of his responsibilities. He was accused of negligence and the slow progress of restoration work. On July 2, on the eve of the Politburo meeting to discuss his mistakes, Ho Ga Yi was found dead in his home. He lay in a children's bed with a hunting rifle in his hands, to which was tied a belt from his wife's dress. According to the official North Korean version, he committed suicide. However, A. Lankov believes that it was a political assassination40.
At the Fifth Plenum of the WPK Central Committee, held in December 1952, Kim Il Sung continued his big game. He stated that the mistakes and excesses of the “leftist deviation” had been corrected. TPK has grown into a mass political party, in which there were more than a million people and 48,933 primary organizations. At the same time, the membership of 29.8 percent of those unfairly expelled was restored, 62.1 percent of decisions on transferring candidates were canceled, penalties were lifted from 69.2 percent of party members who received them.
There were also new deviators. Kim Il Sung, in his closing remarks, sharply criticized “sectarians and liberals,” though without naming anyone: “We have to state the fact that such elements existing within the Party are unpleasant, like fleas crawling over a person’s body and not giving him rest. To get rid of this trouble, it would be necessary to wash and wash the linen ... In their speeches, many comrades resolutely demanded that the sectarians and liberals frankly confess to the party, but none of them dared to appear on the podium. Apparently, they prefer to remain silent, for, judging by the atmosphere of the plenum, it is clear that they cannot escape severe punishment if they do not admit that they were engaged in sectarian or liberal activities today, when the whole party and the whole people have embarked on a mortal struggle against American imperialists." No one admitted to sectarian and liberal activities, and severe punishment was not long in coming.
... On March 5, 1953, early in the morning, Kim Il Sung's light sleep was interrupted by a young adjutant in military uniform: “Commander! Wake up! The Soviet embassy has just reported that Stalin has died…” An electric light bulb shone dimly on the ceiling of the bunker, hidden in the depths of Moran Hill. He looked at his watch, it was 8 am. Kim considered. I remembered the gifts of the "father of peoples" - an armored railway car and a ZIL car with 8 cm thick glass, which he sent to Korea after the start of the war. "Comrade Kim! You now have many enemies. You need to take good care of your safety, ”the voice of the Kremlin highlander sounded in his ears, soft, with a characteristic Caucasian accent. Stalin was right. There are many enemies, and the most dangerous of them dug in in the party. The factionalists are worse than Syngman Lee.
An hour later, Kim was already sitting in his office and listening to the report of the head of state security, Ban Hak Se, about the arrest of a group of conspirators. “We took them warm,” he said, rubbing his hands contentedly. - Lee Seung-yup was lifted right out of bed. He did not expect this, he began to shout that he would complain that he was the secretary of the Central Committee and we had no right to touch him. But we told him that we were following the order of the leader and if he spoke, the conversation with him would be short.”
Kim was pleased. From the arrested minister, the strings stretched to the second person in the WPK, the leader of the local faction Pak Hong Yong. The Korean Trotsky is now doomed. But there are many factionalists: there are also the Korean Kamenevs, Zinovievs, Bukharins... Never mind, their turn will come.
According to the official version, "the gang of Park Hong Yong - Lee Seung Yup, who, having made their way into the party and state bodies, committed insidious actions aimed at undermining the unity and cohesion of the party and overthrowing our people's democratic system", was exposed and liquidated during the discussion documents of the November plenum of the Central Committee of the WPK and the campaign "for tempering the party spirit"42. They were accused of spying for the United States and plotting against Kim Il Sung. Is it deserved?
Lee Seung-yup (1905–1953) was born in South Korea to a poor family. At the age of 20, the young man became a member of the Communist Party of Korea. In 1931 he was arrested and spent eight years in prison. Barely released in 1940, he was arrested again. The Japanese did not stand on ceremony with the communists. He agreed to cooperate with the Japanese administration, after which he was released.
In 1945, after the departure of the Japanese, Lee returns to his roots and becomes one of the leaders of the Communist Party of South Korea. During the years of Japanese domination, many communists were forced to cooperate with the regime, and therefore often turned a blind eye to the difficult past of their comrades.
