In my defense for anyone coming from Kimtiny's post without knowing the truth about North Korea.
hello I'm Sextidi and since I've tried contacting both Kimtiny and Cal regarding this issue, was ignored and blocked rather than given a chance to speak, I'll post a summarized history rant about how the DPRK came to be and how it is NOT a dictatorship or authoritarian.
Korea itself was firstly colonized in the late 1880s and fully colonized by the Japanese empire in 1910, up until the end of World War II it stayed under monarchical Japanese rule where the people of both Korea and south-east China lived in awful conditions, oppressed, raped, killed and tortured by the Japanese.
After the surrender of Japan at the end of World War II the greater powers such as America and the USSR began talking for the liberation of the peninsula.
Almost immediately both powers occupied the peninsula, the Soviets coming in from the North and supporting workers movements; the Americans coming in from the South, sending back Japanese troops to aid the American ones at spreading nationalist ideas and suppressing any socialist one.
Therefore in the years between 1945-1950 the peninsula was already politically split in two:
The American and Japanese forces in the south, who wanted to colonize the peninsula as the other big powers in Europe had done once more immediately after the Second War; who wanted to push nationalists' right-winged ideologies in the peninsula and killing whoever opposed themselves against the American and Japanese troops. The Soviet forces in the North that collaborated with the uprising socialist movements in the area.
In the American occupied area artificial famines created by the American troops started taking place, therefore the Americans not only were trying to fight against the rising socialist movements in the north but actively oppressing the people of the south too.
The Americans had completely changed the economic system of the peninsula, changing it from a semi-feudal state where the workers lived off of their own grain, to a capitalist heaven where monopolies and landlords became the norm; thus causing a grand total of the rural urbanization to suffer from hunger and poverty due to the new tax system implemented.
Women were r4ped and tortured by US troops, and such is not a singular case for US troops have been reported to r4pe and torture civilians caught in the crossfire throughout the entirety of their imperialist story.
Later on the American right wing imposed government began arresting any person that associated themselves with left-winged ideologies to, indeed, prevent the rise of workers parties and a possible revolt against US imperialism.
Not only did the Americans arrest people for “supposedly spreading socialist ideals”, but they also tortured their prisoners and committed genocides in the neighboring areas. One of the best examples being the Jeju Island Massacre.
While all this was happening in the south, the north began flourishing under Kim Il-Sung.
Literacy programs were enrolled, the land and the riches were redistributed and the people had all the power to govern themselves and hold elections as they wished.
(wow what a dictator!!!)
During the years of 1946-1949 Kim Il-Sung began reforming a revolutionary army for a future war against the occupied south.
The socialist movement amongst workers was so popular in the South of the peninsula that the US officers quite literally had to cancel the elections of 1948 to prevent either a liberal or socialist party winning the elections, opting to impose a CIA asset as the leader of the South region, which was Syngman Rhee.
In 1948 the US imposed, and bourgeois backed, leader of the south part of Korea (Syngman Rhee) announced the establishment of the south Korean Republic and demanded he unifies the two areas and for him to hold all the power.
Beginning of the war:
There’s many theories on which faction attacked the other first but I strongly believe the South Korean (mainly US troops) area began the war via leading a naval attack in the Heaju area, encircling DPRK forces at around Jangyon. Thus signaling the beginning of the war
During the invasion the US, of course, responded to the attack.
The US didn’t hold back to normal ground, naval, aerial and artillery forces like the North Koreans, yet they aimed for a more deadly approach.
The US used bombs on civilian structures, blowing up up to 80% of the region and killing up to 20% of the population (civilians).
During the Korean war the US didn’t just stop at bombardments of civilians, they went as far as using germ warfare, releasing viruses onto civilians, transported via naval invasion or aerial patrol.
A lot of deaths due to germ warfare were actually avoided thanks to Kim Il-Sung’s healthcare campaign, advising the citizens to look out for the viruses and the overall funding of North Korean medicaid.
After the war.
The Korean war never actually ended. The peninsula was split into two, the south remaining capitalist and the north adapting to socialist ideals - Jucheism Even today the North and the South hold grudgement against one another. The South is still a US ploy, a landlords and free marketer heaven. Work hours are hostile, the fertility rates are below 1%, taxes and overall living conditions are disastrous.
Now let’s look at north Korea:
Fertility rates have constantly been above 1-1.5%, minus the time during the Korean war where ⅕ of the population was slaughtered off.
