The Indian anti-revisionist journal "Revolutionary Democracy “ in October 2025 carried an article titled “Some Problems of the People’s Democratic Revolution in the DPRK” by the anti-revisionist scholar Professor Vijay Singh .
The article by Professor Singh itself is a response to the excellent article “On the Fate of the Bourgeoisie in North Korea
An Answer to Dogmatic Critics” (https://medium.com/@alaricus96/on-the-fate-of-the-bourgeoisie-in-north-korea-2a3e6aa49067 ; ) by Francesco Alarico della Scala deputy director of the Juche idea Study Centre in Milan and KFA Italy.
Many of Professor Singh’s arguments are in effect a rehash of an earlier arguments against the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea by the maverick British anti-revisionist Bill Bland . These arguments have been refuted many times over already ;
Professor Singh ignores key facts and makes several errors.
Firstly , in the northern part of Korea by 1949 90 per cent of industry had been nationalised without compensation and a thoroughgoing land reform carried out which confiscated any land larger than 5 hectares(without compensation ) and gave it free to the peasant .The sale , mortgage or leasing of land was banned and other measures were taken to restrict the rich peasant economy . Most of the industry in the northern half of Korea had actually been owned by Japanese capital and there were very few big capitalists who were actually Koreans. After liberation in August 1945 , many of the capitalists and landlords in the northern part of Korea fled to south Korea.
Secondly , Prof Singh seems unaware of the intense struggles that took place in People’s Korea in the 1940s .Within the Workers Party of Korea there was a struggle against Right capitulationists who wanted to create a bourgeois republic with the national bourgeoisie and even pro US , pro Japanese lackeys.
At the same time there was a there was a sharp struggle against Jo Man Sik a bourgeois nationalist who was in the leadership of the Democratic Party (which is now the Korean Social Democratic Party ) . Jo Man Sik was very much a representative of the national bourgeoise . Ironically there are monuments to Jo Man Sik in puppet south Korea because the south Korean puppet reactionaries or at least some of them believe Jo Man Sik to have been the real leader of People’s Korea . Jo Man Sik was removed all positions by 1947 .
Thus President KIM IL SUNG and the Korean communists actually carried a sharp struggle both against Right opportunist factionalists within the the Workers Party of North Korea and against reactionary bourgeois nationalists such as Jo Man Sik.
Thirdly , the issue of the dictatorship of the proletariat and the leading role of the Party were a key point in the struggle against the anti-Party counter-revolutionary factionalists in the 1950s . It was the anti-party factionalists who were revisionists and had the backing of outside big powers who wanted to demolish the dictatorship of the proletariat and the party’s leading role but Professor Singh does not appear to know about this . Some of these factionalists advocated palacing Presidium of the Supreme People's Assembly higher the Workers Party of Korea and making the Korean People’s Army an “army of the united front “,basically overturning the leading role of the Party and the dictatorship of proletariat , a clear cut revisionist anti-socialist position . President KIM IL SUNG denounced such views “ Some people say that our people’s power is not one that exercises the dictatorship of the proletariat because it is based on a united front. This is an entirely erroneous view. Today, our people’s power is a state power that belongs to the category
of the dictatorship of the proletariat. In the northern ball of the Republic, now in the period of transition from capitalism to socialism, the functions of the proletarian dictatorship of our people's power must be strengthened “ ( For the Fulfilment of the First Five Plan 1958)
Later ,President KIM IL SUNG speaking to Judicial Workers in 1958 said “Some people seem to think that the people’s democratic dictatorship in our country is not a dictatorship of the proletariat but some sort of intermediate dictatorship between that of the proletariat and that of the bourgeoisie, and they wrongly believe that since our government is based on a united front, our people’s power does not belong to the category of the dictatorship of the proletariat. That is wrong. The present people’s democratic government in our country does belong to the category of the dictatorship of the proletariat. We are now building socialism. The power that builds socialism must be, in essence, the dictatorship of the proletariat “
Adding that ;
“Today , there are two kinds of dictatorship in our era . One is the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie and the other is the dictatorship of the proletariat”
Singh wrongly claims that “There are clear parallels with the people’s democratic system projected in China the following year.” The DPRK was different from China which in the 1950s did have capitalist and a state capitalist sector . The DPRK which already had 90 per cent state ownership of industry rejected this line ( pro Chinese factionalists tried to oppose the socialist transformation of industry in the DPRK and copy the Chinese line ) and went for 100 per socialist ownership of industry and trade as well as collectivisation , which was achieved by 1958.
