Pariah lies

North Korea: Another Country, by Bruce Cumings (New Press, 241 pp., $24.95)

ANYONE who knows the history of the colossal and surrealistic misperceptions of Communist regimes on the part of many Western intellectuals will find this volume at once familiar and distinctive. It is appearing against the background of the reasonable expectation that something might have been learned from the long history of such misperceptions and their resourceful encouragement by the officials of these regimes. Most of these states no longer exist, and from their ashes emerged further evidence confirming their mendacity and disproving the propaganda they steadfastly disseminated for both domestic and foreign consumption.

Bruce Cumings, a professor at the University of Chicago, has strangely chosen North Korea--the only surviving Communist state to preserve intact the worst, most oppressive characteristics of such systems--as the recipient of his affections and the object of his efforts at political rehabilitation. These sentiments are inspired in part by his respect for the Korean people, culture, and tradition--and by his failure sufficiently to distinguish such traditions from the realities of the murderous regime in the North.

Cumings belongs to the long line of Western academic intellectuals who are fully persuaded that the United States bears responsibility for much that is wrong with the world, including the existence of political systems and movements that are its most dedicated adversaries. Not only does he believe that the U.S. is largely responsible for the (defensive) brutality and pugnacity of North Korea, he is equally eager to acquaint the reader with the achievements of this regime--which include "compassionate child care" and superior health and education benefits (the kind all Communist regimes routinely claim among their accomplishments). He approvingly quotes a writer who averred that prior to the recent economic disasters, typical North Koreans lived "an incredibly simple and hardworking life but also [had] a secure and happy existence, and the comradeship between these highly collectivized people [was] moving to behold."

The author is eager to dispel any impression of North Korean aggression against the South (which in fact culminated in its 1950 invasion); he even uses the disingenuous argument that the conflict was a civil war and that the 38th parallel is "not an international boundary." He dwells on the sufferings the U.S. inflicted during that war, and thus creates a framework for his apologetic reinterpretation of the paranoid garrison state North Korea has become. His emphasis on the inhumanities of U.S. air warfare is reminiscent of the argument that the U.S. bombing of Cambodia somehow prompted the massacres of Pol Pot. Thus a very familiar theme pervades the narrative: "Beleaguered" North Korea (like other Communist systems, whose conduct was not entirely praiseworthy) did some bad things, but it was due to feeling and being threatened and victimized by the U.S.

In a disclaimer early on we are assured that the author has no sympathy for the North; there are indeed critical statements scattered throughout the book, including the admission that the regime does not promote human freedom (but this admission is hastily qualified with "not from any liberal's standpoint"). Cumings has no love for the grotesque personality cult of the leaders, but he cannot resist remarking about "U.S. support for dictators who make Kim Jong II look enlightened"; nor does he endorse the garrison state (he notes that conscripts have to serve ten years). But he also laments the bad press North Korea gets. He has little doubt that the misconceptions about this much-maligned political system are rooted in the ignorance of Americans (blended with racism) and nurtured by the sensationalistic mass media and unscrupulous politicians.

The reader's doubts about the depth and genuineness of Cumings's criticisms of the regime are further stimulated by the fact that he was considered sympathetic or dependable enough by the North Korean authorities to be allowed (or invited?) to make a television documentary. Such doubts deepen when one reads his many contemptuous references to the defectors from the North and their "tales" (which reminded me of Noam Chomsky's dismissive references to the "tales" of Cambodian refugees about the atrocities they witnessed).

In a triumph of selective perception, he manages to interpret the most damning indictment of the North Korean gulag available--The Aquariums of Pyongyang, by Kang Chol-Hwan and Pierre Rigoulot--as providing support for his views of the system. As he sees it, the book is "interesting and believable" because it is not the "ghastly tale of totalitarian repression that its original publishers ... meant it to be." But it is precisely and resoundingly that, as any reader without a soft spot for North Korean tyranny would readily discover. Cumings writes that "conditions were primitive and beatings were frequent [in the camp described in that book] but the inmates also were able to improvise much of their upkeep on their own ... small animals could surreptitiously be caught and cooked." He delicately refrains from mentioning that these small animals were mostly rats, and a regular part of the narrator's diet. That book makes abundantly clear that hunger and malnutrition were endemic; inmates stealing food or trying to escape were executed. Cumings also fails to mention these public executions the inmates were obliged to attend, stressing instead that families were commendably kept together and that "death from starvation was rare." In any event, he suggests, these deprivations are put into the proper perspective by our "longstanding, never-ending gulag full of black men in our prisons"--which should disqualify us from "pointing a finger."

As one reads on, it becomes an increasingly compelling question how it is possible for a professor of history at a great institution of learning--Chicago--to have any sympathy for such a regime. One explanation may be that, like other similarly disposed visitors to Communist countries, Cumings was favorably impressed by the remnants of a traditional social order reflected in the conduct and interaction of ordinary people, their respectful manner and sense of community. On his conducted tours he rejoiced in the prevailing orderliness and cleanliness--the little old ladies sweeping the streets (presumably without any official encouragement!)--and contrasted these appealing conditions with their absence in South Korea and other non-Communist Third World countries. Among the revealing and novel information he provides is that "every citizen 'who travels, checks into a hotel, or dines at a public restaurant is required to carry a sanitation pass,' verifying that he or she has been to a public bathhouse within the past week."

Cumings is aware of the flaws of North Korea, but they have no perceptible emotional impact on him. He generally withholds moral judgment, owing to his zeal to rehabilitate it and to his reflexive indulgence in moral equivalence (the U.S. and South Korea, in this view, are no better).

Sections of the book offer some useful information about the cultural-historical background and recent economic difficulties of North Korea and about the personal lives and character of its two leaders (dead and living). It is however of far greater interest as a document illustrating the remarkable persistence of the political attitudes of academic intellectuals durably estranged from their own society and predisposed to find virtue in others opposed to it, and in the surviving idealized social arrangements of the past.

Mr. Hollander's books include Political Pilgrims, Anti-Americanism, and most recently Discontents: Postmodern and Postcommunist.

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