Yes. In fact, even the current leaders of North Korea consider North Korea not to be,”communist” but a superior, unique system.
Marx would have just boggled at most of the self-proclaimed communist states. It is likely that he wouldn't know what to make of them initially. Trotsky considered the self-proclaimed communist states “deformed workers' states” that needed to be reclaimed through a,second revolution. It is hard go.know what he would have made of North Korea though. It I is likely he would revise his approach to call it something else but he would probably be still calling for a workers' revolution (unrealistic as this is in modern Joseon).
Lenin may have recognized some of his own blunders in.the DNA of North Korea, or perhaps he would have been to arrogant for that. Either way, even he would certainly be horrified by the way it operates.
Juche is a very strange ideology. It is interesting to read as a curiosity but I can’t say it’s very essential reading for a communist.
I will copy something I wrote on another website on what I got from reading some on Juche, mainly I read selected works from Kim Il-sung, On the Juche Idea, and Juche Idea: Answers to Hundred Questions. These are sort of my own interpretations and not any sort of “official” interpretation, so take it with a grain of salt.
Marx points out how every economic system gives rise to its own ideology in the superstructure. Marxism is very different from past ideologies because most were very simple and based in simple to understand principles. Things like divine right of kings, or liberalism with their vague notions of "freedom".
Marxism is a complex scientific theory of general societal development that is not simple to understand at all, and seems to be historically out of place to be a superstructure ideology, which tend to be simple.
I've only read a small handful of Juche works, but Juche almost seems like it is trying to be the socialist equivalent of past superstructure ideologies. It takes Engels's ideas about how socialism ends the anarchy of production and make the masses for the first time "the creator of their own history" and the "master of their own destiny," and largely simplifies socialism down to this.
With the seizing of the means of production by society, production of commodities is done away with, and, simultaneously, the mastery of the product over the producer. Anarchy in social production is replaced by systematic, definite organization. The struggle for individual existence disappears. Then, for the first time, man, in a certain sense, is finally marked off from the rest of the animal kingdom, and emerges from mere animal conditions of existence into really human ones. The whole sphere of the conditions of life which environ man, and which have hitherto ruled man, now comes under the dominion and control of man, who for the first time becomes the real, conscious lord of nature, because he has now become master of his own social organization. The laws of his own social action, hitherto standing face-to-face with man as laws of Nature foreign to, and dominating him, will then be used with full understanding, and so mastered by him. Man's own social organization, hitherto confronting him as a necessity imposed by Nature and history, now becomes the result of his own free action. The extraneous objective forces that have, hitherto, governed history, pass under the control of man himself. Only from that time will man himself, more and more consciously, make his own history — only from that time will the social causes set in movement by him have, in the main and in a constantly growing measure, the results intended by him. It is the ascent of man from the kingdom of necessity to the kingdom of freedom.
--- Friedrich Engels, Socialism: Utopian and Scientific
When the popular masses are guided by a progressive idea, they can be a powerful creator of history. Of course, it does not mean that all progressive ideas play the same role in socio-historical development. Their role is different according to how they represent the aspirations and interests of the popular masses and how correctly they show the path which must be followed in struggle. There were ideas which reflected the aspirations of progressive classes of society even before the emergence of the working class. But due to their historical and class limitations the trends of thought in the past age could not but be hampered in the role they played in social development. The revolutionary ideas of the working class alone can correctly reflect the demands of the time and the aspirations of the popular masses and give a powerful stimulus to socio-historical development by inspiring the people to wage the revolutionary struggle...In order to advance the revolution under the new historical conditions, the working class and the people of every country, conscious of being the masters, had to solve all problems in accordance with their actual situation...the Juche idea emerged on the basis of the requirements of a new age when the masses of the people appeared as the masters of history.
--- Kim Jong-il, On the Juche Idea
Rather than placing the primary superstructure ideology as Marxism, it tries to focus on the very simple notion of countries becoming the master of their own destiny and creating their own history, as sort of like a simple ideological principle, which some Juche works state that this is "the ideology of the socialist era". So in a sense, they don't see Marxism as being the superstructure ideology, but Juche being it, and Marxism being more of a tool.
I got this impression a lot from what I've read. I'm not sure if I'd even describe Juche as like an extension of Marxism. In some ways it's even a simplification, in other ways it's basically its own unique thing entirely.
I also noticed that for them, the "end goal" is along the lines of all countries liberating themselves, putting the proletariat as the ruling class, ending the anarchy of production, and man becoming the creators of their own history. In other words, they don't really see socialism as states coming together into one big socialist state, at least from what I've read.
I have heard some claim Juche is idealist because at the core of their philosophy is "man is the master of his destiny and decides everything", hence it seems to place ideology above material conditions.
However, this is a misreading of Juche. They make it clear that the ability of humanity to create its own history is dependent on its level of material development, and that mankind fully being the masters of their own destiny is unique to the socialist era.
As history advances, man's position and role as master of the world is strengthened, and the extent of people's domination over the world increases daily through their independent, creative and conscious struggle. In our time the masses of the people have emerged as true masters of the world, and through their struggle the world is being changed more and more to serve the masses. Today the position and role of the masses of the people as masters of the world are becoming stronger than ever before. This reality proves more patently the validity and vitality of the principle of Juche philosophy that man is the master of everything and decides everything.
