70 years ago on the 30th of August 1956 a plot to overthrow the leadership of the Korean revolution and overthrow the socialist system in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea was uncovered, exposed and smashed . There is much misinformation and misunderstanding about these events which are referred by the imperialists as “the August factional incident “ .Even some on the Left and some supposed self-styled anti-revisionists lack a correct understanding of what actually happened .
What happened 70 years ago was that anti-party counter-revolutionary factionalists in the Workers Party of Korea who had the backing of big powers but also the US imperialists and south Korean puppet reactionaries tried to overthrow the leadership of the WPK headed by President KIM IL SUNG and bring in revisionism and capitalism . Recently the reptile media of the fascist puppet regime of south Korea lamented the failure of the 1956 August factional coup d etat saying “North Korea could have become a socialist state akin to Hungary and eventually transitioned to a fully liberalized society following the Soviet collapse.” Of course Hungary ,which I visited myself twice in the 1980s ,was once of the worst examples of revisionism in the socialist camp with its McDonalds and designer shops plus Madonna and Rambo posters openly on sale . The DPRK would not have become a so-called “ fully liberalised “ society but would have been simply annexed by the Republic of Korea(south Korea) and colonised just like the former German Democratic Republic was .
Factionalism which is essentially a reflection of bourgeois ideology and is based on individualism and careerism . It had a long history in Korea during the 1920s the factionalists such as the Tuesday Group and ML Group wrecked the infant Korean Communist Party and caused it to be dissolved by the Comintern.
After liberation in 1945 the factionalists found their way back to Korea and took up positions in the Workers Party of Korea and the people’s government , biding their time , waiting for the opportunity to cause trouble .It was during the fierce Fatherland Liberation War against the US imperialist aggressors that the factionalists first showed their hand and their true nature .The Pak Hon Yong-Li Sung Yop spy clique who were agents of the US imperialist Central Intelligence Agency were exposed at a Plenary meeting of the Central Committee of the WPK. Pak Hon Yong had degenerated into a spy of the Japanese imperialists and US imperialists even before liberation .The Pak Hon Yong-Li Sung Yop counter-revolutionary factionalists betrayed the country , caused losses in the war and planned to overthrow the leadership. The great revolutionary leader Marshal KIM IL SUNG smashed them and saved the DPRK from being sold out to US imperialism and turned into a colony of the US.
The WPK launched its struggle against modern revisionism in 1955. Modern revisionism had appeared in the international communist movement in the mid 50s after the demise of JV Stalin . The WPK saw the struggle against modern revisionism as being very closely tied up to the struggle to defend independence and to avoid copying other countries, or in, other words, to establish Juche. .
As Comrade KIM IL SUNG said:
"In 1955, therefore, our Party set forth the definite policy of establishing Juche, and has been persistently urging an energetic ideological struggle to carry it through ever since. The year 1955 marked a turning point in our Party's consistent struggle against dogmatism. It was also at that time, in fact, that we started our struggle against modern revisionism that had emerged within the socialist camp. Our struggle against dogmatism was thus linked up with the struggle against modern revisionism".
Comrade KIM IL SUNG in his famous and celebrated work 'On Eliminating Dogmatism and Formalism and Establishing Juche in Ideological Work' (December 28, 1955), pointed out that a faction within the WPK, on returning from a visit to the Soviet Union, had demanded that Korea should drop its slogan against US imperialism on the grounds the USSR was following the line of easing international tension. This was an early manifestation of attempts by factionalists within the WPK to spread revisionism.
It was in 1956 that things reached a very critical stage. Khrushchev had made his speech to the 20th Congress of the CPSU heralding the onset of modern revisionism (revisionists surfaced in a number of parties and tried to destroy them, for example, the CPGB) and the imperialists launched a fierce international anti-Communist campaign. Within Korea, the fascist Syngman Rhee puppet regime went wild, talking of a 'March North'. The DPRK had only just completed the post-war reconstruction and rehabilitation of the economy after the devastation caused by the war. The factionalists who had been lurking in the WPK seized the chance to try and overthrow the leadership with the backing of outside revisionists. Indeed the CPSU fraternal delegate to the 3rd Congress of the WPK (who was none other than a certain L. I. Brezhnev) made a veiled attack on the WPK leadership .Soviet and Chinese leaders visited the DPRK to put pressure on the DPRK . All the old factions combined , both 'pro-Soviet' and 'pro Chinese' . They were united by nothing else than a desire to seize power and to make People's Korea dependent on other countries.
Events came to a head in August 1956, when the factionalists tried to stage their coup under the manipulation of the great power chauvinists and revisionists. Their aim was to deny the Party's leadership role and paralyze the dictatorship of the proletariat by elevating the Supreme People’s Assembly over the party and making the Korean People’s Army an “army of the united front “ rather than an army of the party. The factionalists also wished to stamp out the revolutionary conditions of the WPK forged in the flames of the anti-Japanese armed struggle. They even intended to turn the DPRK pro-American bourgeois republic . However, Comrade KIM IL SUNG led the people to smash the anti-Party counter-revolutionary factional clique. The WPK launched internally an anti-factional, anti-revisionist struggle. Comrade KIM IL SUNG attacked factionalism and revisionism at a Party Conference on March 6 1958. Referring to factionalism, he said:
"No faction is better or worse than any other. All come from the same mould; they are all products of capitalist influence in the working class movement. And they are a poison that destroys our Party and the working class movement in Korea".
Indeed the struggle against factionalism was not only an-anti-revisionist struggle but a class struggle as well as a struggle to maintain the independence of Korea.
In the struggle against factionalism , President KIM IL SUNG had the unswerving support of the people who hated the traitors . When President KIM IL SUNG visited the then Kangson Steel Plant in December 1956 angry steelworkers said they would throw the factionalists into the electric furnace .An old lady in Thaesong Village told Comrade KIM IL SUNG; “Premier, after all, it’s we who will win, and not the factionalist rogues, you see? Don’t worry. We support you.”
Some of the factionalist traitors fled to the revisionist USSR and to China. When the USSR finally collapsed in 1991 , some of the factionalists who had lived in the USSR became agents of the south Korean puppet regime , a sorry end indeed but its just goes to show where revisionists and liberals end up !
As President KIM IL SUNG wrote in his autobiographical reminiscences “With The Century “ "Traitors to the revolution also appeared during socialist construction in our country after the war. Choe Chang Ik, Yun Kong Hum, Ri Phil Gyu and others attempted to place obstacles in the way of our people’s forward movement. Having failed to realize their factional scheme, they chose to betray the Party and their motherland. As they dropped away, our revolution made a fresh upsurge and ushered in the era of Chollima. Since then the world has called our country Chollima Korea”
Had the August 1956 factionalist traitors not been defeated the DPRK would not exist today , it as simple as that . By establishing Juche , by defeating the factionalists and flunkeys and the revisionists the WPK under the guidance of President KIM IL SUNG and Chairman KIM JONG IL was able to build an independent power , a socialist paradise , a state that is independent , self-sufficient and self -defensive . The DPRK not only industrialised and improved living standards but became a nuclear power of Juche and an ICBM power .Thanks to the smashing of the factionalists in 1956 the DPRK became the best ever socialist country .
Dr Dermot Hudson
Chairman British Group For the Study of the Juche Idea
Chairman Korean Friendship Association UK
Hon secretary general Global Farmy Study Group For KIM JONG UN’s People-First Policies
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