From: "Rosser Jr, John Barkley" <rosserjb-AT-jmu.edu>
Subject: M-I: Stalinist Ideology
Date: Wed, 29 Jan 1997 18:07:14 -0500 ()


     A few more addenda, NOT revisions (much as some on 
this list like to label me a "revisionist," :-)):
     1)  To the extent that one of the "virtues" of 
Stalinist central planning was its ability to bring about 
rapid growth, and, at least in the beginning, be flexible, 
as claimed by Louis G., then the same applies to the DPRK.  
It experienced some of the highest growth rates ever seen 
in the world in the 1950s after the war.  Industrial 
production rose at an annual rate of 41.8% between 1953-56 
and at 36.6% between 1957-60, according to a right wing 
source, Joseph Sang-hoon Chung, widely regarded.  This put 
the DPRK way ahead of the ROK in the 1960s, as was noted by 
Joan Robinson in a famous article in _Monthly Review_ in 
Jan. 1965.  It was only later that the ROK surpassed the 
DPRK as the DPRK stagnated, again imitating the performance 
of the Stalinist model in the USSR.
     2)  One of the problems the DPRK faced in the 1960s 
and 1970s was the Sino-Soviet conflict which it was caught 
between.  Initially, Kim Il Sung sided with Mao against 
Khrushchev out of loyalty to Stalin.  Then, during the 
GPCR, he shifted to the Soviets as Mao denounced him as a 
"fat revisionist."  He continued to swing back and forth, 
but always maintained his loyalty to and praise of Stalin.
     3)  Recently the North Koreans invited Nina Andreyeva 
to speak at Kim Il Sung University.  She is the most 
prominent pro-Stalin advocate in Russia.
     4)  One way that Kim Il Sung, and by extension the 
DPRK was and is not Stalinist, is that although he has put 
plenty of dissidents in prison and camps, Kim Il Sung never 
ordered mass murder of the citizens of his nation.  In that 
regard Stalin resembled more closely Pol Pot of Kampuchea, 
which country Louis G. suggested as a model for the DPRK, 
than Kim resembled either of them.
Barkley Rosser

-- 
Rosser Jr, John Barkley
rosserjb-AT-jmu.edu




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