Kim, an anonymous interviewee from Chongjin who spoke to Daily NK by cell phone, next explained the side effects of the “150-Day Battle,” which he characterized as terrible even though he saw some successes coming out of the Battle.
He explained that the regime only pushed the people to produce more, while not supplying them with any more materials, resources, or even electricity. They even drove those who were not able to get any food into the fields. Just to show the achievements of the successor.
– What do you think are the flaws of the “150-Day Battle”?
The “150-Day Battle” itself is a stupid thing.
At the beginning, when the battle started on April 20, the purpose was only to save factories and companies which were barely able to produce things, local factories which had potential, and major planned constructions. That is, it was supposed to arouse innovation so as to make things work better. Therefore, in the beginning, people did not complain.
However, in early May, all of sudden the authorities started shouting about the “150-Day Battle,” and then it was turned into a nationwide mobilization campaign. The authorities pushed factories to produce without any materials or electricity, and pushed everyone else onto farms.
– You said there were a lot of achievements, but why do you criticize it as a “challenge” and an “adventure”?
This was not simple mobilization of manpower, but an adventure to squeeze out people’s sweat and blood.
I will give you a specific example. There was a project to change bricks on footpaths in big cities like Pyongyang, Pyongsung, and Nampo.
The authorities handed down a decree to change the footpath bricks by a certain date, while they did not provide cities with any materials.
Thereafter, the Provincial Committee of the Party allocated sections of footpath to each people’s unit. The people’s units also divided their section by household. As the result, households had to buy cement and sand from the jangmadang, build bricks by themselves, and then pave their sections. Moreover, last summer, the authorities had each household offer 300 mud bricks to the state in order to construct homes. All kinds of mobilization projects during the 150-Day Battle were done in the same way.
If one builds a house, a one-story house for two households, 600 bricks are needed.
Newly paved footpaths now are cracked because people did not use the proper amount of cement.
Manpower mobilization was also horrendous. During the whole summer, the authorities drove everybody to farming, saying, “as long as you can hold your spoon, you should go to the farm.” But the results were crap. Even after the harvest, there was no distribution and the farming was spoiled.
People are freaking out now, because immediately after the 150-Day Battle which gave us terrible pain, the authorities put us into another hell, the “100-Day Battle!”
