While true, this is dependent on the time period. In 1949, the US incorrectly accepted that Taiwan was a lost cause, and (probably) wouldn’t have made any effort to defend them (though perhaps I am wrong). Once the strait is neutralized, though, this 100% applies.
A Red Shrimp Among Whales-a North Korean Victory TL
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I'm expecting the Middle East will take advantage of the U.S and their western allies are distracted in Asia since Israel is literally depended on the west for it's protection and their economy. I kind of want to see a communist country in Latin America, besides Cuba since an pro-American dictator so... yeah, and in Africa, besides Angola, the Congo, and Mozambique.
I could be mistaken but from my understanding Israel didn't really start getting significant aid from the US until the late 60s and by then Israel had already long established itself as the strongest military in the region. I personally think that there is a real possibility that Iran falls into the soviet sphere and the soviets use Iran as a starting point to establishing influence in the middle east. When/if the Iraq monarchy falls I think the communists could be in much better position to take over or at least hold a seat at the table than irl which pretty much would gurantee a unstable Iraq which would be a nightmare for Great Britian.
Yes, the policy changed under Kennedy & LBJ. Relations under Eisenhower were relatively friendly at first, but Israel only got moderate amounts of economic aid, and after the Suez Crisis, only got food aid. Part of this was to keep Nasser out of the Soviet sphere, as the US didn't want to get too close to Israel to risk alienating him.
I have plans for Iraq, oh yes. Keep an eye on them and Syria.
Hm. I really am gonna need to write a chapter on the Middle East.
You will see some. I obviously won't say who just yet, of course, but I have plans.
Chapter 16: The Two Koreas
A/N: two things. First, this chapter will mostly focus on the changes in Korean society. Second, the images in this chapter decided to be a little fucky, so some captions will be a fair bit out of wack.
Chapter 16
Busan, 1953. It has been almost three years since this city was taken by the North, in the final step to unite the Korean peninsula under one banner. Upon uniting the peninsula, a 5 year plan was enacted, focused on rebuilding the South, and establishing “socialism” (their own idea of it, anyways) in the South. In these three years, the people of Busan have rebuilt this city, though it is taking quite a while to do so.Chapter 16
"Woman Builder", An idealized painting, depicting the reconstruction of Busan (by Kim Guang-Chol)
Seok’s day starts with her waking up, and making breakfast for her family. Seok, a mother of 4 boys, has to make a big breakfast for them, even with her somewhat limited pantry. A breakfast of rice, soup, and meat…. It’s as much as she can handle. How does she get the money for this breakfast? By working on the rebuild of the city. Backbreaking labor for barely any pay….. Nice. Soon, it’s time to get to work.
A woman sorting grain in Busan.
Seok’s work today is sorting grain for the labourers. Arduous and tedious, she does it while a Party banner hangs high behind her, encouraging her and the rest to unite as one, and rebuild their land. Seok’s day is dull and exhausting, but hey-she could have been an enemy of the state. Backbreaking work for little pay is like heaven compared to that life.
An issue of "Korean Woman".
After a hard day of work, she picks up a copy of the Korean Woman magazine, a monthly magazine published by the Women’s Socialist Union, which details the achievements of women in Korea. Filled with plenty of propaganda, it’ll be a good read for tonight at least. Next, it’s to the market.
A roadside market in Busan
Arriving at the market, Seok’s first goal is to get fruit and vegetables for her sons. Though Seok isn’t exactly rolling in money, she has just enough. She gets the fruit for her boys, along with a book for herself, and she brings it home.
Arriving home a bit later, Seok is happy to see she has some spare time. She enjoys a rest by the river behind her home, enjoying the peace and quiet. Her youngest son, Hyung-ki, joins her, and she decides to teach him how to fish. But after not catching anything, they instead just play in the river, before going inside for dinner.
A photograph of a random Korean family in the early 1950s
Cooking dinner for her family, Seok now finds the time to read by the fireplace, her youngest son sleeping on her lap. This is the only part of the day she enjoys. The love from her children, and the hope of a better future, are the only things that keep her going. But deep down she ponders…. Will it ever truly come?
Will life under the communists truly be any better than under Rhee?
