Dprk?

[nihilust]

Ive only read the constitution of the state briefly, but i wanted to know and learn more on how you people feel about this place.

[The Jay]

It is a disgusting governmental system.

[Prinskaj]

Ive only read the constitution of the state briefly, but i wanted to know and learn more on how you people feel about this place. It's a state-capitalist country with a ruthless military junta controlling it, which uses a figurehead (The Kim family) and it's cult of personality to control the population.
In other words: It's a shit hole.

[Камо́ Зэд]

The workers of that country are exploited by the national bourgeoisie who, according to Kim Jong-Il I believe, had been successfully transformed into socialists through education and persuasion.

[Os Cangaceiros]

It's a vassal state of the PRC, which subcontracts out some of it's factory labor to the DPRK, a country which publicly advertises how servile and obedient it's workers are. Some of the stuff that says "made in China" is actually made in the DPRK, although I'd guess the percentage of stuff like that compared to stuff actually made in China is still very low. The DPRK is also useful to China as a supplier of certain natural resources (like coal), and for general strategic reasons.

In addition the DPRK is also connected to the world market through the production and trafficking of counterfeit cigarettes, counterfeit US 100 dollar bills (the so-called "superbills") and methamphetamine.

[TheGodlessUtopian]

They also abandoned their pursuit of communism and named the military the revolutionary class instead of the working class. So any leftist connotations are usually lost at this point.

[Radikal]

Yeah, they're basically a monarchy. You know with Juche and other assorted lunacy like that. I don't think of it as bad as most think of it, but that's not saying I excuse them for their revisionism.

[Karabin]

They have more or less replaced Juche with Songun, which is the idea of 'Military First'.

I would guess that being Conscripted into the North Korean army wouldn't be too bad from the perspective of the average North Korean worker; at least they'd take care of you better than in any other job you had (Unless of course, you were part of Glorious Mini-Kim's inner circle). The people must be really disillusioned.

[nihilust]

i can understand why people would see this is state-capitalism, but why do some claim the ussr was?

[fug]

How is the DPRK producing cigarettes for the world market when they are constantly in danger of famine and thus have to prioritize rice/corn... over tobacco?

[Igor]

How is the DPRK producing cigarettes for the world market when they are constantly in danger of famine and thus have to prioritize rice/corn... over tobacco?

because tobacco means mad cash, meet capitalism

[PetyaRostov]

The western media always portrays the Korean people as completely brainwashed and devoid of dissent. I wonder whether thats true?

[Questionable]

The western media always portrays the Korean people as completely brainwashed and devoid of dissent. I wonder whether thats true?

I remember reading an article a few years back talking about how North Korean citizens were upset with the government corruption and were even shaming police officers. I don't know where that got them though.

[The_Anarchist_Tension]

a constitution. a piece of paper to be ignored. witness the ussr and its fabled constitution. free speech! equality! etc. north korea probably has free speech written into their constitution as well. you are free to say what you like. so long as you accept the consequences of your speech. i dont know a lot about north korea. most of what i know comes from the capitalist media. so my knowledge is certainly flawed. but i seriously doubt that a free people would select three generations of the same family to rule over them. i suspect though that the country mr kim has not that much power, and the generals have the power.

[Brosa Luxemburg]

i can understand why people would see this is state-capitalism, but why do some claim the ussr was?

Some claim that Stalinist Russia actually wasn't socialist as Stalinists claim because of the existence of generalized commodity production, the exchange of equivalent values, wage labor, etc. Lenin did introduce state-capitalism into Russia in 1921 with the introduction of the NEP. This, though, is seen by some to have been the attempt to complete the bourgeois revolution under the leadership of the proletariat while making concessions with the peasantry. Anti-Stalinists such as myself view Stalinism as the success of the counter-revolution due to various material conditions, policies, etc. The rule of the proletariat was lost and instead Stalin completed the task of the bourgeois revolution (industrialization, etc.) without the rule of the proletariat.

As to whether the state-capitalism definition is correct or not, there are varying opinions on this. Hillel Ticktin argues that Russia was a "non-mode of production" in this video. http://vimeo.com/29505740

[James Connolly]

This explanation, by Brian Myers, based on his book called The Cleanest Race, has very good content, and he dispels a lot of claims of North Korea being 'Communist' or 'Totalitarian.' He compares the country to Imperial Japan, and he fully analyzes the ways in which they're similar.

He did show a little ignorance, such as when he boiled Historical Materialism down to economic relations, and attacked Dialectical Materialism for claiming to be 'omnipotent,' which is ironic seeing he's trying to give an all embracing explanation about North Korea.

http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/292562-1

Is North Korea Fascist and Supremacist? I don't think so, and I use the fact that they have foreign corporations in the country, such as Egypt's Orascom Telecom Holding.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orascom_Telecom_Holding

So there are obvious flaws in what he is suggesting, but he ultimately did exceptionally well.

