On Eliminating Dogmatism and Formalism and Establishing Juche in Ideological Work

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On Eliminating Dogmatism and Formalism and Establishing Juche in Ideological Work
Speech to Party Propagandists and Agitators, 28 December 1955
On Eliminating Dogmatism and Formalism and Establishing Juche in Ideological Work.webp
Cover page of 1973 English edition
Author Kim Il Sung
Subject Juche
Publisher Foreign Languages Publishing House
Publication place North Korea
Published in English
1973
Pages33
OCLC 51370245

What is the subject [juche] in our party's ideological work? What are we doing? We are engaged in Korea's revolution and not some other country's. Precisely this Korean revolution is the subject [juche] of our party's ideological work, all of which must therefore be made to serve its interests. Whether we research the history of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, the history of the Chinese revolution, or the general principles of Marxism–Leninism, it is all in order to carry out or own revolution correctly.

While some scholars contend that the speech was a bold declaration of nationalism or political independence, Myers considers the rhetoric something not out of the ordinary in Eastern Bloc countries at the time. [33] John Gittings goes further, questioning the passage's authenticity, saying that it "reads as if has been inserted later into the original text" of the speech. [34] In the speech, Kim then goes back and forth: [35]

By saying that the subject [juche] is missing from our party's ideological work, I do not mean, of course, that we did not carry out a revolution, or that our revolutionary work was carried out by some passer-by. But the subject [juche] has not been firmly established in ideological work, for which reason dogmatist and formalist errors have been made, doing much harm to our revolutionary cause. [36]

This, concludes Myers, can be summed as: "the subject—the Korean revolution, as distinct from other revolutions—has not established itself clearly in ideological work." [37] In a similar vein, Kim continues: [38]

Marxism–Leninism is not a dogma. It is a guide to action and a creative theory. So only when it is applied creatively to suit the specific conditions of each country can it display its indestructible vitality.

This passage contains a specific paraphrase of Lenin and Engels that was not considered provocative back then: [c] [38] "Our theory is not a dogma, but a guide to action". [41]

North Korean historiography has subsequently backdated the origin of the Juche ideology to Kim Il Sung's guerrilla days in the 1930s. In his memoir, With the Century , Kim seeks to clear up the discrepancy between the purported 1930s origin and 1955 first mention. Kim writes that his 1930s speeches only contained an "element" of the Juche idea, but that 1955 marked "the period of postwar socialist construction, when we particularly stressed the task of the sentimentalism of [juche]". Kim Sung-chull notes how Kim does not deny that 1955 was the first appearance of the word, saying that the 1992 autobiography ended the debate on the origin of juche. [42]

Propaganda work

Purported original manuscript of the speech On Eliminating Dogmatism and Formalism and Establishing Juche in Ideological Work manuscript.jpg
Purported original manuscript of the speech

Most of the speech is about ways to win the hearts and minds of South Koreans through propaganda. [43] Much of the criticism is presented, according to Myers, in a rambling fashion, suggesting that Kim either went off script or was speaking from sparse notes. [44] Myers notes that "[f]or what it's worth, the 1980 edition of the speech includes a photograph of what is purportedly a page from Kim's handwritten notes; they are jottings of phrases and keywords, studded with Chinese characters so as to appear more authentic". [d] [46] Similarly, a picture of Kim writing the speech was published, but according to Myers "there is no reason to believe the caption's claim that it was this very speech". [e] [24]

The content of this part of the speech makes clear Kim's intention to destroy the South Korean state. [48] Kim says historians should study Korean resistance movements like the Gwangju Student Independence Movement and the June 10th Movement. This largely did not happen as the focus of North Korean historiography gravitated toward studying only Kim Il Sung's exaggerated role in the liberation of Korea. [49]

Aftermath and significance

The speech was not published immediately. Some references to it were made in contemporary press, but these mentions were vague. [50] It was, however, distributed to party members. [51] It was not published until 1960 in the fourth volume of Kim's Selected Works (sŏnjip) in Korean. [52] In advertisements for the volume in the magazine Kulloja , seven individual works were highlighted in chronological order and the Juche speech came last, suggesting that it was not considered that important at the time. [53]

The term began to appear untranslated and capitalized (Juche) in English scholarly texts in the 1960s. According to Myers, this result of lazy (non-)translation made juche "jump out" from text and seem like an original idea instead of the ordinary word it was. [54]

The speech is often considered a "watershed moment" in North Korean history. [55] For example, University of Hawaii professor Dae-Sook Suh calls it "perhaps the most important speech" that Kim made. [56] Conventionally, it is seen to have launched the Juche ideology. Those who disagree with this interpretation include Myers. [57] Similarly, Alzo David-West calls Juche in 1955 merely a political slogan, not an ideology. [58] According to David-West, the speech did not so much launch a new ideology as it espoused the return to an old one, that of national Stalinism. [59] The "speech prioritized North Korean national interests apropos of the Stalinist policy of socialism in one country on North Korean terms." [60] Myers points to the scarcity of material on Juche in Kim's writings until the 1960s as a sign of the ideology's insignificance. [61] According to Suh, this can be explained by a tactical position. Kim could not press on with Juche when he still had not decisively taken sides in the Sino-Soviet split. After he started supporting China, and the Soviets retaliated, Kim could talk about Juche again. [49] Consequentially, North Korean propagandists had to develop Juche into a full-fledged ideology. [62] In particular, Western academics credit Hwang Jang-yop with re-discovering the 1955 speech and expanding upon its conception of Juche. [63] Kim's first subsequent speech to elucidate on the ideological content of Juche was not until 1965. [f] [65] According to Lankov, only this "can be seen as the first Juche speech", adding that "the 1955 statement used the word in a different meaning". [66] Kim Jong Il, who had studied under Hwang at Kim Il Sung University, [67] soon became the chief official ideologue of Juche and the ideology was coupled with dynastic succession. [68]

According to Myers, the significance of the 1955 speech has only been applied retrospectively and erroneously. It did not deviate from the official Marxist–Leninist line, nor did it assert the two key features that are now commonly associated with Juche: self-reliance and nationalism. [69] Myers thinks the speech represents a call for the creative appliance of Marxism–Leninism that was common in the Eastern Bloc at the time. [70] David-West disagrees with Myers and thinks that Myers has reached his findings by a formalist reading of the speech (here understood as an "empirical mode of literary analysis [that] essentially takes form for content and appearance for reality"). [71]

The speech was followed up with purges and industrial programs culminating in the Chollima Movement. This leads David-West to conclude that Kim wanted to pursue rather than discard Stalinism and that the speech was a reaction to de-Stalinization. He further believed it "an emergency writ of mandamus, commanding the party and government not to abandon the autarkic economic policies and political program upon which the DPRK regime was founded in 1948." [62]

The speech has been republished several times. According to Suh, there is only "slight editing" from the early versions, [72] but Myers considers versions after 1960 "bowdlerized" and has identified numerous changes. [73] The favorable mention of the Chinese rectification campaign was removed from subsequent revisions. [19] Names of writers Pak Yon-am, Chong Ta-san, [74] Ri Ki-yong, and Han Sorya were also omitted. [75]

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ Korean : 주체; RR : juche; MR : chuch'e.
  2. ↑ In philosophy, subject is the opposite of object. The "twin concepts, subject (person, mind, theorist, etc.) and object (external world), [are] central in much philosophical ... discussion[.] The central issues have been: how the subject can come to 'know' the object, and how each is constituted". [31]
  3. ↑ The reference is to Lenin's 1917 "Letters on Tactics", [39] which in turn paraphrases Engels' 1886 letter to Friedrich Sorge: "To them [German communists] it [theory] is a credo [creed] and not a guide to action." [40]
  4. ↑ We can find an example in an earlier publication from 1970, Album: Revolutionary Activities of Comrade Kim Il Sung. [45]
  5. ↑ See Kim Il Sung Biography: From Building Democratic Korea to Chullima Flight. [47]
  6. ↑ The speech was On Socialist Construction in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and the South Korean Revolution . [64]

