Kapsan faction incident

Kim Il Sung and his would-be successor Pak Kum-chol

The Kapsan faction incident (Korean: 갑산파 사건; RR: Gapsanpa sageon; MR: Kapsanp'a sakŏn) was an unsuccessful attempt to undermine the power of Kim Il Sung, the leader of North Korea, around the year 1967. The "Kapsan faction" was a group of veterans of the anti-Japanese struggle of the 1930s and 1940s that was initially close to Kim Il Sung. In the wake of the 2nd Conference of the Workers' Party of Korea (WPK) in 1966, the faction sought to introduce economic reforms, challenge Kim Il-sung's cult of personality, and appoint its ringleader Pak Kum-chol as his successor.

Kim Il Sung cracked down on the faction in a series of speeches made at party meetings. He called for a "monolithic ideological system" that centered on his personality and rallied party members against the Kapsan faction. By April 1967, the factionalists had disappeared from the public. They were expelled from the party and sent to the countryside or prison. Pak Kum-chol either committed suicide or was executed and other key members of the faction died as well. Kim Il Sung had his brother and heir apparent at that time, Kim Yong-ju, pen the Ten Principles for the Establishment of a Monolithic Ideological System. This new set of policies made Kim Il Sung's rule unchallengeable and expanded his cult of personality to cover other members of the Kim family.

His son, Kim Jong Il, took part in the purges and took over the party's Propaganda and Agitation Department (PAD) in what was the first political task delegated to him by his father, paving the way to his increasingly influential role in the politics of the country, eventually culminating in his succeeding his father upon his death in 1994.