North Korean Policy Elites - Defense Technical Information Center

odies by organizing meeting agendas, and contained a deciphering office and a chancellery
whose function it was to control all incoming and outgoing secret documents. They were also
responsible for the issuance and safekeeping of party cards, which made them vital to any powerbuilding
venture by the senior leadership. Finally, they kept the records and archives for the
party. There is no doubt that the Soviet authorities responsible for monitoring Korean
developments would have wanted to use this apparatus to their own ends. The 1949 merger of
the two Korean communist parties led to a reorganization of the Central Committee apparatus.
The General Affairs and Secret Departments, which had existed at the central level since 1945,
were now incorporated into the executive staff under Ho Ka-i. 4 Therefore, the information flow
through the party apparatus, both in terms of guidance and control over the system, was run not
out of the General Secretary’s office, but the Executive staff.
This duality of control even extended into the state apparatus, where Kim Il-sung focused
most of his authority. The Cabinet, as the “supreme executive organ,” was the nucleus of the
administrative operations and controls of the state. But, as in all communist systems, it was not
without restraints and controls placed on it by the party. The Political Committee (Politburo) was
the ultimate policy decision-making body. The Cabinet had some authority to participate in the
broad policy objectives of the regime (especially in the area of the economy), but its main
function was to carry out the party’s decisions and supervise the government hierarchy. Kim Ilsung’s
position as prime minister was underwritten by his role as chairman of the KWP. Two of
Kim’s closest associates, Kim Chaek (Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Industry) and Pak
Ilu (Minister of Internal Affairs) were both members of the party’s Political and Organizational
committees.
The shadow apparatus, populated by the Soviet Koreans, had direct contact with the
cabinet. In each ministry, the vice ministers were Soviet Koreans. According to one assessment
done by the United States in the early 1950s, the vice ministers’ “authority was considered
greater than that of the minister.” 5 At the central level, this network exerted influence, if not
control, through the Cabinet’s housekeeping organs: the Bureau of General Affairs, Secretariat,
and Bureau of Leaders, apparently a personnel agency for high-level appointments. These organs
in turn had direct lines to the individual ministries via the personnel, general affairs, and
4 In 1945, the General Affairs Department was established. Its director was Pak Chong-ho, a close associate of Kim
Il-sung and a member of his anti-Japanese partisan movement. Pak is the father of Pak Myong-chol, the current
Chairman of the Physical Culture and Sports Guidance Commission.
5 North Korea: A Case Study in the Techniques of Takeover (Washington, D.C.: Department of State, 1951). This
report represented the findings of a State Department Research Mission sent to Korea on October 28, 1950, to
conduct a survey of the North Korean regime as it operated before the outbreak of the Korean War. Its findings
were declassified in 1961.
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