ARYAN KAUL (U6)
Introduction
When we hear the words “North Korea”, What comes to mind? An isolated country with a strict Communist regime? A country run by a brutal dictator with a cult of personality? A country whose frequent missile launches and nuclear tests we should be afraid of?
During its seventy-four year history, North Korea has been the subject of much speculation. The West has condemned North Korea for its nuclear tests and human rights abuses, and North Korea is perhaps best known for its family of mysterious and wealthy supreme leaders - the Kims. In this regard, North Korea could either be perceived as an ideal society, or an illusion altogether. An ideal society, because of its Communist principles and their totalitarian application by the Kim dictators, and due to the fact that it was built on the scars of the Korean War. This in turn gives it an ethos that promotes its self-interest, while treating the West with contempt. On the other hand, North Korea could be an illusion. North Korea’s Communist ideals could be used to deceive its own people into enjoying artificial pleasures, while running concentration camps, possessing a weak economy, and forcing its own citizens to defect.
Academic historians and North Korean defectors alike have striven to disprove popular assumptions that surround this controversial country. For example, the assumption that North Korea is a country that we do not know much about. “Contrary to media punditry”, writes American historian Bruce Cumings, “we know a lot about it”. We have casualty figures from North Korean famines. We have testimonies from North Korean defectors. Foreign journalists and historians, like Cumings himself, have visited North Korea on multiple occasions. And America and North Korea have engaged in several tense incidents of brinkmanship with one another. Thus, by analysing such assumptions, we can start to interpret North Korea more sensitively.
This essay will examine three themes that summarise North Korea’s areas of contention: its political factors (the approaches to early North Korean political challenges), its social factors (how the Kims are perceived, and how the North Korean people are treated), and its economic factors (the nature of the North Korean economy). By using arguments from historians and defectors, not only is there a broad range of opinions on these themes, but a debate can also be created. It is essential that we do not perceive North Korea in a one-dimensional manner, such that the Kim family is completely evil and that the West is completely justified in its approach to North Korea. The three themes that have been mentioned are integral to this essay, but they are all encompassed by an overarching one - accountability.
North Korea may be a country that becomes politically and militarily significant in the future. Like China - one of its few allies - it runs harsh prison camps in order to curb any internal violation or dissent. North Korean casualty figures for famines (and indeed the testimonies of defectors) should be treated with suspicion and care, as seen later in the essay. However, this is not to say that North Korea’s activities, particularly military-related ones, have not been overplayed by Western media for political purposes. So, in the interest of fairness, it leads to us asking ourselves: are we as the West in any way responsible for exacerbating our relations with North Korea? Through our actions, our sensationalism, are we not exploring North Korea’s enigma, but reinforcing it instead? It could be possible to argue that North Korea’s illusion is one of our own making, albeit such a proposition would completely victimise North Korea. Therefore, it is necessary to analyse events that involved both the West and North Korea, so that we can investigate whether or not they have led to the latter becoming an idealistic country for its own gain, or a falsified image on the international stage.
Political challenges
Three years after the end of the Second World War, the Korean peninsula was divided into a Communist North Korea and a capitalist South Korea. However in 1950, Kim Il-sung- the North Korean leader and founder - launched an invasion of the South, to consolidate Communist control over the peninsula, an argument that the North vehemently denies. The action resulted in American support for South Korea as part of the Truman Doctrine, which aimed to prevent the geopolitical expansion of Communism. In turn, a bloody, three-year-long conflict began, which would claim nearly 5 million lives.
The Korean War was not only a turning point in North Korean history, as it was a display of military strength that was aided by China, but was also one of two events that led to North Korea distancing itself from other countries (the other being De-Stalinisation in 1956). But why distance oneself when one has just founded a country? Surely one would want to make diplomatic ties with others? The answer came down to a matter of ideology and military strategy.
North Korea strove to uphold its Communist control, but was significantly undermined by American forces. As Cumings concisely claims, “Americans in Korea died because their commanders had no idea who they were fighting”. it was driven by arrogance and discrimination. North Korea may have started the war, albeit American intervention only made it worse.
