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KIM ILSUNG IS DEAD AND SO IS COMMUNIST NORTH KOREA
Reviewed by Damon Do
North Korea Confidential: Private Markets, Fashion Trends, Prison Camps, Dissenters and
Defectors
By Daniel Tudor and James Pearson
Damon Do
APS 600
Book Review
October 26, 2015
1
Portrayals of North Korea by international media often adheres to a formula that
typically includes themes of nuclear proliferation, the bizarre personality cult of their leaders,
and depictions of a suffocating Orwellian society. In North Korea Confidential: Private
Markets, Fashion Trends, Prison Camps, Dissenters and Defectors, Daniel Tudor and James
Pearson, a business journalist and Reuters correspondent by trade, respectively, play the role of
myth breaker as they take the reader on a tour through various institutions of North Korean
society. In the process, they undress our antiquated perceptions of this secretive society and
recalibrate our understanding of this nation.
As foreign correspondents based in South Korea, the authors built their research upon
insider information collected from “trusted experts,” and “sources drawn from different sections
of North Korean society…defectors of different ages, geographical origin, and year of departure,
diplomats and NGO workers; and traders…from the North Korean border.” 1 Tudor and Pearson
are uniquely positioned to provide a peek into contemporary North Korean society and leverage
their subject matter expertise to provide a revised tutorial for readers who are searching for an
introduction to the quagmire that is North Korea.
Central to the authors’ storyline is the catastrophic famine of the mid-1990’s. Between
the years of 1994-1998 approximately 200,000 to 3 million people died from starvation or
hunger-related illnesses.2 The combination of a series of natural disasters and the cessation of
foreign aid resulted in the complete breakdown of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea’s
(DPRK) system of food distribution. The famine proved to be so horrific in scale that no other
event has had greater impact in the molding (or re-molding) of North Korean society as much as
1
Daniel Tudor and James Pearson, North Korea Confidential: Private Markets, Fashion Trends, Prison Camps,
Dissenters and Defectors (Tuttle Publishing, 2015), 9.
2
Ibid, 18.
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this singular event. In the wake of this crisis, the people were forced to adapt to a failed
government system by rewriting the social contract by which they operated. In post-famine
North Korea people found themselves having to adopt a new modus operandi for survival and it
was often “illegal; informal; corresponded to basic human needs; and, it was one hundred
percent capitalist.”3
In today’s North Korea, the people still answer to the centralized authority of the DPRK,
but the landscape of their society has undergone vast changes. Tudor and Pearson paint a
portrait of a North Korea that is no longer communist in nature nor in principle. A grassroots
capitalist economy (jangmadang) along with quasi-private businesses (public-private
partnerships), funded by various arms of the government, have swept the nation into an era of
“new capitalism.”4 A movement that was originally born from the survival instincts of postfamine North Koreans, this grassroots economy has developed into an informal but sophisticated
system to which a bankrupt government has become fully dependent. Combined with the
introduction of social class distinctions in a socialist society and a feudalistic approach to
criminal punishment, the authors unravel the international community’s perceptions of a North
Korean society that is supposedly steeped in communist traditions.
In this era of new capitalism and disposable income, the inner voice of the individual has
also emerged from hiding. In North Korea Confidential, Tudor and Pearson challenge the myth
of a brainwashed nation full of Supreme Leader-followers that are devoid of agency. A younger
generation detached from the social constraints of pre-famine North Korea are drinking, listening
to foreign music, dancing, and breaking social norms. Thanks in part to the “post-famine
3
4
Ibid, 143.
Ibid, 35.
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information mini-revolution”5 the average North Korean has experienced an awakening of their
social condition, relative to the outside world. And despite the significant risk of challenging the
government authorities, millions of individuals have begun to define their own lifestyle choices
and developing their own opinions of the government.
Tudor and Pearson make a compelling case, not for a North Korean society on the cusp
of social change, but one that has already undergone a seismic shift in their social norms and
economic system. With the infiltration of transgressive foreign radio, a porous northern border
where traders travel to and from North Korea, and an enlightened nation where almost every
North Korean now knows that South Koreans enjoy a better standard of living; the reader could
not be blamed if they were to surmise that regime change was just on the horizon. 6 Contrary to
this view, the authors believe that control under the current regime will continue into the
foreseeable future. The thought of being sent to political prison strikes such fear into North
Koreans that its “role in maintaining control is hard to overstate.” 7 And yet, North Korea has
become a nation of rule-breakers with a younger generation fully “prepared to risk severe
punishment.”8 This contradiction leaves unanswered questions in the minds of the readers to
which further research (and a sequel) will be required in order to explore this apparent
dichotomy.
Although their research does not include first-hand accounts of the transformations that
have swept throughout the country, as well positioned experts in South Korean affairs, Daniel
Tudor and James Pearson offer a fascinating restructuring of our fundamental understanding of
contemporary North Korea. As the government system broke down during the mid-1990’s
5
Ibid, 56.
Ibid, 54.
7
Ibid, 112.
8
Ibid, 142.
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famine, the people responded when their government couldn’t by becoming autonomous and
entrepreneurial. In North Korea Confidential, the authors establish a revised platform upon
which both scholars and casual aficionados of North Korean studies can begin to replace
outdated perceptions of a changed society. One that has become dependent on private enterprise
and consumerism, a government that is complicit in the marketization of its economy, and a
people redefining their roles as independent agents in a new world.
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Bibliography
Tudor, Daniel and James Pearson. North Korea Confidential: Private Markets, Fashion Trends,
Prison Camps, Dissenters and Defectors. Tuttle Publishing, 2015.