Report from B. Ponomarev to the CPSU Central Committee

[CPSU CC stamp:

"16477

11 May 1955"]

TO THE CPSU CENTRAL Committee

In August 1953 Pak Heon-yeong, former Deputy Chairman of the KWP CC and DPRK Minister of Foreign Affairs, was arrested by the decision of the Korean Worker's Party CC. According to available information, Pak Heon-yeong was accused of participating in a plot against the KWP CC and DPRK government, and also of contacts with the Americans. At a time when all the remaining participants of the plot have been convicted, Pak Heon-yeong is still being held in prison without trial and the KWP CC is not providing information about his case.

Pak Heon-yeong was one of the leading figures of the Party and revolutionary movement of Korea. He was born in a peasant family in 1900 and participated in the 1919 anti-Japanese uprising, and was a member of the Communist Party since 1921. He spent more than 10 years in prison for revolutionary activity. From 1928 to 1932 he was a member of the VKP(b), studied in Moscow at the Lenin School, and worked in the IKKI [Executive Committee of the Communist International] staff, and then left for illegal work in Korea. Since the time of the liberation of Korea he worked as a CC Secretary of the Communist Party in South Korea. He arrived in North Korea in 1947, where he occupied senior positions in the Worker's Party and government until March 1953.

In connection with the uncertainty of the reasons for the delay in deciding the case of Pak Heon-yeong, we consider it advisable to raise this issue during the upcoming conversations with Kim Il Sung in the CPSU CC.

Chief of the CPSU CC Department for Relations with Foreign Communist Parties [signature] (B. Ponomarev)

11 May 1955

Nº 25-S-948

1.3lk

[handwritten notations on the bottom of the page: "to Cde. [[I. P.]]] Vinogradov, to Vl. [[Voronov]] 30 May 1955. Archive. [[illegible signatures]]. I. Shcherbakov"]