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An image from a television broadcast of founding leader Kim Il-sung addressing the 6th North Korean Workers’ Party Congress in Pyongyang. (AP/Yonhap News)

On May 6, the 7th Congress of the Korean Workers' Party (KWP) will be held in Pyongyang, North Korea, 36 years after the 6th Congress in Oct. 1980.
The long hiatus and the years of silence imply that there will be much to say at the congress. The outside world is keenly interested in the congress, given the high-stakes confrontation with North Korea and the international community following the North's fourth nuclear weapons test on Jan. 6 and its long-range missile launch on Feb. 7.
Understanding North Korea is impossible without first understanding the KWP, which “leads the Democratic People's Republic of Korea," according to Article 11 of the North Korean constitution. Furthermore, there is no way to understand the KWP without taking a closer look at its congress, which is the KWP’s "supreme leadership organ," according to Article 14, Clause 1, of the KWP rules.
The KWP Congress is both the essence of understanding North Korea and a shortcut to achieving that understanding.

"The political bureau of the KWP’s Central Committee has decided to hold the 7th Party Congress in the revolutionary capital of Pyongyang on May 6, 2016,” read one phrase in the official announcement of the decision made by the politburo of the KWP’s Central Committee that was carried in North Korea's state-run Rodong Sinmun newspaper and the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on Apr. 27.

The press and experts in and outside of South Korea have unleashed a torrent of analysis and predictions in regard to the 7th KWP Congress. The South Korean government along with the governments of other major countries in Northeast Asia are following these events closely and mobilizing various agencies to collect information about the direction of the congress. Such actions reflect the fact that the previous congress was held no less than 36 years ago and that this congress is taking place in the fifth year of Kim Jong-un's rule.

In order to gratify this curiosity, it is necessary to know what the status and role of the KWP and the KWP Congress are in North Korea.

North Korea's KWP may be called a party, but it functions differently from South Korean political parties such as the Saenuri Party, the Minjoo Party of Korea, the People's Party and the Justice Party. This is evident from a comparison of the relevant sections in the two constitutions.

The 11th article of North Korea’s "socialist constitution," the one currently in force following a revision in 2012, states that "The Democratic People's Republic of Korea carries out all of its activities under the leadership of the Korean Workers' Party." What this means is that the party leads the state, an arrangement that is known as a party-state system. This is a system in which a single party establishes the state according to the principle of the dictatorship of the proletariat and takes precedence to the state in leadership.

The sixth North Korean Workers‘ Party Congress

Center of the party-state system

Some instructive historical precedents are the establishment of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) by the Communist Party, which was centered on the Bolsheviks led by Vladimir Lenin, and the establishment of the People's Republic of China by the Communist Party of China (CPC) under Mao Zedong.

In contrast, Article 8, Clause 1, of the constitution of the Republic of Korea states that "the establishment of political parties shall be free, and the plural party system shall be guaranteed." Clause 4 of the same article goes on to say that "if the purposes or activities of a political party are contrary to the fundamental democratic order, the Government may bring an action against it in the Constitutional Court for its dissolution, and the political party shall be dissolved in accordance with the decision of the Constitutional Court."

In South Korea, every political party must respect and abide by the "fundamental democratic order" specified in the constitution. Parties that do not do so may be dissolved. Thus, in South Korea, the state is above the party.

In the majority of countries that have adopted multi-party systems, the ruling party can change during periodic elections. But in the surviving socialist countries such as North Korea, China, Vietnam and Cuba that maintain the party-state system, the ruling party is in theory the only party, and thus cannot be changed. Historically speaking, such a handover of power has never occurred.

The KWP Congress is the KWP's "supreme leadership organ" that "leads the Democratic People's Republic of Korea," according to Article 14, Clause 1, of the KWP rules. As such, the KWP Congress is the most important political event in North Korea.

The KWP Congress is on a different level from the national conventions of political parties in South Korea at which parties select their leader or their presidential candidates. The closest comparable event would perhaps be South Korea's presidential election.

But presidential elections in South Korea have already taken place 18 times despite a long military dictatorship, while North Korea's KWP Congress has only been held six times.

What’s on the agenda?

What is discussed and decided at the KWP Congress? While there have been a plethora of analyses and predictions on this question, sticking to the basics is the safest way to go about trying to understand a system like North Korea's in which there is so little transparency in the political process.

The kinds of business done at the KWP Congress are specified in Article 21 of the KWP rules: "① harmonize the business of the KWP Central Committee and the KWP Central Auditing Commission, ② adopt, revise and augment the KWP rules and regulations, ③ debate and decide basic issues about the KWP's course, policies, strategies and tactics, ④ appoint the KWP general secretary, ⑤ and elect the members of the KWP Central Committee and the KWP Central Auditing Commission."

These five types of business can be summarized as assessing the KWP's business and results from the time of the previous congress until the present, providing the KWP with its future direction and policies and reorganizing the KWP's organizations and power structure.

