The "Peak of Socialism" in North Korea

Since the establishment of the Democratic Peoples' Republic of (DPRK) in 1948, Communist North Korea has been relatively stable in political terms. Certain major purges have taken place beneath the surface, but the central leadership of Kim Il-song and his old comrades of Manchurian days has remained unchanged. This has permitted the regime to carry out a continuous policy of economic development aiming at self-sufficiency both in industry and in agriculture. The latter goal has, of course, been difficult due to the relatively limited arable land in the mountainous, mineral rich section of Korea north of the 38th parallel. The government of North Korea, before the Korean War quite literally a puppet of the Soviet Union, emerged from the conflict with considerably increased autonomy and a determination to preserve and expand this new measure of independence. Particularly following the death of Stalin in 1953, when the leadership in the USSR became involved in the internal struggle for power, the ties between the Soviet Union and the DPRK were weakened. The Sino-Soviet rift, following the Twentieth Congress of the CPSU was seized upon as a further opportunity to enhance the maneuverability of North Korea within the Communist bloc. This movement toward independence from Moscow can be observed in the purges-first of 1950-51 and then of 1956-58-when prominent members of the party with proSoviet leanings, as well as those with pro-Chinese leanings, were purged from party membership and government ranks. From the North Korean point of view, increased political autonomy is contingent upon their ability to establish an independent economic base, for independence is the basis of political independence. Economic dependence on foreign forces entails political dependence on those forces. Economic subordination leads to political subordination.' North Korea has done remarkably well in attempting to establish this independent economic foundation. From the beginning, the regime emphasized establishing a balance in the economy-that is, to make all sectors of the economy internally interdependent but externally independent. Until 1945, the Korean economy had been integrated into the Japanese, and the of the dependence of Korean industry upon Japan for machinery, spare parts, as well as the existence primarily of raw materials industries in Korea, had to be corrected. A second necessity was to correct the lopsidedness of the North Korean economy due to its

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• North Korea and the Geopolitics of Development

  Open Access•Kevin Gray, Jong-Woon Lee•North Korea and the Geopolitics…•2021

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