Cult of personality North Korean propaganda was crucial to the formation and promotion of the
cult of personality centered around the founder of the
DPRK,
Kim Il Sung. The Soviet Union used propaganda to develop a cult of personality around Kim, particularly as a
Korean resistance fighter, as soon as they put him in power. This quickly surpassed its Eastern European models. Instead of depicting his actual residence in a Soviet village during the war with the Japanese, he was claimed to have fought a guerrilla war from the
Paektusan Secret Camp. Once relations with the Soviet Union were broken off, their role was expurgated, as were all other nationalists, until the claim was made that Kim founded the Communist Party in North Korea. He is seldom shown in action during the
Korean War, instead, soldiers are depicted as inspired by him. Subsequently, many stories are recounted of his "
on-the-spot guidance" in various locations, many of them being openly presented as fictional. This was supplemented with propaganda on behalf of his son,
Kim Jong Il. The
North Korean famine of the 1990s, referred to as a "food shortage" by DPRK propaganda, produced anecdotes of Kim insisting on eating the same meager food as other North Koreans. Propaganda efforts began for the "Young General",
Kim Jong Un, who succeeded him as the paramount leader of North Korea on
Kim Jong Il's death in December 2011.
Foreign relations depict alleged atrocities carried out by American soldiers during the Korean War. Early propaganda, in the 1940s, presented a positive Soviet–Korean relationship, often depicting Russians as maternal figures to childlike Koreans. As soon as relations were less cordial, they were expurgated from historical accounts. The collapse of the USSR, without a shot, is often depicted with intense contempt in sources not accessible to Russians.
Americans are depicted particularly negatively. In 2018, these rallies were cancelled in what the
Associated Press called "another sign of
detente following
the summit between leader Kim Jong Un and U.S. President Donald Trump" that same year.
Japan is frequently depicted as rapacious and dangerous, both in the colonial era and afterward. North Korean propaganda frequently highlighted the danger of Japanese remilitarization. At the same time, the intensity of anti-Japanese propaganda underwent repeated fluctuations, depending on the improvement or deterioration of Japanese-DPRK relations. In those periods when North Korea was on better terms with Japan than with South Korea, North Korean propaganda essentially ignored the
Liancourt Rocks dispute. However, if Pyongyang felt threatened by Japanese–South Korean rapprochement or sought to cooperate with Seoul against Tokyo, the North Korean media promptly raised the issue, with the aim of causing friction in Japanese–ROK relations. According to Myers in 2010, friendly nations are depicted almost exclusively as
tributary nations. The English journalist
Christopher Hitchens pointed out in the essay "A Nation of Racist Dwarfs" that propaganda has a blatantly racist and nationalistic angle: Nevertheless, North Korea analyst
Fyodor Tertitskiy states that North Korean propaganda has "never asserted that Koreans are biologically superior" and that in fact, "such a statement was always directly condemned by Kim Jong Il". Instead, "the greatness of the Korean people lies solely in their leader. Koreans are great because they are led by Kim Il Sung, not for any other reason". He also notes that North Korea gives very little weight to racial and nationalists element in its propaganda compared to the cult of personality around its leaders.
South Korea in the near-future, declaring, "Let Us Pass Down A United Country To The Next Generation!". This was located in the North Korean side of the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ). South Korea was originally depicted as a poverty-stricken land which was run by harsh and cruel dictators backed by the US and where American soldiers based there shot and slaughtered Korean women and children, but by the 1990s, too much information reached North Korea to prevent their learning that South Korea had a much stronger economy and higher living standards and quality of life, including political and social freedom, and as a result, North Korean propaganda admitted to it.
