Dear Comrade

Dear Comrade the Leader Episode 194

“God is great! (Allahu Akbar) Let’s drive out the invaders! Let’s kill the enemies of Muslims!”

“God is great! Let’s keep Islam! Brethren, raise up your arms!”

Less than a month after the People’s Liberation Army Military Administrative Command’s ‘stabilization’ measures were implemented, flames of resistance spread across Afghanistan like flames on a dry field.

Mujahideen or not, the Taliban and the general public, gathered together with the Kalashnikov rifle, the old comrade hidden in the barn, to the common enemy of the People’s Liberation Army stationed in Afghanistan.

Armed groups with different names such as ‘Islamic Liberation Front’, ‘Afghan Free Corps’, ‘Pilgrims of God’, etc. arose.

However, it was indeed an irony of history that many of the Kalashnikov rifles that were commonly held in their hands and aimed at the People’s Liberation Army were dead-copied versions in China during the Soviet-Afghan War.

“Kill! Heathens to Hell!”

“Get out of your country! Aren’t you afraid of Allah’s wrath!”

Molotov cocktails and stones flew again on the streets of Kabul, where the gunfire had stopped and stability had finally been restored.

In the city, radical protests demanding the withdrawal of the military government’s measures took place in front of the military government headquarters.

Among them, those who are radical nationalists, those who have the strength and determination to shoot, or those who just have a lot of dissatisfaction with society but have no jobs, go to the mountains and become guerrillas of armed groups.

Moreover, as antipathy for the People’s Liberation Army was soaring among those who could not afford it, the elderly, women and children, timid resistance to the Chinese occupiers took place in Kabul, as well as in areas where resistance was fierce like Helmand and Kandahar.

The outside walls of the PLA base were covered with abusive graffiti and filth that Kabul citizens wrote down secretly in the dark, and parked PLA vehicles often had their wheels flattened by children on the streets of Kabul.

And the Afghan People’s Liberation Army Military Administrative Command was consistent with a hardline response to all of them.

“Dissolve the protests! dissolution! If you don’t dissolve it right away, it will taste hot! Tear gas fired!”

“No, the shepherd villagers who live in places without electricity say, ‘If you only know how to read the Quran, you are an intellectual and you don’t need to learn anything more’? It’s not funny. After all, if you want to scrape away these bad habits, you can’t do it the normal way.”

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Naturally, the People’s Liberation Army commanders had no intention of accepting or pretending to respect the cultures of Tibetans, Uyghurs, and other minorities, as they did in response to their religions.

Rather, from their point of view, the elite or the lower classes, Afghans, who had no will to modernize their own country or to develop the economy (which almost became the state government of China after Jiang Zemin) were pathetic.

It was an attitude reminiscent of the former Japanese Empire’s Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere, ‘Since they liberated Asian countries from white invasions and helped us with various modernizations, they should be grateful and obey us.’

Even for the most moderate of the generals, the Afghan people were not objects of understanding and respect, but merely beings of edification and guidance, and those who were more hard-lined were trying to implement an ideological reorganization that completely overturned the ideology of the Afghan people.

It was at this point that the generals and high-ranking officers, who had learned how important operations against the people and enlisting locals were in the war of occupation, were at this point. there was hardly any.

“You savage Muslims! Why are there so many uproars that we, China, are going to make the people who live in religion, the opium of the people, bloom by hand? Don’t spare bullets for those who don’t know grace! Start shooting!”

“Shaving the beards of the Imams! Destroy the mosque! Instead of the Quran, spread the biography of Mao Zedong’s anti-Japanese campaign!”

“Ex-KPA soldiers can engage and kill without needing to report to their superiors when they see elements of unrest and reactionaries that prevent the ‘ideological rebuilding’ of the Afghan people! One day they will cry and thank the CCP for letting them break free from their barbaric customs.”

“If you are holding a gun, even if you are holding a frivolous object, fire them all first! what? What does it matter whether you are a child or an adult? Oh, and take off all the pieces of cloth that these ladies are wearing in Chador and search for them! Who knows if they’ll hide a bomb in it? Let’s do a little eye-pray for Kim. huh.”

