Polina Levina

November 13, 2007

The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) is the most isolated, backward, and oppressive state in the world. It is also run by the sole communist dynasty in history. This is the cult of Kim Il Sung (known as the Great Leader) and his somewhat unhinged son, Kim Jong Il (the Dear Leader). We are probably lucky that political succession DPRK-style never caught on in other communist states. What if Stalin’s offspring had taken power instead of Khrushchev, or if there had been a Little Mao or Pol Pot Junior?

  Is Kim Jong Il really just Korea’s Marie Antoinette? Stories of his excesses abound. Rumour has it that he orders more Hennessy’s cognac that anyone else in the world, employs ‘pleasure squads’ of Swedish blondes, and is an obsessive-compulsive germophobe. Unfortunately, the Dear Leader was (and remains) unavailable for comment. The only time he has ever spoken in public was in 1992, at a celebration of the North Korean army ("Glory to the people's heroic military!"). But the party might soon be over. It is further rumoured that he suffers serious liver disease. Perhaps watching Team America is the closest we’ll ever get to this fascinating fixture of world politics.

   Compared to Kim, the current state of the country is actually looking quite rosy – relative to the famines that blighted it just a few years ago. The North Korean people haven’t had such a plentiful harvest in decades, and the regime has finally agreed to trade some enriched uranium for aid.  This was my chance to visit Kim’s strange and sinister land. 

   Air Koryo (the national airline of the DPRK) flies from Beijing to Pyongyang every two weeks. My mother and I decided not to risk our lives more than absolutely necessary, and took the train from Moscow. This involved standing at the Sino-Russian border and then again at the Sino-DPRK border for a dozen hours each time, while soldiers blocked the doors and ravaged through our luggage to make sure we weren’t bringing in any subversive literature. They spent an hour looking at the latest Harry Potter instalment. It turned out they thought it was the Bible.

    Whether Pyongyang having no electricity is a well thought-out strategic manoeuvre, I shall never know. Arriving in the capital city in the middle of the night, I thought we had just stopped in yet another rice field for yet another round of questioning. As our tour guide later informed us, the Korean people are happy that they have electricity shortages, because they know that their sacrifices mean that they can have nuclear weapons. 

   Aside from the colossal monuments and omnipresent likenesses of the two Kims, the weirdest aspect of their socialist paradise is the extent to which manual labour runs the country. An army of broom-wielding street cleaners sweeps the empty streets every morning. Instead of traffic cones, large boulders painted white are used to divert the non-existent traffic. Lanes on the roads are separated by kilometres of carefully laid out pebbles, which school children paint white after every rainfall. The asphalt, when damaged, is uprooted using rudimentary  tools, then melted on a metal sheet above some coals and re-applied.

    The only cars on the roads of North Korea are those of diplomats, tourists and their entourages, and the military. All other members of the society are transported using old Soviet trains and buses, and, in the rural areas, in massive 1930s pick-up trucks that billow black smoke and cover the passengers in soot. In a country that has severe shortages of everything, including fuel, creative approaches to life are crucial. Some of these vehicles are fuelled with coal and wood. The steam engine has, indeed, made a comeback. Not that the Korean people mind. As the secret service lady made clear, “the Dear Leader knows how much the Korean people value clean air, and so doesn’t let us own cars.” I wonder whether he also knows how much the Korean people love exercise and useless manual labour.

    As horrifying as this existence is, North Korea does not quite approximate the ninth circle of hell. True believers may still live in an alternate universe where American Imperialism is the archenemy of the proletariat; nevertheless, the regime is slowly but surely ebbing away. The Kims’ portraits are being replaced by pictures of orchids and gardenias (also known as the Kimilsungia and Kimjongilia flowers) and the main streets of Pyongyang are lined with small kiosks selling fruit drinks imported from Singapore.

    So what happens when the regime does fall?  Will it be the next cheap no-standards labour capital of Asia, taking the “shock therapy” route of corruption and oligarchy pioneered by Russia? If so, a Putin-esque iron-fisted president could take the reins all too soon, and antagonise the world once more. Or will the DPRK take the Chinese route to oppressive market-Leninism and slowly disintegrate socialism? The regime has already begun a few free market experiments along the lines of China’s Special Economic Zones, but North Korea awaits its Deng Xiaoping. Reunification, snail’s-pace as it is, may yet bring the South’s industries beyond the 38th parallel, eventually reconciling the two Koreas. As happy as that scenario would be, Seoul would probably have to subsidise its poor Northern cousin for decades to come. Russia, China, or Germany: the post-Cold War world has lessons aplenty for the peninsula’s future. Unfortunately, in today’s North Korea, the Cold War is still being fought.