North Korean House of Cards

military. Only through an undiluted command and control system could Kim
Jong-il ever hope to reach the level of his father in terms of garnering respect and
asserting guidance. In 1991, Kim was appointed Supreme Commander of the
Armed Forces. This was a technical violation of the 1972 constitution, which
stipulated that this position was intrinsically linked to that of the President, a post
still held by Kim Il-sung. This provision was removed during the 1992 revision of
the constitution, which also elevated the NDC in status. 264 The year following the
revision, Kim Jong-il became the Chairman of the NDC.
After Kim Il-sung’s death, this division of labor became more entrenched in
the system as Kim Jong-il was faced with a crumbling economy. It quickly became
apparent that the Party was not capable of dealing with this crisis. In a speech to
Party members in December 1996 at Kim Il-sung University, Kim Jong-il bitterly
criticized the Party for being debilitated, using terms such as “Elderly Party” (Noin-dang)
and “Corpse Party” (Song-jang-dang). According to defector reports, Kim
even threatened to disband the Party during an informal meeting in 1997. 265 He also
reportedly reproached the Party for “not dealing properly with the food shortages
in the country,” and contended that he “did not owe anything to the Party.” 266 The
Party’s inability to function was revealed in October 1997, when Kim Jong-il
bypassed established Party rules to assume the mantle of General Secretary of the
KWP. This was not done through the convening of a plenary meeting of the KWP
Central Committee but through a joint endorsement by the Party’s CMC and
Central Committee. 267 By circumventing the Central Committee process and not
accepting the title of General Secretary of the Central Committee, but rather taking
that of General Secretary of the KWP, Kim placed himself firmly above the Party
apparatus. This gave notice that, unlike his father, he would not rule through the Party.
According to the Open Source Center, other epithets followed, such as “successor” (gye-seung-ja) in May
1981, “respected and beloved Kim Jong-il” (gyeong-ae-ha-neun Kim Jong-il) in April 1982, and “father
Kim Jong-il” (eo-beo-i Kim Jong-il) in January 1992. As noted above, Kim Jong-il never adopted the title
“Leader” (Suryong), which was reserved for his father.
264 The Supreme Commander was now intrinsically linked to the post of Chairman of the NDC.
265 Monthly Chosun, April 1997.
266 Suh Jae-Jean, “Possibility for WKP to Take Back Role of Decision-making,” Yonhap News
Agency Agency: Vantage Point 33, no. 8 (August 2010).
267 The CMC’s ability to endorse Kim Jong-il as General Secretary was apparently made
possible by a revision to the KWP rules in 1982 in which the CMC was elevated in status equal to that
of the Central Committee. However, some Pyongyang-watchers dispute the fact that because the CMC
was now referred to as the Party CMC that meant it was no longer subordinate to the KWP Central
Committee. Regardless of this issue, Kim Jong-il’s assumption of this position seemed to violate Article
24 of the KWP rules, which states that a plenary meeting of the KWP Central Committee should elect
the General Secretary.
Ken E. Gause
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