N. Korea calls on party officials to wipe out anti-socialist practices

SEOUL, March 31 (Yonhap) -- North Korea reiterated calls for the ruling party's propaganda officials to help weed out anti-socialist and non-socialist practices, as it wrapped up a three-day workshop, according to state media Thursday.

The workshop for officials in the information field of the ruling Workers' Party concluded the previous day with a study session on prioritizing ideological work as the "very core of the Party work," the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported.

"The workshop called for regarding it as the general orientation and target of the Party ideological work to model the entire Party and the whole society on the respected Comrade Kim Jong-un's revolutionary idea," it added.

Officials were urged to "concentrate all rabble-rousing forces" on improving peoples' living standards and carry out a "fierce campaign" against anti-socialism and non-socialism.

During the workshop, the North also held a lecture warning officials to stay alert against the "imperialists' moves for ideological and cultural poisoning."

On the first day of the workshop Monday, the North's leader sent a letter to the party officials, urging them to wage a battle in rooting out "evil spirits" of anti-socialism and bring fundamental change to their ideological work.

The workshop appears to be part of the Kim regime's efforts to tighten social discipline and rally internal unity amid growing economic pressure from the fallout of international sanctions and the COVID-19 pandemic.

julesyi@yna.co.kr
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