Mick Hartley

Politics and Culture

recent posts

email me

Kimilsungism-Kimjongilism

The 9th Congress of the Kim Il Sung Socialist Youth League has just taken place in Pyongyang. The last Congress was held 23 years ago, in 1993. Young North Koreans are required to join the league from the age of 14 until the age of 30, so a full house was guaranteed.

Youth congress

Except, as the official Rodong Sinmun breathlessly reports, it's not called the Kim Il Sung Socialist Youth League any more:

The 9th Congress of the Kim Il Sung Socialist Youth League solemnly declared that the Kim Il Sung Socialist Youth League was renamed the Kimilsungist-Kimjongilist Youth League, according to the decision at the congress adopted on Sunday.

The decision said:

Today when the greatest heyday is unfolding in the development of the Juche-oriented youth movement it is the unanimous aspiration and ardent desire of all youths and youth league officials throughout the country to rename the youth league after the great Comrades Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il, the august names of the sun, and accomplish the cause of the Juche revolution down through generations under the guidance of the respected Comrade Kim Jong Un, holding high the banner of Kimilsungism-Kimjongilism.

Kim Jong Un, with profound insight into the realistic requirement of the Korean revolution and the Juche-oriented youth movement and the unanimous desire and will of the five million members of the young vanguard, made sure that the youth league was renamed Kimilsungist-Kimjongilist Youth League at its 9th congress, the highest honor and deepest trust shown for the youth.

This reflects the noble intention of Kim Jong Un to see the youth league and the youth creditably fulfilling their mission and duty as reliable reserves, advancing group and wing of the Party in the struggle for hastening the final victory of the cause of the Juche revolution under the unfurled banner of great Kimilsungism-Kimjongilism.

The event was covered at exhaustive length by state-controlled media. From Korean Central Television on YouTube you can see:

47-minute worth of highlights, including Kim Jong-un's speech - with the full text helpfully transcribed.

Or, A torchlight gala of members of the youth vanguard "Let the Youth Power March forward Following the Party!"

I wouldn't recommend either, frankly. 

What's interesting, as this piece in the Daily NK notes, is that the word "socialism" has now been removed. The pretence that the road mapped out by Marx and Lenin was any kind of guide to the ruling ideology of the Kim dynasty has now, finally, been dropped. It's a straight-up totalitarian personality cult – "Kimilsungism-Kimjongilism". 

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un attended the Congress personally.“The youth league should safeguard and add brilliance to the great leaders’ idea of and leadership exploits in the youth movement, and establish the Party’s unified leadership system within itself thoroughly, holding aloft the banner of modeling itself on Kimilsungism-Kimjongilism. It should ensure that all its officials and other young people devote loyalty of the highest degree to upholding Comrades and Kim Il Sung as eternal leaders,”  Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) quoted him as saying.

The word “communism” was removed from the North Korean constitution in 2009 revisions and from to the Workers’ Party regulations in 2010 revisions. When family reunions were held in 2009 during the fall holiday of Chuseok, South Korean reporters were given access to the North’s Kumgang Mountain resort. Once there, reporters inquired about the deletion of the word “communism” from the North Korean constitution.  
 
“Chairman Kim Jong Il said, ‘Communism is not being grasped. I’ll need to properly try socialism,’” the North Korean representative in dialogue with the reporter responded.  The journalist then asked what was meant by “communism is not being grasped.” 
 
The North Korean explained the statement by saying, “Communism describes a society wherein there is no demarcation between the exploited class and the exploiting class. As long as America is still around, it will be very difficult for that to come to fruition.” In other words, the prospect of achieving a classless society – the ideal communist society – was viewed as unrealistic. The solution was to turn to socialism instead. 
 
However, between then and now, North Korea has also deleted “socialism” from its lexicon. What’s more, the phrase chosen to replace the deleted word is “Kimilsungungism- Kimjongilism.” Kim Jong Il removed ‘communism’ and Kim Jong Un removed ‘socialism.’ In their place, the regime has highlighted the cult of leadership through the formalization of “Kimilsungist-Kimjongilist ideology.” 
 
We can now, perhaps, start to abandon the tradition of referring to North Korea as a communist, or a Stalinist, country. As B.R.Myers observed  in his 2010 book The Cleanest Race, the regime is guided not so much by Marx and Lenin, but by a paranoid, race-based nationalism with roots in Japanese fascist thought. What they've taken from the communist tradition, apart from some of the jargon, is the brutality, and the use of mass spectacle to glorify the leadership. And, of course, a hatred of the west in general and the US in particular.
Posted in

One response to “Kimilsungism-Kimjongilism”

  1. Bob-B Avatar
    Bob-B

    I wonder if Corbyn’s mate Andrew Murray will be withdrawing his support. Probably not given that he is happy to support the very non-socialist Vladimir Putin.

    Like

    Reply

Leave a comment