It was not just pro Soviet factionalists who were defeated in the DPRK in 1956 but also the pro-Chinese “Yanan group “ . According to Enver Hoxha’s memoirs “The Khruschevites “ the pro-Chinese factionalists ran away to China .
Ludicrously Professor Singh writes “Kim Il Sung defended the continued retention of the landlords “ in 1953 but the landlords had been eliminated as a class in 1946 !
Prof Sing even refers to ‘kulaks ‘ in the DPRK which did not exist . In my book “Korea of Juche “ I deal with this question , I shall quote the passage concerned here “In Russia there had been a class of kulaks(rich peasants who were basically capitalist or gentleman farmers) who owned a lot of land and exploited the labour of peasants, usually having many hired workers. They even owned sawmills and other small industries. However in Korea rich farmers were simply those peasants who were better off than others. Typically a rich peasant in Korea had 10 hectares of land or less and several hired workers. In fact the Agrarian Reform in 1946 had restricted the rich farmers to some extent. In 1945, 5 percent of rural households were rich peasants but the agrarian reform reduced this to 2-3 per cent. Also during the Fatherland Liberation War the rich farmers suffered great material losses which meant they were not in a strong position to oppose cooperativization. By the 1950s the rich peasants were only 0.6 per cent of all peasant households...Some class struggle did take place against anti-socialist class enemies who tried to disrupt cooperativization. The DPRK did impose strict sanctions on those who tried to impede co-operativsation but it centred on a small number of people. However unlike in the Soviet Union no co-operative was actually destroyed by rich farmers. When the farmers joined co-operatives the rich peasants were unable to exploit their labour.”(Korea of Juche “ pages 177-179).
As to the issue of the socialist revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat the genuine Korean communists led by President KIM IL SUNG always believed in the dictatorship of the proletariat . President KIM IL SUNG, in his famous work “The Tasks of Communists “ published in 1937 pointed out that “There can be two forms of democratic power. One belongs to the category of bourgeois power, i.e. democratic power led by the propertied classes and the other comes under the category of proletarian power, i.e., democratic power led by the working class “ he stressed that after liberation “Therefore, the power we will establish after the overthrow
of Japanese imperialism is popular democratic power, coming
under the category of proletarian power, i.e., democratic power
led by the working class”
Proletarian power is just another name for the dictatorship of the proletariat.
Once the tasks of the anti-feudal ,anti-imperialist democratic revolution were carried the transition to socialism began in the DPRK . President KIM IL SUNG wrote that “The social change effected by the anti-imperialist, anti-feudal democratic revolution enabled our Party to strengthen and develop the people’s government into a socialist government of proletarian dictatorship as required by the developing revolution.”
President KIM IL SUNG himself laid down the line of continuous or uninterrupted revolution ; the revolution started with the struggle against imperialism and feudalism and then moved to the anti-imperialist , anti-feudal democratic , the socialist revolution and the three revolutions -ideological ,technical and cultural after the building of socialism .
Lastly , although Prof Singh, unlike Bland who who relied heavily on bourgeois and imperialist sources i.e ‘Keesings Contemporary Archives’ or some modern internet ultra leftists who love to quote from CIA and south Korean puppet sources against the DPRK , quotes from an obscure Soviet specialist on the DPRK who was very negative about the prospect for the transition to socialism in People’s Korea, I would say that these views represent dogmatism but are a possible reflection of tensions that arose between between some some Soviet advisors in Korea and between the Korean leadership and cadres . Certain Soviet advisors told the Koreans not to set up their own armed forces , not to develop their own arms industry and not to nationalise industries . President KIM IL SUNG explained that that such views did not represent the viewpoint of the Soviet leadership but of certain individuals . Of course it was a manifestation of big power chauvinism which the DPRK was to fight against very hard in the decades that followed the 1950s .
To conclude Prof Singh’s criticisms of the DPRK , which are nothing new, are not valid and do not accord with the reality of the DPRK which is today defending socialism .
Dr Dermot Hudson
Chairman British Group For the Study of the Juche Idea
Chairman Korean Friendship Association UK
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