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• Genre:
• Total information control. In North Korea since the early 60s. it is a criminal offense (formally it is still a criminal offense today) to have a radio receiver with free tuning at home. 5 years in the camps just for the fact of finding a radio receiver in your home. […] Complete information isolation. […] To access the Internet, you must have the personal permission of the head of state. […] Rigid distribution system. That is, of course, the elimination of all types of private economic activity at the end of the 50s. Since 1957, the transition to cards, and since the end of the 60s. - a total card system. […] A South Korean friend of mine who worked with refugees in China told how in about 1998 (when there was a wave of refugees) he interviewed a certain North Korean grandmother. She had just arrived, a few days before that she had crossed the border and said that she had now visited China, where everything was wonderful, China was simply knocking over the North Korean's wealth, it was a shock. It's a shock when they see how insanely wealthy the poorest parts of China are compared to them. And during these four days she is so advanced, she says to him: "Now I know what is good." "What do you know, grandma?" He asks her. “Well, that America lives well, I know,” says the grandmother. He asks: "What is good living?" The grandmother's answer: "And in America everyone, even babies, are given 800 g of pure rice every day on ration cards."
• | | (0)

Andrey Lankov (he is tttkkk in LJ) is one of the world's largest experts on Korea, knows the situation in East Asia well, advises American, Russian, Chinese, South Korean officials and businessmen. Especially in demand after the changes in the North, his interviews were shown on Al Jazeera and other TV channels. His opinions strike me as curious; below I would like to cite some excerpts from our conversations with him.

About North Korea

It is not entirely clear to me why there are leftists in Russia who perceive the Northern Korea as something close.It's nationalistic and partly even racist regime, de facto absolute monarchy. Brian Myers, one of the best experts on the DPRK, generally considers this regime to be similar to the nationalist authoritarian-fascist dictatorship of pre-war Japan and often says that all the left entourage there is the result of historical accident.I disagree with him, but still, little is left of the leftist project, no matter how you treat it, in North Korea.

In general, most do not understand how much the North has changed over the past 20 years.Most of the factories in the North have not been operating for a long time. The population survives at the expense of vegetable gardens, petty trade and other private businesses. The spontaneous capitalism of small owners is formed from below. Many go to work in China, from there they send money to their relatives. Previously, they traveled illegally, but now the authorities also allow legal travel to earn money.

Nobody knows for sure what will happen next. And yet, there are some reasons to assert: a few more quiet years, and then there will be an explosion. The country has changed a lot over the past 15-20 years. Now many northerners already know about how the South lives, they were in China, they have information about life in neighboring China and life in the South, they understand how poor they are in comparison with the Southerners and even the Chinese. Sooner or later, this will lead to an increase in discontent and an explosion.The average per capita income in the South is at least 15 (and possibly 30 times higher) than in the North. The biggest difference is between two countries sharing a common border.

The official ideology of the regime here works against it. After all, the North has a materialistic ideology, focused not on (for example) heavenly salvation, and posthumous heavenly joys for the right subjects, but on the material paradise on earth (socialism in their understanding), and in reality, many northerners even live the life of a peasant in the relatively poor provinces of the neighboring China seems to be heavenly.What can I say about the South.

Officials in the North are very corrupt, now you can buy off almost any crime, including political. The only question is the price.

Over the past 20 years, political terror has eased. We can say that under Kim Jong Il there was no mass terror (under his father, Kim Il Sung, there was). An example from one county - per 100 thousand population for 10 recent years there were only 15 political cases with arrests.The northern population has already lost the habit of serious terror. A new generation of young people has grown up, not scared or rather not scared enough, who are critical of the regime and are less afraid of the authorities.

About the fact that they gave six months in prison to those who did not cry for Kim Jong Il - does not correspond to reality.Maybe there were several such cases on the ground, but this does not determine the picture.

Almost all economically profitable objects in the North were bought by the Chinese. Mines, above all. But the Chinese, in many ways controlling the economy of the North, do not control it. political system... There are two ways to control the political system - bribery of officials and blackmail (if you don’t comply with our requirements, we will withdraw capital from your country). Nevertheless, the northern political elite is not particularly afraid of the withdrawal of capital and so far controls the behavior of its officials. The leadership constantly reminds its own officials that it is better not to be on friendly terms with the Chinese, and the North Korean counterintelligence is very actively working on the Chinese.

China's interest in the North Korean economy, however, is not that great. China's trade with South Koreans - more than $ 200 billion a year, with only $ 3.4 billion with the North - it is minuscule. True, China also has its own political interests in the north. And yet, if there is a war or the collapse of the northern regime, China is likely to surrender the northerners. China will not be drawn into a serious conflict because of the northerners and risk its own position and economy.

