Communism Is a Product of the Wealthy Elite: The Poor Do Not Embrace Marxism

The international communist conspiracy has so thoroughly permeated educational institutions and the media that its propaganda is now assumed as common wisdom. What has become a familiar telling of events is a deliberate — and often successful — attempt to hide events.

According to the usual narrative, communism and socialism are embraced and promoted by poor people, by exploited workers, in a bid for justice and better treatment. In reality, communism and socialism are created and promoted by the wealthy elite, as historian John Stormer writes:

Communism is commonly believed to rise out of poverty. Yet, Fidel Castro was a product, not of the cane fields of Cuba, but of the halls of Havana University.

Karl Marx, it will be remembered, was the child of an upper-middle-class family, and received an exclusive university education. His father was a successful lawyer, and his parents owned a vineyard. Never during his lifetime did Karl Marx work for a wage, or work to support himself and his family. Instead, his efforts went into speechmaking, writing, and organizing, as he lived off of the privilege of his family and his wealthy supporters.

In the course of contradicting the propaganda which is nearly omnipresent in textbooks and classrooms, two questions will arise: Why would the wealthy support communism and socialism, if those ideologies advocate the dismantling of their privilege? Why would the poor not enthusiastically embrace the ideas which claim to liberate the downtrodden?

Among the elite supporters of communism and socialism, one may discern two types. On the one hand, there is the naive believer, who with true goodwill thinks that he will help his fellow man by advocating for these beliefs. On the other hand, there is the cynic, who understands that any attempted implementation of these ideologies will inevitably result in a concentration of power and wealth in the hands of a few.

Among the poor, there are many who understand that communism and socialism are systems which fail to generate opportunities. Yet that is precisely what the poor need and want: a chance at something better.

There are those in poverty who are deceived into supporting some communist or socialist movement, but they are often quickly alerted to the fact that their lives do not improve after the installation of some government which bears the name of these ideologies.

Joseph Stalin was not a simple peasant rebelling at the oppression of the Czar. He became a communist while studying for the priesthood in a Russian Orthodox seminary.

It is the case, in every instance of a political takeover by a government which represents, or claims to represent, these ideologies, that the poor find no relief. Not only that, but the poor are often subjected to greater hardship under their alleged benefactors.

This is the situation in every case in which such a takeover has happened. It is also the situation in any conceivable or possible scenario of a such a takeover.

The instigators, leaders, and promoters of communism and socialism are inevitably wealthy, privileged, and elite. It is difficult to find a revolutionary leader who was a member of the lower classes. Examples from Russia in 1917, to China between 1927 and 1949, and in Cuba between 1953 and 1959, are representative of other communist revolutions in history, as John Stormer details:

Dr. Cheddi Jagan, communist premier of British Guiana, became a communist, not as an “exploited” worker on a plantation of a British colonial colony, but as a dental student at Chicago’s Northwestern University.

It is necessary to articulate statements which are nearly the exact opposite of what is commonly believed: Communism and socialism are created and promoted by the wealthy, the privileged, and the elite, for the purpose of maintaining and increasing their wealth and power. The notion that communism and socialism intend to, or can, help the poor is a notion created to deceive, to dupe naive but well-intentioned people into helping the communist and socialist movements. The poor and the working class generally reject communism: some do so outright, seeing that it fails to offer them opportunities; others do so only after learning the bitter lesson of having at first supported these movements, only later to be alerted to the harsh reality that these movements will simply worsen their lot.

Numbers and Statistics: Understanding the Coronavirus Pandemic

Worldwide discussions bring clarity, but often not answers, to questions about the COVID-19 pandemic, because investigations are removed from the political debates within any single nation. As calmer investigations, not overheated by regional politics, proceed, it is clear that one key word is “estimation,” indicating that numbers presented about the virus are not definite, but rather merely preliminary.

Into nearly every sentence written or spoken about the Coronavirus, the adverbs “probably” or “approximately” should be inserted, if they are not already present. The phrase “on average” should also be added.

It is perhaps excusable, but nonetheless wrong, to see any number as indicating a precise value. In the case of a virus, the existence of which was not known as recently as a year ago, any number must be seen as an educated guess.

When the pandemic first gained the attention of the world in March 2020, several months after low-level media reporting and a bit of biological research had begun, any numbers used in reporting about the virus were vague and often off-target by an order of magnitude, as this November 2020 newspaper text from Michigan suggests:

When on March 10 the state announced its first two cases, 532 people already were sick with what was later confirmed to be coronavirus.

The real number was many times that. University of California Berkeley researchers have estimated for every confirmed case in the spring, Michigan had 12 undetected cases.

The testing mechanisms for the virus were hastily-developed. Significant numbers of false positives and false negatives were present but often ignored in the summary conclusions drawn from the crude data.

In urban areas, the concern is cases going undetected because people can have coronavirus and not realize it. University of Michigan epidemiologist Ryan Malosh cited estimates of “three to six missed cases” for every one confirmed.

Further ambiguity affected the numbers as the precise percentage of asymptomatic, or mildly symptomatic, cases was unknown. Every estimate of that percentage seemed to be higher than the last, but remained a mere guess.

Pathologists in Germany, for example, argued about how many people died from COVID-19. Of those patients whose death certificates indicated Coronavirus as the cause of death, some researchers guessed that as many as 85% of them died of that cause. Other researchers indicated that fewer than 50% died from COVID-19.

The ordinary newspaper-reading citizen is left bewildered. If major research universities can’t sort this out, who can? The fact remains that many questions about the pandemic remain unanswered, and will likely remain so for several years.

The Climate is Safer Now: Fewer Climate-Related Disasters

In 2019, an inexperienced Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez stated that “the world is going to end in twelve years if we don’t address climate change.” She quickly faced a barrage of criticism, even from climate activists and from the leaders within her own political party, to retract the statement.

Angry because she’d been called out by members of her own Democratic Party and by fellow climate activists, the congresswoman, affectionately known as AOC, attempted to fine-tune her message via one of her appointees, as Michael Shellenberger writes:

An AOC spokesperson told Axios, “We can quibble about the phraseology, whether it’s existential or cataclysmic.” But, he added, “We’re seeing lots of [climate change–related] problems that are already impacting lives.”

But if that’s the case, the impact is dwarfed by the 92 percent decline in the decadal death toll from natural disasters since its peak in the 1920s. In that decade, 5.4 million people died from natural disasters. In the 2010s, just 0.4 million did. Moreover, that decline occurred during a period when the global population nearly quadrupled.

In fact, both rich and poor societies have become far less vulnerable to extreme weather events in recent decades. In 2019, the journal Global Environmental Change published a major study that found death rates and economic damage dropped by 80 to 90 percent during the last four decades, from the 1980s to the present.

Humans are now less likely to suffer from climate-related or climate-caused disasters. The predicted droughts aren’t causing the migrations of thousands of refugees. The predicted rising of sea levels hasn’t devastated towns and villages around the world.

For humans on planet Earth, life expectancy has risen over the last two decades, and the number of people living in poverty has decreased. Although climate activists have predicted disaster and misery since the 1990s, and perhaps even earlier, those predictions have shown themselves to be inaccurate.

The Beginning of the End of Chiang’s Government in China: Espionage Networks Pave the Way for the Communist Takeover

In early 1941, Chiang Kai-shek, the leader of China, obtained information from his military intelligence communities that Japan was not only going to continue its war against China, but rather that it was also going to expand its war effort to attack additionally the various nations of southeast China. The expansion of Japanese aggression beyond China and into southeast Asia meant war with Britain and France, because southeast Asia was composed mainly of British and French colonies.

Even before Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, U.S. involvement in the Pacific war was inevitable. America would enter the conflict because of its alliances with Australia, Britain, and France, and also because the Philippines and other islands in the area were U.S. protectorates, territories, or possessions.

As the leader of China, Chiang Kai-shek welcomed U.S. and British involvement in the war, because it meant that China would have allies against Japan. Until that point in time, China had faced Japan almost alone.

Chiang, however, was fighting two wars at once. The external war was Japan’s attack on, and invasion of, China. The internal war was a raging civil war between Chiang’s government and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Starting in 1927, the CCP had been committed to the violent overthrow of the Chinese government. Lasting over two decades, the Chinese Civil War would leave millions dead.

When the Japanese attacked China in 1937, a ceasefire in the civil war was declared, and the CCP promised to cooperate with the Chinese government in a mutual effort to defend China against the Japanese. But the CCP kept its promise at best partially. The soldiers of the CCP were organized into the “New Fourth Army,” which was supposed to coordinate its activities with the armies of China and take orders from the Chinese high command. But the Fourth Army sometimes didn’t follow orders, or did so only deliberate delay.

As dangerous as the Communists were, however, Chiang was forced to pay more attention to the Japanese invasion, because it presented a more urgent danger. He was delighted that the United States would support China against Japan. But what he didn’t know was that the U.S. representative, sent to facilitate cooperation between America and China, was actually a Soviet spy.

