Three core groups of the Korean People’s Army

This chapter examines the three core groups of the Korean People’s Army and where these diverse groups came from. The current historiography only focuses on the Soviet material culture and tends to ignore the human and cultural factors of the Korean People’s Army. However, by examining who the elite of the Korean People’s Army were and where they came from, this chapter demonstrates that the Korean People’s Army was not just a product of the Soviet Union, but a combination of diverse cultural influences and, most importantly, the Chinese cultural influence.