Personality Cult in North Korea

Indoctrination programs designed to teach the people to worship the father and son Kims begin from nursery school. The curriculum of primary schools includes 304 hours of such indoctrination in two subjects, and that of senior high schools 567 hours in 4 subjects, as follows.

Primary Schools

Senior High Schools

Subjects Hours

Hours

Subjects

Hours

Childhood of Kim Il-sung
Childhood of Kim Jong-il

152

152

Revolutionary Activities of Kim Il-sung

Revolutionary History of Kim Il-sung

Revolutionary Activities of Kim Jong-il

Revolutionary History of Kim Jong-il

150

195

112

110

Other textbooks such as Korean Language, Geography, and Nature are also full of contents designed to deify the two Kims: about 40% of the entire content in primary school textbooks, and 43% those in senior high schools. About 57% of music education in primary schools, and 48% of that in senior high schools are devoted music that promotes the worship of the Kims.

Some of the sentences contained in the textbooks are as follows.

"Respected Father Marshal Kim Il-sung instructed us as follows: our country is abundant with mountains....' (Nature textbook of the 3rd grade in primary schools);
"Let Us Learn After the Virtues of Great Leader Kim Il-sung" (Language textbook of 6th grade in senior high schools).

Kim Il-sung University in Pyongyang maintains 6 departments specializing in Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il. They include the Department of Kim Il-sung's Revolutionary History, the Department of Kim Jong-il's Revolutionary History, the Department of Kim Il- sung's Works, and the Department of Kim Jong-il's Works.

North Korea also maintains numerous costly monuments, such as historical sites and revolutionary sites, and mobilizes the people, including students, workers and Party officials to make pilgrimage marches to them.

Personality Cult of Kim Il-sung

Once a one-man rule of his own was secured, Kim Il-sung began to develop a personality cult in order to strengthen his authority.

He had to fabricate stories that his forefathers were anti- Japanese fighters and deify himself in order to make North Koreans believe him to be a man of great personality.

In the days of the Japanese colonial rule of Korea, Kim Il- sung never participated in real combats, although he was a Soviet army captain belonging to the 88 Special Reconnaissance Brigade; yet, he claimed that for 15 years he participated in more than 100,000 battles (over 20 battles a day) and won victories, even forging mystic stories that he turned sand into rice and crossed rivers on a leaflet as if he were an almighty deity.

To justify his fabricated past, he appointed so-called revolutionary war sites (7 places) and historic sites (34 places) throughout all North Korea, and every year he urged all the people to make expeditionary marches to those places. He even ordered the building of over 40,000 Kim Il-sung's Revolutionary Thought study rooms for the indoctrination of the people.

Furthermore, he had over 70 bronze statues and over 20,000 plaster busts erected all over the country, and had more than 20 diverse kinds of Kim Il-sung badges manufactured and worn by the people according to their class, aside from the obligatory hanging of a Kim Il-sung portrait in each household.

Besides, he ordered the carving of over 12,000 pieces of catchword trees and catchword documents, as well as the carving of letters appearing on natural rocks, and the erection of monumental stones with his own personal writings, let alone the publication of countless books related to his personality cult. In addition, he designated his birthday as "the greatest national holiday" and observed his birthday by spending hundreds of millions of dollars every year.

Even after the death of Kim Il-sung, the North Korean authorities had his body mummified and laid in a coffin at the super-deluxe Kumsusan Memorial Palace to prolong the personality cult under the pretext that he is "immortal and imperishable."

The North Korean authority went to every length to deify Kimill-sung as the progenitor the Kingdom by designating 97.7 Kim's birth year(1912) and date(April 15) as the Proto 'Juche' year and 'Taeyang(great sun)day.

Personality Cult of Kim Jong-il

Under the pretext that "the revolutionary task must be carried out in succession to Kim Il-sung," North Korea has theorized a justification for the feudalistic father-to-son succession of power, and therefore is indulged in deifying Kim Jong-il no less ardently than Kim Il-sung.

Kim Jong-il was actually born in Vyatsk in the vicinity of Khabarovsk, the Far Eastern region of the ex-Soviet Union, but his birth has been falsified as if he was born in a "milyong" (secret camp) on Mt. Paekdu, Yanggang Province. Therefore, the milyong has been designated a sacred ground, which people are encouraged to visit every year. Even a "Kim Jong-il Department" is established in each university, and the curriculum of primary and secondary schools contains lessons about Kim Jong-il's fabricated childhood.

