DPRK was also highly industrialized until the dissolution of the USSR, so they exported heavy industrial products, raw materials, and some light industrial goods to the USSR in exchange for grain and other foods.
When that market collapsed, they were suddenly cut off from their primary food supply and had to rapidly rebuild their agricultural sector. Which is why you see almost every new DPRK housing project build with greenhouses and small farm plots attached to the houses.
They always had the option of "re-integrating" into the capitalist markets, but they had seen what happened to other nations literally overnight when they did that.
The famine was seen as something they'd be able to overcome (which they did) as opposed to integration with global markets which would have had the same outcomes, but with their agency to fix it removed.
It's hard to "prove" definitively, but through like the 70s the DPRK offered a much higher quality of life than the ROK which was still under a right wing dictatorship. Hard to imagine, but I was shocked seeing photos of 1970s south Korean towns, compared to what a comparable Japanese town would look like at that time.
Yeah, ROK was an absolute shithole for decades and the DPRK was leagues ahead in terms of culture, quality of life, and general development until the US started investing heavily in ROK to create an alternative industrial hub in the Asian markets after the rise of Japan and a light industrial powerhouse.
There were constant protests and revolutionary movements in ROK during that time. One of the largest contingents for a long time was the unification movement that sought to abolish the dictatorship and unite the north and south. Something that the US didn't want so they allowed Rhee to live in America and installed a puppet republic that still exists to this day.
A puppet that was largely composed of the old guard of the dictatorship and served no purpose to the Korean people beyond silencing of dissent and destruction of any revolutionary movement through overt subversion (KCIA) or electoral capture by diverting revolutionary energy into the new "democratic" systems.
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DPRK was also highly industrialized until the dissolution of the USSR, so they exported heavy industrial products, raw materials, and some light industrial goods to the USSR in exchange for grain and other foods.
When that market collapsed, they were suddenly cut off from their primary food supply and had to rapidly rebuild their agricultural sector. Which is why you see almost every new DPRK housing project build with greenhouses and small farm plots attached to the houses.
deleted by creator
They always had the option of "re-integrating" into the capitalist markets, but they had seen what happened to other nations literally overnight when they did that.
The famine was seen as something they'd be able to overcome (which they did) as opposed to integration with global markets which would have had the same outcomes, but with their agency to fix it removed.
deleted by creator
It's hard to "prove" definitively, but through like the 70s the DPRK offered a much higher quality of life than the ROK which was still under a right wing dictatorship. Hard to imagine, but I was shocked seeing photos of 1970s south Korean towns, compared to what a comparable Japanese town would look like at that time.
Yeah, ROK was an absolute shithole for decades and the DPRK was leagues ahead in terms of culture, quality of life, and general development until the US started investing heavily in ROK to create an alternative industrial hub in the Asian markets after the rise of Japan and a light industrial powerhouse.
There were constant protests and revolutionary movements in ROK during that time. One of the largest contingents for a long time was the unification movement that sought to abolish the dictatorship and unite the north and south. Something that the US didn't want so they allowed Rhee to live in America and installed a puppet republic that still exists to this day.
A puppet that was largely composed of the old guard of the dictatorship and served no purpose to the Korean people beyond silencing of dissent and destruction of any revolutionary movement through overt subversion (KCIA) or electoral capture by diverting revolutionary energy into the new "democratic" systems.