The Korean people is longing for reunification
It seems to be strange: There is a people struggling for decades for the reunification of their country, and the international media keeps silent. It is the Korean people. Since the division of the country imposed by the US in 1953, the majority of the Korean people desire the peaceful reunification. In South Korea a fascist dictatorship was established to oppress this desire. Tens of thousands of people have been arrested, hundreds of thousands have been attacked with police batons and tear gas. Many people have died for this desire. A wall has been drawn through Korea from seaside to seaside. This wall is more cruel and even more perfect than the Berlin Wall. It is guarded perfectly. It was constructed by the government of South Korea and US imperialism. No one is allowed to go to North Korea and no one is allowed to travel from the North to the South. At this wall often shots are heard - coming from the South. Only with this brutal wall the South and US imperialism could oppress the desire for reunification and the desire to visit relatives. Those who need such a wall must have a lot of fear. When people were shot down at the Berlin Wall, when people from the German Democratic Republic (GDR) were hindered to travel to the German Federal Republic, this was pilloried as an injustice by the media. And this was right, as we think. Because our party, the KPD, had rejected this wall, which was only built against its own people. The wall in Korea, built by the dictatorship in the South and by US imperialism is much worse, higher, merciless and bloody.
For which side the hearts of the Korean people are beating, you can see by the behaviour of the Koreans in foreign countries. They are not under the pressure of the dictatorship which depends on US imperialism, and they are not under the influence of the government in the North. They can decide freely. Above all, thousands of Koreans live in Japan, who were taken there as slaves during the Second World War. About 90 per cent of them support the North, the Peoples Republic of Korea, which is annoying the Japanese government and US imperialism. They travel to the North for visits; they have contacts with their families; and they send money to the North. Japan has many times tried to find ways of hindering these activities.
Why do the majority of the Koreans support the reunification and have a positive attitude towards the Peoples Republic?
Well, the choice is simple: the South suffers under a bloody dictatorship. Only a short time ago, many people all over the world saw how the students who only expressed their desire for reunification were driven out of the university by brutal police attacks. At the same time, hundreds of students and youth from North Korea were prevented by brutal violence from travelling to the South. When thousands of citizens from the GDR were hindered to travel to West Germany, there were international protests - and this was right, as we think. Now, when people from North Korea are being hindered violently by the dictatorship in the South to travel to the South, the media accepts this and keeps silent.

The dictatorship in the South
Particularly the workers and the lower strata in the South have no social insurance, no medical care etc. Free trade unions and collective bargaining are not allowed - there exist only some trade unions created by the capitalists. Strikes are beaten down by police and military. The country is a colony of US imperialism. The dictatorship has to hold down the people and the wages; the US monopolies exploit the country. And the German imperialism wants to take part in this.

The independent development in the North
On the other side, the North, the Peoples Republic, developed the economy and the society after the liberation from the Japanese imperialism, and afterwards from the US imperialism. In the beginning with the support of the socialist Soviet Union and the liberated China, and later relying on its own forces, the North succeeded in developing its own independent national industry. Agriculture too was developed collectively. Great projects like irrigation and melioration were realised in this way. In the social sector all people received an education which was improved continually. Culture was developed in accordance with the development of the country. Free medical care was introduced. The right to work is a matter of course. Social security like pensions was guaranteed. This was a clear and noticeable progress for the people. And the Koreans in the whole world could see the difference between the independent, national development of the economy and society in the North and the development dictated by imperialism in the South.
There is a significant difference to the situation in Germany: West Germany was in the beginning a little partner of US imperialism; later on it became itself an imperialistic power. By this it could take advantage from the exploitation of foreign countries and could give some privileges to the working class (for example cheap imported goods, cheap travel to foreign countries, etc.). West Germany was able give to the working class a better living standard than the GDR; in the beginning to some extent, later more and more. Korea was always an exploited country under the hegemony of imperialism. There was nothing to give privileges to the working class. The country was plundered, and for the masses there was only poverty. With the liberation from imperialism the North has put an end to this exploitation. Only this made the progress in the social sector possible.

Isn't that socialism?
Work, livelihood, education, social security for all - these are very important attributes of socialism, when it is put into practice correctly. But these are not the only attributes of socialism! Socialism is more than this! The most important attributes of socialism are the dominance of the working class and the struggle for a classless society. It is possible to make compromises and that there are shortcomings, but in essence, the workers must have the power and their interests must rule the life of the country. In essence, the struggle for a classless society, communism, must be noticeable. This characteristic was and is not fulfilled in the Peoples Republic of Korea! The ruling party in North Korea calls itself the Party of the Working People and pretends to build socialism in its specific way.
