Daily NK has learned that North Korean authorities have recently ordered that more than 80% of expected university graduates be dispatched as members of so-called “Three Revolution teams.”
North Korean authorities appear to have taken the measure with a growing number of factories and enterprises suspending operations due to the closure of the nation’s borders in the face of COVID-19.
According to a Daily NK source in Pyongyang on Nov. 14, North Korea’s education authorities allotted 80% of university students set to graduate in February to the Three Revolution teams.
This apparently applies to students at provincial universities, too. Daily NK’s own investigation confirmed that North Korea’s educational authorities have allotted 90% of scheduled graduates of universities in North Hamgyong Province to the Three Revolution teams.
The state is essentially making scheduled graduates serve with the Three Revolution teams, with the exception of the 10-20% composed of specialized elite talent and the children of the wealthy and powerful.
University graduates serving with the Three Revolution teams will spend the next three years deployed to factories and enterprises, doing temporary labor and getting workers to “achieve the party’s ideology of revolution.”
In previous years, some 30-40% of graduates were sent to the teams, but never have so many people been allotted to them, said the source in North Hamgyong Province.
Multiple sources say the move to send most graduates to the Three Revolution teams is directly connected to the economic difficulties North Korean authorities currently face.
North Korean industries and factories have been unable to properly operate since the closure of the border. Existing employees are not receiving proper wages, either.
In these circumstances, there are no proper workplaces for newly graduated intelligentsia.
By sending university graduates to the Three Revolution teams, enterprises can make use of low-cost labor with team members making a third less than existing workers, while the authorities can use the teams to ideologically rally workers.
To North Korean authorities who wish to maximize production amid economic difficulties while maintaining strict ideological controls, expanding the use of the Three Revolution teams using university graduates essentially amounts to killing two birds with one stone.
The “Three Revolutions” refers to the revolutionary movement to bring about ideal transformations in ideology, which renews humanity; technology, which renews nature; and culture, which renews society. North Korea has been tightening the ideological reins, hosting on Nov. 18 the Fifth Conference of Frontrunners of the Three Revolutions.
The Conference of Frontrunners of the Three Revolutions was an event to promote practical examples by giving respect to model units or cadres in the ideological, technological and cultural spheres.
In a personal letter sent to the conference, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un called for active use of the Three Revolution teams, stressing that authorities should expand their deployment beyond production units to provincial units so that they can play an active role in strengthening party policy at the city and county level.
