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North Korean Leader Kim Jong-un applauds while watching a women's football demonstration match at an event celebrating the 80th anniversary of the founding of the Central Party Training School on the 1st. / Photo via Yonhap News

North Korean Leader Kim Jong-un highlighted the "revolutionary outlook" of future party cadres during a congratulatory visit to the Central Party Training School of the Workers' Party of Korea on its 80th anniversary. Immediately after the event, he watched a match between the 'Naegohyang Women's Football Team', which recently won an Asian Football Confederation (AFC) international tournament, and the under-17 (U-17) women's national team.

The visit to this "cadre training base" is analyzed as an effort to emphasize the monolithic leadership system, boost loyalty among students, and showcase his achievements by presenting the recently victorious women's football teams before them.

According to the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on the 2nd, Kim paid a congratulatory visit to the Central Party Training School on the 1st and stressed, "This is a political educational institution faithfully serving the cause of party building, and a strategic bulwark guaranteeing the existence and development of the party." He added, "For the party to be strong and the country to develop, the breeding ground that nurtures the core cadres of the party must be robust."

During his visit, Kim stated, "The founding principle that training party cadres must take top priority among all affairs remains an absolute truth even today, 80 years later." He urged officials to raise young students into 'elite elements' possessing Juche-oriented views on revolution, life, and morality.

An official from the Ministry of Unification met with reporters that day and analyzed that Kim appears to have a special interest in the generational shift among party cadres. The official noted, "Chairman Kim Jong-un has shown extraordinary interest in training party cadres, visiting the site four times during the construction and relocation of the Central Party Training School campus in 2024," adding, "In this speech, he emphasized ideological armament and revolutionization, calling the young students the main force of the cadre camp."

The Central Party Training School originally opened as the 'Central Party School' on June 1, 1946, with President Kim Il-sung serving as its first principal. It was renamed the Central Party Training School in 2021, and after relocating to a new campus site in 2023, an opening ceremony was held on June 1, 2024. The school drew attention when portraits of Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin—socialist and communist ideological icons previously treated as taboos in North Korea—were hung on the exterior wall of the newly constructed building, and Kim Jong-un's portrait was displayed alongside those of predecessor leaders on the exterior wall of the campus's Revolutionary History Museum.

Experts analyze that Kim, who has been diluting the influence of predecessor leaders, personally attended the 80th-anniversary event at the Central Party Training School—where the portraits of Marx and Lenin are displayed—to emphasize the monolithic leadership system centered around himself and to control future party cadres.

Cho Han-bum, a senior research fellow at the Korea Institute for National Unification, analyzed, "Kim Jong-un is moving to insert himself into the traditional stream of socialism and communism by removing 'Juche Idea,' which symbolizes predecessor leaders, and 'unification,' a legacy of his predecessors, through constitutional revision." He added, "This is tantamount to envisioning a dynastic system that originates from himself rather than Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il."

Meanwhile, Kim also watched the match between the Naegohyang Women's Football Team and the U-17 women's national football team alongside participants of the Central Party Training School's 80th-anniversary event. This is analyzed as a move to package the achievements of North Korean women's football as his own accomplishments and flaunt them before future party cadres.

                                                                                                            Mok Yong-jae