Korean Messiah(弥赛亚，救世主). By Jonathan Cheng. Knopf(美国著名出版社); 768 pages; $36
《朝鲜弥赛亚》。作者：乔纳森·程。Knopf; 768页；36美元。
People have been predicting the collapse of North Korea’s communist dictatorship since 1948, when Kim Il Sung seized power(夺取政权) with Josef Stalin’s backing(支持，后盾). And yet, almost 80 years later, the regime is still there, and the Kim family are still in charge of it, having survived the Korean war, the fall of the Soviet Union, decades of national self-isolation and two dynastic(王朝的) transitions. Totalitarian repression, as well as assistance from powers such as China and Russia, help explain the regime’s resilience(韧性，恢复力). “Korean Messiah” by Jonathan Cheng, a journalist at the Wall Street Journal, sheds light on(阐明，揭示) a less appreciated force: faith.
自1948年金日成在约瑟夫·斯大林的支持下夺取政权以来，人们就一直预测朝鲜共产主义独裁政权会崩溃。然而，将近80年后，这个政权依然存在，金氏家族仍然掌控着它，经历了朝鲜战争、苏联解体、几十年的国家自我孤立以及两次王朝更替。极权镇压以及中国和俄罗斯等大国的援助，有助于解释该政权的韧性。《朝鲜弥赛亚》由《华尔街日报》记者乔纳森·程撰写，揭示了一种较少被认识的力量：信仰。
In keeping with communist principles, North Korea is officially atheist(无神论者). Nonetheless, in Mr Cheng’s telling, its system owes as much to Jesus, Mary and Joseph as it does to Marx and Engels. He argues convincingly that Kim Il Sung appropriated(挪用，盗用) the rituals and dogma(教条，教义) of religion when forging his political ideology. For example, all North Koreans are taught a set of decrees called the “Ten Principles for the Monolithic Ideology”. They are “so similar in language to the biblical Ten Commandments, and…fulfilled so similar a function in the lives of its population” that they “might as well have been etched on a pair of stone tablets(本可以被刻在石板上（比喻极其相似）)”, Mr Cheng writes.
与共产主义原则一致，朝鲜官方奉行无神论。然而，在程先生看来，其体制对耶稣、玛丽亚和约瑟夫的依赖不亚于对马克思和恩格斯的依赖。他令人信服地论证，金日成在锻造其政治意识形态时，挪用了宗教的仪式和教条。例如，所有朝鲜人都被教导一套称为“十大原则”的训令。程先生写道，它们“在语言上与圣经十诫如此相似，……在人民的生活中发挥着如此相似的功能”，以至于“它们本可以被刻在一对石板上”。
