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Fyodor Tertititsky, "Pyongyang on the Brink: Sixteen Crises That Shaped North Korea" (Hurst, 2026)
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- [00:00]
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- [02:04]
Fyodor Dortytsky
to the New Books Network
- [02:08]
Nicholas Gordon
Hello, I'm Nicholas Gordon, host of the Asian Review Books podcast and in partnership with the New Books Network. In this podcast we interview fiction and nonfiction authors working in around and about the Asia Pacific region. North Korea has survived wars, sanctions and isolation to the point where it now seems that the continuation of the Kim Dynasty and a starkly confided Korea is assured. But history is filled with events where some change might have drastically altered how a country's development might have gone. North Korea is no different, at least according To Fyodor Dortytsky, author of Pyongyang, on the 16 crises that shaped North Korea. In his book, he posits 16 different points where things might have gone differently. Maybe Japan falls too quickly in the Second World War, denying the Soviet Union the opportunity to occupy North Korea. Maybe Kim Il Sung gets out competed and someone else becomes head of North Korea. Maybe China never intervenes in the Korean War. Maybe one of several coups against Kim Il Sung succeeds. Fyodor joins today to talk about some of these scenarios as well as the unlikely inspiration for this book, alternate history mods for Paradox Studio Games. Fyodor researches North Korean political, social and military history from South Korea, where he's been living for more than a decade. He has authored several books in English and Korean, including Accidental Tyrant, the life of Kim Il Sung and the North Korean Army.
- [03:28]
So, Fyodor, thanks once again for coming on the show to talk about your book. You know, Pyongyang on the brink, 16 crises that shaped North Korea. You know, Fyodor, this isn't, this isn't your first time on the show. You know, you, you've written books on North Korea in the past, including, I think, Accidental Tyrant. Why did you want to approach this book in this way? And kind of highlighting the 16 events in North Korean history and framing them as a series of, you know, kind of what ifs or counterfactuals as opposed to a more, you know, normal quote unquote history book.
- [04:03]
Fyodor Dortytsky
Okay, so my motivation for this is a bit unusual and I actually didn't talk about it directly in the book, so I guess it will be the first time we will be talking about it in public. So as you can see, this is a book mostly written to a general audience. I was thinking about someone young, someone probably in their early 20s, and I was. The big motive about this book was to show that person that North Korean history can be fun. And so what I found out, well, what I have been founding out for the, I guess the last decade is one of the great ways to motivate someone to learn actual histories to show that person alternate history, like what ifs. Because my experience has been that one of the great teachers of history to my generation and maybe to the generation younger than me, are actually alternate history mods for a computer game known as Hearts of Iron, you may have heard of. It's a computer game based on World War II, and there are some modes of it which are quite obscure, but they're absolutely popular within the nerd community.
- [05:20]
Nicholas Gordon
I'm sorry I'm going to interrupt you. This is a book inspired by Paradox Studio games, right?
- [05:26]
Fyodor Dortytsky
This is a book, the concept where it was inspired by Paradox Studio games, specifically Hearts of Iron, specifically mods like Kaiserreich and the New Order. Because I thought that how many people actually learn about World War II, about the German Empire, about many peculiarities of the 20th century through playing alternate history? So I thought, why wouldn't I write a book which will be mostly focused on actual history, but also would focus on food, would provoke some people to think about what ifs? Because people like what ifs and what ifs motivate them to learn about the actual history. So that was the motivation behind that book. Yeah. Probably not what you're thinking. Fort Nicholas, was it?
- [06:12]
Nicholas Gordon
No, it's not. I mean, I've never. The Paradox games are a series of history games that I always think I want to sink my teeth into. And then I look at something like Crusader Kings and I'm like, oh no, this is way too much for me. But maybe let's kind of talk about, you know, broadly speaking, some of these kind of what if scenarios. You know, a lot of them I think kind of concern direct threats to the Kim's power, you know, as opposed to say, broader threats to the regime, external shocks, you know, there are a couple of them, but they're mostly, you know, what if this guy overthrew Kim? What if this coup succeeded? And so why is the Kim regime so central to kind of the path that North Korea's history takes, you know, in such. That kind of. So many of your counterfactuals kind of deal with kind of direct threats to the Kim's power.
- [07:09]
Fyodor Dortytsky
Well, I mean, it's kind of obvious, isn't it? Because if you look at the North Korean history, so North Korea is created as a concept on 10 August 1945, then two American officers came up with the idea to divide the peninsula across the 38th parallel. And in December 45, you already have Kim Il sun installed as a first leader by the Soviets, first provisionally and then permanently. Currently, North Korea is ruled by his grandson. So for more than 99% of North Korea's history has been ruled by one family. So of course this family will be the absolute central topic to any talk about North Korea.