In cities, at least, being conscious of foreign journalists and cameras, mild (?) responses such as clubs and tear gas were the mainstream by the inexperienced, but in the countryside and mountains where there is no need to notice, systematic massacre and destruction by the People’s Liberation Army was the mainstay. achieved

And it goes without saying that the fear and hatred propagated by the survivors who managed to survive in the ruined villages again led to a vicious cycle that made it easier to recruit militants like the Taliban.

The anti-guerrilla warfare, which took place in both cities and countryside, intensified, and it was just a matter of seconds before stones were turned into improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and Molotov cocktails were turned into self-destruct trucks.

If the People’s Liberation Army had an advantage over guerrilla warfare and battles fought against opponents other than regular troops in this war, compared to the US military in the original history, its vast number and ability to control the media can greatly reduce the political burden caused by casualties. The point of the mountain peak was that it could conduct a sweeping operation on every peak.

The shortcoming was the absence of air force to support the ground forces in the sweeping operation, helicopters with fast and high transport capacity, and a special warfare force composed of experienced and seasoned special forces, but the generals of the People’s Liberation Army suffered great damage from surprise attacks over and over again. I also found a way to fix this.

It was a biochemical warfare.

“Once in doubt, do not let KPA soldiers in, and fire chemical bombs first! It’s good at times like this that the gas doesn’t stay long because it’s a plain in the sin countryside.”

Soon the mountains of Afghanistan were covered with toxic chlorine gas, and the stock quickly ran out after much use, but it was resolved immediately by building a chemical weapons factory near Kabul by the People’s Liberation Army (PLA).

However, this pacification operation, which still did not win the support of the people, achieved only a temporary victory and did not show any fundamental progress, and the more casualties on the People’s Liberation Army side increased.

* * *

“Twitter, you idiots. I expected it, but I didn’t expect it to go this far. Even 100 years from now, it would be difficult to guarantee the stability of the region near its homeland, let alone challenge the US for global hegemony… … .”

Jeong Hwan clicked his tongue as he read a classified report from the commander of the Korean People’s Army dispatched to Afghanistan.

All war crimes by the Chinese military, including the use of chemical bombs, were kept secret (still) due to strict media control and outdated Afghan communication infrastructure.

Because it was a war between developing countries and underdeveloped countries, the Western media only showed interest in the early stages and remained indifferent after that. .

And the tactic of throwing away the local situation in Afghanistan and worries about the Chinese military’s backstabbing that he heard about was truly terrifying.

“The secret will be kept right now, but it almost certainly won’t last a year. Besides, if this leaks, it is natural that it will adversely affect the relationship with Saudi Arabia, which they have been working hard on… … No matter how much the Saud royal family pretends to be devout Muslims in front of them and drank American whiskey and sow pumpkin seeds from behind, people don’t change easily.”

“… … Comrade General Secretary, do you think China’s response should be corrected?”

The person who posed this question to Jeong-hwan was Foreign Minister Kim Yong-geon, one of the members of the Politburo who sat down and listened to the report.

Come to think of it, at Junghwan’s words, not only Kim Yong-geon, but everyone else had something to say, but his expression was contemplating whether to say it or not.

“Then what do you think of Comrade Kim? Whether it’s Joseon or Afghanistan, I think you already know that, rather than taking a unilateral hardline response, calming, loosening, and tightening an adult will result in better results for the maintenance of the system… … .”

“I am by no means opposed to the high opinion of Comrade General Secretary, but… … Judging from what I’ve seen so far, I think the Chinese comrades are doing a good job of correcting the Muslims. Of course, these kinds of things that are happening in Afghanistan right now are obviously excessive, but when you think about the future of the nation and the people, isn’t it wrong to say that religion is an opium that pollutes the minds of the people and weakens the system?”

‘Come to think of it, this person was originally like this.’

Jeonghwan thought so as he watched Kim Yong-geon carefully expressing his opinion in case it seemed like he was against Jung-hwan’s opinion.

