Ensuring the survival of the regime

Yonhap News Agency of South Korea obtained a copy of the latest North Korean constitution, which was apparently passed in April of this year, on 28 September. There were some significant reported changes in the constitution when compared to the previous versions, and these changes have been described in numerous media reports and blogs. Well, here's our take on this matter:

1. Article 3: "The DPRK considers the Juche idea and Songun (military-first) idea, which are a man-centered worldview and a revolutionary idea for achieving the popular masses' independence, to be the guiding principle of its activities."

2. Article 8: "The social institution of the DPRK is a man-centered social institution where the masses of working people are masters of everything, and everything in society serves the masses of working people. The state shall protect and preserve the interests and protect the human rights of the working people, including workers, farmers, soldiers, working intellectuals, who were emancipated from exploitation and oppression and have become the masters of the state and society."

Analysis:
The term songun (military-first) has been added to Article 3, signifying the importance of the North Korean military in overall political structure of the country. The addition of the word songun essentially elevated the military-first ideology to the same level as Kim Il-sung's juche ideology. In Article 8, the word soldiers has been added to the list of population segments whose rights are guaranteed by the state. These changes further show Kim Jong-il regime's power base is the military and the military loyal to Kim Jong-il is what will sustain and keep the regime stable, both now and through the succession process.

Also in Article 8, the new constitution mentions, for the first time, that "the state shall protect and preserve the human rights of the working people..." It is probably safe to say that no one, to include those in North Korea, actually believes this change is nothing more than just words. These words, however, do play a significant role in politics external to North Korea. North Korea's abysmal human rights record has been one of the favorite issues the international community would hold over North Korea to, in the minds of the North Korean strategists, unfairly repress North Korea and threaten its sovereignty. This change seems to be a sort of a preemptive strike at the international community to counter the world's criticism. Of course, the North will undoubtedly point to this and tout it as one of the significant changes it has implemented to become a responsible member of the international community in any and all future negotiations (whether the bilateral or multi-lateral).

3. Article 29: "Socialism is built by the creative labor of the working masses. ..."

4. Artile 40: "The DPRK shall thoroughly carry out the cultural revolution and, thus, make all people socialist builders who have profound knowledge of nature and society and a high cultural and technical level, and intellectualize all of society."

Analysis:
Perhaps one of the most significant change to the North Korean constitution is that the word Communism was dropped from its constitution all together, as seen in Articles 29 and 40. It is certainly possible that Kim Jong-il has finally admitted to the fact that Communism, with its accompanying centrally planned economic system just is not going to help it get out of the economic quagmire it is in, and that Kim wants to distance himself and North Korea from the economic system of the Communist world, past and present.

Another possible reason is that the dropping of the word Communism was aimed at China - a prod at the Chinese and those among the North Korean elites who are of the opinion that North Korea should emulate China's economic reform policies.

Yet another possibility is that it was a strategy designed to appeal to the US and other Western powers (the West) in order to gain more favorable position in its future negotiations rather than an earnest desire to abandon the Communist ideology - particularly since North Korea is not truly a Communist country to begin with. So what does dropping the term Communism have to do with negotiating with the West? We would contend that there are a lot of people who came of age during the Cold War who are in positions of power in the governments in the West, and the words like Communism and Communist are still met with almost an allergy-like reaction of repulsion. We also contend that North Korea, through its shrewd observation of the world affairs, understands this very well. It has also observed that much of the West European countries practice socialism of varying degrees. Therefore, by dropping the word Communism and aligning itself as a socialist country, North Korea can claim that it is nothing more than another socialist that deserves to be treated as equals by the governments of the West as they would treat each other.

Inclusion of the term human rights and deletion of Communism from its constitution seems to be a carefully calculated strategic move that are designed to potentially provide North Korea some political capital in future dealings with the international community.

5. Article 100: "The chairman of the National Defense Commission (NDC) is the supreme leader of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK)."

Analysis:
Article 100 not only codifies the role of Kim Jong-il as the supreme leader of North Korea, but it solidifies the role of the military as the central power of the North Korean political apparatus. Along with the changes in Article 3 and 8, this clearly shows Kim Jong-il's move to ensure the survival of the current regime.

Another significance is that this constitutional establishment of supreme leadership position seems to be similar to the changes Kim Il-sung made in 1972 - when Kim Il-sung was laying the groundwork for te succession on Kim Jong-il. In fact, much of the language used in the latest constitution to describe the responsibilities of the NDC chairman seems to be taken directly from clauses of the 1972 constitution.