Essay:What Juche Explains About the Spiritual Life of Humanity

As it turns out, the spiritual life of humans is the decisive factor in whether socialism can combat bourgeois interference, and therefore sustain itself. By this, I am not suggesting the worldview of the espiritista, nor of the mechanical man. In all mention of spirituality, I counterpose it to religion or "dogmatic spirituality". In other words, spirituality in its correct form is without dogma. In order to demonstrate the connection between "spirituality" (for lack of a better phrase) and Marxism and Juche, I'll reference On some problems of the ideological foundation of socialism by Kim Jong Il, and also Fundamental Principles of Philosophy by Georges Politzer, and various observations by Stalin. By the end, I hope the reader will see the historic contribution of the Juche idea, not only to Korean society but all human societies.

(At least, I'll tell you how I draw upon it to bring an international character to some perspectives arising from within my own society. I write this for them, who are wondering what socialism can do for them.)

A Brief History of the Struggle Against Idealism

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We read in some UNESCO brochures that peace can only be guaranteed by the "pacification of minds" and that if we want to end war, it is necessary to kill it in the minds of the people. . In short, the cause of wars is subjective. Or, the psychoanalysts would say, it is an “instinct of aggression” lurking in the consciousness of every man. Or ... “hereditary hatred”.

Such a conception of the causes of war is idealistic. The position of marxist materialism is quite different: the cause of wars is in the objective reality of societies. In the era of imperialism, wars originate from economic crises which lead to the search by violence for new outlets. It is thus an objective law, the law of maximum profit, which explains wars. As for the subjective process (the idea of ​​war, hatred, the instinct for aggression, etc.), it originates precisely from the material contradictions which create an objective situation of war. It is objective reality which explains the appearance of the subjective process. And not the reverse.

(...) The oldest and most obscurantist thesis is the religious, theological thesis. She sees in the material life of societies a reflection of the divine idea, the realization of a providential plan. The "social order" is willed by God. Just as, according to theologians, the nature and spirit of man are immutable, so any change in society is impious, sacrilegious; change is demonic since it is an attack on the will of God, any idea of ​​change is guilty. A consequence of this point of view is clericalism: only the clergy, depositary of God's designs, can guarantee "social order". Perfectly adapted to feudal society, this thesis was opposed by the revolutionary bourgeoisie.

Then comes an idealist thesis of bourgeois essence, developed in particular by the philosophers of the 18th century French. They fought against "divine right" in the name of "natural law", "natural religion", Reason. They taught that the feudal order is disorder because it does not conform to the requirements of Reason, the image of which each man finds in himself. It is therefore in the name of Reason, posited by them as original, universal, eternal, that society must be transformed: the social order will then, finally! the reflection of the rational order.

(...) A dialectician, Hegel sometimes makes remarkable analyzes. But his idealism led him to attribute to great men an exaggerated role; they become the sole agents of historical progress. This aspect of Hegelian philosophy was to be shamelessly exploited by fascist ideology for which the mass is nothing; only the infallible "superman" counts. "Fascism is what Mussolini is thinking right now," said an admirer of Le Duce. Hitler shouted to his shock troops: "I will think for you".

(...) As a rule, bourgeois sociologists explain material transformations by the development of "collective consciousness", which itself remains a mystery. The history of societies then appears as the progressive realization of moral aspirations,that have been wandering somewhere in human consciousness since the early ages. Why does "collective consciousness" evolve in one direction rather than another, we do not know ... It is because sociologists ignore (and some want to ignore) production, the class struggle , engines of history. They stay on the surface. If for example Social Security exists, well! it is because “ideas have evolved”. Everything comes back, as in the philosophy of Léon Brunschvicg, to "the progress of consciousness".