- [07:53]
Nicholas Gordon
Maybe let's kind of start with the, with the immediate post work world to your ear. And unfortunately we're not going to want to go through all 16 of your. Of your what ifs today, but maybe let's kind of go through History. So let's start with kind of the immediate post World War II era. And you know, what are the things that what might have happened if North Korea didn't actually get a chance to to establish itself? You know, if the Soviets never invaded or if the Soviets never kind of march into Korea, if there wasn't this kind of dividing line between north and South? I mean, what might have happened if North Korea never really got started?
- [08:30]
Fyodor Dortytsky
Right. So what we are talking about, we are talking about the Soviet Japanese War, which lasted from 8th of August to 1545. And I argue if you have to pick one most consequential week in history of East Asia from like prehistoric age until today, that would be exactly this peak because Soviets conquered Manchuria and the Soviets conquered North Korea. And it kind of defined at least the fate of China and the fate of Korea. So if they have never invaded, it is most likely entirety of Korea gets occupied by the Americans when something probably very close to our timelines, Republic of Korea is born there. The difference, it governs not a half of the peninsula, but the entirety of it. And much more importantly, Chiang Kai Shek and his Republic of China stay in power on the mainland China. And while it would be a corrupt and unpleasant authoritarian regime, it is highly unlikely that it would be nearly as brutal as Mao's China. So probably I would say history would have been massively changed for the better in the ironic part of it. Most people in that imaginary timeline would have probably never even noticed how unbelievably lucky they were.
- [10:03]
Nicholas Gordon
So then let's kind of go from there to the Korean War. And could you talk about some of the what ifs that you think about kind of during the Korean War? Whether or not I think it's probably most likely, what if the American side have gone kind of all the way. But what are the kind of breaking points you see kind of in this period?
- [10:25]
Fyodor Dortytsky
Oh, well, the one I actually do talk about in the book is what if Mao Zedu never intervened because he seriously considered not intervening. He actually twice told Stalin, no, this is not how warpy and not tune that maybe it would be better for Comre Kim Il Sung to suffer a temporary defeat. So if that happened, I think modern unified Korea would have been something like Greece, because many people forget that Greece experienced a civil war for soon between the monarchy and the communists, which communists lost. The communist leaders Akariadis, Hank himself in Soviet Union in 1973. Who knows that could have happened to Kim Il Sun. And that was a very, very real possibility because it really like efforts were taken by Stalin to push Mao to intervene and Mao really didn't want it. So that's a first chance. And the second scenario on which I do not talk in the book, but I guess it's also a possibility, although much less plausible if the United States and if another one intervenes to save South Korea, if the blitzkrieg is successful, if entirety of South Korea falls to Kim Il sun and his army, which is what he originally expected and his plan was, went very wrong almost immediately because the American state intervened quite fully.
- [12:01]
Nicholas Gordon
One of the things that kind of struck me in kind of reading through kind of the post Korean War, pre transition era of North Korea's history are kind of the various points where, where Kim Hilsong's reign was again like actually threatened by, by, by, by coups or power ships or you know, or the Soviets or something. And again kind of, I guess when you stand today and look back, I mean it looks like kind of the Kims have been in power for generations. We don't see the threats that go on kind of to, to, to the Kim's power kind of inside the country. But as you note, there are, there are lots of them, including a possibility that they were going to, you know, fire a tank shell on him during a parade once. But could you talk about kind of some of these, like, like, like some of these potential, like coups, potential kind of overthrowing of, of Kim Il Sung and then why did they ultimately not happen? I mean what, what was it that, that that had caused all of these attempts to fail?
