N. Korea statement on official's ouster: Who talks like this anymore?
The style of the official communiqu茅 that announced the purging of Kim Jong-un's uncle echoes the language of Cultural Revolution-era China and Stalinist Soviet Union.
The style of the official communiqu茅 that announced the purging of Kim Jong-un's uncle echoes the language of Cultural Revolution-era China and Stalinist Soviet Union.
Far be it from me to act as a mouthpiece for North Korea's ruling party.聽But the extraordinary language of the official communiqu茅 published聽Monday, announcing the purge of one of the country鈥檚 key leaders, is worth noting 鈥� and quoting.
Nobody outside Pyongyang talks like this anymore. The last place where we heard this sort of language was China, but Beijing dropped it decades ago.聽The hyperbolic, jargon-laced rant might sound laughable to Western ears. But the implications for the chief victim, Jang Song-thaek, are dire when you think of what happened to those who fell afoul of the North Korean propagandists鈥� stylistic forebears.
The statement carries chilling echoes of Cultural Revolution-era China and the Stalinist Soviet Union during the 1930s show trials.
Not since those dark days have we heard such a denunciation of 鈥渁lien elements who had made their way into the party 鈥� gnawing at the unity and cohesion of the party 鈥� giving up the class struggle and paralyzing the function of popular democratic dictatorship,鈥� as North Korea鈥檚 official news agency published聽Monday.
Jang Song-thaek is uncle to the young North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, by virtue of having married Kim Jong-il鈥檚 sister. He has acted as virtual regent for the untested leader over the past two years and was thought to be his key adviser. His dramatic fall 鈥� arrested at the meeting that denounced him and led from the hall 鈥� poses as many questions as answers about the future of the 鈥渉ermit kingdom.鈥�
It recalls the fate of Communist leaders from other epochs and other countries; Grigory Zinoviev, for example, a comrade of Joseph Stalin, subjected to the first Moscow show trial in 1936 on trumped-up charges of plotting against the government, and shot as soon as he was convicted.
Or Liu Shaoqi, then president of China, denounced by Maoist Red Guards during the Cultural Revolution as a 鈥渞enegade, hidden traitor and scab 鈥� a sham Marxist and political swindler,鈥� who died in jail in 1969 after two years of torture.
Pyongyang鈥檚 denunciation of Mr. Jang falls squarely within the tradition of that political-literary style. Here are a few of the more striking passages, as they appeared in a Korea Central News Agency dispatch: