North Korea's First Party Congress Since 1980: First-Hand Account of the Surreal Spectacle

It's a showpiece event for this regime -- and a strange one.

ByABC News
May 6, 2016, 2:25 PM

PYONGYANG, North Korea -- For the first time in a generation, North Korea's ruling Workers Party gathered today to hail its leader and plot a course for this intensely isolated country's future.

It's a showpiece event for this regime. And a strange one.

This morning, thousands of delegates from across North Korea gathered in the giant "April 25th House of Culture."

We joined more than a hundred foreign reporters invited here to cover the party congress -- the first since 1980.

As startled locals looked on, the press corps trooped down the long avenue leading to the grand April 25th hall -- and stopped across the street from the hall where the party congress had just begun.

We waited to cross that street. And waited. Our ever-present minders from the North Korean government said nothing to us. We waited some more. Rain fell.

PHOTO: ABC News correspondent Terry Moran travels North Korea.
ABC News correspondent Terry Moran travels North Korea.

An hour passed. And then, instead of crossing the street, we were directed back to our buses, and returned to the hotel.

We did not find out what was actually happening inside the party congress until the local 10 p.m. news, which was delivered by an anchor who seemed almost unable to hold back her tears as she delivered her report.

The highlight: Kim Jong-Un, the young, portly Supreme Leader who represents the third generation of his family to rule with an iron fist over this nation, had arrived in the grand hall to frenzied applause.

The scene that the news program showed on the nation's television screens was breathtaking -- in a Stalinist sort of way.

PHOTO: Delegates applaud during the congress in Pyongyang, North Korea, May 6, 2016.
Delegates applaud during the congress in Pyongyang, North Korea, May 6, 2016.

Thousands of delegates roared in wave after wave of coordinated enthusiasm. The camera cut from one perfect vista of unified worship in the cavernous auditorium to another, a field of hands banging together in applause for minutes on end.

It's unlike anything else in the post-Cold War world.

And at the front, Kim Jong-Un took it all in. He spoke at length, boasting of North Korea's growing nuclear prowess.

In January, North Korea conducted its fourth test of a nuclear weapon. And it is working hard to develop ballistic missiles capable of striking much of the continental United States.

"Unprecedented results have been accomplished," Kim declared. More frenzied applause.

PHOTO: North Korean leader Kim Jong Un addresses the congress in Pyongyang, North Korea, May 6, 2016.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un addresses the congress in Pyongyang, North Korea, May 6, 2016.

This party congress is dominating life in Pyongyang right now.

The city has been groomed and festooned with propaganda in anticipation of this meeting. There's new paint on the buildings that line major avenues (though a block behind them, all is grey). The streets have been immaculately swept -- not a speck of litter anywhere.

And everyone we meet tells us how proud and thrilled they are about their congress and their supreme leader.

The young Kim Jong-Un -- his exact age is not publicly known, but outside analysts estimate he was born in 1983 or 1984 -- is trying to make his own mark on this country.

His plan: Make North Korea's nuclear deterrent irreversible. And at the same time, develop the economy here, broken by years of mismanagement and damaged by a decade of United Nations sanctions.

So, to emphasize the economic message, the corps of foreign reporters were taken in the afternoon to a wire factory. There may be no other wire factory like it in the world.

The machinery is ordinary enough -- much of it looking like it dated from the 1950s, when the plant was built.

But this is the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. A worker's paradise. And the regime uses this place to show how happy workers are here.

There's a perfectly groomed soccer field outside the entrance, and when we arrived, a few workers were doing one-on-two drills.

Adjacent to the factory is a "Worker's Health Center." Here we saw men's and women's hair salons -- one customer obligingly getting coiffed at each shop.

At the libraries, one worker obligingly at each desk. At swimming pools, adults obligingly doing laps in each of the lanes, little children obligingly squealing with delight in the kiddie pool. And in an incredible, room-sized sauna, a few workers obligingly lounged and played cards.

All while our cameras rolled.

When North Korea wants to get a message out, it doesn't scrimp on the props.

In the coming days, there will be more speeches, torchlight parades, military displays, and, some observers speculate, another nuclear test.