Korea Today if the North Won the Korean War

regardless of who wins korea, a united korea would do better than a divided one. Now back then south korea was the mental one, but over time they switched, south becoming less fascist and north becoming a neo korean style monarachy. If communist korea owns all of korea then thatd butterfly the kims, doesnt mean some other wack shit wont happen tho. id wager that korea would be the least mental of the asian communists comparable to some members of the eastern block.

I know that SK got its shit together in the 80s after it started to reform and democratize, and before that, NK with its Soviet support was the model of east Asia rather than SK which was struggling to figure it out.

But what about a united communist Korea butterflies the Kims just by nature?
 
There's a good counterfactual on this by North Korean specialist Andrei Lankov from a few years ago. The tl;dr is that Kim Il-Sung would have been weaker given the influence of S. Korean communists and may have been ousted. Also that the absence of a continuing rival Korean state would have eventually resulted in a less paranoid, security-oriented Korea. Economic liberalization would have occurred earlier so, yes, Korea today would likely be a middle-income, probably still Communist-ruled state, less well-off than OTL S. Korea but better off than OTL N. Korea.

... what would have been different? Would it mean that a unified Korea would have become just another version of Kim Il-sung's North? To an extent, yes. The 1960s would have been a time of frantic mobilization drives, mass brainwashing and political persecution on a grand scale. However, two things would have been different.

First, without bitter war experience, without an ample supply of the battle-hardened zealots and without daily confrontation with the rival (and also increasingly successful and free) South, the all-Korean communist regime might have been somewhat less murderous, although this might not have been the case in the 1960s, when insanely radical plans were in vogue across East Asia.

If simultaneous Chinese experience is a guide, I would suspect that those times would have added another few tens of thousands or so dead people to the regime's body count. Without the South across the border, the Pyongyang leaders would have behaved a lot more recklessly in the 1960s, as China did in the bloody decade of the Cultural Revolution. But in the course of time, liberalization would have come easier - as happened in China.

Second, without a powerful South sitting just across the border, the North would have been more willing to experiment and reform. Perhaps it would have started Chinese-style reforms at an early stage - maybe even earlier than China itself. In real history, the North has been afraid that its populace would learn too much about South Korean prosperity and that this would result in the regime's collapse. Without the South hanging around and being so provocatively prosperous and free, bolder domestic policies would have become possible.

In the long run, it is a big question whether the regime would have collapsed around 1990, or would have survived, like those of China and Vietnam. I suspect that the second option would have been more likely.

What would Seoul have looked like? Pretty much as Shenyang or Hanoi looks now (or as Seoul looked in real history back in the 1970s): crowds of cyclists on dirty streets, a few highrise buildings, an occasional slogan about the greatness of "socialism with Korean characteristics", and an occasional chauffeured car of a local cadre-turn-capitalist: light-years behind the current South Korean prosperity, light-years ahead of the current North Korean destitution.
 
I agree that a unified Korea would be better than the "average" today - if unified under SK a much better north although perhaps the GDP per capita lower than the ROK GDP per capita today. If unified under the DPRK, at least better fed (much if the agricultural land in Korea is in the south. More money for non-military usage absent the ROK/US threat, but still way underdeveloped compared to OTL. I see no reason why a unified Korea under the DPRK would not still be a Kim family enterprise - and just as brutal as the one today. After all, the purpose of the control and brutality is to maintain the Kim's in the family business, not to be more "effective" against the ROK/US.
 
it would probably just liberalize and introduce capitalism like vietnam, laos, and china did.

It's my understanding that the Kims sided with Moscow in the Sino-Soviet split, and as a result enjoyed Warsaw Pact aid until that group fell apart. Assuming they made the same choice around 1960, why would they subsequently switch to Beijing, before it was obvious that the CCP would survive where the USSR wouldn't?
 
It's my understanding that the Kims sided with Moscow in the Sino-Soviet split, and as a result enjoyed Warsaw Pact aid until that group fell apart. Assuming they made the same choice around 1960, why would they subsequently switch to Beijing, before it was obvious that the CCP would survive where the USSR wouldn't?

either they adopt juche, like OTL (which i find realistic with better material circumstances), or they liberalize. they might recognize that continuing Marxist-Leninist policies is no longer feasible and switch to capitalism. OTL, the only reason they didn't do so was because of alienation from South Korea. just look at how eager the north korean leadership is to introduce McDonalds as soon as a compromise is reached.
 
either they adopt juche, like OTL (which i find realistic with better material circumstances), or they liberalize. they might recognize that continuing Marxist-Leninist policies is no longer feasible and switch to capitalism. OTL, the only reason they didn't do so was because of alienation from South Korea. just look at how eager the north korean leadership is to introduce McDonalds as soon as a compromise is reached.

