Authors: Andrei Lankov
However, in order to become a political factor, this economic inefficiency had to first become known to and acknowledged by the majority of the population. Had the Soviet leadership been willing and able to maintain a North Korean level of isolation and repressiveness, the Soviet Union might still be in existence today. But the regimes of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union were soft on their population (in the post-Stalin era, that is)
and did not maintain the level of isolation required. Consequently, the average Soviet and Eastern European citizen gradually became aware that peoples of the developed West were living lives that were both more affluent and less controlled by the authorities. The same is applicable to the Chinese decision makers of the 1970s: they knew that China was lagging behind, and this knowledge prompted them to act.
If anything, North Korea is even more vulnerable to outside information than the Soviet Union and Eastern European countries used to be. After all, in Korea the tremendous economic success is enjoyed by the other half of the same nation, not by some distant countries whose cultures are different and whose languages are incomprehensible. For a long time, Soviet agitprop tried to cushion the impact of the news about Western prosperity by insisting that it was the cruelty of historic fate, and not the ingrained problems of the system, that prevented the Soviet people from enjoying the same consumption levels as Americans. In the 1960s and 1970s the Soviet media argued that the Soviet people should not compare themselves with the lucky inhabitants of North America who had never suffered a foreign invasion and could exploit the entire world for their selfish purposes (references to the slave trade and genocide of American Indians came easily). The argument was not bought by the majority of the Soviet population, but for a while it helped to some extent.
North Korean propagandists face an unenviable situation: they have to explain the stunning prosperity of the area that at the time of the division was an agricultural backwater and is populated by members of the same ethnic group who share the same language and culture as the destitute inhabitants of North Korea. Now, when the information blockade has become more difficult to maintain, North Korean propaganda does its best to explain South Korean success as the fruits of shamelessly selling out to US imperialism. The ruse might work to some degree, but this explanation has less chance of succeeding than the elaborate but plausible constructs of 1960s Soviet propaganda.
There is another peculiarity that makes the North Korean regime vulnerable to the spread of information about the outside world. The personality cult of the Kims has some similarities with a religious cult, but on
balance the North Korean ideology is secular, with roots going back to Marxism and further back to the European Enlightenment. Unlike fundamentalist ideologues in some other parts of the world, North Korean propagandists do not promise that the faithful would enjoy eternal happiness in the afterlife in the company of 72 virgins. Instead, they claim that North Korean official ideology knows how to best arrange the economic and political life in this world, how to provide economic growth and general well-being. Unfortunately for the North Korean elite, their system has failed to deliver the promised goods and this failure is made remarkably clear in light of the extraordinary success of South Korea.
The existence of the rich and free South is the major challenge for North Korean leaders, so the spread of knowledge about South Korea is bound to make the status quo untenable.
In order to initiate changes in North Korea, it is necessary to put North Korea’s rulers under pressure from its people and the lower echelons of the elite. Only North Koreans themselves can change North Korea. They are the major victims of the current unfortunate situation, and they also will become major potential beneficiaries of the coming change.
The only long-term solution, therefore, is to increase internal pressure for a regime transformation, and the major way to achieve this is to increase North Koreans’ awareness of the outside world. If North Koreans learn about the existence of attractive and available alternatives to their regimented and impoverished existence, the almost unavoidable result will be the growth of dissatisfaction toward the current administration. This will create domestic pressure for change, and the North Korean government will discover that its legitimacy is waning even among a considerable part of the elite (largely among those who don’t have vested interests in keeping the system unchanged).
This might end in a regime collapse, but it is also possible that facing such pressure, the leadership might attempt some reforms it would not otherwise even contemplate. Reforms might theoretically end in success—that is, in the emergence of a developmental dictatorship, North Korean—style. However, due to the reasons outlined above, it seems to be far more probable that attempts at reforms will simply hasten the collapse of the
regime. Either way (a regime collapse or regime transformation), it will be an improvement of the situation for both a majority of the North Korean people as well as for outsiders.
Admittedly, one of the above-mentioned scenarios is almost certain to happen eventually. Due to its innate inability to deliver economic growth, the North Korean government has become the major obstacle to North Korea’s economic development. As history has shown countless times, in the modern era an economically inept regime always falls sooner or later. Information about the outside world is spreading anyway, whatever the government does—largely thanks to new technologies (like DVD players), but also due to the slow-motion disintegration of domestic surveillance and control. The measures discussed below will
not
change the course of history, but will merely speed events up to a certain (perhaps quite small) extent—and will also make the coming crisis more manageable.
This outside support for information dissemination will also serve another important purpose that is not well understood. The half-century rule of the Kim dynasty was a social and economic disaster, but its eventual (and, like it or not, unavoidable) collapse might initially mean a disaster of comparable proportions. It is already time to start thinking about a post-Kim future, to undertake measures that will make the future transformation of North Korea less painful.
This policy is unlikely to succeed in a short span of time, so we indeed need serious strategic patience in dealing with North Korea—as long as strategic patience does not mean being idle and doing nothing. Conversely, this policy—or rather set of policies—can be implemented by a number of actors. Efforts aimed at changing North Korea can be carried out by the bureaucracies of the different states who have a stake in the issue. But there is also a great deal of space for NGOs, private foundations, and even individuals. All efforts that increase North Korea’s exposure to the outside world should be welcomed. All interpersonal exchanges should work toward the same goal.
