North Korean Economy Watch

Daily NK
Han Young Jin
10/17/2005

Many people wonder about how North Korea is maintains despite the chronic food crisis and many other difficulties it suffered for a long time.

In South Korea, people would have organized more than a dozen of popular riots.

What would be behind the silence in North Korea? The answer is the notorious two pillars in North Korea, information politics and the reign of terror.

The National Security Agency in North Korea is the core agency for information politics. Since the Chief of Agency Lee Jin Su died in August, 1987, no other head of the agency was appointed. The role was taken over by Jang Sung Taek, #1 vice director of Organization and Guidance Department, and Kim Young Ryong, the former National Security Agency #1 Director (deceased in 1998).

Kim Jong Il directs the agency himself, making them believe his right over the agency is that the agency is for the security of the Supreme Commander, which is himself.

There are about 50,000 employees under the National Security Agency and its branch offices. It is estimated that about 20,000 are directly involved in the information activities. This means there is one agent per 1,000 North Koreans.

The security agents secure their sources individually, train them and collect information in their secret places. Even among the peers and friends, all the people mistrust each other because they do not know who the sources are for the agents.

According to the agency principles, even among agents have double or triple layers of supervision. One of the main reasons why the anti-regime force did not become active remains in this very system of mistrust

The North Korean regime, through the collective living style, ▲encourages mutual criticism and self criticism and increases mistrust among them, ▲The agents keep watch of the people and arrest them, ▲ the safety agency (police) make sure people do not meet in group through the people’s department. This is the reality of North Korea.

Securing Sources, Training in Secret Places

Security sources and training is done according to the characteristics of the agent. The agency runs secret places especially for training.

In November 12, 1992, Kim Jong Il changed the name of the National Security Agency to the National Safety and Security Agency and ordered to strengthen the training in crack down the anti-party, anti-revolution forces.

It was in 1993 when such secret places were made. It was of course made in top secret. Those involved in building such secret places believe they must be apartments for high level officials, such as honorary revolutionists of the independent movement (against Japan) or war heroes. However, these “luxurious apartments” were for the people receiving training, who spend ten to fifteen days there.

Because there is danger of discovery of identification, only one person is trained at a time. Those who leave home for the training their wives they are leaving for work.

Training is done directly by the secretary of the agency or designated security agents. They give off the belief, saying, “With the trust of the Great Commander, 00 (name of the trainee) is to engage in the national security activities.”

The agent provides professional training to the trainee such as how to approach the targets, inducement to conversation, such reporting. After the training, they are sent back to their workplaces.

The persons in charge of the secret places are selected among the sources, and he is to cut of all the contact to the outside world. Looking at expensive cars going in and out of a remote place, people are only wonder about what kind of house it would be.

Even the Former Detention Camp Prisoners and Wanderers Selected

The security agents have their own ways of contacting each other such as leaving memos under a rock, between a crack on factory walls, or inside a rotten tree trunk. The agents even select former prisoners and wanderers as one of their sources, but they are not given the special training session.

This is because only through such sources information about anti-regime or anti-party forces could obtained. The agents use both credence and threat to manipulate their sources. Sometimes, they used to give compensation as much as 100Won (in 1990, average worker’s monthly wage was 70Won), but after the food crisis, such cash awards stopped altogether.

There also exist some conflicts between the agents and the sources. In local place, one of the sources asked his agent to issue him a travel permit. When he could not, the source spread a rumor that “the National Security Agency has less power than the Safety Agency” which made a big issue in the region.

There is no compensation for providing high level information while people get arrested for ambiguous things they commit, so the people who were selected as sources become distressed. Recently, there is an increase of the people who prefer to not cooperate with the agents.

Also it is known that the information agents (sources) and the security agents together take advantage of their status. The sources report the security agents of the people who do business with prohibited goods such video tapes from another country, and they make benefit themselves by confiscating of all such goods.

Korea Times
Andrei Lankov
10/11/2005

“How much do they earn there, in the North?” “What are North Korean salaries now?” These questions come naturally, even if people are aware that in a socialist economy the formal size of one’s salary is less significant an indicator of wealth than it is in capitalism.
Under socialism, access to goods is at least as important as the amount of money in somebody’s possession. Since retail prices in the socialist economies tend to be subsidized, this means that many goods are not readily available in shops, but are distributed by the state bureaucracy instead. Thus, people who are deemed more deserving get such goods… goods that are not available to the “less valuable” people.

A party bureaucrat and a skilled worker often might have roughly similar salaries in a socialist economy, but their actual consumption levels may be vastly different. Apart from bureaucrats, another group of people who have privileged access to commodities are people employed in the retail system. They always can divert some goods from the public distribution system and use them either for their own consumption, or for barter with those who control other valuable commodities. Thus, the position of a sale clerk is seen as very prestigious occupation in the North.

