PEOPLE'S DEMOCRACY' IN KOREA
Noble, Harold J.
'People's Democracy in Korea By Harold J. Noble a MONG the "peoples democracies" /\ which have sprung up since the •* war's end, the Korean is least known The Democratic Peoples Republic of...
...People's Democracy in Korea By Harold J. Noble a MONG the "peoples democracies" /\ which have sprung up since the •* war's end, the Korean is least known The Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea" was constituted last .September 10 in its "temporary" capital al Pyongyang...
...During the prewar years he visited Korea nearly every year, and fallowing war service in the Marine Corps, ha returned to Korea in 194* as Far Eastern correspondent for the Saturday Evening Post...
...THE SUPREME PEOPLES ASSEMBLY of this "peoples" republic is the reservoir of authority, exercised between meetings by the Presidium...
...e. a list of their own names—which the voters were required to place either in a black or a white box...
...and to extend the blessings of the Soviet constitution to the oppressed two-thirds of the Korean people south of the 38th parallel...
...to have a completely independent government...
...When Vishinsky opposed placing the Korean question on the UN agenda, he claimed that there was no Korean question to settle, aside from withdrawal of American troops...
...Subsequently, it was "recognized" by the USS R , the Mongolian Peoples Republic, Poland, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia...
...Since nearly all cabinet posts are filled by long-time Communist party members, and since "General Kim Il-sung" heads the Korean Communist party, ministerial obedience to party discipline should be no problem...
...foie served with the American Delegation to the UN General Assembly in Paris last autumn as special adviser en Korea...
...The elected candidates formed a National Assembly, adopted a constitution, and helped create a government...
...The Supreme Peoples Assembly, selected in this manner, then met in session at Pyongyang from September 2 to 10, adopted a previously-prepared, Soviet-type constitution...
...It seems incredible that the Soviet government would ofcially proclaim that over 6,000,000 men and women proceeded to vote in elections that anyone can prove did not occur...
...Communist party members watched the polls to prevent improprieties...
...Simultaneously, on August 25, throughout North Korea the electorate was herded to the polls, and again went through the single list, to "elect" some 212 North Korean delegates to this Supreme Peoples Assembly, "the true representative organ and supreme legislative organ of the Korean people...
...They were told to strike out the names of unsuitable candidates...
...Yet this is the claim of the Korean peoples' democracy, of the Soviet Union and its satellites...
...Only American interference had kept the people in the south from piling up an equal proportion of Votes for the peoples democracy...
...Neither the UN Commission in Korea, the foreign consuls, the U.S...
...Every "ballot" carries the names- of ten "voters," but it has no heading to indicate what the vote is for, nor even the name of a candidate...
...to destroy the "traitors...
...Premier Kim" then selected his own cabinet...
...Kim Il-sung" and his lieutenants prepared a list of candidates —i...
...His cabinet, whose members are drawn equally from north and south, has exactly as much independence as Premier "Kim Il-sung" wishes to allow it...
...It is backed militarily and economically by the Soviet Union...
...Desbite their violent radio propaganda, and the murdefs committed by the goon squads which they sent to the south, some 75 per cent of the potential electorate among the 20,000,000 people living in South Korea went to the polls to vote for the candidates of their choice...
...Its claims are based on so enormous a fraud that it's difficult to disbelieve them...
...THE MOST STARTLING FEATURE of the elections for this Assembly — on whose unanimous decisions the new democracy is based — is the official claim that 77.52 percent of the potential electorate in South Korea had voted for the delegates who had proceeded to Haeju, where in turn they had elected 380 of their members to sit in the Supreme Peoples Assembly at Pyoongyang...
...the white box meant "yes...
...These five men, selected and supported by the Russians, are the "Demo• cratic Peoples Republic of Korea...
...In 1948 the Peoples Committee did its best to disrupt the activities of the UN Temporary Commission pn Korea, and the elections which it observed on May 10...
...and elected as premier of the Central Government of the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea, "General Kim Il-sung"—the chairman of the (Communist) North Korea Labor party, and also chairman of the now superseded North Korea Supreme Reoples Committee...
...If that happy day comes, the peoples democrats won't have to fake ballots and signatures...
...EARLY- Iff THEIR OCCUPATION of North Korea, Soviet forces established a "North Korea Provisional Peoples Committee," at their occupation capital...
...It claims to be based on universal, democratic elections held throughout the whole of Korea...
...He naw lives in California where ha is engaged in free lance writing...
...authorities, nor the Korean authorities, had any awareness of this great mass movement in their midst...
...a resolution on US-Soviet troop withdrawal...
...Subsequently, ha Joined GHQ in Tokyo, where part of his duties dealt with Korea affairs...
...Vishinsky said there had been established a government of the whole peninsula, although it was temporarily denied access to its true capital at Seoul by American arms...
