Firstly, it is great to be here in the north midlands city of Stoke-On-Trent, a solidly proletarian city.I thank the Staffordshire KFA UK branch for inviting me and hosting this excellent meeting on “Why Socialists Should Support People’s Korea “. I think that this is most appropriate because Defending People’s Korea should be The 1 priority for socialists,anti-imperialists and the whole Left.
People’s Korea, which is referred to as ‘North Korea ‘ in the mainstream media is the target of a continuous, intense and industrial-scale campaign of vilification and demonisation by the establishment and their over-paid hired hacks in the mainstream media. Indeed referring to People’s Korea as ‘North Korea ‘ is a way of belittling the DPRK and its achievements. Historically, before 1945, there never was a ‘north Korea ‘ or a ;south Korea’. I always use the term People’s Korea or Socialist Korea. Using terms like ‘north Korea ‘ and ‘south Korea’ do not reflect the fact that Korea was artificially divided by outside forces, principally the US -in fact, a US colonel, Dean Rusk ( later to become a leading US politician ) drawing a line with a ruler across the map of Korea -and that different social systems exist in the north and south of Korea -the socialist system in the north and the neo-colonial comprador capitalist system in the south which is occupied by US troops and is a puppet regime and a colony of the US.
The term People’s Korea is a good one reflecting the fact that it is a people-oriented state and of course, the term Socialist Korea reflects the fact that it is a socialist country, a country with a socialist system. This is why socialists should support People’s Korea with No Ifs or Buts
Major Ernesto Che Guevara the famous Cuban -Argentine revolutionary visited People’s Korea in 1960 and said it was the socialist country he liked the most. He wrote “ Of the socialist countries that we visit personally, Korea is one of the most extraordinary. Perhaps it is the one that impressed us most of all of them.”
Nearer to home a delegation of British Labour MPs headed by William Wilson (the Labour MP for Coventry South East ) visited the DPRK in October 1979. Wilson wrote that “ In Pyongyang itself, the streets were wide and tree-lined. The total destruction of Pyongyang had given the opportunity to build a new city. A few weeks prior to being in north Korea I had been in Japan. I had seen Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Those cities suffered total destruction. If anyone wonders what are the differences between socialist and capitalist reconstruction, a visit to Pyongyang, Hiroshima and Nagasaki provides the answer. Pyongyang made me glad that I am a socialist “
So what did Major Ernesto Che Guevara and William Wilson find so admirable in People’s Korea, what them moved to write such positive words about People’s Korea?
In People’s Korea, there is free housing, free education and free health care. There is low-cost public transport it is only the equivalent of 3p in British money to use the Pyongyang Metro and is free for the disabled and honoured war veterans.
Citizens in the DPRK receive free of charge or at very low cost the following; 500 grams of tofu, 300 grams of rice, 2 eggs, 250 grams of vegetables, 250 grams of fruit, bread and other baked goods, and 2 litres of beer on a daily basis.
People’s Korea abolished taxation in March 1974.Many people in countries such as the UK wrongly associate taxation with socialism. How many times have you heard “You lefties just want to put taxes up “ or ‘We can’t vote Labour because they will put up taxes “. In the imperialist West in the past, the very limited programmes of social reform were not funded through a radical redistribution of wealth but through taxation; in other words, the working people had to pay for the services that they were meant to benefit from. When you think that you have to pay for prescriptions and pay tax and national insurance you are basically paying twice
Because People’s Korea has a unique socialist system it is able to fund a high level of social and public services without taxing its people. The revenues of state-owned industries are used to fund social and public services.
The DPRK is based on 100 per cent socialist ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange. It completed the socialist transformation of production relations. There are no private companies in People’s Korea.
People’s Korea is probably the most egalitarian society in the world, certainly the most egalitarian society that I have ever visited.
When we visited the Ryuwon Footwear Factory in 2019 were told that the wage differential was 2 to 1, now compared to 10 to 1 in Cuba and 30 to 1 in the USSR pre-perestroika not to mention the capitalist countries which have massive disparities in wealth and income. Wage differentials in the DPRK simply reflect different levels of skill and experience and there are opportunities for workers to gain new skills and qualifications through distance learning. Visiting the Kim Jong Suk Textile Mill we saw a Sci-Tech learning space where workers could study university courses.
When I visited the DPRK in 2008, my guides Han and Choe told me that there is no ‘big house ‘ in the DPRK countryside. Indeed there are no big private country estates like in the UK
When I visited People’s Korea I have seen the Red Flag flying on street corners and agitprop teams of housewives waving and twirling red flags. People’s Korea is one of the few countries in the world to uphold the Red flag of socialism.
So to conclude, socialists should defend People’s Korea with No Ifs or Buts!
Thank you for listening.
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