The 2002 reforms (never called “reforms” in the North Korean press) dramatically changed the structure of wages and prices in the country. For a while it was not clear what the current price and wages levels were, but recent research by the World Food Program seems to answer a few questions. Now we know what was regarded as “normal” wages in 2004.

According to the survey, most types of low-paid workers earn between 1,700 and 2,500 won per month, with an average estimated at 2,100. Low-level professional jobs such as clerks and teachers at nursery and primary schools earn between 1,400 and 2,000 won per month. The average old age pension is just 900 won; women, in particular housewives, sometimes get pensions as low as 300_400 won.

The official exchange rate is 1,700 won per Euro (they to play down the significance of the imperialist dollar, so exchange rates are usually quoted in euros). However, throughout 2004, the actual exchange rate fluctuated between 1,600 and 2,200. This means that the average pension was something like 50 cents a month, with a nursery teacher earning as little as one dollar a month. This is not as bad as it sounds, since prices are also relatively cheap. But this is still pretty bad…

Most of the people who draw salaries live in the cities (some 70% of the North Koreans are inhabitants of urban areas), and rely on the public distribution system for their survival. The system, which almost ceased to function a few years ago, obviously has made a moderate comeback. Since all data in the secretive North is classified, nothing is known for sure, but it seems that in early 2005, the Public Distribution System was “the main source of cereals for the 70 per cent of the population living in urban areas” (such was an estimate by the FAO, a U.N. food agency).

Still, the official rations are hardly generous. According to the WFP, in early 2005 rations were cut to 250 grams per person per day _ 40 per cent of the internationally recommended minimum. People have to purchase food on the markets, and this food is expensive, with rice costing some 500 won a kilo.

According to the FAO report, “the income of cooperative farmers from the annual obligatory crop sales to the Government varies greatly from one farm to another, resulting in monthly incomes per person ranging from 500 won to 4000 won.” But farmers can also substantially increase their income by selling the produce from their kitchen gardens, and by hillside farming which is done on the steep slopes of the mountains. The latter activity has become common in the North over the past decade. It is formally forbidden but done nonetheless, and it seems that a large part of the hillside produce goes outside the public distribution system.

Unemployment is quite high, but it is hidden. Formally, everybody has a job, but a persistent shortage of raw materials, spare parts, machinery, and power supplies means that few factories actually operate at full capacity. In many cases people come to their factories and offices and sit there idly, spending just a couple of hours a day doing some meaningful work. They still have to come, since otherwise they could lose access to food rations, and this would make their situation impossible, probably even threatening their physical survival.

According to interviews with officials, and other information garnered, the WFP estimated that some 30 percent of the North Korean workers are either permanently or temporarily underemployed or unemployed.

As usual, women are more likely to become unemployed. But perhaps they do not mind. Why? Well, is it possible for a family to survive, even on two salaries, if the official income can merely buy eight kilos of rice to augment the distributed 200 grams? Of course, the answer is “no”, and even in the most difficult circumstances people need more than just rice. Hence, the survival strategy of most families depends heavily on the efforts of their women. While formally seen as “unemployed housewives”, women produce most of the income, ensuring the family’s survival. Indeed, the new-born North Korean capitalism has a female face. But that is another story…

Daily NK
Han Young Jin
10/18/2005

Kim Jong Il’s politics of gift is a well-known practice. On only on the birthdays of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il, but also on the day of party establishment and other national and traditional holidays.

The reason why Kim Jong Il distributes gifts to the people is to increase level of obedience and make them express gratitude towards “the Commander’s special grace.” Although it may look like a lousy way of convincing people to the South Koreans, to the North Korean people, it had been a long tradition. The reason why they offer gifts to the participants to the Arirang Performance lies along the same line. Although gift offering did exist in other former communist countries, but the level of practice is incomparably higher in North Korea.

Kim Jong Il sends to gifts to about 20,000 people every holiday, and the amount he spends on these gifts is about $20 million US dollars every year.

There was special food distribution on the day of 60th Anniversary of the Party Establishment. Apart from food distribution there is a separate group of people who receive special gifts. The number of them reach to 20,000, who are core members supporting the Kim Jong Il dictatorship.

The receivers include the family members of the liberation movement activists against Japanese colonialism, initial communists (palchisan), the party, high level officials and the military. The members of the initial communists are only about 300 in number. Kim Il Sung ordered, “The party must take care of the sons of the palchisan down to three generations” so they are entitled to special treatment.

The bereaved family department of the Worker’s Party takes care of these families. The sons and grandsons receive free education up to university, offered jobs and free cars as well as housing.

