On Recovering the term ‘Flunkeyism’

As I have been working with material from the DPRK, I came across a wonderful term, flunkeyism. In a basic sense, it means to pay undue reverence to and serve someone who is greater and stronger, exhibiting the characteristics of subservience.

The term came into central usage in the 1950s in the DPRK, when it gained a specifically negative sense. As the communists were seeking to construct socialism in Korean conditions, Kim Il Sung made a significant speech called ‘On Eliminating Dogmatism a...