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References

Citations

  1. ↑ Myers 2015, p. 47n11.
  2. ↑ David-West 2007, p. 138.
  3. 1 2 3 David-West 2007, p. 139.
  4. ↑ Person 2016, p. 213.
  5. ↑ Person 2016, pp. 213–214.
  6. ↑ Myers 1994, p. 92.
  7. ↑ Myers 1994, pp. 80–81.
  8. ↑ Myers 1994, pp. 84, 93.
  9. 1 2 Myers 2015, pp. 46–47.
  10. ↑ Lankov 2007a, pp. 39–40.
  11. ↑ Myers 1994, p. 93.
  12. ↑ Myers 2006, pp. 94–95.
  13. ↑ Myers 2015, p. 227.
  14. ↑ Myers 1994, p. 94.
  15. ↑ Myers 2015, p. 47n10.
  16. ↑ Lankov 2007a, p. 40.
  17. ↑ Lankov 1999, p. 54.
  18. 1 2 3 Myers 2015, p. 47.
  19. 1 2 Suh 1988, p. 306.
  20. ↑ Person 2016, p. 214.
  21. 1 2 Myers 2006, p. 94.
  22. ↑ Myers 2015, p. 48.
  23. ↑ Myers 2015, p. 45.
  24. 1 2 3 4 Myers 2015, p. 46.
  25. ↑ Okonogi 1994, p. 179.
  26. ↑ Okonogi 1994, pp. 183–184.
  27. ↑ Okonogi 1994 , p. 183; Lankov 2007a , p. 29.
  28. 1 2 Armstrong 2013, p. 143.
  29. ↑ Myers 2015, p. 246n22.
  30. ↑ Kim 2012, p. 108.
  31. ↑ Collins Dictionary of Sociology 2000, "subject and object".
  32. ↑ Myers 2015, pp. 33–34.
  33. 1 2 Myers 2015, p. 49.
  34. ↑ Gittings 2008, p. 243.
  35. ↑ Myers 2006, p. 97.
  36. ↑ Myers 2015, p. 228.
  37. ↑ Myers 2006, p. 98.
  38. 1 2 Myers 2015, p. 52.
  39. ↑ Lenin 2005.
  40. ↑ Engels 2000.
  41. ↑ Myers 2015, p. 239.
  42. ↑ Kim 2012, p. 107.
  43. ↑ Myers 2015, p. 50.
  44. ↑ Myers 2015, p. 51.
  45. ↑ Album 1970, n.p.
  46. ↑ Myers 2015, p. 51n33.
  47. ↑ Baik 1970, n.p.
  48. ↑ Myers 2015, p. 53.
  49. 1 2 Suh 1988, p. 307.
  50. ↑ Lankov 1999, p. 51.
  51. ↑ Lankov 1999, p. 53.
  52. ↑ Gittings 2008 , p. 243; Myers 2014 , p. 780n10.
  53. ↑ Myers 2015, p. 68.
  54. ↑ Myers 2014, pp. 781–782.
  55. ↑ Myers 2006, p. 89.
  56. ↑ Suh 1981, p. 109.
  57. ↑ Myers 2006, p. 91.
  58. ↑ David-West 2013, p. 67.
  59. ↑ David-West 2007, p. 142.
  60. ↑ David-West 2013, p. 68.
  61. ↑ David-West 2007, pp. 142–143.
  62. 1 2 David-West 2007, p. 148.
  63. ↑ Becker 2005, p. 65.
  64. ↑ Kim 1984.
  65. ↑ Myers 2015, p. 91.
  66. ↑ Lankov 2007b.
  67. ↑ Becker 2005, p. 68.
  68. ↑ Becker 2005, p. 69.
  69. ↑ Myers 2006, p. 92.
  70. ↑ David-West 2007, p. 130.
  71. ↑ David-West 2007, p. 128.
  72. ↑ Suh 1981, pp. 109–110.
  73. ↑ Myers 2015, pp. 48, Appendix I.
  74. ↑ Myers 2006, p. 229.
  75. ↑ Myers 2006, p. 231.

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