Korea: Ever-Victorious With Independence

UNDERSTANDING the process of change and continuity of the revolutionary transformations in the Korean peninsula now for nearly a century is important especially as the world is sinking into a recession. Country by country is faced with the corona virus pandemic creating a serious threat to different nation states one after another.

But this is taking place in a world where dialogue is not only lacking but intolerance is growing. In such a situation the peace and stability of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is a country from which we can learn a lot in avoiding the worst and achieving the best.

In such a world the experience of the way in which the people of Korea not only established a socialist state in the north, but carried it forward by working on their own ideology and developing it successfully through the ideology of Juche or self- reliance in relation to their concrete situation at the end of World War II and have successfully survived many ups and downs of global and local situations creating what has been recognized as the most stable and  egalitarian society in the earth.

Much of the process has been described in a comprehensive lecture by the great leader of the Korean revolution, Kim Il Sung, Describing the Historical Experience of Building the Workers’ Party of Korea delivered to the teaching staff and students of the Kim Il Sung higher party school on May 31, 1986.

He pointed out how though the ideology of Marxism –Leninism spread to Korea under the influence of the October socialist revolution. Many efforts had to be made to create the Workers’ Party of Korea and carry forward the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea on its path of survival and growth. This required quite an effort as Korea was to serve as the springboard for US intervention in East Asia after World War II. The USA had tried its best to get the whole of Korea as a mandated territory under its thinly disguised colonial control at Yalta in 1945 but had failed because of the intervention of the USSR.

This however did not prevent it from demarcating the area below the 38th parallel across the Korean Peninsula as its area of influence. Moreover it went as far as using the surviving elements of the Japanese administration against which the Korean people had fought even before World War II although they had fought Japan in the World War.

However, the Korean People’s Revolutionary Army had defeated the Japanese in the north. Later the Korean people of both the north and south of the country held a general election in august 1948 to found a united Democratic Peoples Republic with 99.7% of the voters in the north 77.52% in the south voting for it. In September 1948 the first session of the supreme people’s assembly was held in Pyongyang which adopted the constitution of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and appointed President Kim Il Sung as its head of State.

This victory must be understood in terms of the international defeat of fascist Germany, Italy and imperialist japan. The defeat of this third power cannot be seen in isolation from the advance of the USSR, the military challenge to Japan by the revolutionaries of both Korea and China, reminding us of the interlinkage of the existence of a victorious socialist power and the anti-fascist and anti-imperialist struggles of the national liberation movements of the world, among whom Korea was in the forefront.

This understanding and the significance of the Korean revolution to overthrow not only Japanese colonial rule but also to check the attempt of US imperialism to restore its own in its place in Korea. But the success of the Koreans in keeping it within the 38th parallel while China became a People’s Republic created a new situation to counter the US attempt to enter mainland Asia.

The significance of this development is reflected in the immediate attempt made by the USA in a new war after World War II had ended. To cover up this failure USA evolved the myth of a UN Command of 42 countries even though it succeeded in roping only 15 allies in a new war after World War II had ended.

The US manoeuvre after the World War which ended in Japan with nuclear weapons being used for the first time in history. This led to the continued expansion of US imperialist invasions on many south-east Asian countries even after the war had ended. But the USA failed to frighten the world with the power of nuclear weapons as this led to nuclear stock piling not only by USA and its imperialist allies but forced other countries to understand that the new defensive methods had to be evolved to counter them.

The DPRK for its part took a principled stand that it did not require nuclear power as long as it could acquire heavy water reactors for power and if the USA removed its stock pile of nuclear weapons from the peninsula. The USA promised to do both but did not do so. As a result the DPRK developed its own weapons and missiles which proved very successful in turning back the US Armada when Trump threatened to attack it. But seeing the Korean resolve under the aspect of self-reliance that highlighted the army first (Songun), he thought the better of it and proposed a series of one-to-one talks between himself and the Supreme Leader, Kim Jong Un. This historic advance could not have been accomplished without using Juche as a dynamic principle with changing times.

 At the same time international politics based on these weapons of mass destruction required not only mass resistance but also a new level of the organization of the masses to counter and defeat them. This approach could not be an abstract one but had to be based on the concrete reality of each country and its independent response to it. The first development of this concrete response was seen in the revolutionary struggle in Korea which led its eternal General Secretary, Kim Jong Il in 1998 declaring on the 5thof  the publication of the 10-Point Program of Great Unity of the Whole Nation for the Reunification of the Country, which later became one of the most serious challenges of nuclear face off not only in the Korean Peninsula but also in the world as Juche had developed an even more inclusive area of support.

This approach could not be an abstract one but had to be based on the concrete reality of each country in which the revolutionary process dictated its concrete program on the needs of the people and their independent response to it. This is in keeping with the manner in which Karl Marx criticized the slogan of “WORKERS OF THE WORLD UNITE!” and replaced it with that of “WORKERS OF EACH COUNTRY UNITE!”. His main objection was that each country had its own concrete reality even if it joined others in fighting for a common cause.

