A couple of people have asked us to comment about allegations about the DPRK and food shortages . In particular a video from the reactionary Murdoch owned ‘South China Morning Post ‘ was shared in a supposedly pro DPRK Facebook group . The video claims that the DPRK ‘ faces the worst famine since the 1990s ‘ .
Lets straighten out a few facts first , shall we ? Firstly , the Western media vastly exaggerated and distorted the difficulties and challenges that the DPRK faced in 1990 due to purely external factors . Whilst there were food shortages caused by several years of massive natural disasters as well the US blockade of the DPRK , there was not mass starvation . The DPRK is a socialist country so it took measures to ensure that everyone got food . As UK KFA Chairman Dr Dermot Hudson wrote in his book ” The Famine That Never Was – the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea in the ‘ Arduous March ‘ period The myth of famine in the DPRK exposed’
“It is very clear that the so-called ‘famine ‘ of the 1990s in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea did not really happen although it was a very tough and challenging time for the DPRK and its people , so hard it was described as a second ‘arduous march ‘. The population statistics show that the population did not decrease during the 1990s but rather increased . Moreover, visiting the DPRK in 1996 and seeing not only Pyongyang but other places in the DPRK I was convinced that the reports in the Western media about the DPRK were untrue. I did not see a famine stricken country , yes I saw a country coping with natural disasters and struggling against sanctions but there were no people dying on the streets of hunger .
Because of its policy of self-reliance and many decades of socialist development the DPRK was about to cope with and mitigate the problems created by flooding . The stories about ‘famine ‘ and ‘mass starvation ‘ came largely from the pens of journalists of the capitalist press and were deliberately intended to defame and denigrate socialism , such stories were part of a wider regime effort . However some on the Left who were ignorant of the DPRK and its achievements all too readily believed them and repeated them . This is due to the fact that some people wrongly saw the DPRK as the creation of the USSR and thought it was dependent on the USSR and would collapse or face severe difficulties once the USSR collapsed . Also because they studied the achievements of the DPRK they wrongly and falsely saw the DPRK as a basketcase rather than an industrial , an independent socialist power ‘.
The DPRK ‘s population actually grew during the 1990s by about 2 to 3 million rather than millions of people dying of starvation .
Secondly , the situation in the DPRK compared to the 1990s is very different. During the past decade the DPRK has experienced very rapid growth . Service industries have The DPRK has become more self-reliant . Nowadays shops in the DPRK are sourced with DPRK made products whereas in the 1990s it was mostly Chinese goods and other imported goods .
Many so-called Western ‘experts ‘ on the DPRK to say nothing of Western journalists do not understand self-reliance in the DPRK and as a result fail to see the true reality of the country.
Talk of a so-called ‘new famine ‘ in the DPRK is not new . In August 2017 the notorious right wing tabloid (which supported the fascists in the 1930s) the “Daily Mail’ claimed that the DPRK was facing the ‘worst famine in two decades ‘ . 3 years and 4 months later , no famine !.
Delegations of the British Group for the Study of the Juche and the UK Korean Friendship Association visiting the DPRK in 2018 and 2019 saw no signs of ‘famine ‘ and starvation ‘ at all . In fact in 2019 the DPRK had a bumper harvest.
The fables of a so-called ‘new famine ‘ are being peddled by the brain washers of the imperialist mainstream media to distract from and slander the successful holding of the historic 8th Congress of the Workers ‘ Party of Korea . It is also anti Juche , anti-self’reliance and anti-socialist propaganda designed to denigrate the great self-reliant achievements of People’s Korea .The false stories are being spread deliberately to divert attention from the massive Covid 19 crisis in the Western countries caused by the total incompetence of Western rulers .(and the DPRK has no Covid 19) .
So basically the answer is that the DPRK is not ‘facing famine ‘ but faces of bright future of self-reliant , people -centred socialism .
