DPRK has considered Israel to be an illegal state and it to be a satellite of the US since the 1980s. Every month or so, DPRK releases a press statement condemning Israel’s war crimes. The last one I see posted was on July 6. I read the DPRK-hosted website almost every day.
The statement about DPRK implementing a new death penalty law for promoting Zionism seems like fake news. If such a law exists in DPRK, it wouldn’t be a recent law as the instagram post is from July 15 and says “North Korea has passed a new law”. I don’t see it mentioned on any of DPRK’s websites.
Below is an article from October 13 2023 from DPRK which says that the US is responsible for Israel’s attack on Gaza. “The reality clearly proves that the U.S. is not a ‘mediator’ but a wrecker of Middle East peace and it is not a partner but a foe of Arab.”
Thr DPRK has never once acknowledged the Zionist Entity. They recognize all the land belonging to Palestine and Syria in the case of the Golan Heights. It’s an absolute miracle of a country. Besiged on all sides, yet still they stand on the side of liberation for their entire history.
Uncritical support to the DPRK in its tireless resistance against the genocidal American empire. Uncritical support to the ideology of Juche and its implementation.
Besiged on all sides
The Chinese & Soviet/Russian borders are pretty chill tbf.
The DPRK benefited greatly from the Sino-Soviet split, as neither side wanted the DPRK to lean towards the other and so it received a good deal of resources and assistance from both sides to maintain its neutrality.
Most people don’t know that even after being bombed to hell during the Korean War, Japan and the DPRK were the two Asian economies hailed as the rising stars in the 1960s with very high level of industrialization and living standards, even before the rise of South Korea and Taiwan in the 1980s, and later in the 1990s, China.
… and the DPRK were the two Asian economies hailed as the rising stars in the 1960s with very high level of industrialization and living standards
I would like to ask for a (preferably academic) source for when I have another altercation with anti-DPRK liberals.
Japan and the DPRK were the two Asian economies hailed as the rising stars in the 1960s with very high level of industrialization and living standards, even before the rise of South Korea and Taiwan in the 1980s, and later in the 1990s, China.
Kaplya said something about that… hm…
Some lib tried to tell me that they only do it to be “anti-american” and I was just
just being anti-american leads to the correct take like 99% of the time
Imagine being so incredibly self-centered that you think the entire government of a country gives a shit about some nobody Amerikkkan chauvinist’s fee-fees and strategizes based on how much it makes them angry
Liberals live in an alternate reality
that they only do it to be “anti-american”
Not even a valid argument. If it were true I’d still support them for that as in general that is the right position to take. Very few times will it place you on the wrong side, especially with the US entirely gutting its few mildly benevolent manipulation programs like medical and food aid to the rest of the world you don’t even have to contend with “b-buuut USAID gives starving people food, even if it is a front of the CIA and has had campaigns trying to overthrow the Cuban government”. Because well now they don’t. They’ve even gutted the few public goods they founded for their own imperial core citizens like PBS, very limited public healthcare/medicare, homeless assistance, etc.
And really why might the DPRK be anti-American? Anyone? Anyone? Yes it’s because of the genocidal attack of the US against them in the 50s Korean war. Its because the west installed and propped up a dictatorship in the south and separated families for decades. It’s because the US regularly conducts military “defensive drills” simulating an attack against a state they nearly destroyed but for the help of its neighbor that still has trauma from that and does not want the experience of fighting the Americans again. Meanwhile the north conducts no such drills. It’s because they have been heavily sanctioned by the US and the UN at the urging of the US for decades. It’s because they never got a formal peace treaty and are still technically at war with the country occupying their south.
Bombs dropped by the US Empire and Occupied Korea killed 20% of DPRK’s population and destroyed 85% of all buildings in the country, forcing DPRK’s citizens to live in caves.
On 25 June 1951, General O’Donnell, commander of the Far Eastern Air Force Bomber Command, testified in answer to a question from Senator John C. Stennis (“North Korea has been virtually destroyed, hasn’t it?”): “Oh, yes; … I would say that the entire, almost the entire Korean Peninsula is just a terrible mess. Everything is destroyed. There is nothing standing worthy of the name … Just before the Chinese came in we were grounded. There were no more targets in Korea.”
No shit the DPRK hates the US, why the fuck wouldn’t they?
how did the dprk manage to break the communist parent > lib child curse anyway? is this the power of juche?
On 13 February 2017, the North Korean government assassinated Kim Jong-nam with the nerve agent VX in Malaysia after previous failed attempts to kill him.
