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=== Internal politics === [[File:庆祝朝鲜“八一五”解放十周年大会.jpg|thumb|left|From left to right: [[Pak Chang-ok]], [[Li Jishen]], [[Kim Tu-bong]], [[Zhu De]], [[Kim Il Sung]], [[Averky Aristov]], [[Pak Chŏng Ae]] and [[Choe Yong-gon (army commander)|Choe Yong-gon]] in 1955]] Kim began gradually consolidating his power. Up to this time, North Korean politics were represented by four factions: the [[Yan'an]] faction, made up of returnees from China; the "Soviet Koreans" who were ethnic Koreans from the USSR; native Korean communists led by [[Pak Hon-yong]]; and Kim's Kapsan group who had fought guerrilla actions against Japan in the 1930s.<ref name="auto2">{{cite book| title = The Making of Modern Korea | last = Buzo | first = Adrian | year = 2002| publisher = Routledge| location = London | isbn = 978-0-415-23749-9 |page=95}}</ref><ref>{{cite book | title = Korea since 1850 | last1 = Lone | first1 = Stewart| last2 = McCormack | first2 = Gavan | author-link2 = Gavan McCormack | publisher = Longman Cheshire | location = Melbourne | year = 1993 | page=177 }}</ref> [[Pak Hon-yong]], party vice chairman and Foreign Minister of the DPRK, was blamed for the failure of the southern population to support North Korea during the war, was dismissed from his positions in 1953, and was executed after a show trial in 1955.<ref>Dae-Sook Suh, ''Kim Il Sung: The North Korean Leader'' (New York: Columbia University Press, 1988), 133–136.</ref><ref>{{cite web|last=Hoare|first=James|title=Pak Heon-yeong|url=https://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/resource/modern-korean-history-portal/pak-heon-yeong|work=Modern Korean History Portal|publisher=Woodrow Wilson Center|access-date=5 March 2014}}</ref> The Party Congress in 1956 indicated the transformation that the party had undergone. Most members of other factions had lost their positions of influence. More than half the delegates had joined after 1950, most were under 40 years old, and most had limited formal education.<ref name="auto2"/> In February 1956, Soviet leader [[Nikita Khrushchev]] made a sweeping denunciation of Stalin, which sent shock waves throughout the Communist world. Encouraged by this, members of the party leadership in North Korea began to criticize Kim's dictatorial leadership, personality cult, and Stalinist economic policies. Kim consequently purged them in the [[August Faction Incident]].<ref>{{cite journal|last=Person|first=James|title="We Need Help from Outside": The North Korean Opposition Movement of 1956|journal=Cold War International History Project Working Paper|date=August 2006|issue=52|url=http://www.wilsoncenter.org/sites/default/files/WP52.pdf|access-date=5 March 2014|archive-date=5 July 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170705153656/https://www.wilsoncenter.org/sites/default/files/WP52.pdf|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref>{{cite book| title = The Making of Modern Korea | last = Buzo | first = Adrian | year = 2002| publisher = Routledge| location = London | isbn = 978-0-415-23749-9 |pages=95–96}}</ref> By 1960, 70 per cent of the members of the 1956 Central Committee were no longer in politics.<ref>{{cite book| title = The Making of Modern Korea | last = Buzo | first = Adrian | year = 2002| publisher = Routledge| location = London | isbn = 978-0-415-23749-9 |page=96}}</ref> Kim Il Sung had initially been criticized by the Soviets during a previous 1955 visit to Moscow for practicing Stalinism and a cult of personality, which was already growing enormous. The Korean ambassador to the USSR, Li Sangjo, a member of the Yan'an faction, reported that it had become a criminal offense to so much as write on Kim's picture in a newspaper and that he had been elevated to the status of Marx, Lenin, Mao, and Stalin in the communist pantheon. He also charged Kim with rewriting history to appear as if his guerrilla faction had single-handedly liberated Korea from the Japanese, completely ignoring the assistance of the Chinese People's Volunteers. In addition, Li stated that in the process of agricultural collectivization, grain was being forcibly confiscated from the peasants, leading to "at least 300 suicides" and that Kim made nearly all major policy decisions and appointments himself. Li reported that over 30,000 people were in prison for completely unjust and arbitrary reasons as trivial as not printing Kim Il Sung's portrait on sufficient quality paper or using newspapers with his picture to wrap parcels. Grain confiscation and tax collection were also conducted forcibly with violence, beatings, and imprisonment.<ref>{{cite web|last=Ri|first=Sang-jo|title=Letter from Ri Sang-jo to the Central Committee of the Korean Workers Party|url=https://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/document/114152|publisher=Woodrow Wilson Center|access-date=5 March 2014}}</ref> In late 1968, known military opponents of North Korea's ''[[Juche]]'' (or self-reliance) ideology such as Kim Chang-bong (minister of National Security), Huh Bong-hak (chief of the Division for Southern Intelligence) and Lee Young-ho (commander in chief of the DPRK Navy) were purged as anti-party/counter-revolutionary elements, despite their credentials as anti-Japanese guerrilla fighters in the past.<ref name="North Korean Purges - Kim Il-sung">{{cite web |last=Pike |first=John |title=North Korean Purges |url=http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/dprk/leadership-purges.htm}}</ref> Kim's personality cult was modeled on Stalinism and his regime originally acknowledged Stalin as the supreme leader. After Stalin's death in 1953, however, Kim was described as the "Great Leader" or "Suryong". As his personality cult grew, the doctrine of ''Juche'' began to displace Marxism–Leninism. At the same time the cult extended beyond Kim himself to include his family in a revolutionary blood line.<ref>{{cite book | title = Korea since 1850 | last1 = Lone | first1 = Stewart| last2 = McCormack | first2 = Gavan | author-link2 = Gavan McCormack | publisher = Longman Cheshire | location = Melbourne | year = 1993 | pages=179–180 }}</ref> In 1972, to celebrate [[Kim Il Sung's birthday]], the [[Mansu Hill Grand Monument]] was unveiled, including a 22-meter bronze statue of him.<ref>{{Cite book| last1= Oberdorfer| first1=Don| last2=Carlin| first2=Robert | title=The Two Koreas: A Contemporary History | publisher = Basic Books| year = 2014 | page = 18 | isbn = 9780465031238}}</ref>
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