The American attitude in Korea was motivated by two factors. Cumings claims that “blatant racism” was one, whereby reputable military leaders LeMay and MacArthur showed their utter contempt for the North Koreans, with the former “giving vent to his spleen about an Asia he could not control” . Such a sentiment is externalised by the haphazard battle strategy employed by these individuals, which leads to the second point.
Discoveries in weaponry, namely napalm, bolstered American power in Korea. However, their application was careless. American tactics involved indiscriminately bombing towns and villages and, by August 1950, 11 villages were bombed, with over 800 tonnes of napalm being dropped on civilian settlements every day. In addition, the Americans killed and injured their own men with napalm, as revealed in a disturbing testimony by an American Korean War veteran, documented by Cumings. Therefore, the American war effort was certainly not an honourable one, but one that was motivated by a dogmatic desire for domination.
Although North Korea maintains that it was South Korea that started the war, with America acting as an aggressor, Cumings’ argument agrees with this narrative to a partial extent. Evidently, North Korea strives to remove itself from any sort of accountability here by upholding this false claim. Equally, is America doing the same? The fact that neither side have expressed repentance towards one another - much less signed a formal piece of legislation to end the Korean War for good - suggests that both intend to maintain their respective ideologies. Nevertheless, evidence points to an exaggeration of North Korea by the American military. As Curtis LeMay summarises the American position, “We burned down every town in North Korea and South Korea, too”.
The damage done by America to North Korea would certainly give North Korea a justification for its long standing contempt for the West, and this would be achieved through its ideological principle of Juche.
This term refers to self-sufficiency, and was created as a means of distancing itself from revisionist Russia during the throes of De-Stalinisation. Contrary to Cumings, Russian historian Leonid Petrov asserts that political challenges like Russian revisionism gave North Korea fertile ground on which to not only cement Juche, but to also entrench and redefine its own history. North Korean historiography was redefined for the North Korean people, and Petrov corroborates this by stating that previous approaches were “outdated and harmful” in the eyes of Kim Il-sung, the country’s founder. He goes on to write that there was a greater focus on internal changes of economic process, thus befitting the Juche ideology by eliminating the “formalism” and “dogmatism” that Kim condemned in the previous approach that he intended to destroy.
Most ambitiously, Kim Il-sung used his cult of personality as a platform to enforce historiographical change for his country. Up to this point, Kim had been revered as a potent guerilla fighter in his youth against the Japanese occupation of the Korean peninsula, and so when he came to power, he sensationalised this narrative. Petrov suggests that it was for this very reason that North Korean historians “began deifying Kim’s family members” in order to convince the North Korean people that the Kim family made their hatred for the Americans known in 1866, and not immediately after the catastrophic damage the Americans had caused them. A retired North Korean officer named Pak Chun-gwong was credited with defeating an American ship in 1866. In 1961, North Korean historians had credited Kim’s great-great-grandfather with this achievement.
Conclusively, through a reform in ideology, and by conjuring a historiography that owed nothing to foreign influences, Kim constructed an ideal society that isolated itself from other Communist countries. Simultaneously, in light of both political challenges, it seems as if an illusion had also formed, but one that is not solely the making of one particular country. Instead, it was made by contributions from both America and North Korea - American exaggeration of the Korean War, and North Korean history also being exaggerated to a divine level. Ultimately, the society that would be built upon these narratives would lead to further challenges from the West, from within.
Social factors and revisionist history
We have explored the foundational elements of the USA-DPRK conflict, but what arose from its ashes was truly remarkable - a social system with many facets and perceptions. It led to an emphasis of the Kims’ cult of personality, of reverence to a dictator that permeated through social structures. It led to a consolidation in power and ideology, a society that prides upon itself the virtue of self-sufficiency. Surely, that would be enough for its own people. Or would it?
