North Korea’s Incorporation Policy of Residents in ‘Newly Liberated Areas’ and the Characteristics Thereof

This study analyzes North Korea’s incorporation policy for residents in ‘newly liberated areas’ and the characteristics of that policy. In particular, the focus is on the fact that these areas were incorporated into the ‘already established’ North Korean system, rather than equal combination between North Korea and the mid-western region to the south of the 38th parallel. This study examines North Korea’s perceptions of the residents of this region, legal incorporation in the name of ‘citizens(gongmin)’, ideological education as the incorporation of ideological awareness, and political supervision inside and outside of the region. Such an undertaking will provide the basis for a broader understanding of North Korean society in the 1950s as well as of the issues related to the completion of theNorth-South Korean systems. First, North Korea had a multi-layered perception of the residents in this region. North Korea regarded the residents in this region as a vehicle through which it could prove its superiority on the Korean peninsula amid the competition between the North and South Korean systems. It perceived them to be ‘backward or suspicious’ people who should be separated from residents in the other areas of North Korea. The residents in newly liberated areas were further divided in a detailed manner based on cases in which a family member defected to South Korea. Second, citizenship was granted in different forms to the residents in the newly liberated areas. The main class, which North Korea intended to embrace based on the propagation of its ‘policy of lenience’, included merchants and industrialists as well as local influentials. These were the families of those who ‘forcibly’ defected to South Korea. The North went to great lengths to avoid engaging in class warfare with the merchants and industrialists as well as local influentials. This was made possible by the fact that North Korea attempted to accept and make use of the industry and history of this region. In addition, this was also possible because North Korea was a people’s democracy from a structural standpoint. Class strife in this region started in earnest in 1957 when the transfer from people’s democracy to socialism was completed. Third, the goal of ideological education in the newly liberated areas was to raise the backward’ conscious level of the residents to a similar ‘advanced’ level as North Korean residents in other areas. Internationalism, anti-Americanism, and patriotism inferred a reinterpretation of the ‘fatherland’. Fourth, many of the conflicts between the residents in the newly liberated areas were created by the state. North Korea divided, cautioned, and monitored the residents in these areas. This was implemented in an institutional manner and carried out at the mass movement level. The anti-spy and anti-revolutionary struggle further constricted the movements of the residents in the newly liberated areas connected to South Korea from a human resources and geographical standpoint.