Arab revolutions, even if they are known in the North, will have little impact due to the mental cultural barrier. But if a turmoil suddenly breaks out in China, this could greatly affect the northerners.

About South Korea

Southerners - both the people and the elite - are not in a belligerent mood, and they do not particularly want to unite. The problem of a system in which parties replace each other in power. Southerners do not want any war with the North, because the government does not want to be held responsible for the costs of such a war (huge losses in the army and destruction in Seoul are possible). Any government after this can lose power, and the acquisitions will be questionable.

The South is now undeniably much stronger militarily and spends huge amounts of money on modernizing the army.But losses in such a war may be completely unacceptable for him. There is one more reason for the South not to want war, more about it below.

For the same reasons, no one in the South plans what to do in the strategic perspective with the northerners, who sooner or later will find themselves in the same country with the southerners. In Seoul, everyone hopes that everything will remain as it is for the foreseeable future, and that problems, if they arise, will have to be solved by other politicians ...

Yes, this is an ostrich politics, but it is connected with the essence of a parliamentary-democratic system in which there is a constant change of power and, therefore, no one is interested in thinking about the future and strategically planning their actions for 10 or 20 years ahead. And the problems will be huge - more than 20 million hungry and not too educated people, in addition, with very peculiar ideas about the world and high expectations.

This is the second reason for the southerners not to want war with the north: it is not clear what to do with the victory.

The North does not need war either. All their periodic actions are just diplomatic gestures, a way to attract attention to themselves and get concessions (in general, they have no other way). The last thing they want is escalation. In the near future, they will not agree to their usual acts of armed pressure in order to squeeze out aid, because elections are coming soon in the South, left-wing parties may come to power, which, most likely, will increase the amount of aid to the North indirect, but through joint venture subsidies in Kaesong). In addition, after Libya, the northerners are afraid to get involved, they understand that the Americans, not only the southerners, can start gouging at them. And these are definitely krants.

But if help is not provided ... then the northerners can decide on new demonstrative military actions on the border, as a reminder that it is still cheaper to buy off the bottom. I think that in this case, the South will eventually surrender and make concessions.

It is important that the economic dependence of the northerners on China is increasing, and they would like to avoid this, they need another source of humanitarian aid in order not to become too dependent on China. So far, they manage to avoid the transformation of economic dependence into political, but the risk of such a transformation is quite real. So they need the help of the southerners - first of all, as a counterbalance to the Chinese penetration. That is why, if the southerners do not provide them with humanitarian aid of their own free will, they can again begin to extort it from the South using quasi-military methods, arranging all sorts of post-firefights. But they may not start, because, again, after Libya, they may be afraid of the consequences.

South Korea continues to develop economically, quite successfully, it does not need disasters and shocks.They do not want Seoul, which is close to the border and which, if you count the entire Seoul metropolitan area, has 25 million people (half the population of the South), was under fire.

Southern society is very wealthy, young southerners are becoming more and more cosmopolitan.Now they even began to laugh at Korean nationalism - 10 or 20 years ago, this was simply impossible to imagine.

Southerners also began to laugh at the North Korean propaganda. This was not the case before. For a long time, the southerners perceived the propaganda of the northerners as follows: the right and anti-North Korean left with hatred, the pro-North Korean positively. Now people began to simply laugh at this propaganda, they do not take it seriously, they parody it.

The South continues to develop economically, despite the global crisis. In general, a shift to the left is noticeable - everyone, for example, agrees that social payments should be increased. The disagreement between the right and the left concerns only the magnitude of the magnification. Perhaps the South is turning into a kind of Scandinavian countries, only they still work there, in comparison with the Scandinavian countries, a lot.

The labor movement in the South was once very powerful, militant and at the same time organized quite democratically, at least strikes were organized based on the results of referendums among the workers.Now the influence of the labor movement is waning. This is due to the fact that industrial enterprises are gradually being transferred to neighboring China. Office workers are replacing the working class. They are much less likely to protest.

About Russian and American officials

The Russian Foreign Ministry comrades in all seriousness believe that the Arab revolutions are entirely the result of American policy. I have heard, for example, arguments that the Americans have decided to bet on the chaos in the Arab world and are even ready to surrender Israel. For the Americans supposedly know how to manage chaos.

