Pragmatism And Revolution- North Korean Pomiculture, 1958–1967

2015 ◽  
pp. 117-128
Author(s):  
Robert Winstanley-Chesters
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
North Korea ◽  
Developmental Approach ◽  
Kim Il Sung ◽  
Political Literature ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Environmental Engagement ◽  
The Korean War ◽  
Great Leap Forward ◽  
The Great Leap Forward

Building on past analysis by its author of North Korea’s history of developmental approach and environmental engagement, this paper encounters the field of pomiculture (or orchard development and apple farming) in the light of another key text authored by Kim Il-sung, 1963’s “Let Us Make Better Use of Mountains and Rivers.” At this time North Korea had left the tasks of immediate agricultural and industrial reconstruction following the Korean War (1950–1953) behind and was engaged in an intense period of political and ideological triangulation with the great powers of the Communist/Socialist bloc. With relations between the People’s Republic of China and the Soviet Union in flux and Chairman Mao’s development and articulation of the “Great Leap Forward,” North Korea was caught in difficult ideological, developmental and diplomatic crosswinds. Utilising narratives of development in the pomicultural sector and accompanying political literature as exemplars, this paper considers Pyongyang’s negotiation of this flux as expressed in these developmental terms. Amongst the orchards of Chagang province, ultimately the paper uncovers elements of reflexivity, pragmatism and charismatic political articulation that will be familiar to the contemporary analyst of North Korean matters.

Communism in China, 1900–2010

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yang Kuisong ◽  
Stephen A. Smith
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Land Reform ◽  
Chinese Communist Party ◽  
Mao Zedong ◽  
May Fourth Movement ◽  
Fourth Movement ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Great Leap Forward ◽  
The Stability ◽  
The Great Leap Forward

The article examines the rise of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from its foundation in the May Fourth Movement, through the first and second united fronts with the Guomindang to victory following the Sino-Japanese War in 1945. It examines land reform and the campaigns against counter-revolutionaries and the attempt of Mao Zedong to leap into communism through the Great Leap Forward. It shows how Mao concluded from the ‘revisionism’ in the Soviet Union that advance from ‘undeveloped’ to ‘developed’ socialism depends on continuous class struggle against those who would take the capitalist road. The postscript traces China’s rise to the world’s second largest economic power, via policies of export-led and investment- led growth initiated by Deng Xiaoping. It shows that this has bought unprecedented prosperity but also unprecedented inequality. It concludes that rising social conflict does not at present threaten the stability of the CCP.

scholarly journals The 1958-62 Chinese Famine and Its Impact on Ethnic Minorities

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 173-191
Author(s):  
Lucien Bianco
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Ethnic Minorities ◽  
Development Strategy ◽  
Early Stage ◽  
Northern India ◽  
National Minorities ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Great Leap Forward ◽  
The Great Leap Forward ◽  
The Impact

China underwent its most murderous famine between 1958 and 1962. Although a demographic transition from the countryside to the cities was in its early stage and gross domestic product (GDP) per capita was among the lowest in the world, objective conditions were far less decisive than Chinese Communist Party (CCP) policies in bringing about the famine. A development strategy copied on the Soviet model favoured quick industrialization at the expense of rural dwellers. Such novelties as people’s communes, communal canteens, and backyard furnaces further aggravated the famine. Though ethnic minorities represented only 6 percent of China’s population, compared to forty-seven percent in the Soviet Union, Soviet nationality policies heavily influenced those of China. Initially mild, especially for Tibetans, Chinese nationality policies became more authoritarian with the advent of the Great Leap Forward in 1958. Qinghai Tibetans resisted the closure of many monasteries; then the same policies, and famine itself, caused a more important rebellion in 1959 in Xizang (Tibet). Repression and the flight of the Dalai Lama to northern India coincided with the end of Tibet’s special status in China. Internal colonialism did not, however, aggravate the impact of famine on national minorities in China. Their rate of population growth between the first two censuses (1953 and 1982) exceeded that of Han Chinese. Among the provinces most severely affected by famine, only Qinghai was largely inhabited by ethnic minorities. Within Qinghai the same pattern prevailed as in Han populated provinces: the highest toll in famine deaths was concentrated in easily accessible grain surplus areas. The overwhelming majority of victims of the Chinese famine were Han peasants. At most, 5 percent were members of ethnic minorities, compared to eighty percent of victims in the Soviet Union in the period between 1930 and 1933.

scholarly journals THE DEFENSIVE–OFFENSIVE POLITICAL BEHAVIOR OF NORTH KOREA IN THE KOREAN PENINSULA

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 262
Author(s):  
Aucky Adi Kurniawan
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
South Korea ◽  
Political Behavior ◽  
North Korea ◽  
The United States ◽  
The North ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Korean War ◽  
The Relationship