Neither the U.S. government, which sent Lauchlin Currie to China as its representative, nor the Chinese government which happily received him, realized that he was part of a Soviet Socialist espionage network, as historian Jay Taylor writes:

This development was good news for Chiang. Despite all the staggering defeats, failures, and losses of the past three years, as well as the stupendous problems of trying to run a government, economy, and army in exile and of virtual international isolation, Chiang had remained steadfast in his belief that he and China would eventually prevail over Japan. Because of the Soviet factor, he would never be as certain about the ultimate outcome of the struggle with Mao’s CCP, but that problem could be tackled later. What was important now was that while the Fourth Army Incident and its aftermath were still reverberating inside China, the informal Sino-American alliance was developing rapidly. Most importantly, President Roosevelt had included China in his new and dramatic Lend-Lease Bill, which was intended primarily to save England through the provision of vast amounts of war matériel. The President had also decided to send a personal representative to talk with Chiang. The representative, Lauchlin Currie, played a key role in the White House on Far Eastern affairs, although his official titles of personal economic adviser and administrative assistant to the President had nothing to do with foreign affairs and he knew little or nothing about China. Currie, however, had another unusual distinction — he was a member of a group of officials in Washington whom Moscow considered its “agents of influence.” Most of these men and women were motivated by personal ideals, sympathy for the Soviet Union, hatred of fascism, and liberal economic and social views. Some, like Currie, were not members of the Communist Party and probably were at most democratic-socialists, but they believed that the fascist threat overrode most other considerations and that in promoting the interests of Moscow and providing it sensitive information they were also serving the interests of their own country. They would have objected to being called “agents of influence,” but at the minimum they showed atrocious judgment. After all, the Soviet Union was then allied to Nazi Germany, suggesting that their ideological motivations were not, after all, primarily antifascist.

Currie’s assignment from President Roosevelt was to liaise between the United States and China, specifically for the purpose of bolstering the war effort against Japan. But Currie’s own objective was to undermine the Chinese government and strengthen the CCP’s attempts to overthrow that government.

Chiang Kai-shek was happy to receive aid from the United States. He made substantial requests for more.

When Chiang received Currie in Chungking on February 10, the American informed him that the United States would soon deliver to China US$45 million of arms and military equipment. After an expression of thanks, Chiang also asked for financial assistance to help stabilize the Chinese currency (the fabi), and assistance in improving the Burma Road. But this was only the beginning. On March 31, T.V. Soong presented Currie a comprehensive request on behalf of the commander in chief, including 1,000 military aircraft and arms for thirty divisions. Some of the airplanes were needed to equip a new Chinese Air Force unit to be led by Claire Chennault, a crusty, retired U.S. Army Air Force Captain with the “honorific” title of Colonel. Since 1937, Chennault had been advising Chiang and directing the training of what remained of the Chinese Air Force.

The connection to the U.S. was vital to the Chinese war effort. Yet that connection had to go, in part, through Lauchlin Currie, a permanent enemy of Chiang Kai-shek and the Chinese government.

The Soviet Socialist government was at that time allied with Hitler’s National Socialist (“Nazi”) government.

The Soviets were also allied with the CCP. Hitler was allied with the Japanese, who had invaded and were still attacking China.

So the civil war inside China, between the CCP and Chiang’s nationalist government, was linked to the war outside China, with the CCP allied to the Nazis, the Soviets, and the Japanese, while Chiang’s government was allied to the United States.

The 1937 ceasefire between the CCP and Chiang’s government was tenuous at best. Both sides were as eager to fight each other as they were to fight the Japanese.

Thus Chiang was shocked when Lauchlin Currie flatly stated that the CCP and Chiang’s government should consolidate and form a united front against the Japanese:

Currie also passed on to Chiang Roosevelt’s hope that the KMT and the CCP would be able to form a true united front to fight Japan. Taken aback, Chiang replied that it was his view that the CCP’s principal loyalty was to the Communist International and the Soviet Union. The Communists, he said, did not want to see an alliance among China, America, and Britain. At the time, Chiang’s assertion was an undeniable fact. But Currie did not agree with any of these premises and he left Chiang with the clear impression that in the coming war, the Americans would have one goal — defeat of the Germans and the Japanese — and since the CCP was part of the united front against Japan, it would also be considered a friend. Chiang understood that his strikingly different view of the CCP would bedevil the most important foreign relationship he and his government would ever have. But aside from this issue, Chiang was immensely pleased by the visit — an alliance with the powerful United States seemed likely within a year.

Because Lauchlin Currie was operating as part of the Soviet espionage network, he was indifferent to Chiang’s assessments of the situation in China, indifferent to Chiang’s requests, and indifferent to Chiang’s views. But Currie was eager to relay opinions and requests of the CCP to the U.S. government.

Chiang’s political party was called the Kuomintang (KMT). The CCP worked to form a negative impression of the KMT in Currie’s mind, a false impression which Currie would then carry back to Washington, D.C.

Before leaving Chungking, Currie met privately with Zhou Enlai, who was very positive and convivial, portraying the Communists as patriotic reformers interested in democracy and full of praise for the idea of U.S. support for China against Japan. Zhou, however, warned that the KMT leader’s policies could lead to a civil war and a collapse of the resistance. He was not so frank as to mention that his party at that moment continued vehemently to oppose a U.S.-China alliance, fearing that Japan’s defeat by such a partnership would give Chiang a powerful claim to leadership.

Currie faithfully carried Zhou Enlai’s pro-communist messages back to Washington, D.C.

(Because of varying transliteration, Zhou Enlai is also known as Chou En-Lai.)

Lauchlin Currie was only one of several Soviet agents who were working inside the U.S. government. These operatives had a number of tasks. One of them was to weaken American enthusiasm for Chiang’s government, and thereby aid the CCP in its efforts to overthrow that government.

The international communist conspiracy, promoted by the Soviet Socialists, did indeed eventually influence America’s policy. As seen above, the U.S. wanted a united front between the CCP and Chiang. It was hopelessly naive to imagine that the Chinese communists would work together with Chiang’s government to defend China against the Japanese.

The CCP would rather wait while Japan shredded China and Chiang’s government, which would make it easier for the Communists to assume control, once the country and the government were thus weakened. The CCP was allied with the Soviet Socialists, who were, in turn, allied with Japan and with the Nazis. The Chinese Communists were thus allied with Japan.

In Washington, Currie and others succeeded in reducing the amount of aid which Chiang would receive from the United States. By influencing U.S. foreign policy this way, Lauchlin Currie and the other Soviet spies inside the American government contributed to the final downfall of Chiang’s government in 1949, contributed to the establishment of a ruthless Communist dictatorship in China, and contributed to the death of millions of Chinese.

The fact that the Communists took control of China has led to an amazing number of deaths. Between 1958 and 1961, the CCP operated a program known as ‘The Great Leap Forward.’ The result was the starvation of at least 30 million Chinese people, the execution of at least 2.5 million, and the forced suicides of at least another 1 million. These numbers represent the lower end of the ranges reported.

The CCP organized another wave of violence from 1966 to 1976 and called it ‘The Cultural Revolution.’ Estimates vary substantially: the CCP executed between 1 million and 20 million people during this program.

The Great Leap Forward and The Cultural Revolution were the two most violent periods of Communism’s rule over China. Other periods also included mass executions and the deaths of prisoners in camps.

Lauchlin Currie does not bear sole responsibility for the millions of Chinese who suffered and died. The fall of Chiang’s government and the rise of the CCP led to one of the most horrifying catastrophes in history: it led to mass murder and it led to the widespread violation of human rights in China.

Controversy Among Historians: What Caused WWII?

In most history textbooks, the beginning of WW2 is placed either at Hitler’s invasion of Poland in 1939, or more accurately, at Japan’s 1937 invasion of China. Some more nuanced authors might even assign it to Japan’s 1931 invasions of Manchuria.

In any case, the starting point of the war is one thing; its causes are another.

Many authors simply identify the war’s causes as irrational militaristic national socialism on Hitler’s part, and as irrational militaristic imperialism on Japan’s part. These explanations seem simplistic, a sort of deus ex machina, and attribute the world’s most horrifying war to mental illness among a very small handful of people.

Reflection will hint at the notion that there must be more to the story. Millions of people aren’t mobilized based on a dozen people’s mental illness. The scores of other nations involved in the conflict didn’t declare war simply because of psychological illness among a tiny number of people.

By analyzing the diplomatic interactions between various nations in the late 1930s, historian A.J.P. Taylor argues that WW2 could have been avoided, had British diplomats taken certain steps. Taylor’s book is controversial — some scholars disagree passionately with Taylor — and the academic study of history generally abstains from counterfactual speculation. Nonetheless, Taylor’s writings are fascinating.

In the final days before the war in Europe began, diplomats were working feverishly to avoid armed conflict. On August 30, 1939, the Nazi government offered a compromise solution to Poland; the disagreement had been over city of Danzig, a German city which the Poles had annexed in the wake of WW1.

The compromise offer extended by Hitler’s government on August 30, called for the Poles to release Danzig to return to Germany, but offered the Poles continued economic rights in the city. The countryside surrounding the city would have a referendum, an election allowing it to decide for itself whether it would stay with Poland or return to German citizenship.

