Ch'oe Ch'ang-ik

최창익
New People's Party of Korea Marxism–Leninism North Korea Korea 1896/1898–1957/1960

Yan'an faction leader who drove the 1946 New People's Party merger and was purged in the August Faction Incident

At the plenum of 30 August 1956, Ch'oe criticized Kim Il Sung to his face, alongside the Soviet-Korean Pak Ch'ang-ok, over his concentration of personal power. It escalated into the 'August Faction Incident', after which the Yan'an faction was imprisoned or placed under surveillance.

An independence activist and communist, he served as a directing member of the Korean Volunteer Corps, an instructor at the Anti-Japanese Military and Political College, and vice-chairman of the North China Korean Independence League. After liberation he was vice-chairman of the Korean New People's Party, a standing and political committee member of the Workers' Party of North Korea, finance minister and deputy premier. After criticizing Kim Il Sung at the August 1956 plenum, he was purged and imprisoned, and is reported to have died in custody. The Encyclopedia of Korean Culture gives 1896–1957, English Wikipedia 1896–1960, and a Soviet document a birth year of 1898. His exact life dates and circumstances of death are disputed.

Also known as: Ch'oe Ch'angik · Choe Chang-ik · Choi Chang-ik

Activities and affiliations

Career Timeline

Related historical events

Proceedings After the August Faction Incident and His Final Purge

At the August 1956 plenum Ch'oe Ch'ang-ik was removed from the standing committee of the Central Committee. The punishment was reversed almost at once. On 23 September 1956 a plenum of the Workers' Party of Korea Central Committee reviewed the August decisions: it restored Ch'oe and Pak Ch'ang-ok to the Central Committee and reinstated Yun Kong-hŭm, Sŏ Hwi, and Yi P'il-kyu as Party members. A research department of the Soviet Communist Party Central Committee recorded that the review was presented as the Central Committee's effort to apply Leninist norms in the work of Party unity.

The reprieve did not hold. A Soviet report of May 1957 listed Ch'oe once more as having been removed from the standing committee at the August plenum. A related document dated 10 February 1958 noted that after September 1957 Ch'oe had been purged. The Korean-language Wikipedia account states that on 1 September 1957 he was expelled and purged at the same time and imprisoned in Pyongyang; that a death sentence was handed down and then not carried out owing to objections from among others the Chinese defence minister Peng Dehuai; and that he was demoted to a post in the cultural propaganda apparatus before being imprisoned again and dying in custody. It gives his death as 6 October 1957, whereas English Wikipedia gives his lifespan as 1896-1960 and the Soviet personnel documents record no death year at all. Either way his end is reported as a death in detention rather than an execution, and neither the exact date nor the exact circumstances are settled.

The affair became a test of Kim Il Sung's personal power. On 18 September 1956 a Kim ally visiting Moscow told a Soviet Foreign Ministry official that Ch'oe had been the organizer of the incident; Moscow nonetheless continued to defend him. The Soviet Communist Party's international department file dated 10 February 1958 preserves the entry, citing a May 1957 report by Kulakov and Shubnikov, that Ch'oe was dismissed at the August 1956 plenum. The incident completed the removal of Yan'an and Soviet faction cadres who had opposed the heavy-industry-first line and discredited them as anti-Party factionalists, and the demand for collective leadership raised after the Twentieth Party Congress was never institutionalized in North Korea.