The great leader President KIM IL SUNG who passed away on the 8th of July 1994 was indeed a true people's leader who said that "My God is none other than the people. Only the popular masses are omniscient and omnipotent and almighty on earth. Therefore my lifetime motto is: "The people are my God.". He was always dressed in simple and plain clothes . During the Korean War he said that if people eat millet , then he too would eat millet.
Visiting the Kumsusan Palace of the Sun , the final resting place of the President KIM IL SUNG , several times , I saw the train that President KIM IL SUNG used to give on-the spot guidance (on the spot guidance means visiting units and localities not just giving guidance but learning about the needs of the people). From 1945 to 1994 the great leader President KIM IL SUNG visited 20,600 different units or workplaces in the DPRK travelling a distance of 578 ,000 kilometres the equivalent of travelling around the world many times . He spent 8600 days giving on the spot guidance which means that every almost every second of day of his life was spent giving on -the spot guidance.
Right up to the end of his physical life President KIM IL SUNG worked tirelessly for the people . Only two years before he passed away President KIM IL SUNG took the measure of increasing wages , salaries and allowances for the Korean people. On the 13th of February 1992 President KIM IL SUNG had the Decree of the Central People's Committee of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea titled "On Enforcing the Policy of Pay Raises For All Workers. technicians and office employees and of increasing the income of office workers " which was to be effective from the 1st of March ,1992. Explaining the measures of the decree President KIM IL SUNG wrote ;
" Now that new success have been achieved in socialist construction and the country's economic power has been further increased , our Party and the government have taken epoch making measures for markedly raising the pay of all workers , technicians and office employees , increasing the income of the co-operative farmers and granting more state benefits to the people .
These measures are an embodiment of the long-standing policy of our Party to more satisfactorily provide people with independent and creative lives .These are historic measure which demonstrate the superiority and invincibility of socialism in our country "
I remember as a low paid office worker , struggling to pay for rent and food, reading the news in the "Pyongyang Times " with great excitement . Pay for workers, office workers and technicians was to increase by 43.4 per cent !.To me this was astounding In my country I could only dream of such a pay rise and even we when we got pay rises they invariably had strings attached to them . Social security payments for pensioners were to be increased by 50.7 per cent .! Again a dream like figure for pensioners in capitalist society . In the UK pensioners ask "will it be eating or heating ? ". The scholarships of students were to rise by 33 per cent . Prices paid to farmers for rice were to be raised by 26.2 per cent and for maize by 44.8 per cent , in order to boost their income . At the same time it was decreed that there would be no increase to the prices of food rations supplied to the people . So the increases to pay and pensions were increases in real terms .
Also in 1992 flats for 50,000 families ( roughly 150, 000 to 250,000 people , roughly up to the size of Nottingham in the UK ) were completed in Tongil (Reunification) street in Pyongyang .Thus people enjoyed a great leap forward in living standards thanks the people's policy of President
KIM IL SUNG and the superiority of Juche-based socialist system built under his leadership.
Some 18 years earlier President KIM IL SUNG had abolished the taxation system in March 1974 making the DPRK the first tax free socialist country and at the same time reduced prices of basic commodities by up to 50 per cent . These measures combined gave Korean working people a huge boost to their income.
President KIM IL SUNG was a true people's leader who strived all the time to improve the living standards of the people . We will remember him for this.
Dr Dermot Hudson
Chairman UK Committee to Remember the great leader comrade KIM IL SUNG
President Association for the Study of Songun Politics UK
Chairman Juche Idea Study Group of England
Chairman UK Korean Friendship Association
Chairman British Solidarity Committee for Peace and Reunification on the Korean Peninsula
hon secretary general International Central Committee For Songun Study
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