North Korean authorities are focusing on “ideological struggle” to soothe public discontent amid worsening economic difficulties due to the protracted COVID-19 crisis. In fact, over half of an educational reference document distributed right before the Fourth Plenary Meeting of the Eighth Central Committee at the end of December focused on “ideological training.”
In the materials, North Korean authorities apparently encouraged party members and workers to avoid ideological laxity and display loyalty to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un by repeating Kim’s statements and orders from the Central Committee and Politburo meetings that followed the Eighth Party Congress.
The materials, exclusively obtained by Daily NK recently, begins with a quote by Kim, who called on followers to make the ruling Workers Party of Korea into a “studying party,” and to “firmly arm” officials, party members, and workers with the “Central Committee’s revolutionary ideology.”
The introduction explains the meaning of “Era of Our State First” and “Principle of Putting the People First,” mottos that represent the ideological regime behind Kim’s leadership. This suggests the party is continuing to work on systematizing “Kim Jong Un’s revolutionary ideology.”
The materials define the “Era of Our State First” as the result of the party’s “wholehearted focus on the people by boldly meeting history’s challenges” and the amplification of its own power, as well as a “new age of pride and prosperity” born of the historical struggle to bolster the dignity and status of the state.
That is to say, the materials make “development of the people’s economy” and “unity and struggle to overcome foreign pressure” key goals.
In particular, North Korean authorities are stressing that the “vital, serious socio-political problem” currently facing the country is “uprooting non-socialist and anti
-socialist phenomenon” and “thoroughly establishing a socialist lifestyle.”
The materials mentioned “tactical directions” to wipe out “non-socialist and anti-socialist phenomenon” and “establish a socialist lifestyle,” as well as “revolutionary ideological attacks,” “aggressive defense,” and “intense struggle.”
In fact, the word “struggle” appears 19 times in the 16-page document. This means the authorities continue to underscore the ban on anything embracing capitalist culture and capitalist forms and severe punishment of all attempts to enjoy or permit them.
In the materials, the authorities stressed that “anti-socialist and non-socialist phenomenon” are, essentially, “expressions of capitalist ideology,” and that abandoning the struggle against those phenomena represents a “betrayal” that “abandons revolutionary and class principles.”
By designating even tacit approval of anti-socialist and non-socialist behavior short of complicity in said behavior as “betrayal,” the authorities are demanding that all citizens act as “watchers” for such activity.
At the Fourth Plenary Meeting that followed the distribution of the materials, North Korean authorities designated the eradication of anti-socialist and non-socialist behavior as a key task and ordered measures to strengthen the country’s socialist legal system.
The recent increase in crackdowns and punishments based on the country’s law to eradicate “reactionary ideology and culture” could be seen along the same lines.
Kim In-tae, a senior researcher at the South Korean Institute for National Security Strategy (INSS), told Daily NK that North Korea “has been strengthening its basic direction of self-reliance since the collapse of summit talks the United States in Hanoi in February 2019, while bolstering internal controls and propaganda activities.”
Against this background, North Korea is actively using the COVID-19 pandemic as a “mechanism to completely close windows of communication with the outside world and bolster internal controls,” he added.
Please direct any comments or questions about this article to dailynkenglish@uni-media.net.
