Theses on the Socialist Rural Question in Our Country
| Korean name | |
|---|---|
| Chosŏn'gŭl | 우리나라사회주의농촌문제에관한 테제 |
| Revised Romanization | Uri nara sahoejuui nongchon munjee gwanhan teje |
| McCune–Reischauer | Uri nara sahoejuŭi nongch'on munje e kwanhan t'eje |
Cover page of the English-language edition (1990)
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| Author | Kim Il-sung |
| Country | North Korea |
| Language | Korean |
| Subject |
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| Published | 1964 (Korean ed.) |
| Publisher | Pyongyang: Workers' Party of Korea Publishing House (Korean ed.) Pyongyang: Foreign Languages Publishing House (English ed.) |
| Pages | 64 (English ed.) |
| OCLC | 150935485 |
| 309.2/63/09519 | |
| LC Class | HN730.6.A8 K513 1964 |
Theses on the Socialist Rural Question in Our Country, also known as the Rural Theses or Theses on the Socialist Agrarian Question in Our Country is a 1964 treatise by Kim Il-sung, the first leader of North Korea. The work lays out the most influential statement on North Korean agricultural policy and its implementation transformed the country's agriculture from a traditional into a modern one. Crop yields were increased, but some environmental problems like deforestation ensued.
The Theses set out an application of Kim Il-sung's Three Revolutions Movement on agriculture. The three revolutions are: ideological, cultural and technological advancements in the agricultural field. The piece has become iconic and has been referred to in other important texts including the leaders' works.
The Theses laid out a framework for the first North Korean agricultural and environmental policy that was indigenous and ideological. Much of that policy has remained the same ever since. The Theses were a change of paradigm in the way North Korean agricultural policy was thought.
Robert Winstanley-Chesters calls it a "rare thing among North Korean texts, a piece of acutely coherent and systematic writing and thinking". This makes North Korean agricultural policy "knowable and accessible for analytical review", contrary to how media and academic narratives emphasizing the "opacity" of North Korea describe it.
The work has been published, in addition to Korean, in English French, Spanish, German, Arabic, and Danish.
In August 1962, Kim Il-sung led a joint conference of local party and economic officials which convened in Changsong County, North Pyongan Province. It was out of this meeting that the Theses were conceived. The Theses were formally accepted by the eight plenum of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea on 25 February 1964.
According to the Theses, agricultural development was to be done by applying Kim's Three Revolutions Movement: evoking ideological, cultural and technological change. A cultural reform was the continuation of the consolidation of cooperatives into larger units that had been started earlier. Technological projects included the intensification of the use of chemicals and machinery. The Theses elevated agriculture in hierarchical status by putting the "peasantry over the urban working class, agriculture over industry and the rural over the urban" with the aim of eliminating the "distinctions between the working class and the peasantry". The Theses sought not only to increase agricultural production but also to socially transform the peasantry into "socialist farmers".
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