Sunday 16 August 2020

Speech of Dr Dermot Hudson to the online meeting for the 75th anniversary of Korea's Liberation and 60th anniversary of the Songun revolutionary leadership

  Today it is 75 years since Korea became independent . In 10 days time  it will be 60 years since comrade KIM JONG IL started his Songun revolutionary leadership on the 25th of August. It is appropriate to talk about both anniversaries as Korea’s independence is buttressed by Songun (army -first policy).

On August 15th 1945 Korea finally became independent after decades of barbaric colonial rule by the decadent  Samruais of Japanese imperialism . The liberation of Korea was not the gift of outside forces or big powers , nor was it the result of  chance or an accidental factor , it was the result of the 20 year  long revolutionary struggle under the banner of Juche and Songun led by the great leader President KIM IL SUNG, the sun of Juche !

 Due to flunkeyism(fawning on big powers) and incompetence by the old feudal rulers of the Ri Dynasty the Japanese imperialists stole into Korea the land of the morning calm. The Japanese imperialists were aided and abetted by other big powers and imperialists such as the US and UK.

By 1910 they had annexed Korea and turned into a colony . The Korean people fell victim to the sabre and the bayonet of the cruel Japanese colonialists. They plundered huge amounts of resources.                                         No force or leader existed that could deliver the Korean people  from the iron rule of Japan. Petitions and appeals were useless  .Strikes and demos were suppressed by force and the streets ran with the blood of Korean workers and peasants . Bourgeois nationalists proved to be useless in leading the nation, they split into factions and squabble as they were totally divorced from the popular masses.Such elements turned to  national reformism which meant capitulation to Japanese imperialism. Some saw the example of the USSR ,the first workers and peasants state in the world, and  started a communist movement but this quickly collapsed into flunkeyism and factionalism and was therefore unable to lead the struggle against Japanese imperialist rule.  In those days there was a tendency within the international communist movement to see the struggles of people in the colonial countries as simply a reserve force of the world proletarian revolution .

                     President KIM L SUNG was an outstanding thinker and theorectian who had grasped from his early days the need to advance the struggle for independence and revolution on a new basis . He set up the Down With Imperialism Union in 1926 with revolutionary school students and youth . This represented a decisive clean break with the stale dogmas of factionalism and flunkeyism and  meant a  movement not based on a few privileged individuals but one based on the popular masses. Later President KIM IL SUNG formed the Anti-Imperialist Youth League and Young Communist League of Korea.

   President KIM IL SUNG outlined the Juche-orientated path of the Korean revolution at the historic Kalun meeting held from the end of June 1930 to the beginning of July 1930. At the meeting he also put forward the Songun based line of revolution . President KIM IL SUNG pursued a truly unique Songun based line of guerrilla in which the armed forces were founded before the Party .


After the Kalun meeting  President  KIM IL SUNG reiterated at the Mingyuegou Meeting in December Juche 20 (1931)  the idea that the armed struggle was the basic line of the anti-Japanese national liberation struggle of Korea and clarified strategic and tactical problems immediately arising in organizing and developing the anti-Japanese armed struggle such as the type of the armed struggle, organization of a standing revolutionary armed force and establishment of a guerrilla base as a stronghold of political and military activity. President KIM IL SUNG in his speech underscored the need for self-reliance saying that "we fight the armed struggle with no state backing and no aid from outside "

  Thanks to  KIM IL SUNG’s idea and line of achieving liberation and independence of the nation on the strength of arms, the anti-Japanese national liberation struggle of Korea could take the correct path and advance toward victory with full confidence.     

President KIM IL SUNG wisely led the struggle for implementing the unique idea and line of realizing the cause of national liberation on the strength of arms.

Then President KIM IL SUNG founded the Anti-Japanese People’s Guerrilla Army on April  25, 1932. It was the birth of a new-type revolutionary armed force for the national liberation and a historic event that provided the military guarantee for realising victory of the revolutionary cause of Juche by dint of arms.  It heralded the start of the great anti-Japanese revolutionary war .   In March 1934 the Anti Japanese People's Guerrilla Army became the Korean People's Revolutionary Army. The KPRA fought the revolutionary  spirit of self-reliance and the Juche Idea . They seized weapons from the Japanese aggressors or manufactured their own . Some hoped that the Soviet Union, the first socialist state, would supply them with a hand-grenade factory but this never materialised so they made their own hand-grenades the 'Yongil bomb'(of course today the DPRK has its own nuclear 'Yongil bomb'.)    

           . Under the command of the great leader President KIM IL SUNG, an ever victorious iron-willed brilliant commander, the stout hearted and heroic guerrilla revolutionary fighters of the KPRA fought many battles against the Japanese imperialist  aggressors such the battle of Pochonbo  and the battle of Musan to name just a few . The battle of Pochonbo on 4 June 1937 was most significant as it symbolised the KPRA's advance into the Korean homeland. One third world revolutionary figure on visiting the monument to the Pochonbo battle said "the beacon fire of Pochonbo marked a great event which gave confidence in struggle not only to the Korean people under the colonial rule of Japanese imperialism but also the world's revolutionary people groaning in those days under the heels of imperialist aggressors- fascist Germany, Italy, Japanese imperialism , and American and British imperialism "


                                              




                               In May 1936 the Association for the Restoration of the Fatherland , a united front body was founded .

