A Kimless North Korea.

I personally don't see the Soviet faction dominating, given the technocratic characteristics. The Domestic faction by itself had enough members to dominate the country, so without a central figure in the Manchurian faction we would see the Domestic ruling with the Soviet as partners, and the eventual takeover of the military from the Manchurian and Yanan. Of course, this is the conventional view, since we don't know how things might have gone.

Hmm, probably right. Though one of the main reasons the Soviets supported Kim IOTL was they didn't trust the domestic communists due to their early Comintern links. Lacking a candidate with Kim's perfect set of characteristics (in Soviet eyes at the time), I wonder who they'd go with.

Lacking Kim means that the returning Yanan group fighters may not be disarmed as they cross over from China as happened in OTL. That might lead to them remaining a serious power group within the military.

If Pak Hon-yong is all "Yeah bra the people in the South will totally rise up in support of us" like in OTL, and the Korean war happens in a somewhat similar way, then the Yanan faction might have an advantage. They can blame the domestic communists for the failure of the South to rise up, and remove them like Kim did OTL. If the Chinese intervened as OTL, then the Yanan group might be able to use their presence to back a power grab of their own. That would see a China-aligned DPRK during the 50s and 60s, which might have interesting effects.
 
You're forgetting the Sino-tributary angle

Korea has always defined itself with and against Japan and China, Marxist or not. Like in Vietnam, China is the imperial enemy (Vietnam invaded Cambodia and fought a war with China post-reunification.) The Yenan faction would HAVE to be wiped out, albeit with potentially miserable (Chinese punitive action) consequences. Without the Kims, Korea would try to find another way to define its own Party identity independent of China - either drawing closer to Russia or going its own way.

Speaking as a Southeast Asian, everyone around China has a long (millennia-long) suspicion of Chinese ambitions, and rightly so - China has historically seen all its neighbors as needing Chinese tutelage. Korea and Vietnam date their initial independence to the throwing off of Chinese rule.
 
Korea has always defined itself with and against Japan and China, Marxist or not. Like in Vietnam, China is the imperial enemy (Vietnam invaded Cambodia and fought a war with China post-reunification.) The Yenan faction would HAVE to be wiped out, albeit with potentially miserable (Chinese punitive action) consequences. Without the Kims, Korea would try to find another way to define its own Party identity independent of China - either drawing closer to Russia or going its own way.

Speaking as a Southeast Asian, everyone around China has a long (millennia-long) suspicion of Chinese ambitions, and rightly so - China has historically seen all its neighbors as needing Chinese tutelage. Korea and Vietnam date their initial independence to the throwing off of Chinese rule.

Koreans distrust Japan even MORE due to the recent and brutal colonial rule there.
 
Korea has always defined itself with and against Japan and China, Marxist or not. Like in Vietnam, China is the imperial enemy (Vietnam invaded Cambodia and fought a war with China post-reunification.) The Yenan faction would HAVE to be wiped out, albeit with potentially miserable (Chinese punitive action) consequences. Without the Kims, Korea would try to find another way to define its own Party identity independent of China - either drawing closer to Russia or going its own way.

I have to disagree with this characterization of China as the imperial enemy, in the case of both Vietnam and Korea. Both of these nations modeled themselves on and considered themselves as followers of the Chinese civilizational model. Other than the largely ill-conceived war with Vietnam in support of the Le emperor notwithstanding, the Chinese in the last millenia had a largely peaceful and tight relationship with both Vietnam and Korea. The Koreans looked down upon the Qing as barbarians, it's true, but even so the Chinese were not seen as the enemy, but as the model for civilizational organization.

In the modern era, circumstances may or may not lead to friction between the DPRK and China, but it is not some fundamental characteristic.

Speaking as a Southeast Asian, everyone around China has a long (millennia-long) suspicion of Chinese ambitions, and rightly so - China has historically seen all its neighbors as needing Chinese tutelage. Korea and Vietnam date their initial independence to the throwing off of Chinese rule.

Not really, China has rarely had territorial ambitions against the regional Sinicized states, and compared to Europe's experience the conditions that prevailed under the Chinese tribute system were peaceful and prosperous for all involved. Korea and Vietnam's adoption of Chinese tutelage was a policy embraced and maintained by their elites, not imposed by the Chinese.
 
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