Kim Il Sung pivots to Mao as Soviets reject low-quality towels
By Roy Castellano ·
A Cuban ambassador leaked secrets to Kim Il Sung and China while Soviet diplomats fought over rejected towels and watched Park Chung-hee stabilize South Korea's free market.
On October 27, 1963, a small group of socialist diplomats took a field trip in the vicinity of Pyongyang. The party included Comrade Pimenov, a counselor at the Soviet embassy, and the First Secretaries of the Polish and Czechoslovak embassies, Witek and Shicha. Among them was Winkelmann, an official from the East German embassy. This excursion, recorded in a note dated November 8, 1963, and preserved in a published English translation (original language: German) from the Cold War International History Project, serves as a candid ledger of the frictions mounting within the communist bloc in East Asia.
Bad Towels and Magnesite
The conversation revealed a deep frustration with the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK). Pimenov reported that trade negotiations in Moscow had become "very protracted and very complicated." The core of the issue was a fundamental imbalance: the DPRK wanted to import solid goods but was reluctant to deliver non-ferrous and precious metals in return.
For years, the Soviet Union had treated the DPRK with a level of patience that bordered on subsidization, but by late 1963, the limit had been reached. Pimenov noted that the Soviets were now raising issues of quality with "much more insistently." In a detail that highlights the banal reality of socialist commerce, Pimenov observed that the Soviets "do not accept towels any more if they do not meet the standards." He concluded that it was no longer possible to simply provide aid as the Koreans demanded; instead, trade had to be based on "strict reciprocity."
Poland faced similar struggles. Comrade Witek pointed out that 75 percent of Poland's entire trade volume with the DPRK concerned the import of magnesite, yet no agreement had been reached regarding the quality standards required by the Polish side. While the Soviet and Polish diplomats complained about quality and reciprocity, they noted that the DPRK was quietly expanding its trade with capitalist nations, specifically Japan, and was preparing to send a trade delegation to England. The bloc was paying the bills, but Pyongyang was looking toward the markets of the West.
Park Chung-hee's Bonn Miracle
While the socialist delegates struggled with towels and minerals, they were closely watching the regime in Seoul. Pimenov informed the group that Park Chung-hee had published a book titled The State, the Revolution, and I. In this text, Park described the stabilization of the South Korean economy, the life of its population, and the role of a free market economy in achieving national development.
Of particular interest to the diplomats was a full chapter in which Park claimed he was adapting the "Bonn economic miracle"—the rapid post-war reconstruction of West Germany—to the South Korean context. The diplomats shared a consensus that, despite the internal frictions of the south, the Park Chung-hee government had "somewhat become stabilized." They pointed to a voter turnout of over 80 percent as evidence of this stability. For a group of men representing the rigid hierarchies of the East, the evidence of a stabilizing free-market system in the south was a detail worthy of a requested copy of the book.
A Turn Toward China
Strategic shifts were occurring beyond the trade balance. The diplomats discussed the "increasingly closer ties" between the DPRK and China, noting that a "complete turn of the DPRK towards the Chinese course" had occurred, particularly following a visit by Liu Shaoqi. This shift was evident in the DPRK's press, which published articles supporting the Chinese position, and in a surge of delegation exchanges between Pyongyang and Beijing.
Pimenov argued that the DPRK's position was no longer "fluctuating." The central question for the Soviet counselor was whether the Korean Workers' Party (KWP) leadership would formally recognize the leading role of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and Mao Zedong in the event of a formal split within the international communist movement. Pimenov believed that the CCP would handle this skillfully to avoid bruising the "nationalist feelings" of the KWP. He noted that the CCP would likely leave the personality cult around Kim Il Sung untouched, as such a cult "fully fits into their own concepts."
The memo concludes with a warning regarding the Cuban ambassador in the DPRK. Pimenov advised the other diplomats to exercise caution, stating that the ambassador was "completely in the pocket of the Koreans" and reported everything he heard to both the Chinese and the North Koreans. The record leaves it unclear how the Soviets intended to counter this intelligence leak or whether the trade disputes over magnesite and towels would eventually push Pyongyang entirely into the orbit of Beijing.