This kind of conspiracy thinking is generally characteristic of Russian officials, and it is also characteristic of a number of Russian orientalists. They have no idea about the spontaneity of large-scale social processes. You do not seem to believe me, and for you, as I see it, it sounds crazy, but they really sincerely believe that any events in the world are the result of someone's purposeful efforts, someone's plans and actions.They absolutely do not believe in the possibility of the existence of historical elemental fundamental forces, in the spontaneity of events. From their point of view, all revolutions, all changes in public attitudes (well, almost all) are the result of some kind of special operations and PR campaigns (usually, of course, American ones).

The second point of the Russian bureaucratic (and many non-bureaucratic) analysts. They absolutely do not believe that people are capable of doing anything not for money. They sincerely believe: that people do not do in the political and public sphere, they do it only for the loot, or for some interests related to the loot - and we are talking about the loot for themselves and immediately.That people can sincerely fight for some ideas and follow some ideals, that they can defend the interests of groups, classes, countries to their own detriment - in principle, many in Russia cannot believe, in their opinion, this is unthinkable.

American officials have their own troubles. For some reason, American officials are convinced that if representative democracy is established somewhere, it is favorable for America, and if suddenly things turned out differently, if the new democratic regime treats the United States without much enthusiasm, it follows that this democracy is wrong fake (perhaps even in need of adjustment by the Marine Corps). They believe it. A sort of messianic internationalism, in which the United States is firmly associated with the forces of the Beaver. And, what is important, sincere. There are, of course, supporters of real-politics, but on the whole, the prevailing belief is that democracy is certainly good and natural for any society, and that its spread means strengthening the position of the United States, since any democratic country will be pro-American.

At the same time, officials in the United States are quite capable of imagining the spontaneity of social processes and admitting that ideological motives and idealism may lie at the heart of people's actions.

About the state and its work

The leftists, it seems to me, have completely wrong ideas about the state, about officials. The left has such a logical contradiction: on the one hand, they think of officials as greedy, corrupt individuals, absorbed in their own interests, on the other, as people capable of long-term planning and strategic vision, people who almost selflessly serve some higher interests of a certain Global Evil.

But the state is a very oak structure. An official will never do more than is supposed to and more than necessary to please his superiors and get a promotion.Initiative is punishable, and this truth sits in an official (and sometimes an employee of a fairly large and bureaucratic corporation) almost at the DNA level. It is not about the interests of Evil to worry, and not about the interests of Good, and not even about the long-term interests of the state, but about raising a good pension and, well, in more corrupt countries - and notorious about the notorious place of bread ...

An intelligence or foreign ministry official must report to his superiors. And for him, as well as for a journalist, important and interesting, first of all (and often exclusively), fried facts and exact names.For example, the administration of such and such a district, which is called such and such, takes bribes in such and such a volume and controls the clandestine trade in something. And the real one is strategically important information, about the extent to which corruption has reached in most of the counties and that there is a widespread underground trade in something and there and merchants in something and there and local bosses no longer think of themselves outside this system, all this is no longer interesting for officials. And in general, the main thing for them is the instruction. Punishment for the most shameful failure can be avoided if it is the result of following instructions and orders. You can get scolded for the most brilliant success achieved in defiance of instructions and orders.

But. If it completely squeezes, if a roast rooster comes running, if the higher authorities order to dig the earth with their nose and draw up a general picture of events, to sort out the problem, the officials will start working seriously. And this is how it works everywhere.

In general, the bureaucracy is able to work effectively with non-standard situations only in a mobilization mode, only if pressure is put on from above and ordered to resolve this problem immediately and at any cost. But then the bureaucracy is power, it moves mountains, and even takes the initiative. And so - an official acts strictly according to instructions (or an unwritten tradition), avoids initiative and tries to ignore non-standard situations and problems not prescribed by the rules. Those who behave differently do not stay long in the bureaucracy, and if they do, they do not succeed very much.

North Korea does not have the best reputation. The world believes that an irrational and militant regime has reigned in the DPRK, and that the country is ruled by people who remain captive to the ideological models of 70 years ago. However, a more sober view shows that North Korea is not ruled by fanatics and ideologically blinkered national-Stalinists. Rather, on the contrary - the DPRK is headed by cynical and clever pragmatists, they quite sensibly assess the situation in which their country finds itself. The main task is obvious - to preserve the regime. It is difficult to blame them for this, because there is hardly a state on the planet whose ruling elite would not care about preserving their own power and privileges.

