Free B00BY4HXME EBOK by Andrei Lankov

of them might then join the ruling Korean Workers’ Party. Contrary to rather widespread belief, party membership in itself is not a privilege: actually, the KWP rank and file is often subjected to even stricter demands than the general populace. However, during Kim Il Sung’s era, party membership was much coveted by the upwardly mobile and ambitious, since it was a necessary prerequisite for
any
social advancement (only KWP members were eligible for promotion in nearly all cases).
    Those who were not lucky enough to join the KWP remained in the Party Youth organization until they turned 30 and then became members of the Trade Union organization at their workplace (farmers entered the Agricultural Union instead of the Trade Union). Even housewives are not left outside this ubiquitous web of surveillance and indoctrination: if a woman quits her job after marriage, she automatically becomes a member of the Women’s Union, where she would conduct her “organizational life.”
    It was important that every single North Korean was a member of one of the above-mentioned five “organizations” at his/her workplace, and also a member of the inminban in his/her neighborhood. Technically, this is still the case, even though the significance of the system declined in the 1990s.
    The “organizational life” usually consisted of frequent and soporifically long meetings. Typically there were three meetings every week, each lasting one or two hours. Two meetings would be dedicated to ideological indoctrination: their participants were lectured on the greatness of their Great Leader Kim Il Sung and his family, the glorious achievements of the Korean Workers’ Party, and the incomparable triumphs of the North Korean economy. The diabolical nature of US imperialism and sufferings of the destitute and oppressed South Korean population were also discussed frequently (as we’ll see below, however, in the recent decade the sufferings of South Koreans are being presented in a slightly different light).
    One of the three weekly meetings is, however, quite different from the other two. It is known as a “Weekly Life Review Session” but better recognized under the descriptive translation as a “Self-Criticism and Mutual-Criticism Session.” Such a session usually meant that every participant (that is, every North Korean above the age of 14) was supposed to give a brief report about the misdeeds and unsound actions of him/herself in the week under review. Concurrently, another member of the same “organization” is expected to criticize the particular person for the same or different misdeeds. Of course, in real life these sessions are somewhat akin to theatrical performances, since people are street-smart enough to not admit anything that might lead to serious consequences. Typically, individuals would admit to being late for their shift or not being diligent enough in taking care of portraits of the Great Leader (surprisingly, the latter is seen as a minor deviation). Nonetheless, these self-criticism and mutual-criticism sessions help to keep the population in line and in some rare cases even lead to the exposure of significant ideological deviations.
    One of the truly unique features of Kim Il Sung’s North Korea was a reemergence of hereditary groups, each one having a clearly defined set of privileges and restrictions. In this regard, Kim Il Sung’s North Korea was surprisingly reminiscent of a premodern society, with its order of fixed and hereditary castes (or “estates” as they were sometimes known in pre-modern Europe). Starting from 1957 the authorities began to conduct painstaking checks of the family background of every North Korean. This massive project was largely completed by the mid-1960s and led to the emergence of what is essentially a caste system.
    This system is known to the North Koreans as
s ǒ ngbun
. According to the s ǒ ngbun system, every North Korean belongs to one of three strata: “loyal,”