This study is designed to analyze Juche Idea, for which it examines the methodological problems of Juche Idea research, and the nature and development of Juche Idea. It investigates how Juche Idea as a ruling ideology has effected on North Korea polit...
This study is designed to analyze Juche Idea, for which it examines the methodological problems of Juche Idea research, and the nature and development of Juche Idea. It investigates how Juche Idea as a ruling ideology has effected on North Korea political system and what functions and status Juche Idea has maintained. Moreover it focuses on how idea education has been carried out in order to establish Juche Idea as a ruling ideology in North Korea.
Juche Idea is a ruling ideology which emphasizes the cause, the protection of North Koreans and socialist regime. As a matter of fact, it is impossible to have a thorough grasp of North Korea without understanding Juche Idea.
Juche Idea is a ruling ideology which has been continuously reformed by the demands of times and realities. Juche Idea reflects a power-oriented will of Kim Il-Sung, and plays a role of political guidance in North Korea. However, Juche Idea is neither permanent nor unchangeable. Juche Idea has to change according to domestic and foreign situation. In spite of the rapid transition of political and social system in the Soviet Union and the European socialist countries, North Korea government has succeeded in protecting its system by emphasizing the excellence and originality of socialism of their own style. It is not too much to say that this has been possible wholly due to Juche Idea. It will be meaningful to analyze the status and development of Juche Idea, and also to understand the substance and essence of North Korea system by accounting transition process of Juche Idea.
Every communist regime has a ruling ideology based on Marxism-Leninism. The ruling ideology, which all the members are forced to support and obey, controls the whole aspects of social system. In the case of a communist system, a ruling ideology plays a significant role in pursuing existence and development. North Korea Communist Party also has been founded on Marxism-Leninism, but since Kim Il-Sung advocated 'Juche in the Party Project' in 1955, Kim's new idea became theoretically elaborated, systemized and then evolved into Juche Idea. And then 'Red Flag Idea' appeared after the death of Kim Il-Sung, and 'Kangsong Taeguk (Strong and Prosperous Country)' and 'Songun Chongchi (Military-First Politics)' did after the establishment of Kim Jung-Il regime. They are practical ideologies that were derived from Juche Idea, which means that they were modified versions of Juche Idea in terms of contents and framework. They are also dominant logics that regulate North Koreans' lives.
Therefore we can see Juche Idea has been developed according to domestic and foreign affairs, and the nature and character of Juche Idea as a ruling ideology in North Korea has been transformed by KIm Il-Sung and Kim Jung-Il's political objectives.
However the weakest point of Juche Idea is the argument that supreme leader, the party, and people need to be united as one entity and to be guided by supreme leader's instructions in order to complete the revolution and construction projects. This leads to cult of personality and personal dictatorship, which neglect North Koreans' subjectivity and force them to show only loyalties and blind obedience. It might be mainly due to the supreme leader's instructions that Juche Ideas is shunned by the international community.
It is a matter of common knowledge that political idea education has played a crucial role in maintaining political system peculiar to North Korea and insuring its legitimacy. In spite of the fall of socialist countries and internal conflicts, long sustenance of socialist regime is owing to political idea education based on Juche Idea and its role as an effective control mechanism. Therefore Juche Idea will be used as ideological base for idea education and thought control in order to protect its own socialist system and continue to add theoretical reinterpretation in accordance with change of surroundings. North Korea government needs to solve the problems such as social unrest by financial difficulties, decreasing social productivity by the downside of bureaucracy, and anxiety about the sustenance of own political system after the fall of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. North Korea government seems to concentrate its energies on political surveillance and idea education based on Juche Idea, which has been translated into Suryng Ideology (Supreme Leader Theory), Organic Socio-Political Body Theory, Urisik Socialism (Socialism of Our Own Style), and Songun Chongchi (Military-First Politics) and suchlike.