WI: Kim Il-Sung dies before Korea is liberated

[A Piece of History]

Although Kim-il-Sung's life is shrouded in mystery, mostly due to North Korean propaganda, it is generally agreed upon by historians that Kim-il-Sung did participate in the anti-Japanese insurgency n Korea, preceding World War II. He was a member of a Chinese Communist Party-backed resistance group called the Northeast Anti-Japanese United Army. In 1937, he led an attack against a Japanese-occupied village called Pochombo, just inside the Korean border, in which his resistance fighters prevailed against the Japanese, if only for a few hours.

After the near-destruction of his unit in 1940, Kim il-Sung and what was left of his rebels fled into the Soviet Union, where they were retrained and Kim-il-Sung's wife, Kim Jong-suk, gave birth to their son, Kim Jong-il, the next year. In 1945, Kim-il-Sung re-entered the Korean Peninsula alongside the Red Army as a liberator and after the disposal of Choo-man-Siik as a potential puppet, Kim-il-Sung became the Soviet Union's top collaborator in Korea, resulting in the creation of North Korea in 1948.

But what if Kim-il-Sung was killed during his time as a anti-Japanese insurgent, preceding his retreat into the Soviet Union?

 

[David T]

The usual analysis is that there were four factions in the Korean Workers' Party: "the so-called “Soviet faction” composed of ethnic Koreans who lived in the Soviet Union and were sent to serve in administrative positions in northern Korea after 1945; the “Yan’an faction,” made up of those Koreans who lived in China during Japan’s colonial rule over Korea; the “domestic faction” of veteran communist Bak Heonyeong; and Kim Il Sung’s own “Gapsan faction” of former anti-Japanese guerrilla fighters." http://www.wilsoncenter.org/sites/default/files/CWIHPBulletin16_p51.pdf

(The article incidentally argues that the emphasis on factional rivalries is misplaced and that it "to a large degree mirrors North Korea’s official historiography in that it is narrated “in terms of Kim Il Sung’s supremacy over all […] political challenges, from within and without.”8 Factional rivalries, the documents suggest, were exaggerated by Kim Il Sung as a pretext to purge policy opponents..." However, while these factions might not be an adequate explanation of the events of 1956, it doesn't follow that they didn't exist ten years earlier.)

According to Wikipedia, "In the first politburo of the party the Soviet faction had three members, the Yanan faction had six, the domestic faction had two and the guerrilla faction had two. The guerrilla faction was actually the smallest of the factions in the Central Committee but they had the advantage of having Kim Il-sung, who led the North Korean government and was highly influential within the party. Moreover, Kim Il-Sung was backed by the Soviet Union." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Workers'_Party_of_North_Korea

It might be thought from the composition of the Politburo that the Yanan faction had the advantage in 1946. However, the Soviet Union had far more influence in North Korea at that time than the CCP did--the latter was still three years from winning power. One might think that the Soviets would prefer a Soviet Korean like Alexei Ivanovich Hegai (Ho Ka-i). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ho_Ka-i Yet Hegai might have been too blatantly "Soviet" for the USSR's own taste; their choice of Kim seems to indicate they wanted someone with more plausible "nationalist" credentials to appeal to Koreans. The Domestic Faction in OTL was strengthened when Pak Hon-yong https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pak_Hon-yong moved to the North but that was not until 1948.

I may be wrong about this, but it is hard for me to see *any* alternate Korean Communist leader coming up with the combination of extreme nationalism and glorification of a ruling family that happened in OTL.

 

[Baron Bizarre]

So, would the North have become a more traditional "Soviet Satellite"? Would there still have been a Korean War?

 

[Sulemain]

So, would the North have become a more traditional "Soviet Satellite"? Would there still have been a Korean War?

A more traditional Soviet Satellite wouldn't have dared risk it, I think.

 

[David T]

A more traditional Soviet Satellite wouldn't have dared risk it, I think.

Kim himself didn't risk it until he got Stalin's approval. I don't see why an alternate North Korean Communist leader couldn't also have sought and gotten such approval.

 

[Sulemain]

Kim himself didn't risk it until he got Stalin's approval. I don't see why an alternate North Korean Communist leader couldn't also have sought and gotten such approval.

I don't think an alternative would have even asked.