Propaganda lectures in the North Korean border city of Hyesan are casting South Korean homeowners as debt slaves to their banks. The 2026 campaign holds up the state’s free housing as proof that socialism is the superior system.
The lecture series has been underway in Hyesan since mid-September, a source in Ryanggang province told Daily NK on Monday, adding that it has run under the title “The Transformation Brought by the Great Rural Construction Program and the Miserable Reality of Capitalist Society.”
“The core message is the superiority of socialism, shown through housing construction and the free distribution of homes,” the source said. “From there, the lectures move on to exposing the flaws in capitalist housing systems, and South Korea’s in particular.”
Hyesan is the capital of Ryanggang province and sits on the Yalu River across from the Chinese town of Changbai. Propaganda officials from the Workers’ Party of Korea’s Hyesan city committee are giving the talks in person, the source said, adding that they are visiting local factories, enterprises and neighborhood watch units to deliver them.
Neighborhood watch units are grassroots groups of a few dozen households in North Korea. The state uses them to pass down orders and keep close tabs on everyday life.
Every lecturer has repeated the same argument about life under capitalism, the source said. “In capitalist society, people suffer from housing shortages, and even those who have a house don’t truly own it,” they told audiences. “Their homes are buried in bank loans they pay interest on, and they live no better than slaves.”
By describing ordinary home mortgages as a kind of “slave contract,” the lectures twist how people in capitalist countries actually buy homes. Lecturers then pushed into tabloid territory, claiming that borrowers who fail to repay large debts have their organs removed and sold. They called this “the cruel reality of capitalism,” a claim with no basis in fact.
Free housing pitch singles out South Korea
South Korea drew the sharpest attacks, as lecturers held up its housing problems as their main example. “Most South Koreans never own a home, and they live in anxiety as slaves to the banks that hold their houses as collateral,” one lecturer said, according to the source.
Lecturers also claimed that wars started by the U.S. had triggered financial turmoil and soaring interest rates in South Korea. They told audiences that crushing debt was driving a growing number of South Korean borrowers to take their own lives. Lecturers further claimed that South Koreans who pay off a home for decades still lose it to the bank when they die.
The focus on South Korea fits a broader shift in North Korean propaganda under Kim Jong Un. In early 2024, Kim declared South Korea the North’s “principal enemy” and abandoned the long-standing goal of peaceful unification. State messaging toward Seoul has grown steadily more hostile since then.
China, North Korea’s closest ally and largest trading partner, did not escape criticism either. Lecturers said China had become “completely capitalist on the inside” and was essentially no different from South Korea. They described it as a system where people pay taxes all their lives and die without ever owning a home.
Against that backdrop, the lecturers promoted socialism as the better path. They pointed to Kim’s Rural Revolution Program for the New Era, which he unveiled at a party plenary meeting in December 2021. Modern homes are going up in villages nationwide under the program, the lecturers said. The state hands them to farming families entirely free of charge, they added.
The program forms part of a wider regional development push that also includes the “20×10” policy. That policy, launched in 2024, calls for building new local factories in 20 counties every year. State media regularly showcase housing completion ceremonies as evidence that living standards are improving outside Pyongyang.
“We must never forget the grace of our socialist system and of the Marshal, who builds homes and gives them to us for free,” the lecturers said, using an honorific title for Kim. “We must not hold even the slightest illusion about capitalism, and we must loyally carry out the party’s regional construction policies.”
The message has landed poorly in Hyesan, where people can see China clearly from across the river. Some Hyesan residents began murmuring among themselves during the lectures, the source said. “What are they talking about, when people in China are living in houses a hundred times better than ours?” one audience member asked.
This article was originally written in Korean and translated with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.
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