Songbun

{{Short description|System of ascribed status in North Korea}} {{Distinguish|songun{{!}}Sŏn'gun}} {{Italic title}} {{Infobox Korean name/auto | title = ''Chulsin sŏngbun'' | image = Map of the Songbun system.svg | caption = Diagram of the Songbun system as described by HRNK{{efn|The Committee for Human Rights in North Korea}} | hangul = 출신_성분 | hanja = 出身成分 }} {{Human Rights in North Korea|expanded=all}} '''''Songbun''''' ({{Korean|hangul=성분}}), formally '''chulsin-songbun''' ({{Korean|hangul=출신성분}}, from Sino-Korean 出身, "origin" and 成分, "constituent"), is the alleged system of ascribed status used in North Korea. According to the U.S. Committee for Human Rights in North Korea and the American Enterprise Institute, it is based on the political, social, and economic background of one's direct ancestors as well as the behavior of their relatives; according to the North Korean secret police, ''songbun'' is used to classify North Korean citizens into three primary castes—core, wavering, and hostile—in addition to approximately fifty sub-classifications, and determine whether an individual is trusted with responsibilities, is given opportunities within North Korea,<ref name=NKSongbun>{{cite news|title=Marked for Life: Songbun, North Korea's Social Classification System |url=http://www.nknews.org/2012/06/marked-for-life-songbun-north-koreas-social-classification-system/ |access-date=June 8, 2012 |newspaper=NK News |date=June 7, 2012 |author=Matthew McGrath |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130318004158/http://www.nknews.org/2012/06/marked-for-life-songbun-north-koreas-social-classification-system/ |archive-date=March 18, 2013 }}</ref> or even receives adequate food.<ref name=HRNKSongbun>{{cite book|title=Marked for Life: Songbun, North Korea's Social Classification System|publisher=Committee for Human Rights in North Korea|url=https://www.hrnk.org/uploads/pdfs/HRNK_Songbun_Web.pdf|author=Robert Collins|date=June 6, 2012}}</ref> The U.S. Committee for Human Rights in North Korea and the American Enterprise Institute state that ''songbun'' affects access to educational and employment opportunities and it particularly determines whether a person is eligible to join North Korea's ruling party, the Workers' Party of Korea.{{sfn|Hunter|1999|p=3–11, 31–33}}<ref name=NKSongbun /> The DPRK itself, however, proclaims that all citizens are equal and denies any discrimination based on family background.<ref name="kinu">{{Cite web |url=http://www.kinu.or.kr/eng/pub/pub_04_01.jsp?bid=DATA04&page=1&num=32&mode=view |title=KINU White Paper on Human Rights in North Korea 2011, pp. 216, 225 |access-date=2013-03-07 |archive-date=2013-07-08 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130708165948/http://www.kinu.or.kr/eng/pub/pub_04_01.jsp?bid=DATA04&page=1&num=32&mode=view |url-status=dead }}</ref><ref name="dprkUN">{{cite web |title=A Representative Of The DPRK Answers Questions About The Songbun At The United Nations In Geneva 20 September 2017 |url=https://archive.org/details/a-representative-of-the-dprk-answers-questions-about-the-songbun-at-the-united-n |access-date=5 October 2024 |website=archive.org |date=20 September 2017 |publisher=United Nations}}</ref>

==Description== <!-- Note 1957, KWP factions? -->According to the U.S. Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, being based on the Resident Registration Project of 1967–1970, there are three main classifications and about 50 sub-classifications.<ref name="HRNKSongbun" /> They include:

1. Core Class (핵심 계층 / 核心階層) – 12 categories:

* Public officials * Teachers * Tenant farmers * Korean People's Army personnel as of 1953 and their descendants * Workers' Party of Korea members as of 1953 and their descendants * Office workers * Revolutionary family members as of 1953 and their descendants * Patriotic martyr family members as of 1953 and their descendants * Families of those killed (victims) as of 1953 and their descendants * Families of fallen soldiers as of 1953 and their descendants * Families of rear-area contributors as of 1953 and their descendants.

