Kim Il Sung Rejects Moscow Treaty as Soviet Surrender to West

By Vera Kessler · August 10, 2026

Nikita Khrushchev was accused of surrendering to the West in a hidden 1963 rift where Kim Il Sung rejected the Moscow Treaty and urged other socialist states to seek nuclear weapons.

The report is dated December 2, 1963, and originates from the SED Central Committee Department of International Relations within the GDR Ministry for Foreign Affairs. A translation from German provided by the Cold War International History Project, the document outlines a sharpening rift between the leadership in Pyongyang and the Soviet Union, mapping a shift in the Workers' Party of Korea (WPK) from a position of "vacillations" toward a strict alignment with the Chinese Communist Party.

By late 1963, East Berlin observers noted that the WPK had ceased its previous attempts to maintain a middle ground between the Soviet Union and the Chinese. This pivot was not merely subtle. The report identifies a significant escalation in the Korean press, specifically the central organ Nodong Sinmun. On October 28, 1963, the newspaper published a speech given by Kim Il Sung to the 7th Plenum of the WWP Central Committee. While the newspaper version used veiled language, referring to "some people," the original speech explicitly named its targets: "the CPSU leaders."

Nodong Sinmun and the 7th Plenum

The report characterizes the WPK's new trajectory as an embrace of "damaging positions" championed by the Chinese leadership. This ideological migration manifested as a rejection of "peaceful coexistence," a policy the Soviet Union was actively pursuing. The WPK leadership viewed negotiations with "imperialists" not as a path to stability, but as an invitation to increased aggression.

Central to this friction was the Moscow Treaty. The DPRK refused to become a signatory, and the Nodong Sinmun published scathing critiques, claiming the treaty offered "convenient paths to the U.S. imperialists to assume superiority in the field of nuclear weapons." The Soviet Union and Nikita Khrushchev were accused of having "surrendered" to the West. In the eyes of the WPK, the Caribbean Crisis—which the Soviets viewed as a successful avoidance of global war—was instead a series of "unprincipled concessions and compromises."

A "Moral Political Missile"

The document details a dangerous disregard for nuclear deterrence within the WPK's rhetoric. In a December 1962 plenum, the WPK asserted that the "revolutionary spirit of the Korean people to protect their homeland is stronger than any nuclear bomb and missile." By July 1963, a party brochure boasted that while the imperialists had nuclear weapons, they lacked the "large moral political missile" possessed by North Korea.

This posture extended to a direct challenge of the Soviet nuclear monopoly within the socialist camp. The report notes that the WPK supported the quest for nuclear weapons by China and other socialist states, arguing that relying on a single socialist superpower for defense was insufficient. To the WPK, the defense of the socialist camp should not rest on the "arms capabilities of one individual socialist country."

Berlin and the Seven-Point-Program

The friction extended into the specific concerns of the GDR. The WPK leadership expressed deep skepticism regarding East Germany's approach to West Berlin. While officially supporting the GDR's struggle, KWP officials privately viewed the East German government's efforts as lacking in toughness.

Specifically, the WPK rejected the GDR's "Seven-Point-Program of Reason and Good Will," describing it as a "retreat before the enemy." The report records a confrontation between GDR Ambassador Becker and Kang Hwi-won, Chairman of the Pyongyang City Committee. Kang told the ambassador, "Please bear with me when I have to contradict you," insisting that the adversary must be fought with weapons rather than diplomatic programs.

Even more striking was the WPK's perceived dogmatism regarding the "one-state-theory." The report suggests that the WPK leadership attempted to apply its domestic Korean political logic—the necessity of a single state—to the German situation. This was evidenced by a telegram from Foreign Minister Pak Seong-cheol to GDR Foreign Minister Lothar Bolz, which the analysts in Berlin interpreted as an indication that the WPK did not agree with the existence of two separate German states.

The Cult of Personality

The report concludes with an analysis of the WPK's internal contradictions regarding the "cult of personality." In 1956, the WPK had officially declared solidarity with the Soviet effort to overcome the cult of Stalin. However, by 1961, the party's tone shifted. The WPK began arguing that the internal affairs of "fraternal parties" were off-limits, stating that the issues of Stalin and the anti-party group in the CPSU were "of no concern to our party."

By 1963, the Nodong Sinmun was openly attacking the movement against the cult of personality as a tool used to interfere in the internal matters of other states. The GDR analysts noted that while the WPK criticized the Soviets for their "revisionism," it simultaneously expanded the cult of Kim Il Sung "most massively and with very damaging consequences."

This ideological break coincided with a strategic realignment. The WPK began scaling back relations with the Soviet Union and European socialist states, turning instead toward China and seeking new trade ties with capitalist nations like Japan and England. The report ends as it describes the WPK's justification for this distancing: the need to meet obligations toward "national liberation," leaving the stability of the broader socialist camp an open question.