--- title: North Korea under the Kim family url: https://propagandaarchive.org/regimes/north-korea-kim/ description: The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) is the state north of the 38th parallel proclaimed on 9 September 1948 and led by three members of one… section: FRAME --- ![Illustration: a Cold War intelligence collage of a non-aligned-movement conference and a map spanning Latin America, Africa and Asia.](https://propagandaarchive.org/static/generated/detail/hero-cold-war-global-south.jpg) [Regimes](https://propagandaarchive.org/regimes/) # North Korea under the Kim family At a glance The Democratic People's Republic of Korea, led by Kim Il Sung from 1948 to 1994, Kim Jong Il until 2011 and Kim Jong Un since; this page gives the roster as of 2 October 2026. - **Period:** 1948 to present - **Country:** North Korea - **Leader:** [Kim Jong Un](https://propagandaarchive.org/regimes/north-korea-kim/#kim-jong-un) - **People listed:** 14 - **As of:** October 2, 2026 - **Techniques:** [Identity fusion](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/identity-fusion/) [Scapegoating](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/scapegoating/) [Name-calling](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/name-calling/) [Card stacking](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/card-stacking/) [Whataboutism](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/whataboutism/) [Euphemism / doublespeak](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/euphemism/) [View all 6 propaganda objects from this regime](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#regime=north-korea-kim,democratic-peoples-republic-of-korea&leader=kim-il-sung,kim-jong-il,kim-jong-un) On this page - [The leader and the people under the leader](https://propagandaarchive.org/regimes/north-korea-kim/#the-leader-and-the-people-under-the-leader) - [Background and rise to power](https://propagandaarchive.org/regimes/north-korea-kim/#background-and-rise-to-power) - [How power was organized](https://propagandaarchive.org/regimes/north-korea-kim/#how-power-was-organized) - [The propaganda apparatus](https://propagandaarchive.org/regimes/north-korea-kim/#the-propaganda-apparatus) - [Timeline](https://propagandaarchive.org/regimes/north-korea-kim/#timeline) - [Succession and the deaths of the leaders](https://propagandaarchive.org/regimes/north-korea-kim/#succession-and-the-deaths-of-the-leaders) - [Same-standard note](https://propagandaarchive.org/regimes/north-korea-kim/#same-standard-note) - [Sources](https://propagandaarchive.org/regimes/north-korea-kim/#sources) - [In the archive](https://propagandaarchive.org/regimes/north-korea-kim/#in-the-archive) **In one line:** The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) is the state north of the 38th parallel proclaimed on 9 September 1948 and led by three members of one family in turn, Kim Il Sung (1948 to 1994), Kim Jong Il (1994 to 2011) and Kim Jong Un (December 2011 to the present), under a single ruling party, the Workers' Party of Korea (WPK). ## The leader and the people under the leader Roster as of October 2, 2026. Offices and office-holders change; this page is a dated snapshot. - ![Kim Jong Un in Beijing, 3 September 2025](https://propagandaarchive.org/regimes/images/north-korea-kim/kim-jong-un.jpg) — [Photo](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kim_Jong-un_at_Diaoyutai_in_Beijing_(2025)_(cropped)_(1).jpg): Presidential Press and Information Office (kremlin.ru), CC BY 4.0 — Kim Jong Un — General Secretary of the Workers' Party of Korea and President of the State Affairs Commission · 2011 to present — Kim Jong Un: Read more — Supreme commander since December 2011, Party first secretary from April 2012, chairman from 2016 and general secretary since January 2021; re-elected general secretary by the Ninth Party Congress in February 2026 and President of the State Affairs by the Supreme People's Assembly on 22 March 2026 (KCNA). — In their words — > “If we adopt a schematic and cramming approach towards the information work, regardless of the principles of things and phenomena and the laws of life and cognition, the truth may be perverted or distorted, and this will finally evoke suspicion and denial.” > > Speech at the closing ceremony of the Third Workshop for Officials in the Information Sector of the WPK, 21 September 2026, as published by KCNA on 22 September 2026 (English) [source](https://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/news/dprk/2026/dprk-260922-kcna01.htm) — > “And efforts should be directed to the use of modern IT and other technical means in the direction of increasing the promptness and effectiveness of the information and education work and completely stopping the spread of reactionary ideology and culture.” > > Speech at the closing ceremony of the Third Workshop for Officials in the Information Sector of the WPK, 21 September 2026, as published by KCNA on 22 September 2026 (English) [source](https://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/news/dprk/2026/dprk-260922-kcna01.htm) — > “Accordingly, we took immediate state measures to eliminate the remnants of outdated ideas and relics of the past era and to label the ROK as the out-and-out first hostile state and immutable principal enemy in the realms of political, ideological, spiritual and cultural life of our people.” > > KCNA report on the Ninth Congress of the Workers' Party of Korea, 26 February 2026 (English), section on relations with the ROK, reporting Kim Jong Un's report to the Congress [source](https://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/news/dprk/2026/dprk-260226-kcna02.htm) ### Earlier leaders - ![Kim Il Sung in Berlin, 1 June 1984](https://propagandaarchive.org/regimes/images/north-korea-kim/kim-il-sung.jpg) — [Photo](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kim_Il-sung_1984.jpg): Rainer Mittelstädt (Bundesarchiv), CC BY-SA 3.0 de — Kim Il Sung — Premier from 1948 to 1972, then President · 1948 to 1994 — Kim Il Sung: Read more — Founding leader of the DPRK, proclaimed on 9 September 1948; the 1998 constitution named him eternal president after his death on 8 July 1994. — In their words — > “What is Juche in our Party's ideological work? What are we doing? We are not engaged in any other country's revolution, but precisely in the Korean revolution. This, the Korean revolution, constitutes Juche in the ideological work of our Party. Therefore, all ideological work must be subordinated to the interests of the Korean revolution.” > > "On eliminating dogmatism and formalism and establishing Juche in ideological work", speech to Party propagandists and agitators, 28 December 1955, in Kim Il Sung: Selected Works, vol. 1 (English text as hosted by the Marxists Internet Archive) [source](https://www.marxists.org/archive/kim-il-sung/1955/12/28.htm) — > “When propaganda work is conducted with such exaggeration without any substance to it, it will lead people to be carried away by victory and to become easy-going. This bad practice is also responsible for the false reports handed in by junior officials.” > > "On eliminating dogmatism and formalism and establishing Juche in ideological work", speech to Party propagandists and agitators, 28 December 1955, in Kim Il Sung: Selected Works, vol. 1 (English text as hosted by the Marxists Internet Archive) [source](https://www.marxists.org/archive/kim-il-sung/1955/12/28.htm) — > “Further, the work of propaganda and agitation should be stepped up among the broad masses. Education of the masses of the people in socialist ideology should be the main content of the work of propaganda and agitation.” > > "On eliminating dogmatism and formalism and establishing Juche in ideological work", speech to Party propagandists and agitators, 28 December 1955, in Kim Il Sung: Selected Works, vol. 1 (English text as hosted by the Marxists Internet Archive) [source](https://www.marxists.org/archive/kim-il-sung/1955/12/28.htm) - ![Kim Jong Il in Ulan-Ude, 24 August 2011](https://propagandaarchive.org/regimes/images/north-korea-kim/kim-jong-il.jpg) — [Photo](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kim_Jong-il_on_August_24,_2011.jpg): Presidential