The Democratic People's Republic of Korea emerged in 1945-1948. under conditions very similar to the circumstances of the birth of many regimes of Eastern Europe... After the northern part of the Korean Peninsula came under control Soviet army, The USSR began to actively and on the whole successfully implant there a somewhat modified version of its own political and economic model. However, at the turn of the 1950s and 1960s. relations between Pyongyang and Moscow deteriorated sharply. Kim Il Sung and his entourage did not accept Khrushchev's reforms and began to rebuild the country's political and economic model in the opposite direction. As a result, a society developed in North Korea in which the characteristic features of the Stalinist model of state socialism were even more vividly expressed than in the Soviet Union of the late forties.

Trade as such practically disappeared - almost all food and essential goods were distributed by cards. The role of material incentives decreased - the main stake was placed on ideological education. The size of household plots in villages could not exceed 100 square meters. m (of course, by the end of the fifties, cooperatives became the basis of agricultural production - an analogue of Soviet collective farms). Travel outside the county or city in which the DPRK resident was registered for permanent residence, were strictly limited. The possession of freely tunable radios was considered a political crime. Foreign literature and periodicals of a non-technical nature were sent to the special depositories, and no exception was made for publications from socialist countries. Even the collected works of Marx, Engels and Lenin were out of access - North Koreans could get acquainted with the works of the classics of Marxism only from quotation books and individual texts that were considered ideologically acceptable. Contacts with foreigners, including citizens of the USSR, were strictly limited. The personality cult of Kim Il Sung (and later members of his family) reached such an intensity that was unthinkable neither in the Soviet Union during Stalin's time, nor in China during Mao's. Korean ethnic nationalism took on extreme, if not grotesque, forms.

Since the 1970s. the regime actually turns into an absolute monarchy. Kim Il Sung's successor was officially appointed his eldest son, Kim Jong Il, who led the party and government after his father's death in 1994. After the death of Kim Jong-il in 2011, power passed to his son, "young marshal" Kim Jong-un. A significant part of the top administrative positions from the late 1970s. occupied by representatives of the second generation of the elite, that is, mainly children and close relatives of the Manchu partisans of the thirties.

Formed in the 1960s. the economic model was extremely inefficient and costly. It is known that the state-socialist economy is capable of mobilization leaps and the concentration of significant resources in those sectors that the top management considers vital. At the same time, stable development, as well as the production of consumer goods of satisfactory quality, are extremely difficult tasks for such a system. In the DPRK, where the features of this economic model have been brought to their logical conclusion, all these problems have manifested themselves especially clearly. By the 1980s, economic growth had almost stopped. Nevertheless, the economy remained afloat until the early 1990s, largely thanks to Soviet and Chinese aid, which the North Koreans received, skillfully playing on the contradictions and rivalries between Moscow and Beijing. Food ration cards were regularly stocked, and there was no famine in the country.

However, the situation changed dramatically in the early 1990s, when the supply from outside suddenly stopped. The result was a severe economic crisis. According to existing estimates, the volume of industrial production declined in 1990-2000. about twice. Agriculture, which was initially very dependent on the supply of chemical fertilizers and the maintenance of expensive irrigation systems and pumping stations... Grain yields fell sharply, and the DPRK, which previously could not really feed itself, faced massive famine. 1996-1999 it claimed from 600 to 900 thousand lives, and also led to tremendous changes in society. Black and gray markets began to play a decisive role in the survival of the population, corruption, which was practically absent before, became universal, the state's ability to control everyday life significantly weakened.

Elemental transformation

The collapse of the state economy led to a spontaneous resurgence of the private sector - formally illegal, but in fact very influential. Markets, until the end of the 1980s. - a very marginal phenomenon, began to grow rapidly. Although there is no question of any dissolution of agricultural cooperatives, peasants, on their own initiative, actively cultivate land on steep mountain slopes and other inconveniences, so now they are the ones who make a significant contribution to food production in the country. Private workshops appeared, mainly engaged in the manufacture of consumer goods. Private trade with China flourished - both smuggled and legal and semi-legal. Finally, a significant role was played by migrant workers to China - fortunately until 2008-2009. the border was very weakly guarded.

The line between private and public economies was rapidly blurring. Many of the formally state-owned enterprises (for example, most restaurants and a great many shops) are actually privately owned. Their owners invest their own funds, hire and fire workers at their own discretion, sell products and services at market prices, and give the state a certain part of the income (or a predetermined fixed amount). The assertion that the DPRK is almost a preserve of state socialism, which is often encountered in the press, has long been untrue. Most North Koreans live on gray and black incomes. Professor Kim Byung-yeon, one of the leading experts on the shadow economy in North Korea, believes that in 1998-2008. individual entrepreneurship provided about 78% of income average family.

