Purging ‘Factionalist’ Opposition to Kim Il Sung – The First Party Conference of the Korean Worker’s Party in 1958

Abstract

In March 1958, delegates from across North Korea met in the National Art Theatre in Pyongyang for the First Conference of the Korean Worker’s Party. To date, it has an event largely overlooked by South Korean and Western historians of North Korea because of a lack of source material. The newly unearthed official minutes, however, reveal a highly staged event in which the opponents of high-level party opponents of Kim Il Sung (Kim Ilsŏng 김일성) are subjected to what amounts to a show trial, before they lose their party membership. The official minutes are notable for containing one of the only official North Korean descriptions of the alleged plot by certain military members of the Yanan Faction to overthrow the Kim Il Sung government in a military coup. The purpose of the Party Conference within Marxist-Leninist parties is discussed, the background to the Conference and developments in the communist world are also described. The delegate roster is then briefly analysed, interesting and significant statistics are explained with broader reference to North Korean history—the context and what it can tell us about the structure of power in the Korean Workers Party back then. Following this, the show trial by conference is detailed. The trial by conference is split into two parts, the first dealing with their economic crimes and the second with their political crimes. This article discusses both sets of allegations in light of the actual economic pathologies of Soviet-type economies and the political nature of the Kim Il-sungist system.