KIM JONG IL
LET US ALL
LIVE AND STRUGGLE LIKE HEROES
Talk to the
Senior Officials of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of
Korea
May 15,
1988
This year is an
eventful year which marks the 40th anniversary of the foundation of
the Republic and the 35th anniversary of victory in the Fatherland
Liberation War.
In recognition of
these anniversaries, we are going to hold a national meeting of heroes on a
grand scale.
The aim of this
national meeting of heroes is to advance the revolutionary cause of Juche
victoriously by carrying forward the heroic fighting traditions of our people,
with the revolutionary banner held higher, and by effecting a continuous upsurge
in the revolution and construction.
Immediately after
the end of the Fatherland Liberation War, the great leader convened a national
meeting of war heroes and encouraged our People's Army and our people to
continue to perform heroic exploits in the struggle for national defence and postwar reconstruction with the spirit and
stamina they had displayed in defeating the US
imperialists. The first heroes' meeting held 35 years ago made a great
contribution to inspiring our people to overcome triumphantly the difficulties
and trials standing in their way by displaying mass
heroism.
The forthcoming
national meeting of heroes will be a historic occasion for rousing all the
people to a new heroic struggle to achieve the complete victory of socialism and
hasten the reunification of the country.
Today our
revolution is entering an important phase.
Under the
leadership of the Party, our people have fought a hard struggle and done a great
deal of work in building socialism. If, through an uninterrupted, efficient
struggle, we carry out the Third Seven-Year Plan successfully, we shall be able
to display the superiority of our socialist system to the full and make a
decisive turn in the struggle for the complete victory of
socialism.
The south Korean
people are now fighting strongly against the United
States and for independence, against fascism
and for democracy, as well as for national reunification. Young people, student
sand broad sections of the people in south
Korea have realized the truth of the Juche idea, and the
trend among them to reunify the country in cooperation with the people in the
northern half of Korea is mounting as never before.
This means that the situation is maturing in favor of national reunification.
If, in this situation, we accelerate socialist construction and give it greater
momentum, it will be a great inspiration to the fighting south Korean people and
will further hasten the reunification of the country.
Today socialism
and imperialism are standing in acute confrontation in Korea
in all fields of politics, the economy, military and
culture.
With the wild
dream of obliterating the cause of socialism and communism, the imperialists are
making frantic moves against the socialist countries and the international
communist movement. They are threatening the socialist countries militarily by
their continued pursuance of power politics and are employing all sorts of
cunning schemes to damage the socialist countries politically and economically,
ideologically and culturally.
The US
imperialists in particular are concentrating their attack on our country in
league with the Japanese reactionaries and other imperialist forces of the
world.
The US
imperialists have made south Korea their colony and nuclear war base and are
trying to obstruct our people's cause of national reunification and socialist
construction, defame our country and isolate it in the international
arena.
They are doing so
because our Party and our people are firmly opposed to imperialism and are
confidently following the road of socialism, with the revolutionary banner of
the Juche idea always unfurled. They fear the fact that our Republic is
strengthening daily to become an indestructible bulwark that thwarts their
aggressive Asia-Pacific strategy. They are also afraid of our revolutionary
influence on the south Korean people and on the progressive people throughout
the world.
How to counter
the frantic imperialist offensive against socialism is a matter of principle
that affects the destiny of our revolution and socialism.
Our Party and our
people have assumed a heavy responsibility to our times and to history. We must
keep the banner of revolution, the banner of socialism, flying, by foiling the
enemy's frenzied attacks and effecting a steady advance in socialist
construction. We must never weaken, but continue to maintain the high enthusiasm
being displayed in the current 200-day campaign. We must follow this campaign
with a 2,000-day campaign and then a 20,000-day campaign. This is the way to
carry the revolutionary cause of Juche through to the end and to discharge the
heavy responsibility we have assumed before the world
revolution.
This is precisely
our Party's intention in convening the national meeting of heroes, that is to
rouse all the Party members and other working people to a heroic
struggle.
Our people have
the proud traditions of fighting heroically for the fatherland and for the
revolutionary cause of Juche.
