The late 1960s and early 1970s were among the most intensely ideological periods in North Korean history: from the introduction of the Singular Thought System in 1967 to the point when terror was somewhat codified with the promulgation of the Criminal Code of 1974.

Soviet diplomatic reports from this period, mostly reports sent by the Soviet Embassy in Pyongyang, offer unusually candid glimpses of how that ideology shaped everything from medicine and tourism to farming, trade and attitudes toward nuclear war.

The documents, most of which were declassified under Russian President Vladimir Putin and former President Dmitry Medvedev, describe doctors