$Unique_ID{COW02671}
$Pretitle{281}
$Title{North Korea
Chapter 5A.   National Security}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Stephan B. Wickman}
$Affiliation{HQ, Department of the Army}
$Subject{security
party
public
korean
political
system
north
court
state
control}
$Date{1981}
$Log{Korean People's Army*0267101.scf
Figure 27.*0267102.scf
}
Country:     North Korea
Book:        North Korea, A Country Study
Author:      Stephan B. Wickman
Affiliation: HQ, Department of the Army
Date:        1981

Chapter 5A.   National Security

[See Korean People's Army: Soldiers symbolizing the Korean People's Army]

     In early 1981 the Korean peninsula was one of the most heavily armed and
fortified regions of the world, as it had been since the outbreak of the
Korean War in 1950. Three major powers-China, the Soviet Union, and the United
States-maintained defense treaties with their respective allies on the
peninsula, lending global implications to any potential conflict in the area.

     In North Korea a large military establishment and a pervasive system of
civil control have been made essential elements of society, doctrinally
legitimized by the specter of American "imperialism" and the leadership's
desire to promote continued class struggle and make revolutionary gains. The
system functioned under the guidance of the Korean Workers Party whose organs
paralleled and monitored those of the government and the military from the
highest to the grass-roots level. There was no independently verifiable
evidence of internal subversion of the government or the ruling party; both
seemed to have the acceptance of a majority of the people. An efficient system
of police and domestic surveillance was capable of detecting and discouraging
those who might feel otherwise.

     The combined manpower of all regular armed forces units-collectively
known as the Korean People's Army-was estimated by the International Institute
for Strategic Studies in London in 1980 to be 678,000 troops under arms. About
90 percent of this force consisted of the three major ground force
commands-the army, mechanized force, and artillery force. Another estimated 2
million men and women served in active reserve or paramilitary forces.

     The society was highly militarized, and military strategies and
expenditures were significant factors in political and economic
decisionmaking. The commitment made in the early 1960s to a massive defense
program and greater national self-sufficiency in arms and equipment resulted
in a major diversion of resources from economic development to military
purposes and substantial sacrifice in the standard of living. Nearly 4 percent
of the population belonged to the Korean People's Army, another 2 percent was
in the military reserves, and an additional 11 percent belonged to the
Worker-and-Peasant Red Guard, an organization originally conceived as a
territorial militia for local defense but which increasingly assumed the
characteristics of an auxiliary military force. Thus many North Koreans were
directly involved in some form of military activity through either regular or
auxiliary units.

     The military establishment was in many ways a privileged class. Military
men have always held prominent places within the elite of both the Party and
government.

     The functions of internal security and maintenance of law and order were
centered in the Ministry of Public Security, which possessed extraordinarily
broad powers over the lives of citizens and the movements of persons within
the country. The ministry's police apparatus (both conventional and secret),
along with courts and procurators, constituted parts of a system under
centralized party control. The party leadership saw them as vital to the
functioning of a communist society and the attainment of its transforming
mission. Party control over these organs and coordination of policy and major
operational matters were exercised through the Justice and Security
Commission.

     North Korea's legal and criminal justice systems were formed during the
period of Soviet occupation after World War II and closely followed Soviet
models. The legal and criminal procedure codes were taken almost literally
from the central Soviet codes of the time. North Korea has not followed the
Soviet Union, however, in liberalizing certain features of the codes in the
post-Stalin years.

     The legal system reflected a strong authoritarian heritage and emphasized
the interests of the state over those of the individual. Criminal law and
procedure stressed sanctions and public trial as means of crushing deviance
and educating the public in the modes of conduct desired by the state. Special
unpublicized provisions of law and criminal procedures were applied to those
classified as political offenders. From preliminary investigation through
trial, sentencing, and penal incarceration, the political offender was handled
through a separate criminal procedure under secret police jurisdiction in
which the defendant had little if any recourse to due process.

     In a major speech following the Sixth Party Congress of the Korean
Workers Party, a key internal security leader reasserted the importance of the
public security organs in confronting counterrevolutionary forces, noting at
the same time that the socialist system had established deep roots in a land
that was being made into an "impregnable fortress." The nation's stock of 600
combat aircraft, 2,600 tanks, 400 fast-attack and amphibious craft, and
thousands of howitzers, mortars, rocket launchers, artillery weapons, and
missiles lent credibility to the claim. In the early 1980s North Korea,
producing many of its own weapons and consistently maintaining a high level of
defense expenditure, found itself locked into an escalating arms race with its
neighbor, South Korea.

