Opinions on Kim Il Sung

[Kamil]

What is your opinion of Kim Il-Sung, his theoretical work, guerrilla warfare, and economic policies. Nothing about Songun or Kim Jong Il or any of whats going on today, what is your personal critique of the life and work of the person of Kim Il Sung? Btw.... what did Sam Marcy think of Kim Il Sung?

[Red Future]

He is generally admired among the ML groups for his work in the 1940s and 1950s with Stalin , though opinion is divided about his later leadership of North Korea to simplify.

[Red_Struggle]

He's not all that different from Mao, minus the GPCR. http://ml-review.ca/aml/China/KoreaNS.htm

[Cleansing Conspiratorial Revolutionary Flame]

'his theoretical work'
Juche is rather silly and developed from Stalinism with Korean characteristics.
'guerrilla warfare'
Acceptable and admirable, however this is not to deny the struggles of those within the United Front led forward by the Worker's Party of Korea, as opposed to simply fetishizing Kim Il Sung for his contributions thereof in the struggle against Japanese Imperialism and afterward Imperialism led forth by the United States and the South Korean Puppet State.
'Economic Policies'
Stalinism with Korean Characteristics that were unwilling to allow for the Proletariat to achieve control over the DPRK and instead had allowed for vast bureaucratic control and exploitative New Class Rule.


He's not all that different from Mao, minus the GPCR. http://ml-review.ca/aml/China/KoreaNS.htm

'minus the GPCR'
Certain aspects of the WPK's evolution are similar to the CCP during the GPCR.

[Geiseric]

Opinions on Kim Il Sung? He was the leader of a U.S.S.R. puppet state and didn't have much to do with the korean revolution. He recieved his education in china, and fought with the Red Army in WW2. They sent him there to do what the U.S.S.R. state wanted.

[Cleansing Conspiratorial Revolutionary Flame]

Opinions on Kim Il Sung? He was the leader of a U.S.S.R. puppet state and didn't have much to do with the korean revolution. He recieved his education in china, and fought with the Red Army in WW2. They sent him there to do what the U.S.S.R. state wanted.

'He was the leader of a U.S.S.R. puppet state'
While this is quite true, Kim Il Sung had his own tendencies as shown by the resulting theories and policies that had differed from simple Stalinism and had put forth Kim Il Sung's Korean aspect of an evolved form of Stalinism IE: 'Juche'.
'didn't have much to do with the korean revolution'
Kim Il Sung had led the Workers Party of Korea which had led forward the United Front against Japanese Imperialism within Korea during the Second World War. Certainly, he had something to do with this as he was maintaining the leadership of the WPK at this time.
'fought with the Red Army in WW2.'
Indeed.


Kim Il Sung is best compared with Ceausescu as Ceausescu had directly structured his own Personality Cult and policies after that of Kim Il Sung's.

[The Man]

He was better than his son is all I got to say.. I really don't know much about Kim Il Sung.. What was Hoxha's opinion of him?

[Marxach-Léinínach]

Juche and the personality cult aside, Kim was one badass mothfucka.

[Marxach-Léinínach]

He was better than his son is all I got to say.. I really don't know much about Kim Il Sung.. What was Hoxha's opinion of him?

He called him a "magalomaniac" or something in his diary one time, I'm not aware of him ever publicly condemning him though. I think I read there was a DPRK delegate at Hoxha's funeral as well.

[Kamil]

How do you know this about the diary? Elaborate more on the badass muthfucka part- I am intrigued! And who here has actually read his writings on Juche?

[Cleansing Conspiratorial Revolutionary Flame]

He called him a "magalomaniac" or something in his diary one time, I'm not aware of him ever publicly condemning him though. I think I read there was a DPRK delegate at Hoxha's funeral as well.

Hoxha's comment was:



In Pyongyang, I believe that even Tito will be astonished at the proportions of the cult of his host, which has reached a level unheard of anywhere else, either in past or present times, let alone in a country which calls itself socialist.

[khad]

Remember, it's always a cult of personality except when it's your own.

[Marxach-Léinínach]

How do you know this about the diary?
His diary got published later on.

Elaborate more on the badass muthfucka part- I am intrigued!
He spent like 20 years fighting the Japanese in both Korea and China, established and led a socialist state, led the war against the fascist south Korean state and its western backup mercenaries, took a fairly anti-revisionist stand in the Sino-Soviet split (a lot of anti-revisionists say he stayed too friendly with the Soviets and should have gone completely pro-China/Albania but honestly, look how they ended up - China: made friends with America, People's Albania: no longer exists), I suppose Juche isn't even really that bad as well compared to Khrushchovism and such, and personality cults are probably inevitable to some extent in countries coming out of feudalism

[Red_Struggle]

Hoxha called him a megalomaniac and a nationalist, which I can sympathize with, considering the vast degree of nationalism and the occassional racism that Juche is associated with. That being said, I'd still go with the DPRK over South Korea anyday.

[Geiseric]

When he was fighting in china, was he fighting alongside the CCP? And I was also wondering why he left Korea in the first place. EDIT: I disagree increadibly with the assumption that a Cult of Personality is inevitable in a country coming out of feudalism, I was under the impression that it's always man made.

[Rooster]

What is your opinion of Kim Il-Sung, his theoretical work, guerrilla warfare, and economic policies. Nothing about Songun or Kim Jong Il or any of whats going on today

Wut? How you can discuss Kim Il Sung's theoretical work and totally ignore songun and what is going on in north korea today?

[KC]

He was better than his son is all I got to say.. I really don't know much about Kim Il Sung.. What was Hoxha's opinion of him?

Why are you so obsessed with Hoxha's opinion of everything?

[Cleansing Conspiratorial Revolutionary Flame]

Why are you so obsessed with Hoxha's opinion of everything?

Apparently Hoxha's opinion is a logical conclusion. :lol:

More or less though, Hoxha had generally opposed Kim Il Sung as various others had done including those within the Cultural Revolution primarily Mao and Jiang Qing, Jiang Qing having had called Kim Il Sung a 'Fat Revisionist.'