[Kotze]

I don't think one can learn much about how countries are different by comparing constitutions.

Constitution Chapter V: Fundamental Rights and Duties of Citizens (http://naenara.com.kp/en/great/constitution.php?6)
Article 75: Citizens have freedom of residence and travel.
a constitution. a piece of paper to be ignored. (...) north korea probably has free speech written into their constitution as well.Yes, it's there. Article 67.

Article 74 demands protection for patents and copyright. But there's a lot of Disney stuff in the latter part of this concert (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-18uvCUZfe0). I approve this transgression. (Anybody who wants to talk about the band, please do here (http://www.revleft.com/vb/north-korean-music-t174980/index.html).)


i seriously doubt that a free people would select three generations of the same family to rule over them.When people don't have much time to research everything in detail, brand recognition reigns. Whether that's gadgets (Apple) or politicians (Kennedy).

[fug]

Hands off DPRK.
It's a shitty place and a piss-poor socialist country but do "revolutionaries" really need to join the imperialists' club and shit on it all day every day?
It's a bad regime but it deserves support against the imperialists who surround it and want to destroy it.
Also it's a sad thing that North Korea is pretty much the only socialist country in the world today, except perhaps Cuba.

[roy]

Hands off DPRK.
It's a shitty place and a piss-poor socialist country but do "revolutionaries" really need to join the imperialists' club and shit on it all day every day?
It's a bad regime but it deserves support against the imperialists who surround it and want to destroy it.
Also it's a sad thing that North Korea is pretty much the only socialist country in the world today, except perhaps Cuba.

'revolutionaries' criticise all capitalist states, regardless of whether or not they claim to be socialist. nk has well and truly kowtowed to chinese imperialism and capitalism; abstract support for the kims does nothing to help the people living in nk.

[Zealot]

Guys, Juche is old news. Kimilsungism-Kimjongilism is the new qualitative stage of revolutionary ideology:

k7LV2ZWPMbg

[PetyaRostov]

Is North Korea Fascist and Supremacist? I don't think so, and I use the fact that they have foreign corporations in the country, such as Egypt's Orascom Telecom Holding.



This in no way disproves the claim that the North Korean government is fascist.

Juche ideology is not an ideology, its an obscurist wall of text full of random revolutionary jargon designed to "look" like an ideology. Go to their website an try and read some of that stuff, it makes no sense whatsoever, I'm sure Kimjonilism-Kimilsunism will be very much so the same
(im pretty sure that vid was in jest but i wanted to talk about it anyways)

DPRK has a lot fascist traits.
Cult of Personality
Ulta-Conformist
Ultra-Nationalist
The Big Lie
Scapegoatign percieved "others" as a means to maintain control in their own country. (while this is somehwat understandable on their part, i mean pretty much every nation in the world is just waiting for them to collapse)
Belief in Racial Supieriority (although in the talk he shows the difference which i think is important to note that theirs was a moral and not a physical superiority)

Ultimately i think it does fall short in describing NK
its not fascist, its not Marxist-Leninist, its not Third Positionist or Monarchist or Capitalist
its basically a cult of personality militarist theme park wherein people are miseducated through extreme propagandic indoctrination to ignore the fact that they are starving and dance for the Big Other

[Камо́ Зэд]

I think the term "fascist" is more appropriately used to describe those regimes historically related to the ideology of fascism. As for North Korea, I think it's appropriate to call it "fascistic" or "like a fascist country," rather than a fascist one.

[Krano]

The land of awesome parades.

qYj6Ti_vOUU

[Tim Cornelis]

This in no way disproves the claim that the North Korean government is fascist.

Juche ideology is not an ideology, its an obscurist wall of text full of random revolutionary jargon designed to "look" like an ideology. Go to their website an try and read some of that stuff, it makes no sense whatsoever, I'm sure Kimjonilism-Kimilsunism will be very much so the same
(im pretty sure that vid was in jest but i wanted to talk about it anyways)

DPRK has a lot fascist traits.
Cult of Personality
Ulta-Conformist
Ultra-Nationalist
The Big Lie
Scapegoatign percieved "others" as a means to maintain control in their own country. (while this is somehwat understandable on their part, i mean pretty much every nation in the world is just waiting for them to collapse)
Belief in Racial Supieriority (although in the talk he shows the difference which i think is important to note that theirs was a moral and not a physical superiority)

Ultimately i think it does fall short in describing NK
its not fascist, its not Marxist-Leninist, its not Third Positionist or Monarchist or Capitalist
its basically a cult of personality militarist theme park wherein people are miseducated through extreme propagandic indoctrination to ignore the fact that they are starving and dance for the Big Other

How is the "The Big Lie" an aspect of fascism?

[Ismail]

Guys, Juche is old news. Kimilsungism-Kimjongilism is the new qualitative stage of revolutionary ideologyKimilsungism-Kimjongilism is just meant to be the "basis" of Juche. Its practical effect is to help keep the late Kim Jong Il's personality cult alive.

