South Pyongan Province has been sending small teams of technicians formed in factories and enterprises to farms since March, Daily NK has learned.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, a source in South Pyongan Province told Daily NK on Wednesday that the province sent the teams, composed of technicians from machinery factories and various enterprises, “as a measure to improve the operating capacity of tractors or planting machines used in agricultural communities.”
“The factories and companies have selected people to send to the farms from among the workers recommended for party membership by the General Confederation of Trade Unions of Korea or the Socialist Patriotic Youth League,” the source said. “They will be politically evaluated on the basis of how well they repair and operate tractors, planters and other farm machinery.”
In other words, the authorities plan to send members of the General Federation of Trade Unions of Korea or the Socialist Patriotic Youth League, who have been recommended for party membership based on their relative loyalty to the regime, to farming villages and include their achievements in the field in their party membership examinations.
Some workers worry they may never leave farming communities
Over time, however, the would-be party members who were sent to agricultural communities as part of the technical innovation teams are worried that they might get stuck on the farms instead of becoming party members.
According to the source, a member of the General Confederation of Trade Unions in his 40s at the Sunchon Coal Mining Machinery Factory in South Pyongan Province – identified by his alias Kim – was selected for a technical innovation team in April and sent to Naenam Farm in Sunchon.
The committee of the General Confederation of Trade Unions of Korea at his factory persuaded Kim to go by telling him that they would soon fill out his party membership papers if he went. But more than three months have passed and he has heard nothing.
Kim was sent to the farm with two members of the Socialist Patriotic Youth League from his factory. After receiving a request from the farm to repair a tractor, Kim, as the leader of the team, asked the Socialist Patriotic Youth League to buy the necessary parts and then send them home.
Kim was alone at the farm repairing simple machinery when he heard from factory workers that the Socialist Patriotic Youth members he had sent on the errand were asking the factory’s party committee to replace them at the farm and that the team might stay in the village. This added to his uncertainty.
“Kim is now facing a situation where even his children may have to spend their lives in farming villages, because if he is left on the farm, his identity will change from worker to farmer,” the source said. “He went to that agrarian community to join the party, but he can’t help but worry that the longer he stays on the farm, the more likely he will end up staying there forever, ostensibly to strengthen the technical capacity of the agrarian communities.”
He added: “Unrest is brewing among other deployed workers as they suspect the party has used the General Federation of Trade Unions to trick workers into filling labor shortages on the farms.”
Daily NK works with a network of sources living in North Korea, China, and elsewhere. Their identities remain anonymous for security reasons.
Please send any comments or questions about this article to dailynkenglish@uni-media.net.
