KIM IL SUNG
ON THE KOREAN PEOPLE’S
STRUGGLE TO
APPLY THE JUCHE
IDEA
Talks to the Delegation
of the American Popular
Revolutionary Alliance of Peru
June 30 and July 1 and
5, 1983
I would like to give a
warm welcome to the delegation of the American Popular Revolutionary Alliance of
Peru on a visit to our country.
Allow me to express my
gratitude to you for taking the trouble to cover a long distance to visit our
country.
We are meeting you today
for the first time, but we feel as if we were meeting old friends for our
similar political views and attitudes that are long
standing.
I am very happy to meet
you, Comrade General Secretary Alan, and other leading cadres of your Party like
this and avail myself of this opportunity to acquaint myself with you and
establish favourable relations of friendship between
our two Parties.
This meeting of ours
will be an important occasion in promoting the relationship between our two
Parties favourably and increasing intimacy between the
leaders of our two Parties.
Let me reiterate a warm
welcome to your visit to our country on behalf of our Party Central Committee,
the entire Korean people and on my own.
I am grateful to you,
Comrade General Secretary Alan, for having said so many kind words for
us.
Comrade General
Secretary, you said that the masses of the people are the masters of their
destiny and makers of history and, therefore, it is none other than the
Latin-American people who are the masters of the struggle to achieve the
liberation and independence of Latin America
and also the masters of the struggle for the unity of this continent. I
consider that such view and conviction of yours are excellent. I fully support
your viewpoint.
The masses of the people
are the masters of their destiny and makers of history. History is made and
society develops through the role played by the masses. They can prevail over
any imperialism and build a new society to meet their aspirations and demands in
any adversity.
From the very first days
of the revolution to this date we have always relied firmly on the strength of
the masses in our struggle, strongly convinced that if we depend on them in our
activities, we can solve any problems arising in the revolution and
construction.
We relied on the
strength of the masses in our armed struggle against Japanese imperialism in the
past; we relied on it in repulsing the US imperialist invasion of our
Republic after liberation; we relied on it in postwar reconstruction. During the
Fatherland Liberation War, American imperialists reduced our country to ashes.
After the war they clamoured that Korea would not
be able to rise again even in 100 years. However, we grappled with postwar
reconstruction, convinced that we would rise again even on the ashes as long as
we had territory, the people, the people’s government and. the Party leading
the people. Despite the US imperialist clamours, our country completely healed its war wounds only
in a few years, and in less than 20 years after the war it rose up as a mighty
socialist power. It is thanks to the great strength of the people that our
country rose so quickly on the ruins left over by the war.
If the masses bring
their creative ability and wisdom into full play, deeply conscious that they are
the masters of the revolution and construction, there is nothing impossible for
them to do. This is a priceless truth we obtained while guiding the
revolutionary struggle and the work of construction.
If you insist on me
letting you know our humble experience, I will do so.
I am hugely delighted to
meet such wonderful comrades-in-arms as you who have common views and ideas with
us.
I would like to offer my
warm thanks to you, comrade head of the delegation, and other guests for
expressing wholehearted agreement to the Juche idea and actively supporting our
people’s struggle for the triumph of this idea.
Comrade head of the
delegation, you have just now pointed out that one cannot develop one’s country
independently if one depends upon imperialists and capitalists. You have grasped
a highly important matter.
At present the rulers of
some countries are so affected by flunkey-ism and fear of technology that they
do not believe in the strength of their peoples, the strength of their nations,
but pin hopes only on developed countries. They cannot build independent new
societies that way.
A few years ago a
delegation from a certain Asian country visited our country. I met them after
they had visited a number of places in our country. The head of the delegation
said that in his country even tiny factories were run by foreigners, but here in
Korea all the factories, great or
small, were run by the Koreans themselves; and he added that this was quite
mysterious. So I told him to the following effect: The Asian people are talented
and diligent by nature; still today the handicrafts made by Asians are much
better than those made by Europeans, which shows the excellent ability of the
Asian people; Asians became backward in recent centuries because they failed to
carry out the industrial revolution; in the past the feudal systems which had
suppressed social progress were so strong in Asian countries that they failed to
carry out the industrial revolution while European countries were making it; if
the Asians are to catch up with the countries which have already carried it out,
they must first discard the tendency to rely on others, instead of believing in
their own strength and the strength of their nations.
If one draws on one’s
people’s strength properly, one can do anything without the help of
others.
In our country we made
even electric locomotives on our own by means of drawing on the strength of the
people. When we were going to make our first electric locomotive, a European
ambassador to our country claimed that Korea would not be able to make it,
and suggested that we had better buy the electric locomotives produced by his
country. But we decided to make them by our own efforts. At the time I assigned
young technicians with the task of designing an electric locomotive and
encouraged them and solved all problems they raised. Finally we succeeded in
producing electric locomotives on our own. In our country the electrification of
the railways was stepped up in a big way by using the electric locomotives of
our own make.
We constructed all
modernistic buildings such as this Kumsusan Assembly
Hall by our own efforts by enlisting the strength of the people. At present our
people’s architectural skill is very high. They developed it while building many
things anew on the debris after the war.
Our experience shows
that if one is to develop one’s country by one’s own efforts without relying on
others, one must fast train many native cadres.
Immediately after
liberation our country was very short of its own cadres as a consequence of
Japanese imperialist colonial rule. There were only dozens of university
graduates, and most of them had specialized in law or literature; there were
few who had graduated from technological colleges. The Japanese had not imparted
techniques to the Koreans. As a consequence, there were few people who were
capable of managing and operating industry after
liberation.
We proposed the training
of our own cadres as a top priority task in the construction of a new society
and exerted great efforts for this task.
In an endeavour to train our own cadres we set up a university
before anything else in the teeth of every hardship. When we were trying to do
this immediately following liberation, some people asked how we could build a
university without any asset. We did not waver in the least, however. We brought
in teachers and intellectuals from all over the country, some of the
intellectuals even from the southern half of Korea.
Meanwhile, our peasants had done their first farming on the land distributed to
them and donated some of the rice to the state, which we used as funds to erect
the buildings of the Mangyongdae Revolutionary School
and the university. This Mangyongdae Revolutionary School is an institution to give education
to the sons and daughters of the comrades who died while carrying out
revolutionary activities with us.
After the establishment
of the university we opened several more universities. Even during the
Fatherland Liberation War when the country was hard pressed, we carried on the
training of Korean cadres.
Thanks to our Party’s
correct educational policy, our country has more than 180 institutes of higher
learning today although there was none before; the number of technicians and
specialists has now grown into 1,200,000, whereas there were only dozens of them
right after liberation.
Intellectuals play an
important role in the revolutionary struggle and the work of construction. Since
we have a huge army of 1,200,000 intellectuals, we can do anything once we
decide to.
You asked how we
authored the Juche idea and formulated it theoretically. I will explain it
briefly.
Embarking on the
revolutionary struggle I regarded the masses as masters of the revolution and
expounded an idea that we should carry out the revolutionary struggle by our own
efforts, relying on the masses. Guided by this idea we relied on the masses in
the more than 20 years of hard-fought battles against Japanese imperialists, in
the building of a new country after liberation and in the three-year Fatherland
Liberation War against the aggressors of US imperialism,
in the postwar reconstruction and also in the socialist revolution. Through
different stages of the protracted revolutionary struggle we had the correctness
of the Juche idea tried and tested.
Our efforts to author
the Juche idea and apply it to the Korean revolution were coupled with the
struggle against flunkeyism.
Flunkeyism has long
historical roots in our country.
Geographically, ours is
a peninsula country situated between large countries. It is surrounded by
China, the Soviet Union and
Japan. Across the ocean is the
United
States which is hostile to
us.
The Koreans are a
sagacious nation with a long history. Our country had a long developed culture,
it was advanced in everything. You would understand this well if you should go
to our history museum. Our country has beautiful mountains and rivers and
abounds in natural resources. Therefore, the great countries adjacent to us had
long had a covetous eye on it and tried to draw it under their influence. The
US, too, had long tried to
swallow Korea and spread Christianity
here.
