Pyongyang. Mausoleum of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il. Sightseeing tour. Kim Il Sung - the all-powerful and mysterious Kir Il Sung

On August 29, the Yonhap agency, citing South Korean intelligence, reported a new addition to the family of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. The day before, representatives of the National Intelligence Service of South Korea announced the birth of a child, whose gender and name are unknown. According to them, the child was born in February.

According to media reports, this is the third heir to Kim Jong-un. It was reported that his two oldest children were born in 2010 and 2013. But there is no official confirmation of this information.

Little is known about the family of the North Korean leader and his close and distant relatives. The Kim Dynasty - in the RBC photo gallery.

Kim Il-sung (1912–1994)

Eternal President and Founder of the DPRK. Generalissimo. Grandfather of the current head of North Korea, Kim Jong-un.

The founder of the Juche ideology (Marxism based on national traditions).

He spent his childhood with his family in China, where he joined a Marxist circle, for which he was imprisoned at the age of 17. In 1945, he became chairman of the North Korean organizing bureau of the Communist Party of Korea (1945-1946). In 1948 he led the country. In 1998, he was declared the eternal president of the DPRK.

Was married twice. The first wife died shortly after the birth of their son. The second wife was Kim Song Ae, who is believed to have previously been the secretary of the head of the personal security of Kim Il Sung.

Since the mid-1950s, the regime began to tighten in the DPRK. All North Korean students were required to return from Europe and undergo ideological retraining. It was under Kim Il Sung that the entire economy of the country switched to strict central planning. Market trade was declared a bourgeois-feudal relic and liquidated.

Kim Jong-suk (1919–1949)

Mother of Kim Jong Il, wife of Kim Il Sung, grandmother of Kim Jong Un.

Kim Jong Suk became known only a few years after her death. In 1972, she was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the DPRK, and then the titles of “heroine of the anti-Japanese war” and “great mother of the revolution.” In addition, if the DPRK talks about “three commanders,” then everyone knows that we are talking about Kim Il Sung, Kim Jong Il and Kim Jong Suk.

Kim Jong Il (1941 (1942?) - 2011)

Great Leader of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. Generalissimo (posthumously). Eldest son of Kim Il Sung. Father of Kim Jong-un.

Kim Jong Il was born in 1941, although, as is customary in the DPRK, the official biography reduces the ruler's age by a year. Like his father, he studied in China. Returning to his homeland, he began working in the party, initially being considered the successor to Kim Il Sung.

After the death of his father, he led the country de facto for three years, without officially holding senior leadership positions in the country. Thus, traditional Korean norms were observed, in particular the Confucian principle of filial piety, which prescribes three years of mourning.

After Russia stopped cooperating with North Korea in the 1990s, the country was forced to look for new allies. In May 1999, Kim Jong Il traveled to China, and in 2000, there was a historic meeting between the leaders of the warring south and north of Korea. In October 2000, then-US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright flew to Pyongyang, after which preparations began for US President Bill Clinton's visit to North Korea at the end of 2000. However, it never took place, and the new US President George W. Bush was in no hurry to restore relations with the DPRK.

Kim Jong Il died on December 17, 2011. The funeral took place on December 28. According to the South Korean newspaper The Chosun Ilbo, they cost $40 million.

Ko Young-hee (1953–2004)

Kim Jong-un's mother.

Ko Yong Hee is one of Kim Jong Il's wives and the mother of his youngest son, Kim Jong Un. Before meeting Kim Jong Il, she was a dancer. She died in 2004 in Paris from breast cancer. IN recent years before her death in the DPRK she was called nothing more than “respected mother.” ​

Kim Jong-un

The youngest of Kim Jong Il's three sons, Kim Il Sung's grandson.

In January 2009, the South Korean news agency Yonhap reported that, fearing for his health, Kim Jong Il had appointed his youngest son, Kim Jong Un, as his successor. He was educated in Bern (Switzerland), then studied at the military academy in Pyongyang. In 2010, he was elected to the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea and became deputy chairman of the party's Central Military Committee.

After his father's death in 2011, Kim Jong-un was declared the supreme leader of the party, army and people of the DPRK.

Very little is known about Kim Jong-un, and almost everything is from a book that was published in Tokyo in 2003. Its author was allegedly the chef Kim Jong Il. From the book, in particular, it became known that Kim Jong-un’s mother was one of Kim Jong-il’s wives, actress Ko Yong-hee.

Under Kim Jong-un, North Korea is committed to developing its economy in parallel with strengthening its nuclear arsenals. Several nuclear tests were carried out, artificial satellite land.

Since 2016, Kim Jong-un has been subject to unilateral US sanctions imposed due to human rights violations in the country.

In 2012, it was announced that Kim Jong-un was married to Ri Sol-ju. According to various sources, from 2010 to 2013, the couple had a daughter, Kim Joo E.

Fourth wife of Kim Jong Il, stepmother of Kim Jong Un.

For the last, fourth time, Kim Jong Il got married in 2006. His wife was his former personal secretary, Kim Ok. South Korean media reported that Kim Ok studied piano at the Pyongyang University of Music and Dance, and became the personal secretary of the DPRK leader in the early 1980s.

Lee Seol-ju

First Lady of the DPRK. Kim Jong-un's wife.

On July 25, 2012, the Central Telegraph Agency reported on the opening ceremony of the Rungna People's Amusement Park, where Kim Jong-un came with his wife, Ri Sol-ju. This was the first mention of the first lady as the wife of the leader of the DPRK.

Until now, almost nothing is known about her and her acquaintance with Kim Jong-un. Many observers note that her name and appearance indicate similarities with the young singer who performed in 2010 at one of the gala New Year concerts in Pyongyang.

According to one of the versions expressed in the South Korean media, Ri Sol Ju graduated from Pyongyang Kim Il Sung University, studied natural sciences. Her father is a professor at the same university, and her mother is an administrator at a large Pyongyang clinic.

According to another version, Lee Sol-ju did not study at the university, but received a musical education in Beijing.

Kim Jong-nam (1971–2017)

The eldest son of the Great Leader of the DPRK Kim Jong Il and the brother (on his father’s side) of the Chairman of the State Council of the DPRK Kim Jong Un.

Even less is known about the eldest son of Kim Jong Il than about the current head of the DPRK. His mother was actress Song Hye Rim. The media reported that as a child, like his brother, Kim Jong Nam studied in Switzerland. There is no official confirmation of this information.

In 2001, Kim Jong Nam was detained while trying to enter Japan using a fake passport to visit Tokyo Disneyland. He was deported to China, where he lived until his death. On February 14, 2017, the South Korean Yonhap agency cited a source about the assassination of Kim Jong Nam at the Malaysian airport.

Kim Jong Chul

Kim Jong-un's older brother.

Born in 1981. The media wrote that Kim Jong Chol, like his brother, studied at a Swiss school. For some time (from 2003 to 2009), it was believed that he could succeed his father as leader of the DPRK. In 2007, Kim Jong Chol was appointed to a position in the Workers' Party of Korea.

He is known as a big fan of the work of guitarist and singer Eric Clapton: media reported that he was seen at the latter’s concerts in 2006, 2011 and 2015.

Kim Kyung Hee

Daughter of Kim Il Sung, younger sister of Kim Jong Il, aunt of Kim Jong Un.

In 2010, together with her husband Jang Song-thaek, she was appointed executor of her brother and, in the event of his death, was to become Kim Jong-un's guardian. In the government, Kim Jong Il led the light industry of the DPRK, and her husband was Kim Jong Il's deputy in state committee defense In 2013, Jang Song Thaek was accused of treason and executed. The death of Kim Kyung Hee has not been confirmed.

Jang Song-taek (1946–2013)

Uncle of Kim Jong-un.

In 2013, Jang Song Thaek was accused of trying to seize supreme power in the party and state, as well as selling national resources to foreigners at unreasonably low prices, and was executed. Before that, he was deputy head of the State Defense Committee, was a member of the Politburo and headed the organizational department of the Central Committee, which was in charge of personnel selection and oversaw the special services. Many experts called him an eminence grise, the right hand and mentor of Kim Jong-un.

Kim Yo Jong

Younger sister of Kim Jong-un.

Born in 1987. She studied at an international school in Bern, Switzerland in 1996-2001 with her brother, Kim Jong-un. Possibly also studied at the military academy in Pyongyang after returning.

In 2014, Kim Yo Jong was appointed deputy department head of the WPK Central Committee. Kim Yo Jong is the only relative of the DPRK leader who holds an officially confirmed post in the country. According to South Korean sources, she is responsible for personnel appointments, as well as propaganda.

North Korea is devastation, Mordor and executions from an anti-aircraft dog launcher, and South Korea is a paradise with K-pop and democracy. Most people think so modern people, taught by long traditions of anti-North Korean propaganda. Meanwhile, the real story is much more complex and interesting. Especially for this, the famous Russian Korean scholar wrote a series of articles about the history of the Korean Peninsula and the two states that are located on it. The first dealt with the founding of South Korea and the life of its first president, the legendary and stern Syngman Rhee. The second material is devoted to the beginning of the hardest struggle for power of the “Great Leader Comrade Kim Il Sung", who today continues to rule North Korea even after death.

The life of Kim Il Sung is covered in legends. On the one hand, there is an official biography. It has, however, changed, and today it is worth focusing not on the texts of the 1970s, but on the “autobiography” of the leader, which he began writing in the 1990s and managed to complete until 1945. On the other hand, there are numerous black legends, including the assertion of one Russian public figure (let’s not point fingers) that there was no Korean leader, but there was an NKVD captain and half-breed Russian Korean, Kim Arsen, a sadist, degenerate and participant in Stalin’s repressions.

However, the leader’s early years have been studied quite well. Kim was born on April 15, 1912 in the village of Mangyongdae near Pyongyang, and was the eldest child in the family - the future leader had two brothers and a sister. His name then was Kim Sung-ju.

Kim Il Sung's father, Kim Hyun Jik, was a rural teacher (according to some sources, also a Methodist priest), taught classical Chinese literature and practiced traditional medicine. In addition, Kim Hyon Jik was a relatively famous left-wing nationalist, to whom the official historiography of the DPRK attributes a fair number of achievements.

Kang Bang Seok's mother served as a deacon in the Protestant church, and his uncle Kim Hyun Gwon took part in the national liberation movement. According to one version, he belonged to anarchists and was involved in expropriations, according to another, he was a noble robber. Be that as it may, some traitor handed him over to the Japanese - he received fifteen years, and at thirty-one he died in prison after police torture. Relatives did not even see his body - they could not get to the notorious Seodaemun Prison, and the Japanese buried Kim Hyun Gwon in the prison cemetery.

Kim Il Sung's cousin, Kim Won Ju, died at the age of thirty, and also from the consequences of torture: the Japanese law enforcement model assumed that the police themselves, when considering minor cases, could judge and carry out sentences. And then they punished with bamboo sticks or batogs, which, if handled skillfully, could very seriously undermine the health of the offender.

Kim Il Sung's two younger brothers, Kim Chol Ju and Kim Yong Ju, also participated in the national liberation movement. Kim Chol-ju died at the age of 19 in battles with punitive forces, and Kim Yong-ju has safely lived to this day (having prudently gone into the shadows when Kim Il Sung made his son “crown prince”).

So the official North Korean information that all of his relatives up to the fourth generation were professional revolutionaries is partly correct. It is no wonder that the boy received an appropriate upbringing, often fought with Japanese peers, shot at police with a slingshot, and in his youth, together with a group of friends, founded the “Union for the Overthrow of Imperialism.” The name is childish enough to be true.

Kim lived in Mangyongdae until 1919 - there, according to the North Korean version, he took part in the March First independence movement. When the movement began to be crushed, Kim Hyun Jik and his family moved to China, where Kim Il Sung graduated from primary school and stayed until 1923. While his son was studying, his father was enthusiastically “engaged in nationalism,” and when he realized that the Japanese were already approaching him, he sent his son to his grandmother.

Thus began that same “path of a thousand miles,” which played a very important role in the biography of the future leader: a twelve-year-old boy with no money and practically no equipment walked about four hundred kilometers using a homemade map, almost froze on the mountain passes, but in the end he arrived safely to home in Mangyongdae. Grandma absolutely naturally greeted him with the phrase: “Your father is worse than a tiger.” It is said that Kim replied that he could walk two thousand li.

In 1926, when Kim Il Sung was 14 years old, Kim Hyun Jik was arrested. There was not enough evidence for the trial, and the police used their favorite preventative torture. The man died, and already a relatively adult Kim decided to avenge his father.

He entered a military school run by Korean nationalists. In the same 1926, he created the so-called “Union for the Overthrow of Imperialism.” From this date in modern DPRK it is customary to count the beginning of the modern history of Korea, and for the official ideology of the DPRK it has approximately the same symbolic meaning as 1917 for the ideology of the USSR. And after that, Kim Il Sung met his grandmother only on October 14, 1945, and there is a beautiful tracing paper about this Chinese legend about how the leader passed nearby three times, but could not turn home, since state affairs were more important.

IN military school However, they taught mainly how to work with wooden weapons and how to raise funds for the liberation of the country. Therefore, Kim studied there for six months and moved to Jirin, where he began to seriously absorb communist ideas. It was there that he read (in Chinese) not only “Capital” and “Manifesto of the Communist Party”, but also “Mother” by Gorky and “Iron Stream” by Serafimovich.

Rise of the Chief

In May 1929, while still a schoolboy, Kim joined an underground Marxist circle, becoming the youngest member of the organization. The rest of his comrades were at least school graduates or students of various colleges, so the claims of official North Korean historiography that he was its creator and leader sound rather unconvincing.

It is believed that somewhere from this time Kim Song Ju began to be called Kim Il Sung. Previously, he went by the pseudonym Han Byul, which meant "(one) Star", but since there are many stars in the sky, he was offered to "become the Sun" ("il sung", or more precisely "Il Seong", can be translated this way). Kim disapproved of this - he believed that he was too young for such a pretentious pseudonym - but the name stuck to him.

In 1929, seventeen-year-old Kim went to prison - but only for six months, because the prison was under the jurisdiction not of the Japanese, but of the local Chinese authorities (the annexation of Manchuria occurred later, in 1931), and there was a much less strict regime there. In addition, his comrades helped to ensure that he did not live in poverty. At the first opportunity, he was released, where he began to take an active part in the anti-Japanese partisan movement in Manchuria. According to the official version, already in the 1930s he began to “set the right tasks” and engage in “important party work,” but there is one important nuance.

The Korean Communist Party was declared non-existent back in 1928 due to rampant factionalism. During the three years of its existence (1925-1928), it was replaced by four Central Committees, which were completely or almost completely liquidated by the Japanese secret police. At the same time, none of the numerous factions had the opportunity to be called a party, at least according to formal criteria (presence of a program, charter, number of members, documented active activities, etc.), and pitting the authorities against their “ideological opponents” was perceived as a normal measure of internal party struggle.

As a result, on December 10, 1928, the Political Secretariat of the Executive Committee of the Communist International decided to “refuse to recognize the right of any of the disputing communist groups in Korea to represent the Korean section in the Comintern until the actual state of affairs is fully clarified.” Therefore, all Korean communists who wanted to do something did it in the ranks of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), being considered, as it were, Chinese communists of Korean nationality. In fact, no one created a separate Korean People's Revolutionary Army (according to the North Korean version, created in 1934 led by Kim Il Sung). The Chinese communists did not try to single out Korean units based on nationality and create an analogue of the Polish Army, but Korean partisans made up a significant part of the fighters and commanders.

Now a few words about what the partisan movement in Manchuria was, since it would be incorrect to consider it an analogue of, say, the Belarusian partisans. The main difference is the absence of a large land that could help with cartridges, food and specialists. And although the inaccessible terrain and large areas of compact settlement of Koreans, where the partisans could count on the support of the population, helped in part, this was not enough.

Let's return to Kim. Kim Il Sung organized his first detachment of 18 people in the spring of 1932, but no one knew his name until September 1933. At this time he commanded two companies of Koreans, and, subordinate to his Chinese superiors, took part in an unsuccessful attempt to capture the city of Dongying. Then, as a result of a Japanese counterattack, the partisans were surrounded, but Kim Il Sung managed to break through the enemy encirclement and save the famous partisan commander Shi Zhongheng.

Then, however, his career growth was cut short. The fact is that in the fall of 1931, the Japanese began to create their own organization called Minsendan (People's Life Corps), which played the role of a “fifth column” in the ranks of the Chinese communists. Although his actions caused more noise than good, pro-Japanese slogans and the activities of spies and provocateurs managed to undermine trust in ethnic Koreans. As a result, a purge began within the Chinese Communist Party, which was not inferior to the Soviet one of 1937-1939. From 500 to 2 thousand people were executed, more than a thousand were arrested, expelled from the party and put under investigation.

The hunt for “Japanese spies” did not bypass the young commander: Kim Il Sung was arrested and expelled from the party as a potential pro-Japanese element, but managed to escape thanks to the intercession of Commander Shi, whom he saved from death during the Japanese encirclement. Upon learning that Kim was under investigation, he publicly declared: “Such an outstanding personality cannot be a Japanese dog,” and that if Kim Il Sung was convicted, he and the entire army would leave the ranks.

After rehabilitation, Kim Il Sung began active work again, essentially becoming the commander of a penal battalion. His entire detachment consisted of former victims of the purge, and the first thing Kim Il Sung did was to collect all the documents certifying the criminal status of his subordinates and burnt them, giving people a chance to start a new life.

But life was hard. The partisans fought mainly around Mount Paektusan or the Kapsan area - one of the most sparsely populated, remote and provincial corners of Korea. During the Li Dynasty, exiles were sent there, and in the 1930s it was inhabited by those who, for various reasons, found themselves outlaws. People there were mainly engaged in slash-and-burn agriculture or growing opium poppies. But the territory was located outside the enemy’s main communication lines, which is why the partisans somehow found themselves in the status of “elusive Joe” - elusive simply because no one caught him as unnecessary.

The taiga period of Kim Il Sung's biography attracted the attention of a sufficient number of critics, whose task was to belittle his merits as much as possible and turn him from a partisan commander into the leader of a bandit gang who did not play any serious role in the anti-Japanese resistance. However, according to the official version of South Korea, these are two different people altogether. There was some commander Kim Il Sung, but a man named Kim Song Ju had nothing to do with his activities.

Among the “black legends” there are frequent descriptions of how Kim Il Sung’s people kidnapped children and teenagers, forcibly added them to the detachment in order to increase its number, engaged in racketeering against Koreans who grew ginseng and opium poppies, or took rich Koreans hostage . “If you have weapons, give us weapons; if you have people, give us people; if you have money, give us money; and food, if you have food,” they allegedly demanded.

But Kim Il Sung himself describes a lot of this in his memoirs, and not only as “isolated cases of excesses.” Such a solution to supply issues was typical for any partisan or insurgent movement that did not have a large land, and the nationalist guerrillas, beloved by South Korean historians, solved the financial problems of their troops in the same way.

There is a very interesting source about the life of the population of Kapsan - the memoirs of Kim Yong Sik (the son of a landowner, fled to the south during the Korean War, then was a translator), who, despite all his dislike for the Reds, notes that Kim Il Sung’s partisans rather found a common language with the peasants and protected peasants from the tyranny of landowners and Japanese agents, cracking down on them and their families for this.

In addition, they tried to “plant civil rights“at least at the level of combating early marriages, opium smoking, gambling, illiteracy, superstitions and so on. No wonder that the village youth often left with them. However, the person who found himself between two fires had no choice: the information that such and such was communicating with the partisans quickly became known to everyone, including the Japanese.

Frame: EBS/YouTube

Let us separately note the topic of “child soldiers,” because when this phrase is mentioned, the reader’s eyes are more likely to bring to mind pictures of modern western or central Africa. Indeed, with Kim’s partisan detachment, in addition to the fighters, several dozen children lived - mostly these were the children of killed partisans or those whom the Japanese executed as their accomplices. On the other hand, the Japanese often created situations in which women and children fled to partisan detachments. According to the plan of the punishers, this, firstly, reduced the mobility of the detachment, and secondly, corroded its morale.

