North Korean leader Kim Jong Un ordered party officials to wrest control of the population and told workers to improve their “communist faith” to achieve a utopian society, according to a letter released in state media Thursday.

The letter was apparently read aloud at the Eighth Congress of the General Federation of Trade Unions of Korea (GFTUK), held from May 25-26 in Pyongyang. Kim Jong Un did not attend the event.

He reportedly wrote that North Korea faces the “worst-ever difficulties” where “everything is lacking,” but that the trade unions under the ruling party should