As previously said, Kim Il Sung's theoretical works are to be better compared to those of Ceausescu's, as Ceausescu had gone even further than Kim Il Sung in terms of developing his own Cult of Personality and personalizing Juche.



When he was fighting in china, was he fighting alongside the CCP? And I was also wondering why he left Korea in the first place. EDIT: I disagree increadibly with the assumption that a Cult of Personality is inevitable in a country coming out of feudalism, I was under the impression that it's always man made.

'When he was fighting in china, was he fighting alongside the CCP?'
Kim Il Sung had helped with the Maoist Struggle within China in a similar fashion that Ho Chi Minh and others had done so. He had joined the CCP due Japanese Imperialism's attempts at spreading itself throughout South East Asia. Kim Il Sung though had been a member of the Northeast Anti-Japanese United Army.

' I disagree increadibly with the assumption that a Cult of Personality is inevitable in a country coming out of feudalism, I was under the impression that it's always man made'
It tends to be a social occurrence with the conditions of Feudal overcoming aiding in the creation of a Cult of Personality; Although it isn't as simple as it being inevitable that an overcoming of Feudal Landownership within a Proletarian sense is to lead forth the creation of an exploitative Personality Cult that is in its own at the height of a New Class.

[Roach]

Why are you so obsessed with Hoxha's opinion of everything?

Well, I dont know what where the reasons for ''The Man'' to become curious about Enver Hoxha's personal opinions about Kim Il-Sung, but I presume it is because of the fact that Hoxha's constantly applied Marxism-Leninism when analising political affairs in his time.


Personnally, I don't like this particular qoute because it's simplistic, small and not appliable anymore, since the DPRK is a much more important front against American Imperialism than by the time of that qoute, Hoxha never said something as agressive as that to, for example, Ho Chi Mihn, though he did regard him as a revisionist. But this doesn't really matters thanks to the fact that no Marxist-Leninist organization that follows the line of the Party of Labour of Albania, uses Hoxha's qoutes from his diary to elaborate a political line, in the rare cases they are used, it is mostly as a reference.

[Kiev Communard]

Kim Il Sung's Juche is leaning heavily towards Third Positionist ideologies, with its adoration of the military, disregard for class politics and fierce nationalism/racialism, and therefore could hardly be considered even a part of Stalinist tradition. It might be said that Juche represents a final step in the general process of ideological degeneration of the Third World nationalist doctrines, as it obviously lacks even the traces of rationalist discourse left in other such ideologies.

[Hebrew Hammer]

I can't rightfully say, haven't researched this yet but I have always found Kim Il Sung and the DPRK to be interesting. I'll be viewing this thread and I might respond more later.

[Ismail]

On the relationship between Albania and the DPRK, both actually had pretty decent trade ties, but ideologically Hoxha criticized Kim Il Sung as a revisionist. It's worth noting that Kim shared Mao's opportunist foreign policy, only he extended it further and had no "theoretical" cover for it: he was on quite good (better than Mao) terms with Mobutu (who at one point wanted to "emulate" Juche), and he was also on quite good terms (again, significantly better than the Chinese) with Tito, and wanted to lead the "Non-Aligned Movement" after Tito's death. In "communist" affairs Kim was basically an adherent of the "can't we all just get along?" line of reasoning. "Oh, sure, the Soviets have deviated a bit, but they're still socialist and are not imperialist."


Kim Il Sung's Juche is leaning heavily towards Third Positionist ideologies, with its adoration of the military, disregard for class politics and fierce nationalism/racialism, and therefore could hardly be considered even a part of Stalinist tradition.Songun was introduced after Kim Il Sung died. Of course Juche itself was so vague and so easily movable from a "creative addition to Marxism-Leninism" to "glorious Korean mighty army ideology" that Kim Il Sung does share the blame for coming up with it in the first place.

It's worth noting that, although Kim wasn't some awesome Marxist, he did still profess to be defending it even after 1991. E.g. in a 1993 letter to an international seminar hosted by the Workers' Party of Belgium he stated that (http://leninist.biz/en/1993/CWSVM387/5-Messages-57-Kim.II.Sung), "Karl Marx, an outstanding leader of the international working class, gave birth to Marxism to provide the working class with a powerful ideological and theoretical weapon for the liberation struggle and blazed a trail to the international communist movement, and his name remains deeply engraved in the minds of the progressive contemporaries for the enormous exploits he performed in the cause of human emancipation. The unheard of intensity of the abuses and offensive against socialism and communism, the ideals of Marxism, on the part of the imperialists and reactionaries renders the international seminar on the Validity of Marxism all the more timely and important."

But yes, as noted, he was a revisionist. Hoxha's exact quote was that Kim was a "vacillating, revisionist megalomaniac." (Reflections on China Vol. II, p. 148.) In The Khrushchevites Hoxha recalls (http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hoxha/works/1976/khruschevites/09.htm) visiting Pyongyang in 1956 (where he notes there are barely any portraits of Lenin) and Kim mentions Soviet efforts to remove him because he was seen as a "Stalinist" by Khrushchev, who wanted to replace him with a firmly pro-Soviet leadership.


Personnally, I don't like this particular qoute because it's simplistic, small and not appliable anymore, since the DPRK is a much more important front against American Imperialism than by the time of that qoute, Hoxha never said something as agressive as that to, for example, Ho Chi Mihn, though he did regard him as a revisionist.I don't see how his quote means "Kim Il Sung is terrible, please, America, invade North Korea and rid the world of this evil madman and his plot to bore readers to death with works on the Juche idea."

[Roach]

I don't see how his quote means "Kim Il Sung is terrible, please, America, invade North Korea and rid the world of this evil madman and his plot to bore readers to death with works on the Juche idea."

It doesn't, but I've seen Brezhnevites taking it out of context, as in ''Hoxha was a mad sectarian that wanted to destroy the Socialist Bloc, re-build it in his image and trash it with bunkers, just look at what he said of poor Kim Il-Sung''.


vacillating, revisionist megalomaniac. (Reflections on China Vol. II, p. 148.)

[L.A.P.]

