Today's North Korea is very poor, in 2018 North Korea's total GDP is only 1% of South Korea's, the country's population of 25.4 million, per capita GDP is only a measly 700 US dollars, ranking last in the world, while South Korea is 31,000 US dollars, the quality of life of the citizens of the two countries is far apart.
North Korea was not born so poor, on the contrary, North Korea has always been richer than South Korea in the past, and even called it the "industrial double hero of Northeast Asia" along with Japan.
North Korea is rich because it joined the Soviet-led "Economic Mutual Association", this Economic Mutual Association is an economic organization led by the Soviet Union, everyone closely around the Soviet Union, the Soviet Union decides which country makes what, where to sell it, North Korea's division of labor in the Economic Mutual Association at that time allowed him to take a lot of benefits, they imported cheap raw materials from other socialist countries, and then processed them into industrial products to sell to the socialist camp of other 400 million people (excluding China), and the huge market made North Korea a lot of money.
Because the Korean generation of Kim Il Cheng was supported by the Soviet Union to come to power, he spoke fluent Chinese and "strong accented Russian", in 1945, Kim Il Sung was the commander of the North Korean battalion of the 88th Brigade of Zhou Baozhong, the Soviet Union sent Colonel Mekler to understand the situation of this battalion, because Kim Il Sung can speak Russian, has special skills BUG, the two sides talk and laugh, Colonel Meckler went back to report Kim Il Sung's situation, and praised him for having brains, after the end of World War II, the Soviet Union wanted to find a talker to guard the northern part of the Korean Peninsula, Remembering that he had dealt with Kim Il Sung, who knew Russian, I chose him to be a talker.
Since then, North Korea has recognized the Soviet Union as the boss, and the Soviet Union let him do whatever he wants, clinging to this thigh, and after joining the Economic Mutual Association, it has indeed made a lot of benefits in it.
At that time, being a North Korean was happy, 11 years of free education, free housing, free medical care, these benefits were maintained in the context of North Korea's strong economy, and now North Korea also claims to engage in this, but the economy can not eat, such as the so-called free medical treatment is to make a look, there is no drug to treat you.
Without the support of a developed economic base, any welfare is illusory, those countries in South America are easy to fall into a strange circle is the reason, the ruling party before coming to power all like to promise a lot of high welfare to the people, and there is no Nordic ability to make money by science and technology, after coming to power, it relies on debt to sell assets to maintain, the more debt, the deeper the pit, Argentina has a thick skin to nine defaults, the country perennial vicious circle. South American countries generally can't endure hardships, but they have to enjoy life, and no matter how good their resources are, they can't be strong.
North Korea has been living a happy life for a few decades, and by the 1970s it entered its heyday, the countryside was basically mechanized (70%), 100% rural electricity (our comprehensive rural mechanization rate in 2019 was only 67%), and urbanization was also achieved, and in 1976, North Korea's industrial level reached an annual power generation of 33 billion kWh, 50 million tons of coal, 4 million tons of steel, 30,000 machine tools, 30,000 tractors, 3 million tons of fertilizer (very important), 8 million tons of cement, and 600 million meters of textiles.
It was just another version of Little Northern Europe, when South Koreans wanted to own a North Korean-made black-and-white TV, South Koreans would find a way to smuggle into North Korea, and Kim Jong-un's mother, Ko Young-hee, a native of Jeju Island, South Korea, came to North Korea with her father in 1972 instead of returning to South Korea because North Korea was much richer than South Korea.
In 1976, under the leadership of a generation of fierce men Park Chung-hee, South Korea finally equaled North Korea's per capita GDP, but Park Chung-hee was an economic madman, did not let the people enjoy life, invested money in future construction, and threw millions of South Koreans into the Middle East to build houses to earn foreign exchange, South Koreans still lived a long period of hardship, plus North Korea has been wide for a period of time, the foundation is thick, at this time South Koreans still look up to the North Koreans.
By the 1980s, South Korea began to officially surpass North Korea, the biggest reason is that the Soviet Union's life can not go on, no time and energy to take care of their little brother, during this period the shortcomings of the Soviet planned economy also began to appear, here a little about the planned economy, that is, the early force is very fierce, fierce is not good, the first two five-year plans of the Soviet Union turned a ragged agricultural country into an industrial country, becoming the first industrial output value in Europe, shocking the world, so East Asia, China, Japan and South Korea have learned the planned economy, right, Japan and South Korea also learned from the Soviet Union in the early days, and South Korea's Park Chung-hee and Japan's grandfather Shinzo Abe's grandfather Nobusuke Kishi both started with a planned economy.
The shortcomings of the planned economy are that they manage everything, the pressure is too dead, the early stage is very strong, but the later it is, the less vitality, it becomes a rigid system, suppresses the development of productive forces, and a bunch of problems in the late Soviet Union, and began to decline in the 1980s, at this time, ordinary people have to queue for hours to buy meat on the street, the country's economy obviously began to have problems, at this time where there is leisure to manage North Korea, the Economic Mutual Association also began to go downhill, and North Korea, which is deeply bound to the Soviet Union, will follow suit, and the gap with South Korea is getting wider and wider.
