The Soviet Union collapsed because it allowed Madonna, Pepsi and other manifestations of “imperialist bourgeois ideology and culture” to manipulate its people and politicians. North Korea will not fall for the same trick, says the British head of the world’s largest support group for the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK).
Western and South Korean academics and media have recently ramped up speculation that North Korea is about to collapse in a similar way to how the Soviet Union did two and a half decade ago.
French scholar Pierre Rigoulot, the head of the Institut d’Histoire Sociale, said last month that the North’s troubled human rights situation and diplomatic skirmishes will eventually lead to a breakdown of the regime, even if it has nuclear weapons.
“Once ordinary North Koreans better understand the outside world, they will be able to make comparisons between their country and others,” he told Yonhap News Agency in Paris. “The North will collapse from within just as the Soviet Union did.”
Bloomberg columnist Eli Lake followed up by saying that the US should not focus on offering North Korea further aid and food assistance, and instead quietly push China and South Korea to begin planning with the US for the day the North Korean regime falls.
“Let’s be honest. The world would be a better place if a revolutionary tribunal in the near future sent North Korea’s Kim Jong-un and his henchmen to the gallows,” he wrote.
Not all agree.
DR Dermot Hudson, Chairman of the UK Korean Friendship Association, says that speculation with regard to the collapse of the DPRK is merely wishful thinking by American imperialists and South Korean puppets.
[American] ideology and culture are a dangerous poison that numbs the people’s minds and undermines the foundations of socialism
“Some imperialist pundits have revived the discredited and threadbare idea of the DPRK’s so-called collapse,” he said in an emailed statement. “These theories are of course far removed from reality”.
The organization claims to have some 15,000 members worldwide and official delegates in 38 countries, with new supporters joining every day.
It was founded as a reaction to reports of war crimes committed by U.S. armed forces in Korea and Vietnam, and says the Americans are to blame for the current turmoil in the region.
They say the DPRK is a genuine workers’ state in which all the people are completely liberated from exploitation and oppression.
I have previously interviewed several members of the organization, with some of them calling Western media “scum” and pointing the finger at “American war propaganda.” The negative image of North Korea portrayed in Western media is based on lies, exaggerations and misunderstandings, they argue.
So why would the DPRK not follow the example of the USSR?
First, the Soviet Union did not fall because of its socialistic system, Hudson argues, but rather because it was “betrayed” by former leader Mikhail Gorbachev who was working on behalf of the US. The DPRK will not fall for the same fate, he said, as it has “smashed the internal traitors who wanted to sell the interests of the country to the imperialists.”
Furthermore, juche socialism — a form of political religion based on Kim Il-sung’s ideologies — is completely different to the former Soviet socialism, he said. The Soviet Union abandoned its revolutionary principles and basically gave up the class struggle against the enemies of socialism. Instead, he said, it joined hands with the West, tricked by pleas for peaceful coexistence.
This led to the fact that PepsiCo was allowed to have factories in the USSR, and that people were listening to “the most rubbishy aspects of bourgeois imperialist pop culture such as Madonna.” The DPRK, on the other hand, maintained its revolutionary principles.
“[American] ideology and culture are dangerous poisons that numb the people’s minds and undermine the foundations of socialism,” he said.
“The DPRK however puts up the mosquito net and combats the infiltration of imperialist bourgeois ideology and culture.”
This mosquito net seems to have large holes, however.
Influence both from the West and Asian neighboring countries is increasing in North Korea, according to several experts I’ve spoken with.
Market reforms, although small, are under way, allowing, for example, farmers and factory managers to sell larger parts of their output on the open market. South Korean and Western culture is also being smuggled over the border in massive quantities. A popular South Korean soap opera can be available in the North just a week after being broadcast in South.
A teenage girl I spoke with in Seoul said ‘culture smuggling’ to the North could bring people on the Korean Peninsula closer to each other.
“If they listen to ‘Gangnam Style’, they will understand us much better,” she said. “That would be very positive”.
I’m not sure Dermot Hudson and his fellow pro-Northers would agree.
