Two Roads ― Developmental Dictatorship and the Land of Juche

In the previous episode, we saw the Korean War, in which one people turned their guns on each other. The armistice of 1953 produced neither victor nor vanquished; it simply froze the fighting in place, leaving a military demarcation line drawn across the middle of the peninsula.

The war did not end; it merely stopped. Yet on either side of that halted line, north and south, two societies soon began to move in utterly different directions. The South achieved rapid industrialization under an authoritarian regime, while the North deepened its isolation under the banner of its own ideology.

What this episode portrays is not a story of which system was right and which was wrong. Within the immense dynamics of the Cold War, the divided north and south of the peninsula each chose their own road, each paying its own price. Our aim is to look at that contrast as calmly as we can, from both its light and its shadow.

The South’s Choice ― A Coup and the Miracle on the Han River

After the armistice, South Korea was counted among the poorest countries in the world. War had ravaged the land, and almost no industrial foundation remained.

What set this South Korea decisively in motion was the coup of May 16, 1961. The military, led by Major General Park Chung-hee, seized power, and Park went on to hold the presidency from 1963 to 1979. A leader of military background guiding the nation under controls stronger than the ballot box ― this was the beginning of what came to be called a developmental dictatorship.

What the Park government raised as its banner was economic recovery. From 1962, a series of Five-Year Economic Development Plans was carried out, and the course is said to have shifted from replacing imported goods with domestic products toward heavy industrialization that earned foreign currency through exports. Beginning with textiles and sundries, the center of gravity of industry moved on to steel, shipbuilding, automobiles, and electronics. In the countryside, the Saemaul (New Village) Movement, said to have begun in 1970, was rolled out under the banners of improving living conditions and reforming consciousness.

Under such efforts, the South Korean economy achieved rapid growth. Taking the name of the Han River that flows through Seoul, this period of high growth later came to be called the Miracle on the Han River. According to the sources, by around 1970 South Korea is said to have overtaken North Korea ― which until then had been regarded as economically superior ― and to have pulled itself out of the group of poorest nations.

Yet behind this prosperity, political freedom was narrowed. In October 1972, Park Chung-hee is said to have declared martial law and revised the constitution to establish what was called the Yusin (Revitalizing) System. The president’s powers were greatly strengthened, and long-term rule was cemented as an institution. Even as the economy grew, voices that raised objections to it were sternly suppressed. A society where affluence and unfreedom lived side by side ― that was the face of the South in this era.

The North’s Choice ― Juche Ideology and a System of Self-Reliance

North of the armistice line, society was shaped by an entirely different principle.

The one who led North Korea was Kim Il-sung. What symbolized his system was a distinctive idea called Juche. According to explanations from Kotobank and others, its pillars are said to lie in self-reliance in ideology, independence in politics, self-sufficiency in the economy, and self-defense in national defense.

The word Juche is said to have appeared in a public setting in 1955, and this ideology is reported to have been systematized by the late 1960s. At first, it also expressed a line of independence ― subordination to neither side ― as the Soviet Union and China deepened their confrontation. Considering the history of a peninsula tossed about between great powers, the assertion of standing on one’s own feet had, in its way, a certain background.

On the economic front, a planned economy was adopted in which the state planned and allocated production. In the early postwar period, while receiving aid from the Soviet Union, China, and others, it achieved a degree of reconstruction centered on heavy industry, and there were times, up to the first half of the 1960s, when it is said to have surpassed the South. Being blessed with mineral resources, and the fact that the foundations of heavy industry had been placed on the northern side during the colonial period, are also cited as background supporting this early advantage.

At the same time, in the North a system centered on the leader was gradually consolidated. Juche ideology was incorporated into the constitution enacted in 1972, and is said to have been positioned as the official ideology of the state, replacing the ideas that had come before. The idea of economic self-reliance became inseparably tied to the political system. The memory of subordination to great powers that ran through the peninsula’s history also lent strong persuasive force, in part, to the assertion of standing by one’s own strength.

But the economy that proclaimed self-reliance is said to have begun to show signs of deadlock before long. As the amount of aid received declined, compounded by the rigidity of the planned economy itself, stagnation and crisis in the economy came to be pointed out from the latter half of the 1960s onward. Whereas the South chose the road of opening outward and earning through exports, the North sought to close inward and hold to self-reliance. That difference in choice would later appear clearly as the gap in economic power between South and North.

One People, Opposite Societies

Within a little more than twenty years from the armistice, the South and North had become societies that seemed like different worlds.

In the South, people were growing wealthier. Televisions spread, cities swelled, and export companies became known in the markets of the world. Yet behind that, the freedom to object to the government was scarce, and harsh conditions persisted on the shop floor. Affluence was indeed increasing. But it did not come as a set with freedom.

In the North, under a firm system with the leader at its apex, society was gathered into a single direction. The economy that proclaimed self-reliance gradually grew heavier, and the distance from the outside world widened.

People who spoke the same language and shared the same history came, within only a few decades, to live in societies this different ― this fact may have been the deepest wound the Cold War carved into the peninsula. With merely a single line drawn, people’s lives, their ways of thinking, and even the shape of their futures were divided.

And even in the South, which had supposedly achieved prosperity, what people truly sought had not yet been won. After affluence, what would be asked for next was freedom. In the next episode, we will look at the turbulent era of seeking that freedom.