We have criticised the ideology of this party four years ago in the theoretical organ of the KPD, "Weg der Partei", with the title "Juche ideology of the North Korean leadership: Incompatible with Marxism-Leninism". We want to summarise this article once again.
The leadership of the Party of the Working People claims to be Marxist-Leninist. But at the same time, they declare Marxism-Leninism to be insufficient and they "complete" it with the Juche ideology of the dead Kim Il Sung."The classics of Marxism-Leninism ... defined the nature of men as an ensemble of social conditions". (Kim Jong Il, On Juche ideology, Pyongyang, 1989, German edition, p.2) In contrast to this, they assert, the Juche idea "considers the position of men and the role he has in the world as the principal question of philosophy, and it has created the principle that man is the master of the whole nature and decides everything." (ibid., p.2). So man is no longer "chained" to the social conditions, but in the contrary he is free and "master of the whole nature". Kim Jong Il has the idea that this is a newly-created concept by Juche ideology. To us this idea does not seem to be very new. It originates from the time before Marx. It is an idea of the bourgeoisie, who saw itself as the "master of the whole nature". Such ideological additions to Marxism are not new either. We remember that Professor Dühring put about all the free volition of men. And Engels had refuted this 100 years ago. Especially today, in a period of crisis of the workers' movement and of a temporary retreat, such "holy ideologies" appear, which want to "renew" Marxism and convince the individual that everything depends on his own will. In Germany for example, the Maoist MLPD developed the theory that the petty bourgeois, respectively the proletarian consciousness decides everything. Its closeness to Juche ideology is obvious. All these ideologies have one thing in common: You need an instance, the leaders, who can decide about the "correct" consciousness. "The essence of Juche ideology about revolution is the loyalty to the party and to the leader" (Kim Jong Il, ibid., p.77). "In daily life we feel deeply that the ideas and the intentions corresponding with the respective actions of the leader are of high conscience and are moral, because the leader represents ideally the demands and the interests of the masses. Because of this, one calls the loyalty to the leader the highest expression of communist morality." (Ibid., p.193)
But this is clearly no communist morality! Communists have a clear programme and clear aims. All actions can be assessed by this. Cult of the leader is contrary to these aims. Especially this is what the communists want to overcome. And when social relations of power are still necessary they want to overcome this. But in the quote of Kim Jong Il, nothing is said about this or about the temporary necessity of it and the necessity to overcome it. He praises and wants to establish the everlasting rule of men over men. What else is the "loyalty towards the leader"?
Clearly Juche ideology is not the ideology of emancipation, but the ideology of a ruling class who wants to remain in power. Unfortunately, we do not have the means to investigate deeply the economic and social conditions in North Korea. But it is clear that every idea - as well the Juche ideology - has its roots in the class relations.
Korea was liberated at a time when socialism was strong and had a great attraction for the peoples. In consequence of this strength and the success of socialism a lot of leaders of national liberation movements called themselves "socialists", though they were not, but they were close to the national bourgeoisie. We cannot criticise them because of this. Often they were convinced of their way. Anyway they desired a positive development by their liberation struggle and sometimes they reached their aims. We remember the liberation struggle in Algeria, in Palestine or in Nicaragua. The removal of the colonial oppression, the liberation from imperialism was a necessary step and was for the benefit of the respective peoples. The strength of socialism often forced the national leaders of the liberation struggles to promise social progress and to realise it in the case of victory to mobilise the masses for the struggle against imperialism.
But social progress, even when it is great, is not "socialism" when it is not connected with the struggle to advance to communism and with the power of the working class. In Korea, it seems that under the special conditions of support by the Soviet Union under Stalin and of being close to the liberated China, such a national, independent from imperialism, system with a national-revolutionary strata at the top came into being. This strata was forced, in the struggle against the permanent and great threat of imperialism, to give a lot of social progress to the people. Because without the support of the masses this system would not be able to survive. And from the beginning it was clear that this was a life-and-death struggle. This is because US imperialism till now has murdered or organised to murder all national revolutionaries, even when they were bourgeois. You may take the example of the bourgeois-national "socialist" Allende. For such forces there nearly exists no possibility of a peaceful agreement with imperialism, because imperialism hates and persecutes any kind of liberation as mortal sin. You must be ready to accept any humiliation like Arafat and make yourself to be a sheriff of imperialism to come to a "peaceful" agreement for which the people has to pay. In the critical situation in Korea, with the bloody fascist dictatorship in the South this never was possible. So the curious situation appeared, where the system in North Korea could develop, which has, on the one side, the character of feudalism (for example the heredity of power from the father to the son), and on the other, some characteristics of socialism (for example the right to work, social rights). Though this is no socialism, it has brought progress and options to the people, which were impossible in the South under the rule of US imperialism and the cruel dictatorship. The independence from imperialism and the independent economic development, this proves North Korea, make possible the development of national economy and social progress for many small countries, because imperialism gives them no chance of development.
