Totalitarianism In North Korea

Probably the only country in the world that totally rejects globalization, North Korea, upon becoming a separate country in 1948 when the Korean peninsula was divided into two separate countries in the aftermath of WWII, has emerged today as the world’s most enduring isolated totalitarian socialist society in recent history, according to Freedom House. Trapped somewhere amid a medieval monarchy and a communist party-state, North Korea has been ruled under an iron fist doctrine for more than half a century by the dynastic succession Kim Il-sung, Kim Jong-Il and Kim Jong-un (hereinafter referred to as the Kims) still exhibiting many features of the typical Stalinist political system and bureaucratic regime, emphasizing the one man–centered

The only way to make such lies believable was to isolate the country from the rest of the world (preventing the citizens from being exposed to other sources of information) and to purge brutally all those who could possibly challenge the new deity’s mythology. (Saxonberg, 119). North Korean propaganda states that policy (and all wisdom) radiates from Kim. North Korea’s press continually repeats that both Kims are benevolent father figures “sagaciously” guiding their flock. (McEachern,

At its mildest level it is epitomized by Confucian self-repression– which requires conforming to the group, while being different means isolation and exclusion. At its harshest level some form of punishment is involved, such as demotion or reduced rations, and at worst death. Kim Jong Il demonstrated an early willingness to use not only targeted purges but also arbitrary repression to assert his power; masses are thus watched and terrorized, even at the price of perennial economic failure and the decline of the citizens’ living standards (Lankov, 1). North Korea also lacks a comprehensive opposition within the country. The population does not have an alternative to the status quo, no dissident groups have emerged to pursue it, and even refugees do not report signs of collective action aimed at confronting the regime, due to continual purges and extensive repression. (Saxonberg 331) According to, Mc EachErn, North Korea uses particularly cruel repression as a check on ideological decline to keep its hold on power, but it has not shifted to a simple, personalistic rule where repression is the cornerstone of regime