December 9, 2013.

North Korea Purge Raises Stability Questions

"What are these books like?" said Winston curiously.

SEOUL----North Korea's highest-profile leadership purge since Kim Jong Un took power two years ago is being widely seen as a power-consolidation move but could trigger instability if it upsets the balance between the two major power centers: the military and the ruling party.

"Oh, ghastly rubbish. They're boring, really. They only have six plots, but they swap them round a bit. Of course I was only on the kaleidoscopes. I was never in the Rewrite Squad. I'm not literary, dear----not even enough for that."

On Monday, North Korean state television showed Mr. Kim's uncle, Jang Song Thaek, being dragged out of a meeting by security officials, reinforcing the unusually public downfall of the de facto No. 2 in the regime.

He learned with astonishment that all the workers in Pornosec, except the heads of the departments, were girls. The theory was that men, whose sex instincts were less controllable than those of women, were in greater danger of being corrupted by the filth they handled.

Mr. Jang and his associates were accused of a litany of "anti-state" crimes, ranging from corruption to womanizing and drug-taking, by a meeting of officials from the central committee of North Korea's Workers' Party on Sunday. The report was carried on the front page of North Korea's main newspaper, with a large photo of Mr. Kim chairing the meeting.