Historically speaking,
many flunkeyists emerged out of the feudal rulers
towards the end of the Ri dynasty, the last feudal
state in Korea. At the time the flunkeyists were divided into pro-Qing (China under the Qing dynasty—Tr.), pro-Russian and pro-Japanese factions.
The pro-Qing faction, with the Qing’s backing, tried to introduce the Qing’s ideology and culture into our country, and the
pro-Russian faction tried to draw in the forces of Russia with Russian support and the pro-Japanese
faction the forces of Japan with Japanese backing.
Originally, Japan developed under the impact of
our culture. But, as Japan
quickly developed through the industrial revolution, there appeared among our
people the tendency to look up to Japan and seek Japanese
backing.
While other countries
were making the industrial revolutions, our feudal rulers were engrossed in
factional strife under the manipulation of great powers, and would not develop
their country. At the time there were reformists2 in our country,
too, who attempted to carry out bourgeois reforms and the industrial revolution,
but failed under the suppression of the feudal rulers. Hence, our country could
not develop and became backward; at the time our people began to have an
inimical habit of unreservedly regarding everything done by the great countries,
as good and fine.
After all, our country
was ruined because of the flunkeyists. In 1910 it
became a complete colony of Japan and was under the colonial
rule of Japanese imperialists for 36 long years. After their occupation of
Korea, these imperialists pursued a
vicious colonial policy towards her. But the Korean people did not yield to
them.
The Korean people rose
in resistance to their colonial rule and struggled to liberate the nation. But
factions appeared in the ranks of the anti-Japanese struggle and harmed greatly
the national-liberation struggle.
Nationalists divided
themselves in different groups and got engrossed in bickering, turning to big
powers, instead of thinking of struggling by drawing on the forces of the
popular masses. Some of them tried to achieve Korea’s independence with the
backing of China, others with the help of the Soviet Union, and still others who
had been to Japan for study harboured illusions about
Japan and hoped her to make a “present” of Korean independence. Some people
agreed to Wilson’s “doctrine of self-determination of
nations” and worshipped it.
The communists who
professed an anti-Japanese national-liberation struggle, too, split into
various groups and engrossed themselves in factional strife, without trying to
conduct the revolution by relying on the masses of the people. Each of these
factions declared itself to be the “orthodox party”, visiting the Communist
International to gain recognition. A revolution is an undertaking which should
be done of one’s own accord, not with the recognition of somebody else. Why did
they travel about to get recognition when they could naturally have won the
recognition of the Communist International if they had made a successful
revolution for their own country?
Viewing critically this
situation of the nationalist movement and the initial communist movement in our
country, I keenly felt that the struggle should be waged on the strength of our
own people and that our own problems should be solved on our own responsibility.
My father, too, had much revolutionary influence on me conceiving this
idea.
My father was one of the
forerunners of the anti-Japanese national-liberation movement in our country.
In the autumn of 1917 there occurred the sensational “case of 105” in which 105
persons who had been struggling for national liberation in our country were
arrested at a time by the Japanese imperialist police. Most of these arrested
people were members of the Korean National Association. My father, the
organizer of the Korean National Association was also arrested at the time and
spent more than a year in prison. Although he was physically weak when he was
released from the prison, he resumed the national-liberation movement. While he
was continuing the struggle against the Japanese imperialists, he was arrested
again by their police, but he ran away during his escort. He passed away in 1926
when I was 14 years old because of the aftereffects of the torture he had
undergone in prison and of the frostbite at the time of his escape from the
escorting police.
My father thought that
it would be impossible to win national independence if the anti-Japanese
national-liberation movement suffered factional strife and that national
independence could be achieved only by uniting the masses of the people and
fighting on their strength. He was opposed to factions in this movement and
asserted unity.
After my father’s death
I entered a school run by the Korean nationalists in northeast
China. I studied there, but I did not
like the content of nationalist education given by the school. Originally, this
school was set up under the guidance of my father to train the cadres for an
independence army.
I made up my mind to
pave a new road of revolutionary struggle and formed the Down-with-Imperialism
Union (DIU)3 with the patriotic
youths of the school and started the revolutionary struggle. Later, the members
of the DIU played a hard-core role in the
struggle against Japanese imperialism.
After the formation of
the DIU, I organized the Anti-Imperialist Youth
League, the Young Communist League of Korea and many other communist youth
organizations.
When I started the
revolutionary struggle, some of my comrades advised me to go to Moscow and study at the
university run by the Communist International. They asked this because they
wanted me to give good leadership to the revolutionary movement after a greater
deal of study, but I declined. I did not go to Moscow, thinking that it would be better to learn while
struggling among the people than studying at Moscow. Our people, not people at Moscow or Shanghai, were my
teachers.
In 1932 we organized an
army against Japanese imperialism, but we had no experience in an armed struggle
at the time. Nevertheless, we launched an armed struggle, acquiring and
enriching our experience through the struggle. In the struggle the armed ranks
grew, and the revolutionaries and young patriots became closely united. My
comrades respected me and I loved them. The soldiers of the Korean People’s
Revolutionary Army treasured and loved one another in this way, waging an
arduous armed struggle against the Japanese imperialists for 15 long
years.
We did not receive
foreign aid in our fight against the Japanese imperialists. Even if we wanted
some aid in the procurement of weapons, there was no one to turn to for such
aid. We armed ourselves by capturing weapons from the Japanese imperialists and
fought the enemy with the support of the people.
The Japanese
imperialists launched intensive “punitive operations” with a large force of one
million troops in an attempt to wipe out the Korean People’s Revolutionary Army,
while at the same time manoeuvring in every possible
way to starve the KPRA men. The enemy set up “concentration villages” and
forbade the people’s free exit from the walled “villages” in order to prevent
the people from approaching the KPRA units. The enemy locked up even the
provisions within the walls and controlled their exit. But the people sent
provisions to the KPRA units in various ways. In autumn farmers removed the
vines from their potato fields pretending to harvest the potatoes and then
informed these units of the fields, telling them to harvest the potatoes. The
farmers also hid their harvested maize in woods and told the units to take it
away. Support for our People’s Revolutionary Army came not only from workers and
farmers but also from all sections of the patriotic people including
intellectuals.
During the anti-Japanese
armed struggle, I put up the slogan, “As fish cannot live without water, so the
guerrillas cannot live without the people,” and got the KPRA fighters to have
kindred relations with people. The KPRA could win victory in the long struggle
against Japanese imperialism because it had close bonds with the people and
enjoyed their active support.
Through the
anti-Japanese revolutionary struggle we came to know well how great the people’s
strength was and became convinced that the revolutionary struggle would win
when it was carried on by believing in their strength and relying on
it.
After the liberation of
our country in 1945 we lost no time in tackling with the work to found the
Party. We formed the Central Organizing Committee of the Communist Party of
North Korea in October 1945 and proclaimed the founding of the Party to the
world. Later we set the policy of developing the Communist Party into a mass
party of the working people to meet the needs of the prevailing situation and
the revolutionary development in the country, and put this policy into effect in
a short time.
Right after liberation,
there were not many qualified communists in our country; the working class was
still young and people had no correct understanding of communism. The Japanese
imperialists had long conducted a misleading propaganda against communism among
our people, so quite a few of them took communists for stooges of the Soviet Union.
Under these
circumstances, if the Party was to take deep roots among the broad masses of
working people, it was necessary to develop the Communist Party into a mass
party by widely admitting to it not only qualified communists and advanced
elements of the working class but also the fine elements of the peasantry and
the working intellectuals. Thus in 1946, we developed the Communist Party into
the Workers’ Party to embrace all the advanced members of the working masses.
Since then our Party has steadily developed as a united party of the working
masses.
The emblem of our Party
is inscribed with a hammer, a sickle and a brush, which stand for the workers,
peasants and working intellectuals making up the Party.
In the Fatherland
Liberation War, we felt even more keenly the need to hold fast to the banner of
the Juche idea against dogmatism and flunkeyism.