While this may all sound very unfamiliar, don’t close the window just yet: all you need to know is that this is how the congress works.

All right, so much for the basics. Before moving on to analysis and predictions, we need a refresher on what happened between Oct. 30, 2015, when the decision was made to convene the congress, and Apr. 27, 2016, when the final decision to hold the congress was announced.

The decision to convene the congress was made immediately after an elaborate commemoration of the 70th anniversary of the KWP's establishment on Oct. 10, 1945. A certain confidence can be detected in the draft of the statement of decision: "The political bureau of the Party's Central Committee has decided to convene the 7th Congress of the Korean Workers Party at the beginning of May in Juche Year 105 [2016], to reflect the demand for development in the Party and the revolution, in which an epochal change is taking place in regard to carrying out the great deeds of the Juche Revolution and the formation of a strong and prosperous socialist state." This is the self-satisfaction of a state that has risen above 36 years of hardship that were marked by many concerns and crises to convene a KWP Congress.

But after the decision to convene the KWP Congress, external conditions deteriorated considerably.

First of all, a concert by North Korea's Moranbong Band and the State Merited Chorus in Beijing, which was expected to accelerate the improvement of relations between China and North Korea, fell through when North Korea abruptly withdrew the band on Dec. 12 of last year. And the first round of deputy minister-level talks between North and South Korea that took place at the Kaesong Industrial Complex on the same day could have been a turning point for improving inter-Korean relations, but these broke down as well.

North Korea's simultaneous attempts to improve relations with China and South Korea in advance of the KWP Congress both went nowhere, while the gulf in attitudes between North Korea and South Korea and between North Korea and China grew wider.

If the Moranbong Band's concert in Beijing had gone off without a hitch and if the inter-Korean government talks had also gotten some results, North Korea's subsequent actions would have been, and the situation on the Korean Peninsula today would be, quite different.

According to reports by North Korea's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), it was immediately after this that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un gave orders on Dec. 15 for the fourth nuclear test to go ahead and signed the final order on Jan. 3. Since then, there has been a spate of strategic military actions by North Korea, including the fourth nuclear test on Jan. 6 and the rocket launch on Feb. 7.

The threat index on the Korean Peninsula has skyrocketed. The UN Security Council took action against North Korea by adopting Resolution No. 2270, the strongest non-military action it has taken in the 70 years since the UN was founded.

It is unconfirmed whether Kim Jong-un was planning to carry out a fourth nuclear test before the KWP Congress when he decided to convene the congress. Whatever the case, it is clear that the deteriorating external environment will affect what is discussed at the 7th KWP Congress and what is achieved there.

What could Kim Jong-un’s “resplendent blueprint” be?

Now, let's take a closer look at the five kinds of business that the KWP rules state will take place at the congress.

First is "business harmonization." This is something akin to a performance evaluation. Without exception, the person who gave the business harmonization reports during the first six KWP Congresses was Kim Il-sung, who was North Korea's supreme leader at the time. Given this precedent, it stands to reason that the business harmonization report at the 7th KWP Congress will be delivered by Kim Jong-un.

Kim will need to evaluate the KWP’s work in the areas of politics, the economy, South Korean affairs and foreign affairs during the past 36 years when the congress could not be held and derive from this a new vision and policy directions. During the previous congress, Kim Il-sung delivered a business harmonization report that lasted for no less than five hours.

The business harmonization report, which will be delivered on the first or seconds day of the congress, is the heart of the congress. The report sets the tone for the content and direction of the rest of the congress.

The entire idea of business harmonization presumes that the KWP has some achievements to review. This is why previous North Korean leader Kim Jong-il (who died in 2011) was unable to convene a party congress even once during his rule, which lasted for more than a decade.

A substantial portion of Kim Jong-il's time in power overlapped with the collapse of the remaining socialist states and the "arduous march," referring to a time of deadly shortages in food and energy in the 1990s. During this time, Kim responded to the crisis with the Songun policy, meaning "military first," an emergency governance strategy in which the National Defense Commission took priority to the KWP.

In his New Year's address this year, Kim Jong-un predicted that "a resplendent blueprint will be unfurled at the 7th Congress of the Korean Workers' Party." While we will have to wait and see what this "resplendent blueprint" is, at least two predictions can be made: namely, that Kim will emphasize the "two-track" dual approach of building both the economy and nuclear weapons and that he will herald party leadership that has been strengthened in every way. Logically speaking, the North Korean constitution's statement that the party is to lead the state implies that strengthening the party's leadership will allow the party, and consequently the state, to perform their proper functions.

held in Pyongyang in 1980

Second, one of the most crucial policy issues for the congress concerns economic development strategy. Not only does the preamble to the party regulations list “constant improvement of the people’s lives” as the “paramount principle of party activity,” but Kim Jong-un also declared in his 2016 New Year’s address that the “people’s livelihood issue” was “number one among myriad state affairs.”

