Yo Un-Hyung, leader of North Korea

What if the Soviets picked Yo Un-Hyung instead of Kim Il-Sung as the leader of North Korea? Yo was a moderate Leftist with clout across the political spectrum and well respected for his life long involvement for Korean independence. He was certainly more popular than Syngman Rhee and far better known than Kim.

IOTL Yo Un-Hyung was assasinated by the right wing in 1947.
 
What if the Soviets picked Yo Un-Hyung instead of Kim Il-Sung as the leader of North Korea? Yo was a moderate Leftist with clout across the political spectrum and well respected for his life long involvement for Korean independence. He was certainly more popular than Syngman Rhee and far better known than Kim.

IOTL Yo Un-Hyung was assasinated by the right wing in 1947.
IIRC, the Soviets purged as many of the true leftist Korean leaders as they could so they could have a puppet. I think Yoh would be too independent to be considered.
 
I see one of two things happening:

A. His moderatism and diplomatic ability results in a (peaceful) reunification of Korea and a social democratic or democratic socialist Korea, which may or may not help ease America's fears of domino theory etc.

B. Korea remains divided, but there is no Korean war (Or it is much more limited than OTL) and South and North Korea enjoy much better relations than OTL.
 
Yuh Woon-hyung had a great deal of potential, but he was limited by being based in Seoul, not Pyongyang. In a completely Soviet-occupied Korea, he would be much more likely to be able to rally moderate leftists along with other leaders such as Cho Man-shik and Kim Gu.

One scenario that I could see happening is that Kim Il-Sung might end up being given the position of Defense Minister as was the original Soviet intention. He might even up siezing power in the end anyway, but a stronger moderate wing means his personality cult might be less well-established. This could mean that North Korea might be persuaded to deStalinize during Kruschev's reign.

Without the personality cult of Kim Il-Sung, the likelihood of a peaceful resolution to the Korean division is much higher than in OTL. Perhaps a figure like Hwang Jang-yop could rise to power and institute capitalist reforms following the Chinese model.
 
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