and Eastern Bloc embassies in the country beginning to accuse the regime of fascism. In May 1963, a Soviet diplomat described Kim Il-sung's political circle as a "political Gestapo". Similar remarks were made by other Eastern Bloc officials in North Korea, with the East German ambassador calling the policy "Goebbelsian" (a reference to Joseph Goebbels, Hitler's minister of propaganda). Although this was said during a nadir in relations between North Korea and the Eastern Bloc, it illustrated a perception of racism in Kim Il-sung's policies. In his book The Cleanest Race (2010), Brian Reynolds Myers dismisses the idea that Juche is North Korea's leading ideology. He views its public exaltation as designed to deceive foreigners; it exists to be praised rather than followed. Myers writes that Juche is a sham ideology, developed to extol Kim Il-sung as a political thinker comparable to Mao Zedong. According to Myers, North Korean military-first policy, racism and xenophobia (exemplified by race-based incidents such as the attempted lynching of black Cuban diplomats and forced abortions for North Korean women pregnant with ethnic Chinese children) indicate a base in far-right politics (inherited from Imperial Japan during its colonial occupation of Korea) rather than the far-left. Governance Great Leader North Korea considers humanity the driving force of history. "Popular masses are placed in the centre of everything, and the leader in the centre of the masses". Traditional Marxism considers class struggle the driving force of historical progress. However, Marxism also sees class struggle as eventually coming to an end, when class distinctions begin to disappear in a communist society. From this point on, humanity can begin to "more and more consciously, make his own history" as human society ceases to be driven by social forces such as class struggle, but instead becomes "the result of his own free actions." Juche is an anthropocentric ideology in which "man is the master of everything and decides everything". Similar to Marxist–Leninist thought, Juche believes that history is law-governed but only man drives progress: "the popular masses are the drivers of history". From the perspective of Juche, the struggle for humanity as a whole to make their own history is restrained by the ruling classes in class society. Additionally, only the working class can overcome these restraints and achieve a society where humanity can independently and creatively make their own history. Juche is in line with historical materialism, viewing mankind's ability