Talk:Juche
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[edit] It is in 1972 that Juche replaced Marxism-Leninism in North Korea's constitution.
In the paragraph on "Relation to Socialsim and Stalinism," there is an error in a date. The constitution of North Korea was revised in 1972, not in 1977. Thus, it is in 1972 that Juche replaced Marxism-Leninism in North Korea's constitution. It is in 1974 that Kim Jong-il, the current Leader, promulgated the thoughts of his father Kim Il-Sung as Kimilsungism. After this, the reference to Marxism-Leninism became a rare phenomenon in the country. -- Seong-Chang Cheong, 6 June 2006.
[edit] North Koreans pretend that the ideology of Juche is for all countries.
In the paragraph on "Juche in other countries," it is incorrect to say that North Korea now teaches that Juche is only for Koreans. The ideologists of Pyongyang have pretended until now that their doctrine has a universal meaning, especially helpful to third world countries. They cannot mention that Juche is only for Koreans because of their obligations to present Kim Jong-il in the light of an eminent politician who substantially influences world politics. -- Seong-Chang Cheong, 6 June 2006.
--Charlestustison 06:00, 26 September 2005 (UTC) Removed:
The ideology was meant only for the national needs of the Korean nation and was never meant to be exported outside Korea although some people compare North Korea with Communist Romania. While Juche study groups exist in many Western countries, they are not numerous, they are often run by enthusiasts and they exist more for curious and interested people rather than actual study.
I have read Chuche documents and north Korean statements and it is intended for everyone. It grew out of the unique circumstances in Korea, both historical and geopolitical, but it is not just for Koreans.
-- Juche; The Mao-Tao Connection
[edit] Surprise: Juche has been practiced since the dawn of Man
When "Juche" has it so a country relies on itself, that's on a small scale.
Obviously, all people in the world are human, and obviously yet again, we've been relying on each other for many eras. The human race has in fact been "self-reliant" because after all, there obviously hasn't been any extraterrestrials to rely on.
Thus, when Juche is practiced on a worldwide scale, as it has been since humans existed, it often produces more positive results. Just see for yourself the prosperity of many parts of the rest of the world. --Shultz 02:07, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
Shultz, I'm not sure whether you are actually proposing that the article needs to be changed in some way to reflect the statements you've made here. I'll just point out though that Juche, as it is practised in North Korea, is an ideology which goes far beyond the idea of self-reliance. It carries a whole set of dogmas and practises, only some of which are mentioned in the article so far. So your statements, which seem to treat it merely as a belief in self-reliance seem to be a misapprehension or over-simplification of this. --Alexxx1 09:05, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
Think of this: Where did they get their oil from? How did they do so well up 'til the early '90s? They relied on the Soviet Union, plus the rest of the Communist Bloc. After they fell, we started to hear a lot of bad news about North Korea. They were never self-reliant, even to this day, though they seem to be more so than before, albeit not completely, and at great cost! --Shultz 21:06, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
- Yes, I agree absolutely. We can probably make a distinction between juche as a political ideology, which has been incredibly successful at maintaining the North Korean regime in power, and juche as an economic approach, which has been incredibly unsuccessful at providing economic growth in the DPRK. The article needs to address the second aspect of juchhe a little more I think. --Alexxx1 (talk/contribs) 22:40, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Pronunciation
- The Juche Idea (pronounced /tʃutʃʰe/ in Korean, approximately "joo-cheh")
The main reason I disagree with transcriptions based on English spelling is because local English dialects pronounce the same thing in different ways. And in here, "joo" is a *very* rough approximation of "tʃu". bogdan 17:13, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
- In this case, however, the pronunciation of "joo-cheh", will not vary much in different dialects because those sounds in particular are not that variable. There are of course some articulatory differences and the resulting pronunciation will be closer in some dialects to the Korean than in others. Also, given partial initial devoicing in English, initial "j" is actually quite close to the Korean. For an English speaker who just wants to know approximately how to pronounce this word, "joo-cheh" is not that far off, and is infinitely more useful than /tʃutʃʰe/. Given that there is the IPA available for those who care about the exact phonetic details, it's not clear that there is any harm in keeping the approximate pronunciation guide. The spelling "juche" fits the model for French, Spanish, and German words, and someone might attempt a French model and say "zhoosh" or a Spanish model and say "hoo-cheh" or a German model and say "yoo-khuh". Certainly people who attempt "joo-cheh" will be a lot closer than someone who knows no IPA and tries to read it as foreign word using the model of these languages, which is something people often do when attempting to pronounce unfamiliar but distinctly "foreign" words. Nohat 18:15, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Is it appropriate to point out that Juche rhymes with douche?