Seoul, 1953
But what of life in the capital city? Good question. Ever since the 1952 steel strike, Seoul has been rather quiet. The Party has begun to initiate ambitious construction projects, and several statues of the war are created. Gang activity in Seoul is mostly eradicated by the new regime-mostly consisting of street gangs, Seoul also still had yakuza gangs from the Japanese occupation left over. All groups are destroyed by the KPA, and the criminals who aren’t sent to labour camps either hide in the shadows, or flee the country. Or, they just join the party. Whichever they prefer.
A military parade in Seoul
In general, Kim has begun to tighten his rule over the peninsula. Now at the end of the post-unification 3-year reconstruction plan, cooperative farming is introduced, with the ultimate goal of making the South into a breadbasket, and it successfully revives South Korean agriculture, and it is shockingly bloodless, especially in comparison to the collectivization processes in the Soviet Union and China, though the Korean peninsula remains a net importer of food, mostly from China and the Eastern Bloc. With aid from the Chinese and the Soviet Union, the DPRK begins to enact a plan to build an industrialised socialist economy in the South. A universal healthcare system is introduced, and the hospital system in the South is greatly expanded, and some reforms such as free housing are introduced. While many socialists and communists aren’t satisfied, and still deplore the tyrannical rule of Kim, many others are placated by these reforms, and the average Korean is content with them. The reforms also have an added benefit to Kim, as well: they increase his legitimacy to the Domestic faction, and get more of its members on his side, giving him more allies against the Yan’an faction and Pak Hon-yong.
Korean schoolchildren, photographed in the north.
Back North, things aren’t really any different than before, though there is sort of an influx of workers from the South, to get better job opportunities in the factories. Having suffered very little damage from the war, the North is 100% intact, and way ahead of the South. However, the North does see another major change: it becomes the main hub of Korean labour camps. Due to the heavily mountainous terrain, it’s easier to hide camps in the North, and this is where the brutal kwaliso system is most prominent. While the history of kwaliso is very hard to track down, the system is inspired by Stalin’s gulag system, and many opponents of the Kim regime meet their fates here, including gang bosses, suspected spies, and those who Kim sees as a threat. In these camps, political prisoners work from dusk til dawn, with no breaks, and are regularly beaten and far worse. While most prisoners are adult men, women and children aren’t exempt either, and even the elderly aren’t safe. Some of these camps also open in the South, but the mountains are the preferred choice. The camps are an open secret, with those sent to them being referred to as the “people who are sent to the mountains”.
Mural at the Pyongyang Art Studio.
Another new layer of Korean society comes through the cinema. While most of South Korea’s directors and acting talent fled to Japan & the US during the war, some were not able to do so, and were employed to make new films. While North Korea’s film industry remained intact, the South Korean industry took heavy damage, with many films becoming lost media, due to their reels being destroyed in the Battle of Seoul, as saving film reels is typically low on the list of priorities during war. However, Kim isn’t exactly interested in making the next Citizen’s Kane, or inviting Akira Kurosawa over to make an epic about the Imjin War. No, he has a better idea in mind: propaganda.
Cinema is, without a doubt, the best way to indoctrinate the people. Even in remote corners of Korea, a night at the movies is ideal to convince a young man to join the KPA, or to encourage a young woman to bear 12 children for Kim (and potentially BY him, considering his many infidelities). The North Korean film industry is nothing new, with the first movie made after the end of Japan’s occupation being the film My Home Village, directed by Kang Hong-sik in 1949. A war film portraying a romantic retelling of Kim’s resistance to Japanese rule, it is the film that began the young Jong-il’s love of film, a story goes that he critically evaluated the movie at the age of seven, telling the filmmakers that even he could tell the snow used in the film was cotton wood, and found it funny how none of the “snow” would ever be visible on the head and shoulders of the soldiers. It’s definitely in the top tier of believability, when it comes to such stories about young Jong-il.
What Jong-il seems to have ignored about the movie was the comically ridiculous propaganda, that doesn’t show even the Red Army’s arrival into the peninsula, and claims Sung-il liberated Korea all by himself, by….. Derailing a Japanese train. Wow, that was easy. The weak Americans needed to build the atom bomb to beat Japan, all Kim needed was some dynamite. The first masterpiece by the North Korean Spielberg, Kang Hong-sik!
