SOAS Research Online

Abstract

This dissertation will examine the formation of the industrial working class in North Korea through the areas of industrial development, work management systems, the organisation of work, wages and political education, technical training and the organisation of life outside of work. The literature examining class and class formation in Soviet-type countries falls into two categories: one side focusing on the stratification and atomisation of the population, particularly as the result of deliberate state policy. On the other hand, newer works focus on the community and shared identity of industrial workers, particularly through the creation of new structures which homogenised work and daily life at a national level. This work will attempt to build on these two sides of the literature by viewing stratification and community formation as two sides of the same process: increasing production. Stratification within the industrial working class occurred through multiple mechanisms, all of which were underpinned by the impetus of maximising production. This work will focus on three main mechanisms of stratification: the geographical structure of industrial development, the preferential treatment of heavy industries over light ones and the gendered division of labour. This research will approach stratification as part of a continuing process of industrialisation that started during the colonial period, rather than something new emerging from the North Korean state after liberation. Conversely, the emphasis on community and shared identity in North Korean publications reflected issues with cooperation and labour discipline, as well as the influence of work management systems which aimed to control the behaviour of workers outside of work as well as within it. Encouraging community formation was therefore aimed at increasing production. This work views the areas of work and everyday life not as inherently separate but instead merged and subsumed to accumulation and inseparable through processes of production and reproduction.