A bit into their civil life:
North Korea has completely abolished the tax system - was done so under Kim Il-Sung (oouuhh such a dictator right Kim)
It has made housing a primal need and completely free for its people It has completely emancipated women
On the so contested education system:
Schools in the DPRK are completely state funded! The literacy rate of the country is approximately an out-staggering 98-100%! not much is documented about the educational system in the DPRK other than kindergarten follows kids age 5-6, primary 6-10 and secondary 10-17. Most citizens (both men and women) prefer to partake in military life after secondary school and then after go to university. the DPRK allows its citizens to go abroad to study, most commons places thus being in China, Russia, at times Seoul and even in Japan there are some North Korean owned schools! (the Seoul schools being a special case of schools being made for the people having left the country during the Arduous March of the 90s. which was a heavy famine caused by a flooding)
Now to disprove the “anti-democratic; dictatorship state; authoritarian state” propaganda.
First of all we must come to know these terms:
Democracy can be divided in two types:
- bourgeois democracy, the bourgeois model of democracy is the one applied in western countries today, it gives the people a false narrative and false hope that they actually hold power on their state’s elections, yet these elections have no real power. Thus because the capitalists governments have completely eliminated any non-capitalist opposition, therefore any party that deems itself as “left-leaning” is nothing else but another pro-capitalism party that doesn’t actually reply to the needs of the people. Or said elections are restricted to a selective few such as corporations and the ruling elite. Not to mention the possibility for a common worker to participate in his state’s political life is restricted to simply voting. Becoming a political deputy, in most countries, is locked behind a real life paywall, where one must pay a fee from a few hundred dollars up to a million dollars to be able to enter in parliament. - centralized (socialist) democracy, now, under a socialist democracy the people are encouraged to participate in the political life of everyday, they control the government and state, meaning the workers have all freedom to choose what to do, denouncing a candidate for not fulfilling the needs of the people? Can be done. A centralized democracy completely liquidates the ruling bourgeois class, meaning only the workers remain to rule over the state. (such terms are better explained by V. I. Lenin in his transcribed speeches)
Dictatorship: when a selected few people hold all of the state's power.
- Here too we must define a bourgeois-capitalist dictatorship and a workers' dictatorship. - A bourgeois dictatorship can be Mussolini’s or Hitler’s government - A worker’s dictatorship, as Marx has defined it, the dictatorship of the proletariat, is a form of government where all the state’s power is in the hands of the working class. There is still a higher figure nominated as a chairman but he follows the will of the working class.
Authoritarianism: when a government / system / group imposes something on the people.
By having all of these 3 definitions laid out we can now analyze the DPRK’s government System.
Is the DPRK a dictatorship?
The DPRK is a dictatorship of the proletariat.
Taking in consideration that the DPRK follows the socialist ideology of Jucheism (therefore a heavily militarized and self-sufficient country).
Thus meaning that the workers have control over the state.
In North Korea the central power of the government is the party elected by the people of the 3 public parties inside of the Supreme People’s Assembly (SPA), these parties are:
The Worker's Party (the most voted party of all)
The social-democratic party of North Korea
The religious Chondoist Chongu party
Elections are held every 5 years and the workers can vote whichever party they feel represents their needs best.
With all of these points laid out we can confidentially admit that the DPRK is neither a bourgeois-dictatorship not an ultra-authoritarian state. It is a far more democratic country than the so called lands of freedom (i.e. American and Europe) for it applies socialist ideologies and has eradicated capitalism.
When discussing the living conditions of the country one must look at the material conditions of said country during, before and after the recorded periods of war / general conflict.
The fertility rate dropped significantly after the Korean war, due to how many people were killed by the US during the occupation; the major number of "defectors" visible during the 2008 economical crash are, guess what, flee-res due to said economical crash.
talking of the modern day economical state of the country: After the war the government had to rebuilt majority of cities basically from scratch. After the war the US impose heavy sanctions on the nation, as an attempt to prevent it from trading with the allied countries. Later on, in 2006, the EU imposed sanctions on the DPRK as well.
Therefore saying that the country is poor due to socialism is wrong, looking at the records of laws implemented by the Jong family one can clearly see the massive workers-centered reforms the family applied.
This video shows the proof of the so-called “North Korean defectors” true defectors that leave the country, most of the times, get trafficked over to South Korea, their passports get revoked and they are surveilled to prevent them from exposing the truth about their trafficking.
The majority of influencer-defectors you see online have been proved to be CIA assets that get directly paid by the US and South Korean governments to spread misinformation about the North Korean government.
One of the biggest known CIA “defectors” is Yeonmi Park. (all information widely available online) https://youtu.be/b_blPim4r-s?si=uPoKTCgsTWyESOq1
as a Marxists-Leninist I will continue to support the DPRK for it is far more democratic and free than any other western country.
If one might not like the ideology of Jucheism that is not my problem, this post is to make some of y'all realize that the DPRK is not a dictatorial mass executionary country as the west has portrayed it.