The Wall Street Journal on 10 June 2019 reported that former US officials stated that Kim Jong-nam had been a CIA source.
Earned it imo
At the time they said he was assassinated for going to Disneyland Tokyo.
Turns out he was working for a country that is still officially at war with North Korea.
A child’s emotional development seems to be most heavily dependent on their peers. So without the need to fit into liberal society to get their needs met that pattern breaks
In Germany it is literally illegal to be this based
Also:
I think I smoked myself into an alternate reality
North Korea supported Palestine since 1966; you’re only hearing about it now because the news thinks they’re publicizing a bad thing
The DPRK is far and away the most principled anti imperialist state in the world but craKKKers are so propagandized that this is somehow a surprise to them.
The DPRK is far and away the most principled anti imperialist state in the world
Kind of teetering between agreeing with this or saying the Yemenis are more principled (I mean there is some genuine outrage here and a desire to start a war over it): https://xcancel.com/Mont_Jiang/status/1949735269583732772
I mean being anti-imperialist doesn’t have to be a contest
Maybe its vibes but I feel like the only things keeping the DPRK from following Yemen’s lead is the distance and the fact that half of their country is still occupied by America. They could probably only really attack the entity effectively once. Remove any these two problems and I don’t see why they wouldn’t be involved at this point. (Maybe the still are somehow)
If we knew what the DPRK was doing to help Yemen and Palestine it would be a substantial opsec failure uncharacteristic of the DPRK.
I think logistics is more of the issue, but assisting the Russian SMO seems to disprove that the DPRK is all talk.
We know that the DPRK has played an important role in Iran’s missile development for a long time, and the Yemeni missile program is essentially an offshoot of Iran’s. The DPRK is an important link in the chain enabling Ansarallah to do what they’re doing.
Action is far more important. What Yemen does for the antiimperialist cause as a small nation is unmatched. You’re handwaiving the blood, sweat and tears of Yemen coming up against the entire West at the battlefront
I think this idea is unfounded. I’m all for the DPRK swinging like this, but they only swing like this because they are extremely isolated and this won’t change that. If they were permitted to have more normal international relations, their tone would quickly shift (which is not to say that they’d become zionists, they just wouldn’t be this aggro on everyone adjacent to their main opposition).
By this logic, the collapse of the USSR should have had the effect you’re describing and indeed it did for many post soviet states.
The difference with the WPK is that they maintained their independence and were anti-revisionist and took great steps to prevent party takeover by bourgeois and liberal forces. The recent coup in SK did not lead to renewed relations for example even though the SK state now has a liberal govt. in power that wants to cool relations with the north.
If the DPRK had sanctions lifted it would have the same opinions because those opinions were materialist and revolutionary in nature. Kim Ill Sung started this, back within the USSR era.
extremely isolated
Not true anymore (or ever really): the DPRK has relations with numerous global south countries and has mutual diplomatic agreements with the RF.
Let me preface this by saying that I completely support the DPRK in its struggle against the west and the occupation of half of its nation, and will readily push back against any of the long litany of myths that have been pushed about it by imperialists seeking to spread misinformation. I have spent a fair bit of time researching these myths and found them to be substanceless a solid 98% of the time. I am not speaking from a place of opposing the DPRK geopolitically.
The difference with the WPK is that they maintained their independence and were anti-revisionist and took great steps to prevent party takeover by bourgeois and liberal forces. The recent coup in SK did not lead to renewed relations for example even though the SK state now has a liberal govt. in power that wants to cool relations with the north.
If the DPRK had sanctions lifted it would have the same opinions because those opinions were materialist and revolutionary in nature. Kim Ill Sung started this, back within the USSR era.
This is wishful thinking and redwashing of a kind that the DPRK itself does not even do. The DPRK is not “anti-revisionist”; it is in fact so divorced from Marxism that it would be more accurate to call it “not even revisionist.” The Kims reject materialism quite explicitly, they reject the irreconcilability of class antagonisms, and while they pay tribute to Marx and co. on rare occasions, they have not pretended to be Marxists for decades, having helpfully struck those references from their constitution.
I think that this essay is a very good collection of statements from the Kims and the WPK to establish this ideological split: https://espressostalinist.com/2011/11/01/bill-bland-the-workers-party-of-korea-and-revisionism/
I have no interest in Bland’s Hoxha-philia and I actually think he’s harsher on the co-operative program than is justified from what I’ve been able to find about it, but I believe with the information he’s laid out that his conclusions about the DPRK, including calling it revisionism and therefore, by the Lenin quote he uses, “against Marxism from within Marxism,” is giving it too much credit, credit that the DPRK itself has refused over and over again, by calling it “within Marxism” at all.
