Leftists are supposed to be anti-capitalists and anti-imperialists. The DPRK is one of the remaining actually socialist countries on this planet. They are sanctioned by the Global North–that is the global capitalist hegemony in the West–to a point of desperation. The people are living in harsh conditions not because of the Juche “regime”, but because of the atrocities by the United States and its satellite states.

Thinking that the DPRK is somehow a hereditary monarchy is simply ridiculous. It also means that you are furthering Western Capitalist propaganda.

If you believe in the lies of the capitalists, you are hardly a leftist. You are simply another chauvinist helping the cause of the bourgeoisie and Amerikan imperialism.

Further reading:

The constitution of the DPRK: https://www.kfausa.org/dprk-constitution/

The reason for the support of the Kim family in the DPRK: https://www.visitthedprk.org/north-koreans-revere-kims-understanding-north-korean-leadership-objectively/

Myths & Misconceptions About North Korea, by a non-socialist creator: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OhaHiht50AA

Please open your eyes.

This thread will deal with myths and realities of People's korea, of the puppet illegal occupied bourgeoisie state of south korea, defectors, society, aggresion agains it, international relations, e.t.c .

This thread will be edited and updated regularly. If any of you comrades have some info not added, or think that some sections to this thread should be added, feel free to tag me.

Long live DPRK, long live the anti-imperialist struggle!

:kim-il-young:

Socialism and democracy in DPRK

There is a huge notion in the western left (obviously), that DPRK is not socialist, but a state capitalist fascist monarchy.

We know how the western left is mostly racist and chauvinist towards china, dprk, vietnam etc, as it was previously with USSR and the eastern bloc.

Most of this western left is still against the USSR, but at least marxist-leninists and many anti-imperialist anarchists acknowledge them today. Many western leftists still remain in the same position against china or DPRK, however. We will address those points below.

Democracy and socialism

International solidarity and anti-imperialim of DPRK.

DPRK - Cuba relations

Black panthers connection

DPRK - Angola relations

DPRK - Syria relations

DPRK - Algeria relations

DPRK for the Palestinian struggle

Part 2 in comments

  • Quimby [any, any]
    ·
    2 years ago

    Mixed feelings about this. Just like my support for the USSR and China is strong, but not unreserved, my support for the DPRK is not unreserved.

    In hindsight, Juche did contribute to austerity / resource deprivation in the DPRK. Juche is a very interesting philosophy and I think it has a lot of really cool ideas. But just as with some of Mao's well intentioned but poorly executed ideas, the initial execution lead to a significant dependency on the Soviet Union, which goes directly against the ideals of Juche thought. North Korea needed more time and help to become self-reliant, and the attempted transition to self-reliance was not done very well, at least with respect to agriculture and some other basic necessities/supplies. In terms of science and technology, the DPRK has fared much better, though a greater investment in renewables would make strategic sense as part of a self-reliance strategy.

    The DPRK also resembles as a hereditary monarchy in many respects. The fact that this structure is consistent with confucian traditions doesn't convince me that it is, in fact, a good thing. However, it is also not a cardinal sin, and the west is quite content to engage with much more problematic monarchies, like Saudi Arabia.

    The treatment of prisoners also warrants criticism. This is true everywhere in the world and throughout history, save for a few European countries. (:eu-cool: , but I will acknowledge that this one aspect of one thing has been done right.) Poor treatment of prisoners is extremely common and widespread, and warrants criticism wherever it's encountered.

    Finally, I don't entirely buy arguments that it is necessary to isolate the general population to the degree that they are isolated in the modern DPRK. Communication outside of the DPRK is overly limited, imo, and it seems unnecessarily strict about entering/exiting the country, both for citizens and visitors. Free movement is important.

    • JucheGang [any]
      ·
      2 years ago

      Ah! Let's discuss this.

      Juche did contribute to austerity / resource deprivation in the DPRK.

      Juche did not contribute to resource deprivation, the sanctions and embargos of America and the imperial core did. The DPRK perhaps should have been less reliant on the USSR, but American's had destroyed nearly all of their cities, murdered at least 20% of the population, and unleashed widespread biological warfare (including anthrax and bubonic plague) against civilians.

      The DPRK also resemble a hereditary monarchy in many respects.

