Countries of the World/COUNTRYS.BIN/dp/0266/02662.txt

Text File | 1991-06-25 | 22KB | 359 lines

$Unique_ID{COW02662}
$Pretitle{281}
$Title{North Korea
Chapter 2E.   Party Control}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Donald M. Seekins}
$Affiliation{HQ, Department of the Army}
$Subject{korean
korea
language
north
published
party
religious
system
cultural
hospitals}
$Date{1981}
$Log{}
Country:     North Korea
Book:        North Korea, A Country Study
Author:      Donald M. Seekins
Affiliation: HQ, Department of the Army
Date:        1981

Chapter 2E.   Party Control

     Cultural expression is directed and controlled through a double system of
government and party supervision. Government responsibility is exercised by
the Ministry of Culture and Art. Party control is exerted through the
Propaganda and Agitation Department and the Culture and Arts Department of the
party's Central Committee. It is the Party, however, that determined cultural
policy, and the government activities serve to reinforce party directives. An
organization through which the Party controls cultural activity is the General
Federation of Korean Literature and Arts Unions, the parent body for all
literary and artistic organizations.

     Each subordinate unit has a central committee and branches throughout the
provinces. Each is also divided into specialized committees, including a
criticism committee. In literature, for example, subdepartments include those
for the novel, poetry, drama, editorial comment, children's literature, and
foreign literature. The Korean Artists Union has committees for oil painting,
sculpture, technical arts, and criticism. Other intellectuals are also formed
into organizations in accordance with Kim Il Sung's dictum that "the most
important thing in the revolutionizing of the intellectuals is to strengthen
organizational life, including the Party organizational life." Most of the
subordinate unions of the general federation publish magazines for their
members, through which the official themes and directives are conveyed.

     The number of works to be produced is part of the overall economic
planning, so that a writer, like a factory worker, is criticized if he does
not produce the amount of material assigned within the time limit prescribed.
This policy and the uniformity of current themes in all fields generally
produce mediocrity in most cultural endeavors.

     After a work is finished it is judged by a joint review committee of the
appropriate union and is also screened by the State Administration Council's
General Publications Bureau. Any objectionable matter must then be removed,
and the Party conducts a second review. Various guidelines are used in judging
the merit of an artistic work. Artists are careful to adhere to these
principles; occasional divergencies have occurred and have sometimes provided
grounds for permanent or temporary purges of artists. Aesthetic merits take a
subsidiary position, and in literary works, for example, they are most
frequently limited to precision in vocabulary and expression. All works must
be grounded in socialist realism and portray the correct revolutionary spirit
and character of the masses. Elements of capitalist through should be
excluded, as should negative aspects of the socialist system. National
security must never be threatened, and all works should be educative. Although
creativity and individual expression have been deliberately discouraged by
the system, the writer or artist may enjoy a relatively affluent life and
close association with the party leadership as compensation.

Religion

     Koreans have traditionally been pragmatic and eclectic in their religious
commitments, their religious outlook not being conditioned by a single,
exclusive faith but by a combination of indigenous beliefs and creeds brought
into Korea from outside. Belief in a world inhabited by spirits is probably
the oldest Korean religion, and even today female shamans are called upon to
perform rituals for rain during a drought, predict the future, or exorcize
evil spirits. Taoism and Buddhism had entered Korea from China in the fourth
century A.D., the latter reaching its zenith under the Silla Dynasty (A.D.
676-935) (see The Origins of the Korean Nation, ch. 1). The elaborate rituals
of Confucianism connected with ancestor worship, highly developed under the Yi
Dynasty, were another aspect of Korean religious expression (see Family and
Kinship System, this ch.).

     In the seventeenth century Korea received from China the writings of the
Jesuit missionary Matteo Ricci, who was resident at the Imperial Court in
Beijing; it appears that scholars of the Silhak or "Practical Learning" school
were interested in these, but no Christian missionary entered Korea until
1785. Although the government prohibited the propagation of Christianity, the
law was not strictly enforced, and by 1863 there were some 23,000 Roman
Catholics in the country. Subsequently the government ordered a vigorous
persecution of Korean Christians, blaming them for many of the country's ills,
and this continued until the opening of Korea to western countries in 1881.
Protestant missionaries began entering Korea in the 1880s. Although they were
unsuccessful in converting the entire country to Christianity, Methodist and
Presbyterian missionaries made many converts, particularly in the northern
part of Korea, where Confucian influence was less strongly felt than in the
south. They established schools, universities, hospitals, and orphanages and
played a significant role in the modernization of the country. P'yongyang was,
before 1948, an important Christian center, one-sixth of its population of
about 300,000 being converts.

     Another important religious tradition is Ch'ondogyo. This was a "new"
religion which developed out of the Tonghak movement of the middle and late
nineteenth century and emphasized the divine nature of all men (see The
Origins of the Korean Nation; the Yi Dynasty, ch. 1). Ch'ondogyo is a
syncretic religion, containing elements of Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism.

     Between 1945, when Soviet forces first occupied the northern half of
Korea, and 1953, the close of the Korean War, a great number of Christians,
considered "bad elements" by the authorities, fled to South Korea. Apparently
too few Christians remained to offer much resistance to North Korean religious
policies. Buddhism had become very weak over the centuries as a result of the
persecution it suffered during the Yi Dynasty, and was easily taken in hand
while Confucianism-ancestor worship-was not so much prohibited as allowed to
fall into disuse, a consequence of the breakdown of traditional social
structures (see Traditional Society; Contemporary Society, this ch.). The
Communists have made a concerted attempt to uproot indigenous animist beliefs,
and in the early 1980s the practices of shamanism and fortune-telling were
limited.

     Different official attitudes toward organized religion have been
reflected in changes in the Constitution. Article 14 of the 1948 Constitution
read that "citizens of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea shall have
the freedom of religious belief and of conducting religious services." The
1972 Constitution states that "citizens have religious liberty and the freedom
to oppose religion" (also translated as "the freedom of anti-religious
propaganda"). Some observers argue that the change came about because the
political authorities in 1972 no longer needed the support of the
much-weakened organized religions. State-sponsored religious organizations
such as the Korean Buddhists' Federation, the Christians' Federation, and the
Ch'ondogyo Youth Party had been organized and represented North Korea at
international religious conferences. Many churches and temples had been taken
over by the state and converted to secular use, but Buddhist temples
considered "national treasures" of historical and cultural significance, such
as the temples at Kumgang (Diamond Mountain) and Mount Myohyang-had been
preserved and restored.

     Foreign observers have remarked that traditional religion has been
replac