Peoples Temple and North Korea

The NK government was aware of PT due to NK state media posting positive articles about them in state press.

The NK officials were very interested in Korean PT members Lew Jones and Kim Yoo Ni

PT got lessons on Kim Il-sung.

Li and Jo wanted PT members back ‘next night’ to watch NK films

NK embassy officials hold Kim Il-sung in a ‘almost reverent religious feeling’ and ‘do not criticize much their country’.

NK officials hold ‘Marcie’ in ‘obvious reference’. They are ‘anxious’ to meet Jim Jones.

NK officials are planning to visit Jonestown in ‘May or June’

Found Juche to be a ‘revolutionary philosophy’ and see Kim Il Sung as a ‘savior’

2nd NK secretary noted that Jonestown members were ‘communists not socialists’.

Sharon invited NK officials to dinner. But they said ‘perhaps next week’.

The embassy is very interested in dinner with Jim Jones.

Sharon wants to give presentations on Jim Jones to the embassy.

Wanted to know the history of the name of PT

Interested in more Jim Jones booklets. Specifically – ‘The Letter Killeth’

Jo was ‘always glad to see us [PT]’ and ‘wanted us to stay in touch’

Wanted photos of Jim Jones and family and two copies of Peoples Forum every month

Sharon brings up wanting to emigrate Jonestown to North Korea due to US pressure on Guyana.

[Jones had wanted 1000 PT members to relocate to NK]

Li and Jo enjoyed dinner with Jim Jones (unknown date but sometime between 18 July – 10 August)

Li was curious as to when PT members will give up US citizenship.

Li had heard rumors of Guyana police infiltrating PT.

Li was given the works of Huey Newton

Li wanted to visit Jonestown but needs to wait till Ambassador returns from NK

There’re no political prisoners, by the way, and freedom of religion still exists in North Korea

General [John K.] Singlaub was ousted last year from his job – S-i-n-g-l-a-u-b – as Chief of Staff in South Korea’s dictatorship, because he said that President Carter, his planned withdrawal of US imperialist troops from South Korea might precipitate another North Korean invasion. Even the State Department subsequently corroborated this likelihood, screams the US press, calling for more Cold War military stances. Reporting that the Communist Pyongyang – P-y-o-n-g-y-a-n-g – the capital of the Democratic Peoples Republic of North Korea, continues to threaten the stability of the region, The New York Times says the threat it poses to the ROK – which is the fascist Republic of Korea – is of a serious emergency. In fact, the proposed withdrawal from the dictatorship of South Korea, the puppet of US imperialism, has since been delayed because it has become clear to everyone, said The New York Times, that General Singlaub was right.

General Workers Union official and government official representing Dr. Reed, is black. He gave a background, said Kim Il Sung, the glorious prime minister of North Korea, who is worshipped in a sense because it’s necessary to have a strong leader in the transition from socialism into the purity of communism. Kim Il Sung’s grandfather [Kim Bo-hyon] was involved in the struggle against US imperialism. A US spy ship was captured in the 1800’s and burned, and the people on it were slaughtered by the brave Koreans led by the grandfather of Kim Il Sung, who is the absolute representative of the people, the dictatorship of the proletariat, in Korea.

[Note: What Jones is referencing is the General Sherman Incident of 1866 when the American merchant ship SS General Sherman was destroyed in the Taedong River for attempting to open the isolated Imperial Korean government. This incident is used by North Korean state media to further legitimise Kim Il-sung’s claims of anti-imperialism and anti-US sentiments.[14] It is not known whether his ancestor did take part in this attack.]

The North Korean government, the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea, is a democracy. Total justice. They live in cooperatives. They live very modestly, and they are very, very supportive of Jonestown. They flew over it and called it a model of communism in this hemisphere.

 Juche is the doctrine or the central idea of communism. Juche. It’s j-u-c-h-e. [The] Juche idea is that man is his own creator, can create or destroy, [the] potential of man to be great and do great things. This is the central theme and doctrine of the leader of the only representative government of Korea, the Peoples Democratic government of North Korea, Communist North Korea.

 Potential of man to be great and do great things. Korea went through 36 years of Japanese rule and torture of its people. US then occupied it by its military aggression after World War II. The Democratic Peoples Republic of North Korea has been able to whip up tremendous support for their struggle, said the government of Guyana, through its spokesman, Comrade James.

The US imperialist has prevented the reunification of Korea, which both China and Russia call for, and seems determined to make the present division between North and South a permanent one. It maintains tens of thousands of troops and sophisticated atomic and nuclear weaponry in South Korea to prevent the collapse of a regime which is universally hated by the South Korean masses and does not have more than five percent support of the public.

