65th anniversary of the Workers’ Party of Korea and the question of ‘succession’

By redguard

Speculation about the future of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (the socialist north) and its leadership has filled the U.S. corporate media in recent days. Amidst gala celebrations marking the 65^th anniversary of the communist Workers’ Party of Korea and the recent election of its new Central Committee, U.S. officials, media and “experts” are rife with conjecture about the promotion of Kim Jong Un to the post of vice-chair of the WPK’s Centeral Military Commission.

Kim Jong Un is the third son of Workers’ Party General Secretary Kim Jong Il and the grandchild of Kim Il Sung, the revolutionary leader who founded the Workers’ Party and the DPRK. The capitalist media claim that Kim Jong Il is sickly and they present Kim Jong Un’s promotion as evidence of his coming “succession” to leadership of North Korea and of a “family dynasty” akin to monarchy.

The anniversary of the Workers’ Party and the survival of the DPRK are certainly cause for celebration by the Korean people and the working class everywhere. Korean communists and their friends and comrades worldwide are justly proud that their socialist revolution survived the counter-revolutionary tide of the 1990s and continuing threats by the U.S. and its allies.

The U.S. militarily occupies South Korea with troops, nuclear weapons and a concrete wall that bisects the peninsula. Washington politically and economically dominates South Korea. The U.S. and South Korea routinely carry out war games and other provocations against the north.

At an October 10 military parade in Pyongyang marking the Party’s anniversary, Ri Yong Ho, chief of the General Staff of the Korean People’s Army, noted that “Should the DPRK come under attack, the KPA will smash the enemies with merciless and just retaliatory strikes.”

CONFUSION OF THE WESTERN LEFT

Sadly, there is a lack of understanding of the Workers’ Party’s accomplishments in the West, including among many who call themselves communists, socialists, anti-imperialists and progressives.

Part of this is based on a simple lack of information. Although depicted as a “hermit kingdom” in the bourgeois media – a term that itself goes back to the pre-revolutionary 18^th and 19^th century when Korea struggled to be independent – the true cause of north Korea’s isolation is the unceasing state of war by U.S. imperialism and its allies since 1950. Washington still refuses to sign a peace treaty with the north.

In addition, it must be said, the frequent animosity toward the DPRK by Western leftists is a reflection of cultural imperialism (transmitted through the mass media), assumptions about what a revolutionary process “should” look like, and bias rooted in the Korean War-era demonization of the north.

Few workers and oppressed people in the U.S. have the opportunity to learn, for example, about the Joeson Empire that preceded modern Korea, and how it was constantly under occupation or threat of occupation for centuries by larger, more powerful neighbors like Japan, and later by the Western colonial powers.

For the first half of the Twentieth Century, Korea was brutally occupied by Japan – only to have that occupation continued by the U.S. in the south immediately following World War II.

An essential part of the project of Korean liberation promoted by Kim Il Sung and his comrades was to re-establish the national identity and traditions trod upon by colonialism, east and west. It was possible to do this in the north, while at the same time moving forward with rebuilding the country, technological modernization and elimination of caste and class oppression, following liberation and the defeat of the U.S.-led war from 1950-1953.

One aspect of this reclamation of Korean identity has been the symbolic importance to the nation of Kim Il Sung and his family. For those of us raised in Western imperialist countries (which claim to be meritocracies, though they are nothing of the sort), it can be hard to wrap our heads around this.

However, it helps to understand the place of Kim Il Sung in Korean history, as the acknowledged liberator of a people oppressed from outside for centuries, while at the same time standing for the end of feudal and capitalist exploitation. Within the context of Korean history, Kim Il Sung was Simon Bolivar, Fidel Castro and Che Guevara rolled into one.

The struggle of Kim Il Sung and the WPK was also of great importance to the world working-class movement. Hand in hand with volunteers from revolutionary China, the Korean people handed U.S. imperialism a major defeat in the Korean War. Later, they successfully maintained the DPRK’s independence and friendly relations with both China and the USSR during the challenging years of the Sino-Soviet split.

COLLECTIVE LEADERSHIP

Those who are familiar with the Workers’ Party know that a collective leadership developed in the wake of Kim Il Sung’s death in 1994 and the passing of the original revolutionary generation from the scene. It was several years before Kim Jong Il assumed the title of party general secretary. During this period the WPK leadership worked out its perspective for the best way forward for the Korean Revolution. *

This important work went on in the midst of grim international circumstances. The grave consequences of the counter-revolution in the USSR and Eastern Europe were being felt economically and politically by socialist trading partners like the DPRK and Cuba. Smelling blood, the Clinton administration mounted an aggressive campaign of economic and diplomatic sanctions and military threats.

But, as in Cuba, imperialism’s efforts failed. The Korean people, like their Cuban comrades, were victorious in maintaining their independence and fending off capitalist counter-revolution.

Friends of the DPRK may ask whether carrying on the symbolism of Kim Il Sung’s family is the best way to advance the Korean Revolution. But whatever our understanding (or lack of it) for this process, the most important points for revolutionaries in the U.S. are these:

1) The Workers’ Party of Korea has defended independence, socialism and revolution through one of the most challenging periods of working class history;

2) The WPK continues to aid the world anti-imperialist struggle and the might of the Korean People’s Army is an important brake on U.S. aggression in Asia;

3) The WPK continues to uphold the goal of international communism and working-class internationalism.

In the current media onslaught, we can already see the outlines of the coming imperialist offensive against the DPRK. As in the period following Kim Il Sung’s death a generation ago, the imperialists hope to take advantage of any transition to sow confusion, break solidarity and overthrow the Korean Revolution.

It is incumbent on revolutionaries in the imperialist centers to refuse to be pawns in this counter-revolutionary game, to oppose economic, diplomatic and military war moves, and to educate the progressive movement and the working class about the significance of Korea’s historic struggle.

Long live the Workers Party of Korea and the DPRK!

U.S. out of Korea – For reunification of the Korean peninsula!

* On a personal note, I have great respect and compassion for Kim Jong Il, a man personally devoted to art and culture, who might have chosen a very different life for himself, but instead did his duty to the revolution and his people. He has done much to uphold socialism and is deserving of respect, not the belittlement and racist caricatures of the capitalist media (too often repeated by “progressives.”)