(...) For Proudhon, the history of societies is the progressive incarnation of the idea of ​​Justice, "immanent" in "consciousness" since the origin of humanity. Thus, the relations of production [See the definition of these terms, Lesson 15.] Are the realization of "economic categories" which lie dormant in the "impersonal reason of humanity". This uncreated consciousness - "social genius", as Proudhon says - is present in the whole of history; by it everything is explained, itself not having to explain itself. And since consciousness has always been what it is, Proudhon comes to deny the very reality of history (...) Proudhon is himself the victim of the clerical ideology that he believes he is fighting. "The conscience" of the bourgeois eater of priests, who takes himself for the measure of the world and of history, it is little more than the ancient God, vaguely secularized. At its root, Proudhonism is idealistic.

[In the Poverty of Philosophy, Marx wrote of Proudhon:]

(...) When then, to save principles as well as history, we ask ourselves why such and such a principle manifested itself in the eleventh or the eighteenth century rather than in another, we are necessarily forced to examine minutely what were the men of the eleventh century, who were those of the eighteenth; what were their respective needs, their productive forces, their mode of production,the raw materials for their production, and finally what were the man-to-man relationships that resulted from all these conditions of existence. To go deeper into all these questions, is not to make the real, profane history of men in each century, to represent these men both as the authors and the actors of their own drama? But the moment you present men as the actors and the authors of their own stories, you have, by a detour, arrived at the real starting point, since you have abandoned the eternal principles you spoke of first. (Marx: Misery of Philosophy, p. 92.)

The criticism thus made by Marx to Proudhon applies to all the forms of idealism that we have indicated in a, b, c, d ... In all cases, reality is turned upside down, so that the The concrete explanation of ideas becomes unintelligible. It is dialectical materialism which, putting things right, shows that social ideas reflect the objective material development of history. Dialectical materialism alone is the basis of the science of ideologies. Idealism proclaims ideas, it parades them, reproaching "vile" materialism for denying them (which, we will see, is false); but in truth he speaks of them all the more because he understands them less; he asks them to explain everything, but they remain inexplicable to him.

(...) It is precisely this objective reality, independent of conscience, that some thinkers, because they do not understand its laws, call fatality. Existentialists have renewed the vocabulary while keeping the same thing: they speak of "man thrown into the world", of man "in situation". We will see in the fourth part of this work, devoted to historical materialism, that this situation is not a mystery and that it can be studied scientifically.

When, under feudalism, the young bourgeoisie of Europe began the construction of the great manufactures, it was unaware of the social consequences of this "innovation" which was to lead to a revolution against the royal power whose benevolence it appreciated at the time (the monarchy encouraged the nascent manufactures) and against the nobility into which it dreamed of entering!

When the Russian capitalists implanted modern large-scale industry in Tsarist Russia, they were not aware that they were preparing the conditions for the future triumph of the socialist revolution.

Stalin also explains this phenomenon in his story about a shoemaker that abandons petty bourgeois dreams in favor of becoming a proletarian, and becomes aware that in order to improve his situation, it is necessary to fight against the bosses, join a union, go on strike, and eventually study socialism.

When the U.S. imperialists, and subsequently the Western capitalists, in 1947, on the basis of the Marshall Plan, organized the economic blockade of the U.S.S.R. and the people's democracies, it was far from clear that they would contribute to the formation of a new world market, a socialist market, and to the disintegration of the old single capitalist market.

(...) Such is the "fatality" on which many novelists have embroidered. The struggle for the satisfaction of immediate interests leads, in the more or less long term, to social consequences independent of the will of those who engaged in this struggle. These immediate interests are by no means arbitrary since they respond to the objective situation, at a given moment, of a society, of a given social class. (...)

For example, the capitalist relations of production have not been chosen by men. The development of the productive forces within feudal society necessarily led to the formation of capitalist relations of production and not to others, whether men wanted it or not. This is how each new generation is forced to start from the objective conditions that are made for it. "Fatality" then? No, because as we shall see, the scientific study of the objective relations of production makes it possible to understand their nature, to foresee their evolution, to accelerate it.

(..) [Here is] the unfortunate fate of the idealist thinker: as he starts from his consciousness, without questioning the objective conditions that make it exist and that make it exercise itself, he believes that it is sufficient for itself. Illusion fought by materialism.

