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Meh, the so-called "fake Kim Il Sung theory" isn't a new info found in 2011, it was a raging conspiracy theory all the way back from 1940s. If you speak Korean

Meh, the so-called "fake Kim Il Sung theory" isn't a new info found in 2011, it was a raging conspiracy theory all the way back from 1940s. If you speak Korean, search for "김일성 가짜설", you'll find wiki pages the size of a book chapter. From what I've heard, the theory is largely discredited now. (Of course that doesn't mean North Korea's breathless account of Kim's heroic adventures is anywhere near believable, but that's a separate issue.)

VictorPath 4y ago
Also as historical records show, and as some in the western braintrust noted at the time, the idea that Stalin was foisting revolution onto Korean communists, it was somewhat backwards - local Korean communists fighting the Japanese and then Americans, like the Chinese, were much more enthused about revolution in their countries than Stalin was.
- hackerlight 4y ago
  It was Mao foisting it onto Korea. Stalin was a careful opportunist and thought Korea would be too risky and reckless, so he was hesitant but was eventually persuaded by Mao that it was a good idea. > local Korean communists ... were much more enthused about revolution in their countries than Stalin was. Even if we substitute "Stalin" for "Mao", this statement has low epistemic legibility and low relevance. It could have been 100, 10k, or 1 million Korean communists who were genuinely more "enthused" than Mao was, given that there's likely to be N > 0 people who are more enthused about any kind of political project inside of a large population when their enthusiasm is contrasted to that of a single person. That's a given. It doesn't detract from the fact that an ideology and system was forced onto a sizeable unwilling population with Mao's direct backing.
  - pattusk 4y ago
    this is untrue, the Korean peninsula had a strong socialist (including non-Marxist forms of socialism) and later communist (as in affiliated with the COMINTERN) movement from the early 20th century and its main influence was the Japanese Communist Party - not Mao. (Incidentally, a large part of the membership of the Japanese Communist Party was Korean - up until the cadres.) North Korean troops (and earlier the so-called "Yanan Koreans") were also instrumental in securing the Chinese communist victory during the Civil War through their actions in Northeast China. So in a sense they forced communism on China just as much as the Chinese forced communism onto Korea. > It was Mao foisting it onto Korea. Stalin was a careful opportunist and thought Korea would be too risky and reckless, so he was hesitant but was eventually persuaded by Mao that it was a good idea. Your statement refers to the Korean War. As archive records now show, both Stalin and Mao were reluctant and Kim Il Sung only managed to convince Stalin by pretending that Mao was on board for an invasion of the South (and likewise lying to Mao about Stalin being on board). In any case, North Korea was already socialist before the Korean War. And the South also had a very strong communist movement - the first governments that sprouted in Korea after 1945 were "people's committees". But the US backed dictator Syngman Rhee (selected for his staunch anti-communism, the man was so reactionary his conservatism shocked even US intelligence) managed to politicide the Southern communists in large numbers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bodo_League_massacre https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bodo_League_massacre https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeju_uprising https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeju_uprising https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yeosu%E2%80%93Suncheon_rebellion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yeosu%E2%80%93Suncheon_rebelli...
    - Synaesthesia 4y ago
      Most of the leaders selected for the South Korean govt where collaborators with the Japanese occupation.
  - qikInNdOutReply 4y ago
    Because the "socialist" revolutions, were first and foremost national independence movements. The red decoration was nothing more then the "fashion" at the time. Had socialism existed when america declared independence and russia supported the us, the american indepence day would be significantly more hammer & sickled. This is why the vietnam war was so wrong, it was fought by a ex-colony for a colonial power, halucinating a enemy were there actually was just its own history repeating.
    - UberFly 4y ago
      The Soviet Red Army "liberated" northern Korea in August 1945, just as it "liberated" half of Germany at the end of WW2. Calling the influence of the Soviet Union in vulnerable parts of the world "fashion" is mindbogglingly dumb.
      - pessimizer 4y ago
        It wasn't so bad for Germany, we still let ex-Nazis run the US half.
        pyuser583 4y ago
        In 1946, the infant mortality rate in Berlin was greater than 90%.
    - int_19h 4y ago
      It's not "fashion", it's the practicalities of getting military and diplomatic assistance as an underdog. Enemy of your enemy and all that.
TeeMassive 4y ago
> it was a raging conspiracy theory Sure, but is it false? > From what I've heard, the theory is largely discredited now. If you say so.
- kazinator 4y ago
  Using what evidence can you distinguish the content of the classified document from something someone just made up?
  - TeeMassive 4y ago
    Probably not an internet stranger telling using himself and hearsay as a source.
