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The Issue of Grooming

While recent announcements of Kim Jong Un as the named successor have been downplayed here at OFK, I can’t help but feel that whoever will eventually take over the reins once Kim Jong Il is gone will be severely disadvantaged if the next leader is indeed directly from the Kim bloodline.

Kim Il Sung spent half a lifetime being “groomed” for leadership by the Soviets, including one intense year where he was accompanied in Korea by a Soviet spin doctor and other officials who toured the country with him, advised him, helped write his speeches and ultimately set him on the path to creating a public image which eventually led to a cult of personality in North Korea.

It wasn’t a process that took place overnight.

Likewise, when it came time to start thinking about a successor who would continue the Kim bloodline, The Great Leader started early in grooming his son Kim Jong Il for the position back in 1971, with some reports claiming the succession choice became official in 1974. Throughout the years, Kim Jong Il took on greater and greater responsibilities within the North Korean Worker’s Party so that by the time of his father’s death in 1994, he had had 20-some years of preparation for position as North Korea’s “Dear Leader.

It doesn’t look like the DPRK’s next “supposed” successor, however, will come into power so well-prepared. Assuming Kim Jong Un does ultimately take control, he’ll have to have quite a learning curve to make up for lost grooming time. We don’t know much about Kim Jong Un, but given the physical condition of Kim Jong Il and the drastic behavior we have seen coming from North Korea these days, it is safe to assume that this third succession risks undergoing a rough transition.

While news of Kim Jong Un’s (possible) upcoming leadership has only been recently addressed, some reports state he was named way back in January. Whether or not grooming has taken place prior to this year, I do not know, but I think it is a safe assumption that Jong Un (or any son of Kim Jong Il’s for that matter) won’t enjoy decades of preparation like his father did. It is apparent that Kim Jong Il does not have 20-some years of his life left to give toward the meticulous grooming of any his sons as the next leader, which is why some North Korea watchers are placing bets on Chang Song-taek who they say, will rule from behind-the-scenes until Kim Jong Un is ready to take full control (assuming he indeed inherits the position).

However, that poses a series of varying scenarios as well. Who is to say that once the Dear Leader passes away, there won’t be a power struggle between Chang and Kim, and who is to say that after the death of Kim has been “officially” mourned, we won’t see warring factions within the leadership as high-level officials aim to take advantage of a green Kim Jong Un? Remember, Kim Jong-il had decades of grooming to help him establish his power and presence within the Worker’s Party. This time around, based on Kim Jong Il’s physical condition, it seems the succession issue is racing against the clock.

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  3. Another possibility – besides the factional strife scenario – is that the succession will be old-school East Asian style:

    During the period of Neo-Confucianism as the dominant state and bureaucratic ideology, the kings were subjected to what some of them considered a brutal regiment of Neo-Confucian education and tough governmental oversight by Neo-Confucian driven departments like the Censorate.

    One way some of the kings found around this, in order to enhance their power, was to abdicate the throne in favor a son BUT rely on the strong sense of filial piety in the culture: meaning, the king would still pull the strings by telling the son-King what to do and the son would take all the flak.

    There is at least a small possibility we will witness a North Korean variation of this tradition:

    Given how central to the whole state apparatus the Kim clan made the worship of the clan, deifying Kim Il-Sung and Kim Jong-Il —

    — the very late naming of a family successor might turn out to mean the next successor is going to be a figure head — put into or kept into place by either a small group of powerful men or some single individual who has or can demand the loyalty of a small group of power-players capable of keeping the rest of the government in line.

    The bottom line that is unmistakable is: whoever or whatever group holds ultimate power in North Korea after Kim Jong-Il dies, they will have to negotiate within the environment of the cult of Kim that has been so central to North Korea’s governmental control of the masses.

    The cult of Kim limits the options available to the power-players in the society.

    One option is to continue the cult but not give the new ruler the power the two previous ones wielded.

    The biggest problem I can guess at now to the “figure head” scenario is that – along with the cult of Kim tradition – changes in leadership have also come with purges. If you are a North Korea power-player, you’d have to count on heads rolling no matter who, or how, the next leader is put in place.

    Fear of being purged would probably be significantly higher if the power behind the purge wasn’t an all-powerful Kim but a group of people. Kim Jong-Il and Kim Il-Sung were powerful enough to control and limit the purges. It won’t be so easy to limit it next time.