BAKS Papers, Volume 16 The British Association For Korean Studies, 2015 North Korean Pomiculture 1958–1967: Pragmatism And Revolution Robert Winstanley-Chesters Post-Doctoral Fellow of the University of Cambridge (Beyond the Korean War), Visiting Research Fellow at the University of Leeds Robert Winstanley-Chesters is a Post Doctoral Fellow of the Beyond the Korean War Project (University of Cambridge), Visiting Research Fellow at the University of Leeds' School of Geography, and Director of Research at SinoNK.com. His doctoral thesis was published as Environment, Politics and Ideology in North Korea: Landscape as Political Project (Lexington Press, 2014). Robert’s second monograph, New Goddesses of Mt Paektu: Gender, Violence, Myth and Transformation in Korean Landscapes, has been accepted for publication in 2016 by Rowman and Littlefield (Lexington Press). Robert is currently researching Pyongyang’s leisure landscapes, historical geographies of Korean forestry, colonial mineralogical inheritances on the peninsula and animal/creaturely geographies of North Korea. Abstract Building on past analysis by its author of North Korea’s history of developmental approach and environmental engagement, this paper encounters the field of pomiculture (or orchard development and apple farming) in the light of another key text authored by Kim Il-sung, 1963’s “Let Us Make Better Use of Mountains and Rivers.” At this time North Korea had left the tasks of immediate agricultural and industrial reconstruction following the Korean War (1950–1953) behind and was engaged in an intense period of political and ideological triangulation with the great powers of the Communist/Socialist bloc. With relations between the People’s Republic of China and the Soviet Union in flux and Chairman Mao’s development and articulation of the “Great Leap Forward,” North Korea was caught in difficult ideological, developmental and diplomatic crosswinds. Utilising narratives of development in the pomicultural sector and accompanying political literature as exemplars, this paper considers Pyongyang’s negotiation of this flux as expressed in these developmental terms. Amongst the orchards of Chagang province, ultimately the paper uncovers elements of reflexivity, pragmatism and charismatic political articulation that will be familiar to the contemporary analyst of North Korean matters. Key words: North Korea, Kim Il-sung, Agriculture, Development Narratives, Pomiculture, Pragmatism, Political Charisma BAKS Papers 16, Summer 2015 Winstanley-Chesters, North Korea Pomiculture 1958–1967 | 117