After liberation we sent
many students to foreign countries to build a new Korea and called
back home quite a few Koreans who had been active abroad. Flunkeyism and
dogmatism found expression among them. Those who had studied abroad as well as
those who had returned home from abroad preferred foreign things to ours, trying
to copy foreign things mechanically. When fighting the enemy during the war,
they proposed to apply foreign methods, without taking into consideration the
specific situation of our country. We were opposed to such a tendency. At the
time of the Second World War, hundreds of tanks were employed at a time to
attack the enemy in wide plains of Europe, but
such a tactic did not conform to our country’s terrains. Our country had not
many tanks, and even if we had had many, we could not have used many of them at
a time to attack the enemy in our terrain conditions. Our country has few plains
but many mountains.
As the Supreme Commander
of the Korean People’s Army at the time, I stressed that we had to fight by
Korean tactics to conform with our terrains, instead of employing foreign
tactics. We developed the guerrilla tactics created in the anti-Japanese armed
struggle to meet the needs of a regular war and worked out various new tactics
suitable for our specific situation.
I would like to cite an
example to illustrate the seriousness of dogmatism and flunkeyism during the
wartime.
Once I visited a rest
centre of the People’s Army during the war and there I saw a picture of a bear
crawling in the Siberian forest covered with white snow. Of course, that
picture was fine. But it was of little value in educating People’s Army
soldiers. I told the officials who accompanied me: The picture will not have a
good influence on People’s Army soldiers in their rest centre, although the
matter would be different if it was on international art exhibition. We are not
fighting in a foreign land; we are fighting a bloody war just in our land
against the US imperialists. So we must hang up
even a piece of picture necessary for imbuing People’s Army soldiers with love
for their native land and for each tree and each plant of grass in the country.
What is the use of hanging up a picture of bear crawling through the Siberian
forest? Our country has beautiful seas and scenic Mts. Kumgang and Myohyang; then isn’t
it good for the soldiers’ education if we put up pictures of beautiful scenery
of our country?
The Koreans will have to
live in Korea and not in a far-off foreign
country even after communism has emerged victorious throughout the world. It is
important, therefore, to educate the people to love always their country. It was
particularly urgent to imbue the people and soldiers with ardent love for the
country in the days of the Fatherland Liberation War.
On my return from the
rest centre I stressed the importance of equipping all Party members and people
firmly with our Party’s revolutionary ideas and the patriotic
spirit.
In the Fatherland
Liberation War our Party repudiated dogmatism and flunkeyism and educated the
entire people and People’s Army soldiers in patriotism and worked out various
tactics suitable for our conditions, which enabled us to defeat the US
imperialists equipped with modern arms, with our backward
ones.
The necessity of
opposing flunkeyism and establishing Juche in our country posed as a more urgent
problem in the postwar period. Therefore, I made a speech to Party propagandists
and agitators in 1955 on thoroughly establishing Juche in ideological work. At
that time, I told them that of course we should not become narrow-minded
nationalists but we should not forget our country and nation and that in drawing
a picture we should do for the benefit of our people and in singing a piece of
song we should sing one they like. From then on we put a strong emphasis on the
question of establishing Juche.
After the war we
established Juche in all domains of the revolution and construction and did
everything in our own way. As for the cooperativization of private fanning, too, we did it not in
a foreign way but in our own way, to suit the actual conditions in our country.
As a result, our agricultural cooperative movement was carried out quickly and
smoothly.
When we cooperativized agriculture I told the officials: We should
learn from good foreign experience, but chew it and see whether or not it suits
the specific situation of our country and the interests of our revolution; if it
is acceptable to our “stomach” we should swallow it, but if not, we should spit
it out. Even afterwards, we stressed that of things foreign we should accept
those which our people demand and should not those which they do not demand and
that even in case of adopting them we should not adopt them mechanically but
assimilate them to suit the actual conditions of our country. We have always
educated our officials and working people in the Juche idea in this
way.
As we established Juche
and did all work in our own way in the past, everything went off satisfactorily
in our country.
Still today we resolve
all problems in our own way, on the basis of the Juche idea. We develop industry
in the Juche-oriented way and carry out construction in the Juche-oriented way.
We are also developing agriculture in the Juche-oriented way to suit the
specific situation of our country.
Many of our agricultural
specialists studied abroad in the past. But we made sure that they did not apply
the farming methods they had acquired to the reality of our country as they
were, because there were differences between the actual conditions of our
farming areas and those of other countries. The foreign farming methods they
studied do not suit our specific situation. If we introduce the farming methods
which do not fit in with our situation we cannot farm
well.
Once our universities of
agriculture taught students with the text books used at foreign agricultural
universities which were translated into Korean. But, today we teach our students
with new textbooks written to meet the requirements of the Juche farming
method.
If you see the
performances by our artists you will realize that we sing songs in our own way
and also develop operas in our own way.
True, the world has many
fine musical works such as Tchaikovsky’s. But, however fine they may be, foreign
pieces do not well suit the feelings of our people. Our people like the art
national in form and socialist in content. We oppose both the tendencies to
ignore our own things and copy foreign things mechanically and restore the
obsolete things of the past as they are. We adhere to the principle of
developing literature and art national in form and socialist in
content.
In a word, Juche
industry, Juche agriculture, Juche construction and Juche literature and art are
quickly developing in our country today.
If we are guided by the
Juche idea, everything goes off well.
Comrade head of the
delegation, you said that the Juche idea is not a mechanical copy of Marxism but
its creative development which suits the reality of today. I think you are
right.
In fact, we did not
apply Marxism to our reality as it is. If one applies it mechanically, one
cannot win the revolutionary struggle.
Marx advanced his
revolutionary theories on the basis of the analysis of capitalist society while
working in developed capitalist countries like Germany and England. He
considered that revolution would break out continuously in the major capitalist
countries of Europe and predicted that
communism would triumph soon on a worldwide scale. But there is not a single
country where communism has been realized, though over a century has passed
since Marx and Engels made public The Communist
Manifesto. Capitalism still remains in England.
Capitalists are very
cunning. They leave no stone unturned to maintain their position. They rear
labour aristocrats among the working class and put
them up to disorganize the ranks of the working-class movement. Here lies one of
the major reasons why revolution does not break out in the developed capitalist
countries now.
We should not consider
that once the ranks of the working class increase, a revolution will break out
of itself, nor should we consider that we can make revolution only with the
working class. In former colonial and semi-colonial countries which did not go
through the normal stage of capitalist development, workers are not so many,
whereas the peasants and handicraftsmen form the overwhelming majority of the
population. In these countries the revolution can emerge victorious when even
the peasants and handicraftsmen are organized.
Shortly after liberation
the workers were not so many and the peasantry occupied 80 per cent of our
nation’s population. Therefore, we regarded the peasantry as the motive power of
our revolution like the workers and rallied them behind the Party. In some
countries intellectuals were not regarded as part of the motive power of the
revolution, because they belonged to the propertied classes. But we recognized
their important role in the revolutionary struggle and rallied them around the
Party. Once the anti-Party factionalists opposed our Party’s policy with regard
to intellectuals. However, we shattered their moves and carried out this
policy.
We rallied workers,
peasants, working intellectuals and handicraftsmen and carried out the
revolutionary struggle and the work of construction. Our brilliant achievements
in the revolution and construction substantiate the correctness of our Party’s
policy.
Marx’s works do not
specify the method of the revolution for each country. Communists in each
country should use their own brains to seek the means and ways for accomplishing
the revolution to meet the interests of their people and the actual conditions
of their country. The party of a country knows well about the national reality.
You know better than anybody else about the Peruvian revolution, and we about
the Korean revolution. As for the theoretical and practical problems arising in
the revolution and construction of each country, its party can offer the correctest conclusion.
There can be no
immutable formula in making revolution. There are formulas in mathematics, but
not in making revolution. If there is any formula that must be observed in
revolution, it is that one should think everything with one’s own brains and
deal with it by one’s own efforts. There can be no other formula. We reached
this conclusion through our protracted revolutionary
struggle.
He who takes a dogmatic
attitude towards Marxism and foreign experience is not a genuine Marxist. He is
a bogus Marxist.
In the past, there were
sham Marxists in our country, too. They set foot on Korean soil but kept their
heads in foreign countries.