In 1946, he was arrested by US military authorities for the assassination attempt on Rhee Syngman. Under torture, he accepts an offer to work with American intelligence. Lee proved to be an extremely valuable asset to her. After Pak Hong Yong defected to the North, Lee became the head of the South Korean communists.
In 1947, he was arrested for the fourth time, now by the South Korean police. After negotiations in prison, he agrees to join the coalition government of the South, along with representatives of other political forces. However, in 1948, on the orders of Pak Hong Yong Lee, he moved to the North, where he received the post of Minister of Justice of the DPRK.
In 1950, American agents Alice Hyun and Lee Ca Min, who had secret military plans signed by Kim Il Sung, were detained at the Moscow airport. Extradited to the DPRK, they soon admitted to having ties with Lee Seung-yup. Alice also worked as Park Hong Young's personal secretary. And although the latter vouched for Lee Syng-yop and high-ranking party members were not touched, the North Korean special services began to develop their environment. Perhaps it was the danger of being discovered that prompted Lee to intend to remove Kim.
Kim Yong-sik, who worked for the Americans during the war years as a translator and later wrote his memoirs, directly calls Lee Seung-yop an American agent43. Seo Dae Suk traces the history of the conspiracy back to September 1951, when Lee Seung Yup began plotting a military coup. For this, he was going to use 4,000 cadets of a special school that trained personnel for partisan struggle in the South. The teachers and students there were from PK, and the management were Li's close friends. The conspirators divided the top posts among themselves: Lee Seung-yup himself was to become the secretary of the Communist Party, and Park Hong-yong was to become the prime minister. The performance date was set for the first half of 1953, but the plot was uncovered in time.
Many researchers argue that there really was no conspiracy, but it was a banal purge - the removal of Kim's competitors from the political scene. The same point of view is shared by A. Lankov, who points to the unreality of Kim's removal by such small forces, especially during the war and when Chinese troops were in the DPRK.
The complicated case of the "gang of Lee Seung Yup - Park Hong Yong" resembles the "Tukhachevsky case" from Soviet history. Whether there was in reality a conspiracy of the generals against Stalin or not, we do not know. There are only the results of very specific trials, circumstantial evidence and diametrically opposed opinions of historians.
Kim Yong-sik, who is knowledgeable in the affairs of the American intelligence services, claims that this attempt to eliminate Kim was not the only one. CIA Colonel Hans Tofti, who ran a special training camp in Korea, recruited an American Indian, a professional hunter, who, for a small sum, agreed to cross the front line and kill the North Korean leader. True, he never made it to Korea for some unknown reason44.
The war was entering its final phase. Harry Truman lost the presidential election in November 1952. The reason for the failure of the Democratic candidate was called four "k": corruption, crime, communism, Korea. General Dwight Eisenhower, who succeeded Truman in the White House, promised during the election campaign to end the war. After becoming president, he personally went to Korea, where he became convinced that a full-scale offensive without gigantic efforts and casualties was impossible, and began to look for ways to resolve the conflict that bothered everyone.
Similar sentiments were shared in Moscow. At the end of March 1953, Pyongyang received a letter from the Council of Ministers of the USSR, chaired by Georgy Malenkov, recommending a positive response to General Clark's proposal for the exchange of wounded and sick prisoners of war and continuing negotiations on an early armistice. Kim Il Sung "came into great excitement" and supported the proposals of the Soviet side. In April, the initial exchange of prisoners was carried out, but then the negotiations again became difficult.
To make the enemy more accommodating, American aircraft, on the orders of General Clark, began to destroy rice crops in the North, bombing dams and dams that regulate the release of water to the fields. In response, the Sino-North Korean troops launched a new offensive along the entire front.
But the main obstacle to the conclusion of a truce remained Lee Syngman. The old man demanded the continuation of the war to a victorious end, and otherwise threatened to withdraw his troops from the subordination of the UN. Moreover, Lee launched a new political campaign under the slogan of creating a Greater Korea, which was supposed to include, in addition to the Korean Peninsula itself, part of the territories of China and the USSR. A paradoxical situation developed: during the negotiations, the parties fought not so much with each other as with Lee Syngman. And soon he completely took a step that almost disrupted the negotiations - he gave the order to open the doors of the prisoner-of-war camps, allowing everyone who wanted it to go free. About 25 thousand people fled from captivity.
