Thread for news and discussions of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, its material conditions, the status and health of its socialist tradition, disproving common myths about it, etc.
Archive of the previous DPRK thread:
https://leftypol.org/leftypol_archive/res/12395.htmlThe mass movement of all the people is a powerful driving force for national revival.
The full text of the personal pen-named essay “A mass movement involving all the people is a powerful driving force for national revival” published in the 7th edition of “Democratic Chosun” is as follows.
Today, our people are holding high the decision of the 11th Plenary Session of the 8th Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea and are redoubling their fighting spirit for great changes and vigorous advancement in the overall national construction.
In order to further accelerate the pace of our revolution toward comprehensive revival and development and bring about the future of a revival power, we must actively launch a mass movement involving all the people.
Dear Comrade Kim Jong Un said:
《Mass movements are a powerful means of arousing the broad masses to popular heroism and collective innovation, thereby bringing about constant upsurge in the construction of a socialist power.》
The mass movement is a creative method for strengthening comradely unity and cooperation among people in all sectors and units of revolution and construction and for fully developing their inexhaustible strength, and it is a revolutionary method for vigorously accelerating socialist construction through the struggle of all the people and collective innovation.
The revolutionary cause is a struggle for the masses and at the same time a historical task that the masses themselves must carry out. Therefore, the success of the revolutionary cause depends on how actively and widely the masses rise up to realize it. In the flames of the mass movement of all the people, the political awareness and creative enthusiasm of the people are greatly heightened, and the boundless strength and wisdom of the masses are fully mobilized, resulting in unprecedented miracles and innovations in the revolution and construction. There is no means more powerful than the mass movement in arousing the spiritual power of the entire people, greatly heightening their loyalty and patriotism, and making the whole country seethe with the struggle for increased production and creation.
The proud achievements being made in the all-people's advance to successfully occupy the goals set forth by the 8th Congress of the Party through the new struggle to increase production and the patriotic struggle clearly demonstrate the enormous power of the mass movement. The present reality in which the mass innovation movement is being vigorously developed in many sectors and units of the national economy in step with the advance of the upper house working class that has raised the beacon of miraculous increase in production and the national economic plan is being exceeded every month clearly shows that if we all increase production and advance together, we can continuously create new standards, new records and new miracles in production and construction.
A mass movement involving all the people is a powerful weapon that can develop all the people into ardent patriots dedicated to the revival and development of the country.
Love for one's country is a noble human emotion and an important factor that determines the existence, development, and future of each country and people. Just as water drops combine to form a mighty river, when patriotic hearts unite as one, the country becomes prosperous and strong and can build a powerful nation that the world will not envy.
The powerful means of uniting all the people under the banner of patriotism and powerfully encouraging them to fight for national revival is the mass movement of all the people. The mass movement is not simply a practical undertaking to create any material wealth, but a movement of human transformation and ideological reform that fosters all people as revolutionaries and ardent patriots who are endlessly loyal to the Party , the leader, the country and the people. In the flames of the revolutionary mass movement, people of conscience and duty who know how to repay the Party's favor, true patriots who spare no blood and sweat for the country and the people, and the embodiment of virtue and good customs who share joy and sorrow together grow. The power of the mass movement lies in the extraordinary cultivation of revolutionary and patriotic spirit among the people, fostering ordinary people into heroes, turning backward people into advanced elements, and making everyone help and lead one another to boldly overcome difficulties.
The history of our revolution is a sacred history of human transformation and ideological reform that has fostered all people as revolutionaries who are endlessly loyal to the Party and creators of feats through mass movements of all the people. The mass movements that have been vigorously carried out in each year of the revolution, including the movement to eradicate illiteracy and the movement to donate patriotic rice to the frontline that emerged during the Fatherland Liberation War, have brought about a fundamental change in the ideological consciousness and spiritual and moral character of our people.
In the historical journey toward socialism and communism, the tasks and subjective and objective conditions of each revolutionary stage are constantly changing, but the truth that the secret of creating miracles lies in arousing the ideological and spiritual power of the masses remains unchanged. The power of the mass movement that remarkably strengthens the political and ideological might of the revolutionary ranks with human and ideological transformation as the basis and powerful driving force of all movements is infinite. When the patriotic movement and mass movement are vigorously carried out, the entire people will maintain absolute loyalty to the leader , unconditionally carry out the Party's line and policies to the end, and fully display the revolutionary spirit of devotedly struggling for the prosperity and development of the country, society and the collective.
The mass movement of all the people is the driving force that fan the flames of collective innovation and accelerates the revival and development of the country.