(...) Having said that, it is necessary to draw an important practical conclusion from the remarks we have just presented: we have shown that very great material changes have taken place in history without those who participated in the transformation, or who brought it about, being aware of its consequences, without their having wanted it. It is therefore false to claim that there will be no socialist revolution in a country where all the workers have previously acquired revolutionary theory! The millions of people who, in October 1917, made the revolution with their hands did not see as far as Lenin and the Bolsheviks the scientific vanguard of the revolution. But in carrying out this great historical task, they were working on the transformation of their own consciousness, on the victory of the new man, a victory scientifically foreseen by Marx.

It is not the will of men that arbitrarily determines social relations, as we have said, but rather the conscience of men, which is conditioned by the material reality of the society of which they are members.

(...) We see the error of vulgar materialism. Noting that there is no thought without a brain, he concluded that social ideas have a purely organic determination: modify the organism of an individual, and you will change his political ideas!

Philosophical materialism certainly states that the brain is the organ of thought. But the brain itself is inseparable from the objective conditions that make men exist: it is the brain of a social being. (...)

One of the most characteristic examples of ideology as a reflection is provided by religion. The idealists, like the theologians, profess that every man spontaneously finds in himself the idea of God, that this idea has existed since the origins of mankind, that it will last as long as it does. In reality, the idea of God is a product of the objective situation of men in ancient societies. According to Engels' formula, religion is born from the limited conceptions of mankind, but in what way? On the one hand, by the almost total impotence of primitive man before a hostile and incomprehensible nature; on the other hand, by their blind dependence on a society they did not understand and which seemed to them the expression of a superior will. Thus the gods, inexplicable and all-powerful beings, masters of nature and society, were the subjective reflection of man's objective impotence before nature and society.

The progress of the natural and social sciences was to reveal the illusory character of religious beliefs. However, as long as the exploitation of man by man persists, objective conditions remain for the belief in a superhuman being who dispenses happiness and misfortune. "Man proposes, God disposes": the peasant of ancient Russia, crushed by misery and with no prospects for the future, entrusts his fate to the divinity. The socialist revolution, by giving the community control over the productive forces, gives mankind the possibility of scientifically directing society, while at the same time increasing his power over nature at an ever-increasing rate. The objective conditions are created so that the religious mystifications which other objective conditions had generated and maintained are gradually erased from human consciousness.

In the same way, moral ideas are a reflection of objective social relations, a reflection of social practice. Idealists see in morals a set of eternal principles, absolutely independent of circumstances: they come to us from God, or they are dictated to us by the infallible "conscience. But we need only beware that, for example, the commandment "Thou shalt not steal" could only have existed and had meaning from the day private property appeared. In communist society, the notion of theft will lose all real basis because the abundance of goods will be such that there will be nothing to steal. How then can one speak of eternal morality? Morality is transformed with and by society. (...)

The revolutionary French bourgeoisie of the 18th century led its leap against feudalism in the name of eternal Liberty, Reason and Justice. It identified its revolutionary class interests with those of mankind in general, and it was sincere. But the victory of the bourgeois revolution gave words their true meaning, their historical meaning. It showed that these universal moral ideas were the expression of class-specific interests. Freedom? yes, freedom for the bourgeoisie to produce and trade for its class profits; freedom to keep political power for itself, etc. But to the proletariat, this bourgeoisie which had made the Revolution under the flag of freedom, refused the freedom to form unions, to fight by strike, etc.

(...) Does this mean that there will never be universal morality? Not at all. Morality will be the same for all men when the social conditions which will make such a morality effective will be objectively realized, that is, when the world triumph of communism will have abolished forever all opposition of interests among men, abolished all classes.

(...) The suppression of class antagonisms prepares the blossoming of the universal communist morality, of which the class morality of the revolutionary proletariat constitutes the first form.

(...) We see that the opposition of moral ideas in the course of history, and in a general way, the opposition of ideologies, reflects the opposition of the interests of the social classes in presence. It is in this way that we can understand how social and political ideologies evolve. If, for example, the bourgeoisie in France, in one hundred and sixty years, has gone from moral universalism ("All men are brothers") to fascist racism (hatred of the Jews, hunting of North African workers, etc.), this can be explained by the material evolution of this class. Revolutionary, it believed that it could speak for all men. Threatened in its turn in its reign, it justified its domination by a claim of right of blood. This is how the feudal lords used to do it!

