Mick Hartley

Yes, we’re in North Korea, and yes, it’s another ideological crackdown. From the Daily NK:

North Korea’s ruling party apparatus in North Hamgyong province issued a special directive in April 2026 ordering a crackdown on ideological nonconformity among young people, as authorities sought to exploit the Kim Il Sung birthday holiday to tighten control over a restless generation.

A source in North Hamgyong province told Daily NK that the North Hamgyong Provincial Party Committee issued the directive on April 13 through the Socialist Patriotic Youth League (the national youth political organization operating under the Workers’ Party of Korea, which mobilizes young people for ideological campaigns and labor). The directive called on members to intensify the “struggle against anti-socialist behavior” in the name of national security and regime preservation.

Wel yes: regime preservation is of course the name of the game here.

The provincial party committee highlighted that North Hamgyong province, which borders China and Russia, sees a higher frequency of illegal activity than other regions, including the circulation of South Korean dramas, films, and music, as well as unauthorized use of foreign currency. The directive stressed that April should mark a turning point, with all anti-socialist behavior in the province eliminated entirely.

The directive specifically identified the adoption of South Korean speech patterns and clothing styles as the most overt forms of anti-socialist behavior among young people in the province. It noted that South Korean speech had become so commonplace among young people in border areas that it was being used as naturally as standard North Korean speech.

Authorities also flagged what they described as a double standard among youth: outwardly reciting revolutionary slogans while privately criticizing party and leadership policies and harboring what the directive called “fantasies about capitalism.” Such conduct was characterized as anti-socialist behavior subject to punishment without exception.

Is there a limit to the level of ideological coercion? – or will it just keep ratcheting up, until every individual has a party official following them around, monitoring every movement, attaching electrodes to measure for deviant thought processes? Whatever, I doubt any society, any civilisation, has yet approached the level of Orwellian pressure for ideological conformity that North Korea is currently enforcing.