5,000 Entitled to Special Treatment

The people entitled to special treatment reach up to 5,000. The first level cadres such as of the Central Party, the People’s Arm Force, guard commanders and military commanders are entitled as main distribution everyday. The ministers of the cabinet and vise ministers are smaller in number and in a level lower than the military and party cadres.

The people entitled to gifts on the three main holidays (New Year’s Day, birthdays of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il) number to 15,000. They are the cabinet cadres and military cadres above commanding officer level and cadres of different levels such as families of those sent abroad (for espionage and information gathering), foreign business workers and bereaved families.

The representatives of the Supreme People’s Assembly and provincial party secretaries, chiefs of the People’s Committee, Central Procurator’s Office, Central Court, National Security Agency, Security Office and other provincial level cadres also receive gifts from Kim Jong Il the three main national holidays. High level officials whose rank is as high as the central party secretaries in local cities and counties too are on the list of the gift receivers.

Managed by Keumsusan Accounting Department

Sending out of gifts under Kim Jong Il’s name is managed by the Keumsusan Accounting Department. All the cadres of secretarial level and above in the Central Organization and Guidance Department receive electronics, clothes and even food from Japan and South Korea. They always receive enough to eat that they prefer to receive more electronics than food.

The secretaries of the Worker’s Party and the cabinet ministers receive the most luxurious gifts they can possibly get. The gifts include two pairs of suits, two bottles of expensive imported liquor, expensive underwear, clocks with Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il’s names engraved, expensive refrigerators and color TV.

The workers of the Keumsusan Accounting Department visit each government agencies and offices with the gifts in refrigerating truck used specifically gift delivery. They call the receivers in secret and distribute the gifts with vouchers.

At the time, the receivers bow to the portrait of Kim Jong Il and say, “We will repay the high political confidence and grace of the Great Leader Commander Kim Jong Il with our loyalty (devotion).”

In case of the cabinet members or military officials where the receivers are only a small number, the truck of the Keumsusan Accounting Department delivers the gifts to the houses. In local places, they gather the receivers in one place and hold a small ceremony for the gift distribution. For the local receiver, the gifts include two bottles of expensive liquor, a box of tangerines, foreign sweets, one pair of suit, and a cartridge of cigarettes, “Pyongyang.”

20 Million USD on Gifts Every Year

The defector who has an expertise in the matter says the amount of money Kim Jong Il spends on gifts every year reaches up to 20 million US dollars. The Keumsusan Accounting Department had been taking 1% of the annual national budget and directly ordered gifts from foreign countries.

He says recently, the responsibility of purchasing gifts transferred to the United Front Department of the Central Party. “As it became responsibility of the United Front Department of the Central Party to purchase the gifts, some of the gifts sent from South Korea have turned into Kim Jong Il’s gifts to the cadres under his name,” he added.

Some gifts come back to Kim Jong Il in peasant, roe, honey and mountain (wild) ginseng from the people.

Cadres do not talk about what they have received. In sometime early 1980s, Kim Jong Il once offered Benz cars to the cadres of the United Front Department and Organization and Guidance Department of the Central Party, and the cadres fought over the color of the cars. After criticisms from Kim Jong Il, cadres are not allowed comment on the gifts they received.

However, the cadres who have received gifts do not hide that they received gifts. Some of them gather the people from the department to their offices or homes and share “the Commander’s gifts.”

The party notifies the worker’s about gift receivers to arouse more fidelity out of the people by letting the party workers know that responsible workers receive special treatment and to show off that Kim Jong Il love and trusts the workers.

Korea Times
Andrei Lankov
10/4/2005

During the 50-odd years that followed the armistice of 1953, both Korean states have been locked in an intense rivalry. It was a local cold war, a minor version of the global Cold War, but much more emotional since it was a war between the same people. During some periods, this cold war became very hot. Indeed, those decades were an era of daring raids, complicated intrigue, botched and successful assassinations and, of course, of covert naval warfare.

The major role in this quiet warfare was played by North Korean infiltration craft, used to land agents on the South Korean coast. There are three major types of vessels used by the North Korean navy for this purpose. Throughout the history of quiet naval warfare, two ships of each type were lost due to enemy action.

The most unusual and imaginative contraptions are the semi-submersible boats. These can be described as a poor navy’s submarines. They are small boats, with a displacement of some 5-10 tons and a top surface speed of 40-50 knots. They have ballast tanks, and when these tanks are filled with water, the craft submerges almost completely with only the small conning-tower visible above the water. In this semi-submerged state, the craft is much slower, but it is also almost invisible both to both human eyes and radar. Perhaps it is not as good as a real midget submarine, but it is much cheaper and easier to maintain, and it can carry up to six people.