Such people may try hard
to profess themselves to be Marxists, but they are mere phrasemongers. They are
fond of fooling people with revolutionary words. In the past, whenever they made
speeches, the phony Marxists in our country used many words people could not
understand, such as “hegemony”, “proletariat” and “intelligentsia”, pretending
to know much. So I severely criticized them.
People neither listen to
such empty talks of bogus communists nor follow them.
You say that you are now
organizing the masses in keeping with the specific conditions of
Peru. If you do so, everything will
go well. I think you are right in doing so.
Now, on the policies
pursued by our Party today and the situation of our
country.
Our Party has so far
been guided by the Juche idea in its struggle, and won great victories in the
revolution and construction. The Juche idea has now become the firm faith of our
people.
Proceeding from this
reality of our country, we set out the task of modelling the whole of society on the Juche idea at the
Sixth Party Congress.
Modelling the whole
society on the Juche idea means building a communist society by maintaining this
idea as a guideline and applying it.
In order to build
communism we must thoroughly transform men and society as required by the Juche
idea and capture both the ideological and material fortresses of communism. By
capturing the material fortress alone we cannot build communist society. It is
men who build socialism and communism. Therefore, without remoulding their ideological consciousness through a
vigorous struggle to capture the ideological fortress, we cannot take the
material fortress, either. Likewise, when we conduct economic construction well
to seize the material fortress we can successfully capture the ideological
fortress, too. That is why we adhere firmly to the principle of occupying both
the ideological and material fortresses in the building of
communism.
In order to capture
these fortresses we must carry out the ideological, technical and cultural
revolutions. Only when we push forward these three revolutions and occupy the
two fortresses, can we build communism.
The most important of
the three revolutions is the ideological revolution.
The ideological
revolution is a revolution to educate and remould all
people to be communists. We should not exclude those people with bad social
backgrounds in the ideological revolution. Attaining the goal of communism
advanced by Marx and Engels is no easy job. Communist
society is a developed society where all people work according to their ability
and receive distribution according to their needs. To build communist society we
must educate and remould not only people with good
social backgrounds but all the rest of members of society into communist
men.
To turn people communist
we must revolutionize and working-classize
them.
When people are hard
pressed they have high revolutionary zeal and work well. But when they are
well-off their revolutionary zeal cools off gradually and they do not work hard.
Therefore, to make them continue with the revolutionary struggle well we must
vigorously endeavour to revolutionize and
working-classize them.
To revolutionize and
working-classize people we must arm them firmly with
independent ideological consciousness and the collectivist spirit of working and
living, one for all and all for one. Thus we will get all members of society,
whether engaged in mental or physical labour, to work
honestly for the country and the people.
In the past period our
Party has intensified the education of the working people in the Juche idea and
collectivism. The result is that today all our working people clearly understand
their duties and work in good faith for the country and the people, for society
and collective.
To revolutionize and
working-classize all members of society it is
important to have them lead their lives in definite
organizations.
Organizational life is a
powerful means for the ideological remoulding of
people. Through their organizational lives people enhance their collectivist
spirit and sense of discipline, strengthen solidarity and acquire consciousness
of fulfilling their revolutionary duties. Therefore, only through intensified
organizational life can we revolutionize and working-classize people.
We must also get women
to take part in organizational life. It is difficult for husbands to educate
their wives. But their organizations can educate women well. If women do not
stay at home but go out into the world, work and participate in organizational
life, they will have opportunities to be criticized and educated there, so as to
be revolutionized and working-classized. If women get
educated through organizational life, they respect their husbands more deeply
and manage their homes more meticulously and, in the end, their families become
more harmonious.
Organizational life is
essential to school children, too.
Once I visited a primary
school. I asked a 9 year-old pupil if she had been criticized while leading
Children’s Union organizational life. She said that she had been criticized at a
CU meeting for having failed to sharpen her pencils at home and write down well
what her teacher said. I asked her how she had felt when she was criticized by
her classmates. She replied that she had felt very bad. She said that she feared
the criticism at the CU organization more than that of her teacher and that from
then on she had never failed to sharpen many pencils at home for her classwork at school. That day I talked with another pupil.
She said that she had been bad at mathematics but got good marks with the help
of her CU organization. The organization had assigned the task of helping her to
two pupils good at mathematics.
In our country today all
members of society lead organizational lives in definite bodies; Children’s
Union members in their CU organizations, members of the League of Socialist
Working Youth in their LSWY organizations, trade union members in their trade
union organizations, Women’s Union members in their WU organizations, members
of the Union of Agricultural Working People in their UAWP organizations and
Party members in their Party organizations.
In this way, we step up
the revolutionization and working-classization of the whole society by way of constantly
educating all its members and intensifying organizational lives among
them.
Also important in the
three revolutions is the technical revolution.
This revolution is, in
plain terms, a revolution to free from back-breaking labour working people who have been liberated from the
oppression of capitalists and landlords, and develop the productive forces to
steadily promote the people’s material welfare.
The main goal of the
rural technical revolution is to eliminate the distinctions between agricultural
and industrial labour and make the farmers work eight
hours a day like workers. It is important to free peasants from arduous labour. We are carrying out the rural technical revolution
forcefully to eliminate the distinctions between agricultural and industrial
labour and thus enable all the peasants to work eight
hours, study eight hours and rest eight hours a day.
We are also actively
introducing mechanization and automation in production processes so as to
eliminate heat-affected and harmful work and facilitate transport, loading and
unloading and other exhausting work.
The technical revolution
is a revolutionary task to be carried out over a long period of time. We intend
to eliminate the difference of mental and physical work by thoroughly carrying
out the technical revolution.
The cultural revolution
is an important component of the three revolutions.
Only when people possess
rich cultural and intellectual attainments, can they work better and become
more courteous and virtuous.
We have so far directed
much effort to the carrying out of the cultural revolution and registered
signal successes in all fields of cultural development. In our country 3.5
million children are now growing at nurseries and kindergartens and those
studying at schools of all levels from primary school to university total 5
millions. If all these children and students are put together, their number
reaches 8.5 millions. This accounts for one half of our population. In our
country many people study under a study-while-working system, along with those
learning in regular schools. So people of many countries of the world call our
country a “land of education”.
Our country has 1.2
million technicians and specialists, or one out of every seven of the total
working population. This is a very high ratio by world
standards.
Our people’s cultural
and intellectual level is now very high. They can judge merits and demerits in
foreign culture. As their cultural level is high, neither drunkard nor thief is
to be found in our country.
Our Party’s important
policy in the cultural revolution today is to raise the cultural and
intellectual attainments of all our people to those of the university graduate,
that is, to intellectualize the whole of society. The intellectualization of the
whole society is an essential requisite for eliminating the distinctions between
mental and physical labour.
I published the
Theses on Socialist Education in 1977. If we intellectualize the whole
of society by fully putting into effect the theses, our country will develop
still more rapidly.
You asked about our
educational system. In our country there is a study-while-working system along
with the regular educational system. The study-while-working system includes
university-level and junior factory colleges. These university-level factory
colleges are in large factories and enterprises. The workers go there to study
after the day’s work.
They differ little from
regular universities. Every day working people go there and study for four hours
after working at their factories for eight hours.
Graduates of these
factory colleges obtain qualifications for engineer. Their level is as high as
that of regular university graduates. The level of graduates of factory colleges
in large machine or chemical factories is very high, because they studied, while
having practical training directly at production sites.
Today in our country
economic construction is well forward.
The Sixth Congress of
our Party put forward the ten long-term objectives of socialist economic
construction for the 1980s. At the end of the 80s we will turn out 100,000
million kwh of electricity, 120 million tons of coal,
15 million tons of steel, 1.5 million tons of nonferrous metals, 20 million tons
of cement, 7 million tons of chemical fertilizers, 1,500 million metres of fabrics, 5 million tons of seafoods and 15 million tons of grain in a year and reclaim
300,000 hectares of tideland within the next 10 years. When these objectives are
reached, our country will rank well among the advanced countries of the world in
economic progress.
We have ample conditions
for attaining these long-term objectives. We have the firm foundations of the
independent national economy. Our independent national economy has tremendous
potentialities. If we had no solid economic foundations we would dare not think
of setting such high long-term objectives.
