Hamgyong Province: Can there be Factionalism in North Korea?

The landscape near Hoeryong in North Hamgyong Province, North Korea.

Hamgyong Province in North Korea is famous for its regionalism. Towards the end of the 1980s, Kim Il-sung ordered for the Central Party to be reduced in membership, because he worried that the membership list of the Central Party – which included many people from Hamgyong Province – would promote the spread of regional factionalism. Nevertheless, the fact that an excessive number of Hamgyong people held Central Party positions was only a symptom of a deeper problem.

In the early years of the North Korean state, the government was mainly comprised of Kim Il-sung’s partisans of guerrila warfare during the time of the Japanese occupation. During this time, Kim’s anti-Japanese circle were mainly from the northern regions near China, rather than from regions further south. The Korean War also played a decisive role in determining the composition of the Party. One’s track record during the war was considered important according to the internal regulations governing appointment of Party personnel, and also emphasized during the qualification procedure. The records of the candidate’s relatives were also taken into consideration and in this way, the rules governing appointment of Party personnel even took into account the extended family of one’s relations by marriage.

These rules were especially relevant for those who came from the southern provinces of North Korea. In the early phase of the Korean War, when North Korean soldiers retreated back to the Aprok River, UN forces moved in and occupied the southern region for an extended period of time. Consequently, those who had family members fleeing south were relatively numerous here compared to the northern regions and in later years, even if a candidate’s loyalty was proven to be satisfactory, the wartime ‘track records’ of their family relations would come back to haunt them.

For this reason, many Party officials from Hwanghae Province, which lies in the southern part of North Korea, were barred from entering the Central Party. Hence when Kim Il-sung asked for a reduction in the Central Party membership, intending for Hamgyong Province officials to be demoted, the plan backfired: he had simply calculated in terms of numbers, and had not taken these appointment regulations into account.

After Kim Il-sung’s death, the excessive number of Party officials with ties to Hamgyong Province seemed also to have worried Kim Jong-il. Around 2002, Kim Jong-il ordered for Central Party officials hailing from regions south of Pyongan Province to be offered exclusive leadership training. After this measure was implemented, officials from the southern provinces were re-trained at the elite Kim Il-sung Party Institute, and this was followed by mass appointments for such southerners to be appointed in a Central Party position and other institutional positions.

Nevertheless, Kim Jong-il’s Central Party reforms did not have the desired impact. After more than half a century, the Party atmosphere had been forged through strong educational and regional ties of the Hamgyong Province officials; this could not be changed overnight by one order from Kim Jong-il.

The “Daehongdan spirit of the Arduous March” and “the Kangye spirit of autonomy” can be seen as further ways in which Kim Jong-il strived to check the power of Hamgyong people – Daehongdan and Kangye were places in Yanggang Province and Chagang Province, respectively. In 2003, a Party secretary of South Hamgyong Province attempted to expose Kim Jong-il’s ‘true’ intentions by pointing to the southern coincidence, and was subsequently sent to a political prison camp.

The purges that took place in North Hamgyong Province in May 2011 may also be related to the insecurity that Kim Jong-il felt with regard to the factions of Hamgyong Province.