     In 1981, as in recent years, key elements of North Korea's forces and
arms were deployed along the Demilitarized Zone. Some analysts viewed this as
an indication that the North Korean leadership had considered offensive
actions against the South Korean capital, Seoul (see fig. 27). The North
Koreans, however, claimed that the threat of war arose from the possibility of
a South Korean invasion of their own territory, rather than from a North
Korean attack on the South, or an effort to subvert South Korea from within.
Over the past decade, the proximity of massive enemy forces has served to
heighten the sense of threat and fear of attack or "preemption in defense."

[See Figure 27.: Demilitarized Zone Area]

Internal Security

Society and Public Order

     Confucian tradition emphasizes the importance of education and
indoctrination over the use of force in the maintenance of public order.
Confucius argued in the Analects that controlling people through the use of
laws and penalties would only lead to their attempting to stay out of jail
without developing what he called "a sense of shame." In contemporary North
Korean society Confucianism as a political theory has been repudiated, but
persuasion and exhortation are still preferred to coercion as methods of
controlling the populace. Education has been greatly stressed, particularly
political education, as a means of raising the people's revolutionary
consciousness and ensuring their cooperation and compliance. For the
maintenance of internal security, total control of the educational and
cultural media is seen by authorities as equally important as massive
investments in the mechanisms of coercive police power (see Education; Social
Education, ch. 2).

     Nevertheless a large public security and police apparatus existed to take
over where education and indoctrination failed. In a December 1980 speech
commemorating the thirty-fifth anniversary of the founding of the agency,
Minister of Public Security Yi Chin-su described it as a "mighty weapon of the
proletarian dictatorship of our Party." "Its existence is justified," he said,
"because historical experience shows that no class can put progressive reforms
into effect without a mighty power organ that is capable of suppressing the
revolt of the hostile classes." The concept of class struggle is central to an
understanding of public security in North Korea. The mission of the public
security forces is to define and isolate truly antagonistic classes and
neutralize their potentially destructive influence. It is assumed that the
great majority of people are supporters-or potential supporters-of the
revolution, but that a very small group of "hostile elements" who oppose the
regime must be completely suppressed. A distinction must be made between those
irredeemable classes who are to be "isolated" and those wavering elements who
can be "reshaped through education."

     The international situation, which the Democratic People's Republic of
Korea (North Korea) authorities see as one of "imperialist encirclement," has
to be taken into account in public security work. In remarks before the Party
Central Committee in December 1980, Yi Chin-su stressed that the "U.S.
imperialists and their front men, the South Korean military fascists [are]
increasing their stocks of aggressive maneuvers against the northern half of
the republic, as well as acts of provocation against us and espionage and
destructive schemes [in an attempt to] destroy our socialist construction and
prevent our revolution from advancing." Public security cadres must be on
guard against "hostile infiltration elements." The antagonistic international
context is believed to give the question of internal security a special
urgency.

     The concept of class struggle leads public security cadres to have great
concern about the political or class background of individuals. Certain
classes or groups have been categorized as being inherently hostile, such as
former large landowners, collaborators with the Japanese or South Koreans, and
members of religious groups. Parental influence is seen as divisive, and the
children of "hostile elements" are watched carefully. However as the North
Korean regime has become more firmly established and the old exploitive
classes have disappeared, people have been judged less by their family
backgrounds than by their own merits and their own revolutionary attitudes.

     The size of the Party and the pervasiveness of its apparatus made it
well-suited to the task of reinforcing public security work and assuring
compliance with the highly personalized and absolute rule of Kim Il Sung.
Legal controls to promote law and order could be effectively buttressed by the
work of party members, who represented perhaps as much as 15 percent of the
population. They were called upon to uphold party lines and policies and to
safeguard the socialist system and the interests of the people.

     Guidelines for upholding order through self-discipline and surveillance
were provided in the 1970 party constitution. That document emphasized the
need for vigilance among party members, calling on them to repudiate negative
phenomena occurring within and outside the Party, to rectify their own
shortcomings, and to report on the wrongdoings of others to party authorities
at the appropriate level. The revised party constitution adopted at the Sixth
Party Congress in October 1980 was not available in early 1981, but presumably
it conveyed the need for vigilance with the same sense of urgency.

