The broadly understood culture, its quality and reference to the
needs of the common man and his development, is to a large
extent a testimony to the value of a given political system, the
value of the system in determining whether it is human and
humanitarian, progressive or anti - human and marked by
negative content in the mass media.
Culture is the way and content of a nation's life, a synonym for its
spiritual face, a force that binds all members of the national
community. Culture should enrich social relations as it is their
active component.
One geographic area with two states : the socialist Democratic
People's Republic of Korea and south Korea, a puppet of the US
but within the same nation, and what a massive contrast! Here
while in DPRK a socialist culture is created, full of patriotism and
love for the homeland, south Korean culture is the aping of
Western and American pop culture with the cult of money and
self - centeredness.
What is such a pop - culture for? It serves the bourgeois ruling
classes to keep the popular masses oppressed and exploited. This
bourgeois pop - culture, which is widely propagated in the
southern part of Korea occupied by the American imperialists,
also has the task of suppressing and contradicting the ideas of a
true socialist and pro - humanist culture.
For example, on 'Netflix', on the film platform popular in
European countries, there are plenty of biased so called: 'soap
operas' south Korean produced movies, with created characters of
heroes who lead a rich and idle life full of luxuries, and their only
activities are in creating amorous intrigues and personal quarrels
about who goes to bed with whom. All is spiced with scenes of
violence and worthless dialogues washed out of any patriotic and
ideological values.
Another exemplary contrast between the values of real culture
and the imperialist intellectual junk served under the name of
pop culture is the field of music. The 'Moranbong Band', a
national music group from the DPRK, that creates beautiful
instrumental music and promotes patriotic content in an
innovative way, is very popular among Korean peoples and
youths. The youth of the socialist Korea of Juche favors their
musical works that evoke feelings of patriotism and celebrate
national achievements and the struggle for social liberation. The
'Moranbong Band' ensemble is a music promoter with enormous
energy and strength potential for a moral and disciplined, creative
life in a social collective among and for others.
Music stars who promote unlimited freedom and moral
corruption, sexual debauchery and selfish worship of the
individual as well as pathological behavior of alcohol or drug
abuse are popular with the youth of the West and the
commercialized pseudo - artistic work of decadent pop culture.
Such content is admitted and disseminated by the bourgeois
media and creates a civilization of death, the West civilization.
The threats from Western pop - culture were also mentioned
many times by President Kim Il Sung:
' ... We should never allow the penetration of 'jazz'
in the future as in the past.
It depraves and emasculates the youth and dulls their
revolutionary consciousness.
'Jazz' is an ideological weapon of the imperialists
to degenerate revolutionary peoples.
How can we accept the venom they direct at us,
and by so doing destroy our own positions,
when we have to fight U.S. imperialism to the end? ...'
( Kim Il Sung, 'Selected Works', vol. IV,
Foreign Languages Publishing House, Pyongyang, 1971, p. 163 )
This is the Western culture brought with the American
occupation of the south Korean peninsula, that is being promoted
and disseminated to lull the working people in their lives to the
full exploitation of the capitalist system. This substitute of the
luxury seen in these series is to replace them with the real,
liberated and creative life that the masses of the people in DPRK
lead.
The national identity of Korean culture is different from that of
south Korea, which is occupied by American troops. It is not a
desire for wealth at all costs and it is not an easy and pleasant
life. It is an identity that grew out of great national pride and the
struggle for national and social liberation, and in its patriotic
spirit it has no equal.
The socialist Korean revolution, on the basis of structural socio -
economic transformations, also brought about a revolution in the
sphere of education and culture, changed the scale and hierarchy
of the needs of the working masses, promoting them to the
creators of this culture and liberated a new shape of the man:
master of his own destiny regarding to the Juche Philosophy.
The Korean revolution enriched the range of cultural activity of
the masses and it inspired the formation of a new work ethic,
liberated from all forms of exploitation and slavery.
Culture is also the field and means of the political struggle
against socialism waged by hostile propaganda. Hence the
propagated anti - culture, which is pop - culture, flooding the
world with American and pro - Western states.
