Under the Loving Care of the Fatherly Leader

by Martin, Bradley K.

  6. See Fred Harvey Harrington, “An American View of Korean-American Relations,” in Yur-Bok Lee and Wayne Patterson, eds., One Hundred Years of Korean-American Relations, 1882–1982 (Tuscaloosa, Ala.: University of Alabama Press, 1986), pp. 46–54. “Martyred on the bank of the Taedong River” is the description of the missionary, Rev. Robert J. Thomas, in the dedication to Thomas J. Belke, Juche: A Christian Study of North Korea’s State Religion (Bartlesville, Okla.: Living Sacrifice Book Company, 1999). For a Korean scholar’s version, marshaling evidence that the expedition’s main goal was to rob tombs of their valuables, see Yongkoo Kim, The Five Years’ Crisis, 1866–1871: Korea in the Maelstrom of Western Imperialism (Inchon, Korea: Circle, 2001).

  7. From Kang Myong-do’s testimony, compiled by Tae Won-ki in a twelve-part series in the Seoul daily JoongAng Ilbo, starting April 12, 1995.

  8. “The monthly tuition fee at Sungsil Middle School at the time was two won. To earn two won my mother went to the River Sunhwa and collected shellfish to sell. My grandfather grew melons, my grandmother young radishes, and even my uncle who was only 15 years old made straw sandals to earn money to help his elder brother with his school fees. My father worked after school until dusk in a workshop run by the school to earn money. Then he would read books for hours in the school library before returning home late at night” (Kim, With the Century, vol. 1, p. 9).

  9. Ibid., pp. 7–8. (Korean women keep their birth names after marriage.)

  10. Ibid., vol. 1, p. 7.

  11. Ibid., vol. 2, pp. 83–84.

  12. Only later, in the 1920s and ’30s, did the Japanese manage to co-opt large numbers of Koreans.

  13. Kim, With the Century, vol. 2, p. 401.

  14. Ibid., vol. 1, p. 47. Imagining that the Versailles conference of great powers settling the peace after World War I would be Korea’s salvation, in view of Wilson’s ringing promises of self-determination for the nations, the demonstrators “were not aware that the American President Wilson was not the good guy he claimed to be,” writes Young S. Kim in “Anti-Japan Movement: 1911–1920” (Korea Web Weekly), http://kimsoft.com/korea/eyewit02.htm.

  15. “After 1898 the Pyongyang station became the center of all Christian activities in northern Korea. … The common people in northern Korea are comparatively free from stubborn conservatism. They have been hard workers, fighting against the mountainous environment in which they till the ground. Not many of the Northerners held high offices in the government, but were rather subject to the oppression and extortion of the officials sent from Seoul. Their social customs were also somewhat different from those of the capital. There were no strict class distinctions, as in Seoul and the southern provinces, neither was there rigid separation of the sexes—a custom resulting from literal interpretation of one of the five relations of the Confucian teachings. Religiously, the people largely professed Confucianism, but it had no such hold on them as it had in southern Korea. Shamanism was the prevailing belief. When the country was opened to the West, the energetic people of the North soon caught the spirit of the times. Thus the character of the people, the political vicissitudes, the social background, and the religious conditions made possible the success of Christianity in the North” (Lak-Geoon George Paik, The History of Protestant Missions in Korea 1832–1910 [Pyongyang: Union Christian College Press, 1929; reprint, Seoul: Yonsei University Press, 1987], pp. 272–273).

  16. See Yur-Bok Lee, “Korean-American Diplomatic Relations, 1882–1905,” in Patterson and Lee, One Hundred Years, pp. 12–45. It was in the Taft-Katsura Memorandum of 1905 that the Theodore Roosevelt administration traded recognition of Japanese interests in Korea for Japanese recognition of U.S. interests in the Philippines.

  17. See Wi Jo Kang, “Relations Between the Japanese Colonial Government and the American Missionary Community in Korea, 1905–1945,” in Patterson and Lee, One Hundred Years, pp. 68–85.

  18. Chay Pyung-gil, “Following the Conclusion of the Serialization Yu Song-ch’ol’s Testimony,’” Hankuk Ilbo (Seoul), December 1, 1990 (translated in the appendix to Sydney A. Seiler, Kim Il-song 1941–1948: The Creation of a Legend, the Building of a Regime [Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1994], p. 196).

  19. Kim, With the Century, vol. 1, p. 107.

  20. Ibid., vol. 1, p. 20. A missionary report said that the curriculum at Sungsil “presupposed considerable knowledge of the Chinese characters, so as to enable the pupils to begin the use of all available text-books in that language. It contemplates the study of the whole bible, and special histories of the nineteenth century. In mathematics, it contemplates arithmetic, algebra, and geometry. In science, it covers the elements of physiology and hygiene, botany, zoology, physics, astronomy and chemistry, geography, physical geography, Korean grammar, map-drawing, composition and calisthenics.” Students in the school’s “self-help” program worked half of each day to earn their board (W. M. Baird, “History of the Educational Work,” Quarto Centennial Papers read before the Korea Mission of the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A., 1909, pp. 67–68, 259, cited in Paik, History of Protestant Missions, p. 320).