“Is the UN command able to control the South Korean government and army?” - mockingly interested in after that the northerners at the talks. The Americans began to blackmail Lee by threatening to unilaterally withdraw troops from Korea. At the same time, the Sino-North Korean coalition launched a final offensive, aimed mainly at the positions of South Korean troops, under the slogan: "Kill the chicken to scare the monkey." The offensive ended successfully - the ledge, which had cut 15 kilometers into the positions of the KPA and CPV, was cleared of the enemy. Lee was forced to announce that he would not interfere with the conclusion of a truce, although he himself would not sign it. He furnished his consent with a number of conditions: American troops were to remain in the South, and the United States should continue to train the local army and allocate money to restore the country's economy.
After that, the question arose whether Kim Il Sung should personally participate in its signing. The fact is that the village of Panmunjeong was in the territory controlled by the allies. And, given the mood of Lee Syngman, it was quite possible to expect provocations. In the Kremlin, Kim was advised not to personally participate in the ceremony. In Beijing, on the contrary, they believed that Peng Dehuai and Kim should go there together.
As a result, on July 27, 1953, a truce was concluded. The ceremony was attended by Nam Ir and American General William Harrison. The signatures of Kim Il Sung and Peng Dehuai, who did not come to Panmunjeong, are also on the document. The South Korean side refused to sign.
The troops of the opposing sides were to withdraw two kilometers from the line of contact, forming a Demilitarized Zone (DMZ). It still separates the two Korean states, being the most fortified border in the world.
Prisoners of war who wished to return back immediately returned sides to each other. The fate of those who did not want to return was decided by a special commission consisting of representatives of neutral countries.
And, finally, it was planned to convene a special peace conference to conclude a peace treaty.
On July 28, Kim Il Sung was awarded the title of Hero of the DPRK. A little earlier, he became a marshal, and Choi Yong-gon became the first vice-marshal of the republic. In an address to the nation, Kim called the truce "a great historic victory won by the Korean people as a result of a three-year heroic struggle for freedom and independence, against the combined forces of foreign interventionists and the treacherous Rhee Syng-man clique." He emphasized that the enemy had a serious technical superiority: “The American imperialists, provoking a war in Korea, counted on the fact that the Korean people would not be able to resist their armed forces, especially their air forces ... And in this they cruelly miscalculated. They could not break our people, frighten them with their military equipment. The Korean War showed once again that technology is not the only decisive factor in victory, that superiority in military equipment. One of the most important factors of victory is the high moral and political state, the fighting spirit of the army and the people both at the front and in the rear.
What were the results of the war for the DPRK and Kim Il Sung personally?
The main task of the fighting - the liberation of the South from the regime of Rhee Syngman and the unification of the country under the auspices of the North - was not resolved due to the intervention of a more powerful enemy, the UN coalition led by the United States. At the same time, the independence of the DPRK was successfully defended (albeit with external assistance). Under the final agreement, North Korea lost a sparsely populated mountainous region in the southeast, but acquired much more populated territories in the southwest, in particular, the city of Kaesong with its environs, and also received the entire Ondinsky Peninsula, aligning the border in this direction and bringing it closer to Seoul . So formally, the DPRK remained in the black.
Politically, over the years of the war, Kim consolidated his power in the country and in the party. This was facilitated by the fall of the influence of the Soviet Union on Korean affairs due to non-participation directly in hostilities. If until 1950 the control of the USSR over the DPRK was total, then during the war it significantly weakened. Of course, the death of Stalin also had an effect, followed by the establishment of a collective leadership in Moscow. Chinese authorities in internal politics North Korea did not interfere. Thus, Kim managed to get rid of external guardianship.
Kim Il Sung successfully used the war years to eliminate his powerful rivals, who occupied the highest rungs in the party hierarchy. Soviet and local faction leaders Ho Ga Yi and Park Hong Yong lost their posts. Kim's tactically competent actions made it possible to take them out of the brackets in internal party struggle. Other factionalists were no longer so dangerous.
