Letter to the Teaching Staff and Students of Mangyongdae Revolutionary School and Kang Pan Sok Revolutionary School on the 65th Anniversary of the Founding of the Schools

Letter to the Teaching Staff and Students of Mangyongdae Revolutionary School and
Kang Pan Sok Revolutionary School on the 65th Anniversary of the Founding of the Schools

October 12, Juche 101 (2012)

KIM JONG UN

Today we are greeting the 65th anniversary of the founding of Mangyongdae Revolutionary School and Kang Pan Sok Revolutionary School.

I warmly congratulate all the teaching staff, students and graduates of the revolutionary schools, who are greeting the 65th anniversary of the founding of the schools amidst the blessing of all the people and service personnel in the first year of the new century of the Juche era in Kim Il Sung’s and Kim Jong Il’s Korea.

Mangyongdae Revolutionary School and Kang Pan Sok Revolutionary School are Kim Il Sung’s and Kim Jong Il’s revolutionary schools that were founded and have developed under the care of the great persons of Mt. Paektu, and bases for training the backbone of the Songun revolution.

Though he had many things to do for the building of a new Korea in the liberated country, Generalissimo Kim Il Sung had a revolutionary school built at the historic Mangyongdae for the sons and daughters of his comrades-in-arms who had died on the road of the revolution.

As he was endowed with noble revolutionary obligation and warm affection for the rising generations, he could make such a bold determination to have the school built in the difficult days immediately after the liberation of the country, when he returned from Mt. Paektu with nothing other than an empty knapsack.

Our people and service personnel will never forget the legendary tales of the affection and benevolence the fatherly leader bestowed on the sons and daughters of revolutionary martyrs from the days when he had the children, who had been wandering about with nobody to support them, located one by one with much effort and provided them with the shelter of a revolutionary school to the last days of his great career.

Kim Jong Suk, the anti-Japanese heroine, was the benevolent mother of the students of the revolutionary school and a great teacher; she took maternal care of them in their living and led the sons and daughters of revolutionary martyrs step by step to bring them up to be the successors to the revolution. The bronze statue of Generalissimo Kim Il Sung at Mangyongdae Revolutionary School built for the first time in our country and the uniform of the school are associated with the indescribable pains she took to bring up its students to be the pillars of the revolution, who cherished loyalty to the leader as their life and soul.

Having implanted in the minds of the students of Mangyongdae Revolutionary School the faith with which to trust and follow only the leader while studying with them, Generalissimo Kim Jong Il spared nothing to build up the school and Kang Pan Sok Revolutionary School as bases for the training of the backbone of our revolution and as comfortable homes of their students. All things at the schools ranging from beds to rich foods for the students, to say nothing of the modern educational apparatuses and rare biological specimens, carry his affection. It was thanks to his benevolent embrace that even in the difficult days, when the whole country was making the “Arduous March,” the revolutionary schools ran without interruption and their students grew, learning and playing to their heart’s content with nothing to envy in the world, to become the pillars of the revolution that would shoulder the future of the country.

Under the wise guidance and meticulous care of the great persons of Mt. Paektu, Mangyongdae Revolutionary School and Kang Pan Sok Revolutionary School have brought up over the past 65 years many people who played the core, pivotal role in the sacred struggle for the defence and prosperity of the country.

As we greet the 65th anniversary of the founding of the revolutionary schools today, I pay the noblest tribute to the great persons of Mt. Paektu, who had the schools built in the difficult and arduous days of building a new country and brought up the sons and daughters of revolutionary martyrs over the past more than half a century to be the pillars of the country so that they would carry forward the lifeline, the bloodline, of the Songun revolution.

In the effort to build a powerful, prosperous Paektusan nation on this land to be reunified true to the wishes of the great generalissimos, Mangyongdae Revolutionary School and Kang Pan Sok Revolutionary School, the “pedigree farms” for training the backbone of the Songun revolution, have an important responsibility and task to perform.

Their basic task today when the revolutionary cause of Juche is at a new, historical turning point, is to train all their students to be the pillars, the backbone, of the Songun revolution, who would stoutly carry forward the lineage of Mangyongdae, the lineage of Paektu.