(...) An essential thesis of philosophical materialism is that consciousness is posterior to material reality (nature and society). It is posterior to the consciousness of the objective situation. This is how the former shoemaker Stalin talks about leads an objectively proletarian life, but keeps, for a certain time, a petty bourgeois consciousness.

In the same way, in a society whose material base is changing, men only become aware of these changes with a certain delay. When these appear, then they look for solutions in the arsenal of old ideas they have kept from the past. Survivors (ideas born in old objective conditions) are an obstacle to new ideas, which correspond to the new objective conditions. Example: at the very beginning of capitalism, the proletarians exploited by the industrial bourgeoisie, were looking for a solution to their misery in an utopic return to craftsmanship: they therefore destroyed the machines.

But the survivors must inevitably retreat, as the contradictions of objectives develop: then the return to the past appears more and more impossible, while new ideas are reinforced, the only ones adapted to the objective forces that are rising. The past is prolonged in consciousness until the day when the present becomes intolerable to the point that a new one must be found; then the future prevails.

The Juche Idea Centers the Role of Human Consciousness in Humanity's Evolution

As explained, basically Marxism mainly explains the universe in terms of material conditions, class relations, and the economic base or means of production, which Juche agrees with. In the realm of the technical sciences it is the most advanced methodology. Spirituality, a practice governed by the laws of the universe, shares and is enhanced by this methodology, but it explains the other side of the universe, best summarized as the spiritual life of man. So Marxism is one side of the stick, and spirituality is the other side of the stick. The Juche idea is the only established idea that explains the relationship well, because it gives such an importance to what we could consider to be "spirituality", so my interpretation of Juche would be something like the following.

When socialism is established, there are still remnants of the old society, bourgeois ideology in the form of spiritual dogmatism or religion still reigns, along with the old technology and culture marked by vestiges of capitalism. These vestiges of the old society, which is to say the religious vestiges, the dogmatic vestiges, the society will go through a certain period of still being affected by these things. But the people - because they'll have socialism - they'll have the ability to achieve unprecedented transformations in these areas. In socialism, the society will be organized in such a way that it's possible to have these massive transformations of the whole society, to spiritually cultivate themselves, to become spiritually liberated.

So Juche demonstrated to the world that the revolution must be carried on not only within the the realm of the physical and the material and the bodily and the economic and so on, but also the revolution must be carried out in the spiritual, the ideological, technological and cultural side of things. The DPRK has the opinion (it's just their own opinion) that theirs is the best kind of socialism, because they take such importance to this side of things, because whereas the other socialist societies are still impacted by the attempted invasions of bourgeois ideology & influence, the DPRK asserts that they have triumphed over bourgeois infiltrations, and mastered protection of their culture, Meanwhile, the other countries struggle harder than they would otherwise, if there was a real "revolution" (they literally call it a revolution) in the "spiritual life of man" (as Stalin phrased it). And this type of revolution isn't in any way comparable to the Cultural Revolution, of course. So I think what they're saying is, all of these other countries have achieved socialism, they have survived the the capitalist encirclement, they have survived, but still the task remains to cultivate the spiritual wisdom that is needed to maintain that socialism.

