Editor's Note: (Michael Madden is a frequent contributor to 38 North, Visiting Scholar at the U.S. Korea Institute at the Paul H. Nitze School for Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University and editor of NK Leadership Watch.)
(CNN) North Korea has announced the opening date of the ruling Workers' Party of Korea's Seventh Congress, a rare and potentially significant gathering.
The party hasn't held one since 1980, and that one peaked with the announcement that Kim Jong Il, the father of the country's current leader, would succeed Kim Il Sung, the regime's founder, as leader. He eventually took power in 1994, when the elder Kim passed away.
What's behind the announcement, and why does this event matter?
What is the party congress?
According to the party's own bylaws, the party congress is "the party's supreme organ" which means this political gathering is the highest authority of the most powerful institution in North Korea.
The ruling Workers' Party of Korea, or WPK, dominates everything in North Korea. It controls the government and military, along with much of North Korean society.
Party officials decide where you go to school, what job you have or whether you can trade in the growing private sector.
The congress opens May 6.
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Why now?
The primary reason for the party congress is to consolidate and institutionalize Kim Jong Un's power in the regime.
Since he took power over four years ago there have been many officials removed from office or rumored to have been executed, most recently Ri Yong Gil, chief of the North Korean Army's general staff.
So, the congress is an opportunity for Kim to press a reset button on North Korean political culture.
Party leaders made the decision to hold the congress last fall, well aware that they would conduct a fourth nuclear test and another rocket launch -- also aware of the international condemnation these actions would draw.
These proclaimed accomplishments have rallied support for the regime and create the ideal conditions for the party congress.
It is also no accident that they're having this major political meeting before U.S. presidential elections in November and the South Korean presidential elections in 2017.
Unseen in Pyongyang
London-based amateur photographer Michal Huniewicz recently visited North Korea as a tourist. He snapped dozens of images during his trip -- some permitted, others not. Huniewicz took this photo from the window of a train as he pulled into Pyongyang from Dandong. "It looked like something you would see in a theater," he says. "It's a bit too perfect."
Huniewicz says this is just one of two photos in which he was able to capture a candid smile from local residents.
North Koreans head down to the Pyongyang Metro. It's 100 meters underground thus riding the escalator down to the station takes a couple of minutes.
"Who's American here?" the museum guide asks. "Grab the flowers, go to the monument, bow, and lay the flowers there." Huniewicz says North Koreans told him they single-handedly defeated the U.S. in the Korean War.
A woman sells postcards, stamps and posters, many featuring themes focused on defeating the U.S. and destroying the White House. Huniewicz says he did send one such postcard from North Korea to the U.S. and it arrived with no problems.
These settlements, captured from a speeding van, appear to be slums outside of Pyongyang, according to Huniewicz. He speculates that the tourist transport vans slow down when passing what the authorities are proud of showing and speed past less desirable sights.
This may look like an ordinary scene in any country, Huniewicz explains, but in North Korea, he feels it challenges a local song about no mother's love being greater than that of the Communist Party.
Riding the Pyongyang Metro. The underground network has two lines and 17 stations.
This scene was captured during a dance held to commemorate the 70th anniversary of Liberation from Japan at Pyongyang's Kim Il-sung Square.
Women in traditional Korean dress head to the dance. Though much of North Korea is without electricity, the portraits of the supreme leaders are illuminated brightly.
The Pyongyang circus, Huniewicz says, is genuinely impressive.
Huniewicz makes it clear that all his pictures show North Korea through his eyes.
Huniewicz doesn't think his pictures capture anything highly controversial.
North Korea's apartments remind Huniewicz of the ones he saw in Eastern Europe, the photographer tells CNN.
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What happens at the party congress?
The party congress focuses on two things: the WPK Charter and electing the party's power organizations.
The first order of business will be amending the charter, which is road map as to how the WPK relates to North Korea's population, government and society, how it views the world, and how it, as a political party, is organized and does business.
The congress will almost certainly elect its leading official, Kim Jong Un, and will then then elect members of the Central Committee, the party's leading collective authority.
The Central Committee will then meet on the sidelines of the party congress and elect people to the WPK's power organizations such as the Political Bureau and Central Military Commission. All these activities will be punctuated by reports and speeches.
Who is the woman behind North Korea's news?
Why is it important?
This will be the first party congress in over 35 years.
If North Korea wants to effect major changes, this is the forum in which to do it. However, this is unlikely to happen.
The congress will yield some clues and telltale signs about Kim Jong Un's goals for the country over the next five to 10 years.
There won't necessarily be any forthcoming substantive policy document, but during the congress' proceedings there will be some sense of how Kim wants to manage domestic policy and how North Korea will conducts its relations with foreign countries.
We are likely going to see some statements or rhetoric celebrating North Korea's rocket launches and its nuclear weapons program, as well as affirmation that it will continue research and development in these fields.
We will also see who will be holding senior political posts during the next few years, which will tell us who's in favor with Kim, who's retired and who's been cast off. Part of this might include a generational change, at least in midlevel WPK posts.