                                  President KIM IL SUNG adopted adroit guerilla tactics . The KPRA under his 

leadership showed great tactical flexibility  for example switching to small unit activities in 1940 in order to preserve and accumulate the revolutionary forces.

                                               The hard and arduous  revolutionary armed struggle led by the great leader President KIM IL SUNG paid off in the end on the 9th of August 1945 general KIM IL SUNG gave the order for the final offensive against the Japanese marauders . The KPRA together with Soviet army units surged into Korea , the KPRA often taking the lead in the more difficult battles. On August 15 1945 Korea was liberated at last from Japanese imperialist rule. 36 years of dark oppressive rule by the fascist Japanese and their decadent Samurai culture came to an end in a day . This was the feat of the great leader President KIM IL SUNG, an ever victorious iron-willed brilliant commander and gifted military strategist.


The significance of Korea's liberation was manifold . Firstly, the liberation of Korea by the Korean People's Revolutionary Army led by the great leader generalissimo KIM IL SUNG made a great contribution to the victory of the international anti-fascist forces. Secondly , it created a role model for anti-imperialist , anti-colonial struggles . This fact was acknowledged by the  World Cultural Congress in Havana in 1968 . Thirdly , it proved beyond doubt the great vitality and validity of the Juche Idea and the Songun Idea as well the outstanding commanding ability of the great leader generalissimo KIM IL SUNG .


The Songun revolutionary leadership began 60 years ago with the guidance of the great leader comrade KIM JONG IL to  the Seoul Ryu Kyong Su Guards no 105 tank division of the Korean People's Army. The No 105 tank division is an army unit of the KPA steeped in revolutionary history as it was the first KPA unit to rush into Seoul during the great Fatherland Liberation War of  1950-1953.   August 25th is now proudly celebrated in the DPRK as the Day of Songun . Respected Marshal KIM JONG UN wrote

" The Day of Songun, when General Kim Jong Il started his leadership of the Songun revolution, is, together with the day of the founding of the KPA (Korean People's Army), a historic day when an important milestone was set up for the history of building up our revolutionary armed forces and the history of our country. As there was this significant day, a historic turn could be brought about in developing our revolutionary armed forces and implementing the cause of the Juche revolution, and the history and traditions of our sacred Songun revolution that had been pioneered and developed by force of arms, achieving victory, could be carried forward continuously"

  The Songun revolutionary leadership comradeKIM JONG IL began at a time when the US imperialists were causing tension all over the world such as the Vietnam war and the Cuban missile crisis. The modern revisionists , the agents of the imperialists in the international communist movement and the socialist camp, had capitulated to imperialism and were even putting pressure on the DPRK to give up its anti-imperialist stand and disarm itself , melting down tanks and guns , under the banner of 'peaceful co-existence ' and 'peaceful co-operation' with the imperialists. The great generalissimo's KIM IL SUNG and KIM JONG IL  declared that the DPRK would not go down this road but would build up the people's revolutionary armed forces on the basis of self-reliance. Respected Marshal KIM JONG UN explained

  Regarding the strengthening of the KPA as the most important of affairs in the Songun revolution, he raised the KPA as the buttress, the main force, of our revolution and achieved the historic victory in the grim anti-imperialist, anti-US showdown in defence of the country's security and socialism by training the KPA to be the army of the leader boundlessly faithful to the cause of the WPK (Workers' Party of Korea), to be an invincible revolutionary army.

   Comrade  KIM JONG IL carried forward the cause of Juche-army building and Songun revolutionary leadership pioneered by President KIM IL SUNG . During the five decades of Songun revolutionary leadership the heroic Korean People's Army was built up splendidly in all fields not just in terms of weaponry and technique but in terms of ideology and morale. The KPA became the pillar of the Songun revolution.

   Under the Songun revolutionary leadership the KPA  discharged its role of defender of the gains of socialism with honour. In the confrontation between the DPRK and the imperialist forces after the Fatherland Liberation War , the independence and security of the DPRK was safeguarded and the defence power increased.

  Thanks to the Songun revolutionary leadership of  President KIM IL SUNG and eternal Chairman KIM JONG IL , DPRK became a strategic state.

Respected Marshal KIM JONG UN has continued with the Songun revolutionary leadership saying that "The permanent strategy of our revolution and its final victory lie in going straight along the road of independence, the road of Songun, the road of socialism". Thanks to Songun, peace on the Korean peninsula has been secured.Led by dear respected Marshal KIM JONG UN the Korean people will win the final victory  !

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