Data source

A page from the Choson Inmin'gun newspaper

In this project, I analyze, at both the micro and macro levels, two years of content from the classified newspaper of the North Korean military, named eponymously as Chosŏn Inmin'gun. A key point of focus is to understand the nature of the military as a microcosm of North Korean society at the time and an institution of lasting impact by analyzing through the discourse of the newspaper the governing ideology of the organization. In scholarship, the use of this newspaper has been extremely limited. A survey of mostly Korean-language scholarship on North Korea, including more than 100 titles on general history, the party, military, and the Korean War has revealed that only few scholars mention or cite the newspaper. Bruce Cumings lists the newspaper in the bibliography to the second volume of The Origins of the Korean War.[1] Pak Myŏngrim lists Chosŏn Inmin’gun as one of 59 periodicals in his list of references, although he cites only four issues of the newspaper published during the beginning stages of the Korean War in his Han'gukchŏnjaengŭi kiwŏn'gwa palbal [The Outbreak and Origins of the Korean War].[2] Sŏ Tongman also lists the newspaper as one of 15 North Korean periodicals used in his Pukchosŏn sahoejuŭi ch'ejesŏngnipsa [The History of the Establishment of the North Korean Socialist Regime].[3] Most recently, Kim Hakjoon wrote in his research volume on recent North Korean politics that the newspaper “deserves regular perusal by researchers,” but without using it himself.[4]

Compared to the Nationa Archives "Caputured Enemy Documents" collection, the military newspaper has many benefits. As the Captured Enemy Documents are a collection of documents found in random stashes belonging to the government and the military in North Korea, the information therein are fragmentary at best. Historians of the foundational period of North Korea (1945-1950) had combined these documents with official information, such as full series of periodicals and government papers, acquired from North Korea. It is Chosŏn Inmin’gun, the classified military newspaper, that had not been integrated into the body of sources used by historians to understand the regime's foundation and preparation for war.