North Korea’s Mundane Revolution: Socialist Living and the Rise of Kim Il Sung, 1953–1965When the crucial years after the Korean War are remembered today, histories about North Korea largely recount a grand epic of revolution centering on the ascent of Kim Il Sung to absolute power. Often overshadowed in this storyline, however, are the myriad ways the Korean population participated in party-state projects to rebuild their lives and country after the devastation of the war. North Korea's Mundane Revolution traces the origins of the country's long-term durability in the questions that Korean women and men raised about the modern individual, housing, family life, and consumption. Using a wide range of overlooked sources, Andre Schmid examines the formation of a gendered socialist lifestyle in North Korea by focusing on the localized processes of socioeconomic and cultural change. This style of "New Living" replaced radical definitions of gender and class revolution with the politics of individual self-reform and cultural elevation, leading to a depoliticization of the country's political culture in the very years that Kim Il Sung rose to power. |
Contents
North Koreas Mundane Revolution I | 1 |
An ideal family under the New Living Anonymous untitled 1959 | 2 |
Won Kwangsu The Rapid Rate of Construction 1957 | 22 |
A cartoon ridiculing factory authorities for not being selfsufficient Hong Chongho untitled 1960 | 31 |
PART | 39 |
Chăn Sănggun Youth and Propriety 1956 | 40 |
An advice cartoon calling for orderly bus lines Anonymous untitled 1958 | 44 |
Pak Yongsik My Mother Said This 1960 | 47 |
Hong Chongho A BehindtheDesk Driver 1959 | 127 |
Lets Nicely Organize Our Living 1958 | 130 |
A Women of Korea cover showing a mother and baby Anonymous untitled 1959 | 156 |
Anonymous A Peoples Home Care Worker 1957 | 166 |
Anonymous How to Make Winter Gloves and Mufflers 1956 | 169 |
Modernist wooden furniture Anonymous untitled 1964 | 180 |
A cartoon on the ills of alcohol Om Byonghwa untitled 1960 | 187 |
New Product 1964 | 189 |
Feminine dress in the factory Anonymous untitled 1965 | 56 |
Anonymous Western Suit Outfits 1965 | 57 |
Anonymous Whats Repressing BottomUp Criticism? 1954 | 68 |
PART | 79 |
Song Siyop Its Been Used 1960 | 80 |
Anonymous untitled 1956 Share my hardearned production secret with others? I have to keep my secret a secret | 89 |
Anonymous ComradePlease Stand Up 1956 | 90 |
Anonymous Some Workers from the Chongjin Textile Factory 1961 | 103 |
Choe Yonggun Unconcealable Realities 1963 | 110 |
Prefabricated housing construction Yu Hyongmok untitled 1961 | 118 |
Choe Yonggun New Products 1960 | 193 |
Kim Pongun In One Apartment 1961 | 198 |
Chu Hyongdo Greeting the New Year 1956 | 203 |
Chu Hyongdo An Unplanned Photo Shoot 1959 | 205 |
Anonymous Visiting Their Homes 1961 | 208 |
Anonymous A ThreeDimensional Plan for Living Rooms 1964 | 211 |
Anonymous Finding Apartments 1962 | 212 |
A Anonymous Perspectives Are Different and So Are Results 1955 112 | 221 |
Looking Up at Comrade Kim | 223 |
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Common terms and phrases
advice literature Anonymous apartment authorities became biopolitics building campaign capital cartoon cartoonists central Ch'oe Ch'ollima challenges Choson nyõsõng Cold War colonial construction consumer consumption contemporary criticism critique cultural levels décor depoliticization divorce domestic dormitories economic editors emerged enterprises feminine figure furniture gender equality laws Hamhung heteronormative household factories housing Hwang hygiene ideal ideological individual inminban interiors Kaesong kijunnyang Kim Il Sung Kim's konsol Korean Korean War Kyongje labor power Living magazine managers memoir mother-workers mothers narrative neighborhood newspaper norms North Korea nuclear family numbers officials ondol participation Party Party-state Party-state policies Party-state's percent personality cult photographs planning political economy population postwar prefab problems production Puyang Pyongyang question readers reports revolutionary Ri's Rodong sinmun Rodongja rural saenghwal Seoul showed Sinŭiju social socialist South Soviet Union spaces specific speech story tion urban wage labor Women of Korea Women's Union workers writers