The 6th plenum (plenary meeting) of the 8th Workers’ Party of Korea [WPK] Central Committee opened at the Central Committee Office Building (WPK Central Committee Office Complex #1) in Pyongyang on 26 December (Monday). The meeting most likely go through the weekend (31 December/1 January 2023).
According to state media reporting the meeting is being held as “unprecedented challenges and trials that hindered and hampered our advance have been frustrated and the DPRK is making all efforts to accomplish its far-reaching ideal while aspiring to a more confident direction of advance” and “a historic time when the entire Party, the whole country and all the people vow to make a vigorous struggle in the new year 2023 for opening up a new phase for the prosperity of the state and its eventful development with the pride and confidence that they pioneered the second course of implementing the five-year plan in the spirit of fortitude by turning out as one in the implementation of the great program set forth at the 4th and 5th plenary meetings of the 8th Party Central Committee.”
The plenary meeting convenes amid “unpredictable difficulties constantly threatening the existence and development of our state and people cropping up repeatedly” and that “thanks to the correct choice, seasoned leadership and tenacious practical ability of the Party Central Committee, the Korean revolution which is surely advancing along the road chose by itself as its timetable while turning the worst-ever crises into a phase of development and leap forward after the foundation of the DPRK, has now greeted a significant time of setting out the guidelines for the development of the Party and state for the new year after reviewing a year of ordeals in which the arduousness of all the past years has been aggregated.”
Kim Jong Un (KJU; Kim Cho’ng-u’n) came out for the meeting. Also in attendance were members and alternate (candidate) members of the WPK Central Committee, Central Committee Department directors, deputy director and senior cadres, leading cadres and functionaries of DPRK Cabinet ministries, commissions and state institutions, cadres and members of provincial, county and city WPK committees, cadres and members of provincial, county and city people’s committees and cadres and managers of economic production units.
Taking the platform as plenum presidium members were: DPRK Premier Kim Tok Hun (Kim Tok-hun); WPK Secretary for Organizational Affairs and Organization Guidance Department [OGD] Director Jo Yong Won (Cho Yo’ng-wo’n); Supreme People’s Assembly [SPA] Standing Committee Chairman Choe Ryong Hae (Ch’oe Ryong-hae); WPK Secretary for Military Affairs and WPK Central Military Commission [CMC] Vice Chairman Pak Jong Chon (Pak Cho’ng-ch’o’n); WPK Secretary for Defense Industry Ri Pyong Chol (Ri Pyo’ng-ch’o’l); WPK Secretary for Publicity and Information Ri Il Hwan (Ri Il-hwan); Chief of the Korean People’s Army General Staff Ri Thae Sop (Ri T’ae-sop), KPA General Political Bureau Director Jong Kyong Thaek (Cho’ng Kyo’ng-t’aek), Minister of Defense Ri Yong Gil (Ri Yo’ng-kil), WPK Secretary for Economic Affairs Jon Hyon Chol (Chon Hyon-ch’o’l), WPK Central Auditing Commission Kim Jae Ryong (Kim Chae-ryong), WPK for Science and Education Pak Thae Song (Pak T’ae-so’ng) and State Planning Commission Chairman and DPRK Vice Premier Pak Jong Gun (Pak Cho’ng-kun).
The WPK Political Bureau “authorized” Kim Jong Un to chair the meeting. KJU delivered remarks which “summarized the development course in which our Party has made more dynamic and wider progress in socialist construction while overcoming hardship and challenged equivalent to the ten-year struggle of the revolution for the past two years since the 8th Party Congress and made a scientific analysis and appreciation of the successes and progress.” He noted that it is a “precious experience we have gained through the arduous struggle of 2022 to deeply grasp the peculiarities of the recent internal and external environment and clarify the future direction of the development of the state affairs as well as the successes achieved in the arduous course.” He stressed “the need to lay out more exciting and confident struggle policies based on valuable facts that achieved practical advance while persevering all difficulties” and “the need for the members of the leadership body of the Party Central Committee to display a high sense of responsibility and activeness in the discussion of agenda items, bearing deep in mind their heavy responsibility and duty.”
The Central Committee plenum “unanimously approved” the agenda which include a review of the implementation of party and state policies in 2022, the party and state work plan for 2023 and the state budget implementation during 2022 and a draft budget for 2023.
KJU began his report reviewing the execution of party and government policies during 2022. KJU’s report “referred to the fact that the national power of the DPRK has remarkably increased in all fields of politics, military, economy and culture, and successes and progress have been made in carrying out the gigantic tasks set forth at the fourth and fifth plenary meetings of the 8th Party Central Committee through this year’s unprecedentedly arduous and fierce struggle, comprehensively analyzed and estimated in detail the experiences and lessons accumulated.”
KJU’s report “clarified the main goals to be attained in 2023 in the key industrial sectors of the national economy including the metal, chemical, electric power, coal and machine industries, and in various fields of the national economy including the construction, agriculture and light industries, and the ways for carrying them out.”
Plenum meeting participants attentively listened to KJU’s report as he “proudly reviews the all-people struggle of this year which achieved splendid development in the spirit of fortitude and indicates the strategic and tactical policies and tasks for practical action to propel a fresh leap forward in the building Korean-style socialism.”
Put on the kettle. We will be here a while. . .