The word “monarchy” and the word “dictatorship” have a similar kind of relationship as the words “religion” and “cult”. They describe similar phenomena with specific distinctions, and one term is used as a mere description while the other in disgust.
Aristotle was among the earliest to distinguish them, and in his particular fashion, he did so by tracing their origins.
The two forms of monarchy are contrary in their very origin. The appointment of a king is the resource of the better classes against the people, and he is elected by them out of their own number, because either he himself or his family excel in virtue or virtuous actions; whereas a tyrant is chosen from the peopl to be their protector agains the notables, and in order to prevent them from being injured. History shoes that almost all tyrants have been demagogues who gained the favor of the people by their accusation of the notables.
-Aristotle, Politics Book IV Chapter X
In other words, monarchy is traditional, dictatorships (Aristotle’s word “tyranny” has evolved different meanings today. The ancient Greeks called a dictator a “tyrant”) are revolutionary. A king is king because he has received power according to birth or election by the aristocracy. A dictator is dictator because he has seized power, according to the General Will.
Such governments, for Aristotle as for us, are almost by definition unstable. The dictatorship relies upon the dictator; upon his exit, the state will be reordered. Officially, the Fascist Party/King of Italy removed Mussolini from power and replaced him with Marshal Badgolio. But this was the last political act either the Fascists or the King actually committed. Italy became something else almost immediately afterwards. The death of Franco meant the end of the state he constructed, so to did the retirement of Pinochet. Both failed in the same way that Sulla failed, in not establishing continuity of regime.
Perversely, it is left-wing dictatorships that seem to have greater success in this department. The Soviet Union lasted 74 years, with what seems to the West to be a series of dictators: Lenin, Stalin, Kruschev, Brezhnev, and Gorbachev, with a smattering of also-rans and place-holders (Trotsky, Malenkov, Andropov and Chernenko, etc). The reality is more complicated: these men governed as the heads of a revolutionary Party which became a Clerisy that established legitimacy and followed orders. To dominate the Communist Party was to dominate the Soviet Union. Stalin defeated Trotsky by gaining control of the Party, without civil war. Brezhnev overthrew Kruschev in the same manner, without a shot being fired in anger. The USSR collapsed because it’s economic philosophy was untenable, not because of a lack of political stability. It would be better to call these men Communist Tsars rather than dictators, with the Party replacing the Russian Orthodox Church as the source of legitimacy and truth.
We see a similar result in China, with Mao Zedong’s death heralding attempted coups but not state collapse. As in Russia, the Communist Party chose new leadership, and new leaders have come and gone without heralding civil war or revolution. As of this year, the People’s Republic of China has passed the Soviet Union in longevity, being 75 years old, and while there are threats to its order, it has not married itself to rigid Marxist economics, but has become an industrial power that the USSR never dreamed of being.
Which brings us, at last, to the subject of our headline, North Korea, and the question posed. The glaring fact about North Korea’s communist regime, which distinguishes it from the USSR and the PRC, is its dynastic nature. Power in North Korea has been passed down in an unbroken succession of father to son.
This isn’t as wildly out of place as it would appear to be. Prior to the American Invasion of 2003, Saddam Hussein had found places in his regime for both of his adult sons, Qusay and Uday, and the general consensus was that Qusay, the younger brother, was well-placed to replace his father. Of course, the same could have been said for Napoleon II, but that’s a point for later on. War is ever the ultimate decider of politics.
Nor does Aristotle discount the possibility that it can work. When he considers ways that tyrranies/dictatorships can survive, the number one way is to act like monarchies; i.e., to be moderate and respectful of people’s properties and norms. Such does not preclude the possibility of dynastic succession:
The tyranny which lasted longest was that of Orthagoras and his sons at Sicyon; this continued for a hundred years. The reason was that they treated their subjects with moderation, and to a great extent observed the laws; and in various ways gained the favor of the people by the care which they took of them.
-Politics Book IV, Chapter XII
Regardless, we have a regime, dictatorial and totalitarian, that has survived from the end of World War II to the present day1, while operating on a hidden dynastic principle. The son of the previous paramount leader is appointed to be the next paramount leader, and everyone accepts this. What manner of state is this? Why does it differ in this respect from other Communist regimes, and what does this mean for us?
I can quote Aristotle’s Politics as regularly as I want the old boy to buttress my points, but the true lesson to take from the work is that political order is fluid, ever at risk of evolving into something else, or collapsing into disorder. No tradition holds forever, and no revolution wipes away the need for order. You cannot Solve Politics.
Therefore, whatever regime currently exists in any country is forever in a process of evolving. Britain took a long time to become the constitutional monarchy it is today. France’s current constitution, which has a strong presidency and a chaotic legislature, is the attempt to correct for past regimes that swayed too far in the direction of monarchy or democracy to survive. Even the USA’s constitutional order hides several shifts of governmental power (this is a topic for another essay, however).
And as Aristotle indicates, such was par for the course in ancient societies. Roman political evolution is commonly taught in schools, but what’s less well known is the time it took for Republic to shift into Empire. The Roman tradition against monarchy, established by the overthrow of Tarquin the Proud in 509 BC, was dissolved slowly in the acid of aristocratic ambition. And even at the moment when The Empire was established by Augustus Caesar, the government he created had to hide its nature to appease tradition.