North Korean defectors, such as Park Yeon-mi (now Yeonmi Park) and Kang Chol-hwan, are people whose views of North Korea are scathing to the regime that raised them. By analysing their attitudes, we can embrace an intrinsic view of North Korea, rather than an extrinsic one that has been perpetuated by America. Thus, we are not only able to see why they left such a tightly-controlled country, but also how North Korea presented itself to these individuals. At least, how it tried to.
North Korean defector Kang Chol-hwan (now the president of a South Korean human rights NGO) was born and raised in Pyongyang by a “well-to-do family”, attended a grammar school, and lived in a spacious apartment. This indeed raises questions about his financial status, which brings us on to yet another assumption - that everyone in North Korean society is equal. In actuality, North Korean society is very unevenly stratified, with the military gaining 25% of the annual governmental budget, and infighting between military hardliners and the more conciliatory diplomats in the Foreign Ministry who aim to better their relations with Washington.
Moreover, only 10% of North Korean people actually live in Pyongyang, and are therefore the Kims’ most devoted followers. Hence, it explains Kang’s frequent reverence for Kim Jong-il - a 'father Christmas'-type character who was building “an Edenic social state” for him to live in. After falling out of favour with the government, Kang and his family were sent to the Yodok concentration camp for ten years. Here, they lived in squalor, and witnessed public executions:
We saw two agents pull [a prisoner] down from the truck, each holding an arm. It must have been ages since he had last eaten. All skin and bones, it looked as if he were being floated along by the guards.
Kang had become disillusioned with the figurehead that represented every facet of his life - his “hero”, Kim Il-sung. A far cry from the life that he lived as a child, this testimony demonstrates how North Korean society merely serves as a facade to placate its own people. Through describing his elite status, albeit not explicitly, it would be unfair to take The Aquariums of Pyongyang as a representation of all North Korean defectors; the fact that this is the first and only contemporary account of a North Korean concentration camp, therefore, creates a severe limitation to our investigation.
Nevertheless, this illusory quality of North Korean society is still upheld by defectors. Speaking in 2020 through her daughter Yeonmi Park , defector Byeon Keum Sook asserts that she was convinced that her school education in 1960s North Korea was of a high standard. Remarking on it today, she now believes it to be “all about brainwashing and learning about dictators and their greatness.”
North Korean society is illusory because of the benefit of hindsight - of revisionism. How does the West accommodate people from such an isolated society, like North Korean defectors, and encourage them to think differently about the world around them? Speaking in 2020, defector Yeonmi Park put this down to the idea of liberty:
I love [America] because of liberty. I think that because this country is relatively young, it understands the risk of life without liberty. I think a lot of Americans truly get the value of liberty and I think that’s really special for me because when I was born, I didn’t have it. And so it’s so hard to appreciate something you’ve always had.
She goes on to mention that she could have lived in any country that upheld such doctrines, as long as she were safe:
There has never been a counted official assassination of a North Koren defector in America yet. There have been a lot of assassinations of North Korean defectors in China, in South Korea and other countries. And in other countries it would be easier for Kim Jong-un to hire a hitman to kill me. So America is definitely safer for that reason.
So, to defectors, the West is a sanctuary - a shield far away from the threat of a society that has silenced them. A society whose ethos is superficially benevolent and prosperous, but has led to inconceivable punishment for those who aggravate its governmental officials, who are in a turbulent situation themselves. This, however, does not prevent critics of this idea from voicing their opinions. In light of the Korean War, Cumings seems to have sympathised with and promoted North Korean society.
Criticising a CIA report on North Korea in his 2002 book North Korea: Another Country, he refutes the argument that North Korea runs a cult society much like that of Jim Jones or Charles Manson. Indeed, this is an interesting criticism of the North Korean leaders, and implies that the leaders are delusional and that their subjects are willing to die for them. Regarding this argument as inflammatory to the dictators that he labels as “formidable people” for their logic and political skill, he reshapes the argument and asserts that the society is more like a Confucian family state.