Well, the Soviets didn't really do that either, and if, like OTL, they're dependent on Soviet aid, then they'd lack the leeway and the impetus to pursue alternative policy options. To be fair, I'd still expect this story to have a much happier ending than OTL North Korea, but going full Deng seems unlikely before the 90's, maybe the 80's if they're lucky.
 
it would probably just liberalize and introduce capitalism like vietnam, laos, and china did.

Why would Korea be liberalized? I think they would follow Chinese and Vietnamese route. Capitalism with Korean characteristics would be instituted, though. Until 2010's there would be sweet talk about political liberalization too, but assuming roughly similar world events with the rise of China all talk about liberalization would be abandoned.
 
it would depend somewhat on just how NK wins the war... do they win because the US takes no interest in it all, and NK overruns SK with ease? Is it because the NK+China forces overcome the UN forces after a bitter struggle?
 
It's very hard for the North to win the Korean War. (The Truman Doctrine, and all that.) As much as we hated and didn't know what to do with the South after Japan surrender, (And the soon to be South Koreans equally so.) Washington did not want the Soviets in control of the whole thing from the start, and would not allow it to fall.

I honesty see the trusteeship that was up in the air between 45-47 going over (We force it down on the South and the Soviets force it down on the North.) then the North winning.
 
It should be noted that Koreans in both halves have a centuries-long suspicion of both China and Japan (especially the later that annexed them in 1910) who always were invading/raiding the peninsula or trying to make them into a puppet-state. It's partly why the North aligned with Moscow and the South the US. So the North following China's economic lead, even without a US military presence on the peninsula (they'd still be paranoid with the US military in Japan and Okinawa), seems doubtful.
 
You have to keep in mind that while at the time of the War it wasn't clear as to which faction of the WPK would prevail, and Kim certainly wasn't the only game in town, Kim does have some things going for him: In this ATL he'd not only be a genuine liberation hero (though probably exaggerated, he did have credible guerrilla experience) but he's just gotten even more cachet for winning the war. In Communist politics, as with politics anywhere, everybody loves a winner. He'd have the same sort of prestige that Fidel had in Cuba.

Now, as to the postwar, the dynamics in the WPK are going to be somewhat different, at least initially. While the guerrilla faction is going to be bolstered by the obvious victory, the fact they've won also increases the presence, at least among the rank and file and lower-level cadres, of the domestic faction (those Koreans who stayed in colonial Korea but did not take up arms). Depending on the dynamics of the war, the Yanan or Soviet factions may be strengthened.

The way I see it, Kim will probably do as he did OTL - play off the other factions against each other, purge them, until only the guerrilla faction is left. Only now he's got millions more people and thousands more Communists to do it to.

Basically think of it as if a combination of Che and Fidel took control, and never left.
 
With no SK (assuming Jeju becomes TTL’s Taiwan) Kim Il-Sung can only beat the “fuck America and Japan” drum so hard, and the second that sweet Soviet support dries up, all that’s left is China and they won’t put up with the Kim dynasty’s shit anymore. So realistically, Papa Kim gets to run Korea like his own personal playground until the 90s, and then when he dies and the famine sets in, expect China to be pretty heavy-handed about reform and for Deng-style reforms to kick in by 2000. A new leader will industrialize the shit out of Korea, and you can expect a lot of cheap goods to be made there a la China or Vietnam.

I’m sure there will be a similar “one Korea” policy that includes Jeju much as one China does Taiwan, and you can expect that reforms will include capping the number of children people can have - even Vietnam fines parents who have a third.

I don’t see Korea being especially devastated or much worse than OTL simply because Truman wouldn’t stand for it. MacArthur was thiiiiiiiis close to nuking Korea back to the Stone Age and Truman fired the shit out of him for it - no reason to believe he won’t do the same here.
Yeah I'm a man who could not run a haberdashery store decided to take control of the war himself which is why we have the mess we are in now. Previous poster indention Russia had 40 to 50 bombs in 1950 I would like to see a source for that because everything I've seen shows them having one or two. As far as the first part of my reply don't let it stop you from answering thank you.
 
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