--- Kim Jong-il, On the Juche Idea
Which is, again, almost identical to something Engels says as well.
Freedom therefore consists in the control over ourselves and over external nature, a control founded on knowledge of natural necessity; it is therefore necessarily a product of historical development. The first men who separated themselves from the animal kingdom were in all essentials as unfree as the animals themselves, but each step forward in the field of culture was a step towards freedom. On the threshold of human history stands the discovery that mechanical motion can be transformed into heat: the production of fire by friction; at the close of the development so far gone through stands the discovery that heat can be transformed into mechanical motion: the steam-engine. — And, in spite of the gigantic liberating revolution in the social world which the steam-engine is carrying through, and which is not yet half completed, it is beyond all doubt that the generation of fire by friction has had an even greater effect on the liberation of mankind. For the generation of fire by friction gave man for the first time control over one of the forces of nature, and thereby separated him for ever from the animal kingdom. The steam-engine will never bring about such a mighty leap forward in human development, however important it may seem in our eyes as representing all those immense productive forces dependent on it — forces which alone make possible a state of society in which there are no longer class distinctions or anxiety over the means of subsistence for the individual, and in which for the first time there can be talk of real human freedom, of an existence in harmony with the laws of nature that have become known.
--- Friedrich Engels, Anti-Durhing
The word “Juche” literally means “self-reliance”. This is because Kim Il-sung believed that no country could “make its own history” if it relies on another country. There is a word they use a lot, “flunkyism”, which basically means relying on other powers. So Juche stresses having an independent economy through its own manufacturing base and military.
Kim Il-sung stresses in one of the works I read though that Juche is not isolationist. They want to trade with other countries, but just not become economically dependent on them.
I also got the impression from some that I read on Juche that it has an almost Trotskyist element to it. While Stalin, Lenin, and Mao all supported a capitalist period before the transition to socialism in order to remain aligned with Marx’s theories of historical materialism, I never recall reading anything about that in any Juche writings. Juche writings in fact seem to imply that all countries are ready for socialism now.
I say this is “Trotskyist” because Trotsky had a view that the material conditions of individual countries did not matter, only the whole world, so when one country is ready, all are ready, and that the development of the productive forces wasn’t that important to socialism. Juche has the same view here. I never read anything that implied there was any sort of need for a capitalist transition period.
Where it differs from Trotsky is that they also take on the Socialism In One Country theory at the same time. They believe the revolution should spread to all countries but don’t view it as impossible to establish socialism at home if it hasn’t spread to all countries yet.
Leaving aside trying to read the minds of dead people, certainly whatever it is that the North Koreans think they’re doing doesn’t have anything obvious to do with the kinds of ideas or societies advocated you envisioned by any of the figures that you mentioned.
Marxist-Leninist ideology was predicated on a revolution of industrial workers. Both China and Vietnam were overwhelmingly agrarian societies. Both Mao and Ho Chi Minh had to deal with that reality.
With that being said, Ho Chi Minh’s personal ideology was not particularly Marxist-Leninist or Maoist (though he did become a communist in the 1920s and stuck with it through hardship, so we know it meant something to him). It wasn’t about class revolution, and it wasn’t about exporting revolution world-wide. At his core, Ho Chi Minh was a Vietnamese Nationalist.
With that being said, if he had to be placed on a spectrum with Marxism-Leninism on one end and Maoism on the other (and keeping in mind that that is not a very broad spectrum), he’d be closer to a Maoist — owing to the fact that he did not have an industrial laborer class upon which to build his revolution.
“Juche” is an amalgamation of self-reliance and extreme personality cultism. North Korean leaders, professing self-reliance for a nation that is impoverished, can’t ask for help — they can only attempt to blackmail others into giving aid in exchange for not carrying out provocative actions. It also entails divine-origin mythology for its ruling family. Neither of these aspects of Juche seems to apply in the case of Vietnam.
How did the ideology of Karl Marx, that supported a utopian society where everyone would be happy, turned into Stalin or Kim Jong-un?
When Karl Marx was writing about capitalism and communism/socialism , most of the world wasn’t capitalist it was more feudal , for c/s to become a reality capitalism had to create the conditions for c/s to be brought about , it had to at the very least bring the possibility of an abundance of goods and services being produced to meet the needs of everyone the world over .
So in Marxs time as Marx knew fullwell c/s was an impossibility in his time or anytime soon . Then after Marxs death came Lenin who distorted what he had read of Marx/Engels to suit his own ends in his bid to capture power in Russia .
Lenin brought into existence the idea of a vanguard leading the workers to c/s , something Marx and Engels would have been appaled by . After Lenin many leaders claimed they were following the same path as Lenin in realising Marxs ideas , which obviously was utter bullshit .
In the preface to Marxs Class Struggles in France 1895 edition Engels writes
The gentlemen pour out their prayers and their challenges for nothing, for nothing at all. We are not so stupid. They might just as well demand from their enemy in the next war that he should take up his position in the line formation of old Fritz, or in the columns of whole divisions a la Wagram and Waterloo, and with the flintlock in his hands at that. If the conditions have changed in the case of war between nations, this is no less true in the case of the class struggle. The time of surprise attacks, of revolutions carried through by small conscious minorities at the head of unconscious masses, is past. Where it is a question of a complete transformation of the social organization, the masses themselves must also be in it, must themselves already have grasped what is at stake, what they are going in for [with body and soul]. The history of the last fifty years has taught us that. But in order that the masses may understand what is to be done, long, persistent work is required, and it is just this work which we are now pursuing, and with a success which drives the enemy to despair.
