| Chapter 1: | The Culture and Ideology of the DPRK |
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economic activities in order to establish a juche economy. One should not forget that at this time there was growing support in Third World countries for the dependencia movement, whereby economic and cultural independence was proclaimed the only way of avoiding certain subjugation to the industrial hegemonic countries.7
What has been most economically detrimental is the principle of military self-reliance. Kim Il Sung’s opinion on the importance of military power was unambiguously demonstrated in his early years in power when he was campaigning for national independence. In his Manchuria days, his group was known for employing militant means in order to secure weapons at all costs. He criticized Kim Koo, Yo Woon Yong, and Ahn Chang Ho, who had a broad base of support for their patriotism and reliance on the nonmilitary or nonviolence principle. According to Kim, a nonviolent revolution would not work in the fight against colonialism and expansionism. In fact, military self-reliance was viewed as a necessary condition for political sovereignty. In this case, no amount of resources devoted to building military strength was considered too large; North Korea has consistently and disproportionately invested its national wealth in the weapons industry. Kim had also witnessed the dramatic turn of events when Japanese imperial forces boldly invaded East and Southeast Asia, Russia, and eventually the Hawaiian Islands and then had to unconditionally surrender to the power of American atomic bombs. Given this, it is not surprising that Kim was engulfed in his own obsessive desire for weapons—specifically, atomic bombs.
Although the military principle may have deterred economic growth in general, one should not discount the fact that North Korea’s primary source of foreign-currency earnings has been the export of weapons, a wide variety ranging from conventional ones to sophisticated missiles. There seems to be no shortage of demand for North Korean weapons on the international market, especially in the Arab world. The controversy surrounding North Korea’s nuclear weapons production must be seen