page_title: Workers' Party of Korea
section_title: Kim Jong-il's apprenticeship and rule (1980–2011)
hierarchical_section_title: Workers' Party of Korea / History / Kim Jong-il's apprenticeship and rule (1980–2011)
caption_attribution_description: English: "The Monument to Party Founding" at Munsu Street, Taedonggang District in Pyongyang, North Korea. The party in question is the Workers' Party of Korea.
context_page_description: The Workers' Party of Korea is the founding and ruling political party of North Korea. It is the largest party represented in the Supreme People's Assembly and coexists de jure with two other legal parties making up the Democratic Front for the Reunification of the Fatherland. However, these minor parties are completely subservient to the WPK, and must accept the WPK's "leading role" as a condition of their existence.
  WPK was founded in 1949 with the merger of the Workers' Party of North Korea and the Workers' Party of South Korea. The WPK also controls the Korean People's Army. WPK remains illegal in South Korea under South Korea's own National Security Act and is sanctioned by Australia, the European Union, the United Nations and the United States.
  The WPK is organized according to the Monolithic Ideological System and the Great Leader, a system and theory conceived by Kim Yong-ju and Kim Jong-il. The highest body of the WPK is formally the Congress, but in practice a Congress occurs infrequently. Between 1980 and 2016, there were no congresses held.
context_section_description: With Kim Jong-il's official appointment as heir apparent at the 6th Congress, power became more centralized in the Kim family. WPK officials began to speak openly about his succession, and beginning in 1981 he began to participate in (and lead) tours. In 1982 he was made a Hero of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and wrote On the Juche Idea. While foreign observers believed that Kim Jong-il's appointment would increase participation by the younger generation, in On the Juche Idea he made it clear that his leadership would not mark the beginning of a new generation of leaders. The WPK could not address the crisis facing Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il's leadership at home and abroad, in part because of the gerontocracy at the highest level of the WPK and the state.
  With the death of O Jin-u on 25 February 1995, Kim Jong-il became the sole remaining living member of the Presidium (the highest body of the WPK when the Politburo and the Central Committee are not in session). While no member list of the WPK Central Military Commission (CMC, the highest party organ on military affairs) was published from 1993 to 2010, there were clear signs of movement in the military hierarchy during 1995. For the WPK's 50th anniversary, Kim Jong-il initiated a reshuffling of the CMC (and the military leadership in general) to appease the old guard and younger officials. He did not reshuffle the WPK Central Committee or the government, however, and during the 1990s the changes to its membership were caused mostly by its members dying of natural causes.
  Beginning in 1995, Kim Jong-il favored the military over the WPK and the state. Problems began to mount as an economic crisis, coupled with a famine in which at least half a million people died, weakened his control of the country. Instead of recommending structural reforms Kim began to criticize the WPK's lack of control over the economy, lambasting its local and provincial branches for their inability to implement central-level instructions. At a speech celebrating the 50th anniversary of Kim Il-sung University, he said: "The reason why people are loyal to the instructions of the Central Committee is not because of party organizations and workers, but because of my authority." Kim Jong-il said that his father had told him to avoid economics, claiming that it was better left to experts. After this speech, the WPK's responsibility to control the economy was given to the Administrative Council (the central government). By late 1996 Kim Jong-il concluded that neither the WPK nor the central government could run the country, and began shifting control to the military.
  On 8 July 1997, the three-year mourning period for Kim Il-sung ended. Later that year, on 8 October, Kim Jong-il was appointed to the newly established office of General Secretary of the Workers' Party of Korea. There was considerable discussion by foreign experts of why Kim Jong-il was appointed General Secretary of the Workers' Party of Korea, instead of succeeding his father as General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea. In a clear breach of the WPK charter, Kim Jong-il was appointed WPK General Secretary in a joint announcement by the 6th Central Committee and the CMC rather than elected by a plenum of the Central Committee. Although it was believed that Kim Jong-il would call a congress shortly after his appointment (to elect a new WPK leadership), he did not. The WPK would not be revitalized organizationally until the 3rd Conference in 2010. Until then, Kim Jong-il ruled as an autocrat; only in WPK institutions considered important were new members and leaders appointed to take the place of dying officials. The 10th Supreme People's Assembly convened on 5 September 1998, amended the North Korean constitution. The amended constitution made the National Defense Commission (NDC), previously responsible for supervising the military, the highest state organ. Although the new constitution gave the cabinet and the NDC more independence from WPK officials, it did not weaken the party. Kim Jong-il rem
caption: The Monument to Party Founding in Pyongyang, erected in 1995
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