Juche
Juche, officially the Juche idea, is a name of the official ideology of North Korea and its ruling Workers Party of Korea. It is also described as the philosophical principle of Kimilsungism-Kimjongilism.
North Korean sources attribute its conceptualization to Kim Il Sung, the country's founder and first leader. Juche was originally regarded as a variant of Marxism–Leninism until Kim Jong Il, Kim Il Sung's son and successor, declared it a distinct ideology in the 1970s. Kim Jong Il further developed Juche in the 1980s and 1990s by making ideological breaks from Marxism–Leninism and increasing the importance of his father's ideas.
Juche incorporates the historical materialist ideas of Marxism–Leninism but also strongly emphasizes human agency, role of consciousness, and primacy of ideology and propaganda. In politics, Juche emphasizes the nation state, national sovereignty, and strongly defends the role of an individual leader.
Juche posits that a country will prosper once it has become independent by achieving political, economic, and military self-reliance. As Kim Jong Il emerged as Kim Il Sung's likely successor in the 1970s, loyalty to the leader was increasingly emphasized as an essential part of Juche, as expressed in the Ten Principles for the Establishment of a Monolithic Ideological System.
Juche has been variously described by critics as a quasi-religion, a nationalist or fascistic ideology, and a deviation from Marxism–Leninism.
Etymology
Juche comes from the Sino-Japanese word , whose Japanese reading is. The word was coined in 1887 to translate the concept of Subjekt in German philosophy into Japanese. The word migrated to the Korean language at around the turn of the century and retained this meaning. went on to appear in Japanese translations of Karl Marx's writings. North Korean editions of Marx used the word Juche even before the word was attributed to Kim Il Sung in its supposedly novel meaning in 1955.In contemporary political discourse on North Korea, Juche has a connotation of,, and. It is often defined in opposition to the Korean concept of, or reliance on the great powers. South Koreans use the word without reference to the North Korean ideology.
The ideology is officially known as in Korean and the Juche idea in English. Juche sasang literally means and has also been translated less commonly as Juche thought or Jucheism. Adherents of Juche are sometimes referred to as "Jucheists".
History
Official statements by the North Korean government attribute the origin of Juche to Kim Il Sung's experiences in the Down-with-Imperialism Union during Korea's liberation struggle against Japan. However, the first documented reference to Juche as an ideology dates to 1955, when Kim Il Sung delivered a speech titled "On Eliminating Dogmatism and Formalism and Establishing Juche in Ideological Work." The speech promoted a political purge similar to the Yan'an Rectification Movement in China. It became known as the "Juche speech" and is considered one of Kim Il Sung's most important works.Western scholars generally agree that Hwang Jang-yop, Kim Il Sung's top adviser on philosophy, was responsible for the conceptualization and early development of Juche. Hwang rediscovered the Juche speech sometime in the late 1950s, when Kim Il Sung, having established a cult of personality, sought to develop his own version of Marxism–Leninism and solidify his position in the Workers' Party of Korea. Hwang expanded upon the meaning of Juche and rewrote Korean communist history to make it appear as though Kim Il Sung had been the WPK's leader since its inception. Andrei Lankov, a Russian scholar of Korean studies, argues that the first reference to Juche as an ideology was on 14 April 1965, when Kim Il Sung gave a speech in Indonesia titled "On Socialist Construction in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and the South Korean Revolution". Lankov posits that the 1955 speech "used the word in a different meaning" and that Juche was adopted as the "basic ideological principle of North Korean politics" only after the 1965 speech.
On the Juche Idea, the principal work on Juche, was published under Kim Jong Il's name in 1982. In North Korea it serves as "the authoritative and comprehensive explanation of Juche." According to the treatise, the WPK is responsible for educating the masses in the ways of Juche thinking. Juche is inexorably linked with Kim Il Sung and "represents the guiding idea of the Korean revolution". Although Juche is rooted in Marxism–Leninism, it is not merely a creative application of the ideas of Marx and Lenin to Korean conditions. Rather, it is a "new phase of revolutionary theory" and represents "a new era in the development of human history". Kim Jong Il also criticized the Korean communists and nationalists of the 1920s for their "elitist posture", saying they were "divorced from the masses".