On the other hand, the human and material losses of the DPRK were incalculable. About 9,000 industrial enterprises and 600,000 residential buildings were destroyed. All the cities of the country and almost all the villages lay in ruins. Up to 1.5 million civilians and several hundred thousand military personnel were killed.
As for the overall results of the war, here the data and opinions of historians differ up to diametrically opposed ones.
In both Korean states, it is officially stated that each of them won, retaining its territory, independence and specifics of development. Summarizing these points of view, S. Kurbanov believes that both the DPRK and the PK won the war.
The position of the majority of American historians (for example, W. Stuka): the war was won by the Western coalition led by the United States. Usually, the fact with which the UN responded to the event and entered into conflict is emphasized, as well as the wide support of the allies (16 participating states).
According to K. Asmolov and the authors of the book “Korea in the Fire of War”, there were no winners at all. Neither side achieved its goals, while in terms of the amount of destruction and casualties (the total number of which is approaching five million), the conflict limited to the Korean Peninsula was not much inferior to the world war.
Comrade Kim Il Sung - Rising Sun - a national hero from the breed of great Asian revolutionaries, granite colossi, characters rather ancient world than ours. Others are the great helmsman Mao, the stunning uncle Ho Chi Minh, and the cruel dreamer Pol Pot, which is translated from French as Paul Buddy, Buddy. All of them can be counted among the great brigade of giants that tower over Asia like idols from Easter Island.
From the great, pale and nervous European revolutionaries - Lenin, Hitler, Mussolini - Asian colossi are distinguished by great honest wisdom, naivety, heightened fanaticism and obligatory Asian eccentricity, a penchant for universal formulas of universal salvation. "Great Leap Forward", "A rifle gives birth to power", "Let a hundred flowers bloom", "The city is evil", "Agriculture is the key to building a nation". To these concise formulations of Asian political thought, the great Kim added his own - the Juche idea.
Believing in the idea of the dictatorship of the people, the Asian colossi with monstrous energy erected exotic fabulous states, in which, however, it is not easy to live, as in any fairy tale. And if huge China nevertheless mutated into a capitalist state led by the Communist Party, then small Korea preserves intact the covenants of the giant, idol, comrade Kim Il Sung. In Korea, an extravagant, militant and fanatical regime of his descendants has frozen in real estate, and this regime has no equal in severe originality.
This is a talentedly written biography of Idol.
Eduard Limonov
Chapter first
PINE ON THE MOUNTAIN TO NAM
The old world was dying, the new world was being born. On April 15, 1912, when the horror froze in the eyes of the passengers of the Titanic plunging into the cold waters of the Atlantic, a baby who had just been born uttered the first cry on the other side of the planet. The parents named their first child Son Joo (Becoming a Support). In life, he will be called differently: Chansung (Elder Grandson), Han Ber (Morning Star), Dong Men (Light from the East) ... But he will become known as Il Sen (Rising Sun).
You can see this as a mere coincidence, or you can see it as a symbol, a secret sign of history. Scrolling through the calendar for 1912, we find many more symbolic dates.
The year began with the collapse of the oldest monarchy in the world. On January 1, in Nanjing, Dr. Sun Yat-sen proclaims the Republic of China on the basis of the "three people's principles": nationalism, democracy, people's welfare. This event will change the way of development of the East in general and Korea in particular. After all, there is no other country with which Korea would be as closely connected as with China.
Another revolutionary to whom Kim Il Sung will owe his ascent to the heights of power - Iosif Dzhugashvili - takes on the sonorous pseudonym Stalin. On April 22, the organ of the party of Russian Social Democrats, the Pravda newspaper, begins to appear in St. Petersburg, in the first issue of which his article "Our Goals" is published. On the same day he was arrested. In exile, he writes his first theoretical work, Marxism and the National Question.
On August 25, Kim's future colleague in the socialist camp, Erich Honecker, is born. German communist, imprisoned in a Nazi concentration camp, leader of the German Democratic Republic. They will also die in the same year. Alone as leader of the country, mourned by his people. The other is in exile, at the opposite end of the world, forgotten by everyone.