The masses still don’t understand Marxism and until they do the confusion that surrounds the term brought about by Lenin&Co will continue . By the way Marxism isn’t about Utopia Marx and socialism: A critical evaluation Regards Ian .
Yes. Juche ideology is very much a form if “national socialism” and officially repudiated Marxist Communism in the 1990s proclaiming their own system a “superior ideology which transcends the limitations of other political theories”.
Niche is nationalist, hierarchical, xenophobic, racist and totalitarian and this is not the unintended outcome of misapplied theories and compounded errors but rather by design. Since the 1990s, it has even been explicitly elevated to a point of principle.
In many ways Juche strongly resembles the pre-Hitlerian authoritarian national socialism of Strasser and Röhm- although obviously with “Korean characteristics”.
I don’t know about USSR or North Korea, but I know that in China, they:
- Doubled life expectancy
- Dramatically decreased infant mortality rate
- Raised literacy rate to 96% from somewhere in the single digits
- Imposed gender equality
- Outlawed traditional practices like foot binding and indentured servitude
- Kicked out all those nice foreigners
Before communism:
After communism:
Clearly, communists hard at work destroying life!
No, it’s a nationalist theory, based on the Stalinist idea that socialism can be built in one country (a theory that has been repeatedly refuted by history). Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky were internationalists.
Yes. Lenin saved Russia and gave it her immense glory. His new economic policy allowed Russia to develop a good economy through state capitalism for the Bolsheviks to build socialism. Comrade Lenin was a great and intelligent author and revolutionary who showed his true love for the people right until he worked himself into the grave.
The anti-Stalinist Trotsky (whom Stalin later had assassinated) was Jewish, yes.
Lenin's maternal grandfather was Jewish, which according to Jewish law and practice makes him not at all Jewish, and it is very unlikely he ever knew of it in any case.
(Answering this would take a thirty second Google search even if a person did not already know the answer, which leads me to strongly suspect that this is a troll question. So noted.)
Footnotes
The relationship of Lenin and Trotsky is complicated but they were definitely friends at certain times and mutually favored eachother over Stalin.
Trotsky embraced Marxism as a teenager and later dropped out of the University of Odessa to help organize the underground South Russian Workers’ Union. In 1898, he was arrested for his revolutionary activities and sent to prison. In 1900, he was exiled to Siberia.
He managed to escape to London, England, where he joined the Socialist Democratic Party and met Vladimir Lenin
Trotsky joined the Bolsheviks ("majority") just before the 1917 October Revoluti
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Anybody who responds by lauding Stalin diverges so far from reality there is almost no point in responding. Lies, lies, and more lies. Stalin played no leading role in October 1917 and had to be corrected by Lenin in April for his right-wing support for the war effort and the Provisional Government.
Trotsky organized the Red Army and led it to victory in the Civil War. He was a man both of the pen and the sword. Lenin's suppressed Last Testament gave the nod to Trotsky just before Lenin's death. He indicated that Stalin (who was embracing nationalist and right wing positions and becoming the mo
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North Korea is not a communist nation and not even a socialist one. They themselves have emphasized they are not communists. While the formal structure of the government is that it appears to be a one party state, dominated by the Worker’s Party, that is nothing but a rubber stamp or empty shell and actually holds no power. It is basically a feudalistic nation with an absolute ruler determined by hereditary. So it resembles a medieval kingdom more than anything that Marx or Lenin would recognize. I might add that it bears no resemblance to any other nation state or government that has existed in the last 100 years.
Edit 11/10/2022: I probably add that the closest nation that bears any similarities to North Korea is Saudi Arabia. The main difference is that the absolute kingdom of SA has a hyper conservative religious mandate where as NK has elevated the ruling family to its own peculiar Godhead. And so far KSA does not have nuclear weapons. Yet.
Maybe they like the tune.
No doubt the official line is that it is called “The Great Juche Idea”, not the “Internationale” (which would be ironic given how the DPRK deliberately cuts itself off from the world) and was written by Kim İl Sung one day in 1944 while fighting the Japanese in the mountains armed with nothing but a broken bayonet and a rusty iron ricebowl.
Well, Karl Marx died in London in 1883, so he did not know Asian revolutionists that you’ve mentioned. He also would not expect the possibility of revolution in Russia in 1905 because of its comparatively late industrialization process to other Western countries such as British and France. Even if Marx and Engels had been insisted “Workers of the World, Unite!” in their famous manifesto, they would have been to expect the Communist revolution would happen in the developed societies in Europe.
The reason why the third world could easily pervasive to the communism during the early 20th century was that the Capitalism was not for the weak and the underdeveloped society. They had already experienced the avarice of the Western imperialism and their exploitations into the colonial society, so they had to follow new ideology for securing their sovereignty and independence. That was the communism by Lenin in Russia not by Karl Marx.