2. Wavering Class (동요 계층 / 動搖階層) – 18 categories:

* Small and medium merchants as of 1948 * Artisans as of 1948 * Farmers as of 1948 * Laborers as of 1948 * Wealthy farmers as of 1948 * Small and medium landlords as of 1953 and their descendants * Korean residents in Japan who remigrated.

3. Hostile Class (적대 계층 / 敵對階層) – 21 categories:

* Large landlords as of 1948 and their descendants * Capitalists as of 1948 and their descendants * Pro-Japanese collaborators as of 1948 and their descendants * Reactionaries as of 1948 and their descendants * Chondoist Party members as of 1948 and their descendants * People who entered North Korea from the South * Protestant, Buddhist, and Catholic believers as of 1948 and their descendants * Party defectors * Philosophers as of 1948 and their descendants * Persons who served in enemy organizations * Families of detainees and prisoners * Persons related to spies * Anti-Party and anti-revolutionary sectarians * Families of those executed * Released prisoners * Political prisoners * Members of the Korean Democratic Party.<ref name="HRNKSongbun" />

According to former CIA analyst Helen-Louise Hunter, those with a landlord, merchant, lawyer, or Christian minister in their background are given very low status.<ref name=BRHLH>{{cite web|title=A Look at North Korean Society|url=http://www.winzigconsultingservices.com/files/samples/kq/Helen_Hunter.html|publisher=winzigconsultingservices.com|access-date=June 8, 2011|author=Jerry Winzig|format=book review of ''Kim Il-song's North Korea'' by Helen-Louise Hunter|quote=In North Korea, one's songbun, or socio-economic and class background, is extremely important and is primarily determined at birth. People with the best songbun are descendants of the anti-Japanese guerrillas who fought with Kim Il-song, followed by people whose parents or grandparents were factory workers, laborers, or poor, small farmers in 1950. "Ranked below them in descending order are forty-seven distinct groups in what must be the most class-differentiated society in the world today." Anyone with a father, uncle, or grandfather who owned land or was a doctor, Christian minister, merchant, or lawyer has low songbun.}}</ref> The highest status is accorded to those descended from participants in the resistance against Japanese occupation during and before World War II and to those who were factory workers, laborers, or peasants as of 1950. B. R. Myers, associate professor of international studies at Dongseo University in Busan, South Korea, summarizes the core (haeksim)<ref name=":0">{{Cite book |last=Collins |first=Robert |title=Marked for Life: SONGBUN, North Korea's Social Classification System |publisher=Committee for Human Rights in North Korea |year=2012 |isbn=978-0985648008 |location=United States of America |pages=4 |language=EN}}</ref> class as consisting of "high-ranking party cadres and their families". The wavering (dongyo)<ref name=":0" /> class is reserved for average North Koreans, whereas the hostile (choktae)<ref name=":0" /> class is made of possible subversive elements (e.g. former landowners).<ref name="BR Myers"/> According to Hunter, the Communists were highly successful in turning the pre-revolutionary social structure upside down, and songbun is reflective of that. In her view, the "preferred class" consists of 30% of the population, the "ordinary people" make up the middle 40%, and "undesirables" make up the bottom 30%.{{sfn|Hunter|1999|p=4-5}}

Files are maintained on every North Korean by security officials and party cadres{{sfn|Hunter|1999}}{{Page needed|date=June 2022}} from age 17 and updated every two years.<ref name=HRNKSongbun /> In general, songbun is difficult to improve, but it can be downgraded for a variety of reasons such as a lack of political enthusiasm, marrying someone of lower standing, or being convicted—or having a family member convicted—of a crime, political or otherwise.{{sfn|Hunter|1999}}{{Page needed|date=June 2022}} Before the late 1960s, it was possible to conceal that a relative had bad songbun; however, the ancestry of all citizens was thoroughly checked starting with a 1966 census.{{sfn|Hunter|1999}}{{Page needed|date=June 2022}} These investigations have been suggested to have been a response to the Chinese Cultural Revolution which began in 1966. Kim Il Sung, afraid that Beijing would also interfere in his country, whether by invading or sponsoring a coup d'état (Chinese soldiers had been sent previously on "provocative incursions" into Korea), aimed to increase internal security by classifying his citizens.<ref name="BR Myers">{{cite book|author=B.R. Myers|title=The Cleanest Race: How North Koreans See Themselves and Why It Matters|url=https://archive.org/details/cleanestracehown00myer|url-access=registration|location=Hoboken, NJ|publisher=Melville House Publishing|year=2010|isbn=978-1-933633-91-6}}</ref> These investigations were repeated several times in subsequent years, for reasons varying from suspected corruption in previous checks to weeding out possible opposition.{{sfn|Hunter|1999}}{{Page needed|date=June 2022}}

