More than 30 years after his death, North Korean dictator Kim Il-sung’s legacy endures. This sets Kim apart from tyrants such as Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong and Francisco Franco, whose deaths were catalysts for political change. From an autocrat’s perspective, Kim achieved much more, successfully passing the baton of power to his son, Kim Jong-il, who in turn passed it on to his own son, Kim Jong-un, making North Korea the world’s only hereditary communist dictatorship.
In Accidental Tyrant, Fyodor Tertitskiy examines the life of the despot who laid the foundations for the enduring pariah state. Tertitskiy, who has spent the past decade living in South Korea, has published extensively on North Korea’s political, social and military history.
Kim Song-ju, who would later change his name to Kim Il-sung (which can be interpreted to mean ‘Kim who becomes the sun’), was born into a middle-class Protestant family in a small village in Japanese-controlled Korea. He was educated at a Chinese school before joining an anti-Japanese partisan group and, later, the Soviet army in Manchuria. At the end of World War II, Kim was dispatched to Pyongyang, which was by then under Soviet control. Reflecting post-war political realities, Tertitskiy anchors his account firmly in the triangular relationship between North Korea, China and the Soviet Union.
Based on a wide range of sources, Tertitskiy sheds fresh light on Kim’s rise to power. When the Soviet leadership in 1945 needed to identify someone to head its newly acquired vassal state, 33-year-old Kim was being lined up for a relatively junior position and was not on the short-list for the top job. However, wrangling between the Soviet police and military intelligence, and the fact that Kim spoke passable Russian, eventually tipped the scale in his favour.
For his first decade in power, Kim remained firmly under Moscow’s control: ‘the top man in North Korea, second only to the Soviet ambassador’. Stalin’s death in 1953, followed by his successor Nikita Khrushchev’s 1956 speech denouncing Stalin, marked a turning point.
With Soviet authoritarianism moderating, Kim was called to Moscow, where he was scolded for fostering a personality cult and disregarding his people’s wellbeing. Emphasising collective leadership, the Soviet leaders pressured Kim, who was both premier and chairman of the central committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea, to give up one of his two titles.
Kim, however, decided to ignore the Soviet leaders’ advice, outmanoeuvred domestic opposition and skilfully used the Sino-Soviet conflict to distance himself from Moscow. Unrestrained, Kim then harshly purged his opponents, divided the population into social strata reminiscent of a caste system and expanded the country’s notorious network of prison camps.
The opening of the Chinese economy in the early 1980s and the collapse of communism in the Soviet Union, Mongolia and Eastern Europe in the early 1990s posed a further challenge. Kim faced pressure to open up the country, and resisting that pressure severely tested his political skills. Tertitskiy describes in fascinating detail how Kim narrowly escaped a 1992 coup attempt.
Tertitskiy also reminds us of some little-known historical gems. When the United States in 1945 tasked Colonel Dean Rusk—who would go on to become secretary of state—and a colleague with dividing the Korean peninsula, the only available map was the National Geographic Society’s ‘Asia and Adjacent Areas’ map. Lacking a detailed source, the two officers decided simply to divide the peninsula at the 38th parallel.
When Stalin lectured Chinese military leaders on the need for the egalitarian People’s Liberation Army to introduce ranks and insignia, Kim was in the room and promptly decided that North Korea would adopt Soviet-style military ranks and uniforms. Emulating Stalin, Kim even designated himself Marshal of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and wore a similar uniform. However, out of deference to the Soviet leader, he waited until Stalin was dead to wear the same insignia.
What is the formula that allows North Korea’s repressive political system to perpetuate itself? Tertitskiy ascribes it to the country’s deeply entrenched political and military elites, whose high social standing and privileged lifestyles are closely intertwined with the Kims’ dynastic rule. The elites’ loyalty, again, is upheld through all-pervasive controls and brutal sanctions.
Pyongyang has recently strengthened its ties with Moscow through the provision of soldiers and munitions to support Russia’s war against Ukraine. However, at the same time its relations with Beijing, its principal patron and trading partner, have remained cool.
However, in early September Chinese President Xi Jinping invited Kim Jong-un to join China’s recent large-scale commemoration of the end of World War II, where he gave Kim equal prominence alongside Russian President Vladimir Putin. The event was a major diplomatic victory for Kim and was seen by some as marking the emergence of a new China-led autocratic alliance.
By helping us to understand how Kim Il-sung steered his dictatorship through major geopolitical shifts, Accidental Tyrant provides valuable pointers about how North Korea might seek to position itself in the current rapidly changing global environment.