November 16, 2010
For those who may not be familiar with it, the Juche Idea (literally translated as “the spirit of self-reliance”) was put forward as the guiding idea of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) starting in the mid-1950s. It teaches that “the people are the masters of everything and decide everything,” and that the Korean people are the masters of Korea’s revolution. It is a creative application of Marxism-Leninism to the particular situation of divided Korea — the north, constructing socialism, and the south, occupied and dominated by the U.S.
Kim Il Sung, leader of the Korean Revolution and founder of the Workers’ Party, outlined the three fundamental principles of Juche in his 1965 speech “On Socialist Construction and the South Korean Revolution in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea”:
1. “independence in politics” (chaju)
2. “self-sustenance in the economy” (charip)
3. “self-defense in national defense” (chawi)
I think there were two major factors in the development of Juche ideology.
The first was the project of national liberation of Korea (Chosun), a people under siege and occupation for centuries, even before the arrival of Western colonial powers on the scene. I have written elsewhere about this aspect of the Korean Revolution.
The second factor was the tragic Sino-Soviet split that divided the socialist camp and ultimately gave imperialism a wedge to turn comrade against comrade. North Korea was literally, geographically, stuck in the middle of this struggle between the (truly) revisionist leadership of the USSR and the Maoists in China. The DPRK had to navigate very carefully, preserving its trade and security relations with its neighbors while also promoting revolutionary socialism. Juche was the ideological means to do this.
As it turned out, Kim Il Sung was quite correct in his approach. While Korea’s global revolutionary aspirations were more in keeping with China’s, its leaders also saw the danger of a full-on split in the socialist camp. And what started out in China as a revolutionary line struggle against the revisionist leadership of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union turned into a reactionary campaign against the USSR as the “main enemy,” collusion with imperialism, and unprincipled attacks on national liberation movements that got aid from the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. (For more background, read Vince Copeland’s “History of USSR-China Relations.”)
In the imperialist era, the hallmarks of revisionism have been abandonment of the class struggle, abandonment of internationalism, and compromise with imperialism. If we look at the practice of socialist Korea, we can see that none of these have come to pass.
The DPRK and the Workers’ Party defend the workers’ state and the continuing struggle for socialism and communism. They have not tried to come to a rotten compromise with U.S. imperialism despite the constant danger of attack from the occupied south. (Of course, the DPRK has been trying for almost 60 years to get the U.S. to sign a peace treaty to formally end the Korean War).
Although not as widely appreciated as Cuba, the DPRK has remained a bastion of socialist internationalism. In fact, back in 1992, socialist Korea hosted the first major conference of communist and workers’ parties following the collapse of the USSR, which issued the Pyongyang Declaration, “Let Us Defend and Advance the Cause of Socialism.” Over 250 organizations worldwide signed on to the statement.
As I’ve written before, I think it can be hard for leftists to understand and appreciate the dynamics of the Korean Revolution because it outwardly appears so different from what our expectations of what a socialist revolution “should” look like. But if we get past the surface to appreciate the actual conduct of the DPRK, I think it is clear that it is guided by revolutionary communist principles, not revisionism.
The prison gates are open... 