Uploaded April 2021 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
This video is a summary of how the democratic people's republic of Korea, aka north Korea, works. I go over then history, the government structure and the economy of the DPRK.
Patreon: patreon.com/viki1999
Subreddit: reddit.com/r/viki1999
Twitter: twitter.com/Viki1999Yt
E-Mail Address: viki1999mail@gmail.com
The song in the outro was produced by 08 (who gave me no way to credit them), you can listen to the whole remix on my second channel: youtu.be/jZOrMsIOZh0
Timestamps
0:00 Intro
0:36 History
6:14 Politics
13:04 Economics
17:46 Outro
Yes. I used wikipedia. If I got anything wrong because of this please tell me what I got wrong. Don't just go "wikipedia bad". Point to what my video got wrong. Make a serious critique or shut up about my sources.
Sources:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_North_Korea
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supreme_Leader_(North_Korean_title)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_of_North_Korea
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_Affairs_Commission_of_North_Korea
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/President_of_the_State_Affairs_Commission _
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judiciary_of_North_Korea
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeju_uprising
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supreme_People's_Assembly
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chairman_of_the_Standing_Committee_of_the_Supreme_People%27s_Assembly
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cabinet_of_North_Korea
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Court_(North_Korea)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judiciary_of_North_Korea
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Workers%27_Party_of_Korea
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Committee_of_the_Workers%27_Party_of_Korea
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Korean_famine
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Kim_Jong-un%27s_titles
transcript:
Hello everybody. We are talking about North Korea today. As you know North Korea is unique in that it is one of the last remaining cold war era socialist nations, and it’s notable for having a far bigger impact on the world stage than you would expect form such a small country. There are many myths and legends around North Korea and it’s government and I will try to address as many of those as I can. We are going to go over the history, politics and economics of North Korea and we’ll hopefully learn something new. That being said, let’s start.
Korea has a lot of history as you may know. I will skip over most of it, so by 1910 Japan had conquered and occupied all of Korea. They developed some industry, mostly in the north for geographical reasons. This grew the industrial working class. North Korea has many mountains. And anti-imperialist guerrilla fighters were using them to harass the Japanese army and government.
Eventually the Japanese client states in Korea and Manchuria were invaded/liberated by the Soviet union at the end of world war two. While the soviets were advancing many People's Committees formed all across Korea and wanted to govern. When the Soviets reached Pyongyang they found a socialist government made up of representatives from these councils. Naturally they allied with them.
Because this is the cold war the Americans couldn’t accept that all of Korea may be ruled by these committees, so they talked to the soviets and after some negotiation they decided to split the country on this line which is the 38th parallel on a map. The north would be socialist, and the south would be anti-socialist, aka fascist it wouldn’t become a democracy until decades later.
The soviets promoted and supported a prominent guerrilla fighter called Kim Il-Sung and he quickly took over the government. He then structured the country and its economy after the soviet model, we’ll see that in the politics and economics sections.
At first Kim Il sung assumed that there would be a revolution in the south considering the south had just as many people’s councils and genuine socialists as the north. But when peaceful protests were repeatedly brutally oppressed by the southern government, he realised that there would be no revolution in the south. So, he decided to take it upon himself to liberate the people of the south. He got permission from Stalin and promises of support from China.
On top of that America withdrew all it’s troops from the south, leaving them with only inexperienced south Korean soldiers. The northern army on the other hand had a core of veterans who had fought the Japanese. On top of that they got new military equipment from their soviet allies while America didn’t even trust the south with any tanks.
5 years after being liberated by the soviets the Northern army launched an invasion/liberation of the south. Because of all these factors the north won quickly, advancing through almost the entire country in 3 months.
The international community did not like this.
This video is a summary of how the democratic people's republic of Korea, aka north Korea, works. I go over then history, the government structure and the economy of the DPRK.
Patreon: patreon.com/viki1999
Subreddit: reddit.com/r/viki1999
Twitter: twitter.com/Viki1999Yt
E-Mail Address: viki1999mail@gmail.com
The song in the outro was produced by 08 (who gave me no way to credit them), you can listen to the whole remix on my second channel: youtu.be/jZOrMsIOZh0
Timestamps
0:00 Intro
0:36 History
6:14 Politics
13:04 Economics
17:46 Outro
Yes. I used wikipedia. If I got anything wrong because of this please tell me what I got wrong. Don't just go "wikipedia bad". Point to what my video got wrong. Make a serious critique or shut up about my sources.
Sources:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_North_Korea
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supreme_Leader_(North_Korean_title)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_of_North_Korea
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_Affairs_Commission_of_North_Korea
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/President_of_the_State_Affairs_Commission _
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judiciary_of_North_Korea
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeju_uprising
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supreme_People's_Assembly
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chairman_of_the_Standing_Committee_of_the_Supreme_People%27s_Assembly
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cabinet_of_North_Korea
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Court_(North_Korea)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judiciary_of_North_Korea
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Workers%27_Party_of_Korea
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Committee_of_the_Workers%27_Party_of_Korea
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Korean_famine
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Kim_Jong-un%27s_titles
transcript:
Hello everybody. We are talking about North Korea today. As you know North Korea is unique in that it is one of the last remaining cold war era socialist nations, and it’s notable for having a far bigger impact on the world stage than you would expect form such a small country. There are many myths and legends around North Korea and it’s government and I will try to address as many of those as I can. We are going to go over the history, politics and economics of North Korea and we’ll hopefully learn something new. That being said, let’s start.
Korea has a lot of history as you may know. I will skip over most of it, so by 1910 Japan had conquered and occupied all of Korea. They developed some industry, mostly in the north for geographical reasons. This grew the industrial working class. North Korea has many mountains. And anti-imperialist guerrilla fighters were using them to harass the Japanese army and government.
Eventually the Japanese client states in Korea and Manchuria were invaded/liberated by the Soviet union at the end of world war two. While the soviets were advancing many People's Committees formed all across Korea and wanted to govern. When the Soviets reached Pyongyang they found a socialist government made up of representatives from these councils. Naturally they allied with them.
Because this is the cold war the Americans couldn’t accept that all of Korea may be ruled by these committees, so they talked to the soviets and after some negotiation they decided to split the country on this line which is the 38th parallel on a map. The north would be socialist, and the south would be anti-socialist, aka fascist it wouldn’t become a democracy until decades later.
The soviets promoted and supported a prominent guerrilla fighter called Kim Il-Sung and he quickly took over the government. He then structured the country and its economy after the soviet model, we’ll see that in the politics and economics sections.
At first Kim Il sung assumed that there would be a revolution in the south considering the south had just as many people’s councils and genuine socialists as the north. But when peaceful protests were repeatedly brutally oppressed by the southern government, he realised that there would be no revolution in the south. So, he decided to take it upon himself to liberate the people of the south. He got permission from Stalin and promises of support from China.
On top of that America withdrew all it’s troops from the south, leaving them with only inexperienced south Korean soldiers. The northern army on the other hand had a core of veterans who had fought the Japanese. On top of that they got new military equipment from their soviet allies while America didn’t even trust the south with any tanks.
5 years after being liberated by the soviets the Northern army launched an invasion/liberation of the south. Because of all these factors the north won quickly, advancing through almost the entire country in 3 months.
The international community did not like this.