U.S. journalist Barbara Demick describes this "class structure" as an updating of the hereditary "caste system", combining Confucianism and Stalinism.{{sfn|Demick|2010|p=26-27}} She claims that a bad family background is called "tainted blood", and that by law this "tainted blood" lasts for three generations.{{sfn|Demick|2010|p=28, 197, 202}} She asserts, however, that North Koreans are not told of their classification, and that children can grow up without knowing about their family status.{{sfn|Demick|2010|p=28}} Similarly, Hunter describes songbun as "class background" and says that it is not officially published or precisely defined.{{sfn|Hunter|1999|p=3, 6}}

The North Korean government, on the contrary, proclaims that all citizens are equal and denies any discrimination based on family background.<ref name="kinu" /><ref name="dprkUN" />

==Importance==

{{quote box|quote=Under Kim Il-sung, songbun was very important, it decided everything. Under Kim Jong-il, things are different—your family background still matters, but money nowadays is more important than social background.|source=—Description of songbun by a North Korean refugee born in the mid-1960s.<ref name="Lankov2011"/>|align=left|width=300px}} Since the collapse of the Eastern Bloc in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the importance of songbun has decreased. Before the collapse, the North Korean economy was heavily subsidized by the bloc. Through these funds, the government was able to provide all material goods, so income could only be derived by working in industry or the bureaucracy. As a result, one's ability to obtain goods from the distribution system, where one could live, what career was pursued, or how much one could advance in society depended solely on their songbun, which made it the "single-most important factor that determined the life of a North Korean". Before the centralized system's collapse, the government had "near-complete control of an individual's life"; therefore, the only way to increase one's status or affluence was by advancing through the bureaucracy.<ref name="Lankov2011"/>

During the 1994 to 1998 North Korean famine itself—when up to 2.5 million died—the songbun system "often determined who ate and who starved", according to Brian Hook.<ref name="HOOK-nyt-2017">{{cite news |last1=Hook |first1=Brian H. |date=24 November 2017 |title=The Parasites Feeding on North Koreans |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/24/opinion/north-korea-songbun.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=opinion-c-col-right-region&region=opinion-c-col-right-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-right-region |access-date=25 November 2017 |newspaper=The New York Times |agency=}}</ref>

As the centralized system collapsed, the importance of songbun decreased.<ref name=":0" /> To survive, capitalism was "rediscovered", and the average North Korean now derives most of his or her income through private enterprise. When these private markets started, it was instead more advantageous to be part of the hostile class, because they were not as dependent on the government as were those with better songbun. Military service has decreased in popularity; previously, after seven to ten years of service, a North Korean man could hope to become a low-level bureaucrat, but nowadays it is more profitable to engage in private enterprise. Songbun remains important to members of the government elite, but for the majority of North Koreans, wealth has become more important than songbun when defining one's place in society.<ref name="Lankov2011" />