The first battle with such a craft took place in December 1983, when one was discovered not far away from Pusan, and after a chase was sunk by the South Korean navy.

Another semi-submersible was lost in action in 1998. The South Korean signal intelligence discovered the semi-submersible near Yosu in the early hours of the morning of Dec. 18. The South Korean Navy mobilized a number of planes and ships, which approached the boat, demanding that the crew surrender. But North Korean special forces are famous for their unwillingness to give themselves up alive, so they opened fire using small arms. There was no possible doubt about the outcome: the boat was hit by artillery shells and it sank, to be salvaged the following year.

A semi-submersible infiltration boat cannot operate at a great distance from its base, and in most cases it is carried close to the target destination aboard a specially designed mother ship. Such ships are disguised as fishing boats, but they have powerful engines and a built-in dock for a semi-submersible or a more conventional speedboat. The dock is equipped with outward-opening double doors on the stern, allowing the boat to be safely hidden inside the hull.

There have been two cases in which such a ship has been discovered and sunk by hostile forces. The first incident of this kind happened in August 1983, when a South Korean patrol boat discovered just such a ship operating near Ullung-do Island. The ship was sunk after a short shootout.

Another incident took place in December 2001, and this time, the ship was found by the Japanese navy near the Japanese coast. This was not the first discovery of this kind, but on previous occasions, the North Koreans ships managed to flee using their superior speed. This time, however, the ship could not move fast enough _ perhaps the disintegration of economy has influenced the navy as well. As to be expected, the ship’s crew refused to surrender and opened fire, injuring two Japanese sailors. They returned fire and in less than four minutes the ship sank with its entire crew.

The North Korean Navy also possesses a number of submarines, including the Yugo class vessels. These are specially designed midget submarines whose major task is infiltration. The Yugo boats are small, with a displacement of merely 70 tons when submerged.

Such a submarine was caught in a fishing net near Sokcho on the east coast on June 24, 1998. Its propeller and periscope had been fouled. The vessel was captured by the South Korean navy but sank while being towed. The submarine was soon salvaged but all crew and commandos (nine of them – more than usual for a submarine of this type) were found dead after committing group suicide.

Larger Sango class submarines are also sometimes used for infiltration. It was this submarine that was involved in the most high-profile case of military confrontation between the two Koreas in the 1990s. In mid-September 1996, a North Korean Sango submarine was on a routine infiltration mission: a group of commandos were to conduct surveillance of the military installations on the east coast. However, in the early hours of Sept. 18, the submarine ran ashore and was discovered by a taxi driver. The crew and commandos attempted to breakthrough to the DMZ. A long spy hunt ensued, with heavy losses of life on both sides (among the victims there were farmers whom the commandos killed as dangerous witnesses) as well as with the usual group suicide of the North Korean soldiers.

Indeed, one of the most remarkable features of this quiet war is the unwillingness of the North Korean soldiers to surrender. Few sailors and commandos have ever been taken alive. Does this reflect the exceptional valor of the North Korean warriors? To some extent it may, but also there are other reasons behind such behavior. But that is another story…

Los Angeles Times
Barbara Demick
10/3/2005

North Korea Reinstates Controls on Grain Sales Rice and other foods will be distributed by the government and banned at markets.

Rolling back some of its economic reforms, North Korea is banning the sale of rice and other grains at private markets and strengthening its old communist-style public distribution system under which all citizens are supposed to get rations, aid groups and North Korea experts say.

The changes were supposed to be implemented Oct. 10, a holiday in North Korea marking the 60th anniversary of the ruling Workers’ Party. But reports from the World Food Program office in Pyongyang, the capital, indicate that merchants have been told already that they can no longer sell grain.

The United Nations agency said in a statement on its website that “as of Oct. 1, reports are that cereal sales in the markets will cease and public distribution centers will take over countrywide distribution.”

North Korea experts say the moves do not necessarily indicate an abrupt U-turn in the impoverished country’s economic policies, so much as concern that change was taking place too quickly.

“I think it is a transitional necessity. You can’t move too fast into free—market economics without softening the blow for people who have grown up in a planned economy,” Richard Ragan, who heads the World Food Program office in Pyongyang, said in a recent telephone interview. “This is not that different from what you saw happening in China in the 1990s.”

Lee Young Hwa, a Japan—based human rights worker who has close contacts with traders at the Chinese—North Korean border, believes the new restrictions on markets are designed to boost the power of the Workers’ Party and curb the role of the military in the economy.

“The military people control the food sold at the market. Nobody else has the trucks or the access to gasoline to move food around the country. The leadership fears that their economic reforms aren’t working because everything is controlled by the military, and they want to take back control,” Lee said.