Since the Sixth Party
Congress we have taken one measure after another at plenary meetings of the
Party Central Committee to carry out these long-term
tasks.
We first discussed great
transformations of nature to reclaim tideland and acquire new land at a plenary
meeting of the Party Central Committee and are working energetically to reclaim
300.000 hectares of tideland.
Our country lacks in
arable land. Out of our total cultivated area only 1.5 million hectares,
excluding the orchards, industrial crop areas and slope fields in highlands, is
capable of raising crops safely at the moment. Last year we yielded 9.5 million
tons of grain on this cultivated land of 1.5 million
hectares.
Today our per-hectare
crop yield has reached a very high level. Our per-hectare rice yield is the
highest in the world. We produce 7.2 tons of rice per hectare. When the farming
method is improved in future the yield will be still
higher.
If we are to increase
the grain output remarkably, we should steadily improve our farming method, at
the same time as expanding the acreage of the arable land. That is why we
decided to reclaim 300,000 hectares of tideland. This will enlarge the
cultivated land as much and alter the map of our country.
The land acquired
through the reclamation of tideland is very fertile. We will be able to gather
in even ten tons of rice from each hectare of the paddy fields reclaimed. The
ten tons per hectare will make it possible to produce 3,000,000 tons of rice on
300,000 hectares of tideland. If tideland is developed into paddy fields, it
will be convenient to mechanize farming.
It will be no big
problem to reclaim 300,000 hectares of tideland in our
country.
At the moment we reclaim
tideland by building dams on the zero line, and if we build them further out
where the depth is 2 to 3 metres, we will reclaim
500,000-600,000 hectares of tideland, instead of 300,000 hectares. At present a
certain country walls off the sea at the depth of 80 metres to acquire new land and, in comparison with this, it
is nothing to do it at the depth of 2 to 3 metres. We
are going to reclaim 300,000 hectares of tideland at the first stage and more in
the future, after having accumulated experience.
What is important in
utilizing the reclaimed tideland for farming is to solve the water problem. To
this end we are building the Nampho
Barrage.
The Nampho Barrage is colossal in scale. Perhaps, there is no
such a large barrage in the world. I was told that not long ago the diplomatic
corps in our country visited the construction site of the Nampho Barrage. They were amazed to see it, saying that such
a large barrage can be built in Korea and nowhere else. It will stop
the seawater going up the Taedong River and keep its lower reaches filled
with water, which will be sent to the rice fields of the tideland. The
construction of the Nampho Barrage will be completed
in 1985.
We have already built
two barrages on the Taedong River, one being the Mirim Barrage and the other the Ponghwa Barrage. And now we are constructing another two
barrages further up the Ponghwa Barrage. When these
five barrages are all completed, large ships will sail up and down the
Taedong River.
At the Hamhung Plenary Meeting of our Party Central Committee held
in August last year, we discussed the problem of attaining the goal of 1.5
million tons of nonferrous metals. In an eager response to the decision of the
plenary meeting our working people are now striving hard to hit this
goal.
South Hamgyong and Ryanggang Provinces play an important role in
attaining the goal. Recently we built in South Hamgyong Province a new plant capable of dressing
10 million tons of nonferrous metal ores. This is one of the world’s largest
ore-dressing plants. We built it for ourselves in a matter of one year. We are
trying it out now, and it works well. We are going to put it into commission on
the occasion of the 35th anniversary of the founding of the Republic.
Construction of such a large, modern ore-dressing plant in a single year is a
demonstration of the enormous capabilities of our working class and the might of
our industry.
Nonferrous metals are
our important source of foreign currency. We plan to increase the output of
lead, zinc, copper, gold, silver and other nonferrous metals in the future to
meet their domestic demands and export the surplus to earn foreign
currency.
The Seventh Plenary
Meeting of the Sixth Central Committee of our Party held some time ago discussed
the problem of attaining the production goals of 1,500 million metres of fabrics and of chemicals.
From now on we will make
great efforts to hit the target of chemicals in accordance with the decision of
this meeting.
What is important in
attaining this goal is to increase fibre production.
If we are to produce 1.500 million metres of fabrics,
we need 270,000 tons of fibres. But our country with a
limited area of cultivated land cannot afford to plant cotton in a big way, so
we have to solve the fibre problem by an industrial
method.
For the solution of this
problem we are developing the vinalon
industry.
Vinalon is an
excellent chemical fibre invented in our country. It
is tougher than cotton wool. Principal raw materials for it are limestone and
anthracite, both of which are abundant in our country. Limestone and anthracite
are very useful and valuable resources. These are our treasures, so to
speak.
The doctor who invented
vinalon in our country is working now as director of
the Hamhung branch of the Academy of Sciences. Originally a south Korean, he
went to Japan before
liberation, where he made researches in vinalon, and
returned to south
Korea after liberation. Meanwhile, the
Seoul “regime” in south Korea, an instrument of the
United
States, did not want to develop national
industry, engrossed in introducing American capital. The inventor of vinalon brought the matter of developing the vinalon industry to the south Korean puppet authorities more
than once, but the puppet government turned down his suggestion. Through the
agency of democrats in south
Korea he sent to us a letter saying that he
would come over to our Republic, to serve the country and the people because the
government of our Republic was patriotic, whereas the south Korean “regime” was
a puppet regime. So we brought him and his family. Even under the difficult
circumstances of war we provided him with all possible conditions for successful
researches. We offered him the necessary research funds, bought him laboratory
equipment and, after the war, built even a pilot plant for him. Drawing on the
success in his researches in vinalon, we built a
large, modern vinalon factory in Hamhung.
In our country there is
a vinalon factory with the capacity of 50,000 tons,
and we are now planning to build a bigger one with the capacity of 100,000
tons.
Our country has a
factory which produces fibre from reed. Its
production capacity at the moment is 10,000 tons but we intend to increase it
to 20,000 tons in the future.
If we produce 270,000
tons of fibres at some time in the future, we will be
able to attain the goal of 1,500 million metres of
fabrics without difficulty. This much amount will mean 83 metres of cloth for everyone in our country. This is a very
high level.
We plan to build a
synthetic rubber factory with a capacity of tens of thousands of tons on the
basis of the achievements in our scientists’ researches. We are consuming as
much rubber every year. In our country rubber is used mainly to make conveyer
belts, motorcar tires and various packings. We intend
to construct a synthetic rubber factory with that capacity at first and, if
successful, to increase it.
We are also planning to
build another process of manufacturing tens of thousands of tons of vinyl
chloride.
From next year we will
build a new chemical fertilizer factory with a capacity of several hundred
thousand tons in keeping with the decision of the Seventh Plenary Meeting of the
Sixth Central Committee of our Party. We intend to construct this factory, too,
with our own efforts and techniques. It is not very difficult to build a
chemical fertilizer factory. Synthesis towers, compressors and pipes are needed
for its construction. We imported compressors before because we could not
produce them, but now we are making them as well as synthesis towers by
ourselves. Therefore, we can easily build it by our own
efforts.
We are struggling to hit
the target of 15 million tons of steel, and its prospects are
bright.
We will make more
vigorous efforts from next year to raise the steel output to a 10 million-ton
level at the first stage. We can do it. Our country has large deposits of iron
ores. Moreover, recently our scientists invented the method of manufacturing
iron with domestic fuel.
We have so far produced
iron with imported coking coal. If we were to continue to rely on coking coal
alone, we would not be able to develop the iron industry on a large scale. So I
emphasized time and again to our scientists the need to study the method of
turning out iron with domestic fuel. At first they did not get down to the
research work, saying that it would be impossible to produce iron with our own
fuel. So I told them: the iron industry used coking coal as fuel because it had
been developed first in those countries abounding in coking coal, but if our
country with no deposits of coking coal had been the first to develop the iron
industry by the industrial revolution, it would not have used coking coal in
iron production; the method of using coking coal as fuel cannot be the only way
to produce iron; and if the researches in the Juche-oriented method of iron
production were to succeed, we must first wipe out flunkeyism. After that, our
scientists displayed their creativity and thus invented the method of turning
out iron by using the fuel which is inexhaustible in our country. Now we can
say that we have definite prospects for attaining the goal of 15 million tons of
steel.
