Immortal Exploits in Songun-based Revolutionary Leadership

Immortal Exploits in Songun-based Revolutionary Leadership

On August 25, 1960 Kim Jong Il, eternal leader of socialist Korea, started his Songun-based revolutionary leadership. Since then, his half-a-century-long leadership ushered in a new era of prosperity unprecedented in the Korean history spanning some 5 000 years.

Kim Jong Il’s Songun leadership built up the country as a military power.

It was a century ago that Korea was reduced to the Japanese imperialist colony (1905-1945) for its weak military strength. It must be this grim lesson of history that impelled him to launch political activities with guidance over the Korean People’s Army.
Kim Jong Il paid primary attention to the thoroughgoing politico-ideological preparedness of the service personnel in his Songun-based leadership. The principal factor in the victory in a war is not the latest military hardware but the soldier masses that handle them--this was his steadfast viewpoint. He ensured that the political organs in the army enhanced their role to intensify ideological education of the service personnel and set forth militant slogans for them. He saw to it that they emulated the examples of the anti-Japanese revolutionary fighters who fought for national liberation, battle heroes of the Fatherland Liberation War (1950-1953) and those who sacrificed themselves for the country and people. Whenever he inspected the army units he showed deep concern to newspapers, magazines and books the soldiers read.

Kim Jong Il put emphasis on strengthening military capabilities of the People’s Army. He ensured that all the service personnel trained hard to be physically strong, well-versed in their weapons and possess excellent marksmanship. He taught them original strategies and tactics while inspecting their military drills. He exerted great efforts into developing self-reliant defence industry capable of manufacturing any state-of-the-art military equipment as it wished.

From the mid-1990s Kim Jong Il held higher the banner of Songun and redoubled his effort to strengthening military capabilities. The US-led imperialist allied forces went to the extreme of anti-DPRK manoeuvres, taking advantage of the collapse of socialist countries. To cope with them, he made energetic inspection tours of the army units for military buildup. He inspected over 5 200 units of the ministry of armed forces from the day of the start of his Songun-based revolutionary leadership until the last days of his life, and among them the units he visited from 1995 to December 2011 numbered 2 492.Under his wise leadership the Korean People’s Army has developed into an invincible army
fully prepared for both defence and attack and also possessed of a powerful nuclear deterrent.
Kim Jong Il turned Korea into a political and ideological power of the single-hearted unity by dint of his Songun-based revolutionary leadership.
He put forward the People’s Army as a pillar, main force, of the socialist cause.
He ensured that the entire people modelled after the revolutionary soldier spirit displayed by  the service personnel of the People’s Army. Accordingly the identity of the army and the people in ideology, viewpoint and fighting spirit reached a higher level and so much consolidated was the traditional single-minded unity of the Korean community.
Kim Jong Il made all of the people further cherish their confidence in socialism through consistent enforcement of such socialist policies as free education and medical treatment, though the country was undergoing severe economic difficulties due to the economic blockade of the imperialist allied forces in the closing years of last century. Living up to the motto “The people are my God” throughout his life, he worked heart and soul for improving the people’s standard of living. Human history has not yet recorded a people’s leader but him, who passed away on the road of field guidance for the well-being of his people. His Songun-based revolutionary leadership made it possible for the army and people in Korea to achieve their single-hearted unity around the Party. Kim Jong Il ushered in a new era of prosperity of building a thriving nation by his Songun-based revolutionary leadership. In August 1998 Korea launched its first earth satellite Kwangmyongsong 1 which was made entirely by their own efforts and technology. It was a clear signal that Korea set about building a prosperous and powerful nation.
It was his ideal to establish a thriving socialist country with strong national power in which, everything prospers and its people live happily with nothing to envy in the world. For its materialization he set forth a line of economic construction in the Songun era that priority is given to the development of defence industry while simultaneously developing light industry and agriculture.
               The line brought about eye-opening economic development in Korea. An iron-making system without using coking coal and scrap iron was established and the magnesite industry made Juche-based. The machine-building industry broke through the cutting edge and mass-produced CNC machine tools. The modernized fibre and fertilizer industries fed with domestic fuel and raw materials are greatly paying off. Radical progress is also made in light industry and agriculture. Gene engineering, bioengineering, information technology, nano technology and other cutting-edge technologies are making brisk headway. Farms of sturgeon, salmon, eel and terrapin mushroomed in all parts of the country.
All other sectors including education, public health and physical culture and sports underwent marked developments, while the cities and villages being turned into socialist fairylands for the people to live in splendour.

Kim Jong Il’s Songun-based revolutionary leadership is now being carried forward by supreme leader Kim Jong Un.