Speakout Demands:
Stop The Capitalists’ Provocations against Socialistic North Korea!
Late last year the capitalist countries, led by the U.S., were on the verge of provoking a full-scale war with North Korea. This followed a clash on November 23 between the militaries of U.S.-backed, capitalist South Korea and the North Korean workers state.
The war threats against North Korea, known as the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea (DPRK), have been accompanied by an intense propaganda barrage coinciding with the 60th anniversary of the bloody Korean War. Yet the claims that imperialist politicians and the media use to justify attacks on North Korea are filled with the greatest hypocrisy. For one, they speak of North Korea developing nuclear weapons. Yet the U.S. rulers have thousands of nuclear weapons and, what is more, in 1945 in the skies above Hiroshima and Nagasaki they demonstrated to the whole world that they have the cruelty to unleash such weapons against human beings. The imperialists then say that they want to stop the spread of nuclear weapons and that North Korea is violating the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Yet after that treaty was proclaimed, the U.S, Britain and France helped their Israeli allies to acquire hundreds of nuclear weapons. If that is not spreading nuclear weapons to other countries then what exactly is?
Then there are all the attacks on North Korea over alleged human rights problems. However, let us put things in their true perspective. It is not the DPRK that has bombed to death hundreds of thousands of people in Iraq, Afghanistan and now Libya. No, those ghastly deeds have been committed by the capitalist regimes in the U.S., Britain and Australia. Then we should look at the records of those governments that are dependent on the Western imperialist powers. Like the brutal former Murbarak regime in Egypt that was armed and backed by the U.S. for 30 years while it murdered and jailed opposition activists and was only in its final hours distanced by Washington when they realised that its unpopularity was threatening Egypt’s capitalist order. Or how about Israel with its genocidal attacks on Palestinians and on those trying to bring supplies into the blockaded Gaza Strip? Or the American neocolony, the Philippines, where dozens of leftists and trade union activists are killed every year by military and police-backed death squads.
Yet Washington and Canberra never threaten war against these regimes over “human rights.” Of course not – for these are capitalist regimes allied with the Western imperialists. In contrast, the DPRK is a socialistic state. And that is what the issue is really all about. North Korea is not being attacked because of “human rights” or because of its development of nuclear weapons. It is being attacked because it is a workers state and because it is a close ally and neighbour of the world’s most powerful workers state, the Peoples Republic of China.
Every proud worker knows that when a capitalist boss attacks a trade union, workers must stand by that embattled union even if they may have their own issues with that particular union’s leadership. By analogy, the same goes for our attitude to the North Korean workers state. There are many serious problems with the leadership of the DPRK: for example its hereditary-like leadership succession policy. But when the capitalist powers attack the DPRK then we stand 100% by its side. For the DPRK is our kind of state: a workers state. A workers state created by the mid- to late-1940s social revolution that overthrew capitalist rule in the northern part of Korea and established a society based on collective ownership of the factories, agricultural land and banks.
The Western tycoon-owned media run sensationalist accounts of hardships in North Korea. These reports are greatly exaggerated. The people of North Korea do in fact manage to get by. Nevertheless, there are indeed economic hardships there. How can there not be? North Korea has been hit by economic sanctions imposed by the capitalist powers and the United Nations for many years now. Moreover, the DPRK has to constantly contend with the fact that a knife is being held to its throat, that the world’s most powerful military has tens of thousands of troops across its border constantly threatening its security. In fact, the U.S. is regularly holding live-fire military exercises on North Korea’s maritime borders. Meanwhile, U.S. aircraft dart in and out of North Korean airspace. What all this means is that the DPRK is forced to spend a large proportion of its resources on defence capabilities in order to deter an all out attack by Western imperialism and its capitalist South Korean allies. This enforced military expenditure necessarily bleeds its economy dry.
Cynics might say it’s just not worth it, that North Korea should just submit. However, the defiant North Korean masses have other ideas. They think in the same way as workers do during a long strike against a powerful capitalist boss: the struggle brings many hardships but they stand firm in the quest for a triumph that will in the long run lead to a much better life.
It is to stand in support of this struggle of the brave masses of the DPRK that Trotskyist Platform decided to organise a rally on February 12 in Sydney to demand: “Stop the Capitalists’ Provocations Against Socialistic North Korea! U.S. Military Get out of the Korean Peninsula and the Yellow Sea!”
