Talk to the
Veterans of Anti-Japanese Revolution and the
Children of Revolutionary Martyrs
March 13, 1992 and January 20 and March 3, 1993
(Abstract from
President Kim Il Sung’s work)
I am very glad
and full of deep emotions to see you, the old
comrades-in-arms of mine ever since the years of the
anti-Japanese revolutionary struggle, and the children
of the revolutionaries that have already left us.
I am grateful to you for your
concern over my health and for your best wishes for my
good health and long life.
Ever since I embarked on the road
of revolution, I have always lived under the support and
loving care of the people and my comrades in the
revolution. I have been able to work for the revolution
in good health until today when I am older than 80 years
only because my comrades and the people loved me dearly
and protected me in every way.
……….
In our country the revolutionary
cause is steadfastly being carried forward from one
generation to the next.
How the revolutionary cause is
carried on from generation to generation is an important
matter that affects the destiny of socialism. The
masses’ cause for independence, the socialist cause, is
an undertaking that is accomplished through a long
period, through many generations. If the leadership of
the revolution and construction is not succeeded
properly at the time one revolutionary generation is
replaced by another, the socialist cause will suffer
twists and turns and end in failure. This is clearly
illustrated by the situation in the Soviet Union. The
Soviet Union was the first to triumph in the socialist
revolution under Lenin’s leadership and the most
developed socialist power but failed in the socialist
cause because it had failed in the solution of the
problem of succession to leadership. Because wrong
persons succeeded the leader in the Soviet Union, the
Party degenerated into a revisionist party and was
unable to adhere to the revolutionary traditions and
socialist principles; bureaucratism became rife in Party
and state activities, and unity of the Party and the
popular masses was not realized. The Party’s
degeneration and divorce from the people made it
impossible for the Party to give political leadership to
the revolution and construction, and for the people, the
motive force of socialism, to play their role as they
should and defend socialism from the anti-socialist
offensive of the imperialists and reactionaries. In
consequence, the flag of socialism that had flown for 70
years in the Soviet Union fell into the mire overnight,
and the downfall of socialism in the Soviet Union was
followed by the collapse of socialism in the Eastern
European countries that had been acting under the baton
of the Soviet Union.
In our country Comrade Kim Jong Il
has been giving wise leadership to all the work of the
Party, state and army; the problem of ensuring
continuity of leadership has thus been brilliantly
solved.
In our country now Party work is
successful, state work is a successful, military
operation are successful and socialist construction is
successful, under the leadership of Comrade Kim Jong Il.
Today in our country all the people have become a great
family, single-heartedly united around the Party, and
they are loyally supporting the Party’s leadership. In
the course of many years of struggle under the Party’s
leadership, our people have realized deep in their
hearts that our Party is the true representative and
stalwart champion of the masses and their great guide.
Therefore, they entrust their destiny entirely to the
Party. The recent conference of the families of martyrs
from all parts of the country, the conference of Korean
intellectuals and the Eighth Congress of the League of
Socialist Working Youth of Korea and other conferences
have clearly demonstrated again our people’s ardent and
loyal support for the Party and their unshakable
determination to defend and accomplish the socialist
cause under the leadership of the Party.
We still have a lot of work to do
to accomplish the socialist cause, the revolutionary
cause of Juche. We must firmly adhere to our Party’s
general line and press ahead with the ideological,
technological and cultural revolutions to consolidate
and develop people-centered socialism in our country and
also realize national reunification, the cherished
desire of our nation.
We have struggled for socialism
all our lives, and it is inconceivable now to discard
the best socialism of ours and restore capitalism, a
society where “the rich grow richer and the poor grow
poorer.” The road of socialism is the road of true
freedom and happiness for the people, whereas the road
of capitalism is the road of exploitation and
oppression, misery and suffering for the people. The
defense of socialism means victory, whereas giving up
socialism means death. Since we pledged to build
socialism when we started fighting for the revolution,
we must defend socialism through to the end without the
slightest vacillation and accomplish the revolutionary
cause of Juche.
In order to defend the
people-centered socialism of our country and brilliantly
accomplish the revolutionary cause of Juche, the entire
Party and all the people must unite firmly behind
Comrade Kim
Jong Il and loyally support his leadership. Loyal
support for Comrade Kim Jong Il’s leadership is the sure
guarantee for continuing and accomplishing the socialist
cause.