The Asian Revolutionist had been focusing on the acquisition of the regime by the proletarian revolution. They sometimes succeed but they did not know how to cope with the new environment that the communist was the ruler of the new country. Pol Pot was an idealist idiot to build their Cambodia as the entirely new country. His reckless attempt showed as the massacre which had killed over 2 million people of the country. Kim Il Sung also persecuted so many patriots and nationalists for strengthening his autocratic. Only Ho Chi Min could establish the unified country and still respected from their peoples.
I cannot easily estimate how Marx to think about these Asian revolutionists. The concrete thing would be the Marx affected the Asian History so much and still are working in here.
Not all communists hate Trotsky but those who are able to differentiate what he wrote from what he did hate him. Trotsky seems to be a universally disliked figure, much like Stalin. The only people who like him are the Trotskyists, and they usually gloss over the fact that he was basically a Marxist-Leninist without the conviction to stick with what he wrote.
Marxist-Leninists see him as an untrustworthy Menshevik opportunist.
Anarchists and libertarians hate him because he supported the Bolsheviks and opposed the anarchist uprisings after writing a shit-tonne of literature about a workers’ revolution and self-governing society and opposing Stalinism.
Luxemburgists kind of like him but they acknowledge that he was also a hypocrite.
There’s also a common stereotype that most Trots are people who like to sell newspapers at rallies and criticise every other communist movement except theirs (because it’s special I guess).
Gwydion Madawc Williams has written on the subject of Trotsky and Trotskyist politics. I’ll link up below.
Why Trotsky’s politics achieved nothing solid
Point being, by the end of Trotsky’s political career, it was more than just Stalinists who wanted to shove an ice-pick into his skull…
- Juche:North Korea was Marxist Leninist until 1998 in the Stalinist format. In 1998 it dissolved Marxism Leninism and became based on a new model, called Juche, which is an adaptation of Marxism Leninism but is more authoritarian, nationalist, based on Korean independence, and the hereditary rule. It is influenced by Confucianism and traditonal Korean culture. It is anti-capitalist
- Marxism-leninism: a form of socialist government that relies on the vanguard party to lead the proletariat in the revolution and to increase their political consciousness. The means of production owned by the workers held by the state and state managers should be communists. They maintain the party from revisionism by filtering out candidates that doesn't believe in socialism.
I think you can identify the differences and the similarities if there is a similarity.
Nope. There was an indigenous American movement for the abolition of slavery among both the black and white population going back decades prior to the American civil war. There were dozens of salve rebellions that aimed at liberation.
This opposition to slavery, and its “consciousness raising” among the white population, led eventually to the Free Soil Party in the 1850s. This was a compromise between he capitalist businesses of the north and the abolitionists. Many manufacturers in the north had come to oppose slavery because slaves did not provide a market for their goods cince they received no wages. Slave plantations were largely self-sufficient. So slavery retarded the growth of the market.
This is relevant because Lincoln was a supporter of the Free Soil movement. And I’m pointing out here that the Free Soil movement had capitalist support.
Karl Marx never lived to see socialism of any type in operation in any country. Most of his writings dealt with the workings of capitalism and the reasons for the predicted overthrow of capitalism. He and Engels did not give a detailed blueprint for the operation of a socialist society. Marx said that the proletariat itself would have to work out the details through actual practice.
In the “Communist Manifesto” Marx and Engels did outline some general policies that would start a society down the road to socialism once the bourgeoisie had been overthrown. In it Marx expounded his views of class struggle, the rise and decline of capitalism, and the emergence of political democracy and socialism. In 1848, Marx’s prophecy appeared to be coming true. The whole Europe was in open revolt against established institutions. By 1860 many socialists were convinced that capitalism’s decline was inevitable, that the labor government should organize for revolution and that communism would be the result of revolution.
Actually Marx has given an utterly new meaning to democracy. He believed that the institutions of liberal democracy could not express the will of the rising working class. He saw democracy not as a set of institutions to register the will of interested citizens, but in the acts of the most numerous class of society, the proletariat. He believed that the working class would create its own forms of democratic expression outside of bourgeois representative institutions.
Democracy for many Marxists was identified with the revolutionary movement for socialism and with the socialization of means of production. Therefore Marx transformed the intellectual movement for socialism into a movement for revolutionary change.
The success of Marx’s ideas rested on four features that are still widely accepted among orthodox Marxists:
1- Capitalism was a distinct historical era destined to pass away because of advances in the means of production, independent of human will.
2- Capitalism had created a worldwide system of trade, markets and investment. It also brought into a proletariat that supposedly shared more interests with foreign members of their class than with nationals of a different class. Marx’s well known phrase, “workers of the world unite, you have nothing to lose but your chains”, was intended to convey the idea that class identity was more important than national identity.
3- Capitalism produced more goods than it could consume because the working class was systematically exploited by competing enterprises. Capitalism, like the previous social systems (slavery and feudalism) would collapse because of its internal contradictions and conflicts.
4- Marx recommended that parties acting on behalf of the proletariat combine their struggle for democratic rights and better working conditions with organization for revolution. He made it clear that “democratic demands can never satisfy the party of the proletariat.
Radical as these proposals were for their time, Marx related them to the transitional phase of the “dictatorship of the proletariat”.
