By Andrei Lankov
Fifteen years ago almost every expert around confidently predicted the imminent collapse of the inefficient, archaic, brutal, and bizarre regime in North Korea. The policies of great powers were based on an assumption that a North Korean collapse was imminent. It has been suggested that the U.S. signed the Agreed Framework of 1994 only because most people inside the Beltway believed this rather flawed agreement would not be carried through anyway. It was assumed that the North Korean regime would collapse well before the completion of the light water reactors project.
But this did not happen. Contrary to everybody’s (well, almost everybody’s) expectations, the Kim dynasty has survived. Even the disaster of the Great Famine, arguably the worst famine Asia has seen since Mao’s Great Leap Forward, was not enough to undermine the regime. No revolution happened, and no army general drove his tanks to Pyongyang. Why?
One of these reasons is particularly disconcerting for idealists: as long as a government is determined to be cruel and is ready to shoot all trouble-makers, it is pretty much invincible _ at least, if it is not subjected to serious pressure from the outside. It has been long known that revolutions tend to erupt not in the worst times of tyranny, but when a government wants to liberalize itself. A government which does not play with the dangerous notions of democracy and humanity is in a much safer position than a government of soul-searching reformers.
In other words, the secret of Pyongyang’s success in handling the situation is its remarkable indifference to the sufferings of the common people. The rulers were ready to sacrifice as many lives as necessary. The great famine of 1996-1999 was a result of a deliberate political decision. Had the DPRK government decided to disband the state-run agricultural cooperatives, the famine would not have happened, but such action would bring an unacceptable weakening of control, and hence it was rejected. The death of some 600,000 people was a price to be paid, but the rulers could not care less.
Ermanno Furlanis, an Italian pizza chief, was invited to North Korea to cook for Kim Jong-il and his inner circle in 1997, when the famine reached its height, wiping out entire villages in the northern provinces. What does the Italian maestro write about his own lifestyle in the famine-hit country? ``That evening, dinner _ a feast worthy of Petronius' Satyricon _ was served with an excellent Burgundy and delicacies from around the world. As an Italian I could not refrain from objecting, and three days later fresh from Italy a shipment of Barolo arrived.’’ Or: ``That evening we had a light dinner back at the base: a pair of lobsters, salad and French white wine.’’ This is how servants (well, very special servants) of the beloved leader lived in those hard times. And what about the great man himself? ``Every now and then a kind of courier would show up from some corner of the world. I saw him twice unloading two enormous boxes containing an assortment of 20 very costly French cheeses, and one box of prized French wines.’’
Does this mean that the Pyongyang rulers, the ``top thousand’’ are cruel? Perhaps they are, but largely they are simply indifferent. Their behavior reminds me of the old European aristocracy. When peasants were starving, the barons enjoyed their feasts and could see nothing shameful in their behavior. They belonged to a different brand, and feasts, silk dress, and occasional sexual romp with a pretty maidservant was their birthright.
The North Korean elite has been hereditary since the 1970s, if not earlier. I do not mean the Kim clan alone. At the top levels of the state bureaucracy, all important positions are occupied by people who qualify for these posts largely as sons or grandsons of guerrillas who fought in Manchuria in the 1930s, or as descendants of some wartime heroes. They have spent all their lives in the comfortable and secluded environment of the privileged living quarters, special schools, and hard currency shops.
This also makes them less ready to defect. In the old Soviet Union or China, the former Communist elite defected and overnight transformed themselves from party apparatchiks into capitalists. A similar trick is unlikely to work in the North. In all probability, the collapse of the regime will lead to unification. And in a unified Korea the former North Korean bureaucrats will have no chances: for better or worse, capitalism there will be built not by born-again apparatchiks, but by the resident managers of Hyundai and Samsung. This means that the collapse of the system will mean a loss of a privileged life _ and perhaps even persecution. The North Korean ‘cadres’ know only too well how they would have treated the Seoul ``reactionary puppets’’ had Pyongyang emerged victorious from the inter-Korean rivalry, and they do not see any reason why they would be treated differently. Thus they stay together, in the hope of survival.
Does this mean that the North will continue indefinitely? I do not think so. Information on the state is dripping in, and the lower bureaucrats are increasingly tired and inefficient. The system is falling apart, but that is another story.