US Trotskyists show how to analyze DPRK

Yesterday I spent much time that would otherwise have been wasted making my employer more profitable writing this screed against the ISO's hatchet job of US Marxist-Leninist parties who had demonstrably supported the DPRK and its leadership before, during, and after the death of Kim Jung Il.

The International Socialists are a nominally Trotskyist international tendency. At least, they publish and reference some of Trotsky's writings, though it often seems their employment of Trotsky is, like that of Gramsci, only one more method of maintaining a merely spectatorial radicalism. In other words, a duty-free-Marxism.

The U.S. party Socialist Action is another matter. Here we have the real Trotskyist animal. Their recent article on the DPRK puts the onus where it belongs: not on the DPRK or its US supporters, but on Washington and Wall Street. Near the end of the article we have the paragraph calling upon the workers of North and South Korea to overthrow their respective governments, but it wouldn't be an article from a small Trotskyist organization if that paragraph were missing.

The text:

The death of Kim Jong Il, on Dec. 17, caught the attention and imagination of the capitalist media hucksters. His death, which wasn’t reported for two whole days, was in many ways symbolic of his life. It was a life that, through the lens of the Western media, was obscured by secrecy and unflattering portrayals. This distorting lens is designed to sell American workers on U.S. intervention in Korea.

The passing of Kim saw an avalanche of mocking obituaries in the capitalist press. Many of the characterizations, in fact, were down right racist. The U.S. propaganda machine is notorious for villainizing its enemies—particularly when that enemy is not white. This was often seen in the mocking depictions of Kim Jong Il, with the frequent unflattering references to his height, supposed sexual deviancy, hairstyle, accent, and clothing. He was presented as a modern day Fu Manchu—an Asian super-villain with the most sinister plans.

This depiction of Kim underscores a perennial fear of the East as a “yellow peril.” The racist villainizing of Kim Jong Il will no doubt continue with his son, and apparent heir, Kim Jong Un. At the end of the day, regardless of whether these stories are true or not, they are a distraction from the real issues.

The orientalist portrayals of the Kims is often extended to North Korea and the Korean people themselves. American workers are fed a steady diet of anti-North Korean horror stories, while the capitalist press is careful to never mention the U.S. violations of its agreements with North Korea, or the presence of U.S. nukes in the region. Instead, a considerable degree of fear has been drummed up about North Korean missiles and a possible nuclear attack, both exacerbated by the alleged mental instability of the Kims.

This is reminiscent of the war mongering carried out against Iraq in 2001 and against Iran today. Furthermore, the people of North Korea are often depicted as intimidated, pacified, mindless automatons. This is especially apparent in commentary concerning the authenticity of their mourning. Whether it is authentic or inauthentic is less relevant than the history and context of these expressions of grief.

Lack of history and context also make it hard to imagine why the Korean people would find any comfort in their leadership and state. However, there ample reasons why the people might fear the United States as an aggressor. This fear is exploited by the North Korean state, but U.S. foreign policy has never been sunshine and friendship. The U.S. virtually destroyed the country in the Korean War and has essentially blockaded it economically, diplomatically, and politically since.

There is no denying the fact that North Korea is indeed a brutal Stalinist dictatorship that represses its own people and puts the interest of the ruling bureaucracy and its armed forces above all else. Nevertheless, it is not the job of the United States to police the Korean peninsula. The world’s major manufacturer, distributor, and user of weapons of mass destruction—of the nuclear, chemical, and biological varieties—has no right to make demands on any nation. It has no right to dictate the internal policy of any country, period.

Only the Korean people themselves should determine their country’s policies, and overthrow their governments—both North and South. It is the Korean people alone who can create a just solution to the problems they face, on both sides of the DMZ.

U.S. imperialism does not have the right to intervene, and its bully tactics will never improve the lot of the Korean people. Rather, its policies are geared towards increasing its own power and position in East Asia to the detriment of the working people of the entire region.

SA is a group that formed in the early 1980s, consisting of cadre who left the Socialist Workers Party either through resignation or expulsion. For several years they had employed undemocratic clique methods to oppose the party majority's attempts to put the most unfortunate habits of Trotskyist sectarianism behind it, and close more deeply with the multinational vanguard of the US working class, Cuba's Communist Party, and other revolutionists of action around the world. [Wags in the United Secretariat of the Fourth International called the SWP majority "Big Macs", which says something about the level of internationalism in that benighted body that today describes itself as "eco-socialists."]

[Full disclosure: I was a fat and happy young member of the SWP in the late 1980s and early 1990s, before personal issues intervened, alas. It was the most fruitful political experience of my life.]

Jay Rothermel
20120113