RedArmyCapybara

One of the most frequently repeated claims about the DPRK is that its leadership is “starving people” and they're experiencing nationwide famine conditions. These claims are often accompanied by the assertion that the DPRK rejected international aid and support during the Arduous March of the 1990s. The Arduous March is also frequently presented as evidence of the inherent failures of socialist systems. The goal of this article is to investigate these claims and examine the historical conditions that shaped the Arduous March, as well as the present-day situation in the DPRK. The Arduous March: What Was It & What Caused It? The Arduous March is the name given to a period of famine and economic setbacks that occurred in the DPRK between 1994 and 1999. The famine was caused by a complex interaction of factors, including the collapse of the USSR and Eastern bloc trading partners, natural disasters, sanctions, and the geographical conditions of the DPRK. To begin, over 80% of the DP...

The US has a long history of employing atrocity propaganda. One of the earliest and most well-known instances was the claim that Spanish saboteurs attacked and sunk the USS Maine in Havana Harbor in 1898. Although there was no evidence to substantiate the claim, the story was widely circulated and used to rally support for the war with Spain. These types of fabricated and sensationalized stories were commonly published in newspapers owned by Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst. This form of journalism became known as "Yellow Journalism." The US would continue to develop their systems and methods to produce and disseminate propaganda throughout WWI. Following the 1917 revolution in Russia, the Bolsheviks became a primary target of imperialist atrocity propaganda campaigns. Most of the alleged atrocities have been debunked through the declassification of Soviet archives, but the damage was already done. Once propaganda is disseminated, it can persist despite the facts. ...

We’ve all seen the headlines: “Kim Jong Un executes this official,” “Kim Jong Un purges that minister,” and whatever else the Western media can squeeze out. According to outlets like Radio Free Asia, simply existing inside the Workers’ Party of Korea or the government is a death sentence waiting to happen. Kim Jong Un is supposedly wiping people out left and right for the smallest imaginable reasons. The sources for these claims are always unverifiable and dubious. South Korean intelligence will make an assertion and cite some “unknown source in Pyongyang,” then the story gets picked up by Western media and spreads like wildfire. However, there is a noticeable trend behind these sensationalist headlines: many people who were claimed to have been executed by Kim Jong Un have apparently risen from the dead. Hyon Song-wol Take pop star Hyon Song-wol for example. In 2013, South Korean media reported that a group of pop stars had been mass executed by a machine gun wielding firing squad, wi...

In the West, the DPRK is often called "the hermit kingdom." It's claimed that the DPRK is an isolationist state that has cut itself off from the rest of the world and refuses to engage with the international community, but is this really the case?  It's true that the United States, South Korea, the European Union, the United Nations, and others have attempted to force the DPRK into isolation through decades of brutal economic sanctions. The country has more than 2,000 sanctions.¹ However, these attempts by imperialist nations to isolate the DPRK don't mean that the DPRK or the Juche Idea are isolationist. A closer look at the evidence reveals the opposite. The Juche Idea is Internationalist  Those who say that the Juche Idea is an isolationist philosophy seem to not only be ignorant of the actual content of the Juche Idea, but they also conflate self‑reliance and isolationism. They lack a correct understanding of what independence means in the Juche Idea. Kim Jong...