The US-South Korea joint air exercise 'Vigilant Storm' ended on November 5. In response to the exercise, North Korea fired dozens of missiles into the West Sea, and also conducted a group flight of military planes with a strong character of armed protests. On the last day of training, the US military then deployed two B-1Bs, one of the three major US strategic bombers. In response, North Korea fired four short-range ballistic missiles (SRBMs) into the West Sea on the morning of the 5th.

 

What deserves more attention than the formidable weapons system revealed on the surface of this situation is the global military confrontation surrounding the Korean Peninsula. This tension arose at a time when the imperialist war for hegemony that had broken out in Ukraine was leading to endless clashes. It also occurred amid heightened tensions over a clash between the United States and China as the Xi Jinping administration officially declared its will for Taiwan unification, including the use of force. In a broader context, the tensions that developed on the Korean Peninsula from the end of October to the beginning of November are an extension of the growing confrontation for hegemony between the two camps of imperialism on a global scale.

 

The overwhelming economic dominance of the US, which has ruled the world as the only hegemon since the fall of the USSR, is crumbling. To compensate for this, the military superiority of US imperialism must be more overwhelming. This means that the military significance of the Korean Peninsula becomes more critical to US imperialism. This is because the Korean Peninsula is in a decisive geopolitical position to directly attack inland China from land by mobilizing the military forces of the United States, South Korea, and Japan. The Vigilant Storm exercise was actually a threat from US imperialism to the Chinese government.

 

The rulers of North and South Korea

 

The fate of the rulers of North and South Korea is deeply subordinated to this confrontation over hegemony between imperialism. This was the case with the Korean War that broke out in 1950 and the changes that occurred in North and South Korea after that. The Korean War was nothing more than a proxy war between the US and the USSR. The rapid economic development that took place in South Korea over the next several decades was fueled by the large-scale economic support of South Korea by the United States, aiming for a 'showcase' effect in the imperialist competition for hegemony.

 

After the collapse of the USSR in the early 1990s and the dissolution of the Cold War system, American imperialism and the West, which longed for a growth engine for global capitalism, opened up economic development opportunities for China, which had contributed to isolating the USSR. In the worldwide system of vertical division of labor, China accelerated industrial development by attracting large-scale capital, while the United States and the West reaped enormous profits by inflowing monopoly capital into China. During this honeymoon period, South Korean capital also benefited enormously. Large-scale trade exports and capital inflow to China were made, and this became an opportunity for a new leap forward for South Korean capital, which had been facing a decline in the rate of profit since the mid-1980s.

 

As South Korean capital put each of its two legs on each side of US and Chinese imperialism economically, the South Korean government attempted to cross a precarious tightrope diplomatically between the two. However, as the economic honeymoon broke up recently and the fierce confrontation for hegemony began in earnest, the South Korean government was forced to choose between the two imperialist camps and is being incorporated more deeply into the US imperialist camp.

 

During this period, North Korea was isolated from the world economy like an isolated island. China has provided some economic support to North Korea because of the need for a buffer to check the military alliance between the US, Japan, and South Korea and filter direct attacks from US imperialism. Nevertheless, the Chinese rulers, who were in the process of rapid economic accumulation, did not have the strength to provide sufficient aid to North Korea, nor did they have the will to do so. This became the background for the accelerating economic downturn in North Korea and the rapid widening of the economic gap with South Korea.

 

The shadow of the crisis inevitably overshadowed the North Korean system. To overcome this crisis, the card that the North Korean rulers took out was the development of nuclear weapons. On the one hand, it was a means of mass control to elicit the legitimacy of domination, putting forward nationalism. On the other hand, it was to derive political and economic interests such as China-Vietnamese reform and opening-up, which guarantees the security of North Korea's existing ruling system, using 'nuclear,' out of the struggle for supremacy between the two imperialists.

