Workers’ Party of Korea

Workers' Party of Korea 조선로동당 Chosŏn Rodongdang

Chairman	Kim Jong-un
Eternal General Secretary	Kim Jong-il (deceased)
Politburo Standing Committee	Kim Jong-un Kim Yong-nam Hwang Pyong-so Pak Pong-ju Choe Ryong-hae
Founded	30 June 1949
Merger of	Workers' Party of North Korea and Workers' Party of South Korea
Headquarters	Kim Il-sung Square, Pyongyang, North Korea
Newspaper	Rodong Sinmun
Youth wing	Kimilsungist-Kimjongilist Youth League and Young Pioneer Corps
Armed wing	Korean People's Army
Membership (1988)	3 million
Ideology	Juche Songun
National affiliation	Democratic Front for the Reunification of the Fatherland
International affiliation	International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties
Colors	Red
Anthem	"Long Live the Workers' Party of Korea"
Status	Outlawed in South Korea under the National Security Act
Supreme People's Assembly	607 / 687
Party flag

Website
Rodong Sinmun, the official newspaper of the WPK Central Committee
Politics of North Korea Political parties Elections

Workers' Party of Korea
Chosŏn'gŭl	,
Hancha	,
Revised Romanization	Joseon Rodongdang, Pukhan Nodongdang
McCune–Reischauer	Chosŏn Rodongdang, Bukhan Nodongdang

The Workers' Party of Korea (WPK) is the founding and ruling political party of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea), and the largest party represented in the Supreme People's Assembly. The WPK is the sole governing party of North Korea, although it coexists de jure with two other legal parties making up the Democratic Front for the Reunification of the Fatherland. It 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 world's 5th largest armed force – Korean People's Army. This political party (and all of the other parties in the DPRK) remains illegal in South Korea (officially the Republic of Korea) under South Korea's own National Security Act.

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; however, in practice a Congress occurs infrequently. Between 1980 and 2016, there were no congresses held. Although the WPK is, organizationally similar to communist parties, in practice it is far less institutionalized and informal politics plays a larger role than usual. Institutions such as the Central Committee, the Executive Policy Bureau, the Central Military Commission (CMC), the Politburo and the Politburo Standing Committee have much less power than that formally bestowed on them by the party's charter, which is little more than a nominal document. Kim Jong-un is the current WPK leader, serving as Chairman and CMC chairman.