As rich harvests are expected only when pedigree farms produce fertile seeds, so the People’s Army, the reliable vanguard and solid cornerstone of the Songun revolution, will be consolidated and the country be more prosperous only when the revolutionary schools bring up fine backbone of the Songun revolution in a large number.

By adding lustre to the immortal leadership exploits of the generalissimos associated with the schools and decisively improving education and edification in line with the Party’s intention and the requirements of the developing revolution, the schools should train their students to be the reliable backbone who would stoutly carry forward the lifeline, the bloodline, of our revolution, to be the vanguard fighters who would make breakthroughs in the vanguard of the general onward march for achieving final victory arm in arm and shoulder to shoulder with the Supreme Commander.

In educating and edifying their students, the revolutionary schools should, first of all, intensify ideological education.

It is not that the children of a revolutionary grow up to be revolutionaries simply because they have inherited the lineage of their parent. As the great generalissimos said, man’s blood may be inherited, but not his ideology.

A revolutionary ideology can become an article of faith of a man and the guide in his struggle only through constant ideological education and practical struggle.

The days at the revolutionary schools are a very important period for their students as the framework of their world outlook is set up in these days, so the schools should further intensify ideological education while giving priority to the teaching of politico-ideological subjects.

The revolutionary schools should educate their students so that they would cherish loyalty to the Party and the leader as their life and soul.

To cherish loyalty to the Party and the leader as their life and soul is an obligation and duty for the sons and daughters of revolutionary martyrs. By giving their students constant education in the spirit of continuing the revolution following the footsteps of their parents, the revolutionary schools should ensure that they all put absolute trust in the Party and the leader, staunchly safeguard their high prestige and defend them at the cost of their lives.

The revolutionary schools should firmly equip their students with the tradition of loyalty, the spirit of defending the leader unto death.

The spirit of defending the leader unto death is the most important ideological and spiritual trait for the sons and daughters of revolutionary martyrs.

The history of our revolution which has victoriously advanced through grim trials and hardships is adorned with the brilliant feats the Bodyguard Company, formed with the students of Mangyongdae Revolutionary School, performed in defence of the leader during the Fatherland Liberation War by inheriting the tradition of the Guard Company in the days of the anti-Japanese war.

By efficiently educating their students to learn from the ennobling examples of their revolutionary forerunners in defending the leader unto death, Mangyongdae Revolutionary School and Kang Pan Sok Revolutionary School should ensure that they all become bodyguards of the Songun era who defend the Kumsusan Palace of the Sun and the Party Central Committee unto death whatever they do at whatever posts, being aware that they are the sentinels of the Supreme Headquarters and holding high the banners bearing the beaming images of the great generalissimos Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il.

The revolutionary schools should intensify education through revolutionary relics. Loyalty is given fuller play not through words but in the course of fully understanding the immortal revolutionary history in which the greatness of the Party and the leader is contained in a comprehensive way. The schools should intensify education through the exploits the three commanders of Mt. Paektu performed while leading the work of the schools so that their students can fully understand their greatness and staunchly carry on the revolution.

The schools should educate their students to be stronger in revolutionary faith and more faithful to obligation than anybody else. What is done by dint of faith and obligation is the revolution, and it is thanks to them that the life of revolutionaries shines. Revolutionary faith and obligation are the most ennobling qualities of revolutionaries that they should safeguard at the cost of their lives. By intensifying education in faith and obligation in various forms and by various methods as suited to the psychological features of the students by age, the revolutionary schools should ensure that all of them would absolutely trust and follow only the Party and the leader that have brought them up, and become persons strong in faith and the sense of obligation who will hold fast to the red flag of the revolution, the flag of the glorious Party, even though they have to abandon their lives.