Press and Information Office (kremlin.ru), CC BY 4.0 — Kim Jong Il — Chairman of the National Defence Commission and General Secretary of the Workers' Party of Korea · 1994 to 2011 — Kim Jong Il: Read more — Succeeded his father in 1994 and led through the National Defence Commission (chairman 1993 to 2011), the Party (general secretary from 1997) and the Songun, or military-first, line; died on 17 December 2011. — In their words — > “The cinema is now one of the main objects on which efforts should be concentrated in order to conduct the revolution in art and literature. The cinema occupies an important place in the overall development of art and literature. As such it is a powerful ideological weapon for the revolution and construction.” > > On the Art of the Cinema, talk to creative workers in the field of cinema, 11 April 1973 (English text as hosted by the Marxists Internet Archive) [source](https://www.marxists.org/archive/kim-jong-il/works/On-The-Art-Of-The-Cinema.pdf) — > “Since mass gymnastics are creative works, their first and foremost task is to properly delineate the Party and the leader as is the case of all other productions. Doing this is essential for setting the correct ideological plot of a work and ensuring its ideological and artistic qualities at the highest level.” > > On Further Developing Mass Gymnastics, talk to mass gymnastics producers, 11 April 1987 (English text as hosted by the Marxists Internet Archive) [source](https://www.marxists.org/archive/kim-jong-il/works/On-Further-Developing-Mass-Gymnastics.pdf) — > “It is our people's greatest wish and unshakable will to hold the great leader in high esteem forever, safeguard him politically, ideologically and with our lives, and ensure his absolute authority and prestige in every possible way. Reflecting their wish and will, the leader's image is presented on the backdrops to mass gymnastic performances.” > > On Further Developing Mass Gymnastics, talk to mass gymnastics producers, 11 April 1987 (English text as hosted by the Marxists Internet Archive) [source](https://www.marxists.org/archive/kim-jong-il/works/On-Further-Developing-Mass-Gymnastics.pdf) ### Party - ![Jo Yong Won, 25 April 2026](https://propagandaarchive.org/regimes/images/north-korea-kim/jo-yong-won.jpg) — [Photo](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Jo_Yong-won_(2026-04-25)_(cropped).jpg): Press Service of the State Duma of the Russian Federation, CC BY 4.0 — Jo Yong Won — Member of the Presidium of the Political Bureau and Secretary of the Central Committee · 2026 to present — Jo Yong Won: Read more — Elected to the Presidium on 23 February 2026 and named first vice-president of the State Affairs Commission on 22 March (KCNA); the June 2026 plenum's published list elects him a secretary and department director. 38 North reports that he heads the Organization and Guidance Department, and secondary reports say he left the chair of the SPA Standing Committee in June; this page could not confirm either point from a KCNA text. - No public-domain or openly licensed portrait found on Wikimedia Commons as of 2 October 2026; DPRK state-media photographs are not hosted. — Ri Il Hwan — Member of the Presidium of the Political Bureau and Secretary of the Central Committee · 2026 to present — Ri Il Hwan: Read more — Elected to the Presidium on 23 February 2026 and gave the speech nominating Kim Jong Un at the Supreme People's Assembly on 22 March (KCNA). NK News and SBS report that he and Ju Chang Il attended the Party's September 2026 information-sector workshop; this page could not confirm from a primary source which secretary directs the Propaganda and Agitation Department. — In their words — > “On this planet, only the strong has the right to defend the dignity and security of a state, and the greatness of Comrade Kim Jong Un is the most powerful national strength of the DPRK.” > > Speech proposing the election of the President of the State Affairs, First Session of the 15th Supreme People's Assembly, 22 March 2026, as published by KCNA on 23 March 2026 (English) [source](https://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/news/dprk/2026/dprk-260323-kcna01.htm) — > “Another strength that makes our state invincible, remaining unperturbed despite any world event or upheaval, is the single-minded unity in which the intention of the leader, who values the self-respect more than life, becomes the will of the people and the purpose of struggle and life.” > > Speech proposing the election of the President of the State Affairs, First Session of the 15th Supreme People's Assembly, 22 March 2026, as published by KCNA on 23 March 2026 (English) [source](https://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/news/dprk/2026/dprk-260323-kcna01.htm) - No public-domain or openly licensed portrait found on Wikimedia Commons as of 2 October 2026; DPRK state-media photographs are not hosted. — Ju Chang Il — Secretary of the Central Committee; reported director of the Propaganda and Agitation Department · 2022 to present — Ju Chang Il: Read more — Reported as the department's director from 2022 and still named in that post on 31 October 2025 (38 North's NK Leadership Watch, citing KCNA); became a secretary and Political Bureau member in February 2026. His present directorship is not confirmed by a primary source. - ![Kim Yo Jong in Pyongyang, 7 October 2018](https://propagandaarchive.org/regimes/images/north-korea-kim/kim-yo-jong.jpg) — [Photo](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Secretary_Pompeo_Receives_Photos_from_Kim_Yo_Jong_in_Pyongyang_(44240182715)_(cropped_2).jpg): Ron Przysucha, U.S. Department of State, Public domain (U.S. government work) — Kim Yo Jong — Director of the Party's General Affairs Department and alternate member of the Political Bureau · 2026 to present — Kim Yo Jong: Read more — Sister of Kim Jong Un; a vice director in the Propaganda and Agitation Department until 2026, and named director of the General Affairs Department in February 2026 (KCNA, 28 February 2026, as reported by the Korea Times). Her statements on the South and the United States are issued through KCNA. — In their words — > “Are the "freedom of expression" and "international law" defined according to the direction in which balloons fly?” > > Press statement "The ROK is not entitled to criticize the freedom of expression of the people of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea", 29 May 2024, as published by KCNA (English); she was then vice department director of the WPK Central Committee [source](https://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/news/dprk/2024/dprk-240530-kcna02.htm) — > “As for the suspension of the anti-DPRK psychological propaganda broadcasting which the ROK authorities described as the first signal for the restoration of confidence between the south and the north, all this is the scourge they have voluntarily invited and thus it is the issue of themselves no matter how they settle it and is nothing but a reversible turning back of what they should not have done in the first place. In other words, it is not the work worthy of appreciation.” > > Press statement, 28 July 2025, as published by KCNA (English); she was then vice department director of the WPK Central Committee [source](https://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/news/dprk/2025/dprk-250728-kcna01.htm) — > “We have never removed loudspeakers installed on the border area and are not willing to remove them.” > > Press statement "Hope of Seoul Is Nothing but a Foolish Dream", 14 August 2025, as published by KCNA (English); she was then vice department director of the WPK Central Committee [source](https://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/news/dprk/2025/dprk-250814-kcna02.htm) ### State - No clearable portrait with a confirmed identity found. Nearest: [source](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pak_Thae-song.jpg) (State Duma press service, CC BY 4.0 as tagged on Commons), whose caption names him as SPA chairman in 2019, which this page could not reconcile with the offices he is reported to have held; not