Not true anymore (or ever really): the DPRK has relations with numerous global south countries and has mutual diplomatic agreements with the RF.
I said “extremely isolated,” not “completely isolated.” Relative to any country in the world of a similar level of development, various circumstances have prevented the DPRK from being able to engage in much more than communication, diplomatic visits, and the like with most countries, unlike its peers, who don’t have the US and UN strangling them. It has always had some neighbors it was closely connected to, but many fewer than that of really any other country that wasn’t also buried in sanctions, like Apartheid South Africa toward the very end of its existence (not that there is any equivalence between the two nations in other respects, obviously).
This is a really good write-up. I also feel like it’s being too harsh on the co-operative systems and SEZs. I’m not a Hoxhaist myself, but I’m not also going to dogmatically be against it.
I said “extremely isolated,” not “completely isolated.”
Fair, it’s not their decision to be cut off by the US/UN hegemony. The UN basically forbade any citizen from leaving the DPRK a condition that isn’t matched by any other nation in the world. So the conditions of the DPRK are unique in that aspect.
I still don’t fully understand the relationship between Marxism-Leninism and Korean society (both in the North and the South), but analyzing the survival of the DPRK has been my point of interest and I think a lot of Juche stems from the independence struggle of Korea rather than directly from ML theory. I do agree that it is revisionist against Marxism-Leninism though after reading this. But internally within the WPK, revisionism against Juche doesn’t seem to manifest itself into capitalist takeover (which looks like ROK/US takeover of the peninsula via foreign capital or invasion).
I don’t think the whole hereditary bloodline leadership criticism and cult of personality is founded though, how exactly class relations form within the DPRK today is unknown to me at this moment, but passing the role of head of state doesn’t mean the negation of collective leadership (and the passing of the role isn’t automatic as we see with reformists like Kim Jong Nam).
The essay is from 2011, and while I don’t think it changes the criticisms of the Kim Jong Ill era and the core ideas of Juche, I think the recent actions taken by the WPK today highlight how the DPRK is staying consistent with their own philosophy.
I think we agree on many things. Here’s where we still disagree from what I can tell:
But internally within the WPK, revisionism against Juche doesn’t seem to manifest itself into capitalist takeover (which looks like ROK/US takeover of the peninsula via foreign capital or invasion).
That parenthetical reveals a serious error, because a capitalist takeover is not synonymous with control by the international bourgeoisie. A country can also be taken over by the national bourgeoisie who, for various circumstantial factors, find it the most profitable to keep their country independent rather than implementing shock doctrine (this is notably how Russia works, for example). I believe Bland’s argument – which I think he slightly overstates but I still basically agree with – is that capitalist takeover did happen, maybe toward the end of Kim Il Sung’s life, even, it was just that the national rather than the international bourgeoisie who took over, in a form integrated into the WPK bureaucracy.
From the standpoint of historical progressivism, these two outcomes are not equivalent. It is much better for the national bourgeoisie to be running a country than for the international bourgeoisie to be, because the development in all countries of advanced capitalism facilitates the practical means to have socialism, whereas the subjugation and deliberate under-development of countries under imperialism interferes with socialism.
I don’t think the whole hereditary bloodline leadership criticism and cult of personality is founded though, how exactly class relations form within the DPRK today is unknown to me at this moment, but passing the role of head of state doesn’t mean the negation of collective leadership (and the passing of the role isn’t automatic as we see with reformists like Kim Jong Nam).
The bloodline issue and the cult of personality are two different though connected issues.
Regarding the cult, I don’t see how you can call it unfounded. The Bland article goes over quotes about devotion to the leader, and you can right now go on official DPRK websites and read about how their official doctrine emphasizes devotion to the leader as a core ideological tenant. I can give you a thousand anecdotes about the lavish celebrations of the birthdays of current leaders, the weird coverage they sometimes get from state TV and such, but I think you’ve already seen this information. I can tell you that there are many myths about what the west claims DPRK press says about their leaders (I’ve spent a silly amount of time trying to track down those sorts of stories and can share some if you like), but it is true that they take a venerating, mythologizing, parasocial tone and have for decades.