<div><p class="Els-history-head">The study seeks to explain North Korea's political behavior that tends to act defensively and offensively which has often been represented as a dangerous country. Moreover, historically, the events of the Korean War that led to the breakup of Korea into two parts, the northern part that is associated with the Soviet Union and the southern part that is joined by the United States, makes the relationship between the two countries increasingly conflictual. Coupled with the formation of two axes of power since the collapse of the Soviet Union, North Korea is allied with its ideological one brother China, and South Korea is allied with the United States. The political escalation between the two countries continues to rise, resulting in the relationship of two becoming very conflictual, and because of that, the rivalry that is formed between the two countries raises various potential conflicts that couldn't be avoided. This research used the congruent method by used the balance of threat theory from Stephen Walt who argued that the state reacts to the perceived threat rather than power, and aims to balance it. The results found that North Korea's defensive - offensive actions were motivated by distrust of America-allied South Korea through several joint exercise programs on the peninsula that is considered a form of threat. Overall, the main argument of this research is the North Korea’s defensive - offensive actions are determined by the attitudes of South Korea and its ally the United States.</p></div>

The Benefits of Communist Alliance Coordination and the Continuing Costs of U.S. Alliance Formation, 1951–56

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas J. Christensen
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
The United States ◽  
Taiwan Strait ◽  
Chinese Foreign Policy ◽  
Kim Il Sung ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Korean War ◽  
Taiwan Strait Crisis ◽  
Mixed Blessing ◽  
The Taiwan Strait

This chapter examines the mixed blessing of enhanced communist coordination during the mid-1950s. During this period, a relatively well-coordinated and organized communist alliance allowed for more moderation and clearer signaling during the negotiations that ended fighting in the Korean War and the conflict in Indochina. The chapter considers the United States' formation of regional alliances and how the Taiwan Strait crisis erupted in 1954. It shows how a relatively unified allied position on Southeast Asia in the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China (PRC) served as a restraint on the most aggressive members of the alliance, the local communists involved in civil wars: Kim Il-sung and Ho Chi Minh. Aside from Beijing's nationalistic reaction in the Taiwan Strait, Chinese foreign policy would be relatively moderate in the middle 1950s and fully in tune with Soviet designs for a breathing spell in the Cold War.

“The East Asian Frontier of the Socialist World: North Korea in the 1950s”

2017 ◽  
Vol 24 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 160-183
Author(s):  
Avram Agov
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
North Korea ◽  
Formative Period ◽  
Soviet Bloc ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
East European ◽  
Socialist System ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Korean War ◽  
The 1950S

The decade of the 1950s was a formative period for the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (dprk), one that shaped its integration into the international socialist system. This article examines the interaction between North Korea’s internal (institutional) and external (international) integration into the socialist system that, at this time, the Soviet Union and its East European bloc allies dominated. It argues that North Korea was more integrated into the socialist world than its nationalist ideology implied. The 1950s marked the culmination of the dprk’s connectivity to the international socialist world. The narrative begins in the second half of the 1940s with the building of North Korea’s socialist system. It then focuses on East European bloc aid to North Korea during and after the Korean War, as well as the dprk’s reactions to this fraternal assistance. By the second half of the 1950s, North Korea came to associate integration with dependency, generating nationalist impulses in dprk policy and laying the foundation for the juche (self-reliance) paradigm. North Korea’s nationalist ideology was part of a broader post-colonial nation building drive, but socialist interdependency also played a role in the dprk’s divergence, after the early 1960s, from the Soviet bloc and the People’s Republic of China.

China's “New Economic Policy”—Transition or Beginning

1964 ◽  
Vol 17 ◽  
pp. 65-91 ◽  
Author(s):  
Franz Schurmann
Keyword(s):  
Economic Policy ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
New Economic Policy ◽  
Economic Relationships ◽  
Great Leap ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Voluntary Response ◽  
Great Leap Forward ◽  
Traditional Patterns ◽  
The Great Leap Forward

Until a short time ago, it appeared that much of what was going on in China could be characterised by the cynical aphorism plus ça change plus c'est la même chose. Many things became manifest in the country that were reminiscent of themes centuries old. China had gone through two radical phases, one during the First Five-Year Plan period when the Chinese Communists tried to repeat the Soviet experience of industrialisation, and the second during the Great Leap Forward when they used their own mobilisational means to try to achieve economic break-through. The ninth Plenum in January 1961 called a dramatic halt to the extreme policies of the Great Leap Forward, and launched a period that bears strong similarities to the N.E.P. (New Economic Policy) period of the early 1920s in the Soviet Union. Many traditional patterns that were effaced during the years of radicalism began to reappear. There was talk of the need “to study very well traditional economic relationships.” It seemed that for a while the leadership had decided that only a truly voluntary response from below, and not coercion of any sort, could rescue China from the morass in which it found itself. But as of the time of the writing of this article, there are ominous signs that China may be approaching another “1928.” The Party drums are rolling once again, and the themes are not those of the N.E.P., but more like those which preceded the great Soviet collectivisation drive of 1928. During the last few years, the leadership made no attempt to hide the facts of China's poverty and isolation. But now a new note of defiance, of toughness has crept out. Where it will lead is hard to say.

