LET US HASTEN FINAL VICTORY THROUGH A REVOLUTIONARY IDEOLOGICAL OFFENSIVE KIM JONG UN

 KIM JONG UN

LET US HASTEN FINAL VICTORY THROUGH A REVOLUTIONARY IDEOLOGICAL OFFENSIVE

Speech at the Eighth Conference of Ideological Workers of the Workers’ Party of Korea

February 25, Juche 103 (2014)

At this significant time when we are marking the 40 anniversary of the proclamation by the great Comrade Kim Jong Il that modelling the whole society on Kimilsungism was the ultimate programme of our Party, we are holding the Eighth Conference of Ideological Workers of the Workers’ Party ofKorea.

Availing myself of this opportunity and reflecting the unanimous wish of all those attending this conference and all other members of the Party, I pay the noblest tribute to the great President Kim Il Sung, the founder and builder of the ever-victorious Workers’ Party of Korea, and to the great General Kim Jong Il, the eternal General Secretary of the Party.

And on the occasion of this conference I extend, in my capacity as First Secretary of the Workers’ Party of Korea, warm thanks and militant greetings to those attending the conference and all other ideological workers of the Party and primary information workers across the country, who have worked with devotion and burning hearts at their workplaces and military posts as buglers of the revolution and pathfinders of the times.

This conference held on a scale unprecedented in the history of our Party, will be a milestone and mark a radical turn in exalting forever the brilliance of the imperishable exploits performed by the great President and the great General who, holding high the unfurled banner of the Juche idea, led the Korean revolution forward along a road resplendent with victory, in understanding and confirming once again the importance of ideological work and in launching a vigorous ideological offensive as demanded by the developing revolution.

The most powerful weapon for a party that is waging a revolution shouldering the people’s destiny-in fact its one and only weapon-is ideology. Without ideology, a party cannot be founded nor can it exist, and its work and revolutionary struggle are inconceivable separated from ideological work. The bloodline of the revolution is defended and the revolution advances on the strength of ideology.

The one and only weapon for the Korean revolution, which started from nothing, was a great revolutionary ideology. The revolutionaries of Korea rallied their comrades and obtained weapons with their ideology; and on its strength they defeated the imperialist powers and have built a prospering socialism. We cannot see a revolution in the history of any country or of any party that, like our revolution, started out with a definite guiding ideology and has turned that ideology into a powerful force for conducting a great struggle and transformation.

The whole course of the Korean revolution can be called a history of ideological work to give full play to the might of the truth of the revolutionary ideology of the President and the General.

In our revolution, ideological work has always been the most important work, and a great tradition of ideological work was created in its first days.

Thanks to the wise leadership of the President and the General, who gave priority to ideological work and resolved all problems by enlisting the mental strength of the masses of the people in the whole course of their leadership of the Korean revolution, the revolution inscribed only victory on its flag, even though it was blazing a new trail in history. By raising the mental strength of the service personnel and people, our Party has turned the trials decisive of victory or defeat in the revolution and its advance or setback into great upswings, and our revolution has climbed a “high mountain” whenever an upswing has been effected in ideological work.

The Third Conference of Ideological Workers of the Workers’ Party of Korea, which was held 40 years ago and at which the great General proclaimed that modelling the whole society on Kimilsungism is the ultimate programme of our Party, is of special importance in the history of our Party, as it opened a pivotal phase of the revolution on the strength of ideology.

That the General defined Kimilsungism as the guiding ideology of our Party and proclaimed that modelling the whole society on that ideology is the ultimate programme of our Party, was a political event that clearly indicated the road for bringing closer the final victory in the Korean revolution and roused all the service personnel and people to achieving it.

The historic advance to model the whole society on Kimilsungism gave birth to a powerful political General Staff that achieved oneness in ideology and leadership for the first time in the history of building a revolutionary party, to invincible revolutionary armed forces that march with the red flag of the Workers’ Party as its leading standard, and to militant ranks united single-heartedly.

History clearly shows how a powerful country which is independent, self-sufficient and self-reliant in national defence has been built on this land where once the worship of big countries and dogmatism were deeply rooted and a socialist fortress created which remains unperturbed in the face of worldwide political upheavals and the imperialists’ vicious moves to isolate and suffocate it.

