"Mostly Propaganda in Nature:" Kim Il Sung, the Juche Ideology, and ...

Mitchell Lerner
NKIDP Working Paper #3 December 2010
economic relations. Czech officials expressed concerns that not only was the DPRK likely to
request adjustments to their repayment schedule for a loan granted the previous decade, but that
the poor quality of North Korean imports and the failure of the DPRK to deliver promised goods
in 1965 and 1966 also made stable trade relations even more unlikely. 94 No surprise, then, that a
1967 request by DPRK officials to the Czech Ministry of Foreign Trade for a large credit to
purchase Czech industrial equipment was rejected. 95
Beyond the specific details of economic deprivation, however, it was clear that the
economic situation was failing on another important level: as a sign of the government's ability
to maintain Juche in economic relations. The inability to reach widely publicized objectives, the
public admissions of shortcomings, the presence of massive amounts of imported goods, the
inadequacy of shelter and sustenance, and the obvious cancellation of many major industrial and
social projects, had fostered problems that transcended simple economic need. Since North
Korean society evaluated everything from within a construct that demanded economic stability
and independence, the failure to achieve these results was a violation of the most sacred precepts
of North Korean life. A decline in public morale had became noticeable; "living standards had
stagnated in the last years," reported a Romanian official, "which caused tension in the
country." 96 Kim, for the first time in a decade, appears to have had legitimate reasons for
concern about the stability of his regime.
Perhaps the poor economic performance would have been less threatening had Kim's
pursuit of Juche in political life been more successful, but circumstances beyond his control
http://www.wilsoncenter.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=topics.home&topic_id=230972 ; Subway in February 25, 1966
report from Hungarian Embassy, in North Korean International Documentation Project (NKIDP) electronic
archives, at http://www.wilsoncenter.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=topics.home&topic_id=230972 .
94
"Information about Development of Politics of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and of Czechoslovak-
Korean Relations," 1967 (no date), p. 10-11.
95
Ibid, p. 11.
96
February 25, 1966 report from Hungarian Embassy.
www.wilsoncenter.org/nkidp
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