- [13:04]
Fyodor Dortytsky
Well, probably the most known would be the August Planum, the conspiracy to remove him from power in August 1956, which was infamously ill organized and very quickly crushed by Kim Il Sun. So one thing I argue in the book that actually the leader of the position there wasn't quite a liberal guy. He was pro China Maoist, so maybe his victory wouldn't have been such an enormous blessing, although arguably still a slightly lesser evil. So another one, which people rarely separate from the August plan and Batai 2 is a September visit of the joint delegation by the Soviet Union in China where it seems like initially they considered trying to remove Kevelson from power, but actually did not. And I think that would have opened a completely different timeline. And of course much, much later in the 1990s, you have at least two known attempts to overthrow the camps by the Korean People's Army. First is better documented. The attempt, as he said, to shoot the Kim Il sun and Kim Jong Il during the parade in April 1992. The conspiracy was organized by people who started in Moscow under Gorbachev and he got all these perestroika of liberalization in their minds. And the second is a bit less known. And even some colleagues think that it might not be true. The conspiracy by the 6th Corps of the Korean People's army, which I'd say why I argue that it was a very real event because the sixth core was after this event completely dissolved. I myself talked to people who sat here and like many soldiers were dispatched to Chonjin to cover up because one corps suddenly disappeared by the orders from the central government. So it doesn't look like a starting disperse. When you accuse people of a c while they are innocent, it looks like a very real purge against a very real threat. And there is a chapter about that. And also theoretically you could think of a number of accidents like one of I write about, like Kim Jong Un could have boarded a helicopter which ultimately crashed due to bad weather in 1994 and North Korea could have been left without a successor. Another episode which I do not talk about, but also possible. Kim Il sun was father Nicola in 1986. So theoretically he could have died there, although I don't think it would have changed much because Kim Jong Il's succession was very much entrenched by the time. But maybe by butterfly effect, who knows? I mean, we can't see the alternate timelines.
- [16:07]
Nicholas Gordon
You know, before I kind of start talking about the. About the transition from Kim Il Sung to Kim Jong Il, I mean, when it comes to avoiding, like avoiding the what if? I mean, how much was this strategy? How much was this, you know, Kim Il Sung had like. Had was like smart at playing the politics and getting rid of his competitors. And how much of this was luck? I mean, obviously things like the helicopter crash, that may be more luck than strategy. But kind of how do you kind of draw the divide between things that were due to, I guess, Kim Il Sung being smart and Kim Il Sung being lucky?
- [16:46]
Fyodor Dortytsky
Both are true. Because in some crisis you can't really explain by lock. There can be explained by Kim Il Sung being very shrewd, are very clever dictator like the August plead which he survives, while his counterparts from Eastern Europe, like Matthias Rakashi or like Falko Cevink of do not. Some of the events in his life are determined by pure luck. For example, he's dispatched to Pyongyan in 45. He could have been dispatched to another city, which probably meant he would not would have never met the Soviet General who recommended him to as a future leader. And as you see, like, the entire timeline goes awry, like assassination attempt which failed mostly due to luck. That's the lucky part. But ultimately, like the way he planned his succession, he stayed in power. The way he manipulated his superiors, the way he built a system which allowed his country to not only survive, but also greatly benefit from the Sina Soviet split by milking both the Moscow cow and the Beijing cow. Yeah, he was a very, very skilled dictator. And the very fact that his grandson is ruling the nation now is another testimony to it. Send Help is now streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney.
- [18:18]
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Fyodor Dortytsky
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- [18:44]
Nicholas Gordon
Well, let's talk about, you know, that, that transition. I mean, as you note in your book. Well, this and your previous book, it's. It's one of the biggest differences between North Korea and, and other, you know, single party dictatorships is that. Is that Kim kept power in the family. You know, he's handed it over. He handed over to his son, who handed it over to his son, who looks like. Who may be handing it over to his daughter. Maybe. I mean, to. Things have changed a lot in North Korea, I guess, between now and the actual transition of power. But the point is it's all stayed in the family. You know, how might things have gone differently during that very first transition, you know, from. From Kim Il Sung to Kim Jong Il?
- [19:30]
Fyodor Dortytsky
Well, theoretically, if he never would have come up with the idea or to appoint Kim Jong Il with his son, then one could argue it would have theoretically been someone from the top elite. But my best guess would be at the later part of Kim Il Sung's rule, he is number three after himself. And his son would be Marshal or Jeanu, who is usually presented as a hardliner. But he also was quite a pragmatic man in some regards. For example, it was his idea to decentralize foreign trade. Sort of like to downplay and ultimately abolish the monopoly of the Ministry of Foreign Trade to trade with other countries. Actually, like, when it comes to domestic succession. He'll laugh, Nicholas, because I'm going to invoke another paradox game now, because it Actually managed to formalize this so perfectly, I've never seen in any sociological study. So there is a game called Stellaris which has four ways of democracy, oligarchy, dictatorship and imperial system. And the difference between dictatorship and imperial system is when a dictator dies. There is what in the game they call oligarchical election. When only like the elite of the country, they choose a new leader. But under the imperial system, even the elite is completely excluded from governance because the successor is pre appointed. So in a sense, hereditary dictatorship is fundamentally less democratic than even your noble dictatorship, because even the transition of power is given to the decision of one person, not a few.