Kim Il-Sung and North Korea were doomed to begin with just by how they were put into power, there wasn't a Korean revolution but just the Korean Worker's Party being thrown into power by the Soviet Civil Authority.

[Susurrus]

Juche: Nazi-Communism IRL

In schools in the DPRK, people are taught that Kim-Il Sung created the world, and that he raised an army at age 19 and single-handedly drove the Japanese out of Korea. He also never left office as the ruler of the DPRK, due to the office(Eternal Ruler of the Republic) remaining his after his death. Hence, the DPRK is technically a necrocacy.
An autocratic opportunist in my mind, simply siding with Communism because it would give him the most power.

[Ismail]

Kim Il-Sung and North Korea were doomed to begin with just by how they were put into power, there wasn't a Korean revolution but just the Korean Worker's Party being thrown into power by the Soviet Civil Authority.Actually it was a popular process. It wasn't just the Koreans sitting around and then BAM, Soviets moved in. See The North Korean Revolution: 1945-1950 by Charles K. Armstrong.


In schools in the DPRK, people are taught that Kim-Il Sung created the world, and that he raised an army at age 19 and single-handedly drove the Japanese out of Korea. He also never left office as the ruler of the DPRK, due to the office(Eternal Ruler of the Republic) remaining his after his death. Hence, the DPRK is technically a necrocacy.DPRK sources claim that in 1926, at the age of 14, he founded with other students a Down-with-Imperialism Union that was the "first" genuinely communist organization in all Korea.

But yeah the "Eternal President" thing is stupid. I've never heard of the "Kim Il Sung created the world" thing though, and would like a source.

[Susurrus]

According to some reports, many North Koreans believe that Kim Il-Sung created the world and that Kim Jong-Il controls the weather.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/extra/features/world/july-dec10/korea_10-05.html

[twenty percent tip]

He was better than his son is all I got to say.. I really don't know much about Kim Il Sung.. What was Hoxha's opinion of him?

hehehehe you get your opinion of a guy from another guy who is good in your opinion"??

if your favorite actor is mel gibson and you never heard of matt damon, will you decide if matt damon is a good actor by asking mel gibson?

was there wage slavery under kim il sung? were there bosses? did workers produce more than they took home? thats all you need to know popeye.

[∞]

Here is some stuff I found on Wikipedia.


Kim's hold on power was rather shaky. To strengthen it, he claimed that the United States deliberately spread diseases among the North Korean population. While Moscow and Beijing later determined that these charges were false, they continued to help spread this rumour for many years to come. He also conducted North Korea's first large-scale purges in part to scare the people into accepting this false account. Unlike Stalin's Great Purge (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Purge), these took place without even the formalities of a trial. Victims often simply disappeared (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forced_disappearance) into the growing network of prison camps.[/URL]


The [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Revolution"]Cultural Revolution (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Il_Sung#cite_note-Rogue-10) in China, however, prompted Kim to side with the Soviets, the decision reinforced by the neo-Stalinist policies of Leonid Brezhnev (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonid_Brezhnev). This infuriated Mao and the anti-Soviet Red Guards (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Guards_%28China%29). As a result, the PRC immediately denounced Kim's leadership, produced anti-Kim propaganda, and subsequently began reconciliation with the United States.


Ceauşescu, in particular, was heavily influenced by Kim's ideology, and the personality cult that grew around him was very similar to that of Kim. However, Kim and Albania (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albania)'s Enver Hoxha (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enver_Hoxha) (another independent-minded Stalinist) would remain fierce enemies.

Sounds like an asshole.

[twenty percent tip]

hey mr. kim. you gots to go to work today.your gonna work 15 hours making shoesthat will be sold in china.the factory is owned by a southkorean company. butdont worry!your boss that tells you howtowork is northkorean and he flies a redflag. so its allok. youare liberated! theresno american soldier in thefactory. justa northkorean one. hell shoot you if youstrike, but dont worry. he flies a red flag. dont worry hes a communist! dont worry hes part of our workers states.

here you are forced to work. here you only receive a little bit of whatyou make at work. here if you dont work youdie. here your product getsmade for an owner who doesnt work.here your product is sold on a capitalist market. buthere, this is juche. here we arefree. hereyou have thejoin the army. here you will go diein a war if we need you too. herethere are a majorityworking who have theleastin society even thoughthey make everything. herethere are partybosses who decide what willhappen in societyandyour life and even yourjob and hours towork.

but heretheres no stock market. here we have redflags. here ourparty is called the workers party. here thereare no japanese imperialists!

this is nothing like capiutalism!

[Ismail]

Here is some stuff I found on Wikipedia.Wikipedia isn't a reliable source. "As a result, the PRC immediately denounced Kim's leadership, produced anti-Kim propaganda, and subsequently began reconciliation with the United States." Apparently the DPRK not going along with the GPCR made... Mao have a rapprochement with the US? What? Also Kim and Hoxha weren't "fierce enemies." Hoxha criticized Kim as a revisionist in his diaries, that's about it. Hoxha attacked Ceaușescu a lot more.

[A Marxist Historian]

For those interested in the thoughts of Enver Hoxha on Kim Il Sung, and many other things, the book to read is his memoirs, published by Chatto in 1986 as The Artful Albanian.

According to Jon Halliday's introduction (p. 7):

"The only leading Communist towards whom Hoxha expressed ambivalent feelings and let his ambivalence stand is the Korean Kim Il Sung ... In 1956, when Kim is taking Hoxha round North Korea, Hoxha calls him 'kind and intimate,' later on he calls him a 'megalomaniac' and a 'pseudo-Marxist'..."

There are no less than nine different pages in the memoirs where he talks about Kim.

Probably his most comprehensive discussion is on p. 314, diary entry June 7, 1977:

"Kim Il Sung thinks that the visit to Korea of Tito, whom he considers a great man, will give him even greater credit in the eyes of his own people in order to strengthen his personal cult. Kim Il Sung has great hopes in Tito and will welcome him with great cordiality and pomp, because he knows that Tito is the envoy of Carter, of the Americans....
In regards to the 'third world,' Kim Il Sung pretends to be not only a member, but possibly, also, its leader. He also has pretensionss that the 'Juche' ideas, i.e., Kim Il Sung thought, should be spread through the world with great speed. All those pretensions do not upset Tito who, as we know, poses as the leader of the 'non-aligned' world'..."