Today mankind is studying the great Kimilsungism-Kimjongilism so as to find the road ahead of them. Everywhere on the globe the ideology centred on the masses, the revolutionary theory of independence, has become the spirit and banner of struggle for people who aspire after genuine freedom and happiness.

Endless is the glory our service personnel and people enjoy for having waged the revolution for scores of years along the road indicated by the great ideology and in a country which is admired by the whole world and which gave birth to the ideology guiding the era of independence.

To hasten the final victory of the Korean revolution, holding high the banner of the great Kimilsungism-Kimjongilism, is their faith and will and the wish of the times and history.

We must hold aloft modelling the whole society on Kimilsungism-Kimjongilism as the ultimate programme of the Party and accomplish the Korean revolution without fail on the strength of ideology, on the strength of single-hearted unity.

The standard-bearers in the effort to model the entire Party and the whole society on Kimilsungism-Kimjongilism are ideological workers.

Success not only in transforming all the members of society into advocates of Kimilsungism-Kimjongilism but also in transforming all realms of social life as required by Kimilsungism-Kimjongilism depends on the success of ideological work.

You should once again reflect on the deep reason why the General convened the conference of ideological workers and proclaimed in front of Party information workers from across the country the programme of modelling the whole society on Kimilsungism.

We should spark a struggle on the Party’s ideological frontfirst and heighten the intensity of ideological work so as to markedly quicken the onward march of our revolution to model the whole society on Kimilsungism-Kimjongilism.

We have rich experience of forcefully propelling the historic march to model the whole society on Kimilsungism by dint of an intensive ideological offensive, and we also have powerful forces and means of information and motivation work with which to stir up the whole country all at once.

To hasten the final victory of the revolution by holding higher the ideological theory of Juche, a powerful weapon-this is the main spirit of this conference.

In view of the demands of the reality when modelling the whole society on Kimilsungism-Kimjongilism poses itself as the general task in the ideological work of our Party, the Party Central Committee has presented to the Eighth Conference of Ideological Workers of the Workers’ Party of Korea the slogan, “Let us hasten final victory through a revolutionary ideological offensive!”

In the firm belief that all those attending this conference and other ideological workers throughout the Party, aware of the honour and responsibility of being ideological standard-bearers in accomplishing the cause of modelling the whole society on Kimilsungism-Kimjongilism, will give full play to the strength of our Party’s revolutionary ideology and the inexhaustible mentalstrength of all the service personnel and people, I would like to speak about some problems facing the Party in its ideological work at present.

First of all, we should concentrate all our efforts in the Party’s ideological work on firmly establishing the Party’s monolithic leadership system.

The objective of our effort to establish the Party’s monolithic leadership system across the Party and society is to consolidate the unity and cohesion of the Party, the political General Staff of the revolution, and its fighting efficiency in all aspects, implement the instructions of the President and the General to the letter, and realize our people’ dreams and ideals as soon as possible.

Now is a crucial period when we must break through the ordeals facing the revolution by rallying the service personnel and people more firmly around the Party and channel all their patriotic enthusiasm, wisdom and resourcefulness into stepping up the building of a thriving country.

The ideological system and leadership system for carrying out this historic task scrupulously and perfectly is none other than the Party’s monolithic leadership system.

The ideological work of our Party must naturally proceed from its basic task in the present period, and the main effort must be directed to implementing it.

However, Party organizations are now revealing a tendency to pay only lip service to the work of establishing the Party’s monolithic leadership system, and to engross themselves in paperwork in this regard.

Although a Party-wide discussion of the documents on establishing the Party’s monolithic leadership system wasconducted and many study sessions, public lectures and oath-taking meetings held, Party organizations failed to detect and crush in advance the modern version of a factionalist group which had formed within the Party.

Although our Party has its great revolutionary ideology and absolutely correct lines and policies, its organizations and excellent people, a factionalist group recently appeared within the Party. Our ideological workers are partly to blame for this.

This modern version of a factionalist group was an ideologically degenerate entity which was outwardly overwhelmed with fear in the face of the pressure from the imperialists and inwardly contaminated with bourgeois ideology and culture.

The factionalist practice of challenging the Party’s monolithic leadership system originates in ideological degeneration, and the renegades of ideology are bound to oppose the Party and the revolution in the long run.