Now Carter has proposed withdrawing some of the 42,000 US ground troops stationed in South Korea. … turning some two and a half billion dollars in military aid over to the fascist military dictatorship of Park Chung-Hee.

Anyway, the workers party of Korea is a party founded, led by President Kim Il-sung, the gram [grand] and great leader of the revolution, is in the vanguard detachment of the Korean working class and other working masses.

The general staff of the Korean Revolution and the guiding force of the Korean people. His revolutionary party of new type that has inherited the glorious revolutionary tradition that built up to President Kim Il-sung during his long-drawn anti-reactionary and anti-Japanese struggle. … It goes on in essence to say that the PNC [People’s National Congress of Guyana] backs wholeheartedly the doctrine of the DPRK, the Communist North Koreans, for reunification of their countries.

USA has a firm policy against the reunification of North and South Korea, as South Korea, under the dictatorship that was set up as a puppet regime, you know the [ass-] kissers that I spoke about, the lackeys, has been obediently the servant of US imperialist interests in Asia. But Guyana was bolder in its support than I’ve heard heretofore, for the reunification of Korea.

The North Koreans have built a socialist society, a socialist society with one of the highest standards of living in the world, in and of itself. This was no simple task. I am not reading from a pro-socialist magazine or giving comments of a pro-socialist magazine. I’m giving one from Harpers. But it was complicated by three years of US aggression which had but all but devastated the economy in the capital Pyongyang, P-y-o-n-g-y-a-n-g. For example, at the end of the Korean war in 1953, it is estimated that no more than three buildings, if any at all, were left standing. Following the war’s end in 1953, the Koreans began to rebuild their country. Their success then have not been based on magic or good luck or favorable weather conditions, because cloud seeding has been used against them by our tax dollars through the CIA.

The DPRK, communist North Korea, attributes its advances to a strong political line summed up in the Korean word, “juche,” j-u-c-h-e. The word does not have an equivalent in English. Roughly it can be translated as self-reliance. Guyana gives much credit to that word and they are very good friends of the DPRK.

As developed by President Kim Il-sung, juche, the concept stands on three legislative, political independence, economic self-reliance, and military self-defense. An integral part of the juche concept is the axiom that the problems facing the Korean revolution – and there have been numerous difficulties over the years – must be solved on the basis of Korea’s concrete conditions, not on the basis of developmental theories mechanically imported from US imperialism. Basing itself on [three pronunciations] the juche, or the juche, or jussie, j-u-c-h-e concept – someone else can give you a proper pronunciation – the DPRK industrialized its agricultural country in only eight years.

Now this is the picture we saw night before last.

The beauty of their organization, where they work sixteen hours. Eight hours of work. Eight hours of study. And then eight hours of rest. And it was this industrialization that laid the groundwork for establishing an independent economy which, as the Koreans realized from their colonial experience, was their only way to truly safeguard their political sovereignty. There is such unity and solidarity in this country that they do not have one jail in the country inhabited by over fifteen million people. Perhaps more important, remembering that US troops are still poised on North Korea’s southern borders, ready to invade at any moment, this industrialization created the basis for the DPRK’s own defense capability.

The Korean people have been the main beneficiaries of these significant accomplishments. Health care and education are free, with a universal eleven-year compulsory education system for everyone. Comprehensive daycare centers have been established for working women. Recreational centers have been provided throughout the country of the most modern variety like our carnivals and circuses. There are state subsidies on basic foodstuffs, particularly rice. Free clothing is given to schoolchildren and workers. Subsidies mean that the rice cost little or nothing. Large-scale construction of new housing has guaranteed livable housing all for now no rent at all. Now that’s what work brings about.

I would think you’d take joy in just working to make funds for Zimbabwean Patriotic Front or the Democratic People’s Republic of North Korea or Namibia.

[Note: It is not known how much money the PT donated to the North Korean government.

The only breakthrough this week was that the prime [foreign] minister  [Huang] Hua [Guofeng?] of China didn’t travel to the Peoples Democratic Republic of North Korea, the communist government there, and state unequivocally that USA should withdraw its forces, its troops that it has refused to withdraw, and furthermore, he said that reunification of North Korea would be a demand of China’s foreign policy, and they would continue to make that demand.

[Note: Jones is likely referring to Huo Guofeng, the Chinese Communist Party General Secretary and short lived successor to Mao Zedong]

In 20 years, when their entire nation was bombed back into the Stone Ages, they have rebuilt every bit of their country, and you will see such solidarity and such wholesomeness in their 16-hour schedule day, you’ll see joy on their faces and reflections of happiness and purpose that cannot be denied. Thank you. Much love.

And that’s the way North Korea looked. And the way they’ve built it now, there’s not one bit of poverty, not one slum, not one piece of rubble, not one piece of dirty street. You don’t see litter or anything, and even that film, that was made by US film company, you see nothing but beauty.