  21. Kim, With the Century, vol. 1, p. 21. Is it too easy to note that his son seems to have taken this notion to heart? As far as Kim Il-sung’s subjects are concerned, he might as well have engraved in stone the commandment “Thou shalt have no other god before me.”

  22. Ibid., vol. 1, p. 69.

  23. Ibid., vol. 1, p. 106.

  24. Ibid., vol. 1, pp. 106–107.

  25. By 1944, 11.6 percent of Koreans resided outside Korea (Bruce Cumings, The Origins of the Korean War, vol. I: Liberation and the Emergence of Separate Regimes 1945–1947 [Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1981, cited hereinafter as Origins I], p. 54).

  26. Kim, With the Century, vol. 1, p. 62.

  27. Author’s 1982 interview with Ju Yuanjung, official of the Committee on Minority Nationality Affairs of China’s Jilin Province. See Jilin-datelined article: Bradley K. Martin, “China’s Koreans ignore Pyongyang’s praise of Kim,” The Baltimore Sun, April 6, 1982. For reminiscences of a third-generation Soviet-Korean whose grandfather moved to the Soviet .Maritime Province in 1870 seeking a decent living, see Yu Song-chol’s testimony in Hankuk Ilbo, November 2, 1990 (translated in Seiler, Kim Il-song 1941–1948, pp. 101–104).

  28. Robert A. Scalapino and Chong-sik Lee, Communism in Korea. Part I: The Movement (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1972), pp. 138–140.

  29. Kim, With the Century, vol. 1, p. 62.

  30. Ibid., vol. 1, p. 64.

  31. Ibid., vol. 1, p. 70.

  32. Ibid., vol. 1, pp. 78–79.

  33. The fact that most of his education was in non-Korean schools is something Kim had been loath to dwell upon until publication of his memoirs, presumably for fear it might detract from his Korean nationalist credentials.

  34. Kim, With the Century, vol. 1, p. 84.

  35. “None of the assertions about revolutionary activities can be verified in any Korean or other records,” writes Kim’s biographer, Dae-Sook Suh, of the University of Hawaii. Kim’s father “may have joined an anti-Japanese nationalist group, but his activities ’were of little importance.” Efforts to depict the parents as major revolutionary figures “seem to be directed more toward upgrading the attributes of Kim as a pious son who reveres his parents. … [H]is parents ’were ordinary people who suffered the poverty and oppression of the time and died early without giving much education or assistance to their children” (Suh, Kim Il Sung: The North Korean Leader [New York: Columbia University Press, 1988], p. 5). Kim himself at one point in his memoirs describes his father as attending a meeting of “veterans or the leaders of medium standing of the independence movement” (With the Century, vol. 1, p. 120). And elsewhere he notes that his father’s deeds had not been known as “widely to the people as they are now”—i.e., now that Kim’s publicists have emphasized them (vol. 1, p. 114). Such references may represent modest attempts to tone down previous accounts of his
father in response to attacks on their veracity by Suh and other scholars, including Scalapino and Lee (Communism in Korea, pt. I, p. 204 n.).

  Dr. Won Tai Sohn of Omaha, Nebraska, son of Rev. Sohn Dong-jo, a well-known figure in the Korean independence movement and a friend of Kim Hyong-jik, -wrote to the author in January 1995, “As far as I remember, my father regarded Mr. Kim Hyong-jik as a fighter for independence playing a key role.”

  36. Kim, With the Century, vol. 1, p. 31.

  37. Ibid., vol. 1, pp. 80–85.

  38. Scalapino and Lee, Communism in Korea, pt. I, p. 205.

  39. Kim, With the Century, vol. 3, p. 44.

  40. Ibid., vol. 1, pp. 92–93.

  41. Ibid., vol. 1, p. 89.

  42. Ibid., vol. 1, p. 86.

  43. Ibid., vol. 1, p. 94.

  44. Ibid., vol. 1, p. 95.

  45. Ibid., vol. 1, p. 148.

  46. Ibid., vol. 1, p. 143.

  47. Ibid., vol. 1, p. 163.

  48. Ibid., vol. 1, pp. 156–157.

  49. Ibid., vol. 1, p. 159.

  50. Ibid., vol. 1, p. 158.

  51. Ibid., vol. 1, p. 159.

  52. Ibid., vol. 1, pp. 174–178.

  53. Ibid., vol. 1, p. 211.

  54. Ibid., vol. 1, pp. 207–208.

  55. Ibid., vol. 1, p. 248.

  56. See Suh, The Korean Communist Movement 1918-1948 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1967), p. 263. Kim in his memoirs seems to suggest that his Chinese-language abilities contributed to his career in the anti-Japanese movement in .Manchuria. That does indeed seem to have been the case, as we shall see in the next chapter.

