North Korea 101: The History of North Korea
Watch The History of North Korea in Under 3 Minutes
If you want to go even further back, here's how North Korea came to be!
668 A.D: Ancient Korea
People have been living on the Korean peninsula since prehistoric times, slowly developing their own distinct culture and civilization. The Korean people were first united by the Silla Dynasty in 668 A.D. Since then, Korea has had to contend with the expansionist ambitions of its neighbors.
1910: Japan Colonizes Korea
In 1910, the Chosun Dynasty ended with Japan’s annexation and colonization of Korea. Koreans remember the Japanese colonial rule as a brutal experience. Resistance groups formed in Korea and China, mostly adopting leftist politics in reaction to the right-wing Japanese administration. Memories of the Japanese Imperial Administration’s oppression continue to haunt relations between the people of both Koreas and Japan today. Korea also began to modernize during this period, and the city of Pyongyang in particular became a vibrant center for Christianity and western culture.
1945: The Division of the Korean People
Following Japan’s defeat in 1945 the Soviet Union and United States agreed to split the post-war control of the Korean peninsula between themselves. On August 10, 1945 two young U.S. military officers drew up a line demarcating the U.S. and Soviet occupation zones at the 38th parallel. The divide should have been temporary, a mere footnote in Korea’s long history, but the emergence of the Cold War made this a seminal event. Seeking to ensure the maintenance of their respective influences in Korea, the U.S. and USSR installed leaders sympathetic to their own cause, while mistrust on both sides prevented cooperation on elections that were supposed to choose a leader for the entire peninsula. The United States handed control over the southern half of the peninsula to Syngman Rhee, while the Soviet Union gave Kim Il-sung power over the north. In 1948, both sides claimed to be the legitimate government and representative of the entire Korean people.
August 15, 1948
Syngman Rhee declares the formation of the Republic of Korea in Seoul, claiming jurisdiction over all of Korea..
September 8, 1948
Kim Il-sung declares the formation of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea in Pyongyang, also claiming jurisdiction over all of Korea.
1950: The Korean War Begins
June 25, 1950
In 1950, Kim Il-sung attempted to unify Korea under his rule through military force, starting the Korean War. By far the most destructive and divisive event in Korean history, the war altered the life of almost every Korean person. Some historians claim that the U.S. military dropped more napalm on urban centers in Korea than Vietnam. The bombing campaigns reduced Pyongyang to rubble, and North Korea’s population was reduced by 10%.
July 27, 1953
Both sides eventually signed the armistice ending major hostilities in 1953. The DMZ (demilitarized zone) was established at almost the same position as the border before war broke out, separating millions of families caught on opposite sides of the border.
1953-1970s: Building a Stalinist State
From 1953 to the 1970s North Korea was considered by some outside observers to be a successful state. During this period, many North Koreans were actually better off than their southern brethren.
Kim Il-sung remodeled North Korean society along the lines of Juche—North Korea’s radically nationalistic ideology promoting Korean autonomy. The state-seized control of all private property and organizations. Officially, everything in the country, from businesses to the clothes on one’s back, belonged to the North Korean state. The regime rebuilt Pyongyang as a socialist capital and erected numerous monuments to Kim Il-sung, part of nationwide efforts to build a cult of personality to secure obedience by the people. The state took control of all media and restricted international travel. Kim Il-sung also worked constantly to centralize power under the Workers’ Party of Korea under his rule, and implemented a perpetual purge to rid the country of potential internal opponents to his rule.
Songbun
Massive inequalities began to emerge in North Korean society. The regime introduced the songbun system, which is still in place today. Under this system the entire population were sorted into different social classes according to one’s perceived loyalty to socialism and the regime. This classification determined the course of people’s lives. One’s songbun dictates the schools one can attend, the occupations one can be placed in, and even where one can live.At the time, the regime expelled around a quarter of the population of Pyongyang to the outer provinces for being of low songbun. For more on songbun, see this blog post.
The regime silenced anyone who opposed the system with extreme prejudice. Free speech became an offense punishable by imprisonment or even death. Worse, when one was arrested, up to three generations of their family would be sent to political prison camps. The regime instructed children to inform on their parents, and neighbors to inform on each other. Under these conditions, the North Korean people became fearful and distrusting of each other.
Stagnation
By the 1970s, the initial gains of postwar reconstruction and modernization had dissipated, and Kim Il-sung’s ideologically driven governance failed to produce prosperity. North Korea was also highly dependent on trade and aid from the Soviet Union and the Eastern bloc, so when the economies of those countries began to decline it greatly affected North Korea’s economy. The people’s quality of life stagnated in the 1980s and began to decline until the collapse of the USSR in 1991, at which point the North Korean socialist command economy stopped functioning. Poor agricultural policies and environmental mismanagement increased vulnerability to extreme weather conditions and brought increasingly meager crop yields. To make matters worse, the regime had lost allies to fall back on when the economy failed. North Korea’s reserves were quickly running out. These were the circumstances the country found itself in when Kim Il-sung died in 1994.