As a result, a “commandant company” was created from children aged 12-14 years, which received special allowances and acted as intelligence officers, messengers or bodyguards of Kim, devoted to him to the grave. There is a rather touching moment in Kim’s memoirs about how, in cold weather, the children slept under the same blanket with adults who warmed them with their bodies. There was some competition among the children for the right to sleep next to Kim, but he did not try to pick favorites, and everyone took turns spending the night with him.

On October 4, 1936, Kim Il Sung first appeared on the pages of the Chosun Ilbo newspaper, where an article was published about the raid of 40 “red bandits” led by Kim Il Sung in the village of Shiludaogou in Manchuria. However, very soon Kim forced people to talk about himself seriously.

On June 4, 1937, between 70 and 200 guerrillas (unofficial figures say there were about a dozen) under Kim's command crossed the Korean-Chinese border and launched an early morning surprise attack on the small town of Pochonbo, destroying the local nine-man gendarme post and some Japanese establishments.

Kim's detachment remained in the captured town until the morning of the next day, having “carried out requisitions” in the amount of 44 thousand yen and caused a total of 16 thousand damage, and moved in the opposite direction. Stunned by such impudence, the Japanese police rushed in pursuit of the partisans and overtook Kim on the same day, but the battle ended disastrously for them: 7 policemen, including the detachment commander, were killed.

Although the military-tactical benefit of the raid was minimal, this action turned out to be one of the few carried out on the territory of Korea proper, and not in the wilderness of the Kapsan mountains, which was of no interest to anyone, but in “cultivated regions.” No one has done this before or after Kim.

It was because of this that rumors about commander Kim Il Sung began to spread throughout the country, marking the beginning of the subsequent mythologization of his image. In legends, he either turns into a tiger and kills 10 Japanese in one go, then becomes a dragon and lives at the bottom of the lake, or creates 100 of his doubles who attack the Japanese in a hundred different places at the same time. In other “guerrilla stories,” Kim Il Sung flies on the clouds, produces 4 thousand sets of military uniforms from nothing, and can even, by writing something on a piece of paper and throwing this piece of paper into the river, turn it into a bridge along which the partisans cross a stormy stream. When the Japanese try to cross the bridge, it turns back into a piece of paper, and the enemies drown.

Photo: Korean Central News Agency/AP

The Japanese also reacted: to eliminate Kim Il Sung (and, to a lesser extent, the rest of the guerrilla commanders) a special unit was created under the command of Colonel Shotoku Nozoe, and if in 1936 the Japanese were willing to pay only 20 thousand for any information about his whereabouts yen, then by 1939 the price for Kim Il Sung’s head was 10 times more.

In 1939-1940, Kim was already the commander of the operational area (more precisely, the “commander of the 6th Division of the 2nd Army of the 1st Field Army of the Northeast United Anti-Japanese Army”), but by this time the Japanese began to clear Manchuria and Kando as formerly Korea. The success of the Japanese punitive actions is evidenced by the fact that during the Great Patriotic War the Germans tried to study the Japanese experience, using it against the partisans of Ukraine and Belarus. The enemy was worthy and terrible, and the title of the Korean revolutionary opera, Sea of ​​Blood, quite clearly reflects the scale of the repression.

In addition to the punitive expeditions themselves, the Japanese strategy included sending provocateurs and spies to the partisans, the forced relocation of the population from mountainous and forest areas to the so-called “united villages”, the introduction of mutual responsibility, the certification of the population and the introduction of a travel document system (at the same time, instead of a photograph, they put on passports fingerprints). “Self-defense units” from among pro-Japanese Koreans and Japanese settlers were used, whose settlements were supposed to repel the partisans. Observation points, defense lines and strategic roads were built to allow the rapid transfer of troops.

In addition to the economic war (the Japanese bought up all the surplus food so that the local population, by giving food to the partisans, would doom themselves to starvation), ideological work was carried out. The leadership of the partisans was lured with high positions in the administration, ordinary partisans with vodka and women, using young prostitutes for this, and if they were not available, with pornographic postcards with inscriptions like “they are ready to serve surrendered partisans for free.”

At the same time, intimidation actions were carried out. To intimidate the guerrillas and their sympathizers, the Japanese beheaded Korean guerrilla leaders and displayed their heads. Villages were often burned along with their inhabitants, and the torture used would have done credit to the Middle Ages. And although the stories in North Korean propaganda about how punishers boiled partisan accomplices alive in cauldrons, and then forced the rest of the villagers to eat this boiled meat, these are most likely fantasies, there were less terrible options for demonstrative executions.

And the Japanese interrogators knew how to stop the pain shock during torture, and therefore their “backpack masters” were very effective. There is a legend that what is mentioned in “It’s Hard to Be a God” “and if the tortured person becomes unconscious...” is a real piece of captured instruction on interrogation techniques, translated by the Japanese scholar Strugatsky. And therefore, it was easier for someone who was captured by them to immediately bite off his tongue, as Ma Dong-hee, one of Kim’s comrades, did.

This tactic paid off. If during the most active period of its activity, Kim Il Sung’s detachment reached a strength of 300 people, then from May 1939 it began to decline. Some of his confidants turn out to be traitors, and in the year before the defeat of the United Army, Kim often had to act with less than fifty fighters under his command.

The partisans operated in the forests in conditions of shortage of everything - even the head of the food service of Kim's detachment died of hunger. But even in this situation, the partisans continued to fight. It is no coincidence that the author considers the most important event of the guerrilla war with the participation of Kim not the raid on Pochonbo, but the battle of March 13-25, 1940 at Daimalugou, when 250 partisans of Kim Il Sung completely defeated the special police detachment of Takashi Maeda, consisting of 150 people, who were pursuing them. The two-week pursuit of the Japanese “yagdkommando” after a partisan detachment through the taiga, off-road and deep snow could become the plot of a good action movie. During the battle, Maeda himself and 58 members of his squad were killed, and the partisans received a large amount of weapons and ammunition.

On April 6, 1940, Nozoe's detachment captured five wounded Korean partisans, among whom was Kim Hyo Song, who posed as Kim Il Sung's wife. They tried to use her as bait to lure Kim Il Sung into a trap, but failed. Kim Hyo Sun was executed.

Kim Il Sung himself was also “killed” several times, which was solemnly reported in the media. Just as they were killed several times - not so much for the sake of propaganda, but because of military confusion. From Kim’s own memoirs it also follows that sometimes the Japanese mistook one of his killed comrades for him when the partisan detachment had to split up, and sometimes a captured partisan posed as a commander so that the rest of the detachment could leave more calmly.

But time was on the Japanese side. By the end of the spring of 1941, most of the Manchu partisan detachments either died, retreated deeper into China, or were forced to cross the border of the USSR. Kim was one of the last to cross the Amur, but how the partisan commander became the leader of the DPRK is in the next article.

I would like to end the conversation with two remarks. Firstly, no matter what they say in South Korea, Kim Il Sung took part in the guerrilla struggle and caused more trouble for the Japanese than other guerrilla commanders, although the official propaganda of the DPRK distorts the picture no less strongly. Even anti-communist historians recognize Kim’s taiga past: he was not killed, was not betrayed, and was not flattered by favorable terms of surrender - but, towards the end of his career, he was offered the post of governor of the province in which he operated.

Secondly, Kim should be called a communist with some caution, as, in general, the entire group of his associates. Yes, they themselves called themselves communists and considered themselves communists. The Japanese called them communists, although their communists were any leftists who took the path of armed struggle. But from the point of view of dogma, there was still a mess in their heads, and it is easier to talk about them as very left-wing nationalists. Kim did not have a serious theoretical education, and, looking ahead, we note that 90 percent of his entire collected works consists of speeches and performances. Even the work on the Juche ideas was ultimately written not by him, but by his son Kim Jong Il.

This is due to the fact that the leadership of a partisan detachment (especially in such conditions) has a number of characteristic features that appeared when Kim Il Sung and his comrades began to lead not a partisan detachment, but a country.

Firstly, the commander of a partisan detachment resolves all pressing issues - military, administrative, and everyday. But military issues are in the foreground, since success in military operations and evading enemy attacks is the main thing for the partisans.

Secondly, the partisan detachment exists in a situation of chronic shortage of resources - both material and human. Hence - a certain readiness for deprivation, which is perceived as a kind of norm. Hence the ability to squeeze all available resources to the end, to maintain in working order those items (from weapons to shoes) that in a normal situation would most likely be thrown out or destroyed. Hence - very high price errors. When resources are scarce, “bird in hand” is preferable to “pie in the sky.”

Thirdly, the partisan detachment exists in a constant hostile environment, when even from the local population, which seems loyal, you can expect a dirty trick. This not only nurtures and reinforces the image of a fiery ring of enemies, but also creates a situation in which a certain distrust of the external environment is combined with the suppression of internal squabbles and any germs of factionalism in the team. The unusually harsh reaction to betrayal has the same roots.

Fourthly, a guerrilla war is always a war against an enemy with superior military and economic potential. This creates the need for an asymmetrical response, develops the ability to evade and maneuver, avoiding direct confrontation and being able to use some external forces against others. Such extreme living conditions are a very good object lesson - those who do not behave according to the rules of their existence die, and those who survive remember them for the rest of their lives.

It is painful to look at what is happening to North Korea now. Trump seems to have decided to start a new war. North Korea has been under pressure for years. They tried to strangle her with sanctions, her friends turned away from her, but the proud and hardworking people did not give up. North Korea finds itself surrounded by enemies, but despite this it develops science, launches missiles, and builds skyscrapers.

Have you ever wondered why this small country has so annoyed the “civilized world”? North Korea is not rich in mineral resources, which are the reason why Americans often start wars. But North Korea is rich in its people! The people who rallied around the leader. A people who, with their hard work, do the impossible. And these people are like a bone in the throat of Americans today. Because North Korea has been proving for decades that there is only one warrior in the field, that not everything can be bought and sold, that there is an alternative.

I urge my readers to be very attentive to what is currently happening on the Korean Peninsula. Don't jump to conclusions. Perhaps Russia today is North Korea's only true ally. And North Korea can become a good teacher for us.

In our country, after the death of Stalin, there were leaders, but there was no leader. And here we can learn from the Koreans, where the role of the leader is very important. You can train and educate an engineer, a doctor, a teacher, but you cannot train a leader.

There is even a popular saying in North Korea: “Our people are lucky to have leaders.” And their leaders often said that they were lucky with their people. All Korean leaders came from the people! Comrade Kim Il Sung considered the masses his teacher. And the people are wise. And you can learn everything from him. This fundamental attitude towards the people as teachers was emphasized by both Comrade Kim Jong Il and currently Comrade Kim Jong Un.

A few days ago, the DPRK celebrated the 105th birthday of the liberator and founder of the republic, Kim Il Sung. This holiday is otherwise called the Day of the Sun. This holiday was celebrated not only in North Korea, but throughout the world. Because the Juche ideas, which the great Kim Il Sung gave to the world, had a huge impact on the development of many countries. What is the truth of the Juche idea? The fact is that the people themselves are free to decide their own destiny. Only by uniting the masses of the people will they be able to free themselves from suffering, aggression, robbery, domination and enslavement. And only by uniting will they be able to build a truly great and independent country that will be able to stand up for itself and its ideals. The example of North Korea proves this very clearly.

After the liberation of the country from the Japanese, Kim Il Sung, based on the unshakable principles of independence, put forward a line of state construction that did not imitate the manners of other countries, but corresponded to the real conditions of the country and the interests of the Koreans and built a genuine country of the people, where the people became the master of everything and everything was put at the service to the people. With the inexhaustible power of the Juche idea, he won a great victory in the Fatherland Liberation War (Korean War of 1950–1953) against the military aggressors - 16 countries led by the United States, which boasted of “omnipotence” in the world. The United States insisted that the Koreans would not get back on their feet in a hundred years. But under the leadership of Kim Il Sung, the Koreans, on the post-war ruins, built a socialist power, independent in politics, independent in the economy, capable of self-defense.

In fact, Korea confirmed the truth, scientificity, correctness and vitality of the Juche ideas, and they attracted the attention of wide circles of the international community and quickly spread to the five continents of the world. Thanks to the Juche ideas, humanity, having broken the darkness of thousands of years of history, met a new era of independence, and a stormy movement began in the field of history, the name of which is the work of turning the world into an independent one. During the days of the great anti-Japanese war, Kim Il Sung led the Korean revolutionaries to help the Chinese revolution with blood and defend the Soviet Union with arms. During the Cuban Missile Crisis (1960s), he was at the forefront of international support for the defense of the Cuban Revolution, and during the Bay of Bac Bo incident he provided the most active assistance to the Vietnamese people in their anti-American resistance.

North Korean leaders have always emphasized that the people are heaven for them. Comrade Kim Il Sung's motto was "Worship the people like the sky." In Korean, this phrase consists of only four words, and these words have a deep meaning, they contain worship of the people and selfless service to them.

Kim Jong-un, the grandson of Kim Il Sung, said that he lacks the knowledge and experience of a leader to serve the people in the most dignified manner. And he swore in front of all the people to work even harder, more selflessly and learn from the people. I don’t remember an example of a leader of another country making such a confession and taking an oath to work harder, serve the people more selflessly and learn from them.

Now clouds of lies, slander, and misunderstanding have gathered over North Korea. The West and America interpret it as a rogue country, as a country - a small monster, as a country where blood is shed continuously, as a country that tramples all the principles of human existence. She is demonized, she is prepared to strike, she is prepared for extermination.

But remember the recent missile launches that so angered the Americans and scared the Chinese? Could this happen in a downtrodden country with an unhappy and oppressed people? No! This is the success of the people! Free, hardworking, united around the leader. Kim Jong-un worked directly on the spot for several days and nights, directing the process. And these are the northern regions, where it is very cold. In addition, it is also very dangerous, because accidents cannot be ruled out. But he was next to the specialists, scientists who were assembling the rocket. This is exactly how Kim Jong-un works - day and night.

And recently, there was severe flooding in the northeastern regions caused by a typhoon and heavy rains. It led to enormous destruction. The Americans said that the Koreans would not survive this and would not get back on their feet. Military units were sent to eliminate the consequences. And although the military were not builders, they built 15 thousand apartments in 2 months. And these are not just apartments - they are equipped with household appliances, furniture, and household items. The whole world exclaimed in amazement that this was a miracle. Comrade Kim Jong-un led the work and did everything possible to alleviate the plight of the victims.

In recent days, 200 journalists from around the world have been working in North Korea. They can film, look into windows and ask questions even to the military. They find it difficult to believe that they are really in Pyongyang. After all, after the end of the Korean War, there was not a single intact building in Pyongyang. And now the North Korean capital is a city of skyscrapers. New residential areas and houses of 40-70 floors are being built in Pyongyang at an accelerated pace.

Here, for example, is the street of Mirae scientists. All its corners have been touched by the warm care of Kim Jong-un, who considers improving the well-being of the people a priority, elevates it to an absolute, respects teachers and scientists as true patriots and revolutionaries, and constantly pays deep attention to the development of science and technology in the country.

Kim Jong-un, having visited the beautiful Mirae Scholars Street, was delighted by the beautiful, magnificent view of the street. And he said: it clearly shows the ideas of our party about giving priority to science and technical personnel; in this unique street the Juche and national character, originality, plasticity and artistry are in perfect harmony; This unique street of our type was built in the capital, Pyongyang, in an era when civilization began to flourish.

New Pyongyang is being built great driving force, capable of forging a strong warrior out of herself at the expense of her own strength; it reflects the North Korean Party's intention to thwart the obstructionist actions of the United States and other hostile forces and be sure to build a powerful country. The city shows the power of the unity of the party and the masses, it is a clot of socialist civilization, a demonstration of the inexhaustible economic potential of Korea - the country of Juche.

Today, the Juche doctrine is very relevant, since the theory of Marxism has practically disappeared. Americans today, after the arrival of Trump, note the collapse of the American dream. The Muslim world, which tried to offer its own version of the universal ideology, was bombed and destroyed. The Chinese also cannot offer a dream to the whole world; they do not have a universal idea. A vacuum has arisen, and the Juche teaching must enter into this vacuum!

I ask the attentive reader not to be alarmed. With this post I say hello to Komsomolskaya Pravda and other media outlets that have begun to post advertising materials in support of the North Korean regime. Someone, like KP, does this openly, labeling it “for advertising purposes.” Someone is trying to pretend to be sincere, like federal TV channels. Actually, the post is compiled from quotes from similar articles.

I think that in the near future the TV will tell us a lot of interesting things about the flourishing North Korea, around which we will have to rally. And you, dear friends, be vigilant!

The personality of the ruler always has a significant influence on the fate of the country - perhaps even the most convinced supporter of historical determinism will not dare to argue with this. This applies to a particular extent to dictatorships, especially those in which the power of the ruler is practically not limited either by tradition, or by the influence of strong foreign “patrons,” or by any, albeit weak, public opinion. One example of such a dictatorship is North Korea - a state headed by the same person for 46 (and actually 49) years - “Great Leader, Sun of the Nation, Marshal of the Mighty Republic” Kim Il Sung. He headed this state at the time of its creation, and, apparently, the “Mighty Republic” will not long outlive its permanent leader.

To hold the highest government position for half a century is a rarity in the modern world, unaccustomed to long monarchical reigns, and this fact alone makes the biography of Kim Il Sung quite worthy of study. But we must remember that North Korea is a unique state in many respects, which cannot but attract even more attention to the personality of its leader. In addition, the biography of Kim Il Sung is almost unknown to the Soviet reader, who until recently was forced to content himself with only brief and very far from the truth references from the TSB Yearbooks and other similar publications.

It is really difficult to talk and write about the biography of the North Korean dictator. As a child, Kim Il Sung - the son of a modest rural intellectual - did not attract anyone's special attention; in his youth, he - a partisan commander - had no need to advertise his past, and in his mature years, having become the ruler of North Korea and finding himself in an inevitable whirlwind of intrigue, he was also forced, on the one hand, to protect his life from prying eyes, and on the other hand, with his own hands and the hands of his official historiographers, to create a new biography for himself, which very often diverged from the real one, but was much more consistent with the requirements of the political situation. This situation changed often - the official version of the biography of the “Great Leader, the Sun of the Nation” also changed. Therefore, what Korean historians wrote about their leader in the 50s. It’s not much like what they’re writing now. It is very difficult, if not impossible, to break through the rubble of contradictory and, for the most part, very far from the truth statements of official North Korean historiography; very few reliable documents concerning the biography of Kim Il Sung, especially in his younger years, have survived. Thus, the man who in the modern world holds the record for the longest tenure in the highest government position remains in many ways a mysterious figure.

Because of this, the story about the life of Kim Il Sung will often be full of ambiguities, omissions, dubious and unreliable facts. However, for last decades Through the efforts of South Korean, Japanese and American scientists (among the latter we should mention, first of all, Professor Seo Dae Suk in the USA and Professor Wada Haruki in Japan) it was possible to establish a lot. Soviet specialists - both scientists and practitioners - were often much more informed than their foreign colleagues, but for obvious reasons they had to remain silent until recently. However, the author of this article, in the course of his research, also managed to collect certain material, which, together with the results of the work of foreign researchers, formed the basis of this article. Special role Among the collected material, recordings of conversations with those participants in the events in question who currently live in our country are played.

Little is known about Kim Il Sung's family and his childhood. Although Korean propagandists and official historiographers have written dozens of volumes on this topic, it is hardly possible to separate the truth from later propaganda layers. Kim Il Sung was born on April 15, 1912 (the date is sometimes questioned) in Mangyongdae, a small village near Pyongyang. It is difficult to say with certainty what his father Kim Hyun Jik (1894-1926) did, since Kim Hyun Jik changed more than one occupation during his short life. Most often, in the biographical information about Kim Il Sung that appeared from time to time in the Soviet press, his father was called a village teacher. This sounded good (teaching is a noble profession and, from an official point of view, quite “reliable”), and was not without reason - at times Kim Hyun Jik actually taught in primary schools. But in general, the father of the future Great Leader belonged to that grassroots (essentially marginal) Korean intelligentsia, who either taught, or found some kind of clerical service, or otherwise earned a living. Kim Hyun Jik himself, in addition to teaching at school, also practiced herbal medicine according to Far Eastern medicine recipes.