The iron production
method worked out by our scientists is superior to that of using coking coal.
Producing iron with domestic fuel can reduce the production cost much lower than
the cost of using imported coking coal. Science is something mysterious when one
is ignorant of it, but not when one is familiar with it.
Our cement industry is
also in a good situation. Since our country abounds in good-quality raw
materials for cement, we will be quite able to hit the target of 20 million tons
of cement.
You asked me about the
sizes of our cement factories. There are many large, modern ones as well as many
small ones in our country. The former alone produces several million tons of
quality cement every year, and a large amount of it is exported. Cement turned
out by small factories in local areas is used in the localities. A certain
county is producing cement by itself to build rural modern houses. It is no
problem to build cement factories in our country.
I hear that this year
fish is not caught well in Peru, affected by abnormal weather,
but our country is now landing large quantities of sardines. Because of the warm
current, large shoals of fish which like the warm water are gathering in our
waters.
We land millions of tons
of fish every year, and prospects are bright for the development of fisheries,
too.
Considering the present
general situation in our country, I think, the ten long-term objectives for
socialist economic construction will be attained for sure within the set time.
Perhaps, nearly all the objectives will be achieved by
1988.
We plan to reach
basically the major ones of the objectives by 1985 and hold the Seventh Congress
of our Party in 1986.
You asked me if we in
Korea, too, are affected by the
capitalist economic crisis. Our country is immune to this crisis. I think
perhaps ours is the only country in the world which is not affected by it. There
has never been a price rise in our country. It is constant and stable today just
as it was ten years ago.
If the repercussions of
the capitalist economic crisis have ever been felt at all in this part of the
world, it was only when the prices of machines and equipment went up in
consequence of the rise in the world price of oil, for our country imported some
machines and equipment. But that was not a big problem.
Since we import oil from
foreign countries, we are advancing in the direction of developing industries
which depend on domestic raw materials, instead of those using much
oil.
A certain country
imports oil to produce chemical fibres and plastic
goods and operate power stations, too. It is true that the construction of an
oil power station would require less money and time. In the past when oil was
cheap, some of our officials, too, suggested for the construction of oil power
stations. But I did not agree to the proposal. If we had built oil power
stations in our country which cannot produce oil and failed to import it for
some reasons, we would have suspended the operation of many factories and
enterprises. Therefore, I objected the idea of building oil power
stations.
We ensured that the
power industry was developed by using water resources and coal abundant in our
country, rather than oil. That is why the power output in our country is not
affected by the world oil price, no matter how high it is.
We worked to base our
industry on Juche, with the result that our national economy continues to make a
stable growth, unaffected by the worldwide economic
upheavals.
You said you would like
to learn from our experience in farming. Our country is now at its highest
farming season. Rice-transplanting is already over and weeding is now under way.
In our country this year’s promise of the crops is fine as a whole. Both rice
and maize have grown well. As we completed irrigation a long time ago in our
country, we can safely do farming without suffering damage even from a long
spell of drought.
Our country cultivates
rice and maize on a large scale.
Maize is a good,
high-yield crop. The method of cultivating maize may be different from country
to country because of the differences in their natural and geographical
conditions. It may be planted in humus-cake nurseries before it is bedded out or
directly sown in the fields, according to the specific conditions of a
country.
We do not plant maize
directly. If we were to sow it directly, we would have to plant an
early-ripening strain in view of the climate in our country. This would mean low
per-hectare yields. So we cultivate maize by planting it in humus-cake nurseries
before transplanting. Maize seedlings grown in humus cakes bear good fruit and
are highly productive.
The humus-cake method of
raising maize seedlings may appear to require more manpower than the direct
sowing, but this is not really the case. The former requires weeding once or
twice less than the latter, so it does not need much more
manpower.
If maize farming is to
be successful, the first filial generation should be sown, the number of plants
per phyong increased, a suitable amount of
fertilizers applied, and the maize fields irrigated. This crop requires plenty
of fertilizers and water. Usually it needs 60 to 65 per cent of the moisture of
the field, but in the earing season it demands 80 to
85 per cent. Only when plenty of moisture is ensured during the development of
ears can they grow larger.
I was not a specialist
in agriculture or industry at the outset. But I had to learn farming and
industry in order to guide socialist construction. Without knowledge one cannot
guide others. The people always require correct leadership. Only when this
requirement is met, can the people create new things without letup. Since they
trusted me and elected me President, I should work faithfully for them and
strive to guide them in a correct way.
You talk a lot about my
frequent on-the-spot guidance. Well, if one is to guide people correctly, one
should go into reality. If one coops oneself up in one’s office, divorced from
reality, one may fall into subjectivism and bureaucracy. These are a harmful
style of work that should be warned against, among others, within a ruling
party. Subjectivism is a source that gives rise to
bureaucracy.
I always strongly warn
our officials that subjectivism and bureaucracy are most dangerous in guiding
the revolution and construction.
If one wants to avoid
falling into subjectivism, one should go among the popular masses including
workers, farmers and intellectuals and listen to their voices. Only then can
one map out a policy to meet the demands of the people, and also find out many
things.
When I waged the
anti-Japanese armed struggle I used to go down to KPRA units and listen to the
soldiers’ voices; after liberation, too, I would often go to factories and
farming and fishing villages to hear the voices of people in all walks of life;
and I do so still now.
Now, I would like to
touch on the south Korean situation and the reunification question of our
country.
South
Korea is not an independent
state, it is a complete colony of the United States. It is a lie that
Americans say south
Korea is an independent state. The
United States has occupied
south
Korea for 38 years by force of arms and lords
it over.
The United States is now keeping over 40,000 troops
of its own in south
Korea and holds all commanding powers over the
south Korean puppet army. The US imperialists call their army in
south
Korea and the south Korean puppet troops the
“Korea-US Combined Forces”, whose commander is an American. It is also Americans
who dismiss and appoint the south Korean “president”. If the man who holds the
“presidency” of the puppet regime is not to their liking, the
US imperialists kill him to be
replaced by another.
To camouflage their
forces stationed in south
Korea the US imperialists formerly called them
the “UN forces”. As a result of the dynamic struggle the Korean people and the
world’s progressive people waged to take the “UN forces’” helmets off the US
occupation forces in south Korea and drive them out, a resolution was adopted a
few years ago at the UN General Assembly to dissolve the “UN forces” command in
south Korea and withdraw all foreign troops from there. Nevertheless, the
United States is working to
continue its military occupation of south Korea under the pretext of the
fictitious “threat of southward invasion” from the north. The US Congress is
clamouring that there is a danger of “southward
invasion” because the military forces of north
Korea are stronger than those of south Korea. But
this is a lie to mislead the people around the world.
We have already made it
clear more than once that we will not “invade the south”. As you have seen on
your current visit to our country, we have built a great deal and are still
continuing to build. We do not want to get these buildings destroyed in war. Our
people want peace, not war.
The comparison of
military strength in the north and the south of Korea enables
you to see clearly that we will not “invade the south”. At the moment in
south
Korea there are stationed more than 40,000
American troops plus 700,000 south Korean puppet troops, and there are more than
1,000 nuclear weapons deployed. However, the numerical strength of our People’s
Army is but one half of that of the south Korean puppet army. As for military
equipment, the US troops in
south
Korea and the south Korean puppet army are
armed with up-to-date American weapons, whereas our People’s Army is equipped
with arms of our own make.
All the facts testify
that the American authorities’ clamours about the
“threat of aggression from the north” are totally unfounded, they are a sheer
lie.
The US imperialists do not want Korea’s
reunification. They are manoeuvring to divide Korea
into two just as Germany is divided into east and west, and are launching a
propaganda campaign to justify their scheme. But there is no reason why our
country should remain divided into “two Koreas”.
Politically, the Korean
question differs in nature from that of Germany. Germany is a vanquished nation
in World War II which she had provoked. But our country is neither a provoker of
a war of aggression nor a vanquished country. Korea had been a colony of
Japanese imperialism till the end of the Second World War and in the meantime
the Korean people had waged a forceful national-liberation struggle against
Japan. Even after the reunification Korea will not invade other countries or
menace the surrounding nations. No nation will be threatened by one Korea.