The Public Security Apparatus

     As of early 1981 broad responsibility for internal security and
regulation of the citizenry was vested in the Ministry of Public Security.
This extraordinarily powerful ministry oversaw a constellation of functions
that included prison system management, civil defense, traffic control, fire
prevention, communications, railroad security, census and civil registration,
protection of government and party officials and foreign diplomats,
counterespionage, and regular police work. Political security was under
ministry jurisdiction until 1972. In early 1973 it become the exclusive
responsibility of the State Political Security Department, an autonomous
agency reporting directly to Kim Il Sung. Headed by Kim Pyong-ha, a kinsman
of Kim Il Sung, the department carried out the functions commonly associated
with secret police in authoritarian societies. It exercised indirect control
over the Political Security Bureau of the Korean People's Army (KPA), whose
corps of political security officers were assigned at all levels of command.
More than likely, the State Political Security Department gathered information
on individuals and activities, maintained dossiers, and conducted surveillance
of suspected organizations and persons. It was believed to control a
pervasive network of agents whose scrutiny extended to every type of
association in the society.

     Under the minister of public security were vice ministers for security,
protection, guarding operations, rear services, and mountain, forest, and
highway security. The ministry had its own central hospital, symphony
orchestra, newspaper, and sports team.

     The structure of the public security organization below the ministry
level consisted essentially of public security bureaus in each province,
public security sections in each city or county, and a number of substations
in towns and areas bordering the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ). The ministry
included some twenty to thirty units at each organizational level. One or
more agents of the Ministry of Public Security was assigned to each
cooperative farm; some of the agents apparently were military personnel
on special duty. The agents were allegedly expected to establish intelligence
networks among the villagers.

     Of the nonparty agencies of government at the local level, those of
public security were clearly the most powerful. They were headed at the county
level by a lieutenant colonel of police and in larger cities and some more
highly populated provinces by a senior colonel, roughly comparable to a chief
of police. The usual complement of a county public security section was
believed to be about 100 persons, assigned to several divisions and carrying
out a wide variety of functions.

     Party control over the Ministry of Public Security was generally thought
to be extremely close. The coordination of security-related party and
government functions was vested in the Justice and Security Commission, an
advisory body composed of senior party and government functionaries who
monitored all the varied activities of the ministry. Party control
was also exercised directly within various organs of the ministry itself,
in the form of an apparatus paralleling the structure of the ministry
at every level. The party organs interacted with and supervised those of the
ministry.

     Most conventional police functions related to ordinary law enforcement
and public safety were performed by the Protection Security Bureau of the
Ministry of Public Security. Officers carried on the routine work of
maintaining law and order and investigating offenses against persons and state
property. In addition the bureau was responsible for keeping records of all
vital data such as births, deaths, marriages, residence registrations, and
passport approvals.

     Public security personnel simultaneously supervised the implementation
of government policies, served as agricultural specialists and assistants,
monitored the actions and movements of the people, and performed regular
police duties-an array of functions that gave the ministry a powerful position
in North Korean society.

Other Modes of Social Control

     Aside from formal government and party organs, other organizations and
social groups existed to strengthen social control and further socialist
development. Within the school system, party cells ensured that educators
maintained the appropriate ideological emphasis. Each school principal was a
party member. Boys and girls aged nine to fifteen joined the Young Pioneer
Corps, and youths between fifteen and twenty-six comprised the membership of
the Socialist Working Youth Leaque (SWYL). Women of all ages were enrolled in
the Korean Democratic Women's League, and a trade association existed
for manual, clerical, and office workers. Men and women in the
Worker-and-Peasant Red Guard viewed as politically reliable were charged-as
were party members-with reporting "reactionary" activities taking place on
the local level to the appropriate authorities.

     Party guidance and direction entered extensively into the pattern of
daily life. Neighborhood associations existed in every urban community and
throughout the country; guidance committees provided indoctrination sessions.
On the farm and in the factory the system of economic management gave rise
to pervasive regulation. On the cooperative farm, for example, a management
committee supervised all aspects of labor and economic affairs, including
the operation of the credit office and other service units. The local party
chairman was a key member of this committee. Additionally, since the late
1950s all households were organized into groups of five, according to what
was termed the five-family system. Relatively little was known about
the system in the early 1980s; one foreign visitor left with the impression
that its original purpose of guidance and discussion in both urban and
rural areas had been commuted to that of raising rural living standards in
the outlying areas.

     The Party continued to disseminate its views through a wide variety
of other means, from mass media public information channels to
person-to-person communication. Newspapers, radio, television, motion
pictures, magazines, and other forms of communication were controlled by the
Party through the ministries of public security and communication and all
news was controlled and disseminated by the state-owned Korean Central
News Agency. Reporting antagonistic to the regime was not allowed, and most
domestic news consisted of decisions and "instructions" of the Party.