And this is how most early Korean films were. With Seoul’s movie theatres being rebuilt, several movies about the war are made, such as Boy Partisans, Again To the Front, Valiance and Iron, Little Partisan Girl, and March to Busan [1]. Most of the films are quite low budget, and filmed on relatively cheap equipment, though one movie becomes the cream of the crop: The Great Unifier, a film about Kang Kon’s generalship in the war. Supervised by Kim and Kang both, the movie is shockingly well done, and due to Kang’s supervision, is more accurate than most retellings. It mostly focuses on his concussion, and subsequent leadership during the Siege of Busan. While certainly not a great movie, a movie critic in the 90s would describe the movie in a video on 50s Korean film:
“Of all the crap the Korean regime would make in the 50s, The Great Unifier is the closest thing to a competent film. It isn’t overtly ridiculous, and due to the supervision of its actual subject, it’s not 100% lies. The climax with Truman contemplating suicide in the White House is so absurd that it has to be seen to be believed, however.”
Next, there is the subject of literature. Heavily inspired by Russian and Soviet literature, early Korean literature is inspired by Marxist-Leninist thought, and on the resistance to Japan and the unification of the peninsula. Il-Sung, being a huge fan of literature, gives literary arts the most freedom of any media in Korea, as while the authors still have to follow the rules, they’re ultimately given far more creative freedom than movie directors. The books are typically described as “socialist realism”, and typically feature an ideologically pure protagonist who the reader is (normally unsubtly) told to admire and learn from. A typical theme involves the protagonist scolding labour in favour of the ease of bourgeois life, but by the end learning these people don’t do this hard labour because they’re bad people-but because they want to! Or at least, the soldiers tell them they want to.
Han Sorya, meeting with Soviet soldiers in 1952.
The most prolific writer in Korea in the 50s is Han Sorya. An admirer of Kim Il-sung, he writes several stories that play strongly into the personality cult of Kim. His most notable work is the novella “Jackals”, published in 1951, about an American missionary who burns a little boy[2]. With strong anti-American and anti-Christan sentiment, the book holds a major significance in Korea, and the term “jackal” even becomes a derogatory term towards Americans, especially when the UN intervenes in Indochina.
Han Moo-sook
Beyond that, South Korean literature doesn’t just disappear. While works deemed “impure” are banned, some South Korean novels remain legal. For example, the works of An Sugil, which depict the laborious, happy, peaceful lives of Koreans living in Manchuria. The optimistic, cheerful works of the housewife Han Moo-sook are also promoted, due to her housewife status and the subject of her works. The winner of several literary contests in the 1940s, her short stories remain popular among Koreans to this day, especially her 1950 work, “When the Soldiers Sang in Victory”, a celebration of the unification of Korea.
Music is another interesting facet of Korean culture. At the time of the unficatition, by far the most popular genre on the Korean peninsula is trot (pronounced teuroteu), a genre distinctive for its repetitive rhythm and vocal inflections. While the regime regulates music, only allowing “ideologically correct” lyrics, many artists find ways to skirt around the regulations, making “correct” choruses, but writing songs that, overall, have very little to do with the regime. Music is a large exhibit into showing how hard enforcing the rules will be on so many people, as many artists just make the music they want, and release it underground.
Aside from trot, Western music is banned by the Kim dynasty. Jazz music, in particular, is considered “out of bounds”, and new genres such as rock and roll and rockabilly are quickly banned, to avoid “corrupting” the youth. Despite this, jazz music still inspires many Korean musicians, and they find ways to blend it in with the accepted forms of music.
Next on the creative side is manhwa. While most filmmakers escaped from the war, most manhwa artists either couldn’t escape in time, or just didn’t mind, and stayed in Korea. These are also taken advantage of by the government, and are used as yet another way to spread propaganda to the people. While South Korean manhwa initially focused on stories of romance and childhood….. Yeah, most now began to focus on the army. Shocking, huh? However due to manhwa’s versatility, it’s given slightly more lax rules than cinema, to aid indoctrination of children, which is the main audience for it[3]. Some manhwas focus on heavily-censored romance, usually with girls in mind, and some focus on history. But also, the government finds manhwa harder to police than cinema, and some underground artists write stories critical of the government. These are mostly distributed at universities, and read by college students. Distribution and ownership of unregulated works is illegal, but relatively easy to get away with.
