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 Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) is the state news agency of North Korea. The agency portrays the views of the North Korean government for both domestic and foreign consumption. It was established on December 5, 1946, and now features online coverage.
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 North Korean Fatherland United Democratic Front.
The General Federation of Trade Unions of Korea is the sole legal trade union federation in North Korea. GFTUK was formed on November 30, 1945 as the General Federation of Trade Unions of North Korea. In January 1951, it was reorganized and adopted its current name. The chairman of the central committee of GFTUK is Pak In-chol.
Hwang Jang-yop was a North Korean politician who served as the Chairman of the Supreme People's Assembly from 1972 to 1983 and was largely responsible for crafting Juche, the state ideology of North Korea. He defected to South Korea in 1997, the highest-ranking North Korean to have defected.
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 the merger of 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 Yong Ju was a North Korean politician and the younger brother of Kim Il Sung, who ruled North Korea from 1948 to 1994. Under his brother's rule, Kim Yong Ju held key posts including Politburo member in the Workers' Party of Korea (WPK) during the 1960s and early 1970s, but he fell out of favour in 1974 following a power struggle with Kim Jong Il. From 1998 until his death in 2021, he held the ceremonial position of Honorary Vice President of the Presidium of the Supreme People's Assembly (SPA), North Korea's parliament.
The 6th Congress of the Workers' Party of Korea (WPK) was held in the February 8 House of Culture in Pyongyang, North Korea, from 10 to 14 October 1980. The congress is the highest organ of the party, and is stipulated to be held every four years. 3,062 delegates represented the party's membership; 117 foreign delegates attended the congress, without the right to speak. The congress saw the reappointment of Kim Il Sung as WPK General Secretary and the Presidium of the Politburo established as the highest organ of the party between congresses.
The history of the Workers' Party of Korea (WPK) encompasses the period from 1949 onwards.
Reminiscences: With the Century is the autobiography of Kim Il Sung, founder and former president of North Korea. The memoirs, written in 1992 and published in eight volumes, retell Kim's life story through his childhood to the time of Korean resistance. Initially, a total of 30 volumes were planned but Kim Il Sung died in 1994 after just six volumes; the seventh and eight volumes were published posthumously. The work reveals early influences of religious and literary ideas on Kim's thinking. An important part of North Korean literature, With the Century is held as a valuable if unreliable insight into the nation's modern history under late colonial Korea. The book is considered one of a few North Korean primary sources widely available in the West and as notable research material for North Korean studies.
On the Art of the Cinema is a 1973 treatise by the North Korean leader Kim Jong Il. It is considered the most authoritative work on North Korean filmmaking.
Theses on the Socialist Rural Question in Our Country, also known as the Rural Theses or Theses on the Socialist Agrarian Question in Our Country, is a 1964 treatise by Kim Il Sung, the first leader of North Korea. The work lays out the most influential statement on North Korean agricultural policy and its implementation transformed the country's agriculture from a traditional into a modern one. Crop yields were increased, but some environmental problems like deforestation ensued.
The Rules of the Workers' Party of Korea are the by-laws of the Workers' Party of Korea (WPK). It sets the rules of the organization and membership of the party. According to the rules, the WPK Congress is the highest body of the party and it, along with the WPK Conference, can amend the rules. The rules defines the character, task, and methodology of the party. According to it, the Party strives to impose communism on the whole of the Korean Peninsula. Recent revisions of the rules have defined Kimilsungism–Kimjongilism as the ideology of the party.
The Socialist Women's Union of Korea is a mass organization for women in North Korea. Founded in 1945 as the North Korea Democratic Women's League, it is the oldest and one of the most important mass organizations in the country. The Union has committees on every level of administrative divisions of North Korea, from ri (village) all the way up to provinces.
The Propaganda and Agitation Department, officially translated as the Publicity and Information Department, is a department of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea (WPK) tasked with coordinating the creation and dissemination of propaganda in North Korea. It is the highest propaganda organization in the country.
Kim Jong Un has been the supreme leader of North Korea since the death of Kim Jong Il in 2011.
Hwang Sun-hui was a North Korean politician who served in several high-ranking positions in the Workers' Party of Korea (WPK), including in the Supreme People's Assembly and the Central Committee of the WPK. She was affiliated with the Korean Revolution Museum from 1965, and was its director from 1990.
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.
Officially, the Workers' Party of Korea (WPK) – the ruling party of North Korea – is a communist party guided by Kimilsungism–Kimjongilism, a synthesis of the ideas of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il. The party is committed to Juche, an ideology attributed to Kim Il Sung which promotes national independence and development through the efforts of the popular masses. Although Juche was originally presented as the Korean interpretation of Marxism–Leninism, the party now presents it as a freestanding philosophy. The WPK recognizes the ruling Kim family as the ultimate source of its political thought. The fourth party conference, held in 2012, amended the party rules to state that Kimilsungism–Kimjongilism was "the only guiding idea of the party". Under Kim Jong Il, who governed as chairman of the National Defence Commission, communism was steadily removed from party and state documents in favour of Songun, or military-first politics. The military, rather than the working class, was established as the base of political power. However, his successor Kim Jong Un reversed this position in 2021, replacing Songun with "people-first politics" as the party's political method and reasserting the party's commitment to communism.
