Page "History of North Korea" Paragraph 13

Pak Hon-yong, party vice chairman and Foreign Minister of the DPRK, was blamed for the failure of the southern population to support North Korea during the war and was executed after a show-trial in 1955.

Most of the South Korean leftists and communist sympathizers who defected to the North in 1945 – 1953 were also accused of espionage and other crimes and killed, imprisoned or exiled to remote agricultural and mining villages.

Potential rivals from other groups such as Kim Tu-bong were also purged.

Then in 1956, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev made a sweeping denunciation of Stalin, which sent shock waves throughout the communist world.

North Korea, Albania, and China were among the loudest opponents of de-Stalinization.

While Kim Il-sung was visiting Moscow that August, a group of his opponents tried to seize control of the government in Pyongyang.

They denounced Kim as a tyrant who practiced arbitrary, one-man rule.

When he hastily returned home, the brief attempt at political liberalization in North Korea was ended.

Kim and his guerrilla faction had the advantage of appearing as national heroes due to their resistance against the Japanese and there was no question about their patriotism.

By contrast, the Yan ' an and Soviet Korean groups tended to appear as the representatives of other nations.

A series of purges followed in 1956-1958, and by 1961 the last remaining opposition to Kim had disappeared.