Neither China nor the Soviet Union nor Japan will be threatened by our
country.
From the historical
viewpoint, too, there is no ground to justify our country’s division into “two
Koreas”. The Koreans are a single nation of the same blood who have lived on the
same land, sharing the same culture and using the same language for several
thousand years. Therefore, the Korean nation must by no means be divided into
two.
At the Sixth Party
Congress we put forward a new proposal for national reunification in order to
frustrate the US imperialist scheme for “two Koreas” and to reunify the country
as soon as possible.
The new proposal is
intended to reunify the country by founding a Confederal Republic through the establishment of a unified
national government on condition that the social systems existing in the north
and the south of Korea are left as they are, a government in which the two sides
are represented on an equal footing and under which they exercise regional
autonomy respectively with equal rights and duties.
Advancing at the Sixth
Party Congress the proposal for establishing the Democratic Confederal Republic of Koryo and
the ten-point policy to be pursued by the unified state, we explicitly said that
the DCRK should be a neutral state. In other words, we clarified that the DCRK
should become not a satellite of any country but a completely independent and
sovereign state, a non-aligned nation which will not rely on any external
forces. That our country will not be a satellite of any country after its
reunification means that it will neither be a satellite of China and the Soviet
Union nor that of the United States and Japan. It is most advisable for our
country surrounded by great countries to become a neutral state after its
reunification.
More than 20 years have
passed since we put forward the proposal for accelerating national reunification
through the establishment of a north-south Confederation and it is nearly three
years since we set forth a new proposal to reunify the country by founding the
DCRK at the Sixth Party Congress. But our country is not yet
reunified.
We must check the
division of our country into “two Koreas” by all means and achieve national
reunification. Should we fail and hand down the divided country to posterity, we
would be committing a crime against history and the generations to
come.
What is important in
reunifying our country is to replace the Armistice Agreement with a peace
agreement and force the US imperialists to withdraw from south Korea. If the
Americans conclude a peace agreement with us and withdraw from south Korea, the
Korean people will be able to reunify the country peacefully by their own
efforts. Therefore, we have proposed to the United States more than once that
negotiations be held to replace the Armistice Agreement with a peace agreement.
The US authorities, however, have not yet accepted our proposal for
negotiations.
The US imperialists keep
working to partition our country into “two Koreas”, but of no avail. All the
Korean people are vigorously struggling to check and frustrate the “two Koreas”
schemes of US imperialists and achieve national
reunification.
The Revolutionary Party
for Reunification and democratic parties, university students and other young
people, workers, peasants and democrats in south Korea all desire the peaceful
reunification of the country and actively support our proposal for national
reunification. The only opponents of national reunification are those who lead
the military fascist dictatorial regime in south Korea. They are pro-American
stooges trained by US imperialists.
At present south Korean
people are being awakened gradually. Democrats and other south Koreans want to
lead independent lives free from the US imperialist yoke and oppose the fascist
repression of the puppet government. In particular, with the Juche idea being
disseminated widely among youth and students and other south Korean people,
their consciousness of national independence and anti-US sentiment are mounting
rapidly.
In the past south Korean
youth and students took a wrong view of our Republic because of false American
propaganda, but they have now realized that our Republic holds fast to
independence and that only the Government of the Republic is a genuine people’s
power which serves the whole of the Korean nation.
Youth and students and
other south Korean people are not opposed to our Republic, but struggling
against the United States and the military fascist regime in south Korea.
Whenever the south Korean people turn out in the anti-US, anti-fascist
struggle, the Americans repress them. It is none other than the Americans that
suppressed the large-scale mass uprising which flared up in Kwangju in May 1980. At that time, Wickham, the commander of the “Korea-US Combined Forces”,
got the south Korean puppet army to repress brutally the patriotic people and
youth and students who rose in revolt.
In spite of the severe
repression by the US imperialists and their lackeys, the struggle of the youth,
students and other south Koreans keeps blazing up fiercely. Of late, the south
Korean youth and students’ struggle takes place almost every day. If south
Korean people are more awakened in the future, the US imperialists and their
lackeys will hardly stand.
The active support and
encouragement of the friends and progressive people the world over is of great
significance in accomplishing our people’s cause of national reunification. The
World Conference of Journalists against Imperialism and for Friendship and Peace
is going on now in Pyongyang and the participants in the meeting are unanimously
supporting the reunification of Korea.
We will fight on
vigorously to reunify the divided country in accordance with the new policy on
national reunification advanced at the Sixth Party
Congress.
Of course, it will take
us some time to realize Korea’s reunification, since the US imperialists occupy
south Korea and tenaciously work to create “two Koreas”. But the entire Korean
people in the north and the south are intensifying their struggle daily for the
independent, peaceful reunification of the country and the world’s progressive
people are conducting a more vigorous struggle to check and frustrate the US
moves towards “two Koreas”. Our people are sure to accomplish the cause of
national reunification, positively supported and encouraged by the world’s
people.
Next, I would like to
dwell on the international situation.
Today the international
situation is very complex.
At present capitalist
countries, particularly the developed capitalist countries, are undergoing
serious economic crises, including those of fuel and raw materials. The economic
crisis in the US, Japan and the developed European countries has lasted for a
long time. Because of the serious economic crisis unemployment is increasing and
the people are getting worse off in the capitalist countries. It is said that
now in the US there are a great many unemployed. It is said that in Japan, too,
prices continue to rise and the army of unemployed is on the
increase.
History shows that
whenever capitalist countries were in an economic crisis, scrambles occurred on
a worldwide scale and a global war broke out. The outbreak of both the First and
Second World Wars was due to the economic crisis in the capitalist countries.
Whenever imperialists undergo an economic crisis, they try to find a way out in
an aggressive war.
Now, America’s Reagan
government follows the policy of confrontation which aggravates the
international tensions in order to get out of the serious, chronic economic
crisis. Owing to the imperialist manoeuvres, the
international situation is getting extremely tense, peace and security are being
wrecked in many parts of the world, and the danger of a new world war is growing
as the days go by. This danger exists in Europe, in the Middle East, in Asia and
Southern Africa. But today’s situation is different from that when the First or
Second World War broke out.
After the Second World
War many countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America freed themselves from
imperialist colonial rule and realized national independence. There are many
countries which attained their national independence, liberating themselves from
the colonial rule of either Britain, France, Italy, the Netherlands or
Portugal. This is precisely the difference between the international
situations at the time of the outbreak of the Second World War and at
present.
As I have said, the
present international situation urgently demands the realization of global
independence.
To put it in easy terms,
global independence means that all countries of the world advance thoroughly on
the road of independence, without being subjugated or enslaved to any great
powers or dominationist forces. Under the present
circumstances there can be many difficulties in making the whole world
independent. But only when the whole world is independent, can a new global war
be prevented. Great powers do not want to fight among themselves. Even if a war
breaks out among them, such a war will be lukewarm and will not last long, if
every country adheres to independence by refusing to move under the baton of
imperialists and big powers or take anybody’s side. If they find no countries
following them, the big powers will have to fight among themselves and give up
fighting when they are worn out.
What is important in
achieving global independence is to realize the independence in Europe where are
concentrated developed countries.
At present, a vigorous
anti-war, anti-nuclear peace movement is under way in Europe to oppose the
production and deployment of neutron weapons and nuclear war. It is also
interesting to note that in recent years Socialist Parties and Social Democratic
Parties have come into power one after another in many European countries
including France.
I met cadres of
Socialist Parties and Social Democratic Parties from many European countries who
visited our country and told them about the problem of making Europe
independent. They all recognized the urgent necessity of European
independence.
After taking power
Socialist Parties and Social Democratic Parties in many European countries have
held views different from America’s on a series of international questions and
do not blindly follow the US policy. It is quite welcome.
We hope to see a
completely independent Europe. In other words, we hope the European countries
will pursue independent policies against war, instead of seeking a war policy in
the wake of great powers.
It would be more welcome
if the capitalist countries in Europe, while implementing independent policies,
respond to the demands of the developing countries, the third world countries,
for the establishment of a new international economic order. The European
capitalist countries would easily tide over the present economic crisis and give
a great help to the developing and third world countries in their efforts to
build independent national economies, if they strove to establish a new fair
international economic order together with the latter.