Kim Jong Il’s patriotism is a precious ideological and spiritual sustenance which our Party and people should cherish generation after generation and the most powerful propellant for the prosperity of Juche Korea. The revolutionary schools should effectively conduct education in Kim Jong Il’s patriotism in conformity with their actual conditions so that the students would become true patriots of the Songun era who treasure even a single blade of grass and tree and tend them with care, boundlessly love their country and fellow people, and devote their all to the prosperity of their socialist motherland and happiness of the people.

The spirit of collectivism is an important ideological and spiritual quality for revolutionaries, and socialist morality is an important quality due to those living in a Juche-based socialist society. Mangyongdae Revolutionary School and Kang Pan Sok Revolutionary School should direct efforts to education in collectivism and morality so as to train all their students to be genuine revolutionaries and persons of conscience who think their organization and collective before themselves, who are ready to sacrifice themselves for the organization and collective and who have typified the beautiful moral ethics of the Songun era.

The revolutionary schools should channel efforts to training their students to be revolutionary talents who are possessed of profound scientific and technological knowledge.

Ours is an era which develops by dint of science and technology and when we live by relying on them; it is an era of competition in practical abilities. No matter how excellent their ideological and mental states may be, the students will not be able to discharge their responsibility and role in the future as the leading personnel at the honourable posts of the revolution to be assigned to them by the Party unless they are possessed of rich scientific and technological knowledge.

General Kim Jong Il established a prodigies-training, technological education system in the revolutionary schools and provided them with all conditions for training revolutionary talents possessed of ample scientific and technological knowledge. That commanding personnel of the People’s Army capable of skilfully commanding operations and battles of modern warfare in which cutting-edge science and technology are applied and world-startling inventors in the sphere of military science should be produced from among the graduates from the revolutionary schools was the General’s wish.

The revolutionary schools should intensify education in mathematics and other basic sciences.

Intensifying education in basic sciences is very important in that it gives students a wide range of knowledge about nature and society and lays a firm basis for them to acquire the up-to-date science and cutting-edge technology of specialized spheres.

Education in basic sciences should put the main emphasis on promoting the students’ intellectual faculties to approach the various laws and principles governing matters and phenomena in relation with one another and conceive and invent new things by applying in reality what they have learned.

The revolutionary schools should pay special attention to intensifying computer education.

The present reality in which the scope of computer use is being rapidly expanded in the political, military, economic and all other spheres of social life demands that computer education be further intensified at schools. The students of the revolutionary schools should be able to skilfully work with the computer and make effective use of it if they are to organize and command operations and battles of modern warfare or to play the core role in various fields of society. By increasing the proportion of the subjects related with the computer, the revolutionary schools should help the students to cultivate the ability to skilfully work with the computer and make effective use of applications.

The revolutionary schools should direct efforts to teaching foreign languages so that they can master more than one foreign language and fluently speak in them.

The great General took the benevolent measure of setting up the economics course at Kang Pan Sok Revolutionary School, with a view to preparing its students to be reserve women cadres who could do their full share at the social jobs entrusted to them by the Party after their military service. True to his expectations, the revolutionary school should improve the teaching of the subjects related with economics and thus train all the students to be women revolutionaries of the Songun era and true daughters of the Party who are capable of playing the core role in the effort to build a powerful Paektusan nation.

Mangyongdae Revolutionary School and Kang Pan Sok Revolutionary School should direct great efforts to giving their students basic military knowledge, true to their mission as bases for training reserve officers of the People’s Army.

The  students  of  Mangyongdae  Revolutionary  School  are  reserve  cadres  who  would  be  enrolled  in
Kim Il Sung Military University and other military academies of different levels and become the backbone of the arms and services of the People’s Army, so they should be given systematic education of basic military knowledge such as the general structures of aircraft, tank, vessel and other military hardware, and the principles of their operation.

Kang Pan Sok Revolutionary School should press ahead with the teaching of military subjects and military training, with the main emphasis on teaching its students the methods of commanding and managing the army units and other military knowledge that are applicable during active service, so as to train them to be reserve women officers, steel-strong and soldierly.

Mangyongdae Revolutionary School and Kang Pan Sok Revolutionary School should put stress on art and sports education as well.

