Fascism: A Warning

by Madeleine K. Albright

In 1953, an armistice was signed to end the fighting, but with no victor, no formal peace, no significant change in borders, and a death toll that included more than a million and a half Koreans, 900,000 Chinese, and 54,000 Americans. The war was a colossal waste of lives and treasure, so it matters that the DPRK has been built on a lie about who started it. The worldview of any North Korean begins with the conviction that, in 1950, their country was attacked by sadistic murderers from America and the ROK. If not for Kim Il-sung’s brave leadership and the pluck of DPRK fighters, their homeland would have been laid waste and their ancestors enslaved. Worse still, the story continues, Americans are evil and do not learn from their mistakes. Given a chance, the savages will return and wreak more havoc. Out of this sham narrative come the fear, the anger, and the yearning for revenge that Kim Il-sung harnessed to justify the world’s most totalitarian regime. Kim was above all a military man. Unlike most of the leaders cited in this book, he was neither a writer nor a theorist, nor inclined to read literature or study history. He did, however, possess the ardor of a committed nationalist, knew how to command, kept the Soviets on his side, and had a true Fascist’s appetite for power. He also looked good in a uniform. With Moscow’s backing, he met little resistance imposing a centralized economy and single-party rule on his fledgling country.