This reality confronted the Korean revolution from the start. The struggle of the Korean people had begun much earlier after World War I and a Korean communist party was formed in 1925 but it was “  not only unable to perform its functions properly as the vanguard of the revolution, but was unable to maintain its existence for long under the repression of the Japanese imperialists”, as noted in the lecture of the Great Leader Kim Il Sung cited above. This was largely because it was not sufficiently in touch with and linked to the masses taking part in the anti-Japanese resistance and was riddled with factional, deviationist and hegemonistic tendencies found in groups expressing abstract commitments and not to the concrete conditions it was facing on the ground.

Already a year after the formation of the communist party young and active people had learned the lesson that they would be unable to carry out the revolution if they followed the same path as the early communist movement. As a result they formed the Down With Imperialism Union to act as a vanguard for the change of perspective that was to be evolved to blend the national liberation objective with that of communism which was the banner of the young communist league. Thus the concept of self-reliance or Juche developed along a new revolutionary line at the Kalun meeting in 1930. The significance of this change was that the armed struggle against Japanese imperialism brought the broad anti -Japanese patriotic masses together under the leadership of the communist party and its organizations struggling against it to overthrow it altogether and establish a new social system in keeping with the concrete conditions prevailing in the country.

Needless to say their self-reliant line would not only be attractive to many different forces among those opposing Japanese colonialism and US imperialism, but would bring them into the framework and discipline of a working class party with its conception of a socialist future based on scientific principles. We can see in this inclusive concept a conscious effort of introducing the principle of Juche for razing the patriotic masses in concrete resistance to oppression with the theory and organizational discipline of a communist party to guide it to success. It is this mobilization of the masses by uniting patriotic resistance with the revolutionary discipline and consciousness of working class that unites the mass of the Korean people behind this inclusive ideology that is capable of responding to every change in the situation of a country concerned over-time.

The success of this new approach is self-evident. The Party, Peoples Organizations and The Korean People’s Revolutionary Army all came together to ensure the unity of the Korean people against first The Japanese occupation and then The US invasion and occupation of the area below the 38th parallel where the USA set up a puppet state which has been governed by both oppression and even bouts of military rule. On the other hand the north which set up the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea with a popular election from both north and south, has shown one of the most stable governments in Asia.

Infact, the USA showed no respite in using terror against the Korean people. They used all the methods of terrorism including mass murder, scorched-earth and strangulation operations, germ warfare and the threat of using nuclear weapons and powerful sanctions to make the life of people impossible. But it was the strength of the Juche policy coupled with the capacity of Korean army to defend itself as well as the sound guidance of the Workers’ Party of Korea led by the great leader Kim Il Sung that ensured the first defeat of the USA in its history. How seriously the US administration took this defeat can be seen in how they refused to bring the Korean War to an end even after signing an Armistice which has been going on for over 70 years without a peace treaty at the end of hostilities.

The reason for this is obvious. During the three years of the war, 15,67,128 men were killed, wounded or captured. Out of whom 4,05,498 were US soldiers 11,30,965 were South Korean puppet troops and 30,665 were those of states allied with them. 12,224 airplanes were downed, damaged or captured. 7,695 guns, 3,255 tanks and armored cars were lost 564 warships and vessels were sunk or damaged including the flag ship of the seventh fleet. The USA suffered a loss that was 2.3 times greater than what they had suffered in the four years of the Pacific War during World War II. The Korean War exploded the myth that the atomic bomb decides the outcome of war. The most effective weapon in the hands of the Korean people was the support of the masses, the guidance of a party with a scientific outlook like Juche and a leadership that was committed and unflinching in the face of any obstacle before it.

The lessons of the anti-Japanese war and the Korean war against US imperialism brought forward the importance of self-reliance or Juche as the most important element for a people to ensure their independence without which we cannot speak of it. At the same time an important element that comes forward is the perspective that emerges from this experience is given the role of being the guiding light for the future in action. This was provided by the organizations and strategy and tactics of the Workers’ Party of Korea that have been worked out over a period of 7 party congresses, with the 8th party congress to be held in the near future. But the task of implementing the defense of the Korean people in a period of over 70 years of hostility is placed on the shoulders of its leadership, its central committee and the party organization that links its members to the masses.

The success of the Workers’ Party of Korea reflects the proper functioning of all these elements facing different situations from outright war to national disasters, shortages of food and constant construction of factories, living conditions, education, self-defense training and smooth transfer of responsibility from one generation to the next. In all these efforts the improvement of the living conditions, the scientific and cultural creativity and development has been a crucial objective of the party which requires constant care and development of the consciousness of the cadre whose task is to communicate the messages of party policy from time to time among the masses. This require not only the communication of the perspective and effective communication of the ideas of the leadership through the cadre to the people but also the development of the spirit of self-reliance or Juche among them and its integration into the daily life of the people.

In his message to the sons and daughters of revolutionary martyrs the Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un speaking of working towards final victory, called on them to become the backbone of the Songun (self-defense) revolution and imbibe the collectivist spirit as “An important ideological and emotional quality for revolutionaries, and socialists morality as an important quality for those living in a Juche based socialist society”. This is an important ingredient in the development of the spirit of Juche among individuals to carry forward their unity in action as well as applying their creativity and independence in effective implementation in defending their country, constructing a better life for the masses and integrating them into acquiring spirit of leading people in the struggle for a better life for all.