For years, there have been accusations that the military was pilfering humanitarian shipments of rice and other aid, keeping the best for its own and selling the rest at markets. Secretly taped video footage obtained last year by human rights workers shows apparently unopened sacks of rice given by the U.S. and other donors being sold illegally at a market in the northern city of Chongjin.

On the open market, a pound of rice costs 15 to 25 cents — an impossible sum for many North Koreans, whose average salary of $1 per month keeps them on the verge of starvation.

Under the new rules, rice, as well as other staples such as corn, is to be sold at public distribution centers at subsidized prices and in rationed quantities. Markets, which have been gradually legalized since 2002, will still be permitted to sell vegetables, produce, clothing and other goods.

Cho Myong Chol, a former North Korean economist who lives in Seoul, said he believed North Korea would continue with market reforms but at a slower pace. “Since the economic reforms in 2002, the gap between the haves and the have—nots has become so extreme that there is an imbalance that is causing social unrest and dissatisfaction. I think they needed to do something about food to keep control.”

It remains to be seen whether the changes will help ordinary North Koreans. The government recently informed U.N. aid officials that it was cutting back their operations and no longer needed large donations of rice and other foodstuffs. Experts believe North Korea is concerned about the U.N. ‘s monitoring requirements and prefers direct aid from countries such as South Korea and China, which place fewer restrictions on donations.

Until the 1990s, the public distribution system introduced by North Korean founder Kim Ii Sung was the hallmark of a nation that claimed to provide its people with everything from rice to shoes. But the system collapsed in the early l990s, exacerbating a famine that killed an estimated 2 million people — about 10% of the population. The public distribution system still operates, but at reduced capacity.

Although North Koreans today buy much of what they need at markets, the government doesn’t like to admit it and insists that the cradle—to—grave system of social welfare remains.

“We are still a communist country. Nothing has changed. I get everything I need through the public distribution system,” said Yoon So Jung, 25, a guide interviewed last week at Mt. Kumgang, one of the few areas of the country open for tourism.

But pressed about her pink windbreaker, Yoon admitted hesitantly, “Well that, I bought at the market.”

Korea Times
Park Song-wu
9/27/2005

The Pyongyang regime has described Chang Song-taek, North Korean leader Kim Jong-il’s former right-hand man, as a “tree’’ that is now cut off, sources well-informed of the North’s power structure in Seoul said on Tuesday.

Chang, Kim’s brother-in-law and a confidant until purged in late 2004 for an alleged bid to enhance his power, was predicted to return to the Workers’ Party because the Dear Leader, 63, reportedly has a limited number of associates to rely on.

But such a possibility looks slim now as Kim has apparently changed his mind, according to sources in Seoul.

“(Chang) was predicted to make a comeback in the past because he was such a close confidant (of Kim Jong-il),’’ the Yonhap news agency quoted a source as saying. “But now almost all the people who, for example, have simply eaten naengmyon (or Korean cold noodles) together in the Yokryukwan restaurant (in Pyongyang) have been expelled to local areas. The likelihood of Chang’s comeback is near zero now.’’

Chang was formerly vice-director of the party’s exceptionally powerful bureau _ the Organization and Guidance Department. High-profile defector Hwang Jang-yop once described him as the “No. 2 man’’ in North Korea.

Now Ri Che-kang (phonetic), new vice-director of the potent department, is known to be in charge of removing Chang and his close allies from the political scene.

The intended purge of Chang, 60, is allegedly a result of his efforts to promote Kim Hyong-nam, an illegitimate son of Kim Il-sung, the founding father of North Korea, as a contender to Kim Jong-il.

Kim Hyong-nam, 33, was adopted at birth by a sibling of Chang, according to a country report on North Korea by the Economist Intelligence Unit.

The expulsion process resembles one that took place in the 1970s when the Pyongyang regime underwent a power struggle during which “side branches’’ of Kim Il-sung were trimmed away.

At that time, the regime purged Kim Il-sung’s uncle Kim Young-ju as well as others, including the leader’s second wife Kim Song-ae (phonetic) and her children. In 1976, Kim Young-ju disappeared from the political scene and did not re-appear until 1993 when he returned to the Party Central Committee.

Chang is reportedly in a bad state of health now. Even if Kim Jong-il reinstates him, he is unlikely to return to the party. Sources in Seoul predicted that the most likely scenario is that Chang will be named an ambassador _ a job which cannot influence domestic politics.

Kim Jong-il has not yet decided who will succeed him, even though his own ascension to power was carefully prepared over more than 20 years.

There are three known rival candidates for the succession _ all Kim Jong-il’s sons, by two mothers, neither of whom he married.