Kim Il Sung's family was Christian. Protestantism, which penetrated Korea at the end of the 19th century, became widespread in the north of the country. Christianity in Korea was perceived in many ways as an ideology of modernization, and, partly, modern nationalism, so it is not surprising that many Korean communists. Kim Il Sung's father himself graduated from a school founded by missionaries and maintained contacts with Christian missions. Of course, now the fact that Kim Il Sung’s father (as well as his mother) was not just a believing Protestant, but also a Christian activist is being hushed up in every possible way, and his connections with religious organizations are explained only by the desire to find legal cover for revolutionary activities. Kim Il Sung's mother, Kang Ban Seok (1892 -1932), was the daughter of a local Protestant priest. In addition to Kim Il Sung, whose real name was Kim Song Ju, the family had two more sons.

Like most families of the lower Korean intelligentsia, Kim Hyun Jik and Kang Ban Seok lived poorly, at times simply in need. North Korean historiography claims that Kim Il Sung's parents - especially his father - were prominent leaders of the national liberation movement. Subsequently, official propagandists began to claim that Kim Hyun Jik was generally the main figure in the entire anti-colonial movement. Of course, this is not so, but the attitude towards the Japanese colonial regime in this family was certainly hostile. In particular, according to relatively recently published data from Japanese archives, Kim Hyun Jik actually took part in the activities of a small illegal nationalist group created in the spring of 1917.
North Korean historians claim that Kim Hyun-jik was even arrested for his activities and spent time in a Japanese prison, but it is not clear how true these claims are.

Apparently, it was the desire to leave the country occupied by the invaders, combined with the desire to get rid of constant poverty, that forced Kim Il Sung’s parents, like many other Koreans, to move to Manchuria in 1919 or 1920, where little Kim Song Ju began studying in the Chinese school. Already in childhood, Kim Il Sung mastered Chinese perfectly, which he spoke fluently all his life (until old age, according to rumors, his favorite reading remained classic Chinese novels). True, for some time he returned to Korea, to his grandfather’s house, but already in 1925 he left his native place, only to return there again two decades later. However, the move to Manchuria did not seem to improve the family’s situation much: in 1926, at the age of 32, Kim Hyo Njik died and 14-year-old Kim Song Ju was orphaned.

Already in Girin, in high school, Kim Song-ju joined an underground Marxist circle created by a local illegal organization of the Chinese Komsomol. The circle was almost immediately discovered by the authorities, and in 1929, 17-year-old Kim Song-ju, who was the youngest of its members, ended up in prison, where he spent several months. Official North Korean historiography, of course, claims that Kim Il Sung was not just a participant, but also the leader of the circle, which, however, is completely refuted by documents.

Soon Kim Sung-ju was released, but from that moment his life path changed dramatically: without apparently even finishing his school course, the young man joined one of the many partisan detachments operating in what was then Manchuria to fight the Japanese invaders and their local supporters, fight for better world, kinder and fairer than the one he saw around him. In those years, this was the path followed by many, many young people in China and Korea, those who did not want or could not accommodate the invaders, make a career, serve or speculate.

Early 30s was the time when a massive anti-Japanese guerrilla movement was unfolding in Manchuria. Both Koreans and Chinese took part in it, representatives of all the political forces operating there: from communists to extreme nationalists. Young Kim Song-ju, who was associated with the Komsomol underground during his school years, quite naturally ended up in one of the partisan detachments created by the Chinese Communist Party. Little is known about the early period of his activity. Official North Korean historiography claims that from the very beginning of his activities, Kim Il Sung headed the Korean People's Revolutionary Army, which he created, which acted, although in contact with units of the Chinese communists, but in general quite independently. These statements, of course, have nothing to do with reality. No Korean People's Revolutionary Army simply ever existed; the myth about it is only part of the Kimirsen myth that arose towards the end of the 1940s. and finally established itself in North Korean “historiography” a decade later. Korean propaganda has always sought to present Kim Il Sung as primarily a national Korean leader, and therefore tried to hide the ties that in the past existed between him and China or the Soviet Union. Therefore, the North Korean press did not mention either Kim Il Sung’s membership in the Chinese Communist Party or his service in Soviet Army. In reality, Kim Il Sung joined one of the many partisan detachments of the Chinese Communist Party, of which he became a member shortly after 1932. Around the same time, he adopted the pseudonym under which he would go down in history - Kim Il Sung.

The young partisan, apparently, showed himself to be a good military man, since he advanced well in his career. When in 1935, shortly after a number of guerrilla units operating near the Korean-Chinese border were united into the Second Independent Division, which in turn was part of the United Northeast Anti-Japanese Army, Kim Il Sung was the political commissar of the 3rd detachment (approximately 160 fighters), and already 2 years later we see a 24-year-old partisan as commander of the 6th Division, which was usually called the “Kim Il Sung Division”. Of course, the name “division” should not be misleading: in this case, this menacing-sounding word meant only a relatively small partisan detachment of several hundred fighters operating near the Korean-Chinese border. Nevertheless, it was a success, which showed that the young partisan had both some military talent and leadership qualities.

The most famous of the 6th Division's operations was the raid on Pochonbo, after the successful execution of which the name of Kim Il Sung gained some international fame. During this raid, about 200 guerrillas under the command of Kim Il Sung crossed the Korean-Chinese border and on the morning of June 4, 1937, suddenly attacked the border town of Pochonbo, destroying the local gendarme post and some Japanese institutions. Although modern North Korean propaganda has inflated the scale and significance of this raid to the point of impossibility, in addition attributing its execution to the never-existent Korean People's Revolutionary Army, in reality this episode was important, because the partisans almost never managed to cross the carefully guarded Korean-Manchurian border and penetrate into Korean territory proper. Both communists and nationalists operated on Chinese territory. After the raid on Pochonbo, rumors about which spread throughout Korea, people started talking seriously about “Commander Kim Il Sung.” Newspapers began to write about the raid and its organizer, and the Japanese police included him among the especially dangerous “communist bandits.”

At the end of the 30s. Kim Il Sung met his wife, Kim Jong Suk, the daughter of a farm laborer from North Korea, who joined the partisan detachment at the age of 16. True, it seems that Kim Jong Suk was not the first, but the second wife of Kim Il Sung. His first wife, Kim Hyo Sun, also fought in his unit, but in 1940 she was captured by the Japanese. She subsequently lived in the DPRK and held various responsible mid-level positions. It is difficult to say whether these rumors are true, but, be that as it may, official North Korean historiography claims that Kim Il Sung’s first wife was Kim Jong Suk, the mother of the current “crown prince” Kim Jong Il. Judging by the memoirs of those who met her in the 40s. she was a quiet woman of short stature, not very literate, not fluent foreign languages, but friendly and cheerful. With her, Kim Il Sung had the opportunity to live the most turbulent decade of his life, during which he turned from the commander of a small partisan detachment into the ruler of North Korea.

By the end of the 30s. The situation of the Manchu partisans deteriorated sharply. The Japanese occupation authorities decided to put an end to the partisan movement and for this purpose in 1939-1940. concentrated significant forces in Manchuria. Under the onslaught of the Japanese, the partisans suffered heavy losses. By that time, Kim Il Sung was already the commander of the 2nd operational region of the 1st Army, and partisan units in Jiangdao province were subordinate to him. His fighters managed to strike back at the Japanese more than once, but time was against him. By the end of 1940, from among the senior leaders of the 1st Army (commander, commissar, chief of staff and commanders of the 3 operational areas), only one person remained alive - Kim Il Sung himself, all the rest were killed in battle. The Japanese punitive forces launched a hunt for Kim Il Sung with particular fury. The situation was becoming hopeless, my strength was melting away before my eyes. Under these conditions, in December 1940, Kim Il Sung, together with a group of his fighters (about 13 people), broke through to the north, crossed the Amur and ended up in the Soviet Union. The period of his emigrant life in the USSR begins.

I must say that for a long time Rumors circulated both among Korean scholars and among the Koreans themselves about a supposed “replacement” of the Leader in the USSR. It was alleged that the real Kim Il Sung, the hero of Pochonbo and the division commander of the Anti-Japanese United Army, was killed or died around 1940, and from that time on, another person acted under the name of Kim Il Sung. These rumors arose in 1945, when Kim Il Sung returned to Korea and many were amazed at the youth of the former partisan commander. The fact that the pseudonym “Kim Il Sung” has been used since the early 20s also played a role. used by several partisan commanders. The conviction of the alleged substitution was so great in the South at that time that this version, without any reservations, even found its way into American intelligence reports. To combat the rumors, the Soviet military authorities even organized a demonstration trip for Kim Il Sung to his home village, in which he was accompanied by local press correspondents.
The hypothesis, strongly reminiscent of the novels of Dumas the Father, which, for political and propaganda reasons, is especially supported by some South Korean experts, is hardly related to reality. I had to talk with those who at one time spent years of emigration next to Kim Il Sung, as well as people who were responsible for the partisans who were on Soviet territory and, therefore, often met with the future Great Leader during the war. They all unanimously reject this version as frivolous and without foundation. The same opinion is shared by the leading experts on the Korean communist movement, So Dae Suk and Wada Haruki. Finally, the diaries of Chou Pao-chung, recently published in China, also refute most of the arguments used by supporters of the “substitution” theory. Thus, the legend of the Korean “iron mask”, which is very reminiscent of adventure novels, can hardly be considered reliable, although, of course, the eternal attachment of people to all sorts of secrets and riddles will inevitably at times contribute to another revival of conversations on this topic and even the emergence of corresponding “sensational "journalistic publications.

By the early 40s, many Manchu partisans had already crossed over to Soviet territory. The first cases of such transitions have been known since the mid-30s, and after 1939, when the Japanese sharply increased the scope of their punitive operations in Manchuria, the departure of the remnants of defeated partisan detachments to Soviet territory became a normal phenomenon. . Those who crossed over were usually subjected to short-term testing, and then their fates turned out differently. Some of them entered service in the Red Army, while others, having accepted Soviet citizenship, led the ordinary life of peasants or, less commonly, workers.
Therefore, the crossing of the Amur River by Kim Il Sung and his men at the end of 1940 was not something unusual or unexpected. Like other defectors, Kim Il Sung was interned for a time in a testing camp. But since by that time his name already enjoyed a certain fame (at least among “those who are supposed to”), the verification procedure did not drag on and after a few months the twenty-nine-year-old partisan commander became a student of courses at the Khabarovsk Infantry School, where he studied until spring 1942
Perhaps, for the first time after ten years of dangerous guerrilla life, full of wanderings, hunger, and fatigue, Kim Il Sung was able to rest and feel safe. His life was going well. In February 1942 (according to some sources - in February 1941), Kim Jong Suk gave birth to a son, who was named by the Russian name Yura and who, decades later, was destined to become the “Beloved Leader, the Great Continuer of the Immortal Juche Revolutionary Cause” Kim Jong Il.

In the summer of 1942, the Soviet command decided to form a special unit from the Manchu partisans who had crossed over to Soviet territory - the 88th separate rifle brigade, which was located in the village of Vyatsk (Vyatskoye) near Khabarovsk. It was to this brigade that in the summer of 1942 the young captain of the Soviet Army, Kim Il Sung, was appointed, who, however, was then more often called by the Chinese reading of his personal characters - Jin Zhicheng. The brigade commander was the famous Manchu partisan Zhou Baozhong, who received the rank of lieutenant colonel in the Soviet Army. The majority of the brigade's fighters were Chinese, so the main language of combat training was Chinese. The brigade consisted of four battalions, and its strength, according to various estimates, ranged from 1,000 to 1,700 people, of which approximately 200-300 were Soviet military personnel assigned to the brigade as instructors and controllers. Korean partisans, most of whom fought under the command of Kim Il Sung or with him back in the 30s, were part of the first battalion, whose commander was Kim Il Sung. There were not many of these Koreans, according to Wada Haruki’s estimates, from 140 to 180 people.

The usual monotonous and rather difficult life of the unit located deep in the rear during the war began, a life well known to many, many of Kim Il Sung’s Soviet peers. As is clear from the stories of people who served with Kim Il Sung at that time or had access to materials from the 88th Brigade, it, despite its specific composition, was not at all part of the special forces in the modern sense. Neither in its armament, nor in its organization, nor in its combat training did it differ fundamentally from ordinary units of the Soviet Army. True, at times some brigade fighters were selected to carry out reconnaissance and sabotage operations in Manchuria and Japan.
Soviet literature of those years spoke a lot about the actions of Japanese saboteurs in the Soviet Far East: explosions of trains, dams, and power plants. It must be said that the Soviet side responded with full reciprocity from the Japanese and, judging by the memoirs of veterans of the 88th brigade, not only reconnaissance, but also sabotage raids into Manchuria were commonplace. However, preparations for these raids were carried out not in Vyatsk, but in other places, and the fighters selected to participate in these actions left the 88th brigade. During the war, Kim Il Sung himself never left the location of his brigade and never visited Manchuria, much less Korea itself.

Kim Il Sung, who had to fight from the age of seventeen, seemed to enjoy the hard but orderly life career officer, which he led during these years. Some of those who served with him in the 88th brigade now recall that even then the future dictator gave the impression of a power-hungry man and “on his own mind,” but it is quite possible that this perception was dictated by subsequent events, which did not add up for many Kim Il Sung's Soviet colleagues showed sympathy for the former battalion commander. Be that as it may, Kim Il Sung was very pleased with the service, and the authorities did not complain about the young captain. During their life in Vyatsk, Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Suk had two more children: a son, Shura, and a daughter. The children were called by Russian names, and this, perhaps, suggests that in those years for Kim Il Sung returning to his homeland seemed problematic, to say the least.
According to recollections, Kim Il Sung at this time quite clearly sees his future life: military service, academy, command of a regiment or division. And who knows, if history had turned out a little differently, it may very well be that somewhere in Moscow an elderly retired colonel or even Major General of the Soviet Army Kim Il Sung would now live, and his son Yuri would work in some Moscow research institute and in In the late eighties, like most of the capital’s intellectuals, he would most likely have enthusiastically participated in the crowded marches of “Democratic Russia” and similar organizations (and then, one might assume, would have rushed into business, but would have hardly succeeded there). At that moment, no one could predict what fate awaited the commander of the first battalion, so this option, perhaps, seemed the most likely. However, life and history turned out differently.

The 88th Brigade did not take any part in the fleeting war with Japan, so the statement of modern official North Korean historiography that Kim Il Sung and his fighters fought in the battles for the liberation of the country is one hundred percent fiction. Soon after the end of hostilities, the 88th Brigade was disbanded, and its soldiers and officers received new assignments. For the most part, they had to go to the liberated cities of Manchuria and Korea to become assistants to Soviet commandants there and ensure reliable interaction between the Soviet military authorities and the local population and authorities.
The largest city occupied by Soviet troops was Pyongyang, and the highest-ranking Korean officer of the 88th brigade was Kim Il Sung, so it is not surprising that he was appointed assistant commandant of the future North Korean capital and, together with a number of his soldiers, battalion went there. The first attempt to reach Korea by land failed, as the Andong railway bridge on the China-Korea border was blown up. Therefore, Kim Il Sung arrived in Korea at the end of September 1945 on the steamship Pugachev via Vladivostok and Wonsan.

Recently, allegations have appeared in the South Korean press that Kim Il Sung's role as a future leader was predetermined even before his departure to Korea (they even talk about his secret meeting with Stalin, which allegedly took place in September 1945). These statements look quite dubious, although I would not dismiss them without additional check. In particular, they completely contradict what the participants in the events - V.V. Kavyzhenko and I.G. - told me during an interview. Loboda. Therefore, it is still more likely that when Kim Il Sung arrived in Pyongyang, neither he himself, nor his entourage, nor the Soviet command had any special plans for his future.

However, the appearance of Kim Il Sung came in handy. By the end of September, the Soviet command realized that its attempts to rely on local right-wing nationalist groups led by Cho Man-sik in carrying out its policy in North Korea were failing. By the beginning of October, the Soviet military-political leadership had just begun to look for the figure who could stand at the head of the emerging regime. Due to the weakness of the communist movement in the north of Korea, it was impossible to rely on local communists: among them there were no figures who enjoyed the slightest popularity in the country. The leader of the Korean Communist Party, Pak Hong-yong, who was active in the South, also did not evoke much sympathy among the Soviet generals: he seemed incomprehensible and too independent, and, in addition, not closely enough connected with the Soviet Union.
Under these conditions, the appearance of Kim Il Sung in Pyongyang seemed very timely to the Soviet military authorities. The young officer of the Soviet Army, whose partisan background enjoyed some fame in North Korea, was, in their opinion, a better candidate for the vacant post of “leader of the progressive forces of Korea” than the quiet underground intellectual Pak Hong-yong or anyone else.

Therefore, just a few days after his arrival in Korea, it was Kim Il Sung who was invited by the Soviet military authorities (or, more precisely, ordered) to appear at a solemn meeting, which was held on October 14 at the Pyongyang stadium in honor of the liberating army, and to say a short greeting there speech. The commander of the 25th Army, General I.M. Chistyakov, spoke at the rally and introduced Kim Il Sung to the audience as a “national hero” and “famous partisan leader.” After this, Kim Il Sung appeared on the podium in a civilian suit he had just borrowed from one of his friends and made a corresponding speech in honor of the Soviet Army. The appearance of Kim Il Sung in public was the first sign of his beginning ascent to the heights of power. A few days earlier, Kim Il Sung was included in the North Korean Bureau of the Communist Party of Korea, which was then led by Kim Yong Beom (a figure who later did not particularly glorify himself).

The next step on the path to power was the appointment of Kim Il Sung in December 1945 as chairman of the North Korean Bureau of the Communist Party of Korea. In February, by decision of the Soviet military authorities, Kim Il Sung headed the Provisional People's Committee of North Korea - a kind of provisional government of the country. Thus, already at the turn of 1945 and 1946. Kim Il Sung formally became the supreme leader of North Korea. Although many people now talk in hindsight about Kim Il Sung’s lust for power and treachery, according to people who often met with him at the end of 1945, he was depressed by this turn of fate and accepted his appointment without much enthusiasm. At this time, Kim Il Sung preferred the simple and understandable career of an officer in the Soviet army to the strange and confusing life of a politician. For example, V.V. Kavyzhenko, who at that time was the head of the 7th department of the political department of the 25th Army and often met with Kim Il Sung, recalls:

“I remember well how I went to Kim Il Sung just after he was offered to become the head of the people’s committees. He was very upset and told me: “I want a regiment, then a division, but why is this?” I don’t understand anything, and I don’t want to do this."

It is a reflection of Kim Il Sung's well-known military predilections that in March 1946 the Soviet authorities considered him as a candidate for the post of Minister of War of a unified Korea. At that time, difficult negotiations were still underway with the Americans about the creation of a unified Korean government. It is not known how seriously the Soviet side took the negotiations, but in anticipation of them, a list of a possible all-Korean government was drawn up. Kim Il Sung was given a prominent, but not primary, position as Minister of War (the head of government was to be a well-known South Korean left-wing politician).

Thus, Kim Il Sung ended up at the pinnacle of power in North Korea, most likely, completely by accident and almost against his will. If he had ended up in Pyongyang a little later, or if he had ended up in some other large city instead of Pyongyang, his fate would have turned out completely differently. However, Kim Il Sung in 1946 and even in 1949 can hardly be called the ruler of Korea in the exact sense of the word.
At that time, the Soviet military authorities and the apparatus of advisers had a decisive influence on the life of the country. They were the ones who made the most important decisions and drew up the most important documents. Suffice it to say that until the mid-1950s. all appointments of officers to positions above regiment commander were required to be coordinated with the Soviet embassy. As already mentioned, even many of the early speeches of Kim Il Sung himself were written in the political department of the 25th Army, and then translated into Korean. Kim Il Sung was only the nominal head of the country. This situation partially continued after 1948, when the Democratic People's Republic of Korea was officially proclaimed in the north of the Korean Peninsula. However, over time, Kim Il Sung, apparently, began to slowly gain a taste for power, as well as acquire the skills necessary for a ruler.

