- by A Carruthers
- The Guardian
- Issue #2122
Photo of DPRK artwork: Mark Fahey – flickr.com (CC BY 2.0)
The DPRK, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, is one of the most misunderstood and maligned countries in the world. In the right-wing media, the DPRK’s proper name is all but prohibited, North Korea is never mentioned without the word ‘authoritarian’ added.
On the left-wing, the DPRK doesn’t fare any better. For liberals and far-leftists alike, the DPRK is “no longer an example of socialism.” No less pious, they too repeat the right-wing accusation that it is “authoritarian.” In some Western Marxist coteries, mention of the DPRK is prohibited. It doesn’t fit their universal, dogmatic and fixed idea of what socialism must be.
DPRK IS COMMUNIST, MARXIST-LENINIST
The right-wing accusations are not worth responding to, so I’ll confine myself to the far-left/liberal accusation that the DPRK is no longer socialist, no longer on the road to communism.
Looking into the literature, what you will find contradicts the standard narrative that the DPRK has “given up” on communism and socialist principles, abandoned Marxism-Leninism, and ceased using these terms and phrases, let alone real-world policies, actions and struggles to these ends.
Kim Il-Sung, the founder of the nation, and key theorist of Korean Communism, of course grapples with all of these things.
But this doesn’t stop with Kim Jong-Il, as is sometimes claimed. In his article ‘Respecting the Forerunners of the Revolution is a Noble Moral Obligation of Revolutionaries,’ published in Rodong Sinmun in 1995, Kim Jong-Il writes:
“Our Party and people respect Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin as the leaders of the working class and speak highly of their distinguished services. Reflecting the demands and aspirations of the working class, Marx and Engels, the first leaders of the working class, developed socialism from a utopian concept to a science and started the socialist and communist movement.”
Thus their conception of Marxism is the orthodox conception, which holds that socialism is not a utopian concept, but rather a science. He expands this to Marxism-Leninism as method:
“Our Party has always assessed the ideological and theoretical achievements of the working-class leaders in an impartial way. It has defended the revolutionary principles of Marxism-Leninism from all manner of opportunistic distortions and inherited and developed them to meet the interests of the revolution and requirements of reality.”
There are innumerable other references of this kind, including significant theoretical arguments and dissertations on communism, Marxist-Leninism, communist revolution and communist ethics across Kim Jong-Il’s body of work.
KIM JONG-UN: MARXIST THINKER
Kim Jong-Un is no different to Kim the elder. In a 2021 speech to the Sixth Conference of Cell Secretaries of the Korean Workers’ Party, he says:
“Our Party never expects there will be any fortuitous opportunity for us in paving the road for our people and in realising their great aim and ideals to build socialism and communism. … When the hundreds of thousands of cell secretaries and officials across the Party unite its members firmly under the leadership of the Party Central Committee and give full play to their loyalty, patriotism and creative wisdom, our revolution will always emerge victorious in high spirits and the ideal of communism will surely come true.”
In a letter to the Eighth Congress of the General Federation of Trade Unions in 2021, he calls on the working class to “advance faster towards socialism and communism,” and for the trade unions to undergo “revolutionary and communist transformation” and “firmly prepare the working class and all other trade union members as possessors of the communist faith.”
There can be no doubt that all three Kims have never departed from the idea of communism or Marxism-Leninism, and that this trend will continue.
SOBER ANALYSIS NEEDED
There ought to be a main-stream, broad understanding of Korea’s system of socialist democracy, their advances in placing production at the centre of people’s lives, as well as, of course, Juche, Songun, the pillars of their Marxist-Leninist philosophy of governance in times of War Communism and socialist defence work. DPRK domestic policy arrangements need to be understood not in the hysterical manner of Western media, but in greater detail. Analysis is needed as to how they develop light industry in the current era, as opposed simply to the development of heavy industry. Analysis is needed of how they are treating the housing question, and policies of even development and rural reconstruction in the countryside. Analysis is needed also of their society; DPRK social progressivism and development of socialist civilisation, is another area that needs more work if we are to have an all-round, serious engagement with their attempt to build socialism, as Keith Bennett and Australian Marxist philosopher Roland Boer have done (see the latter’s Socialism in Power). Engagement should be normalised.
Discussion of the DPRK should be sober. It should be soberly placed beside Laos, Cuba, Vietnam and China in analyses of attempts to build real and concrete socialism under unique and difficult national conditions. Recognition should be made as to the relationship between Korea and these counterparts; for instance Laos-Korea, Vietnam-Korea, Cuba-Korea and China-Korea economic and fraternal exchange, as well as its engagement with the International Meeting of Communist and Workers’ Parties (IMCWP).
The DPRK should not be isolated on the international socialist side, as it is isolated by the Western Alliance.
Our drive to unity ought to be stronger than the West’s attempt to divide. North Korea’s bold and noble attempt to build socialism here on earth must be examined and respected.