Only in the era of full communism would humanity apply the general ethic of “from each according to abilities, to each according to his needs”
Eventually humankind would reach a fully classless society, with no one born into great wealth or stultifying poverty. In a communist society that Marx envisioned would have to overcome exploitation of workers, racial or ethnic groups and women. Production would be socially planned, the means of production, factories, farms and offices would be collectively owned rather than in private hands. Marx believed that under full communism, government bureaucracy, including police and military would wither away as volunteer citizen groups took over the tasks of social administration. In such society all would participate in governing not just a few professionals.
In short there would be no full-time politicians, bureaucrats or generals all those roles would be performed by ordinary citizens on a short term rotating basis. Marx contrasts the place of occupation in capitalist and communist societies. In capitalism, he says, he is a hunter, a fisherman, a shepherd, or art critic and must remain so. In communist society nobody has an exclusive sphere of activity but each can become accomplished in any branch he/she wishes. In such a society people would be able to develop many talents, using both manual and mental labor, handwork and brainwork.
Marx was disappointed in his hopes for the socialist revolution in Europe. He had never considered the possibility of a socialist revolution succeeding in one country. But he had hoped that a socialist revolution would follow the pattern of French Revolution of 1789, would sweep across national boundaries becoming an international workers’ uprising.
Gradually and sometimes violently the unions and working class parties received recognition and were able to push through partial reforms on child labor and female labor, voting rights for working men, factory safety, working hours, wage system and union bargaining rights. At the turn of the 20th century the daily life of urban worker and his family did seem to share some of the benefits of industrialization by working and struggling within the capitalist system.
From this perspective, one branch of socialist thought, now generally called “social democracy” extensively revised Marx’s ideas and eventually abandoned Marxism. (revision of Marxism by Eduard Bernstein and beginnings of social democratic movement)
The great test of the social democratic movement came in 1914 at the outbreak of World War I. It was clear that war would be disaster for the working class. They would be the ones to die by the thousands and eventually by millions in the front lines, while industrialists and aristocrats accumulated war profits and directed the battlefield slaughter from safe vantage points.
The question for the socialist and labor movements in Germany, France, Britain, Russia, Italy and later in the United States was whether to unite to oppose the war in the name of the international working class or individually support the national war policies of their own nations.
In nearly every case, the revisionist social democrats voted with the liberal and conservatives to support the war effort of their national governments. One of the few exceptions was the American Socialist
party, which refused in 1917 to abandon its opposition to American participation in the war. For this action the leader of American Socialist Party Eugene V. Debs was prosecuted and jailed under “espionage act” of 1917.
Bolsheviks in Russia also opposed the war and they were subsequently denounced as traitors and as German agents. A minority of socialist who opposed the war formed the beginnings of the communist parties in Western Europe. Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknect for example, split off from the Social Democrats in Germany to form the German Communist Party in 1919.
World War I marks the historical split in the International socialist movement into revisionist social democrats and revolutionary communists.
The communist parties joined together in the Third International and under the tutelage of the Bolsheviks they have been ever since associated with the theories of Lenin as well as Marx, so their title becomes “Marxist-Leninist”
Just as Bernstein had found it necessary to revise Marxism and develop a different strategy for social democrats in the industrial west, Vladimir Lenin adapted Marx to the changed conditions of capitalism in the late nineteenth century. Lenin also noted the diminished revolutionary possibilities in the more developed industrial west and he even remarked on the growing prospects of a labor-aristocracy, a relatively well-t-do segment of workers, in these nations.
But Lenin explained this as a result of imperialism, whereby the developed West between 1875 and 1914 had divided up the Third World into colonial empires and spheres of influence.
During this period, the British Empire, the largest by far, stretched from the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa to Cairo. From India and Burma in South Asia to the subcontinent of Australia, Malaya and Hong Kong and Singapore in East Asia. And finally to Jamaica, the Bahamas, British Honduras and British Guyana in the Caribbean area.
The French conquered much of the Saharan and sub-Saharan West Africa as well as Indochina. Even the latecomers like Germany claimed some territories in Africa as well as some Pacific Islands and spheres of influence for economic exploitation in Turkey and China.
The United States, already attained its “manifest destiny” of stretching from coast to coast at the expense of native Americans and Mexico. It also reached out to establish its hold over Hawaii and Panama Canal Zone and to Cuba, Porto Rico and the Philippines (after Spanish-American War 1898)
Even tiny Belgium claimed for its monarch the huge and mineral rich Congo in Central Africa, not to mention Netherlands colonizing the Indonesian Islands.
The great ancient empires of the Ottomans in the Middle east, India, Persia and China were either totally swallowed up or dismembered or subordinated to the industrialized West and Japan.
Tsarist Russia, while itself an imperialist power became increasingly open to economic exploitation by French, German and British finance capital.
Lenin considered Russia as a declining power under the economic sphere of influence of the advanced European powers.
Through the exploitation of cheap native labor and resources, Western capital was able to find new resources of profit. Allowing it to make concessions to the working class in the developed metropolises of Europe and North America. This decreased the revolutionary tendencies of the proletariat who are supposed to be the most revolutionary force in the most advanced nations.
So According to Lenin contrary to Marx’s expectations the proletariat was becoming less radicalized. Lenin argued that the focus of revolution had been displaced from the developed west to the less developed nations now dominated by the western imperialism and its corporate multinationals.
