The North Korean military’s General Political Bureau recently distributed a report summarizing work by the military’s family guidance sections in 2022 and projects planned for 2023 to political departments in each branch of the military on Jan. 2.
The General Political Bureau also announced a vigorous campaign against non-socialist and anti-socialist activity among military families.
A source inside North Korea told Daily NK on Monday that these steps follow Kim Jong Un’s designation of 2023 as a year for strengthening the political, ideological and technological prowess of the military in the sixth plenary session of the Eighth Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea at the end of December.
The report distributed by the General Political Bureau reportedly included examples of non-socialist and anti-socialist activity by military families during 2022, including loose morals among female family members, unfair selection of military wives for art performances, and wives encouraging their husbands to not have children and to leave the army early.
More specifically, the report detailed how young women in families attached to the II Corps, which is stationed at the front line, wore short shorts in front of their parents-in-law in the summer and entered the base in flashy and revealing outfits during special events. Those women were sharply criticized in their family units for disrupting military decorum.
The report also said that in the VIII Corps, members of the propaganda team and art team misrepresented themselves as officers’ wives in a bid to be selected for the military family art performance, but their forged documents were discovered in the final review. Any further occurrence of such anti-party behavior would be punished harshly, the report said.
“This year, there won’t be any chance of cheating one’s way into a military family art performance. Officials in the propaganda department who have taken advantage of soldiers’ desire for their wives to get a spot in the art performances by taking bribes to arrange that for them must be very anxious right now,” Daily NK’s source said.
According to the source, the report also said that military discipline is being undermined by young military wives urging their husbands to stay childfree or to leave the army early so they can establish themselves in society.
“The family guidance sections in political departments say that harsh discipline of ideological backsliding by military wives is needed to ensure that officers can focus on preparing for battle. But some young wives are telling their husbands they want them to leave the military early,” the source explained.
Since such early resignations could undermine discipline throughout the army, the military is very concerned about ideological laxness among young officers’ wives given the immense impact they have on their husbands, he continued.
“The General Political Bureau’s intention in distributing this report was to sound the alarm about these behaviors and to set them straight,” the source added.
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