Regarding bloodlines, two major points jump out at me about the argument that you present: Heredity is not universally on the basis of primogeniture, even though that’s regarded as the “default” in most places. Also, Kim Jong Nam was literally a CIA informant, so I think it’s kind of obvious why he had to be removed from play (though they could have stood to just imprison him, but it’s not a big deal either way and I think the bigger misdeed was traumatizing the attendants involved in the assassination). Nothing about this contradicts the leadership being hereditary, which it obviously is, and the Kims plainly use it as a tool of legitimizing their position that dad got us through the Arduous March and grandad founded the country.
but passing the role of head of state doesn’t mean the negation of collective leadership
As far as executive powers go, yes it literally does. Beyond that, I think it’s kind of difficult to identify the “real” leadership structure in the DPRK because, for example, have you looked at how the Supreme People’s Assembly votes? Or rather, how it doesn’t, because it’s always unanimous to the point of being perfunctory. If you can find evidence against this claim, I’d love to see it, but I’ve looked and could not.
I don’t actually have it in for the DPRK’s electoral process as much as some people do. It’s bad, but I think people have such a tinted view of things that it produces a form of motivated reasoning and a Manichean characterization, and ignores the ways in which public sentiment does still factor in. There have also been voting reforms in some places that further improve things.
This all having been said, the integrity of the vote for, say, an assemblyperson doesn’t actually matter when their vote is a foregone conclusion anyway.
The essay is from 2011, and while I don’t think it changes the criticisms of the Kim Jong Ill era and the core ideas of Juche, I think the recent actions taken by the WPK today highlight how the DPRK is staying consistent with their own philosophy.
I’d be interested to know what you mean by that, since in the last ~4 years, the DPRK has been getting more hawkish and shuffling away their doctrines and monuments interested in peaceful reunification, declaring that the RoK, not the USA, is the “principal enemy” of the DPRK. It should go without saying that I hate this.
The recent coup in SK did not lead to renewed relations for example even though the SK state now has a liberal govt. in power that wants to cool relations with the north.
the guy who tried to do the coup was also trying to start shit and use that shit as an excuse for martial law. shame, as always, on the liberals.
I’m all for the DPRK swinging like this, but they only swing like this because they are extremely isolated and this won’t change that. If they were permitted to have more normal international relations, their tone would quickly shift
How does anything you said not also apply to Yemen?
I’m not talking about Yemen. I don’t really know how it does or does not apply. From my very cursory knowledge, Yemen has been pushed out of the stalemate the DPRK has been stuck in because it has actually be the subject of several often genocidal military campaigns that have happened recently and are likely to continue. Being outside of that stalemate seems significant to me, but I can’t tell you that I know anything.
The correct stance
Even a broken clock is right twice a day
Agreed, even someone from midwest.social can be correct sometimes, im glad to hear your support for Kim Jong Un
Did you miss the part where I called Kim Jong Un a broken clock?
We all saw. Did you see the bit where he flipped your intended meaning?
He’s a broken clock in which both hands are pointed at based.
stay winningThe smugness in the comments
Wasn’t this always the case? The policy of unconditional support to Palestine was started by Kim Ill Sung. Anyway, people who support Palestine but not the DPRK are fraudsters who need TVs and social media to know when to support something (and I just described liberalism smh)
Anyway this seems fake in that this has always been the position of the DPRK and I can’t seem to have an official source for this other than tabloids.
I sort of doubt it’s a death penalty but yes the DPRK has always been against Israel
I sort of doubt it’s a death penalty
If it’s not, it really should be lmao.
In the DPRK Zionists have to be such a nonsensical small group to believe that shit propaganda from such an outside perspective. I can’t really imagine how someone growing up there would come to that position except by just hating everything about the DPRK with no principles at all
Death penalty just for
and her ilkOh yeah I forgot about defectors like her… I guess I should say that I can’t imagine someone living their whole lives there becoming Zionists lol
The DPRK sent fighter jets to fight against Israel
Anyway this seems fake in that this has always been the position of the DPRK and I can’t seem to have an official source for this other than tabloids.
Keep in mind that the news thinks they’re revealing a bad thing; if they believed this showed the DPRK in a good light they wouldn’t have mentioned it.
Not sure if propaganda by people who think this is bad or if it’s just real
At least they’re giving him some credit instead of reflexively denying reality and concocting some bullshit reason why this is bad, actually.
This should be the hexbearian headline the shock is nothing new
Kim Jong-un on the Tucker Carlson show any day now
Funny thing is libs will rage on him doing that like they did him interviewing russians but were quiet as church mice when their entire congress save 1 or 2 did standing novation for an ICC/ICJ criminal
Russia and DPRK are allies, this is far from a meme, heck it wouldn’t even be surprising to me at this point.
thank you supreme leader 🙏🙏🙏 a man with courage and conviction in a world full of lapdogs
The ignorance causes me actual pain.