     Among both urban and rural elements of the population, evenings were
often filled with activities directed toward sociopolitical education. Even
during the lunch break period, "agitators" read newspapers and books aloud,
and in rural areas "field propaganda teams" were often set up for education
and indoctrination. Loudspeakers were ubiquitous, and each farm community
had its own wire broadcasting system for local information broadcasts during
the dinner hour and relays of programs from Radio P'yongyang. Loudspeaker
broadcasts commenced as early as 6:00 A.M., and there were even loudspeaker
"economic guidance trucks," which traveled the countryside disseminating
speeches, instructions, and encouragement.

     Control over the movement and activities of the citizenry was a
conspicuous fact of life. Travel could be restricted for a variety of
reasons, and trucks and cars were subject to checkpoints on entrance roads
to the major cities. All trucks were inspected, partly to control illegal
or wasteful transit of goods. To save fuel, empty trucks were not allowed
to pass. Domestic travel also required special food ration formalities
and coupons as well as permission from local authorities. For ordinary people
on the farm or in the community, travel was generally limited. Itineraries had
to be approved, and the traveler was subject to identification checks on the
road, at hotels, or at any time. Specific identification documents to be
produced might include a residence card, ration card, personal identification
card with information on employment and marital status, military
identification or discharge papers, and union or party documents. Finally,
every North Korean citizen wore a badge or button showing a picture of Kim Il
Sung.

     The first steps taken by the Party to counter the influence of organized
religion had come as part of land reform measures instituted in 1946. All
land in excess of five chongbo (see Glossary) belonging to groups was
confiscated; because this included church and temple lands, the economic
foundation of organized religion was effectively undermined. After the Korean
War, persons associated with religious organizations became suspect, and
religious facilities were confiscated by the state. Those destroyed in the
fighting were not rebuilt although some Buddhist temples were preserved as
historical monuments. Christian church leaders fled to the south along with
many of their devout followers; others apparently concealed their beliefs for
fear of discrimination. Travelers to North Korea were told, "There is no
need for God because we have made this place a paradise on earth."

     The absence of conspicuous tension and dissidence despite the shared
austerity and tight restrictions could not be attributed solely to the severe
constraints on the population and the variety of modes of social control,
however. A large segment of the population not only apparently accepted the
"democratic" centralist system but was swept up in the adulation of Kim Il
Sung, whose fatherly leadership was viewed as a wellspring of sustenance and
support throughout the society. Moreover the range of social benefits enjoyed
by the population presumably contributed to a generalized sense of order
and security. Among other rights and privileges, the state guaranteed each
citizen adequate food, clothing, housing, education (to the age of sixteen),
and free medical care-in effect a cradle-to-grave welfare system (see
Education; Public Health, ch. 2). The state also provided for the "cultural
welfare" of the people, guaranteed the right to choose one's occupation, and
the right to pensions or social security.

     Major purges of questionable political elements occurred in the 1950s,
and certain types of people continued into the 1980s to be viewed as
politically suspect. According to South Korean sources, there was a
category of persons labeled "elements to be watched." In this category were
persons whose forebears were landlords or collaborators during the Japanese
occupation or the American "invasion" during the Korean War; those who
had relatives in South Korea; and those who for any reason were considered
reactionary. These persons were often denied rights or guarantees accorded
others and were subject to relocation far from sensitive border areas. They
could not join the Party, had limited access to educational opportunities,
were denied full membership in farm and industrial organizations, and were
subject to strict political control and surveillance. They may have suffered
punishments ranging from reeducation to death (see Social Structure and
Values, ch. 2).

The Judicial System

     The judicial structure and legal system were designed to safeguard
the revolutionary ideology of the KWP and above all to protect and maintain
the communist system. Despite the legacy of Neo-Confucian thought and the
influence of Japanese legal concepts (patterned after the German codes of
1871), the modern North Korean legal system is based primarily upon a
Soviet model.

     Between 1945 and 1948 North Korea was under Soviet occupation, and during
this period Soviet principles and rules outlining court functions as well as
the court and procurator structure were adopted. Soviet concepts were further
incorporated in the Court Organization Law of March 1, 1950, and the Criminal
Code and Code of Criminal Procedure, both issued on March 3, 1950.