Imbuing the Party and the revolutionary ranks with one ideology-this is the seed and core of the effort to establish the Party’s monolithic leadership system.

The objective of the revolutionary ideological offensive for establishing the Party’s monolithic leadership system is to make the great Kimilsungism-Kimjongilism and its embodiment, the Party’s lines and policies, an unshakeable conviction among the masses of the people.

The revolutionary ideology of our Party has always accorded with the aspirations and demands of the masses, and there is no line or policy of the Party which they cannot understand and accept.

A breakthrough should be made in the ideological offensive by raising across the Party another strong wind of studying the immortal works of the President and the General and the documents of the Party, a library of Kimilsungism-Kimjongilism.

These works and documents are excellent textbooks for the education in the one and only ideology and a great encyclopaedia explaining our Party’s lines and policies.

If they study them in a chronological order and in a systematic way, Party members, other working people and service personnel can equip themselves firmly with the Juche idea, the Songun idea, Kim Jong Il’s patriotism, therevolutionary traditions of our Party and class awareness, and fully understand any new lines and policies advanced by the Party.

It is important to conduct education work in a scrupulous manner so that all are well-versed in the instructions the President and the General gave to their own individual sectors and units and the Party’s policies, and make them a creed in their work and life.

You need to explain to the masses the Party’s policies for agiven period in a logical and convincing way so that they empathize with them and accept them as their own. You should focus on informing people in simple terms about things they are eager to know and hear on the basis of the Party’s policies and in the same way that you would tell a thirsty person where he or she can find water to drink.

In the future, if everybody at a unit is as well informed of the Party’s lines and policies as they are of their family affairs, theunit will be considered to have conducted ideological work effectively and to have established the monolithic leadership system.

“Exceptions” must never be permitted in ideological work.

The fact is that even a rolling stone may gather moss; so, one is bound to degenerate when afforded exceptional treatment.

There may be some special tasks assigned by the Party, but within our Party there cannot exist “exceptions” who are allowed to neglect their ideological life and be ignorant of its lines and policies. In the case of special units, ideological work should be strengthened further and they should be rendered as strong as steel in the furnace of ideological struggle.

Ideological workers should be able to discern at a glance if there is something alien in the eyes of others. They must use the ideological “scalpel” promptly root out the causes of such misdemeanours as arguing over issues decided by the Party, undermining its leadership exploits covertly or overtly and breeding corruption within our ranks in contravention of our Party’s and class principles.

It is important to conduct the work of imbuing the Party and the revolutionary ranks with one ideology in close combination with the practical struggle.

A person’s ideology is expressed in practice and its outcome, rather than in revolutionary rhetoric or pledges. The man, who, although he seldom speaks, carries out the plans and decisions of the Party Central Committee according to the set timetable and at the standard demanded by it, is one who is armed with the Party’sideology as an element of his faith.

Endeavouring to implement the ideology of the Party and champion its policies-this is the clearest manifestation of one’s loyalty to it and important for making the validity of its lines and policies an element of one’s faith.

The soldier-builders who successfully carried out the project at Masik Pass last year were determined to wage a death-defying struggle not to delay even for a moment the completion date proclaimed to the world by the Party Central Committee; they performed a miraculous feat by completing in one year a project which was estimated to take ten, thus staunchly defending the prestige of the Party.

The on-site political work of the People’s Army, which was three-dimensional and offensive-style ideological work to inspire everyone from generals to private soldiers with a single desire to carry out their Supreme Commander’s order, serves as a good example in the ideological offensive to establish the Party’smonolithic leadership system.

In implementing the instructions of the President and the General, the Party’s new line of developing the two fronts simultaneously and Party policies, all sectors and all units should conduct an ideological analysis and review of their failures and their causes. Then they should press on with the frontline-style information and motivation campaign to learn from the service personnel’s spirit of carrying out their tasks even if it costs them their lives.

The main targets of the ideological offensive for establishing the Party’s monolithic leadership system are the misguided ideological viewpoint and work attitude of the officials who give verbal support to the Party’s policies but do not implement them instantly.

