The "two Kims" in this entry are---
(1) Comrade Kim Son Ju, Soviet Army Major and Generalissimo of North Korea, who is commonly known as Kim The Rising Sun, or Kim Il Sung; and---
(2) Comrade Yuri Irsenovich Kim, born a full-fledged Soviet citizen in the town of Vyatskoye (near the city of Khabarovsk), who is now commonly known to every North Korean and to the world as The Great Leader Kim Jong Il.
So here we have a hereditary dictatorship of father and son in North Korea, and the curious question to ask is this: If Kim the 1st had what it takes, how possible was it for his son, Kim the 2nd to inherit from him not just his office but his exceptionality as well? Or perhaps the system built by the father was already so strong that it could sustain itself without putting too much demand on the son?
The great Kim Il Sung (and he was unquestionably a political genius) had built the nationalist political mold which was strong enough to accept and accommodate his demonstrably less-exceptional son into the leader mold and to hold him there by the sheer sturdiness of its cast. Thus an apparent paradox exists for those who have little or no understanding of the nature and viability of all totalitarian regimes. In the particular case of North Korea, a sorely inadequate (perhaps altogether miserable) economy readily coexists with a strong and stable political system. On the other hand, South Korea, which is an economic Great Power, does not have an adequate national system mold, and suffers from a chronic political inferiority complex, which was, for a while, manifested in its subservience to the United States, but today is being compensated by the persistent reunification dream with the politically virile North Korea. (Those who think that I am overstating the South Korean “Reunification Wish” under a single government on a virtually quasi-totalitarian basis, ought to look back at the situation there just a decade ago, or otherwise wait for a few more years when this “Wish” will start reasserting itself with an even greater explicit urgency than was the case at the turn of the millennium.)
It may be interesting to compare certain common aspects in the careers of the two junior Asian geniuses (as opposed to the super-genius of Mao), namely Ho Chi Minh of Vietnam and Kim Il Sung of North Korea. In both cases Moscow played a significant role, although both these leaders (and, in a broader picture, all three of them) displayed a large amount of nationalistic individuality (in Kim’s case, his Juche Doctrine of active self-reliance is clearly a forceful projection of a strong nationalistic mentality) which could well put them on a collision course with Moscow. (In the Soviet Union they had been trying to portray Juche as some kind of Korean version of Marxism, but it was by no means as “harmless” as that.)
Kim was, however, a grandmaster of political maneuvering, and even at the peak of the Sino-Soviet hostility of the 1960’s, he managed to remain on reasonably good terms with each of his “older brothers” (who were meanwhile both sending him cash and other kinds of Comradely assistance, without insisting that he must choose their side in the ongoing bilateral conflict), while managing to promote his nationalist Korean Juche with virtual impunity.
Neither he nor Ho Chi Minh were able to realize their twin dreams of national reunification in their lifetime, although Ho by the time of his death in 1969 had come much closer to his than Kim could ever hope to find his own. Both had to face the superpower fury of the United States, and to be fair, while Ho won in Vietnam essentially by his own devices, and throughout the war never had to leave Hanoi, Kim had to flee to China, and had it not been for Mao’s Liberation Army, he would have been forced to live the last forty years of his life in an inconspicuous foreign exile. Of course, the fact that such bleak fate did not befall him, speaks not only for the strength of China’s military. Any political genius of staying power must have good luck on his side, and in the Korean War, an incredible luck, rather than skill, was conspicuously on Kim’s side. (See my entry Stalin’s Korean Charade, were the other components of Kims “good luck” are all spelled out.)
His son Kim Jong Il succeeded him as pre-planned after Kim’s death. I repeat that, to me, the son does not rise to the level of his father’s genius, and it is most probably the strength of North Korea’s political system, as created by Kim Il Sung, which now sustains Kim Jong Il in power. Nor can the son take credit for North Korea’s successful nuclear program, as it had been initiated and cleverly developed, with ready assurances of stoppage given to the West, by the great Kim-the-father. History will obviously provide an answer to how the son will eventually be remembered; and having acquired nuclear weapons on his watch is a huge credit point on the lesser Kim’s résumé. But, somehow, I think that the son will ultimately fade, as there can be no luminosity left for anyone who follows in the footsteps of the Rising Sun itself, as such is the meaning of Il Sung in Kim Il Sung’s name, and such is the legendary legacy he has bequeathed to his nation for all time. Yes, for all time, because no nation can ever renounce its nationalistic legends, and the “Eternal President” Kim Il Sung has certainly become one.
