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== Colonial origins ==
From the year 1910-1945, Korea was ruled as a Japanese colony. This fact forced the integration of Korea into the Japanese empire’s economic and political spheres. Thus, after the [[
The first successful creation of Vinylon was in 1939, by a [[Kyoto University]] research team in Japan.<ref name=":0">Lee, Hy-Sang. North Korea : a Strange Socialist Fortress. Westport, Conn., Praeger, 2001.</ref> However, Vinylon was later brought to North Korea by Ri Sung-Gi, one of the researchers of the Kyoto University team, amid North Korean campaign aimed at the recruitment of scientists and engineers from South Korea in the period following Korea's liberation from Japan in 1945. He was working as a professor at Seoul National University at the time.<ref name=":0" /> During the Korean war, when Seoul was occupied by the Democratic People’s Army, Ri was offered a research position in North Korea.<ref name=":0" /> Ri Sung-Gi accepted and defected to the North.<ref name=":0" />
== Original purpose ==
After the [[
However, in the 1960s, the aid from the Soviet Union decreased. North Korea was no longer receiving aid in the form of grants, but loans.<ref name=":1" /> Hence, the North Korean leadership decided to accelerate efforts towards developing a self-sufficient economy. This resulted in the full mobilization of domestic resources.<ref name=":1" /> Beginning in 1961, North Korea launched its First [[Seven-Year Plan|Seven-Year Economic Development Plan]], which focused on technological innovations, cultural revolution, improvement of living standards, modernization of the economy, and the facilitation of trade and international economic cooperation.<ref name=":1" /> As a result, the North Korean government decided to develop the vinylon industry and build Vinylon City.
== Vinylon City
[[File:February8Vinalon.jpg|thumb|Entrance of the February 8 Vinylon Factory Complex in [[Hungnam|Hungnam, North Korea]].]]
In the early stages of North Korea’s history, the government under [[Kim Il Sung]] and the official "[[juche]]" (self-reliance) ideology promoted the idea that the only way to reach the goal of economic independence was through heavy machine industry.<ref>Lee, Grace. "The Political Philosophy of Juche." ''Stanford Journal of East Asian Affairs'' 3, no. 1 (2003): 105-12.</ref> The manufacturing of vinylon was therefore taken as a step towards developing North Korea as modern industrial state. With such an appeal to nationalism, the North Korean government mobilized its citizens for constructing and supporting a new vinylon factory, called Vinylon City.<ref name=":2">Cheehyung Harrison Kim. “North Korea's Vinalon City: Industrialism as Socialist Everyday Life.” Positions, vol. 22, no. 4, 2014, p. 809.</ref>
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