Of all the events of 1989 (Czechs commemorated
their Velvet Revolution, oh, a month or so ago), the most stunning
upheaval was Albania's. I listened to Radio Tirana's broadcasts
during the 1970s, and no other dictatorship matched theirs in
absurdity. Most of the broadcasts were readings from Enver Hoxha's
turgid prose, and the personality cult around him equalled
Stalin's, or, the North Korean leaders'. That someone actually
invested time and effort in writing such rants boggled my
mind.
So, now we have only Cuba, North Korea and, to a lesser extent, Red
China as Communist states, and North Korea is the only one which is
an immediate threat.
In the
Asia
Times, Andrei Lankov points out that the DPRK's gross domestic
product
halved after the Soviet Union collapsed and its
subsidies stopped.
However, the economic disaster of 1991-95, and
especially the subsequent famine, changed the situation. Markets
began to spread across the country with amazing speed.
...
The government also relaxed the restrictions on domestic
travel.
...
The tidal wave of small trade flooded the country, which once came
very close to creating a non-money-based economy. ... Women were
especially prominent in the new small businesses. ... Their
husbands continued to go to their factories, which had come to a
standstill. The males received rationing coupons that were hardly
worth the paper on which they were printed. But North Korean men
still saw the situation as temporary and were afraid to lose the
trappings of a proper state-sponsored job that for decades had been
a condition for survival in their society. While men were waiting
for resumption of "normal life", whiling away their time in idle
plants, the women embarked on frenetic business activity. Soon some
of these women began to make sums that far exceeded their husbands'
wages.
This wasn't a loosening of political controls. Instead, it was a
loosening of the chokehold the DPRK had over the subdued populace:
obey or starve.
Lankov
points out in
another article that the Party exercises no authority outside
of the capitol, Pyongyang. Instead, it is the military
establishment keeping the state from collapsing Interestingly, it
isn't the radio broadcasts undermining the values of the Party, but
cheap Chinese imported VCRs.
So, the menacing facade is again cracking.
What has this to do with Albania? Both states combined total
control of the economy, total self-sufficiency, and personality
cults beyond description. Albania's democratization took several
years, helped by a mass exodus to Italy. The ROK likely fears a
similar flight, along with a deserved fear of a military alarmed at
losing control. Bush's policy seems to be wait and see -- don't tip
the apple cart. Recently, DPRK generals defected to Red China, and
they might be a nucleus of a new governing or command
structure.
From afar, Albania seemed to shrug off the personality cult
quickly, as if the populace had long ago understood Hoxha and his
wife's lies were just that. With the wealth of the ROK and Japan to
the south and east, and China's economy improving to the north and
west, and with the smuggled videos displaying free societies, the
DPRK's collapse should come about from within.