North Korea unanimously adopted a decision to re-elect Kim Jong-un, chairman of the State Affairs Commission, as general secretary of the Workers’ Party during the fourth-day session of the party’s Ninth Congress on Feb. 22, Korean Central Television reported on Feb. 23.KOREAN CENTRAL TELEVISION/YONHAP
Jeong Yong-soo
The author is an editorial writer and the director of the Unification and Culture Research Institute of the JoongAng Ilbo.
On Aug. 30, 1946, Kim Yong-bom, the No. 2 official in the North Korean Communist Party, took the podium at Moranbong Theater in Pyongyang. The gathering merged the two parties to establish the Workers’ Party of North Korea, predecessor of the Workers’ Party of Korea.
Speaking for party chairman Kim Il Sung, Kim said the party’s mission was to concentrate democratic forces across the Korean Peninsula and establish “a fully independent and democratic unified government” desired by the Korean people.
His speech defined the party’s legitimacy and reason for existence in terms of peninsula-wide unification and national liberation. The party rules retained that orientation for decades, serving as a guide for organization and propaganda. North Korea describes the rules as principles and norms that party organizations and members must observe.
At its Ninth Party Congress in February, North Korea revised those rules. A new text released by Seoul’s Institute for National Security Strategy changed 34 passages from the 2021 version, revising about half the document. Some changes were minor, including raising the minimum membership age from 18 to 20 and polishing wording.
But the most consequential revisions concern the party’s “immediate objective.”
The previous rules said the party aimed to build a prosperous, civilized socialist society “in the northern half of the republic” while achieving independent and democratic development “on a nationwide scale,” with communism as its ultimate goal. The new rules delete both phrases.
North Korea’s founding Constitution in 1948 designated Seoul as its capital, a provision changed to Pyongyang in 1972. Pyongyang also denounced division as betrayal and treated unification as a justification for party and state. Its rationale for the 1950-53 Korean War was “completion of the fatherland,” meaning unification by force.
Now, 80 years after Kim Yong-bom’s speech, Kim Jong-un has erased even traces of the party’s original pledge to establish a unified government.
Policy reflects reality, and political leaders often seek legitimacy by distancing themselves from predecessors. In North Korea’s hereditary system, however, repudiating previous leaders also risks undermining the current leader. Kim’s decision after 14 years in power therefore appears intended to institutionalize his independent course and “two hostile states” doctrine while preparing for a more assertive military and diplomatic posture.
When international isolation and economic hardship threatened the regime in Kim Il Sung’s final years and under Kim Jong-il, Pyongyang invoked nationhood and unification to navigate defensive periods. Kim Jong-un, backed by nuclear weapons, is signaling he no longer intends to remain on the defensive.
The revisions also expose Kim’s political engineering. The preamble removes symbolic language honoring previous leaders, including a pledge to “uphold the great leaders forever,” while explicitly strengthening Kim’s monolithic leadership as general secretary.
Previously, the general secretary was defined as the party’s head and representative who organized and led the entire party. Article 24 now adds authority to appoint and dismiss senior officials, approve party admissions and expulsions and dissolve party organizations and departments. Article 25 assigns the Central Committee the task of establishing the Party Center’s monolithic leadership system, effectively Kim’s.
The rules further stress permanent military crisis. Article 15 newly states that elections are not held during wartime, while Article 26 authorizes plenary meetings to decide defense matters. The changes appear designed to heighten perceptions of external threats, including from Korea, and reinforce domestic unity.
Disciplinary provisions have also been expanded. In addition to warnings, severe warnings, suspension of rights and demotion to candidate membership, Article 7 adds reprimands and suspension from duties. The aim appears to be tighter control over ideological confusion and defections among party members and elites.
Kim has repeatedly changed the title of North Korea’s top leader and revised party rules more extensively than before. He became first secretary in 2012, the year after Kim Jong-il’s death, party chairman in 2016 and general secretary in 2021. Despite attempts to differentiate his inherited rule, he ultimately returned to the title held by Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong-il.
This latest revision goes further, altering the party’s immediate objectives and reducing language venerating his predecessors. It may reflect an effort to overcome constraints of hereditary succession and respond flexibly to changing domestic and international conditions. It may also be intended to project rule through legal and institutional mechanisms rather than inherited instructions.
North Korea’s declaration that it has completed its nuclear force, its harder-line strategies toward Washington and Seoul, U.S.-China rivalry and the war in Ukraine have transformed Kim’s external environment. The revisions give him greater room to justify policies without being bound by his predecessors’ legacy.
Yet the repeated effort to distinguish himself from previous leaders can also be read as anxiety about inherited legitimacy. In North Korea’s quasi-religious political system, changing the supreme leader’s title or core party rules does not itself determine actual governing power.
Why, then, repeatedly seek independence from his predecessors and keep reshaping the party’s foundational rules? Perhaps the changes reveal not confidence, but an enduring legitimacy complex.
This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.