Property stratification became an inevitable consequence of these processes. Many of the shadow workers, as well as the officials associated with them, made good fortunes. In terms of market rates, the official salary in the DPRK over the past 15 years has been $ 2–3 per month (in recent months, even less, due to another outbreak of hyperinflation). The real income of the average family is significantly higher, about $ 30, but some have managed to create a fortune of several hundred thousand dollars. "New Koreans", a disproportionately large part of whom live in Pyongyang and border cities, actively visit numerous commercial restaurants, buy apartments (formally, real estate trading is prohibited, but in fact it is flourishing), import furniture and plumbing from China, in some cases acquire motorcycles and even cars.

Despite the fact that almost the majority of officials feed on the market in one way or another, the state does not approve of the new economy. It is difficult to find even hints of its very existence in the official press, and ideological workers constantly remind that socialism of the Kimirsen model is an ideal, from which, perhaps, it was necessary to move away somewhat under the influence of extremely unfavorable circumstances, but to which one must strive. In some periods, however, the authorities are ready to turn a blind eye to individual entrepreneurship, and in 2002 they even decriminalized some types of the private economy (these changes were immediately announced in the world press as “the beginning of radical reforms of the Chinese model”). In other periods, the authorities, on the contrary, tend to undermine private sector- The culmination of these efforts was the monetary reform of 2009, the initial goal of which was to liquidate the capital of private firms. In general, the attitude of the authorities towards “spontaneous capitalism” remains negative. North Korean private entrepreneurs operate in the shadow zone. They are much more influential (and more numerous) than, say, the "guilds" of the Soviet seventies, but, on the other hand, they are far from the officially recognized and encouraged entrepreneurs of modern China.

Private business has made a significant contribution to the fact that the economic situation in North Korea has somewhat leveled off over the past decade. The reports of hunger and even cannibalism that appear from time to time in the press should not be misleading. The population for the most part eats poorly, but there is no more hunger in the country, and the standard of living is growing, albeit rather slowly. The (South Korean) Bank of Korea estimates that the DPRK has averaged 1.3% annual GDP growth over the past decade - not too high, but not catastrophic either. However, compared to the growth rates of China and South Korea, this is a paltry figure. The situation in the country is extremely difficult, and the gap with neighbors, which is already huge, continues to grow.

Nevertheless, the North Korean leadership stubbornly refuses to take advantage of the way out of the current situation, which seems quite obvious to an outside observer: it is not going to follow the path of China and Vietnam. In both the PRC and the SRV, the communist oligarchy carried out the actual dismantling of state socialism and carried out a phased transition to a market economy (with large elements of dirigism), while preserving the one-party system, socialist rhetoric and symbolism. As a result, the Chinese and Vietnamese nomenklatura not only retained power, but also significantly increased their income. However, not only officials, but also the vast majority of the population benefited from the changes in these countries: both countries are experiencing an economic boom that has almost no analogues in world history.

The example of China seems attractive, and it is not surprising that many observers have been expecting for decades that the DPRK leadership in the very near future will decide to follow the Chinese path - such a seemingly simple and effective one. There is talk about the alleged reforms in North Korea every few years. For the first time in the memory of the author of these lines, they started talking about the beginning of "reforms of the Chinese model" in 1984, when the Law on Mixed Enterprises was adopted. However, so far all this remains just talk.

It is this stubborn unwillingness to reform the country that is most often indicated by those who accuse the Pyongyang leadership of being irrational. However, the DPRK does not follow the Chinese path for purely rational reasons: Pyongyang understands very well that there is a fundamental difference between China and North Korea, which makes reforms an extremely risky and almost suicidal enterprise.

Ignorance is power

The main problems for the North Korean authorities are created by the existence of an extremely successful twin state - South Korea. During colonial times (1910-1945) South Korea was a backward agrarian region, and almost all industry was concentrated in the territory that later came under the control of Pyongyang. Despite the severe devastation caused by the Korean War, Pyongyang quickly put in order the industrial legacy left over from Japanese colonialism until the late 1960s. ahead of the South in most macroeconomic indicators.

However, since the early 1960s. South Korea has entered a period of rapid economic growth, which is quite rightly called the "South Korean economic miracle." Between 1960 and 1995, that is, over the lifetime of one generation, the level of GDP per capita increased tenfold, from $ 1105 to $ 11873 (adjusted for inflation, in constant 1990 dollars). South Korea overtook the North in terms of GNP per capita around 1970, and since then, the difference in living standards between the two Korean states has grown steadily. Since the beginning of the 1960s. Pyongyang has classified economic statistics, and it is difficult to speak with full confidence about the scale of the current gap. According to optimistic estimates, the GDP per capita in the DPRK is 12 times lower than in South Korea. If we are to believe the assessments of pessimists, then the gap is about 40 times. However, even if the optimists are right, we are still talking about the biggest difference between the two countries that have a land border. For comparison: in 1990, the gap in the level of GDP per capita between East and West Germany was approximately twofold.