Had Poland even considered the offer — not necessarily accepted it — it would have bought more time for diplomats to seek further compromises and negotiations. But Poland rejected the offer outright.

The grave complicating factor was Britain’s treaty with Poland, signed in early 1939, which guaranteed British support should Poland find itself in a war with the Nazis. Had Britain not signed such a treaty in the first place, or had it found a way out of the treaty in the second place, Poland would have had a motive to find a peaceful solution to the Danzig situation. As it was, Poland felt confident that it could take on the Nazis, and the Soviet Union as Hitler’s ally, because it expected that both France and Britain would defend against Nazi and Soviet attacks on Poland.

In the wake of Poland’s refusal to negotiate, the Nazis declared war on Poland, and military action began on September 1, 1939.

Had the war remained a local conflict between Germany and Poland, it would have been small and brief.

Britain, however, faced a momentous decision: would it abide by its agreement to defend Poland? Would France do the same? The British government briefly considered alternatives, e.g., a negotiated ceasefire with Germany. In the end, Britain declared war on Germany. France did likewise.

French diplomat Georges Bonnet worked, in the very last hours, to stop the declaration of war. He hoped to draw Mussolini, who at the time was not strongly bound to Hitler, to apply pressure on Germany. France, like Britain, was bound by treaty to Poland, and Poland expected the French to launch a major military offensive against Germany’s western border. Such an attack would have diverted German troops from the attack on Poland. But the French had no intention of mounting such an attack.

Bonnet’s frantic, last-minute efforts are chronicled by A.J.P. Taylor:

Yet both the British and French governments, the French especially, went on believing in a conference which had vanished before it was born. Hitler had initially replied to Mussolini that, if invited to a conference, he would give his answer at mid-day on 3 September. Therefore Bonnet, and Chamberlain with him, strove desperately to postpone a declaration of war until after that time, even though the Italians no longer intended to invite Hitler or anyone else. Bonnet conjured up the excuse that the French military wanted the delay in order to carry through mobilisation, undisturbed by German air attack (which, they knew, would not occur anyway — the German air force was fully employed in Poland). Chamberlain conjured up no excuse except that the French wanted delay and that it was always difficult to work with allies. In the evening of 2 September he was still entertaining the House of Commons with hypothetical negotiations: “If the German Government should agree to withdraw their forces then His Majesty’s Government would be willing to regard the position as being the same as it was before the German forces crossed the Polish frontier. That is to say, the way would be open to discussion between the German and Polish Governments on the matters at issue”.

Britain and France declared war on Germany on September 3, 1939. It was, at that point in time, a largely symbolic act. Britain had few combat-ready military units, and none were near Poland, nor could they be in Poland soon. No significant French or British military action began immediately.

The debate inside the British government was intense. Neville Chamberlain spoke indecisively in Parliament. When Chamberlain was done speaking, Arthur Greenwood rose to speak, encouraged by fellow MP Leo Amery, demanding more decisive action.

Thus it was possible for both France and Britain to continue to seek a diplomatic solution, although they did so clumsily. So even after a declaration of war, before major hostilities commenced, communications between the countries continued:

This was too much even for loyal Conservatives. Leo Amery called to Arthur Greenwood, acting leader of the Opposition: “Speak for England”, a task of which Chamberlain was incapable. Ministers, led by Simon, warned Chamberlain that the government would fall unless it sent an ultimatum to Hitler before the House met again. Chamberlain gave way. The objections of the French were overruled. The British ultimatum was delivered to the Germans at 9 a.m. on 8 September. It expired at 11 a.m., and a state of war followed. When Bonnet learnt that the British were going to war in any case, his overriding anxiety was to catch up with them. The time of the French ultimatum was advanced, despite the supposed objections of the General Staff: it was delivered at noon on 8 September and expired at 5 p.m. In this curious way the French who had preached resistance to Germany for twenty years appeared to be dragged into war by the British who had for twenty years preached conciliation. Both countries went to war for that part of the peace settlement which they had long regarded as least defensible. Hitler may have projected a great war all along; yet it seems from the record that he became involved in war through launching on 29 August a diplomatic manoeuvre which he ought to have launched on 28 August.

Winston Churchill emerges, in A.J.P. Taylor’s account, as having blundered England into war — a war that might have been avoidable. Under closer examination, Churchill emerges as a mixed figure: on the one hand, his moral instincts were outraged at Hitler’s aggressiveness, and he also nobly wished to preserve the British empire; but on the other hand, Churchill’s irrational hatred of Germany, which predated Hitler by many decades, may have propelled him, and Britain with him, too hastily into war, a war which turned out to be a pyrrhic victory for Britain, which proceeded to lose its empire in the immediate postwar years, having overextended itself in the war.

Some British historians have opposed Taylor’s account of the events of the 1930s, because this narrative would mean that Britain, and to a lesser extent France, was in a position to avert, or at least diminish the war.

If Taylor is correct, the war could have been contained, and would have been a local conflict between Germany and Poland. The Soviet Union wouldn’t have been pulled in.

The world will probably never know whether or not Taylor is correct. Counterfactuals do not belong to the realm of documented or evidential history. But Taylor’s investigations and detailed narratives, in any case, direct attention to often-ignored aspects and events of the late 1930s.

South Korean Passiveness and Chinese Elusiveness Fuel North Korean Human Rights Violations

In 1910, Japanese soldiers had invaded and occupied Korea. At the end of WW2 in 1945, the United States Army liberated the southern half of the Korean peninsula, and Japan withdrew its armies from Korea. The Soviet Socialists invaded and occupied the northern half of the Korean peninsula.

Since that time, the two countries of North Korea and South Korea have lived next to each other in a very uneasy arrangement. In June 1950, North Korea attacked and invaded South Korea, beginning the Korean War.

North Korea calls itself the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, or DPRK.

The United Nations organized a coalition of at least sixteen nations to help defend South Korea. That coalition included Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Greece, New Zealand, Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, the United States, and others.

North Korea was supported by China and by the Soviet Socialists.

In July 1953, an armistice was signed. An ‘armistice’ is something like a ‘ceasefire’ agreement. The fighting stopped, but the war was not officially ended. A peace treaty between the two countries has not been signed, so the Korean War has been continuing for over seventy years, even though there has been no combat for over sixty-seven years.

The political and social structures which developed in North Korea constituted one of the harshest totalitarian dictatorships in the world. The Soviet Socialists installed Kim Il-sung to be the country’s absolute ruler, as historian Doug Bandow writes:

During the Soviet occupation, religious persecution in the northern half of the peninsula went from bad to worse. The Bolsheviks waged war on Christianity in the USSR and were no more friendly when occupying Korea. The Soviets chose Kim Il-sung, an anti-Japanese guerrilla leader, to rule the occupation zone. Once the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea was established in 1948, “the regime suppressed religious freedom by arousing the sense of struggle against anti-revolutionary elements and spreading anti-religious sentiments far and wide to strengthen the socialist revolutionary force,” write Yeo-sang Yoon and Sun-young Han, of the North Korean Human Rights Archives and Database Center for North Korean Human Rights, respectively.

Kim Il-sung ruled the country with an iron hand until his death in 1994. His son, Kim Jong-il, inherited the power and was no less ruthless than his father.

After decades of tyranny, the people of North Korea were among the very poorest in the world. Malnutrition was rampant, and many died of starvation. The DPRK is utterly indifferent to its people’s human rights. In this midst of poverty and misery, however, Kim Jong-il lived a life of luxury. United States President George Bush took office in early 2001, and describes what he learned during his first interactions with the North Korean government:

Meanwhile, Kim Jong-il cultivated his appetite for fine cognac, luxury Mercedes, and foreign films. He built a cult of personality that required North Koreans to worship him as a godlike leader. His propaganda machine claimed that he could control the weather, had written six renowned operas, and had scored five holes in one during his first round of golf.

President Bush worked with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to deal with North Korea. Any agreements made by Kim Jong-il were not to be trusted.

North Korea had signed a treaty called the ‘Agreed Framework’ in 1994. It immediately became clear that it had no intention of living up to the promises it made in the treaty. Condoleezza Rice explains how she and President Bush understood the North Korean government:

As noted before, the President had rejected any return to the Agreed Framework with North Korea because he — and all of us — believed it to be flawed. The North Koreans had taken the benefits, including $4.5 billion to build two light-water reactors, but by late 2002 they were once again threatening to expel all nuclear inspectors and restart plutonium-reprocessing facilities at Yongbyon. That was a familiar pattern with the North Koreans. As President Bush put it, “He [Kim Jong-il] throws his food on the floor, and all the adults run to gather it up and put it back on the table. He waits a little while and throws his food on the floor again.” It was an apt description, but, given the consequences of conflict on the Korean peninsula, there didn’t seem to be many alternatives.

In violation of its own promises, as well as global diplomatic consensus, North Korea began to work with Syria on a project to build a nuclear reactor at a location known as al-Kibar. This reactor would have produced the materials needed to build atomic bombs.