And that’s what we want to say about the People’s Republic of North Korea. They say, no man marry till you’re 32. No woman marry until you’re 30. Say, you don’t know your own mind. You haven’t been educated. You haven’t been fulfilled. You don’t have enough self-image. You don’t have enough awareness of yourself. You understand what I’m saying? …

We got these wood toys. I want to see how many of you’ll volunteer time. Show the little North Korean children going out and uh– and harvest. And I mean, some of ‘em were so small that the rice they were carrying,  you couldn’t see ’em. They were carrying the rice along on their shoulders, on their heads, and they looked like little rice bodies movin’. But they loved and they laughed and they danced and they jumped, and you never heard such singing, you never heard such synchronization, you never saw such orchestration of unity in your life. My heart wanted to cry because here, every time we try to organize– You been ruined, some of you assholes.

I was reviewing today a beautiful film on the People’s Democratic Republic of North Korea, I want you to see it tomorrow, 16 hours a day, that goddamn USA leveled that country to nothing but rubble. There were three houses left standing. There was a bomb dropped for every person. For every person in North Korea, there was a bomb. I don’t know the tonnage of the bomb. One bomb. And those beautiful people, by working like that and caring and not being like some of you, gruntled, always disgruntled. Why you have this? Why you got to have to watch the show? Why we have to have a meeting every night? Goddamn, why don’t you quit griping a little bit and understand and know what the hell I’m doin’? I make various exceptions, so why do we have to watch the film twice? You can’t get Harlan County in one time.

[Note: Harlan County U.S.A is a documentary film that covered the Brookside Strike between coal miners in Kentucky and Duke Power Company. [26]

Male: How about Russia?

Jones: No, nothing about Russia. You can get your checks in Russia. Poland. This is Social Security check, I think. I think it’s only Social Security’s. Government, other forms, you can. But there’s ways around that, I heard, there’s ways around that.

Male: I don’t think Cuba should be considered as an option, because in the September White Night, you got the message that the Cuban government would only accept you and a few others and not all of us.

Jones: Yeah, man, but hell’s fire, we were in the middle of a warfare. Now  they’re talking differently now. This is April. That’s September.

Jones: He’s a rich, a rich manufacturer here who likes North Korea. He’s a businessman, but he likes North Korea, and he likes us, so—

Marceline: Okay, I don’t know whether he knows—

Jones: —compensating for his riches, I don’t know—

Marceline: — how to make fabric out of wood, but I think it would be a great thing if we could learn how to do that.

Our musical and entertainment program in Georgetown was a raving success. …

Ambassador of North Korea, communist North Korea, Ambassador to the Soviet Union, and all said that they were very well pleased, in fact, overwhelmed by our performances.

The release, however, noted that following the announcement of the Nixon Doctrine of the US ruling circles, openly pushed ahead with the two Koreas idea in real earnest early in the 1970s, the United States, the release continued, zealously encouraged the South Korean fascist authorities to take the road of the split, not reunification. Subsequently, the South Korean authorities

immediately proceeded to practice the two Koreas plot. All reasonable and realistic proposals advanced by the People’s Democratic Republic of Communist Korea — North Korea — to the South Korean fascist authorities were dismissed … eventually the South Korea, in a so-called special statement, announced to the world the policy of freezing and perpetuating the division of that beloved country where the peoples want to be free and live under the great Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, now confined to North Korea, the Communist-liberated zone.

If we work and produce, we can send out funds to help other systems. We also already have helped the DPRK [Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, North Korea] while we’ve been here. But we’ve got to do more, we’ve got to get our people to freedom. I would think you’d take joy in just working to make funds for Zimbabwean Patriotic Front or the Democratic Peoples Republic of North Korea, or Namibia. …

The hands of imperialism reaches directly into the lives of all Koreans. We here have the opportunity, and as I said before, the duty to help move it. Who in the world is better situated to take up this fight than we, the only socialist movement as the different guests have said in the last few days in the United States? If we don’t take it up, who will? We must always work, we know the night’s coming when no man can work, we know nuclear war looks inevitable, we know it almost looks an absolute, but as we commemorate this twenty-fifth anniversary of socialism really being free in the DPRK, we join with progressives the world over in demanding: US imperialism out of Korea, bring the troops home, like Carter promised.

The United States poured more bombs on that little country than fell between 1939 and 1949, by all nations in World War II, and levelled every building in North Korea, and under the honorable leadership of Kim Il Sung, the communist leader, the agrarian leader, they built back every building, and there’s not one scar of war left, in just 30 years. Twenty-five years. Twenty-five years. That’s a hell of accomplishment for people that had just dug out of the caves.