[PDF] The Forgotten Political Elites Of North Korea eBook

Author : Fyodor Tertitskiy
Publisher : Taylor & Francis
Page : 280 pages
File Size : 45,44 MB
Release : 2024-06-30
Category : History
ISBN : 1040043410

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This book comprises the biographies of the North Korean politicians whose actions played a pivotal role in shaping the formation of the country during the late 1940s, the Korean War of 1950-53 and the power struggles of the mid-1950s. Drawing from a rich array of archival material in both Korean, Russian and oral testimonies, this book gives insight into the life stories of key figures such as Pang Hak-se, the founder of North Korea's secret police; Lee Sang-jo, a rebellious and idealistic North Korean ambassador; and Mun Il, the secretary of North Korea’s first leader, Kim Il-sung. The biographies offer fresh perspectives into significant events in North Korean history such as the rise of Kim Il-sung and the reasons behind his selection as the nation's leader, The book also reveals how crucial events during the Korean War, such as the Inchon Landing Operation and China's entry into the war, shed new light on North Korean history. Unveiling the lives and impact of influential politicians in a notoriously secretive nation, this book will appeal to a wide range of readers including students and scholars of North Korea, the Korean War, the Cold War era, Asian history and those interested in the biographies of significant historical figures.

Author : Andrei Lankov
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 350 pages
File Size : 15,91 MB
Release : 2015
Category : History
ISBN : 0199390037

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In The Real North Korea, Lankov substitutes cold, clear analysis for the overheated rhetoric surrounding this opaque police state. Based on vast expertise, this book reveals how average North Koreans live, how their leaders rule, and how both survive

Author : Thae Yong-ho
Publisher : Columbia University Press
Page : 649 pages
File Size : 16,52 MB
Release : 2024-04-23
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 023155284X

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Thae Yong-ho was a leading North Korean diplomat to the United Kingdom and Northern Europe—until his dramatic defection to South Korea in 2016. In this gripping tell-all, he reveals the inner workings of the North Korean regime and shares the story of his decision to leave. Thae spent nearly three decades working under three generations of the ruling Kim dynasty after entering the foreign service as an idealistic twenty-seven-year-old “red warrior” eager to strive for the “socialist motherland.” During this time, he witnessed the arbitrary and tyrannical rule of the Kim family and the enigmatic “Third Floor,” a powerful group of high-ranking officials. Thae provides up-close portraits of the excesses of the North Korean elite and the depths of the cult of personality around the Kims, describing experiences such as concocting reports of Europeans celebrating the birthdays of Kim Il-sung or Kim Jong-il and escorting Kim Jong-un’s older brother to Eric Clapton concerts in London. He also details the economic and political consequences of North Korea’s pursuit of the bomb and the immiseration of the vast majority of the population. Today a politician in South Korea who advocates unification, Thae offers a powerful plea for the families torn apart by the conflict—including his own, as his brother and sister likely now languish in prison camps. A best-seller in South Korea, Passcode to the Third Floor is an unparalleled look at North Korean politics and diplomacy, giving readers intimate access to the regime’s innermost secrets.

Author : Jae-Cheon Lim
Publisher : Taylor & Francis
Page : 291 pages
File Size : 30,44 MB
Release : 2024-04-23
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 1040023967

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This book explores how political power has shaped the elite and their development in North Korea by examining changes of the elite, their interactions, and specific elite figures, based on the transformation of the power structure and characteristics of the North Korean regime since August 1945. As a socialist state where the party guides the state, the ruling core is the party cadre in North Korea. This book distinguishes the development of the North Korean power into five periods: power structuration of the Soviet forces (1945 to the late 1940s), socialist oligarchic power (late 1940s to mid-1950s), limited personal power (mid-1950s to late 1960s), personal power (late 1960s to mid-1970s) and patrimonial power (mid-1970s to the present). In parallel with the power factor, it also analyses four distinct generations, sorted based on their birth cohort and each cohort’s shared experience in its early youth, to explain their political development. As an examination of the composition and internal dynamics of the North Korean elite, particularly those in the Korean Workers’ Party Central Committee, this book will be of interest to students and scholars of North Korea and Asian politics.

Author : Jieun Baek
Publisher : Yale University Press
Page : 263 pages
File Size : 17,19 MB
Release : 2016-11-15
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 0300224478

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“A crisp, dramatic examination of how technology and human ingenuity are undermining North Korea’s secretive dictatorship.”—Kirkus Reviews One of the least understood countries in the world, North Korea has long been known for its repressive regime. Yet it is far from being an impenetrable black box. Media flows covertly into the country, and fault lines are appearing in the government’s sealed informational borders. Drawing on deeply personal interviews with North Korean defectors from all walks of life, ranging from propaganda artists to diplomats, Jieun Baek tells the story of North Korea’s information underground—the network of citizens who take extraordinary risks by circulating illicit content such as foreign films, television shows, soap operas, books, and encyclopedias. By fostering an awareness of life outside North Korea and enhancing cultural knowledge, the materials these citizens disseminate are affecting the social and political consciousness of a people, as well as their everyday lives. “A fine primer on the country, based on extensive interviews with defectors.”—Times Literary Supplement “A fascinating book.”—The New York Times “[A] timely and cogent book.”—Los Angeles Review of Books “A fascinating and intelligent overview of the ways that information is liberating North Koreans’ minds.”—Robert S. Boynton, author of The Invitation-Only Zone: The True Story of North Korea's Abduction Project “A fascinating, important, and vivid account of how unofficial information is increasingly seeping into the North and chipping away at the regime’s myths—and hence its control of North Korean society.”—Sue Mi Terry, former CIA analyst and senior research scholar at the Weatherhead East Asia Institute, Columbia University

