North Korean leader Kim Jong-un recently chaired a meeting of the Korean Worker’s Party Secretariat, the body responsible for prescribing correct behaviour and ensuring it’s adhered to by party members. The party’s official newspaper, Rodong Sinmun, reported that this meeting was convened to address various shortcomings in discipline (tangnaegyuryurŭl ranp'ok) – including binge drinking by some party officials.
The meeting was concerned with two violations of party discipline in particular. Party officials in Onchon County (about 60km west of the capital, Pyongyang) were accused of making inadequate preparations for their local party meeting, which – as a result – was held in a “grossly formalistic (hyŏngshikchŏkŭro) way”.
In North Korea’s early political history, accusations of being formalistic related to overly celebrating foreign governments and their methods of socialism. But used in relation to the officials in Onchon County, it meant going through the motions, and not displaying enough genuine enthusiasm and engagement with the political process.