Hoxha's hatred for Tito was the consuming passion of his life. So his attitudes to Kim had more to do with Kim's attitude to Tito than to Kim's abilities as a Marxist or what have you.

-M.H.-

[Ismail]

Hoxha's hatred for Tito was the consuming passion of his life. So his attitudes to Kim had more to do with Kim's attitude to Tito than to Kim's abilities as a Marxist or what have you.Halliday's work is fairly good although the memoirs are taken from books already published, such as the quote you mentioned which is from Reflections on China Vol II, p. 520.

In the first place, Halliday isn't correct here when he says, "The only leading Communist towards whom Hoxha expressed ambivalent feelings and let his ambivalence stand is the Korean Kim Il Sung." Calling Kim a "vacillating, revisionist megalomaniac" (not to mention pseudo-Marxist) hardly qualifies as "ambivalent," and I don't see how it becomes such when Halliday then mentions Hoxha recalling a pre-Sino-Soviet split visit to the DPRK written 20 years before his diary entry. Even in that visit, as noted, Hoxha pointed out (http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hoxha/works/1976/khruschevites/09.htm) that there were "portraits of Kim Il Sung everywhere. You had to look hard to find some portrait of Lenin, tucked away in some obscure corner."

Hoxha did seem to have one foreign leader he admired. He said on the subject of Ho Chi Minh's death that, "Ho Chi Minh was a fine, capable and sincere comrade, he was one of those who said openly what he thought." (Speeches, Conversations and Articles: 1969-1970, p. 322.) Ho unsuccessfully sought to get Hoxha (who, like he, was politically educated in France) and Mao to reconcile with Khrushchev to prevent the Sino-Soviet split. Despite the private differences Hoxha had with Vietnam on ideological subjects, Albania remained on good terms with the country. Hoxha also felt some other leaders were progressive (like Lumumba and Nkrumah) but never brought into "African Socialism" or the "Non-Aligned Movement" and other "isms" encouraging "different roads to socialism."

Then you say: "Hoxha's hatred for Tito was the consuming passion of his life. So his attitudes to Kim had more to do with Kim's attitude to Tito than to Kim's abilities as a Marxist or what have you."

Well praising Tito was seen as a good indication that someone ceased being a militant Marxist-Leninist. Under Mao the Chinese were already making overtures to Tito in the 60's and 70's (and Mao said to Hoxha in 1956 that the way the Soviets treated Yugoslavia before that year was "mistaken"), and then both Hua Guofeng and Deng Xiaoping praised Tito to the skies and praised "non-aligned" "socialism." Khrushchev of course denounced "Stalinism" and restored ties with Yugoslavia, and Brezhnev called Tito a fellow communist. The Eurocommunists admired Tito, Kim Il Sung admired Tito, Ceaușescu also admired Tito. Indira Gandhi, Nasser, various social-democrats, even various right-wingers; they all thought Tito was totally awesome and the "good communist."

Obviously saying "hello Tito we want to be friends" would be seen negatively by Hoxha and Albania, but Hoxha's memoirs would be quite small if Hoxha were merely basing absolutely every single decision of principle and ideology on if a country has good geopolitical ties with Yugoslavia or not. Besides, it isn't like Hoxha's dislike of Tito wasn't a natural response to the Yugoslav Government trying to purge him in 1948 and trying to annex Albania as a Seventh Republic within Yugoslavia.

[Kamil]

It was poor wording on my part to say that we should make no mention of Songun or Kim Jong Il- I just didnt want the conversation to get off track from the prime focus.

For all these people going on and on about how racialist it is..... what DPRK lituature or propaganda can you cite that mentions Korean racial superiority? What is exactly so "racialist" about it, and explain it without any wikipedia copy and pastes.

As for that news article about Kim il Sung "creating the world" I dont buy it for a second. A lot of misinformation floats around and after awhile people dont even question it anymore and it pops up in journalism. I need DPRK sources depicting or disucussing Kim Il Sung creating the world.

Aside from cursory glances over google search results, again no one has responded to this question: have you read any work by Kim? Where does your knowledge of Juche come from?

As for its glorification of the military during the era of the elder Kim, it doesnt seem much more so than China during the Mao years IMHO. Songun is a bit of a different story, but it largely gets taken out of context and is misunderstood.

[Ismail]

Aside from cursory glances over google search results, again no one has responded to this question: have you read any work by Kim? Where does your knowledge of Juche come from?There are few of Kim Il Sung's works online, and most of them are just generic "LET US REUNIFY THE COUNTRY" speeches with little content. Actually both Kims have a problem wherein they seem to write in 30 pages what they could elucidate in maybe 3. The main Juche work seems to be "On the Juche Idea" by his son, which can be viewed here: http://www1.korea-np.co.jp/pk/062nd_issue/98092410.htm

It was written in 1982, so if you want to know what Juche is before Songun made it even lamer for Koreans to learn then you can go ahead and see for yourself.

Currently Kim Il Sung has 95 volumes (and growing) of collected works, but it's all in Korean (and not online.) It's the same with Hoxha, who had 70 volumes of works (http://www.enver-hoxha.net/content/content_shqip/librat/veprat/librat-70_veprat.htm) which abruptly stop at 1979 because the final volume was published as the year 1990 progressed, and it became uncool to keep publishing them. It's all in Albanian.


As for its glorification of the military during the era of the elder Kim, it doesnt seem much more so than China during the Mao years IMHO. Songun is a bit of a different story, but it largely gets taken out of context and is misunderstood.I don't see how it's misunderstood. Songun teaches that the armed forces are the vanguard of the Korean revolution. That in itself is a significant revision of Marxism and, considering the circumstances it came into being, looks clear to me as being an "innovation" designed to cement Kim Jong Il's control of the military and to substitute Marxism for Korean nationalism and increasingly generic "socialism."

[SacRedMan]

Juche and the personality cult aside, Kim was one badass mothfucka.

