On Dec. 27, 2025, marking the 53rd anniversary of the current constitution’s adoption, North Korea held a flag-raising and oath ceremony in Pyongyang with Kim Jong Un in attendance. According to Korean Central News Agency reports, the event was conducted as a ceremony commemorating the constitution’s establishment.
What’s noteworthy, however, is that recent North Korean media reports have stopped consistently using the existing name “Socialist Constitution of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.” For example, the term “Socialist” is sometimes dropped from references. But North Korean authorities have provided no explanation about whether the constitution’s official name has been changed.
Of course, this change in terminology doesn’t immediately signify a shift in the regime’s political line. It’s hard to see North Korea as having chosen capitalism. In photos released by Korean Central News Agency in May 2024 of a performance commemorating the completion of the Korean Workers’ Party Central Cadre School, portraits of Marx and Lenin still hung on either side of the stage. Moreover, since 2022, North Korea has established grain sales offices in various locations, strengthening a system where the state controls the sale and distribution of major grains. The distribution sector that had been left to free markets is shrinking, and state intervention is becoming more intense. In reality, rather than “de-socialization,” controlled forms of socialist management are being strengthened.
Adjusting symbols without building charisma
Nevertheless, the noticeable change in terminology surrounding the constitution’s name appears related to the Kim Jong Un regime’s attempt to establish a distinct governing identity. Around 2024, North Korean media began featuring Kim’s badges and portraits in earnest, and songs praising Kim as a “friendly parent” were produced. There are also reports that lectures and study sessions on “Kim Jong Un Revolutionary Thought” are being conducted inside North Korea. This could an attempt to gradually distance the regime from symbols and expressions established during Kim Il Sung’s era.
However, such symbolic adjustments alone cannot help Kim Jong Un reach Kim Il Sung’s charisma. This becomes even clearer when compared with the circumstances surrounding Kim Il Sung’s enactment of the Socialist Constitution. The establishment of the Socialist Constitution 53 years ago was underpinned by Kim Il Sung’s determination to gain the upper hand in inter-Korean competition. Around the time of the July 1972 North-South Joint Statement, North Korean leadership felt a strong sense of crisis that they might fall behind in the competition between systems.
According to testimony from a high-ranking North Korean defector, in late May 1972, then-Second Vice Premier Park Song-chul secretly visited Seoul and was deeply shocked by the “flood of lights” in the nighttime streets. Upon receiving this report, Kim Il Sung recognized South Korea’s power situation and industrial base as a real threat in the competition between systems, and resolved to more thoroughly implement socialism, which he believed was “superior to capitalism.”
Around the same time, Lee Hu-rak, then director of the Korean Central Intelligence Agency, who visited Pyongyang for North-South Joint Statement negotiations, was reportedly deeply impressed by footage of Kim Il Sung’s on-site guidance. Kim Il Sung visited Ryanggang and Jagang provinces and asked local residents whether they had enough teacups and blankets for the number of households, using this as a gauge for minimum living standards. His experience sleeping outdoors in the mountains during his anti-Japanese guerrilla days and suffering from food shortages was the background for this focus. He didn’t mind getting his shoes and hands dirty on site, shook hands with locals, and ate the same food they ate.
Lee Hu-rak, who was well aware of the poor living conditions in the northern regions during Japanese colonial rule, was surprised that living conditions had improved to the point where residents of Ryanggang and Jagang provinces could sleep under blankets, and reported this to President Park Chung-hee.
Kim Jong Un’s guidance: staged ceremonies, not lived experience
In contrast, Kim Jong Un’s on-site guidance has a different character. In late 2025, Kim attended a series of completion ceremonies for industrial facilities, hospitals, and tourist facilities in various locations. In footage released by Korean Central Television, snow removal was conducted only along Kim’s arrival route and around facilities, and event participants cheered in a staged atmosphere wearing suits or traditional Korean dresses. Scenes of people shedding tears while listening to speeches were repeatedly staged. However, it’s rare to see Kim directly visiting poor people’s homes to see their lives.
If the so-called “No. 1 events” of the Kim Il Sung era were characterized by directly checking in on people’s lives and supplementing insufficient resources, the No. 1 events of the Kim Jong Un era have become closer to symbolic events connecting new facilities with the “grace” of the supreme leader.
This distance is also evident in policy decisions. Kim easily issues instructions like “from now on, eat bread” to North Koreans. However, a bread-centered diet requires not only wheat flour but also living infrastructure like toasters, butter, jam, and milk. North Koreans are accustomed to processing potatoes and corn to make alcohol, pancakes, and noodles, but aren’t well-adapted to a wheat flour-centered diet.
Adjusting the constitution’s name or symbols doesn’t automatically bring North Koreans’ respect. Rather, the very fact that the regime feels compelled to tamper with the constitution’s name and expressions may reveal the impatience and governing limits of the Kim Jong Un regime.
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