...From January ie September, 1948, he was Chief of the Political Liaison Office attached iio the staff of General Hodge in Seoul...
...It was this Government of the Republic of Korea of which the UN General Assembly expressed approval at Paris last December...
...As they now do in the north, they can prepare lists of their own names, set out the black and white boxes all over South Korea, and, with the exercise of appropriate inducements, undoubtedly can get 99 percent of the people to place the lists in the white boxes...
...I've examined many of them, and they are most interesting...
...Unlike Stalin and Lenin, who adopted pseudonyms to escape the police, this Korean Communist adopted his to deceive the people...
...Despite imperialistic American conduct, over 6,000,000 South Koreans had voted for representatives in this peoples democracy...
...FROM LATE JULY TO EARLY AUGUST...
...On August 25, this special Communist congress was presented by its leadership with a list of 360 prospective members of the "Korean Supreme Peoples Assembly," chosen from among themselves...
...Barn and raised in Korea, ha also spant several years there in his early twenties...
...So far as I know, however, no animals were voted...
...Having failed to disrupt the UNobserved elections in' South Korea, the Russian and Korean Communists worked swiftly in an attempt to create a functioning "peoples democracy" before the Paris session of the UN General Assembly opened in late September...
...The Communists did prepare a very large number of "ballots" in South Korea, in support of their claims...
...Their "Peoples Army" even now is threatening to march on their "true capital," Seoul — denied them by the "pro-Japanese and pro-American traitors" of the "so-called" Government of the Republic of Korea — in order to raise the flag of the peoples democracy over the capital...
...It is noteworthy, however, that aside from "Kim Il-sung," no other member of the five-man permanent executive committee of the (Communist) North Korea Labor Party holds a cabinet post...
...Here's how it was fixed...
...IN IMS AND AGAIN IN 1947 "general elections" were held in North Korea for the members of the Peoples Committee...
...Harold J. Noble is a Far Eastern specialist...
...Pyongyang, as the "Interim Central Government of the Peoples Regime in North Korea...
...He claimed that 85.2 percent *cf all the eligible voters in the whole peninsula had participated in the elections for this government—99.7 percent in the north and 77.2 percent in the sputh...
...This, then, is the Korean "peoples democracy...
...and to operate a highly efficient army...
...Actual execution of governmental authority, however, is concentrated in the Russian-appointed "General Kim Il-sung...
...There was np alternative list...
...No names were struck out, and amidst tumultuous applause the 360 southerners were declared to have been elected unanimously...
...Then, indeed, true "peoples democracy" will descend over the whole of Korea, bringing with it a curtain of silence...
...They would have us believe that over 8,000,000 people throughout South Korea proceeded to the secret polls to vote unseen...
...Since the General Assembly ol the United Nations, with only the Soviet bloc in opposition, has formally expressed its approval of the Government of the Republic of Korea—whose capital is at Seoul, not Pyongyang—the anatomy of this other Korea, this "peoples democracy," takes on special interest...
...The head both of the (Communist) North Korea Labor Party and ef the Peoples Committee was "General Kim Il-sung," a rather pleasantappearing gentleman then in his late thirties and who recently visited Stalin in Moscow...
...General Kim Il-sung" entered Korea in August, 1945, in a Red Army officer's uniform...
...The "signatures" are an entertaining mixture of the names of men long since dead, or known to be out of the country, or belonging to distinctly anticommunist groups, or to the Seoul government, or are even inanimate objects (such as the title of a famous historical novel...
...The officials of this committee, naturally, were all members of the Korean Communist party, which in 1940 changed its official title to the more popular name of North Korea Labor Party...
...Upon discarding his Russian uniform and rank, he not only promoted himself to the status of general but also assumed the name of a famous and much admired Korean guerilla, Kim Il-sung, long since dead...
...He is the police...
...Happily, all decisions of this Supreme Peoples Assembly were unanimous...
...1948, over one thousand south Korean communists crossed the 38th parrallel to gather in the city of Haeju, just across the line in the Russian zone...
...In this manner was the "popular will" expressed...
...Since the guerilla, Kim Il-sung, would have been in his mid-sixties had he been alive, by now almost everyone in Korea knows that this Russian-sponsored Korean Communist is not the famous independence fighter, yet he continues to use the stolen name...
...In every case the ten names are written by the same hand, while the "thumbprints" below the "signatures" are so small and smudged that identification is impossible...
...Since in the UN-observed elections in South Korea only about 75 percent of the potential electorate had voted, alledgedly under severe coercion, this mass turnout in the same area for the peoples democracy was phenomenal...
...The lie is so huge it becomes impressive...
...The black box meant "no...
...About 99 per cent of the electorate are said to have placed their lists in the white boxes in each "election...
Vol. 32 • May 1949 • No. 22