The socialist culture of the DPRK is part of the world's progressive
culture, part of the international culture. Imperialist enemies may
contradict and use propaganda to conceal or disprove this fact,
but they will not change it. The culture of the DPRK grew out of
the masses of the people and serves the same masses of the
people, in line with the words of Lenin:
' ... all over the world workers create their international culture that
has long been prepared by advocates of freedom and enemies of
oppression ...'
( V.I.Lenin,'The Working Class and the National Question'. vol. XIX, p. 74 )
A civilization that creates a culture of easy life and the cult of
money and wealth is an anti - human civilization, as well as
detached from the real needs and desires of man, which is not
only a biological existence aimed at satisfying one's individual
needs. Man is a creature in a broader sense, he is a social
creature in correlation with others. The bourgeois civilization of
the West, which was unfortunately imposed by the yankee
occupiers in the southern part of Korea, is a culture alien to
Korean culture and historical Korean tradition.
In the DPRK, it is not possible to proclaim views contrary to the
constitutional principles of Juche based socialism. It is, because
in the interest of the nation and the socialist state. It is not within
the limits of any social contract and pseudo - freedom to disgust
socialism through hostile propaganda and the popularization of
Western decadent culture. And this is not (as the enemies of the
DPRK claim) a violation of freedom of speech and free democracy.
it is a wise and rational uphold of socialist and humanistic values
at the service of people - centered socialism. It is protecting DPRK
citizens from the contagion of capitalist thinking focused on
individualistic egoism and the decline of moral values.
The socialist and people - centered political and social system of
the DPRK opposes the influx of yankee pseudo - culture and its
socially demoralizing content. The social harm of this culture
brought to the south of Korea is expressed in the ever - increasing
number of suicides of the peoples, the increasing areas of moral
degeneracy of young society and the decline of morals and
customs.
The duty of the state responsible for the state of culture of its
nation is to contribute to the development of a responsible,
socialist social awareness. Fight against foreign influences of
Western pop culture bringing only spiritual death.
Imperialist pop - culture is a trashy bourgeois show aimed at
arousing primitive emotions and desires among the rulers of the
lower social classes exploited by the class - the popular masses.
In the socialist culture of the DPRK, created by man and for man,
this man has an active role in this activity. This postulate of
cultural activity and shifting the focus to the problems of the
transformative and educational function of socialist art meets the
aspirations and feelings of the popular masses. Socialist culture
in DPRK is a conscious and planned activity which, in addition to
patriotic functions, also aims to raise the cultural aspirations and
cultural activity of society and to shape incentives for the
development of artistic creativity related in content to the issue of
the socialist motherland and capable of educational activities in
the spirit of socialism and internationalism.
In the socialist culture of the DPRK, the principles of the Leninist
definition of the inextricable relationship between politics,
economics and culture are fulfilled, and the demonstration of the
uniform leadership of development processes in these three
spheres of social life by the communist party as the vanguard of
the working class. The Leninist view of the relationship between
the humanistic values of science and culture in the construction
of a socialist culture that is qualitatively different
The entire cultural activity of the socialist state of DPRK, is
created by the broad masses of the people and is precisely
adapted to the needs of the development of Korean society. This
development process is subordinated to the overarching goal of
socialist construction and means ensuring the harmonious
growth of the sphere of production, consumption, scientific and
cultural progress. There is nothing in this process of the
anarchist chaos of capitalist market commercialism, manifested
in the fact that various currents and tendencies fight and clash in
the arena of culture for man, and those that are often anti -
human and immoral win, because the criterion for promoting this
pseudo - culture not the real needs of man are chosen, but the
profit of their producers.
Culture is, in the broad sense of the word, a system of values. But
these values are only nominal if they are not reflected in human
relationships. These relations, their dignified shape, are precisely
the higher form of realization of culture, realization of human life
in a socialist state. Such a shape, full of socialist humanism, has
the real Korean culture, not the one brought from West and
American agencies. In socialist Korea of Juche, the highest
human aspirations and needs are fulfilled to the highest and full
extent.
