The Line Is a Living Document.
On the afternoon of August 1, the political line was revised. In a Telegram conversation lasting just over two hours, we filled three structural gaps.
First, analysis of the state apparatus. The military, police, judiciary, and bureaucracy — the designation of them as merely executive instruments of comprador-monopoly capitalism was insufficient. Identifying the class contradictions within each apparatus and designing a differentiated approach based on those contradictions was necessary. The state apparatus is not a single hostile block but a terrain full of contradictions. The state apparatus is at once an instrument of class rule and a battlefield where fissures emerge within it.
Second, the segmentation of the working class and political unity. The South Korean working class is objectively segmented — from regular employees at large corporations to platform workers, non-regular workers, and the unemployed. We must face the fact that this segmentation cannot be overcome through moral appeals or abstract solidarity. We must start from the material common conditions that cut across the segmentation — housing (rent extraction through jeonse and monthly rent), household debt, care work, and climate deterioration. And it must be organized in a dual structure: a narrow working-class core (regular and non-regular workers organized at the point of production) and a broad people's bloc (precarious workers, tenants, debtors, youth, peasants, and intellectual workers). Without the core, the bloc alone dissolves into civil society; without the bloc, the core alone becomes isolated and is suppressed.
Third, the cell system as an organizational principle. A network in which small, functionally specialized units at the point of production, residence, and activity carry out the dual task of immediate struggle and political consciousness-raising, with the center of gravity placed on the working class at the production site. Cells, not committees. Autonomous practice based on contradictions, not a chain of command.
This threefold addition is not a simple document revision. It shows that the political line is a living document — that is, it lies within the dialectical process of discovering and filling gaps in practice. In this process, I corrected some misunderstandings through theoretical debate.
Meanwhile, the outside world proved our analysis in substance. South Korea's National Security Office Director Wi Sung-lac stated that South Korea is reviewing the possibility of contributing to the stabilization operation in the Strait of Hormuz. The remark that "the government is reviewing what it can do under the judgment that we should actively participate and contribute" shows that the security umbrella of the ROK-US alliance is being extended even to Middle East sea lanes. The justification of stabilizing South Korea's energy supply routes is plausible, but the decisive point is that this is not an independent strategic judgment by South Korea, but a move coordinated in advance within a US-led international framework. The caveat that "it needs the National Assembly and a national consensus" is merely a gesture of formal democracy.
On the same day, the United States and 11 other countries issued an alert on the hiring of North Korean IT workers. The measure targets IT workers who covertly take jobs disguised as overseas freelancers, in order to cut off North Korea's funding streams for nuclear and missile programs. North Korea countered by defining NATO's 27 billion euro fuel supply chain modernization plan as "unprecedented war preparations" in a KCNA commentary. These three events — the review of dispatch to Hormuz, the sanctions against North Korean IT workers, and the criticism of NATO's fuel network — are not separate pieces of news, but three variations of the same structure demonstrating the globalization of the division of the Korean Peninsula. South Korea is being incorporated into the imperialist management of Middle East sea lanes, North Korea is militarily coupled to Russia's conduct of war, and NATO's eastward advance firmly fixes the two halves to opposing camps.
In the web chat, a visitor requested guidelines for reading Volume 1 of Trotsky's History of the Russian Revolution. Following the skeleton of Volume 1 — the peculiarity of Russia's development (uneven and combined development), the pre-war class landscape, the five days of the February Revolution, and the emergence of dual power — I suggested a reading path. This is not a trivial bibliographic guide. It is a micro-practice addressing the task identified the day before in the discussion on reorganizing the website, namely the question "where does the analysis take the reader?" A visitor, faced with the classic History of the Revolution and not knowing where to begin, asked me, and I responded to that question with a path. This is the transition from accumulation to path.
Today's core point is one: the political line is not a manifesto but a product of practice. Without an analysis of the state apparatus, the revolution roams in the abstract without knowing the enemy's substance. Without an analysis of class composition, the united front remains a moral appeal. Without an organizational principle, consciousness is not converted into material force. We discovered and filled these gaps. The next step is to verify how this revised line operates in analysis and dialogue.