    - pphysch 4y ago
      The linked document has a number of red flags. The source was a South Korean periodical. The document has a "THIS IS UNEVALUATED INFORMATION" stamp on it. The document was published during a political crisis in South Korea. For anyone experienced with the art of deception, this puts it squarely in the "probably bullshit" bin. Misinformation like this gets published every single day in reputable outlets, and most people don't question it, because it is written to confirm their prior beliefs ("North Korea bad").
      - GekkePrutser 4y ago
        While I agree the document would be questionable, I don't think "North Korea bad" is so much a belief as it's a fact. It doesn't get much badder than that. Probably the worst dictatorship for their people we have on this planet right now. I'm very lucky to have been born here and not there.
        smcl 4y ago
        I think the point is that "North Korea bad" is both regrettably true and an overly simplistic way to look at the current situation without really thinking about the history of the Korean peninsula, the causes of the split, the war and what roles our own governments had in causing the entire situation. This doesn't change the indisputable fact that the Kim regimes have been brutal and that the DPRK is truly a nightmarishly awful place to live, but it lets a lot of other people off the hook.
halJordan 4y ago
This document was declassified in 2011; it was published in 1949.
hackerlight 4y ago
> From what I've heard, the theory is largely discredited now. Are there any reliable modern historians that have written about this? Especially the bit that says he was a serial killer in his early years.
- pattusk 4y ago
  The reference biography of Kim Il Sung is "Kim Il Sung: The North Korean Leader" by Dae Sook Suh. A relatively fair treatment of the man given that the author is notable for his anticommunist bias: https://www.amazon.com.au/Kim-Sung-North-Korean-Leader/dp/0231065736 https://www.amazon.com.au/Kim-Sung-North-Korean-Leader/dp/02... I can also recommend Kim Il Sung's own autobiography, With The Century: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/With_the_Century https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/With_the_Century (wiki page has many links to the full book). Because it was written by Kim himself, it's a lot less hagiographic than what you might expect (he didn't have to worry about censorship). Plenty of embellishments sure, but also shows a very human picture of the man. To give a bit more historical background on the conspiracy theory: Kim's anti-Japanese actions in the 1930s-40s had received some coverage in the Korean press - despite Japanese censorship. He went into hiding in the USSR in the early 40s and was sent back to Pyongyang by the Soviets a couple months after the August 1945 liberation of the peninsula. Dissatisfied with their first choice for a North Korean leader (a man named Cho Man-Sik), the Soviets intended to replace him with Kim (a convinced Stalinist) after some PR efforts to bolster his public image. At Kim Il Sung's first public appearance at a rally in Pyongyang in late 1945, people were shocked by his young age (there are several testimonies from people present at the event attesting to this). This was exploited by the anti-communist South to discredit him, claiming that someone that young could never have done the resistance deeds that people had heard about during the colonial period. As Suh's book shows, however, there is a good amount of evidence to support the fact that he was indeed a leader in the resistance against Japanese colonization (albeit not the only one) with several feat of arms (albeit not nearly as many as later claimed).
  - baybal2 4y ago
  - 4y ago
jinwoo68 4y ago
Yup. My understanding is that it was a propaganda spread by the right wing in order to discredit Kim Il Sung at that time. It's largely accepted as a conspiracy by the contemporary history communities IIUC.
- Diesel555 4y ago
  I must preface my question by stating I understand it is not logical to request someone to produce evidence to refute an article which in of itself makes claims with no evidence. You could simply state the original article has no evidence, so why believe them? But, I'm just curious. Do you happen to have any historical evidence or perspective which supports the theory that right wing people pushed this the false history - or that the right wing conspiracy is widely accepted by the contemporary historical communities? I'd like to read.
  - jinwoo68 4y ago
    I don't have any first hand documents but wikipedia seems to explain a bit[1]. Also note that the original article explicitly says "THIS IS UNEVALUATED INFORMATION". [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Il-sung https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Il-sung
  - yomkippur 4y ago
    Namuwiki seems to discredit the claim that it was a right wing conspiracy theory (based on my limited korean abilities). It's a trope to constantly blame right wing groups in Korea for everything that the left doesn't like. I've seen it during my stay here and just realized man, this left-right rivalry seems like a major trend all over the world
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
wobbleblob 4y ago
I've seen similar documents about Tito. In the end it doesn't change anything, you deal with the de-facto ruler of a country, not with his ancestors. https://www.nsa.gov/portals/75/documents/news-features/declassified-documents/cryptologic-spectrum/is_yugoslav.pdf https://www.nsa.gov/portals/75/documents/news-features/decla...

