North Korea wins the Korean War

MrHola

Banned
What If the North had won the Korean conflict outright? How would this effect postwar United States policy in regards to the Asia/Pacific region? What about U.S. attitudes towards the rearming of Japan and future military intervention?

For that matter, what about Japanese attitudes - racial prejudice between Japanese and Koreans has historically been deep and ugly, especially since the colonial period (1910-1945).

Also, with the whole of the Korean peninsula now under Kim Il Sung's control, what does Korea do next? Build The Bomb? Attempt to "liberate" Japan (unlikely, IMOHO)? Or just stay isolated from the rest of the world even longer then the OTL North Korea has thus far?

I wonder: The United States should be able to keep Jeju-do island island from falling under Communist rule, given its overwhelming naval superiority. I suspect that Jeju-do will be to Korea what Taiwan is to China, that is, the last refuge of the defeated political faction. Of course, it all depends on whether or not many survive.
 

Ice-Titan

Banned
Japan at this time has one of the largest communist parties in the world even today it still gets like 5 millions votes, its very possible to see a civil war in Japan if Korea falls. If not that, Japan will be allowed to re-arm faster then it did in OTL, Japan will definitely be more militaristic.

Also, with the whole of the Korean peninsula now under Kim Il Sung's control, what does Korea do next? Build The Bomb? Attempt to "liberate" Japan (unlikely, IMOHO)? Or just stay isolated from the rest of the world even longer then the OTL North Korea has thus far?

Korea doesn’t even have close to enough resources to build the bomb, remember most of Korea’s economy power was in the North, North Korea has had a larger economy then the south until the 80s, so South Korea is not going to bring a lot of resources with it.

I think with a united Korea the military will be smaller then it was in OTL so it might be stronger economically.
 
I think that with Korea united,the regime will not be so militaristic,there might even be a change for destalinization in united Korea.
 
Would Kim Il Sung allow destalinization? And what about Vietnam?

There might be a Soviet sponsored coup in the Korean Workers Party and Imk Il-Sung might be purge.
There was one attempt in OTL the so called August Incident

The "August Incident" and aftermath

Kim Il-sung sent out preliminary signals in late 1955 and early 1956 that he was preparing to move against the Yanan and Soviet factions. The Twentieth Party Congress of the Soviet Communist Party was a bombshell with Nikita Khrushchev's Secret Speech denouncing Stalin and the inauguration of destalinisation. Throughout the Soviet bloc domestic Communist parties inaugurated campaigns against personality cults and the general secretaries who modelled themselves after Stalin were deposed throughout Eastern Europe.
Kim Il-sung was summoned to Moscow for six weeks in the summer of 1956 in order to receive a dressing down from Khrushchev, who wished to bring North Korea in line with the new orthodoxy. During Kim Il-sung's absence Pak Chang Ok (the new leader of the Soviet faction after the suicide of Ho Ka Ai), Choe Chang Ik, and other leading members of the Yanan faction devised a plan to attack Kim Il-sung at the next plenum of the Central Committee and criticise him for not "correcting" his leadership methods, developing a personality cult, distorting the "Leninist principle of collective leadership" his "distortions of socialist legality" (i.e. using arbitrary arrest and executions) and use other Khrushchev-era criticisms of Stalinism against Kim Il-sung's leadership.
Kim Il-sung became aware of the plan upon his return from Moscow and responded by delaying the plenum by almost a month and using the additional time to prepare by bribing and coercing Central Committee members and planning a stage-managed response. When the plenum finally opened on August 30 Choe Chang-ik made a speech attacking Kim Il-sung for concentrating the power of the party and the state in his own hands as well as criticising the party line on industrialisation which ignored widespread starvation among the North Korean people. Yun Kong Hum attacked Kim Il-sung for creating a "police regime". Kim Il-sung's supporters heckled and berated the speakers rendering them almost inaudible and destroying their ability to persuade members. Kim Il-sung's supporters accused the opposition of being "anti-Party" and moved to expel Yun from the party. Kim Il-sung, in response, neutralised the attack on him by promising to inaugurate changes and moderate the regime, promises which were never kept. The majority in the committee voted to support Kim Il-sung and also voted in favour of repressing the opposition expelling Choe and Pak from the Central Committee.
Several leaders of the Yunan faction fled to China to escape the purges that followed the August plenum while supporters of the Soviet faction and Yanan faction were rounded up. Though Kim Tu Bong, the leader of the Yanan faction and nominal President of North Korea was not directly involved in the attempt on Kim he was ultimately purged in 1958 accused of being the "mastermind" of the plot. Kim Tu Bong "disappeared" after his removal from power and likely was either executed or died in prison.
In September 1956 a joint Soviet-Chinese delegation went to Pyongyang to "instruct" Kim Il-sung to cease any purge and reinstate the leaders of the Yanan and Soviet factions. A second plenum of the Central Committee, held on September 23, 1956, officially pardoned the leaders of the August opposition attempt and rehabilitated them but in 1957 the purges resumed and by 1958 the Yanan faction had ceased to exist. Members of the Soviet faction, meanwhile, facing increased harassment, decided to return to the Soviet Union in increasing numbers. By 1961 the only faction left was Kim Il-sung's own guerrilla faction along with members who had joined the WPK under Kim Il-sung's leadership and were loyal to him. In the 1961 Central Committee there were only two members of the Soviet faction, three members of the Yanan faction and three members of the Domestic faction left out of a total Central Committee membership of 68. These individuals were personally loyal to Kim Il-sung and were trusted by him; however, by the late 1960s, even these individuals were almost all purged.
One likely reason for the failure of the Soviet and Yanan factions to depose Kim Il-sung was the nationalist view by younger members of the party who had joined since 1950 that the members of these factions were "foreigners" influenced by alien powers while Kim Il-sung was seen as a true Korean.
 

MrHola

Banned
I have to admit I never knew about this. Very interesting. But what about Vietnam and other hotspots?
 
Top