Cumings thereby takes the Kims’ benevolence at face-value, continuing to treat them as victims of America. Despite this, one is able to view the significance of a revisionist argument like Kang’s or like Park’s - one that is able to dismantle one-dimensional perceptions of North Korean leaders and the society which they maintain by brute, but subtle force. This is not to say that North Korea, while rigid in its ideals, is blind to the ideals of other countries. After all, there is some truth in Cumings' argument.
The nature of the economy
Juche is North Korea's ideology, as we know. It roughly translates to "independence in politics, economics, defence, and ideology". It was established in the 1950s to distance itself from its own Communist allies - Russia and China - but the former in particular. Such principles gave North Korea an internalised focus, free from any foreign influence and intervention. Its application has been analysed in a social context, but it has also served a strong economic purpose.
As with all ideologies, North Korea's was intended to be sustainable. In practice, it was not. This led to the North Korean government adopting capitalist practices in order to boost its economy. In the 1970s, Cumings argues that North Korea "had the finest Siemens medical equipment at the top hospitals, fleets of Mercedes and Volvos…[and] very expensive monumental buildings in the capital." Emphasising North Korean economic prosperity, North Korea's GDP saw a 100% increase in the decade 1970-80, according to the World Bank.
North Korea might be worthy of praise for its prosperity, and reliable statistics actually confirm that North Korea did indeed have a flourishing economy. But it certainly does not uphold any accountability, thus making it a target for condemnation nonetheless.
Cumings goes further - "Dogged insistence on always being right and ever self-sufficient led to enormously redundant manufacture of industrial goods”. This tells us that it was not only because of capitalist influences that North Korea flourished, but Cumings' assertion also suggests that it was overdependent on other economies, something that would prove to be catastrophic in the 1990s. This economic prosperity may appear to be positive at the outset. Essentially, it was an accident waiting to happen.
By this point, we can see that the North Korean situation is complex, nuanced, and extraordinary. Realising that its ideological prowess can only do so much as to maintain anti-Western rhetoric, its economic process would vastly be impeded, and so used capitalism to jump-start its economy. But how? Cumings claims that it was caused by the metaphor of "the mosquito net".
Used by Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping, who was known for setting China on its current modernising path, it proves to be vital to our understanding of North Korea's economic nature. We cannot simply define it as a capitalist economy with a Communist façade, as this phenomenon proves otherwise. The "mosquito net" lets in 'breezes' - fragments of capitalist practices such as the array of social amenities described by Cumings. Equally, it prohibits 'mosquitoes' - the capitalist ideology as a whole, thereby giving North Korea free reign in maintaining its grip on the principles of Juche. In fact, it even benefitted Kang after he was released, using the North Korean black market to receive goods from his Japanese relatives. However, this structure has been interestingly interpreted by the Kims - most notably, Kim Jong-il.
The "mosquito net" has enabled Kim to indulge in Western pleasures. Cumings says that Kim owning Hollywood films, watching CNN and MTV, and playing Super Mario videogames has given him a very different status to that of his father. Thus, the expectation that the Kims completely isolate themselves from a poisonous outside world has been subverted by an outlandish reality. However, does this not humanise the Kims, breaking their caricatured and larger-than-life status, as stereotypically interpreted by the West? Does this new portrayal not put Kim Jong-il at the same level as us? If this is true, then it sets a precedent for how we can reach a dialogue with this country: Kim seems to be a leader who has a substantial understanding of Western culture.
As Cumings' puts it, these Western pleasures make the Kims look like "foreigners in their own society". He asserts that such properties make Kim much more versatile than the cold dictator that the West thought he was. However, it appears that Kim was blissfully unaware that this indulgence and lack of commitment to his own country was a fatal flaw.
In 1995, terrible weather hit North Korea. By this time, China had embraced a modernising economy, and the USSR had collapsed four years prior. Without any allies, North Korea was essentially helpless, and the terrible weather festered into an insurmountable famine. North Korea maintains that over 200,000 people died in the resulting tragedy, whereas American estimates roughly range from 500,000 to 3.5 million.