VictorPath 4y ago

Also as historical records show, and as some in the western braintrust noted at the time, the idea that Stalin was foisting revolution onto Korean communists, it was somewhat backwards - local Korean communists fighting the Japanese and then Americans, like the Chinese, were much more enthused about revolution in their countries than Stalin was.

hackerlight 4y ago
It was Mao foisting it onto Korea. Stalin was a careful opportunist and thought Korea would be too risky and reckless, so he was hesitant but was eventually persuaded by Mao that it was a good idea. > local Korean communists ... were much more enthused about revolution in their countries than Stalin was. Even if we substitute "Stalin" for "Mao", this statement has low epistemic legibility and low relevance. It could have been 100, 10k, or 1 million Korean communists who were genuinely more "enthused" than Mao was, given that there's likely to be N > 0 people who are more enthused about any kind of political project inside of a large population when their enthusiasm is contrasted to that of a single person. That's a given. It doesn't detract from the fact that an ideology and system was forced onto a sizeable unwilling population with Mao's direct backing.
- pattusk 4y ago
  this is untrue, the Korean peninsula had a strong socialist (including non-Marxist forms of socialism) and later communist (as in affiliated with the COMINTERN) movement from the early 20th century and its main influence was the Japanese Communist Party - not Mao. (Incidentally, a large part of the membership of the Japanese Communist Party was Korean - up until the cadres.) North Korean troops (and earlier the so-called "Yanan Koreans") were also instrumental in securing the Chinese communist victory during the Civil War through their actions in Northeast China. So in a sense they forced communism on China just as much as the Chinese forced communism onto Korea. > It was Mao foisting it onto Korea. Stalin was a careful opportunist and thought Korea would be too risky and reckless, so he was hesitant but was eventually persuaded by Mao that it was a good idea. Your statement refers to the Korean War. As archive records now show, both Stalin and Mao were reluctant and Kim Il Sung only managed to convince Stalin by pretending that Mao was on board for an invasion of the South (and likewise lying to Mao about Stalin being on board). In any case, North Korea was already socialist before the Korean War. And the South also had a very strong communist movement - the first governments that sprouted in Korea after 1945 were "people's committees". But the US backed dictator Syngman Rhee (selected for his staunch anti-communism, the man was so reactionary his conservatism shocked even US intelligence) managed to politicide the Southern communists in large numbers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bodo_League_massacre https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bodo_League_massacre https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeju_uprising https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeju_uprising https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yeosu%E2%80%93Suncheon_rebellion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yeosu%E2%80%93Suncheon_rebelli...
  - Synaesthesia 4y ago
    Most of the leaders selected for the South Korean govt where collaborators with the Japanese occupation.
- qikInNdOutReply 4y ago
  Because the "socialist" revolutions, were first and foremost national independence movements. The red decoration was nothing more then the "fashion" at the time. Had socialism existed when america declared independence and russia supported the us, the american indepence day would be significantly more hammer & sickled. This is why the vietnam war was so wrong, it was fought by a ex-colony for a colonial power, halucinating a enemy were there actually was just its own history repeating.
  - UberFly 4y ago
    The Soviet Red Army "liberated" northern Korea in August 1945, just as it "liberated" half of Germany at the end of WW2. Calling the influence of the Soviet Union in vulnerable parts of the world "fashion" is mindbogglingly dumb.
    - pessimizer 4y ago
      It wasn't so bad for Germany, we still let ex-Nazis run the US half.
      - pyuser583 4y ago
        In 1946, the infant mortality rate in Berlin was greater than 90%.
  - int_19h 4y ago
    It's not "fashion", it's the practicalities of getting military and diplomatic assistance as an underdog. Enemy of your enemy and all that.