It's not that someone grabs all the power for himself and acts like a gangster and calls himself a communist that he is really one.

[∞]

It's not that someone grabs all the power for himself and acts like a gangster and calls himself a communist that he is really one.

I see you watched that video.

[SacRedMan]

I see you watched that video.

No shit sherlock :rolleyes:

[DinodudeEpic]

Here's my opinion of Kim Il Sung

I would prefer Syngman Rhee over Kim Il Sung.

That's how much I hate Kim Il Sung.

[El Oso Rojo]

Hoxha called him a megalomaniac and a nationalist, which I can sympathize with, considering the vast degree of nationalism and the occassional racism that Juche is associated with. That being said, I'd still go with the DPRK over South Korea anyday.

Ever read Juche? I did and it seem reasonable, study other revolts but focus on your own sound reasonable to me.

[El Oso Rojo]

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/extra/features/world/july-dec10/korea_10-05.html

PBS is bourgeoise, own and programing is funded by the department of education and big business.

[Aspiring Humanist]

Racial nationalism, total authoritarian control, hostility to immigrants, labor camps, sounds like fascism to me

[Red_Struggle]

Ever read Juche? I did and it seem reasonable, study other revolts but focus on your own sound reasonable to me.

Studying the successes of other countries/movements and applying them to your own conditions is not a special tenant of an offshoot of Marxism; it's dialectical materialism.

[Marxach-Léinínach]

Here's my opinion of Kim Il Sung

I would prefer Syngman Rhee over Kim Il Sung.

That's how much I hate Kim Il Sung.

Wow what a complete fucking dumb motherfucker you are. You ever read about this (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bodo_League_massacre)? Somehow the fascist dictator who slaughters a million people for possibly being left-wing in any way is apparently better than Kim Il-sung. :rolleyes: Your hero Rhee wouldn't have thought twice about having you killed

[Spartacus.]

Juche: Nazi-Communism IRL

“Che Guevara visited Pyongyang around (1965) and told the press that North Korea was a model to which revolutionary Cuba should aspire.”

-Bruce Cumings, “Korea’s Place in the Sun: A Modern History (Updated Edition),” W.W. Norton & Company, 2005; p. 404.

So, basically, since Che Guevara was an admirer of North Korea, that makes him a Nazi? :lol: Now, that would be a sad news for all those Che fans!!! :laugh:


In schools in the DPRK, people are taught that Kim-Il Sung created the world

In US schools, people are taught that Stalin killed 20 million people (the actual number is 236 000) and that Communism has killed 100 million. :rolleyes:

I think that if I had the children, I would prefer to send them to the North Korean schools. It would probably leave them with smaller brain damages than an average US schools. Oh, and the schooling is totally free for everyone, unlike in the US...:rolleyes:


P.S. I'm not a fan of North Korea, but I'm definitely far less a fun of phony "communists" that are waiting for every opportunity in order to start spitting on the every country that is on the official US enemies list. If they really want to criticise someone, they could start with their crypto-fascist government that is the real cause of North Korean (and world's) problems. But that would require some courage and human dignity, a virtues that are sorely missing in the souls of majority of the so-called "democratic" socialists...

[Ismail]

Here's my opinion of Kim Il Sung

I would prefer Syngman Rhee over Kim Il Sung.

That's how much I hate Kim Il Sung.That's not much different from saying that you'd prefer Batista to Castro, or Diem to Ho, or Somoza to Ortega, or the various White Army generals to Lenin, etc.

Apparently a vicious anti-communist who put down various workers revolts and had US troops prop up an initially unstable regime is preferable to Kim Il Sung.

Kim Il Sung enjoyed widespread popular support, presided over a rather booming economy (http://mikeely.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/nlr12302.pdf) (until the mid-80's), and was, at least, a progressive individual in some form.

You might want to check this out, from a Korean anti-communist who lived in the North, and who now lives in the US, and who still condemns the South Korean government and US troops for their atrocities: http://www.tparents.org/library/religion/cta/korea-j/eyewit.htm

[Susurrus]

For all these people going on and on about how racialist it is..... what DPRK lituature or propaganda can you cite that mentions Korean racial superiority? What is exactly so "racialist" about it, and explain it without any wikipedia copy and pastes.


North Koreans are portrayed as naturally good and wise, intuitively doing the right thing and triumphing over obstacles. South Koreans are regarded as racially impure and having been corrupted by western culture. Americans are portrayed as evil greedy baby-killers. It's really very similar to Nazi propaganda, with the racially pure, superior people(North Koreans/German Aryans) fighting the lesser, racially impure people who have been tricked and corrupted(Non-jewish Europeans/South Koreans by the evil race (Americans/Jews). There is also a great dislike for colored races, though this is not particularly the creation of the state propaganda.

http://newscenter.berkeley.edu/2010/02/19/northkorea/
http://www.amazon.com/Cleanest-Race-Koreans-Themselves-Matters/dp/1933633913
http://www.slate.com/id/2243112/pagenum/all/#add-comment

http://oneutah.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/north-korean-art-1.jpg


Not to mention this: http://www.***************/forum/t333608/ ("North Korea leads the world on racial purity - Do we admire them?")

[Spartacus.]

North Koreans are portrayed as naturally good and wise, intuitively doing the right thing and triumphing over obstacles. South Koreans are regarded as racially impure and having been corrupted by western culture. Americans are portrayed as evil greedy baby-killers. It's really very similar to Nazi propaganda, with the racially pure, superior people(North Koreans/German Aryans) fighting the lesser, racially impure people who have been tricked and corrupted(Non-jewish Europeans/South Koreans by the evil race (Americans/Jews). There is also a great dislike for colored races, though this is not particularly the creation of the state propaganda.

http://newscenter.berkeley.edu/2010/02/19/northkorea/
http://www.amazon.com/Cleanest-Race-Koreans-Themselves-Matters/dp/1933633913
http://www.slate.com/id/2243112/pagenum/all/#add-comment

Not to mention this: http://www.***************/forum/t333608/ ("North Korea leads the world on racial purity - Do we admire them?")