Currently, there are three channels that can provide the North Korean populace with unauthorized information about the outside world. First, officially approved academic, cultural, and other interpersonal exchanges,
endorsed by the North Korean authorities, will unavoidably bring such potentially dangerous knowledge inside the country. Second, radio broadcasts and digital media might deliver news that is beyond the control of the North Korean regime. Third, the small but growing community of North Korean refugees—currently residing in South Korea but maintaining relations with families and friends in the North—might play a major and important role in disseminating this type of communication.
Of all the three channels mentioned above, official exchanges between North Korea and the outside world are especially significant. Since such exchanges will have to be approved by the North Korean authorities, nearly all participants will necessarily come from the country’s current elite.
One can expect that conservatives in Washington, Seoul, and elsewhere will question the value of these exchanges. They may say that such exchanges in effect reward the North Korean leadership and its cronies. There is a kernel of truth (actually a rather large kernel) in this point of view. There is no doubt that the top functionaries in Pyongyang and the spoiled brats of the Pyongyang government quarters will be the first to take advantage of international student exchanges or overseas study trips. However, to be frank, they are exactly the type of people who matter most. Changes to North Korea might start from below, but it is more likely that transformation will be initiated by well-informed and disillusioned members of the elite.
There is a historic example that shows the potential power of seemingly controlled and limited exchanges. In 1958 an academic exchange agreement was signed between the Soviet Union and the United States. In the United States, the diehard conservatives insisted that the agreement would merely provide the Soviets with another opportunity to send spies or educate propaganda-mongers. In addition, the critics continued, this would be done on American taxpayers’ money.
The first group of exchange students included exactly the people the conservatives were not eager to welcome onto US soil. There were merely four Soviet students selected by Moscow to enter Columbia University for one year of study. One of them, as we know now, was a rising KGB operative whose job was indeed to spy on the Americans. He was good at his job and eventually made a brilliant career in Soviet foreign intelligence. His fellow student was a young but promising veteran of the then-still-recent World War II. After studies in the United States, he moved to the Communist Party central bureaucracy, where in a decade he became the first deputy head of the propaganda department—in essence, a second-in-command among Soviet professional ideologues.
Skeptics seemed to have been proven right—until the 1980s, that is. The KGB operative’s name was Oleg Kalugin, and he was to become the first KGB officer to openly challenge the organization from within. He was the first person to criticize the KGB’s role as a party watchdog, and initiated a campaign aimed at its transformation into a regular intelligence and counterintelligence service.
His fellow student, Alexandr Yakovlev, was a young party propagandist. In due time, he was to become a Central Committee secretary, the closest associate of Mikhail Gorbachev. He made a remarkable contribution to the collapse of the Communist regime in Moscow (some people even insist that it was Yakovlev rather than Gorbachev himself who could be described as the real architect of perestroika).
Eventually, both men said it was their experiences in the United States that changed the way they saw the world, even if they were prudent enough to keep their mouths shut and say what they were expected to say.
Indeed, academic and personal exchanges seem to be the most efficient way to promote the spread of subversive information. By their nature, such exchanges imply a great deal of immersion into the host society by the visiting North Koreans. As a result of gained access to such a thorough view of everyday South Korean life, the North Koreans will be much less likely to suspect that they are dealing with the sort of staged propaganda show their own country is famous for. Such an approach also targets people who tend to belong to the elite and who, upon their return, will
quietly share their impressions with the people who really matter. Last but not least, interpersonal exchanges will also help introduce North Koreans to the knowledge and technology that will be so necessary when the decades-long North Korean stagnation finally ends.
It is unlikely that the North Korean authorities will agree to send a significant number of their students, scientists, and officials to the United States (and it is virtually impossible that such people will ever be allowed to visit South Korea). So in most cases, education programs should be conducted by other countries, including those that are seen as more or less friendly toward North Korea. South Korean and American hard-liners may take issue with this, but they may be proven wrong in this regard:
all
exchanges with the outside world are good for promoting North Korea’s transformation.
Naturally, these programs are not going to be paid for by the North Korean government itself. To paraphrase a remark by veteran North Korea expert Aidan Foster-Carter, North Korean leaders are people who never do anything as vulgar as paying their bills. There is, however, a need to financially support academic and interpersonal exchange programs and this is a place where both official agencies of third-party countries and perhaps private foundations will have a role.
This issue might be somewhat difficult politically. From personal experience, I know that diplomats from some developed countries are reluctant to openly support exchanges with North Korea out of fear that such exchanges might be perceived in Washington as a breach of international solidarity with the South and as rewarding a brutal and disgusting regime. Taking into consideration the conservatives’ approach to the issue, these fears might be quite justified. This is unfortunate, however, since exchanges are not means to reward the North Korean elite but rather a way to change North Korean society, thus undermining this elite’s grip on power.
Apart from academic exchanges, one should encourage all activities that create an environment conducive to contact between North Koreans and foreigners (and especially between North and South Koreans). This is the major reason why the Kaesong Industrial Zone is actually a very good idea: projects where North and South Koreans work together are bound to
produce many situations where uncontrolled and unscripted exchanges between them will take place.
Judged from the regime’s point of view, Kim Jong Il’s decision to tolerate and even encourage the Kaesong Industrial Zone was a grave mistake—perhaps even the greatest mistake ever made by the North Korean oligarchs, whose survival depends on the ability to keep the populace in ignorance of the outside world. The Kaesong Industrial Zone might generate a significant income for the North Korean authorities, but it has also produced a dramatic transformation of the worldview of the 150,000 to 200,000 North Koreans who live in Kaesong and whose family members or friends work in the Industrial Park.