Juche, officially the Juche idea, is a name of the official ideology of North Korea and its ruling Workers Party of Korea (WPK). It is also described as the philosophical principle of Kimilsungism-Kimjongilism.
North Korean sources attribute its conceptualization to Kim Il Sung, the country's founder and first leader. Juche was originally regarded as a variant of Marxism–Leninism until Kim Jong Il, Kim Il Sung's son and successor, declared it a distinct ideology in the 1970s. Kim Jong Il further developed Juche in the 1980s and 1990s by making ideological breaks from Marxism–Leninism and increasing the importance of his father's ideas.
Per official descriptions, Juche means that people are the masters of everything and decide everything. Juche incorporates the historical materialist ideas of Marxism–Leninism but also strongly emphasizes human agency, the role of political consciousness, and the primacy of ideology and propaganda. In politics, Juche emphasizes the nation state, national sovereignty, and strongly defends the role of an individual leader.
Juche posits that a country will prosper once it has become independent by achieving political, economic, and military self-reliance. As Kim Jong Il emerged as Kim Il Sung's likely successor in the 1970s, loyalty to the leader was increasingly emphasized as an essential part of Juche, as expressed in the Ten Principles for the Establishment of a Monolithic Ideological System.
Juche has been variously described by critics as a quasi-religion, a nationalist or fascistic ideology, and a deviation from Marxism–Leninism. Korean political scientist Suh Dae-sook argues that Kim Il Sung did not explain the difference between socialist patriotism, which he said he supported, and nationalism, which he said he opposed. Suh also criticized Kim Il Sung's initial conceptualization of Juche, saying that he had failed to explain how Marxism–Leninism had been applied to Korean conditions. American historian Derek R. Ford, by contrast, emphasizes the continuity between Marxism–Leninism and Juche, and credits Juche as the guiding principle that allowed North Korea to survive the collapse of the Eastern Bloc.
American historian Charles K. Armstrong argues that North Korea may appear "Stalinist in form" but is "nationalist in content". Shin Gi-wook similarly argues that "there is no trace of Marxism–Leninism or the Stalinist notion of nationhood" in North Korea, and its government instead stresses the importance of the Korean people's blood, soul, and national traits, echoing earlier Korean nationalists such as Sin Chaeho, Yi Kwangsu, and Choe Namson. Shin believes that the key difference between Marxism–Leninism and Juche is that the latter places ideology above materialism; the vocabulary of family lineage and nationalism is retained and given primacy over class struggle, while social distinction and hierarchy are supported instead of a classless society and egalitarianism.
A few critics have dismissed the idea that Juche is an ideology altogether. Myers argues that Juche cannot be described as a true political ideology because it does not have an underlying belief system, while Alzo David-West calls it "meaningless on logical and naturalistic grounds". American political analyst Robert E. Kelly argues that Juche exists solely to protect the Kim family's monopoly over political power in North Korea. However, Myers dismisses the idea that Juche is North Korea's leading ideology, regarding its public exaltation as designed to deceive foreigners. He argues that it exists to be praised and not actually read. Based on his experience living in North Korea, Swiss businessman Felix Abt calls Myers's arguments "shaky" and "questionable". Having seen the extent to which North Korean university students actually believe in Juche, Abt says it is "rather absurd" to call it "window-dressing" for foreigners. American historian Bruce Cumings and Professor of International Relations Christoph Hartmut Bluth similarly argue that Juche is not mere rhetoric, but rather an ideal of self-reliance that North Korea has attempted to implement.
Comparisons to other ideologies
Juche has been compared to Ba'athism, an Arab nationalist ideology that advocates the establishment of a unified Arab state based on socialism and national self-reliance. South Korean political commentator Park Sang-seek argues that Syrian Ba'athism in particular has rhetorical similarities to Juche, but the latter has a stronger ideological basis.
American economist Benjamin Zycher, writing for the conservative thinktank American Enterprise Institute, opined that the political ideology of Donald Trump shares similarities with Juche. In particular, he noted that both Trump and Juche advocate a policy of isolationism and autarky.
