u/ModernirsmEnjoyer

Recently, while browing NKNews, I read a fresh article "How North Korea recycles propaganda to engrave its messaging in people’s minds" by Tatiana Gabroussenko, and she states two interesting facts.

1. Recent performacne of the traditional song "We Are the Heirs of the Revolution" at a high profile performance, which has history not only as a song of the Juche youth movement in North Korea, but also among the radical youth in South Korea
2. "Driven by the same logic, the DPRK has continued to publish the book series “Chosen Literary Works on Unification,” which includes classic North Korean texts about South Korea. These works contain well-detailed narratives about the North and South, the concept of division and Korean unification and could serve a purpose when it comes time for rapprochement."

Both claims appeared earlier in her Telegram account, which has forced me to rethink what is the reality of the Choseon-Hanguk relations after the proclamation of what is often referred to as the "two states theory" of Kim Jong Un and the inauguration of the Lee Jae Myung presidency in South Korea.

What is the significance? In North Korea, all matters concerning ideology, agitaiton, propaganda, culture, media, and performamces, and all used to diffuse the state's views throughout population through all available channels of communications, the Workers Party of Korea ensures they are aligned with the current priorities of the propaganda apparatus, and the bureaucracy that heads is the Agitation and Propaganda Department, itself headed by RI Il Hwan, who sits on the Politburo Presidium, meaning those decisions are made at the very high level, in full accordance with the vision set by the very top of this policital system. Nothing is random here. There must be a special reason why the poetry is spared but not the monuments and maps, while you can imagine a small specialized literary series to be the first to be cut.

The Constitution of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, as amended by the 15th Supreme People's Assembly, stipulates:

>Article 2: The territory of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea includes the territory bordering the People's Republic of China and the Russian Federation to the north, and the Republic of Korea to the south, as well as the territorial waters and airspace established thereon. The Democratic People's Republic of Korea shall absolutely not tolerate any infringement upon its territory.

There is no constitutionalization of the "enemy state" doctrine in any form in the updated constitution. While the maritime state border has not been defined leaving a powerful source of tension., nothing in the constitution, which is a principal document as seen from the abroad, including Seoul, that has any trace of the language of "thoroughly different ethnicity" and "fundamentally different countries" the Party General Secretary and Kim Yo Jong have said in 2024 and 2025. Even then, those statements were highly contradictory, as Kim Jong Un repeatedly stated that the changes will be "incorporated" to forever reflect the status of the enemy state, six months after the northern personnel blew up roads "in implementation of the constitution". Given those amendements were never published, we cannot verify anything about it, and Pyongyang has never failed to publish its constitution.

After all, there is a truism that no authoritarian government would like to constrain itself, including by its past statements, and the Constitution, as a declaration of principles and directions of the political regime, is certainly a high-level statement, meaning whatever appears on is never random or arbitrary.

Another thing. Ri Son Gwon, the director of the WPK United Front Department, responsible for North-South relations, has resurfaced as the Chairman of the Central Committee of the Korean Social Democratic Party. (https://www.nknews.org/2026/03/north-koreas-former-inter-korean-negotiator-resurfaces-as-minor-party-chief/). The Korean Social Democratic Party is mostly a fictional organization, which nevertheless has a history of North-South exchange with left-wing and progressive groups in South Korea. And before that state media indicated he continued to work for the "Bureau 10" of the Workers Party of Korea, meaning substantial instruments of exchange and the nerve centre of North-South relations continue to exist, even if Pyongyang insists all Pyongyang-Seoul relations should be conducted through its Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

So where does it point at? Probably not for the next five years, but afterwards there might be some kind of normalization of the bilateral relations based on cold and nervous coexistence, and perhaps arms control negotiations, but not between the two rival governments over the same state, but between the two states that were founded in 1948 on the different sides of the Korean Peninsula. Or at least this is what Pyongyang hopes for

I was watching the record of 7.27 Military parade in 2023 when thinking about why North Korea announced the "Two State Theory" and noticed the tachankas being displayed during the reconstruction part, alongside troops and T-34 tanks.

Is there any record of the tachankas actually being used on the frontline? The Korean People's Army would have definetely learned about them from the Soviets, but I would think the thing is not practical in the Korean geography