Comrade Kim Jong Il
is the genuine leader of the people. He is loyal and
dutiful and versed in civil and military affairs. He is
a preeminent thinker and theoretician, statesman and
military strategist, unfailingly loyal to the country
and people and very dutiful to his parents. He is the
paragon of loyalty and filial devotion.
The most important mission of the
leader of the revolution is to develop the guiding
ideology of the revolution and clearly show the road to
be followed by the masses’ cause of independence. The
people’s cause of independence can overcome the trials
of history and advance along the road of victory only
when it is guided by the beacon of ideology that
correctly reflects the requirements of the times and the
people’s aspirations.
Comrade Kim Jong Il
has been engaged in ideological and theoretical
activities with an unusually strong spirit of inquiry
and energy, brightening our Party’s Juche idea as the
great guiding ideology of the age of independence.
I put forward the Juche idea,
which reflects the requirements of our revolution and
the aspirations of the people in the new age of
independence, and have led the revolution and
construction, guided by this idea, but I have not given
much thought to systematizing the principles of the
Juche idea. This task has been carried out splendidly by
Comrade Kim
Jong Il. On the basis of his profound study of the
basic principles and essence of the Juche idea, he
defined our Party’s guiding ideology as the integral
system of the idea, theory and method of Juche. He has
also enriched the Juche idea with new principles and
content to meet the requirements of our times and the
development of the revolution and fully developed it in
depth. In addition, he has worked energetically to equip
our people with the Juche idea and give wide publicity
to this idea abroad. He has thus ensured that the Juche
idea is the revolutionary idea of the popular masses
themselves in name as well as in fact. In other words,
he has cultivated the Juche idea, the seed which I had
planted in the soil of our people and developed, into a
thriving crop and has gathered a rich harvest, so to
speak.
Our Party paper now publishes
important documents written by Comrade Kim Jong Il
one after another. This alone shows how hard he is
working to develop and enrich the Juche idea and equip
the people with it. Recently, The Historical Lesson
in Building Socialism and the General Line of Our
Party and On the Fundamentals of Revolutionary
Party Building have been published. These
documents have historic significance in that they
provide a scientific exposition of the basic cause of
the collapse of socialism in several countries and
clarify the path of true socialism and the fundamental
principles of building revolutionary parties. The
documents he has published serve not only as excellent
pabulum for the revolutionary education of our Party
members and working people but also as the revolutionary
banner that encourages the revolutionaries and
progressive people throughout the world in their
struggle for sovereignty, independence and socialism and
lights their road ahead.
Comrade Kim Jong Il
gives wise leadership to the revolution and construction
with uncommon leadership ability.
The ability to lead the
revolution and construction can be said to find
expression in the leader’s capacity and skill with which
to encourage the masses, the motive force of the
revolution, to display their creativity to the highest.
The masses have unfathomable strength. Success in
revolution and construction depends on how the masses
are encouraged to exert their unfathomable strength. If
the masses are to make such efforts, they need to be
awakened to political consciousness, organized and
ideologically motivated. The work of awakening them to
political consciousness, organizing them and motivating
them ideologically can only be done by the revolutionary
party of the working class. This function and activity
of the revolutionary party is ensured by the guidance of
the leader with outstanding ability and skill.
Comrade Kim Jong Il
strengthens the Party and enhances its leadership role
as the main link in the whole chain of leading the
revolution and construction. He has put forward and
implemented the policy of modeling the entire Party on
the Juche idea, developed it into an unconquerable
force, united on the basis of the Juche idea, into a
seasoned leading political organization with strong
fighting capacity. He has strengthened the motive force
of our revolution as never before by uniting all the
people around the Party. While thoroughly establishing
the system of giving Party leadership to the revolution
and construction on the one hand, he ensures on the
other hand that priority is given to ideological
education, the transformation of people, in Party
activity under the banner of ideology. By so doing he
makes sure that all the Party members and working
people, firmly equipped with the revolutionary idea of
our Party, fulfill their responsibilities and role as
masters of the revolution and construction. Today our
Party is working hard to protect the people’s interests
more effectively and meet their desire for independence
to the fullest under the slogan, “We serve the people,”
and the people are displaying their revolutionary
enthusiasm and creativity in the struggle to carry out
the Party’s lines and policies under the slogan, “When
the Party is determined, we can do anything!”