The Tutelary State and National Revolution in Kuomintang Ideology, 1928–31

1971 ◽  
Vol 46 ◽  
pp. 308-330 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert E. Bedeski
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Modern China ◽  
Military Power ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Communist China ◽  
Great Leap Forward ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Great Leap Forward ◽  
Civilian Leadership

As the Chinese People's Republic (CPR) enters its third decade the question of viability as a stable nation-state has become increasingly urgent. Events since the Great Leap Forward seem to indicate an internal crisis of confidence which has slowly led to the present emergence of military power within the Government. If unity and stability can be maintained only by using the People's Liberation Army (PLA), then a situation is arising which closely resembles the Nationalist regime in the late 1920s and throughout the 1930s. At that time, the army under the leadership of Chiang Kai-shek dominated much of the political life of the state. A sense of impending war (against Japan in the 1930s and against the Soviet Union in 1969 and 1970) also reinforces the tendency of the civilian leadership to rely on military instruments. Of course, Lin Piao is not Chiang, Mao Tse-tung is not a Sun Yat-sen, nor is Liu Shao-ch'i a modern counterpart of Wang Ching-wei. Analogies can be constructed, but the problem is that students and scholars of modern China have not devoted sufficient attention to the Nanking state as a comparative referent for Communist China, with the result that they have largely been unprepared to ask questions which a knowledge of the Kuomintang (KMT) experiment might have raised.

Mao and Maoism

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timothy Cheek
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Chinese Communist Party ◽  
Mao Zedong ◽  
Republic Of China ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Personality Cult ◽  
Great Leap Forward ◽  
Communist Revolution ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The Great Leap Forward

Mao Zedong played a central role in leading the largest communist revolution in the world outside the Soviet Union and in the ‘creative developments’ or ‘Sinification’ of Marxist-Leninist orthodoxy to suit Chinese conditions. He combined the roles of Lenin and Stalin. The essay traces his rise to power in the Chinese Communist Party between the 1920s and 1949 and his career as leader of the People’s Republic of China from 1949 to 1976, looking at the part he played in key moments, including developments in the Yan’an base area from the late 1930s, the Great Leap Forward, and the Cultural Revolution. The essay examines the central ideas in Mao’s philosophy, such as the primacy of practice, contradiction, rectification, and concern with bureaucracy. It goes on to explore key debates in the historiography and asks what ‘Maoism’ really means. The personality cult around Chairman Mao culminated in outrageous veneration in the 1960s and his memory today elicits strong feelings, both positive and negative. Despite his many mistakes and towering cruelty, he is still widely respected in China, as can be seen from his appropriation in popular culture. His ideas continue to be influential in parts of Asia and Latin America and his image is still invoked by contending interests in China.

scholarly journals Causes, Consequences and Impact of the Great Leap Forward in China

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 58
Author(s):  
Hsiung-Shen Jung ◽  
Jui-Lung Chen
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Political Struggle ◽  
Forward Movement ◽  
Republic Of China ◽  
Great Leap ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The People ◽  
Great Leap Forward ◽  
The Great Leap Forward ◽  
The Impact

The founding of the People&rsquo;s Republic of China did not put an end to the political struggle of the Communist Party of China (CPC), whose policies on economic development still featured political motivation. China launched the Great Leap Forward Movement from the late 1950s to the early 1960s, in hope of modernizing its economy. Why this movement was initiated and how it evolved subsequently were affected by manifold reasons, such as the aspiration to rapid revolutionary victory, the mistakes caused by highly centralized decision-making, and the impact exerted by the Soviet Union. However, the movement was plagued by the nationwide famine that claimed tens of millions of lives. Thus, fueled by the Forging Ahead Strategy advocated by Mao Zedong, the Great Leap Forward that was influenced by political factors not only ended up with utter failure, but also deteriorated the previously sluggish economy to such an extent that the future economic, political and social development was severely damaged. This study will explore the causes, consequences and impact of the Great Leap Forward in China.

Between Truth and Lies

2021 ◽  
pp. 82-95
Author(s):  
Peter Martin
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Natural Disasters ◽  
Mao Zedong ◽  
Chinese Politics ◽  
Great Leap ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Great Leap Forward ◽  
The Great Leap Forward ◽  
Chinese Diplomacy

By the late 1950s, signs of strain in Chinese diplomacy were evident as Mao Zedong pushed the further radicalization of Chinese politics and society, culminating in the devastating famine during the Great Leap Forward. During the Great Leap Forward, China’s envoys undercut their country’s credibility with allies and foes alike by insisting that the tragedy was the result of ‘natural disasters,’ even as diplomats themselves went hungry and their loved ones starved. China’s relationship with the Soviet Union also deteriorated rapidly, resulting in the Sino-Soviet split and a decades-long polemical war between the two powers which set the stage for eventual Sino-American rapprochement.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document