Author : Young Whan Kihl
Publisher : M.E. Sharpe
Page : 346 pages
File Size : 46,6 MB
Release : 2006
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 9780765616388

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Featuring contributions by some of the leading experts in Korean studies, this book examines the political content of Kim Jong-Il's regime maintenance, including both the domestic strategy for regime survival and North Korea's foreign relations with South Korea, Russia, China, Japan, and the United States. It considers how and why the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) became a "hermit kingdom" in the name of Juche (self-reliance) ideology, and the potential for the barriers of isolationism to endure. This up-to-date analysis of the DPRK's domestic and external policy linkages also includes a discussion of the ongoing North Korean nuclear standoff in the region.

Author : Ralph Hassig
Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield
Page : 253 pages
File Size : 25,42 MB
Release : 2015-04-16
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 1442237198

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This unique book, now fully updated, provides a comprehensive overview of all aspects of life in North Korea today. Drawing on decades of experience, noted experts Ralph Hassig and Kongdan Oh explore a world few outsiders can imagine. In vivid detail, the authors describe how the secretive and authoritarian government of Kim Jong-un shapes every aspect of its citizens' lives, how the command socialist economy has utterly failed, and how ordinary individuals struggle to survive through small-scale capitalism. Weighing the very limited individual rights allowed, the authors illustrate how the political class system and the legal system serve solely as tools of the regime. The key to understanding how the North Korean people live, the authors argue, is to realize that their only allowed role is to support Kim Jong-un, whose grandfather founded the country in the late 1940s. Still a cypher, Kim Jong-un, as did his father before him, controls his people by keeping them isolated and banning most foreigners. North Koreans remain hungry and oppressed, yet the outside world is slowly filtering in, and the book concludes by urging the United States to flood North Korea with information so that its people can make decisions based on truth rather than their dictator's ubiquitous propaganda.

Author : Chae-ch'ŏn Im
Publisher :
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 38,77 MB
Release : 2024
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9781003427131

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"This book explores how political power has shaped the elite and their development in North Korea by examining the change of the elite, their interactions, and specific elite figures, based on the transformation of power structure and characteristics in the North Korean regime since August 1945. As a socialist state where the party guides the state, the ruling core is the party cadre in North Korea. This book distinguishes the development of the North Korean power structure into five periods: Soviet forces' power structuration (1945 to the late 1940s), socialist oligarchic power (late 1940s to mid-1950s), limited personal power (mid-1950s to late 1960s), personal power (late 1960s to mid-1970s) and patrimonial power (mid-1970s to the present). In parallel to the power factor, it also analyses four distinct generations, sorted based on their birth cohort and each cohort's shared experience in its early youth, to explain its political development. As an examination of the composition and internal dynamics of the North Korean elite, particularly those in the Korean Workers' Party Central Committee, this book will be of interest to students and scholars of North Korea and Asian politics"--

Author : Kongdan Oh
Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield
Page : 292 pages
File Size : 48,36 MB
Release : 2004-05-13
Category : History
ISBN : 9780815798200

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Fifty-five years after its founding at the dawn of the cold war, North Korea remains a land of illusions. Isolated and anachronistic, the country and its culture seem to be dominated exclusively by the official ideology of Juche, which emphasizes national self-reliance, independence, and worship of the supreme leader, General Kim Jong Il. Yet this socialist utopian ideal is pursued with the calculations of international power politics. Kim has transformed North Korea into a militarized state, whose nuclear weapons, ballistic missiles, and continued threat to South Korea have raised alarm worldwide. This paradoxical combination of cultural isolation and military-first policy has left the North Korean people woefully deprived of the opportunity to advance socially and politically. The socialist economy, guided by political principles and bereft of international support, has collapsed. Thousands, perhaps millions, have died of starvation. Foreign trade has declined and the country's gross domestic product has recorded negative growth every year for a decade. Yet rather than initiate the sort of market reforms that were implemented by other communist governments, North Korean leaders have reverted to the economic policies of the 1950s: mass mobilization, concentration on heavy industry, and increased ideological indoctrination. Although members of the political elite in Pyongyang are acutely aware of their nation's domestic and foreign problems, they are plagued by fear and policy paralysis. North Korea Through the Looking Glass sheds new light on this remote and peculiar country. Drawing on more than ten years of research—including interviews with two dozen North Koreans who made the painful decision to defect from their homeland—Kongdan Oh and Ralph C. Hassig explore what the leadership and the masses believe about their current predicament. Through dual themes of persistence and illusion, they explore North Korea's stubborn adherence to policies that have