Strongest Girl in the World, KPRF member visits DPRK

Nice girl. I like the comments in the Moscow Times (usually an almost impossibly liberal newspaper), especially the one where the guy asks 'whatever happened to people thinking for themselves?'. Many Russians definitely have their own ideas about North Korea, and not just communist affiliated ones either.

No. 14 wrote:

What are some of the prevalent opinions on North Korea in Russia? And what is the position of the Communist Party (the statements by this girl give me some ideas on that one)?

Someone asked me about that by PM recently. This was my response:

Quote:

As for the DPRK, Russians have a more tolerant attitude toward the country than Westerners, and as a result the Koreans are more relaxed with them (hence the articles, photojournalism, etc. from Russian sources on the internet). Of course the decades of very friendly relations in the past helped, even if Russia itself is no longer socialist. I believe the KPRF and the RKRP have friendly relations with the KWP, regularly exchanging greetings and celebratory messages, and there are national and regionally based groups like "Solidarity with the DPRK", along with VKontakte and other internet pages with thousands of followers. Just search "солидарность кндр" to see some examples. Russians may be more prone than Westerners to support the DPRK because:

1) Russians know what socialism is, and whatever regional eccentricities and economic problems of the DPRK regime, most do accept it as socialist in character. In this vein, they support those positive elements of socialism that have disappeared in their own country.

2) Russians, who have experienced the full brutality of financial and other forms of imperialism over the last quarter century, are more prone to stand in solidarity with international leaders and countries that oppose the various forms of imperialism -hence expressions of support for Venezuela, Libya, and the DPRK, along with countries that aren't socialist, but nevertheless oppose Western imperialism (i.e. Serbia, Iran).

Of course not all Russians maintain these views; there are plenty of liberals to toe the Western line on North Korea. Still, there are far less of these than in the West, and because Russia is not engaged in a propaganda war with the DPRK, this results in more solidarity groups and the like.

I can only add that our academics and publicists are also more prone to making excellent counterpoints to the 'Google/Facebook bubble', as you put it (excellent image by the way). Just a few days ago famous translator and commentator Dmitri Puchkov had a discussion with historian Boris Yulin about the DPRK, where the latter pointed out all the standard arguments most communists here can make to support the country -i.e. its political and economic superiority to the south for most of the Cold War, its mechanized agriculture and resulting high productivity in agriculture given its climate, its betrayal by the USSR in the late 1980s and the resulting fuel and food crises, etc. He also notes the inequities of the massive blockade faced by the country, the comparative preferences enjoyed by the south (include a $60 billion bailout loan in the late 1990s after the crisis of the Asian Tigers), and the ridiculousness of comparing the successes and failures of the 'capitalist' South and 'communist' North for these reasons. Moreover, Yulin mentions that even today, in fields such as advanced metallurgy, base sciences, nuclear physics, space-related sciences, etc., North Korea proves itself capable of achieving a great deal despite the tremendous challenges, and despite the economic and military blockade and provocations. He also mentions the ridiculousness of painting North Korea as this scary, militaristic and aggressive power, given that it faces the combined might of South Korea, Japan and the United States, and is often provoked by these countries.

No 14 wrote:

I would imagine that Soviet scholarship at the time (and perhaps Russian scholarship today?) would also paint a different picture, not to mention the academic exchange with the DPRK that was/is possible.

I think so, yes. Yulin hints at this, noting that much of what he knows about the DPRK is based on discussions with friends and colleagues in the Russian Academy of Sciences. Unfortunately, you won't see much (if any) of these Asia specialists' views published in the English language. I have achieved a pretty good understanding by now of how non-liberal, antiliberal, and leftist views are systematically ignored in the Russia-West academic dialog (i.e. in terms of what is translated from Russian into other languages). We have the Boris Yeltsin Fund for translation of some materials, various private funds like the Prokhorov Fund (Prokhorov the oligarch), so one can imagine why so little social sciences material from the non-liberal camp is translated, even if within the country they probably comprise the majority.

That's a very beautiful creation No. 14, thanks so much for sharing!

I do want to mention that there is another hopeful moment in the making when it comes to the whole West-Russia crisis, and that is that it may result in the further improving of relations between Russia and the DPRK. In economic terms this would mean greater movement of Russian natural resources, primarily energy resources and fertilizers, in exchange for NK cooperation on machine-building, metallurgy, perhaps certain light consumer goods, and other areas. There are already plans drawn up for the creation of a pipeline network running through the Koreas, although at present it remains frozen. There is also the much-talked about railway connection between the two countries, which has already come into existence, and a proposal from the Korean side to open a road connection as well. I think more important than the economic cooperation (which even with a tenfold increase being talked about would still only amount to $1 billion), is the political symbolism of a more friendly relationship, which would be a move away from the Russian disinterestedness of past decades. The appearance of another large, generally friendly neighbour to the north would have a positive effect for a country surrounded by powerful enemies.

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Loz wrote:

I think the world nowadays is more familiar with Zyuganov or Dugin than let's say...Navalny or Novodvorskaya or someone? Don't you think so? In fact i'd bet that even Kurginyan is better known in the West than any Russian liberal.

Certain elements of their commentary and/or positions on certain issues may be more widely known, but no, I wouldn't say non-liberals are better known. Put in another way, their fame exists only to strengthen negative preconceptions about Russia (i.e. Kurginyan turning up to prove Russian support for rebels, Dugin being portrayed as a close adviser to Putin, etc.). Liberal publicists, on the other hand, regularly have their books appearing on American and other Western political talk shows and in popular bookstores, and liberal academics in the social sciences and the humanities are far more likely to have their work published in academic journals, and to have their books available in big academic libraries. So unlike with non-liberals, you can actually pick up and read their theoretical discussions and studies for yourself, instead of relying on a second or third party source of who they are and what they're thinking. This of course is the natural order of things -whoever pays the piper calls the tune. It is a shame however that there is no institutional support from the Russian side for our own alternative thinkers -be they economists, philosophers, or political commentators.