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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Finnusertop (talk | contribs) at 21:21, 15 August 2022 (Undid revision 1104526350 by Lithopsian (talk) This probably merits a separate article. WPK existed before Juche and various concepts have always been employed beside it. The Juche article has become inflated with various items that are only tangentially related.). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

This article refers to the ideology of the Workers' Party of Korea (WPK), the ruling party of North Korea.

Juche

"Great Leader" theory

Unlike Marxism–Leninism, which considers developments in the material conditions of production and exchange as the driving force of historical progress (known as historical materialism), Juche considers human beings in general the driving force in history. It is summarized as "the popular masses are placed in the center of everything, and the leader is the center of the masses". Juche, North Korea maintains, is a "man-centered ideology" in which "man is the master of everything and decides everything". In contrast to Marxism–Leninism, in which a people's decisions are conditioned by their relations to the means of production, Juche argues that people's decisions take consideration of, but are independent from, external factors. Just like Marxism–Leninism, Juche believes history is law-governed, but that it is only man who drives progress, stating that "the popular masses are the drivers of history". However, for the masses to be successful, they need a "Great Leader". Marxism–Leninism argues that the popular masses will lead (on the basis of their relation to production), but in North Korea the role of a Great Leader should be essential for leadership. This theory allegedly helped Kim Il-sung establish a unitary, one-man rule over North Korea.

The theory turns the Great Leader into an absolutist, supreme leader. The working class is not to think for themselves, but instead to think through the Great Leader. The Great Leader is the "top brain" (i.e. "mastermind") of the working class, meaning that he is the only legitimate representative of the working class. Class struggle can be realized only through the Great Leader and difficult tasks in general and revolutionary changes in particular can be introduced only through and by the Great Leader. In historical development, it is the Great Leader who is the leading force of the working class. The Great Leader is also a flawless and incorruptible human being who never commits mistakes, who is always benevolent and who always rules for the masses. For the Great Leader system to function, a unitary ideological system must be in place; the Ten Principles for a Monolithic Ideological System was thus introduced by Kim Jong-il for this purpose.

Kimilsungism–Kimjongilism

Following the death of Kim Jong-il in December 2011, Kimilsungism became Kimilsungism–Kimjongilism (김일성-김정일주의) at the 4th Conference of the Workers' Party of Korea in April 2012. Party members at the conference also stated that the WPK was "the party of Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il" and declared Kimilsungism–Kimjongilism "the only guiding idea of the party". Afterwards, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) stated that "the Korean people have long called the revolutionary policies ideas of the President and Kim Jong-il as Kimilsungism–Kimjongilism and recognized it as the guiding of the nation". Kim Jong-un, the WPK First Secretary, said:

Kimilsungism–Kimjongilism is an integral system of the idea, theory and method of Juche and a great revolutionary ideology representative of the Juche era. Guided by Kimilsungism–Kimjongilism, we should conduct Party building and Party activities, so as to sustain the revolutionary character of our Party and advance the revolution and construction in line with the ideas and intentions of the President and the General .

North Korean class analysis

Unlike the Joseon dynasty, where there was a huge gap between the upper and lower classes, North Korea adopted the concept of a gathered-together "people". Instead of a strict social hierarchy, North Korea divided the nation into three classes – the industrial workers, the peasants, and the samuwon (사무원) – where each are as important as the others. The samuwon class consists intelligentsia and petite bourgeoisie, such as clerks, small traders, bureaucrats, professors and writers. This class is unique to North Korean class analysis and was conceptualized to increase education and literacy among the country's population.

Normally, Marxist–Leninist states would value only the farmers or laborers, thus in the Soviet Union the intelligentsia was not defined as an independent class of its own, but rather as a "social stratum" that recruited itself from members of almost all classes: proletariat, petite bourgeoisie and bourgeoisie. However, a "peasant intelligentsia" was never mentioned. Correspondingly, the "proletarian intelligentsia" was exalted for bringing forth progressive scientists and communist theoreticians whereas the "bourgeois intelligentsia" was condemned for producing "bourgeois ideology", which were all non-Marxist–Leninist worldviews. Language reforms followed revolutions more than once, such as the New Korean Orthography in North Korea (which failed due to Korean ethnic nationalist fears of precluding Korean unification), or the simplification of Chinese characters under Mao Zedong (a consequence of the divergent orthographic choices of Taiwan and the People's Republic of China), or the simplification of the Russian language after the 1917 revolution in Russia and consequent struggle against illiteracy, known in Soviet Russia as Likbez (Likvidaciya Bezgramotnosti, liquidation of illiteracy).

North Koreans believed in rapid industrialization through labor and in subjecting nature to human will. By restructuring social classes into a mass of people who are all theoretically equal, the North Korean government claimed it would be able to attain self-reliance in upcoming years. However, this assertion has been questioned by foreign observers because the country suffers massive food shortages annually and is heavily dependent on foreign aid.