The great leader
Comrade Kim ll Sung began our people's heroic
struggle and led this struggle to victory at each stage of the development of
the revolution, and under his loving care great numbers of heroes have grown up
through the generations.
The anti-Japanese
revolutionary struggle was the most glorious one in which our people, under the
banner of the Juche idea, defeated a formidable imperialism for the first time
in their history. It was the most heroic struggle which was waged unyieldingly
for a long period, despite the unprecedented arduous and harsh
trials.
The anti-Japanese
revolutionary fighters are the first proud generation of heroes produced by our
people. With the respected Comrade Kim ll Sung
as the core of unity and the centre of leadership, they displayed an
incomparable heroic and self-sacrificing spirit in their fight against the
Japanese imperialists, overcoming all manner of difficulty and hardship. They
held the unshakable conviction that living or dying on the path of the
revolution directed by the people's leader, whom our nation had acclaimed for
the first time in their history of several thousand years, was the source of
honor. They never failed to fulfill their revolutionary obligations to the
leader as his soldiers in any adversity, and were unfailingly loyal to the
revolutionary cause. The exploits performed by the anti-Japanese revolutionary
fighters in defending the leader of our revolution with their lives in the most
trying conditions and in contributing to the establishment of the glorious
revolutionary traditions of our Party and to the accomplishment of the cause of
national liberation, hold a glorious place in the history of our
revolution.
In view of both
their distinguished service and their fighting spirit, they are the model of
revolutionaries and the paragons of heroism whom our people must follow from
generation to generation.
Our Party
respects and values them as the veterans of our revolution, and shows deep
concern for the anti-Japanese revolutionary martyrs so that they hold a
permanent place in the history of our nation.
The
three-year-long Fatherland Liberation War was our people's grimmest struggle
after liberation.
It was a great
revolutionary war of worldwide significance, a war in which our people defended
their motherland and inflicted the first-ever defeat on US imperialism, the
ringleader of world imperialism, by waging a national, heroic struggle. It was,
indeed, a miracle that our newly-liberated people could defeat the powerful
US imperialists in this war. At the
time the enemy forces were incomparably superior to ours both numerically and
technologically. The US imperialists mobilized for the Korean war their vast
army, navy and air force armed with modern weapons and the latest equipment as
well as the armies of their 15 satellites, and conducted the most cruel and
brutal warfare. The young People's Army and our people were able to defeat these
enemies because they fought heroically, displaying the indomitable fighting
spirit of their anti-Japanese revolutionary forerunners and trusted and united
closely behind the great leader, the legendary hero of the anti-Japanese war and
the ever-victorious, iron-willed, brilliant commander.
Our people, who
had experienced a decent life and real happiness as masters of factories and
land for the first time in their own liberated country, fought the aggressors
self-sacrificingly, remembering that the motherland
was more precious than their own lives and that it was their obligation to prove
themselves, even at the cost of their lives, worthy of the benevolence shown by
the leader, the leader who had won back the country for
them.
In response to
the orders of the Comrade Supreme Commander, the soldiers of the People's Army
defended every inch of the country with their blood. They fell upon the enemy
tanks and warships and destroyed them and silenced enemy pillboxes with their
breasts, as if their bodies were bombs, in fierce, decisive encounters, and so
ensured victory in battle. Truly, the soldiers of the People's Army fought
bravely, sacrificing their youth and their lives without hesitation for the sake
of the country and the people. During the war the people on the home front also
fought well. Eyen the women, old people and children came out in support of the
battle front and produced war supplies, defended their factories and their
villages and towns, and so made a great contribution to victory in the
war.
For their
matchless mass heroism displayed during the Fatherland Liberation War, our
people were called a heroic people by the world.
The large numbers
of heroes produced during this war are a source of pride for our people and a
valuable asset of our revolution.
The anti-Japanese
fighters made an immortal contribution to winning back the lost country; the
heroes of the Fatherland Liberation War made a great contribution to defending
the motherland from US imperialist aggression and to
demonstrating the heroic mettle of our liberated people to the whole world.