The eldest, Kim Jong-nam, 34, was reportedly the favorite until 2001 when he was caught visiting a theme park in Japan on a false passport, embarrassing the Pyongyang regime.

Kim Jong-nam’s two rivals are his younger half-brothers _ Kim Jong-chol, 24, and Kim Jong-woon, 22. Kim Jong-il is said to favor Kim Jong-woon, as the more manly of the two, the country report said. Their mother, Ko Young-hee, a former dancer who became his consort, died of cancer in 2004.

Her death triggered numerous media reports predicting an imminent power struggle in the Pyongyang regime, which is described by the Western media as a “Communist dynasty.’’

Korea Times
Andrei Lankov
9/20/2005

North Korea is a country of portraits _ portraits of Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il, that is. The portraits are ubiquitous. They are to be placed in every living room, in every office, in every railway (and, by extension, subway) carriage but, for some reason, not on buses or trolleybuses. The portraits adorn the entrances of all major public buildings, railways stations and schools. Reportedly, in the late 1990s, the largest portrait of Kim Il-sung within the city limits of Pyongyang graced the first department store in the very center of the North Korean capital. The portrait was 15 meters by 11 meters.

North Koreans have been living under the permanent gaze of the Great Leader for more than three decades. In the late 1960s, North Koreans were ordered to place these icons in their homes and offices. By 1972, when Kim’s 60th birthday was lavishly celebrated, North Korea had much greater density of portraits than could ever be found in Stalin’s Russia or Mao’s China _ the two countries that bestowed this peculiar fondness for the Leader’s portraits on Korea.

In the late 1970s, the North Koreans received another set of instructions. They were ordered to display the portraits of Kim Jong-il, the heir designate. This had to be done “unofficially.’’ The propaganda insisted that there was a widespread movement of North Koreans who, purely out of love for the son of their ruler, began to adorn their dwellings with his portraits. Only in the late 1980s did Kim Jong-il’s portraits appear in public space, and from the early 1990s on they have been the same size as those of his father and they are put together in rooms and offices.

All portraits are produced by the Mansudae workshops that specialize in making images of Kim Il-sung, Kim Jong-il and their relatives. They are framed and glassed (and only the best glass and timber will do!).

In different eras, the Kims were depicted in diverse manners, and these changes tell a lot about changes in ideology and policy. In the 1960s and 1970s, Kim Il-sung wore a Mao suit, stressing the austerity and quasi-military character of the regime. In the mid-1980s, these portraits were replaced with new ones, depicting Kim Il-sung in a Western-type suit. This signalled the relative openness of the regime in the late 1980s. After Kim Il-sung’s death in 1994, the new portraits also showed him in suits (incidentally, these portraits were called a “depiction of the Sun’’ since in his lifetime Kim was “The Sun of the Nation’’). However, from early 2001, Kim Il-sung has appeared in newly issued portraits in the military uniform of a generalissimo.

Kim Jong-il’s portrait also underwent similar changes. Initially he was also depicted in the dark-coloured Mao suit, once his favourite. However, the 2001 version showed him in the grandeur of a Marshal’s uniform. This once again confirmed the importance of the “army-first policy’’ proclaimed by Kim Jong-il, North Korea’s Glorious Marshal who _ unlike a vast majority of North Korean males _ never served in the military himself.

Even within private houses, the portraits are treated with the greatest of care. They are put on one of the walls, and that wall cannot be used for any other images or pinups. There are rules prescribing how exactly these icons should be placed. When a North Korean family moves to another place, they must start by hanging the Kims’ portraits on the wall. Random checks are conducted to make sure that proper care of the portraits is taken.

In the military, the portraits are hung in all rooms in permanent barracks. When a unit departs for a field exercise (as North Korean units do often), the portraits are taken with them. Once the platoon prepares its tent or, more commonly, its dugout, the portraits are placed there, and only after this ritual is the provisional shelter deemed suitable for life.

Oftenl the portraits become an important part of ritual. In schools, students are required to bow to the portraits and express their gratitude to the Great Leader who, in his wisdom and kindness, bestowed such a wonderful life on his subjects. The portraits feature very prominently in marriage ceremonies as well. The couple has to make deep bows to the portraits of the Great Leaders. This tribute is very public and serves as a culmination of the wedding ritual. It does not matter whether the wedding ceremony is held in a public wedding hall or at home.

The portraits are jealously protected. Even incidental damage of the portrait might spell disaster for the culprit. But that is another story…

Choson Iblo
9/6/2005

North Korea’s gap between rich and poor has been growing since the Stalinist country started economic reforms in 2002. While some have managed to better themselves to form something of a nouveau riche class, more than 70 percent are now getting only about half the needed calorie intake from state-run food distribution centers, the Financial Times reported Friday.