Kim himself recalled other events in connection with the date of his birth, news of colonial policy - the landing of the American marines in Honduras, the French protectorate over Morocco and the occupation of the island of Rhodes by Italian troops. Well, the Japanese occupation of Korea, of course.
Kim's native village is called Mangyongdae - "ten thousand landscapes". This is indeed a very picturesque place in the vicinity of the city of Pyongyang, in the heart of the Korean Peninsula. Near the village are the Manggyong Hill and Nam Mountain, covered with pine forests, from where a beautiful view of the Taedong River and its islands opens. These lands have long been popular with the local nobility, who bought plots here for family cemeteries.
“It is said that our family came north from Jeonju, North Jeolla Province under their ancestor Kim Kye Sang in search of a livelihood,” he writes in his memoirs. - Our clan took root in Mangyongde under the great-grandfather Kim Eun-U. And the great-grandfather was born in the Chunson quarter of the city of Pyongyang, engaged in agriculture from childhood. At the end of the sixties of the last century, he and his whole family moved to Mangyongde, acquiring a house there for the caretaker of the family crypt of the Pyongyang landowner Li Pyong-taek ” 1 .
Kim Eun Woo, according to North Korean historians, led the battle against the American pirate ship General Sherman.
This episode is well known and world historical science. The closed Korean society in the 19th century fiercely opposed the influence of foreigners, especially since they themselves gave many reasons for such an attitude. In 1866, the American ship General Sherman set sail for Korea on the pretext of concluding a trade treaty. On the tidal wave, the ship was able to climb the Taedong River to the island Yangak within the city of Pyongyang. Trade with Western countries was prohibited, and the local governor, Pak Kyu-su, politely asked the intruders to get out of where they sailed from, having previously sent water and food to the ship.
However, the Yankees considered this behavior a sign of weakness. They took the Koreans who were delivering food hostage and started firing cannons along the shore. To top it off, they staged a real pirate raid on the surrounding villages, killing seven and injuring five people. By that time the tide had begun to ebb and the Sherman had run aground. The Governor, losing his patience, ordered the ship to be burned, resulting in all twenty-three crew members perishing in the fire.
Unlike Kim's semi-legendary great-grandfather, his grandparents are quite real personalities. They were interviewed by journalists who visited Mangyongdae after the end of World War II. Kim Bo Hyun and Lee Bo Ik outlived their son Kim Hyun Jik for a long time and even caught the days when their beloved grandson became the head of the country. And in late XIX centuries, they rented land in Mangyongdae, doing peasant labor. They lived hard and poorly, almost starving.
Kim Hyun-jik was born in 1894. He grew up as a determined and wayward child, standing out among his many brothers and sisters (there were six children in the family). This is evidenced by at least such an act: at the age of eleven, he climbed a mountain outside the village and cut off his scythe. It was an unheard-of violation of tradition. In Korea, young people were required to wear a braid before marriage, and they could cut their hair only on the wedding day.
In order to give the boy an education, the family had to strain every effort. Hyun Jik successfully entered Sunsil high school- one of the many educational institutions founded by American missionaries in Korea. Education here was considered prestigious and included modern sciences Key words: mathematics, physics, geometry, history.
However, Hyun Jik never graduated from high school. His character did not allow him to stay in one place for a long time. In life, he changed many professions: he taught, then he was engaged in herbal treatment, then he collaborated with various Protestant missions. He plunged into Christian culture quite deeply - he could read a sermon, play the organ and perform the duties of a priest.
At the age of fifteen, he married seventeen-year-old Kang Bang-seok, whose parents were also devout Christians. True, she came from a wealthier intelligent family. The girl's father, Kang Dong Wook, was the founder and director of the Changdok secondary school in the neighboring village of Chhilgor, and part-time - a priest in the local Protestant church. So Kang Bang Suk was brought up in a religious spirit from childhood.
North Korea is a young state that appeared on the map only 70 years ago. The tragic events of history led to its formation, and the recognizable image of a reclusive country and a stronghold of victorious communism would not have been without Kim Il Sung, the founder and eternal president of the state. In North Korea, he is called the Sun of the Nation and literally deified, and his birthday, which falls on April 15, is considered the main holiday of the country.
