The Workers Party Foundation Monument is basically just down the street of the *Juche Tower* and maybe 600 meters away from the *Golden Lane Bowling Alley* – nevertheless it started to rain by the time that we arrived at the monument. So hard that Mr. Yu asked us if we wanted to leave the bus or if a quick stop would be enough. Of course we wanted to leave the bus and have a closer look!
Erected in 1995 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the foundation of Korea’s Workers Party, the whole thing is a cluster-fuck of confusing and even contradicting dates; up to Orwellian falsification of history in one case! Back in the 40s there were dozens of f(r)actioned political organizations and some of them were what you would call communist / socialist today. The current Workers Party of Korea (WPK), the only legal party in the DPRK, was created on June 30 1949 when the Workers Party of North Korea merged with the Workers Party of South Korea (after both of them were created through mergers in 1946). Since “earlier is better” when it comes to history (see the case of Shinichi Fujimura and other hoax archeologists…) the WPK considers October 10 1945 their date of foundation, referring to the fact that a “North Korea Bureau of the Communist Party of Korea” was founded under Soviet guidance that day. Well, fact… Not only is the year kind of in dispute (how far can you go back to claim where / when something is rooted?), non-Korean historians even fight the exact date, claiming that the meeting actually was on October 13th.
Anyway, the Workers Party Foundation Monument is in the DPRK and therefore the North Korean version is valid. 1995, 50th anniversary. And since totalitarian systems like symbolism at least as much as the next guy, the whole thing is 50 meters high and consists of three gigantic hands in a circle, holding a hammer (worker), a sickle (peasant) and a brush (intellectual) to symbolize the three pillars of the state. From the outside they are connected by a circular band with the slogan “Long live the Workers Party of Korea, which organizes and guides all victories for the Korean people!” and standing in the center of the monument you can see three gigantic sculptures with the usual heroic postures.
The whole thing is kind of cheesy, but nevertheless very impressive – and quite difficult to photograph, especially when it’s raining and people are eager to go bowling. So, yes, it was totally worth leaving the bus to have a closer look, because you gotta give those communists and fascists one thing: they are pretty good at building monuments!
(Please *click here to get to Abandoned Kansai’s North Korea Special* and *here for a map about the tour at GoogleMaps*. If you don’t want to miss the latest article you can *follow Abandoned Kansai on Twitter* and *like this blog on Facebook* – and of course there is the *video channel on Youtube*…)
Abandoned Kansai 
Inspiration taken directly from The Wall!
Sadly 99.99% of North Koreans don’t know that song. 😦
Whoa…. those big, rock hands are pretty brawlin’!
What are you doing in North Korea?
It was just a tourist trip there – kind of a vacation, I guess… 🙂
Vacation to North Korea! Now I’ve heard everything~ 😉 Nice!
I had to go somewhere during Golden Week (I live in Japan) and since I needed a break from constant surveillance and backstabbing I thought North Korea would be a lovely place to go to… 😉
I really love the photo showing the monument reflect on the wet ground! 🙂
Me too! I guess it was the only positive aspect about going there on a rainy day…
Thanks for sharing, keep it going. Apart from the infrastructure and architecture, one of the striking aspects of these pictures, and everyday’s life in that part of the world I suppose, is that there is hardly anyone around. It looks as if people are simply not out and about the way you would expect – especially in the capital. Very interesting.
Pyongyang for sure has way less traffic than most other cities that size – but please keep in mind that those photos were taken on a rainy Sunday. If you don’t have a car (and most people don’t!) you don’t leave your house just to visit a monument that has been there for decades and probably will be there for decades. Future articles will feature photos of more traffic and busy streets. Pyongyang definitely isn’t a ghost town.