From the beginning, it was no wonder that Kim Yong-geon was the nationalist diplomatic elite who joined him for the sake of ‘the Korean people who are richer and more prosperous than the Japanese or the South Koreans’.

Islam must never have been included in the constituent elements of the ‘Korean nation’ that he believed to be, and the most frequent Muslims he saw while working as diplomats were Iranians, who were close with North Korea, and Saudi Arabians, who exercised influence with oil money.

Both of these countries were far from the countries that Yong-Gun Kim wanted to emulate and envied.

Iran is a theocratic state with the unity of the Orthodox Church, and Saudi Arabia is a tyrannical monarchy where only the royal family enjoys privileges while quelling the dissatisfaction of the people with oil money.

In fact, this view of ‘Middle East Islamic things are corrupted from the root of thought and should be treated like reactionaries and beaten’ was only expressed by Kim Yong-geon, but the silenced members of the Politburo were not much different.

It would be fortunate if it stopped at the line of hating the Middle East or Islam, and it was clear that there were not a few executives who had the eugenic idea that ‘other races are inferior in lineage different from our superior Korean people’.

From the beginning, nationalism and patriotism were encouraged nationally under the propaganda of ‘Kim Il-sung’s nation’, and the recent high economic development and the 1998 North-South compromise provided a realistic basis for this nationalism.

The current reality is that not only executives but also ordinary people openly say, ‘The time has come when the Korean people will finally seize the world hegemony under the leadership of the great Comrade Kim Jeong-hwan.’

‘Shame on Siri, this wasn’t the time to talk about it.’

Junghwan sighed inwardly.

It is clear that it is necessary to encourage a certain level of patriotism for the maintenance of the regime and the realization of his dream of government, but objectively, even the middle-income class has not yet escaped, and it was difficult to fall into this baseless narcissism.

Even for ordinary people, high-level executives, who are policy makers, should be aware of the reality.

“I want to ask all the executives in this position, comrades, why do you think the United States is currently the most powerful country in the world? What are the main qualities that made them hegemons?”

“Isn’t that the vast amount of material and inexhaustible resources coming from the vast land?”

“Isn’t it a climate that encourages science and an educational foundation that nurtures elite, advanced brains?”

“It took over the world’s money supply, the issuance of dollars, and the mighty military power that comes from its economic power, a nuclear missile that could blow up any country.”

“Everyone gave me an 80-point answer. If I had to fill in the remaining 20 points, I would say that it is not only the strength represented by economic power and military power, but also spiritual assets and ideology. That is, Western-style capitalism and democracy, and their ideological basis, the concept of natural human rights and equality.”

It is not yet the time when the concepts of soft power and hard power that Joseph Nye insisted on are not known, and Jeong Hwan himself agrees that the most important reasons for the US hegemony in the world are military and economic power, but such a spiritual ideology plays a big role in the development of the United States. It could not be denied that he did.

Of course, it is a separate question whether such notions of racial and religious equality and political correctness are perfectly maintained in the real United States, but at least in public, it is impossible to say that ‘white Americans are the best race in the world, and all the rest are descendants of slaves’. The emerging social climate was a sure competitive advantage.

Jeonghwan gave a little extra explanation to the executives who looked like they couldn’t understand easily.

“… … However, Comrade General Secretary could not believe that we should accept Western democracy into our republic… … .”

“It’s not, but let’s think about the more basic ideology of equality for all people. Why would talented people from all over the world, even those who graduated from Kim University in our Republic, want to go to America? Isn’t it because there is a belief that success in America is success in the world, and that we can compete with each other based on ability rather than ethnicity and color?”

“It is, but in reality, the United States is not completely free from discrimination, is it?”

“There is a big difference between pursuing equality but being imperfect and not aiming for it in the first place. If the Americans, like the present-day China, were ‘the Chinese people are the best in the world’, would they have been able to claim the present hegemony? They would have been treated like a second Nazi and made by a bunch of enemies all over the world.”