The third, fourth, and fifth party congresses all saw the presentation of medium-term economic plans: the Third New Economic Development Five-Year Plan, Fourth People’s Economic Development Seven-Year Plan, and Fifth People’s Economic Development Six-Year Plan. For the sixth, a somewhat abstract framework of “Ten Predicted Goals for Building a Socialist Economy” was offered instead of a medium-term plan. With the seventh congress taking place amid heavy sanctions from the international community, a medium-term economic plan is unlikely to be presented there.

Another focus of interest is whether Kim moves to make official two systems introduced since he came to power: the “new economic management system” introduced on Jan. 28, 2012, and the “socialist corporate responsibility management system” - often called the “North Korean-style economic management approach” - introduced on May 30, 2014. Noting the stronger autonomy, responsibility, and incentives for local economic units, experts have described both as “seedlings” for a North Korean approach to economic reform.

But hanging too many hopes on them appears unwise. Symptomatic of this is the “70-day battle” declared at a meeting of the KWP Central Committee’s political bureau sometime around Feb. 23. The name is reminiscent of another 70-day battle in 1974, which brought the first application of the “speed battle” strategy of mass movement-based economic development introduced by Kim’s father, Kim Jong-il. Speed campaigns aimed at achieving results in a specific number of days have typically met - and even exceeded - goals through the channeling of human and material resources over a set period of time. But they have also resulted in serious distortions in resource distribution, undermining the economy’s base. Adopting the slogan of “Mallima speed” - the times faster than the “Chollima speed” of the 1950s, named after a mythical winged horse capable of galloping 400 km in a single day - the 70-day battle is a kind of morphine, with a focus squarely on short-term results. For this reason, the seventh KWP congress is unlikely to produce any economic development strategy of note. And because of the heavy sanctions from the international community, any particular reference to external economic openness is also unlikely.

In terms of South Korean relations, Pyongyang will need to follow Kim’s call in the New Year’s address to “show a willingness to respect and faithfully implement the three main principles of reunification of the fatherland [autonomy, peace, and solidarity of the Korean people, as named in the July 4 Joint Statement], the June 15 Joint Declaration, and the October 4 Summit Statement.”

But the likelihood of any new dialogue proposals to South Korean President Park Geun-hye appear slim. While the prospects are similarly low, North may move beyond bland generalities about the importance of “peace,” or a peaceful outside environment, and presents concrete suggestions in terms of external relations.

A third area concerns revisions or additions to the party rules, which typically take place in the later stages of congresses. Here, two specific areas require attention. In 2012, North Korea amended its Constitution to identify itself as a “nuclear state,” and in 2013 it formally adopted a KWP strategic course of parallel economic and nuclear development at a Mar. 31 Central Committee plenary meeting and enacted its Nuclearization Law at an Apr. 1 Supreme People’s Assembly session. Given the trend, it could amend its party regulations to specify itself as a “nuclear state” there as well. A second question concerns possible revision to prevision in the regulations’ preamble regarding revolution in the South, which currently state that the KWP’s “immediate task . . . lies in performing the duty of revolution for democracy and liberation of the people at the national scale.” Doing so would hold greater practical significance than the presentation of a new reunification plan - another focus of attention for the conference. Also remaining to be seen is the influence of new perceptions on inter-Korean relations as expressed in the North’s announcement of a separate time zone for Pyongyang, which created a 30-minute time difference between South and North as of Aug. 15, 2015, and appeared geared more two setting the two sides apart than strengthening commonalities.

A fourth matter involves possible changes to the KWP organization and power structure. Given the way the party has operated since Kim came to power, the Central Committee’s politburo is expected to enjoy a stronger role. A changing of the generational guard to bolster the regime is expected to back this up, with a mixture of older and newer faces.

Ultimately, all the events of the seventh KWP congress will be geared toward firmly establishing a system of unitary party leadership centering on Kim Jong-un. Just as the preamble to the party regulations declares the KWP to be “party of Kim Il-sungism and Kim Jong-ilism, with Kim Il-sungism and Kim Jong-ilism as its only guiding philosophies,” so the KWP, as the guiding force in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, requires the leadership of a single person - known as the “brain of the revolution.” Like grandfather Kim Il-sung, called the “eternal President” in the Constitution’s preamble, and father Kim Jong-il, called the “eternal National Defense Commission Chairman” in the same preamble and the “eternal General Secretary” in the preamble to the KWP regulations, Kim - who was already declared the “sun in the sky” in a Feb. 23 Supreme Command statement, is expected to become that leader at the seventh congress. At the same time, he is unlikely to ascend to the position of president, general secretary, or NDC chairman, where he would be forever working alongside his departed grandfather and father.

By Lee Je-hun, staff reporter

Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]