 

But this tactic was a double-edged sword. Pouring North Korea's already scarce social resources into nuclear development was to inflict enormous sacrifice and suffering on the North Korean workers. It could be maintained temporarily, but it should be a dangerous factor in threatening North Korea's ruling regime in the long run. The need to expand nuclear development and ballistic missile testing, and to negotiate a 'big deal' with the imperialist forces using these means of pressure, has become more pressing to them. Albeit broken up at the last minute, the big deal negotiations between the Trump administration and the North Korean government clearly stated that.

 

The first reason the big deal broke up was that the US could no longer provide as strong economic compensation as it had provided to South Korea in the past. Next, the condition of the big deal that the US government demanded from the North Korean government was a clear promise that North Korea would be a dagger aimed at China under the neck. For the North Korean government, that meant giving up even aid from China and enduring huge tensions with China. This choice was risky when the United States did not guarantee sufficient economic support promises to revive and develop the North Korean regime as Vietnam did. Hence, the big deal failed. Since then, North Korean rulers have been leaning toward Chinese imperialism.

 

An interlude in which the rulers of North and South Korea pursued a certain peace while performing dangerous stunts between the two imperialist camps could no longer be screened. What does this mean? The bloody winds of the imperialist war for hegemony are raging in the Korean Peninsula once again. The fate of the Korean Peninsula will not be determined by the rulers of the two Koreas, but by a vast global flow.

 

Today's national self-determination right

 

As a result of the unavoidable self-contradictions of the reactionary bureaucratic ruling system, the ruling class in North Korea is engrossed in adventurism. That's nuclear armament. From a formal point of view, even though it is a reactionary system, the demand for self-determination of a weak country like North Korea looks pretty justified. And support for that means support for the country's right to autonomous arming, and naturally, this seems to should be linked to support for North Korea's nuclear armament. Nuclear armament feels like a legitimate national resistance against the United States as the imperialist hegemon power. But "All theory is gray. But forever green is the tree of life." We must approach self-determination right concretely in the context of today's world capitalism and the task of revolutionary struggle in the world.

 

What is the situation today? All capitalist countries are being forced to choose between the US imperialist camp and the Chinese/Russian imperialist camp as an intermediate or subordinate partner. Even if they are not strong imperialist countries, all capitalist countries are being forced to assume a part of a specific imperialist camp.

 

Let's look at Ukraine's national liberation slogan against Russian imperialist aggression. The demand for national self-determination by the working class, which is not only independent of but also against American and Western imperialism and fighting against Russian imperialism as part of the socialist revolution, is virtually non-existent in present-day Ukraine. What actually exists is only the movement of the reactionary Ukrainian ruling class, which argues the national defense war by putting forward the slogan of national self-determination but comprises a chain of the US imperialist camp and conducts one axis of the imperialist hegemony war.

 

Therefore, we basically define the war waged by the Ukrainian government as nothing more than a proxy war for the US-Western imperialist camp and do not support it. Another key that cannot be overlooked when considering the subject advocating self-determination right is whether it reflects the initiative and independence of the oppressed masses. This is the core reason we support the Vietnam War for National Liberation in the 1970s but do not support today's hypocritical self-determination of the Ukrainian ruling class.

 

The 'nuclear armament' raised by the North Korean regime is also placed in such a context. As seen not only in North Korea but also in countries in the Middle East and Africa, the characteristic of today is that the national self-determination right pursued by the ruling class is effectively incorporated as a part of the imperialist hegemony camp. The 2003 Kurdish independence movement in northern Iraq can be a prime example. To secure national self-determination from the oppression of the Iraqi government, they adopted the route of gaining some autonomy in cooperation with the US invading Iraq.

 

Conversely, today, the prospect of genuinely realizing national self-determination rights cannot help being inevitably integrated into a part of the prospect of the workers' world revolution. The formula of the permanent revolution, in which the democratic revolution grows over directly into the socialist revolution, must be extended to the prospect of the permanent revolution, which organically combines the full realization of the national self-determination right with the world socialist revolution led by the working class.

 

North Korea's nuclear armament

 

North Korea's nuclear armament must also be analyzed and judged in the context of the times and in the specific context of whether it promotes the revolutionary movement and unity of the working class.

