Do we trust every commercial which TV, radio and newspapers precipitate on us? When you hear another advertisement or see a billboard you simply turn away and pretend it does not exist (unless something is really wrong or funny about it). Similarly, people in the USSR, PRC, Cuba and other communist states did not care much about propaganda which was simply a boring nuisance, which people accepted with only because “somebody wants us to know it”.

From my own experience, I can tell you that Russians, like North Koreans, were exposed to the most pervasive propaganda and required to study Marxism-Leninism day and night. But very few really cared or understood it properly. It’s like memorizing a religious text and then using quotes from it only when you are supposed to demonstrate loyalty to or endorsement of the Party line.

People’s brains have certain capacity to absorb and process advertisement (political or commercial). When this capacity has reached its limit the brain stops relating to this type of information until the circumstances change. For instance, you have to compel a member of your community to fulfill a difficult task, or you argue with a foreigner about the advantages of socialism over capitalism. But in most cases the learned dogmas had nothing to do with the realities of everyday life.

That’s why Saturdays in North Korea are designated “study days” when people master their ability to find answers to difficult questions. Self-criticism sessions (where people have to confess their real or potential deviations) are also widespread. All this is designed to numb and hypnotize the population in order to keep it docile while the grand social experiment — the revolution — is being conducted by the leadership. The DPRK is still a revolutionary state but nobody seems to be able to answer the two questions: when it started and when it will be completed.

LP