In 1982, South Korea's per capita GDP reached 2,011 US dollars, and North Korea's 808 US dollars; In 1988, South Korea's per capita GDP reached $4,680, and North Korea's $764; In 1992, South Korea's per capita GDP reached $8,009, and North Korea's $593.
South Korea began to make crazy progress after completing Park Chung-hee's foundation, and North Korea's economy fell as the Soviet Union began to decline, and this time it was the turn of North Koreans to envy South Koreans, and the disaster in North Korea began when the Soviet Union collapsed in December 1991.
Although North Korea has achieved industrialization, the country is too small, although there are many mines, it is impossible to have all the minerals, and many materials must rely on the Soviet economic system to help him transfuse blood, especially oil and fertilizer raw materials, stop blood transfusion, and this industrial system will collapse immediately. The bloodshed in North Korea began.
After there is no oil, all kinds of agricultural machinery can not be used, the entire country's agricultural machinery is rotten in the ground behind, turned into scrap iron, at this time North Korean farmers are used to machinery, artificial agricultural technology has also regressed, plus fertilizer can not get raw materials, can not produce fertilizer, the people can only go to take the riverbed silt fertilizer field, it has become no machinery, no technology, no fertilizer three no situation, suddenly beaten back to the farming era, at this time the North Korean government called on everyone to open up the land, cut down the trees on the mountain to cultivate, A flood turned into a serious soil erosion, grain production plummeted, and North Korea's population grew from 10 million to about 25 million, and grain production fell from 10 million tons at its peak to 2.5 million tons a year at its worst. To maintain the basic survival line of North Koreans, 4.8 million tons of food are needed a year.
This is how the tragedy of the Great Famine in North Korea from 1994 to 2004 occurred, and about 400,000 to 480,000 people died of starvation (here according to Hwang Changye's data). The Great Famine also had its own reasons within North Korea, and made some unforgivable mistakes, which is true, but in essence, the collapse of North Korea or the collapse of the industrial system was too dependent on the Soviet Union, which led to the collapse of industry, which in turn led to the collapse of agriculture, and finally the collapse of food production, breaking the bottom line of national survival.
In 1994, South Korea's per capita GDP was $10,275 and North Korea's per capita GDP was $384, and the gap between the two countries could no longer be repaired. Kim Il Sung died in July 1994, the first year of the Great Famine. Kim Il Sung's life is too good, when he lived, it happened to be the golden years of North Korea, when he died, just at the beginning of the dark period of North Korea, his economic achievements, mainly from the Soviet Union's economic mutual meeting, so that the people lived a good life for decades, but the people did not understand the laws of economics, they felt that the good days were brought by Kim Il Sung alone, so Kim Il Sung was deified in North Korea, you see the most extreme in the North Korean defector interview materials, they are still full of respect for Kim Il Sung in their words.
The North Korean people have deep feelings for the first generation, but they do not have such feelings for the second generation, because the life of the Korean people has been bitter and sour throughout the second generation's reign, and some people have begun to flee to South Korea, just to live a better life.
Kim Jong-il took over the throne in 1994, and in 1995, North Korea's per capita GDP fell to an all-time low, only a pitiful $222, and the North Korean people really cried in the toilet, and by the time Kim Jong-il died in 2011, North Korea's per capita GDP had barely returned to $638.
On the fundamentals of the economic collapse, North Korea chose to maintain its rule first, and then talked about the guiding ideology, so it came up with a set of ideological systems such as Songun politics, food and so on, food and so on to give to the military first, maintain the loyalty of the soldiers, everyone today see that many things in North Korea that we think are strange and bizarre are actually the product of the economic collapse.
It is true that everything cannot escape the laws of economics. North Koryo has come to this point has a lot to do with his "Soviet remnant" in the eyes of the Western world, when the Soviet Union controlled the surrounding Eastern Europe, Central Asia, Outer Mongolia, and North Koryo, and everyone worked together, economically and militarily, and competed with the United States for the first place in the world.
Militarily, the United States and the Soviet Union are far apart, just in Western Europe deployed a large number of short- and medium-range missiles against the Soviet Union Ural industrial zone key points, the Soviet Union only invented the intercontinental missile in 1957, the actual mass production expenditure is large, can not threaten the United States mainland, the early stage is very loss, and finally forced to make a Cuban missile crisis near the United States mainland, and then make a nuclear war, the two sides can only take a step back in the end, the United States withdrew the missiles of Turkey and Italy, and the Soviet Union did not make trouble in Cuba.
Economically, because the Western world blockaded the socialist countries, everyone did not do business, and the Soviet Union could only set up a mutual economic assistance committee, which mainly managed trade in the early stage, and later managed the production of various countries--- "each country must first make every effort to develop socialist industry in the leading sector of the national economy and ensure the priority development of the production of the means of production." This sentence translates to which country produces what is decided by the Economic Mutual Council, improve efficiency, unify standards, and move forward quickly.