     At the time of Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev's attack on Stalin at the
February 1956 Soviet Twentieth Party Congress, differences began to appear
between the Soviet and North Korean legal systems. When the Soviet Union
adopted liberalizing policies as part of the de-Stalinization program, North
Korea refused to follow the Soviet precedent. KWP leaders insisted upon total
control of the judicial system and maintenance of the secret police and
surveillance systems.

     The two main components of the Soviet-inspired judicial system were the
offices of the court and the procurator. In early 1981 judicial authority was
invested in a three-tiered court system. The Central Court, formerly the
Supreme Court in P'yongyang, was the court of ultimate appeal in criminal and
civil procedures. In particularly grave offenses against the state, the
Central Court might serve as the appropriate venue for initial adjudication.
The Central Court also served as the appeals court for decisions reached in
intermediate-level provincial or special courts. As provided for in the
Constitution, the Central Court supervised the judicial work of all lower
courts and educated the personnel of these courts. The Central Court's
decisions were seldom if ever reversed, and the court neither reviewed the
constitutionality of legislative or executive action nor played the role of
protector of civil liberties as against state interests.

     Under the Central Court were the provincial or municipal courts, which
served as the courts of first and last appeal for decisions made at the
district or people's courts. The provincial courts sometimes also presided
over significant cases related to offenses against state power, serious crimes
against individuals, or performance of official duties. Provincial courts also
monitored or intervened in lower court procedures. As with the Central Court,
provincial courts were staffed by a chief judge, two associate chief judges,
and several regular judges. In comparison, local courts had only one judge,
assisted in trials by two "people's assessors" (laymen temporarily elected to
the bench). These "people's courts" were at the county (kun) level and dealt
with most criminal and civil cases. Following Soviet and Chinese patterns,
there were also separate special courts dealing with military crimes and
offenses (see Military Training and Daily Life, this ch.).

     Parallel to the court system and of equal importance was the procurator's
office and its subsidiary branches. According to Article 143 of the 1972
Constitution, "investigation and prosecution are conducted by the Central
Procurator's Office, the procurator's offices of the province (or municipality
directly under central authority), city (or district), and county and special
procurator's offices." In short the procurator supervised investigations,
arrests, preparation of indictments, criminal prosecution in court, and
criminal trial procedures. It also maintained the right to protest and appeal
judicial decisions. Thus the procurator's office functioned as a supervisory
and investigatory agency charged with prosecution of crimes and with
supervision of trial procedures. To make sure the judiciary was correctly
interpreting the law in accordance with KWP doctrine, the procurator could
intervene in civil trial procedures.

     In the case of "antistate crimes," however, all investigations were
conducted separately and in secret by state security agencies. The procurator
was not involved in the prosecution of political crimes; and, as in the
Stalinist era, secret police could investigate counterrevolutionary crimes and
were empowered to send people to "reeducation" camps without trial.

     The handling of "political" and "nonpolitical" crimes was significantly
different. The North Koreans defined a crime as a "punishable act committed
through intent or neglect, which has social danger infringing upon the
Democratic People's Republic of Korea and the legal order established
therein." Actions considered counterrevolutionary and directed against the
authority of the regime were heinous crimes, often dealt with by the death
penalty and confiscation of all property. Terrorist acts were similarly
defined as "any violent act against any representatives of state authority,
democratic parties, and social organizations, for the purpose of resisting the
people's sovereignty or disrupting democratic reforms." Serious political
crimes included the deliberate nonperformance or improper performance of
specific work or party obligations. Acts not considered socially dangerous
were less seriously regarded and generally not severely punished. Similarly,
acts committed in support of Japanese colonial rule that were not considered
"socially dangerous" were exempt from ex post facto prosecution. That ruling,
however, further implied that anyone once associated with socially dangerous
antistate elements was subject to criminal prosecution.

     Legal precepts were broadly defined and seldom interpreted for the
benefit of the defendant. Guilt was often presumed, particularly in the case
of political crimes, and the accused was therefore expected to confess. Forced
confessions may have been the norm, although information concerning torture in
North Korea is limited. If the P'yongyang regime wished to punish undesirable
conduct not specifically proscribed by criminal or penal codes, punishment by
"analogy" was possible. That is, a defendant could be tried for behavior
similar to a specific crime stipulated in the criminal code. While
"on-the-spot" investigations and trials were used in the late 1950s as a means
to purge "bourgeois" or "hostile" classes, these "mass line" (see Glossary)
procedures were apparently less common in the early 1980s. Defendants deemed
mentally ill, children of fourteen and under, and those accused of taking
violent actions of a nonpolitical nature in justifiable self-defense could
not be prosecuted.

