Contrary to what its apologists claim, North Korea owes its existence to the Russians, who declared war on Japan two days after Hiroshima, invaded the Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo (the Chinese region of Manchuria) and took over Korea north of the 38th parallel, the latitude proposed by the Americans at which the peninsula should be divided.

The Singular Thought System, introduced in 1967, forbade any deviation from Kim’s ideas. It went hand in hand with increasing militarisation in pursuit of nuclear weapons, and gross mismanagement of the economy which, once Russian and Chinese aid had dried up following the end of the Cold War, led to famine after Kim’s death by heart attack in 1994.

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