War, the state and the formation of the North Korean industrial working class, 1931–60

This article examines how Koreans became industrial workers in the first and second phases of industrialisation on the peninsula: under Japanese colonial rule, 1931–45 and under the DPRK’s post-Korean War heavy industrialisation, 1953–60. While the political regimes of the Japanese colony and postcolonial DPRK were different, industrialisation occurred under similar conditions, characterised principally by war, state capitalism and imperialism. Processes of proletarianisation also reveal similarities in the two periods, including the widespread use of forced mobilisation and immobilisation of workers, and a bureaucratic apparatus supporting close control of labour. The article contributes to the critique of conventional views about the role of ‘free wage labour’ during the transition to capitalism.