Putting aside your childlish and infantile comparisions of North Korea and Nazi Germany, which just shows that you are suffering from the common disease present in the US among ignorant and uneducated mob (comparing Communism and nazism), I don't see anything wrong with the North Korean version of history and especially with the part in bold, considering the fact that it is a historical fact, and not a propaganda. Claiming American soldiers were just evil baby-killers is just like claiming SS troops were genocidal maniacs. But I suppose you have a simpathy for both of them... :rolleyes:


U.S. officials approved cowardly executions of South Korean prisoners

The executions were intended to prevent the victims—thousands of workers, peasants and students who opposed the U.S.-sponsored colonial regime in South Korea—from acting as a support base for the North Korean army.
Within three days of the start of open military conflict on June 25, 1950, the communist-led North Korean army advanced to the southernmost tip of South Korea. They were supported by worker- and peasant-based People’s Committees in the south, which welcomed the North Korean advance.
Hatred for the U.S.-backed South Korean government was widespread. That government had been handpicked by the U.S. military from the former Korean collaborators and puppets of Japanese colonialism.
The cold-blooded massacres of progressive Korean prisoners at the outset of the war has been a major issue for decades in South Korea. Thousands of people were either killed or given long prison sentences for trying to raise the issue of this U.S.-backed bloodbath.
In recent years there has been a nationwide grassroots movement to expose these crimes and to win a measure of justice for the family members who perished. That movement gave rise to South Korea’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which is currently investigating the massacres.
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission estimates that at least 100,000 people were killed during the summer of 1950. Kim Dong-choon, historian and chair of the commission’s subcommittee on "mass civilian sacrifice," believes that estimate is "very conservative," and could be twice that or more. (Associated Press, July 6)
To date, the commission has processed petitions from over 7,000 South Koreans involving 1,200 incidents; excavated sites at four of an estimated 150 mass graves; uncovered the remains of over 400 people; and officially confirmed two large-scale executions in Cheongwon and Ulsan. In 215 cases, the U.S. military is accused of the indiscriminate killing of civilians, primarily through aerial bombardments. (Associated Press, May 19)
The daunting task of fully uncovering the scale of the slaughter, however, will take years to complete.
Korea divided following World War II
At the close of World War II in 1945, the United States and the Soviet Union arrived at a compromise that led to the division of the Korean peninsula. A Soviet-supported socialist state in the north and a U.S.-backed capitalist state in the south were created. Without that agreement, pro-communist forces would have likely liberated all of Korea.
Syngman Rhee assumed power as the U.S.-backed South Korean president in 1948 and immediately began a reign of terror against everyone involved in leftist political activity. Soviet military forces had withdrawn from northern Korea by 1948. In contrast, tens of thousands of U.S. troops still occupy South Korea today—six decades later.
By 1950, 30,000 political prisoners had been arrested and the National Guidance League—a "re-education" organization for citizens suspected of being communists—had been created. The League’s ranks quickly swelled to over 300,000, filled mostly with poor, illiterate peasants.
In late June 1950, the North Korean military advanced on the South, capturing the capital city of Seoul and freeing thousands of prisoners. Retreating South Korean officials responded with a bloody anti-communist purge, organizing the mass executions of political prisoners, National Guidance League members and anyone suspected of potential collaboration with the North. Most victims were never charged or tried.
In Daejeon, U.S. military personnel witnessed the slaughter of between 3,000 and 7,000 civilians by South Korean military and police. Historian Jung Byung-joon stated, "They were at the crime scene and took pictures and wrote reports." Bruce Cumings, Korean War historian at the University of Chicago, said, "The U.S. not only did nothing, but covered up the Daejeon massacres." (Associated Press, July 6)
The mass executions often killed thousands at a time and occurred systematically throughout the summer of 1950. The Associated Press reports that as many as 1,800 were killed in Suwon, 1,000 in Incheon, 4,500 in Daegu and up to 10,000 in Busan. Lt. Col. Bob Edwards, U.S. Embassy military attaché to South Korea, told U.S. Army intelligence that, nationwide, "thousands of political prisoners were executed within [a] few weeks." (Associated Press, May 19)
Silent complicity
Declassified top-secret documents from the U.S. National Archives indicate that U.S. officials at the apex of power in the Pentagon and State Department had full knowledge of the atrocities, but did nothing to stop them.
According to a 1950 memo, Assistant Secretary of State Dean Rusk responded to questions about the killings by British allies by affirming that U.S. commanders were doing "everything they could to curb such atrocities." However, action on the ground contradicts his statement.
General Douglas MacArthur, U.S. Far East Commander, had full control over South Korean forces. W.J. Sebald, his liaison to the State Department, informed Secretary of State Dean Acheson that MacArthur considered the massacres a Korean "internal matter" and had "refrained from taking any action." (Associated Press, July 6)
With a mandate through 2010, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission continues its investigations, studying the thousands of pages of declassified U.S. documents. But with a limited staff and budget, and no authority to summon witnesses or prosecute, the commission faces tremendous difficulty accomplishing its tasks.
The revelation of U.S. complicity in the mass executions carried out by the South Korean military pours salt on the wounds of war, and is yet another reminder of the atrocities committed by imperialism.


http://www2.pslweb.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=9563&news_iv_ctrl=1701


http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2e/Bodo_League_massacre_mass_grave_US_ARMY_1950.jpg

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a8/Bodo_League_Massacre_at_Daejon,_South_Korea,_1950. jpg

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/2c/Bodo_League_massacre_near_Daegu.jpg/220px-Bodo_League_massacre_near_Daegu.jpg


Oh, how dare those damn child-eating, murderous, totalitarian commie bastards spit on the glorious legacy of US imperialism????? :laugh: We never commited any crimes! It's all STAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAALIN fault!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :lol::lol::lol:

[Ismail]

I don't see how the racist stuff is relevant to Kim Il Sung or the DPRK under him even if it is true for the modern DPRK. The DPRK developed a reputation in Africa as a country that was willing to provide plenty of aid to recently decolonized African countries, and I've seen nothing about "racial impurities" or whatever in 1940's-80's Korean publications.