  57. Kim, With the Century, vol. 1, pp. 208–210.

  58. Letter from Dr. Won Tai Sohn comprising written answers to the author’s questions, January 1995. Kim himself in With the Century wrote simply that he lived with friends in Jilin, not mentioning the .Methodist dormitory.

  59. Kim, With the Century, vol. 1, pp. 213–226. Previous North Korean biographical works claimed Kim read Das Kapital in 1927. Outside biographers, however, had noted that this was highly unlikely, since neither the Korean nor the Chinese translation was published until after World War II. See Lim Un, The Founding of a Dynasty in North Korea —An Authentic Biography of Kim Il-song (Tokyo: Jiyu-sha, 1982). Like many points in Kim’s memoirs (and whether true or not), the explanation that a friend read Marx’s magnum opus in Japanese and told him about it seems to be an adjustment that responds directly to the outside biographers’ challenge.

  60. Kim, With the Century, vol. 1, pp. 240–245.

  61. Ibid., vol. 1, pp. 227–239. “Literary works play a great role in the formation of the world view of people, so every time I meet writers, I tell them to produce many revolutionary stories and novels,” Kim wrote (vol. 1, p. 215).

  62. Mark O’Neill, “N. Korea’s Dead Dictator Remembered as Star Pupil According to Chinese Teacher’s Daughter” (Reuters dispatch from Beijing), Korea Times, September 10, 1994.

  63. Kim, With the Century, vol. 1, p. 236.

  64. Ibid., vol. 1, pp. 222–224.

  65. See Scalapino and Lee, Communism in Korea, pt. I, p. 19.

  66. Kim, With the Century, vol. 2, p. 12.

  67. Ibid., vol. 1, p. 267.

  68. Ibid., vol. 1, pp. 281–292.

  69. Ibid., vol. 1, pp. 293–306. Dr. Won Tai Sohn told me in a letter (January 1995) that he had been present, seated in the front row, at An Chang-ho’s lecture. He vouched for Kim’s account: “Still vivid in my memory is the scene of Kim Song-ju [Kim Il-sung’s name at the time] asking the speaker questions as well as the scene of Ri Kwan-Rin, a heroine of the Independence Army, rushing toward the policemen on the stage to stop them when they were arresting An Chang-Ho,” Sohn told me. “Actually I was arrested too because I was trying to climb on the stage to release An Chang-ho.”

  70. Kim, With the Century, vol. 1, pp. 309–315.

  71. Ibid., vol. 1, pp. 315–317.

  72. Letter to the author from Dr. Won Tai Sohn, January 1995. Also see Kim, With the Century, vol. 1, p. 21.

  73. Kim, With the Century, vol. 2, p. 8.

  74. Letter to the author from Dr. Won Tai Sohn, January 1995. Also see Geraldine Brooks, “Two Old Friends: One Became A Doctor, the Other a Dictator,” Asian Wall Street Journal, September 19, 1994.

  Dr. Sohn, who knew Kim in his middle-school days in the Chinese city of Jilin, told me, “Had I written about my days in Jilin, I would have written just the same as he did.” But Dr. Sohn also told me he had not replied to my letter of inquiry immediately but first had taken it along on a trip to Pyongyang. Although I do not doubt his basic story, I can’t help wondering whether he perhaps received help in the preparation of his literary-sounding accounts from some of the people involved with researching, ghostwriting or polishing Kim’s memoirs. The physician eventually published a book of his own. It is glowing, indeed almost worshipful, in its account of Kim, as the University of Pennsylvania’s G. Cameron Hurst III and Bradley University’s In Kwan Hwang noted in forewords they contributed. See Won Tai Sohn, Kim Il Sung and Korea’s Struggle: An Unconventional Firsthand History (Jefferson, N.C: McFarland & Company, 2003).

  75. Kim, With the Century, vol. 2, p. 8.

  76. Letter from Dr. Sohn to author, January 1995.

  Kim also played the guitar, according to a reference in his memoirs: “Once I went to Ryang Song Ryang’s house and played the guitar there. I did not do it because I was merry or free from anxiety. Frankly speaking, I felt gloomy at that time” (With the Century, vol. 3, p. 314).

  77. Kim, With the Century, vol. 2, p. 10.

  78. Letter to the author, January 1995.

  79. Kim, With the Century, vol. 1, pp. 245–246.

  80. Ibid., vol. 2, p. 11.

  81. Ibid., vol. 1, pp. 254–257. Kim gave the founding date as August 28, 1927. In a typical boast, he wrote that this organization “played the vanguard role in the Korean revolution.”