We must combat the ideological maladies of those officials who remain indifferent to the obstacles lying in the way of implementing the Party’s policies for their own sectors, units and regions, as well as to the difficulties facing the people in their everyday lives. The ideological education and ideological campaign aimed at rooting out such undesirable ideological elements as defeatism, self-preservation, formalism, expediency, irresponsibility and self-centredness should be conducted, based on an appropriate methodology. The information and organization sectors of the Party should be scrupulous in working in close cooperation with each other, while the ideological campaign should be combined with legal action to maximize its efficiency.

The soaring mental spirit of our service personnel and people who, after liquidating the modern version of a factionalist group, have hardened their resolve to follow the Party Central Committee invariably along the long road of revolution, should be fanned to flare up into the flames of a great revolutionary upsurge.

Historically speaking, the great victory was won in the Fatherland Liberation War after the purge of an anti-Party, counterrevolutionary factionalist clique following the Fifth Plenary Meeting of the Party Central Committee; the Chollima upswing was brought about in the course of eliminating the August 1956 factionalist group; and world-startling successes were achieved in the showdown with the United States and in the socialist industrialization drive after the anti-Party revisionists were exposed and purged at the 15th Plenary Meeting of the Fourth Party Central Committee.

On its ideological front the Party should actively encourage all Party members and other working people to follow in their forerunners’ footsteps and become standard-bearers and 10 meritorious workers in the struggle to champion the Party Central Committee by bringing about a revolutionary upsurge.

If all our service personnel and people, rallied firmly around the Party, make substantial progress in socialist construction, those who are wavering due to a lack of confidence will be brought to their senses and the monolithic leadership system of the Party will be established solidly across the Party and society.

Another important task facing our Party in its ideological work is to raise a strong wind of an ideological campaign to boost the struggle for defending socialism.

In the present era, as in the past, socialism represents the ideal of humanity, and it is the irreversible trend of the times.

We are now following an untrodden historical path staking the dignity of our independent people and the destiny of socialism in the struggle to repulse the imperialists’ frantic attacks. Today the path of socialism and the inevitability of its victory depend on the struggle of Korea’s revolutionaries.

In performing this honourable mission our Party and people have assumed before history, the ideological workers, the red, hardcore elements of the Party, should become undying torchlight and loud bugles.

They should give Party members and other working people a clear understanding of the essence and character of the present struggle to defend socialism.

In the struggle we waged in defence of socialism in the 1990s, we created a historic miracle of safeguarding our ideology and system against the allied imperialist forces’ moves to isolate and stifle our country.

The ongoing struggle to defend socialism can be said to be aimed at prevailing over imperialism in all fields of social life by consolidating the victories and successes achieved so far and giving full play to the advantages and might of socialism.

Recently, our Party has put forward both the agricultural and the scientific fronts as outposts for defending socialism. Its intention is to constantly remind our people that not only on the frontline where guns are levelled at each other but also in all other places where they live, they are engaged in an invisible, fierce confrontation and competition with the imperialists. If we, resting on our laurels and praising ourselves, do not give spur to the revolution and construction and thus fail to bring the people real benefits, such socialism is doomed to lose its appeal.

We should build a thriving country as soon as possible by giving full play to the advantages and might of socialism, which capitalism can never imitate nor possess, so as to make socialism as different in all respects from capitalism as heaven is from earth.

A vigorous ideological campaign should be launched to demonstrate the might of our great army-people unity on a higher level in building a thriving country.

The solid single-hearted unity of the army and people around the Party constitutes the cornerstone of our style of socialism and a great foundation in building a thriving nation. The successive eye-opening miracles which have been wrought recently, shaking the land, mountains and rivers throughout the country, are all the fruits of the great unity between the service personnel and people and of their concerted efforts.

The People’s Army should, in the future, too, be the primemover and pioneer in strengthening this great army-people unity.

It should intensify its information and motivation work geared to giving full play to the might of an army that is strong in ideology both in national defence and socialist construction. The Party organizations and political organs in the army should regularly create such new terms as the “Masikryong speed” by carrying forward the proud history of the revolutionary army which has proved with its indomitable revolutionary spirit that Korea’s determination is its materialization and reality, and civilian Party organizations should accelerate the work of learning from the revolutionary spirit and fighting style of the service personnel.

When the time comes for us to wage an all-out life-and-death fight with the enemy, we can achieve final victory on the strength of the great army-people unity, all-people resistance, based on the revolutionary soldier spirit.