Hssssssssssss...HSSSSSSSS.
65.97.14.187 00:33, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
- No, because it doesn't. Nohat 00:37, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
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- My Korean teacher pronounces juche as JOO-CHAY. --Uncle Ed 16:15, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Association with "Communist Vandal"
I recently removed the following sentence from the Pee disambiguation page: "This is evidence that the word 'Juche' means 'lousy taste'." Is this consistent enough with the Communist Vandal to file a complaint? --ISNorden 01:19, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Uninformed Changes
There are uninformed changes to this entry. The opening previously said: "The core of Juche is that the masters of the North Korean revolution are the Workers' Party of Korea and the Korean people, who must remake themselves, under its leadership." This definition is derived from Baik Bong's Kim Il Sung 3 vols (Miraisha, 1969-1970). That work is an official biography. But now the opening has been replaced with a slogan from the KCNA headlines: "The core of Juche is that 'man is the master of his own destiny.'"
Further changes include saying that Juche is known "outside North Korea" as Kimilsungism. Before it said Juche is "also" known as Kimilsungism. Kim Jong Il coined the term "Kimilsungism" in his 1976 speech "On Correctly Understanding the Originality of Kimilsungism." The following sentence in "Relation to Socialism, Stalinism and Maoism" has been removed: "North Korea indeed upholds Stalin's theory of "socialism in one country". Stalin founded this theory in 1924 and Kim Il Sung defended the content of it in his 1955 Juche speech.
That speech was made during the initial period of Soviet de-Stalinization. But North Korea, after the devastation of the Korean War, could not afford to lose the Soviet Union as an economic benefactor. So, the open adulation of Stalin, common in the 1940s and 1950s, ended. North Korea held onto Stalin's economic program, however. This is why it refused to join COMECON. Kim Jong Il defended the theory of "socialism in one country" in his 1997 speech "On Preserving the Juche Character and National Character of the Revolution and Construction".
Other paragraphs of this same section have been changed. -- Samuel Kozulin, 1 September 2006
[edit] Re: Uninformed Changes
I have updated this entry. -- Samuel Kozulin, 10 September 2006
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I note that I have added Joseph Stalin to the list of Marx, Engels and Lenin as people who Korea recognizes as good Socialists in the Pre-Juche era. I do this based on the book "Respecting the forerunners of the revolution is a noble moral obligation of revolutionaries" by Kim Jong Il in 1996, where he mentions Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin as all having distinguished service for the revolution and an entire paragraph is devoted to their accomplishments.
..........
Please sign and date your note. Reference to Stalin has been removed from the last paragraph of the section "Relation to Socialism, Stalinism and Maoism." North Korean appreciation of him is dealt with in the second paragraph. The last paragraph concerns the three early classical Marxists. Stalin is not a "classical" Marxist. From 1924 to 1953, he either endorsed or introduced the following neologisms and policies: Marxism-Leninism, monolithic party, people's democracy, socialism in one country, socialist realism, theory of encirclement and so forth. -- Samuel kozulin 16:16, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
[edit] On Weasel Words
A Wikipedia user removed the term "so-called" from the sentence, "In 1972, Juche replaced so-called Marxism-Leninism [. . .]," because "so-called" is claimed to be a weasel word. Neither the said Wikipedia entry nor the Wikipedia:Manual of Style list "so-called" as a weasel word. Here "so-called" places emphasis on the relative character of the term and policies of Marxism-Leninism. This phrase was popularized by Stalin after V. I. Lenin died in 1924. Moreover, Marxism-Leninism was designed so as to put national interests first, that is to say, Soviet national interests, according to Stalin's theory of socialism in one country.