It is the existence of this gap that is, from the point of view of the North Korean leadership, the main political problem. Carrying out reforms of the Chinese model inevitably provides for the opening of the country (albeit partial), for such transformations require external investment and foreign technologies. It is clear that the opening will lead to the rapid spread of information about the prosperity of South Korea, which is not even officially considered another state (in North Korean official documents and propaganda, this is just "a part of the DPRK temporarily occupied by American troops").

It should be noted that before the early 2000s. the bulk of North Koreans were unaware of how far South Korea had gone. They were taught that the South is a “living hell”, “a land of poverty and powerlessness,” where children are starving. However, since the late 1990s. The DPRK's carefully constructed self-isolation system began to gradually disintegrate, and information about life abroad seeps into the country. Now many North Koreans are guessing that South Korea is living much better than the DPRK. However, few are aware of the true extent of this colossal difference. It should be remembered that the majority of the DPRK residents have very modest ideas about a "prosperous life": a symbol of prosperity for them is the opportunity to eat rice every day and eat meat a couple of times a week.

It is clear that the beginning of reforms will radically change this situation. It will become known that even a poor South Korean family can afford both a car and a vacation abroad (both in North Korea are available only to a few thousand families at the very top of the hereditary power hierarchy). The dissemination of such information, naturally, will make many residents of the DPRK wonder who is to blame for the collapse of the economy of North Korea - a country that eight decades ago was the most developed region of continental East Asia. It is also clear that the responsibility will be assigned to the current regime. Reforms will inevitably lead to a weakening of both ideological and administrative-police control. A market economy, even if controlled by the state, is not possible in a country where you need to get a police permit to travel outside your home county and you still cannot call abroad from your home phone.

In China, of course, similar processes were observed, but there they did not have serious political consequences. The Chinese are now well aware that the standard of living in their country is much lower than, say, the United States or Japan. However, they do not perceive this circumstance as proof of the ineffectiveness or illegitimacy of the CCP: after all, both Japan and the United States are other countries with a different culture and history. In addition, China cannot unite with its wealthy neighbors on the planet, cannot and does not want to become either the 51st American state or a Japanese prefecture.

In North Korea, the situation is completely different. The leadership has every reason to fear that the reforms will lead to the loss of the legitimacy of the authorities and internal political instability. In other words, the result of socio-economic reforms will most likely not be an economic boom (as happened in China), but a crisis and the fall of the regime. At the same time, there is a high probability that the DPRK will be absorbed by South Korea.

It should be noted that it will be extremely difficult for the North Korean nomenclature to abandon an ideology in which they have not believed for so long, but to retain a significant share of real power as entrepreneurs who privatized state enterprises, or even democratic politicians, as happened in the USSR and a number of socialist countries. ... The North Korean nomenclature understands perfectly well that nothing good awaits it in the united state. Former secretaries of district committees and directors of small factories with technology of the 1930s. will not be able to compete with managers from Samsung or LG.

Moreover, there are widespread fears among the North Korean leadership about possible reprisals from the victors. In the end, they know what they themselves would do with the South Korean elite if the rivalry between the two Korean states ended in the triumph of the North. It is no coincidence that in frank conversations with members of the North Korean ruling families, the question of what happened to the bureaucracy in the former East Germany is often asked.

Even if the reforms lead to a rapid improvement in the economic situation, it is likely not to help the reformers very much: in the most favorable turn of events, it will take two to three decades to close the gap with the South. Throughout this period, Pyongyang will remain politically vulnerable. The fact that the top of the country has been hereditary for half a century will exacerbate the crisis of legitimacy. In the eyes of the people, the most successful reformers will remain the children and grandchildren of those who once brought the situation to a crisis.

Recently, direct confirmation has appeared in open sources that the above fears are indeed inherent in the North Korean leadership. In early 2012, a book of interviews and letters from Kim Jong Nam, the eldest son of Kim Jong Il and the half-brother of the current Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un, was published in Japan. Kim Jong Nam himself constantly lives in Macau and, according to rumors, does not get along well with his brother, but maintains good contacts with the Kim family. In addition, Kim Jong Nam is the only member of the ruling clan who occasionally speaks to reporters. As a matter of fact, the book published in Tokyo consists of his conversations and correspondence with the correspondent of the Tokyo Shimbun newspaper Yoji Gomi. There is no doubt about the authenticity of most of the text, since many of the fragments included in the book have been published before.