hosted. — Pak Thae Song — Premier of the Cabinet and member of the Presidium of the Political Bureau · 2024 to present — Pak Thae Song: Read more — Named premier at a Party plenary in December 2024 (Korea Herald), replacing Kim Tok Hun, and appointed again by the First Session of the 15th Supreme People's Assembly on 22 March 2026 (KCNA, 23 March 2026). The Cabinet is the state's administrative body. - No portrait of usable size found. Nearest: [source](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:2024%E5%B9%B4%E9%87%91%E5%BE%B3%E8%A8%93_2024%EB%85%84%EA%B9%80%EB%8D%95%ED%9B%88.jpg) (CC BY 4.0, a 139 by 186 px crop from kremlin.ru), too small to use. — Kim Tok Hun — First Vice-Premier of the Cabinet · 2026 to present — Kim Tok Hun: Read more — Listed as first vice-premier in KCNA's Cabinet list of 23 March 2026; also a Political Bureau member, a member of the State Affairs Commission and vice-chairman of the Assembly's Foreign Affairs Committee. - ![Choe Son Hui in June 2018, then a vice foreign minister](https://propagandaarchive.org/regimes/images/north-korea-kim/choe-son-hui.jpg) — [Photo](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Choe_Son-hui.jpg): U.S. Department of State, Public domain (U.S. government work) — Choe Son Hui — Minister of Foreign Affairs · 2022 to present — Choe Son Hui: Read more — Heads the Foreign Ministry, which issues memoranda and statements through KCNA, among them the memorandum of 27 September 2026 on U.S. nuclear proliferation (KCNA, 29 September 2026); also a Political Bureau member and a member of the State Affairs Commission. - No public-domain or openly licensed portrait found on Wikimedia Commons as of 2 October 2026; DPRK state-media photographs are not hosted. — Pang Tu Sop — Minister of Public Security · 2026 to present — Pang Tu Sop: Read more — Named minister in KCNA's Cabinet list of 23 March 2026; also an alternate member of the Political Bureau, a member of the Central Military Commission and of the State Affairs Commission. ### Armed forces - No public-domain or openly licensed portrait found on Wikimedia Commons as of 2 October 2026; DPRK state-media photographs are not hosted. — Jong Kyong Thaek — Vice-Chairman of the Party's Central Military Commission and Secretary of the Central Committee · 2026 to present — Jong Kyong Thaek: Read more — Elected vice-chairman of the Central Military Commission on 23 February 2026 (KCNA, 26 February 2026); also a Political Bureau member and a member of the State Affairs Commission. - No public-domain or openly licensed portrait found on Wikimedia Commons as of 2 October 2026; DPRK state-media photographs are not hosted. — Kim Song Gi — Minister of National Defence · 2026 to present — Kim Song Gi: Read more — Replaced No Kwang Chol on 29 August 2026 by decision of the Central Military Commission; he had been director of the army's General Political Bureau (Korea Times, 30 August 2026, citing KCNA). - No public-domain or openly licensed portrait found on Wikimedia Commons as of 2 October 2026; DPRK state-media photographs are not hosted. — Pak Jong Chon — Vice-Chairman of the Party's Central Military Commission · 2026 to present — Pak Jong Chon: Read more — Made a vice-chairman of the Central Military Commission on 29 August 2026 (Korea Times, 30 August 2026, citing KCNA); this page did not check the KCNA text. ## Background and rise to power Korea was a Japanese colony from 1910 to 1945. When Japan surrendered, Soviet forces occupied the north and U.S. forces the south, with the dividing line at the 38th parallel. Kim Il Sung, who had fought Japanese forces in Manchuria and served in a Soviet army unit, returned to Korea in 1945; scholars of the period describe the Soviet occupation authorities as the decisive backers of his rise (Lankov, 2002; Suh, 1988). Official DPRK biographies instead credit him with defeating Japan largely by himself, a claim the case study on the Kim leader cult sets against the outside record. A Soviet-backed provisional government ruled the north from 1946, and the Workers' Party of North Korea was formed that August. The Republic of Korea was proclaimed in the south on 15 August 1948 and the DPRK followed on 9 September 1948, with Kim as premier. ![Kim Il Sung and Erich Honecker holding a banner with the East German and North Korean flags, under a sign in German and Korean reading 'DDR und KDVR in Freundschaft eng verbunden'](https://propagandaarchive.org/regimes/images/endings/north-korea-kim-1.jpg) Kim Il Sung (left) with Erich Honecker at a ceremony in East Berlin, 1 June 1984. The sign overhead and the banner carry friendship slogans in German and Korean; the photograph is by the East German news agency ADN and is held by the Bundesarchiv. [Source](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bundesarchiv_Bild_183-1984-0601-046,_Berlin,_Besuch_Kim_Il_Sung_in_der_DDR.jpg): Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-1984-0601-046 / Mittelstädt, Rainer / CC-BY-SA 3.0, CC BY-SA 3.0 de. ![A U.S. Army sergeant loads rolls of leaflets into a bomb casing at a printing plant in Yokohama](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/images/kim-dynasty-leader-cult-leaflet-bomb.jpg) A U.S. Army sergeant loads rolls of leaflets into a bomb casing at the Far East Command printing plant in Yokohama during the Korean War, when UN forces dropped about 2.5 billion leaflets (Jung, 2014). [Source](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Korean_War_leaflet_bomb.jpg): U.S. Army photograph, Korean War (SFC Furl A. Krebs at the Far East Command printing plant, Yokohama), Public domain (U.S. government work). On 25 June 1950 the Korean People's Army crossed the 38th parallel. The DPRK's official account says the South attacked first; Soviet documents released after 1991 show that Kim sought and received Stalin's approval for the invasion (Weathersby, 1993). The war ended with the armistice of 27 July 1953, not a peace treaty. On 22 February 1952 the DPRK foreign minister accused the United States of germ warfare, a charge that the Soviet leadership told Beijing and Pyongyang in secret in May 1953 was "fictitious" (case study). Both sides used leaflets and broadcasts throughout the war, among them a U.S. Army leaflet of 1952 that drew Kim as a cow and a Korean People's Army leaflet of January 1953 that caricatured the South as under U.S. occupation (both are shown in this page's [propaganda apparatus](https://propagandaarchive.org/regimes/north-korea-kim/#the-propaganda-apparatus) section). Kim used the 1950s and 1960s to remove rival factions inside the party, among them the 1956 "August faction" and, in 1967, the Kapsan faction. On 28 December 1955 he told Party propagandists that "all ideological work must be subordinated to the interests of the Korean revolution", the speech from which DPRK sources date the Juche idea. The Monolithic Ideological System of 1967, the Ten Principles of 1974 and the designation of Kim Jong Il as successor are covered in the case study. ## How power was organized The Workers' Party of Korea leads the state. Its Rules and the 1972 Socialist Constitution, which named the Juche idea as the state's guide, place the Party ahead of every other body. The party's top body between congresses is the Central Committee, which elects the Presidium of the Political Bureau, the Political Bureau, the Secretariat, the Central Military Commission and the department directors. The general secretary is by the Party's Rules a member of the Presidium and chairman of the Central Military Commission (KCNA, 26 February 2026). The Supreme People's Assembly (SPA) is the legislature and elects the State Affairs Commission and appoints the Cabinet, the Supreme Court president and the head of the Supreme Public Prosecutors Office (KCNA, 23 March 2026). The Party's and the state's top posts overlap: in 2026 the same officials sit in the Presidium, the Secretariat, the State Affairs Commission and the Cabinet. ![Chart of Kim Jong Un between Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il above five columns: the Workers' Party, Assembly and Cabinet, security and law, armed forces, and propaganda and