[Column] The flaws of ’collapsist theory’

Vladimir Tikhonov, professor of Korean Studies at Oslo National University

The expression "it’s darkest under the lantern" would seem most appropriate. Probably more scholarly information about the Korean peninsula is produced in the United States and Japan than anywhere else, and yet lately it is politicians in those two countries who demonstrate extremes in wishful thinking based in ignorance. The tenacious resistance of the Iraqi independence army, the emergence of a Sino-Russian block, and South Korea’s policy of reconciliation towards Pyongyang have all made it hard for the U.S. to consider armed provocation against North Korea, and so while refraining from action on the one hand, we are seeing a general rehashing of the "collapsist theory" that was so popular in the early nineties. Its followers have no basis to their claim that sanctions will lead to the North’s collapse, and even if the attempt to crush Pyongyang, thus justified, nonetheless fails, you can be sure the results will be very negative.

Collapsist theory generally relies on the fall of Eastern European countries between 1989 and 1991 as its "precedent," but that is a leap in logic. Most Eastern European countries were dominated indirectly by the Soviet Union, so most of the revolutions that took place there would rightly be characterized as "national liberation" events. Then there is the case of Yugoslavia, which was never under Soviet control. It changed course to Serbian nationalism, and then went to war with Croatian and other separatist elements, not undergoing real change until 2000. Countries like Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic - which are now under European Union economic domination instead of Soviet military domination - have had their common peoples’ economic lives devastated, but the legitimacy of the national liberations of the years between 1989 and 1990 seems to remain unscathed.

Unlike Eastern Europe, North Korea achieved essential independence from the Soviet Union in the mid-fifties. In the course of pursuing state-led, coercive modernization, the Pyongyang regime justified itself with a nationalism that was persuasive to a people that had suffered in conflicts with foreign powers, such as Japanese colonization and the Korean War. Thus the North Korean powerful were able to gain social hegemony with a minimum of welfare benefits for largely white-collar and factory workers, not unlike China, Vietnam, Cuba, and Iraq under Saddam Hussein.

Lately, there have been some scholars trying to apply a "mass dictatorship" paradigm in their analysis of South Korea during the Park Chung-hee years, but if you really needed to find an example of "mass dictatorship" on the Korean peninsula, a better choice would be North Korea under Kim Il-sung, which - although a global rarity in its severe control over its people, its denial of laborers and farmers the right to change jobs or move residences - at one time guaranteed its population enough to eat. During the Park Chung-hee era, South Korea did not even have a minimum wage.

Of course, by the mid-eighties, famine led the North’s welfare system to be either paralyzed or reduced to almost nothing in the provinces, but would it still be safe to say the psychological foundations of the mass dictatorship has collapsed? I would hope adherents to collapsist theory would consider the international situation, particularly how Iraqi soldiers fought against American invaders despite their distaste for the failed dictator Saddam Hussein, and think about how regular North Koreans might feel. The more the U.S.-Japanese bloc intensifies its policies of crushing Pyongyang, the harder it becomes for the North Korean masses to see the true nature of their regime as a class oppressor.

The North is a state that was formed through confrontation with the outside world, and it has become highly practiced in what it does through the continuance of that confrontation. It is not likely to "collapse" because of an incomplete blockade that is externally imposed. The slowdown in economic growth, however, will lead to further suffering among its masses, and glitches in cooperation with China and the South will make it harder for the North to gain knowledge about the outside world. This will in turn lead to a greater delay in awareness among its masses when the regime goes even farther in legitimizing itself with its "anti-foreign power struggle." Is that what people adhering to collapsist theory really want to happen?