The power of socialism is the power of collectivism, and socialism is a society that advances based on the boundless power of the united masses. When all the people display extraordinary creative enthusiasm and combine their wisdom and strength, socialism can advance vigorously, brimming with boundless vitality and energy. The power of the mass movement lies in the fact that it leads socialist construction to a constant upsurge through mass struggle and collective innovation in accordance with the nature of the socialist system and the lawful requirements of its development.
The superiority and vitality of the mass movement have been clearly confirmed in our revolutionary practice. The anti-Japanese revolutionary struggle, which began with the struggle of the entire masses to acquire arms, brought about the new spring of national liberation even in the worst conditions and environment without the support of the national rear or the regular army, and my high ground movement, the revenge record movement and the Mincheong movement to win the firearms created a great myth of victory in the war. Mass movements such as the movement to increase production and competition, the Chollima Movement, the movement to win the red flag of the three revolutions and the movement to create speed in the 1980s enabled our motherland to rise from the vacant lot and ashes to become an independent, self-reliant and self-defense socialist state and to open up a period of great prosperity of creation and construction.
Today, in our country, under the wise leadership of the Party, various mass movements, including the Three Revolutionary Red Flag Movement, the Movement to Win the Military Working Class Title, the Multi-Yield Movement, the Socialist Patriotic Forestry Movement, and the Popular Technological Innovation Movement, are being vigorously organized and developed.
In the midst of the fervor of the mass movement, the revolutionary spirit of self-reliance is overflowing throughout the country, and the atmosphere of creating new standards and new records, the competitive fervor to get ahead and learn from others, the virtue and good custom of helping each other, sharing experiences, and being the first to jump into difficult and challenging tasks are becoming a social trend. This is today's reality.
When the entire people firmly hold on to the patriotic movement and mass movement that has brought about a century-long transformation and advanced the times as a powerful weapon for prosperity and development and redouble their fighting spirit and creative spirit with a single mind of loyalty and patriotism, the spirit of collective innovation will blow fiercely throughout the country.
All workers and laborers should actively fight to further fan the flames of the revolutionary mass movement and bring forward the comprehensive revival and development of our country with its absolute power. (End)
Goes hard tbh.
The issue of entering the United States is not our concern.
(Pyongyang, June 10, Korean Central News Agency)
The full text of the article “The US Entry Issue is Not Our Concern” published on the 9th by international affairs critic Kim Myeong-cheol is as follows.
Recently, the United States announced a measure to designate nationals of 19 countries as subject to entry bans under the pretext of "threats" to national security.
The arrogant, exclusive, and racist behavior of the United States is now being strongly condemned and rejected by the international community.
Of course, it is within the sovereign rights of any country to regulate and control the entry of foreigners.
Nevertheless, the reason the above-mentioned measures of the United States are being criticized by the international community is because they are being used as a malicious political tool to discriminate against and pressure other countries.
Some are noting that the Democratic People's Republic of Korea was not included in the US entry ban this time, and are offering a strange interpretation that this may reflect the US administration's conciliatory stance toward North Korea, which seeks to keep the door open for the resumption of US-North Korea talks.
This can only be seen as a one-sided judgment that comes from not knowing much about the past and present of the Korea-US relationship.
The current US administration included North Korea on the list of countries subject to entry bans in 2017, during its first term, on the unreasonable grounds that North Korea refused to cooperate with the US government and did not meet its information sharing requirements, and maintained this list throughout its term.
This year, when the second term began, the effect of the measure to redesignate our country as a “counter-terrorism non-cooperative country” and completely ban travel to North Korea by American citizens was extended again.
Only the United States can explain whether the exclusion of North Korea from the current US travel ban is purely technical or politically motivated.
But one thing is clear: we have absolutely no interest in whether or not we are allowed entry into the United States.
Even if the current US administration did not intentionally put our country on the list of countries subject to entry bans, we would have no interest in it and no reason to be happy about it.
The United States, the country that is most hostile to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, where contempt for other ethnic groups and racial discrimination are entrenched as social customs and where all sorts of social evils run rampant, can never be welcomed as a travel destination for our citizens.
Recently, the vice president, who is the number two official in the current US administration, criticized a certain American university for lacking “ideological diversity” and made an absurd and groundless argument that criticized our country’s political system. This is another representative example of how we feel aversion toward the United States.
If you thought that we would accept as some kind of “gift” the current US administration is allowing entry into the US that the person concerned neither thought nor wanted, you would be mistaken.
Whether the United States unilaterally creates illegal regulations and includes our country in them or not is not our concern, and I believe that the Democratic People's Republic of Korea will not welcome Americans entering our country in the future, just as it did in the past.