Julius Caesar chose to reign openly as a Dictator Perpetuus, and suffered assassination as a consequence. Augustus was having none of that. Rather, he gathered about his person existing titles that had authority and sanctity2, and kept them in perpetuity, while allowing yearly elections to go on. So it appeared that Rome was still a Republic, but everyone knew that Augustus called the shots. He reigned with the advice of the Senate, but he reigned.
Then, having admitted his friends to come unto him, and asked them whether they thought he had acted well the comedy of his life, he adjoined withal this final conclusion, in Greek: “Now clap your hands and all with joy resound a shout.”
-Suetonius, The Lives of the Twelve Caesars, “The History of Octavius Caesar Augustus”, paragraph 99
This comedy of Hidden Dictatorship his successors were obliged to play as well, and with diminishing results. A recent biography of Caligula suggests that Little Boots was less a mad emperor than an open monarchist before Romans were ready to accept such.3 But eventually the Hidden Dictatorship became an Open Dictatorship, and by the time of Diocletian and Constantine, an Open Monarchy with regal trappings, divine sanction, and court etiquette, which survived on the Bosporus through the Medieval Period.
Thus Roman Republican Dictatorship became Roman Imperial Monarchy, not by revolution but by evolution. Could such a thing happen in North Korea, a country with a monarchial tradition lasting from the 14th Century to the moment of Japanese Annexation?
Let us observe.
The initial Leader of North Korea, who began the Communist Comedy, was Kim Il Sung. He was a leader of Communist guerrillas against the Japanese during WWII and swiftly rose to prominence in the Korean Communist Party through close ties with the Chinese Communists and the Soviet government. He was not a puppet of either state, but maintained a careful neutrality during the Sino-Soviet Split. His core ideology of Juche is aimed at the idea of an independent national state, supplying its own needs. Despite this, at the time of his death, the North Korean economy was badly cracked, and the lack of aid from the Soviet Union induced famine.
Kim Jong Il, the eldest son of Kim Il Sung, was designated as his successor as early as 1974. This mirrors the succession principle of the Augustan Principate and the Five Good Emperors of the 2nd Century AD: a successor would be “adopted” by the emperor while alive, and then would serve in various offices of state. During his rule, beginning in 1994, Kim Jong Il added to Juche the principle of Songun, or “Military First”, by which the Korean People’s Army was prioritized. In other worse, If Il Sung was the Genuine Marxist adapting Communism for North Korea, Jong Il was almost a classic Evil Overlord, maintaining control by feeding the soldiers at the expense of the people.
Jong Il had several sons, and he waited until 2009 to designate a successor. His choice fell upon his youngest son, Kim Jong Un. Since taking power in 2011, Un has made several breaks with his father’s leadership style. He appears in public more than his father, addresses policy failures with some degree of candor (without takng any blame upon himself). Songun has been pushed aside by Byungjin, or “Parallel development” of the economy and nuclear weapons. A loosening of command economy restraints, in the Deng Xiaoping style, is part of this. Words like “Principles of Market Economy” are now used.
This doesn’t mean that Jong Un is a softie. There is no evidence that North Korea’s human rights record, as understood by the international community, has improved. And like Caligula, Un has ruthlessly moved against familial opposition. His uncle Jang Song Thaek was arrested and executed in 2013. His brother Kim Jong Nam was assassinated in an airport in 2017. Also like Caligula, he has associated a sister, Kim Yo-Jong with power and authority. But there is no madness to be found here. Un has been in charge for 13 years now, and his rule is as stable as his father’s or grandfather’s.
This is all very interesting to consider. But what is the point? What pattern emerges? Simply this: the evolution from ideology to tradition. Kim Il Sung was an ardent communist. Kim Jong Il was a military strongman under communist credential. Kim Jong Un uses nostalgia for his grandfather’s days to maintain his own power. He doesn’t care about Marxism; he’s letting the market in, as the Chinese did. All three men maintained a cult of personality around them, the latter two deriving from their predecessors, like the imperial cult created by Diocletian. With each successive generation,4 the traditions matter more and Communist revolution matters less. It will not happen immediately, but if enough Supreme Leaders rule and pass their power down, the Supreme Leaders become their own justification. They become the source of legitimacy. They become emperors.
Politics is an eternal state of becoming.
If you date North Korea’s regime from the first Provisional Government of 1946, which had Kim Il Sung as its head, then it’s lasted longer than the PRC or the USSR.
Tribune of the Plebs, so that he could veto anything, and order executions; Princeps Senatus, so that he could oversee Senate meetings; Pontifex Maximus, so that he could control the state cults.
The book is Caligula: A Biography, by Aloys Winterling. It also casts doubts on many of the spiciest accusations, such as sibling incest, as fictions invented by Senatorial writers such as Suetonius who had an axe to grind.
Kim Jong Un has already begun taking his daughter, Kim Ju-Ae on public tours, in keeping with how his grandfather brought his father. Ju-Ae has been called the “Respected Daughter” of the Supreme Leader.