Juche revolves around "man is the master of everything and decides everything," and is a philosophy, whereas Kimilsungism-Kimjongilism encompasses stuff like Songun, foreign policy, economics, etc. which comprise what is known in the DPRK as "man-centered socialism."


Juche ideology is not an ideology, its an obscurist wall of text full of random revolutionary jargon designed to "look" like an ideology. Go to their website an try and read some of that stuff, it makes no sense whatsoever, I'm sure Kimjonilism-Kimilsunism will be very much so the sameThere is ideology and content to Juche, the problem is that it's repeated over and over as the most ingenious stuff ever written. Much of it in domestic terms is just a lamer rehash of Maoism such as the importance of ideology and moral over material incentives, along with "working-classizing" (a Kim term) the intelligentsia and peasantry.

E.g. Kim Il Sung in 1983 (from Answers to Questions Raised by Foreign Journalists Vol. 4, 1991, pp. 51-52):

To turn people communist we must revolutionize and working-classize them. When people are hard pressed they have high revolutionary zeal and work well. But when they are well-off their revolutionary zeal cools off gradually and they do not work hard. Therefore, to make them continue with the revolutionary struggle well we must vigorously endeavour to revolutionize and working-classize them. To revolutionize and working-classize people we must arm them firmly with independent ideological consciousness and the collectivist spirit of working and living, one for all and all for one. Thus we will get all members of society, whether engaged in mental or physical labour, to work honestly for the country and the people. In the past period our Party has intensified the education of the working people in the Juche idea and collectivism. The result is that today all our working people clearly understand their duties and work in good faith for the country and the people, for society and collective. To revolutionize and working-classize all members of society it is important to have them lead their lives in definite organizations.

Organizational life is a powerful means for the ideological remoulding of people. Through their organizational lives people enhance their collectivist spirit and sense of discipline, strengthen solidarity and acquire the consciousness of fulfilling their revolutionary duties. Therefore, only through intensified organizational life can we revolutionize and working-classize people. We must also get women to take part in organizational life. It is difficult for husbands to educate their wives. But their organizations can educate women well. If women do not stay at home but go out into the world, work and participate in organizational life, they are criticized and educated there, so as to to be revolutionized and working-classized. If women get educated through organizational life, they respect their husbands more deeply and manage their homes more meticulously and, in the end, their families become more harmonious. Organizational life is essential to school children, too. Once I visted a primary school. I asked a 9 year-old pupil if she had been criticized while leading Children's Union organizational life. She said that she had been criticized at a CU meeting for having failed to sharpen her pencils at home and write down well what her teacher said. I asked her how she had felt when she was criticized by her classmates. She replied that she had felt very bad. She said that she feared the criticism at the CU organization more than that of her teacher and that from then on she had never failed to sharpen many pencils at home for her classwork at school. That day I talked with another pupil. She said that she had been bad at mathematics but got good marks with the help of her CU organization. The organization had assigned the task of helping her to two pupils good at mathematics. In our country today all members of society lead organizational lives in definite bodies; Children's Union members in their CU organizations, members of the League of Socialist Working Youth in their LSWY organizations, trade union members in their trade union organizations, Women's Union members in their WU organizations, members of the Union of Agricultural Working People in their UAWP organizations and Party members in their Party organizations.

In this way, we step up the revolutionization and working-classization of the whole society by way of constantly educating all its members and intensifying organizational lives among them.Goes on and on. Repetitive and badly-written yes, but not devoid of content.

[PetyaRostov]

Goes on and on. Repetitive and badly-written yes, but not devoid of content.

Fair enough, my statements were meant as hyperbole. The point I was trying to make I guess was that failings of the North Korean government were not so much the usual failings of Socialist states but rather the sort of systematic use of Marxism as a guise for autoritarian rule.

To the big lie question, its not inherent (not all fascists are nazis yes, i know) but as an ideology it is often cryptic, obscurist, and colors rather than presents the truth.

[Ismail]

Kim Il Sung translation: to make people communist we must exploit them more.

A true revolutionary.That's not really what it means. It's one of the things Kim Il Sung got from Maoist China: a person who is actively involved in labor, who is not disconnected from fellow workers, will do a much better job of both acting in the interests of said workers and in adopting their viewpoint, particularly when the person in question is a worker who has since become a manager or whatnot and is in danger of losing his identity as a worker. Hence the term "working-classize" that the Koreans like using. The Albanians did similar things with managers, administrative personnel in government ministries, etc. having to do manual labor for an X amount of time each year.

[PetyaRostov]

better translation: people are more equal if they are all opressed.
DPRK: Marxism as a paper tiger.

[PetyaRostov]

at this point I'm joining Hands Off DPRK and the PAFCN. the former because its pointless [criticism] and the latter because well, it just makes sense.