Book Review Korea Journal, vol. 64, no. 3 (Autumn 2024): 263–267.
doi: 10.25024/kj.2024.64.3.263
Reading between the Lines: Public Discourse in
North Korea in the 1950s
North Korea’s Mundane Revolution: Socialist Living and the Rise of Kim Il Sung, 1953–
1965. By Andre Schmid. Oakland: University of California Press, 2024. 336 pages. ISBN:
9780520392847.
Ruediger FRANK
Historian Andre Schmid presents a compelling narrative that shifts the
focus from the often leader-centric histories of North Korea to a more
nuanced examination of its people, their everyday lives, and the public
discourse concerning these seemingly mundane issues. In fact, the very
existence and traceability of such discourse may surprise many readers.
Schmid explores the socio-economic and cultural transformations in North
Korea during the decade following the Korean War, a highly dynamic period
marked by reconstruction, collectivization, internal power struggles, and
nation-building. Schmid discusses four central issues of the so-called “New
Living”: the modern individual, labor, family, and consumption.
The book endeavors to answer a pivotal question: Have North Koreans
—including cartoonists, book authors, journalists, editors, translators, and
lectors—been able to influence significant developments within their
society? How does the Supreme Leader Kim Il Sung fit into this process?
To dissect the layered social fabric of North Korea, Schmid focuses on a
qualitative analysis of primary sources such as newspapers, magazines, and
personal memoirs, combined with secondary sources. Schmid’s analysis is
Ruediger FRANK is a professor in the Department of East Asian Studies at the University of
Vienna. E-mail: [email protected].
264 KOREA JOURNAL / AUTUMN 2024
strengthened by his extensive use of such sources as self-help books and
periodicals, which provide a glimpse into the private lives of the North
Koreans and the public discourse. Educational articles provide advice on
proper hygiene, bus stop behavior, dress codes, table manners, haircuts, or
the cultured use of language. Reprinted letters to the editor carry complaints
about the poor quality of consumer products, long queues, or unfriendly
sales staff.
A clever technique employed by the author is the use of one source
throughout a chapter as a “backbone” to which a wide array of additional
information is attached. For example, chapter 2 (‘An Era of Advice’) on
various aspects of self-improvement is built around a 1965 book titled Guide
to Living, and chapter 4 (‘An Obsession with Efficiency’) keeps returning to
the 1961 memoir of a female model construction worker.
Under the repressive Party state, the ideologically based monopoly on
power rendered open debates about core policies nearly impossible. The risk
to be accused of heresy was too big, and the potential consequences were
too heavy. However, and ironically not least due to the regime’s own
exhortations of developing a sense of responsibility (juinseong), many people
continued to think and feel the urge and need to have an active exchange of
ideas. This dilemma—a strong desire for a debate while not being able to
have it openly—existed in other state-socialist countries of the Eastern bloc,
too. Therefore, to the considerably large number of politically interested
citizens, “reading between the lines”—recognizing significant changes in the
political mainstream without them ever being openly discussed—was
standard practice. This skill had, however, to be learned, and it was highly
dependent on context. Schmid masters it remarkably well, and he
demonstrates its presence in North Korea too.
Such “hidden discourses” took various forms. Sometimes what was not
said was the message, other times the debate was moved to seemingly
innocuous fields of secondary importance. One notable example from
chapter 1 (‘The Anxieties of Socialist Transition’) is a translated speech by
Mao Zedong that was prominently published in the Party newspaper,
Rodong sinmun. Mao’s discussion of “Contradictions among the People”
BOOK REVIEW—Reading between the Lines 265
invited its readers to criticize everything, even their leadership. In a system
like North Korea, oriented at stability and consolidation, this was a radical
notion. But who made the decision to publish it, and why? And how was the
article received by its readers?
The debate on construction around 1958, particularly whether to
continue building in the traditional stone-on-stone style or to switch to
modern prefabricated construction methods, illustrates how quickly and
with what dramatic consequences a technical issue could become politicized.
It was used as a pretext for leading a political power struggle at the highest
levels of the Party. At the grassroots level, people sensed but never fully
understood what was truly going on. Schmid vividly illustrates the resulting
dilemma through the autobiography of a heroic female activist who, against
all odds, was able to achieve significant productivity improvements in her
construction brigade, only to be confronted with the assertion that the
traditional method of construction she had been able to master and improve
so much was inherently a sign of poor implementation of the visions of the
top leadership.
