[Fasces]

I haven't seen this posted anywhere else on the forum, but I'd be interested in perspectives from people on this forum on the recent change in North Korea government.

SEOUL--North Korea has rewritten its official ideology guidelines to validate Kim Jong Un’s inheritance of power and emphasize allegiance to the supreme leader, sources said.

The revisions to the “Ten Principles for the Establishment of the One-Ideology System of the Party” were the first in 39 years. Even the title was changed to “Ten Principles for the Establishment of the Unique Leadership System of the Party,” according to the sources.

The word “party” refers to the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea.

“The latest revision reflects the circumstances of the Kim Jong Un age,” one source well-versed in North Korean affairs said. “Members of the public will henceforth be bound by the new principles.”

The document warns North Koreans against “blind obedience” to individual senior officials and calls on them to follow the supreme leader under all circumstances.

It also validates the generational succession of power that originated with North Korea’s founder, Kim Il Sung, and was passed to Kim Jong Il. Kim Jong Un took over in December 2011 after the death of his father.

“We should keep our party and revolution alive forever under the blood line of Paektu,” [Kim Family] the document said, citing the name of a mountain that is given a sacred status associated with the foundation of the country.

The preface to the new “Ten Principles” also referred to the country’s recent nuclear development.

“We have come to possess resounding might as a strong socialist nation with a military power centered on nuclear arms and a solid and independent economy,” part of the preface said.

http://ajw.asahi.com/article/asia/korea ... 1308140072

So - can this actually be reconciled with communist ideology?

[mikema63]

I don't believe so but the DPRK is decisive on the far left.

[fuser]

mike,you mean divisive, right?

Also, this article seems fabricated. No other sources mentions any such revision in their reports.

http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/world/02/17/09/nkorean-media-stresses-bloodline-inheritance

This mentions that your bolded part was used in various Korean journals and were not officially added in the ten principles.

Also see this :

http://www.dailynk.com/english/read.php?num=10828&cataId=nk01500

Your source just seems to be a rabid anti NK propaganda journal.

[Fasces]

I just picked the first source I saw when I went to make this post. I was told about it back in August, and I saw several other sites also have them. Sorry if the particular source picked is a little controversial. I know the WSJ has a similar article on it. I can't read Korean, so I have to take all these at their word, as I cannot actually read the updated List of 10 Principles.

I just chose a source used on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Workers'_P ... ogy_System

Are they even available online?

[Technology]

Isn't there a problem in that "Communist State" really means "a state that is working towards communism through the socialist mode of production", rather than the literal reading of a state coexisting with pure communism which would be oxymoronic? So communism itself can't have a monarchy, but a "Communist State" could as it becomes more vague as to what genuinely working towards communism is and what floundering in the socialist mode or lying is?

[The Immortal Goon]

I have long held that North Korea is not communist, not socialist, and built upon beating Marxists back.

Really, I might say that its reputation as some kind of leftist state is really based upon old cold war propaganda than it is any actual truth.

A monarchy question has no bearing on my opinion of North Korea.

[mikema63]

mike,you mean divisive, right?

Right, damned phone.

[fuser]

Fasces, other than two very shoddy sources, I couldn't find anything in English. If any such important addition would had been made I am sure "Daily NK" would had covered it. So, I remain skeptical on this whole news item itself.

[Fasces]

DailyNK mentions that the principles were changed but that no pamphlets have yet been leaked.

http://www.dailynk.com/english/read.php ... Id=nk01500

[fuser]

I have read and linked that article in my very first post on this thread and they haven't mentioned any such changes.

Also, if you look at the dates the article in DailyNK is published on 9th of August while the wiki link you posted claims that such a change was made on 14th August. There is simply not enough information to confirm this claim.

[Conscript]

This is what happens when communism is 'national' and 'patriotic', and in some cases merely 'anti-imperialist' It's not communism. North korea has been progressively losing any marxist character since the sino-soviet split and especially since soviet collapse.

[SolarCross]

I also don't think the DPRK really qualifies as communist in the sense of international socialism; they have that other kind of socialism which is national socialism and are therefore fascists. Of course it can be hard to see the difference as they are subtle and lie almost exclusively in terms of rhetoric rather than practice. International socialists seek power through exploiting people's envy and grievances, real or imagined, that they have towards those who, by fair means or foul, have more money. National socialists seek power through exploiting people's fear and loathing of those that look funny or talk some kind of foreign gibber jabber. Whatever the rhetorical window dressing the product is much same once you take the packaging off, total monopoly over everything that matters by crazy people in uniforms and many shiny boots on many, many tender necks.

[Conscript]

I feel like this dichotomy of international/national socialism only exists in the liberal's head.

Am I wrong?

[mikema63]

Yes, one is fascism that exists to give business control in government, the other is communist and seeks to put the workers in power.

[SolarCross]

Yes, one is fascism that exists to give business control in government, the other is communist and seeks to put the workers in power.

You need to be a bit more cynical if you don't want to be somebody's pet dupe or useful idiot. Fascism doesn't exist to put business in control it exists to put fascists in control but those that adopt the rhetoric of fascism are less hampered by their particular brand of rhetoric from accepting bribes for favours from those that have the means to bribe providing they are of the right ethnicity. "Business" for their part to the extent that they have much to lose are pathetically desperate to win the favour of thugs who can and will end all their comfort and privilege with a single night raid. Communists don't want the workers in control they want themselves in control and workers to do as they are told. Politics is all lies and everything is "through the looking glass" world where words don't mean what they mean but instead some lopsided opposite. Bureaucrats the world over from every ideological pattern of camouflage call themselves public "servants" yet is they that order the public around like dogs and wield the masters whip to make it so. Politics of every colour is all lies.

[Conscript]

Yes, one is fascism that exists to give business control in government, the other is communist and seeks to put the workers in power.

Is bismarck a socialist too? What about mercantilism and kings, is that socialism?

[mikema63]

Corporatism is central to fascist ideology.

[Technology]

Corporatism is central to fascist ideology.

The thing is: fascists don't say that corporatism is there to privilege business over workers. Fascists contend that corporatism unites different interests in corporate groups (including labor) and creates a strong, united nation through the Fascist form of parliament.

Why is this important? Because you say fascism exists to give business control in government (the least generous interpretation possible, and not exactly what fascists even claim but we'll get to that), and that communism exists to put the workers in power (the most generous interpretation possible, and this is indeed what communists claim).

The problem here is that you look to fascism and see that what fascists claim is either a lie, or an inevitable distorted wreck in practice: no unions outside the fascist system, and the militaristic "bourgeois" hierarchy creating an entrenched "bossism" that crushes worker revolt, but then you look to communism and see only the imagined utopia, closing your eyes to actually existing expressions of the philosophy which contained similar crushing of worker's rights, the right to strike, and exist as something independent of the government as anything which did was inherently counter-revolutionary (for whose revolution we might ask...)

When other things are compared to communism, communism gets the ideal, intended outcome in its defense, whereas opposing ideologies get their actually existing expression complete with brutality against workers and raw failure of justice. This is very similar to libertarian claims about the free market funnily enough.

[Leninist]

Do not claim to be perfect, for in that direction lies complacency. But always seek perfection, for in that direction lies progress.