Under the leadership of Comrade Kim Jong Il,
our revolution ushered in a new period of upsurge. Since
he assumed leadership, a new change has taken place in
all areas of political, economic and cultural work as
well as in Party work. Important innovations and upsurge
have been effected on all fronts of socialist
construction.
For example, under his guidance,
a great heyday of Juche art and literature was unfolded
in the first few years of the 1970s. In this period,
amazing progress was made in all areas of cinema and
other arts and literature, masterpieces of world
standard were created and made public one after another,
and in the course of this, writers and artists became
the front rankers in the revolutionary transformation of
the whole society and its assimilation to the working
class. People call this the “revolution in art and
literature” or the “Renaissance in the 20th century”. I
do not think they are mistaken.
Under the leadership of Comrade Kim Jong Il,
our people have been inspired with the pride of being
victors and have exalted their honor and dignity in the
eyes of the whole world. On their visits to our country
leaders of many countries and other foreign guests
enviously admire the solid unity of the Party and the
popular masses and the vigorous advances of all the
people, full of confidence in victory, under the Party’s
leadership.
I should say that Comrade Kim Jong Il
has rendered distinguished services when he has
developed a powerful motive force, welding the Party and
the popular masses into a single socio-political
organism and effected a great historic change by
transforming nature and society on the strength of the
motive force. This bespeaks his loyalty to the
revolutionary cause of Juche and also proves his
preeminent qualities and ability as the leader.
Comrade Kim Jong Il’s
leadership has brought about a new change also in
building up the revolutionary armed forces.
As you comrades have seen, the
parade held in celebration of the 60th anniversary of
the founding of the Korean People’s Army demonstrated
the unfailing loyalty of our revolutionary armed forces,
particularly the People’s Army, to the Party and the
revolution, their high level of organization and
discipline and their unconquerable strength. It is
entirely the result of his correct leadership that the
People’s Army has been strengthened into revolutionary
armed forces, each soldier being fully prepared
politically, ideologically and militarily and a match
for a hundred foes. It has been discharging its
honorable mission as the defender of the Party and the
revolution, the country and the people. In line with the
Juche-orientated policy of building the army, he stepped
up the work of the Party’s political and ideological
education, established the Juche-orientated military
command system by which the entire army moves as one
under the Party’s leadership, and made the People’s Army
truly the army of the Party, the army of the revolution.
In keeping with the requirements for modern warfare and
the specific conditions in our country, he has developed
the Juche art of war, built a powerful, modern defense
industry and steadily increased the combative power of
the People’s Army and improved its weapons and
equipment. Under his leadership, our People’s Army has
become a loyal combat force laying down their lives for
the Party and the revolution, and developed into an
invincible force equipped with modern means of both
attack and defense. The all-people defense system with
the People’s Army at the core has been solidly
established. Comrade Kim Jong Il has unbreakable will,
audacity, outstanding strategic intelligence and the art
of military leadership worthy of the supreme commander
of the revolutionary armed forces. This is the guarantee
for the continuous development of our revolutionary
armed forces and their victory in every battle.
Comrade Kim Jong Il
has all the best qualities required of the people’s
leader.
He is, before all else,
unfailingly loyal and devoted to the Party and the
revolution, and to the country and the people.
He makes every effort and carries
out whatever he thinks is needed for the country and the
people. In particular he spares no effort to do things I
wish and to solve the problems of my concern so that he
can give me pleasure.
This can be illustrated by the
fact that Pyongyang, the capital of revolution, has been
constructed as one of the most magnificent and beautiful
cities in the world. Constructing Pyongyang in such a
way that it may be called the face of our country, was
my desire and that of our people. On my return from a
visit to the Soviet Union and the socialist countries in
East Europe in 1984, I told officials that I had seen
nothing envious in those countries and that one thing I
regretted was that there were few modern streets in
Pyongyang with accommodation capable of appropriately
hosting major international functions. I said it would
be desirable to build such a large street in the
direction of Mangyongdae so that Pyongyang might take on
a better appearance as the capital of the revolution.
Comrade Kim
Jong Il, in enthusiastic support of my idea, said
that he would take charge of the construction of a new
modern street in Pyongyang. He undertook a bold,
building operation in a big way and constructed Kwangbok
Street and Chongchun Street in a short span of time.