press.](https://propagandaarchive.org/regimes/images/diagrams/north-korea-kim-power-structure.png) Power structure of the DPRK as of 2 October 2026, simplified from the sources cited on this page. Source: FRAME diagram. Portraits, cropped to thumbnails: U.S. Department of State, 10 June 2018; Photo: duma.gov.ru, CC BY 4.0, 25 April 2026; Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-1984-0601-046 / Mittelstädt, Rainer / CC-BY-SA 3.0; Photo: kremlin.ru, CC BY 4.0, 24 August 2011; Photo: kremlin.ru, CC BY 4.0, 3 September 2025; U.S. Department of State photo (Ron Przysucha), 7 October 2018, CC BY-SA 3.0 de (the portraits that carry it); other portraits: CC BY 4.0; Public domain (U.S. government work). Kim Il Sung was premier until 1972 and then president, and he held the Party's leading post. The 1998 constitution named him eternal president after his death. Kim Jong Il led through the National Defence Commission (chairman 1993 to 2011), the Party (general secretary from 1997) and the "Songun" (military-first) line. Kim Jong Un was named supreme commander in December 2011, took the party's first secretary post in April 2012 and the Party chairmanship in 2016, and became general secretary in January 2021. The State Affairs Commission was created in June 2016 as the state's top organ; KCNA's English renders its head as "President of the State Affairs" and calls Kim Jong Un that in its reports of September 2026. **The 2026 cycle.** The Ninth Party Congress sat from 19 February 2026, and KCNA reports that it again elected Kim Jong Un general secretary (the Congress's fourth day, 22 February). Its first plenary meeting of 23 February elected a five-member Presidium (Kim Jong Un, Pak Thae Song, Jo Yong Won, Kim Jae Ryong and Ri Il Hwan), 19 Political Bureau members and eleven alternates, eleven secretaries besides the general secretary and a Central Military Commission with Jong Kyong Thaek as vice-chairman. A general election to the SPA was held on 15 March, with KCNA reporting a turnout of 99.99 per cent and, as outside observers note, one candidate in each constituency (U.S. News/Reuters, 15 March 2026), and on 22 March its First Session re-elected Kim Jong Un President of the State Affairs, appointed Pak Thae Song premier and elected a State Affairs Commission of fourteen (KCNA, 23 March 2026). The nomination speech was given by Ri Il Hwan. State media report votes at these sessions as unanimous; the page cannot check that, since there is no independent observation of DPRK elections or of how candidates are chosen. **Changes since March.** The Party's second plenum of 20 to 22 June removed Kim Jae Ryong from the Presidium and secretariat; the plenum's published list elects Jo Yong Won a secretary and department director (KCNA, 23 June 2026), and 38 North reports that he again heads the Organization and Guidance Department, the Party's personnel and discipline organ, a post that KCNA's release does not name. On 29 August 2026 the Central Military Commission replaced Defence Minister No Kwang Chol with Kim Song Gi, the former director of the army's General Political Bureau, and made Pak Jong Chon a vice-chairman (Korea Times, 30 August 2026, citing KCNA). A constitution revision adopted at the SPA's First Session is a further change. Its text was reviewed in May 2026 by South Korea's Unification Ministry, and Yonhap-based reports in the Korea Herald and Korea Times say it names the president of the State Affairs Commission "head of state", ranks the post above the SPA, gives it command of the nuclear forces, drops the references to reunification and defines the DPRK's territory as the land between China and Russia to the north and the Republic of Korea to the south. The Korea JoongAng Daily argues that this reshapes ties with the South without amounting to a formal two-state theory. This page relies on those reports and has not checked a DPRK-published text. **Not confirmed.** The post of chairman of the SPA Standing Committee, which Jo Yong Won held from 22 March until, according to secondary reports, the June plenum recalled him, was described as vacant afterwards, and this page found no report of a successor. State media have never named a successor to Kim Jong Un. South Korea's National Intelligence Service director told lawmakers on 6 April 2026 that Kim's daughter Kim Ju Ae "can be seen as the successor" on "credible intelligence"; the intelligence itself is not public, and DPRK media have given her no title. ![Illustration: a microfilm reader and card-catalogue drawers with film strips and index cards.](https://propagandaarchive.org/static/generated/graphics/microfilm-archive.jpg) Illustration, not an archive object ## The propaganda apparatus **The Party's Propaganda and Agitation Department.** The Propaganda and Agitation Department directs the press, broadcasting, publishing, the arts and ideological education. A 2023 study by the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, a Washington research and advocacy group, lists the Central Broadcasting Committee, the Korean Central News Agency, *Rodong Sinmun*, the Party's publishing house, *Minju Chosun* and the film and art studios as under its direct supervision, and says every journalist belongs to the Party-run Journalists' Union (Collins, 2023). Ju Chang Il has been reported as its director since 2022 and was still named as director at the *Rodong Sinmun* anniversary meeting of 31 October 2025 (38 North's NK Leadership Watch, citing KCNA); in February 2026 he became a secretary and Political Bureau member. KCNA's English reports of September 2026 render the sector as the "information sector" and describe the Party's Third Workshop for Officials in the Information Sector (18 to 21 September 2026), which NK News and SBS report was attended by the secretaries Ri Il Hwan and Ju Chang Il. This page could not confirm from a primary source which secretary now directs the department, and the department's name in KCNA English has changed. Kim Yo Jong, who was a vice department director in the department until 2026, became director of the Party's General Affairs Department in February 2026 (KCNA, 28 February 2026, reported by the Korea Times); South Korean media called this a promotion and the Daily NK argued it may be a lateral move. [![1953년 새해를 맞는 米帝 强占下의 南半部風景 (Scenes of the Southern Half under U.S. Imperialist Occupation, at the 1953 New Year)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/kpa-new-year-1953-south-scenes-leaflet-1953.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/kpa-new-year-1953-south-scenes-leaflet-1953/) [1953년 새해를 맞는 米帝 强占下의 南半部風景 (Scenes of the Southern Half under U.S. Imperialist Occupation, at the 1953 New Year)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/kpa-new-year-1953-south-scenes-leaflet-1953/), 1953. From the collection. A Korean People's Army leaflet of January 1953 of the kind the section describes, on the DPRK side of the wartime leaflet exchange. ![A 1952 leaflet cartoon in which a figure labelled Mao Zedong whips a figure labelled Kim Il Sung, who pulls a plough, while a figure labelled Stalin looks on](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/images/kim-dynasty-leader-cult-landlord-servant-cow-1952.jpg) U.S. Army leaflet 1242, 'The landlord, his servant and the cow', 1952, on the UN side of the same exchange. The figures are labelled Mao Zedong, Stalin and Kim Il Sung. [Source](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Demoralization_Leaflet_1242_Korean_War.jpeg): 1st Radio Broadcasting and Leaflet Group, U.S. Army (leaflet 1242, 1952); Commons source: psywarrior.com, Public domain (U.S. government work). **Content note:** Content note: a 1952 U.S. Army leaflet cartoon that draws Kim Il Sung as a cow ploughing under a whip, with Mao Zedong and Stalin as his drivers. It is shown as issued, as an example of the UN side's own wartime propaganda against the North's leaders. This object is shown as it was published. [Why](https://propagandaarchive.org/about/#as-it-was) **KCNA and *Rodong Sinmun*.