North Korean publications could be remarkably frank about seemingly
mundane and narrow issues, while readers fully understood that they
carried much broader meaning. The discussion of the lack of childcare
facilities took place simultaneously with attempts by the state to integrate
women into the regular labor force. This allowed the journal “Women of
Korea” to be openly critical of the fact that the various levels in the
hierarchies of the state and the Party delegated responsibility for childcare
down until it reached the mothers and families, who had to find a solution
on their own. Even though it was not explicitly stated, for contemporary
readers, it was obvious that the administration itself had failed and that it
was being criticized.
Schmid admits that his original idea to “complete this book without
once mentioning Kim Il Sung by name” (p. 19) proved elusive. But he
nevertheless succeeds in showing that Kim was not the sole origin of
everything, as one might be led to assume when reading the typical leader-
centric studies of North Korea. Instead, the thoughts of his subjects often
266 KOREA JOURNAL / AUTUMN 2024
influenced Kim Il Sung’s views, confirming that “no one lives outside of
discourse—not even the Great Leader” (p. 231). The country’s leader has
been shaped at least as much by North Korea as North Korea has been
shaped by him, as becomes more obvious when the leader’s speeches are
positioned in their original context and not read only as part of an isolated
collection of his works.
The New Living was thus an interactive and participatory project,
neither fully top-down, nor bottom-up: “there was no single author of this
era’s discourse.” Moreover, Schmid argues that “discourse was neither
univocal nor uniform” (p. 17), implying a certain degree of path dependency
and openness of outcome.
Among the many strengths of the book is the author’s ability to
combine a very detailed analysis of specific examples with more abstract
insights. For example, he points out that analysts who give the leader too
much focus and attention perpetuate—albeit unwittingly—the very Kim
personality that they often criticize and ridicule. Instead, Schmid gives the
millions of North Koreans, who are often overlooked or subsumed into a
grey, faceless mass of passive subjects, a very different identity, one as a
heterogeneous, thinking, struggling group of individuals who have agency
despite the difficult conditions under which they live.
An interesting case is what later became the official North Korean
ideology. Schmid shows that the concept had been, under various terms
such as jabal, juindapke, and changbal, part of the public discourse at all
levels continuously since at least the mid-1950s. Only after a few years, the
top settled for one of these names—juche (chuch’e)—and began presenting a
codified version of that discourse as the product of only one—the leader’s—
mind, thus erasing “the domestic context out of which Juche thought arose”
(p. 234).
Schmid also offers a very original interpretation of Kim Il Sung’s on-
the-spot guidance (p. 236). He puts these in the context of reports about low
quality, shortages, and missed targets, which were part of the public
discourse at that time. He argues that Kim sought to disconnect himself
from these failures of the system by only showing up where things were
BOOK REVIEW—Reading between the Lines 267
either positive, or where they improved as a direct result of his intervention
which was typically supported by otherwise scarce resources.
In his conclusion, Schmid argues that “it is necessary to see North
Korea as part of a broader twentieth-century global modernity” (p. 230).
However, he also points at differences compared to other state socialist
systems. Terms such as “New Living” were employed elsewhere, but the
meaning was not always the same. This is an important insight for those
who tend to regard North Korea merely as a clone of the Soviet Union or of
Mao’s China. One example is the detailed discussion of appropriate female
behavior in North Korea, which avoided the otherwise typical socialist
masculinization of dress, appearance, or language.
Schmid’s findings challenge the conventional view of North Korea as a
monolithic entity, revealing a complex tapestry of individual actions and
state-directed projects that both defined the citizens and were defined by
them. He highlights the subtle ways in which North Koreans navigated their
social reality and shows that North Korea after the Korean War was at least
as much a project of decolonization and modernization as it was a project of
socialist construction. An “Essay on North Korean Print Media Sources” in
the appendix shows that the necessary materials for such research can be
easily found “in some of the most reader-friendly libraries in the world” (p.
241), so that a lack of access can be no excuse for ignoring them.
North Korea’s Mundane Revolution is a seminal work that challenges
many prevailing stereotypes and simplifications in the study of North
Korean development. By focusing on the lived experiences of its people
rather than the dictates of its leaders, Schmid offers a fresh perspective that
is both enlightening and essential for anyone seeking to understand the
intricate realities of North Korean society. This applies to the period he
researched, but it also goes far beyond and can guide our understanding of
North Korea’s present as well. His work is a crucial reminder of the diverse,
dynamic, and nuanced nature of history as experienced by the individuals
who live it. This book is a valuable contribution to the field and will benefit
students and researchers of North Korea and state socialist societies.
Received: 2024.06.27. Revised: 2024.07.31. Accepted: 2024.07.31.