The thought that North Korea and Syria would each have an arsenal of nuclear weapons caused concern throughout the world. Yet it was an entirely predictable development, given North Korea’s pattern of behavior. At the time, in the year 2002, Richard “Dick” Cheney was the Vice President of the United States. He explains:

By the time we came into office, the North Koreans had an established pattern of behavior. They would make an agreement about their nuclear sites, pocket the benefits of the agreement, and then continue on with their weapons programs. They were masters of brinksmanship — creating problems, threatening their neighbors, and expecting to be bribed back into cooperation. It had usually worked for them. In 1994, with Bill Clinton in the White House, they agreed to freeze their plutonium production program in exchange for 500,000 metric tons of fuel oil a year and two reactors of a type that cannot easily be used to produce weapons material. But they secretly pursued a second route. In 2002, with the North Koreans having received millions of tons of fuel oil and with the al-Kibar reactor construction under way, an American delegation confronted them with evidence of their deception, and they admitted they had been developing a second way to produce nuclear weapons — by enriching uranium.

Not only did the North Korean government routinely violate its own treaties and break its promises, but it delighted in shocking the world through unpredictable behavior and by threatening neighboring nations with its military weapons.

In July 2006, North Korean suddenly tested its long-range missiles. These “tests” weren’t only a way to measure the missile’s technical abilities. They were threats to nearby countries. Donald Rumsfeld was the United States Secretary of Defense at that time, and recalls:

The leaders of the so-called Hermit Kingdom had a penchant for rattling sabers around American holidays. In the weeks running up to July 4 there had been some speculation that the North Korean regime might fire a long-range missile. No one was certain of their intentions, but the possibilities included a simple test, a demonstration firing, or a launch to place an object in space. The North Koreans could do something even more provocative, and our allies in South Korea and Japan didn’t want to be ill prepared in case missiles were aimed toward their territory. The erratic Kim Jong Il might even swing for the fences and attempt to hit our country.

By late 2006, North Korea succeeded in building its first atomic bomb. In 2007, Israel would destroy the al-Kibar nuclear facility in the course of fighting between Syria and Israel.

In 2011, Kim Jong-il died, and his son, Kim Jong-un inherited the power.

The United Nations, and individual countries around the world, have often looked to China to help manage North Korea. China is not exactly an ally of North Korea, but it is the nation with the least bad relationship to North Korean.

On the one hand, China isn’t exactly friendly with North Korea. On the other hand, China isn’t exactly friendly with most of the world’s other nations. So while China can sometimes help negotiate with North Korea, it isn't strongly motivated to do so.

At the time of the 1994 Agreed Framework, U.S. military analysts speculated about what China might do in the event that North Korea would become involved in a war. If the war were instigated and begun by North Korea, it was presumed that China would not lend military support to North Korea, would work to end hostilities, and could pressure the DPRK by reducing or ending Chinese exports to North Korea.

If, on the other hand, a war in the mid-1990s had begun because of a South Korean or American action, or if such a war had included the movement of South Korean or American troops across the border into North Korea, then the Pentagon concluded that China might well send forces to support the DPRK.

American military strategists reached those hypothetical conclusions in the mid-1990s. But how might China act now, twenty or forty years later? In 2013, Robert Wampler wrote:

Whether that would still be the case today is an open question, but China’s perspective does seem to have changed recently. Whereas it refused to back U.N. sanctions two decades ago, last month it supported (and in fact helped the United States draft) new U.N. sanctions in response to North Korea’s recent nuclear test. That suggests it sees an increased need to rein in the North Korean regime and has a decreased tolerance for destabilizing actions. In public, Beijing has stressed that it will not accept "troublemaking on China’s doorstep." While it is not likely that China will abandon its North Korean ally given its fear of unknown consequences, its analysts may well be scratching their heads (as their American counterparts are), asking what Kim Jong Un’s endgame is — or whether he even has one. And, if a war breaks out, will prior consultations between Washington and Beijing reassure the Chinese that our own endgame does not threaten their core interests or require military action to keep trouble away from their doorstep?

While North Korea continues to develop its missiles and the atomic weapons which they carry, the people of North Korea continue to starve, as Frank Jannuzi writes:

Amnesty International has long chronicled the DPRK's endemic human rights abuses, under which millions suffer. That suffering takes many forms. Food insecurity and malnutrition are widespread, and there are persistent reports of starvation, particularly in more remote regions. The country's famines have been under-reported inside and outside the DPRK because of severe restrictions of movement and a near-total clamp-down on expression, information, and association.

Some observers argue that South Korea has been unwilling to confront North Korea. Often it has been the United Nations, the United States, China, or some coalition of other nations putting pressure on the DPRK.

Edward Luttwak conjectures that a more active, and more courageous, role for South Korea could be essential in persuading North Korea to behave better. He describes a pattern in which the DPRK bullies South Korea into funding North Korean activities, and in which South Korea passively endures DPRK aggressiveness. Luttwak cites the South Korean naval ship Cheonan, the sinking of which is often though not unanimously attributed to the DPRK:

Unwilling to deter North Korea — which would require a readiness to retaliate for its occasionally bloody attacks and constant provocations, thereby troubling business and roiling the Seoul stock market — South Korea has instead preferred to pay off the regime with periodic injections of fuel and food aid, but most consistently by way of the North-South Kaesong industrial zone, in which some 80,000 North Korean workers are paid relatively good wages by South Korean corporations. The workers themselves receive very little of their salaries, of course, the majority of which gets funneled back to Pyongyang and makes up the North’s largest consistent source of foreign currency. Even under supposedly “hard-line” South Korean presidents, the Kaesong transfer has continued. It was not shut down when the North sunk South Korea’s Cheonan warship, killing 46 sailors; nor when the North opened artillery fire on a South Korean island, killing two soldiers and two civilians; nor when the North tested a nuclear device and launched a long-range ballistic missile. Even as the present crisis has unfolded, it was the paying South that feared an interruption of production at Kaesong, not the North, which reaps the benefits. And when media in South Korea noted with much relief that Kaesong was still open, the North Koreans promptly shut it down.

The nations of the world, then, divided as they are by questions of ideology and economics, are united in their frustration with Kim Jong-un. Any interaction with the DPRK is an exercise in futility. Agreements are signed by the North Koreans, and afterwards, it becomes clear that the DPRK had no intention of keeping its word.

Even though countries differ greatly by culture and religion, diplomacy still relies on some manner of trust and promise. In this sense, diplomacy with North Korea has proven, thus far at least, impossible.

The international community looks to China, as the one nation which has the least bad relationship with the DPRK, to steer these troubled diplomatic relationships. Whether China can do it is one question; whether China wants to do it is another.

In this uncomfortable and murky status quo, South Korea passively endures North Korean bullying while the citizens of the DPRK suffer poverty and malnutrition to degrees barely imaginable. North Korean citizens still die of malnutrition and starvation, their human rights ignored. Active military combat ended in 1953, but there is no doubt that a war is still going on.

The MPLA Introduces Socialism into Angola

The modern country known as ‘Angola’ was formed in 1975, when it obtained its independence from Portugal. It had long been a colony, and had struggled for years to gain its independence. Sadly, that struggle was only against the Portugese. Three different independence-seeking groups in Angola fought each other as well as the Portuguese.

Those three groups were known by their acronyms: MPLA, UNITA, FNLA.

Eventually, the MPLA would succeed not only in persuading the Portugese to grant independence to Angola, but in largely eradicating its two competitors. When Angola finally received its independence, instead of peacefully rejoicing, the MPLA carried out a bloody purge, exterminating its domestic enemies. As report from Mercury Radio Arts notes:

In 1977, socialist Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) reportedly murdered “tens of thousands” of people when it seized power.

Angola had become, in the words of Lara Pawson, “a socialist project on the continent.” In the years leading up to the 1975 independence, the MPLA had received massive support from the Soviet Socialists. Weapons, money, and military advisors came from the USSR to lead the MPLA against the Portugese, and against the other two independence-seeking groups. As Lara Pawson writes,

at its core, the ruling Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) was a radical socialist movement.

In addition receiving aid from the Soviets, the MPLA developed ties to communist China and Cuba.

Having finally obtained independence from Portugal, Angola was now in danger of becoming a vassal of the Warsaw Pact and the larger communist bloc.

the MPLA had long been – and still is – a member of the Socialist International, an organisation that claims to pursue “progressive politics for a fairer world.”

Lara Pawson describes the propaganda circulating in Angola in 1998, propaganda which described the MPLA victories in the mid-1970s as the introduction of a liberating and utopian energy.

In late 1998 and early 1999, the MPLA government of Angola again conducted a bloody purge, targeting those who may have been associated with UNITA or NFLA, as well as forcing out United Nations observers. The rosy propaganda which the MPLA presented about itself in the late 1990s was as dishonest as its claim to have sought justice in the 1970s.

I began to discover that the idea of a 1970s MPLA heyday was just as misguided. An Angolan colleague told me about 27 May 1977, the day an MPLA faction rose up against the leadership, and the honeymoon of revolution crashed to a halt. Some called it an attempted coup, but my colleague insisted it was a demonstration that was met with a brutal overreaction.