In his interviews, Kim Jong Nam admits that reforms are the only way to radically improve the well-being of the people. On the other hand, he fears that in the specific situation in which North Korea finds itself, reforms of the Chinese model will lead to political destabilization. In January 2011, he said: “I personally believe that economic reform and opening up is the best way to make the life of the North Korean people prosperous. [However] given the specifics of North Korea, there are fears that economic reform and openness will lead to the fall of the current regime there. "

It is possible, of course, that such fears are exaggerated - it cannot be ruled out that in the event of reforms, the Pyongyang elite will find ways to keep the internal political situation under control. Nevertheless, the likelihood of a catastrophic (for those in power) turn of events is very high. Therefore, it is quite understandable that over the past 25 years, the North Korean leadership has shown no desire to follow the Chinese path. This approach may be overly cautious, but it is by no means irrational.

True, Pyongyang's refusal to reform does not mean that the situation in the country has been completely frozen. The dominance of the private economy in the consumer sector in itself makes the process of change inevitable.

The most important is the aforementioned dissemination of information in the country about the outside world, primarily about South Korea and China. The channels through which this dangerous information is disseminated are quite diverse, and the authorities have failed to block them. For example, labor migration to China plays an important role - up to half a million inhabitants of the DPRK during 1955-2012. visited China, mainly as illegal migrant workers (now their number has sharply decreased). These people not only saw with their own eyes the results of Chinese economic growth, but also heard a lot about life in South Korea - fortunately, the economic and cultural influence of Seoul is very strong in the border regions of China, populated mainly by ethnic Koreans.

The smuggling of freely configurable radios, as well as the emergence of privately owned computers, also play a role in spreading information about the outside world. The decisive factor, however, was the proliferation of video equipment. Cheap Chinese models cost about $ 20-30, which roughly corresponds to the average monthly income of a North Korean family, and are actively used to watch South Korean video products that are smuggled from China.

Other important changes relate to the weakening of internal controls. The transition to market relations predictably led to an increase in corruption, which in the old days was practically absent. Under the new conditions, officials are often ready to ignore certain offenses (including political ones) if their carelessness will be generously rewarded. For example, a bribe of $ 100-150 can get you out of trouble if you find a radio or South Korean videotapes at home.

In some cases, however, the indulgences were clearly initiated from above. For example, in the late 1990s. the principle of family responsibility for political crimes has almost ceased to apply. Previously, the entire family of a political criminal was subject to arrest and sent to a camp for several years (with subsequent exile for life). Now such measures are taken only in emergency cases. There is a spontaneous liberalization at the grassroots level. Dissatisfaction with the government in the last 5-10 years has spread among students and among middle and lower-level officials. So the slow disintegration of the regime continues. Most likely, in the long term, the regime is indeed doomed, but its leadership does not at all seek to bring its end closer by starting politically dangerous reforms.

Scare to survive

External assistance, primarily food assistance, plays an important role in keeping the North Korean economy afloat (even now, when the situation in agriculture has improved somewhat, the DPRK collects 15-20% less grain than is necessary to meet the minimum physiological needs of the population). As a result, foreign policy is primarily built around the squeezing out of this very aid, including from those countries that are officially considered "the mortal enemies of People's Korea."

On the whole, North Korean diplomats are coping with the task of withdrawing aid quite successfully. According to the WFP, during 1996-2011. The DPRK received 11.8 million tons of free food aid (about 15% of consumption). At the same time, there is only one state among the donors, which is formally considered an ally of the DPRK - this is China, which has supplied 3 million tons of food during this time. All other suppliers are “hostile” USA (2.4 million tons), Japan (0.9 million tons) and South Korea (3.1 million tons). Getting this help requires a subtle and at the same time tough game on the contradictions of powers.

The nuclear program is also an important aid in these diplomatic maneuvers - a significant part of foreign aid was actually provided as a reward for the DPRK's willingness to suspend its nuclear program. It is precisely the urgent need for effective means diplomatic pressure is one of two main reasons that are forcing Pyongyang to work on nuclear weapons. Another reason is national security issues: Pyongyang saw what happened to Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi - and learned quite obvious lessons from their sad fate.

