Pak Hon-yong
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. During this time, Ho Ka-i married his second wife, after his first wife died in Pyongyang in 1947 of tuberculosis. Nina Tsoi and Ho Ka-i were married on 1 January 1949. Nina Tsoi was the daughter of Piotr Invanovich (Ch'oe Pyo-dok), a Korean officer in the Red Army who "survived the mass terror of 1937-9."