“He was a heaven-sent man for the good of mankind. Such a great man is born once in several centuries.”
This is what Vishwanath, Secretary General of the International Kim Il Sung Prize Council, Director General of the International Institute of the Juche Idea and prominent social figure in India, said about Kim Jong Il (1942-2011), eternal Chairman of the National Defence Commission of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. As he said, great are the exploits Kim Jong Il performed for the ideals and peace of mankind.
In the late 20th century, the world was plunged deeper into political turmoil with the collapse of socialism in the Soviet Union and Eastern European countries and revival of capitalism in those countries.
At this very juncture, Kim Jong Il published various works including Socialism Is a Science, in which he proved the scientific accuracy of socialism as an ideal society of humankind and the reactionary and sophistic nature of the slander against socialism. The progressive peoples, who had been groping for a true road, had a full understanding of the cause of the collapse of the socialist system in the Eastern European countries and embarked on the fresh struggle for socialism.
In April 1992, many political parties aspiring after socialism had come to Pyongyang and published a declaration, titled, Let Us Defend and Advance the Socialist Cause. From then on the socialist movement continued its advance in the world arena, and socialism became an unchangeable ideal common to humanity.
However, the DPRK, a socialist fortress in the world, became subject to the offensive of the allied imperialist forces. The use of military means against the country was under discussion and political and economic sanctions and pressure strengthened. To make matters worse, disastrous natural calamities hit the country for consecutive years, making its economic situation more strained.
No other country could have held on in such a situation. Kim Jong Il braved the manifold hardships by rousing his people. With the independent character of the country’s economy strengthened, many factories and enterprises that had suspended production began to resume production. Large-scale land realignment project and many other undertakings were conducted in the agricultural sector to boost cereal production. Technological progresses were made; CNC machine tools were mass-produced and cutting edge was broken in the space technology. All these smashed the enemy’s theory that the DPRK would implode in three days, in three months or in three years.
Holding high the banner of Songun, Kim Jong Il remarkably strengthened the country’s national defence capabilities, thus frustrating the aggressive moves for war by the imperialist forces. Hard-line military measures taken by him prevented hostile forces from igniting a war on the Korean peninsula.
If the DPRK had been the same as Iraq, former Yugoslavia or Afghanistan, it must have met a miserable fate like those countries. Kim Jong Il defended peace and security in Northeast Asia and the rest of the world.
DPRK in 2019
The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea has so far achieved remarkable development under the harsh economic sanctions and pressure by the hostile forces. And what will be the year 2019 for the country?
In his new year address for 2019 Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un advanced “Let us open a new road of advance for socialist construction under the uplifted banner of self-reliance!” as a slogan for all the people to uphold in the year’s struggle.
His address is run through with the spirit of independence. What he and his people were convinced of once again through the previous year’s struggle was the truth that his country is fully capable of achieving its prosperity by dint of its strength and efforts, without any external assistance or any other’s help.
Proceeding from this conviction, he set forth strengthening the might of the independent socialist economy as the major task for the new year. Meaningful in the New Year Address is the part that stressed that the country should rely on its own technical forces and resources and the high creative spirit and revolutionary enthusiasm of all the people so as to succeed in attaining the strategic goals of national economic development and enter a new stage of growth. The part that talented personnel, science and technology are the country’s major strategic resources and weapons with which to bring about a great leap forward in socialist construction gives a glimpse into the country’s aspirations.
The New Year Address set remarkably increasing electricity generation as one of the most important urgent tasks in 2019.
By focusing state investment on the electric-power industry to maintain and reinforce its existing foundation and making maximum and effective use of it to renovate and modernize one by one badly needed sectors and projects, it plans to raise power generation to the peak year level; in order to fully solve the problem of electricity, it is going to step up the construction of hydroelectric power stations and create a capacity for generating tidal, wind and atomic power under a far-reaching plan. The New Year Address stressed that provinces, cities and counties should develop and utilize in an effective way various energy sources available in their local areas.
The coal-mining industry will play the role of a primary front in developing the self-supporting economy. In the DPRK coal serves a source of fuel and power for different sectors of the national economy, including the metallurgical industry. It is quite natural that mass-production of coal will propel the development of the economy.
Last year the country set up iron-making processes that do not use coking coal and scrap iron. The metallurgical industry will lower production cost to the minimum by perfecting the scientific and technological aspects of iron- and steel-making processes and ensuring their normal operation, and increase their production capacity.
The chemical industry will step up the building of the phosphatic fertilizer factory and the establishment of the C1 chemical industry, develop the glauberite and synthetic fibre industries and convert the existing equipment and technical processes into energy-saving and labour-saving ones.
The transport and machine-building industry sectors will also achieve development by their own efforts.
In the New Year Address Kim Jong Un said that improving the people’s standard of living radically is a matter of greatest importance for the Workers’ Party of Korea and the government of the DPRK.
The agricultural front will conduct a campaign for increased production, livestock farming will be developed, and a new path will be opened for developing the fishing industry.
The sector of light industry, by consistently upholding the banner of modernizing production lines, obtaining at home everything needed for production and improving quality, will put production on a regular footing. And construction of the Wonsan-Kalma coastal tourist area and other new tourist areas that would represent the present era would be accelerated for people’s civilized life and happiness.
These huge tasks will be implemented by identifying and enlisting every last reserve, possibility and potential and by increasing production and practising economy.
The New Year Address also referred to the tasks for increasing the country’s politico-ideological strength in every way possible, accelerating the building of socialist civilization and solidifying the national defence capability.
In the New Year Address Kim Jong Un called on all the Party members and other working people to step up socialist construction in their own way however the situation and circumstances may change, and glorify the country’s great history by working with sincere devotion and a patriotic desire for developing their homeland by their own efforts before the eyes of the world, the precious land of socialism which they have defended from generation to generation–a declaration that the road of self-reliance is the only road the DPRK should follow.