All sectors and all units should launch a dynamic ideological offensive so as to make the flames of collective innovation flare up.

Our people gained valuable experience in ushering in a golden age of socialist construction through an all-people, collective innovation movement in the 1970s, a decade of great change.

In the 1970s, when the country was resounding with the drumbeats of revolution and the bugles sounding the speed campaign, they made magnificent creations and changes unprecedented in the history of their country, while militarily coping with the large-scale war exercises staged by the US imperialists. It was during those days that our country became the first in the world to abolish the tax system, enforced universal 11-year compulsory education and rendered massive assistance to the developing countries and the fighting peoples around the world.

It is the intention of our Party to carry on the building of an economic giant and a civilized state by bringing into play the might of socialism, the might of collectivism, as happened in the 1970s.

The flames of the movement to win the title of O Jung Hup-led 7th Regiment and the three-revolution red flag movement should flare up more fiercely in military and civilian units, and vigorous socialist emulation drives be launched in sectors, units and regions and by stages. By so doing, we can ensure that a strong wind of collective competition sweeps the whole country.

For the present our Party demands that all military and civilian sectors create model units and, with them providing the initial spark, kindle the flames of joint innovation. Ideological workers should focus on enlisting the creative zeal and activeness of the masses both in creating units that advance ahead of the times and in organizing competition for overtaking them.

The ideological campaign against the abuse of authority and bureaucratism should be stepped up to make all officials rallying points that, sharing weal and woe with the masses, unite their collectives, as well as dependable point-men in the mass innovation movement.

Efforts should be channelled into information and motivation work for bringing into full play the spirit of self-reliance, the might of which has been fully demonstrated in the severe trials of history.

We can say that the whole history of socialism of our own style boils down to self-reliance. In the days of building socialism by their own efforts, our Party and people underwent unprecedented ordeals and difficulties, and they were ultimately loaded with all sorts of honours our nation could not enjoy in its history spanning thousands of years. Had we succumbed to the pressure from outside forces and abandoned the principle of self-reliance, Juche-oriented socialism would not have been born and our country’s name would have disappeared along with the collapse of the worldwide socialist system. On the track of self-reliance Chollima rose up on the ruins of war and the miracle was achieved of manufacturing and launching an earth satellite and becoming a nuclear state, a miracle of great significance in the national history.

Ideological workers should intensify among officials and working people education by means of the history of our socialist construction, so as to implant in them the belief that self-reliance is the path of building a thriving nation.

Self-reliance is the spirit of national self-sustenance and the spirit of going beyond the cutting edge to lead the whole world by our own efforts, with our own resources and with our own technology. We need to steadily build on the fighting spirit with which we made tractors and electric locomotives from scratch and the spirit with which we conquered space by our own efforts and with our own technology. We should undertake an information and motivation offensive to ensure that everyone turns out in the campaign to make everything in our country the assets of socialism that cannot be found elsewhere in the world, fully conscious that they must go beyond the cutting edge even at their own posts and workplaces. We should provide ideological support for the efforts to make a breach in the imperialists’ manoeuvring to monopolize high technology, and should create advanced science and technology of our own.

It is important to be active in encouraging scientists and technicians firmly to defend their revolutionary positions on the grand march of self-reliance led by the locomotive called “science and technology.” Ideological workers should play a major role in creating a climate in which the importance of science is recognized throughout society and in which all people are made well-versed in science and technology.

We must launch an information offensive in which, ideologically and morally, we overpower the imperialist reactionary forces who are trying to stamp out socialism.

The imperialists are currently hell-bent on a smear campaign to turn black into white and are persisting in their attempts to infiltrate corrupt reactionary ideology and culture into our country with our service personnel and young people as the target; at the same time they are still manoeuvring to apply sanctions against our country, and stifle it. Whereas reactionary ideology and culture were their guide to aggression in the past, they are playing a leading role in their aggression at present.

The struggle to defend socialism should be an offensive operation to, outwardly, gain the political and ideological upper hand over the imperialists who are hindering our onward movement and, inwardly, sweep up non-socialist practices and decadent ideology and culture by means of our revolutionary ideology and culture.