Immediately after the project was completed, he
proposed the construction of Thongil Street and carried
it out with great effort. As a result, Pyongyang took on
a new appearance; the people’s housing problem was also
resolved. On the occasion of my 70th birthday, he
ensured the construction of the splendid Ice Rink and
the Grand People’s Study House in Pyongyang as I had
hoped. In addition the Maternity Hospital, the
Changgwang Health Complex and many other modern cultural
facilities and monumental structures were completed.
Whenever I look around magnificent and beautiful
Pyongyang, I feel great pleasure.
As you can see. Comrade Kim Jong Il
does everything to see that my wishes come true, and
that the problems of my concern are resolved. Exactly
here his loyalty to the Party and the leader, his
devotion to the country and the people, and his filial
devotion find concentrated expression.
He has been working day and
night, with all devotion and without taking care of
himself, in order to carry forward and develop the
revolutionary cause of Juche. Concerned over his health,
I have advised him to relax now and then, but he
continues to overwork, saying that he is impatient over
the passage of time while he has so much work to do.
I am now old, but still working
in good health thanks to his loyalty and filial
devotion. He always pays special attention to my health,
rest and relaxation. He takes all the necessary measures
to relieve me of inconveniences in my work. Worried over
my eyesight growing weak and my fatigue from reading
many papers, he has taken steps to get the reports to me
typed in large letters and some of the papers and
information for me tape-recorded. Thanks to his measures
I do not feel tired even though I read a lot of papers
requiring my approval.
Comrade Kim Jong Il
has the virtue of respecting his seniors in the
revolution.
He respects and gives prominence
to the veteran revolutionaries, my comrades-in-arms in
the anti-Japanese revolutionary struggle, and takes
meticulous care of them in and out of work. He looks
after retired veterans, providing them with good
clothing and sending them to holiday homes every year to
keep them in good health. You comrades, who are present
here, say that I need not worry over you because you are
living in happiness, being provided with good houses,
color television sets and deluxe cars thanks to his
consideration. That is a good thing. He sincerely cares
for not only the veterans of the anti-Japanese
revolution but also the aged officials, who have worked
with me since the liberation of the country, and looks
after them kindly. I am very pleased with this.
His respect for my comrades in
the revolution and holding them in public esteem is an
expression of his unshakable determination to accomplish
the revolutionary cause of Juche by carrying forward the
revolutionary traditions we established. Revolutionaries
must always bear in mind the roots of the revolution and
inherit the revolutionary traditions in a pure way.
Inheriting them does not mean anything special.
Respecting the forerunners that pioneered the
revolutionary cause and preserving and brightening their
idea and achievements means inheriting and developing
the revolutionary traditions. The attitude towards the
revolutionary forerunners and the purity of the
inheritance of their revolutionary traditions are the
touchstone that distinguishes between the true successor
to the revolution and a traitor. As for the behavior of
the persons that claimed to be leaders of a certain
country, they disparaged their revolutionary forerunners
and put themselves forward as soon as they came to
power. This is an act of traitors. Such an act will cut
off the lifeline of the revolution.
Judging from the single fact that
Comrade Kim
Jong Il respects the revolutionary forerunners and
holds them in high public esteem, we can say that he has
an excellent virtue as the leader of the people. If he
trains many more officials loyal to the Party and the
revolutionary cause and educates the younger generation
so that all of them maintain the tradition of respecting
their revolutionary forerunners, our revolutionary cause
will be stoutly carried forward from generation to
generation.
Comrade Kim Jong Il
takes loving care of the people and his comrades in the
revolution.
Once he trusts a person, he holds
him dear as his revolutionary comrade and cares for his
destiny through to the end on his responsibility. If
officials make mistakes in their work, he feels very
sorry for them. While criticizing them sternly, he sets
store by their loyalty, trusts them invariably and
leads them to brighten their political integrity all
their lives. Therefore, our officials regard Party
criticism as an expression of its trust in them and
strive to correct their mistakes to remain loyal to the
Party as long as they live.
Comrade Kim Jong Il
takes care of the workers, farmers, intellectuals and
all the other sections of the population in his embrace,
puts them forward as the masters of our society and
leads them to play their role as masters. He warmly
looks after even people with stained family backgrounds
or with checkered socio-political records without
discrimination and enlists them as legitimate members of
our revolutionary ranks if they follow our Party and
support socialism at present. He always goes out among
the people, shares weal and woe with them and spares
nothing for their happiness.