A prominent example of songbun involves Ko Yong-hui, the mother of present leader Kim Jong Un. Ko was born in Osaka, Japan, which would make her part of the hostile class because of her Korean-Japanese heritage; furthermore, her grandfather worked in a sewing factory for the Imperial Japanese Army.<ref name="DNK0626">{{cite web|url=http://dailynk.com/english/read.php?cataId=nk00400&num=9418 |title=Happy Birthday, Ko Young Hee |publisher=Daily NK |access-date=2012-07-01 |date=2012-06-26 |author=Ko Young-ki |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131012015947/http://www.dailynk.com/english/read.php?cataId=nk00400&num=9418 |archive-date=2013-10-12 }}</ref> Before an internal propaganda film was released, after the ascension of Kim Jong Un, there were three attempts made to idolize Ko, in a style similar to that associated with Kang Pan-sŏk, mother of Kim Il Sung, and Kim Jong-suk, mother of Kim Jong Il and the first wife of Kim Il Sung.<ref name="DNK0630">{{cite web|url=http://dailynk.com/english/read.php?num=9441&cataId=nk00100 |title="Great Mother" revealed to World |publisher=Daily NK |access-date=2012-07-01 |date=2012-06-30 |author=Cho Jong-ik |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140924042103/http://dailynk.com/english/read.php?num=9441&cataId=nk00100 |archive-date=2014-09-24 }}</ref> These previous attempts at idolization had failed, and they were stopped after Kim Jong Il's 2008 stroke.<ref name="DNK0626"/> The building of a cult of personality around Ko encounters the problem of her bad songbun, as making her identity public would undermine the Kim dynasty's pure bloodline.<ref name="DNK0626"/> Ko's real name or other personal details have not been publicly revealed (her origins could be figured out, as she worked with Mansudae Art Troupe in Pyongyang), so she is referred to as "Mother of Korea" or "Great Mother", and the most recent propaganda film called its main character "Lee Eun-mi". The complications of Ko's songbun were such that after Kim Jong Il's death, her personal information, including name, became state secrets.<ref name="DNK0630"/> While songbun is usually passed from the father,<ref name="Lankov2011">{{cite web|url=http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Korea/ML03Dg01.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111203025732/http://atimes.com/atimes/Korea/ML03Dg01.html|url-status=unfit|archive-date=2011-12-03|title=North Korea's new class system|author=Andrei Lankov|author-link=Andrei Lankov|publisher=Asia Times|date=2011-12-03|access-date=2012-07-01}}</ref> Ko's background has the "lowest imaginable status qualities" for a North Korean.<ref name="DNK0626"/>

== Reactions == In 2014, North Korean ambassador to the United Nations, Jang Il Hun, was asked about his own songbun by a journalist during a meeting on human rights in North Korea, refusing to take the question. During the meeting he reaffirmed that "equality is the main principle of [North Korean] society".<ref>{{Cite web |date=20 October 2014 |title=Ambassador Jang Il Hun on Human Rights in North Korea |url=https://www.cfr.org/event/ambassador-jang-il-hun-human-rights-north-korea |access-date=22 April 2026 |website=Council on Foreign Relations}}</ref>

In 2017, Jang Il Hun publicly addressed the songbun system during an UN meeting, stating that it "does not exist at all" and was a "fabrication" created to smear North Korea.<ref>{{Cite web |date=27 September 2017 |title=Committee on the Rights of the Child; Seventy-sixth session; Summary record of the 2237th meeting |url=https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/1311839?v=pdf |access-date=22 April 2026 |website=United Nations |series= |agency=Convention on the Rights of the Child}}</ref><ref name="dprkUN" />

During another meeting in 2019, several representatives present called for North Korea to end all forms of discrimination, including songbun. DPRK ambassador Tae Song Han denied that songbun was practiced in North Korea, and stated that "domestic legislation provide[s] for the principles of equality and non-discrimination".<ref>{{Cite web |date=25 June 2019 |title=Human Rights Council; Forty-second session; Agenda item 6 |url=https://docs.un.org/en/A/HRC/42/10 |access-date=22 April 2024 |website=United Nations |agency=General Assembly}}</ref>

==See also== {{Portal|North Korea|Communism|Politics|Modern history}} *Yan'an faction *Caste *New People *bone-rank system - ancient Korean Silla social system based on bloodlines *Five Black Categories/Five Red Categories - chinese revolutionary classifications during Mao era * Lishenets - soviet revolutionary classifications during Lenin/Stalin eras