Comparisons to religion
A number of scholars have compared facets of Juche to those of preexisting Korean religions. Jung Tae-il argues that certain elements of Christianity, Cheondoism, and Confucianism were appropriated by and incorporated into Juche. Korean cultural anthropologists Byung Ho Chung and Heonik Kwon liken the commemorations of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il to Confucian ancestor worship. Ju Jun-hui similarly contends that Korean shamanism influenced Juche, comparing the ecstatic state experienced in a shamanic ritual (gut) to the enthusiasm and fervor North Koreans display for their supreme leader. Armstrong accordingly calls Juche a quasi-religion.
Presence of a sacred leader
The ideology teaches that the role of a Great Leader is essential for the popular masses to succeed in their revolutionary movement because without leadership they cannot survive. This is the foundation of Kim Il Sung's cult of personality. The personality cult explains how the Juche ideology has endured, even during the North Korean government's undeniable dependence on foreign assistance during its famine in the 1990s. The concept of a "sacred leader" in Juche as well as the cult around the Kim family has been compared to the State Shinto ideology of Imperial Japan, in which the Emperor was seen as a divine being.
Through the fundamental belief in the essential role of the Great Leader, Kim Il Sung has become the "supreme deity for the people" and the Juche doctrine is reinforced in North Korea's constitution as the country's guiding principle. The parallel relationship structure between Kim Il Sung and his people and religious founders or leaders and their followers has led many scholars to consider Juche a religious movement as much as a political ideology. However, those familiar with cults posit that Juche bypasses the tenets of religion completely and instead meets the criteria of a totalitarian cult.
Juche emphasis on the political and sacred role of the leader and the ensuing worship by the popular masses has been critiqued by various Western Marxists, who argue that the North Korean proletariat has been stripped of its honor, and call the cult of personality non-Marxist and undemocratic.
Rituals
The religious behavior of Juche can also be seen in the perspectives of the North Korean people through refugee interviews from former participants in North Korea's ritual occasions. One pertinent example is the Arirang Festival, a gymnastic and artistic festival held in the Rungrado 1st of May Stadium in Pyongyang. All components of the festival, from the selection of performers, mobilization of resources, recruitment of the audience, and publicity for the show have been compared to facets of a national religious event.
The Arirang Festival has been said to show the power of the North Korean government to arrange a form of religious gathering. It has done so by "appropriating a mass of bodies for calisthenic and performative arts representing the leader as the father and his faithful followers". The festival's effectiveness in transforming its participants into loyal disciples of Juche seems to originate from the collectivist principle of "one for all and all for one" and the ensuing emotional bond and loyalty to the leader. According to accounts of refugees who were recruited to mass gymnastics, the collectivist principle is nurtured by physical punishment such as beatings and more importantly the organization of recruits into small units, whose performances were held accountable by larger units. The festival's ritual components of collectivism serve to reinforce a "certain structure of sociality and affect", establishing Kim Il Sung as the "father" in both the body and psyche of the performers.
Familism
American historian Charles K. Armstrong argues that familism has transformed itself into a kind of political religion in the form of Juche. With the emergence of Juche as North Korea's guiding political principle since the 1960s, the familial relationship within the micro-family unit has been translated into a national, macro-unit, with Kim Il Sung representing the father and the North Korean people his children. Juche is thus based on the language of family relationships with its East Asian or neo-Confucian "resonances of filial piety and maternal love".
Armstrong also argues that North Korea has transferred the "filial piety of nationalism in the family of the leader himself" by positioning Kim Il Sung as the universal patriarch. He argues that while the official pursuit of the Juche ideology in the 1960s signalled North Korea's desire to separate from the "fraternity of international socialism", the ideology also replaced Stalin as the father figure with Kim Il Sung. In effect, North Korea's familial nationalism has supplanted the "rather abstract, class-oriented language of socialism with a more easily understandable and identifiable language of familial connections, love and obligations".
After attaining significant positions in the WPK and military in the early 1980s, Kim Jong Il transformed the personality cult surrounding Kim Il Sung into a family cult and became the heir apparent. Armstrong calls this a "family romance", a term Sigmund Freud used to describe "the neurotic replacement of a child's real parents with fantasy substitutes". Kim Il Sung's consecration as the "Great Father" has been strengthened by the development of the North Korean family romance with the language, symbols, and rituals associated with familism.
See also
- Communism in Korea
- Ilminism, the political ideology of Syngman Rhee, the first president of South Korea
- Juche faction, a political faction within South Korea's student movements
- Kim Il Sung bibliography
- Kim Jong Il bibliography
- Kim Jong Un bibliography
- National communism
- Revisionism (Marxism)