Another important thing
in achieving global independence is to realize the independence of the third
world countries.
The voice for
independence is now ringing even more strongly from among the newly-emerging
peoples in Asia, Africa and Latin America. I have met state leaders and many
other people from a number of Asian and African countries, who all want to take
the road of independence.
You must be well
acquainted with the Latin-American situation. It seems to me that since the
Falkland incident anti-US sentiments have mounted in many Latin-American
countries and their tendency to independence has increased. We hope all
Latin-American countries to advance independently. If they get independent, the
US will be finally isolated in that part of the world. A Korean saying has it
that a general without an army is no general. This means that one cannot be a
general by himself. The US would be quite powerless, if it goes
alone.
In order to advance
along the road of independence, the third world countries should build
self-reliant national economies by carrying out the economic
revolution.
They would not be able
to safeguard their political independence already won unless they built
self-supporting national economies and attained economic independence. A country
which failed to attain economic independence cannot, in fact, be regarded as a
full-fledged independent and sovereign country, though it has its president and
parliament. If shackled to great countries economically because of failure to
achieve economic emancipation and independence, it would be subordinated to
those countries politically, too, and lose its say on the international arena. A
country shackled to great countries economically has no alternative but to
follow their dictates. Otherwise, it would receive their pressure in one way or
another.
At present quite a few
third world countries have no economic potential enough to guarantee their
political independence. This is the biggest problem. We consider that only when
they build independent national economies and achieve economic independence,
will the third world countries be able to free their peoples from the
backwardness, poverty, hunger and diseases left over by imperialists and
safeguard the political independence they have already
won.
The most important
problem the third world countries must solve immediately in attaining economic
independence is to develop agriculture so as to be self-sufficient in
food.
You have said that many
Latin-American countries import most of necessary foods from the US and that
they should begin with solving agricultural problems in order to throw off the
US economic shackles. You are right there. At present the US is deliberately
pursuing the policy of preventing the Latin-American countries’ investments in
agricultural development and of forcing them to buy American
cereals.
Only when they develop
agriculture and solve the food problem, will the third world countries be able
to put an end to their economic subjugation to imperialists and extricate their
peoples from hunger and poverty.
A few years ago an
African President visited our country. He asked me how to free people from
hunger and poverty. I informed him of our experience in fully solving the food
problem by developing agriculture under the slogan that rice is
socialism.
The developing
countries, the third world countries, should realize the South-South cooperation
in order to achieve economic independence through the building of independent
national economies.
The third world
countries should not pin their hopes on imperialists and developed countries
but should join hands to seek means of living. Imperialists will never make a
gift of economic emancipation to the third world
countries.
Developing countries
have demanded the establishment of a new international economic order, but
developed countries have refused to comply.
Several years ago the
North-South Summit Conference of 22 Countries was held in Cancun, Mexico. The
conference could achieve no success because of the unjustified attitude taken by
the developed capitalist countries which try to maintain the unfair old
international economic order. The summit conferences of non-aligned states have
had repeated discussions on establishing a new international economic order.
However, the declarations adopted at the conferences remain declarations and
few measures have been implemented.
In his lifetime Tito
visited our country at his advanced age of 85. At that time, I talked with him
on the problem of strengthening and developing the non-aligned movement, and I
said: developed countries will not make a gift of a new international economic
order to developing countries; therefore, exchange and cooperation should be
developed among non-aligned countries; then the developed countries might
comply with developing countries’ demand for a new international economic
order.
At the Seventh Summit
Conference of Non-aligned Countries held in New Delhi some time ago, the head of
our delegation asserted that non-aligned countries should take initiative to
adopt practical steps for convening a South-South summit conference to conduct
the South-South cooperation briskly. We will continue to strive for this
cooperation.
We believe the
South-South cooperation will be quite possible. Generally speaking, it is
decades since the third world countries achieved national independence, and they
have been building a new society. So each of them has more than one or two
useful techniques and experiences and has laid definite economic foundations. If
they strengthen economic cooperation and exchange the good experiences and
techniques among themselves relying on the economic foundations already laid,
they will be able to develop their economies quickly even without the help of
developed countries.
Developing countries and
third world countries will first be able to realize exchange and cooperation in
the agricultural sphere.
Agricultural development
does not require very high techniques. If third world countries interchange
their techniques among themselves, they can solve many problems in developing
agriculture.
At the moment the US and
other developed capitalist countries sell the first filial generation of maize
to developing countries at high prices. If the latter effect exchange among
themselves, they may not have to buy the expensive seeds from the former. Our
country produces and plants such seeds and we can impart this technique to
other countries. If developing countries exchange and cooperate in the field of
agriculture in this way, they will be able to develop agriculture and be
self-sufficient in food.
The third world
countries can also cooperate with each other in the industrial field. In this
field I think it necessary that we should strengthen cooperation starting from
light industry which is of vital importance in raising the people’s living
standard. In the fishing industry, too, the third world countries can cooperate
and exchange.
It is not bad to
exchange technicians among these countries. At present, if they want to invite a
technician from a developed capitalist country, they must pay him more than
1,000 dollars a month, provide him with a nice dwelling and car and grant him a
leave every year. But if they exchange their technicians, they need pay a person
only 100-200 dollars a month and just provide him with
meals.
At present, groups of
our agricultural technicians and specialists are in Guinea, Tanzania and other
African countries, rendering help in agriculture and the training of
agro-technical personnel. All of them ask for nothing more than the same board
as given the peoples of the host countries.
It is good for the third
world countries to exchange technical specifications among themselves. If they
want to buy blueprints for irrigation projects or machines from developed
capitalist countries, they will have to pay much money. But, if they exchange
these technical specifications among themselves, they need not pay much
money.
The third world
countries can cooperate with each other not only in the economic field but also
in the educational field. They can jointly build schools, share experiences in
educational methods and cooperate in the training of native
cadres.
In the field of health
these countries can also exchange various techniques such as pharmaceutical
techniques and experience. When cooperation and exchange are realized in this
field, the peoples in these countries can be free from diseases
sooner.
In our country, by
embodying the Juche idea, we have realized independence in politics and achieved
self-reliance in the economy and also in national defence. Our experience shows that in order to build a
completely independent and sovereign state, it is very important to build
self-reliant defence capabilities, at the same time as
realizing political independence and achieving economic
self-reliance.
It is also necessary for
the third world countries to cooperate with each other in building self-reliant
defences.
At present, the price of
weapons is set arbitrarily by the seller. Developed countries are making a lot
of money through sales of weapons. When the US and some other developed
countries are asked by small countries for weapons, they do not comply with the
latter’s requests promptly. In case they sell, they get exorbitant prices. But
they vociferate as if they are granting them a great favour. When the third world countries join efforts to
produce weapons for themselves, they need not take off their hats to bow down
to developed countries, while paying masses of gold for the
weapons.
We have developed the
munitions industry and produced a considerable amount of weapons needed to
defend the country. Our experience tells that small countries can manufacture
weapons for themselves to increase their defence
capabilities.
Not only our country but
other countries have experience in the manufacture of weapons. There are many
third world countries which have this experience. If they cooperate with each
other, they will make necessary conventional weapons with credit, if not
sophisticated ones requiring high techniques. When the whole world is made
independent, sophisticated weapons will become useless.
We will always help the
third world peoples in their struggle towards
independence.
This much about the
general situation in our country and the international
situation.
The visit to our country
of your Party delegation headed by you, Comrade General Secretary, will
contribute greatly to bringing the relations between our two Parties closer and
promoting the friendly relations between the two peoples.
I am convinced that your
Party under the leadership of you Comrade General Secretary will emerge
victorious in the struggle to build Peru into an independent people’s
country.
I am very happy to have
such fine comrades-in-arms like you in the Latin-American country of
Peru. Let us join hands firmly as
comrades, comrades-in-arms and friends, and fight together for the sake of the
two peoples and all the oppressed people throughout the world, for the
prevention of another world war and for global
independence.
I hope that our two
Parties will have closer relations and more mutual visits.
I wish you to visit our
country again.
