The Flying Horse

In the seven years since the fighting stopped. North Korea has become some-thing of a showcase (with plenty of window dressing) for Communism in Asia. Pyongyang (pop. 800,000) has a Stalin Allee just like East Berlin's, a vast opera house and a vaster sports stadium. Forests of swinging cranes constantly add to the number of workers' apartment houses. The national emblem is a flying horse that decorates everything from matchboxes to tractors: the horse is supposed to be charging toward socialism at 300 miles a day. Premier Kim II Sung's* proclaimed ambition is to "reach and pass Japan's per capita production in ten years."

Like Prisons. The drawbacks to life in this dynamic workers' paradise are many. The apartment houses exist amid shacks, slums and vacant lots that still make up most of the city and never appear in the propaganda. Gaunt and suspiciously prisonlike on the outside, the barracks-like apartment blocks have mess halls and community toilets but neither heat nor running water in the apartments themselves. But by rigid regimentation and the help of technicians from Eastern Europe, Communist North Korea has made impressive economic progress of a sort. Ninety-five percent of the peasants are herded into Soviet-style communes. Factory workers toil 12 to 14 hours a day for wages that average $21 a month in plants that often operate round the clock.

With the usual dazzle of unconfirmable statistics, the North Koreans proudly contrast their achievements with South Korea. The North has less than half the South's population (10 million v. 24 million), but the Communists fell heir to 70% of undivided Korea's heavy industry, 90% of the electric power. 70% of the coal. Much of this capacity was destroyed during the Korean war, but the Reds say that by 1956 it was already back to prewar levels, and that since then output has doubled and even trebled. They claim that last year the North produced ten times as much steel as South Korea, five times more cement, just as much grain. Unfortunately, South Korea, badly led in the last days of Syngman Rhee and hardly led at all now, is suffering from economic confusion. It has received $2.5 billion in American aid and is urgently asking for more, yet has announced a further devaluation of its debased currency. Many of its U.S.-built factories are not working. There are more than 1,500,000 unemployedss purpose; the mood of the South lacks decisiveness and even direction.

Rival Patrons. North Korea is the Communist satellite where the struggle for paramountcy between Russia and China is most apparent, and it has benefited by the competition. The Chinese "volunteers" shed their blood in great numbers during the Korean war, but the Russians have long had the upper hand. Chinese Communist officers sit with North Koreans across the table from American and other United Nations representatives in the green truce-talks hut at Panmunjom. But Russia has hitherto provided most of North Korea's arms, including MIGs. and all of Pyongyang Radio's praise has gone to Moscow for "truly great support and aid." The top prize for a heroic North Korean worker who exceeds his production norm is a trip to Moscow, not to Peking.

The Chinese are trying to stage a comeback. Last month Peking announced a $105 million loan to North Korea and dispatched a high-powered military mission to Pyongyang to celebrate the tenth anniversary of China's entry into the Korean war. The loan will raise China's contribution to the North Korean economy to around $500 million v. $750 million from Russia. Last week Moscow riposted with an announcement that the Soviet Union has waived repayment by North Korea of one $190 million Russian loan, agreed to defer repayment of an-other $35 million.

Curiously enough, the mission's visit came just at the time when Khrushchev had been expected to make his first visit to North Korea, on his way home from his rambunctious visit to the U.N. But four weeks ago his trip was postponed or canceled without explanation.

*Not his real name. The real Kim II Sung was a Korean guerrilla who bravely fought the Japanese occupiers in the 1919 uprising. The Communist interloper who took over power in 1948 simply swiped his name.

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