Turning Marx on His Head? North KoreanJucheas Developmental Nationalism

Juche in the broader context of Korean philosophy

“…In South Korea, the first president Syngman Rhee was arguing that communism was anti‐Korean, a culturally alienating political system that threatened Korean's national identity. Kim Il‐sung's response was Juche, an explicitly Korean version of socialism (Gray, 2023, p. 268; Helgesen, 1991).…”

“…Instead of looking to other systems of thought, Gray (2023) suggests that we look at Juche's material underpinnings to develop a pragmatic rationale for its voluntarism. Kim Il‐sung repeatedly commented that North Korea's economy was behind because of Japanese colonialization, and a voluntarist theory might have been needed to mobilize the masses to catch up economically (Gray, 2023, pp. 266–267).…”

“…To recap: Philosophers note the vibrant intellectual adaptations in the Korean peninsula, and noticing how Juche builds on its major influences helps us place Juche in the broader Korean intellectual trend. Instead of asking whether Juche is a form of this or that ideology, seeing Juche as a “combined ideological form” might help us better understand Juche (Gray, 2023). In the next section, I'll discuss another parallel we find in Juche and the history of Korean philosophy: the philosophical focus on continual effort and sustained willpower toward self‐improvement.…”

“…93–4), and Kim Jong‐il wrote that all human questions “arise in the context of man's social life, and as such they always assume a social character” (Kim, 2001, p. 25). Some scholars actually trace Juche back not to Confucianism but to silhak (Gray, 2023, p. 272). In North Korea, philosophy is not about pursuing some abstract Truth or individually contemplating the meaning and significance of one's own life, but about political awakening; “a theory that does not conform with the specific revolutionary practice is useless,” and “the starting point is not the propositions or formulas of the established theories but the actual realities” (Kim, 1982b, p. 48).…”

“… 2 2 Lankov (2007), David‐West (2009), Myers (2010), and Gray (2023) argue that Juche is too vague, if not nonsensical, for it to be genuinely relevant to the regime's decision‐making. Abt (2014) and Cha (2018) disagree. …”