"Military first" '', or "military first", propaganda from 2011 Under
Kim Jong Il, a major theme was the need of Kim to attend to the military first of all (in North Korea, this policy is called
Songun), which required other Koreans to do without his close attention. This was a shift from the former policy of economic reform and diplomatic engagement. This military life is presented as something that Koreans take spontaneously to, though often disobeying orders from the highest of motives. The diplomatic offensive had failed to yield a normalization of relations with Japan. Meanwhile, relations with Russia remain cold and China was applying direct pressure on Pyongyang, thereby changing the dynamic of the long-standing relationship between the two erstwhile allies. The city's reconstruction was supervised by Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il. The DPRK, led by Kim Il Sung and supported by the Soviets, was left with a scene of complete and utter destruction; with the exception of a handful of buildings Pyongyang had been completely flattened. For a young general with socialist ideals, this was seen as a clean slate, on top of which a new country, both physically and ideologically, could be built. Kim Jong Il favored grand scale buildings and monuments. The giant pyramid of the
Ryugyong Hotel building, originally scheduled for completion in time for the
13th World Festival of Youth and Students in 1989, is 105 stories tall. Work on the structure stopped in the early 1990s due to structural defects. The monuments dedicated to Kim Il Sung were not made to be habitable, rather, they need only to look grand. A twenty-meter bronze statue of Kim Il Sung, arm outstretched to encompass his city, sits atop . Throughout the 1990s, Kim Jong Il had his late father's
Kumsusan Palace extensively renovated to house the
Great Leader's remains, hiring Russian specialists to embalm the corpse for permanent display. There were no advertisements except political banners and portraits of the two Kims. Mobile phone use was banned in 2004, but service was re-introduced in 2008, jointly operated by the Egyptian
Orascom company and the state-owned
Korea Post and Telecommunications Corporation. According to the
Daily NK website, the new service, despite its cost, proved popular among affluent party members in Pyongyang.
Women in North Korea '' The cultural identity of North Korea was deeply rooted in
Confucian tradition and intractable Confucian family traditions. Women's identity is seen through the prism of familial relationships. It became a primary aspect of women's lives irrespective of prevalent political regime or social circumstances. Women were considered angels which men had to protect. Women in representative propaganda productions, such as
Sea of Blood and
The Flower Girl, became not only the focal point of visual composition within the traditional family structure but also the agents of ideological awakening for the newly founded
socialist state.
Revolutionary operas and numerous other productions depicted as well as forged the new gender order within the structure of the imagined family, which gained supremacy over blood ties. The imagined family was deemed by the degree of commitment to ideological and political struggle, which separated the people from the enemy. Thus, imagining a family was perceived as a process of liberating women and motivating them to have a larger social presence. The colonial experience under occupation by the Japanese, who were traditionally despised as "barbarians," propelled Koreans to evaluate their weakness vis-à-vis the concrete threat to their national
sovereignty. Women's backwardness was regarded as directly related to national weakness. In light of their nation's fragile future, Koreans thought women's backwardness to stem from the traditional family life, one of the most ancient institutions in
Korean society. Women joined the labor front upon the outbreak of the Korean War. As manpower was concentrated on warfare, industry and agriculture were left to women's care. But even after the war, the North Korean leadership urged women to continue participating actively in the reconstruction of society. The practical social demand created the need for a female labor force and thus women's emancipation from the domestic sphere was legitimized under the pretext of achieving gender equality. As Hunter points out: "In 1947, only 5 percent of industrial workers were women; by 1949, the number had jumped to 15 percent. By 1967, women accounted for almost half of the total workforce." North Korea is a fashion-conscious nation where
political leaders strive to dress its people through rigid regulations, imposing uniforms on various social sectors and systematically recommending certain designs to civilians. Some other socialist and authoritarian states glorified masculine clothing as a preferred means to represent revolutionized women. Contrarily, North Korean fashion has continuously expressed degrees of femininity, contradicting the astringent revolutionary spirit often identified with masculinity.
Food shortage The
North Korean famine was admitted within propaganda to be solely a food shortage, ascribed to bad weather and failure to implement Kim's teachings, but unquestionably better than situations outside North Korea. The government urged the use of non-nutritious and even harmful "food substitutes" such as sawdust. ==Practices==