People who expressed doubts or questions about the MPLA in the mid-1970s were targets for communist guerilla violence.

The MPLA had plenty of muscle to carry out revenge attacks against those who expressed opinions. The MPLA forces were provided by the Soviet Socialists, the communist Chinese, and Cuba.

Whichever story you believe, six senior members of the MPLA were killed that day by supporters of the uprising. In response, President Neto, the politburo and the state media made many highly inflammatory statements that incited extraordinary revenge. In the weeks and months that followed, thousands of people – possibly tens of thousands – were killed. Some of the executions were overseen by Cuban troops sent to Angola by Fidel Castro.

Outside of Angola, journalists in other countries reported about the MPLA purges — or didn’t report about them — in ways that fit their ideologies. Lara Pawson recalls that, “what rattled me was that Angola-watchers” many of whom were “intellectuals whom I admired – all seemed to have turned a blind eye to the thousands of killings.”

Many reporters and news media had indirect ties to, or affections for, the MPLA.

It was as if their commitment to the party was so deep that, in the end, they heard only the voices of its leaders and fell deaf to the calls from below.

A report from the United Nations in 2007 produced conclusive evidence that the MPLA was guilty of torture, and had failed to provide any form of legal due process for those who were arbitarily arrested. More recent reports show a continuation of these practices.

A report from Amnesty International shows that the MPLA executed individuals who’d publicly voiced opinions, and had used other measures as well to stifle freedom of the press, including the 2014 arrest of a journalist for asking questions.

In May 2019, according to Human Rights Watch, the MPLA closed approximately 2,000 churches, denying Angolians the right to freely choose how they want to worship. In August 2019, the same report notes, police used tear gas and dogs to disperse a group gathered in front of the parliament building asking for elections.

The MPLA, the Mercury Radio Arts report notes, is “a truly Marxist organization,” and presents itself as much:

In fact, in the same year of the MPLA atrocities mentioned above, it went out of its way to brand itself as a Marxst-Leninist organization at a meeting of its national congress.

Using socialist rhetorical to thinly disguise threats against anyone who might voice dissent, an MPLA publication states:

We will apply the Democratic Revolutionary Dictatorship to finally finish with saboteurs, with parasites, and with opportunists.

After the fall of the Soviet Union, the MPLA has become more reliant on China and Cuba as sources of aid. Both countries send weapons, soldiers, and political advisors to Angola to help the MPLA keep the people under control.

China has recently lent huge sums of money to Angola as part of its “Belt and Road” initiative. In this scheme, the Chinese lend large amounts of money to smaller third-world nations.

The Chinese lend sums of money which are so big that China can be confident that the smaller nation will not be able to repay. The money is often used for infrastructure projects like roads and bridges, or hospitals and schools. This can allow China to claim that it is acting out of a humanitarian impulse.

Once the smaller nation has declared its inability to repay the loans, China can appear magnanimous by forgiving the debt, but the cancellation of the debt comes at a price: the smaller nation is forced to give China a ‘most favored nation’ status.

The smaller nation gives China the rights to travel through and into the nation, and that right is exclusive — other nations are not allowed to travel. China also obtains the right to set up military bases in the country, and the exclusive right to export minerals from that country back to China.

In this way, the “Belt and Road” initiative allows China to create an empire by colonizing small nations in Africa, Asia, and South America. Angola has become one of those nations.

Cambodia: The Imposition of Socialism, 1975 to 1978

The nation of Cambodia, also called Kampuchea, emerged as an independent nation in 1953 after the dissolution of French Indochina. Its internal politics experienced various destabilizing factors over the next two decades as it attempted to establish itself as a constitutional monarchy.

One of the destabilizing factors was a series of corrupt and power-hungry individuals in various government leadership roles. Another factor was radical socialism, instantiated both in a number of domestic extremist groups and in covert political interventions from several other countries.

As a report by Mercury Radio Arts states:

In 1975, the Communist Party of Kampuchea, often called the Khmer Rouge, emerged as the victor of the seven-year-long Cambodian Civil War. The Khmer Rouge was composed of avid Marxists who attempted to impose their radical ideas using brutal force.

To ensure the people’s compliance with the socialist system which Communist Party of Kampuchea (CPK) wanted to impose, it was necessary to indoctrinate the people with an absolute obedience to the state.

The CPK needed the people to be shaped by a value system in which the state was seen as the ultimate value. Any potential competing value had to be eliminated, or at the very least subordinated to the state. That meant getting rid of, or devaluing, alternative values like family, friends, faith in God, art, music, etc.

Under the Khmer Rouge’s ruthless leader Pol Pot, all previous loyalties were abolished and strictly forbidden. Cambodians were banned from keeping their religious and family ties. All civil liberties were taken away. Every Cambodian was instead required to make the good of the collective his or her primary focus. To indoctrinate all children with a Marxist ideology, every child aged eight or older was separated from their parents in 1977 and required to join labor camps, where they were trained to treat the state as their parent.

In a radical effort to eliminate income inequality, CPK dismantled large segments of Cambodia’s economy and civilization. In an effort to eliminate anything which might even seem like a class distinction, personal choice in most aspects of life was eliminated.

Implementing an allegedly scientific version of socialist economics, the CPK destroyed libraries and forbade the practice of modern medicine. The CPK undertook a wildly naive project of returning the entire nation to a romanticized version of an 11th-century agricultural civilization.

As the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust notes, the “Khmer Rouge ideology stated that the only acceptable lifestyle was that of poor agricultural workers,” so they forced millions of people from their homes in the city to work as farmers. “Factories, hospitals, schools and universities were shut down. Lawyers, doctors, teachers, engineers and qualified professionals in all fields were thought to be a threat to the new regime. … Money was abolished and all aspects of life were subject to regulation. People were not allowed to choose their own marriage partners. They could not leave their given place of work or even select the clothes that they would wear.”

Estimates vary, but it is generally accepted that more than two million people were killed by CPK between 1975 and 1978. In addition, other people starved to death, or died from lack of standard medical care.

The shocking number of deaths is even more astounding, given the small population of Cambodia. At least 25% of the nation’s population was murdered, as the Mercury Radio Arts report notes:

Million of people across Cambodia were effectively forced into slavery - all in the name of building Marx’s utopian society. Anyone daring to speak out against the regime was imprisoned or murdered. Hundreds of thousands of others died from starvation or disease. During the Khmer Rouge’s four-year reign, an estimated 2 million people perished as a direct result of the Communist Party’s policies.

In 1978, the CPK’s rule came to an end. The combined forces of the USSR and Vietnam invaded the country and removed the CPK from power. It is a measure of how bad the situation in Cambodia was, that the people were relieved to be invaded by two harsh socialist nations.

During the next few years, researchers and historians were able to compile accounts of exactly how brutally the CPK had terrorized the people.

In 2008, two surviving senior leaders of the regime, Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan, were found guilty of genocide for their participation in the actions in Cambodia by a United Nations-backed tribunal.

Even decades after the atrocities which they committed, the CPK leaders spouted socialist rhetoric in their defense. Accused of genocide, they claimed that all their actions were done to promote socialism.

Did these men truly believe what they said? Or were they cynically deploying propaganda to defend themselves? An investigation of their private communications and personal lifestyles might shed light on these questions, but it may be impossible to get a definitive answer.

Nuon Chea, a Khmer Rouge leader and brother-in-law of Pol Pot, gave insight into the justification of the actions during their trial. “The CPK’s policy and plan were solely designed to one purpose only,” said Chea, “to liberate the country from the colonization, imperialism, exploitation, extreme poverty and invasion from neighboring countries.”

The CPK claimed that it wanted to liberate Cambodia from colonialism, as it has existed under the FRench, and from imperialism, as in Vietnam’s ambitions. But the Khmer Rouge inflicted far worse conditions on their own people than Cambodians ever suffered at the hands of the French or the Vietnamese.

“The CPK’s policy was clear and specific: it wanted to create an equal society where people were the master of the country … The CPK’s movement was not designed to kill people or destroy the country,” said Chea.

The Soviet Socialists and Vietnam jointly controlled the country from 1978 until 1992. Even though they imposed a brutal socialist occupational government, they were an improvement over the Khmer Rouge.

In 1993, the Cambodia’s king regained his throne, and a constitutional monarchy was organized.

China’s Brand of Nationalism

China has been a nation for centuries — millennia, even — but only recently has it come to be something like a nation-state. To investigate China’s move toward nationalism, it is first necessary to review the emergence and development of nationalism in Europe.

Nationalism has found a variety of homes over the centuries. Arising in Europe, it was originally a galvanizing resistance to Napoleon between 1800 and 1815: the bond of oppressed people against an invading oppressor.

In its next phase, nationalism was favored by political liberals, who saw it as the formation of an identity for the common people over against the aristocrats. The royal dynasties supported monarchies which were not necessary corresponding to the ethnic identities of their subjects.

This liberal nationalism saw itself as liberating and empowering people - Poland for the Poles, Russia for the Russians, Sweden for the Swedes, etc.