They (our so called freedom and democracy gvt) lie. There are many human rights abuses in the EU and the US. There are statistically more individuals suffering. The rights are paper rights poor people have poor rights or none and are discriminated and excluded. We are brainwashed by insane music in shopping malls and advertising for things we dont need besides already spending all available money. When you want a good job you need good papers these cost 100k and more + need to be able to socialize public education system doesnt give the right papers and tools for jobs. They (like the Asian times editor) lie with propaganda- promizing rights on paper to DPRK people supposed to be everyone would be getting these paper rights. Nope. Only for rich people.DPRK gives everything to the people everything is for the people by design. We only want to make as much profit as fast as possible + for that will lie and do bad things. I have experienced gvt workers over years, nothing short of all the evils Communism was ever accused of- inefficient, not motivated to do a thing, not problem solving, no pressure to be successful. Communism is not just what was the Soviet union. Communism is only a postulate by Karl Marx- eventually humanity would progress from the capitalist stage towards a communist society. DPRK Juche probably is the most advanced development towards a Communist society. And no the soviet Union was not brought down by Madonna. Engineer Diatlov was the guy…Functioneers and bureaucrats rushed for a bonus and didnt care much at all. Bureaucracy was the problem, the paper plan important but reality not much looked at. In Russia there was a law nobody allowed to be homeless in fact the last remaining flat could not be taken from a person. Now in capitalist countries you have creepy homeless and beggars and junkies and the issues stretch over years and seem to become worse. Every country opening up to capitalist demands will see homeless and junkies and beggars appearing on the streets. They are wanted and needed as a means of pressure to make people obey. In fact if you have a job you have no freedom and democracy you have to obey or else what, you could end up on the street, your child in statecare, your house repossessed. You have a freedom to sample different flavours of Cola and buy the latest songs on itunes. A freedom to spend money if you have it. The idea of communism as such is very interesting if understood properly. A postulate into what humanity could progress some day. Compare Juche to the world seen in the movie In old Chicago. Something you could call early 20th century capitalism. The days of gold rush exploit of fossil resources gains made by a small minority and survival of the fittest. It is not just a plot by these who are in charge to suggest illusions of freedom and democracy. There have always been such ideas and wishes for freedom and democracy. First you learn to understand words like freedom and democracy properly. What is freedom? Free of what? What is democracy? Why is the DPRK called DPRK and why Democractic? If you really wanted to, you could research that and find a genuine understanding matching the actual reality out there. If you read the news they are very distorted but if you read many kinds you see differences and in fact yes we have many flavours of cola and many knock off brands some even better than the original. Not all are plotting and are abberated- some just dont know properly. Many people have no idea what communism originally means. They dont understand for instance the soviet union system was just called communist. An attempt to make humanity progress into communism. There was WW2 for one thing. And in the 1980s it failed because intense bureaucracy. If you ask me Diatlov did what he did well on purpose and towards him, for valid reasons. Many functioneers in charge were just paralyzed and shocked by this event and a) did not resist a change, b) were in doubt about the system in place. They did let the invasion of western brands and standards happen.
The DPRK is not having such a situation and there are widespread and significant reforms in place since Kim Jong Un took over from his father.
Great point, the South Korean government is the one on it’s last legs and the DPRK is the truly stable one that has withstood the test of time. The one sided western media machine is always lying.
A link to my original article
http://juche007-anglo-peopleskoreafriendship.blogspot.co.uk/2016/09/why-dprk-can-never-collapse.html
I am grateful to the Asia Times for publishing my comments although I did not actually say that Madonna caused the ‘collapse’ (of course the USSR never really collapsed it was the frustration of socialism) of the former Soviet Union. I just pointed out that the ideological and cultural infiltration of of the West corroded socialism in the USSR .
These days it is south Korea that is facing collapse owing to the Choigate scandal which is shaking the south Korean puppet regime to its foundations. Will the Americans resort to telling the south Korean military to stage a coup I wonder ? The best thing is for the pro-reunification and progressive forces in south Korea to overthrow the Park regime .
Not asking for help, you can keep drinking the cool aid however pal.
If you don’t know can’t help ya! Watch the original planet of the apes movies.
Why is North Korea so "dangerous"? It has no drug problems, the governmental system seems stable, crime and true poverty waaaay down. The DPRK is a problem because it doesn’t allow the west to "privatize" aka STEAL it’s riches, the fact that only North Koreans are the ones who get to get to do real business there really steams the white devils!