In this paper, I reflect on the correlation between the formation of Korean Worker's Party (KWP) and KIM Il-sung's maneuver to wage the Korean War. For a long time, it was believed that KWP was formed through the merging of South Korean Worker's Party (SKWP) and North Korean Worker's Party (NKWP) from June to July in 1949 with KIM Il-sung as the chairman of the Central Committee. However, new materials prove that the formation of KWP just meant the integration of the Central Committee of both KWPs and had a close connection with the tactical defferences between PAK Honyong, the top leader of SKWP, and KIM Il-sung who had been pointed out the leader of Korean Communist Movement by Stalin in 1946.
PAK pursued the overturn of Rhee Syng-man's regime by guerrilla conflict of SKWP in South Korea and tried to avoid the civil war between South and North regimes by appealing for a ‘peaceful unification plan’ which the Democratic Front for the Unification of the Fatherland (DFUF) proposed. DFUF was established under PAK's initiative in June 1949. In this tactics it seems that SKWP and NKWP formed a ‘Joint Central Committee’ to manage activities of DFUF between June 28 and July 7 in 1949, when KIM Il-sung failed to take up the chairmanship of the Central Committee since the appeal of DFUF was not only one to withstand invasion of South Korea but also to contain KIM Il-sung's tactics. His tactics had dual purposes to achieve Korean unification and to seize the actual initiative of Korean Communist Movement with KIM's head position of KWP through advancing Korean People's Army into South Korea.
KIM opened up his tactics in a conversation with T. Shtykov, Soviet Ambassadar to North Korea, in August 1949 after his agreement to the ‘peaceful unification plan’ of DFUF. Although in September 1949 the Central Committee of Soviet Communist Party rejected this military option and ordered KIM and PAK to develop the latter's tactics with alerting KWP to the intervention of U. S. forces into the civil war, KIM Il-sung made a use of an opportunity of the favorable turn of Sino-Soviet relation. Finally, KIM gained his end in January 1950 that Stalin allowed him to prepare to open the war on condition that Mao Tse-zung should agree with KIM's tactics. Before the agreement of Stalin and Mao to open the civil war in Korean Peninsula, PAK had no other choice but to cooperate with KIM's tactics. Therefore the Korean War broke out in June 1950 and KIM began a purging of KWP after failing to accomplish his purposes through the war.

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For a long time, a majority of people have thought that the military would attempt a coup d'etat in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea due to the widespread economic deterioration in the past, and the fact that the domestic economy has seen some recent improvement makes this event more unlikely at present.
Why haven't a group of officers within the Korean People's Army attempted a coup d'etat? In this research, I provide three key reasons that explain why, even during three crisis periods involving major politico-military purges, this has not happened.
Chiefly these were: entrenched clique competition in the military; the existence of an organization that can oppose the armed forces; and a systemic and purposeful division of the military. I have confirmed through this research that the system that has divided the military still exists in the army, a system controlled effectively by a senior commissar. Therefore, this research concludes that the possibility of a coup d'etat occurring is low even in the present D. P. R. K.

