scholarly journals Reflections on the True Reality of Kim Il-Sung

1989 ◽  
Vol 4 (0) ◽  
pp. 167-187
Author(s):  
Joong-Hyung Lee

As the social trend to learn more about North Korea grows, the person and past career of Kim Il-Sung have been thrown into controversy. In this context, Kim Il-Sung's anti-Japanese guerilla activities in Manchuria focused on the raid of Pochonbo Police Station and who is the leader of the Sixth Division of the Anti-Japanese United Army. Also, this article compared two groups of scholars, that is, proKim who is positive side of Kim's Identity and conKim who denied Kim's past to the North Korea's claims. It has been demonstrated conclusively that many anti-Japanese activists used the name of General Kim Il-Sung and the present Kim Il-Sung in North Korea must be one of them. And Kim Il-Sung's anti-Japanese activities were not revolutionary armed resistances but rathcr small scale guerilla activities.

2018 ◽  
Vol 29 (3) ◽  
pp. 532-551 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gabriel Prieto

Excavations at the small-scale domestic settlement of Gramalote between 2010 and 2014 allowed the exploration of the social dynamics and economic interactions in the second millennium BC on the Peruvian North Coast. Detailed excavations and materials recovered during the intervention contribute a unique opportunity to explore domestic aspects of early settlements in the Andes. This study presents new data on the public sectors of Gramalote's settlement, house-to-house differences, and evidence that the extended family was a unit of economic productivity and collective action. This analysis assesses the degree of overlap, and lack thereof, in the economic activities of each house during the Initial Period (1500–1200 cal BC). A new model for social and economic interactions is proposed, with the aim of exploring alternative models from the bottom-up perspective for the emergence and consolidation of social complexity in the Central Andean Region.


2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 3-25
Author(s):  
Andrei Lankov

This article, based on newly available materials from the former Soviet archives, deals with the famine that struck a large part of the North Korean countryside in the winter of 1954–1955. The famine was related to the policies of crash industrialization and collectivization favored by Kim Il-sung—or at least, this is how many contemporaries, including Soviet diplomats, saw it. The famine, mentioned only once in openly available publications of the period, sparked political instability and prompted the urgent delivery of food assistance from the USSR and China. Soviet leaders, seeing the famine as another sign of the dangerous trends of Kim Il-Sung's policies, gave Pyongyang strong “advice,” demanding a moderation of policies and partial halt of the collectivization drive. The “advice” was followed, but the entire confrontation contributed to the further buildup of tensions between Moscow and Kim Il-Sung.


2021 ◽  
Vol 73 (3) ◽  
pp. 171-208
Author(s):  
Paweł Bielicki

The main purpose of my considerations will be to present the most important determinants and relationships that characterize China-North Korea relations during the presidency of Xi Jinping. Based on the available literature on the subject, I would like to try to answer the question whether the relations of the two entities should be considered as rough friendship or long-term partnership. In addition, I intend to state whether mutual ties should be expected in the future.At the beginning I will describe the relations between China and North Korea during the Cold War, when both countries fought in the Korean conflict against the United States and the United Nations. In addition, it would be appropriate to look at the relations of both entities from 1955 to the fall of the USSR, when the North Korean dictator, Kim Il-sung, as part of his doctrine of independence (Juche) balanced in foreign policy between China and the Soviet Union. Post-Cold War times and Beijing’s relationship with Pyongyang will also be of interest to me until 2013, when the North Korean nuclear program became an increasingly contentious issue. In the rest of the work, it will be important to describe the relationship of both countries since Xi Jinping took power in China and Kim Jong Un in North Korea. At that time, despite official declarations of cooperation, relations between the two countries remained cool. It was only the direct negotiations between North Korea and the United States since 2018 that increased its importance in Chinese policy, as evidenced by the visit of the to Pyongyang discussed in the text in June 2019. In the article I intend to raise economic contacts between both entities.In summary, I am trying to answer the question of how relations between China and North Korea will develop in the future. I intend to assess whether the growing role of the DPRK in an international configuration it can contribute to wider, strategic ties with Beijing.


Discourse ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 38-48
Author(s):  
B. V. Kabylinskii

Introduction. Socio-philosophical studies of the patterns of conflict being in modern discourse need to be clarified from the point of ontology. The analysis of the conflict specifics of a closed society in an ideological perspective allows us to discover the ontological foundations of self-conflict. In order to empirically reinforce conflict research, the relationship of conflict and ideology should be considered on the basis of specific cases. North Korean sociocultural realities are among the most visible forms of a closed society in modern discourse and provide ample opportunity to comprehend the conflicting reality modeled by ideological tools of influencing the mass consciousness.Methodology and sources. Methodologically, the work is based on social and philosophical reflection based on direct observations in North Korea during a visit to Pyongyang in the autumn of 2016 and a content analysis of Russian literature acquired in North Korea (works by Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il, fundamental scientific works by North Korean scientists and periodicals of an ideological nature).Results and discussion. Ideology is understood as a variety of views and ideas transmitted to the subject with the goal of reorienting or keeping his perception in a certain mode of sociocultural reality. The subject's ideological programming in modern discourse claims to be a leader in the field of modeling sociocultural life in general and, in particular, the “conflict reality” cluster. The author analyzes the ideological foundations of North Korean conflict reality, laid down by the founder of the state, Kim Il Sung, and continued by his heir Kim Jong Il in the militarized Songun doctrine.Conclusion. On the base of study of the ideological aspects of conflict reality in the DPRK, it can be concluded that in a closed society, the ontological boundary between the real and the apparent in everyday life is eliminated. At the same time, a closed society with a paramilitary ideology meets the criteria for a successful development for a third world country, as embodied in globalist dogma.