Meanwhile, the North Korean leadership has made a lot of compromises with imperialism. Even a socialist country would have been forced under the changed conditions in the world to make compromises. But it is shown clearly that the ruling national strata in Korea is not principally against exploitation: they create "special industrial zones" for foreign capital. This is not astonishing with a national strata. National bourgeoisie always staggers in national liberation struggle and is ready for compromises and even betrayal. We do not criticise the North Korean leadership because of this attitude. But we state that this is in line with their class interests and that they do not act in the interest of the working people as they pretend with their party's name.
We as communists do not assess anyone by his words but by his deeds and by the reality. If there anyone calls himself "socialist", we are not forced to parrot this. But even when we refuse the ideology of leaders of the North Korean leadership and their way of compromises with imperialism, we see the reality and the progress that their system has brought to the people. Therefore we reject all attempts of imperialism to overthrow this system and to spread his claws all over Korea. We defend the right of the Korean people to reunification, to independence, and to handle their lives in their own way. Therefore we are in solidarity with all anti-imperialistic efforts in Korea.

The Pyongyang Declaration
About four years ago, the Party of the Working People of Korea gathered a lot of parties which call themselves socialist, communist or Marxist-Leninist in Pyongyang for a meeting. Most of these parties came from the national liberation movement and were to some extent social democrats and to some extent revisionists. Together with these parties, the Party of the Working People of Korea announced the "Pyongyang Declaration" with a call to defend "socialism". In the resolution it was not declared which "socialism" was meant. But it seems obvious that it is this strange half-feudal "socialism" in North Korea, which is no socialism but an anti-imperialist, bourgeois society with specific characteristics. In the declaration they regret the setbacks of socialism and call to continue to fight for socialism. This sounds well. As to the cause for all the setbacks, their argument is poor: "One of the causes for the unsuccessful construction of socialism in some countries is that they did not succeed in creating social structures to fulfil the needs of the popular masses and that they did not build socialism according to the theory of scientific socialism." These are only phrases! In Soviet Union the social structures to fulfil the basic needs were already created in the 1920s and 30s. These structures were destroyed! And even if this false thesis would be true, every Marxist-Leninist, every materialist has to pose the question: Why? Why were these structures not built? And the argument that the scientific theory of socialism was not applied, is not an explanation but only an appearance on the surface! To hear such explanation form Korea, from the Party of the Working People is not astonishing to us. A party which is not Marxist-Leninist, which is following the idealistic Juche ideology, cannot work out a materialistic explanation of the failure of socialism, and cannot really call for the defence of socialism. This party needs support for its anti-imperialist struggle, for the struggle to survive against US imperialism and the dictatorship in the South. This is all right! They must receive this support, but not by accepting their ideology and their concept of "socialism".
But it seems strange to us that some Marxist-Leninist fraternal parties signed this declaration one after the other. They say this would be solidarity with the People's Republic of Korea and with the Party of the Working People. Meanwhile, some of them went even further to call North Korea a "socialist country". How the veiling of the reality, an absurd "socialist" masquerade, the signing of phrases can be "solidarity"? Solidarity with Korea in the fight for reunification and for national self-determination -of course! But because of this speak of "socialism" or sign a declaration "for socialism" together with North Koreans? Making themselves ridiculous in front of the progressive workers? No, thank you! We think that this does not only pose the danger of putting the Marxist-Leninists in a ridiculous position in front of the progressive workers. It also melts Marxism-Leninism with different, curious, and sectarian trends, and at the end gives it up.
After the collapse of the degenerated states of Eastern Europe and of Albania we do not need blurring and confusion about "socialism", but we need a clarification about its character, its basic essence and a clear materialistic investigation and explanation about its failure and about the necessary consequences in the future. Declarations like the Pyongyang Declaration do not help us to advance, but on the contrary they draw us back and damage Marxism-Leninism.
A final remark: In their effort to get support the North Korean leadership is not co-operating only with Marxist- Leninists. In 1995 a group of neo-nazis visited North Korea by invitation. These were neo-nazis out of the most evil terrorist fascist groups existing in Germany. They call themselves "national socialists" and use the old fascist demagogy of a 'national and social movement" and of "German socialism". They wanted to get to know the "national socialism of Korea". By invitation of the "Academy of Juche Science" these fascists, who all are members of the "Society for the Propaganda of Juche Ideology in Germany", visited North Korea in April 1995 for two weeks. They were even welcomed by a secretary of the CC of the Party of Working People. Afterwards the fascists praised the "national socialism" of Korea in whole Germany. Nice friends!