The North Korean government issued a decree on 8 July 1997, the third anniversary of the death of Kim Il Sung, declaring the adoption of the Juche calendar. The Central People's Committee promulgated regulations regarding its use in August, and the calendar entered public usage on 9 September, the Day of the Foundation of the Republic. Gregorian calendar dates are used for years before 1912 while years after 1912 are called "Juche years". The Gregorian year, for example, is "Juche " as − 1911 =. When used, "Juche years" are often accompanied by the Gregorian equivalent, i.e. "Juche, " or "Juche ".
Core principles
The goal of Juche is to establish a self-reliant state that independently determines its political, economic, and military affairs. Kim Il Sung summarized the application of this objective to North Korea in a 1967 speech to the Supreme People's Assembly titled "Let Us Embody the Revolutionary Spirit of Independence, Self-sustenance and Self-defence More Thoroughly in All Fields of State Activity":Political independence is a core principle of Juche. Juche stresses equality and mutual respect among nations, and argues that every state has the right to self-determination. Yielding to foreign pressure or intervention would violate the principle of political independence and threaten a country's ability to defend its sovereignty. This is in contrast to sadaejuui, which advocates reliance on a great power. However, Juche does not advocate total isolation and encourages cooperation between socialist states. As Kim Jong Il writes in On the Juche Idea: "Independence is not in conflict with internationalism but is the basis of its strengthening". Kim Il Sung acknowledged that it was important for North Korea to learn from other socialist states, in particular the Soviet Union and China, but did not want to follow their examples dogmatically. He said the WPK must "resolutely repudiate the tendency to swallow things of others undigested or imitate them mechanically", attributing North Korea's early success to the WPK's independence in policymaking.
Economic self-sufficiency is required to achieve political independence, according to adherents of Juche. Kim Il Sung believed that excessive foreign aid threatened a country's ability to develop socialism, which only a state with a strong, independent economy could build. In On the Juche Idea, Kim Jong Il argues that a state can achieve economic self-sufficiency only when it has created an "independent national economy" based on heavy industry, as this sector will drive the rest of the economy. He also emphasizes the importance of technological independence and self-sufficiency in resources., but says that this does not rule out "economic cooperation" between socialist states.
Military self-reliance is also crucial for a state to maintain its political independence. To accomplish military self-reliance, states must develop a domestic defence industry to avoid dependence on foreign arms suppliers. Kim Jong Il argued that it was acceptable for socialist states to receive military aid from their allies but that such aid would be effective only if the state was militarily strong in its own right.
''Juche'' in practice
Diplomacy
North Korea maintained close relations with the Soviet Union and China during the Cold War, having emerged from Soviet occupation and a war it fought alongside Chinese communists. However, North Korea also opposed what it viewed as Soviet and Chinese attempts to interfere in its postwar affairs. For example, a failed challenge to Kim Il Sung's leadership in 1956 led to a purge of pro-Soviet and pro-Chinese elements from the WPK. North Korea rejected the de-Stalinization efforts of Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev but avoided taking sides during the Sino-Soviet split.North Korea was admitted to the Non-Aligned Movement in 1975 and has since presented itself as a leader of the Third World, promoting Juche as a model for developing countries to follow.
National survival has been seen as a guiding principle of North Korea's diplomatic strategy. As countries in the Eastern Bloc collapsed and introduced market reforms, North Korea increasingly emphasized Juche in both theory and practice. Even amid economic and political crises, North Korea continues to emphasize its independence on the world stage.
Economics
After the devastation of the Korean War, North Korea began to rebuild its economy with a base in heavy industry, with the aim to become as self-sufficient as possible. As a result, it developed what has been called the "most autarkic industrial economy in the world". North Korea received economic aid and technical assistance from the Soviet Union and China, but it did not join Comecon, the communist common market. In the 1990s, it had one of the world's lowest rates for dependence on petroleum, using hydroelectric power and coal instead of imported oil. Its textile industry uses vinylon, known as the "Juche fiber", which was invented by a Korean and is made from locally available coal and limestone. The history of vinylon often features in propaganda that preaches the virtues of technological self-reliance. North Korea had 10,000 CNC machines in 2010. The first domestic homemade CNC machine was introduced in 1995, and in 2017 it had around 15,000 machines.Commentators have often pointed out the discrepancy between the principle of self-sufficiency and North Korea's dependence on foreign aid, especially during its economic crisis in the 1990s. The pursuit of economic autarky has been blamed for contributing to the crisis. On this view, attempts at self-sufficiency led to inefficiency and to the neglect of export opportunities in industries where there was a comparative advantage.