      I disagree with this firmly and would like to explain why. First, some info on the electoral process in the DPRK:

      • The DPRK has county, city, and provincial elections to the local people's assemblies, as well as national elections to the Supreme People's Assembly, their legislature. These are carried out every five years.

      • Candidates are chosen in mass meetings held under the Democratic Front for the Reunification of the Fatherland, which also organizes the political parties in the DPRK. Citizens run under these parties or they can run as independents. They are chosen by the people, not by the "party".

      • Side note: (in fact, the parliament in the DPRK consists of three separate parties as of last election, the Workers Party of Korea, the Korean Social Democratic Party, and the Chondoist Chongu Party).

      • The fact that there is only one candidate on the ballot is because there has already been a consensus reached on who should be up for nomination for that position, by the people in their mass meetings. This is a truly democratic arrangement.

      • As for the idea that they're carried out in view of the public, that's asinine and obviously not true if you view even one election in the DPRK, which in fact allows foreign observers of their election. You vote in a separate room from anyone else and are afforded privacy.

      A video on the election in the DPRK from Voice of Korea.

      Here is an Inter-Parliamentary Union document detailing the Parliamentary system in the DPRK

      Just, as a general rule of thumb, the western media is NOT in any sense trustworthy in regards to their enemies.

      pulled from [this :reddit-logo: comment that explains the DPRKs system well](

      Second, the narrative that the Kim family is a dictatorship is one completely based in the western propaganda narrative. If Lenin had children, would you not expect them to be involved with the Soviet government? To directly refute the concept that the Kim's are a monarchy, let's review:

      The DPRK's ruling leaders are not a "dynasty". You seem to be largely unaware of how their posts function or how they were elected.

      From a :reddit-logo: comment by u/ComIntelligence

      The best way to understand why Kim Jong-Il, then subsequently Kim Jong-Un were elected after the passing of Kim Il-Sung is to understand who all three are, what their history was like, and what rights and policies were put forth under their tenure.

      Kim Il-Sung was a guerrilla warrior who fought against the brutal colonial Japanese and essentially is seen as a liberator from slavery. He lived under intense oppression by the Japanese fascists and fought personally to free his country from enslavement. Once he had freed his nation, he began granting basic rights and freedoms that the people of the DPRK enjoy today.

      He then successfully dissolved the landlord classes through land reforms, leading to increased prosperity and a massive rise in equality for the proletarian classes. He dissolved the petty bourgeoisie and enacted a dictatorship of the proletariat, and fought tooth and nail against the Imperialist USA. All of the people in the DPRK I've spoken to see him as an incredibly positive figure of liberation, freedom, and equality.

      Kim Jong-Il was elected by the Supreme People's Assembly, but it's important to note that he had been tutored by his father in statesmanship, economics, and Marxism-Leninism for nearly 30 years by the time of his election. The people knew him, he had reached a high rank within the Worker's Party of Korea through a life of dedication and work, and was trustworthy.

      Kim Jong-Un was likewise trained and tutored by his father. He has a long background of service in the military and in the WPK. He was also elected by the Supreme People's Assembly. They are all qualified figures who were democratically elected based on their long histories of dedicated service to the country.

      Their elections do not have to do with their blood, but instead with their dedication. Remember that Kim Jong-Il had quite a few other sons. Kim Jong-Un has distinguished his tenure as the First Chairman of the National Defense Commission with a construction boom, the securing of the vanguard party, and the discovery of the world's largest deposit of rare earth minerals. Korea is booming under his leadership.

      The Korean people have never lived in their democratic people's republic in a time of security. They have always been under the threat of US Imperialism. Instability could spell doom for them. It could herald an invasion, the dismantling of their social programs, the destruction of everything they hold dear.

      Read here for information about their electoral system.

      I also recommend reading their constitution to get a better understanding of how the DPRK's government works.

      here are additional resources:

      The treatment of prisoners also warrants criticism.

      The only sources you will truly find critiquing the DPRK's prison system are :zenz: tier and funded by the state department. We agree that many prison systems deserve critique, however.

      Finally, I don’t entirely buy arguments that it is necessary to isolate the general population to the degree that they are isolated in the modern DPRK. Communication outside of the DPRK is overly limited, imo, and it seems unnecessarily strict about entering/exiting the country, both for citizens and visitors. Free movement is important.