Rise to glory
It is not always easy to separate true and fictional facts in the biography of Kim Il Sung - they have been changed so many times to please the ideology that they remained available only in in general terms. It is known that Kim Il Sung was born into a poor family of a school teacher and the daughter of a Protestant priest in 1912. It is officially believed that his parents led a small detachment during the anti-Japanese movement, but surviving documents say that their merits in partisan struggle were insignificant.
When Kim Il Sung (whose real name was Kim Song-ju) was eight years old, the family moved to China. There he mastered new language, received an education - including an ideological one - and became interested in the struggle against the Japanese, who occupied his homeland.
Already at the age of twenty, he became the head of a small partisan detachment that operated on the border of China and Korea.
In 1937, a detachment led by Kim defeated a Japanese gendarme post in the city of Pochonbo. The attack was sudden, not too brilliant, but still historic: a small victory was the first in the anti-Japanese struggle won in the territory of occupied Korea. She glorified Kim Il Sung as a commander and opened the way for him to the military career ladder.
In 1940, representatives of the partisan movement were invited to the Soviet Union to discuss further joint actions. So Kim Il Sung was on Far East Russia, with which significant events of his life will be connected. One of them was the service in the Red Army, which opened the way to political activity.
Good reputation allowed him to lead combat operations in Manchuria and Korea. Gradually, he became the most influential person in the communist branch of the country.
The Soviet Union developed a plan to fight Japan, but did not have to put it into practice: the country capitulated a week after the fall of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Liberated Korea did not enjoy independence for long: it suffered the fate of the defeated Germany and the division into two parts.
Kim Il Sung, who gained a reputation as a reliable and ideological person, came to power with the support of the Soviet Union and China. He headed the newly formed state, and in 1950, the Korean War was unleashed under his command.
Despite huge losses, none of the parties changed their positions much, and three years later the countries signed a truce (which since then has not passed into a full-fledged peace).
North Korea, Chief and Juche
Until the early 1960s, the DPRK made economic and industrial progress - it was supported and sponsored by the powerful powers of the communist system. However, after the start of the Soviet-Chinese conflict, the country, led by Kim Il Sung, found itself in a difficult position. The leader needed to choose a course that would allow him to maintain relations with both parties. However, it was difficult to keep the balance.
Gradually, Kim Il Sung leaned towards cooperation with China: the countries shared common cultural roots and a long history.
In addition, de-Stalinization began in the Soviet Union, which the DPRK government sharply condemned. Later, a similar situation developed with the "cultural revolution" in China, and disagreements led to a cooling of relations between the countries. And with it came the depletion of financial flows coming from abroad.
To keep the faltering economy afloat, Kim Il Sung took a hard line of government. A wave of repressions and arrests swept across the country, market relations and private economy were banned as a relic of the feudal past. This led to a stagnation in the economy and industry, while the country confidently became totalitarian.
To justify the need for such harsh measures, Kim Il Sung developed the Juche ideology - the national Korean version of communism, which sought to get rid of the influence of Marxist-Leninist ideology.
The government made the idea of relying on one's own forces the main idea - without the support of other countries, there was simply no choice. By the beginning of the 1970s, the state was already plunging into a stagnant economic policy and entering an era of crisis.
At the same time, Kim Il Sung is promoting the idea of transferring power to his son, Km Jong Il. Row politicians opposed the establishment of a communist monarchy in the country, but discontent was quickly suppressed - and by far from democratic methods.
Cult of personality
In order to maintain power under unpopular policies, Kim Il Sung chose the method of self-praise tested in China and the USSR. With the help of the widespread propaganda of the ruler from ordinary person turned into the chosen one, the messenger of heaven and the savior of the nation.
The extent to which the praises of Kim Il Sung reached can be judged by the titles that were attributed to him: the Sun of the Nation, the Great All-Conquering Commander, the Pledge of the Liberation of Mankind.
Statues were erected in the country that depicted the leader, in cinema, literature and songs, the mention and glorification of the name of Kim Il Sung became mandatory. Public holidays were not complete without honorary marches and laying flowers at monuments. Since the 70s, every adult resident of the country was required to wear a badge with a portrait of the Leader.