2015 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 41-63 ◽  
Author(s):  
Moe Taylor

In a little-known episode of the Cold War that challenges many common assumptions, North Korea forged extensive political, economic, military and cultural relations with the small South American-Caribbean coastal state of Guyana in the 1970s and 1980s. During this time, Guyana was ruled by an authoritarian socialist regime under Forbes Burbham, whose unorthodox conception of “socialism” was viewed skeptically by Communist countries other than North Korea. Burnham's program of “co-operative socialism,” which envisaged a population strictly obedient to his own wishes as the supreme leader, was distinctly similar to the juche philosophy espoused by the long-time North Korean dictator, Kim Il-Sung. Burnham deeply admired North Korea's economic and military “achievements,” attributing them to the strict obedience of the North Korean populace to the wishes of Kim Il-Sung. Burnham envisaged a similar role for himself in Guyana and attempted to import various North Korean approaches to socialist education and culture. Guyana came to resemble North Korea in some important respects, but it gradually moved away from this pattern after Burnham's death in 1985.


2018 ◽  
pp. 1-34
Author(s):  
Andrew Jackson

One scenario put forward by researchers, political commentators and journalists for the collapse of North Korea has been a People’s Power (or popular) rebellion. This paper analyses why no popular rebellion has occurred in the DPRK under Kim Jong Un. It challenges the assumption that popular rebellion would happen because of widespread anger caused by a greater awareness of superior economic conditions outside the DPRK. Using Jack Goldstone’s theoretical expla-nations for the outbreak of popular rebellion, and comparisons with the 1989 Romanian and 2010–11 Tunisian transitions, this paper argues that marketi-zation has led to a loosening of state ideological control and to an influx of infor-mation about conditions in the outside world. However, unlike the Tunisian transitions—in which a new information context shaped by social media, the Al-Jazeera network and an experience of protest helped create a sense of pan-Arab solidarity amongst Tunisians resisting their government—there has been no similar ideology unifying North Koreans against their regime. There is evidence of discontent in market unrest in the DPRK, although protests between 2011 and the present have mostly been in defense of the right of people to support themselves through private trade. North Koreans believe this right has been guaranteed, or at least tacitly condoned, by the Kim Jong Un government. There has not been any large-scale explosion of popular anger because the state has not attempted to crush market activities outright under Kim Jong Un. There are other reasons why no popular rebellion has occurred in the North. Unlike Tunisia, the DPRK lacks a dissident political elite capable of leading an opposition movement, and unlike Romania, the DPRK authorities have shown some flexibility in their anti-dissent strategies, taking a more tolerant approach to protests against economic issues. Reduced levels of violence during periods of unrest and an effective system of information control may have helped restrict the expansion of unrest beyond rural areas.


Author(s):  
Martin Weiser

The position of law in North Korean politics and society has been a long concern of scholars as well as politicians and activists. Some argue it would be more important to understand the extra-legal rules that run North Korea like the Ten Principles on the leadership cult as they supersede any formal laws or the constitution.1 But the actual legal developments in North Korea, which eventually also mediate those leading principles and might even limit their reach, has so far been insufficiently explored. It is easy to point to North Korean secrecy as a main reason for this lacuna. But the numerous available materials and references on North Korean legislation available today have, however, not been fully explored yet, which has severely impeded progress in the field. Even publications officially released by North Korea to foreigners offer surprisingly detailed information on legal changes and the evolution of the law-making institutions. This larger picture of legal developments already draws a more detailed picture of the institutional developments in North Korean law and the broad policy fields that had been regulated from early on in contrast to the often-assumed absence of legislation in important fields like copyright, civil law or investment. It also shows that different to a monolithic system, various law-making institutions exist and fulfil discernably different legal responsibilities. Next to this limitation in content, scholars in the field currently also have not used all approaches legal developments in the North Korea could be analysed and interpreted with. Going beyond the reading of legal texts or speculating about known titles of still unavailable legislation, quantitative approaches can be applied ranging from the simple counting of laws to more sophisticated analysis of legislative numbering often provided with legislation. Understanding the various institutions as flexible in their roles and hence adoptable to shifts in leadership and policy agendas can also provide a more realistic picture of legal practices in North Korea.


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