==References== ==Notes== <references group="lower-alpha"/> ===Citations=== {{Reflist}}

===Works cited=== *{{cite book|title=Nothing to Envy: Love, Life and Death in North Korea|last=Demick|first=Barbara|year=2010|publisher=Fourth Estate|location=London}} *{{cite book|last=Hunter|first=Helen-Louise|title=Kim Il-song's North Korea|publisher=Praeger|location=Westport, CT|year=1999|isbn=0-275-96296-2}}

==Further reading== * {{cite web|url=http://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/Report%20of%20the%20Special%20Rapporteur%20on%20the%20situation%20of%20human%20rights%20in%20the%20Democratic%20People%E2%80%99s%20Republic%20of%20Korea%20A-HRC-22-57.pdf|publisher=United Nations Human Rights Council|title=Report of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Marzuki Darusman}} – Annex E. Discrimination: Division of society into three different groups of allegiance to the regime (p.&nbsp;23) * {{cite web|url= http://www.kinu.or.kr/eng/pub/pub_04_01.jsp?bid=DATA04&page=1&num=32&mode=view |publisher=Korean Institute for National Unification (KINU)|title= White Paper on Human Rights in North Korea 2011}} – The Reality of Civil and Political Rights 4. The Right to Equality (p.&nbsp;219 – 224)- DEAD LINK * {{cite web|url= https://www.hrw.org/world-report-2006/north-korea |publisher=Human Rights Watch|title=World Report 2006: North Korea|date=3 January 2006}} – Discrimination in Education, Jobs, and Health Care * {{cite web|url= http://www.brookings.edu/research/testimony/2003/06/05northkorea-oh |publisher= Kongdan Oh, Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Subcommittee on East Asian and Pacific Affairs |title= Political Classification and Social Structure in North Korea |date= 30 November 2001 }} – Testimony about the North Korean regime's political classification system * {{cite journal|url=https://www.academia.edu/1216599|publisher=Sarah E. Kirsch|title=Effective Immobilization: Social Classification within North Korea in Comparison with Burakumin and the Untouchables|last1=Kirsch|first1=Sarah E.|access-date=2017-11-01|archive-date=2022-03-06|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220306132212/https://www.academia.edu/1216599|url-status=dead}} – Songbun, North Korea's social classification system * {{cite web |url= http://www.dailynk.com/english/keys/2001/3/06.php |publisher= Hwang Jang-yop, Daily NK |title= North Korea's Concentration Camps for Political Prisoners |url-status= dead |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20110706044616/http://www.dailynk.com/english/keys/2001/3/06.php |archive-date= 2011-07-06 }} – Who are the people in the concentration camps: Persons with bad security ratings (hostile class) and their families- DEAD LINK, RESULTS IN A 404 *[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=no2HPaokHmA "Robert Collins: Songbun enters into everything"] *[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJ0nnBs-t0s "Marcus Noland: Fissures within even the core class"] *[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gCwdfjIWzq0 "Andrew Natsios: Songbun system causes death through malnourishment"] *[https://www.rfa.org/english/news/korea/jeong-02162024125202.html "Short film about army life depicts North Korea's caste system"] by Lee Hyunju and Mok Yong Jae for RFA Korean, ''Radio Free Asia'' (February 17, 2024) *[https://www.libertyinnorthkorea.org/blog/songbun "Songbun: Social Class in a Socialist Paradise"] by Sokeel J. Park, Research and Policy Analyst

Category:Social classes Category:Korean caste system Category:Korean nobility Category:1957 in law Category:1957 in North Korea Category:1957 in politics Category:1957 introductions Category:Anti-American sentiment in North Korea Category:Anti-Chinese sentiment in Korea Category:Anti-Japanese sentiment in North Korea Category:Anti-Western sentiment Category:Crime in North Korea Category:Education in North Korea Category:Human rights in North Korea Category:Society of North Korea Category:Persecution by atheist states Category:Persecution of Buddhists Category:Persecution of Christians Category:Political terminology of North Korea Category:Racism in Asia Category:Religious persecution by communists Category:Social class in Asia Category:Social status