The war heroes,
heroes of a new generation produced by the Republic, are a splendid model in
educating our younger generation and the people in loyalty to the Party and the
leader and in the spirit of patriotism.
Our people not
only fought heroically in the wars against the Japanese and US imperialists, but
also performed heroic exploits in their endeavors to create a new
life.
No war in history
has ever devastated every town and village and reduced them all to ashes as the
war did in our country. Nor is there any historical precedent for having
constructed new towns and villages from the rubble and having built socialism so
wonderfully in so short a time as in our country. The US
imperialists have a shameful record in the history of criminal destruction,
whereas our people have an honorable record in the history of fruitful
construction. The fact that our people have achieved such a miraculous success
in spite of the ceaseless aggressive maneuvers and obstructive actions of the
US imperialists and their minions is
an eloquent demonstration of the amazing heroism they have displayed in postwar
reconstruction and in building socialism.
The Chollima Movement and the great upsurge in socialist
construction are a clear expression of our people's mass heroism. The heroes who
were produced on the great Chollima march
formed the front rank in the work of re-educating the people as well as being
the standard-bearers of the collective innovation movement, heroes who acquired
the truth of the Juche idea that man decides everything.
They educated and
transformed people along communist lines so that everyone participated in making
collective innovations in production and construction, helping and leading each
other forward, under the slogan "One for all and all for one!".
The heroes in the
days of the great Chollima upsurge made a
historic contribution to turning the work of re-educating people into the
concern of the masses themselves and to ushering in the heyday of socialist
construction, by carrying through the revolutionary mass line of our
Party.
The unassuming
heroes who are being produced in large numbers from among our people today are
model communists of the Juche type. They believe firmly in the Juche idea and
our Party's policies, the application of this idea, and have been discharging
their responsibilities and playing their roles as masters of the revolution and
construction whether they are recognized or not. Our unassuming heroes are
people who have acquired the attitude of master towards the revolution and
construction and made it their life blood.
The unassuming
heroes are the heroes of a new type who represent our times, when the modeling
of the whole of society on the Juche idea is developing in
depth.
We are trying to
transform the whole of society after the Juche idea in order to train all the
members of society to be communist people of the Juche type who live and work in
accordance with the Juche idea, just as the unassuming heroes
do.
The daily-growing
numbers of unassuming heroes prove the validity of our Party's consistent policy
for transforming people along communist lines as well as the superiority of our
socialist system,
In our country
there are also a large number of well-known heroes and unsung heroes who have
devoted everything in their possession to the sacred causes of defending our
revolutionary achievements and our people's security and of reunifying our
country and making it prosperous. Our Party and our people will never forget
their heroic services.
The ranks of our
heroes, that were first formed during the anti-Japanese revolutionary struggle,
have continued to grow, and our people's heroism, that has been carried forward
and developed through the generations, has now become universal among the masses
and a part of their everyday life. This means that our people's heroism has
entered a new, higher stage in which every member of society is becoming a
hero.
Our Party wants
everyone to become a hero, and in our society everyone can become a
hero.
Living and
fighting like heroes means struggling with total devotion for the revolutionary
cause of the popular masses, not for one's own interests and
fame.
In the old
society of exploiters only exceptional people with outstanding qualities were
considered heroes. However, the heroes we refer to are those people who enjoy
the love and respect of the people for the great services they have rendered for
the good of the fatherland and the people, the society and the collective. In
our society, where the people have become the masters of the country, not only
those with outstanding qualities, but also the ordinary people can all become
heroes.
A man who is
completely devoted to the common cause of the popular masses can become a war
hero by silencing an enemy gun muzzle with his chest in a battle to defend the
country; in socialist construction he can become either a labor hero by making
innovations, or an unassuming hero by making a valuable contribution to the
building of socialism while quietly carrying out his duties as befits a
master.
To live like a
hero and to become a hero is the most valuable and worthwhile way of life and
the highest honor for an independent man.
Man does not live
in isolation, but as a member of society and of the
collective.
Therefore, the
worth of his life is appraised by how much he contributes to the society and the
collective. The greater contribution someone's life has made to the country, the
nation and the revolutionary cause of the people, the more valuable that life
is.