In 1972, when he was informally nominated as the de facto successor to Kim Il-sung, Kim Jong-il began to be called the "Center of the Party," then, "Dear Leader" (1975), "Ryongdoja" (guiding leader) (1983). "Great Ryongdoja" (1986), "Unprecedented Great Man" (1994), and recently, "Outstanding Suryong" (leader) (1997).

North Korea has also invented a variety of absurd legends and anecdotes to idolize Kim Jong-il. For example, "At the time of his birth there were flashes of lightening and thunder, the iceberg in the pond on Mt. Paekdu emitted a mysterious sound as it broke, and bright double rainbows rose up," "At the age of 4 he smeared a Japanese map with black ink, then a stormy rain poured down on Japan," "By a touch of Kim Jong-il's hand the sea turned into a fertile land and a deep valley into a paradise," and numerous others of unbearable absurdity.

The North Korean authorities published, during the years 1992- 94, over 300 poems praising Kim Jong-il, and over 400 songs of praise. They also attempted to glorify Kim Jong-il's ruling capacity by the use of extraordinary terms, such as "Indok (benevolent virtue) Politics" or "Kwangpok (wide-width or wide-range) Politics."

On the other hand, Kim Jong-il has had opulent mansions including underwater mansions built in many parts (32 places) of North Korea beginning in 1992, which cost an estimated $2.5 billion. He also had his birthday institutionalized as the "People's Greatest Holiday" and celebrated as a nationwide event. The expenditures for the political propaganda for the personality cult of Kim Jong-il amount to approximately $900 million (4 percent of the GNP) every year.

The idolization of Kim Jong-il's family lineage was initiated for the purposes of justifying the process of Kim Il-sung's seizing power, which was actually done illegitimately, and the power succession from father to son.

Fabrications
Kim Ung-u (Kim Il-sung's great-grandfather)	a plain peasant was made into the vanguard commander of the incident of the sinking of an American trading vessel, the Sherman (the actual leader was Governor of Pyongyang, Pak Kyu-su)
Kim Bo-hyon (Kim Il-sung's grandfather), Li bo-Ik (grandmother)	Ordinary farmers were made into patriots who resisted Japanese aggressors
Kim Hyong-jik (Kim Il-sung's father)	an oriental medicine pharmacist who was killed in a raid by Communists, but who was made into an indefatigable Communist revolutionary fighter and a vanguard of the Communist movement
Kang Ban-sok (Kim Il-sung's mother)	an ordinary Christian woman, who was made into a passionate revolutionary fighter and a leader of the Korean women's liberation movement

Pleasure Team

In order to please Kim Jong-il and his close associates, North Korea maintains a group of pleasure women, called the pleasure team at each specially prepared villa. The existence of the team was revealed to the outside world in the 1980s, when North Korea abducted a number of young women from Hong Kong, Maccao and Middle East countries in order to reinforce the pleasure team."

The pleasure team is again broken down into a "satisfaction team," which performs the duty of providing sexual pleasure, a "happiness team," which conducts a massage service, and a "dancing team," which conducts and singing and dancing performances.

The 5th Section of the Party Organization and Guidance Department is responsible for recruiting members of this pleasure team. Annually the section orders its branch offices in provincial and city Party chapters to select a certain number of beautiful candidates from among female students attending senior high schools. The number of candidates is 100 times the required number of new members. About one tenth of these first-hand candidates will be sent to the Namsan Medical Clinic located at Munsu-dong in Pyongyang for a physical examination, and then from among them 50 will be sent to the Secretary's Office of Kim Jong-il for a final examination.

The candidates will undergo about 6 months of technical training, in accordance with their specialties decided by the Party authorities, before they are given chances to make a two- week observation tour abroad.

Upon completion of the above-mentioned course, they are commissioned 1st Lieutenant of the People's Army. They serve until they become 25 years old.

The guidelines for selecting the candidates are given in a document distributed to local Party chapters and classified as confidential. The document has headings which read, "the project designed to help Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il enjoy longevity is a holy duty all Party members must abide by." Under the guidelines, responsible secretaries of primary Party chapters in counties and cities always keep an eye on prospective candidates in their responsible areas so that they can recommend at least one candidate to their higher chapters whenever they are ordered to do so. Therefore, local Party officials make visits to senior high schools at the beginning of a new term to sort out the candidates. After sorting out the candidates, they do not forget to order the officials in the school Party chapter to take care of the candidates.

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