Only when they have rich emotions, high cultural attainments and good sporting skills, can the students become efficient workers in the future who are capable of mixing well with the masses and rousing them actively to implementing the Party’s policies, and leading personnel of the Songun era who enjoy respect and trust of the masses.

The revolutionary schools should educate their students to be all-round and versatile by encouraging them to acquire ample knowledge and common senses in different fields including history, geography and literature, learn to play more than one musical instrument and take an active part in sports activities during their school days.

It is important to steadily improve the teaching methods as well as the contents.

Only when they steadily update the teaching methods in keeping with the requirements of the developing reality can the revolutionary schools improve the quality of education and produce competent people required by the Party.

The revolutionary schools should uphold the Party’s policy of bringing about a radical improvement in education in the new century and lead other educational institutions of the country in boldly doing away with the outmoded teaching methods and stereotypes that have long existed in the sector of education and in creating the Juche-oriented teaching methods that suit our actual conditions. They should decisively eliminate dictation, rote-learning and other cramming methods of teaching, and thoroughly apply the advantageous heuristic methods of teaching. They should give precedence to theoretical education, combine visual aids with demonstration in teaching, and encourage the question-and-answer method, discussion and debate, so as to give fullest play to the students’ thinking faculties. And to keep up with the developing reality, they should continuously develop new teaching methods that would enable the students to enhance their intellectual faculties and application abilities, and actively introduce them in teaching.

To speed up the putting of education on an IT and modern footing is one of important ways for improving the quality of education at the revolutionary schools.

The revolutionary schools should renovate the laboratories and practice fields in conformity with the demand of the times, the purpose of their education and the characteristics of the students by age, and ensure that the already-built material and technical foundations of education prove effective.

To effect a fundamental change in the education of the revolutionary schools, it is necessary to enhance the sense of responsibility and role of their teaching staff.

The teaching staff should devote their all to performing their revolutionary duties with the unique pride and dignity of bringing up the sons and daughters of the Supreme Commander, the pillars of Songun Korea. They should become fertilizers that foster immaculate and sound fruits in the excellent gardens of Mangyongdae Revolutionary School and Kang Pan Sok Revolutionary School.

Teachers are in direct charge of educational work. They should devote all their wisdom and enthusiasm to teaching, the major revolutionary task they are assigned to.

They should work out teaching plans, putting special emphasis to thoroughly ensuring the political and ideological character, scientific accuracy and applicability of the contents of education, and pay close attention to conducting all forms of education, like lesson, extracurricular teaching and seminar, in conformity with the levels of students and their psychological features by age. They should try hard to give students lessons and guide their reviewing in a plain way and in combination with everyday life as suited to their psychology.

The revolutionary schools should strengthen educational administration, so as to formulate the teaching programmes based on the requirements of the Party’s policy and the theses on socialist education and in line with the trend of the developing science and technology and the present realities of our country, and correctly implement them.

To transform the teachers on a revolutionary pattern and raise their qualifications is of great importance in improving the education and edification at the schools and training the students to be ardent revolutionaries and competent personnel. In order to train the students to be revolutionaries of the Juche type who would faithfully support the Party and the leader with revolutionary faith and obligation, teachers, before anybody else, should become genuine revolutionaries perfect in the moral aspect as well.

Teachers of the revolutionary schools ought to be far superior in revolutionary and political preparedness to those of other educational institutions. They should endeavour to transform themselves on a revolutionary pattern through organizational life, studying and practice, thus becoming models for educational workers throughout the country.

They should not only be well versed in their major fields of study but acquire a greater wealth of knowledge of the cutting-edge science and technology and high qualifications for applying the knowledge to practical teaching in accordance with the students’ levels. By so doing, they should be capable of teaching the students everything they want to know; in other words, they should become “our well-informed teachers,” “walking dictionaries.” They should study and study without wasting time so as to constantly raise their scientific and theoretical standards and educational qualifications.

Only the traits displayed by the anti-Japanese guerrilla army in the forests of Paektu should prevail in the revolutionary schools. The schools should renovate their looks and establish steel-strong military ethos by establishing the way of living of the anti-Japanese guerrillas.

