North Korean Ideology: A Cold War History

Where lie the origins of North Korean ideology? When, why, and to what extent did North Korean ideology begin to transform into the idiosyncratic ideology that it is today?

In this first comprehensive Cold War history of North Korean ideology, Thomas Stock traces its development from Soviet Marxism-Leninism to the distinct North Korean ideology of today. Stock uncovers the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK)’s historical investment in the Marxist-Leninist tradition, a global intellectual force whose internal debates and philosophy structured the evolution of North Korean ideology. Marxism-Leninism varied across space and time, whirling in a constant process of mutation, in relation to which North Korea’s own ideology developed.

Using Eastern European archival materials, North Korean party documents, and other new sources, this book provides an unprecedented and empirically grounded look into the exact evolutionary process of North Korea’s state ideology, from its Soviet origins all the way to the iconic chuch’e ideology. This process was driven not so much by historical legacies such as Confucianism or Kim Il Sung’s guerrilla experience than by worldwide Marxist-Leninist controversies, geopolitical shifts, and the interests of party elites. Throughout the Cold War, North Korea was anything but a spiritually isolated country. As a result, North Korean ideology, too, constituted a thoroughly global product, not the hermetic construct it is often made out to be.

Thomas Stock, Humboldt Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow, Heidelberg University

Thomas Stock is a specialist in North Korean and Cold War intellectual history. He earned his PhD from UCLA in 2018 and went on to serve as a Pony Chung Postdoctoral Fellow at Korea University and a Humboldt Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow at Heidelberg University in Germany. Most recently, he contributed to a five-year research initiative under the Laboratory Program for Korean Studies.