Constructing “People’s Science-Technology”: The Culture of Science and Technology in Early North Korea, 1945-1950

Abstract

This article examines how North Korean leadership in 1945-50 strove to popularize “people’s science-technology 인민의 과학기술,” equipping an assertive attitude in matters of science and technology, arguing that the Soviet Union served as the most important point of reference that tremendously inspired, and to a lesser degree materially supported, North Korean planners to employ this attitude as a mobilization scheme. Drawing upon a range of previously unexamined Soviet archival sources and relevant North Korean publications, it is this author’s intent to offer original narratives of how limited but crucial Soviet assistance undergirded North Korean leaders’ quest for an advanced economy and how various North Korean actors understood and acted upon “people’s science-technology.” Charting the intentions and roles of North Korean policy-makers, North Korean expert communities, and the Soviet authorities in the making of the culture of science and technology in early North Korea, the expectations and goals as perceived and practiced by the North Koreans are revealed in this research. Additionally, North Koreans’ understanding of science and technology, which greatly boosted the country’s extended engagement with the socialist bloc in the search for its own mode of continuing industrial development in the subsequent decade, is examined.