The headquarters of the unified command on non-socialist and anti-socialist behavior in Pyongyang recently launched an intensive investigation into untoward behavior in Wonsan, Gangwon Province.
A source in the province told Daily NK on Tuesday that in declaring the investigation, the unified command designated Wonsan a source of “outside culture,” and vowed to eliminate those who protect and incite anti-socialist or non-socialist behavior, “even if they are cadres.”
The source said the investigation began after the authorities launched an intensive investigation in Pyongyang. The authorities had discovered that the North Korean capital was a distribution hotspot of foreign culture and ordered that the problem be quietly resolved. During the investigation, the authorities found that Pyongyang’s “malignant tumor” had spread to Wonsan.
During the Pyongyang investigation, the authorities discovered that university students had brought USBs with foreign videos to Wonsan, a city easily reached by private bus for those with citizen IDs. Immediately afterwards, they commenced their sweeping investigation of the port city.
The source said the government designated Wonsan the second biggest source of foreign culture behind Pyongyang, and organized an intensive investigation to “boldly eliminate those who protect and encourage anti-socialist and non-socialist behavior” from the ranks of the cadres. He said the authorities intend to completely purge offenders in the city as a “trial run” to a national crackdown.
The unified command headquarters from Pyongyang is jointly conducting the investigation with the provincial unified command headquarters of Gangwon Province. The deputy head of the Central Committee’s Rule Inspection Department and deputy chief of the Central Public Prosecutor’s Office have also come down from Pyongyang to take part in the effort.
Investigators currently believe young university students are the biggest problem. This is because young people suffer “severe exposure” to foreign culture, so much so that the buying and selling of USBs with foreign videos has become commonplace among youth.
Moreover, university party committees and youth organizations take little issue with this phenomenon even when they learn about it, something the Central Committee regards as a serious problem.
In fact, despite countless busts at Ri Su Dok Wonsan Teachers Training College, Chong Jun Taek University of Economics, and three other Wonsan universities, school authorities did not consider the infractions to be serious. Investigators are now closely scrutinizing the political and ideological tendencies of the universities’ party committees and Socialist Patriotic Youth League committees.
The source said the unified command headquarters from Pyongyang also worked to get to the bottom of every case they discovered, unveiling the sources of the problem. He said university cadres and leading party and state officials whose children were nabbed were subjected to “ideological struggle sessions” and sacked on the spot.
He added that investigators also lambasted the attitude of court officials who were unable to resist the “influence, bureaucratism, and corruption of cadres,” and overlooked or assisted in anti-socialist and non-socialist behavior.
The unified headquarters from Pyongyang also announced it would dissolve the current provincial unified command headquarters of Gangwon Province and build it back even stronger — and 1.5 times larger — with new personnel.
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