THE EMERGENCE OF JUCHE IDEOLOGY IN NORTH KOREA: FROM SELF-RELIANCE PRINCIPLE TO A THREAT FOR REGIONAL AND GLOBAL STABILITY

Abstract

Juche ideology is an instrument that the Kim dynasty has very effectively used to legitimize its absolute power and aggressive stance over the decades. The ideology plays two important roles in ensuring that the regime is holding the country. Juche, generally translated as self-reliance, is the fundamental state ideology of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), which affected its political, economic, and military course of history since the mid-20th century. This paper used an historical account of the emergence of Juche in history, starting with the original concept developed by Kim Il Sung, in his 1955 speech On “Eliminating Dogmatism and Formalism” and Establishing Juche in Ideological Work, where it was used as a critique of ideological reliance on the outside world and as a demand to Koreans the adaptation of Marxism-Leninism in the reconstruction and the Sino-Soviet wars that followed the Korean War. In later decades, Juche under Kim Il-sung developed into a logical theory which highlighted three aspects: political independence, economic self-sufficiency, military self-defense, which was based on the Marxist-Leninist foundations, the influences of Maoism and the long history of Korea as the land of resistance against the foreign domination. In the 1970s with the rule of Kim Jong Il, it had been pronounced a separate ideology independent of orthodox Marxism-Leninism, with a stronger focus on the personality cult of the Kim dynasty, and future expectations of human control over fate and unquestioning obedience to the leadership. The study assumes a qualitative approach to research design to investigate how the Juche ideology of North Korea emerged historically, developed ideologically, and influenced the country theologically in terms of security.