Two different pictures of manga and manhwa shops in Korea
A pansori performer in the present day.
In a more minor note here, Korean animation also begins to get funding by the government, but it remains very small in 1953, mostly only used for child-focused advertising and propaganda. Though the Kim regime is aware of the immense potential of the animation industry, and Kim and his children are fans of MGM cartoons, it’s a low priority for now. But Kim does make it clear he wishes to form an animation company, and funding goes into teaching talented Koreans how to draw.
Jeju City, 1953
Meanwhile, on Jeju. By this point, Jeju Island has essentially become a US-Japanese naval base, and it continues to be run by a tinpot dictatorship. Heavily militarised, much like the peninsula, the military is the main focus of the government’s attention. Basic needs and necessities are ignored in favor of building up an army and a navy, to defend the isle from a potential communist landing.
Jeju’s culture is essentially the same as the culture from South Korea, with local culture on the island being quickly displaced due to the influx of refugees. Culturally, the native Jeju people are put at a massive disadvantage. The Jeju language is discouraged by the new government, and schoolchildren are forbidden from learning nor using it in schools. Shamanism, which was still intact among the Jeju people, is also heavily suppressed, under the policy of misin tapa undong, with Buddhism and Christianity being encouraged in its stead.
Lee Beom-seok
Leadership wise, while much of the South Korean government fled to Japan, the US, and Australia, some of it went to Jeju instead. While local officer Kim Ik-Ryoel quickly took advantage of the situation and established power, he’s immensely unpopular among the locals, government, military, and the US. In 1953, he is silently deposed, and replaced by the first prime minister of South Korea, Lee Beom-seok. A much more capable and stable leader, Lee is unfortunately not a very good man, to say the least. A close ally of Syngman Rhee, Lee is a passionate follower of his ideology of Ilminism (One-People Principle), an ideology of racial supremacy and extreme anti-communism. However, with the communists on the island all dead, and the chances of retaking the peninsula impossible, Lee’s regime tries to focus on the former more, along with the heavy anti-Chinese sentiments of the ideology, which leads to them throwing what little weight they can behind the UN intervention in Indochina. Without Rhee around, Lee sees great potential to blaze his own path.
A photo of the first Christian church on Jeju, taken in 1907.
Kim Du-han, former gang leader turned politician
Finally, there is the crime situation. With the subsequent crackdown of crime by the DPRK, many South Korean criminals fled to Jeju, to try to rebuild their criminal enterprises. Kim Du-han, a former gang leader turned politician, decides to give his old buddies a hand, and subtly adjusts things to help them. Lee accepts the gang's existence, and uses them to his own advantage against his enemies. But at the end of the day, they’re still mostly street gangs, but the potential for something far greater is certainly there.
Due to their status in the American sphere, and the absurdity of their government, the Republic of Korea is called an “Asian banana republic” by some scholars. While it’s partially accurate, the island garners very little interest from American conglomerates in the 1950s, who are yet to see the potential of tourism on the island. As of now, it’s seen as a barren rock, whose only use is to block further communist expansion. Plus, not to mention….. You can’t grow bananas there, anyway.
[1]: The first two movies here were actual creations during the Korean War, while the final three are fictional ones about the North’s victory ITTL.
[2]:the Jackals book IOTL was based on the premise of an American missionary killing the boy via poison, however, this is believed to be due to the alleged American usage of biological warfare in the Korean War. However, without the UN intervention, it instead uses napalm as an allegory.
[3]:in North Korea, manhwa is still exclusively viewed as entertainment for children to this day, which is in stark difference to manga and many American and European comics, many of which are either for all ages, or adult.
[4]: April 3, 1948, is when the Jeju uprising began, and the Protestants on Jeju were caught right in the middle of the chaos. I’m unable to find out who, specifically, targeted the Protestants, but allegedly, 5 churches and 107 homes of Protestants were burnt during the uprising.
[5]: the Protestant Church wielded some power in South Korea, being involved in the notorious Brothers Home under the Chun Doo-hwan regime in the 80s, so they also gain quite a bit of influence on the island of Jeju.
[6]: http://m.jejuweekly.com/news/articleView.html?idxno=649 is my source for this bit about ancestor worship, and this paragraph as a whole.
