Opinions on North Korea?

revleft.space/vb/threads/196164-Books-on-the-DPRK-(PDFs)?p=2885002

Some books on North Korea from a socialist perspective

the only thing worse than a capitalist state is a capitalist state pretending to be socialist while being fascistic

you tankies are all for enabling fascism look at the Molotov ribbentop pact

Explain to me how North Korea is capitalist considering most of their economic still gravitates arround use value and not exchange value.
lmao, after the West threw Stalin under the bus when Hitler was annexing territory after territory? The whole thing was a non-aggression pact, not an alliance, and you wouldn't need a non-aggression pact if you weren't antagonists in the first place.

WDHMBT

I would agree with this analysis of Stalin hadn't also agreed to annex eastern Poland

why?

I see, we should have let the Nazis occupy Poland as a whole, I agree.

Despite this ridiculous notion the part the USSR annexed was actually not even the entire part that Poland annexed from the USSR in the first place!

That's still very ambiguous.

She escaped, said bad shit about north korea on south korean TV, then got back into north korea and said bad shit on south korea on north korean TV. south koreans are claiming she was abducted back home and was forced to recite her script to make the south look bad, north koreans are claiming she willingly returned home and was forced to recite her script to make the north look bad when she was on TV.

I'm really not sure about this one, they're both believable but I think it's more believable that she returned home herself than some random Chinese abductor bringing her back to north korea.

Of course both interviews were probably scripted.

Based DPRK

Juche is basically Stalinism 2: electric boogaloo

The government is led by Authoritarian dips, but the government is not quite as Authoritarian as the borgouise want us to believe, they are anti-Imperialist, and they provide basic services (food, medicine, a job) to their people. If they weren't so impoverished and pressured by capitalist nations, they could become a successful socialist nation.

hasn't NK dropped all references to communism from its constitution some time ago?

feels like the country degenerated into a bog standard nationalist dictatorship on steroids after kim il sung kicked the bucket.

They removed communism from their constitution in the 60s, not because they don't belive in it but because Kim Il Sung stated that communism won't be attainable as long as imperialism exist. Marxism was never part of their constitution but if you read Kim Il Sungs writings he says that Juche is just the expression of Marxism-Leninism tailored to the specific conditions of the Korean people. They still wave pictures of Lenin on parades, reject capitalism and have socialism in their constitution.

Pretty much. They follow Juche which is a mix of Confucianism, Imperialist Japan style ethno-nationalism, and militarism. They do try to provide basic services for people like most state-capitalist nations, but the dire economic situation has forced the black market to fill the gaps.

All wrong. Like, none of this is true. It's patriotic, I give you that, but that's about it. If you are referring to Songbun (military first) this was a reaction to the growing existential threat. Surely you have no problem with Lenin and Trotsky calling for war communism in the civil war?

I don't have an issue with concepts like self-defense and it's obvious they need a strong military to deter imperialist adventures into their country. I'm NOT going to pretend it isn't a right-wing shithole that subscribes to some of the most reactionary elements of Korean culture. At best you can argue they're to the left of South Korea which is a hyper-capitalist right-wing dystopia in its own right.

The most indefensible country in history, anyone who defends it deserves the bullet.

Can't be a leftist without supporting ISIS or DPRK.

I think it's eurocentric to label elements of foreign cultures as "right-wing". These elements operate regardless of their economic system, dialectical materialism isn't some stale dogma. South Korea also has these "reactionary" elements within their culture. And then again, what elements would you consider right-wing? Discipline, composure? Those things you can find all across the far east. In some aspects, North Korea is more progressive than the west, the liberation of women comes to mind. I mean, do you believe these claims of western authors that say that the DPRK has a racist caste system or something? These claims are based on hearsay an speculation and can't actually be backed up.

I've heard too many conflicting stories to know about their Socialist policies what it's actually like to live there, but I sure as hell do support them having nukes to defend against US Imperialism.

okay

youtube.com/watch?v=oULO3i5Xra0
This is a good intro on the subject, and a must-watch to avoid dehumanising - or glorying - the North Koreans.

I honestly don't like them too much, but with the absolute nonsense that the mainstream media keeps shooting off about the country I find myself defending them more than I'd like to.

yeah defending them for the sake of pissing burger apologists off is valid imo

seriously, where does the "supporting ISIS" meme come from?

Some Italian communist published an article about defending ISIS from imperialism. Anybody has a link?

there were a couple of south korean AMA threads a while back. the OP described how much his country fucking sucks, with extreme poverty for most people over the age of 60 due to a terrible system, sleeping in a room on the floor with your whole family as a child while your preschool costs an insane amount of money, drunk American soldiers raping women and getting away with it because the victims are too ashamed to report it, people drinking more frequently than russians (!), insane numbers of prostitutes of all ages, etc.

but then, in south korea, when a foreigner steals a political poster he doesn't get beaten and tortured. at least not that I'm aware of.

I'm starting to think that the north is extremely authoritarian while the south is some kind of ancapistan.

There was no indication that Warmbeir was abused.

South Korea is far from Ancapistan, most industry is state-owned and they literally have five year plans. Regarding the North Korea refugees, they only put those on the TV who actually made it. Most dissidents from North Korea are dwelling in a slum in some shitty Chinese border town. I double dare any of these liberal human rights activists to interview them.

Also, funny thing, Kim Jong Un had higher approval rating amongst North Korean dissidents (!!) than Obama in his second term

that's fascinating. I thought south korea was one of the asian countries used as a greenspan guinea pig for extreme deregulation in the eighties, yet they still own the industry?

The industry still operates independently, but the state holds most of the shares. Should have been more specific. But South Korea is nonetheless a command economy, don't ever buy into this lolbert bullshit about "asian tigers". South Korea has been propped up with billions and had a state run economy which is still somehow owned by the state to a large extent. After the deregulation you mentioned, I wouldn't call them state capitalist, but they are surely not Ancapistan.

Castro was a great leader and Mao was right to occupy Tibet. Everything else can go to the trash