People of the Revolution and the USSR

Workers' Party of South Korea Communism 1885–1951 ✕ Drowned

From civil-rights lawyer of the March 1st Movement to first Chairman of the DPRK Supreme People's Assembly: a progressive nationalist

When he submitted a motion of non-prosecution during the March 1st Movement trial, the Japanese courtroom erupted in protest — and the scene, reported nationwide, made Ho Hon the symbol of the anti-colonial lawyer.

One of colonial Korea's 'three great civil-rights lawyers,' he defended the 47 national representatives of the March 1st Movement and handled pro bono cases for workers and independence activists. Elected chairman of Singanhoe's Central Executive Committee in 1927, he led the united-front anti-Japanese struggle, and after liberation served as Prime Minister of the People's Republic of Korea and chairman of the South Korean Workers' Party before crossing north, becoming the bridge by which Korea's independence movement passed into socialism.

Democratic People’s Republic of Korea Communism 1889–1958? ↓ Vanished after removal 1958

Independence activist, linguist, and Yan'an faction leader who served as the first head of state of the DPRK

On the day the People's Assembly adopted the new DPRK flag in July 1948, Kim Tu-bong personally lowered the Taegeukgi and raised its replacement. Barely a year earlier, he had been the man passionately explaining the old flag's philosophical meaning to a skeptical Soviet general.

A Hangul linguist trained under Chu Sigyŏng who led the Korean Independence League in Yan'an. Became the DPRK's first head of state in 1948, though real power lay with Kim Il Sung. Purged and vanished in the 1958 August Faction Incident.

Communist Party of Korea Communism 1900–1955 ✕ Executed

Architect of the Korean Communist Party's rebirth; leader of the Workers' Party of South Korea

At his 1927 trial in Sinuiju, he ate his own excrement in court to feign insanity, securing medical release before escaping to Moscow.

The foremost leader of Korea's communist movement from the colonial era through liberation. He rebuilt the Communist Party of Korea and led the Workers' Party of South Korea, but after defecting north he was outmaneuvered by Kim Il-sung and executed as the scapegoat for the Korean War's defeat.

Democratic People’s Republic of Korea Communism 1900–1976 ○ Illness

The Manchurian guerrilla who became the KPA's first commander and the DPRK's nominal head of state

In December 1955, Choe Yong-gon presided over the trial of Pak Hon-yong and sentenced him to death, rejecting pleas for clemency from Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai.

After military training at Yunnan and Whampoa academies, he led anti-Japanese guerrilla war in Manchuria as chief of staff of the 2nd Route Army and commander of the 7th Army of the Northeast Anti-Japanese United Army, forming the Manchurian trio with Kim Il Sung and Kim Chaek. Returning in 1945, he played the decisive role in converting Cho Man-sik's Korean Democratic Party to a communist line; upon the DPRK's founding in 1948 he became its first Minister of National Defence and Chief Commander of the Korean People's Army, the KPA's senior field commander during the Korean War. From 1957 to 1972 he chaired the Supreme People's Assembly Standing Committee, the DPRK's nominal head of state, and served as the regime's diplomatic face abroad. He received a state funeral at his death in 1976 and was interred in the Patriotic Martyrs' Cemetery.

Democratic People’s Republic of Korea Communism 1912–1994 ○ Illness

The founder of North Korea returned from the Soviet Far East

On 14 October 1945, more than 100,000 gathered at Pyongyang's sports ground for a rally honouring the liberating Soviet army. A Soviet general introduced 'the national hero and famous partisan leader, comrade Kim Il Sung.' Onto the podium stepped a 33-year-old — the crowd stared in disbelief, having expected a legendary guerrilla in his fifties.

After guerrilla activity against Japanese rule, he served with the Soviet Far East’s 88th Separate Rifle Brigade in the 1940s and rose to the center of power in northern Korea under Soviet occupation authorities after 1945. Having founded the DPRK in 1948, he concentrated party, state, and military power over decades.

Democratic People’s Republic of Korea Communism 1913–1976 ✕ Car crash

The Soviet-Korean general who signed the Korean Armistice at Panmunjom

At Panmunjom on 27 July 1953, General Nam Il and Lieutenant General Harrison barely acknowledged each other as they signed eighteen copies of the armistice. In those ten minutes that stopped three years of war, he was the face of North Korea.

A Koryo-saram born in the Russian Far East, he was deported with his family to Central Asia in 1937 and served as a Soviet Army officer at Stalingrad and the Battle of Berlin. Dispatched to northern Korea in 1946, he became a close aide to Kim Il Sung, and when the Korean War broke out he was appointed Chief of Staff of the Korean People's Army. From 1951 he led the communist delegation at the Panmunjom armistice talks for two years and on 27 July 1953 signed the Korean Armistice Agreement as the KPA's senior delegate, becoming the face of North Korea to the world. After the war he served as Foreign Minister and Deputy Premier, surviving the purges that eliminated most of his Soviet-Korean colleagues, but died in a suspicious car crash in 1976.

Democratic People’s Republic of Korea Communism 1918–1950 ✕ Killed in action

The KPA's first Chief of General Staff who finalized the invasion plan with Soviet advisers

Col. Yu Song-chol, operations director, recalled: 'The jeep carrying Chief of Staff Kang Kon, right ahead of mine, flipped to the side of the road with an ear-splitting explosion. A land mine. Kang was killed on the spot.'

Comrade-in-arms to Kim Il Sung through the Manchurian anti-Japanese guerrillas and the Soviet 88th Separate Rifle Brigade, Kang became the first Chief of the General Staff of the Korean People's Army upon its founding in 1948. On 29 May 1950, together with Lt. Gen. Nikolai Vasiliev, head of the Soviet military advisory group, he finalized the 'Preemptive Strike Operation Plan' that launched the invasion of South Korea; after the war began, as chief of staff of the Front Command he directed the advance down to the Pusan Perimeter. On 8 September 1950, as UN forces counterattacked, his jeep struck a land mine laid by retreating ROK troops near the Kum River, killing him instantly. Kim Il Sung and Pak Hon-yong personally carried his coffin at the funeral, and he was posthumously awarded the title Hero of the Republic.

Democratic People’s Republic of Korea Communism 1941–2011 ○ Illness

The successor between a Soviet birth record and the Paektu myth

One sentence at the 25 April 1992 military parade: "Glory to the heroic soldiers of the Korean People's Army!" — his only recorded public utterance in 17 years of rule.

Consolidated as successor from the 1970s, he inherited power after Kim Il Sung's death in 1994 and led the DPRK for 17 years through post-Soviet isolation, economic crisis, and the nuclear confrontation with the United States.

New People's Party of Korea Communism 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.