Earlier this
week, I stumbled upon a collection of declassified telegrams listed on an
archive. A large sum of the articles I found dealt with the economic statuses
of the DPRK. These documents frequently contained scripts and legers detailing the
transactions of goods such as precious metals and ores. One such document
covers the trade of gold, silver and monazite (composite of radioactive metals)
in exchange for military technical equipment. There were an abundant number of
transactions similar to this that occurred over a short span of time. Most
often, these trades involved exchanging a valuable resource for some military
unit; these could range from something as tactile as a tank, to something more
obscure like pilot training. Despite the type of unit being traded though, it
was apparent that much emphasis was placed on the acquisition of military
goods.
Being a country of limited resources, and especially one short of arable land, the importance placed on obtaining military goods seemed incredibly unfounded (Stalin himself even suggests that Il-Sung should devote more resources to cultivating farm land within the state); not to mention the heavy reliance on the Soviet Union overall. These factors most likely played a key role in the basis of economic collapse for the DPRK.
As part of my paper, I think it will be interesting to see the effects of this resource squandering. Additionally, I’m also beginning to investigate how these messages were conveyed to the public during economic hardship.
Being a country of limited resources, and especially one short of arable land, the importance placed on obtaining military goods seemed incredibly unfounded (Stalin himself even suggests that Il-Sung should devote more resources to cultivating farm land within the state); not to mention the heavy reliance on the Soviet Union overall. These factors most likely played a key role in the basis of economic collapse for the DPRK.
As part of my paper, I think it will be interesting to see the effects of this resource squandering. Additionally, I’m also beginning to investigate how these messages were conveyed to the public during economic hardship.
How do you see this relating to Kim's political imagery specially?
ReplyDeleteIn this instance, Kim is foregoing the economic development of his country to pursue illusions of grandeur. He is giving up resources for military gains. These could be better spent, as Stalin points out himself, on establishing infrastructure. Kim is heavily focused on an issue that is quite frankly, at this point anyways, out of reach. In my opinion, this depicts Kim as someone hyper-focused on asserting dominance, whereas he could be taking more of a defensive approach and reallocating the additional resources for economic growth.
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ReplyDeleteGood. It's great when you get that first-hand input to help guide you--only a telegram separates you the past!
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