The centrepiece and basis for the DPRK’s economic strategy for the next 5 years is self-reliance and self development . The mainstream media are slandering the DPRK’s self-reliance and moaning about the DPRK ‘cutting itself ‘ off from the world and being a ‘closed and isolationist country ‘ etc . They are claiming that self-reliance does not work . Meanwhile the new regime in the US is chattering about ‘cutting off all avenues ‘ for the DPRK .
In fact self-reliance , an application of the Juche idea , has produced real miracles in the DPRK ( a little known fact is that the famous Cambridge economist Professor Joan V Robinson referred to the DPRK as the ‘Korean Economic Miracle ‘ in 1964) . The DPRK thanks to self-reliance experienced phenomenal economic growth rates in the late 1950s when the increase in industrial output value hit 36 per cent in the period between 1957 and 1961 .
Self-reliance means that a country's domestic resources are maximised to the full . Money that was once spent on costly foreign imports can instead be spent on health , education and improving living standards or invested in industry or both .
Once during the children’s performance at the Mangyongdae Schoolchildren's Palace our delegation saw a skit by children on the theme of self-reliance ; the story was that there was a village of bears and squirrels , they needed to build a HydroElectric Power station , the hardworking squirrels resolved to build the Hydroelectric Power Station themselves by their own efforts but the lazy bears instead proposed to buy a Hydro Power Station from the Elephants . A bear returns in despair from the Elephants Village because the Elephants had demanded more fruit than they expected to hand over for the power station . The bears fall about in dismay but the squirrels get to work and by applying self-reliance build a power station . This children's skit may seem amusing but contains an important truth that big countries will not give stuff away for nothing but will demand a higher and higher price for it .
Some people waffle that the DPRK’s self-reliance is an ‘illusion ‘ and that the DPRK was dependent on ‘Soviet aid ‘ or ‘Chinese aid ‘ . However the DPRK actually only received a modest amount of aid after the Fatherland Liberation War , The war damage caused by the US was estimated to be 16,661,622 million U.S. dollars whereas the aid from the socialist countries amounted to 500 million US dollars , less than 5 per cent of the cost of the damage . The USSR imposed virtual sanctions on the DPRK in 1962 because the DPRK refused to go along with the revisionist policies of Khruschov . As to China , they demanded settlement of foreign trade accounts in dollars back in 1992 .
The mainstream media like to portray south Korea as a success story in order to slander People’s Korea and self-reliance . However the reality is that south Korea is burdened with enormous internal and external debts. South Korea’s internal debt stands at 240 per of its GDP( meaning it is impossible to repay ) and the external debt is 503.1 billion US dollars . South Korea is a land of slums , poverty and inequality.
The British academic the late Malcolm Caldwell wrote
"What is clear is that ,deprived of, massive loans ,US military propping , and integration into the international capitalist economy, south Korea would collapse, whereas-abiding by Juche , North Korea can stand independent indefinitely "(Malcolm Caldwell "The Wealth of Some Nations " Zed Press 1977).
Self-reliance and Juche are the way forward and will bring about a great victory !
Dr Dermot Hudson
Chairman British Group for the Study of the Juche Idea
Chairman UK Korean Friendship Association
President Association for the Study of Songun Politics UK
Chairman British Solidarity Committee for Peace and Reunification on the Korean Peninsula
Hon secretary general International Central Committee for Songun Study
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