NKPA Command and Leadership
With few exceptions, the North Korean war leaders proved to be willing and able instruments of policies formulated in Moscow. Kim Il Sung, the prime minister and commander in chief, was an imposter named Kim Sung Chu who made a bid for popular support by taking the name of a dead Korean resistance hero. As a youth he had fled from Korea and joined the Communist party in Manchuria. There he distinguished himself in guerrilla operations against the Japanese. In 1938, after rising to the stature of a corps commander, he met military reverses and found a refuge in Soviet territory. Legend has it that he attended a Soviet military academy and took part in the battle of Stalingrad. However this may be, he returned to Korea in August 1945 as a 35-year-old captain in the Soviet army of occupation.[29]
[29] Ibid., 90–99. Communist chiefs preferred to work behind a screen of secrecy and deception, so that it was difficult to obtain accurate personal data. Not only did some of the NKPA war leaders have obscure origins, but they added to the difficulties of biographers by deliberately falsifying the record for propaganda purposes. It is to the credit of U.S. Army intelligence officers that they have managed to piece out this material from prisoner interrogations and captured enemy documents.
South Korean descriptions of Kim Il Sung as an uneducated ruffian were doubtless prejudiced, but certainly he was a ruthless guerrilla leader who showed an uncommon aptitude for politics. His rise in the new North Korean state was spectacular, for in September 1948 he became the first prime minister. The following year he went to Moscow for conferences at the Kremlin, and nine days after the outbreak of civil war in Korea he was appointed commander in chief of the invading army while retaining his position as prime minister.
In contrast to this rough diamond, Marshal Choe Yong Gun cut a reserved and dignified figure as deputy commander in chief and minister of national defense. Born in Hongchon, Korea, at the turn of the century, he had the equivalent of a high school education. In 1925 he went to China and is believed to have attended the Whampoa Military Academy at Nanking and the Yenan Military School. At Yenan, after being converted to communism, he became a political instructor and later served in the 8th Route Army. Choe was commander of the Korean Volunteer Army in 1941 and fought against the Japanese in Manchuria. Returning to Korea in 1945, he commanded the Cadre Training Center until 1948, when he was named the first commander in chief.
Even Choe’s enemies in South Korea credited him with a high order of intellectual capacity and moral courage. Despite his Communist party membership, he opposed the invasion of the Republic of Korea. He was cool, moreover, toward Lieutenant General Vasilev and the other Soviet advisers who reached Pyongyang in 1949 to prepare the Korean armed forces for an offensive war. This attitude probably explains why he was sidetracked in March 1950, when Vasilev took charge of the combat training and re-equipment program. Although Choe was not on good terms with Kim Il Sung at this time, he was regarded as a superior strategist and administrator. And after being bypassed temporarily, he continued to be respected as a leader by the North Korean army and peasantry.
Nam Il stood out as the most cosmopolitan and polished of the North Korean war leaders. Born in 1911, he was Kim Il Sung’s schoolmate in Manchuria and the two remained lifelong friends. As a young man, Nam Il made his way across the U. S. S. R. to Smolensk and attended college and a military academy. He entered the Soviet army at the outbreak of World War II and is said to have participated along with Kim Il Sung in the Stalingrad defense.
Both of them returned to Korea with the rank of captain in the Soviet army of occupation, and both entered upon successful Communist political careers. In 1948 Nam Il was elected to the Supreme People’s Council and became vice-minister of education in charge of military instruction. The most Russianized of the North Korean leaders, he took pains to cultivate the good will of the Soviet advisers. Speaking English, Russian, and Chinese as well as Korean, he held an advantage over his North Korean rivals in such contacts. He also made a better appearance, being tall for an Oriental and always well turned out in a meticulously pressed uniform and gleaming boots.
A major general without an active field command at the outbreak of war, he was rapidly advanced to the rank of lieutenant general and chief of staff. His stern demeanor, while seated stiffly in his black Chrysler driven by a uniformed chauffeur, soon became one of the most impressive sights of Pyongyang. But his talents remained more political than military, and he never won the respect which the army accorded to Choe Yong Gun.
Among the corps commanders, there was none more able than Lieutenant General Kim Ung. About 40 years old at the outbreak of war, he had graduated from the Kumchon Commercial School in Korea and the Whampoa Military Academy in China. As an officer of the 8th Route Army, he won a reputation for daring in 1939 by tossing hand grenades into a conference of Japanese generals at Peiping and escaping after inflicting numerous casualties. Returning to Korea in 1946, he started as a regimental commander and made a relatively slow rise because of his CCF background. But after lining up with the Soviet faction in the army, he was promoted to the command of the 1st Division in 1948 and of I Corps during the invasion.