The Worker’s Party Headquarters

The former North Korean Workers' Party Headquarters in Cheorwon, South Korea (February 2025).

An infamous place, whose ruins are still the absolute embodiment of evil for many.

Located north of the 38th parallel, the city of Cheorwon was part of North Korea between 1945 and its capture by the United Nations Force during the Korean War. Due to the lack of reliable witnesses in a town where the population had been decimated or had fled, the history of the local branch of the communist Workers' Party of North Korea (which later became the Workers' Party of Korea and is still in power in the North) will remain forever unclear and shrouded in mystery.

Many of the terrifying allegations surrounding this place, such as the supposed presence of mass graves all around, are probably the result of the anti-communist propaganda spread for decades in the South and human superstition. But the fact remains that the place was the scene of proven atrocities and, more than 70 years on, still breathes a stench of terror and death. Even after Cheorwon was retaken, South Korean and American soldiers tended to open fire on the facade of the long-disused building every time they passed it, as if to exorcise all the horrors and suffering of the war.

Part of the ‘Iron Triangle’, an area of prime strategic importance due to its central position on the Korean Peninsula and its vital roads and railways, Cheorwon was the scene of some of the heavyest fighting of the war and changed hands many times. The town was virtually razed to the ground and deserted by its civilian population. In 1952, the WPHQ was hit by shelling and it’s roof and third floor collapsed. The structure of the building remained standing, however, and by the end of the war in 1953 it was the last vestige of what had been Cheorwon. Meanwhile, most of the people who knew what had really happened there had disappeared.

We know that the three-storey building was constructed in 1946. Its architecture is regarded as an example of Korean-style socialist realism, an adaptation of its Soviet equivalent. It is said that many Cheorwon residents were forced to finance the work or take a direct part in it, although many other sources claim that it was erected for free by zealous communist volunteers. Another theory is that the population was forced to build the structure of the building, while Communist volunteers were only responsible for the top-secret interior fittings.

Shrapnel and bullet holes have curiously created a shape resembling a helmeted soldier on one of the walls of the Workers' Party Headquarters (February 2025).

The WPHQ handled tasks focusing on regime propaganda and surveillance. It may have been a place for political rallies and communist education.

But it was also a secret space, with soundproof walls and interrogation rooms, that served as a prison for detained activists, many who were tortured and killed. It was so notorious that people used to say, “Whoever who goes in there never comes out intact.”

Suspected anti-communists were executed inside the WPHQ prior to the North Korean withdrawal from Cheorwon. The discovery of numerous human bones in the building during the takeover of the town by the United Nations force gave it a permanent reputation as a creepy and terrifying place. And for decades, the WPHQ was publicized as a site of North Korean brutality by the South’s anti-communist narrative.

After the 1953 armistice, the remaining structure found itself trapped into the Civilian Control Zone, where it sat abandoned for several decades. In the 1990s, the Civilian Control Line was moved further north, and the ruins of the building, riddled with bullet holes and shrapnel, became accessible to visitors and a popular stop-off point for ‘dark tourism’ tours around the border.

The WPHQ is another example of how South Koreans try to alleviate through culture the pain of the scar cutting their nation in two.

For instance, in 2015, “The Temple of Light”, designed by South Korean artist Bae Young-Whan and contemplating the meaning of peace, coexistence and harmony through a space surrounded by disappearing letters, was installed for a year in front of the WPHQ.

Long before that, in August 1994, the hugely popular - and unruly - alternative rock band Seotaiji and Boys chose the WPHQ as the backdrop and stage for the music video of their song Dreaming of Bal Hae (발해를 꿈꾸며, Bal Hae-reul ggumggumyeo) which expressed hope for the peaceful unification of Korea. In June the same year, the esplanade in front of the ruins had hosted the Open Concert, a pop music show broadcast by KBS, the South Korean national television, marking the very first time that a major cultural event had been held within the Civilian Control Zone.

For further information:

A Place of Memory: The Ruins of the Korean Workers’ Party Headquarters, Cheorwon (Korea Journal, 2023).