Kim Il Sung's state seized half their crops, driving peasants to suicide
Peasants faced brute force grain seizures and lost their reserves while secret-mongering and careerists kept the leadership insulated from reality.
By Vera Kessler ·
Kim Il Sung
300,000 Soldiers Built a Dam as Kim Il Sung Masked Systemic Desperation
Behind choreographed flatteries, Kim Il Sung confessed to Erich Honecker that his people lacked food and clothing while 1,000 nuclear warheads threatened to turn his country into complete rubble.
By Vera Kessler ·
Kim Il Sung pivoted from forceful liberation to 100,000-man troop cap
East Berlin analysts watched Kim Il Sung shift from calls to forcefully liberate the south to a proposal for reducing armed forces to 100,000 men.
By Vera Kessler ·
Kim Il Sung Claimed 92 Percent Autonomy to Mask Soviet Credit Needs
Pyongyang hid its reliance on Soviet credits for steel mills and power plants behind a mask of total autonomy while shifting its political allegiance toward Beijing.
By Vera Kessler ·
Kim Il Sung Rejects Moscow Treaty as Soviet Surrender to West
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.
By Vera Kessler ·
Kim Il Sung erased Soviet liberators to justify leadership cult
North Korea's claim to have won its own liberation was branded a fraud by East German analysts who feared a growing personality cult was betraying socialist unity.
By Marcus Boone ·