North Korea: State of Paranoia

By Paul French

“Even the Albanians described North Korea as an ‘unbelievably closed society.’”[i]

Famine, credit default, constant blackouts, economic collapse, failed piecemeal reforms, nuclear weapons, repression – the indicators of a failed state are no longer hidden from the world now, despite North Korea’s persistent isolation.  Yet what intrigued me was the fact that the North Korean communist regime has survived despite its acute inability to provide even basic necessities for its people.  In this book I found answers and explanations.

Insightful and lucid, North Korea: State of Paranoia provides facts, history, analysis and explanations on North Korea’s economic policies, and how and why the regime has failed to give food to its people but at the same time was able to intimidate the world with nuclear weapons.  It is the author’s view that a sound understanding of its economic failure is the vital lens through which any outsider learn about North Korea as a whole.

The book opened with a description of the common people’s lives in North Korea and that was surprisingly effective as an introduction.  What I came to know on the first chapter was the human face of North Korea.  The reality as depicted reminded me of China in the 1960s, when the whole society, and every detail of daily life, was driven by Mao Zedong’s cult of personality.  What was happening more than half a century ago in China is very much alive in North Korea today.  In the author’s words, North Korea is “clearly an anachronism in the modern world, adhering rigidly to principles that is former allies have either jettisoned or sought to reform.”[ii]

The discussion of Juche as a founding ideology of the North Korean regime was one of the major learning I took from this book.  It was Kim Il-sung’s spin on communism, combining the principles of Marxist-Leninism command economy, Confucian social order, self-reliance and elements of Maoism.  It is the fundamental thought that justifies repression, frames state propaganda, writes its own history and even drives the “military first” policy that eventually led to the development of nuclear missiles.  The pervasiveness and exclusivity with which the state imposed Juche in North Korea was part of Paul French’s explanation for why the regime remains in power.  There simply was no alternative thinking to Juche in North Korea.  If not Juche, the North Koreans would not know what else to believe.[iii]

There are certainly other aspects of the North Korean society that has enabled the communist party to maintain its grip on power.  The author has noted an irony, that while it was wholly the fault of the command economy that brought about the famine, the prolonged famine has actually kept the North Koreans docile—they were simply too preoccupied with basic survival to think of anti-government organization.  “From the start the population was asked to sacrifice economic growth and access to services and goods in the name of national independence and self-reliance.”[iv] For the North Koreans, it was either to struggle at home, or to risk one’s life and defect.

Paul French has made it possible for readers to learn about the “most opaque of opaque countries.”[v]  This book was well-researched with critical perspectives on the West (primarily the United States)’s share of responsibility in the sufferings of the North Koreans.  As Kim Jong-un and Donald Trump play yo-yo in their denuclearization agreement, little seems to have been done to bring forth hope, or even basic survival, to the North Korean people.

[i] Paul French, North Korea: State of Paranoia (2014) at 47.

[ii] Id. at 410.

[iii] Whereas in Poland, for example, there was the Catholic Church and Solidarity, Id. at 399-400.

[iv] Id. at 413.

[v] Foreword, Id.  at xvi.