December 07, 2023
Evergreen

How an obscure Red Army unit became the cradle of the North Korean elite

Former members of the 88 brigade came to form much of the DPRK's top brass

One of the oldest theoretical concepts about the earlier history of North Korea is the division of its politicians into four factions.

The Soviet faction was composed of Koreans who lived in the USSR, so the theory goes, the Yan’an faction of those from China, the internal faction of Communists of colonial Korea, and the partisan one: members of Kim Il Sung’s unit.