** The Korean Central News Agency is the state news agency; *Rodong Sinmun* is the organ of the Party's Central Committee and, in the HRNK account, is delivered only to cadres down to cell secretaries, with other papers serving the Cabinet and the Youth League. The 31 October 2025 anniversary report named Pak Yong Min as *Rodong Sinmun*'s editor-in-chief and Kim Pyong Ho as KCNA's president; this page did not re-confirm either name for October 2026. No independent domestic outlet is reported to exist (Collins, 2023). The UN Commission of Inquiry of 2014 included violations of the freedoms of thought, expression and information among its findings, and the DPRK rejected the report (see the Timeline). **The Juche idea and its slogans.** Kim Il Sung's speech of 28 December 1955 said that "the Korean revolution, constitutes Juche in the ideological work of our Party". Kim Jong Il's 1982 treatise *On the Juche Idea* states "that man is the master of everything and decides everything", and the state later added "Kimilsungism-Kimjongilism" (announced in 2012) and, in the 2013 revision of the Ten Principles, "eternal leaders" and the "Sun of Juche" (case study). A 2026 Congress report in KCNA named "the nation-building idea and the banner of the three revolutions" (ideological, technological and cultural) as the Party's lifeline. The Third Workshop of September 2026 had Kim Jong Un telling officials that a "schematic and cramming approach" risks a result of "suspicion and denial", and that the information sector should use technology for "completely stopping the spread of reactionary ideology and culture" (KCNA, 22 September 2026). The Party's study sessions are part of daily life: HRNK reports weekly Saturday lectures and "life review" self-criticism sessions in work units, and the neighbourhood-unit heads, the *inminban*, deliver lectures set by the local Party committee. **Anti-U.S. messaging.** The yearly "Month of Anti-US Joint Struggle", from 25 June to 27 July, and the Sinchon Museum attribute the autumn 1950 killings at Sinchon to U.S. troops and give a toll of 35,383. The scholars cited in the case study attribute them mainly to Korean right-wing units and do not confirm the toll, so the perpetrators and the number are disputed. KCNA's Ninth Congress report of 26 February 2026 calls the United States a "hostile entity" and says relations "depend entirely on the attitude of the U.S. side". **Leader cult.** From 1970 Kim Il Sung badges were mass-produced and households hung the leaders' portraits; Kim Il Sung's residence became a mausoleum in 1995 and, with Kim Jong Il's body, the Kumsusan Palace of the Sun in 2012 (see the case study for the sources). The Mansudae Grand Monument in Pyongyang has two bronze statues, which the Koryo Group visitor guide puts at 20 metres tall, Kim Il Sung's unveiled in April 1972 and Kim Jong Il's added in 2012, and visitor guides report that visitors are expected to bow and may offer flowers. Language in official reports shows the pattern: on 22 March 2026 Ri Il Hwan told the SPA that "the greatness of Comrade Kim Jong Un is the most powerful national strength of the DPRK" and described a unity in which "the intention of the leader ... becomes the will of the people" (KCNA, 23 March 2026). The archive's tag for this pattern is identity fusion; the same tag applies to any state that equates one leader with one people. **Mass games and the arts.** Kim Jong Il wrote that the cinema is "a powerful ideological weapon for the revolution and construction" (1973) and told mass-gymnastics producers in 1987 that their "first and foremost task is to properly delineate the Party and the leader". The Arirang Mass Games ran at the Rungrado May Day Stadium from 2002, were recorded by Guinness World Records on 14 August 2007 with 100,090 participants and returned in September 2018 under the title *Glorious Country*, which South Korean President Moon Jae-in attended on 19 September (NK News, 2018). **Kim Il Sung (1948 to 1994).** Juche as doctrine and the Mansudae statues are covered above; three other parts of his reign's apparatus are added here. The first is the badge. The Korea Times, in a report on the first portrait badge of Kim Jong Un, says that the Kim Il Sung portrait badge "began to be produced and distributed in November 1970" (Korea Times, 30 June 2024), the date the cult paragraph above gives as "from 1970". The second is the war narrative. The historian Suzy Kim writes that the DPRK, which during the Korean War had accused South Korea of starting a "civil war" (*naeran*), later moved to paint it "as an American war of imperialist aggression against Korea that was victoriously thwarted under the leadership of Kim Il Sung". The state's name for the war is the "Victorious Fatherland Liberation War"; she dates the museum that carries the name in Pyongyang to the early 1970s and notes the monument beside it was built for the fortieth anniversary of the armistice in 1993 (Kim, 2015). The Sinchon Museum's account, above, belongs to the same narrative. The Soviet documents cited in the Background section give a different account of who began the war, and the official account is a position the DPRK holds, not a record this page can confirm. **Kim Jong Il (1994 to 2011).** *The succession campaign.* East German diplomatic reports published by the Wilson Center's North Korea International Documentation Project date the start of Kim Jong Il's grooming to 1974, driven, the East German ambassador reported, by concern that "something grave might happen to Kim Il Sung". The documents record that photographs of the successor were distributed from 1974 and that by 1975 large paintings and photographs showed him instructing officials in poses "usually reserved for Kim Il Sung". They describe the "Three Revolutions" movement as a means of building support among cadres, and note that by July 1977 public references to the "Party center" and the portraits visible to foreigners had become less frequent (Schaefer, NKIDP, 21 December 2011). The page's succession section gives the 1980 Presidium seat. *Badges.* Kim Jong Il's own portrait badge dates, per the Korea Times, from 16 February 1992, his fiftieth birthday, and only some officials wore it at first; ordinary citizens began to wear it in the 2000s. *Songun.* KCNA-derived accounts date the "military-first" politics to 1 January 1995, when Kim Jong Il visited an army unit, and define it as "giving priority to the military affair" and relying "on the army as the pillar of the revolution" (as reproduced by GlobalSecurity.org). Britannica says the line was adopted to shield the state from the effects of the Soviet collapse and domestic hardship. *The "Arduous March".* Andrei Lankov writes that the famine of the 1990s is known "in the official North Korean parlance as the 'Arduous March'" (NK News, 19 May 2015); the name recalls the guerrilla hardships that official biographies attribute to Kim Il Sung. The DPRK has not published a verified death toll. Outside estimates differ: Haggard and Noland's book describes the famine as one in which "as many as one million North Koreans died", and a 2008 Peterson Institute release on their survey work puts it at up to one million, about five per cent of the population; Goodkind and West's 600,000 to 1 million is in the Timeline; and NK News in 2021 said the famine "killed at least 225,000". The range, from at least 225,000 to about one million, reflects different methods and data, and none of these figures is a count. Kim Jong Un reused the term on 8 April 2021, when KCNA reported him calling on officials to "wage another more difficult Arduous March" (as reported by NK News). **Kim Jong Un (2011 to present).** *Byungjin.* The Workers' Party adopted at its March 2013 plenum a line of parallel progress on the economy and nuclear weapons, in Alexandre Mansourov's words "the strategic course on parallel construction of economy and nuclear weapons", known by the Korean word *byungjin* (Mansourov, Nautilus Institute, 16 December 2014). At the plenum of 20 April 2018, KCNA reported that the DPRK would stop nuclear tests and intercontinental ballistic missile launches from 21 April (NK News, 20 April 2018). GlobalSecurity.org's account reports that Kim declared the byungjin line's aim achieved and turned the Party's stated focus to economic development, and quotes KCNA calling the new strategic line "another powerful treasured sword". *Nuclear-era messaging.