The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea: an Historical Survey

Abstract

The controversy over nuclear inspection and the death of Kim Il Sung have focused attention in the West on the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) and its leadership. The intensity of media coverage, however, has often been in inverse proportion to the understanding displayed by Western journalists. The DPRK has been described as the last outpost of Stalinism, a relic of the discredited cold war past fit only for the dustbin of history. During the inspection crisis, the main question asked was whether the regime would go quietly or whether it might lash out against its opponent in the South.1 The DPRK, one of the most closed and secretive societies on earth, must take much of the blame for this result. Its public face, centred on the personality cult of Kim Il Sung, the ‘Great Leader’, and his son, Kim Jong Il, the ‘Dear Leader’, has won North Korea few outside sympathisers and its human rights record has been dismal.2 But it is important to place the DPRK in a proper context and to treat Korean communism as more than a bizarre anomaly introduced by Soviet tanks in 1945. It is impossible to understand the self-isolated regime in Pyongyang without reference to the historical background from which it evolved, a background that has more in common with Chinese communism than with the regimes imposed by the Russians on Eastern Europe after 1945.KeywordsWorld OrderHistorical SurveySoviet BlocJapanese ColonialAsian SurveyThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.