Like most senior North Korean leaders, Kim Il Sung settled with his wife and children in the center of Pyongyang, in one of the small mansions that previously belonged to high-ranking Japanese officers and officials. However, Kim Il Sung’s life in this house in the first years after returning to Korea could hardly be called happy, for it was overshadowed by two tragedies: in the summer of 1947, his second son Shura drowned while swimming in a pond in the courtyard of the house, and in September 1949 His wife Kim Jong Sook died during childbirth, with whom he lived for ten of the most difficult years of his life and with whom he retained a warm relationship forever. According to the recollections of those who met Kim Il Sung in Pyongyang at that time, he suffered painfully from both misfortunes.

However, the turbulent events surrounding Kim Il Sung did not leave much time for mourning. The main problems that he had to face in those early years of the DPRK's existence were the split of the country and factional conflicts within the North Korean leadership itself.

As is known, according to the decision of the Potsdam Conference, Korea was divided along the 38th parallel into Soviet and American zones of occupation, and while the Soviet military authorities did everything to bring a group beneficial to them to power in the North, the Americans controlled the South with no less energetically did the same thing.
The result of their efforts was the rise to power in the South of the Syngman Rhee government. Both Pyongyang and Seoul made claims that their regime is the only legitimate power on the peninsula and were not going to compromise. Tension increased, armed clashes on the 38th parallel, reconnaissance and sabotage groups were sent to each other’s territory by 1948-1949. a common occurrence, things were clearly heading towards war.

According to Yu Song Chol, who since 1948 was the head of the Operations Department of the North Korean General Staff, preparation of a plan for an attack on the South began in the North even before the official proclamation of the DPRK. However, the fact that this plan was prepared by the North Korean General Staff in itself means little: since time immemorial, the headquarters of all armies have been busy drawing up both plans for defense against a potential enemy and plans for attacking him, this is routine practice. Therefore, the question of when, how and why the political decision to start a war is made is much more important.

In the case of the Korean War, the final decision was apparently made in April 1950, during Kim Il Sung's secret visit to Moscow and his conversations with Stalin. However, this visit was preceded by long discussions of the situation, which took place both in Moscow and Pyongyang.

Kim Il Sung was not the only supporter of a military solution to the Korean problem. Representatives of the South Korean underground led by Park Hong-yong showed great activity, who overestimated the leftist sympathies of the South Korean population and assured that after the first military strike in the South, a general uprising would begin and the Syngman Rhee regime would fall.
This conviction was so deep that even the prepared plan for an attack on the South, according to one of its authors, the former chief of the Operations Directorate of the General Staff of the DPRK Yu Song Chol, did not provide for military operations after the fall of Seoul: it was believed that the general uprising caused by the occupation of Seoul would instantly end the Lisynmanov's rule. Among the Soviet leaders, an active supporter of a military solution to the problem was T.F. Shtykov, the first Soviet ambassador to Pyongyang, who periodically sent messages of corresponding content to Moscow.
At first, Moscow treated these proposals without any enthusiasm, but the persistence of Kim Il Sung and Shtykov, as well as changes in the global strategic situation (the victory of the Communists in China, the emergence of atomic weapons in the USSR) did their job: in the spring of 1950, Stalin agreed with Pyongyang’s proposals .

Of course, Kim Il Sung himself not only did not object to the planned attack. From the very beginning of his activities as the leader of the DPRK, he paid a lot of attention to the army, citing the fact that a powerful North Korean army could become the main instrument of unification. In general, Kim Il Sung's partisan and army background could not help but lead him to overestimate the role of military methods of solving political problems. Therefore, he took an active part in preparing plans for war with the South, which began with a surprise attack by North Korean troops in the early morning of June 25, 1950. The next day, June 26, Kim Il Sung made a radio address to the people. In it, he accused the South Korean government of aggression, called for a fight back and reported that North Korean troops had launched a successful counter-offensive.

As is known, at first the situation favored the North. Although the general uprising in the South, which Pyongyang had so hoped for, did not happen, the Syngman Lee army fought reluctantly and ineptly. Already on the third day of the war, Seoul fell, and by the end of August 1950, more than 90% of the country’s territory was under the control of the North. However, a sudden American landing deep in the rear of the northerners dramatically changed the balance of forces. The retreat of North Korean troops began and by November the situation became exactly the opposite: now the southerners and Americans controlled more than 90% of the country's territory. Kim Il Sung, along with his headquarters and the remnants of the armed forces, found himself pressed against the Korean-Chinese border. However, the situation changed after Chinese troops entered the country, sent there at the urgent request of Kim Il Sung and with the blessing of the Soviet leadership. Chinese units quickly pushed the Americans back to the 38th parallel, and the positions occupied by the troops of the opposing sides since the spring of 1951 ended up being almost the same as those from which they started the war.

Thus, although external assistance saved the DPRK from complete defeat, the results of the war were discouraging and Kim Il Sung, as the country’s supreme leader, could not help but see this as a threat to his position. It was necessary to somehow protect yourself. In the conditions of a successfully developing counter-offensive, in December 1950, the Third Plenum of the Central Committee of the WPK of the second convocation was held in a small village near the Chinese border. At this plenum, Kim Il Sung managed to solve an important problem - to explain the causes of the September military disaster and to do it in such a way as to completely absolve himself of responsibility for it. As is always done in such cases, they found a scapegoat. He turned out to be the former commander of the 2nd Army Mu Jong (Kim Mu Jong), a hero of the civil wars in China, who was declared guilty of all military failures, demoted and soon emigrated to China.

At the end of 1950, Kim Il Sung returned to the destroyed capital. American aircraft constantly bombed Pyongyang, so the DPRK government and its military command settled in bunkers, a bizarre network of which was carved into the rocky soil of Moranbong Hill, at a depth of several tens of meters underground. Although the difficult positional war dragged on for another two and a half years, the role of North Korean troops in it was very modest; they acted only in secondary directions and provided rear security. The Chinese took the brunt of the fighting, and in fact, from the winter of 1950/51. the war took on the character of a US-Chinese conflict on Korean territory. At the same time, the Chinese did not interfere in the internal affairs of Korea and did not try to impose a line of behavior on Kim Il Sung. To a certain extent, the war even freed Kim Il Sung's hands, as it significantly weakened Soviet influence.

By that time, Kim Il Sung had apparently become completely accustomed to his new role and gradually turned into an experienced and extremely ambitious politician. Speaking about the features of Kim Il Sung’s individual political style, it should be noted that he repeatedly demonstrated the ability to maneuver and use the contradictions of both opponents and allies. Kim Il Sung has repeatedly shown himself to be a master of political intrigue and a very good tactician. Kim Il Sung’s weaknesses are associated primarily with his insufficient general training, because he not only never studied at a university, but also did not have the opportunity to engage in self-education, and he had to draw all the basic ideas about social and economic life partly from the traditional views of Korean society, partly from materials of political studies in partisan detachments and the 88th brigade. The result was that Kim Il Sung knew how to seize and strengthen his power, but did not know how to take advantage of the opportunities he received.

However, the task facing Kim Il Sung in the early 1950s precisely required the skill of maneuvering that he fully possessed. We are talking about the elimination of factions that have existed since the very founding of the DPRK in the North Korean leadership. The fact is that the North Korean elite was not initially united; it included 4 groups, very different from each other both in their history and in composition. These were:
1) the “Soviet group”, which consisted of Soviet Koreans sent to work in state, party and military bodies of the DPRK by the Soviet authorities;
2) an “internal group” that included former underground fighters who had been active in Korea even before the Liberation;
3) the “Yan’ang group,” whose members were Korean communists who returned from emigration to China;
4) a “partisan group”, which included Kim Il Sung himself and other participants in the partisan movement in Manchuria in the 30s.
From the very beginning, these groups treated each other without much sympathy, although under conditions of strict Soviet control, factional struggle could not openly manifest itself. The only path to full power for Kim Il Sung lay through the destruction of all groups except his own, the partisan one, and getting rid of total Soviet and Chinese control. He devoted his main efforts to solving this problem in the 50s.

The destruction of factions in Korea is discussed in another part of the book, and here there is no point in dwelling again in detail on all the vicissitudes of this struggle. During its course, Kim Il Sung showed considerable skill and cunning, deftly pitting his rivals against each other. The first victims were former underground members from the internal group, the massacre of whom took place in 1953-1955. with the active support or benevolent neutrality of the other two factions. Further, in 1957-1958, a blow was struck against the Yan'ans, but they turned out to be a tougher nut to crack. When Kim Il Sung returned from a trip abroad in August 1956, at the plenum of the Central Committee, he was sharply criticized by several representatives of the “Yanan group,” who accused Kim Il Sung of instilling a personality cult in Korea.
Although the troublemakers were immediately expelled from the meeting and placed under house arrest, they managed to escape to China and soon a joint Soviet-Chinese delegation headed by Mikoyan and Peng Dehuai arrived from there. This delegation not only demanded that the repressed Yan'anites be reinstated into the party, but even threatened with the possibility of removing Kim Il Sung himself from the leadership of the country. Judging by the available data, this was not an empty threat - the plan to remove Kim Il Sung was actually proposed by the Chinese side and was seriously discussed.
Although all the concessions that Kim Il Sung made under this pressure were temporary, this episode itself remained in his memory for a long time, and to this day he often talks about it to foreign delegations visiting Pyongyang. The lesson was clear. Kim Il Sung was not at all happy with the position of a puppet, which the all-powerful puppeteers could remove from the stage at any time, and therefore, from the mid-50s. he begins to carefully, but more and more persistently, distance himself from his recent patrons. The global purge of the party leadership of 1958-1962, although not as bloody as Stalin's purges (victims were often allowed to leave the country), led to the complete elimination of the once powerful "Soviet" and "Yan'an" factions and made Kim Il Sung the absolute master of North Korea .

The first years after the signing of the armistice were marked by serious successes in the North Korean economy, which not only quickly eliminated the damage caused by the war, but also began to rapidly move forward. The decisive role in this was played by the assistance of the USSR and China, which was very impressive.
According to South Korean data, in 1945-1970, Soviet aid to the DPRK amounted to 1.146 million US dollars ($364 million - loans on extremely preferential terms, $782 million - gratuitous assistance). According to the same data, Chinese assistance amounted to 541 million dollars (436 million in loans, 105 million in grants). These figures can be disputed, but the fact that the assistance was very, very serious is indisputable. Relying on this massive support, the northern economy developed quickly and successfully, leaving the South far behind for a time. Only by the end of the sixties did South Korea manage to eliminate the economic gap with the North.

However, the foreign policy situation in which Kim Il Sung had to act changed seriously due to the outbreak of the Soviet-Chinese conflict. This conflict played a dual role in the political biography of Kim Il Sung and the history of the DPRK. On the one hand, he created a number of problems for the North Korean leadership, which was heavily dependent on economic and military assistance coming from the USSR and China, and on the other hand, he helped Kim Il Sung and his entourage a lot in solving the most difficult task facing them - the liberation from Soviet and Chinese control. If it were not for the discord that broke out between Moscow and Beijing in the late 50s, Kim Il Sung would hardly have been able to establish his own sole power in the country, eliminate factions and become an absolute and uncontrolled dictator.

However, we should not forget that economically North Korea was extremely dependent on both Soviet Union, and from China. This dependence, contrary to the persistent assurances of North Korean propaganda, has not been overcome throughout North Korean history. Therefore, Kim Il Sung faced a difficult task. On the one hand, he had to, by maneuvering between Moscow and Beijing and playing on their contradictions, create opportunities for pursuing an independent political course, and on the other hand, he had to do this in such a way that neither Moscow nor Beijing would stop the economic and military activities that were vital for the DPRK. help.
This problem could be solved only by skillfully maneuvering between the two great neighbors. And we must admit: in this Kim Il Sung and his entourage were very successful. At first, Kim Il Sung was inclined towards an alliance with China. There were a number of explanations for this: the cultural proximity of the two countries, the closer ties of Korean revolutionaries with the Chinese leadership in the past, and Kim Il Sung’s dissatisfaction with the criticism of Stalin and his management methods that unfolded in the USSR. By the end of the 1950s, it became clear that the economic policy of the DPRK was increasingly oriented towards China. Following the Chinese "Great Leap Forward" in the DPRK, the Chollima movement began, which, of course, was only a Korean copy of the Chinese model. At the end of the 1950s. came to North Korea and the Chinese principle of “self-reliance” (in Korean pronunciation “charek kensen”, in Chinese “zili gensheng”, the hieroglyphs are the same) became the main economic slogan there, as well as many principles of ideological work and cultural policy.

At first, these changes generally did not go beyond the policy of neutrality. The DPRK press did not mention the Soviet-Chinese conflict, Korean delegations, including those of the highest level, equally visited both Moscow and Beijing, and economic ties with both countries developed. In July 1961, in Beijing, Kim Il Sung and Zhou Enlai signed the “Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance between the DPRK and the PRC,” which is still in force today, which cemented the allied ties of both countries. However, only a week earlier a similar Treaty was concluded with the Soviet Union, and both Treaties generally entered into force at the same time, so the neutrality of the DPRK was manifested here too. At the same time, the Soviet Union was mentioned less and less in the internal press of the DPRK, and less and less was said about the need to learn from it. The activities of the Korean-Soviet Friendship Society, which at one time was one of the most influential organizations in the DPRK, were gradually curtailed.

After the XXII Congress of the CPSU, at which not only criticism of the Chinese leaders was voiced, but also a new attack on Stalin was launched, there was a sharp rapprochement between the PRC and the DPRK. In 1962-1965. Korea fully agreed with China's position on all the most important issues. The main points of disagreement between the Soviet Union and Korea were the new ideological guidelines of the CPSU, adopted after the 20th Congress and which did not receive support and understanding in the WPK: condemnation of Stalin, the principle of collective leadership, the thesis about the possibility of peaceful coexistence.
The concept of peaceful coexistence was perceived by Kim Il Sung as a manifestation of capitulation, and in the deployment of criticism of Stalin, he saw, not without reason, a threat to his own unlimited power. During these years, Rodong Sinmun repeatedly published articles expressing support for China's position on many issues. Thus, sharp criticism of the USSR’s position in the Sino-Soviet conflict was contained in the editorial article “Let’s Defend the Socialist Camp,” which attracted the attention of foreign observers, published in Nodong Sinmun on October 28, 1963 (and reprinted by all major Korean newspapers and magazines). The Soviet Union was accused of using its economic and military assistance as a means of political pressure on the DPRK. On January 27, 1964, Nodong Sinmun condemned “one person” (i.e. N.S. Khrushchev - A.L.) who advocated peaceful coexistence; on August 15 of the same year, an editorial in this newspaper expressed solidarity with the objections The CPC is against the then planned convening of a world conference of communist and workers' parties. This article for the first time contained a direct, without the previously usual allegories (“one country,” “one of the communist parties,” etc.), condemnation of the actions of the USSR and the CPSU.
The leadership of the DPRK unconditionally supported China during the Sino-Indian border conflict in 1962, and also condemned the “capitulation” of the USSR during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Thus, in 1962-1964. The DPRK, together with Albania, became one of the few closest allies of China and almost completely agreed with its position on all the most important international problems.

This line caused serious complications: the Soviet Union, in response, sharply reduced aid sent to the DPRK, which put some sectors of the North Korean economy on the brink of collapse, and also made Korean aviation practically incapable of combat. In addition, the “cultural revolution” that began in China also forced the North Korean leadership to reconsider its positions. The “Cultural Revolution” was accompanied by chaos, which could not but alert the North Korean leadership, which was gravitating towards stability.
In addition, in those years, many Chinese Red Guard publications began to attack Korean domestic and foreign policy, and Kim Il Sung personally. Already in December 1964, Rodong Sinmun first criticized “dogmatism,” and on September 15, 1966, it condemned the “cultural revolution” in China as a manifestation of “left-wing opportunism” and the “Trotskyist theory of permanent revolution.” Since then, the North Korean press has from time to time criticized both “revisionism” (read: the Soviet version of Marxism-Leninism) and “dogmatism” (read: Chinese Maoism) and presented the North Korean approach as a kind of “golden mean” between these two extremes .

The arrival of the Soviet party and government delegation to Pyongyang led by A.N. Kosygin in February 1965 marked the DPRK’s final rejection of the one-sided pro-Beijing orientation, and from the mid-60s. The leadership of the DPRK began to pursue a policy of consistent neutrality in the Soviet-Chinese conflict. At times, Pyongyang's constant maneuvering caused considerable irritation in both Moscow and Beijing, but Kim Il Sung managed to conduct business in such a way that this discontent never led to the cessation of economic and military assistance.

The final consolidation of the new status of Korean-Chinese relations, which could be assessed as the development of allied relations while maintaining the neutrality of the DPRK in the Sino-Soviet conflict, occurred during the visit of Zhou Enlai to the DPRK in April 1970. It is significant that the then Premier of the State Council of the People's Republic of China chose North Korea for his first foreign trip after the turbulent years of the Cultural Revolution. During 1970-1990 China was the second most important (after the USSR) trading partner of the DPRK, and in 1984 the PRC accounted for approximately 1/5 of North Korea's total trade turnover.

By this time, all the highest posts in the country were in the hands of Kim Il Sung’s old comrades in the guerrilla struggle, whom he trusted, if not completely, then much more than people from other factions, and Kim Il Sung himself finally gained full power. Finally, he achieved what he had wanted since the beginning of the 50s: from now on he could rule completely single-handedly, without looking back at either the internal opposition or the opinions of powerful allied patrons.

Therefore, it is not surprising that just from the turn of the 50s and 60s. Considerable changes are taking place in the life of North Korea; the previously carried out direct copying of Soviet models is being replaced by the adoption of its own methods of organizing production, cultural and moral values. The propaganda of Juche ideas begins, emphasizing the superiority of everything Korean over everything foreign.

The term “Juche” was first heard in Kim Il Sung’s speech “On the eradication of dogmatism and formalism in ideological work and the establishment of Juche,” delivered on December 28, 1955, although subsequently, already in the early 1970s. North Korean official historiography began to assert that, they say, the Juche theory itself was put forward by the Leader back in the late twenties. Documents confirming this theory were not long in coming: after 1968, several speeches were published allegedly made by Kim Il Sung in his youth and, of course, containing the word “Juche”. As for the Leader’s later speeches, which he actually delivered and were previously published, they were simply corrected and published in an “added” form.
Although more than one hundred volumes have already been devoted to the explanation of the term “Juche,” for any North Korean everything is quite clear: “Juche” is what the Great Leader and his heir wrote. Since the 60s North Korean propaganda never tires of emphasizing the superiority of the truly Korean ideas of “Juche” (sometimes also called “Kimirsenism”) over Marxism and any foreign ideologies in general. In practice, the promotion of the Juche ideology was primarily of practical importance for Kim Il Sung, as it provided grounds for freeing himself from foreign (Soviet and Chinese) influence in the field of ideology. However, it can be assumed that the ambitious Kim Il Sung also took considerable pleasure in recognizing himself as a theorist on an international scale. However, towards the end of Kim Il Sung’s life, the universalist component of “Juche” became less noticeable, and traditional Korean nationalism began to play an increasingly important role in it. At times, this nationalism took rather comical forms - just remember the hype around the “discovery” of the tomb of the mythical founder of the Korean state, Tangun, in the early 1990s. As one would expect, the grave of the son of a heavenly deity and a bear was discovered precisely on the territory of Pyongyang!

At first, a departure from the pro-Soviet orientation in the early 60s. was accompanied by a sharp tightening of policy towards South Korea. Apparently, on Kim Il Sung and his entourage in the mid-1960s. They were greatly impressed by the successes of the South Vietnamese rebels, so having freed themselves from the Soviet control that was largely restraining them, they seemed to have decided to try to develop an active anti-government guerrilla movement in the South along the South Vietnamese model. Until the beginning of the 60s. such intentions, if they arose, were suppressed by Moscow, but now its position was declared “revisionist.”
At the same time, neither Kim Il Sung nor his advisers completely took into account that the political situation in South Korea was completely different from that in Vietnam, and that the population of the South was by no means ready to take up arms against their government. Major unrest in South Korea in the early 60s, which took place under general democratic and, in part, nationalist-anti-Japanese slogans, seems to have been perceived by Pyongyang and Kim Il Sung personally almost as a sign of the South Koreans’ readiness for a communist revolution. Again, as in the late 40s, when planning for an attack on the South was underway, the North Korean elite took wishful thinking.

