July/August 2002, Volume 58, No. 4, pp. 50-54, 70
Letter from Pyongyang
Anonymous
The Democratic People's Republic of Korea has a population of nearly 20 million people, but only two citizens-and one of them is dead.
The Soviet Union under Stalin tried hard to erase any vestige of civil society and the important people in it, but failed. Russia was known for its famous people, even as they fell under the blade of Stalinism. But no one in North Korea is famous except for the Kims. Led by the Great Leader, Kim Il Sung, who died in 1994, the family also includes the Dear Leader, Kim Jong Il, and the mother of all Korea, Kim Jong Suk. (Kim Jong Suk's picture crops up from time to time and place to place, but she is of little or no importance.)
So two Kims, one alive and one dead, control all aspects of life in this tiny, impoverished country, where Kim Il Sungism is the reigning ideology. Questioning that ideology brings banishment from the cities, imprisonment, or public execution.
http://www.thebulletin.org/issues/2002/ja02/ja02anonymous.html