* The "treasured sword" is a standing image: KCNA reported Kim at the Academy of Defence Sciences on 28 May 2024 using the words "to make the treasured sword of self-defence for ever with our own efforts" (KCNA, 29 May 2024). The page did not source the wording of individual test announcements. *The Ninth Congress.* See the 2026 cycle above. *Kim Ju Ae.* She first appeared on 18 November 2022, holding her father's hand at the launch of a Hwasong-17 missile; state media first called her a "beloved" child and later a "respected child", and on 9 May 2025, at her first reported diplomatic event, KCNA's phrase was "most beloved daughter" (GlobalSecurity.org's compilation of these reports). At the time of her first reports, South Korea's National Intelligence Service said she was home-schooled and that Kim had "not yet anointed her as heir" (Al Jazeera, 8 May 2023); in January 2024 it said she "appears to be the most likely successor" (GlobalSecurity.org), and its director repeated that view to lawmakers in April 2026 (see "Not confirmed" above). These are an intelligence agency's assessments, not DPRK statements, and the page does not assert that she is the successor. **Law and control of foreign content.** A "Reactionary Ideology and Culture Rejection Law", adopted at an SPA Standing Committee plenary meeting that KCNA reported on 5 December 2020, has not been published by the DPRK, to this page's knowledge. As reported by 38 North in November 2021 and summarised by HRNK (2023), it punishes viewing or possessing South Korean films, music and books with five to fifteen years of reform through labour, and importing or distributing them with indefinite labour or death. The text is uncheckable by this page, and three UN special rapporteurs raised the law with the DPRK in a letter of 23 August 2021 (HRNK, 2023). **Messages across the border, in both directions.** From 1950 to 1953 UN forces dropped about 2.5 billion leaflets and North Korean forces about 30 million (Jung, 2014). South Korea began DMZ loudspeaker broadcasts in 1963; both sides stopped in 2004; the South broadcast again in 2015 to 2018 and from 9 June 2024. Defector and church groups, among them Park Sang-hak's, sent leaflets, dollar bills, radios and USB sticks south of the line by balloon. The DPRK says such leaflets slander "the idea and system of the DPRK regarded by all its people as sacred" (Kim Yo Jong, 29 May 2024). On 4 June 2020 her statement called the senders "human scum" and "mongrel dogs"; on 14 December 2020 South Korea's Assembly made leafleting punishable by up to three years in prison, and on 26 September 2023 the Constitutional Court struck the law down. From 28 May 2024 the DPRK sent balloons of waste south as a reply, and Kim Yo Jong asked: "Are the \"freedom of expression\" and \"international law\" defined according to the direction in which balloons fly?" **Where it stood in 2025 and 2026.** South Korea's government halted the loudspeakers on 11 June 2025. Unification Media Group told NK News that the National Intelligence Service halted five radio channels and one TV channel in July 2025; this page did not find the agency's own confirmation. The military's *Voice of Freedom* radio was also suspended in 2025, the first time in 15 years (Korea Herald), and the SCMP reported that the DPRK then stopped jamming Southern radio. Kim Yo Jong answered on 28 July 2025 that the halt of "anti-DPRK psychological propaganda broadcasting" was "not the work worthy of appreciation", and on 14 August 2025 that "We have never removed loudspeakers installed on the border area". U.S.-funded Radio Free Asia lost its grant and its Korean service in 2025 and announced a restart of digital and radio output for North Korea from January 2026 (MarketScreener/Reuters). **The current dispute.** On 21 September 2026 a mine blast in the western DMZ wounded three South Korean officers. South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said, on a preliminary investigation with the UN Command, that North Korean landmines were "highly suspected" and the South's defence minister told the Assembly that the evidence pointed to a planted North Korean mine. KCNA carried a Kim Yo Jong statement of 29 September that calls the findings a "farce", says the mine was one "of doubtful provenance" and that South Korean parties "have already unanimously said that the withdrawn loudspeaker against the DPRK should be set up". The cause and the date the mine was planted are not settled as of 2 October 2026, and no report says Southern loudspeakers have resumed. For the wartime record see the Kim cult case study and Cold War radio jamming; for a comparable loudspeaker contest, see the Taiwan Strait. **What is documented and what is not.** What reaches the DPRK public from outside, and how that public responds, cannot be measured from outside the country; reports from South Korea-based outlets and defectors are the main evidence, and both sides' claims about effect are uncheckable. In January 2026 the DPRK said it had shot down a South Korean surveillance drone near Kaesong. President Lee Jae-myung denied official involvement; on 10 February 2026 a joint military-police task force raided 18 sites including the Defence Intelligence Command and the National Intelligence Service, investigating three soldiers and one intelligence official, and three civilians had been charged (Euronews). The same report notes that former President Yoon Suk Yeol is on trial over accusations that he used drones to send leaflets north in 2024. ## Timeline - 1945: Japan surrenders; Soviet forces hold the north; Kim Il Sung returns to Korea. - 9 September 1948: DPRK proclaimed; Kim Il Sung premier. - 25 June 1950 to 27 July 1953: Korean War; armistice, no peace treaty. - 28 December 1955: Kim Il Sung's speech to propagandists on Juche in ideological work. - December 1967 and 1974: Monolithic Ideological System; Ten Principles. - April and December 1972: Kim Il Sung statue unveiled at Mansudae; Socialist Constitution makes him president. - 8 July 1994: Kim Il Sung dies; Kim Jong Il succeeds. - 1995 to 2000: famine; Goodkind and West estimate 600,000 to 1 million deaths, other estimates differ and the DPRK's own figures are not independently verified. - 9 October 2006: first nuclear test. - 17 December 2011: Kim Jong Il dies; Kim Jong Un named supreme commander. - April 2012: Kim Jong Un becomes first secretary of the WPK; the Kumsusan Palace of the Sun opens in December. - 12 December 2013: Jang Song Thaek, Kim Jong Un's uncle, executed after a military tribunal reported by KCNA. - 17 February 2014: UN Commission of Inquiry reports "systematic, widespread and gross human rights violations", including crimes against humanity; the DPRK rejects the report and its witnesses. - June 2016: State Affairs Commission created with Kim Jong Un at its head. - 12 June 2018: Singapore summit with the U.S. president; the Hanoi summit of February 2019 ends without agreement. - June 2020: Kim Yo Jong's statement on leaflets (4 June); the DPRK demolishes the inter-Korean liaison office (16 June). - January 2021: Eighth Party Congress; Kim Jong Un general secretary. - 13 September 2023: Kim Jong Un visits the Vostochny Cosmodrome with Vladimir Putin. - 15 January 2024: Kim tells the SPA that relations with the South are those of two hostile states. - 28 May 2024 to November 2024: DPRK balloons of waste; South Korea restarts loudspeakers (9 June). - 19 June 2024: Putin and Kim sign a comprehensive strategic partnership treaty in Pyongyang. - 28 April 2025: KCNA acknowledges that DPRK troops fought alongside Russian forces. - 19 February to 22 March 2026: Ninth Party Congress (from 19 February), SPA election (15 March) and First Session of the 15th SPA (22 March). - 20 to 22 June 2026: Second Plenum; Kim Jae Ryong recalled, Jo Yong Won elected secretary. - 29 August 2026: Kim Song Gi becomes defence minister. - 18 to 21 September 2026: Third Workshop for Officials in the Information Sector; Kim Jong Un speaks at the opening and the close. - 21 and 