Pak Chong-ae

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In this
Pak
.
Pak Chong-ae
Choe Yong-gon, Chong Il-yong and Kim Chang-man.
Minister of Agriculture
2nd term
In office
October 1961 – 23 October 1962
Preceded byYim Hae
Succeeded byKim Man-gum
Personal details
Born1907 (1907)
International Stalin Prize (1950), Order of the National Flag (1st and 2nd class)
Korean name
Chosŏn'gŭl
박정애
Hancha
朴正愛[1]
Revised RomanizationBak Jeong-ae[2]
McCune–ReischauerPak Chŏng'ae[3]

Pak Chong-ae (Korean: 박정애;[1] born Ch'oe Vera[4] 1907 – ?[a]), also known as Pak Den-ai,[5] was a North Korean politician.

Pak represented the

Domestic faction of the party.[7][8]

Pak was the first chairperson of the North Korean Central Committee of the

mass organization for women. During her chairwomanship the League had not yet developed into an organization through which the government
tightly controls its citizens.

Pak is the only woman to have served in the

North Korean politics
stretched from the 1940s until her purge in 1966 which resulted in her expulsion to countryside. From there on she was allowed to hold minor positions only.

Pak was awarded with the

International Stalin Prize
in 1950.

Early life and career

Pak was born in 1907 in

Korean Peninsula. She went to the Soviet Union to study in the Moscow State University.[1] She then worked for the Soviet Union as an intelligence agent before entering politics.[4][7] In the early 1930s, she was dispatched to Korea for duty,[7] where the Japanese authorities imprisoned her.[8]

Pak (third from left) at the 1st Congress of the WPNK on 28 August 1946, two days before becoming a full member of its first Central Committee.
Pak Chong-ae speaks at a rally for the local elections in North Korea held on 3 November 1946.

During the 1940s, Pak was married to Kim Yong-bom, chairman of the

liberation of Korea, Pak was already considered an experienced domestic communist.[10] She supported Kim Il Sung in the early days of North Korean political life and became one of his strongest supporters.[4] In August 1946, she became a full member of the 1st Central Committee of the Workers' Party of North Korea (WPNK).[11] When the Workers' Parties of North and South Korea merged to form the Workers' Party of Korea (WPK) in 1949, Pak was chosen as one of its three secretaries.[6] She served in its 2nd, 3rd, and 4th Central Committees.[11] She was also a deputy to the Supreme People's Assembly.[12]

It is possible that Pak informed the Chinese about North Korea's plans to attack South Korea just prior to the outbreak of the Korean War.[13]

In 1953, she headed the North Korean delegation to

Stalin's funeral in Moscow, where her Chinese counterpart was the Foreign Minister Zhou Enlai.[14] Later that year, she participated in a purge against the former South Korean Workers' Party members who had fallen out of Kim Il Sung's favor. Pak became one of five members,[15] and the only woman,[8] in a Political Committee that solidified Kim's rule.[15] Pak was highly influential within the committee and was one of Kim's closest confidantes.[16][17] She was present when he signed the Armistice document and also accompanied him on trips abroad.[18] As one of the most important members of the committee she was uniquely "able to advise Kim Il-sŏng on his personal life, and to speak for women as well as on matters of general concern".[16]

She was the first chairperson of the North Korean Central Committee of the

International Stalin Prize in 1950 and also starred in Joris Ivens and Jerzy Bossak's anti-war documentary film Peace Will Win.[21][22] She has also revived the North Korean Order of the National Flag, both first and second class.[1]

Robert A. Scalapino and Lee Chong-Sik call her "the only woman ever to have been truly important in the [WPK]".[23] She lasted in mid-century North Korean political life when purges removed many other senior politicians.[24] Andrei Lankov describes her as "one of the most remarkable personalities of that remarkable era".[4] From 1961 to 1963 she was North Korea's Minister of Agriculture,[25] as of 2000 one of only six North Korean women to have served as ministers.[26] Pak was also the only woman to have served in the Politburo of the Workers' Party of Korea, the highest decision-making body of the party,[27] until Kim Yo-jong.[28]

Pak herself was purged by Kim at the 2nd Conference of the WPK in October 1966. The conference saw purges of mostly officials in charge of economic affairs, but Pak was not one of them, implying that she was purged because of Kim's desire to concentrate power.[29] Pak was expelled to the countryside after the purge.[24] She resurfaced in public life in 1986.[24][7] Her influence had been greatly weakened by then and she was allowed to hold minor positions only.[30][4] Her daughter, Pak Sun-hui, is the current chairperson of the central committee of the Korean Democratic Women's League.[9]

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Sometime in or after 1986

References

  1. ^ a b c d 박정애(朴正愛) [Pak Chong-ae]. North Korean Human Geography (in Korean). Seoul: Institute for Peace Affairs. Archived from the original on 23 August 2017. Retrieved 17 December 2016.
  2. ^ Person, James F. (2007–2008). "New Evidence on North Korea in 1956". In Ostermann, Christian F. (ed.). Cold War International History Project Bulletin: Inside China's Cold War. Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. p. 448. GGKEY:18LFSRTZZ8J.
  3. ^
    ISBN 978-0-8014-6879-7
    .
  4. ^ a b c d e f Lankov, Andrei (6 January 2008). "Union of Women". The Korea Times. Retrieved 15 December 2016.
  5. ^ de Haan 2013, p. 174.
  6. ^ a b Wada 2013, p. 28.
  7. ^ a b c d Lankov, Andrei (15 April 2011). "Recalled to life in Pyongyang". Asia Times. Archived from the original on 27 April 2011. Retrieved 15 December 2016.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
  8. ^
    ISBN 9780131530492
    .
  9. ^
    OCLC 74273082
    .
  10. S2CID 154806824
    .
  11. ^ a b Park 1994, p. 181.
  12. ^ World Assembly for Peace (1955). World Assembly for Peace, Helsinki, June 22nd–29th, 1955: Proceedings. Secretariat of the World Council of Peace. p. 103.
  13. ISBN 978-1-78076-381-1
    .
  14. ^ "DEVELOPMENTS RELATED TO STALIN'S DEATH UP TO 1:00 P.M. EST MARCH 9 | CIA FOIA (foia.cia.gov)". www.cia.gov. Archived from the original on 23 January 2017. Retrieved 19 September 2019.
  15. ^ a b Wada 2013, p. 286.
  16. ^ a b Scalapino & Lee 1972, p. 729.
  17. ISBN 978-0-8248-2809-7
    .
  18. ^ Spezza, Gianluca (30 January 2013). "The Women Of North Korea: Icons, Heroines & Power Players". NK News. Archived from the original on 17 May 2016. Retrieved 15 December 2016.
  19. ^ de Haan 2013, p. 179.
  20. ^ de Haan 2013, p. 180.
  21. ^ "Rev. Moulton Gets Stalin 'Peace' Prize". The Deseret News. UP. 7 April 1950. p. 1B.
  22. ISBN 978-90-5356-433-2
    .
  23. ^ Scalapino & Lee 1972, p. 748.
  24. ^ a b c Lankov 2014, p. 16.
  25. ^ Park 1994, p. 182.
  26. ^ Lankov 2014, p. 28.
  27. ^ Park 1994, p. 179.
  28. ^ Ha Yoon Ah (13 July 2020). "Kim Yo Jong becomes full member of N. Korea's politburo". Daily NK. Retrieved 30 January 2021.
  29. ISBN 978-1-86064-415-3
    .
  30. ^ Lankov 2014, p. 16.

Works cited

Further reading

External links

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