- [21:18]
Nicholas Gordon
You know. And then when you kind of move into the more modern era, the Kim Jong Il, even the Kim Jong Un era, although the what ifs kind of start becoming a lot less common, like most of the stuff seems to happen in the Kim Il Sung era, is that just because it's a lot more isolated now, as we don't actually know much of what's happening in North Korea? Is that because we just kind of don't know what's important yet because it's still too recent, or was there kind of some fundamental change in the regime after that first transition to power where suddenly you don't get these many of these crisis points or breaking points in North Korea.
- [22:01]
Fyodor Dortytsky
I think it's an excellent point actually. So I think both of your concerns are very true. First, North Korea is much, much more close country than it has been say 15 years ago. Lots of things we took for granted are no longer possible around that many North Koreans in China. The rates of escape rate from North Korea dropped back in 2007 and 8. We had the thing like the inter Korean tourism that had cast an industrial complex. All things which are nearly unthinkable now in 2026. So second thing, I'd say it seems like for an outsider that North Korea looks now as a quite a stable country, as a sort of wars in say the 1970s. Because if you see like there is a big gap also there from like 1956 to 1992 and like the only crisis I have there is Kim Il Sung potentially starting the second Korean War. So it seems we are kind in that era where there aren't many, many chances for the regime to collapse. But I mean the thing is only one of them has to actually happen for it to collapse. It's kind of a logic of the Irish Republican army who threatened Margaret Thatcher by saying we need to succeed only once.
- [23:26]
Nicholas Gordon
Now that you've kind of looked at all of these counterfactuals. You know, what does that kind of tell you about the stability of the North Korean regime and how it changed over time? I guess you kind of got at it with your, with your previous answer. But, but, but how do you, how do you now kind of see the stability of, of North Korea kind of changing from, from the post World War II era to today?
- [23:53]
Fyodor Dortytsky
Well, I'd say most of the crisis there happened in the early stage and the formative stage of the regime, which is usually the case with most authoritarian or even democratic countries. It seems like now two contradictory things are true. First, the regime looks quite stable. But second, there is a fundamental flaw in it, which I'm not sure it itself is possible to remove. It's so unbelievably focused on one man. And that man, the man is morbidly obese, he is a smoker and he is a drinker. So something could happen to him. And if Kim Jong Un dies, that could potentially spiral the whole thing out of stability to God knows what, maybe another ruler, maybe a war, maybe a transition to Chinese client state. I can give you like, probably like seven different scenario how it could happen. Some of them would be for the better, some of them even for the worse. But yeah, I think that's the biggest what if for the future. Kim Jonan's health crisis kind of what already happened in 2020, but he survived.
- [25:10]
Nicholas Gordon
You know, when kind of thinking about these counterfactuals, it's probably easy to kind of, to think of these things as saying like, oh, if this would have happened, the regime would have fell and that may have been better because then, you know, you know, it's very easy to kind of present these what if scenarios as leading to a better outcome. But you know, were there any kind of what ifs where you think disaster was averted instead, where in fact, if this had happened, it would have been much worse for either North Korea or for, or for the wider region.
- [25:45]
Fyodor Dortytsky
Oh, well, it's a very interesting question because indeed, like North Korean regime is what it is and usually when you remove it changes for the better. But if you have to come off the idea about how it could have been worse, I think the best scenario would be Donald Trump attacking it in 2017-18, which people really feared here in Korea, like full scale American North Korean War and not in 1993, which I do talk about. But when America, when North Korea already has nuclear capabilities and if it would go full scale with this scenario, maybe some final desperate move as Them launching a nuclear missile on California. Yeah, I think that would have arguably been even worse when we, what we have now, a full scale nuclear war, unseen since 1945. If you can call Hiroshima, Nagasaki, nuclear.
- [26:45]
Nicholas Gordon
You know, I.
- [26:46]
Maybe two more questions.
- [26:48]
You know, I want to kind of go back to. I want to go back to the. The first thing you said, which is that kind of counterfactuals have become a really great way to get people to. To start thinking about history, to start learning about history. And I wonder if you might talk a bit more about that. I mean, what is it about alternate histories that you think are so compelling to people that aren't trained historians?
- [27:13]
Fyodor Dortytsky
Well, I'd say just the very thought that things could have been so radically different and that it's not that we are doomed to live a certain life. I'd say that the optimistic message and the pessimistic is that a better tomorrow is completely not guaranteed. I mean, that's partially also a message of accidental tyrant, that Kim Il Sung's rise was not preordained or caused by, I don't know, Korean culture or some mentality pattern. If anything, I think the Korean Peninsula is your ideal laboratory which teaches that alternate history should be taken very seriously because you have South Korea and you have North Korea and there used to be one Korea. So that's it. But nations which are very, very unsuccessful now can rise. Nations which we think that are definitely destined to stay prosperous. A democratic could still descend into something really unpleasant. And I think that's that thought which alternate present, alternate past provokes. And partially. Well, it's also part of responsibility to the future because the moment we are sitting now is already someone's past. It's already. It will be past one day. So, well, let's take it seriously because we are not railroaded to the future. We are building this railroad as we speak, as we act.