As the Third World peoples were forcibly integrated into the world capitalist system and subjected to patterns of development dictated by Western multinationals they would organize to defend themselves and liberate their countries from imperialism both political and economic. Lenin predicted that wars of national liberation would erupt to deprive Western capitalism of its sources of profits.
These revolutions in the underdeveloped world would then lead to the reemergence of the class struggle and working class revolution in the West. Lenin, while working on revolution in Russia considered the tsarist Russia the weakest link in the chain of international finance capitalism. But he hoped that the revolution in Russia would be a spark to ignite revolutions in Europe.
Like Marx, Lenin did not envisage building socialism in Russia alone, but considered an international scale revolution a necessity.
According to Lenin the opportunity for wars of national liberation to succeed would be enhanced by conflicts among the imperialists. These conflicts would lead to wars among the imperialist nations over the spoils in the Third World.
주체Juche simply means 'Self Reliance'.
Juche Ideology in my understanding in North Korea is basically meaning 'Strong leadership based on the self reliance to build self sufficient strong nation by not relying onto foreign ideology or powers as Korea has been dismantled and greatly suffered by foreign powers throughout 19th to 20th century.
North Korean economy had been strong right after the independence from Japan in 1945 as Japanese built many heavy industrial facilities to exploit abundant natural resources then North Korea possessed. But most of them were destroyed during the Korean War. Kim Ilsung at first had strong confidence in his power and alliance with Soviet Union and China as he was special envoy of Stalin and China.
Communists in North Korea are from two sides: one from fighting for and with People's Liberation Army of China led by Mao Zedong, the other from those who collaborated to Communists of Soviet Union. Kim Ilsung was from later, a young general of communist's army of Soviet Union. He was not significant until the US brought Soviet Union to fight against Japan at the WWII.
When we learn Korean history during the Japanese Colonial era, Kim Ilsung's name only appears suddenly when Soviet Union occupies Nothern Part. Another leaders like Kim Gu, Rhee Syngman were known to Koreans long before the independence.
He served for the Soviet and did not participate in independence war led by Korean people. Rather, he served in Soviet Army and fought in the WWII in manchuria. After the war was over, he was picked up by Stalin himself to take control over divided North Korea . So his dictatorship with strong support from Stalin began in 1945.
If he were someone fought with Chinese people's army, I think he wouldn't have thought of invading South Korea. He, then, was too confident as communists' alliance at that time were quite stronger as the power game between the US and the Soviet emerged after the allied forces won the WWII both in Europe and East Asia.
He, ironically, a leader of a small country made this peninsula the ignition point of cold war. I think he is one of the greatest villain in human history as his decision to invade South Korea to unify the peninsula created 40 years of radical confrontation between democratic free world led by the US and the ideological communists' dictatorship led by Soviet.
Number of economic policies North Korea carried out has failed and the leadership was challenged. The he created this Juche ideology in an effort to strengthen his leadership.
If you carefully look at the communists' countries like China, like Presidential candidates announce number of policies for election, they announce the ideological theory and corresponding policies to realize that ideology.
One of my friend in China once gave me a book in 1999 named '江泽民论中国特色社会主义Jiang Zemin talkes about Socialism with Chinese Characteristics' for me to learn Chinese. (Of course I gave up reading it all since it was too difficult for me to understand everything and my Chinese were not as good to read that kind of thick book) From Lenin to Stalin, Mao Zedong to Xi Jinping, communist leaders tend to set ideology first and make them as their ruling principle of the nation in my view. Many failed and many were different from what they say and do.
So I think Kim Ilsung, like other leaders in Communists' society, he needed his own ideology and principles to strengthen his legitimacy as supreme leader. From that moment on, North Korea turned from Communists' country to Dynasty led by Kim Ilsung family.
Who, now calls North Korea a country led by communism or socialism? It is simply a new monarch led by Kim Ilsung family.
Juche in this sense is quite unique and deceiving idealism. Self Reliance often leads to an excuse to hand reponsibility of leadership to inviduals or subordinants. Even when the economy or social development fails by the leaders, leaders can bring Jeche ideology and tell people to 'live upon your self reliance. Don't blame your country or leader'.
It is very different from JFK's famous quote "Ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country" I think.
So much propaganda has been planted to North Korean people about Kim Ilsung. His image was painted as single most powerful god like national fighter against Japanese Emperial army when he did not.
His ideology named Juche is not only outdated but also lags development and openness of North Korean economy as their increased reliance on foreign trade or support from other country will contradict Supreme Leader's ideology of self reliance. By announcing an ideology that cannot be realized, it works as a shackle and produce more lies on it's people.
Juche in Brazil? Before I see any hard evidence of this, I’ll reserve myself the right of LOL’ing like there’s no tomorrow.
Marxism-Leninism is an extension of Marxism with more stuff added, and I explain here what Marxism is in very brief terms, which is a combination of (1) a branch of economics as well as a (2) logical framework for analysis that Marx had developed (which serves as the foundation of his economic theory).
Marxism-Leninism is Marxism plus more stuff. It adds onto Marxism (1) several developments from Marxian economists after Marx and (2) Lenin actually had to deal with the problem of constructing socialism in the real world, so Marxism-Leninism also includes a political structure for socialist states as well as the political activities socialists should be engaging in when they are in capitalist states. There is a “practical” side to Marxism-Leninism.