The World Food Program’s North Korea director Richard Ragan told the paper the wealthy are concentrated in five cities, including Pyongyang. They are the group that can be seen going to work on their bicycles, which cost triple the average monthly salary in North Korea. The newly affluent work mostly in retail and service industries and include tailors, ice cream sellers and bike repairmen who make money in general markets, which have multiplied to some 300 since 2002. Some farmers selling surplus produce are also part of what passes for a wealthy class in North Korea.

Most of those working in industrial production subsist below the minimum level, and tens of thousands of industrial workers in towns like Hamhung or Kimchaek are losing their jobs. Among those able to work, 30 percent are unemployed, and 70 percent of the population receives 250-380 grams of food a day from state-run food distribution centers — no more than half the necessary daily intake of nutrients.

The FT said the country as a whole is experiencing 130 percent inflation but poverty is no longer shared equally.

Korea Times
Andrei Lankov
8/30/2005

For decades, Soviet newspapers regularly ran articles about the great friendship between Moscow and Pyongyang. Journalists extolled the achievements of the North Korean workers and the bravery of the North Korean soldiers. But these official musings did not mislead anybody. North Korea was deeply unpopular in the USSR in the 1960s and 1970s. Anti-communist dissenters saw it as an embodiment of everything bad about their enemy; the surviving Communist idealists saw the Kim Monarchy as an embarrassment to their cause; and the hawkish admirers of the strong state perceived Pyongyang as an untrustworthy and unappreciative ally.

In the late 1980s, when the Communist countries began to crumble, everybody in the USSR expected Pyongyang to collapse in the near future. Moscow foreign policy in the first post-Soviet years was based on the assumption that Russia should unconditionally join the Western world, and thus North Korea was seen as a partner both doomed and embarrassing.

Kim Il-sung Sung died a peaceful death in 1994, and the violent collapse of his regime never happened but this non-event even produced some literature in Russia. Lev Vershinin, a historian and also a good fiction writer, authored Endgame, a novel that described the violent collapse of an imaginary Communist dictatorship. The country of the novel had features that reminded readers of Romania, Cuba and North Korea. Even the geographic names were deliberately mixed _ against all laws of linguistic history, so the capital of this imaginary country had a Korean-sounding name of Taedongang, and the place of the Stalinists’ last stand was called Munchon.

Around the same time, Igor Irteniev, arguably the most popular Russian satirical poet of the 1990s, mockingly wrote of an event that everyone expected to take place soon: “I cannot sleep without a sedative in the darkness of the night, when I imagine what happens to Kim Il-sung in the blood-stained hands of the executioners.’’

But the mood began to change sometime after 1996. North Korea was still the butt of jokes, but new voices came to be heard in Russia as well. These voices presented a more positive approach to North Korea.

This reflected the general change of mood in Russia. An increasing part of its population began to see that the U.S.-led West not as a benevolent force but as a crafty rival, preying on Russia’s weakness. The pro-Western enthusiasm of the early 1990s was replaced by deep suspicions _ not only in the government offices but also in the popular psyche. Thus, the geopolitical opponents of the West, the assorted “pariah states,’’ began to attract some (rather undeserved) sympathy in Russia, and national egoism came to be seen as the only rational policy choice.

Official policy toward North Korea also began to change. By 1997-1998 it became clear that Pyongyang would not collapse any time soon, and the restoration of working relations with the North was a necessity, especially against the backdrop of Russia’s efforts to develop a more independent political line. Good relations with the Kim dynasty also could be useful as a negotiating chip in dealing with the Americans. In academic articles the critique of North Korea was hushed, and augmented with critique of Western insensibilities in dealing with this very peculiar society.

The concept of human rights does not play a major role in Russian politics. A period of idealistic enthusiasm in the early 1990s proved to be short, so few people take statements about human rights seriously. Neither the Russian government nor the Russian public shows much enthusiasm for crusades in the name of human rights in distant lands. It is well known that North Korea is notorious for its disregard of human rights, but Russians cannot care less. Their position is simple: first, it is North Korea’s internal affair after all; second, if North Koreans themselves live under such a regime, who are we to pass judgments on their behalf?

And there are, of course, people who are sincere admirers of the Kim regime, even if their numbers are very small (such people exist even in the West). For some Russian leftists, the regime is seen as a living example of Communist resilience, its alleged ability to survive if the leadership is “correct’’ and uncompromising. They did not question the right of the government to starve half a million or 1 million people in order to stay in power. They either deny the facts (half a million dead? Washington’s propaganda, of course!) or interpret them as voluntary sacrifices made by the patriotic Korean people. But actually, Korean domestic politics is not very important to them: it is the “anti-imperialist’’ stance of the North that really matters for the Russian Left, and make its prominent leaders even occasionally pay homage to the Great Leaders.