  82. Ibid., vol. 1, pp. 354–357.

  83. Letter to the author from Dr. Won Tai Sohn, January 1995; Geraldine Brooks, Asian Wall Street Journal, September 19, 1994. Kim, With the Century, vol. 1, pp. 359–367; vol. 2, pp. 4–8.

  3. On Long Marches Through Blizzards.

  1. “Some time near the beginning of the century there seems to have existed in Korea a legendary patriotic national hero named Kim Il-song who fought courageously against the Japanese and so won the admiration and respect of the Korean people. The true identity of this legendary Kim Il-song is not known. … [T]he lack of uniformity in the tales of the legendary Kim suggests strongly that this Kim is only a legend. These tales, without concrete evidence, have led some to discredit the legend as a fiction designed to belittle the North Korean premier. The legend, however, does exist, and while the originator of the legend cannot be identified, there are many Korean revolutionaries, Nationalist and Communist, who, by deliberate adoption of the name, contributed to the legend” (Suh, Korean Communist Movement [see chap. 2, n. 56], pp. 256–257).

  Note that in scholarly literature the last syllable of Kim’s name is often transcribed as “song,” with a diacritical mark over the vowel, in accordance with the McCune-Reischauer system of Romanization. In the Seoul dialect, at least, to my ear the syllable as pronounced by native Koreans does sound more like the English “song” than “sung.” Confusing Westerners further, in a transcription system recently adopted by South Korea the syllable would be spelled “seong.” Fortunately for people who can read Korean, the marvelously rational and compact hangul writing system gives a phonetically precise rendering of any syllable at a single glance.

  2. Kim, With the Century (see chap. 2, n. 2), vol. 2, pp. 23–24.

  3. Ibid., vol. 2, pp. 136–137. In his memoirs he overcomes his earlier reluctance to reveal any affinity for things foreign when he acknowledges that learning Chinese stood him in good stead in later life. “If my father had not made me learn Chinese at an early age I might have had to face a great languag
e barrier at every step of my life for the quarter of a century I spent in China,” he writes. Because he was able to dress in Chinese clothing and speak fluent Chinese, “the Japanese detectives, who were said to have a hound’s sense of smelling, and the Manchukuo police did not suspect me to be a Korean when I was walking in the street” (vol. 1, pp. 63–64).

  4. Ibid., vol. 2, pp. 159–160.

  5. Suh reports in The Korean Communist Movement (see chap. 2, n. 56), p. 259, that Chokki (Red Flag), organ of a communist group in .Manchuria, carried an article in its .March 1930 issue mourning the death of a Kim Il-sung.

  6. Kim, With the Century, vol. 2, pp. 107–108.

  7. The Kim Il-sung who became North Korea’s leader “undoubtedly received or inherited some of the credit due to other revolutionaries, but the rumors around his name are the consequence of his own success. Prior to his accession and consolidation of power in the North, Kim Il-song, with his own record, was well known to the Koreans as well as to the Chinese and, of course, was well known to the Japanese police. … He is certainly not a nonentity who inherited everything from the legendary patriot or from the revolutionaries named Kim Il-song” (Suh, Korean Communist Movement, pp. 260–261).

  8. As recently as January 2000, the South s Unification Ministry aroused controversy in Seoul by describing Kim as an “independence fighter.” Some critics questioned this “policy change” (Kim Ji-ho, “New Unification Ministry Publication Calls Kim Il-sung Independence Fighter,” Korea Herald, January 13, 2000). In fact, however, South Korea’s government-funded Naewoe Press, affiliated with the organization then known as the Korean Central Intelligence Agency, had published an essentially accurate account of Kim’s life as early as 1978, including the information that he “became a leading member of the [Chinese Communist] Party’s anti-Japanese guerrilla forces in the latter part of the 1930s.” See “Kim Il-sung,” Vantage Point (May 1978): p. 19. It might surprise some foreigners interested in Korea to realize that such accurate information had issued from the KCIA, whose reputation was so universally sinister that the government thought it wise to change its name (to Agency for National Security Planning, or NSP) after the 1987 revival of democratic elections. The reputation of the KCIA’s professional analysts of North Korean affairs was tarnished by association with the organization’s dominant group, secret police who carried out internal political repression of dissidents on behalf of South Korea’s military-backed rulers. The analysts’ reputations also were not helped by the work of government propagandists who were less than eager to let the facts get in the way of anti–North Korea broadsides. Further, the South Korean military rulers from time to time concocted imminent threats of Northern invasion, claiming to base their warnings on “intelligence reports.” The situation in some ’ways parallels that of the American CIA, whose conscientious professional analysts also suffered in reputation during much of the same period due to the unlawful exploits of some of the true “spooks” in their agency.