dline messages. This report contains four parts.1 In the first, North Korean policy determinants are identified and examined in terms of motives and rationale as Pyongyang itself appears to have defined them. Variable factors likely to affect economic development and prosperity are also part of the strategy for survival, for they are portrayed as the material foundation of political stability and military effectiveness. Self-preservation has also meant an unwavering commitment to a Stalinist command economy that, from its inception, was identified with Kim Il Sung's philosophy of self-reliance. Since 1947, he has maintained that a self-supporting economy was the foundation of true national freedom and political independence. He has continued to favor an inward- looking development strategy based on the primacy of a heavy industrial base. Suspicious of even Soviet intentions, he opposed Moscow's attempt in the 1950s to induct North Korea into the now defunct Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA), the Soviet-sponsored instrument for intra-communist bloc trade and economic coordination. Although Pyongyang liked to appear self- sufficient in its own domestic expertise and resources, in fact North Korea depended considerably on Soviet technology and economic assistance. Through the 1980s, Soviet largess was critical to North Korea; it supplied nearly 70% of North Korea's oil needs at "friendship discount prices" and on barter. Many of North Korea's industrial facilities were built or rehabilitated with Soviet assistance.2 For decades, the two Kims held the notion that ideology was more important than pecuniary incentives in motivating workers, and that North Korea had the abundance of resources and high levels of science and technology to become an industrial power. A case in point was their optimism in March 1974, when North Korean leaders declared that in the next several years North Korea would "catch up with and outpace the advan...
