Ideologically ruined

They're tightening up the North Korean border with China:

As Daily NK has been reporting in detail of late, there've been wide-ranging investigations in border areas since the beginning of the year by a regime seeking to thwart smuggling and defection alike. Now, in the latest phase of the battle between state security and ordinary citizens, an order has been handed down calling for harsh punishments for border patrol guards and others who smuggle illegal video recordings into the country.

A source from Yangkang Province told Daily NK on the 28^th, “There was this lecture about how ‘illegal recordings trying to criticize and slander our society are entering the Republic’ and so ‘persons dealing in such illegal recordings should face severe punishment.’ Recently there’ve been widespread investigations going on and now there are these threats about illegal recordings. They're making people who live off smuggling really worried.”

According to the source, the lecturer went on to explain, “Those who want to see the undermining of socialism in our style have been seduced by fancy things and black money (from South Korean intelligence). They’re ideologically ruined, and so fall into intelligence traps all by themselves. People who are not ideologically armed can be bought.’”

Unfortunately for the authorities, it's a hopeless battle. Ideological ruin is seeping in all around, and there's very little they can do about it.

“People who can’t even smuggle to survive any more are pretty annoyed. They point out that if they actually got rations or wages then they wouldn’t keep dealing with all the surveillance in such cold weather just to smuggle stuff. They reckon that if the authorities dealt with livelihood problems before they started telling people what they must not do then even if they ordered people to smuggle they wouldn’t do it.”

In conclusion, the source stated, “The authorities are trying to block off ideological changes by stopping information coming in and emphasizing ideological conditioning for the system itself. But in the end all that stepping up civilian controls like this will do is make people more annoyed at the system."