 

First of all, North Korea's nuclear armament reflects the interests of the ruling class in North Korea, which seeks to survive among imperialist powers. Although it advocates national self-determination, in reality, this nuclear armament is at the cost of tremendous sacrifice and suffering of the North Korean working class. And it is subordinated to the vile purpose of securing an economic foundation for the survival of the ruling class in North Korea through deals with imperialist powers.

 

To increase its value at the deal, the ruling class in North Korea is using nuclear weapons as an adventurist means of speculation. The process of increasing the range of long-range missiles such as ICBMs is to keep stepping on the accelerator pedal of adventurism toward the edge of the cliff. It is because the crisis of the North Korean system is getting more serious, and the 'golden time' is not much remained. But just before the long-range nuclear missile capable of hitting the US mainland is technologically complete, US imperialism will pull the trigger with reasonable cause to wage war on North Korea. The outcome of that war will be obvious. North Korea would fall under the rule of US imperialism, which would be enough to threaten China.

 

Only one thing can become an obstacle to such a war: the danger of escalation into a world war through China's intervention. But this is the worst-case scenario for Chinese rulers. If they do not intervene, they will hand over North Korea to the United States. What if they intervene? They will have to fall into an unwanted world war or Quasi-world war. Given that it is still unfavorable to challenge the hegemony of the United States head-on, China's hegemony tactic is to wait and persevere for a while until it accumulates more power, not giving the cause for provocation to the US. So the Chinese rulers hope that North Korea remains not a powder storehouse of war but a buffer zone to interrupt the US blockade of China. For that reason, on October 28th, at the UN General Assembly First Committee (in charge of disarmament and international security), China voted in favor of a draft resolution "to condemn the six nuclear tests conducted by the DPRK (North Korea) and call on that country to abandon its nuclear weapons program."

 

However, the ruling class in North Korea, standing in the face of increasing contradictions and instability of the system, cannot afford to wait leisurely. By strengthening its nuclear armament, the ruling class in North Korea should pressure the ruling class in China in order to obtain sufficient aid. If that doesn't work, it will try a new big deal with the US. Either way, the adventurism of the ruling class in North Korea is the deed to push the entire Korean Peninsula into the midst of the war over imperialist hegemony.

 

Next, North Korea's nuclear armament will only push the working class of the two Koreas into a fierce mutual confrontation, giving North and South rulers excuses to expand military expenditure, reinforce public security ruling, and attack the workers' movement. In particular, it will provide the right-wing forces in South Korea an opportunity, under the pretext of North Korea's nuclear armament, to evolve into fascism and attack the South Korean workers' movement strongly.

 

Suppose a war breaks out on the Korean Peninsula under the current circumstances. In that case, the North and South Korean working classes will be divided and massacre each other in the second massive Korean war. A division like that between the working classes in the two Koreas will be the greatest disaster above all. Here, the historical significance of national self-determination right as a means of removing obstacles that weaken the revolutionary unity of the working class disappears without a trace. Conversely, the independent workers' organizations that the South Korean workers' movement has built up through decades of struggle and the democratic rights it has won will be burnt to ashes in an instant. It will allow the military and fascist forces to dominate South Korea and will put South Korea under the US imperialism hegemon even more severely.

 

Due to bureaucratic control and oppression, North Korean workers don't have any independent workers' movement. South Korean workers' movement is not yet ready to engage in a revolutionary struggle based on a revolutionary internationalist line. Such situations make it impossible to expect other results right away. On the other hand, US imperialism has a favorable option in its hands that can be used effectively at any time. US imperialism has an excuse to attack North Korea at any time as part of a war for hegemony against China, using the nuclear armament of the North Korean rulers as an alibi. In particular, when the US-China confrontation over hegemony blazes up as a military confrontation, for example, when China's invasion of Taiwan becomes a reality, North Korea's nuclear armament will become an excuse for a proxy war and drive the entire Korean Peninsula into an imperialist battlefield.

 

All of these are the roles that North Korea's current nuclear armament can realistically perform. It is entirely inconsistent with the reason that revolutionary socialism supports national self-determination right. Nuclear armament is only operating as a crisis-overcoming program for the ruling class in North Korea, only as a huge adventurist maneuver.