Deadly Imperialist Threat
To see how serious and immediate the threat to the DPRK is, one has only to note the mid-May NATO air strike that severely damaged the DPRK’s embassy in Libya. Although NATO has since claimed that the embassy was not targeted and any damage was just “collateral damage” from other strikes on the Libyan capital, no thinking person would readily buy that line. Instead the attack on the DPRK embassy has all the stench of the 7 May 1999 U.S. bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade during the NATO war on Serbia.
If we are to understand the lengths that imperialism will go to drown in blood the DPRK workers state we should look at what happened during the 1950-953 Korean War. Then, the horrific war crimes against the people of North Korea committed by the U.S., Britain, Australia and their South Korean allies exceeded even their brutality during the Vietnam War. They killed between two to three million Korean people during that war.
The U.S. dropped millions of gallons of napalm during the Korean War. Furthermore, they were within a whisker of nuking North Korea during the Korean War. At an infamous news conference on 30 November 1950, U.S. president Harry Truman threatened to use atomic bombs against North Korea and China. In September and October 1951, the U.S. conducted their most chilling operation of the war. In Operation Hudson Harbor, they sent lone B-29 bombers to practice nuclear attacks on North Korea by dropping dummy atomic bombs on Pyongyang.
However it is not simply the military threat that the DPRK faces today. The military pressure exerted by the imperialists aims to also bleed the North Korean economy dry, to demoralise its pro-socialist working class and to encourage anti-communist elements within North Korea.
Against this massive pressure, currently the bulk of the DPRK masses are standing firm. The question is what are we leftists in Australia going to do about the capitalists’ attacks on the DPRK? Well we have a choice. We can do what many leftists do which is to point to problems with the DPRK and its leadership in order to justify not defending it. That is political cowardice. It is a gutless way of avoiding having to stand up to anti-communist propaganda.
However those of us who supported the February 12 speakout in Sydney have other ideas. As well as Trotskyist Platform supporters, among others joining in solidarity with the action was the National Secretary of the Revolutionary Socialist Party as well as spokesmen from Communist Left and Supporters of the Iranian Peoples Fedayeen Guerillas.
We are proud that we not only defied a lot of anti-communist propaganda to take a stand but also stood firm against a variety of hostile people who sought to sabotage the action. We found too that by taking a strong stand we attracted much interest and sympathy from onlookers. Many stopped to listen to speeches and to pick up a copy of the rally leaflet. Several passers-by also purchased copies of the Trotskyist Platform Issue #12 which has a detailed article on the DPRK.
February 12 marks the humble beginnings of a serious attempt to build a united-front pro-DPRK, pro-socialist movement in Australia. There is a very, very long way to go. But a start has been made. As the rally chair emphasised:
In standing by the DPRK we are not just standing by one socialistic country. No, we understand that the war threats against North Korea which reached fever pitch in the last few months of last year are in fact the frontline of the defacto cold war that exists between the capitalist powers and the socialistic states – states which include not only the DPRK but also Cuba, Vietnam and the Peoples Republic of China.
Furthermore we understand that in trying to crush the defiant workers state in North Korea, the capitalist powers are trying to send a message to the whole world. They are trying to make the toilers of the world believe that capitalism will always triumph over socialism. Well, we have other ideas. We are going to stand by the socialistic DPRK as part of our struggle for the victory of socialism over capitalism. And in the end it is that simple. If you are against capitalism and support socialism then you must defend the socialistic state in the DPRK, however deformed it may be from the ideal.
Among others who addressed the February 12 speakout was a communist activist of Korean origin, Samuel Kim, who had put much work into publicising this action. Samuel Kim powerfully expressed how the capitalist U.S. rulers put great resources into waging imperialist wars while large numbers of people in the U.S. are forced to sleep in the street. He also pointed to some of the gains achieved by the overthrow of capitalism in North Korea like the rapid provision of quality, free education for all soon after the founding of the workers state.
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Consider what the people of North Korea face today. Just across the border in South Korea nearly 30,000 troops belonging to the world’s most powerful military threaten them. The U.S. also has several massive bases throughout Japan and in Guam. Then there are the U.S. nuclear-armed Trident submarines and aircraft carrier fleets that lurk in nearby waters.
North Korea has good reason to be fearful. During the 1950-53 Korean War, the U.S., Australia and other capitalist powers bombed to rubble entire North Korean cities. And although North Korean and Red Chinese forces heroically fought the imperial powers to a stalemate in that War, the imperialists have never stopped threatening the DPRK.