Ideological workers should undermine the enemy’s morale by launching a skilful media campaign, a radio campaign, aimed at giving wide publicity to the validity of our ideology and cause and at laying bare the vulnerability and foul nature of the imperialists. They should make larger numbers of ideological “missiles” capable of severely damaging the enemy and instilling firm confidence in victory among our service personnel and people.

They should take the initiative in launching operations to thwart the imperialists’ moves for ideological and cultural infiltration, while putting up double and treble “mosquito nets” to prevent the viruses of capitalist ideology which the enemy is persistently attempting to spread, from crossing our border.

By nature, the working masses reject the bourgeois ideology and culture which preach the money-is-almighty principle and the law of the jungle. We need to create and propagate larger numbers of wholesome and revolutionary works of art andliterature, articles and presentations of our own style which highlight the beautiful dreams and ideals of the masses and which brim over with national flavour, so as to encourage our people to turn their backs on bourgeois ideology and culture of their own accord. Decisive steps should be taken to use the Internet as a medium for giving publicity to our ideology and culture in order to cope with the enemy’s moves to propagate their reactionary ideology and culture by misusing mankind’s latest scientific andtechnological achievements.

The sector of ideological work and the related units should work out detailed plans for putting the mass media and external publicity means on a modern and IT basis, and make persevering efforts to implement them.

The Party’s ideological work should be conducted in an aggressive manner.

Our Party’s strategy and tactics in ideological work are to encourage the whole country to seethe and make a revolutionary leap forward by fanning the flames of the ideological offensive so that they flare up fiercely, in the spirit of advancing against all odds.

The ideological position of our Party should be established in the form for attack, not for defence.

We should also conduct ideological education aimed at imbuing the whole society with the red ideology of the Workers’Party in a proactive way, conduct political work aimed at calling forth the mental strength of all the service personnel and people as it is done on the front line, and conduct the struggle to sweep away all shades of evil ideas at lightning speed.

In order to conduct ideological work in an aggressive manner, it is necessary, above all, to root out the defeatist outlook revealed among ideological workers.

Ideological workers who are infected with such an outlook cannot take even a single step by themselves even if they are placed in the vanguard of the ideological offensive.

The “Yongil bomb spirit” created in the forests of Mt. Paektu and the do-or-die resistance spirit of Xiaowangqing and Chechangzi did not emerge in ordinary times, and the legend of Chollima, the miracles of the speed campaign, the revolutionary soldier spirit and the Kanggye spirit were not born under more favourable circumstances than at present.

Comrades,

Defeatism in ideological work is more dangerous than that in economic work. The present ideological offensive must start with eliminating defeatism from among ideological workers.

Those engaged in ideological work in the birthplace of the Juche idea must not wait for a miracle to occur, but go purposefully among the people, carrying with them the weapon of ideology, and become active doers and devoted creators who find solutions.

The posts in national defence, at factories, in farm villages and in other places where you are working bear the imprints of examples of the outstanding art of leadership set by the peerlessly great men who found in the simple opinions of the service personnel and people the best method of turning misfortune into blessing and adversity into prosperity.

If you work with the history of the revolutionary leadership of the President and the General as your textbook, you will find nothing you cannot understand and overcome in your work, and our Party’s ideological work will truly become an initial spark for kindling the flames of a leap forward.

In order to ensure the success of the revolutionary ideological offensive, we should fire an opening salvo of an ideological campaign and make our fire concentrated, regular and accurate.

First of all, by enlisting all the forces and means already provided for information and motivation purposes, you should conduct ideological work in a flexible and intensive manner.

When the Party puts forward a new line or policy, all the networks of education, public lectures and motivation work, as well as the mass media, should be mobilized promptly to inform all the people, ranging from officials at the central organs to farmers in remote, mountainous villages. The contents, forms, means and methods of ideological work should, to all intents and purposes, be geared and subordinated to carrying out revolutionary tasks. The forces and means of information and motivation work should be concentrated on those projects the Party attaches importance to, thus kindling the fire of a fresh leap forward.

Ideological work should also, by giving uninterrupted publicity to the Party’s intentions and leading a continuous advance in the ideological struggle, ensure that no shades of evil ideas ever make inroads into our ranks.

This can be likened to removing falling snow from a runway with a snow blower to prevent it from piling up. Ideological work should not be a flash in the pan or conducted with everyone standing on ceremony, but done regularly regardless of the time and place, so that people can imbibe the Party’s ideas the waythey breathe air. A ceaseless and intensive ideological campaign should be conducted to sweep away alien ideological trends and life styles. And the repetition of stereotyped speeches and methods should be strictly guarded against.

