The North Korean model: Gaps and questions
Abstract North Korea has articulated a comprehensive strategy for economic, political, military, ideological and cultural independence, with sustained high growth ( juche ). Self-reliance, not self-sufficiency, is the stated goal and has been achieved to a high degree, especially in food, machines-tools and energy, in spite of the country having no oil. The political system is highly authoritarian and male-dominated, with special emphasis on the cult of Kim II Sung. The regime is highly secretive and information is unsystematic. There are exceptional methodological problems in evaluating the evidence. Korea is probably the most successful economy in any post-revolutionary society, but the relationship between authoritarian politics (in extreme isolation) and social and economic achievement is obscure. Important lessons can e learnt from the Korean ‘model’ but the problem is how to learn them.
Land Reform, Collectivisation and the Peasants in North Korea
In a speech delivered at the rally commemorating the fifteenth anniversary of the liberation of Korea, the North Korean Premier announced that the peasants in North Korea were now the owners of large-scale collectivised farms and that they had the firm technical foundation for bumper crops every year without strenuous efforts. He declared: “This is the beginning of a world for our farm villages.” Another spokesman of the North Korean regime has stated: “It is easy (or good) to work and enjoyable to live in the co-operativised North Korean farms. There is a bumper crop every year in the constantly changing collectivised fields and the peasants' work and living are literally song and dances.”
Fascism and the right in Europe, 1919-1945
This new text places interwar European fascism squarely in its historical context and analyses its relationship with other right wing, authoritarian movements and regimes. Beginning with the ideological roots of fascism in pre-1914 Europe, Martin Blinkhorn turns to the problem-torn Europe of 1919 to 1939 in order to explain why fascism emerged and why, in some settings, it flourished while in others it did not. In doing so he considers not just the 'major' fascist movements and regimes of Italy and Germany but the entire range of fascist and authoritarian ideas, movements and regimes present in the Europe of 1919-1945.