The content of the management of the Economic Mutual Council mainly focuses on machine manufacturing, chemical industry, and electronics, such as machine manufacturing, and the Economic Mutual Council stipulates that Bulgaria produces motors, motors and electronic equipment, Poland manufactures ships and construction machinery, Romania produces oil extraction equipment and locomotives, Czechoslovakia produces metallurgical and chemical equipment, cars, nuclear power plant equipment, and the Soviet Union mainly produces aviation industry and electromechanical products.
In just two decades from the 1950s to the 1970s, Bulgaria's industrial production value increased by 22 times, and Romania increased by 30 times, but in the process of implementing the Economic Mutual Conference, the Soviet Union still kept a hand, leaving all important good projects to itself, and the poor projects were handed over to Eastern Europe and North Korea to do, for example, the Soviet Union made the main components of electronic computers and cars, and the parts it needed were produced by Poland, and then assembled by the Soviet Union into finished products. Then export to Poland. Hungary is rich in bauxite, but the Soviet Union did not allow Hungary to develop the aluminum smelting industry, but bought bauxite at a low price and then supplied aluminum ingots to Hungary.
For the GDR, which originally had a certain industrial capacity, it may have suffered a little loss in the industrial chain, they gave up the traditional aircraft and tractor industries, and were forced to accept other manufacturing industries designated by the Soviet Union, but pure primitive agricultural countries like North Koryo simply took advantage of everything, and the country's industrial strength was rubbing upward, and in the 1970s it was mixed with Japan and called "Northeast Asian industrial double", the country was rich enough to free education, medical care, and allocated houses to every household. The quality of life is much higher than that of Chinese who were poor at the time.
The Soviet Union concentrated the best heavy industry in its own hands, which seemed very cool for a while, but it also left a very big hidden danger.
Before the collapse of the Soviet Union, we will often see such reports, on the Sino-Soviet border, because there is not even a hot water bottle, the Soviets are red eyes, and the Chinese people on the border to exchange products, the Soviets have motorcycles, tanks and other things, Chinese some are hot water bottles, the Soviets drive motorcycles, when they are about to reach the border, they quickly jump out of the car, the car sneaks across the border to China, Chinese receives the motorcycle, they throw the hot water bottles across the border to the Soviets. Exchanging a motorcycle for a thermos is definitely a loss-making transaction, but the Soviet economic structure is unreasonable, without this thing, the motorcycle cannot be eaten, and both sides take what they need.
So why was the structure of the Soviet economy not reasonable? After reading the Soviet historical materials, I found that it was the result of this economic meeting, the Soviets left the best industries, such as building submarines and satellites, to themselves, and the light industry was handed over to Eastern European countries and North Koryo, feeling that these light industries were worthless and did not play, and as a result, later Eastern European countries were countered by Europe and the United States, and the Soviet Union was stupid, even hot water bottles could not be produced, and the people's life was very difficult.
Do older people remember the washing machines and refrigerators they produced in the Soviet Union, they were all stupid and black and coarse? It's just that it looks extremely ugly, it can be used, why did the Soviets make such a strange thing, and the refrigerator and washing machine made in Japan at the same time are obviously much better? This is also related to the economic mutual association, because the economic mutual association stipulates which country makes what, the socialist family exchanges products within the group, for example, I Romania stipulates that only refrigerators are built, other countries cannot build, monopoly production has caused no pursuit, Romanians will make a refrigerator so-so, hand it over to other countries to make do with it, another shortcoming of the economic mutual association is here, the quality of civilian products is very poor, including the light industrial products produced by Eastern European countries to the Soviet Union, the quality is also miserable.
The Soviets thought that although this thing was poor, after all, it was biological, and it passed after forbearance. You see, if you study everything, there must be economic principles.
The Soviet Union's set of government behaviors that control everything, we call it "big government", North Korea is still a typical big government, they even control the hairstyle of the people, very interesting.
And the set that European and American countries are now implementing, we can call "small government", small government and big government are two different sets of concepts for governing the country, the two vows are not mutually exclusive, water and fire are incompatible, see each other to spit on each other, take a knife to stab each other, both look at each other unpleasantly.
The Soviet Union was originally the best representative of the big government, Eastern Europe and North Korea had a very happy time under the management of the big government, but the Soviet Union itself played with it, it played rigid, did not know how to adapt, clinging to a bunch of thinking concepts and did not let go, but also forgot the original intention, lost the self-cleaning mechanism, plus met Reagan came to a set of super awesome grand strategy, the Soviet Union was completely played to death.
From then to now, only a very small number of countries in the world have not become small governments, and the discourse system of small governments is becoming more and more mature and full, and the whole set of theories is extremely sexy, and ordinary intellectuals have to kneel when they hear it. Fortunately, the living force of big government still exists, and it is still extremely strong...