Last November, the anti-North Korea provocations reached a new height. Near the North Korean border, capitalist South Korea and the U.S. began a live-fire military drill involving over 70,000 troops. On the morning of November 23, the DPRK sent an urgent message on an emergency hotline warning South Korea not to proceed with a planned live firing into waters claimed by North Korea and close to its coastline. Yet South Korea ignored the message and went ahead with this dangerous provocation. The DPRK responded by firing on the military base on South Korea’s Yeongpyeong Island. South Korea then attacked North Korean positions with artillery and aerial attacks and the DPRK responded.
The U.S. and South Korea seized on the incident to launch still more threatening military drills. The Australian imperialists for their part couldn’t wait to join in denouncing the DPRK. The capitalist media stirred the anti-DPRK war frenzy by emphasising that alongside two South Korean soldiers killed on Yeongpyeong Island were two civilians. They buried the fact that Yeongpyeong is largely a military outpost. It was only in the fine print that some newspapers finally admitted that the two civilians killed were unfortunate contractors who were in fact painting a military building at the time of the incident.
Regardless of the details, the fact is that the Korean War has never truly ended. Until one side triumphs this conflict can never end because the conflict between socialism and capitalism is irreconcilable. This conflict is a class conflict. Thus, just like we must always stand with a workers union in a battle with a capitalist boss, we must always, always stand by the DPRK workers state against capitalist South Korea and its imperialist masters. This is the case no matter what the immediate circumstances are that lead to a clash.
The North Korean workers state was founded by those who participated in the communist led guerrilla struggle for independence from Japanese colonial rule. As Japan headed for defeat in World War II, this independence movement began to establish popular committees as organs of power throughout Korea. However, in the southern part of Korea, which was occupied by U.S. imperialism at end of WWII, the popular committees were brutally repressed. Instead the U.S. maintained for as long as possible the Japanese colonial administrators and then relied on Korean collaborators. When the masses then revolted, the dictator installed by Washington, Syngman Rhee, massacred them.
Things were very different in the Northern part of Korea. It was liberated from Japanese colonial rule by a combination of the Soviet Red Army and the communist-led partisans. The Soviet forces supported the popular committees of the Korean people. Within months they took the land from the greedy landlords and distributed it among the impoverished, formerly tenant, farmers. Industry was also nationalized.
The resulting socialized economy led to rapid industrialization and produced big gains for the Korean workers and liberated peasants in areas like education and women’s rights. To be sure, the DPRK bureaucracy suppressed the kind of workers democracy that animated the 1917 Russian Revolution. Instead they built a personality cult around Kim Il Sung and his son. Such things harmed the socialist cause. Nevertheless, by the late 1960s the DPRK was, especially in areas like public services, a long way ahead of capitalist South Korea.
Worried, the U.S. began pouring massive resources to prop up the South and to put the squeeze on North Korea. However, what really hurt the DPRK was the early 1990s collapse of its main ally, the Soviet Union. The DPRK not only lost its main economic trading partner but now had to rely on its own resources to deter any attack from the U.S. – and that squeezed its economy dry. The mid-1990s were thus a time of great hardship. Yet, partly due to increased economic cooperation with socialistic China, the DPRK has now recovered. To be sure, life there is still not what it was in the days prior to the collapse of the USSR. Still to this day, health care, housing and education are provided free to every person in North Korea. Indeed, hours of media propaganda against the DPRK was rebuffed in April last year when the head of the World Health Organisation, Margaret Chan, returned from a trip to the DPRK noting its abundance of medical staff and stating that its healthcare system was quote: “something which most other developing countries would envy.”
The continuing existence of a workers state in the North of Korea gives hope to leftist South Korean workers that they too may be able to throw off the yoke of capitalism. Indeed late last year, when South Korea threatened war on the DPRK, large numbers of South Koreans bravely protested in opposition to this.
Throughout Korea there is a yearning for reunification. However, given the current balance and with the U.S. strongly backing the capitalist South, reunification based on melding the two Koreas would end up being a capitalist reunification. That is why we must insist on an explicitly socialist reunification. And that requires socialist revolution in South Korea.