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This paper studies the movement to institute the “Democratic Base” in North Korea under the Soviet Forces after World War II. It intends to show that this movement was a particular developed form of the Korean Communist Movement defined as the “Movement for National Liberation”, which tried to surmount the Cold War by establishing a sovereign state with a united government over the whole Korean peninsula.
Originally the Korean Communist Movement developed as the Movement for National Liberation in order to end Japanese colonial rule and establish an independent nation. From this movement some parties emerged to assume leadership when Korea was liberated by the forces of both the United States and the Soviet Union. This post-liberation leadership tried to surmount the special difficulties of the divided occupation and form a united government with Korean sovereignty.
But the two super powers began to establish separate regimes following theoir intentions in each occupational area with the progress of the Cold War. The American army of occupation in South Korea suppressed the left elements under the influence of the Korean Communist Party and backed the right wing nationalistic elements such as Syng-man Rhee. By contrast the Soviets gave the Koreans the right of self-administration on the surface and pretended not to prevent them from governing their inner politics, but in reality Soviet policy pursued a “divide and rule” policy from the early stages of occupation. The Soviet Army of occupation in North Korea contrived to win the nationalist elements over to its side through the so-called “united front” policy, which was also used in Eastern Europe as “People's Democracy”. Behind the “united front” the Soviet Army had the communist parties follow its instructions and promoted Kim Il-sung to take the initiative and found a Party in the northern area only. After the famous “Trusteeship Imbroglio” the Soviet Army formed a political power headed by Kim Il-sung. With the development of the Cold War, Soviet style socioeconomic reforms were carried out by Kim Il-sung from 1946 only in the north. These policies by the two super powers finally gave birth to the crisis of a civil war between their client states.
In this difficult environment the most urgent problem for the Koreans was to escape such a war and form a united independent government over all of Korea. The assertion of the “Democratic Base” as a resolution of this problem was raised first by Kim Tu-bong, the president of the “Korean New Democratic Party” founded in February 1946, not Kim Il-sung, who has been thought to be its first advocate. Kim Tu-bong formally proposed the idea at the inaugural assembly of the “North Korean Worker's Party” in August 1946.
Kim Tu-bong was a prominent intellectual leader of the anti-Japanese independent movement by the “Korean Voluntary Army” centering around Yenan with close connections to the Chinese Communist Party. His idea and plan for establishing the “Democratic Base” was an application of his experiences in Yenan to North Korea, that is, to institute first the same style “Democratic Base” in the northern area similar to the one founded by Mao Tse-tung in Yenan and then, as a second step, extend it from there to the south through the “National United Front” policy. Adapting this policy to the situation under the Soviet forces he tried to establish a united government over both areas under Korean sovereignty, a priority in the Korean Communist Movement from its inception in the anti-Japanese independent conflict.
Today, in the “post-Cold War” world with “the Grand Failure” of Communism, it is critical to consider the role that the “Democratic Base” played in the Movement for National Liberation in the history of the

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The Soviet Union and South Korea concluded diplomatic relations in September 1990. This paper makes references to the Soviet policy decision process in establishing diplomatic relations with South Korea based on the new archives from both the Soviet Union and South Korea sides.
The move to expand the economical and cultural relationship between the Soviet Union and South Korea was held in view within the Soviet Union till the beginning of 1990, but regarding the establishment of diplomatic relations with South Korea, the Soviet Union was still in an opaque situation because of opposition from the Soviet Union Ministry of Foreign Affairs and KGB. But the change of the political system in the Soviet Union, i. e., introduction of a presidential system in March 1990, changed the traditional foreign policy decision-making style of the Kremlin, and made it possible for diplomacy to be led by Gorbachev and his assistants, not by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
After Gorbachev held a talk in San Francisco with the South Korean President Roh Tae-woo by the initiative of the president's executive office of himself in June 1990, he succeeded in weakening the resistance of Foreign Minister Shevardnadze's opponents. Furthermore, the approach of South Korea whose positive initiative taken by two assistants for President Roh Tae-woo had the effect of making the talks in San Francisco possible..
Not only the structure of such domestic policy decisions but several other factors contributed to the establishment of diplomatic relations between South Korea and the Soviet Union. For example, the aggravation of the Japan-Soviet relationship by the Kuril Islands dispute became a fair wind for South Korea. Gorbachev was interested in approaching South Korea because large economic aid could not be expected from Japan.
We should also point out that Soviet recognition towards South Korea improved during the glasnost policy of the Soviet Union, and the image of North Korea got worse in contrast. The report which the Soviet Union Communist Party International Affairs Department submitted in February 1990 showed how drastically Russian view of North Korea had deteriorated.
However, East Asia's regional situation was affected seriously by such a policy change, by driving isolated North Korea to resort to nuclear brinkmanship. The establishment of the diplomatic relations, which put priority on narrow national interest rather than on long-term influence which the Soviet Union diplomacy had on the Korean peninsula, should be reappraised in a broader context, including its negative aspect.

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