Economic Collapse
Kim Jong-il took power in the post-Cold War era when North Korea was on the brink of disaster. Realizing the need to handle both external and internal threats, Kim Jong-il instituted a “military first” policy that prioritized the military and elites over the general population to an even greater extent than before. This policy made the coming crisis even worse for the average North Korean. Many North Koreans blame Kim Jong-il’s leadership for the famine. In reality, Kim Jong-il’s policies exacerbated a crisis that was long in the making.
The economic collapse and subsequent famine in North Korea had its peak in the mid-to-late 1990s. It is estimated that up to one million people died—roughly 5% of the population. Even many of those that survived suffered immensely. Starvation in childhood has stunted the growth of an entire generation of North Koreans. The North Korean government had to lower the minimum required height for soldiers because 145 cm (4 feet 9 inches) was too tall for most 16-17 year olds.
In Barbara Demick’s book “Nothing to Envy”, a North Korean doctor tells of how even she became desperately hungry. After fleeing to China, she discovered a bowl of food left out for a dog. Upon examining the white rice and generous chunks of meat, she concluded that “dogs in China ate better than doctors in North Korea.”
July 8, 1994
Kim Il-sung dies and his son Kim Jong-il takes over as leader.
Social Changes
The collapse of the command economy led to widespread social changes. The need for food drove the North Korean people away from the regime’s control, as when the government stopped providing food, the survivors found other ways to feed themselves. People foraged and sold anything they could to buy food at small, illegal markets that began to spring up, creating a process of bottom-up marketization. Some fled to China, leading to a wave of refugees from North Korea, while information about the outside world slowly began to flow back into the country. Some resorted to prostitution or crime. What was once a highly ordered and controlled society gave way to a disorganized and fluid society, with new independent paths to wealth and power for those who defied the regime and pursued the markets. These social effects would continue even after the worst of the famine had passed.
2000s: The People & Markets Prove Their Resilience
By the early 2000s, the people began to recover. The markets, which initially emerged as a survival mechanism, gradually grew to encompass a broader range of goods and services and became better established. The markets today are the major source of food for ordinary North Koreans. South Korea also adopted the “Sunshine Policy”, in which it gave unconditional aid to North Korea, and increased economic cooperation between the Koreas. Established in 2003, the Kaesong Industrial Complex just north of the DMZ was part of this policy and now allows South Korean companies to hire over 50,000 North Korean workers. China also gradually strengthened its economic relationship with North Korea, and today is by far North Korea’s most important economic and political partner. Nevertheless, ordinary North Koreans continue to face the severe challenges of chronic food shortages and grinding poverty, while their basic freedoms are curtailed by a repressive regime whose number one concern is staying in power.
Always uneasy about the growth of the markets, in late 2009 the regime made their most drastic attempt to restrain the markets to date: a currency reform aimed at wiping out private wealth. The resultant market disruption and rapid inflation reversed the people’s hard-won progress, and even regime projects were derailed. North Korean refugees have described this as a watershed moment in their diminishing belief in the regime, with anti-regime sentiment so strong that it even rose to the surface in some communities. It is now absolutely clear to the regime that the markets are a fact of life they must learn to live with.
December, 2011
Kim Jong-il dies and his son Kim Jong-un takes over as leader.
Now: The Third Kim Era
In December 2011, Kim Jong-il died and his son Kim Jong-un inherited control of the nation. Thought to be just 27 or 28 years old at the time of his succession, Kim Jong-un was largely unknown to the North Korean people as well as to the outside world. North Koreans that escaped the country in 2011 told us that there had not been a lot of propaganda about Kim Jong-un during that year. By contrast, Kim Jong-il was much better known to the North Korean people when he came to power in 1994.
In his first years in power, Kim Jong-un has implemented a new PR style that has portrayed him as a modern version of his grandfather, while purging, demoting and promoting regime officials to secure his power base. The new leadership also moved to crack down on illegal cross-border movement and the inflow of foreign media, increasing repression in the border regions and reducing the number of defectors who managed to make it to South Korea by almost half. Meanwhile, there have been signs of cautious experimentation with economic liberalization in order to adapt to the reality of the entrenched de facto market economy inside the country.
North Korea’s history is far from over. In fact, it may be entering its most interesting phase. The people are becoming increasingly empowered and the grassroots changes spreading across North Korean society are steadily increasing the people’s physical and psychological independence from the regime, making the system as it is currently structured unsustainable. We cannot know the pathway that North Korea’s change and opening will take, but change and opening will happen, and the future of North Korea will be increasingly driven by the North Korean people themselves.
Trafficking and Exploitation of North Korean Refugees
For North Koreans hiding in China, repatriation is synonymous with death. Resolved to avoid such a fate, but with few options or protections, North Korean refugees are left vulnerable to a second wave of human rights abuses.
Among North Korean women and girls who escape to China, an estimated 60% have fallen victim to human trafficking.
Here are the stories of three women who have survived the unimaginable and are now advocating for this issue in freedom.
The Fear of Forced Repatriation
After Eunju fled from North Korea in 1999, she ended up spending years in China before finally reaching freedom.
