---
title: 'Message to the 45th North Korean Division: Kim Il Sung as a marionette'
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/eusak-kim-puppet-leaflet-45th-division-1951/
description: A Korean-language leaflet addressed to the 'People's Army comrades, 45th Division' shows a moustached figure with a hammer-and-sickle collar emblem…
section: Collection
---

[Collection](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/)

**Content note:** Wartime leaflet cartoon showing named North Korean and Soviet leaders as marionette and puppeteer, with a death warning. This object is shown as it was published. [Why](https://propagandaarchive.org/about/#as-it-was)

[![Message to the 45th North Korean Division: Kim Il Sung as a marionette](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/eusak-kim-puppet-leaflet-45th-division-1951.png)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/eusak-kim-puppet-leaflet-45th-division-1951.png)

# Message to the 45th North Korean Division: Kim Il Sung as a marionette

A Korean-language leaflet addressed to the 'People's Army comrades, 45th Division' shows a moustached figure with a hammer-and-sickle collar emblem working a marionette labelled 'Kim Il Sung'. The red banner calls Kim 'the Soviet Union's scarecrow' who, to please his masters, is 'driving you into a battlefield of death'. A loaded label and a death warning stand in for any evidence about the battle.

- **Date:** 1951
- **Period:** [Cold War](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#era=cold-war)
- **Made by:** Eighth U.S. Army Korea (EUSAK), Psychological Warfare Section, for United Nations Command
- **Region:** [North America](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#region=north-america)
- **Country:** [United States](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#country=united-states)
- **Medium:** [Leaflet](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#medium=leaflet)
- **Issuer type:** [Military](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#actor=military)
- **Regime:** [Truman Administration](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#regime=truman-administration)
- **Leader:** [Harry S. Truman](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#leader=harry-s-truman)
- **Audience:** [Enemy forces](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#audience=enemy-forces)
- **Purpose:** [Demonize](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#purpose=demonize)
- **Themes:** [War and the military](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#theme=war-military), [Media and information](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#theme=media-information)
- **Event:** [Korean War](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#event=korean-war)
- **Techniques:** [Name-calling](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/name-calling/) [Fear appeal](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/fear-appeal/)
- **Source:** Unidentified Source blurred: contractors, cutouts, buried disclosure
- **Source:** [NDSU Archives (North Dakota State University), Korean War Psychological Warfare Propaganda Leaflets Collection, Mss 159](https://library.ndsu.edu/AS2.pub/repositories/3/resources/554), retrieved September 29, 2026
- **Rights:** Public domain (U.S. government work: Eighth U.S. Army leaflet, 1951; Commons copy tagged public domain) Eighth U.S. Army Korea, Psychological Warfare Section; image from A. G. Brauer, 'Psychological Warfare Korea 1951', NDSU Archives Mss 159.

## Text on the object

Original (Korean (Hangul with Chinese numerals)) · read from the image, not independently checked

```
쏘련의 허수아비인 김일성은 상전의 비위를 맞처
그대들을 죽음의 싸움터로 몰아 넣고 있다.

四十五사단 인민군 동지들에게 !

(on the marionette's chest) 김일성

[faint reversed text from the back of the sheet shows through: illegible]
```

English translation (machine translation by Claude, not verified by a fluent reader)

```
Kim Il Sung, the Soviet Union's scarecrow [puppet], is, to please his overlord, driving you into a battlefield of death.

To the comrades of the People's Army, 45th Division!

(on the marionette's chest) Kim Il Sung
```

Read from a 363 x 500 px image extracted from the PDF; the archaic spelling 맞처 is as printed. The word 허수아비 literally means scarecrow and is used for a figurehead or puppet.

[← "Delavci, tovarne so vaša last!" (Workers, the factories are your property!), workers' council election poster](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/delavci-tovarne-so-vasa-last-yugoslavia-1951/) [You Are a Filipino / My Dear Son (voting poster sheet for the Philippines) →](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/you-are-a-filipino-my-dear-son-1951/)

## Using the same techniques

- [Passional Christi und Antichristi: the emperor kisses the pope's foot (leaf 'Antichristus')](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/passional-christi-antichristi-emperor-kisses-pope-1521/) (1521 · Name-calling, Card stacking)
- [Ondersoeckt de Geesten, ofse van den Duyvel syn, of niet (the De Witt brothers as devils)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/ondersoeckt-de-geesten-de-witt-devils-1672/) (1672 · Scapegoating, Name-calling)
- [The Highlanders Medley, or The Duke Triumphant (A Loyal Song)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/highlanders-medley-duke-triumphant-1746/) (1746 · Name-calling, Transfer)
- [The Bloody Massacre perpetrated in King Street Boston on March 5th 1770 by a party of the 29th Regt.](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/revere-bloody-massacre-king-street-1770/) (Mar 1770 · Name-calling, Card stacking)
- [Marche du Dom Quichotte moderne pour la deffence du Moulin des Abus (March of the Modern Don Quixote in Defence of the Mill of Abuses)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/dom-quichotte-moulin-des-abus-1791/) (1791 · Name-calling, Transfer)
- [Sans-Culottes, feeding Europe with the Bread of Liberty (James Gillray)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/sans-culottes-bread-of-liberty-gillray-1793/) (Jan 12, 1793 · Fear appeal, Name-calling)
- [Exit Liberté a la Francois! or Buonaparte closing the Farce of Egalité, at St. Cloud (James Gillray)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/exit-liberte-buonaparte-gillray-1799/) (Nov 21, 1799 · Name-calling)
- [Van Moscouw tot Elba moest ik wyken (From Moscow to Elba I had to give way), Napoleon caricature by Wijnand Esser](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/van-moscouw-tot-elba-napoleon-esser-1814/) (1814 · Name-calling)