Juche has nothing to do with any of this. It is a philosophy that literally means “self-reliance”. While Juche was created by Marxist-Leninists, it has very little relation to it but is its own philosophy.
If you want to understand Juche you should start with On the Juche Idea.
In Anti-Durhing, Engels writes:
Freedom does not consist in any dreamt-of independence from natural laws, but in the knowledge of these laws, and in the possibility this gives of systematically making them work towards definite ends. This holds good in relation both to the laws of external nature and to those which govern the bodily and mental existence of men themselves — two classes of laws which we can separate from each other at most only in thought but not in reality. Freedom of the will therefore means nothing but the capacity to make decisions with knowledge of the subject. Therefore the freer a man’s judgment is in relation to a definite question, the greater is the necessity with which the content of this judgment will be determined; while the uncertainty, founded on ignorance, which seems to make an arbitrary choice among many different and conflicting possible decisions, shows precisely by this that it is not free, that it is controlled by the very object it should itself control. Freedom therefore consists in the control over ourselves and over external nature, a control founded on knowledge of natural necessity; it is therefore necessarily a product of historical development.
Engels again writes something along the same lines in Socialism: Utopian and Scientific:
With the seizing of the means of production by society, production of commodities is done away with, and, simultaneously, the mastery of the product over the producer. Anarchy in social production is replaced by systematic, definite organization. The struggle for individual existence disappears. Then, for the first time, man, in a certain sense, is finally marked off from the rest of the animal kingdom, and emerges from mere animal conditions of existence into really human ones. The whole sphere of the conditions of life which environ man, and which have hitherto ruled man, now comes under the dominion and control of man, who for the first time becomes the real, conscious lord of nature, because he has now become master of his own social organization. The laws of his own social action, hitherto standing face-to-face with man as laws of Nature foreign to, and dominating him, will then be used with full understanding, and so mastered by him. Man's own social organization, hitherto confronting him as a necessity imposed by Nature and history, now becomes the result of his own free action. The extraneous objective forces that have, hitherto, governed history,pass under the control of man himself. Only from that time will man himself, more and more consciously, make his own history — only from that time will the social causes set in movement by him have, in the main and in a constantly growing measure, the results intended by him. It is the ascent of man from the kingdom of necessity to the kingdom of freedom.
If take a look at On the Juche Idea, Kim Jong-il refers to this idea "independence".
Independence is an attribute of social man who is desirous of living and developing in an independent way as master of the world and his own destiny. On the strength of this quality, man throws off the fetters of nature, opposes social subjugation of all forms and puts everything at his own service.
He uses this concept of "independence" as the basis for an entire philosophy. "Independence" is man's conquering of not just natural laws, but also of social ones, of becoming a master of their own social organization, rather than just by necessity reacting blindly to things out of their control. Juche rejects the liberal notion of the individual man, and posits humans are purely social beings, or the "social man". "Independence" does not refer to freedom for individuals, but for humanity as a whole, which can only occur through them taking control more and more over nature and of their own social structure.
Class struggle, from his mind, can be viewed as also simply being humanity trying to increase their independence. The ruling classes restrict the will of those below them, so as long as ruling classes exist, there will be struggles of those below them who wish to gain independence, and lower classes will attempt to take state power in order to restructure nature and their social organization in their interests.
The transformation of society, nature, and people is the main elements of the masses struggle for independence. Man can realize independence completely only when he is free from social bondage, natural fetters, and the shackles of outdated ideas and culture.
Only the working class is fully capable of carrying on this task. Every prior class were limited due to their material circumstances. Their revolutions had increased independence, but only for some, they still always established new classes which oppress others. Only the working class can truly achieve independence for all of mankind.
There were ideas which reflected the aspirations of progressive classes of society even before the emergence of the working class. But due to their historical and class limitations the trends of thought in the past age could not but be hampered in the role they played in social development. The revolutionary ideas of the working class alone can correctly reflect the demands of the time and the aspirations of the popular masses and give a powerful stimulus to socio-historical development by inspiring the people to wage the revolutionary struggle.
Juche is also has a very national-focus. Independence from the Juche perspective refers to national independence. Kim Jong-il and Kim Il-sung both seemed to imagine a world where all nations are independent, and then interact with each other through "mutual support" and trade for "mutual benefit". It does not appear, from what I've read, to envision nations as eventually coming together into a single, global one, but instead a world of socialist nations that all support and trade with each other. Despite the national focus, it is also has an internationalist character, as it views national liberation as an international struggle that nations can work together to achieve.
As a matter of principle, internationalist solidarity must be based on freedom of choice and equality. Only when it is founded on independence, will internationalist solidarity become based on free choice and equality and become genuine and durable. Our Party is adhering to the policy of strengthening the solidarity of the socialist countries and the international communist movement on the basis of opposing imperialism and giving support to national-liberation movements in colonies and the international working-class movement, continuing advance to socialism and communism, and observing the principles of noninterference in each other's internal affairs, mutual respect, equality and mutual benefit.
Juche ultimately comes down to this struggle for independence. Since it assumes a national character, it also stresses certain policies in order to guarantee national independence. One is constructing an independent economy, because if one economy relies on another, it will inevitably become under the influence of the other, and this is especially true for countries that were under the boot of imperialism.