This is a legitimate and legal exercise of sovereign rights to protect the national social system and the welfare of the people from all kinds of hostile threats from the United States, and is completely different in nature from the United States' biased entry ban, which is largely malicious in nature.
We will not evaluate America's actions based on anyone's wishful thinking or subjective interpretation, and we will deal with America as it is and based on our own independent judgment, without adding or subtracting anything. (End)
>>2313037>For as long as North Korea upholds anti-revisionism, the Workers Part of Korea will continue to dominate society, >the violent dictatorship over the enemies of proletarian power will persist, >the class struggle against capitalist tendencies will continue, communist ideological education will remain pervasive,>agriculture will remain collectivised, the commanding heights of industry will remain stateowned and controlled, >the economy will remain centrally planned, the party leader will remain supreme, and the leader’s personality cult will deepen.
<North Korea views itself as “a lone voice of firm and sensible anti-revisionism, alone in being untouched by the madness of straying from the staunchest of socialist paths towards reform and‘opening up’ to the capitalist West”. <This article has argued that this viewis largely justified. Compared to the other remaining socialist states, which have each, to varying degrees, adopted revisionist policies, North Korea has remained steadfast in its communist course. It is the last remaining bastion of anti-revisionism. This is an great example of why i chuckle to myself every time anons start going on about no communists allowed in academia, btw.
>>2313037>>2313351This makes me happy.
But of course, it is acknowledged that there has been some degeneration in the econ. sphere.
Here's hoping it is limited and/or being reduced with time.
>>2313037Very interesting read. I already had a sense that Juche was more-or-less created in order to justify the DPRK taking a path that was non-aligned during the Sino-Soviet split, but seeing the actual reasons they desired that was really interesting. I had no idea Kim Il Sung was so scathing in criticizing modern (ie, Khrushchevite) revisionism. Although it would be hard to adopt the Khrushchevite co-existance line when your country is still technically at war with a bordering capitalist-imperialist counterpart that is being weaponized by foreign powers.
I think, despite the nonsense that the DPRK flings on Marxism-Leninism nowadays in order to justify their nonsense about Juche being an all-original philosophy, their stance of still being friendly with the USSR was way better than the Albanian approach.
>>2313037Why does anti-revisionism seem to require a Cult of Personality? This article makes it seem like anti-revisionism is enforced primarily by harkoning to Confuscian voodoo to pressure people to not deviate from the intentions of the Great Leader and Dear Leader; who essentially have to be become living embodiments of both the nation and anti-revisionism in order to act essentially as the equivalents to the Christian saints in inspiring reverence.
I mean, during Stalin's time, people wanted to publish children's books about how child Stalin could apparently do miracles. Stalin vetoed those but the idea still got pretty far in the party before that. In the DPRK, those sorts of hagiographies seem even encouraged by constast, for example with the Anecdotes series. Does that mean this sort of Cult of Personality is a good thing in the sense that it can effectively resist revisionist incroachment?
I've seen the argument before that, even though Stalin disagreed with this Cult of Personality, that it was a good thing for giving people a figurehead that they could proclaim loyalty towards and thus allow them to contradict the Party at regional level without being disloyal to the state and Communism, since Stalin himself became a sort of embodiment of the Soviet nation and Communist construction.
Perhaps the Cult of Personality can create living embodiments of anti-revisionism to use to leave anti-proletarian ideologues and politicians to a battle where they must contradict the embodiment of the nation.
>>2314401I think your point about the ongoing war and the country literally being split by an imperial power is a good one.
This material reality simply made any arguments about peaceful coexistence obviously false (to the point of absurdity). This probably also had a good unintended side effect of making the DPRK suspicious of other aspects of revisionism (like going full socdem perestroika reforms, maybe even slowing kosygin-libermanization tendencies)
>>2314502I alawy had my reservations too but the way i look at it for the DPRK it has suceeded where many others have fallen by the wayside so i am personally not quick to be too critical of the culture of leadership as a means of keeping the revolution on course.
>>2314401>I think, despite the nonsense that the DPRK flings on Marxism-Leninism nowadays in order to justify their nonsense about Juche being an all-original philosophy, their stance of still being friendly with the USSR was way better than the Albanian approach.At least they have a based reason, lmao.
<North Korea’s main reason for discarding the language of Marxism-Leninism is that it thought revisionists spoiled the ideology after Stalin’s death (Pateman 2021). >>2313683>This makes me happy.For me, i liked:
<Another reason is that North Korea has always valued international communist solidarity. <Even if communists disagree, North Korea does not want this to undermine unity and cooperation (Kun 1967). Wholesome!
