this post was submitted on 26 Dec 2023
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the_dunk_tank

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chollima_Movement

Citation #2 points to a book that collates many sources. Here's what it has to say:

Wikipedia is just a collection of opinions laundered by loosely-relevant citations appearing next to them (or in this case, completely irrelevant ones).

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[–] What_Religion_R_They@hexbear.net 26 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (8 children)

The article is peppered with kernels of divine knowledge such as "The Kim Il Sung-directed economy undoubtedly needed alterations. Kim Il Sung however, had no economists who were willing or able to tell him that his economic plans needed to be changed."

The citation this time is by an author from the RAND corporation and the Institute for Defense Analyses, whose parents fled from the north in 1945.

vuvuzela no economists.

[–] zifnab25@hexbear.net 20 points 2 years ago (7 children)

A friend of mine who works in DC suggested that if I wanted to really learn about the conflict in Korea, I should pick up a copy of Andrei Lankov's The Real North Korea: Life and Politics in the Failed Stalinist Utopia. I'm leafing through the first couple of chapters, and I mention "Hey, it looks like he just breezes over the Bodo League massacre as the inciting incident of the war, what gives?" My DC friend had never heard of the Bodo League, the slaughter of around 200,000 Korean dissidents, or the response from the North.

As I pick further into the book, I note similar historical skips and stumbles. As I'm raising these points, I get more and more push back, because I'm supposed to be learning about the conflict not teaching it. That ends up being the end of our discussion on the topic.

[–] Collatz_problem@hexbear.net 5 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

Lankov is very lib, but he wasn't yet caught at lying, just omission and selective emphasis, which is better than most liberal historians. Among Russian specialists on Korea Asmolov is the better one.

Also, Lankov currently works in South Korean university, so it additionally distorts the picture.

[–] zifnab25@hexbear.net 3 points 2 years ago

he wasn't yet caught at lying, just omission and selective emphasis,

I don't know about straight up lying, but at any point in which the historical record was slightly murky - most notably, in the early chapters, when there is some confusion as to whether Kim Sung Il or Stalin is calling the shots - Lankov consistently reaches for conclusions that belittle the Koreans and question their capacity for anything but cruelty.

Also, Lankov currently works in South Korean university, so it additionally distorts the picture.

The pitch I got was "He's a former Soviet, so he's not coming at Korea with a Western bias".

But Ayn Rand was also a former Soviet.

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