Metternich and the many of the nobles of Europe opposed this nationalism. Nationalism in this phase was opposed to the status quo, and was sometimes even seen as subversive or revolutionary.

That would change when nationalists obtained power.

In its third phases, nationalism ascendant gained power in many European countries, changing them from monarchies into nation-states. Once in power, nationalism became more authoritarian, moving further to the political left, skeptical of the free market.

Some consideration of vocabulary can clarify these notions of nationalism. A ‘nation’ is, for practical purposes, an ethnic group, bound by a common culture or language. A ‘state’ is a territory with a government. We can see that it is possible to be a state without being a nation, or to be a nation without being a state.

Poland between 1795 and 1919, for example, was a nation without a state. The Soviet Union, incorporating diverse groups like Estonians and Mongolians, was a state but not a nation.

When a country is both a nation and a state, we use the term ‘nation-state’ to describe it.

In its early phases, nationalism can be seen as a benign, and even healthy, patriotism: an affection for one’s native country and a cultural identity bonded to one’s fellow countrymen.

But an extreme nationalism emerged which would unleash evil and destruction.

As nationalism moved further into its third phase, its authoritarian disregard for the private sector increased. A malignant version of extreme nationalism glorified the state, moved to the extreme left of the political spectrum, and sacrificed the political, economic, and religious liberty of the individual.

This ‘national socialism’ endorsed the intervention of the government to regulate the economy and private life, and saw the individual as subservient to the state.

This dangerous form of nationalism is a value system: it asserts that the ultimate value is the existence, growth, and security of the nation-state. If that value is seen as ultimate, then logically other values can be sacrificed for it, including human life.

The word ‘Nazi’ is an abbreviation for ‘national socialism’ and embodied the idea that the government should not only regulate the individual, but should also provide for the individual - education, healthcare, etc. - thus making the individual into a creature of the state. The horrific atrocities which happened under the Nazis is the logical consequence of this type of ‘statism’ - a socialized and nationalized economy.

After 1945, central Europe learned to avoid this destructive form of nationalism, sometimes overreacting and also rejecting beneficial form mildly patriotic nationalism.

As nationalism developed through its good and evil phases in Europe, eastern Asia began to awaken to nationalism. Which forms would nationalism take in the Pacific Rim?

Mainland communist China presents as a nationalistic state: rejecting free-market capitalism for a state-capitalism, rejecting ideology for the simple guiding value of state power, and embracing a technocratic authoritarianism instead of a dynastic authority. Robert Kaplan writes:

The Chinese regime demonstrates a low-­calorie version of authoritarianism, with a capitalist economy and little governing ideology to speak of. Moreover, China is likely to become more open rather than closed as a society in future years. China’s leaders are competent engineers and regional governors, dedicated to an improving and balanced economy, who abide by mandatory retirement ages. These are not the decadent, calcified leaders of the Arab world who have been overthrown. Rather than fascism or militarism, China, along with every state in East Asia, is increasingly defined by the persistence, the rise even, of old-­fashioned nationalism: an idea, no doubt, but not one that since the mid-­nineteenth century has been attractive to liberal humanists.

Although founded as an ideological and doctrinaire Marxist state in 1949 by Mao, modern mainland China has drifted away from ideology as its main defining characteristic. While still in some sense socialist or communist, mainland China’s rulers have become more pragmatic than ideological.

Instead of an ideology, China seems to be running on a mixture of Machiavelli’s power politics and Bismarck’s Realpolitik. Whether or not one can call that mixture an ‘ideology’ is a question for those who define words precisely.

Nationalism in Europe during the 1800s denoted a moral community against imperial rule. Now the moral community for which intellectuals and journalists aspire is universal, encompassing all of humankind, so that nationalism, whose humanity is limited to a specific group, is viewed as reactionary almost. (This is partly why the media over the decades has been attracted to international organizations, be it the United Nations, the European Union, or NATO — ­because they offer a path beyond national sovereignty.) Yet, despite pan-­national groupings like ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations), it is traditional nationalism that mainly drives politics in Asia, and will continue to do so. And that nationalism is leading to the modernization of militaries — ­navies and air forces especially — ­in order to defend sovereignty, with which to make claims for disputed maritime resources.

Both the good forms and the evil forms of nationalism were born in Europe. Bit by bit, through contact with the British Empire, and through the ideas of European political thinkers, China adopted aspects of nationalism.

In the Chinese civil war, from 1927 to 1949, both sides were influenced by concepts of nationalism which had come into China through the writings of influential political philosophers, from John Locke to Karl Marx, from Edmund Burke to Vladimir Lenin. Chinese nationalism was, and is, never quite the same as its European cousins.

Concepts of ‘nation-state’ and ‘nationalism’ found slightly different forms when they were introduced into China from Europe. Why did these ideas take on somewhat different forms? The reasons are many and complex.

Traditional Chinese culture may not have emphasized individualism to the extent, or in the way, that John Locke’s Enlightenment thinking did, and so Lockean tropes like the “consent of the governed” and “majority rule” played out different in China than in Great Britain.

Obviously, Karl Marx played a large role in shaping China after 1927, and especially after 1949. Mao, in attempting to shape China in Marx’s image, faced the paradox — faced by leaders in other nations as well — that Marxist Communism demands internationalism, but these leaders found some amount of nationalism to be a necessary ingredient in persuading people to make the great sacrifices required to build the Marxist utopia. Although doctrinaire Communism requires a rejection of nationalism in favor of internationalism, reality required some amount of nationalist spirit to motivate people to sacrifice for the Communist cause: “do this for the good of your nation.”

It was also necessary for Mao to invent a slightly different version of the “nation” for his version of nationalism. While the nationalisms of Europe worked to preserve the cultures and ethnicities of the nations — a devotion to, and adoration of, Polish ethnic culture, German ethnic culture, Italian ethnic culture, etc. — Mao did not strictly preserve, but rather altered, aspects of Chinese culture, so that the ‘nation’ in his version of Chinese ‘nationalism’ wasn’t a cultural artifact received from previous generations.

Suffice it to say that, when speaking of ‘Chinese nationalism,’ it is worth noting that it is different from the nationalisms encountered in European history.

Understanding North Korea: Inside the Mind of an Oppressive Regime

In a diverse world, nations all around the globe can still agree that North Korea is both a mystery and a problem, and cannot be successfully addressed in the usual diplomatic ways. Any attempt to understand North Korea must begin with its history.

In 1910, Japan had seized Korea, made it into a possession of Japan, and placed occupational troops into Korea.

During the final days of WW2 in 1945, Soviet Socialist troops invaded the northern part of Korea and seized it for the USSR. A few weeks later, American troops liberated the southern part. When Japan surrendered and the war ended, Korea was divided, and the Soviets sealed the borders, effectively isolating the northern part both from the southern part and from the rest of the world.

The Soviet Socialists found Koreans who were communists and placed them into positions of authority, forming a Korean civilian government which would be to the liking of the USSR. The Soviets installed Kim Il-sung as the leader of this new government.

Kim Il-sung was born in Korea, probably around 1912. The details of his life are not entirely clear, because they have been re-written by propaganda artists many times. Circa 1920, his family fled from Korea. He became a fervent communist, and joined the Soviet army. The Soviet Socialists brought him back to Korea in 1945.

In August 1948, the Republic of Korea (ROK) was officially founded in the south. In September 1948, the government and a written constitution were ratified, and the People’s Democratic Republic of Korea (DPRK) was officially founded in the north.

Kim Il-sung continued and amplified the brutal totalitarianism which the Soviet Socialists had built in the north, as Doug Bandow explains:

Kim brutally consolidated power, initiated war, and enforced uniformity. His government targeted faith in anything other than the Communist party. After the Korean War, according to Yoon and Han, “religious organizations were completely dismantled in the wake of relentless religious suppression, leaving no room for self-regulating religious activities or collective resistance.” Over time, Kim’s personality cult became utterly suffocating, leaving no room for independent thought.

So it was that one of the world’s harshest tyrannies was started. Kim Il-sung ruled with an absolutism that made France’s Louis XIV seem mild by comparison.

A major goal of North Korea was to obtain nuclear weapons technology, and to build delivery systems for those weapons, i.e., long-range missiles. The DPRK became gradually alienated from its fellow socialist-communist states: neither China nor the USSR had close diplomatic relations with North Korea after the first decade or two of Kim’s rule.

When the USSR collapsed and disintegrated in 1990/1991, the DPRK’s relationship with the new Russia was even more distant. North Korea’s relationship to China cooled as China adopted a policy of economic engagement with more nations.

The various nations of the world, however strongly they might disagree with each other, were united in the thought that the isolated totalitarian North Korean regime should not have nuclear weapons. Many different countries cooperated to build a diplomatic network to persuade the DPRK to abandon its effort to obtain atomic bombs, as Robert Wampler writes:

In 1994, the United States received new intelligence that North Korea, despite its commitments to the International Atomic Energy Agency under the Nonproliferation Treaty, was moving to produce nuclear weapons. How to halt this program and secure IAEA inspection of North Korea’s nuclear facilities was the focus of intense but unfruitful negotiations during the first half of the year, and the potential failure of the talks led Washington to briefly contemplate military action. The crisis was only defused that summer, when former president Jimmy Carter engaged in personal diplomacy with North Korean leader Kim Il Sung.

