North’s party meeting — place for show
By Andrei Lankov
It is widely known that in the next few days a major gathering of party officials will take place in Pyongyang. This news is being greatly discussed in the international media.
However, a careful look through the publications clearly indicates: most authors seemingly do not have a clue about the type of gathering which they are talking about.
Journalists usually describe it by vogue terms like “party meeting” or “convention.” Well, these statements are true in a sense ― after all, if the U.S. Senate can be described as a “meeting of political heavyweights from the countryside,” then why not?
Yet, plain mistakes are manifold. For example, media talk about the coming “party congress.” It is wrong: the “party congress” is an official expression, a name of a peculiar North Korean party/state institution and “party congress” is not what is going to happen this time.
One major newspaper informed us that this is going to be the “largest party meeting in 44 years” (completely wrong).
So, facing this havoc, the current author, being above all a professor of history, could not resist the professional urge and chose to use this column to deliver a short lecture on the North Korean political structure and the coming Party Conference.
Yes, dear readers, please remember that this is not some mysterious “convention” or, God forbid, a “party congress,” but a party conference!
North Korea was created as a classical Leninist party-state. The country is run by the Workers’ Party, a local version of a Leninist party, and most of its bureaucratic features emulate the now defunct Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
A Leninist party is a rigid hierarchical structure. All political decisions are made by the party committees, with the Central Committee and Politburo sitting at the very top of the power pyramid.
The higher-level party committee has absolute control of lower-level bodies, much like in an army where a divisional headquarters sends orders to headquarters of the subordinate brigades and battalions.
In real life the committees are self-appointed: the committee members (especially its top functionaries, euphemistically known under the humble name of “secretaries”) either decide themselves who will join them or obediently accept the candidates appointed by higher level committees.
On paper all those committees, including the almighty Central Committee, are elected bodies. In all communist countries from time to time gatherings of the supposedly elected representatives were arranged, and those gatherings “elected” the Central Committee members.
These meetings were vestiges of a much earlier stage in the history of world communism, a reminder of the times when communist parties were democratic.
Following the Soviet tradition ― Leninist parties in most communist countries merely copy and pasted the statute of the Soviet party ― there were two types of such gathering. One is called a “party congress” while another bears the name of a “party conference.”
Congresses are supposed to meet at regular intervals. For example, in North Korea the party statute stipulates that a party congress should be held every five years.
The conferences can be held between the party congresses whenever the leadership sees fit. Usually, a conference is seen as similar but slightly inferior to a full scale congress.
Theoretically, representatives at conferences/congresses are elected, but in real life they are appointed by the local party committees.
During conference/congress proceedings, the representatives unanimously vote in the list of the Central Committee members which is drafted beforehand. No argument or discussion is tolerated, no consideration of alternative candidates is allowed.
This is how all decisions are made during these functions: representatives obediently vote for any resolutions and documents which are presented to them.
Apart from this show of “democracy” (almost comically shallow) those huge gatherings serve another purpose: those are the places where the most important public announcements are made.
The problem is that since long ago North Korea has demonstrated a peculiar unwillingness to keep up with this pseudo-democratic decorum.
While other ruling Communist parties staged shows at required intervals, in North Korea not a single party congress ever met in time, and the last congress took place in 1980. The last conference was even earlier, in 1966.
Therefore, the decision to hold the conference is an unusual one. Last time, in 1980, the Party Congress met to announce the anointment of Kim Jong-il as the successor to his father. Nowadays, it is almost universally expected that the conference will do the same in regard to his son.
But why did they decide to have a humbler conference, not a full-scale congress? It seems to be related to one North Korean peculiarity.
During a congress, lavish gifts are traditionally bestowed on people and officials, and now the North Korean state cannot afford such generosity.
Sufficient to remember, that back in the 1980s Kim Il-sung complained to Soviet and Chinese diplomats that he could not hold another congress due to a shortage of funds.
By now, all decisions which will be voted on by the conference have clearly been drafted, the representatives have been provided with their suits and bags, and the names of the new Central Committee members have also been decided.
The conferences and congresses are not places for discussions, but rather a place for show. Soon we will be treated with such a show.
Professor Andrei Lankov was born in St. Petersburg, Russia, and now teaches at Kookmin University in Seoul. He can be reached at anlankov@yahoo.com.