(1) Comrade Kim Son Ju, Soviet Army Major and Generalissimo of North Korea, who is commonly known as Kim The Rising Sun, or Kim Il Sung; and---
(2) Comrade Yuri Irsenovich Kim, born a full-fledged Soviet citizen in the town of Vyatskoye (near the city of Khabarovsk), who is now commonly known to every North Korean and to the world as The Great Leader Kim Jong Il.
So here we have a hereditary dictatorship of father and son in North Korea, and the curious question to ask is this: If Kim the 1st had what it takes, how possible was it for his son, Kim the 2nd to inherit from him not just his office but his exceptionality as well? Or perhaps the system built by the father was already so strong that it could sustain itself without putting too much demand on the son?
The great Kim Il Sung (and he was unquestionably a political genius) had built the nationalist political mold which was strong enough to accept and accommodate his demonstrably less-exceptional son into the leader mold and to hold him there by the sheer sturdiness of its cast. Thus an apparent paradox exists for those who have little or no understanding of the nature and viability of all totalitarian regimes. In the particular case of North Korea, a sorely inadequate (perhaps altogether miserable) economy readily coexists with a strong and stable political system. On the other hand, South Korea, which is an economic Great Power, does not have an adequate national system mold, and suffers from a chronic political inferiority complex, which was, for a while, manifested in its subservience to the United States, but today is being compensated by the persistent reunification dream with the politically virile North Korea. (Those who think that I am overstating the South Korean “Reunification Wish” under a single government on a virtually quasi-totalitarian basis, ought to look back at the situation there just a decade ago, or otherwise wait for a few more years when this “Wish” will start reasserting itself with an even greater explicit urgency than was the case at the turn of the millennium.)
It may be interesting to compare certain common aspects in the careers of the two junior Asian geniuses (as opposed to the super-genius of Mao), namely Ho Chi Minh of Vietnam and Kim Il Sung of North Korea. In both cases Moscow played a significant role, although both these leaders (and, in a broader picture, all three of them) displayed a large amount of nationalistic individuality (in Kim’s case, his Juche Doctrine of active self-reliance is clearly a forceful projection of a strong nationalistic mentality) which could well put them on a collision course with Moscow. (In the Soviet Union they had been trying to portray Juche as some kind of Korean version of Marxism, but it was by no means as “harmless” as that.)
Kim was, however, a grandmaster of political maneuvering, and even at the peak of the Sino-Soviet hostility of the 1960’s, he managed to remain on reasonably good terms with each of his “older brothers” (who were meanwhile both sending him cash and other kinds of Comradely assistance, without insisting that he must choose their side in the ongoing bilateral conflict), while managing to promote his nationalist Korean Juche with virtual impunity.
Neither he nor Ho Chi Minh were able to realize their twin dreams of national reunification in their lifetime, although Ho by the time of his death in 1969 had come much closer to his than Kim could ever hope to find his own. Both had to face the superpower fury of the United States, and to be fair, while Ho won in Vietnam essentially by his own devices, and throughout the war never had to leave Hanoi, Kim had to flee to China, and had it not been for Mao’s Liberation Army, he would have been forced to live the last forty years of his life in an inconspicuous foreign exile. Of course, the fact that such bleak fate did not befall him, speaks not only for the strength of China’s military. Any political genius of staying power must have good luck on his side, and in the Korean War, an incredible luck, rather than skill, was conspicuously on Kim’s side. (See my entry Stalin’s Korean Charade, were the other components of Kims “good luck” are all spelled out.)
His son Kim Jong Il succeeded him as pre-planned after Kim’s death. I repeat that, to me, the son does not rise to the level of his father’s genius, and it is most probably the strength of North Korea’s political system, as created by Kim Il Sung, which now sustains Kim Jong Il in power. Nor can the son take credit for North Korea’s successful nuclear program, as it had been initiated and cleverly developed, with ready assurances of stoppage given to the West, by the great Kim-the-father. History will obviously provide an answer to how the son will eventually be remembered; and having acquired nuclear weapons on his watch is a huge credit point on the lesser Kim’s résumé. But, somehow, I think that the son will ultimately fade, as there can be no luminosity left for anyone who follows in the footsteps of the Rising Sun itself, as such is the meaning of Il Sung in Kim Il Sung’s name, and such is the legendary legacy he has bequeathed to his nation for all time. Yes, for all time, because no nation can ever renounce its nationalistic legends, and the “Eternal President” Kim Il Sung has certainly become one.
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