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Originally Posted by MellySingsDoom
Cheers for this - it was indeed a good lecture, but I think the lecturer downplayed the Stalinist aspect of the Kim regime a tad too much. I was interested to learn about the nationalist aspect of North Korean life, though, and that the Kim Jong-Il abolished the whole idea of Communism when he re-wrote the N Korean constitution. I was very surprised for the lecturer citing the re-unification of Germany as a success - the former East Germany has endemic poverty, no industrty to speak of, little investment, all of which have fuelled a resurgent and often very violent neo-fascism (the NPD are at their strongest here). Some "success"!
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He didnt play up the Stalinist aspect because he offered a different source for the dictatorship - he argues that the original source of the North korean dictatorial culture comes from the Japanese Imperial period and the way it embraced Koreans as a sister people. His key thing is the racial superiority aspect of the north korean culture, and how that is in fundamental conflict with any real marxist ideology.
I watched this talk last year and didnt get the book, i wish i had done considering what we are seeing now. Im not big on Freudian stuff, but you can see where those ideas come from when he lays out those ideas about the Motherland and the Fatherland, Kim vs Stalin