North Korea’s government recently handed out political lecture materials to workers’ organizations that criticize South Korea’s Yoon administration, Daily NK has learned.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, a source in North Hamgyong Province told Daily NK on Mar. 22 that the lecture materials had been distributed to the Socialist Patriotic Youth League, the General Federation of Trade Unions of Korea, the Union of Agricultural Workers of Korea, and the Socialist Women’s Union of Korea this month, following a similar set of lecture materials last month.
As a result, the youth league chapter at Chongjin Metal Mining University, in North Hamgyong Province, put on a lecture based on these materials shortly after a criticism session on Saturday, Mar. 16.
“The lecture materials said that people need to get in the habit of referring to South Korea [conventionally called Nam Joseon in North Korea] as ‘the South Korean puppet state’ [Goeroe Hanguk] even in everyday conversation and that the same term should also be used in lectures about class consciousness and political affairs,” the source said.
The same materials also featured strident criticism of Yoon and his administration.
“The world is watching as the democratic forces that organized the candlelit protests several years ago reunite with a fighting spirit that burns brighter each day and work together to impeach Yoon and his cronies and restore a free and democratic state. The Yoon administration and his puppet clique are at the end of their rope right now,” the lecture materials asserted.
“We must remain aware that our enemies could respond to the situation in the South Korean puppet state by lighting the fuse of nuclear war at any time and must always and in all places maintain firm organizational discipline in our organization and loyalty to the leadership of the party. To do so, we must thoroughly uproot any fantasies about the South Korean puppet state in the youth league, which is an external vanguard organization of the Workers’ Party.
“We must stand in unity with patriotic democratic forces in the South Korean puppet state and support the candlelight groups as they exact judgment against the regime of that madman and warmonger Yoon Suk-yeol,” the lecture materials went on to say.
“Our state must push forward with its revolutionary struggle and construction projects with the determination to eventually occupy the territory of the South Korean puppet state and liberate the groaning masses who suffer from discrimination under the jackboots of the puppet regime,” the materials concluded.
Negative response to blatant propaganda
The official from the youth league chapter at the Chongjin Metal Mining University who delivered the lecture went off script while attempting to arouse hostility against South Korea and the Yoon administration.
“When the time is right, we will lay waste to Seoul, the capital of our enemies, through force of arms and erect a civilized country in which life is worth living on the wreckage of that land,” the official said, according to the source.
However, the response elicited from university students in the youth league was wholly different from the one envisioned by the North Korean authorities.
“After the lecture, young people noted with envy that while North Koreans are dragged away for the slightest slip of the tongue, organizing protests isn’t regarded as anti-state behavior [in South Korea],” the source said.
The source added that some university students were actually happy with the phrase “South Korean puppet state” (Goeroe Hanguk in Korean), because it means they can openly use the South Korean word Hanguk for Korea, which had been forbidden in the past.
Translated by David Carruth. Edited by Robert Lauler.
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