I can say that love for and trust
in his revolutionary comrades and the people are the
basic characteristics of Comrade Kim Jong Il’s
statesmanship. His statecraft of love and trust has
produced loyalty and filial devotion among our Party
members and other working people, brought about a full
flowering of beautiful communist virtues in all parts of
the country and changed the whole of society into a
large harmonious family, which is united on the
collectivist principle, “One for all and all for one!”
Our people now call his state management the politics of
love, politics of trust or all-embracing politics. This
is an expression of their confidence in him and praise
of him, one who trusts the people and dedicates himself
to the struggle for them.
For his leadership ability and
character and for his loyalty, devotion and
achievements, Comrade Kim Jong Il has earned the people’s
respect and love as well as high prestige as their
leader.
A person that makes sincere
efforts and fights for the people with all devotion will
enjoy the people’s support and a high public reputation
although he refrains from showing off. Comrade Kim Jong Il
does not like being in the limelight in the belief that
all that he needs to do is to work with loyalty to the
country and his fellow people, but our people respect
and support him, calling him “Dear Leader” for a long
time. This title carries with it our people’s love and
confidence in him.
It is a matter of great pleasure
that Comrade Kim
Jong Il, as the leader carrying forward the Juche
revolutionary cause, is respected, loved and praised by
the people. That is why I composed a poem in praise of
him, representing the unanimous feelings of the people
on the occasion of his 50th birthday.
The 19th Plenary Meeting of the
Sixth Central Committee of our Party acclaimed Comrade Kim Jong Il
as the Supreme Commander of the Korean People’s Army.
This is a high evaluation of his qualifications and his
revolutionary achievements as well as the expression of
the unshakable will of our Party and the people to
accomplish the Juche revolutionary cause under his
leadership.
The officers and men of our
People’s Army and all the people take great delight in
having Comrade Kim
Jong Il as the Supreme Commander of the Korean
People’s Army and are bidding him an enthusiastic
welcome. His acclamation as the Supreme Commander
strengthens our People’s Army further and inspires our
people with higher spirits. In contrast, the enemies
tremble with fear of him.
Because Comrade Kim Jong Il
carries forward our revolutionary cause splendidly,
everything in our country is going successfully at
present and will proceed with success in the future as
well. The era of Kim Jong Il is glorious today and will be
more prosperous and resplendent in the future. Our
revolution has a really great future.
Our people now sing a song to the
effect that without Comrade Kim Jong Il
there would be no motherland. This is a good song. As
the song says, without him both you comrades and the
socialist motherland would not exist. His destiny is
your destiny and the destiny of the country. The destiny
of the leader, the Party and the people is one. You
must, therefore, remain unfailingly loyal to him and
brilliantly accomplish the socialist cause and the
reunification of the country under his leadership.
In order to support his
leadership as you should, you must continue to
strengthen the single-hearted unity of the Party and the
revolutionary ranks.
The single-hearted unity we are
speaking of is the single-hearted unity around a single
centre, the leader. Only when the popular masses are
united rock-solid around the leader as a socio-political
organism can they be the independent motive force of the
revolution and play their role as such. Our revolution
has been able to advance victoriously, overcoming
incomparably arduous trials and we are now defending and
brightening socialism, changing adverse conditions into
favorable ones. This has been achieved in the difficult
situation in which the imperialists’ offensive against
socialism has been unprecedentedly intensified. This is
because our revolutionary ranks have become a powerful
motive force of the revolution, one which is
single-heartedly united behind the leader. All the
officials must make active efforts to strengthen the
unity of the Party and the revolutionary ranks around
Comrade Kim
Jong Il by carrying forward the tradition of
single-hearted unity of our revolution.
In order to fortify this
achievement, all the Party members and working people
must support Comrade Kim Jong Il with pure hearts, safeguard
him and protect him in every way on the basis of
revolutionary faith in him and revolutionary obligation.
There should not be the slightest affectation,
pretension or self-interest in supporting one’s leader.
A person with self-interest may be affected by the
general trend and change with the change in the
circumstances. One must always support one’s leader with
a pure and sincere mind. Our Party members and working
people must believe in their leader Comrade Kim Jong Il,
follow him and support him invariably with unfailing
loyalty whether in peace or in harsh trials.