TeeMassive 4y ago

> it was a raging conspiracy theory Sure, but is it false? > From what I've heard, the theory is largely discredited now. If you say so.

kazinator 4y ago
Using what evidence can you distinguish the content of the classified document from something someone just made up?
- TeeMassive 4y ago
  Probably not an internet stranger telling using himself and hearsay as a source.
  - pphysch 4y ago
    The linked document has a number of red flags. The source was a South Korean periodical. The document has a "THIS IS UNEVALUATED INFORMATION" stamp on it. The document was published during a political crisis in South Korea. For anyone experienced with the art of deception, this puts it squarely in the "probably bullshit" bin. Misinformation like this gets published every single day in reputable outlets, and most people don't question it, because it is written to confirm their prior beliefs ("North Korea bad").
    - GekkePrutser 4y ago
      While I agree the document would be questionable, I don't think "North Korea bad" is so much a belief as it's a fact. It doesn't get much badder than that. Probably the worst dictatorship for their people we have on this planet right now. I'm very lucky to have been born here and not there.
      - smcl 4y ago
        I think the point is that "North Korea bad" is both regrettably true and an overly simplistic way to look at the current situation without really thinking about the history of the Korean peninsula, the causes of the split, the war and what roles our own governments had in causing the entire situation. This doesn't change the indisputable fact that the Kim regimes have been brutal and that the DPRK is truly a nightmarishly awful place to live, but it lets a lot of other people off the hook.

halJordan 4y ago

This document was declassified in 2011; it was published in 1949.

hackerlight 4y ago

> From what I've heard, the theory is largely discredited now. Are there any reliable modern historians that have written about this? Especially the bit that says he was a serial killer in his early years.

pattusk 4y ago
The reference biography of Kim Il Sung is "Kim Il Sung: The North Korean Leader" by Dae Sook Suh. A relatively fair treatment of the man given that the author is notable for his anticommunist bias: https://www.amazon.com.au/Kim-Sung-North-Korean-Leader/dp/0231065736 https://www.amazon.com.au/Kim-Sung-North-Korean-Leader/dp/02... I can also recommend Kim Il Sung's own autobiography, With The Century: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/With_the_Century https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/With_the_Century (wiki page has many links to the full book). Because it was written by Kim himself, it's a lot less hagiographic than what you might expect (he didn't have to worry about censorship). Plenty of embellishments sure, but also shows a very human picture of the man. To give a bit more historical background on the conspiracy theory: Kim's anti-Japanese actions in the 1930s-40s had received some coverage in the Korean press - despite Japanese censorship. He went into hiding in the USSR in the early 40s and was sent back to Pyongyang by the Soviets a couple months after the August 1945 liberation of the peninsula. Dissatisfied with their first choice for a North Korean leader (a man named Cho Man-Sik), the Soviets intended to replace him with Kim (a convinced Stalinist) after some PR efforts to bolster his public image. At Kim Il Sung's first public appearance at a rally in Pyongyang in late 1945, people were shocked by his young age (there are several testimonies from people present at the event attesting to this). This was exploited by the anti-communist South to discredit him, claiming that someone that young could never have done the resistance deeds that people had heard about during the colonial period. As Suh's book shows, however, there is a good amount of evidence to support the fact that he was indeed a leader in the resistance against Japanese colonization (albeit not the only one) with several feat of arms (albeit not nearly as many as later claimed).
- baybal2 4y ago
- 4y ago

jinwoo68 4y ago

Yup. My understanding is that it was a propaganda spread by the right wing in order to discredit Kim Il Sung at that time. It's largely accepted as a conspiracy by the contemporary history communities IIUC.

Diesel555 4y ago
I must preface my question by stating I understand it is not logical to request someone to produce evidence to refute an article which in of itself makes claims with no evidence. You could simply state the original article has no evidence, so why believe them? But, I'm just curious. Do you happen to have any historical evidence or perspective which supports the theory that right wing people pushed this the false history - or that the right wing conspiracy is widely accepted by the contemporary historical communities? I'd like to read.
- jinwoo68 4y ago
  I don't have any first hand documents but wikipedia seems to explain a bit[1]. Also note that the original article explicitly says "THIS IS UNEVALUATED INFORMATION". [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Il-sung https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Il-sung
- yomkippur 4y ago
  Namuwiki seems to discredit the claim that it was a right wing conspiracy theory (based on my limited korean abilities). It's a trope to constantly blame right wing groups in Korea for everything that the left doesn't like. I've seen it during my stay here and just realized man, this left-right rivalry seems like a major trend all over the world

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

wobbleblob 4y ago

I've seen similar documents about Tito. In the end it doesn't change anything, you deal with the de-facto ruler of a country, not with his ancestors. https://www.nsa.gov/portals/75/documents/news-features/declassified-documents/cryptologic-spectrum/is_yugoslav.pdf https://www.nsa.gov/portals/75/documents/news-features/decla...