After World War II, those countries that appropriated Marxism-Leninism in their own national interests were Yugoslavia and China. Albania, North Korea, and Romania fell into that category after Stalin died in 1953 and after Soviet de-Stalinization began in 1956. The façade of consensus around so-called Marxism-Leninism exploded in the 1950s and '60s. See for example Mao Zedong's 1964 essay titled “On Khrushchov’s Phoney Communism and Its Historical Lessons for the World”. Also see the Wikipedia entry on Marxism-Leninism. Would the Wikipedian who made the aforesaid omission please comment? -- Samuel kozulin 15:06, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Juche Calendar
The following passage from the section titled “Juche Calendar” has been removed: “though North Korea is unique in basing the calendar on the birth of an individual rather than a political event.” No, that is incorrect. The personalized Gregorian calendar, which is already referred to in the same section, is based on the birth of Jesus Christ.
The distinction “birth of an individual” versus “political event” is also incorrect. North Korean historiography interprets the birth of Kim Il Sung as a major political event. That sounds teleological, even religious, but that is how it is. Juche chronology does not separate the individual from the political. Such a division is conceptually false here.
To comment further on another point in the entry, the Juche calendar does not have a “Year 0” and is also like the Gregorian calendar this respect. Designation of a 0 year is a more Eastern phenomenon, however. Democratic Kampuchea (now Cambodia) under the leadership of Pol Pot did declare a “Year 0,” but that dating system was not birth-based.
Some brief additions and sources regarding North Korea, Democratic Kampuchea, and the Juche ideological doctrine will be made to this entry shortly. –- Samuel kozulin 14:46, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
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Brief updates made concerning North Korea and Kampuchea in the section titled "Juche in Other Countries" and in the bibliography. -- Samuel kozulin 10:02, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Contradictions in definition
I'd like to see some more criticism of the concept. Juche mandates absolute loyalty from citizens to government, which is standard in Communist countries. But it also claims to respect the "independence" of the people in thought and politics. Isn't this a contradiction? How can people be simultaneously loyal and independent?
- Is this my own idea (original research), or have published authors commented on this?
- According to KJI's commentary, the people must be loyal to the revolutionary leader and independent of other countries. Gazpacho
Likewise, if government policy "reflects the will and aspirations of the masses" how can it also force them to engage in "revolution"? What if the masses don't want to support the Communist revolution imposed on them by the dictatorial government? What if they want instead freedom of speech and (as above) freedom of thought; freedom of religion; and economic freedom (like the right to own their own farm and grow their own food)?
- Again, is this my own idea (original research), or have published authors commented on this?
I need some help with this. --Uncle Ed 18:30, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
- Are you joking? Nobody said that Juche policy was based on honesty. Nobody except our friend Bjornar, that is. Gazpacho 01:58, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Nation and Individual in Juche
These arguments would be appropriate under the “Criticism” section. But you will have to find some substantiation in the available literature (Eberstadt, McCormack, Oh and Hassig, Scalapino and Lee, etc.). Some of these books should be in your community or university library. However, to address some of the points you raise in brief, the concept of independence (chajusong) in the Juche ideology is understood in national and nationalistic terms, not individual or individualistic terms. Reference in North Korean sources to people/masses should be read as nation/state.
The Juche doctrinal system operates within a politically organicist conceptual framework. The people/nation is seen as a blood-based, kinship community, whose needs as a whole are greater than the needs of the part. Kim Jong-il confirms and advances this view in the 1997 speech mentioned earlier. Since North Korea is a Stalinist state originally based on the pre-1956 Soviet model, these organicist conceptions are also bound up with Stalin’s nationalist economic program of “socialism in one country” and the characteristic totalitarian interpretation of the socialist principle of collectivism.
