Memes

There are a couple different ways we could look at this.

Institutionally, there has been a general trend towards diffusion of power. Kim Il Sung was President, which like in the US, meant he was head of state, head of government, and commander in chief of the armed forces. After his death, those positions were split between multiple people.

From Wikipedia:

The functions and powers previously belonging to the president were divided between numerous officials:

The premier of North Korea;

the chairman of the Supreme People's Assembly, chairman of the Standing Committee of the Supreme People's Assembly;

and the head of the military, the chairman of the National Defence Commission (replaced by State Affairs Commission of North Korea) and supreme commander of the Korean People's Army.

These positions are currently held by Pak Thae-song, Choe Ryong-hae, and Kim Jong Un respectively.

[Reformatted for better legibility on Lemmy]

On the other hand, I would definitely consider the personality cult around the Kims to be a troublesome aspect of the DPRK's political culture, and I don't think there's really any way around that.

The reason it developed historically, however, is worth exploring. Prior to the Korean war, the Fatherland Front which made up the Revolution post WW2, was incredibly vibrant, with lots of parties and social cleavages outside of the Workers party being represented. After the Korean war, however, election results show a major rallying around the Workers Party, and the sidelining of other parties and organizations in the Fatherland Front.

The Korean war never truly ended, the US bombed the Korean peninsula so much that pilots complained there were no more targets, and people took to living in caves. So it's understandable why, despite ostensible attempts at diffusing power, that it's managed to centralize regardless. There's a historic desire for stability in the face of incredible adversity.

If we want to get really in the weeds about political economy, the DPRK's economic base is made up primarily of extractive industries, like mining, because the Korean peninsula's bread basket is in the south, and countries with primarily extractive industries tend to develop noted centralized power structures, compared to countries with more diverse productive industries.

So a Socialist country like Cuba, which has a more agricultural economy, allowed it to develop a more diverse economy, and thus it has a healthier political culture, by contrast.

All of that said, whatever qualms of critiques of the DPRK I may have, they had a Socialist Revolution, and have kept it going, which is more than I can say as a Socialist in the US.

And I think, if we care about the people of the Korean peninsula, we should want a formal end to the Korean war, a dismantling of the DMZ, an end to the US military presence and sanctions, and an internationally mediated set of talks between north and south, about what their future together might look like.

Those things would, I suspect, go a long way in helping establishing a healthier political culture in the DPRK, as well as dignified material benefits to its people, free from arbitrary restrictions