29 September 2026: DMZ mine blast; Kim Yo Jong's statement rejecting the South's findings. ![Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un standing side by side in front of rows of Russian and North Korean flags in Pyongyang](https://propagandaarchive.org/regimes/images/endings/north-korea-kim-2.jpg) Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un in Pyongyang on 19 June 2024, the day the two states signed a comprehensive strategic partnership treaty. Photograph from kremlin.ru. [Source](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Vladimir_Putin_and_Kim_Jong-un_(2024-06-19)_11.jpg): Presidential Executive Office of Russia (kremlin.ru, events/president/news/74330), CC BY 4.0, 19 June 2024, CC BY 4.0. ![Timeline of eleven dated steps from the 1945 Soviet occupation to the 29 August 2026 defence-minister change.](https://propagandaarchive.org/regimes/images/diagrams/north-korea-kim-timeline.png) Leadership and state structure of the DPRK, 1945 to 2026, simplified from the sources cited on this page. Source: FRAME diagram, drawn from the sources listed on this page, CC BY 4.0 (FRAME archive content). ## Succession and the deaths of the leaders ![Illustration: a vintage broadcast microphone beside torn script pages.](https://propagandaarchive.org/static/generated/graphics/spot-microphone.jpg) Illustration, not an archive object Two of the three leaders have died in office: Kim Il Sung on 8 July 1994 and Kim Jong Il on 17 December 2011. In each case the DPRK announced the death after a delay and built it into the state's story. The pages [How Kim Il Sung died](https://propagandaarchive.org/regimes/endings/kim-il-sung/) and [How Kim Jong Il died](https://propagandaarchive.org/regimes/endings/kim-jong-il/) give the accounts, the announcements and what is disputed. The first transfer was prepared for two decades: Kim Jong Il was designated successor in 1974 and took a Presidium seat in 1980. The second was shorter: Kim Jong Un was named a general and a vice-chairman of the Party's Central Military Commission at the Third Party Conference in September 2010, about fifteen months before his father died. A third transfer has not been announced; the section above on the 2026 cycle gives the one public assessment, from South Korea's intelligence service, and its limits. ## Same-standard note This page uses the same structure and definitions as every other regime page, and applies the archive's working definitions on the same terms: identity fusion for the leader cult, scapegoating and name-calling for the anti-U.S. and anti-South campaigns, card stacking for the official biographies, and glittering generalities for slogans such as "Sun of Juche". The same tags apply to the U.S. Army's 1952 "cow" leaflet and its 1953 Operation Moolah offer, to South Korean loudspeaker programmes such as the *Voice of Freedom*, and to the South Korean military government's control of the press in Gwangju in 1980. The scale and context differ. All of the DPRK's domestic media are Party or state organs (Collins, 2023), and, as reported, foreign films and music carry penalties up to death; the South's 2020 leaflet law carried up to three years in prison and was struck down by its Constitutional Court in 2023. South Korean and U.S. broadcasts were aimed at an audience across a border; South Korean governments also censored their own press, as the Gwangju case study shows. These are differences of scale, intent and context, and the page does not treat them as equivalence. The DPRK's position is that its measures answer hostile propaganda and defend its sovereignty. The roster is a dated snapshot as of 2 October 2026 and will change; several posts changed between February and September 2026. ## Sources - KCNA, via GlobalSecurity.org's reproduction (all read 2 October 2026): [Report on the Ninth Congress, with the first plenary meeting of 23 February, 26 February 2026](https://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/news/dprk/2026/dprk-260226-kcna02.htm); [Congress sitting reports of 21 to 24 February 2026](https://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/news/dprk/2026/dprk-260224-kcna01.htm); First Session of the 15th SPA, 23 March 2026 ([Cabinet](https://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/news/dprk/2026/dprk-260323-kcna05.htm), [State Affairs Commission](https://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/news/dprk/2026/dprk-260323-kcna08.htm), [Standing Committee](https://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/news/dprk/2026/dprk-260323-kcna03.htm), [nomination speech](https://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/news/dprk/2026/dprk-260323-kcna01.htm)); [Second Plenum press release, 23 June 2026](https://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/news/dprk/2026/dprk-260623-kcna01.htm); [Kim Jong Un's speech to the Third Workshop, 22 September 2026](https://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/news/dprk/2026/dprk-260922-kcna01.htm); [munitions visit report, 19 September 2026](https://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/news/dprk/2026/dprk-260919-kcna03.htm); [Kim Yo Jong statements of 19 September](https://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/news/dprk/2026/dprk-260919-kcna02.htm) and [29 September 2026](https://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/news/dprk/2026/dprk-260930-kcna01.htm), [28 July 2025](https://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/news/dprk/2025/dprk-250728-kcna01.htm), [14 August 2025](https://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/news/dprk/2025/dprk-250814-kcna02.htm) and [29 May 2024](https://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/news/dprk/2024/dprk-240530-kcna02.htm). - Office-holders and changes: [Korea Times on Kim Yo Jong's General Affairs Department post, 28 February 2026](https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/foreignaffairs/northkorea/20260228/nk-leaders-sister-confirmed-to-serve-as-director-of-ruling-partys-general-affairs-department); [Korea Times, 24 February 2026](https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/foreignaffairs/northkorea/20260224/n-korean-leaders-sister-kim-yo-jong-promoted-to-party-department-head-at-congress); [Daily NK on the General Affairs Department](https://www.dailynk.com/english/kim-yo-jong-named-wpk-general-affairs-department-head-promotion-or-demotion/); [38 North on the June 2026 plenum](https://www.38north.org/2026/06/on-a-mission-from-general-affairs-department/) and [July 2026 analysis](https://www.38north.org/2026/07/consolidating-kims-rule-constitutional-revisions-ideological-reinforcement-and-elite-management/); [Korea Times on the 29 August 2026 reshuffle](https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/foreignaffairs/northkorea/20260830/n-korea-replaces-defense-minister-with-kim-song-gi-in-military-reshuffle-kcna); [Korea Herald on Pak Thae Song, December 2024](https://www.koreaherald.com/article/10032833); [NK Leadership Watch on the 31 October 2025 *Rodong Sinmun* meeting](https://www.38north.org/articles/affiliates/north-korea-leadership-watch/33085/); [NK News on the September 2026 workshop](https://www.nknews.org/2026/09/north-koreas-propagandists-arent-keeping-up-with-societal-changes-kim-says/). - Constitution and succession: [Korea Herald, 6 May 2026](https://www.koreaherald.com/article/10732176); [Korea Times, 6 May 2026](https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/foreignaffairs/northkorea/20260506/n-koreas-revised-constitution-defines-territory-drops-reunification-references); [UPI on the NIS director, 6 April 2026](https://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2026/04/06/Kim-Ju-Ae-successor-daughter-Kim-Jong-Un-National-Intelligence-Service-NIS/9421775466843/). - Border and broadcasts: [Al Jazeera on the 21 September 2026 DMZ blast](https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/9/28/south-korea-suspects-north-korean-mines-behind-dmz-blast); [Euronews on the drone investigation, February 2026](https://euronews.com/2026/02/10/south-korea-police-raid-spy-agency-over-alleged-drone-flight-into-north-korea); [NK