The main goal of the socialist and truly Korean culture as it is in
the DPRK, is to promote the participation of working people in
social activity for the benefit of the whole, conscious and creative
participation, giving a sense of co - shaping socialist interpersonal
relations. From an ideological choice, cultural life in DPRK fulfills
the task of enriching the patriotic and progressive heritage of
Korean culture, supporting creativity embedded in the destiny
and experiences of the working class, working people, and from
their perspective looking at the past and present, but also
openness to humanistic values that are to convey the ideological
message in daily work for one's own country and in service to the
nation. Therefore, it also includes opposition to the reactionary,
anti - socialist and anti - humanist content promoted by
American imperialism, against national and state interests.
The socialist government of the DPRK consciously and
deliberately strives to create conditions for the provision of all
permanent, humanistic values of the achievements of the
beautiful and glorious traditions of the Korean national liberation
struggle, and also makes all the treasures of art and culture,
available in many capitalist countries only to a few privileged,
become real owned by working people. This task is fully realized
in the high level of general education, with the increase of the
living standard of working people and the amount of free time.
The socialist government of the DPRK creates the best possible
conditions in social policy in the sphere of culture for the
development of artistic creativity that arose from the ideological
inspirations of socialism, from the patriotic, conscious connection
with the issues of building a socialist homeland and with the
struggle of working people all over the world for justice, progress
and peace. With the fight against American imperialism.
In the sphere of cultural management, the government of the
DPRK and its subordinate cultural institutions are guided by
political and ideological inspiration, link the artistic milieu with
living social and political issues, and link all artistic circles with
the issues of life and work of the progressive masses of the
nation.
An important task of the socialist state in social policy in the
sphere of culture is to stimulate the cultural activity of the
society. The point is not only to awaken higher and richer cultural
and artistic needs. The point is also that cultural matters should
be part of mass social activity, that the idea of people's rule,
implemented by the development of forms of socialist democracy,
is also present in the sphere of artistic culture. The area of this
activity is the social and cultural movement. The basis for the
development of this movement is the accumulation of the morality
of the working man, a man who consciously creates his fate
according to the principles of the Juche Philosophy. Creativity
and consciousness as well as independence combined in the
processes of cultural transformations of the socialist society of
the DPRK, in the structural and class transformations of society,
bring positive results expressed in the social advancement of the
working class, changes in the social attitudes of the working
masses in the city and in the countryside, and the cultural
integration of the Korean nation on the basis of the idea socialist,
with a change for the better of working people's attitude to
spiritual and artistic goods.
Thanks to Juche Philosophy, in the creation of a new socialist
culture that man for the first time emerged from his former
limitations in seeing the tradition and present of human
intellectual and artistic culture enslaved by the years of Japanese
occupation. Juche Philosophy and true Korean culture, steeped
in the spirit of this philosophy elevated the working class and the
popular masses from the slave position, to the present hegemon
and defender of basic human values. The theory and practice of
Juche Philosophy, causing the so far unknown scale of cultural
changes, determines a new approach to art of all epochs. The
perception of the heritage and the present of culture in the
aspects of the usefulness of socialist education, adherence to
morality and the principles of socialist social life is a guideline for
all forms of cultural activity in Korea of Juche.
The policy of the communist party, Workers Party of Korea and all
DPRK national institutions responsible for creating socialist
culture, is guided by ideological and artistic choices that carry a
patriotic message and deeply humanistic values. Values that,
unlike in the anti - egocentric American pop culture imposed on
south Korea, promote individualism and moral decline, but
trigger creative and collective creativity in the process of world
transformation due to the Juche Philosophy and instill discipline
and respect for other people in the younger generations of DPRK,
which is best expressed in the slogan: 'one for all - all for one'.
In DPRK, a real, valuable and deeply humanist universal socialist
culture is created and developed, which, from the postulate of
constantly raising the level of spiritual and artistic needs of the
widest masses of society, is linked by the postulate of cultural
activity related to intellectual, political, social and economic
activity. Hence, the Workers Party of Korea devotes so much
space and attention to all forms of cultural activation of working
people, to forms of development of the people's rule in culture.
Thus, the masses of the people have a chance to consciously and
guided acceleration in the movement of building a socialist state,
it manifests itself in the form of a transition from a passive to an
active attitude towards the content of culture and to an active
participation in the cultural life of their country.
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