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North Korea—Will it be the ‘Great Leader’s’ Turn Next?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2014

John Phipps
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Extract

OF ALL THE REMAINING COMMUNIST PARTY STATES THE Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) would appear to have the most to fear from the 1989 democratic revolutions that swept Eastern Europe. The regime of Kim I1 Sung remains unmoved and unreformed, but is certainly not unconcerned about the events that have taken place among its former socialist bloc allies. To an outside observer the Pyongyang regime gives the impression of being almost frozen in time, with no real progress having taken place in either the economic or political spheres over the last twenty years. When the Ceauaescu regime in Romania crumbled amid bloodshed in the closing days of the 1980s, many analysts’ attention turned in great expectation to the autocratic regime of the world's longest-serving political leader. The epitaph of the Kim regime was being prepared in earnest. Although the last twelve months have hardly been reassuring for the Kim Regime, communist party rule has been maintained and Kim's personal standing inside North Korea remains intact.

Type
Articles
Information
Government and Opposition , Volume 26 , Issue 1 , 01 January 1991 , pp. 44 - 55
Copyright
Copyright © Government and Opposition Ltd 1991

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References

1 See article by this author, ‘Mongolia: The Wind of Change from Moscow’, The Pacific Review, Vol. 3, No. 3, 1990.

2 ‘Kim II Sung will give power to son’, The Guardian, 10 March 1990, p. 6.

3 BBC Summary of World Broadcasts, 29 December 1989, Far East/0649 A2/1.

4 BBC Summary of World Broadcasts, 3 April 1990, Far East/0729 A3/4.

5 ‘The Korean imperative’, Far Eastern Economic Review, 22 March 1990, p. 22.

6 ‘Safety in numbers’, Far Eastern Economic Review, 26 January 1989, p. 34.

7 Cotton, James, ‘Ideology and the Legitimation Crisis in North Korea’, Journal of Communist Studies, Vol. 3, No. 4, 12 1987, p. 87 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

8 Foster-Carter, Aidan, ‘North Korea: The End of the Beginning’, Journal of Communist Studies, Vol. 3, No. 4, 12 1987, p. 81 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

9 Grayson, J. H., Korea: A Religious History, Oxford University Press, 1989, p. 213. Google Scholar

10 Park, Jin, ‘Korean Reunification and the German Question’, The Pacific Review, Vol. 3, No. 1, p. 68 Google Scholar.

11 ‘East Europe’s warning for Kim II Sung’, Financial Times, 2 January 1990, p. 4.

12 ‘Ceauäescu’s twin brother’, The Independent, 29 January 1990, p. 15.

13 For a thorough analysis of the factors which determine whether or not communist armies defend their parties, see Gerald Segal and John Phipps, ‘Why Communist Armies Fight for their Parties’, Asian Survey, October 1990.

14 BBC Summary of World Broadcasts, 3 August 1990, Far East/0833 B/1.

15 International Herald Tribune, 15 June 1990, p. 4.

16 ‘North Korea’s dictator could be the next to fall’, International Herald Tribune, 11 June 1990, p. 6.

17 ‘Stranded by history’, Far Eastern Economic Review, 29 March 1990, pp. 16–17.

18 ‘Isolated, unbowed’, Far Eastern Economic Review, 11 January 1990, pp. 19–20.