Kim Il Sung died in 1994 from a sudden heart attack. Like leaders in other communist countries, he was not buried, but had his body embalmed and placed in the Kumsuan Memorial Palace, which during his lifetime was the seat of government. Visiting the mausoleum is not only the duty of every Pyongyang resident, but also a stage of an excursion tour for foreigners, no exceptions.
Personal life
According to one version, Kim Il Sung was married twice, according to another - three times. There are discrepancies regarding the first wife even during the partisan movement. According to one version, a girl named Kim Hyo Sun was not only a wife, but also a comrade-in-arms of Kim Il Sung.. She was captured by the Japanese, interrogated and executed. However, biographers disagree on this point.
The second (or first) official wife of Kim Il Sung was Kim Jong Suk, who, together with him, participated in political and military affairs.
She accompanied her husband and meekly endured all the hardships of partisan life. For this, in ideology, she was made a role model for every woman in North Korea.
Three children were born in the marriage - the first was a son and later heir Kim Il Sung, then two daughters were born. During her third birth, Kim Jong Suk died at the age of 31. It is believed that Kim Il Sung loved her all his life and the last thing he did before his death was to look from the window of the Kumsuan Palace at her grave. 15 years after the death of Kim Jong Suk, he married again. Little is known about this woman: according to one version, she was a secretary at the head's headquarters.
Kim Il Sung (Korean 김일성, according to Kontsevich - Kim Ilson, born Kim Song-ju, April 15, 1912, Mangyongdae - July 8, 1994, Pyongyang) is the founder of the North Korean state and its first ruler from 1948 to 1994 (head of state since 1972). Developed the Korean version of Marxism - Juche.
There is little exact information about Kim Il Sung, and all because of the secrecy surrounding his biography. His name is not what he received at birth. Kim Il Sung was born in 1912 in a suburb of Pyongyang. The family moved to Manchuria in 1925 to escape the Japanese occupation. In Manchuria, Kim Il Sung became a member of the Communist Party in 1931. The military authorities from the Soviet Union drew attention to him. There was a second World War, and Kim Il Sung lived in the USSR. He claimed to have fought in the Red Army. It is most likely that he was engaged in politics, and did not fight. He adopted the pseudonym Kim Il Sung, in honor of the famous Korean patriot who died fighting the Japanese.
World War II ended. US troops occupied the South of Korea, and the USSR - the North. They announced that they would create a single state. Meanwhile, Kim Il Sung and other communists from Korea returned from the USSR to their homeland to lead the country. Many Koreans have heard of Kim Il Sung. They waited for his return, but they saw a young "new Kim" and not a war veteran. It is not known for sure whether this misunderstanding was resolved. In 1948, the Korean occupation of the USSR ended. Kim Il Sung concentrated power over North Korea in his hands. He became the prime minister of North Korea. The US and the USSR were never able to unite Korea peacefully. Kim Il Sung took advantage of the support of the USSR and the opportunity, and therefore invaded South Korea in order to annex it by force to the northern part. Resistance was weak, even after the arrival of additional UN forces. However, Kim Il Sung's army was unable to cope with Douglas MacArthur's army, which landed at Inchon. Kim Il Sung's troops were defeated and retreated. The war in the region of the 38th parallel lasted for another two years.
In 1953, the long-awaited peace was signed. For over forty years now, the troops of the South and the North have been occupying positions opposite each other along the demarcation line, which runs along the 38th parallel. Kim Il Sung after the truce was still able to strengthen his power. In 1956, the last opposition forces inside the country were suppressed. In 1972, he became president, while he retained full military and civilian power. Time passed, and the DPRK moved away from both China and the USSR. Kim Il Sung planted a cult of his personality in the country. His country lagged behind in development from its southern neighbors. Quite often, Kim Il Sung had difficulties in supplying the country with food. In the 1980s, the son of Kim Il Sung became the successor to his father. In 1994, Kim Il Sung died, and power was concentrated in the hands of Kim Jong Il. Kim Il Sung was far from being a great leader and commander, he depended on China and the Soviet Union. However, we must remember that North Korea is hostile towards South Korea, Japan, the United States, and the regime established in the country by Kim Il Sung still exists.
