Andrei Lankov gives a lecture at Fast Five in downtown Seoul, March 26. Courtesy of Bereket Alemayehu

At first look, the employment of North Korean laborers in Russia appears straightforward, characterized by plain power differentials meaningful of a bygone era of the last century.

Andrei Lankov, a respected authority on North Korean history and society, recently presented a lecture to the Royal Asiatic Society (RAS) Korea on this complex phenomenon, unveiling a contrast that challenges conventional perceptions.

In a thought-provoking lecture titled "The North Korean Workers in Russia: Slaves or Workers' Aristocracy," Lankov shed light on the oppressive mechanisms underlying this arrangement, highlighting the inescapable control exerted by the North Korean regime over its workforce. These workers, often subjected to rigorous surveillance and pressure, seem to characterize the standards of modern-day slavery.

Lankov, a Russian national, now works as a professor at Kookmin University in Seoul, but in the 1980s he had the experience of studying at Kim Il Sung University in Pyongyang. A renowned expert on all things North Korea, he added that about five years ago, he interviewed about a dozen North Korean refugees now living in the South on the topic of North Korea's workforce in Russia.

"The labor story began in 1946," he said. "It survived changes of revolutions and counter-revolutions in the Soviet Union and then Russia. It's still operational and likely to remain operational for a very long period. Why? Unlike the majority of joint projects between Russia and North Korea, which have been always largely or exclusively illegal in its nature, the labor export project is basically about money and business, pure and simple."

He emphasized that North Korea has been continuously supplying labor to Russia for almost 80 years.

"From 1946 until now, there was not a single year when there were no North Korean workers that appeared working somewhere in Russia. Not even a single year," he said. "The reason is simple. North Korea has laborers. However, it is a poor country. The most recent data they released on their pure capital GDP was $1,318 which is the level of a relatively poor African country. North Korea has a remarkably high level of education: 100 percent literacy, and roughly 15 percent of North Koreans get a college education. Labor is badly needed in Russia."

The North Korean government, driven by economic necessities and political ideology, orchestrates the deployment of its citizens to foreign lands, primarily Russia, as a means of securing much-needed foreign currency. These workers are dispatched to various sectors, including construction, forestry and agriculture, where they toil under harsh conditions, their labor serving as a lucrative source of revenue for the regime.

"In 1966, Leonid Brezhnev and Kim Il-sung, the leaders of the two countries, approved a long-term employment program that remained operational until the end of the Soviet period. Throughout the 1967 to 1991 period, some 15,000 to 30,000 North Korean workers were present in the Soviet Far East at any given moment, being overwhelmingly involved in logging projects," he said. "All selection was done by the North Koreans. They shipped these people to the Soviet logging camps because they were almost exclusively employed in logging."

However, in recent years, the difficulty of sending North Korean workers to other countries has captured global attention, causing concerns about exploitation and human rights abuses. Often portrayed as modern-day slaves, these workers' experiences challenge simplistic narratives, as revealed by Lankov's extensive research and insights into the North Korean labor diaspora in Russia. He raises a fundamental question that these people are often portrayed as slaves, as forced labor, but if this is the case, why do they pay large bribes for the opportunity to go?

Despite the challenges and hardships inherent in overseas employment, Lankov explained, North Korean workers actively seek these opportunities as a means of improving their socio-economic prospects.

A building at a logging camp in Siberia has North Korean slogans on the wall, published June 1, 1994. Korea Times Archive

Through interviews with former workers and Russian employers, Lankov shed light on the agency and entrepreneurial spirit exhibited by these individuals, challenging the usual perception of passive victimhood. While acknowledging the constraints imposed by the North Korean regime, these workers navigate within their limitations to secure employment abroad, viewing it as a pathway out of poverty and upward social status.

"For North Koreans, it was a big thing because they were provided with clothes and food, and then they could easily save in a few months for a real refrigerator, something you have to keep in mind that every single North Korean laborer — not only in Russia, in China, in the Middle East, but everywhere — has a right to be selected," Lankov said. "You cannot go to become a slave for free. It's very expensive to be selected for slave labor. Workers usually used their earnings, insufficient by Soviet standards, to purchase consumer durables like TV sets, wristwatches, bicycles, fridges and cooking utensils, which were then freely available in Soviet village shops but were considered luxury items in North Korea. These items were shipped back home, both for personal consumption and for resale. All this made work overseas highly coveted, so from the early 1980s only people who had good connections and/or were able to pay significant bribes were able to go."

Contrary to perceptions of coerced labor, Lankov's research reveals a more shady reality in which North Korean workers voluntarily seek overseas employment, albeit within a framework of restricted freedoms and wages withheld by the regime. He asserted that the discourse about North Korean workers in Russia transcends simple categorizations of victimhood or modern-day slavery, revealing multifaced individual experiences shaped by socio-economic, political and cultural factors.

Given the current war scenario between Russia and Ukraine, Russia badly needs North Korean workers. Lankov added, "Because they are such good educated workers, cheap and reliable labor force, there are good reasons to expect that in the near future, North Korean workers will start arriving in Russia in large numbers."

Andrei Lankov talks to people after his lecture at Fast Five in downtown Seoul, March 26. Courtesy of Bereket Alemayehu

Lankov was born on July 26, 1963, in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg). He completed his undergraduate and graduate studies at Leningrad State University and earned his Ph.D. in 1989. From 1996 to 2004, he taught Korean history at the Australian National University, and since 2004 he has been at Kookmin University. He is the director of Korearisk.com group. His major English language publications on North Korea include "From Stalin to Kim Il Sung: The Formation of North Korea, 1945-1960," "Crisis in North Korea: The Failure of De-Stalinization, 1956," "North of the DMZ: Essays on Daily Life in North Korea" and "The Real North Korea" He has contributed to Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Financial Times, Newsweek and The Korea Times, and published a number of academic articles, including articles in Foreign Affairs and Foreign Policy. In 2017, Foreign Policy magazine included him in its list of Global Thinkers.

Bereket Alemayehu is an Ethiopian photo artist, social activist and writer based in Seoul. He's also co-founder of Hanokers, a refugee-led social initiative, and freelance contributor for Pressenza Press Agency.