Kim Il-sung died suddenly in 1994, and his son, Kim Jong-il, became the dictator in what amounts to a hereditary monarchy.

North Korean propaganda is so extreme that it is no exaggeration to say that Kim Il-sung has been transformed into a deity, and that the Kim family in general is understood to be divine.

By early 2001, U.S. National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice inherited America’s relationship with North Korea. It became her task to manage the relationship, and it was clear that results of the 1994 negotiations were at best tenuous. North Korea was bent on resuming its efforts to obtain nuclear weapons, as Rice explains:

The issue of North Korea, another rogue regime seeking weapons of mass destruction, came onto the agenda early as well. Days after the inauguration, South Korea requested a meeting for its president, Kim Dae-jung, with President Bush, forcing us to review where we stood on the North Korean issue.

During the campaign, we’d been critical of the Clinton administration’s Agreed Framework between the United States and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the North’s official name. After North Korea turned away weapons inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog group, and threatened to withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in 1993, the Clinton administration began on-and-off diplomatic negotiations with North Korea that would eventually last a year and a half and result in the 1994 Agreed Framework. Signed on October 21, 1994, the Agreed Framework aimed to eliminate North Korea’s ability to make nuclear arms. It called on North Korea to suspend the construction and operation of nuclear reactors suspected of being part of a covert nuclear weapons program in exchange for U.S. fuel aid and assistance in building two reactors that would not further North Korea’s ability to produce weapons. The two sides would then move toward full normalization of political and economic relations.

Starting in early 2001, then, the North Korean nuclear weapons program was a major concern for the U.S. government. It had been a concern prior to that, but had not been taken perhaps as seriously.

In 2003, a group of nations — North Korea, South Korea, Japan, China, Russia, and the United States — formed a conference known as the “Six-Party Talks” which would continue to negotiate with, and put pressure on, North Korea in an attempt to get the DPRK to abandon its nuclear weapons program.

The Six-Party Talks continued until 2007.

In January 2006, Condoleezza Rice became Secretary of State. The North Koreans were working not only on developing atomic weapons, but also on developing long-range missiles with which to deliver those weapons. Condoleezza Rice was not the only person working on the North Korean situation. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld recalls what happened in July 2006:

I was expecting fireworks on Independence Day, but not at 2:30 in the afternoon and not from a despot in North Korea. The multistage Taepo-Dong 2 missile had been on its pad in the northeast corner of the ironically named Democratic People’s Republic of Korea for several days. Overhead reconnaissance indicated it was being fueled and possibly prepared for ignition. Smaller, medium-range missiles were in place at other launch sites. We couldn’t be sure where any of them were aimed, when they might be launched, what types of warheads they were equipped with, or exactly how far they could go. Military and intelligence officials judged Alaska and Hawaii to be almost certainly within striking distance of North Korea’s long-range ballistic missiles.

By October 2006, North Korea had built its first atomic bomb. Nations around the world, but especially the nations of the northwest Pacific, now faced the troubling situation of an autocratic dictatorship in possession of nuclear weapons.

In the wake of the DPRK’s acquisition of nuclear weapons, the Six-Party Talks worked to persuade North Korea to stop its weapons program. President George W. Bush recalls the time period of late 2006 and early 2007:

With support from all partners in the Six-Party Talks, the UN Security Council unanimously adopted Resolution 1718. The resolution imposed the toughest sanctions on North Korea since the end of the Korean War. The United States also tightened our sanctions on the North Korean banking system and sought to deny Kim Jong-il his precious luxury goods.

The pressure worked. In February 2007, North Korea agreed to shut down its main nuclear reactor and allow UN inspectors back into the country to verify its actions. In exchange, we and our Six-Party partners provided energy aid, and the United States agreed to remove North Korea from our list of state sponsors of terror. In June 2008, North Korea blew up the cooling tower at Yongbyon on international television. In this case, no further verification was necessary.

As it turned out, the structure that the North Koreans destroyed, allegedly as a “gesture of good” faith to convince the world that they were serious about ending their weapons program, was an outdated bit of old technology, and did not constitute a significant reduction in the DPRK’s nuclear efforts.

After North Korea’s nice-sounding words, there was debate within the U.S. government. Steve Hadley had become National Security Advisor when Condoleezza Rice left that post to become Secretary of State. Alongside Vice President Richard “Dick” Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Hadley debated various potential approaches to North Korean diplomacy with President Bush and Secretary Rice.

There was not always unanimity. One option was to reward the North Korean government for its statements — even if the actions which accompanied those statements were meaningless — by removing it from the list of state sponsors of terrorism.

But others in the government favored tougher actions against Pyongyang, the capital of North Korea, including economic sanctions. Vice President Cheney recalls:

As the October 9, 2008 meeting was drawing to a close, Steve Hadley tried to restore some orderliness to how we were proceeding. “Condi,” he began, “there are some questions that have to be answered here before we can go ahead.” One option we discussed was sending Chris Hill back to Pyongyang to get written assurances. If this agreement was so important, and if Secretary Rice was so confident in the North Korean assurances, why not get a proper agreement? She did not want to do that. And, it turned out, she didn’t have to.

The next day, October 10, 2008, I got word that the president had agreed to allow Secretary Rice to sign the document removing North Korea from the terrorist list, which she did on October 11. It was a sad moment because it seemed to be a repudiation of the Bush Doctrine and a reversal of so much of what we had accomplished in the area of non-proliferation in the first term. The president had been right when he had denounced the failed approach of the Clinton era. Now we seemed to be embracing it.

Kim Jong-il died in 2011, at which point in time the third generation in the person of Kim Jong-un took power.

The grandson of Kim Il-sung, the third ruler of North Korea was perhaps even more extreme than his two predecessors. He had been raised in the mythology of the divine Kim dynasty, and his grasp on reality is questionable.

It is difficult to know whether or not Kim Jong-un truly believes in his own divinity. But it is certain that he is quite casual about imposing enormous burdens on an entire nation, merely to see to it that his whims are satisfied and his ego inflated. He is in the habit of commanding, without any hesitation, the murder of individuals or groups of people.

Nations around the world simply don’t often know how to deal with Kim Jong-un and the questionable status of his mental health. For many different countries, diplomacy with North Korea has settled into a pattern of crises, which Kim provokes at regular intervals by demonstrating or testing missiles or atomic bombs.

By April 2013, Robert Wampler could write, “as the United States faces yet another crisis on the Korean Peninsula engineered by the vexingly erratic and disruptive North Korean regime,” one of the considerations was how China would play into the situation. China is certainly not an ally or friend of the DPRK, but it has probably the least problematic relations with North Korea of any country in the region.

In 2013, and again in later years, one question was: To which extent would China engage or intervene to persuade the DPRK to dial back its weapons programs?

Not for the sake of the United States, or the United Nations, but for its own sake, the Chinese government does not want a bellicose and armed North Korea destabilizing the region.

A second question was: How do concerns about human rights violations in the DPRK affect concerns about nuclear weapons? Some diplomats favored an indirect approach, arguing that if international pressure were brought to bear, and if in response the North Korean government began to allow some amount of human rights to its subjects, then the question about nuclear weapons might answer itself.

If the people of North Korea were given even a small amount of freedom, then they might begin to change the mental landscape of the nation, and slowly nudge the country away from the habit of saber-rattling. Frank Jannuzi wrote in April 2013:

As John Kerry makes his first trip to Asia as secretary of state, North Korea seems poised to welcome him with a flurry of missile tests, and in Seoul, Beijing, and Tokyo, he will surely discuss how to deal with North Korea’s recent provocations. But Washington’s head-on approach to Pyongyang’s nuclear program has failed for decades, and the situation has only grown more dangerous, as shown by the new reports that North Korea may have developed a warhead small enough to fit on a ballistic missile. The best way to resolve the ongoing nuclear crisis is to stop talking about nukes — and instead focus on advancing North Korean human rights, reorienting global attention from the North’s plutonium to its people.

The egregious human rights violations which North Korea inflicts on its own citizens are paired with a brutal lack of economic opportunity. Those born into poverty in the DPRK will stay in poverty. Those born into wealth, if they are not murdered by Kim Jong-un in a fit of rage, will continue to enjoy a life of luxury.

In Pyongyang, a visitor will observe restaurants of the highest caliber: five-star establishments rivalling those of New York, Chicago, or St. Louis. North Korea is not the only poverty-stricken communist dictatorship to feature such elegant dining establishments, in contrast to its millions of starving or malnourished citizens.

In the past, the USSR featured such classy eating establishments, as has Cuba. But there is a difference: the USSR and Cuba had or have such expensive opulent eateries in order to persuade visiting foreigners to spend money. In Moscow and Havana, such dining was a way to generate income for the state-run economy.

