Pak Kum-chol | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Pak in 1961 | |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 1911 Kapsan County, Kankyōnan-dō (South Hamgyong Province), Korea, Empire of Japan |
| Died | May 1967 (age 55–56) |
| Cause of death | Unknown, possibly suicide or execution |
| Korean name | |
| Chosŏn'gŭl | 박금철 |
| Hancha | 朴金喆 |
| Revised Romanization | Pak Geum-cheol |
| McCune–Reischauer | Pak Kŭm-ch'ŏl |
Pak Kum-chol (Korean: 박금철; 1911 – May 1967) was a North Korean politician. Having been a guerrilla during the anti-Japanese struggle, he became a high-ranking politician after the liberation of Korea. Pak aligned himself with his former guerrilla brothers in arms from the Kapsan Operation Committee (갑산공작위원회; 甲山工作委員會) to form a faction within the ruling Workers' Party of Korea (WPK) called the "Kapsan faction". This faction sought to replace Kim Il Sung with Pak. Kim retaliated by purging the faction in 1967 in what is known as the Kapsan faction incident. Pak was sent to work at a factory in the countryside and was either executed or died by suicide in May 1967.