Authorities investigated a Socialist Women’s Union of Korea (SWUK) organization in Chongjin after it failed to regularly hold mandatory criticism sessions.
“The SWUK organization in one neighborhood of Chongjin’s Pohang district was inspected by the district party committee’s guidance department after it was discovered they’d only held one criticism session in the first half of the year,” a source in the area told Daily NK recently. “In practice, they held almost no criticism sessions, even though they’re supposed to happen once a week without fail.”
During the inspection, the district party committee’s guidance department criticized the SWUK organization for only recording the week rather than exact dates of criticism sessions in their logs, and for using the sessions to chat idly or share personal information instead of conducting self-criticism, mutual criticism, or performance reviews.
“The SWUK organization prepared criticism session logs for the first and second halves of the year, but didn’t write down specific dates,” the source said. “This was clearly a ploy so they could reuse this year’s logs next year, too.”
The SWUK organization simply noted the supposed week that criticism sessions were held, such as “the first week of September,” rather than the specific date. They would fill in specific dates later when word of impending inspections reached them.
“If you don’t write down the date, you can use the same notes for several years,” the source said. “They used this trick because they weren’t holding criticism sessions every week, and filling out the logs properly is tedious.”
Widespread non-compliance across the city
North Korean authorities mandate that political organizations conduct criticism sessions every week to control public thinking; however, organizations often skip them or go through the motions.
“In Chongjin, home to many people working in trade or wholesale, people tend to take their political organization activities much less seriously compared to other regions,” the source said. “Very few SWUK organizations conduct their criticism sessions properly—not only in Pohang district but in other districts across the city.”
The perfunctory way organizations conduct criticism sessions demonstrates the North Korean authorities’ weakening grip on the public. The authorities are trying to strengthen the public’s ideological commitment and internal cohesion through lectures and study sessions ahead of Party Foundation Day on Oct. 10, but few people are happy about this, the source said.
“People only pretend to participate diligently in their organizational activities when the authorities punish you or openly disadvantage you for not doing so,” the source said. “Nobody wants to waste time on organizational activities.”
In Chongjin’s Pohang district, local residents have several theories about how the district party committee’s inspection of the SWUK organization began. This is because the authorities wouldn’t have known the organization was keeping shoddy criticism session logs unless someone tipped them off from the inside.
“If the inspection was aimed solely at this organization based on an internal tip, the matter will end once the relevant people are punished. But if the problem was discovered during a general inspection of session logs by upper-level agencies, other organizations could get inspected too,” the source said. “People are worried the inspections could spread everywhere.”