      The DPRK is effectively cut off from any countries in the political orbit of the imperial core, especially the occupied southern part of Korea. They maintain, in many places, a completely open border with Russia and enjoy a decent amount of trade / travel with China.

      This effort post includes multiple examples of people who have chosen to leave / defect from the DPRK, only to decide they want to return to the DPRK. When they try to return to the DPRK they are prevented from doing so by the American military and the puppet military of occupied Korea.

      Visitors are understandably screened due to the amount of imperialist spies and CIA agents repeatedly caught posing as tourists.

      TL;DR: I understand your hesitation and encourage you to be curious with this. Please review these sources and consider how they fit with your current conceptualization of the DPRK.

      • JucheGang [any]
        ·
        2 years ago

        On the note of free travel for DPRK citizens, it is actually guaranteed by the DPRK's constitution. When westerners talk about citizens of other nations not having the ability to travel they reveal a few things about themselves:

        • They themselves are not excessively familiar with immigration and accessibility to travel worldwide, and are usually not very familiar with how hard it is to uproot yourself and move to a new nation.

        • They are not familiar with the difficulty of the customs process or gaining a working visa, and hold largely utopian views on how much this procedure would cost a family.

        • They are unaware of the fiscal and emotional difficulties inherent in immigration and expect people to simply pack their things and skip over the border without the months of planning or the massive financial cost required for legal immigration anywhere, ignoring how incredibly bad of an idea this is.

        • They are not familiar with eastern Asia whatsoever and have never spoken to a North Korean in their lives. Many of them have had little to no contact with people outside the west and experience culture shock when exposed to the living conditions, rhetoric, and opinions of third world nations and their citizens.

        If they were more familiar with this process, they might know that citizens in the DPRK do indeed travel often for a developing nation and that the right to travel is constitutionally guaranteed by chapter V of their constitution, which details the fundamental rights and duties of citizens:

        Article 75 says:

        Citizens have freedom of residence and travel.

        This would seem an apparent fact if one were familiar with eastern Asia, where legal North Korean immigrants dot the landscape of eastern China, especially when you get close to the border. A good example of this would be Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture.

        Another good example of North Korean travel would be the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan, also known as Ch'ongryŏn, which assists many North Koreans in visiting family who were taken to Japan during the colonial years and remain there, as well as assisting ethnic Koreans in Japan visit family in the DPRK.

      • Quimby [any, any]
        ·
        2 years ago

        planning to read through this and reply when I have some more time :rat-salute:

        here's to thoughtful leftist discourse 🍻

      • extremesatanism [they/them]
        ·
        2 years ago

        I mean no matter what you call it, leaders following down a bloodline still follows the same definition of 'monarchism'. And them being 'benevolent' doesn't really excise them from this because that's exactly the kind of thing monarchists claim all kings are.

            • REallyN [she/her,they/them]
              ·
              2 years ago

              Political dynasties are a thing…everywhere. I mean…think about how much Americans revere the founders (even if unrightly) and put them in the shoes of a Korean whose “founder” is still in living memory, family still in politics, and technically still at war and besieged by the same enemy as back then.

                • JucheGang [any]
                  ·
                  2 years ago

                  It’s something that every other AES country has managed to avoid, so how is it justifiable?

                  Fidel Castro's brother, Raúl Castro, was elected as the leader of Cuba following Fidel's death. That's an easy one off the top of my head.

                  Aside from that, the DPRK has also been under siege since the Korean war and western propaganda gravely distorts the actual political dynamics of the country.

                  If it was not obsessing over the Kims, the imperial core would simply find another goalpost.

                    • JucheGang [any]
                      ·
                      2 years ago

                      Respond to the longer comments I replied to you with breaking down why Kim Jong-un is popular with the Korean people. This is splitting hairs, and frankly boring.

                      At the end of the day, the imperial core does not get to decide the politics of the DPRK and obsessively criticizing them is pointlessly chauvinistic. This effort post gives you all the resources you need to educate yourself on the topic if you are curious.

                • REallyN [she/her,they/them]
                  ·
                  2 years ago

                  I'm just giving a more banal and understandable reason why the people would choose to have the WPK led by the same family for decades that isn't inherently nefarious or due to some kind of corruption.