>>2316615A hyper-individual society, they cannot fathom collective activities that are not competitive.
I imagine it's the same people will look at pictures of starving african children with smiles on their faces and say 'at least they are happy'.
>>2316615They do this with everything in the DPRK though.
Remember how hair saloon style suggestions were interpreted as what Koreans are forced to get?
Or how they build an entire aqua park and filled it with actors just for a few western tourists?
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I mean to be fair, the rhetoric has slow changed over the past decade or so. Now its "Pyongyang is legitimately decent/good living but its only for the 10-15% of pop. that are 'elites'; The rest of the country is still semi-starving." As other cities start to get more coverage over the next 10 years it will be "cities okayish but rural still semi-starving". Basically the awful material living standards in the DPRK will become like the equivalent of the "god of gaps" for christian fundies.
In June 2000 a historic north-south summit meeting was held in Pyongyang.
When the agreement on the joint declaration was announced, everyone present at the banquet was jubilant as if reunification itself had been realized.
Pointing to a picture on the wall opposite the table of honour, Chairman Kim Jong Il asked the guests from south Korea whether the picture depicted a morning glow or an evening glow.
After racking his brain for the answer, a south Korean minister eventually responded: It portrays a rising sun, symbolic of the bright future of the Korean nation.
The guests present there all nodded at his answer.
Unexpectedly, however, the Chairman shook his head and said that the glow in the picture was both a sunrise and a sunset.
His answer was so simple and yet correct that they could only admire him. They realized what he said was too significant to be a mere witty humorous remark–every judgement depends on one’s viewpoint, and the success of every undertaking is decided by one’s resolve.
If all the fellow countrymen were united in one mind under the banner of the declaration, the future of the nation would be as bright as the rosy, rising sun. On the contrary, the prospects for national reunification would be as murky as the evening if the declaration was not implemented, just remaining as a mere sheet of paper.
At the Chairman’s remarks of philosophical depth the south Korean guests were compelled to look back at their past standpoint towards the issue of reunification.
https://kcnawatch.org/newstream/1563766625-424046778/splendid-answer/>>2330385There were no deaths.
Great speach btw, although to long to post here. quite notable though:
http://www.kcna.kp/kp/article/q/37bca39e754f42000f558d30ec6da5fd.kcmsf >>2316615This is always the case, even the most mundane footage of people in the DPRK going about their business is always flooded with people going "poor brainwashed people, they can't even live life, it's so scary, you're putting them in danger by filming them omg"
Westerners/liberals are disgusting
>>2333579Lots of cultists and propagandist spread this shit sure, but you gotta be delusional if you don't think it's deeply ingrained in the western liberal psyche, normies regurgitate that shit with zero hesitation
It's also not exclusively a western thing, I've seen street interviews with ruskies and Chinese saying pretty much the same shit about north koreans
The aggressors who have brought new warfare to the Middle East will not be able to avoid responsibility for destroying international peace.
Statement by the Spokesperson of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea
Israel's illegal and reckless act of state terrorism, which began an indiscriminate large-scale military attack on the Islamic Republic of Iran in the early hours of the 13th, is raising the risk of a new all-out war in the Middle East and drawing strong condemnation and concern from the international community.
Israel's indiscriminate military atrocities, which are increasingly targeting civilians and are flagrantly trampling on the fundamental principles of international law and the UN Charter, are heinous acts of aggression that trample on the sovereignty and territorial integrity of a sovereign state, and are crimes against humanity that cannot be tolerated in any way.
The Democratic People's Republic of Korea expresses grave concern over Israel's military attack and resolutely condemns it.
The grave situation the world is witnessing today clearly shows that Israel, supported by the United States and the West, is a cancerous presence in the Middle East and the main culprit in destroying world peace and security.
Israel, which has continuously expanded its territory through four Middle East wars and dozens of military invasions in the past, has recently expanded its military attacks in regional countries such as the Gaza Strip in Palestine, the West Bank of the Jordan River, Lebanon, and Syria, massacring tens of thousands of civilians and creating a serious humanitarian crisis.
Instead of condemning Israel for its frenzied ambitions for territorial expansion and for pushing the Middle East situation toward an inevitable catastrophic situation, the international community is instead turning a critical eye toward the United States and Western powers, who are fanning the flames of war by questioning the legitimate exercise of Iran's sovereign rights and right to self-defense, the victim.
The Jewish restorationists who have brought new warfare to the Middle East and the forces behind them who fiercely defend them will be held fully responsible for destroying international peace and security.
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