Editing Workers' Party of Korea (section)

==History==
It was founded in 1949 with the merger of the Workers' Party of North Korea and the Workers' Party of South Korea. The WPK also controls the Korean People's Army. This political party (and all of the other parties in the DPRK) remains illegal in South Korea under South Korea's own National Security Act and is sanctioned by Australia, the European Union, the United Nations, and the United States.

North Korea invaded South Korea on 25 June 1950—and thus began the [[Korean War]]. With American intervention in the war, the DPRK nearly collapsed, but it was saved by Chinese intervention in the conflict. The war had the effect of weakening Soviet influence over Kim Il-sung and the WPK. 

Relations worsened between the WPK and the [[Communist Party of the Soviet Union]] (CPSU) when [[Joseph Stalin|Stalin]]'s successor, [[Nikita Khrushchev]], began pursuing a policy of de-Stalinization. During the Sino–Soviet conflict, an ideological conflict between the CPSU and the [[Communist Party of China]] (CPC), Kim Il-sung maneuvered between the two socialist superpowers; by doing so, he weakened their influence on the WPK.