Identity Politics in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK)

Abstract

North Korea made great efforts after liberation to establish a national identity that could be distinguished from that of South Korea. Here, such means included the acceptance of the Soviet system and the following of the tenets of the proletarian internationalism adhered to by socialist countries. The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) was established amidst a propaganda-based competition with the South Korean government to prove the superiority of its chosen system to the Korean people. As the proletarian class, Communist Party, and Great Leader (suryeong) became the essential qualities that defined the inmin, the residents of North Korea were in essence degraded to the status of people (inmin) of Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il. This study analyzes the relationships of identity between inmin, gungmin and minjok in North Korea. Identity politics during the early stage of the North Korean regime revolved around the usual socialist propaganda that national sovereignty rested in the members of the proletarian class such as the inmin (laborers and farmers). However, in the aftermath of Kim Il-sung’s establishment of the Juche ideology as a means to prop up his dictatorship, the North pursued a form of politics that saw national sovereignty be transferred from the inmin of North Korea to the Great Leader. Here, emphasis was placed on the history of the anti-Japanese armed struggle so as to distinguish the North’s identity from that of the South Korean regime.