Ho Ka-i

Alexei Ivanovich Hegai (Алексей Иванович Хегай, 허가이; 18 March 1908 – 2 July 1953), also known as Ho Ka-i, was a Soviet political operative in North Korea (DPRK) and leader of the Soviet Korean faction within the early political structure of North Korea.

Aleksei Ivanovich Hegai, also known as Ho Ka-i, was born on 18 March 1908 in Khabarovsk in Russia.

His father was a teacher at a Korean school in the Russian Empire.

Ho Ka-i was never given a Korean name when he was born, unlike many Russian Koreans.

His Korean name is assumed to be an adaptation of his Russian family name.

He was orphaned at a young age; his mother died in 1911 and a few months later his father died by suicide.

Ho Ka-i and his younger brother were raised by their uncle, who worked as a digger in gold fields in Khabarovsk.

In 1920, at the age of twelve, Ho Ka-i began working at a tobacco factory in Khabarovsk to bring in some money to help support the family.

Ho Ka-i started to get involved in communist politics, as a way for his family to try to get out of the lower class.

Many citizens who were impoverished, found that by being actively involved in the Communist Party, their family would be elevated.

Throughout the 1920s, Ho Ka-i attended conferences and meetings in the USSR and at the age of 22, he joined the Communist Party.

Not long after Ho Ka-i joined the Communist Party, he became well known for his intelligence and remarkable organizational skills, soon becoming the secretary of the Far Eastern committee of the Soviet Communist Youth League.

At the age of nineteen, he married a Soviet Korean, Anna Innokentevna Li, and they would eventually have five children, forcing him to abandon his studies in order to support his family.

Working under the Communist Party, he served as secretary for many years, upgrading his family out of the lower class because of his dedication and his service to the party.

In 1933, Ho Ka-i left for Moscow, studying at the Sverdlov All-Union Communist Agriculture University.

However, on 10 July 1935, he left university due to "family reasons."

In 1937, when Stalin's purges of upper- and middle-class party leaders became common; it was a miracle that he was not purged.

The purges took place mainly because Stalin took the elites "relative independence and freedom of mind" as a threat to his own power.

But towards the end of 1937, Ho Ka-i became very paranoid and had a bag ready at the door, for his impending arrest.

Yet, Ho Ka-i was never arrested.

During the years leading up to his departure to Korea, Ho Ka-i took his family to Yangiyul, Uzbekistan, while he was being cleared to be reinstated to full Party membership, after his and many others' expulsion due to the purges.

Eventually, he was found innocent and reinstated, though it took a number of years for him to get back to his previous position in the Party.

By 1945, he alongside a dozen other men, were sent by Soviet authorities to the Far East to serve as translators between Russia and Korea.

Yet, when he arrived, he was instead placed in a leadership role within the Workers' Party of North Korea.

Ho Ka-i was sent to Korea to help create the Communist Party there.

In 1946, Ho Ka-i, alongside Kim Il Sung, Kim Tu-bong, Chu Yong-ha, and Choe Chang-ik made up the Political Committee, which was formed to decide the new leader of the government.

Ho Ka-i was elected to represent the Soviet Occupation Authorities.

During this time, Ho Ka-i married his second wife, after his first wife died in Pyongyang in 1947 of tuberculosis.

At a Second Party Congress Session during March 27–30, 1948, Ho Ka-i delivered an unscheduled speech, condemning some officials, who had previously apologized, for not admitting their mistakes.

Ho Ka-i accused O Ki-sŏp and Ch'oe Young-dal for being prideful and defending themselves at the cost of party progress, going so far as to accuse O Ki Sŏp of his attitude and individual heroism.

Being accused of individual heroism was dishonorable because being part of a communist regime; the emphasis was on the whole, and not on the individual person.

By not admitting their mistakes, Ho Ka-i said their apologies were not valid and just empty words.

Ho Ka-i claimed that because they had apologized without admitting that they were wrong, the men were just doing what they were supposed to and not really sorry and thus, would make the same decisions again.

In Korea, Ho Ka-i rapidly moved up the ranks of the North Korean communist leadership.

At the third plenum of the Second Central Committee on September 24–25, 1948, Ho Kai replaced Chu Yong-ha as the vice-chairman of the party as well as the chairman of the inspection committee, where Kim Il Sung was the chairman.

He was the second vice-chairman of the DPRK Politburo from 1949 until he was purged.

He allegedly killed himself in Pyongyang and was replaced as leader by Pak Chang-ok.

On 24 June 1949, the first joint plenum of the two central committees of the Workers' Party of North and South Korea occurred as Kim Il Sung was formally elected chairman of the Workers' Party and Ho Ka-i as second vice-chairman as well as first secretary.

The Soviet authorities thought Ho Ka-i to be an expert in organization, causing him to move up in party ranks.

Ho Ka-i was third in ranking, only behind the chairman and Pak Hon-yong, the vice-chairman.