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Liberals being shocked
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this post was submitted on 02 Aug 2025
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chapotraphouse
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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.
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.
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.
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.
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:
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.
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.
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.
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.
Sorry for the late response but here's what I have to say:
I disagree with this, if a capitalist takeover did happen, that means that the ruling class of society are the bourgeoisie, who seek to maintain their power and class position. The thing that makes me doubt this is why there was no neoliberal transformation and integration with the world capitalist system after Deng's reforms in China and the collapse of the USSR in the DPRK. Instead, this national bourgeois maintained Juche even at the nation's breaking point in the Arduous March. If the bourgeois aim to maintain their own class position, then "peaceful" reunification of the south would be their primary objective.
I still do agree with the analysis that a national capitalist class does indeed exist and that class relations in Korea are far from being eliminated, but I still believe that the WPK is still in first control of the state above the desires of the national bourgeois classes. I see this as similar to Socialism with Chinese Characteristics where the capitalist class still has to answer to a workers party (SWCC is probably the poster child for marxist revisionism though)
My own view of the Mount Paektu bloodline is that it serves a important purpose in societal cohesion (and production of a unique North Korean culture) and preventing a full capitalist takeover of the state. Of course, with so little data and communication publicly available this may not be the case. Of course, leftists like us who want to genuinely study the DPRK are prevented from doing so by imperialists who constantly provoke the DPRK and create a permanent terror.
Also "parasocial" seems too pejorative. There are plenty of examples of spaces in North Korean culture that aren't dominated by mount paektu imagery (Mansudae's socialist realism, traditional Korean art before the revolution, opening up burger places and malls). In a nation that is for decades been terrorized by imperialists and their compradors and been ritually denied development unless they give up the workers revolution, I see the Mount Paektu bloodline (the rhetoric and political imagery, especially the (in)-famous portraits of Kim Ill Sung and Kim Jong Ill side by side) as a strategy for national unity and workers propaganda.
Yeah it is called a rubber stamp parliament for a good reason, but I'd like to assume that democratic discussion wasn't left out entirely and this is a case of democratic centralism at play. Again, it's very hard for me to imagine the DPRK surviving for this long under siege if they weren't organized from top to bottom.
And only less than a year later (January 2024 to December 2024) that the ROK leadership attempted a self-coup and very well looked like the preparations for restarting the Korean war (South Korea still has mandatory military conscription designed just to invade the North that no Korean liberal has been able to cross even after the fall of the military dictatorship era). The dialogue for reunification is futile as South Korea becomes more reactionary and falls into deeper capitalist crisis. It also becomes more futile as the trauma of the 38th parallel splitting apart families fades away with time. It may also be the case that North Korean enthusiasm for reunification has become less popular among the people as no lasting normalization or relief has ever been produced out of it.
Also, reunification isn't left off the table but that peaceful reunification without revolution is impossible ("completely occupying, subjugating and reclaiming")
Respected Comrade Kim Jong Un Makes Policy Speech at 10th Session of 14th SPA
Also, later in the speech:
While this paragraph is present:
It would be inaccurate to assume that this means a rejection of reunifying the peninsula and a shared dream of a unified Korean nation, if anything, this reads as a defense of a workers revolution in spite of the shared national identity and lineage between the peoples of the ROK and DPRK and a rejection of the idealist position of reunifying a workers revolution/national liberation state with a capitalist liberal dictatorship under the direct thumb of the global hegemonic power. Any South Korean leftist who allied themselves with the North previously (as pretty much has to be done since any leftist worker's sentiment is considered a North Korean thought crime by the ROK NIS) isn't going to reject the North after this.
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.
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.