            • JucheGang [any]
              ·
              2 years ago

              It’s not monarchism, but it’s definitely sus that 3 generations and 70 years of WPK leadership has been in the hands of a single family. It’s weird that the Party elected a 29-year old to lead them rather than any one of the highly experienced and well-established members of the Party’s leadership under Kim Jong-Il.

              the narrative that the Kim family is a dictatorship / monarchy is one completely based in the western propaganda narrative. If Lenin had children, would you not expect them to be involved with the Soviet government? To directly refute the concept that the Kim's are a monarchy, let's review:

              The DPRK's ruling leaders are not a "dynasty". You seem to be largely unaware of how their posts function or how they were elected.

              From a :reddit-logo: comment by u/ComIntelligence

              The best way to understand why Kim Jong-Il, then subsequently Kim Jong-Un were elected after the passing of Kim Il-Sung is to understand who all three are, what their history was like, and what rights and policies were put forth under their tenure.

              Kim Il-Sung was a guerrilla warrior who fought against the brutal colonial Japanese and essentially is seen as a liberator from slavery. He lived under intense oppression by the Japanese fascists and fought personally to free his country from enslavement. Once he had freed his nation, he began granting basic rights and freedoms that the people of the DPRK enjoy today.

              He then successfully dissolved the landlord classes through land reforms, leading to increased prosperity and a massive rise in equality for the proletarian classes. He dissolved the petty bourgeoisie and enacted a dictatorship of the proletariat, and fought tooth and nail against the Imperialist USA. All of the people in the DPRK I've spoken to see him as an incredibly positive figure of liberation, freedom, and equality.

              Kim Jong-Il was elected by the Supreme People's Assembly, but it's important to note that he had been tutored by his father in statesmanship, economics, and Marxism-Leninism for nearly 30 years by the time of his election. The people knew him, he had reached a high rank within the Worker's Party of Korea through a life of dedication and work, and was trustworthy.

              Kim Jong-Un was likewise trained and tutored by his father. He has a long background of service in the military and in the WPK. He was also elected by the Supreme People's Assembly. They are all qualified figures who were democratically elected based on their long histories of dedicated service to the country.

              Their elections do not have to do with their blood, but instead with their dedication. Remember that Kim Jong-Il had quite a few other sons. Kim Jong-Un has distinguished his tenure as the First Chairman of the National Defense Commission with a construction boom, the securing of the vanguard party, and the discovery of the world's largest deposit of rare earth minerals. Korea is booming under his leadership.

              The Korean people have never lived in their democratic people's republic in a time of security. They have always been under the threat of US Imperialism. Instability could spell doom for them. It could herald an invasion, the dismantling of their social programs, the destruction of everything they hold dear.

              Read here for information about their electoral system.

              I also recommend reading their constitution to get a better understanding of how the DPRK's government works.

                • JucheGang [any]
                  ·
                  2 years ago

                  No? Were Stalin’s kids? Mao’s kids? Castro’s kids? There was involvement when the children chose it, but none were fast-tracked into the upper echelons of leadership.

                  This is all you have to reply with to what I wrote? Obsessing over other figure's kids?

                  :miyazaki-laugh:

            • Dangitbobby [none/use name]
              ·
              2 years ago

              Especially when you figure in how super-respectful Koreans are towards the aged. Choosing a leader in his 20s is unprecedented.

        • geikei [none/use name]
          ·
          2 years ago

          Beyond the fact that he doesn't have monarchical power isn't it completely understandable by almost any countries standards that the person that led the party and country arguably through the worst hell any country has gone through in the last 100 years, that spearheaded the decolonization and revolution of your entire nation and that formulated the theory behind your style of governance and guiding ideology would be so massively popular and beloved that when his son etc get into the political struggle of the party they would easily gain support by both the people and party members if they are competent

          Kim Il Sung is like a Lincoln+all the founding fathers combined figure but actually good and lived within living memory for a population that went through some of the worst colonization and imperialist subjugation and attacks for a century now. I personally completely understand that Kim Jong Un given that he is competent and chose to engage in inter party political struggle would find a massive base of support. It's not socialist or even good in a vacuum but it's absolutely normal and human for their history to manifest in such a way