But, as Edward Luttwak explained in April 2013,

But Pyongyang’s ultraprime eateries are not that. A few foreign tourists end up dining there by way of relief from grim hotel canteens, along with a handful of humanity-loving NGO workers (who never miss out on luxuries and thus frequent these places), but both groups are simply too small to matter. Most customers are North Koreans who fall into two entirely distinct classes. First: anxious, pinched, and pallid men (rarely women) in standard blue North Korean suits, visibly excited by the heady foreign luxuries on offer — members of midranking delegations from near or far that have wrangled or won access. The second class is the much better-dressed, better-fed singles and couples nonchalantly eating and drinking as if real coffee were an everyday pleasure for them. These are the likely parents of the children seen enjoying Pyongyang’s splendidly polychrome merry-go-round expensively imported from Italy. (And this being the land of the portly Kim Jong Un, these children of the rich and privileged are apple-cheeked and distinctly chubby in a land where most children are visibly underweight.) No, these nonchalant eaters are not the winners of the capitalist free-for-all, entrepreneurs, top corporate professionals, or sports stars; they’re high-ranking officials or military officers and their families, who support the Kim dynasty and win the perks of his favor.

Not only are the lives of ordinary North Koreans made miserable by bitter poverty, not only is this poverty made more painful by the sight of unobtainable wealth and luxury in their country, but they also deal with the harshest oppression on the globe.

People who are thought to harbor political opinions deviating from the official DPRK line are routinely placed into political prison camps. In these camps, nearly half of the prisoners die of starvation.

A final degradation inflicted onto the North Koreans is a lack of any religious freedom. All citizens are forced to worship the Kim family and Kim Jong-un in particular. Any religious activities not centered around the Kim dynasty are met with brutality, as Doug Bandow reported in August 2019:

Religious liberty is not just an abstract, theoretical right. Real people suffer as a result of persecution. “According to the outcome of an intensive survey on the level of punishment against those involved in religious activities, only 2.9 percent of those arrested are sent to labor training camps,” Yoon and Han report. By contrast, 14.9 percent are sent to prisons and an astonishing 81.4 percent to political prisons camps, the harshest level of punishment in North Korean society. This testifies how severely the regime punishes those involved in religious activities.”

Given the mental state of Kim Jong-un, and given the appalling barbarism with which the DPRK treats its own citizens, how can the other nations of the world interact effectively with North Korea?

Any approach will be complex, but two clues have emerged: China can be part of the solution, and the solution must include for the ordinary North Koreans some increase in personal political liberty and individual freedom.

When Spain Was Almost Annihilated: The Invasion of 711 A.D.

Spanish history rounded a gigantic turning point in the year 711 A.D., when Muslim armies landed on the beaches of southern Spain. The Umayyad conquest would terrorize almost all of Spain. Only in the northwesternmost corner of Spain did resistance hold out against the invaders.

The Islamic armies burned entire villages to the ground, and sold captured Spanish children into slavery. Spanish women were raped and enslaved, and Spanish men were executed or enslaved.

Who were the Spaniards in 711 A.D.? Until that year, a colorful diversity of people lived in peaceful coexistence on the Iberian Peninsula: Native Spaniards, who were mainly Celts; a few descendants of the Roman settlers who’d moved into the area centuries earlier; Jews of mideastern descent; and Visigoths, Germanic administrators who’d helped create a more complex urban society there.

All of these various groups would suffer under the military occupation which would control most of Spain for the next few centuries.

As historian Dario Fernandez-Morera explains, “Spain was conquered and colonized by the forces of the Islamic Caliphate” in 711 A.D., starting from the southernmost point of Spain, advancing northward, and spreading east and west. “The conquest was carried out by force.”

How did most of Spain fall so quickly and so easily? “The Muslim conquerors used force to defeat the resistance of the Christian Visigoth kingdom, a nascent civilization.” Spain’s government was too new to offer strong resistance; it was still in the process of formation.

The Spaniards who were not executed or enslaved had the option of “living in subaltern status in Islamic lands.” Such humiliation was more tolerable than facing “the consequences of resisting.” But even for those who chose to submit to the occupying Muslim armies, there “was always the threat of brutal force.”

After 711 A.D., Spain endured several centuries of “religious and therefore cultural repression in all areas of life and the marginalization of certain groups - all this in the service of social control by autocratic rulers and a class of religious authorities.” Islam oppressed and nearly extinguished Judaism, Christianity, and anything else in Spain that might not fit into the narrow confines of Sharia law.

It seemed as if Spain might be gone forever: as if its people and culture would be ground into the dirt under the marching boots of Muslim soldiers. But in northwestern Spain, a few brave resisters held out, and fought back over the next few centuries. They salvaged Spain. It is their magnificent achievement that today there is a Spain at all.

National Identity, and the Lack Thereof, in Central Europe: Cultural Excellence Does Not Entail Political Unification

The general pattern of history reveals that the concept of the modern nation-state emerged first in western Europe. Central Europe, which produced cultural attainments both in the fine arts and in the natural sciences — to say nothing of economics and pure mathematics — lagged noticeably behind western Europe in the formation of the nation-state.

Perhaps one reason for this delay was the heritage of the Holy Roman Empire. This loose coalition of central European kingdoms arose during the 800s and 900s in an ad hoc fashion to meet a need for defensive coordination.

As the old joke explains, the Holy Roman Empire was not Holy, not Roman, and not an Empire. It was secular, organized for the purpose of defending Europe against various waves of Islamic invaders. It was Germanic, not Roman. It was not an empire, but rather a confederation whose emperor was an emperor in title only. The Holy Roman Emperor had to beg rather than dictate. He was sometimes reduced to shuttling back and forth between various kings and princes in an attempt to get them to unify around some plan.

So it was that in central Europe, in contrast to western Europe and to England, that the smaller local kingdoms and principalities retained more power, and efforts to create a centralized government over a larger territory were not fruitful.

The modern and postmodern reader should not retroject any concept of ‘Germany’ onto Europe prior to 1871. ‘German’ denoted, at most, a language and culture, but not a political or governmental unity. Indeed, the Germans were as likely to fight with each other as to ally with each other.

Even the commonalities of language and culture were tenuous. The regional differences in vocabulary and pronunciation meant that the dialects spoken in northern cities like Hamburg and Bremen were largely unintelligible to the southern cities like Salzburg and Innsbruck.

This is in sharp contrast to the degree of national unity which was reached, e.g., in England, where the residents of Manchester and the residents of London understood themselves to be part of the same nation, as historian William Hagen writes:

In 1789 the German-speaking lands were, with few exceptions, encompassed within a sprawling geopolitical entity antiquatedly named the The Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation. They were, strange as it may seem, divided into some three hundred and twenty-five separate principalities.

If the Germans lacked political and national unity, then they also lacked leaders to whom they could commonly pledge allegiance. The habits of the Empire meant that dozens of local dynasties had a greater impact on daily life than the one imperial dynasty. These many regional dynasties naturally worked to keep the emperor and his royal family irrelevant.

Comparing Germany with France, England, or Spain, the question arises: why did the medieval and early modern German lands not evolve, as these and many other European countries did, from the condition of a loosely strung together medical feudal kingdom into a stoutly forged centralized “national monarchy,” such as that of France’s mighty Louis XIV, the seventeenth-century “Sun King”? Premodern monarchies on the French or British model created unitary frameworks for subsequent political democratization, such as preliminarily began in England with the Puritan and Glorious revolutions of the seventeenth century and in France with the revolution of 1789.

The lack of centralized power did not seem to harm the Germans: it was during these centuries that they produced the great cultural artifacts which are universally acknowledged and admired.

Decades before there was a territory on the map called ‘Germany,’ Beethoven, whose music was chosen to represent all of Europe as the anthem of the EU, composed his works.

The long list of poets, mathematicians, composers, painters, architects, physicists, chemists, and philosophers who constitute not only Germany’s great achievements, but rather also humanity’s great achievements — many of them, if not most, lived at a time when there was no Germany.

Consider: Wolfgang Mozart, J.S. Bach, Johann Walter, Caspar David Friedrich, G.W. Leibniz, Immanuel Kant, Arthur Schopenhauer, G.W.F. Hegel, Albrecht Dürer, Matthias Grünewald, Lucas Cranach the Elder, Lucas Cranach the Younger, Hans Cranach, Augustin Cranach, Hans Holbein the Elder, Hans Holbein the Younger, and many others.

Perhaps the Germans were at their best without Germany. The lack of a nation-state did not harm them, and perhaps even helped them.

But the lack of a German nation-state was a problem for the rest of the world. German culture and German political influence spread slower, and didn’t spread as far as they might otherwise have, because there was no overarching nation-state until 1871.

In Africa, in South America, and in southeast Asia, German colonization was microscopic compared to the geopolitical impact of England, France, Belgium, and other European nations.

Those regions of the world were denied advancements in culture, technology, and natural sciences. The Germans were productive and creative without a nation-state. But because the German nation-state emerged late and then was hobbled for much of the twentieth century, the rest of the world was unable to realize much of its potential.