Discussion on freedom of expression, freedom of religion, and economic freedom in North Korea should consider this political background. Do note as well that since the centralized Stalinist economy in the country collapsed in the 1990s, there has been a major rise of small businesses in the past fifteen years. The North Korean state has also been implementing capitalist reforms in the country since 1998. The July 2002 price and wage reforms have already received a lot of attention. North Korea, in other words, is a society in transition to another kind of political and economic system.
Some Chinese and Russian scholars (at the moment two Russian experts who come to mind are Leonid Petrov and Alexander Voronstov) have said that North Korea is moving in the direction of an authoritarian capitalism comparable to the Park Chung-hee military dictatorship in South Korea in the 1960s and 1970s. Now that the North Korean Songun (army-first) policy rejects the role of the “working class” as an independent force -- the power base of the North Korean leadership has always been the army -- Kim Jong-il makes favorable remarks about Park Chung-hee. -- Samuel kozulin 10:17, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Ryugyong Hotel Project
Reference to the Ryugyong Hotel Project as the "best exemplified" expression of the Juche ideology has been removed from the opening of the Juche entry. First off, this is a conjectural statement. Secondly, whether by accident or design, it sounds sarcastic since the hotel is a failed project that is unfinished and cannot be finished.
Mention of the hotel itself should go under the section titled "Practical Application" of Juche ideology. There are four implied thematic subsections in that part of the entry: (1) policy, (2) history, (3) economics, (4) religion. A fifth subsection can focus on architectural projects and list the Arch of Triumph, Juche Tower, Ryugyong Hotel, etc.
Alternatively, there can be a section titled "Juche in the Arts" or something like that, which brings some focus to architecture, cinema, literature, opera, painting, posters, and sculpture produced under the North Korean state ideology. Ever since the revised constitution of 1972, mention has been made to a state-sanctioned "Juche art" in North Korea. -- Samuel kozulin 10:24, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Kim Il Sung's thought and Sun Myung Moon's thought
I just noticed something I overlooked before. The Korean word 주체 (subject) is also used in the Divine Principle and Unification Thought of the Rev. Moon's Unification Church. I wonder if Kim's focus on the subject's dominance can be contrasted with Moon's harmony of subject and object. --Uncle Ed 16:19, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
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See response below. -- Samuel kozulin 14:29, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Etymology of Juche
Such a contrast could be made. But the word "Juche" has existed in Korean long before 1955. The word is of Chinese origin, forms of it appear in pre-modern Confucian texts, and it can mean agent, autonomy, core, divine principle, identity, main body, main constituent, main part, nucleus, self-reliance, son of heaven, subject, theme, topic, etc.
- Chinese: 主體 or 主体 (zhǔ tǐ)
- Japanese: 主體 or 主体 (shutai)
- Korean: 主體 or 주체 (chuch’e)
Japanese nationalists in the 1920s used this word, as well as Korean nationalists (e.g., Sin Ch'aeho and Paek Nam'un) in the colonial period. Chinese and Japanese Marxists and pseudo-Marxists also used the characters 主體 to mean "subject" as in Karl Marx's sense of the politically conscious international working class who stands as the subject of history.
When Kim Il-sung used "Juche" in the 1955 speech, it appeared in the context of defining the programmatic subject or topic of North Korean Stalinist politics and ideology, namely, the "Korean revolution" versus Soviet de-Stalinization. North Korean dictionaries in the 1950s also defined Juche as a straightforward translation of the Soviet word sub’ekt.
Use of the phrase 주체사상 (Juche Sasang) "Juche Idea" or "self-reliance ideology" did not appear in North Korea until 1962, when it was being systemized by WPK ideologists. But even South Koreans were using "Juche." After Park Chung-hee seized power in 1961, he used the slogan in line with his authoritarian-capitalist military policies.
Some South Korean phrases that use "Juche" are 주체의식 (chuch’e ŭishik): sense of independence and sovereignty; 국민 주체의식 (kungmin chuch’e ŭishik): sense of national identity; and 국민 주체성 (kungmin chuch’e sŏng): national identity. The first two mean something like "identity consciousness" and "national identity consciousness."