North Korea's verbal volleys
North Korea has a history of using creative language to express loathing for its enemies. Here are some of the regime's more colorful threats against the West.
March 2016: North Korea warned it would make a "preemptive and offensive nuclear strike" in response to
joint U.S.-South Korean military exercises. Pyongyang issued a long statement promising that "time will prove how the crime-woven history of the U.S. imperialists who have grown corpulent through aggression and war will come to an end and how the Park Geun Hye group's disgraceful remaining days will meet a miserable doom as it is keen on the confrontation with the fellow countrymen in the north."
March 2016: Following the imposition of strict U.N. sanctions, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said the country's "nuclear warheads need to be ready for use at any time," the North Korean state news agency KCNA reported.
January 2016: North Korea claimed to have successfully tested a thermonuclear weapon, justifying its right to have an H-bomb on the grounds of "self defense."
September 2015: In a statement, North Korea said its nuclear arsenal was ready for use "at any time."
August 2015: As forces from the U.S. and South Korea took part in joint military drills. North Korea's state media referred to the exercises, which started on August 17, as "madcap" and issued a stern warning to America: "If the U.S. ignites a war in the end, far from drawing a lesson taught by its bitter defeat in the history, the DPRK will bring an irrevocable disaster and disgrace to it."
August 2015: On August 23, as North Korean negotiators were meeting with their South Korean counterparts over current tensions, a KCTV presenter appeared on air repeating North Korea's ambitions to "destroy the warmongering South Korean puppet military."
December 2014: The
FBI said it suspected North Korea was behind a hack of Sony Entertainment, which led executives to initially cancel the theatrical release of "The Interview." The film was a comedy about an American television personality who the CIA asks to assassinate North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
North Korea threatened "merciless" action against the U.S. if the film was released, accusing the U.S. of retaliating for the hack by shutting down North Korea's Internet access. North Korea's National Defense Commission
also called U.S. President Barack Obama "reckless" and a "monkey."
July 2014: North Korea threatens to hit the White House and Pentagon with nuclear weapons. American "imperialists threaten our sovereignty and survival," North Korean officials reportedly said after the country accused the U.S. of increasing hostilities on the border with South Korea. "Our troops will fire our nuclear-armed rockets at the White House and the Pentagon -- the sources of all evil," North Korean Gen. Hwang Pyong-So said,
according to The Telegraph.
March 2013: Angered by tougher U.N. sanctions and joint military exercises by the United States and South Korea, the
Supreme Command of North Korea's military vowed to put "on highest alert" the country's "rocket units" that are assigned to strike "U.S. imperialist aggressor troops in the U.S. mainland and on Hawaii and Guam and other operational zone in the Pacific." Whether Pyongyang has the will to back up such doomsday talk is a perplexing question,
but there is evidence that its know-how -- in terms of uranium enrichment, nuclear testing and missile technology -- is progressing.
February 2013: In a message to the United States and South Korea,
North Korea vowed "miserable destruction" if "your side ignites a war of aggression by staging reckless joint military exercises."
June 2012: Once again, North Korea
vowed to be "merciless" in its promised attack on the United States, this time threatening a "sacred war" as it aimed artillery at South Korean media groups. North Korea
was mad that South Korean journalists had criticized Pyongyang children's festivals meant to foster allegiance to the Kim family.
April 2012: North Korea's state-run news agency
reported that "the moment of explosion is approaching fast" and promised "merciless" strikes against the United States. "The U.S. had better ponder over the prevailing grave situation," it said. Later that month, Pyongyang
launched a long-range rocket that broke apart and fell into the sea. The launch came during preparations for a grand party that celebrated the 100th anniversary of the birth of Kim Il Sung, the founder of North Korea.
November 2011: North Korea's
military threatened to turn the capital of South Korea into a "sea of fire," according to South Korea's Yonhap News Agency.
2009: After the U.S. pledge to give nuclear defense to South Korea,
Pyongyang threatened a "fire shower of nuclear retaliation."
2002: U.S. President George W. Bush includes North Korea in an "axis of evil" with Iran and Iraq, which North Korea brushes off as a "little short of a declaration of war." North Korea reportedly
threatened to "wipe out the aggressors." That year, North Korea also threatened to
kick out international inspectors who were in the country to monitor its compliance with global nuclear nonproliferation agreements.
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Who's attending?
Attending this event will be functionaries, government officials, soldiers, police officers, factory workers and farmers who were elected by their local party organizations to attend.
There will be senior North Korean officials -- and one clue of who's kept their job and is still in favor will be who is sitting on the rostrum during the congress.
There is also the possibility that foreign delegations will attend.
Will North Korea conduct further nuclear or rocket tests before May 6?
The North Koreans enjoy keeping observers guessing.
There is a chance of a fifth nuclear test, a missile test or a large-scale live-fire military exercise.
It would be totally characteristic of Kim Jong Un's North Korea to begin a major political gathering with a bang.