Such a revolution is hardly pie in the sky. The South Korean working class is famous for militant strikes and plant occupations. They certainly have good reason to overthrow their capitalist exploiters – who have been one of the world’s most brutal. At the start of the Korean War, the South Korean rulers with the connivance of the U.S and Australia, killed communists and those suspected of being communist sympathisers in what was known as the Bodo League massacres. Estimates of the number of people murdered ranged from 200,000 to 1.2 million. For decades in South Korea, those who even spoke of these massacres were jailed. Although today South Korea flaunts an image of democracy and finally acknowledges, in part, the Bodo League massacres, it remains ruled by a brutal regime. Around 200 trade union activists are today imprisoned there. Although U.S. backing for this frontline anti-communist state has allowed South Korea to industrialise, South Korean workers must work long hours in a cutthroat society notorious for high suicide rates. Today more than half of South Korea’s workers have to work as casuals.
The South Korean workers will finally sweep their exploiters into the dustbin of history. When that happens, the dark cloud that today lurches over the DPRK will be blown aside and that will allow the buds of social progress emanating from North Korea’s socialistic roots to once again bloom – and with renewed vigour.
It is important to understand that the question of the DPRK is hardly just about Korea. A major reason that the imperialists are targeting the DPRK is to put pressure on North Korea’s socialistic ally and neighbour, the Peoples Republic of China. The goal of the imperialists is squarely to restore capitalism in China. However for us, the need to protect the gains of China’s 1949 anti-capitalist revolution is in of itself a good enough reason to oppose the threats against North Korea. For these gains are huge. Although the Chinese leadership has over the last 30 years pursued a policy of “market reforms” that has caused inequality and allowed capitalism to make inroads into China, socialistic state-owned enterprises continue to dominate the key sectors of the Chinese economy. As a result while most of the world has been headed down towards greater privatization of social services, the PRC has massively boosted public services. For example, over the last five years, China has increased the number of low rent public housing units in urban areas by a whopping 45 times. It is worth noting that in all of China there are now less people living below the poverty line than there are in capitalist Egypt, a country with 17 times less people.
However, there is a problem in China. Instead of seeking the complete victory of socialism, the cautious, anti-internationalist Chinese bureaucracy seeks to make an accommodation with capitalist forces on both the domestic and international arena. Thus, although the PRC does deter an imperialist attack on North Korea, Beijing at other times acquiesces to U.S. diktats and has even voted for U.N. resolutions condemning North Korean missile tests. Right-wing factions within the Chinese government are pushing to abandon socialistic North Korea as a way of encouraging an abandonment of socialism within China itself. Such moves must be resolutely rebuffed. We say PRC: Stand with the socialistic DPRK against imperialism unequivocally. Recall the PRC’s heroic support of the DPRK during the Korean War by boosting Chinese economic and political support for North Korea.
Sisters and brothers although what Red China and the South Korean workers do is crucial to the defence of socialistic North Korea, most important of all is what workers and leftists do in the imperialist countries hostile to the DPRK. And that is where we come in. We need to do all we can to oppose Australian imperialism’s contribution to the military pressure against the DPRK. We need to call for closing the Pine Gap joint U.S./Australia spy base.
We must support North Korea’s right to develop all means of self-defence including nuclear weapons. We should never forget that the U.S. planned to nuke North Korea several times and only held back because of the Soviet nuclear deterrent. Atomic weapons are indeed terrible weapons but we should note that the imperialists invaded Iraq and not North Korea in 2003 in part because they knew that it was Iraq that did not have nukes.
Comrades, Trotskyist Platform calls to build from what we are doing today by constructing a united-front, pro-socialist movement in solidarity with the DPRK. And since the fate of the DPRK and Red China are so closely linked, that movement should be jointly a pro-DPRK, pro-PRC movement. In the end what we are talking about here is the question of socialism versus capitalism. Our reasons for opposing capitalist attacks on the DPRK and PRC, includes our revulsion of the fact that over 100,000 people are homeless in capitalist Australia despite its incredible resource wealth. It includes our anger at the fact that in capitalist Egypt over 40% of women are forced to be illiterate whereas in socialistic North Korea over 99% of both women and men enjoy literacy.
So sisters and brothers, let’s work harder to defend the socialistic DPRK as well as socialistic China, Vietnam, Laos and Cuba. Let’s demand that U.S. troops get out of South Korea and the South China Sea. Let’s build a pro-DPRK, pro-PRC movement here as a component part of the fight to overthrow racist Australian capitalism.