News on the NIS broadcast halt, July 2025](https://www.nknews.org/2025/07/seouls-spy-agency-reportedly-suspends-radio-tv-broadcasts-into-north-korea/); [SCMP on the end of jamming](https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/3319480/north-korea-silences-old-airwave-enmities-could-dialogue-follow); [Korea Herald on the Voice of Freedom suspension](https://www.koreaherald.com/article/10565912); [RFA Korean resumption, January 2026](https://www.marketscreener.com/news/radio-free-asia-to-resume-korean-broadcasts-to-reach-north-ce7e58dedb81f125). - Primary texts: Kim Il Sung, ["On eliminating dogmatism and formalism and establishing Juche in ideological work", 28 December 1955](https://www.marxists.org/archive/kim-il-sung/1955/12/28.htm); Kim Jong Il, [*On the Juche Idea*, 1982](https://www.marxists.org/archive/kim-jong-il/works/On-The-Juche-Idea.pdf), [*On the Art of the Cinema*, 1973](https://www.marxists.org/archive/kim-jong-il/works/On-The-Art-Of-The-Cinema.pdf) and [*On Further Developing Mass Gymnastics*, 1987](https://www.marxists.org/archive/kim-jong-il/works/On-Further-Developing-Mass-Gymnastics.pdf). - Studies: Robert Collins, [*Propaganda and Agitation Department: Kim Jong-un Regime's Sword of Indoctrination* (Washington: HRNK, 2023)](https://www.hrnk.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/PAD_web.pdf); Andrei Lankov, *From Stalin to Kim Il Sung* (2002); Suh Dae-sook, *Kim Il Sung* (1988); Kathryn Weathersby, "Soviet Aims in Korea and the Origins of the Korean War, 1945-1950: New Evidence from Russian Archives", Cold War International History Project Working Paper 8 (1993); Goodkind and West, "The North Korean Famine and Its Demographic Impact", *Population and Development Review* 27 (2001); Jung Yeonho, 2014 (leaflet counts, as cited in the case study); Martyn Williams, ["North Korea Intensifies War Against Foreign Influence", 38 North, 10 November 2021](https://www.38north.org/2021/11/north-korea-intensifies-war-against-foreign-influence/); [UN Commission of Inquiry, 2014](https://www.ohchr.org/en/hr-bodies/hrc/co-idprk/commission-inquiryon-h-rin-dprk) and [the DPRK's response, 38 North](https://www.38north.org/2014/10/dhawk101614/). - Monuments and mass games: Guinness World Records, ["Largest gymnastic display"](https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/largest-gymnastic-display) (100,090 participants, May Day Stadium, 14 August 2007); SBS News, ["North Korea's 'Mass Games' return after five-year absence"](https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/north-koreas-mass-games-return-after-five-year-absence/w0sc8yn54) (2018); NK News, ["At Pyongyang mass games, Moon hails 'new era' for inter-Korean relations"](https://www.nknews.org/2018/09/at-pyongyang-mass-games-moon-hails-new-era-for-inter-korean-relations/) (19 September 2018); Koryo Group, ["Mansudae Grand Monument"](https://koryogroup.com/blog/north-korea-guide-mansudae-grand-monument) (visitor guide: 1972 statue, 2012 addition, 20-metre height, bowing and flowers). - Added for the three reigns (all opened 2 October 2026): Suzy Kim, ["Specters of War in Pyongyang: The Victorious Fatherland Liberation War Museum in North Korea", *Cross-Currents* 1(14), 2015](https://escholarship.org/uc/item/75f0d25m); Bernd Schaefer, ["The Rise of Kim Jong Il: Evidence from East German Archives", NKIDP e-Dossier 4, 21 December 2011](https://www.wilsoncenter.org/publication/the-rise-kim-jong-il-evidence-east-german-archives); [Korea Times on the Kim Jong Un portrait badge, 30 June 2024](https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/foreignaffairs/northkorea/20240630/portrait-badge-of-kim-jong-un-seen-for-1st-time); [GlobalSecurity.org on Songun](https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/dprk/songun-chongchi.htm); [Britannica, "North Korea under Kim Jong Il"](https://www.britannica.com/place/North-Korea/North-Korea-under-Kim-Jong-Il); Andrei Lankov, ["The other North Korean famine", NK News, 19 May 2015](https://www.nknews.org/2015/05/the-other-north-korean-famine/); Stephan Haggard and Marcus Noland, [*Famine in North Korea* (Columbia University Press, 2007), publisher's description](https://cup.columbia.edu/book/famine-in-north-korea/9780231140003/); [Peterson Institute release, 30 April 2008](https://www.piie.com/sites/default/files/publications/newsreleases/northkorea0408.pdf); [NK News on the 8 April 2021 "Arduous March" call](https://www.nknews.org/2021/04/kim-jong-un-warns-north-korea-of-hardship-referencing-deadly-1990s-famine/); Alexandre Mansourov, ["Kim Jong Un's Nuclear Doctrine and Strategy", Nautilus Institute, 16 December 2014](https://nautilus.org/napsnet/napsnet-special-reports/kim-jong-uns-nuclear-doctrine-and-strategy-what-everyone-needs-to-know/); [GlobalSecurity.org, "Byungjin (Parallel Development)"](https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/dprk/byungjin.htm); [NK News on the 20 April 2018 plenum](https://www.nknews.org/2018/04/kim-jong-un-says-no-more-nuclear-or-icbm-tests-necessary/); [KCNA, Kim Jong Un's speech at the Academy of Defence Sciences, 28 May 2024](https://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/news/dprk/2024/dprk-240529-kcna02.htm); [GlobalSecurity.org on Kim Ju Ae](https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/dprk/kim-ju-ae.htm); [Al Jazeera on Kim Ju Ae, 8 May 2023](https://aljazeera.com/news/2023/5/8/meet-n-koreas-crown-princess-and-possible-heir-to-kim-jong-un). - Portraits: Wikimedia Commons file pages in each entry's frontmatter. ## In the archive ### Collection objects (6) - [영용한 인민군장병들이여! (Heroic Soldiers of the People's Army!): North Korean Korean War poster, charge on Busan](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/kpa-charge-on-busan-poster-1951/) (North Korea · 1951 · Name-calling). Content note: Caricatured enemy soldiers shown bayoneted and drowned, one holding a bomb marked 'USA'; wartime North Korean battle poster. - [1953년 새해를 맞는 米帝 强占下의 南半部風景 (Scenes of the Southern Half under U.S. Imperialist Occupation, at the 1953 New Year)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/kpa-new-year-1953-south-scenes-leaflet-1953/) (North Korea · 1953 · Card stacking, Name-calling) - [FBIS Daily Report: Nodong Sinmun commentary 'Tears of the Instigator' on the 1976 Panmunjom axe incident](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/pyongyang-panmunjom-axe-anniversary-fbis-1986/) (North Korea · Aug 20, 1986 · Name-calling, Scapegoating, Card stacking). Content note: Contains North Korean state commentary describing U.S. personnel as 'bestial aggressors' and 'cannibals' and recasting the 1976 killing of two U.S. officers as a U.S. provocation. - [FBIS Daily Report: Pyongyang commentary calls the 1983 Rangoon bombing a 'drama self-made by the puppets'](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/pyongyang-rangoon-bombing-denial-fbis-1986/) (North Korea · Oct 9, 1986 · Name-calling, Scapegoating). Content note: Contains North Korean state commentary calling the South Korean government 'the puppets' and a 'traitor', and denying responsibility for the 1983 Rangoon bombing (which killed 21) and the 1986 Kimpo airport bombing. - ["미국놈 때려잡는 군사놀이 신나요": poster in a North Korean primary school (photographed 2008)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/dprk-primary-school-yankee-game-poster-2008/) (North Korea · Jun 10, 2008 · Name-calling). Content note: Classroom poster showing children striking a figure marked as an American, with a derogatory slur in the headline. - ["일심단결을 더욱 강화하자!": Workers' Party poster, Pyongyang (photographed 2010)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/dprk-unity-poster-pyongyang-2010/) (North Korea · Sep 8, 2010 · Glittering generalities) ### Case studies - [The Kim leader cult, the anti-US month and the leaflets sent back](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/kim-dynasty-leader-cult/) - [The Korean War germ-warfare charges: commissions, confessions and the 1953 recall](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/korean-war-germ-warfare-allegations/) ### Learn and Write - [Group identity](https://propagandaarchive.org/learn/group-identity/)