     The relative probability of the legal process protecting the individual
was related to the nature of the crime. The political suspect could be seized,
held indefinitely, found guilty in a secret trial, and sentenced. The verdict
was often set before trial and passed on to the court by the Party or through
the Ministry of Public Security or the State Political Security Department.
The penalty was either preestablished or determined during the court process.

     Given the role of the Party in criminal procedures, the independence of
the judge and the bar remained open to question in nonpolitical cases. Judges
were elected to a term of four years by the Standing Committee of the Supreme
People's Assembly (SPA). Neither legal education nor experience was a
prerequisite. Lawyers were once primarily selected on the basis of their party
standing, but in the early 1980s legal education was increasingly used as a
selection criterion. In addition to the judges-many of whom were women-there
were two people's assessors who shared the local court bench. These state
representatives served for a shorter period of time and were much less
qualified than the judges. Rules of evidence were flexible, and a judge was
not necessarily bound by the evidence presented. The participation of
politically selected people's assessors and procurators in trials assured
centralized monitoring of judicial procedures and served as a powerful
mechanism of state control.

Punishment and the Penal System

     Punishment for criminal activity was determined by the type of
crime-political or nonpolitical. According to the Penal Code, its purpose was
not only to suppress resistance from the "overthrown classes" but also to
counter the people's enemies or "secret agents"; to educate the entire
population in the spirit of "socialist patriotism"; and to reeducate and
chastise individuals for crimes stemming from old "capitalist thinking." For
those accused of actions against state sovereignty or support of the Japanese
or any other imperialist nation, the penalty was death and total confiscation
of property, unless the defendant sincerely repented.

     The basic philosophy underlying the penal code reflected Korean as well
as Marxist influences. Thus it decreed that the same offense (or even a more
serious offense) be punished more gravely when it was committed against state
sovereignty or one's own parents than when perpetrated on others. This was
reminiscent of the Confucian emphasis on loyalty to the state and filial
piety. Furthermore, the modern penal code prescribed three years imprisonment
for the vaguely defined charge of "hooliganism"-said to be any behavior
contrary to party or state interests-much in the manner that during the Yi
Dynasty (1392-1910) one could be punished on the loose charge of having
committed "an act that ought not to have been done." The degree of punishment
apparently varied according to the extent to which the offense was viewed as
potentially threatening to the stability of the social order or the safety of
the citizenry. For example, an offense involving theft of personal property
would merit less severe penalties than an act that physically endangered its
victim.

     Penalties for various types of crimes ranged from death to imprisonment,
correctional labor, banishment to remote areas for up to five years,
confiscation of property, cash fines, limitation of rights, work status
demotion, and reeducation or remolding of the accused. Clearly the official
preference was for "rehabilitating" individuals through a combination of
coercion and indoctrination. Those with a different ideological outlook were
subject to reeducation and were not officially considered "political
prisoners" while under detention. With the exception of political criminals,
the state's objective was to return lawbreakers to an active role in society.

     Little evidence was available in early 1981 concerning the number of
political prisoners. The government operated two known camps for political
criminals, one in Chagang Province and the other in Yanggang Province. The
Ministry of Public Security operated all prisons and labor camps. The number
of recent antistate political crimes are unknown, but on the whole the KWP
appeared to have been successful in its drive to "arm the people with
monolithic ideology."

Prospects

     The continued capability of the regime to maintain order depended on a
number of circumstances, among which was its success in coping with the
potential for subversion from abroad. Travel and identification restrictions
were particularly required in areas proximate to the DMZ where efforts to
subvert the system through infiltration or internal dissent were countered
throughout the country by elaborate security, surveillance, and defense
mechanisms. Despite the shared austerity, reports of economic unrest were
infrequent; nevertheless the Party had to continue to meet rising consumer
expectations or possibly face domestic pressure.

     At the same time a number of stabilizing elements appeared to be working
for the regime in its efforts to maintain internal order. The society seemed
united in popular support for the Party and a strong sense of national pride.
Cohesion was further reinforced by the continuity of political leadership and
the expansion of the economy, which brought extensive welfare programs. Kim Il
Sung has been idolized to the degree that any successor will have a difficult
time achieving Kim's status as "ever-victorious commander," "peerless
patriot," and "founder and guide of the nation." Rhetorical, if not actual,
militancy reinforced domestic cohesion, and for this reason, among others, a
state of military preparedness and vigilance was constantly maintained.