In March 1967, significant changes occurred in the Korean leadership. Many figures who led intelligence operations in the South were removed from their posts and repressed. This meant a major change in strategy towards the South. North Korean intelligence services moved from routine intelligence activities to an active campaign to destabilize the Seoul government. Again, as two decades earlier, “guerrilla” groups trained in the North began to invade South Korean territory.
The most famous incident of this kind occurred on January 21, 1968, when a trained group of 32 North Korean special forces tried to storm the Blue House, the residence of the South Korean president in Seoul, but failed and were almost all killed (only two of its soldiers managed to escape, and one was hit captured).

At the same time, Kim Il Sung, apparently not without the influence of Beijing’s then noisy anti-American rhetoric, decided to sharply worsen relations with the United States. Just two days after the unsuccessful raid on the Blue House, on January 23, 1968, Korean patrol ships captured the American reconnaissance ship Pueblo in international waters. American diplomacy barely had time to resolve this incident and achieve the release of the captured crew members (negotiations took almost a year), when a new incident of the same kind followed: on April 15, 1969 (by the way, just on the birthday of the Great Leader) he was shot down by North Korean fighters over the Sea of ​​Japan, an American reconnaissance aircraft EC-121, its entire crew (31 people) were killed.
Somewhat earlier, in October-November 1968, in the South of the Korean Peninsula there were real battles between the South Korean army and North Korean special forces units, which then organized the largest invasion of the territory of the South in the entire post-war period (about 120 people took part in the raids from the North). It is possible that Kim Il Sung took seriously the then Beijing bellicose demagoguery (in the spirit of: “The third world war will be the end of world imperialism!”) and was going to use a possible major international conflict to resolve the Korean issue by military means.

However, by the beginning of the 1970s. It became clear that the North Korean policy did not find any serious support in South Korean society, and that no communist uprising could be counted on there. Awareness of this fact led to the start of secret negotiations with the South and the signing of the famous Joint Statement of 1972, which marked the beginning of certain contacts between the leadership of both Korean states. This, however, did not mean that the DPRK leadership abandoned the use of military and quasi-military methods in relations with its southern neighbor and the main enemy.
What remained characteristic of the North Korean intelligence services subsequently was that they combined routine and understandable information-gathering activities with terrorist actions aimed at destabilizing the situation in the South. The most famous actions of this kind include the “Rangoon Incident,” when on October 9, 1983, three North Korean officers who illegally entered the capital of Burma tried to blow up a South Korean government delegation led by then-President Chun Doo-hwan. Chung Doo-hwan himself survived, but 17 members of the South Korean delegation (including the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Deputy Minister of Foreign Trade) were killed and 15 were wounded. The attackers tried to escape, but were detained.

Somewhat later, in November 1987, North Korean agents blew up a South Korean airliner over the Andaman Sea (again near Burma). One of the agents managed to commit suicide, but his partner Kim Young Hee was detained. The purpose of this action was unexpectedly simple - with its help, the North Korean authorities hoped to discourage foreign tourists from traveling to Seoul for the upcoming Olympic Games. Of course, these actions did not bring any results. Moreover, the rapid economic development of the South, which by that time had left the North far behind, became a serious problem for the North Korean leadership.
The contrast between the two Koreas in both the standard of living and the degree of political freedom was enormous by the end of Kim Il Sung's reign and continued to grow. Under these conditions, one of the most important tasks of the regime was the struggle to maintain information isolation, and the North Korean authorities did everything in their power to hide the truth about the South from their population. It is possible, however, that not only ordinary North Koreans, but also the country’s leadership were deprived of access to objective information about the life of South Korea.
By 1990, South Korea was a classic example of successful economic development, while the North was becoming the epitome of failure and failure. The gap in the level of GNP per capita by that time was approximately tenfold and continued to grow. However, we can only guess how aware Kim Il Sung himself was of the extent of the backwardness of his lot.

1960s were marked by serious changes in the North Korean economy. In industry, from the beginning of this time, the “Thean system of work” was established, completely denying even the most timid forms of cost accounting and material interest. The economy is militarized, centralized planning becomes pervasive, entire industries are reorganized along military lines (miners, for example, are even divided into platoons, companies and battalions, and ranks similar to the military are established).
Similar reforms are taking place in agriculture, where they are usually called the “Cheonsanli method.” This name is given in honor of a small village near Pyongyang, where Kim Il Sung spent 15 days in February 1960, “directing on the spot” the work of a local cooperative. Personal plots, as well as market trade, are declared a “bourgeois-feudal relic” and are liquidated. The basis of economic policy is autarky, “the revolutionary spirit of self-reliance,” and the ideal is a completely self-sufficient and tightly controlled production unit.

However, all these measures did not lead to an improvement in the economic situation. On the contrary, the economic successes of the first post-war years, achieved largely due to not only Soviet and Chinese economic assistance, but also copying the economic experience of the USSR, were replaced by failures and setbacks.
The system that was established in the DPRK after Kim Il Sung received the coveted full power ultimately turned out to be significantly less effective than the old one, imposed from outside in the late 40s. This revealed one of the most important properties of Kim Il Sung, which was already mentioned here: he was always strong in tactics, but not in strategy, in the struggle for power, but not in governing the country. His victories often, too often, turned into defeats.
Since the 70s, the DPRK economy has been in a state of stagnation, growth stops, and the standard of living of the majority of the population, already quite modest, begins to decline rapidly. The total secrecy that shrouds all economic statistics in the DPRK does not allow us to judge the dynamics of the development of the Korean economy. Most South Korean experts believed that although in the 70s. the pace of economic development decreased noticeably, but in general it continued until the mid-1980s, when GNP began to decline.
At the same time, a number of informed Soviet specialists, in private conversations with the author, expressed the opinion that economic growth in North Korea had completely stopped by 1980. At the end of the 1980s. The decline in industrial production assumed such proportions that even the North Korean leadership was forced to admit this fact.

Under these conditions, the stability of North Korean society is ensured only by strict control over the population combined with massive ideological indoctrination. Both in terms of the scope of the activities of repressive bodies and the massiveness of ideological influence, the Kim Il Sung regime, perhaps, has no equal in the world.

Kim Il Sung accompanied the consolidation of his regime of sole power with an intense campaign of self-praise. After 1962, North Korean authorities always began to report that 100% of registered voters took part in the next elections, and all 100% voted in support of the nominated candidates. Since that time, the cult of Kim Il Sung in Korea has acquired forms that make an overwhelming impression on an unprepared person.
With particular force, the praise of the “Great Leader, the Sun of the Nation, the Iron All-Conquering Commander, the Marshal of the Mighty Republic” begins in 1972, when his sixtieth birthday was celebrated with extreme pomp. If before this the propaganda of the personality of Kim Il Sung generally did not go beyond the framework within which the praise of I.V. Stalin in the USSR or Mao Zedong in China, then after 1972 Kim Il Sung became by far the most celebrated leader of the modern world. All Koreans who reached the age of majority were required to wear badges with a portrait of Kim Il Sung, the same portraits are placed in every residential and office space, in subway and train cars. The slopes of the beautiful Korean mountains are lined with toasts in honor of the Leader, which are carved into the rocks in multi-meter letters. Throughout the country, monuments were erected only to Kim Il Sung and his relatives, and these huge statues often became the object of religious worship. On Kim Il Sung's birthday (and this day has become the country's main public holiday since 1974), all Koreans are required to lay a bouquet of flowers at the foot of one of these monuments. The study of the biography of Kim Il Sung begins in kindergarten and continues in schools and universities, and his works are memorized by Koreans at special meetings. The forms of instilling love for the Leader are extremely diverse and even listing them would take too much time. I will only mention that all the places that Kim Il Sung visited are marked with special memorial plaques, that even the bench on which he once sat in the park is a national relic and is carefully preserved, that children in kindergartens are obliged to thank Kim Il Sung in unison for his happy childhood. Kim Il Sung's name is mentioned in almost every Korean song, and movie characters perform incredible feats inspired by their love for him.

“Fire-like loyalty to the Leader” is, as official propaganda claims, the main virtue of any citizen of the DPRK. Pyongyang social scientists even developed a special philosophical discipline - "suryongwan" (in a somewhat loose translation - "leader studies"), which specializes in studying the special role of the leader in the world-historical process. This is how this role is formulated in one of the North Korean university textbooks: “The masses of the people, who do not have a leader and are deprived of his leadership, are not able to become a true subject of the historical process and play a creative role in history... The party spirit, classism, and nationality inherent in communists get their the highest expression is precisely in love and loyalty to the leader. To be faithful to the leader means: to be imbued with the understanding that it is the leader who plays the absolutely decisive role, to strengthen the importance of the leader, to believe only in the leader in any trials and to follow the leader without hesitation.”

Unfortunately, we know little about how Kim Il Sung's personal life has developed since the late fifties. Over time, he increasingly isolated himself from foreigners, and indeed from most Koreans. The times when Kim Il Sung could easily go to the Soviet embassy to play billiards are long gone.
Of course, the top of the North Korean elite knows something about the personal life of the Great Leader, but for obvious reasons these people were not eager to share the information they possessed with correspondents or scientists. In addition, South Korean propaganda constantly disseminated information that was intended to portray the North Korean leader in the most unfavorable light possible. Very often this information was true, but it still has to be treated with considerable caution. However, some messages can apparently be considered fair. Among the most piquant is, for example, information (repeatedly confirmed by high-ranking defectors) that the Leader and his son have a special group of female servants, into which only young, beautiful and unmarried women are selected. This group is called quite appropriately and meaningfully - “Joy”.
Often, Kim Il Sung's ill-wishers tried to present these women as a kind of harem of the Leader and his heir (a well-known female lover). This could be partly true, but on the whole the “Joy” group is a completely traditional institution. During the Li Dynasty, hundreds of young women were selected to work in the royal palaces. The requirements for candidates for palace servants in those days were approximately the same as now for the notorious “Joy” group: applicants must be virgin, beautiful, young, and of good origin. Both the maids of the royal palace centuries ago and the maids of the palaces of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il today were prohibited from marrying. However, in the old days, this did not mean that all palace maids were the king's concubines. More informed (and less prejudiced) defectors say the same thing about Kim Il Sung's handmaidens. Selection for the Joy group is carried out by local authorities, all of its members officially hold the rank of officers of the Ministry of State Protection - the North Korean political police.

Despite the increased isolation after 1960, the Great Leader continued to appear before the people from time to time almost until his death. Although he had a pompous palace on the outskirts of the capital, in front of which the palaces of Arab sheikhs paled, as well as many magnificent residences throughout the country, Kim Il Sung preferred not to lock himself within their magnificent walls. A characteristic feature of his activities were frequent trips around the country. The luxury train of the Great Leader (Kim Il Sung organically did not tolerate airplanes and preferred the railway even when traveling abroad), accompanied, of course, by numerous and reliable security guards, appeared here and there, Kim Il Sung often came to enterprises, villages, visited institutions, military units, schools.

These travels did not stop until the death of Kim Il Sung, even when the Leader was already over 80. However, this is not surprising: after all, an entire research institute worked specifically to maintain his health - the so-called Institute of Longevity, located in Pyongyang and dealing exclusively with the well-being of the Great The chief and his family, as well as a special group responsible for purchasing high-quality products for them abroad.

In the seventies and eighties, Kim Il Sung's main confidants, his first assistants in governing the country, were former partisans who had once fought with him against the Japanese in Manchuria. This gave Japanese historian Wada Haruki reason to call North Korea a “state of former guerrillas.” Indeed, to the Central Committee of the WPK, elected at the last congress of the WPK in 1980 (Kim Il Sung, like Stalin, did not bother to regularly convene party congresses, and even after his death his son was “elected” as head of the party without convening a congress or conference ) included 28 former partisans and only one representative each of three once powerful groups - Soviet, Yan'an and internal. There were 12 former partisans in the Politburo, that is, the majority.
However, time took its toll, and by the early 1990s. few of the former partisans were still alive. However, their children often began to replace them more and more often, which gave the North Korean elite a closed, almost caste-aristocratic character.

This character was strengthened by the fact that since the sixties, Kim Il Sung began to actively promote his relatives through the ranks. This may have been the result of Kim's decision at the time to hand over power to his eldest son. As a result, North Korea increasingly resembled the personal dictatorship of the Kim Il Sung family.
Suffice it to say that as of September 1990, 11 of the 35 members of the country's top political leadership belonged to the Kim Il Sung clan. In addition to Kim Il Sung himself and Kim Jong Il, this clan then included; Kang Song San (Premier of the Administrative Council, Secretary of the Central Committee), Park Song Chol (Vice President of the DPRK), Hwang Chang Yup (Secretary of the Central Committee for Ideology, and the actual creator of the Juche ideas, who subsequently fled to South Korea in 1997), Kim Chun Rin (Secretary of the Central Committee of the WPK, Head of the Department of Public Organizations), Kim Yong Sun (Secretary of the Central Committee, Head of the International Department), Kang Hee Won (Secretary of the Pyongyang City Committee, Vice-Premier of the Administrative Council), Kim Tal Hyun (Minister of Foreign Trade) , Kim Chang-ju (Minister agriculture, Deputy Prime Minister of the Administrative Council) Yang Hyun Seop (President of the Academy of Social Sciences, Chairman of the Supreme People's Assembly).
From this list it is clearly seen that relatives of Kim Il Sung occupy a significant part of the key positions in the North Korean leadership. These people have emerged solely through their personal connections with the Great Leader and can expect to maintain their position only as long as Kim Il Sung or his son is in power. To them we must add the children, grandchildren and other relatives of former Manchu partisans, whose share in the leadership is also very large and who are also closely connected with the Kim family. In fact, the upper echelon of power in North Korea is occupied by representatives of several dozen families, among which the Kim family is, of course, the most important. By the end of the nineties, representatives of the second or even third generation of these families were in power. Their whole life was spent in conditions of gigantic privileges, and in almost complete isolation from the bulk of the country's population.
In fact, by the end of Kim Il Sung's reign, North Korea had turned into an aristocratic state in which "nobility" of origin played almost a decisive role in access to positions and wealth.

However, belonging to the clan of Kim Il Sung’s relatives does not yet mean a guarantee of immunity. Already many of the members of this clan found themselves expelled from their posts and plunged into political oblivion. Thus, in the summer of 1975, Kim Yong-ju, the only surviving sibling of the Great Leader, who had previously been one of the most influential leaders of the country for almost a decade and a half and at the time of his disappearance was the Secretary of the Central Committee, a member of the Politburo and the Vice-Central Committee, suddenly disappeared without a trace. Prime Minister of the Administrative Council.
According to rumors, the reason for his sudden fall was that he did not take too kindly to the beginning rise of his nephew Kim Jong Il. However, Kim Yong-ju's life was spared. In the early 1990s, older and apparently safe, Kim Yong-ju reappeared on the North Korean political Olympus and soon re-entered the country's top leadership. Somewhat later, in 1984, another high-ranking relative of Kim Il Sung, Kim Pyong Ha, disappeared in the same way, who for a long time was the head of the Ministry of Political Security of the state, that is, he occupied the most important post of chief of the security service in any dictatorship.

Back in the late 1950s or early 1960s. Kim Il Sung remarried. His wife was Kim Sun-ae, about whose biography almost nothing is known. Even the date of their marriage is not clear. Apparently, based on the fact that their eldest son Kim Pyong Il - now a prominent diplomat - was born around 1954, Kim Il Sung's second marriage occurred around this time, but some sources indicate significantly later dates.
According to rumors, at one time Kim Song Ae was the secretary of the head of the personal security of Kim Il Sung. However, the first lady of North Korea hardly appeared in public, and her influence on political life seemed minimal. Although the Koreans knew that the Leader had a new wife (this was briefly mentioned in the press), she did not even remotely occupy the same place in propaganda and in the mass consciousness as Kim Jong Suk, who long after her death remained the Leader’s fighting girlfriend, his main comrade-in-arms. This is partly due, apparently, to the personal feelings of Kim Il Sung himself, and partly to the role that, in his opinion, was destined for the only surviving son of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Suk - born in 1942 in Khabarovsk Yuri, who received the Korean name Kim Jong Il, and who, by the way, did not particularly favor his stepmother and his half-brothers.
Of course, the rumors constantly appearing in the Western and South Korean press about discord in the Kim Il Sung family should be treated with caution; it is too obvious that their spread is beneficial to the South Korean side. However, reports of tension that has long existed between Kim Jong Il and his stepmother come from so many different sources that they have to be trusted. The author of these lines also heard about conflicts of this kind during his frank conversations with the North Koreans.

Around the end of the 60s. Kim Il Sung had the idea to make his son his heir, establishing something like a monarchy in the DPRK. In addition to understandable personal preferences, this decision could also be dictated by sober political calculations. The posthumous fate of Stalin and, to a lesser extent, Mao taught Kim Il Sung that for a new leadership, criticizing a dead dictator was one of the best ways to gain popularity. By transferring power by inheritance, Kim Il Sung created a situation in which the subsequent regime would be interested in every possible strengthening of the prestige of the Founding Father (in the most literal sense of the word).

Around 1970, Kim Jong Il's rapid rise through the ranks began. After the appointment of Kim Jong Il, who was then only 31 years old, in 1973 as head of the propaganda department of the WPK Central Committee and his introduction into the Politburo in February 1974, the Leader-Father’s intentions to transfer power by inheritance became clear. As Kon Thak Ho, who then held a prominent position in the North Korean security service and then moved to the South, testified back in 1976, by that time the North Korean political elite already had almost complete confidence that Kim Il Sung would be succeeded by Kim Jong Ir. Weak protests against this, heard in the early and mid-70s among senior officials, ended, as one would expect, with the disappearance or disgrace of the dissatisfied.
In 1980, at the 6th Congress of the CPC, Kim Jong Il was proclaimed the heir of his father, “the continuer of the great Juche revolutionary cause,” and propaganda began to praise his superhuman wisdom with the same force with which it had previously praised only the deeds of his father. During the 1980s. there was a gradual transfer of control over the most important areas of the country's life into the hands of Kim Jong Il and his people (or those who are still considered so). Finally, in 1992, Kim Jong Il was appointed Supreme Commander of the North Korean armed forces and received the title of Marshal (at the same time Kim Il Sung himself became Generalissimo).

However, towards the end of his life, Kim Il Sung had to act in a difficult environment. The collapse of the socialist community and the collapse of the USSR, the coup, became a heavy blow for the North Korean economy. Although previously relations between Moscow and Pyongyang were by no means particularly cordial, strategic considerations and the presence of a common enemy in the United States, as a rule, made one forget about mutual hostility.
However, the end of the Cold War meant that the Soviet Union, and later the Russian Federation stopped considering the DPRK their ideological and military-political ally in the fight against “American imperialism.” On the contrary, a prosperous South Korea seemed an increasingly tempting trade and economic partner. The result of this was the official establishment of diplomatic relations between Moscow and Seoul in 1990.

With the disappearance of the USSR, it became clear that Soviet aid played a much larger role in the North Korean economy than Pyongyang propaganda was willing to admit. “Reliance on one’s own forces” turned out to be a myth that did not survive the termination of preferential supplies of Soviet raw materials and equipment. The new government in Moscow did not intend to spend any noticeable resources on supporting Pyongyang. The flow of aid stopped around 1990, and the results were felt very quickly. The decline in the DPRK economy that began in 1989-1990 was so significant and obvious that it could not even be hidden. For the first time in post-war history, the North Korean authorities announced that the GNP of the DPRK in 1990-1991. decreased. China, although it remained formally socialist and even provided limited assistance to the DPRK, also normalized relations with South Korea in 1992.

In a desperate attempt to find some sources of external revenue, Kim Il Sung tried to use the "nuclear card." Work on nuclear weapons has been carried out in North Korea since at least the eighties, and in 1993-1994, Kim Il Sung tried to resort to nuclear blackmail. Political intrigue has always been the native element of the Great Leader. He succeeded this time, his last. North Korea managed to ensure that its eternal enemies, the “American imperialists,” agreed, in exchange for curtailing its nuclear program, to provide economic assistance to the DPRK. The blackmail was a success.
This diplomatic victory, however, turned out to be the last success of the old master. On July 8, 1994, shortly before the scheduled meeting with the South Korean president (it was supposed to be the first ever meeting between the heads of two Korean states), Kim Il Sung died suddenly in his luxurious palace in Pyongyang. The cause of his death was a heart attack. As expected, his son, Kim Jong Il, became the new head of state of North Korea. Thanks to the efforts of Kim Il Sung, North Korea not only survived the years of the general crisis of socialism, but also became the first communist regime with hereditary power.