Overall, while the North Korean economy may be a prosperous institution willing to harness a sense of utilitarianism in its society, it is also a powerful weapon of deception. It can be used to placate even the most elite North Koreans, as Kang demonstrates. It can be used to serve the personal interests of Kim Jong-il, unwilling to fully engage in the business of his own country. And the price of these flaws can be a hefty one to pay. Despite the West striving to constantly undermine North Korea through their antagonist rhetoric, North Korea does have internal flaws. The Kims may use Western practices to benefit themselves and, artificially, their people, albeit truly at a social expense.
Conclusion
In light of social, and economic factors, and initial political challenges, North Korea is very certainly an illusion. Despite its efforts to create an ideal society from the ruins of the Korean War, a strict and internalised ideology, and a booming economy, such structures broadly placate its citizens as to prevent them from criticising the regime.
One must be able to realise that this illusion is a product of both American and North Korean influence. The former’s influence is not only seen through America’s dogma in the Korean War, but also in various news outlets that caricature the North as an overtly paranoid nation. Thus, it deepens the mystery surrounding North Korea, rather than clearing it through constructive dialogue.
Nevertheless, the structures of the West have enabled defectors to highlight the fact the North’s ideal social state that even Cumings greatly supports is nothing but a dire misrepresentation of its dark truth. An important distinction should be made between the questions “What is North Korea seen as?” and “What does North Korea want to be seen as?”, and defectors’ testimonies intend to answer the latter. What we do need to be cautious about is the idea of uniqueness. Not every North Korean defector would be as wealthy or as fortunate as Kang. North every North Korean defector would make it out of North Korea alive. It would be wrong to assume that every North Korean testimony is the same, but fundamentally, North Korean defectors escape because they have realised that the system that they have been brought up by and submitted themselves to has failed them.
This essay has not intended to look disparagingly upon America or North Korea. Rather, it has intended to explore both positions in a nuanced manner. For example, it would be wrong to assume that North Korea is America’s ‘punch bag’, because that implies that North Korea is unwilling to retaliate. Indeed, it was North Korea that was responsible for attacks upon democratic leaders, such as Park Chung-hee in 1973 and the Rangoon Bombing, which attempted to assassinate Chun-doo Hwan. Cumings claims that "North Korea is an American blank slate, and anything written upon it has currency - so long as the words are negative". It is true that American media exaggerates North Korea, in turn imposing an illusion for American political gain, and yet, it utterly victimises North Korea. As Yeonmi Park concisely elaborates, "The North Korean regime spends all that money on testing missiles and making them while they are starving their people on purpose." The missile serves as a pillar of North Korean technological advancement, as well as a weapon of defence against the West. North Korea’s fear and hatred towards America is apparent in its ethos, but the proof of North Korea’s idealism lies in the consequences of this ethos. And, so far, the result has been the combination of American paranoia and North Korean carelessness, with both nations being engaged in a complex interplay that has both benefits (North Korean defectors being able to speak out) and disadvantages (famines and concentration camps). Accountability from both sides would be a solution, possibly in the form of a constructive dialogue. But for now, we must rely on the voices of North Korean defectors. They may not be politicians or diplomats, but they certainly have something valuable to say.
SOURCES:
Bank, World. “North Korea GDP”. Tradingeconomics.com, 2022. https://tradingeconomics.com/north-korea/gdp
Cumings, Bruce. North Korea: Another Country. New York: The New Press, 2003.
Editors, History.com . “Korean War”. History.com, 2022. https://www.history.com/topics/korea/korean-war
Kang, Chol-hwan and Pierre Rigolout. The Aquariums of Pyongyang. New York: Basic Books, 2001
Son, Hyemin. “North Koreans Reject Korean War Propaganda Claiming South Struck First”. Radio Free Asia, 2021. https://www.rfa.org/english/news/korea/625-06252021155957.html