- [28:54]
Nicholas Gordon
Maybe. One last question. And this, and this. In fact, again, once again, it's great that you talk about these alternate history mods for Paradox games because that's a pretty good way to lead into the quest. The last question for this interview, which is, you know, like, what if scenarios are, Are. Are great settings for, you know, for books, for movies, for video games, for mods of video games, and, you know, asking you to kind of wear the hat of a fiction writer rather than a historian. You know, which of these what if scenarios do you think kind of gives the most interesting setting for a story of this kind? You know, one of these things goes the other way and then you're writing, you're writing a book or you're setting up, but you're thinking about a narrative set like, I don't know, 10, 15 years later. Which of these what if scenarios do you think is the most interesting in terms of setting up that kind of story?
- [29:54]
Fyodor Dortytsky
Right. So first of all, thanks for the question because, like, slightly off topic, I would like to say that I actually am trying myself as a fiction writer now. I've written two low fantasy novels. I currently trying to pitch to agents, so we'll see if that succeeds. And about the alternate history, it's definitely 1956. I mean if you are doing like say a Hearts of Iron mode, if there is a Mode Set in 56, it's very, very easily to code there. And if you're writing one alternate history, I would say probably the Soviets installing PK1, a liberal Kimon's deputy to power would be the most interesting scenario to exploit. So once again, in 56, you have at least three possibilities. You have a possibility of a Maoist China. You have a possibility of Park Chanok, Kim Il Sung's dark mirror from the Soviet faction rising in power, and the story probably being kind of the same but with a different flavor. And you have a scenario of a liberal pro Soviet regime which would probably try to transform the country into something like Khrushchev's ussr. And this is also a very juicy scenario to exploit for the whole dynamics of the liberal North Korea versus Maoist China, liberal North Korea, but still authoritarian versus the various degrees of authoritarianism in South Korea. Maybe North Korea getting too liberal and getting invaded like Czechoslovakia and Hungary were basically, you can come up with so, so many thought provoking ideas when you go into that timeline. And I would just like to point with Pakiwan, the man who could have led this moderate North Korea into existence is a person almost completely forgotten by history. Kind of ironic when you think of it.
- [32:06]
Nicholas Gordon
So with that, I think that's a great place to end our conversation with Fyodor Tortysky, author of Pyongyang, on the 16 crises that shaped North Korea. Fyodor, I actually have two final questions for you. You've kind of again, already talked about this in your previous answer, but my final two questions for you are where can people find your work? Not just this book, but all of your work. And what's next for you? What do you think the next project might be?
- [32:33]
Fyodor Dortytsky
Thank you. So all my books, not just my books, but also my articles, are available on my ResearchGate profile. You can just type Feder Tytetsky ResearchGate. It will be the first Google link and those which are legally permitted to be uploaded online are there for everyone to read soon. Next. So in the world of academia I kind of started thinking, I'm not sure if it will ever become a book, but maybe writing something about the North Korean famine because it's such an understudied topic and in terms of fiction. So I have two manuscripts which I'm trying to submit. One is about an alternate world which is like our world but with vampires, and about the vampire couple which lives in Edwardian Britain of the 1910s just before World War I. And the second one is about a world which is also like us, but we were consultancy company in Oregon run by three demons and these three demons are antagonists of the novel which is mostly about father, a prosecutor from Maine finding out that he has a daughter and the said daughter is serving time in an Oregonian prison. As you see, both novels have nothing to do with North Korea. They are just like a part of a completely different part of me.
- [33:57]
Nicholas Gordon
So you can follow me Nicholas Gordon on Twitter Ick R I Gordon. That's N I C K R I G O R D O N. You can go to asreviewbooks.com to find other reviews, essays, interviews and excerpts. Follow them on Twitter at bookreviewsasia. This reviews plural and you can find many more author reviews at the New books network and newbooksnetwork.com we're on all our favorite podcast apps, Apple Podcasts, Spotify. Rate us, recommend us, share us with your friends, support interviewing those running in around and about Asia. Stay tuned for more news and who's coming up on the show. But before then, Fyodor, thank you so much for coming on the show today.
- [34:30]
Fyodor Dortytsky
Thank you.