Kim Il Sung lived a long and extraordinary life: the son of a Christian activist, a guerrilla fighter and guerrilla commander, an officer in the Soviet Army, a puppet ruler of North Korea, and finally, the Great Leader, the unfettered dictator of the North. The very fact that with such a biography he managed to survive and, in the end, die a natural death at a very old age, shows that Kim Il Sung was not only a lucky man, but also an extraordinary one. Although the consequences of his rule for Korea were, frankly, disastrous, the late dictator should hardly be demonized. His ambition, cruelty, mercilessness are obvious.
However, it is also indisputable that he was capable of both idealism and selfless acts - at least in his youth, until he was finally pulled into the millstones of the power machine. Most likely, in many cases he sincerely believed that his actions were aimed at the benefit of the people and the prosperity of Korea. However, alas, a person is judged not so much by his intentions as by the results of his actions, and for Kim Il Sung these results were disastrous, if not catastrophic: millions killed in war and died in prisons, a devastated economy, crippled generations.

Chapter Six

DEAR COMMANDER

Kim Il Sung spent the night of June 25, 1950 in his office without sleeping a wink. Outwardly he behaved calmly, but his nerves were tense like 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 Syngman Rhee's army into the mountains and threw it into the sea. Here the largest thick arrow stretched towards Seoul, from it smaller ones - towards Daegu, towards Busan... Suddenly the red pencil, on which Kim, without noticing it, was pressing with redoubled force, broke in his hands.

The water rustled outside the window. The rainy season has begun. Kim Il Sung remembered how, on exactly the same rainy June night ten years ago, he sat in a tent with a flashlight over a map and racked his brains on how to deceive the punitive squads and escape from encirclement. The war is not over until Korea is unified. If then his partisans fought with such a powerful enemy as the Japanese, then now, having a serious regular army on his own soil, won’t he be able to defeat the troops of the pathetic Seoul puppets? They will crumble to dust under the attacks of KPA columns. You just have to hit it harder. The war for the liberation of the homeland will come to an end only when the regime in the South falls and the red and blue flag of the DPRK flies over the entire three thousand li native land.

The dawn was cloudy, the rain mingled with the gradually dissipating fog. Footsteps in the corridor, a knock on the door. Defense Minister Choi Yong Gon entered the office. The fit fifty-year-old general saluted and said: “Dear Commander! I'm reporting. The troops reached their original position by 24 hours on June 25. After intensive artillery preparation we got up and went on the attack together at 5.00 am. In the first hours they managed to advance several kilometers. The enemy, defending himself, retreats in all directions.”

Kim sighed with relief and wiped the sweat from his forehead. Now quickly forward, forward, to Seoul...

The Korean War has remained one of the most discussed topics in world historiography for more than half a century. Questions about who is responsible for its outbreak and to what extent, how to evaluate the course of hostilities and their results, and even who should be considered losers and winners are still debatable. Moreover, from the very beginning, the war was perceived as a conflict between the communist and free (in the terms of American historians) or imperialist (in Soviet literature) camps. The role of the Korean states themselves and their leaders in this formulation of the issue fades into the background. And completely in vain. Both Kim Il Sung and Syngman Rhee 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 basically a civil war, although in the context of confrontation between the two camps it grew to include nineteen states and almost spilled over into the Third World War.

The desire to unite the country by force under their own rule was not hidden in both Pyongyang and Seoul. A particularly ardent supporter of this solution to the issue was Syngman Rhee. Moreover, he did not hesitate to express his views publicly. He perceived the coming war as a kind of crusade against the Reds and tried in every possible way to win over the Americans to his side. Back in the summer of 1949, he wrote to his advisor Robert Oliver: “The Korean people passionately desire a military campaign to the North... We will push some of Kim Il Sung’s people into the mountainous region and starve them there, then our defense line should be created along the Tumen and Yalu rivers.” 1.

In an interview with the United Press in October 1949, Lee explained to the world community what the UN's role in Korea should be: "We object to any negotiations with the leaders of the Communist Party of North Korea, since we are fighting Communist Party for democracy. The UN's job is to help democratic governments fight communists."

“In North Korea, it is necessary to destroy the regime created with the support and assistance of the Soviet Union, the armed forces created there, and hold general elections in North Korea,” Prime Minister Lee Beom-seok echoed his boss.

Some members of the South Korean elite thought more globally. So, in 1948, Syngman Rhee's adviser on foreign affairs, Yun Peng Gu, presented the boss with a war plan with the joint participation of troops from 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 and the Americans “liberated” North Korea and Manchuria, the Kuomintang restored its power in mainland China, and the Japanese moved to the northeast and gained possession of 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 just around the corner and he would soon “have breakfast in Haeju, lunch in Pyongyang, and dinner in Wonsan.” It is curious that Southern Kim was an old enemy of Northern Kim. In the 1930s in Manchuria, he headed a special unit to combat partisans and clashed with Kim Il Sung's detachment. His activities were recognized with the Order for Bravery, which he received personally from the hands of Emperor Hirohito. And now Kim Sok Won was one of the commanders of the troops at the 38th parallel, where his soldiers 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 intensity that a number of researchers (for example, the American Bruce Cummings) consider this period to be the initial stage of the war. During this time, 1,800 armed conflicts occurred in the area of ​​the 38th parallel, that is, on average, two or three per day. There were also major battles using artillery. The area of ​​the city of Kaesong and the Onjin Peninsula on the west coast of Korea became an area of ​​particularly violent confrontation. In most cases, the initiator was the South Korean side. American historian W. Stuke believes that by aggravating the situation on the border, Syngman Rhee wanted to influence the US authorities. However, Washington eventually began to wonder whether requests for increased arms supplies were simply a ploy on Lee's part and whether he was actually preparing a march to the North?2

The Americans had different attitudes towards their protégé's plans. He irritated many in the White House with his stubbornness and uncontrollability, as well as fears that he could provoke a conflict, and then a big war in which the United States would be drawn. On the other hand, army hawks had their own point of view. “The campaign plan is a done deal. Although we will start the attack, we still need to create a pretext in order to have a fair reason,” said General Roberts, the head of US military advisers in South Korea, at the beginning of 19503.

In the North, a symmetrical response was being prepared for Syngman Rhee. Kim Il Sung passionately wanted to unite Korea under his rule. Before his eyes there 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 the civil war that lasted almost 20 years. The days of Chiang Kai-shek's army were numbered. America did not dare to directly intervene in the civil war between the Chinese. So why should she interfere in the war between the Koreans? Kim believed that if necessary, Stalin and Mao would help and would not leave the DPRK in trouble. And he persistently convinced the “big brothers” that the time had come to act.

In the spring of 1949, Kim Il Sung came to Moscow with a government delegation and, at a meeting with Stalin, announced that the Korean communists were “determined to carry out 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 training 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 officers and weapons.

Mao, in principle, favorably accepted the plans of the Korean comrades and promised to help. However, given that there was still a civil war going on in China itself, he proposed starting the offensive no earlier than the beginning of 1950. Stalin was completely skeptical about this idea, advising only to accumulate strength.

Despite the refusal, Kim Il Sung continued to raise the issue of an offensive in the South, transmitting 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 TPSC Central Committee.

The most ardent supporter of the war was Park Hong-yong. He was confident that as soon as North Korean tanks entered Seoul, his people would raise a massive uprising throughout the country and the Syngman Rhee regime would fall on its own. The former leader of the Southern Communists convinced both Kim and, ultimately, Moscow and Beijing of this. Park could also insist on the early start of the war because if the country were successfully unified and the South Communists joined the party, his position would have sharply strengthened. Perhaps he could actually compete with Kim for leadership.

At the end of the summer, Stalin gave instructions to study the situation in Korea, compare the forces and capabilities of the North and South, and submit a memorandum on this issue to him. This note was discussed at the September meeting of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks. In the directive sent to Pyongyang, Shtykov was instructed to meet with Kim and inform him that an attack on the South was not prepared either from a military or political point of view. In addition, the document astutely stated that if hostilities began from the North and became protracted, this could give the Americans a reason for all kinds of interference in Korean affairs. In conclusion, the North Korean leadership was asked to focus on helping the partisan movement in the South and strengthening the army. “Kim Il Sung did not expect such a reaction. He looked offended,” noted Shtykov.

However, the offended North Korean leader did not have the temperament to calm down. Kim Il Sung stubbornly stood his ground. In January 1950, he appeared at a reception to mark the departure of the Chinese representative from Pyongyang. The Soviet ambassador also came to see his colleague off. Having drunk heavily at the buffet table, Kim approached Shtykov and spoke frankly to him: “Terenty Fomich! Now that the liberation of China is completed, the liberation of Korea is next. Partisans will not solve matters. I don’t sleep at night, thinking about reunification... Mao said that there is no need to attack the South. But if Syngman Rhee advances, then we must launch a counteroffensive. But he doesn’t advance... I need to visit Comrade Stalin and ask permission to attack to liberate South Korea. Mao promised to help, and I will meet with him. I need to make a personal report to Comrade Stalin..."

Kim spent the entire 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 Korean comrades, Filippov and his friends expressed the opinion that, due to the changed international situation, they agreed with the Koreans’ proposal to begin unification. At the same time, it was agreed that the issue should be resolved by the Chinese and Korean comrades jointly, and if the Chinese comrades disagree, the solution to the issue should be postponed until a new discussion. Your Chinese comrades can tell you the details of the conversation. Filippov"4.

What made Joseph Vissarionovich, who carefully signed his letters to Mao and Kim with the pseudonyms Feng Xi (West Wind), Filippov and Chan Fu, change his mind? The international situation has indeed changed. The USSR successfully tested a nuclear bomb. The civil war ended in China and the People's Republic was proclaimed. (It is worth noting the cautious tone of the letter: Stalin left the final decision on 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 gave a keynote speech at the National Press Club, from which it followed that Korea was not part of the US defensive perimeter in the Far East. This means that the United States may not intervene in the war on the peninsula - they concluded in the socialist camp.

K. Asmolov makes another important argument: Kim Il Sung and especially Park Hong Yong convinced Stalin that the revolutionary situation in the South had already taken shape. And the USSR, which was an ideocratic state, could not help but help the cause of the revolution5.

Indeed, one should not discount the principle of international solidarity between socialist countries. The USSR was the leader of the communist world. Stalin could doubt and delay the process, could shift some of the responsibility onto the shoulders of another country (which he eventually did), but could not, in principle, refuse the DPRK’s attempt to bring socialism at 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 sympathizing with 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 stopped him in such a rush to liberate South Korea from Syngman Rhee and the American reaction. This would be contrary to the communist worldview. I’m not condemning Stalin here.”6

After their visit to Moscow, Kim and Park went to Beijing, where they were received by Mao. The Chairman fully supported their plans and assured that all necessary assistance would be provided. Preparations for war have entered their final stage.

According to the Harper Encyclopedia of Military History, by the time the hot phase of the conflict began, North Korea had ten divisions with a total strength of 130 thousand people and had another 100 thousand reservists in reserve. It was armed with 180 aircraft (Il and Yak), 258 tanks (T-34), about 1,600 guns and mortars. The South Korean army consisted of eight divisions numbering about 100 thousand people (in addition, there were police forces in approximately the same number). The southerners experienced an acute shortage of tanks, combat aircraft, and 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 along Soviet lines 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 striking force of the KPA. The weaknesses were the youth and inexperience of the KPA personnel, and the insufficient training of the officer corps. Even among the high command, few received a systematic military education. At best, experience in guerrilla warfare or training in the 88th Brigade.

In the Republic of Korea, things were much worse. In conditions of constant internal tension, priority was given to the police force rather than the army. Its formation began in earnest only after the departure of American troops in 1949. The backbone of the officers were former soldiers of the Kwantung Army and soldiers of the Independence Army and the Army of the Shanghai Provisional Government, who often distrusted each other, since they had previously stood on opposite sides of the front line. Syngman Rhee did not particularly rely on his own strength and counted on the help of the Americans, rightly believing that in the event of a conflict, the South on its own would not hold out for long8.

In May 1950, a group of Soviet and North Korean officers under the leadership of General Nikolai Vasiliev drew up a combat plan. They planned to end the war in 50 days by hoisting the DPRK flag 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 twentieth, the North Koreans managed to assemble an impressive group at 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 go.

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 counter-offensive and would soon take Pyongyang. The seriousness of the situation was first realized by the American Ambassador John Muccio* who ordered the immediate evacuation of American citizens.

Syngman Rhee realized what was happening only on the night of June 26, and called the commander of American forces in the Pacific, General Douglas MacArthur in Tokyo. He was sleeping peacefully. The adjutant refused to wake him, to which Lee shouted: “The American citizens in Korea will die one by one, but I wish the general pleasant dreams!” - and hung up. A day later, he was 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 Seoul residents had time to evacuate. People crawled to the other side over their ruins.

Wartime dictated its terms, and the leadership scheme of North Korea changed dramatically. On June 26, at a meeting of the Political Committee of the TPCC Central Committee, the Military Committee of the DPRK was formed as the highest state governing body. Kim Il Sung became its chairman. It also included Deputy Chairman Park Hong-yong, Hong Myung-hee and Kim Chak, Defense Minister Choi Yong-gon, Interior Minister Park Il-woo and Chairman of the State Planning Committee of the DPRK Chon Chun-thaek. 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! - he began his radio address to the nation in Stalinist style. - On June 25, the troops of the puppet treacherous Synman government began an offensive along the entire front into the territory located north of the 38th parallel. The courageously fighting security detachments of the republic took on the enemy's blow and, in stubborn battles, stopped the advance of the puppet army of Syngman Rhee. Having discussed the current situation, the DPRK government ordered our People's Army to launch a decisive counteroffensive and defeat the enemy's armed forces. Fulfilling the order of the government of the Republic, the People's Army drove the enemy back from the territory located north of the 38th parallel and advanced 10–15 kilometers to the South, thus liberating the cities of Onding, Yenan, Kaesong, Pyakchen and a number of other settlements.”9

The North Korean army was rapidly moving forward. Already on June 28, on the third day of the war, Seoul was taken, and the DPRK banner soared over the former residence of Syngman Rhee. The 3rd and 4th divisions and the 105th tank brigade, which distinguished themselves during the capture of the city, received the honorary name “Seoul”, and their commanders and military personnel were presented with awards.

Soon a new life began to improve in the city. 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 their “liberation from the fascist yoke of the traitorous Syngman Rhee clique” and calling on 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 returned. Pak Hon-yong left for the city, and his comrade-in-arms, Lee Seung-yop, the Minister of Justice of the DPRK and one of the leaders of the local faction, was appointed mayor. The new government was unable to establish normal life and the work of factories during the war. According to South Korean historian Kim Sung-chil, the city stopped centralized food supplies, introducing a coupon system only for civil servants. As a result, many Seoul residents went hungry10. Park and Lee suppressed any discontent with an iron fist. It soon became clear that something had to be done with the one and a half million residents of the city. Kim decided to conscript part of the population into the army, use part of it in the industrial enterprises of the North, and resettle part of the population to the countryside.

North Korean biographers of Kim write that he visited Seoul several times, supervised transformations in the KPA-occupied provinces of the South, and even personally went to the front line to re-educate commanders “infected with sycophancy and clinging to fighting methods that did not meet the conditions of Korea”11.

Despite the success of the offensive, from the first days of the war the KPA faced serious problems. Shtykov wrote to Moscow that communication between headquarters, divisions and other units was immediately lost; commanders often acted at their own peril and risk. In addition, the command staff turned out to be inexperienced in combat and poorly organized the use of artillery and battle management.

After the capture of Seoul, the troops unexpectedly paused for several days without developing an offensive. This fact is interpreted in different ways, explaining it by difficulties in transport advancement, difficulties with command and control of troops and, finally, the confusion of Kim and his comrades due to the fact that a general uprising did not begin in the country and the final fall of the Syngman Rhee regime did not occur. . In any case, valuable time was lost. Stalin, who was closely following events, anxiously asked Shtykov why there was no information about progress, and insisted that the offensive should be continued immediately.

In the meantime, the situation has changed radically. The Americans intervened in the war. Upon learning of the outbreak of hostilities, President Harry Truman, according to eyewitnesses, exclaimed: “In the name of the Lord God, I am going to teach them a lesson!” Washington concluded: “Uncle Joe” is trying to test the strength of the Western powers. If we cede Korea to the Reds today, then tomorrow the Soviets will try to take over the whole world.

Truman, who later called the decision to participate in the Korean War the most difficult of his presidency, did not hold a long debate in Congress about declaring war on the DPRK, but chose to act through the United Nations. He always attached great importance to the UN as a structure capable of resolving international conflicts. Now this was all the more convenient because the USSR boycotted meetings of the Security Council, protesting that China was represented at the UN by the Kuomintang government, and not by the Communists. On June 26, an urgent meeting of the Security Council adopted a resolution condemning the North Korean attack and called for the withdrawal of troops beyond the 38th parallel. That same day, Truman ordered the use of the U.S. Air Force and Navy in the Far East to support South Korea. American planes began to strike at advancing North Korean troops.

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 L'Humanité, Kim Il Sung argued that if not for foreign intervention, the war would have ended already. He was not far from the truth: the fate of Syngman Rhee and his regime was sealed, but thanks to the intervention of the UN, the war lasted for three long years, killing millions 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. The UK, France, Taiwan, Cuba, Ecuador, Norway, and the USA voted in favor. Against - Yugoslavia. India and Egypt abstained. The formation of an international coalition under the UN flag has begun. A total of 16 countries 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 tall Ethiopians, half-wild Algerians from the French battalion, Turks who were fluent in the art of bayonet fighting, Thais who masterfully wielded knives and other “close combat” 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. Seventy-year-old General Douglas MacArthur became the commander-in-chief of the UN forces.

Douglas MacArthur (1880–1964) was born in the American outback, in Arkansas. His father was a military man; since childhood he was accustomed to traveling to garrisons and could not imagine any other career other than military service. Douglas managed to enter the prestigious military school West Point and graduate with honors. At the end of World War I, he saw action in France and became the youngest general in the 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 the defeat of his former comrades - veterans of the First World War. During the Great Depression, authorities stopped paying them cash benefits. Many lost their livelihood. 15 thousand veterans went to Washington to seek the truth, where they held demonstrations and rallies. MacArthur, tasked by President Herbert Hoover with the task of solving the problem, immediately took action and attacked their camp with regular troops. In the “Battle of Anacostia,” several dozen peaceful protesters were killed and hundreds were wounded. The general himself stated that, no less than: “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 involved in creating 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 of the archipelago - Luzon). In December 1941, the Philippines was attacked by the Japanese. In the midst of heavy fighting, Napoleon of Luzon abandoned his troops and flew to Australia. The remnants of his army surrendered, where tens of thousands of soldiers and officers died. However, three years later he managed to win back. At the beginning of 1945, the Americans cleared the Philippines of the Japanese, and in the fall he already accepted Japan's surrender on board the battleship Missouri in Tokyo. It was MacArthur who led the American occupation forces in Japan, becoming the sovereign master of the country. He added a new one to his titles - the media began to call him Proconsul of the East.

For millions of Americans, MacArthur was a national hero. Therefore, President Truman, although wary of him because of the general's political and personal ambitions, did not think long. In fact, he had neither time nor choice. MacArthur received orders 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 throw out the North Koreans, and if the Russians interfere, we will throw them out too,” said Major General John Church upon arriving in the temporary capital of the PK Daejeon14. However, the reality turned out to be completely different.

The country's ancient capital, Daejeong, was the next target for North Korean troops. The operation to capture the city was given exceptional importance. By order 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 take the city with tank chains in a pincer movement from both sides and create a “cauldron” there for American and South Korean troops.

On July 5, Americans and North Koreans met on the battlefield for the first time. A column of tanks from the 105th Brigade and soldiers from the KPA 4th Infantry Division approached the village of Osan between Seoul and Daejeon. 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 hit several cars, but the rest went ahead. Then North Korean infantry moved in and began pursuing the Americans. By evening, some of them were killed, others retreated through the surrounding rice fields.