I'm hoping that the no-longer-just-North Korea is at least less paranoid and absolutely suckful compared to OTL North Korea.
Not that it's a very high bar, mind...
Not that it's a very high bar, mind...
After seeing about the misa tapa undong, and wondering what kind of country deliberately destroys its own culture just to try to look like another that looks much more powerful, I think Jeju will now be the territory that becomes 100% hyperparanoid, repressive and absolutely stinky. As well as being overly religious to a degree that will make even American Dixiecrats and prosperity evangelists look moderate, sensible, and religiously lukewarm by comparison.
Glad seeing this back, and I really enjoyed the cultural and socials aspects of the chapter, it's a nice break from the usual politics and war we often see in TLS
The Korean War really fucked North Korean agriculture with all the mass bombing and floods from dams that were also bombed. It also really fucked with the economy of the DPRK, so ITTL the DPRK will be a better place to live in. Not that great, but at least I don't think most people will have to worry about food ITTL.I'm hoping that the no-longer-just-North Korea is at least less paranoid and absolutely suckful compared to OTL North Korea.
Not that it's a very high bar, mind...
Fair, but they now have the south to rebuild as well, so it will take a while for the economy to fully recover.
Things will be better. Without the destruction of the Korean War, and the successful unification of the peninsula, the siege mentality will be much less pronounced (though not fully gone, due to Japan), and Kim’s power is not as strong as IOTL. As @Tshhmon said, the Korean war dealt a lot of damage to all parts of north Korean society, and was also part of what allowed Kim to destroy his enemies, and attain absolute power. Without the destruction, he’s somewhat ironically in a much tougher spot.
Don’t worry-the Kim’s rule isn’t sustainable. But who’ll win out, I won’t say. But not only will it be hard to run so many people with his trademark insanity, but, the Chinese and Soviets weren’t exactly keen on him in the 50s to begin with, even backing an attempt to remove him from power in 1956. And due to the strategic implications of Korea against Japan, they’ll be even more interested in furthering their own interests in Korea.
Well, perhaps it won’t get to that level, but yeah due to Jeju’s smaller size, it’ll be much more religious than South Korea IOTL, at least initially. They’re on the way to just becoming a banana republic, as eventually, their government will turn to tourism as their main industry, which is already a major part of Jeju’s economy IOTL.
Indeed, the North Korean famine will not happen at all in this TL. They’ll never have food problems, as not only will they have South Korea’s farmland, but they’ll also be able to import food from more countries than OTL. One of the many things setting North Korea back IOTL is their low amount of arable farmland-only 17% of its terrain is suited for agriculture.
one idea: maybe piracy as a second industry to help the jeju economy?
It used to have more arable land, but the US mass bombings decimated all the land there. ITTL not only does the DPRK have south Korea, it also has untarnished agriculture in the north
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Interesting idea. But, what sort of piracy would make sense? I’m admittedly not very well versed on piracy in the 20th century, but I could maybe see Jeju doing something similar to the kidnapping of Japanese citizens that North Korea would do.
Things are progressing in the DPRK. Hopefully none of the indoctrination manhwa are like Squirrel and Hedgehog.
Well, I hope it goes the route of Vietnam and Yugoslavia when either or both the Soviets and PRC does something stupid, which will happen anyways... *cough* Great Leap Forward *cough*.
@Tabs
Will park chung hee take over north korea and pursue socialism with korean characteristics. In other words dengism with park chung hee characteristics
Will park chung hee take over north korea and pursue socialism with korean characteristics. In other words dengism with park chung hee characteristics
Eventually. But whether he’ll have sole power, or share it with others, we shall see. It’ll be a while before we get to his rule. But his two-faced nature will allow him to amass plenty of political capital, and punch his way to the top, and I suppose it’s been quite clear in the story that my goal for him is rulership. But given that this is a different Korea, his rule won’t just be a copy of his one over IOTL. It’ll have plenty of differences.
Jesus, you’re right. Feels like yesterday I was just starting this. Well, a new chapter is coming, two in fact, to celebrate a year. I’ve just not really been in a writing mood for a while.
But I wish to thank everybody for reading this. It’s been fun, even if it had a rocky start and it’s taken me ages to post chapters. I appreciate it all.