This study aims at diagnosing the direction of the national strategy and the cadre policies of the Kim Jong Il regime by observing the correlations between the national strategies and cadre policies pursued by North Korea in every stages of her histor...
This study aims at diagnosing the direction of the national strategy and the cadre policies of the Kim Jong Il regime by observing the correlations between the national strategies and cadre policies pursued by North Korea in every stages of her history.
In the course of the anti-imperialist and anti-feudalistic democratic revolution, socialist construction and the implementation of independent line from the liberation in 1945 down to the early 1970s when Kim Jong Il was informally designated as the successor to his father, Kim Il Sung had set up his monolithic ruling system as the goal of the national strategy by liquidating all political opponents who had joined the efforts of building and consolidating the regime.
In order to carry out this strategy, the Kim Il Sung regime maintained the cadre policies of recruiting political elites from the working class, and the technocrats and experts from the intellectual class, and cultivating new cadres of working class origin who could satisfy both the political and expert criteria. With the establishment of "the Monolithic Ideological System of the Party" by Kim Il Sung in the late 1960s, the political criteria took precedence over the expert criteria in the cadre policy.
In the succession period of Kim Jong Il between 1970s and early 1990s, the national strategy of North Korea focused on strengthening the regime by establishing the absolute power system of Kim Il Sung and the monolithic guidance system of Kim Jong Il, and also on defending the regime from the internal and external crises such as the collapse of socialism in East Europe in the late 1980s.
The cadre policies of Kim Il Sung was succeeded by Kim Jong Il in the way of adopting loyalty to 'the Leader' as its supreme principle and emphasizing the expert criteria in recruiting national cadres. What was the most particular in the cadre policies of Kim Jong Il was the principles of eliminating factionalism which may threaten his monolithic leadership, and combining the aged, middle-aged and younger generations in recruiting cadres while respecting the veteran cadres as 'revolutionary predecessors,' reflecting the reality of the shift in generation. The changes in the class composition of the population was also reflected in the so-called 'wide-range politics,' meaning the principle of recruiting cadres by observing only their present political inclinations and abilities, regardless of their family backgrounds or political careers. The politics of relying on the close associates, which Kim Jong Il advocated in the succession period, provides other proof that the national strategy centered on the establishment of the leader's absolute and monolithic guidance system.
After Kim Il Sung died in 1994, Kim Jong Il relied upon the 'military-first politics' to overcome the internal hardship caused by economic and food crises in the middle of 1990s, and finally inaugurated his government in 1998 with the National Defense Commission as its supreme organ. The Kim Jong Il regime began to pursue the military-first politics and the principle of pragmatism as the two-track axis of the national strategy under the slogan of building 'Gangseongdaeguk' (or a strong and prosperous country) as its new strategic goal.
The military-first politics is embodied in the cadre policies by way of stressing the political criteria in recruiting the political elites, continuing to give a preference to the military and veteran cadres, adhering to the principle of eliminating factionalism and strengthening ideological education for the elites of the new generation. The pragmatism goes with the cadre policy which emphasizes the principles of combining political and expert criteria, attaching importance to the age, ability, achievements and academic career in recruiting technocrats and experts.
This study proves that the national strategy advanced by North Korea for more than 60 years has revealed its character of regime security strategy concentrated on the establishment and consolidation of the leader's absolute power system. Such character of the national strategy is illustrated more clearly by the cadre policies which uphold loyalty to the leader as the supreme criteria in recruiting cadres. Political elites for the party, army and security organs were selected by political criteria, such as background of origin and political careers, and technocrats and experts were selected by expert criteria for economic, scientific, technical, social and cultural fields.
The Kim Jong Il regime is expected in the future to maintain the national strategy of promoting economic reconstruction and development through the pragmatic changes, which will depend upon technocrats and experts, while offsetting its side-effects through the 'military-first politics,' which will rely upon the political elites.