On July 8, Kim Il Sung spoke on the radio again. 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 them to unite against the external aggressor:

“The American imperialists have launched an armed attack on our homeland and our people. Their aircraft barbarously bomb the cities and villages of our country, killing civilians. The naval squadrons of the American imperialists, who illegally invaded our territorial waters, are mercilessly shelling our coastal cities and villages, and units of American troops that have landed on the yet unliberated part of our homeland are trampling our native land with their bloody boots, expanding the front, frantically trying to stop the advance of our army to the south, committing all sorts of atrocities...

In this sacred struggle for the freedom and independence of the homeland, may the warriors of our People's Army and all our people be inspired to heroic deeds by the glorious deeds and valor of our ancestors - commanders Ylti Moon Daek, Kang Gam Chan, Lee Sun Sin and others, who selflessly defended our homeland from foreigners 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 up! Let us complete our just liberation struggle with victory, so that the glorious banner of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea will develop in Busan, Mokpo, Jiedyu Island, and Mount Hannansan.

Forward to victory! Long live a free and independent Korea!”15.

The source of inspiration is immediately visible. 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 Daejeon Offensive, 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, of which he destroyed 40,671 over the course of three long years.

The KPA's next goal was to reach the Naktong River and capture the cities of Daegu and Gimcheon, which opened the way to Busan. 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 North. In Busan, overcrowded with refugees and soldiers, panic began. Everyone who could tried to evacuate to Japan. It seemed that victory was already close.

However, here the North Koreans encountered stubborn resistance from the Allied troops. The KPA soldiers were already exhausted to the limit. And the enemy constantly brought 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 aircraft dominated the air, bombing both KPA troops and the territories they occupied, as well as the cities of the DPRK. The new commander of the American ground forces, General Walton Walker, who resembled a bulldog in his habits and appearance, was categorical: “We are fighting a battle for time. They are fighting for space. We have no other line to fall back to. The retreat to Busan would be the greatest meat grinder in history. We must fight to the end."16 Desperate attempts by the North Koreans to launch an offensive on Busan were stopped, and by September 8 the KPA was forced to go on the defensive.

On the same day, Kang Gun died from a bomb explosion. The talented military leader, a graduate 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 chief of staff of the KPA, went on a visit to the USSR, the 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 we had to fight not with Syngman Rhee, 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 task - 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 progress 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 asked how the Korean leaders reacted to American air raids on North Korean areas, whether they were afraid or continued to hold 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 was directing all efforts towards a further broad offensive in the South. However, some leading figures, including Kim Doo 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 USSR's position on this issue.

On July 7, after the first clashes with the Americans, the number of those wavering increased: “Some of the leadership began to fear for the success of their troops in combat operations against the American troops landing in Korea. Only a small group of leaders (Kim Il Sung, Kim Chak, Park Il Woo) show confidence and calm.

In a conversation with me, Kim Il Sung, frankly, said that it was difficult for him, since many ministers - Kim Doo Bong, Kim Dar Hyun - were cautiously expressing fears for the outcome of the war in connection with the American intervention.

He further reported that Kim Doo Bong visited him daily and asked what actions the Soviet government intended to take; and Pak Hong-yong directly raised 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 was already starting to get nervous.”17

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 he had no reason to go to Seoul without advisers, since he was not able to lead the troops. For the first time in all the meetings, Shtykov saw Kim so “upset and somewhat confused.” 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 KPA front headquarters, 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 Soviet military personnel 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, during the entire period of hostilities they never crossed the 38th parallel.

But Stalin made efforts on another issue - reviving 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 was 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 with everything necessary 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 troops under American attacks. “Kim Il Sung has been in a somewhat depressed state lately. He is very worried about the bombing of industrial facilities and railways by American planes. transport, declaring that the Americans will destroy the entire industry and we will not be able to create such factories for a long time. And now, due to the intensification of raids on troops, he is worried that we have nothing to cover the troops with,” Shtykov wrote.

However, Stalin responded only with words of support: “In such a war there are no complete successes. There were no continuous successes for 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 it has allies who are and will continue to help it. 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”18.

It is unlikely that these words, instead of the real help that 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 should be delivered to the extended KPA communications. For an amphibious landing behind enemy lines, he chose Incheon Bay on the west coast of Korea, not far from Seoul. The factor of surprise was to be decisive. An attack here was considered unlikely, since only a few hours a day were suitable for landing, and during this time the coastline was filled with liquid mud. Incheon was defended by only 3 thousand North Koreans, and the island of Wolmi, 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 begin 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 at Inchon and moved towards Seoul. At the same time, the US 8th Army went on the offensive from the Busan bridgehead. Seoul fell on September 24. Soon the two fronts united, and in early October the Allies reached the 38th parallel.

The question of whether to move fighting to the North, was discussed in the American establishment and at the UN. The successfully launched offensive led to the fact that in both cases the point of view of the “hawks” prevailed: to move forward until the communists were completely defeated. 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, and to assist the UN in creating a unified, independent and democratic government of Korea.

Kim Il Sung, however, was not going to give up. “If necessary, I’ll go back to the partisans in the mountains,” he told 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 our forces to crushing blows against the enemy.” It became dangerous to remain in Pyongyang, 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.

During these difficult days, Soviet citizens heard very unpleasant words addressed to them. In a conversation with one of the military specialists, the head of the army’s political department, 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 Yup in Kim Il’s place, fortunately he had to be relieved of his duties as mayor of Seoul.

The Allies advanced in two main directions: towards Pyongyang and further to the Amnok River, and along the east coast - to Wonsan and Chongjin. MacArthur used his favorite tactics of air and water landings. On October 20, American planes dropped a large group of paratroopers north of Pyongyang, near Sukchen. General Mu Jeong, who was defending the city, chose 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, as MacArthur had hoped.

From October 20 to 25, the amphibious assault was landed in the port of Wonsan. By this time, however, the South Koreans were already in the city. The Americans lost a lot of time clearing the water area of ​​mines. After a successful landing, the troops moved to the northern regions of the DPRK, towards the Soviet border.

On October 24, the allies reached Amnok in separate areas. The South Koreans took a flask of water and sent it to Syngman Rhee, and the Americans, in their military tradition, urinated in the river. It seemed that MacArthur's words that the war would end by Thanksgiving (November 23) and that 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 interfere in the conflict. However, neither he nor his interlocutor knew about the intense negotiations that took place in those October days between Kim, Mao and Stalin.

Back on September 29, Kim Il Sung and Pak Hong Yong addressed a letter to the Soviet leader: “At the moment the enemy troops cross north of the 38th parallel, we really need direct military assistance from the Soviet Union. If for some reason this is not possible, then provide us with assistance in creating international volunteer units in China and other people's democracies to assist our struggle."19

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 far from Moscow on vacation and somewhat disconnected from the events in Korea. However, from the information I received today, I see that the situation among 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 have never had such a habit,” Kim told the Chinese ambassador that same day. He gave Mao a telegram in which he expressed the hope that the People's Liberation Army would provide direct assistance in the fighting.

On October 3, Premier of the State Council and Minister of Foreign Affairs of the People's Republic of China Zhou Enlai invited the Indian Ambassador 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 US authorities and was ignored by them. MacArthur was confident that 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 comrades from the CPC Central Committee before making a decision. Over a cup of green tea, the pros and cons were endlessly discussed and weighed. Opinions differed radically on the issue of the Korean War. Opponents of intervention had compelling arguments: China had just ended a decades-long civil war. It was necessary to restore the country that was in ruins, and not to fight such a strong enemy as the Americans.

Zhou Enlai argued that an active offensive is the best defense. Mao also leaned toward helping Kim Il Sung, believing that the Chinese "would feel heavy at heart if they only stood by and watched while another nation was in crisis." The Chairman's point of view ultimately prevailed. On October 13, Zhou informed Stalin about the decision taken immediately move troops to Korea. Leaning back in his chair, he said with satisfaction: “After all, the Chinese comrades are good, they’re 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 please Stalin”20. One can hardly agree with this statement. For both pragmatic and ideological reasons, China could not remain aloof. It was the Korean direction that was most vulnerable to him. The presence of American troops on the border of Manchuria, from where the northeastern regions of the country and the capital were in danger, could not be allowed. The presence of Chiang Kai-shek’s troops in Taiwan, 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 and teeth, like gates and houses,” Chinese political parties and organizations said in a statement. By breaking 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 abandon the Korean communists to the mercy of fate. The leader of Manchuria, Gao Gang, said in February 1951: “We must proceed from the fact that the existence of Korea and the existence of China are phenomena of the same kind, that both of 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 seemed like a kind of debt that big China was repaying to its small neighbor. Moreover, the debt is double. After all, Kim Il Sung, firstly, was a member of the CPC for ten years and fought with his unit as part of the United Anti-Japanese Guerrilla Army for the freedom and unity of China, like many other Korean partisans. Secondly, immediately after the liberation of North Korea by Soviet troops and the creation of the KPA, he sent detachments of volunteers who actively participated in the hostilities to China to help the communists.

In order not to be drawn into 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 Chinese-North Korean coalition, and the volunteer units were led by Marshal Peng Dehuai.

Peng Dehuai (1898–1974) was a native of Hunan Province and a fellow countryman of Mao Zedong. He was born into a simple peasant family. He spent his childhood in poverty: after the death of his parents, he became a beggar, worked in a mine and on construction sites. At the age of less than 18 he entered the military service- first to the army of local militarists, and then to 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 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 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 creation of the People's Republic of China, he was appointed a member of the Central People's Government, 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 valued 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 crossing the border. Peng informed Kim that there were 260 thousand people under his command, and in the future their number was planned to increase to 600 thousand. They were supposed to act together with units of the KPA, which at that time numbered about 100 thousand fighters. The Chinese-North Korean coalition had a noticeable advantage in manpower, but was significantly inferior to its allies in the number of tanks, large-caliber guns and aircraft.

A song was composed about Chinese volunteers in Korea (known in Russia, performed by Yegor Letov and “ Civil Defense»):

Through the mountains on grass and sand, Past the quiet steppe Manchu villages, To the waters of the blue river Amnokkan The young volunteer was walking. He was coming towards us, that young Chinese man, Our brother was coming to help us in battle, To help us cope with trouble: Drive the Americans away!

And off they went! The Chinese turned out to be an extremely unpleasant enemy for the UN troops. They were poorly armed and equipped, but unpretentious and hardy. Soldiers and officers wore simple, strict uniforms without insignia, thereby emphasizing the equality of all volunteers. The fighters were mostly wearing sneakers. In the icy winter of 1950/51, to prevent their feet from freezing, they rubbed them with pepper - and quickly and silently moved long distances - up to 25 kilometers per night. The Chinese were excellent at camouflage and knew how to go without food for a long time. And in the attack they took it by surprise. They did not conduct an offensive in the traditional sense of the word, but infiltrated through the front line in small groups, surrounded enemy units and attacked them at night, suddenly swooping in with torches, whistles and shouts. In essence, the Allies were faced with a huge army fighting using guerrilla methods. And it took them a long time to learn how to effectively resist it.

Air support, as Stalin promised, 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 and 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 structures and bridges on Amnok, as well as the border areas of the DPRK. At the same time, they were prohibited from fighting over the sea, appearing south of Pyongyang and beyond the 38th parallel. For secrecy in the air, they had to talk in 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 the raid on October 8, when two fighters invaded airspace USSR and bombed the Sukhaya Rechka airbase near Vladivostok. After the incident, Washington issued an official apology, but a bitter feeling remained.

The newest Soviet jet fighter at that time, the MiG-15, quickly gained air superiority, showing its superiority over the American F-80 Shooting Star, F-84 Thunderjet and F-86 Saber. The best Soviet aces Nikolai Sutyagin and Yevgeny Pepelyaev shot down 21 and 20 enemy aircraft, respectively, during the war. American pilots nicknamed the area from the Amnok River to the Cheongchon River “MiG Alley”, 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 helped organize 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.

The Soviet people closely monitored the situation in Korea. The Korean topic was the main one on the pages of the press. Newspapers en masse published 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 achieve Good luck in their brazen undertaking. I, like everyone else, raise a cry: Get out of Korea, murderers!

However, not everyone shared the point of view of the party and government. As recorded by the competent authorities, state farm worker G. Grichuk 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 by waging a war in Korea. The Americans will defeat the communists in Korea, then they will begin to destroy this infection throughout the globe.” And the rabbi of the Vladikavkaz synagogue N. Denenberg even argued 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 conviction under the notorious Article 58.10 and sending to a camp.

On October 25, the Chinese-North Korean coalition launched its first strike against the allies. And from the end of November, an offensive began in the South along the entire front. “The Chinese are already here. The Third World War has arrived!” - General Church exclaimed after one of their surprise attacks. Allied troops were often surrounded. “Gentlemen, we are not retreating, we are simply advancing in a different direction,” the officers cheered. However, when advancing in the opposite direction, they suffered huge losses. The situation was worsened 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 was no strength left to defend 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, elements of General Almond's 10th Division had to be transported from the port of Hungnam to Pusan ​​by ship. This largest sea evacuation in US history reminded many of Operation Dynamo, when in 1940, British and French units, pinned ashore at Dunkirk by German troops, were hastily transported by sea to Great Britain.

During the volunteer offensive, UN troops lost about 23 thousand people killed, wounded and captured. The Chinese and North Koreans also suffered heavy losses. They didn’t even save Mao’s own son.

28-year-old Mao Anying died in late November during an American air raid on Peng Dehuai's headquarters, where he served as a translator. Anyin was brought up in the Ivanovo boarding school 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 to the military academy and, at the end of the war, to the 2nd Belorussian Front, where he participated in 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. His father did not stop him.

Upon learning of the death of his eldest son, Mao sat in a chair for several days, smoking cigarette after cigarette. He became haggard and thinner, but didn’t show it. “That’s how war is, it can’t happen without casualties... A simple soldier died, there’s no need to make a special event out of it, because it’s my son.”

This incident, as well as 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 evokes respect. And they both pitied their sons; they simply believed that the leader had no right to show weakness.

The entry of the Chinese into hostilities has sparked a debate 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 bombing of its territory. Possibility of use nuclear weapons Truman did not rule it out either. As a result, such a scenario was abandoned, but not at all because of humanism. Washington's main priority remained containing the USSR. On the one hand, there were not so many nuclear bombs to scatter in Korea. On the other hand, the inevitable spread of the war to China in this case would involve the United States, as one of the generals put it, “in the wrong war, in the wrong place, at the wrong moment and with the wrong enemy.”

The issue of the Americans using bacteriological weapons, of which they were accused by the DPRK and the USSR, has not been completely clarified. But bombs filled with white phosphorus, thermite and napalm were actively used. In the movie Apocalypse Now, there is a famous scene of the jungle being destroyed by napalm during the Vietnam War. However, long before this, in Korea, American pilots flooded villages and cities with it, burning their inhabitants alive. Soviet diplomat Viktor Tarasov recalled what the city of Sinuiju looked like before and after the “chemical treatment” from the air: “I didn’t want to leave Sinuiju. The city already seemed like its own, albeit temporary, home. I explored its central streets, small restaurants that served unpretentious local snacks of chicken and kimchi - juicy Korean cabbage and beans, sprinkled with liquid soy... But what soon happened to Sinuiju was difficult 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 mercilessly doused the city around the circumference with a sea of ​​napalm and then methodically, block by block, swept away all living things. All around lay scorched and dead earth, in places covered with frost after the cold night.”23.

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 the military advisers should be primarily responsible. After discussing the Korean issue 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, blaming 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 significance 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 prediction of ways of its development show the depth of his strategic thinking. And the mistakes that he pointed out to Shtykov and Vasiliev took place. Someone had to answer for the defeat of the USSR satellite country. However, it is also obvious that the DPRK could not resist the United States and the allied coalition alone. And our military advisers, who did not even have the right to travel 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 removed from their duties “for miscalculations in their work that emerged during the counter-offensive 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 close and even become friends. “Well, apparently, I also need to resign from the post of commander-in-chief,” he said to Shtykov at parting24.

Stalin's punishment was not particularly severe. Shtykov was demoted to the rank of lieutenant general and fired from the ranks of the USSR Armed Forces, but he continued his party career, becoming deputy chairman of the executive committee of the Kaluga Regional Council. Later Terenty Fomich was restored to military rank, worked as first secretary of the Novgorod regional party committee, and then returned to Far East as First Secretary of the Primorsky Regional Committee of the CPSU.

Lieutenant General Vladimir Razuvaev was appointed new ambassador and concurrently head of military advisers. A native of the Kursk region, a front-line soldier, during the Great Patriotic War, 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. This is the logic of the system: either the leader will find and punish the culprits, or the leader himself will quickly be appointed guilty. Kim Il Sung solved this important task at the Third Plenum of the Central Committee of the WPK of the second convocation, which opened on December 21 in the city of Kang. He gave a long, devastating speech, criticizing many high-ranking party members and military personnel. The report was so harsh that it was published with cuts.

Summing up the results of the five months of 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 army, the assistance received from the fraternal peoples of the USSR and China, and the heroism of the Korean people, which became “the banner of the liberation movement of the peoples of colonial countries.” In addition, he noted, during the war the KPA gained serious combat experience, and the enemy’s difficulties were increasing.

The list of shortcomings that led to defeat at the first stage of the war was much more extensive:

not enough reserves were prepared;

the army and its leadership are young and inexperienced;

in military units discipline is weak and orders are often not followed;

the enemy was often driven out of positions rather than his manpower destroyed;

units are not ready to conduct combat in specific conditions with the enemy’s technical superiority, and do not know how to conduct mountain and forest battles;

Supply work in the rear is insufficiently organized; many pests have penetrated into the rear units;

Political work in the troops is poorly developed.

The last point was addressed to the head of the army's political department, Kim Il. Shtykov's complaint about his arrogant conversation with the Soviet military expert had an effect. He was removed from all posts and expelled from the TPSC. “Not only did we not launch a fight against the capitulatory tendency, which was that supposedly without aircraft it is impossible to fight the enemy, moreover, Comrade Kim Il himself, who was responsible for political work in the army, adhered to the same tendency,” said the Supreme Commander-in-Chief25. (After some time, he reinstated Kim Il in the party and returned all his regalia to him.)

Among the culprits, Kim named representatives of all party groups. The Yan'an resident My Jong aroused particular anger when he surrendered Pyongyang to the allies without a fight. Kim called him a coward and a capitulator, saying that he should face not just political disgrace, but a criminal sentence.

The “locals” and personally member of the Central Committee Ho Son Taek got it for the fact that a large guerrilla war was never launched in the rear of the southerners. Pak Hong-yong's last name was not mentioned, but everyone remembered the one who promised the never-to-be-happened 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. “During the current war, it has clearly become clear who is the true and who is the imaginary member of our party,” he concluded.

Kim Il Sung returned to the destroyed and burned Pyongyang at the very end of 1950. Since American air raids continued continuously and it was dangerous to stay in the houses, almost the entire population of the city moved into caves. The Pyongyang people themselves blew up their own dwellings in the rocks, extracting fuel 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 in the depths of Moran Hill in the center of Pyongyang. A whole town was set up there with living quarters, a command post and even a theater hall where official receptions, meetings and performances took place. Knowing this, American pilots constantly attacked Moran, trying to drop a bomb on the stairs so that she would roll down the steps. However, they failed to blow up the well-equipped fortification. According to the recollections of Sovinformburo representative Vladimir Tolstikov, Kim at that time behaved modestly and ate little: “In the morning, as a rule, a bowl of rice or corn and a glass mineral water. I didn’t drink tea or coffee at all, even at receptions.”26

Kim's other place of stay during the war was the headquarters of the High Command in the Sopo Valley, near Pyongyang. Here, in between work, he cultivated vegetables and fruits in the garden and received soldiers who had distinguished themselves at the front.

In January, Kim Il Sung's closest ally, Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the DPRK Kim Chak, died. Kim himself writes that he died in his office from cardiac paralysis. 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 faced the question of whether to cross the ill-fated 38th parallel again. “Strike while the iron is hot” was the informal advice of Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the USSR Andrei Gromyko to the Chinese Ambassador27. Needless to say that the cautious Andrei Andreevich expressed the opinion of the owner of the Kremlin, whose word was law? However, Mao also advocated continuing the offensive.