Only a man who
leads such a worthwhile life can feel the real value of
life.
If a man was to
live only for his own sake, in isolation from the society and the collective,
his life would be utterly worthless. The life of such a man would be as
meaningless as if he had not been born because he would neither contribute
anything to the society and the collective, nor leave anything for
them.
Living a
worthwhile life for the society and the collective and spending one's whole life
meaninglessly for one's own self-interest represent two fundamentally different
attitudes towards life.
A life which is
spent only for the individual's sake ends with the death of the individual. His
life has no future. There is an end to the life of an individual, but the
society and the collective exist and develop for ever. A life which contributes
to the good of the society and the collective not only benefits the person
himself and his generation but also creates a lasting future for the society and
the collective. Such a life, indeed, conforms to man's inherent desire for
independence; it is a worthy life which enables a man to perform his duty as a
member of the society and the collective. If a man only seeks his own comfort,
irrespective of what becomes of the society and the collective, his life will
essentially be no different to that of an animal. No noble self-sacrifice or
heroic deed can be expected from a man who is selfish. Heroic deeds can only be
performed by a man who believes the greatest value and worth in life to be to
contribute to the society and the collective, which are eternal and incomparably
more precious than his own individual self.
Living and
fighting heroically is the way for a man to exalt his most precious
socio-political integrity and make himself immortal.
Both man's
physical life and his socio-political integrity are precious. A sound physical
life helps in one's socio-political activities. But socio-political integrity is
more valuable for a man, a social being. It is only when people form a social
organism and acquire socio-political integrity that they can shape their destiny
independently and live like men, as the masters of the world and of their own
destiny A man's physical life is mortal, but his socio-political integrity as
part of the social organism is immortal.
Socio-political
integrity is honored in the struggle to meet the desires of the society and the
collective. These desires are represented by the Party and the
leader.
Therefore, a man
can add lasting glory to his socio-political integrity if he is loyal to the
Party and the leader and fights heroically to implement the Party's line and
policies.
A long life is
not necessarily the measure of the value of one’s life. A man ought to live like
a hero even if he only lives a short while. Our Party wants everyone to live and
fight like a hero because it wants everyone to enjoy a most valuable and worthy
life. In former days, people did not know what was meant by a heroic life, and
there was no one who could guide them to lead a heroic life. So there were many
instances of people, in spite of loving their country and nation ardently,
failing to find the right course for their struggle, shedding their blood in
vain and spending their whole lives fruitlessly. Nowadays, our Party is leading
our people in a heroic struggle. Anyone who follows the leadership of the Party
and the leader loyally and works with devotion in carrying out his revolutionary
tasks can enjoy a worthwhile life and become a hero.
Today our people
are living in the most glorious era of struggle in the long history of our
nation.
To win the
complete victory of socialism and reunify the country are our sacred duties to
history and to our nation; these are urgent tasks that must be carried out by
our generation.
The most
difficult yet important task in accomplishing the revolutionary cause of Juche,
that has been initiated and directed by the leader, is to achieve the complete
victory of socialism. We must attain the goal of the complete victory of
socialism and thus open up a broad path to the ideal society of
communism.
At a time when
the colonial system has collapsed throughout the world and when all the
liberated people are following the road of independence, it is intolerable that
colonial rule has been imposed on half of our country by the US imperialists for
more than 40 years in the wake of Japanese imperialist colonial rule. We must,
without fail, reunify the country in our generation and put an end to the
history of national suffering.
Anyone who has
the blood of a heroic Korean must always remember the mission entrusted to him
by history and his nation, and must take part in this sacred struggle and render
heroic services.
If he becomes a
laggard in this momentous struggle led by the great Party and the great leader,
it will be a disgrace to him throughout his life and the stain will be passed
down to posterity.
We must carry
forward our people's glorious fighting traditions and rouse all the people
forcefully to a heroic struggle to accomplish the revolutionary cause of
Juche.
We must enhance
the leadership role of our Party in order to press on with the heroic struggle
of all the people.
