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November 3, 1967

Report on the Stance of the Korean Workers' Party and the Relations with Albania

This document was made possible with support from Leon Levy Foundation

ON SOME ISSUES OF THE STANCE OF THE KOREAN WORKERS’ PARTY AND OF THE RELATIONS WITH OUR COUNTRY

 

The Conference of the Korean Workers’ Party that was held during the month of October of last year affirmed that which the Koreans had tried to hide by hiding behind the screen of neutrality—their cross over to the revisionist position. This process continues to become ever more ingrained in the life of the party and the entire country.

 

  1. The relations with the revisionist countries, and especially in those with the soviet revisionists, seem to be getting warmer by the day in all the fields of cooperation. A Korean delegation headed by Kim Il Sung visited at the beginning of this year the Soviet Union and signed there an economic agreement in a very warm and friendly atmosphere.

  

  1. Lately, there seems to be a great intensification of the propaganda of the party about the persona of Kim Il Sung. Through this they are affirming the revisionist course that the Korean leadership, with Kim Il Sung at its helm, is following. At the same time, by doing this, they are also trying to subdue their adversaries and cover the contradictions that are thought to exist within the ranks of their leadership.

 

  1. They are making a lot of noise about the, allegedly, “dangerous” situation that threatens them at the 38th Parallel. Based on the information we are getting from our embassy in Pyongyang, there is suspicion that the Koreans themselves have been the initiators of the incidents that took place there in April of this year. There must be two reasons for this:

 

  • To attract the attention of the public opinion to the, allegedly, charged situation that exists in that part of the world and to present Korea as another spot being prepared for war after Vietnam.

 

  • To use this smoke screen to cover their internal economic difficulties from their own people, to ask for even more assistance from the revisionists, and to avoid real assistance to the Vietnamese people.

 

  1. As before, they continue to make propaganda about their idea for a united front of the socialist countries in support of the Vietnamese people. In this they see the “foundation” of the unity between the Marxists and the revisionists.  

 

  1. The Korean Workers’ Party does not keep relations with the Marxist-Leninist parties and groups. In the past, when they used to act like anti-revisionists, the Korean embassy in Tirana was interested in getting into contact with the representatives of these groups and parties from Western Europe. They have now completely ceased this practice. This is the reason why the fact that the Korean Workers’ Party has invited Jacques Grippes [?], according to him, for a visit to Korea, attracts our attention. It seems that they have noticed the nuances in the incorrect position of Grippes, especially the one toward the proletarian Cultural Revolution in China.  

 

  1. The Koreans have come out against the proletarian Cultural Revolution in China.  

 

  1. The position of the Koreans toward our country is also an indication of their continuous move toward revisionism and their further approach with the modern revisionists.

 

  • The Korean side has asked of our mission there, as it has from other missions in Korea, to remove the mission’s photographic displays placed at the entrance to the embassy. According to them the reason is this: “When a country attacks and slanders another, we try to stop this because it is closely related to the position of the Korean Workers’ Party, to the unity of the socialist camp, and to the unification of the international communist movement.”

 

  • At the meeting that the comrades of our mission there had with the officials of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Korea on this issue, the behavior of the Koreans was not only unfriendly, but also incorrect. Irritably, they made the accusations that we “do not even respect the most elementary principles,” and that the Koreans “do not seek a friendship that despises the feelings” their people. They have utilized and exploited the decision of our side to not remove the photographic display at our embassy to enrage and instill enmity about our country into the wider masses of the Korean people.

 

  • On the occasion of the presenting of the credentials by our ambassador at the beginning of the year, they limited the protocol visits with him, and now they have completely eliminated them.

 

  • The telegram that was sent by the leadership of our party and government on the occasion of the September 9 anniversary of this year, was published at the before to last spot (last were the Bulgarians) in their press. In the past we were at the fourth spot in the order of countries, last year we fell to eighth, and this year we are at the next to last place.

 

  • On the reception organized by the Korean ambassador to Tirana on the occasion of our holiday, he did not make a toast, as in the previous occasions, for the leadership of our party. In his speech he never mentioned Comrade Enver Hoxha; all the while, he repeatedly mentioned Kim Il Sung and in a provocative way called him, on several occasions, a “great leader,” etc.

 

  • The Korean Youth delegation that took part in the Congress of the Working Youth Organization of Albania in June of this year (for whose attendance we only received the note from Korea 2-3 days before the initiation of the proceedings) left early from the proceedings of the congress, protesting that their speech was not published on the “Voice of the Youth” newspaper on the same day that we had published the speeches of the other delegations that had presented them on the same day with the Korean delegation, that they had received broken headphones, etc.

 

  1. In the relations between our parties during this year, we have not had any exchange of correspondence.

 

  1. One can notice the frequent sending of the various propaganda materials by the Korean embassy to the apparatus of the CC, especially declarations, memoranda, and various resolutions of the Government of the DRP of Korea.

 

September 1967

[Signed]

 

[Handwritten note]

 

Note

 

The Koreans did not send a delegation to the 6th congress of the Professional Unions of Albania.

[Signed]

 

November 3, 1967

Albanian officials describe North Korea’s relations with the Soviet Union in 1967 as well as Kim Il Sung’s cult of personality.

Author(s):


Document Information

Source

AQPPSH, MPP Korese, D 1, V. 1967. Translated by Enkel Daljani.

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Original Uploaded Date

2012-06-04

Type

Report

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Record ID

114397

Donors

Leon Levy Foundation