Lower-level officials are losing sleep as they struggle to organize their superiors’ study notes before the first-quarter political and ideological reviews. Despite Kim Jong Un’s repeated emphasis on “revolutionizing” officials, the reality is that higher-ranking officials routinely dump even basic tasks like arranging study notes onto their subordinates.
According to a Daily NK source in Pyongyang, March—when first-quarter political and ideological study reviews take place—has become particularly stressful for young party officials. This is because study notes are inspected during reviews, and senior officials consistently make their subordinates prepare their notes ahead of inspections.
One young official working for a district party committee in Pyongyang cannot rest in the evenings after work because he must organize study notes delegated to him by his superiors. With no time during working hours, he’s forced to pull all-nighters to arrange the notes, leaving him sleep-deprived.
North Korean officials must participate in various regular and irregular political and ideological study sessions, documenting what they learn in notes that are subject to periodic review. In this system, senior officials routinely task subordinates with organizing all their incomplete notes.
“Officials in high positions don’t worry about inspections of their study notes,” the source said. “If you’re the department chief of a district party committee, you simply make your department’s general guidance officers arrange your notes, and those officers then order young officials below them to do the actual work.”
As a result, it has become standard practice for officials to participate in study sessions perfunctorily while identifying subordinates who can prepare their study notes for inspections, the source explained.
“The rot begins at the top,” he said. “It has long been an unofficial duty for junior officers to arrange their bosses’ study notes.”
During the 30th Enlarged Meeting of the Secretariat of the Eighth Central Committee in late January, Kim Jong Un referred to drinking incidents in Onchon county, Nampo and property violations in Usi county, Jagang province, stating that the “core, central task in the new course of party building is the transformation of cadres along revolutionary lines.” He also declared that this year “should be set as a year for establishing a revolutionary Party climate and strengthening the whole Party.”
While the state calls for revolutionary transformation of officials and demands innovation in their attitudes, officials complacently bypass inspections by using their position and power to delegate work to subordinates.
People aware of the situation are increasingly frustrated. Some complain that the “nation will never function properly if this is what officials are like” and that officials “must be straightened out from the top.”
“People say they might share study notes among peers to arrange them together, but would never force someone else to do it for them,” the source said. “Yet officials constantly talk about revolutionary ideals while unhesitatingly engaging in unprincipled behavior. They say revolutionary transformation should begin with officials rather than forcing ordinary people to attend study sessions.”
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