The revolutionary schools should not indulge their students on the plea that they are precious, but make exact demands upon them in order to train their body and soul through their daily routine. By so doing, they should make sure that the students acquire the soldier temperament from their childhood.

It is the duty and noble obligation of the teaching staff of the schools to take loving care of the students whom Generalissimo Kim Jong Il treasured and cared for so much.

By taking care of the students’ life with parental affection, they should ensure that the students regard the schools as their homes dear to their hearts. Before being educators, they should be their parents.

They should devote kinsfolk affection to the students so that they would not feel an iota of mental gloom, and always look after them so that they would not feel the slightest inconvenience in their life. In this way, they should see to it that the students always lead a merry life in good health without feeling homesick. They should make strenuous efforts to organize their daily life in a diversified manner as suited to the psychology of the students who are away from their homes and to prepare various kinds of dishes according to their tastes.

Officials and teaching staff of the schools should ensure that the Party’s affection and solicitude for the students reach them in time and as they are. Only those who always rack their brains and run until their shoes are worn out to convey to them our Party’s affection for them as it is are entitled to work at the revolutionary schools.

With a high sense of duty and responsibility that they bring up the sons and daughters of the Supreme Commander, officials and teaching staff of the revolutionary schools should look after their life in my place, so that they would sing before they know it that our home is the Party’s bosom, we are all blood brothers and sisters and we are the happiest in the world.

The students of Mangyongdae Revolutionary School and Kang Pan Sok Revolutionary School are all sons and daughters of the Workers’ Party of Korea who are of the same blood with the Party and my sons and daughters as well.

Bearing deep in mind the great generalissimos’ trust and benevolence that are higher than the sky and deeper than the sea, the students should make redoubled efforts to prepare themselves to be strong pillars of Songun Korea.

Although they wear revolutionary school graduation badges on their chests, they cannot become leading personnel of the revolution as required by the Party, if they fail to prepare themselves politically and ideologically and possess practical abilities. The students should voluntarily and faithfully participate in the organizational life and routine activities to cultivate a high degree of revolutionary spirit and sense of organization, strong militant spirit and sense of discipline, and thus become model students who are good at sports and the arts and well-mannered.

They should study hard, saving time and holding aloft the slogan “Let us learn for Korea!” Generalissimo Kim Jong Il set forth in his days at Mangyongdae Revolutionary School, so as to prepare themselves to be competent revolutionary personnel who would take a big share in the struggle to translate the intentions of the generalissimos into practice.

The whole Party, the whole country and the entire army should render substantial assistance to Mangyongdae Revolutionary School and Kang Pan Sok Revolutionary School.

Senior officials of the Party, the state and the army should frequently visit the schools and solve knotty problems in a responsible way. Officials who are indifferent to the affairs of the revolutionary schools can be said to be paying no heed to the future of the revolution.

Nationwide efforts should be directed to better furnishing the revolutionary schools so as to make them model units for the whole country. We have nothing to spare for the good of the students of the revolutionary schools who are priceless treasures of our revolution, whom the great persons of Mt. Paektu valued and loved most, and who are the comrades-in-arms of the Supreme Commander who will share life and death with me on the road of the Songun revolution. The revolutionary schools should be fully equipped with up-to-date educational facilities, including computers, TV sets, electronic boards and media players and provided with textbooks and school things on a preferential basis. The schools should be furnished with perfect educational facilities and the problems arising in their operation settled timely, so that their educational conditions and environment can reach the highest level in the world. Sporting apparatuses, musical instruments and all other things necessary for the cultural and emotional life of the students should be fully provided to the schools.

Close  attention   should   be  paid  to  making  the  supply  service  system  established  by  Generalissimo
Kim Jong Il fully pay off. The units assigned to provide the revolutionary schools with supplies should further enhance their sense of responsibility.

Only a teacher, who is politically and ideologically prepared and practically qualified, can bring up excellent personnel. State measures should be taken to assign excellent graduates of such prestigious and authoritative universities as Kim Il Sung University to the revolutionary schools on a preferential basis.

