Pak was the first chairperson of the North Korean Central Committee of the Korean Democratic Women's League, the country's mass organization for women. During her chairwomanship the League had not yet developed into an organization through which the government tightly controls its citizens.
Pak is the only woman to have served in the Politburo of the Workers' Party of Korea until the appointment of Kim Yo-jong. She has been characterized as being the only woman ever to have been truly important in the WPK. Her career in North Korean politics stretched from the 1940s until her purge in 1966 which resulted in her expulsion to countryside. From there on she was allowed to hold minor positions only.
Pak (third from left) at the 1st Congress of the WPNK on 28 August 1946, two days before becoming a full member of its first Central Committee.Pak Chong-ae speaks at a rally for the local elections in North Korea held on 3 November 1946.
It is possible that Pak informed the Chinese about North Korea's plans to attack South Korea just prior to the outbreak of the Korean War.[13]
In 1953, she headed the North Korean delegation to Stalin's funeral in Moscow, where her Chinese counterpart was the Foreign Minister Zhou Enlai.[14] Later that year, she participated in a purge against the former South Korean Workers' Party members who had fallen out of Kim Il Sung's favor. Pak became one of five members,[15] and the only woman,[8] in a Political Committee that solidified Kim's rule.[15] Pak was highly influential within the committee and was one of Kim's closest confidantes.[16][17] She was present when he signed the Armistice document and also accompanied him on trips abroad.[18] As one of the most important members of the committee she was uniquely "able to advise Kim Il-sŏng on his personal life, and to speak for women as well as on matters of general concern".[16]
She was the first chairperson of the North Korean Central Committee of the Korean Democratic Women's League.[3] During her tenure, lasting from the 1940s to 1965,[9] the league was a typical women's mass organization not unlike those in other countries. It was only under subsequent chairpersons that it acquired more totalitarian features.[4] Pak also played a leading role in the Women's International Democratic Federation (WIDF).[19] She was a member of its executive committee in 1948. In 1951, a WIDF International Commission of Women visited North Korea on her initiative to mobilize the world public opinion.[20] She received the International Stalin Prize in 1950 and also starred in Joris Ivens and Jerzy Bossak's anti-war documentary film Peace Will Win.[21][22] She has also revived the North Korean Order of the National Flag, both first and second class.[1]
Robert A. Scalapino and Lee Chong-Sik call her "the only woman ever to have been truly important in the [WPK]".[23] She lasted in mid-century North Korean political life when purges removed many other senior politicians.[24]Andrei Lankov describes her as "one of the most remarkable personalities of that remarkable era".[4] From 1961 to 1963 she was North Korea's Minister of Agriculture,[25] as of 2000[update] one of only six North Korean women to have served as ministers.[26] Pak was also the only woman to have served in the Politburo of the Workers' Party of Korea, the highest decision-making body of the party,[27] until Kim Yo-jong.[28]
Pak herself was purged by Kim at the 2nd Conference of the WPK in October 1966. The conference saw purges of mostly officials in charge of economic affairs, but Pak was not one of them, implying that she was purged because of Kim's desire to concentrate power.[29] Pak was expelled to the countryside after the purge.[24] She resurfaced in public life in 1986.[24][7] Her influence had been greatly weakened by then and she was allowed to hold minor positions only.[30][4] Her daughter, Pak Sun-hui, is the current chairperson of the central committee of the Korean Democratic Women's League.[9]
^ abcd박정애(朴正愛) [Pak Chong-ae]. North Korean Human Geography (in Korean). Seoul: Institute for Peace Affairs. Archived from the original on 23 August 2017. Retrieved 17 December 2016.
^Person, James F. (2007–2008). "New Evidence on North Korea in 1956". In Ostermann, Christian F. (ed.). Cold War International History Project Bulletin: Inside China's Cold War. Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. p. 448. GGKEY:18LFSRTZZ8J.
^ abcdLankov, Andrei (15 April 2011). "Recalled to life in Pyongyang". Asia Times. Archived from the original on 27 April 2011. Retrieved 15 December 2016.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
de Haan, Francisca (2013). "Eugénie Cotton, Pak Chong-ae, and Claudia Jones: Rethinking Transnational Feminism and International Politics". Journal of Women's History. 25 (4): 174–189. doi:10.1353/jowh.2013.0055. ISSN1527-2036. S2CID201794308.
Tertitskiy, Fyodor (14 June 2024). "Pak Chŏng-ae: The woman with an iron heart". The Forgotten Political Elites of North Korea: Woe to the Vanquished. Abingdon-on-Thames: Routledge. pp. 52–60. ISBN9781032745473.
Sŏ Tong-man (2005). Pukchosŏn sahoejuŭi ch'eje sŏngnipsa, 1945–1961 북조선 사회주의 체제 성립사, 1945–1961 [Establishment of Socialist System in North Korea] (in Korean). Seoul: Sŏnin. ISBN978-89-89205-89-0.
Yi Chong-sŏk (1995). Chosŏn Nodongdang yŏn'gu: chido sasang kwa kujo pyŏnhwa rŭl chungsim ŭro 조선 로동당 연구: 지도 사상 과 구조 변화 를 중심 으로 [Study on the Workers' Party of Korea] (in Korean). Seoul: Yŏksa Pip'yŏngsa. ISBN978-89-7696-106-8.
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