The word "Juche" has also been adapted in contemporary South Korean martial arts terminology and is the name of an ITF Taekwondo poomse (martial arts form or pattern) developed by South Korean army General Choi Hong Hi. A brief definition of this particular Taekwondo form can be found under the Wikipedia entry titled Hyung.
In contrasting Rev. Sun Myung Moon's "Juche," you might want to bring up Kim's Presbyterian Christian background and his Sunday school teaching in the 1920s. The element of faith in Juche may have some additional roots in Kim's religious upbringing. But also mention Moon's anti-communism and his business transactions with North Korea in the early 1990s. -- Samuel kozulin 14:28, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
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- Good gosh, how did you become so knowledegable about all this? --Uncle Ed 18:31, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
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North Korean Studies is just a specialized discipline. Related information can be found in scholarly publications (books and journals) and North Korean primary sources, which are usually confined to a small readership. -- Samuel kozulin 13:43, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
[edit] North Korea and COMECON
In "Relation to Socialism, Stalinism, and Maoism," a Wikipedia user changed the sentence "The regime, however, refused to reform its orthodox Stalinist economy and join COMECON" to "The regime, however, refused to change the 'one country' nature of its economy and join the Communinst economic union COMECON." This eliminates brief, but important, technical and historical information and is misleading.
First of all, the standard full version of COMECON in English is "Council for Mutual Economic Assistance." Secondly, after COMECON was established in 1949, the Stalinist Soviet Union was still pursuing the utopian perspective of "socialism in one country," now with COMECON member states under its economic control. These virtual Soviet colonies were needed in face of the war-torn Soviet economy and other changes in the world-political situation after WWII.
North Korea received observer status in COMECON in 1957. But as some of the most pertinacious students of pre-COMECON and pre-1956 (orthodox) Stalinism, the North Koreans knew that integration in COMECON would lead to economic and political dependence on the Soviet Union. For them, this also did not square with Stalin's original formulation of "socialism in one country," a self-reliant national state based on the home market as an independent economic unit.
Soviet "de-Stalinization" (bureaucratic self-reform) and Khrushchev's policy of "peaceful coexistence" were also factors in North Korea retaining its economic policy on orthodox Stalinist lines. In 1963, the North Koreans even suggested that the COMECON setup and division of labor was a form of "economic enslavement" that would throw their national economy off balance, as certain production sectors would be developed at the expense of others to benefit the foreign economy of the Soviet Union.
North Korea was also an ex-colonial country that experienced "economic enslavement" when the Japanese Empire colonized the Korean Peninsula from 1910 to 1945 and exploited its natural resources and human labor. This also factored into the North Korean rejection of Soviet plans for its economic integration into COMECON and to the indirectly stated denunciation of this trading system as comparable to colonial "relations between countries in the capitalist world."
The above passage that was altered has been reverted to the original with a few additions: "The regime, however, refused to follow the example of Soviet political reform or to abandon its pre-1956 orthodox Stalinist economic program by joining the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (COMECON)." Would the Wikipedia user who made the original change please comment to assist with further clarification? -- Samuel kozulin 07:06, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Why the link to Brian Reynolds Myers?
It seems very tangentially related -- will we link to all other professors who've written about North Korea?-- Sliderule, 15 October 2006
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Please sign and date your note. A look at the history reveals that Wikipedia user Billypilgrim45 added that link on 22 July 2006. A Wikipedia "deletionist" named Impaciente removed a number of paragraphs in the Brian Reynolds Myers entry on 9 October, including one which referred to Myers' documented work and polemics in North Korean Studies. I will try to correct this problem later. While Brian Myers is not the most prominent name in Korean Studies, some of his contributions have been acknowledged by Andrei Lankov (Crisis in North Korea) and Balazs Szalontai (Kim Il Sung in the Khruschev Era), for example. Myers published an essay on the 1955 "Juche Speech" in the January 2006 issue of Acta Koreana journal. Perhaps that is why his name was linked. That paper attempts to make the argument that the speech is not nationalist. The nationalism of Juche has been the consensus in North Korean Studies for the past forty years. North Korean sources even say that Juche is programatically nationalist. What do you suggest about the link? -- Samuel kozulin 09:06, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