The system of Comrade Kim Jong Il’s
unified leadership of the entire Party and the whole of
society, must be strengthened.
The leader’s unified leadership
is essential for ensuring the unity of idea and purpose
of the revolutionary ranks and their concerted action
and for accelerating the revolution and construction in
keeping with the aspirations and demands of the popular
masses.
The unified leadership of the
entire Party and the whole society is realized in the
process of carrying out the leader’s lines and policies.
All our officials and working people must accept Comrade
Kim Jong Il’s
lines and policies as absolutely valid and carry them
out in whatever difficult conditions and circumstances.
A person that strives with all his heart to carry out
the Party’s lines and policies and works with all
devotion, though speaking little, is a truly loyal
person that knows how to support his leader.
We must establish revolutionary
discipline by which the entire Party, all the people and
the entire army move as one under Comrade Kim Jong Il’s
leadership and prevent the infiltration among us of
bourgeois idea, revisionist idea, flunkeyist idea and
all other heterogeneous ideological trends that are
contrary to our Party’s revolutionary idea, so that
everyone in our Party and revolutionary ranks breathes
the same air as the Party, speaks in accordance with the
Party’s intention and walks in step with it.
The veterans of the anti-Japanese
revolution must set an example in supporting Comrade Kim Jong Il.
Anti-Japanese revolutionary
fighters are the honorable first generation of our
revolution, who, together with me, pioneered and
developed the revolutionary cause of Juche. You, the
veterans of our revolution, must make sure, by your
practical example, that the people and the younger
generation sincerely support and follow their leader.
Anti-Japanese revolutionary veterans must sincerely
support and help Comrade Kim Jong Il
just as they have been loyal to me until now, and ensure
that the socialist cause, the Juche revolutionary cause,
is accomplished. Since our revolution continues down
through generations, loyalty to the leader must be
carried forward down through generations. When loyalty
to the leader continues to be loyalty to his successor,
it will be genuine loyalty, and the person with such
loyalty is a true and loyal revolutionary.
Anti-Japanese revolutionary
veterans must educate their sons and daughters to
support Comrade Kim
Jong Il with loyalty and become stalwart heirs to
the revolution.
The younger generation is the
heirs to our revolutionary cause. The future of
socialism we have built and the destiny of the Juche
revolutionary cause depend entirely on how the new
generation, the heirs to the revolution, are prepared.
As history shows it, the younger generation in some
countries has not been educated on revolutionary lines,
so that the younger people were deceived by the
imperialists and reactionaries, came out in opposition
to socialism and followed the road of restoring
capitalism. In view of the great importance of the
younger generation’s education in the continuation of
the revolutionary cause, we have for a long time put
great efforts into training the younger people to be
reliable heirs to the revolution.
Today the ideological and
spiritual state of the young men and women, who have
been educated by our Party, is very good. They are
intensely loyal to the Party and work with all devotion
to resolve the problems of our Party’s concern. Our
young men and women volunteer to work in coal-mines,
country areas and other fields where work is difficult
and toilsome. Some have married honorably disabled
soldiers and adopted orphans as their children. These
laudable deeds have become universal in our country. We
are greatly proud of these excellent young men and
women, and exactly for this reason the future of our
revolution is securely guaranteed.
We must not rest content with
success in education and training of the younger
generation; we must continue to put great efforts into
this work. The veteran revolutionaries must teach their
children how their parents fought in the past for the
freedom and independence of the country and for the
people’s happiness; how socialism has been built as we
see it today, and implant intense loyalty and an
unbreakable revolutionary spirit in their hearts. In
this way you will make sure that not only your children
but also your grandchildren and great-grandchildren take
over the Juche revolutionary cause, securely defend it
and brilliantly develop it.
The children of revolutionary
martyrs, who are present here, have pledged to be
single-heartedly loyal to dear leader Comrade Kim Jong Il
just as their parents were faithful to me in the past.
That is good.
Your parents were loyal
revolutionaries. They devoted everything to the struggle
for the victory of our revolution in the past. None of
your parents started the revolution in the hope of
winning personal honor or an official position. They
embarked on the road of revolution solely for the
liberation and independence of the country and for the
people’s happiness and unhesitatingly laid down their
precious lives for that purpose. I can never forget your
parents, who died while fighting heroically for the
country and the revolution.
