People's Korea and the Juche idea are incessantly demonised . The propaganda against People's Korea is on an industrial scale and is all pervasive and permeates everywhere ,even the Left.Is this context A few weeks ago on Communist Party of Facebook someone posted a meme saying ‘ Juche is Anti-Marxist ‘ , this was a prime example of anti DPRK hostility from the Left rather than from the Right .
Among some communists are several misunderstandings about the Juche idea , the two basic ones ( the two old horse chestnuts) are as follows either that ‘ Juche rejects Marxism-Leninism ‘ or ‘Juche abandoned Marxism-Leninism ‘ , the other one is more subtle that Juche is simply nothing more than ‘ Marxism-Leninism applied to Korea ‘ . The first misunderstanding is often invoked as a reason not to support the DPRK , to deny solidarity to People’s Korea and to denigrate those who follow the Juche idea . The second one is basically dismissive and aims to prevent people from studying the Juche idea .
I can remember years ago when I first got interested in the DPRK a person from a very pro Soviet grouping said to me when I asked about the works of President Kim Il Sung that I did not need to read them , that all I needed to read was Novosti books !!! It is a good job that I did heed the ‘advice ‘ because just 5 years later the USSR was dissolved , the Soviet Communist Party banned and the Red Flag hauled down from the Kremlin , whereas the DPRK did not collapse and proudly marched forward holding the red flag of socialism high . Sadly , even today some communists take a dismissive attitude to the DPRK even though it was proved .
As to the argument that ‘Juche rejects Marxism ‘. If Marx was alive today he would be impressed by the amount of people who uphold his theories because of the scientific accuracy of the critique of capitalism but at the same time he would be horrified , mortified by the fact that some people have transformed his ideas into something like the bible , a tablet of stone which is then to attack new theories . In the days when Marx and Engels were alive there was not a single socialist country in the world , powered flight was not yet possible though it was talked about , space travel did not exist and antibiotics did not exist . There have been big changes since those days .
In People's Korea socialism had to be built through not only struggle against imperialism and class enemies but against a hidden internal enemy , dogmatists and factionalists . These people would argue against different policies of the Workers Party of Korea either saying that such and such policy was not in the classics of Marxism -Leninism or that it had not been done in a big country . Such elements claimed to be pure Marxists , purer than pure but in fact their approach was actually extremely reactionary and counter-revolutionary , for example opposing collectivisation . Ironically these arguments that were shattered decades ago in People's Korea still echo among some on the Left today .
Whilst being aware of the historical limitations of classic Marxist Leninist theory , People's Korea strongly respects the great achievements of the founders of Marxism -Leninism as comrade KIM JONG IL said " Our Party and people respect Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin as the leaders of the working class and speak highly of their distinguished service'. Moreover People's Korea is one of the few countries in the world where you can take a university course in Marxism-Leninism and dialectical materialism. So it is a false statement that Marxism-Leninism has been rejected .
Juche is not simply ‘ Marxism-Leninism applied to Korea‘ and not simply for Korea alone . Whilst Juche inherits many features of Marxism-Leninism it also has original features as well . Juche stresses that man is the master of everything and the popular masses are the masters of the revolution and construction . Juche stresses the subjective factor as well as the objective factor . In the past socialist countries that followed Marxism Leninism emphasised the material -economic factor and believed that once socialist relations of production were established that the consciousness of the masses would automatically change as result ideological work was neglected . Worse still revisionism emerged . Juche stipulates giving priority to ideology , basically ideological work is the motor of building socialism .
Today the DPRK led by Marshal Kim Jong Un , stands imposingly as a country of Juche , a state of independence , self-sufficiency and self-defence . Because of self-reliance and self-development , the imperialist sanctions will fail and the DPRK will march to final victory . It would be a great thing if many countries broke with imperialism and took the road to Juche !
Thus Juche is a great philosophy of independence . Juche combines both the national and international duties of the working class, it is not 'go it alone nationalism'. Juche has captured the imagination of many progressive people in the world , over a 1000 Juche Idea Study Groups exist in the world.
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