 

Tactics that the North Korean ruling class mobilizes

 

Even as the ruling class in North Korea, this adventurous gamble is very dangerous. It is because there is a great risk of overthrowing their ruling system. So they go to great lengths to minimize that risk. However, the means they mobilize are not the united power and revolutionary potential of the North and South Korean working classes. On the contrary, they raise the bets of adventurism.

 

The first means they are trying to mobilize is to use Chinese imperialism, one axis of the imperialist conflict over hegemony, as a shield. That point is fully reflected in North Korea's actions against the "Vigilant Storm" combined air exercise between the US and South Korea. It is significant that the four missiles on Nov. 5th were launched for the first time from Dongrim, which is in close contact with Chinese territory. When a missile is launched from a region closest to China, a counter-response by the US military will inevitably bombard that region with a missile if it decides to go to war. It will provoke China to have no choice but to intervene in the war. In a nutshell, the North Korean ruling class is trying to create a safety plate to protect the regime of North Korea using the possibility of a war against North Korea developing into a world war in which China participates.

 

The second means the North Korean ruling class intends to mobilize is to warn that North Korea cannot be attacked without the US army's casualties. This point is reflected in the launch of ultra-low-angle, short-range missiles. These missiles clearly target the US Air Force Base in Osan and the US Base in Pyeongtaek. It shows that if the US attacks North Korea before the nuclear missile that strikes the US mainland is technologically complete, North Korea will respond by blowing up US bases in South Korea. But what are the consequences of this? The US base is located in the middle of Osan and Pyeongtaek, where large numbers of Koreans live. In the end, hitting a US base with a missile will inevitably result in the mass killing of not only the US military but also the Korean workers and people. Whatever the state of the military alliance between the US, Japan, and South Korea, this will lead to an immediate South Korean intervention in the war and will put the South Korean workers and people under the sway of war and fascism in one stroke.

 

In the end, the North Korean ruling class is taking the world war and the great war on the Korean Peninsula hostage as means to reduce the risk of system collapse that an adventurous maneuver can cause to them as well.

 

The demands of the working class on the Korean Peninsula

 

We do not agree with North Korea's nuclear armament, which only provides an excuse for imperialist aggression and threatens national self-determination right, rather than expanding national self-determination right. We also oppose North Korea's nuclear armament, which could act as a means of undermining the revolutionary unity of the working class in North and South Korea and the world. While opposing North Korea's nuclear armament, we must desperately find a way to protect North Korea's self-determination right, especially to promote the revolutionary unity of the working class around the world and lead to the United Socialist Republic of South and North Korea and the United Socialist Republic of the World. We must find a way to unite workers worldwide revolutionarily while fighting against both imperialist camps.

 

What could be such a path? We propose the following path to the working class in North and South Korea.

 

- North Korea's abandonment of nuclear armament and the US army's withdrawal from the Korean Peninsula! Abolition of nuclear armament in all countries!

- Abolition of all treaties that promote war! Abolition of mutual defense treaty between the US and South Korea!

- Denouncement of the armistice agreement, declaration of the war's end, and conclusion of a peace agreement! Enacting of mutual non-aggression treaty between North and South Korea!

- Prohibition of large-scale military operations by the United States, South Korea, and North Korea on the Korean Peninsula!

- Disarmament in South and North Korea! Welfare Fundraising for Workers!

- Humanitarian aid to North Korea! Provide North Korea with food, medicine, and energy immediately!

- Stop all imperialist intervention in North Korea! Abolish the economic blockade on North Korea!

- Abolition of public security apparatus, guarantee of freedom of thought, and guarantee of full rights of workers' organizations, in North and South Korea!

- Guarantee of free come and go between North and South Korea!

- International unity of the working class for peace, neither American imperialism nor Chinese imperialism!

- Construction of a socialist Korean Peninsula through the workers' revolutions in both South and North Korea! Establishment of the United Socialist Republic of the World!