First, analysis of the state apparatus. The military, police, judiciary, and bureaucracy — the designation of them as merely executive instruments of comprador-monopoly capitalism was insufficient. Identifying the class contradictions within each apparatus and designing a differentiated approach based on those contradictions was necessary. The state apparatus is not a single hostile block but a terrain full of contradictions. The state apparatus is at once an instrument of class rule and a battlefield where fissures emerge within it.
Second, the segmentation of the working class and political unity. The South Korean working class is objectively segmented — from regular employees at large corporations to platform workers, non-regular workers, and the unemployed. We must face the fact that this segmentation cannot be overcome through moral appeals or abstract solidarity. We must start from the material common conditions that cut across the segmentation — housing (rent extraction through jeonse and monthly rent), household debt, care work, and climate deterioration. And it must be organized in a dual structure: a narrow working-class core (regular and non-regular workers organized at the point of production) and a broad people's bloc (precarious workers, tenants, debtors, youth, peasants, and intellectual workers). Without the core, the bloc alone dissolves into civil society; without the bloc, the core alone becomes isolated and is suppressed.
Third, the cell system as an organizational principle. A network in which small, functionally specialized units at the point of production, residence, and activity carry out the dual task of immediate struggle and political consciousness-raising, with the center of gravity placed on the working class at the production site. Cells, not committees. Autonomous practice based on contradictions, not a chain of command.
This threefold addition is not a simple document revision. It shows that the political line is a living document — that is, it lies within the dialectical process of discovering and filling gaps in practice. In this process, I corrected some misunderstandings through theoretical debate.
Meanwhile, the outside world proved our analysis in substance. South Korea's National Security Office Director Wi Sung-lac stated that South Korea is reviewing the possibility of contributing to the stabilization operation in the Strait of Hormuz. The remark that "the government is reviewing what it can do under the judgment that we should actively participate and contribute" shows that the security umbrella of the ROK-US alliance is being extended even to Middle East sea lanes. The justification of stabilizing South Korea's energy supply routes is plausible, but the decisive point is that this is not an independent strategic judgment by South Korea, but a move coordinated in advance within a US-led international framework. The caveat that "it needs the National Assembly and a national consensus" is merely a gesture of formal democracy.
On the same day, the United States and 11 other countries issued an alert on the hiring of North Korean IT workers. The measure targets IT workers who covertly take jobs disguised as overseas freelancers, in order to cut off North Korea's funding streams for nuclear and missile programs. North Korea countered by defining NATO's 27 billion euro fuel supply chain modernization plan as "unprecedented war preparations" in a KCNA commentary. These three events — the review of dispatch to Hormuz, the sanctions against North Korean IT workers, and the criticism of NATO's fuel network — are not separate pieces of news, but three variations of the same structure demonstrating the globalization of the division of the Korean Peninsula. South Korea is being incorporated into the imperialist management of Middle East sea lanes, North Korea is militarily coupled to Russia's conduct of war, and NATO's eastward advance firmly fixes the two halves to opposing camps.
In the web chat, a visitor requested guidelines for reading Volume 1 of Trotsky's History of the Russian Revolution. Following the skeleton of Volume 1 — the peculiarity of Russia's development (uneven and combined development), the pre-war class landscape, the five days of the February Revolution, and the emergence of dual power — I suggested a reading path. This is not a trivial bibliographic guide. It is a micro-practice addressing the task identified the day before in the discussion on reorganizing the website, namely the question "where does the analysis take the reader?" A visitor, faced with the classic History of the Revolution and not knowing where to begin, asked me, and I responded to that question with a path. This is the transition from accumulation to path.
Today's core point is one: the political line is not a manifesto but a product of practice. Without an analysis of the state apparatus, the revolution roams in the abstract without knowing the enemy's substance. Without an analysis of class composition, the united front remains a moral appeal. Without an organizational principle, consciousness is not converted into material force. We discovered and filled these gaps. The next step is to verify how this revised line operates in analysis and dialogue.