So that's what I see them, taking notice of a realizing and they say that Marxism did not pay due attention to the question of improving the creative ability and role of the masses because they considered the development of society to be a natural historical process which follows the objective laws mainly the law of development of the material and economic conditions attaching decisive importance to material production and the social and economic relations and the activities of the social man needless to say man draws on the objective laws in transforming nature in society but he does not merely adapt himself to these laws he recognizes and makes use of them on his own initiative he has inexhaustible creativity creative ability to transform nature and society to meet his demand for independence by drawing on the objective laws man's ability to transform the world is limited in a particular. However this creative ability and role of man is being continuously enhanced the development of society is attained in the long run with the improvement of the masses creative ability and role the working class party must pay deep attention to understanding the objective laws and making good use of them by improving man's creativity and his role they say our socialism gives the fullest play to the consciousness of man a conscious social being consciousness is an important attribute of man and it guarantees independence and creativity throughout history that there have been sharp arguments between the progressive and the reactionary on the issue of man's consciousness idealists made the spirit absolute and Mystic as if it was an entity that exists independently of the material being materialists in opposition to idealism insisted that the spirit is a reflection of the material world the theory that reflection was and the theory that a reflection was in advance in opposing the mystification of spirits but it could not be a scientific clarification of the role of consciousness marx made it clear that social consciousness is determined by social beings and the former actively reacts to a letter but he failed to clarify the decisive role of ideological consciousness advance activities so the Jewish idea clarified for the first time that ideological consciousness plays the decisive role in the activities of man man's activities are conducted under certain material conditions and consciousness reflects the material world but the role of consciousness is not confined to reflecting upon reflecting on the material world and reacting to it consciousness determines all activities of man ideological consciousness is the basis of all thinking and activities of man it plays the decisive role in man's cognitive activities and practice man has the consciousness of independence and for this reason he volitionally understands the objective world and performance creative activities the role of ideological consciousness is determined by his character and content the ideological consciousness of Independence the Revolutionary Ideological consciousness defends independence and propels the revolutionary struggle to transform nature and society on revolutionary lines whereas the reactionary ideological consciousness infringes upon the independence of the masses and holds back social progress the decisive factor of victory and success in the revolutionary struggle is the organized efforts of the masses who are equipped with revolutionary ideological consciousness OK just substitute that for spirituality the mass is equipped with a real spirituality and so the historical fact that revolutionary revolution emerged victorious in those countries in which the objective material and economic conditions were less mature proves that the decisive force that propels the revolution is the revolutionary ideological consciousness of the masses the role of man's ideological consciousness is further improved in social society where the masses have become the masters of society and they say very explicitly that the driving force of the revolution can be incomparably strengthened and the cause of socialism and communism will be achieved with success when all members of society are freed from subjugation of all hues of outdated breed dogmatic or religious ideology and fully ready to become communist revolutionaries through the ideological revolution and so basically like think how important spirituality is I see them setting the framework where the groundwork of it being important like of of it being like a necessary thing to focus on in the society and I mean language barrier but I would say that what I understand is like at least in their society you know they've they've done experimentation on like you know ways to you know make make things good right so art is a huge thing for them like art and creativity they try to equip the masses of people with as much you know creative ability as possible and you know so depending on how you interpret things I mean when I hear you say like socialism is like a good start to things but it's not like sufficient and I think that's true because I think that I think that at least the DPRK is noticing that that that's true like that there is this necessity of of not just making sure that food is on the table but also making sure that the people's you know spirit is said and that spiritual wisdom or maybe among Escobar is like really important for the the survival of socialism like they can get to the point of revolution but but in order to truly be like self sufficient all of these things are needed and so several countries have carried out their socialist revolutions conducted socialist construction and gained various experiences the experience is acquired through building socialism in several countries incorporate not only successes but also lessons in failure they also include excellent achievements as well as mistakes all of these experiences and lessons when analyzed to some summed up and generalized are the basis for completing the revolutionary theory on communism which is an incomplete theory and so I think as experiences are accrued then it it will become I think more apparent to people the necessity of that the spiritual cultivation and just you know As for the mistakes revealed in the socialist construction in some countries their parties which allow dogmatism and revisionism not Marxism Londonism and its founders are to blame for them the people who were said to have been building socialism guided by Marxism Leninism in the past failed to put forward new revolutionary theories and step with the changed historical conditions as they have applied Marxism Leninism dogmatically but this to be clear this does not mean that there's that there needs to be some kind of middle ground between capitalism and socialism no no no that would be the abstract theft is in socialism to just the level of ideas what those are are they're not idea they're not mere ideas the task at hand for socialist countries is to have the ideological and spiritual rounding to be able to have socialism you know unleashed it's full potential which can only be done by empowering the the masses of people