Of course, the general public is still skeptical of the North Korean regime and do not harbor many illusions about its true nature. But nobody in Russia wants to build policy on the basis of ideologies these days. You know, Russians have had enough of ideologies over the last century, so now they prefer interests, pure and simple…

Korea Times
Andrei Lankov
8/2/2005

One of the few things known about Kim Jong-il in the West, from at least the 1980s, is that the North Korean dauphin is a movie fan, and that for a while he personally led the entire North Korean movie industry.

Indeed, movies titillated Kim Jong-il’s imagination when he was a student at the Kim Il-sung university in the early 1960s; he loved movies. Of course, his choice was not the boring North Korean films about exemplary steel workers and selfless military nurses who recited dreary monologues about their love for the party (not so for the Leader at that stage).

The young dauphin preferred Western movies, mostly imported from Europe or the U.S. via Moscow. Following the then Soviet approach, such ideologically suspicious movies were bought in very small quantities. They were not for public screening, but the private viewing of the top elite. It is well known that Stalin was a great movie fan.

Nothing like it has ever been heard about Kim Il-sung, but it seems that his eldest son spent long hours in a small viewing room of the Film Distribution Center, itself located on the second floor of an unremarkable apartment building in downtown Pyongyang.

This youthful passion for movies influenced his private life. The two major love affairs that Kim Jong-il had were with women from this theatrical-cinematographic milieu. But it also influenced his political career since the first job for the ‘rising son’ was to head the cinema production group in the Party Central Committee.

In a Communist party, the Central Committee is believed to be the center of everything, and the “ideological guidance” of the fine arts is one of its major tasks. In North Korea, following the Soviet prototype, this task was entrusted to the Agitation and Propaganda Department, which had a special arts section. Arts were seen as a part of propaganda, first and foremost. The cinema production group, headed by Kim Jong-il, belonged to this section.

Kim Jong-il assumed his leadership role in September 1967, when the cinema world was in turmoil. In September 1967, the North Korean Politburo, the party- state’s supreme council, held an urgent meeting on the premises of North Korea’s largest cinema studio. Movie industry leaders were subjected to sharp attacks because they allegedly condoned “anti-party activity” by producing a movie about Pak Kum-chol, a prominent statesman who had recently fallen from grace. Needless to say, this is the normal risk of being a movie producer or writer in a Stalinist society. You are required to worship heroes, but you never know if today’s hero will become tomorrow’s villain. The situation looked grim, praising the enemies of the people could not be taken lightly.

According to an apocryphal but perhaps true story, it was during the “studio” meeting of the Politburo that the then 25 year-old Kim Jong-il volunteered to take control of the cinema industry. Whatever his intentions, this decision saved many people in the industry from humiliation and death. Kim Jong-il staged large-scale self-criticism sessions, but more serious punishments were rare.

In fact, Kim Jong-il protected his beloved cinema world during the turbulent years of the “Kapsan purge,” which was probably the last large-scale purge of top leaders and their associates in North Korean history. After 1970, purges were largely isolated albeit frequent events, not large-scale campaigns as before.

Under Kim Jong-il’s guidance, the movie studios were refurbished. He arranged the best equipment to be imported from overseas. This sounds fine until one remembers that this meant the re-allocation of scarce hard currency reserves, which could be used for buying anything else, from medical supplies to new battle tanks. However, the crown prince loved cinema, and nobody dared question his demands. After all, new movie cameras are much cheaper than missile launchers.

Kim Jong-il’s years at the helm were marked by a serious improvement in the technical quality of North Korean cinema. The story lines remained as tedious as before, and perhaps even got worse: in general, the late 1960s was a period of increasing ideological repression in the North. But the same old boring stories of self-sacrificing workers, exemplary farm girls and, of course, selfless guerrillas were delivered with much better technical precision.

Guerrillas were particularly important since many major movies produced under Kim Jong-il’s guidance dealt with the anti-Japanese struggle of the 1930s. Sea of Blood, a guerrilla epic with a story line patterned after Gorky’s Mother, and Flower Girl were major examples of this trend. For Kim Jong-il this was important, since he reminded his father Kim Il-sung about the heroic days of anti-Japanese warfare, and by doing so he positioned himself as his father’s most trustworthy successor.

By the late 1960s, it became clear that a dynastic succession was in the offing, but there were few contenders who wanted to become heirs to the aging Great Leader. Kim Jong-il had the best chance from the very beginning, although he was not without rivals as well. But that is another story…