North Koreaportal |
North Korea, officially the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, is formally a one-party state under the leadership of the Workers' Party of Korea (WPK) as the sole governing party. There are also two other minor parties that must accept the WPK's "leading role" as a condition of their existence.
As of the latest election in 2019, three parties (WPK, Korean Social Democratic Party, and Chondoist Chongu Party) and one organization (Chongryon) are represented in the Supreme People's Assembly, the country's unicameral parliament.
Party | SPA seats (2014) | Status | Ref | |
---|---|---|---|---|
Workers' Party of Korea (Workers' Party) 조선로동당 Chosŏn Rodongdang | 607 / 687 | Ruling party | [1] [2] | |
Korean Social Democratic Party (KSDP) 조선사회민주당 Chosŏn Sahoe Minjudang | 50 / 687 | Minor party, subordinate to the WPK | [1] [2] | |
Chondoist Chongu Party (Chondoist Chongu Party) 천도교청우당 Ch'ŏndogyo Ch'ŏngudang | 22 / 687 | Minor party, subordinate to the WPK | [1] [2] | |
Chongryon (CYJ) 재일본 조선인 총련합회 Chaeilbon Chosŏnin Ch'ongryŏnhaphoe | 5 / 687 | Not a party but a North Korean-aligned organization for Zainichi Koreans in Japan. Despite this, it still appoints members of the SPA. | [1] [2] |
Party | Status | Ref | |
---|---|---|---|
Korea Buddhist Federation [ clarification needed ] (KBF) 조선불교도련맹 Chosŏn-bulgyodo-ryŏnmaeng | Pseudo-party, last time won a seat with certainty in 1972 | [3] | |
Democratic Independent Party (Democratic Independent Party) 민주독립당 Minju Tongnipdang | Participated in elections between 1948 and 1967, last time won a seat with certainty in 1962 | [1] | |
Dongro People's Party (DPP) 동로인민당(動勞人民黨) Dongro Inmindang | Participated in elections between 1948 and 1967, last time won a seat with certainty in 1962 | [1] | |
Gonmin People's Alliance (GMH) (Sometimes translated as Union of People's Masses (UPM, 건민인민연합)) 건민회 Gonminhoe | Participated in elections between 1957 and 1967, originally South Korea-based party, last time won a seat with certainty in 1957 and in 1962 | [3] [4] | |
People's Republic Party (IRP) 인민공화당 Inmin Konghwadang | South Korea-based party, participated in elections between 1948 and 1967, last time won a seat with certainty in 1957 | [1] [4] | |
Laboring People's Party (Laboring People's Party) 근로인민당 Kŭllo Inmindang | South Korea-based party, last time won a seat with certainty in 1962 | [4] |
Party | Status | Ref | |
---|---|---|---|
Workers' Party of North Korea (Workers' Party) 북조선로동당 Pukchosŏn Rodongdang | Merged with the Workers' Party of South Korea in 1949 to form the Workers' Party of Korea. | [5] | |
New People's Party of Korea 조선신민당 Chosŏn Sinmindang | Merged with the Communist Party of Korea in 1946 to form the Workers' Party of South Korea. | [6] | |
Communist Party of Korea 조선공산당 Chosŏn Kongsandang | Merged with the New People's Party of Korea in 1946 to form the Workers' Party of South Korea. | [6] |
There is currently no known organized opposition within North Korea that is independently verifiable. However, there are various exiled dissident groups that oppose the regime. In 2024, it was revealed that there may be opposition parties within North Korea. [7]
The politics of North Korea takes place within the framework of the official state philosophy, Kimilsungism-Kimjongilism. Juche, which is a part of Kimilsungism-Kimjongilism, is the belief that only through self-reliance and a strong independent state, can true socialism be achieved.
Juche, officially the Juche idea, is the state ideology of North Korea and the official ideology of the Workers' Party of Korea. North Korean sources attribute its conceptualization to Kim Il Sung, the country's founder and first leader. Juche was originally regarded as a variant of Marxism–Leninism until Kim Jong Il, Kim Il Sung's son and successor, declared it a distinct ideology in the 1970s. Kim Jong Il further developed Juche in the 1980s and 1990s by making ideological breaks from Marxism–Leninism and increasing the importance of his father's ideas.
The Democratic Front for the Reunification of Korea (DFRK), also known as the Democratic Front for the Reunification of the Fatherland (DFRF) or the Fatherland Front, was a North Korean popular front formed on 22 July 1946 and led by the Workers' Party of Korea (WPK). It was initially called the Fatherland United Democratic Front.
The Korean Social Democratic Party (KSDP) is a political party in North Korea that is allied with the ruling Workers' Party of Korea (WPK). It was formed on 3 November 1945 as the Korean Democratic Party by a mixed group of entrepreneurs, merchants, handicraftsmen, petite bourgeoisie, peasants, and Christians. The party's founders were motivated by anti-imperialist and anti-feudal aspirations, and aimed to eliminate the legacy of Japanese rule and build a new democratic society. The party came under greater influence of the ruling government over time, and today is under the effective control of the WPK.
The Chondoist Chongu Party (Korean: 천도교청우당) is a popular front party in North Korea. The party was founded on 8 February 1946 by a group of followers of the Ch'ŏndogyo. The party increasingly came under the influence of the government over time and is now under the effective control of the ruling Workers' Party of Korea. The founding-leader of the party was Kim Tarhyon.
Choe Yong-gon was the Supreme Commander of the Korean People's Army from 1948 to 1950, North Korean defence minister from 1948 to 1957, and the Chairman of the Standing Committee of the Supreme People's Assembly of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea from 1957 to 1972.
