Founder of North Korea's state security and enforcer of its political repression
Arrival dates conflict: Russian Wikipedia and Lankov say 1946 (Lankov: September), English Wikipedia says October 1945. By 1947 he already headed the state protection (political police) department, and Lankov considers it likely he was the first head of North Korean state security.
A Koryo-saram from the Russian Empire whose birthplace is undocumented and whose birth year sources give as 1912, 1913 or 1914. He worked in the Soviet NKVD and intelligence agencies. Russian Wikipedia and Lankov date his arrival to 1946, English Wikipedia to October 1945. By 1947 he already headed the state protection (political police) department, and in September 1948 became Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs and Director of the Political Security Bureau, though Lankov holds he was never again allowed to control the political police. He held the security portfolio as Minister of Social Security (March/May 1951) and Interior Minister until November 1960. Russian Wikipedia describes him both as organizer of the North's repression system and as an executor who carried out the leadership's directives. Of the Soviet faction, he escaped the purges and died on 18 July 1992.
Also known as: Nikolai Ignatyevich Pang
Activities and affiliations
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1940–
Soviet Communist Party and Bolsheviks
Security, intelligence and policing -
1948–1960
Democratic People’s Republic of Korea state institutionsDeputy Minister of Internal Affairs, Minister of Social Security and of InteriorMain
Security, intelligence and policing -
1960–1992
Democratic People’s Republic of Korea state institutionsDeputy Director, then President of the Central Court
Law and justice -
–1992
Security, intelligence and policing
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Soviet Union state institutions
Security, intelligence and policing
Career Timeline
- 1937–1944Deported to Kazakhstan, then investigator in Kzyl-Orda and prosecutor's office work in Kzyl-Orda and Taldy-Kurgan oblasts, 1942–1944 (Russian Wikipedia); joined the party in 1940. Lankov says his record before 1946 is undocumented
- 1947Head of the state protection (political police) department, Interior Bureau, North Korean People's Committee (Lankov). English Wikipedia has him as Director-General of the Interior Affairs Bureau from May 1947, which does not fit the bureau-under-ministry structure after 1948
- 1948Supreme People's Assembly deputy (Russian Wikipedia)
- Sep 1948 – Feb or Mar 1951Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs and Director of the Political Security Bureau (English Wikipedia). Per Lankov he was afterwards never allowed to control the political police again
- Mar or May 1951 – 1952Minister of Social Security (the Political Security Bureau was reorganized as the Ministry of Social Security). March per English Wikipedia and the Encyclopedia of Korean Culture; May per English Wikipedia's Ministry of Social Security article
- 1952.10–1960.11Minister of Interior (the Ministry of Social Security was merged back into the Ministry of Internal Affairs)
- 1956–1980Member of the WPK Central Committee (elected April 1956; reelected November 1970 and October 1980)
- 1956.08As Minister of Internal Affairs during the August faction incident mobilized the police to monitor Pyongyang and led the investigation of the 'factionalists' (English Wikipedia). The same article also records a claim that he was abroad at the time
- 1960.11–1972Deputy Director of the Central Court; from November 1966 information director of the party Liaison Bureau
- 1972.12–1992President of the Central Court (reappointed 1982 and 1986, in office until his death)
Related historical events
The 1937 deportation and service in Soviet police and prosecution bodies
Pang Hak-se's birthplace is not documented with certainty, and Russian Wikipedia considers it most plausible that he came from a Korean diaspora family in the Russian Empire. His name at birth was Nikolai Ignatyevich Pang, and his father was a hunter in the Russian Far East.
During the Soviet deportation of Koreans in 1937 he was deported to Kazakhstan as an ethnic Korean. Unlike most deportees, he had a legal education, which let him enter the Soviet People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs (NKVD), serving as an investigator in the Kzyl-Orda administration. In 1942-1944 he worked in the prosecutor's offices of Kzyl-Orda and Taldy-Kurgan oblasts, and from 1940 he was a member of the Soviet Communist Party. According to Russian Wikipedia, official biographies described his record as "service in Soviet intelligence."
The evidentiary limits of this period are clear. Lankov states that documentary evidence does not show what Pang did before 1946, and records that both a rumor that he was a police investigator and a belief that he was an intelligence operative circulated. Neither is inconsistent with the practice of recruiting Soviet Koreans with reliable political credentials as intelligence analysts and operatives in the late 1930s and early 1940s. His legal education, the 1937 deportation and his investigative and prosecutorial career in Kazakhstan are presented as the background that made it possible for him to build a political police organization in Korea after 1946.