It is vital to build an independent national economy particularly in those countries which were backward economically and technically because of imperialist domination and plunder in the past. Only when they build an independent national economy in these countries, will they be able to repel the new colonial policy of the imperialists, free themselves completely from their domination and exploitation, wipe out national inequality, and vigorously advance on the road of socialism.
It also stresses each nation maintaining a strong military. They cannot rely on others protection because then they will inevitably come under the influence of those others and not be independent.
A state without self-reliant armed forces capable of defending the country from the enemies at home and abroad when imperialism exists cannot, in fact, be called a completely independent sovereign state.
It also argues that working class movements require leadership and strict organization, will never spontaneously revolt on their own. The focus on leadership of a party is similar to Leninism, but the stress of a central leader of that party is exclusive to Juche.
It also has a strong ideological focus, arguing that humanity cannot achieve independence unless they have knowledge of what that even means. Even if the material conditions are ripe, there will not be a revolution if nobody has the knowledge of what that means and how to carry it out, and even if you've achieved a revolution, it could fail if people lose that knowledge and understanding.
Fundamentally speaking, a revolution does not always break out when all the necessary conditions exist, nor is it carried out always in favourable circumstances. Waiting with folded arms for all conditions to ripen is tantamount to refusing to make a revolution. Primary importance, therefore, should be given to the ideological factor in the revolutionary struggle and construction work, and on this basis strenuous efforts should be made to create all the necessary conditions.
Kim Jong-il argued that it did not contradict Marxism-Leninism, but was simply answering a separate question that Marxism-Leninism never answered, it is an independent philosophy but still adheres to their interpretation of Marxism-Leninism, but is not simply an extension of it, but its own thing.
Because that would make some smarter North Koreans question what exactly Marx and Lenin wrote and how said writings inspired Kim il-Sung and his successors to make the country the way it is.
Which, contrary to what they have assumed for years, Marx and Lenin’s ideas were not supposed to result in a state like North Korea, at least in theory.
Plus, Marx and Lenin were not Korean and thus, it would look bad for the rulers to have been taught or inspired by foreigners!
So let’s be clear here: North Korea’s governing ideology is not Marxism-Leninism, but Juche. This being said, Juche hasn’t exactly been consistent over the years, and it’s frankly better described as whatever the Supreme Leader of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea says it is.
So yes, Juche began as an offshoot of Marxism-Leninism, but Kim Jong-il made it damn clear that Marxism-Leninism was obsolete and that truly, the ideology of North Korea could not be explained in Marxist-Leninist terms and that Kimilsungism (a refinement of Juche) was a completely novel idea. Now, obviously, this is nonsense — Kimilsungism-Kimjongilism (as the ideology was renamed following Kim Jong-il’s death) is not a completely novel idea. However, it is also fair to say that it’s not recognizably Marxist.
And I know, “ooh, yet another radical leftist saying that someone awful isn’t a true Marxist,” but Juche rejects such core Marxist concepts as historical materialism. It also advocates a class-based society, insisting that a supreme leader is necessary and that the military is to be given top priority in everything. Even if you recognize this sort of thing as having occurred in Marxist-Leninist states, this takes it out of the realm of “things that happen when Marxism-Leninism goes wrong in entirely predictable ways” and into the realm of “the whole damn point.”
My point here is that, if we are using a Marxist-Leninist view, it isn’t going to illustrate how North Korea justified arresting Otto Warmbier, it’s only going to be an external perspective on the matter. This being said, it isn’t actually entirely inappropriate to apply said framework, because as it stands, North Korea’s demographics aren’t entirely dissimilar to late Imperial Russia’s. This being said, it is difficult to see how Marxism-Leninism can be applied to the case of a tourist stealing a propaganda poster — it’s just frankly too small potatoes for Marxist-Leninist theory to really dig into that.
Varied a lot over time. He was outraged when Trotsky was against him in the Bolshevik / Menshevik split. But let him into the Bolshevik Party for the October Revolution.
Marx was a person who believed capitalism is bound to fail due to its innate paradoxes and therefore communism will automatically rise as the replacement for capitalism. He did not say much about what communism should be like, nor that capitalism should forcefully be eliminated. What he believed was his scientific law of motion for society is the absolute truth, and communism will automatically replace capitalism when it falls due to its inherited fallacy. However, technology advanced on a whole new level compared to his times and his predictions and assumptions no longer explains new phenomen
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Was Lenin a Communist?
(Was Hitler a true Nazi?)
I guess the answer from modern Communists who don’t like what happened in Russia, China, North Korea, would be he was not a true Communist because he compromised the idea.
They would however have difficulty proving it from the classic Communist theoretical point of view. Lenin was always very particular grounding whatever he claimed as his ideas in quotes from Marx and Engels.
Therefore, my answer is definitely YES: Lenin was a true Communist.
Below, the 10-point Action Plan from Karl Marx’ Communist Manifesto, which forever gave us a yardstick for what is true “Communist” and what is not. Lenin duly executed all of these after taking power in 1917.
(The plan simply didn’t work. That’s why he rolled it back in 1921. It took several years for Soviet rulers to regroup before Stalin gave it a second try in the late 1920s—this time with great success.)
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