Edit: On the subject of Hoxha supposedly only commenting negatively about Kim Il Sung because of Kim's ties with Yugoslavia, there's another example of Hoxha speaking negatively about the DPRK in a June 27, 1966 discussion with Zhou Enlai that was first published in the Cold War International History Project Bulletin (Issue 16, Fall 2007/Winter 2008, p. 320.) and had nothing to do with Tito.

Comrade Zhou Enlai: .... And while Korea has mutual enemies with us, they, as you, Comrade Enver Hoxha, said two days ago in your presentation, avoid contact with us while going into secret meetings with the Soviet leaders.

Comrade Enver Hoxha: The Korean leaders are acting very incorrectly.

Comrade Zhou Enlai: Last year, as soon as the [22 June 1965 normalization] treaty between South Korea and Japan was signed, the foreign minister of Japan went to the Soviet Union for a visit. The Koreans were afraid of this, and that is why they immediately requested that a special envoy of Kim Il Sung come to us to ask for help, because there was nowhere else in the socialist countries they could go. We accepted this immediately and gave the Koreans aid in the form of grains and petrol.

Comrade Enver Hoxha: May your help turn into dust on the Koreans, may they never merit this Chinese largesse! Because, the Koreans are making secret deals with the Soviet revisionists, breaking their word of honor, while China shows her generousness and helps them on rainy days.

[ComradeGrant]

He didn't compare communism to Nazism, he compared Juche to Nazism. No one's criticizing Sung's anti-imperialism, they're criticizing his authoritarian policy, personality cult, and general butchering of even Marxist-Leninist theory.

[Return to the Source]

The most interesting chapter in Bruce Cumings' North Korea: Another Country is the examination of Kim Il-Sung behind the grand mythos. Cumings is pretty much correct in asserting that Kim Il-Sung was a Marxist-Leninist Robin Hood.

[Jose Gracchus]

The most interesting chapter in Bruce Cumings' North Korea: Another Country is the examination of Kim Il-Sung behind the grand mythos. Cumings is pretty much correct in asserting that Kim Il-Sung was a Marxist-Leninist Robin Hood.

Where's your reply to caramelpence?

[Rafiq]

He was better than his son is all I got to say.. I really don't know much about Kim Il Sung.. What was Hoxha's opinion of him?

So you are openly admitting that you have to get a check with what hoxha thinks before you are ready to form your own opinion on someone? Who gives a fuck what Hoxha's opinion was?

[Ismail]

So you are openly admitting that you have to get a check with what hoxha thinks before you are ready to form your own opinion on someone? Who gives a fuck what Hoxha's opinion was?One would think that Hoxha, being a Marxist-Leninist in a unique position, would be in a fairly good position to judge Kim Il Sung. It doesn't mean that research stops at Hoxha's words, but I don't see what's wrong with it. People do the same with Lenin and Stalin.

[Spartacus.]

So you are openly admitting that you have to get a check with what hoxha thinks before you are ready to form your own opinion on someone? Who gives a fuck what Hoxha's opinion was?


Well, I give... If I were ever to start building a bunker, the first person I would consult would be Hoxha, and no one else. He was certainly expert in some stuff. :)

[Rafiq]

One would think that Hoxha, being a Marxist-Leninist in a unique position, would be in a fairly good position to judge Kim Il Sung. It doesn't mean that research stops at Hoxha's words, but I don't see what's wrong with it. People do the same with Lenin and Stalin.

Why can't people do some research on Kim and decide for themselves from a "Marxist Leninist position"?

[Rooster]

How does one be a good marxist-leninist anyway? :confused: Most of the people who seem stop at [some] of Lenin's words and Stalin's seem to be marxist-leninists :confused:

[Ismail]

How does one be a good marxist-leninist anyway?By adhering to Marxist-Leninist doctrine and fighting against revisionist currents.


Why can't people do some research on Kim and decide for themselves from a "Marxist Leninist position"?This assumes various links from Marxist-Leninists in this thread haven't been provided already.

[Geiseric]

Marxist Leninists are such anti-revisionists, they're not going to even revise the things Lenin did once those things aren't needed! They're also such anti-revisionists they take Lenin's foreign policy (which he was hugely desperate when he did things like the Turkish united front with the socialists and Kemal) as the foreign policy they should use in the 1930's on, when the threat of imperialist invasion of USSR Was at its lowest, (except by the nazis of course but they gave them a common border). Marxist Leninists think that the things the USSR did when the world revolutions failed should be repeated as the first course of action. They are also apparently open to terrorism (not red terror esque terrorism, i mean al quaeda type terrorism), depending if Hebrew Hammer's views on the subject are mirrored by the rest of them.

[Apoi_Viitor]

I read somewhere that the North Korean economy only started to falter in the 80's because its leaders were unwilling to shift North Korea from a heavy industry based economy to a more high-tech economy. Can anyone post links or resources on the development of the North Korean economy and why its growth halted?

[Ismail]

They are also apparently open to terrorism (not red terror esque terrorism, i mean al quaeda type terrorism), depending if Hebrew Hammer's views on the subject are mirrored by the rest of them.Hoxha said that Che Guevara was an anarchist (http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hoxha/works/1968/10/21.htm) and not a Marxist-Leninist, so no.


as the foreign policy they should use in the 1930's on, when the threat of imperialist invasion of USSR Was at its lowest, (except by the nazis of course but they gave them a common border).Many in Britain and France thought that Hitler was going to attack Soviet Ukraine from occupied Czechoslovakia, but then Hitler, who distrusted the British and French and who held that Chamberlain was going to be voted out by a more anti-Nazi government, agreed to give Carpatho-Ukraine to Hungary. See In Our Time: The Chamberlain-Hitler Collusion. From this Nazi Germany set its sights on Poland and sought to avoid what Hitler feared would be a two-front war in which the Nazis would be simultaneously fighting Britain and France on one side and the USSR on the other, and overcame this fear through the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact.

The Soviets by contrast always knew that Hitler's armies would one day strike the USSR. The British Government under Chamberlain, however, felt that Britain and Nazi Germany could reach an "understanding" in which both would live at peace so long as the Nazis were able to expand into Soviet territory and the British were able to build up their military. However, as said, Hitler never trusted Britain and France.

