ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the Soviet policy in North Korea and the origins of the North Korean elite by examining party and governmental organizations, and main elite figures from August 1945 to the late 1940s. The Soviet occupation forces guided the creation of the North Korean state from 1945 to 1948, recruiting and educating elite figures for a new regime. In 1946, they began to organize a semi-central government, known as the North Korean Provisional People’s Committee, in which both communists and nationalists participated. Several political parties, including the communist North Korean Workers’ Party (later Korean Workers’ Party), the conservative nationalist Korean Democratic Party, and the radical nationalist Young Friends’ Party, sprang up, competing for power during this period. They participated in the founding of the central government in 1948. The Soviet forces chose Kim Il Sung as the leader of North Korea and behind the scenes they structured political power, centering on the Workers’ Party, in the North, although the power structure in this period ostensibly looked like a multi-party one. This chapter addresses the Soviet policy, the main elite figures in the parties and the government, and their interactions in the new state.