The new year of 1951 began with the flight of the South Korean units defending Seoul under pressure from 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 damn country?” - the American infantrymen cursed, looking at the Koreans scurrying from the battlefield. Neither the general's attempts to stop the soldiers, nor even Syngman Rhee's visit to the front line helped. And again, like six months ago, soldiers and refugees blocked bridges across the Han River, covered with thin, breaking ice. On January 4, Seoul was taken, and then Incheon. UN troops entrenched themselves twenty kilometers south of the former capital of PK.

Combat General Ridgway, who received the nickname Old Iron Tits in Korea for his habit of carrying hand grenades on his chest, adopted a new tactic - destroying the maximum amount of enemy manpower. No wonder they called her “meat grinder.” Using artillery, planes and tanks extensively, he began to gradually push the Chinese and North Koreans back to the 38th parallel.

In mid-March, Seoul was occupied by the Allies. Of the 1.5 million population, only 200 thousand remained in the city, most of the buildings were destroyed. To top it all off, a typhus epidemic began; corpses of the dead and murdered were strewn on the streets. As Time magazine wrote, “the fourth capture of Seoul was a sad job, something like the seizure of a grave.”28 By early April, UN troops controlled the entire territory of South Korea.

And again the 38th parallel... MacArthur and Syngman Rhee 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, the protracted fighting and the flow of coffins with the bodies of American soldiers did not contribute to the popularity of this war in America. MacArthur pointedly ignored the opinion of the White House, making statements about war to the bitter 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 on MacArthur’s resignation due to his failure to comply with the instructions of the president and the American government. General Ridgway was appointed to replace the "Proconsul of the East".

In April and May, the Chinese-North Korean coalition tried several times to go on the offensive. And each time the allies were let down by the South Korean troops, who immediately fled at the first enemy attacks. One of the most famous episodes of this period was the defense of the English Gloucestershire Regiment, which, due to the withdrawal of South Korean units, found itself surrounded, but held the occupied heights 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. Of the 800-man regiment, 40 survived.

By the beginning of summer, it became clear that both sides did not have the strength to dislodge the enemy from their occupied 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 Americans29. The decision was positive. On June 23, the Soviet representative to the UN, Yakov Malik, made a speech on the radio, proposing a ceasefire and the withdrawal of troops from the 38th parallel. Truman soon endorsed the Soviet initiative, and Ridgway sent a telegram to Kim and Peng Dehuai. He suggested meeting on board a Danish ship in the port of Wonsan. However, on the recommendation of Mao and Stalin, the northerners proposed the border city of Kaesong. The Americans agreed, and the first round of negotiations took place on July 10.

On the North Korean side, the delegation was headed by the new chief of staff of the KPA, the young General Nam Il. He came from Soviet Koreans, before moving to the DPRK he worked as the dean of the Pedagogical Institute in Samarkand and was considered one of the most intelligent military men in the leadership of the Korean army. In addition to him, the negotiators included two more Korean military officers and two Chinese generals. On the Allied side, the chief negotiator was Admiral Turner Joy, plus three other representatives from the American forces and one South Korean general.

From the very beginning, the dialogue took place in a very nervous atmosphere. Both sides sought to demonstrate their superiority and determination not to yield to the enemy in anything. In essence, the negotiations were a continuation of the fighting, only in the room, and not on the battlefield.

Arriving in Kaesong, Joy found a heavily armed "welcome party". He was seated at the negotiating table facing north opposite Nam Il (according to Korean tradition, the winner should face south). To top it all off, the admiral was given a low chair, while Nam Il, 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. Soon Joy noticed this and demanded a normal chair, but the necessary photographs 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 irreconcilability 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 countered that it seemed like the North Koreans were participating in the negotiations “without any sincere or serious intentions.”

By mid-August the dialogue had reached a dead end. 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 gave up their souls. Chinese General Zhi Fan referred to Joy as a “turtle egg,” and the Americans, in turn, referred to the North Korean and Chinese delegates as “sons of bitches” and “hypocritical savages.” Armed incidents often occurred in Kaesong, not far from the negotiation site, 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 spoke about the progress of the dialogue as follows: “... More than 40 days of Kaesong armistice negotiations have passed, and they still have not produced the desired results... Our delegation made clear proposals for the withdrawal of foreign 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 Songdowon through Kumchen to Kaesong, that is, they want to cut off an area equal to 1/20 of the entire Korea Square. It is clear that the enemies want to turn this extremely important militarily territory into a military bridgehead from here to launch a surprise attack on our republic and invade the People’s Republic of China and the Soviet Union.”30

After this, the negotiations were interrupted, and within a few days the Allies launched an offensive in the central and eastern part of the front. Particularly serious battles took place in the area of ​​strategic heights 1052 and 1211, which covered the Wonsan direction. The North Korean author tells how Kim Il Sung personally, “going through the gunpowder smoke,” went to height 1211 and led one of the battles. After which he called Corps Commander Choe Hyun and said heartfeltly: “All soldiers are an irreplaceable, priceless treasure, we must feed them warm porridge and hot soup, provide them with comfortable rest and surround them with heartfelt care so that they do not catch a cold, since it seems It’s already blowing cool.”31

The UN troops failed to take the heights and advance to the north. Several of its defenders received the title of heroes of the DPRK. Including Lee Su Bok, who covered an enemy machine gun with his chest, thereby repeating the feat of Alexander Matrosov.

At the end of October, negotiations resumed. They were now taking place in 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 exchange “everyone for everyone,” the second - “person for person.” According to the Americans, many Chinese prisoners expressed a desire not to return home, but to move to Taiwan, and the Koreans - to remain in the South. (It must be borne in mind that many of the southerners were taken into the KPA during the first North Korean offensive and then ended up in captivity in the South.) No one wanted to give in, and by the end of 1951 the negotiations again reached a dead end.

Truman was furious. “The free world has suffered enough. The Chinese must leave Korea and the Soviets must give Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania and Hungary their freedom and stop aiding the thugs who are attacking 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” - this was the note the American president left on January 27, 1952 years 33. Fortunately, these dreams remained only in his personal diary. But one cannot help but think that the North Koreans who called him a “fanatic”, “fascist” and “military 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. Wanting to force the enemy to accept the terms of the allies in the negotiations, he developed a plan to conduct massive bombing strikes on strategic DPRK facilities - power plants, factories, dams, government locations, KPA command posts, diplomatic missions, as well as troop positions and settlements. In June, the Americans bombed the hydroelectric power station complex on the Amnok River, leaving the DPRK and northeast China without electricity. In August, Kim Il Sung's headquarters in Sopo was destroyed. Kim himself was not there at that moment, but Ambassador Razuvaev almost died. In October, the complex of buildings of the USSR Embassy in Pyongyang was subjected to a massive bombing 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, Joseph Vissarionovich, on the following: based on general analysis situation in Korea, the possibility cannot be ruled out that the armistice negotiations could 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, without suffering almost any losses, continuously inflicts enormous damage on us in terms of manpower and material assets.

So, for example, only recently the enemy has disabled all the power plants in Korea and, through the active actions of the Air Force, is preventing them from being restored, which has brought and continues to cause enormous damage to the entire national economy of the DPRK. In just one day of barbaric bombing of the city of Pyongyang alone (on the 1st and on the night of July 12, 1952), over 6,000 civilians were killed and wounded.”34

Kim asked to strengthen 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, as well as to provide assistance in the form of supplies of 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 impact on the enemy.

Korean and Chinese fighters gave their response to the bombing. They began to burrow into the ground. The landscape of Korea in the region of the 38th parallel consists of hills surrounded by marshy rice fields. The soldiers turned each hill or hill into a fortified point, and battles took place for the possession of one or another height. In conditions when American planes rained down their deadly load on their positions every day, they began to cover the trenches from above with trees and soil, and dig “fox holes” for shelter from shelling. Gradually, branched systems of passages, weapons depots, and living quarters began to appear inside the hills. Sometimes they hid artillery in underground galleries and even fired at the enemy from there. Almost all work was done manually. What is even more striking is the fact that the 250-kilometer-long front included 500 kilometers of tunnels. And during the war, Chinese volunteers alone built more than 1,250 kilometers of tunnels35.

While providing for the front, entire enterprises in the rear also went underground, moving into caves and bunkers, mines and pits. Chairman of the Presidium of the People's Assembly of the DPRK and Secretary of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea, who later fled to the South, Hwang Zhang Yop, 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 and created a powerful network of underground communications with all life support systems”36. (Although this experience is also typical for other socialist countries. Suffice it to recall Enver Hoxha, who covered the whole of Albania with a network of bunkers.)

Another invention of the Chinese-North Korean coalition in military affairs was the emergence of squads 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 has proven its effectiveness. At the beginning of 1952, a meeting of exemplary groups of aircraft hunters was even held in Pyongyang, who entered into social competition among themselves in terms of the number of enemy aircraft shot down.

Thus, the war gradually 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 unclear why Stalin always left last word behind Mao and Kim, without imposing any scenarios on them. But it was the Soviet leadership, through its plenipotentiary representative to the UN, that was the first to propose starting peace negotiations.

All sides bear responsibility for the prolongation of the war, and Stalin is least of all to blame. Syngman Rhee, for example, generally opposed negotiations in principle. Kim formulated his position as follows: “We will respond to the enemy’s delay in negotiations with delays, to his military actions with military actions, we will agree to a truce if the enemy really wants it, but in no case will we accept unfair terms of the truce - this is our principle in the negotiations.” about the truce"38. The Americans and Chinese wanted an honorable truce, but on their own terms. The participation of several players at once, mutual persistence, bitterness and the desire to put the squeeze on the enemy became the reason for such a long path to concluding a truce.

While the guns were talking, party life went on as usual. In November 1951, the IV Plenum of the WPK Central Committee opened in Pyongyang. It was marked by the fight against “leftist excesses,” personified by the Secretary of the WPK Central Committee and the leader of the Soviet Koreans, Ho Ga I.

Kim Il Sung and Ho Ga Yi were classic antagonists. Kim could not stand this meticulous and boring apparatchik, a Marxist bureaucrat who went through the Soviet party school and looked down on poorly educated former partisans. They disagreed on how the party should be structured. Ho believed that the party should consist of no more than 60 thousand people, mainly industrial workers. And Kim called this kowtowing to other countries, which did not correspond to the real conditions of Korea, where the peasantry predominated. Thus, Ho defended the elitist nature of the WPK, while Kim was in favor of a 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 of 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, its hands were freed. And the reason was simply wonderful.

At the last plenum, Ho Ga Yi, who headed the Control Commission of the WPK, received a responsible assignment - to conduct an inspection of those party members who temporarily found themselves in the territories occupied by the Americans. Considering that UN troops controlled most of the country in October - November, 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 whether they had put them against the wall.

Nevertheless, Ho Ga Yi carried out 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 expelled 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 highlighted a number of shortcomings in his work, among which he called “closing the doors” to the party and the practice of imposing unreasonable penalties the key ones. The WPK “often does not accept workers and peasants due to 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 repression, conduct an audit and reinstate those unfairly expelled.

Kim ridiculed Ho for the fact that the “professor of party sciences,” while demanding heightened political awareness from others, could not even speak proper Korean himself. He accused him of trying to speak on behalf of all Soviet Koreans and falling into factionalism. And finally, he mocked the rivalry between factions: they say that Ho had a beef with the head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Park Il Woo, since one preferred the Soviet way of warfare, and the other the Chinese. An incredibly stupid argument during a national tragedy!

During the plenum, Ho Ga Yi was removed from the posts of general secretary of the party and head of its Control Commission. True, at the same time he received the position of deputy head of the Cabinet of Ministers, but this was a noticeable demotion. And most importantly, he lost the key function of working with party cadres.

Ho's final removal from the political scene occurred 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 duties. He was accused of negligence and slow progress in restoration work. On July 2, on the eve of a Politburo meeting that was supposed to discuss his mistakes, Ho Ga Yi was found dead in his home. He was lying in a child'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 murder40.

At the V 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. The WPK grew into a mass political party with over a million members 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 transfer to candidates were canceled, penalties were lifted from 69.2 percent of party members who received them.

New draft dodgers were immediately found. In his final speech, Kim Il Sung sharply criticized “sectarians and liberals,” although without naming anyone by name: “We have to admit the fact that such elements existing within the party are unpleasant, like fleas crawling on a person’s body and giving him no peace. To get rid of this trouble, one should take a bath and wash the clothes... In their speeches, many comrades resolutely demanded that sectarians and liberals openly 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 avoid severe punishment if they do not admit that they were engaged in sectarian or liberal activities today, when the entire party and the entire people have embarked on a mortal struggle against American imperialists"41. 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...” On the ceiling of the bunker, hidden in the depths of Moran Hill, an electric light bulb shone dimly. He looked at his watch; it was 8 am. Kim thought about it. I remembered the gifts of the “Father of Nations” - an armored railway carriage and a ZIL car with 8-centimeter 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 soft voice of the Kremlin highlander sounded in my ears. Stalin was right. There are many enemies, and the most dangerous of them are entrenched in the party. Factionalists are worse than Syngman Rhee.

An hour later, Kim was already sitting in his office and listening to the report of the head of state security, Pan 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 straight 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 leader’s orders and if he spoke, the conversation with him would be short.”

Kim was pleased. From the arrested minister, strings stretched to the second person in the WPK, the leader of the local faction, Park 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-young - Lee Seung-yup, who, having made their way into the party and government 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 of the documents of the November plenum of the WPK Central Committee and the campaign “for strengthening the party spirit”42. They were accused of spying for the United States and plotting against Kim Il Sung. Is it deserved?

Lee Seung-yeop (1905–1953) was born in South Korea into a poor family. At the age of 20, the young man became a member of the Korean Communist Party. In 1931 he was arrested and spent eight years in prison. As soon as he was 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 returned to his roots and became one of the leaders of the Communist Party of South Korea. During the years of Japanese rule, many communists were forced to cooperate with the regime, and therefore often turned a blind eye to the complex past of their comrades.

In 1946, he was arrested by American military authorities for the assassination attempt on Syngman Rhee. Under torture, he accepts an offer to work with American intelligence. Lee turned out to be an extremely valuable resource for her. After Park Hong-yong defected to the North, Lee became the head of the South Korean communists.

In 1947, he was arrested for the fourth time, this time by 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, by order of Pak Hong-yong, Lee moved to the North, where he received the post of Minister of Justice of the DPRK.

In 1950, American agents Alice Hyun and Lee Sa Min were detained at the Moscow airport, carrying secret military plans signed by Kim Il Sung. Extradited to the DPRK, they soon confessed to having connections with Lee Seung Yup. Alice also worked as Park Hong-young's personal secretary. And although the latter vouched for Lee Seung-yup and high-ranking party members were not touched, the North Korean intelligence services began to develop their surroundings. Perhaps it was the danger of being discovered that prompted Lee to intend to remove Kim.

Kim Yong-sik, who worked as a translator for the Americans during the war, and later wrote memoirs, directly calls Lee Seung-yup an American agent43. Seo Dae Suk dates the history of the conspiracy to September 1951, when Lee Seung Yup began preparing a military coup. For this, he was going to use 4 thousand cadets of a special school that trained personnel for partisan warfare in the South. The teachers and students there were from PK, and the management were close friends of Li. The conspirators divided the highest 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 discovered in time.

Many researchers argue that there was in fact no conspiracy, but that it was a matter of a banal purge - the elimination of Kim's competitors from the political scene. The same point of view is shared by A. Lankov, who points out the unreality of removing Kim with such small forces, especially during the war and when Chinese troops are in the DPRK.

The complicated case of the “Lee Seung Yup - Park Hong Young gang” is reminiscent of the “Tukhachevsky case” from Soviet history. Whether there really was 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, knowledgeable in the affairs of American intelligence services, claims that this attempt to eliminate Kim was not the only one. CIA Colonel Hans Tofti, who led a special training camp in Korea, recruited an Indian professional hunter to the United States who, for a small sum, agreed to cross the front line and destroy the North Korean leader. True, he never made it to Korea for an unknown reason44.

The war was entering its final stage. Harry Truman lost the presidential election in November 1952. The reason for the failure of the Democratic candidate was called four “Cs”: corruption, crime, communism, Korea. General Dwight Eisenhower, who replaced Truman in the White House, promised to end the war during his election campaign. Having become president, he personally traveled to Korea, where he became convinced that a full-scale offensive without gigantic efforts and sacrifices was impossible, and began to look for ways to resolve the conflict that was boring to 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, which recommended giving a positive response to General Clark’s proposal for the exchange of wounded and sick prisoners of war and continuing negotiations on an early conclusion of a truce. Kim Il Sung “became very excited” and supported the proposals of the Soviet side. In April, an initial exchange of prisoners was carried out, but then difficulties again arose in the negotiations.

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 into the fields. In response, Chinese-North Korean troops launched a new offensive along the entire front.

But the main obstacle to concluding a truce remained Syngman Rhee. The old man demanded the continuation of the war until a victorious end, and otherwise threatened to withdraw his troops from UN subordination. Moreover, Lee launched a new political campaign under the slogan of creating a Great 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 arose: during the negotiations, the parties fought not so much with each other, but with Syngman Rhee. And soon he completely took a step that almost derailed the negotiations - he gave the order to open the doors of the prisoner of war camps, allowing everyone who wanted it to be released. About 25 thousand people escaped from captivity.

“Is the UN Command able to control the South Korean government and army?” - the northerners mockingly asked after this at the negotiations. The Americans began to blackmail Lee, threatening to unilaterally withdraw troops from Korea. At the same time, the Chinese-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 that had crashed 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 an armistice, although he himself would not sign it. He subjected his consent to a number of conditions: American troops had to remain in the South, and the United States had to continue training the local army and allocate money to restore the country’s economy.

After this, the question arose whether Kim Il Sung should personally participate in its signing. The fact is that the village of Panmunjeong was located in territory controlled by the Allies. And, given the mood of Syngman Lee, provocations could well be expected. The Kremlin advised Kim 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 participants were Nam Il 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 warring parties were supposed to retreat two kilometers from the contact line, forming a Demilitarized Zone (DMZ). Even today it divides the two Korean states, being the most fortified border in the world.

Prisoners of war who wanted to return were immediately returned 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 historical victory won by the Korean people as a result of three years of heroic struggle for freedom and independence, against the combined forces of foreign interventionists and the treacherous Syngman Rhee clique.” He especially emphasized that the enemy had 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 - air force... And in this they cruelly miscalculated. They could not break our people, intimidate them with their military equipment. The Korean War once again showed that technology is not the only decisive factor in victory, that in order to win victory, superiority in combat alone is not enough. 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”45.

What were the results of the war for the DPRK and Kim Il Sung personally?

The main goal of the fighting - the liberation of the South from the regime of Syngman Rhee 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 defended (albeit with external assistance). According to the final agreement, North Korea lost a sparsely populated mountainous region in the southeast, but in the southwest it acquired much more populated territories, in particular the city of Kaesong and its environs, and also received the entire Onda Peninsula, leveling the border in this direction and bringing it closer to Seoul . So formally the DPRK remained in the black.

Politically, during the war years, Kim strengthened his power in the country and in the party. This was facilitated by the decline in the influence of the Soviet Union on Korean affairs due to non-participation directly in hostilities. If before 1950 the USSR's control over the DPRK was total, then during the war it weakened significantly. Of course, the death of Stalin and the subsequent establishment of collective leadership in Moscow also had an impact. The Chinese authorities did not interfere in the internal politics of the DPRK. 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 levels of the party hierarchy. Soviet and local faction leaders Ho Ga Yi and Park Hong Young lost their positions. Kim's tactically competent actions made it possible to take them out of the brackets in the 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 thousand industrial enterprises and 600 thousand 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 died.

As for the general results of the war, the data and opinions of historians vary to the point of being diametrically opposed.

In both Korean states, it is officially stated that each of them won, preserving its territory, independence and specific development. Summarizing these points of view, S. Kurbanov believes that both the DPRK and the Republic of Korea won the war.

The position of most American historians (for example, W. Stuke): the war was won by the Western coalition led by the United States. The fact with which the UN responded to the event and entered into the conflict, as well as the broad support of the allies (16 participating states), is usually emphasized.

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, and in terms of the number of destructions 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.