Socialism of Our Style

Socialism of Our Style, also referred to as Korean-style socialism and our-style socialism within North Korea, is an ideological concept Kim Jong-il introduced on 27 December 1990 in the speech "Socialism of Our Country is a Socialism of Our Style as Embodied by the Juche idea". Speaking after the Revolutions of 1989 that brought down the Eastern Bloc countries, Kim Jong-il explicitly stated that North Korea needed – and survived because of – Socialism of Our Style. He argued that socialism in Eastern Europe failed because they "imitated the Soviet experience in a mechanical manner". According to Kim, they failed to understand that the Soviet experience was based on specific historical and social circumstances and could not be used by other countries aside from the Soviet Union itself. He added that "if experience is considered absolute and accepted dogmatically it is impossible to build Socialism properly, as the times change and the specific situation of each country is different from another". Kim Jong-il went on to criticize "dogmatic application" of Marxism–Leninism, stating:

Marxism–Leninism presented a series of opinions on building of Socialism and Communism, but it confined itself to presupposition and hypothesis owing to the limitations of the conditions of their ages and practical experiences ... But many countries applied the principles of Marxist–Leninist materialistic conception of history dogmatically, failing to advance revolution continually after the establishment of the socialist system.

North Korea would not encounter such difficulties because of the conceiving of Juche. In his words, North Korea was "a backward, colonial semifeudal society" when the communists took over, but since the North Korean communists did not accept Marxism, which was based on European experiences with capitalism, or Leninism, which was based on Russia's experience, they conceived of Juche. He believed the situation in North Korea was more complex because of the nearby American presence in South Korea. Thanks to Kim Il-sung, Kim Jong-il argued, the revolution had "put forward original lines and policies suited to our people's aspirations and the specific situation of our country". "The Juche idea is a revolutionary theory which occupies the highest stage of development of the revolutionary ideology of the working class", Kim Jong-il said, further stating that the originality and superiority of the Juche idea defined and strengthened Korean socialism. He then conceded by stating that Socialism of Our Style was "a man-centered Socialism", explicitly making a break with basic Marxist–Leninist thought, which argues that material forces are the driving force of historical progress, not people. Socialism of Our Style was presented as an organic sociopolitical theory, using the language of Marxism–Leninism, saying:

The political and ideological might of the motive force of revolution is nothing but the power of single-hearted unity between the leader, the Party, and the masses. In our socialist society, the leader, the Party, and the masses throw in their lot with one another, forming a single socio-political organism. The consolidation of blood relations between the leader, the Party and the masses is guaranteed by the single ideology and united leadership.

Songun

Songun (선군정치; lit. military-first politics) was first mentioned on 7 April 1997 in Rodong Sinmun under the headline "There Is a Victory for Socialism in the Guns and Bombs of the People's Army". It defined the military-centered thinking of the time by stating; "the revolutionary philosophy to safeguard our own style of socialism under any circumstances". The concept was credited to "Respected General Kim Jong-il".

In a joint editorial on 16 June 1998 entitled "Our Party's Military-First Politics Will Inevitably Achieve Victory and Will Never Be Defeated" by Kulloja (the WPK theoretical magazine) and Rodong Sinmun, it was stated that Songun meant "the leadership method under the principle of giving priority to the military and resolving the problems that may occur in the course of revolution and construction as well as establishing the military as the main body of the revolution in the course of achieving the total tasks of socialism". While the article clearly referred to "our Party", this was not a reference to the WPK but rather to the personal leadership of Kim Jong-il.

On 5 September 1998, the North Korean Constitution was revised and it made clear that the National Defence Commission, the highest military body, was the supreme body of the state. This date is considered the beginning of the Songun era.

References

1. ^ Lee 2004, p. 4.
2. ^ Lee 2004, p. 5.
3. ^ Lee 2004, p. 6.
4. ^ Lee 2004, p. 7.
5. Lee 2004, p. 8.
6. Lee 2004, p. 9.
7. ^ Rüdiger 2013, p. 45.
8. Alton & Chidley 2013, p. 109.
9. Kim 2012, p. 6.
10. ^ Cumings 2005, pp. 404–405.
11. ^ Shin 2006, p. 91.
12. ^ Shin 2006, pp. 91–92.
13. ^ Shin 2006, p. 92.
14. ^ Shin 2006, p. 92–93.
15. ^ Kihl & Kim 2006, p. 63.
16. ^ Kihl & Kim 2006, p. 64.

Sources

Books

• Alton, David; Chidley, Rob (2013). Building Bridges: Is There Hope for North Korea?. Lion Books. ISBN 9780745955988.
• ——— (2005). Korea's Place in the Sun: A Modern History (2nd ed.). New York: W.W. Norton and Company.
• Kihl, Young; Kim, Hong Nack (2006). North Korea: The Politics of Regime Survival. M.E. Sharpe. ISBN 9780765616388.
• Lee, Kyo Duk (2004). "'Peaceful Utilization of the DMZ' as a National Strategy". The successor theory of North Korea. Korean Institute for National Reunification. pp. 1–52. ISBN 978-8984792258.
• Rüdiger, Frank (2013). North Korea in 2012: Domestic Politics, the Economy and Social Issues. Brill Publishers. pp. 41–72. ISBN 9789004262973. Archived from the original on 17 October 2015.
• Shin, Gi-wook (2006). Ethnic Nationalism in Korea: Genealogy, Politics, and Legacy. Stanford University Press. ISBN 9780804754088.
• Kim, Jong-un (6 April 2012). Let Us Brilliantly Accomplish the Revolutionary Cause of Juche, Holding Kim Jong-il in High Esteem as the Eternal General Secretary of Our Party (PDF). Pyongyang: Foreign Languages Publishing House.

Journal articles

• Lim, Jae-cheon (May–June 2012). "North Korea's Hereditary Succession Comparing Two Key Transitions in the DPRK". Asian Survey. 52 (3): 550–70. doi:10.1525/as.2012.52.3.550. JSTOR 10.1525/as.2012.52.3.550.

• Workers' Party of Korea
• State ideologies