ABSTRACT
This chapter examines past assessments of the retreat of Korean socialism and suggests that, in over emphasising the effect of authoritarian repression, historians have failed to take due account of the deficiencies of socialists' revolutionary strategies. In addition to helping understand the failure of socialism in Korea, this chapter introduces an alternative analysis in which it states the interaction between the structural and agency factors with emphasis on the decisive role of party leadership and ideology. The Democratic Labour Party's (DLP's) platform also espouses a Marxist interpretation of the capitalist system in Korea, to the effect that the "corrupt, monopolistic and comprador character of Korean capitalism prompted the rupture of financial and currency markets in the late 1990s, and the collapse of the Korean economy will therefore soon follow". The chapter explains the debate between those who argue that the major cause of socialist retreat lies in the policies of socialists themselves and those who focus exclusively on external constraints.
