[1] Rodong Shinmun, 1 January 2008

[2] Choson Ilbo, 4 October 2008

[3] Kim Il-sung's slogan was “Our party's line of building an independent national economy is the embodiment of the juche idea in economic construction.” See Kim Il-sung, “Answers to the Questions Raised by Foreign Correspondents” (Pyongyang [Russian edition], 1974), p. 179.

[4] Hwang Do Young, The Post-War Reconstruction and Development of People's Economy of DPRK, Moscow (Pyongyang: Political Literature Publishing House, 1958), pp. 9–10.

[5] Kim Il-sung, Selected Works [English edition], vol. 3 (Pyongyang: Foreign Languages Publishing House), p. 399.

[6] Kim Il-sung, Selected Works [English edition], vol. 4 (Pyongyang: Foreign Languages Publishing House), p. 558.

[7] Genaro Cheka, Rice and Steel [Russian ed.] (Pyongyang: 1977), pp. 117–118.

[8] Cooperation of Russia with East Asian Countries in the 90s, (Moscow: Institute of International Economic and Political Studies, 1999), pp. 122–23.

[9] Russian researchers argue that in the past the subordination of the economy was justified by military-political circumstances, but now inertia rules; see I. Bogdan, “North Korean Economy in the Modern World,” in Korean Peninsula: Myths, Expectations and Reality, vol. 1 (Moscow: IFES, 2001), p. 53.

[10] Rodong Shinmun, 1 January 2008

[11] Kim Il-sung, in Selected Works, vol. 4, page 40, argued: “… a formerly backward agrarian country like ours has no other way but to draw a certain amount of funds for socialist industrialization from the countryside.”

[12] Bradley O. Babson, “Economic Perspectives on Future Directions for Engagement with the DPRK in a Post-Test World,” The Stanley Foundation: Policy Analysis Brief (December 2006).

[13] By early 1997, the average production of major plants in North Korea was, according to optimistic South Korean estimates, a mere 46 percent of capacity, while some Russian experts presumed in 1998 that it was only 20–25 percent of capacity; see Cooperation of Russia with East Asian Countries in the 90s, p. 122.

[14] Database, Humanitarian Development Resource Center for DPR Korea (HDRC), 2004.

[15] Some say up to 2 million, potentially 10 percent of the 1995 population (see Marcus Noland, “Famine and Reform in North Korea” [working paper (WP 03-5), Institute for International Economics, Washington, D.C., 2003, pp. 12–13],; also Sue Lautze, “The Famine in North Korea: Humanitarian Responses in Communist Nations” (Tufts University, School of Nutrition Science and Policy, Feinstein International Famine Center, June 1997), P. 10

[16] William Brown, in “North Korea: How to Reform a Broken Economy,” in North Korea: 2005 and Beyond, ed. Philip Yun and Gi-Wook Shin (Stanford: Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center; Washington, D.C., distributed by] Brookings Institution Press, 2005, p. 64, observed that by 1996 or 1997 North Korea's economy, if not its political system, had indeed collapsed. An economy, by one definition, is a social system that allows the specialization of labor. By the late 1990s, specialization of labor had essentially ended for millions of farmers and industrial workers. Hungry coal miners abandoned their mines and scratched bark off trees to find something to eat while freezing farmers abandoned their fields and combed the hillsides for heating fuel. Without the “great leader” or a central plan to tell them what to do, and with markets and money strictly illegal, trade between coal miners and the farmers simply stopped.

[17] According to KIEP data released in September 2007, in 2004, GNP in North Korea was estimated to have grown by the equivalent of $458 million, while overall foreign aid was $419 million.

[18] Legal changes included the laws on free economic zones (8 April 1990), foreign investment (10 December 1992), foreign enterprises (10 December 1992), contract joint ventures (10 December 1994), foreign investment and commercial enterprises and individual taxation of foreigners (8 April 1993), foreign currency regulations (8 April 1993), banks with foreign participation (10 December 1993), customs (10 December 1993), and foreign trade (March 1998).

[19] M. Trigubenko, T. Neelova, and G. Levchenko, “Problems of Korean Peninsula,” in Russian Diplomacy in Korea in 1990s (Moscow: Institute of International Economic and Political Studies, 2000), p. 15.

[20] Georgy Bulychev, The Political Systems of the Korean Peninsula States [in Russian] (Moscow: MGIMO Publishers, 2002), p. 95.

[21] Prices for food, fuel, and electricity rose 26-fold, on average, and prices for rice rose 550-fold. Public transport fares increased by up to 20-fold. The new rate of exchange for the DPRK won—150 won to $1.00—was introduced; the rate was based on the world market price for rice in dollars.

[22] “Recent Changes in North Korea” (Seoul: Ministry of Unification, 2005).

[23] T. Lezhenina, East Asia: Tendencies, Contradictions, Conflicts (Moscow: Institute of International Economic and Political Studies, 2001), pp. 193–95.

[24] Andrei Lankov, “North Korea: De-Stalinization from Below and the Advent of New Social Forces,” Harvard Asia Quarterly vol. 9, no. 4 (Fall 2005).

[25] Some estimates suggest that approximately 150,000 state security service operatives use their education, knowledge of how the state operates, and privileged access to contacts and transportation to benefit from illegal operations, including smuggling, customs evasion, and assistance to those illegally entering China; see Hazel Smith, “Brownback Bill Will Not Solve North Korea's Problems,” Jane's Information Group, 21 January 2004.

[26] Rodong shinmun, 1 January 2008.

[27] Ibid.

[28] Ibid.

[29] Stephan Haggard and Marcus Noland, “Economic Implications of Summit Agreement,” Policy Forum Online 07-082A (San Francisco: Nautilus Institute, 30 October 2007),

[30] Daily North Korea.

[31] The Problems of Korean Peninsula and Russian Interests (Moscow: Institute of International Economic and Political Studies, 1998), 21, p. 142.