In other words, domestic political decisions largely determine the foreign policy of the DPRK. In order to somehow compensate for the ineffectiveness of the economic system, which they cannot change for very weighty domestic political reasons, the Pyongyang leaders are forced to pursue a risky (at least at first glance) policy: to escalate tensions in order to then receive rewards for returning to the status quo, to play on the contradictions of the great powers, to engage in mild forms of nuclear blackmail. All these, of course, are actions reprehensible from the point of view of the outside world, but in the current circumstances the North Korean leadership has no realistic alternative model of behavior.

So, Pyongyang found itself in a difficult situation, and there is no way out of it. An attempt to change something will most likely provoke a political crisis and the collapse of the regime; persistent refusal to change means that the situation in the country will continue to deteriorate, and the lag behind the modern world will grow. It is not clear whether the country's new leader, Supreme Leader Marshal Kim Jong-un, will decide to continue his father's line. For Kim Jong Il, who turned 60 in 2002, the conservative line made sense - he had a chance to hold out in power until the last days of his life. This he succeeded - he died in his train-palace, only a little before his seventieth birthday.

However, his son has no such chance: in the long term, the system is doomed, it is undermined by economic inefficiency, the gradual dissemination of information about the outside world, the growing skepticism of the people and the lower ranks of the elite. Therefore, it cannot be ruled out that the new leadership will nevertheless start reforms, which, on the one hand, sharply increase political risks, and on the other, give some chance of salvation. However, reforms are unlikely to begin in the near future - first, Kim Jong-un needs to concentrate all power in his hands and replace the elderly dignitaries of his father with his own people, who, simply because of their age, will be much more active in implementing the transformation program.

One of the topics that I come back to all the time is what is commonly referred to in Korea as "international marriages." As you might guess, this is the name for marriages between citizens of Korea and citizens of foreign countries.

Some such alliances were concluded with late XIX century, but the history of "international marriages" really began during the Korean War. For several decades, these were almost exclusively the marriages of the American military who served in Korea and South Korean women, the hairstyles of both sides often did not differ, let's say, in high social status (relatively speaking, the marriage of an American sergeant and a waitress).

However, changes began in the late 1990s. On the one hand, more and more marriages have appeared between Koreans from the educated elite and foreigners, also mainly from the elite. However, in "international marriages" the overwhelming majority are unions of girls from poor countries in East and Southeast Asia and Korean peasants. The desire of Korean rural bros, often not very young, to marry foreign women is caused by a chronic shortage of brides in rural areas, especially in the provinces of the southwest (girls leave for cities, boys stay on the farm - and bros). The peak was reached around 2005, when almost 14% of all marriages in the country were with foreigners. Well, what now?

First, the number of "international marriages" is declining. The downsizing process began around 2010 and has been ongoing since then. In 2010, there were 33 thousand such marriages, and in 2017 - only 21 thousand, that is, one and a half times less. At the same time, the number of marriages in which the husband is a Korean is especially sharply reduced, while the number of marriages in which a Korean woman marries a foreigner remains relatively stable (well, more precisely, it is also decreasing, but not so quickly). In general, it seems that Korean rural bobs are partly disillusioned with foreign wives, on whom great hopes were pinned 10-15 years ago. Experience has shown that foreign wives often do not fit into the Korean rural environment, and at times they simply use Korean men to obtain citizenship of the Republic of Korea, and, having acquired a green passport, they are abandoned. This is an everyday matter, alas - this happens in many rich countries.

However, I repeat: marriages of Korean women with foreign men in the last 15-20 years have been much less than marriages of Korean men with foreign women. According to the Korean State Statistics Committee, in 2017, Korean men married foreign women 14,869 times, while Korean women married foreign men almost three times less often - 5,966 times.

Where do foreign wives come from? If we talk about the marriages of a Korean man and a foreign woman, that is, in general, about marriages of poor rural bears, then Vietnam is consistently and by a large margin as a supplier of brides. There were 5,364 marriages with Vietnamese women in 2017, that is, just over a third of all marriages with foreign women. It is in marriage unions with Vietnamese women that, by the way, there is a huge age gap - a Vietnamese bride is on average about 25 years old, and a Korean groom is on average about 40 years old. In second place are Chinese women (3.880), in third place are American women (1.017, but it is clear that they no longer marry with poor peasants). Further, almost equally, there are Filipinos (842) and Thai (843). There are few Russian women and women from the CIS countries, they did not even make it into the top five.

If we talk about marriages in which the groom is a foreigner, then the Chinese are in the lead (1.523), followed by the traditional leaders of the past decades - the Americans (1.392). Further - Canadians (436), Japanese (311) and Australians (203). The prevalence of the developed and, for the most part, the English-speaking world is obvious.