(262) Goodbye Lenin, Hello Dangun

The early communists were passionately internationalist and anti-nationalist. They sincerely believed that nationalism was a malicious creation of the ruling class and therefore could only exist in a doomed capitalist society.

A book of pictures about mythical Dangun published by North Korea

By Andrei Lankov

The early communists were passionately internationalist and anti-nationalist. They sincerely believed that nationalism was a malicious creation of the ruling class and therefore could only exist in a doomed capitalist society. The proletariat, they insisted, had no reason whatsoever to worry about national interests or ethnic politics. According to left-wing theoreticians, nationalism was sometimes deliberately used by wicked rulers to keep the masses divided.

This strong and sincere belief was even reflected in the most famous of all Communist slogans: "Workers of the world, unite!" The Soviet media used 'nationalism' as a sort of political curse word - a tradition that was continued by the propaganda machine of most Leninist regimes.

Even nowadays, the more theoretically-minded ― that is, the more divorced from reality ― part of the left keeps faith in similar theories. Alas, the history of the last 150 years has taught us a bitter lesson.

If anything, the communists in power proved to be more nationalistic than most of their opponents. Once a communist party took power, it almost invariably began to lean to nationalism, partially reflecting the great mobilizing potential of nationalist sentiment. But to a very large extent, official nationalism was driven by the fervent, often xenophobic nationalism of the supposedly pure "masses".

In North Korea, nationalism began to develop especially quickly from the late 1950s when the government strove to steer away from troublesome Soviet patronage. The eulogies of the unique virtues of the Koreans were accompanied by slogans that in other countries would be seen as racist. The official media reminded readers of Koreans' racial purity. Of course, this purity was spoiled by the lecherous crowds of US soldiers and other lustful Westerners in the "neo-colonial South" and disseminated the usual set of nationalist historical myths. In North Korean textbooks, the Korean armies were always victorious, and the Korean peninsula itself was the crucible of world civilization.

Unlike the South Korean nationalists who take pride in the Korean connection with the Altaic people, the nationalists of the North insisted that Koreans and their direct physical and cultural ancestors had always lived on the Korean peninsula, and that they, being completely unique, were not related to any other nation.

However, until the late 1980s, the North Korean ideologues had to be careful, using some sleights of hand to cover up their nationalism. Such tricks have been well known since Stalin's day. Back in the 1940s, he used nationalism widely in his politics, but could not admit it openly. Thus, it was claimed that one has to distinguish between bad 'nationalism' and good, progressive 'patriotism' ― the later being the kind of nationalism which at any given moment served the interests of Stalin's government. Since interests have changed, today's 'patriots' could easily become tomorrow's 'nationalists' ― and vice versa.

In North Korea, the same approach was widely used ― even the terms were the same: good 'patriotism' (aegukjuui) vs. bad 'nationalism' (minjokjuui). This was a way to disguise the great difference between the established tradition of the anti-nationalist rhetoric and the frequent use of nationalism in actual policy.

But with the collapse of world communism from 1989 to 1991, the situation changed dramatically. The Pyongyang elite had less incentive to cite the 'eternal truth of Marxism-Leninism' as the major basis of their right to govern. At the same time, they were less afraid that an open and unabashed nationalism would unnecessarily damage relations with 'fraternal countries'.

An important turning point was the alleged discovery of the tomb of Tangun, the legendary founder of the first Korean state who supposedly lived about five thousand years ago. North Korean "historians" (I cannot use this description without quotation marks) are notorious for their habit of producing politically necessary "historical evidence." This time, in 1993, a 5000 year-old tomb was claimed to be the resting place of the first Korean king, the son of a female bear and a god. The Tangun myth has been dear to the hearts of Korean nationalists in the South as well, and by creating his 'tomb' in Pyongyang, the North Korean government again underlined its claim to Pyongyang's pre-eminent historical right as the true center of Korea.

A statement from the North Korean official news agency informed the world: "Historians state that the excavation of the tomb of King Tangun was a historic event which confirmed the Korean nation as a homogeneous nation, something rarely seen, with the same blood, language, culture, and history, with Tangun as its ancestor. They proved that the area of Pyongyang was the cradle of the culture of Kojoson." I really like this: a crash course in official lies and nationalist demagogy, all for the price of one mere paragraph!

The growth of nationalism was logical, but it also reflected the gradual death of many traditional Leninist institutions in the North Korean state. Indeed, North Korea is by no means a party state anymore.