The Workers' Party of North Korea was a communist party in North Korea from 1946 to 1949 and was a predecessor of the current Workers' Party of Korea. It was founded at a congress on 28–30 August 1946, by the merger of the northern branch of the Communist Party of Korea and the New People's Party of Korea. Kim Tu-bong, the leader of the New People's Party, was elected chairman of the party, while Chu Yong-ha and Kim Il Sung were elected as vice chairmen. At the time of establishment, the party is believed to have had about 366,000 members organized in around 12,000 party cells.
The Communist movement in Korea emerged as a political movement in the early 20th century. Although the movement had a minor role in pre-war politics, the division between the communist North Korea and the anti-communist South Korea came to dominate Korean political life in the post-World War II era. North Korea, officially the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, continues to be a Jucheist state under the rule of the Workers' Party of Korea. In South Korea, the National Security Law has been used to criminalize advocacy of communism and groups suspected of alignment with North Korea. Due to the end of economic aid from the Soviet Union after its dissolution in 1991, due to the impractical ideological application of Stalinist policies in North Korea over years of economic slowdown in the 1980s and receding during the 1990s, North Korea continues to nominally uphold Communism, but has replaced Marxism-Leninism with the Juche idea. References to Communism were removed in the North Korean 1992 and 1998 constitutional revisions to make way for the personality cult of Kim's family dictatorship and the North Korean market economy reform. The Workers' Party of Korea under the leadership of Kim Jong Un later reconfirmed commitment to the establishment of a communist society, but orthodox Marxism has since been largely tabled in favor of "Socialism in our style". Officially, the DPRK still retains a command economy with complete state control of industry and agriculture. North Korea maintains collectivized farms and state-funded education and healthcare.
The Workers' Party of Korea (WPK) is the sole ruling party of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, commonly known as North Korea. Founded in 1949 from a merger between the Workers' Party of North Korea and the Workers' Party of South Korea, the WPK is the oldest active party in Korea. It also controls the Korean People's Army, North Korea's armed forces. The WPK is the largest party represented in the Supreme People's Assembly and coexists with two other legal parties that are completely subservient to the WPK and must accept the WPK's "leading role" as a condition of their existence. The WPK is banned in the Republic of Korea under the National Security Act and is sanctioned by the United Nations, the European Union, Australia, and the United States.
Kim Il Korean: 김일; 20 March 1910 – 9 March 1984) was a North Korean politician who was served as Premier of North Korea from 28 December 1972 to 19 April 1976.
The Central Military Commission of the Workers' Party of Korea (CMC) is an organ of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea (WPK) which heads the Korean People's Army (KPA).
The following is a list of national meetings of the Workers' Party of Korea. This article defines national meetings as party congresses and conferences of party representatives.
The August faction incident, officially called the "Second Arduous March", was an attempted removal of Kim Il Sung from power by leading North Korean figures from the Soviet-Korean faction and the Yan'an faction, with support from the Soviet Union and China, at the 2nd Plenary Session of the 3rd Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea (WPK) in 1956. The attempt to remove Kim failed and the participants were arrested and later executed. Through this political struggle, Kim Il Sung quashed all opposition to him within the central party leadership.
Pak Chong-ae, also known as Pak Den-ai, was a North Korean politician.
The 2nd Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea (WPK) was elected at the 2nd Congress on 30 March 1948, and remained in session until the election of the 3rd Central Committee on 29 April 1956. In between party congresses and specially convened conferences the Central Committee is the highest decision-making institution in the WPK and North Korea. The 2nd Central Committee was not a permanent institution and delegated day-to-day work to elected bodies, such as the Political Committee, the Standing Committee, the Organisation Committee and the Inspection Committee in this case. It convened meetings, known as "Plenary Session of the [term] Central Committee", to discuss major policies. Only full members had the right to vote, but if a full member could not attend a plenary session, the person's spot was taken over by an alternate. Plenary session could also be attended by non-members, such meetings are known as "Enlarged Plenary Session", to participate in the committee's discussions. During its tenure it held five plenary sessions, one enlarged session, seven joint plenary sessions and four stand-alone plenums.
Parliamentary by-elections were held in North Korea on 19 July 1959 in 56 electoral districts. The reason for the by-election was an unusually high number of vacancies – more than a quarter of seats – in the Supreme People's Assembly.
On Eliminating Dogmatism and Formalism and Establishing Juche in Ideological Work, also known as the "Juche speech", was a speech delivered on 28 December 1955 by Kim Il Sung. The address mentioned his Juche ideology by name for the first time. It is considered one of Kim's most important works and a "watershed moment" in North Korean history. Views differ if the speech used the term juche to launch an ideology or more conservatively to assert that the Korean people were the subject of the revolution. The former believes that Juche, as a distinct ideology, was developed by Hwang Jang-yop on his re-discovery of the speech. The speech was published for the first time in 1960 and in many subsequent, heavily edited revisions since.
The 2nd Political Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea (WPK), officially the Political Committee of the 2nd Central Committee (2nd CC), was elected in the immediate aftermath of the 2nd WPK Congress on 30 March 1948 by the 2nd CC's 1st Plenary Session. The composition changed on the merger of the Workers' Party of North Korea and the Workers' Party of South Korea (WPSK) on 24 June 1953, and was again changed after a purge of WPSK-affiliated communists on 6 August 1953.
The 2nd Standing Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea (WPK), officially the Standing Committee of the 2nd Central Committee (2nd CC), was elected in the immediate aftermath of the 2nd WPK Congress on 30 March 1948 by the 2nd CC's 1st Plenary Session. The composition changed on the merger of the Workers' Party of North Korea and the Workers' Party of South Korea (WPSK) on 24 June 1953, and was again changed after a purge of WPSK-affiliated communists on 6 August 1953.
Hong Ki-hwang was a North Korean independence activist and politician who served as a member of the Supreme People's Assembly, North Korea's unicameral parliament.