You must purely inherit the
loyalty and revolutionary spirit of your parents and
struggle with all devotion for the victory of the Juche
revolutionary cause.
The Party deeply trusts the
children of revolutionary martyrs and expects a great
deal from them. The Party regards you as the hard core
of our revolution and expects you to keep the important
posts of the revolution rock-solid. You must always bear
in mind the Party’s trust and expectations and become
guards and shock brigades in support of Comrade Kim Jong Il’s
leadership.
In order to fulfill your duties,
you must firmly prepare yourselves to be Juche-type
communist revolutionaries.
As I always say the son does not
become a revolutionary automatically simply because his
father is a revolutionary. The children of revolutionary
martyrs, to be true revolutionaries, must have high
ambitions and a strong determination to carry forward
the revolution following the example of the
revolutionary spirit of their parents and steadily train
themselves through revolutionary practice.
Only those who have high ideals
and ambition and realize them without fail can become
genuine revolutionaries. My father advanced the idea of
“Aim High” and educated me to cherish it. I have fought
with his words as my maxim and still keep them in my
mind. You must bear in mind that the Juche revolutionary
cause pioneered and developed by your parents is a
great, noble undertaking for the prosperity of the
country and the people’s happiness; you should become
loyal men and women who share the same destiny with the
Party for ever in the struggle to accomplish the cause.
The children of revolutionary
martyrs, to be Juche-type communist revolutionaries who
are unfailingly loyal to the Party and the revolution,
must firmly equip themselves with our Party’s Juche
idea.
The Juche idea is the sole
guiding ideology of our revolution and the revolutionary
outlook on the world that the Juche-type communist
revolutionaries must acquire. Only when you are solidly
armed with the Juche idea can you have the awareness of
being masters of the revolution and confidence in the
victory of the revolution and fight for the victory of
the Juche revolutionary cause through to the end. You
the children of revolutionary martyrs must study the
Juche idea harder, make it your unshakable belief and
translate it thoroughly into work and life. You must, on
no account, be affected with heterogeneous ideas that
run counter to the Juche idea and with the decadent way
of life. If you are affected with corrupt bourgeois
ideas and way of life, you will become ideologically and
mentally degenerate. If this happens, you will be unable
to work for the revolution. You must reject these evils
and think and act only in keeping with the requirements
of the Juche idea.
Participating
faithfully in organizational life is extremely
important. People can add luster to their valuable
socio-political integrity and lead worthwhile lives only
through organizational life. The children of
revolutionary martyrs must always value their
organization, participate faithfully in organizational
life so as to train themselves ideologically and prepare
themselves into stalwart revolutionaries with a high
sense of organization and discipline.
The children of revolutionary
martyrs must be free from greed for high positions and
refrain from hoping for privileges and special benefits.
Greed for high positions and the desire for privileges
and special benefits are alien to the qualities of
revolutionaries. Since the days of the anti-Japanese
armed struggle, I have considered it an iron rule of
life to “oppose eating from a small pot”. This means
opposing to live in a manner different from the ways of
the masses without mixing with them. In the years of the
anti-Japanese armed struggle I always shared bed and
board with my men. During the Fatherland Liberation War
when the people had to live on foxtail millet, I fought,
eating foxtail millet. I still live in the way I did in
the past. Only then can I feel peace of mind. Whatever
you do and wherever you work, you the children of
revolutionary martyrs must refrain from hoping for high
positions and special treatment and carry out the
assignments given by the Party in a responsible manner.
You must also love and respect the people at all times
and share hardships and pleasure with them.
The children of revolutionary
martyrs must not be greedy for material wealth. Such
greed is like opium that paralyses people’s
revolutionary spirit. If people covet articles and
money, they will become ideologically degenerate and end
in betraying the revolution. You must work and live in a
clean and pure way with a noble revolutionary spirit so
that you want nothing more than to work for the
revolution, even if you have to eat only frugal meals
with soya-bean paste.
Today I have had a pleasant time
with you, old comrades-in-arms of mine and the children
of revolutionary martyrs.
I strongly believe that you will
stoutly fight for the accomplishment of the socialist
cause, the Juche revolutionary cause, in loyal support
of Comrade Kim
Jong Il’s leadership.