To further increase the militant functions and role of the Party organizations at the schools is an important guarantee for improving the work of the schools.

The Party organizations should constantly intensify the work to firmly establish the command system of the Supreme Commander in the schools, regarding it as the major line of their work, and thus ensure that all the teaching staff and students always breathe the same air with the Party and are boundlessly faithful to the Party’s ideas and leadership. They should conduct the Party’s political work in a fresh way by closely combining it with the educational work and provide substantial guidance to the organizational and ideological life of the teaching staff and students.

Our Party entertains great trust in and expectation from the graduates of Mangyongdae Revolutionary School and Kang Pan Sok Revolutionary School.

The graduates should become the hard core and play the role of pioneer in staunchly carrying forward the lineage of Mangyongdae, the lineage of Paektu, as befit the sons and daughters of Mangyongdae, the sons and daughters of Mt. Paektu, who grew up under the care of the three commanders of Mt. Paektu.

They should, anytime and anywhere, know nobody except the Party and the leader that embraced them and brought them up to be revolutionaries, and by firmly establishing the revolutionary outlook on the leader and inheriting the precious traditions of defending the leader unto death, they should become faithful bodyguards, who defend the Party and the leader politically and ideologically and with their very lives under any circumstances.

They should display boundless devotion and self-sacrificing spirit in implementing the instructions of the great generalissimos and the Party’s policies and possess a high degree of Party spirit and revolutionary spirit and a strong sense of organization and discipline of doing anything as intended by the Party.

They should play the core role in supporting the Party’s Songun-based revolutionary leadership by firmly keeping to their posts.

The posts of the graduates from the revolutionary schools are all important revolutionary posts the Party entrusted to them with belief in them and posts indispensable for upholding the Party’s ideas and leadership.

Wherever they work and whatever they do, they should not weigh the importance of their posts and duties, but perform their assignments with a sense of responsibility and with sincerity; they should work fresh miracles and feats, leading the masses in the vanguard of the charge in response to the call of the Party. Particularly those, who are serving with the army with the military uniform of the revolution on, should bear in mind that the Supreme Commander has put the final signature on the operations plan for accomplishing the great cause of national reunification and fully prepare their units and sub-units for combat.

The graduates from the revolutionary schools should always share sweets and bitters with the masses, devotedly serve their country and fellow people, refrain from expecting any special favours, always be modest and lead a frugal life.

They should cultivate themselves without interruption and temper themselves in a revolutionary way.

As no one can be a perfect revolutionary, there is no end to revolutionary self-improvement and training. Although they work at important posts after graduation from the revolutionary schools and universities, they cannot carry on the lineage and spirit of the revolutionary forerunners and add lustre to their lives, if they fail to improve and train themselves continuously.

They should study the works of President Kim Il Sung and General Kim Jong Il and Party’s policies more deeply than anybody else to make them part of their firm faith, sincerely participate in the organizational activities and constantly train themselves in the revolutionary practice.

They should pay special attention to the edification of their children so that they would not forget their origin but stoutly carry on the revolution.

Party organizations at all levels should effectively help the graduates from the revolutionary schools so that they would be exemplary and play the core role in all aspects as befit the sons and daughters of the Party, who grew up on the water and air of Mangyongdae and with the spirit of Mangyongdae, and give prominence to them.

True to the noble will of the great generalissimos, the eternal fathers of the sons and daughters of revolutionary martyrs, our Party will take responsible care of their destiny to the end. The future of the sons and daughters of revolutionary martyrs is bright and promising, and the final victory is sure to be won because the dependable successors to the Songun revolution are staunchly carrying forward the lineage of Mangyongdae, the lineage of Paektu.

I firmly believe that Mangyongdae Revolutionary School and Kang Pan Sok Revolutionary School, in line with the ideas and intention of the Party, will bring up the sons and daughters of Mangyongdae into the dependable backbone who could undertake the affairs of the Party, the state and the army, and that all the sons and daughters of revolutionary martyrs will become vanguard fighters who support the Songun-based leadership of the Party.