All the heroic
struggles of our people in the past have been conducted under the direct
guidance of the great leader. He has led our people's heroic struggle personally
not only during the anti-Japanese revolutionary struggle and the Fatherland
Liberation War but also in the period of socialist construction. He lit the
torch of the Chollima Movement and trained the
working people to be Chollima riders and
heroes. He has discovered unassuming heroes and led a mass movement to emulate
them.
We must learn
from the great examples shown by the leader, and guide the all-people, heroic
struggle of today properly.
Party
organizations must conduct energetic political and organizational activities to
rouse all the Party members and working people to the heroic
struggle.
"Let us all live
and struggle like heroes!"-this is our Party's requirement and the slogan that
we must shout now. We must encourage all the Party members and working people to
advance under this militant slogan so that the whole of society is imbued with
heroic mettle with which all of them make continual innovations and a continuous
advance by displaying boundless devotion and an indomitable fighting spirit and
wiping out all indolent easygoing attitudes, conservatism and lethargy, and
fight courageously, full of confidence and optimism, sweeping away cowardice and
defeatism.
Ours is the age
of science and technology. The mass heroism of our people must be combined with
modern science and technology.
We must press
ahead with the technical and cultural revolutions, along with the ideological
revolution, and quickly raise the working people's scientific, technical and
cultural levels so that they make greater achievements in socialist
construction.
The
Three-Revolution Red Flag Movement and the campaign to follow the examples of
the unassuming heroes, which are developing under our Party's leadership, are
powerful mass movements to transform people along communist lines and bring
about collective innovations in socialist construction. But these movements are
not displaying their advantages and vitality as mass movements to the full
because Party organizations do not employ a correct methodology to give
efficient guidance to them. The lifeblood of a mass movement lies in its being
the movement of the masses themselves. Party organizations must radically
improve their guidance of the Three-Revolution Red Flag Movement and the
campaign to emulate the unassuming heroes. In this way they will ensure that
these movements become a powerful motive force capable of rousing all the
working people to conduct heroic activities in keeping with the Party’s
intention to induce them to perform great services for the country and the
people and enjoy a valuable and worthwhile life; they will also ensure that
these campaigns fully become movements of the masses
themselves.
Party
organizations should work well with heroes.
This is very
important in imbuing our society with the revolutionary spirit to live and
struggle in a heroic way and in expanding the ranks of heroes
ceaselessly.
Party
organizations must treasure and lead well our heroes who, in support of the
Party, have performed exploits for the country and the people, so that they
continue to flourish. They must respect the heroes and place them at the fore,
and create the social climate for emulating them.
Good preparations
should be made for the heroes’ meeting.
The meeting will
be attended by anti-Japanese revolutionary veterans, heroes of the Fatherland
Liberation War, people who have become heroes during post-war reconstruction and
socialist construction and unassuming heroes, as well as people who have
performed distinguished services and made innovations for the country and the
people.
We must make sure
that the heroes' meeting is held on a large scale, in a grand manner and at a
high political and ideological level.
It is the
unshakable will of our Party to accomplish the revolutionary cause of Juche down
through the generations under the revolutionary banner of the Juche idea. We
must ensure that the forthcoming heroes' meeting demonstrates to the world both
our Party's will to carry through the Juche-orientated revolutionary line with
absolute consistency and the unconquerable might of our people who are fighting
heroically, united solidly behind our Party.
* *
*
The Chollima Movement- symbolic of a legendary horse that
runs 1,000-ri (250km) at a gallop, Chollima symbolizes the revolutionary mettle of the
Korean people who build socialism at a very fast speed.
During the great
upsurge of socialist construction occasioned by the December 1956 Plenary
Meeting of the Central Committee of the WPK, the Chollima movement was launched.
It was an
all-people movement to eliminate all that is backward in all realms of the
economy, culture, ideology, morality and step up socialist construction to the
maximum. It has become the general line of the WPK.
Developing into
the Chollima workteam
movement, the movement brought about a high speed and upsurge in socialist
construction through the edification of the working
people.
In this process
the revolutionary spirit of Chollima was
created- the spirit of eliminating all manner of passivism and conservatism and
advancing without letup at the speed of Chollima.
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