“In China, North Korean defectors are exposed to various crimes, including sexual assault, human trafficking, forced prostitution, and labor exploitation. Those who seemed kind and willing to help were either traffickers or rapists. Promises of wages to be paid in the fall were replaced with threats—’You're from North Korea, aren't you?’
There is only one reason why the victims—North Korean defectors—remain silent: the fear of forced repatriation. This fear-driven silence perpetuates a vicious cycle of human rights violations against North Koreans in China.
On our first night in China, we were confronted with a trauma that would haunt us for a lifetime. As we walked along the road, not knowing where to go, a car slowed down and pulled up beside us. The door swung open, and someone grabbed my sister. My mother and I clung to her, desperate not to let go, but we couldn’t withstand the force of the accelerating car and were thrown aside. At the time, my sister was still just a young girl who had not even gone through puberty, yet she could not escape sexual violence. My mother couldn’t even bring herself to think about reporting the incident. She knew that if she went to the authorities, the Chinese police would capture us and send us back to North Korea before they ever caught the perpetrator.”
Soon after, Eunju’s mother was trafficked into a forced marriage together with Eunju and her sister, and they were sold for 2000 RMB (~$240 at the time).
Sold on the Way to Freedom
Hannah fondly remembers growing up with a large family in North Korea. But widespread food shortages forced her to leave her beloved hometown at 15 years old. When she finally managed to cross into China, she was trafficked and sold into a forced marriage.
“Do you remember what life was like when you were 15 years old? Maybe you were stressed about highschool, or getting your driver’s license. When I was 15 years old, I was sold to a man in China who was twice my age. For the first 6 months of captivity, I stayed away from him as much as I could. But in the end, there was nothing I could do to protect myself.”
“When I became pregnant, I couldn’t accept it because it wasn’t my choice. But then my baby arrived, and it all hit me. I wanted to give my daughter the same love I had grown up with. But I couldn’t do that without legal status or freedom. So with my one-month-old baby in my arms, I escaped once again.
Even though it was a very hard and dangerous journey, we ran together towards freedom, towards a future that guarantees our safety and hope.”
A Mother’s Impossible Choice
Joy fled from North Korea when she was 18 years old. When she reached China, the broker who arranged her escape went back on their word and immediately demanded to be repaid.
“She told me my only option was to be sold into marriage to a Chinese man so the brokers could take my bridal cost as payment. I couldn't even think of refusing because I was afraid they would do something bad to me or drop me off somewhere alone to get caught by the Chinese police and sent back to North Korea. At that point, I realized that I was trapped.”
Joy was sold to an older Chinese man for $3,000. She searched for any way to escape, but soon became pregnant and gave birth to her daughter. For two years, she raised her child and began to lose hope of ever reaching freedom.
Then in 2013, Joy was connected to LiNK’s network. She felt it was her last chance to take back control of her life. But she faced an impossible decision. Her daughter was still very young, and it would be incredibly risky to escape together. Ultimately, Joy decided to leave her behind.
“I cried every day thinking of my daughter. Before we started moving to get out of China I stayed with some other defectors…I didn't want to cry in front of [them], so I cried behind a curtain. I found another North Korean woman crying there because she also left her child. We ended up hugging each other and crying together.”
Stories of Hope
Eunju, Hannah, and Joy’s stories echo that of thousands of North Korean women who were sold on the way to freedom. But they’ve refused to let their painful experiences prevent them from living full lives, instead turning them into sources of strength, fueling their work on this issue.
Eunju is now living in South Korea with her mom and sister. She co-authored a book about her journey, A Thousand Miles to Freedom, with journalist Sebastein Falletti to make sure stories like hers are not forgotten.
Hannah is also in South Korea raising her daughter, who will never know a life without freedom. In 2022, Hannah joined LiNK’s Advocacy Fellows program to develop her capacity as a leader and advocate for this issue. She traveled across the US alongside other young activists, sharing her story at universities, churches, Fortune 500 companies, and with key stakeholders on Capitol Hill.
Joy was also a LiNK Advocacy Fellow in 2019. Today, her advocacy continues in the classroom, as an educator at an alternative school for the children of North Korean mothers. Some of her students were born in China while the mothers were in forced marriages—a circumstance that is deeply personal. Joy is beloved by the children, and strives to help them navigate their complex identities and relationships with their parents.
All the while, Joy has kept in touch with her daughter through video calls and messages. Last year, she was finally able to bring her daughter to South Korea!
What You Can Do to Help
The trafficking of thousands of North Korean women and girls is one of the most rampant and egregious human rights violations happening today. Yet it often does not get enough dedicated attention amidst all the dangers and abuses that North Koreans face—an alarming reminder of the gravity of this issue.
LiNK rescues North Korean refugees without cost or condition, and provides crucial resettlement support during this period of transition. We’re one of the only organizations still doing this work since the COVID-19 pandemic. To date, we've helped almost 1,400 North Korean refugees and their children reach freedom.
It is more urgent and important than ever that we carry on this work. Right now, our field team is actively in communication with North Korean refugees hiding in China, many of them women who were trafficked or sold into forced marriages, and coordinating their escape. Help bring them to safety and freedom.