[Kiev Communard]

Hoxha said that Che Guevara was an anarchist (http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hoxha/works/1968/10/21.htm) and not a Marxist-Leninist, so no.

Hoxha was mistaken there. Guevara was surely not an anarchist, as he directly participated in the destruction of their organizations in Cuba and held a hugely voluntaristic Blanqui-style view on the "new man" and construction of communism (http://lucienvanderwalt.blogspot.com/2010/08/some-critical-notes-on-che.html), where a handful of "enlightened" revolutionaries were to lead the supposedly passive masses forward by means of organizing armed insurgencies and running the post-revolutionary society after their victory.


Many in Britain and France thought that Hitler was going to attack Soviet Ukraine from occupied Czechoslovakia, but then Hitler, who distrusted the British and French and who held that Chamberlain was going to be voted out by a more anti-Nazi government, agreed to give Carpatho-Ukraine to Hungary. See In Our Time: The Chamberlain-Hitler Collusion. From this Nazi Germany set its sights on Poland and sought to avoid what Hitler feared would be a two-front war in which the Nazis would be simultaneously fighting Britain and France on one side and the USSR on the other, and overcame this fear through the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact.

All of this is true, as the other thing could not be expected from such classical bourgeois states as Great Britain and France, yet it should be noted that a slightly another political conduct could be demanded from the self-proclaimed "socialist" state. The KPD should have launched a rebellion against Hitlerites when the latter were still weak and the KPD still had a massive social base, in February 1933, instead of slavishly following a suicidal Komintern line of "after Hitler, us". Even if such an uprising had been defeated, the KPD would have gone into history with a bang, not with a whimper, as it did, and the consolidation of the Nazi regime would have been severely disrupted, thus making the future Pact unnecessary.

Of course, taking into account the social character of the USSR regime under Stalin and the policies of Komintern, such a course of events would be "alternate history"; still, it is necessary to think how the things might have gone differently.

[Ismail]

Hoxha was mistaken there. Guevara was surely not an anarchist, as he directly participated in the destruction of their organizations in Cuba and held a hugely voluntaristic Blanqui-style view on the "new man" and construction of communism (http://lucienvanderwalt.blogspot.com/2010/08/some-critical-notes-on-che.html), where a handful of "enlightened" revolutionaries were to lead the supposedly passive masses forward by means of organizing armed insurgencies and running the post-revolutionary society after their victory.Yes I know Che was not a literal anarchist, Hoxha just noted that Che's "foco" views were not in accordance with Marxism-Leninism. Hoxha also called Mao the "Chinese Bakunin" because of the GPCR, it doesn't mean Mao was actually an adherent of Bakunin or that Hoxha was literally saying he was.

[Cleansing Conspiratorial Revolutionary Flame]

Yes I know Che was not a literal anarchist, Hoxha just noted that Che's "foco" views were not in accordance with Marxism-Leninism. Hoxha also called Mao the "Chinese Bakunin" because of the GPCR, it doesn't mean Mao was actually an adherent of Bakunin or that Hoxha was literally saying he was.

'Yes I know Che was not a literal anarchist'
While I disagree with Hoxha; Hoxha was referring to Che's 'adventurism.'

'Hoxha just noted that Che's "foco" views were not in accordance with Marxism-Leninism'
Hoxha was correct in relation to Che as Che was inspired by Marxism-Leninism and was not a Marxist-Leninist that had used Marxism-Leninism and a Marxist-Leninist vanguard in order to attain revolution within Cuba. As Che had used Foco strategies in order to achieve the revolution as opposed to having had used Marxist-Leninist strategies.

[redSHARP]

I read somewhere that the North Korean economy only started to falter in the 80's because its leaders were unwilling to shift North Korea from a heavy industry based economy to a more high-tech economy. Can anyone post links or resources on the development of the North Korean economy and why its growth halted?


a brief wiki search can give you a basic overview of N. Korea's economy. However, the N. Korean economy really faltered in the 90's when famine, lack of rain, and mismangement caused N. Korea's meager resources to be squandered and their agriculture exports to drop.

The army first doctrine adopted in the late 90's was crippling as well.



On Kim Il Sung....just watch his funeral footage.

[Leftsolidarity]

On Kim Il Sung....just watch his funeral footage.

I searched it and wow they have some great actors

[Ismail]

When Hoxha died people reacted with much similarity. As James S. O'Donnell noted, the vast majority of those he interviewed in 1994 about the subject were at least shaken by news of his death, whereas quite a few simply outright cried.

It's worth noting that outside of the whole personality cult thing, both Kim Il Sung and Hoxha led their countries for a little over 40 years, so tons of people (most in the DPRK and Albania were young due to high birthrates) didn't know of any other leaders except these two, and these same two men were associated with the very existence of their respective states. Here's a video of Hoxha mourners: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIZi72kHcxU&feature=related

Of course when you're facing a camera then there's always room for a bit of exaggeration but yeah.

I expect a lot of crying when Fidel Castro dies too, just not as dramatic since he isn't a leader anymore and his personality cult wasn't structured the same way.

[Leftsolidarity]

When Hoxha died people reacted with much similarity. As James S. O'Donnell noted, the vast majority of those he interviewed in 1994 about the subject were at least shaken by news of his death, whereas quite a few simply outright cried.

It's worth noting that outside of the whole personality cult thing, both Kim Il Sung and Hoxha led their countries for a little over 40 years, so tons of people (most in the DPRK and Albania were young due to high birthrates) didn't know of any other leaders except these two, and these same two men were associated with the very existence of their respective states. Here's a video of Hoxha mourners: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIZi72kHcxU&feature=related

Of course when you're facing a camera then there's always room for a bit of exaggeration but yeah.

I expect a lot of crying when Fidel Castro dies too, just not as dramatic since he isn't a leader anymore and his personality cult wasn't structured the same way.

I understand that completely and that footage of Hoxha's funeral I don't think is exaggerated or anything but the DPRK footage. That was just wow. It's like they aren't even trying to hide the fact that they are doing it for the cameras.