“… … .”

“The advantage of the system of the United States of America is that the people of the world compete fairly, at least much more fairly than other countries, and give the winner almost infinite rewards. By absorbing such talented people, the U.S. with 300 million people has more advanced brains than China with 1.3 billion people, and that became the driving force for global hegemony. At least, if China had imposed backward nationalism on immigrants from all over the world, as China is doing in Afghanistan, the United States might have remained just a regional power on the Pacific coast.”

Jeonghwan cleared his throat for a moment and continued.

“At least, a superpower like now would never have been possible. And China is now on that path.”

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Now Junghwan’s words were a prophecy.

Some of the executives still had cryptic expressions as if they could not agree, but many of them pricked their ears, realizing that what Jeonghwan was saying now was not merely to instruct them, but rather a teaching and the leader’s philosophy.

Because there aren’t many opportunities to hear what the young supreme leader, so admired by the 30 million people of the republic, actually has in his head (at least all the cadres were well aware of the non-Juche ideology now).

And very few of the executives were nodding their heads as if they had realized something and contemplating Junghwan’s words.

“A country or system that promotes nationalism in its guiding ideology will never last long. It might be a little better than a dictatorship or an orthodoxy, but it lacks flexibility. The CCP comrades are working hard on nationalism to control their 1.3 billion people, but in the end that’s their failure and… … It will lead to the collapse of the Communist Party’s system.”

System collapse!

At Jeong-hwan’s warning like a blue sky, the members of the Politburo hardened their faces and the emergency lights turned on in their heads.

If the system collapses, isn’t it a first-class taboo that all party members should be on the lookout for, whether in the days of Kim Il-sung or now?

Even then, the collapse of the system meant the loss of the privileged position that Politburo members themselves enjoyed, much less to think about now that they have so much to lose (especially materially) than they did then.

They knew well that Jeong-hwan was not the type to tire the executives by meaninglessly holding the standard, and then they began to reflect on the words of the general secretary one by one.

He began to seriously consider the possibility that the ‘world’s best people of Kim Il-sung’ could be just a fiction.

And Jeonghwan, who made them think like that, muttered bitterly and leaned back slightly on the chair.

“The problem is that it takes a long time to realize that, but… … So it is my opinion that the Republic should never follow the path of defeat that China will follow.”

“… … Girum, do you think Comrade General Secretary will give the Chinese comrades the warning you have just given? Instead of beating the Afghan reactionaries, do you want them to embrace them while soothing them?”

“I? no! Are you crazy? Why the hell are you doing such a useless thing?”

In response to Jang Seong-taek’s question, Jung-hwan snorted and waved his hand with an expression of what he had heard before.

“In the first place, they weren’t the writers I was going to hear, and they came here and said, ‘Comrades, in fact, the Han Chinese are not the best people in the world, and they will not be able to seize the world hegemony. I’ve come a long way to say ‘I’m sorry’, are you going to cancel it? The leader of a small country would laugh at being jealous of the prosperity of the Chinese nation.”

“Girum… … .”

“I’m just thinking of watching Chinese comrades poop in Afghanistan. Even though Osama bin Laden, the cause of the war, has not yet been caught in this uproar, it will be very interesting to see what Comrade Jiang Zemin will make excuses for his people.”

After Junghwan’s words, the Politburo meeting was dissolved that day.

Many executives talk to each other, sometimes secretly dissatisfied, saying, ‘Still, isn’t our Korean people better than other peoples?’ Another said, ‘Girae, even if I went to study abroad, I was ridiculed at university if I sang about national revival, but that’s true’.

At least, it was clear that Jeonghwan’s words, or even the prophecies, at the meeting that day had more meaning than predicting the outcome of China’s war from afar.

However, it was only for a short time that he listened to the foreign situation like that, and this time, the ‘flexibility of the system’ emphasized by Jeong-hwan, and furthermore, the leadership system of General Secretary Kim Jeong-hwan was directly tested.

It was the first large-scale strike by workers in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea since Jeong Hwan took office as general secretary.