It is also important to select the right targets of the ideological offensive based on an understanding of preparedness, characteristics and ideological tendencies, and apply appropriate means and methods.

President Kim Il Sung said that work with people should be conducted in the way a mother does, who talks differently when teaching her eldest son and youngest son. If the employees of their units number ten thousand, ideological workers should know the inner thoughts of each of them and work with them using ten thousand methods.

The path of our revolution is not smooth, and every revolutionary front requires genuine and well-qualified ideological workers who cherish the staunch revolutionary spirit.

In fact, we have a vast force of Party information workers and primary information workers enrolled in the networks of education, public lectures and motivation work. They number tens of thousands. If they are well prepared we can form an elite corps and with such a contingent, we will have nothing to fear and nothing will be beyond our strength.

Among his revolutionary soldiers, the great General treasured and loved most dearly those who defended the ideological front, and led and encouraged them at every step, saying that a film or an article is as powerful as several thousand tons of food grain or tens of thousands of artillery shells.

Our Party’s ideological workers have assumed a heavy task.

Each of them should become strong in ideas and faith, someone whom the enemy fear more than they do an entire division or corps.

Although simple and modest in appearance, their hearts are always burning with the Party’s intentions and they enthusiastically support the revolution and struggle-this is a feature our Party thinks ideal for information workers.

Ideological workers should be true revolutionaries who never abandon the Party’s principle of ideological work, whatever the adversity. They should have the passion to cover long distances in a single night to inform people of the Party’s intentions and to burn the midnight oil for several days in studying the Party’s policies and learning knowledge and technology.

Having a proper outlook on people is a vital requirement for ideological workers, who must make them open their minds. Our Party’s information workers should be true sons and daughters of the people who learn from them before teaching them and who highly appreciate their efforts. To this end, they should first remember, whenever they approach them, that they are standing before the great people whom the President and the General believed in as in heaven and regarded as their teachers throughout their lives.

Love and respect for the labouring people emanate from the spirit of loving labour. Our officials should mingle with the masses, their hands stained with grease and their shoes with earth, and be proud of doing so.

The President and the General performed great exploits for the people throughout their lives, while keeping nothing back for themselves.

Regarding the ideas and trust of the Party as their wealth, ideological workers should find the worth of living in informing as many people as possible of the Party’s policies and ensuring that collective innovations are brought about at the units under their charge. A genuine ideological worker is someone who values more than gold the excitement he or she feels whenever people are eager to be informed of the Party’s intentions and when they support the Party’s policies whole-heartedly.

When the Party’s intentions are passed on and revolutionary songs and cheering for the Workers’ Party and socialism resound wherever our Party’s ideological workers go, it will be a great encouragement to the Party.

The entire Party should become information and motivational workers, and all officials should conduct political work.

Whether they are Party, administrative, economic or primary officials, they should regard it as the key to stimulate the mental strength of the masses, and direct due efforts to it. In particular, chief secretaries of provincial, city and county Party committees and senior Party officials in all sectors and all units should place ideological work under their personal control and conduct it with all sincerity and with great efforts.

In the 1970s all officials, under the leadership of the Party, used to go down to their subordinate units with rucksacks on their backs like the anti-Japanese guerrillas had done, rouse people as required by the Chongsan-ri spirit and Chongsan-ri method and bring about innovations. This vibrant spirit should prevail throughout the country.

Comrades,

The revolutionary tasks facing us are enormous and the situation remains as severe as ever. However, we should make a leap forward to bring the future closer and achieve a ceaseless advance through our struggle.

As soon as you leave this conference venue, you should go among the service personnel and people to inform them of the intentions of the Party Central Committee and take up your starting positions for the ideological offensive with a fresh determination.

I stress once again: The more vibrantly the ideological front seethes, the more fully the mental strength of the masses will be demonstrated, and the more the service personnel and people are roused, the faster the revolution will advance.

I firmly believe that all our ideological workers, including those attending this conference, will become political workers of the type of the great Comrades Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il who make the whole country seethe and transform the entire army along revolutionary lines, thus hastening our final victory.