PRESIDENT KIM IL SUNG -A STAUNCH FIGHTER AGAINST MODERN REVISIONISM-special article by Dr Dermot Hudson

                                                           

As we celebrate the 110th anniversary of the birth  of the great leader comrade KIM IL SUNG  and reflect on his life we should not forget or overlook one aspect of his life namely his struggle against modern revisionism.President KIM IL SUNG was a very principled man and a real revolutionary .

  Modern revisionism first appeared in the international communist movement and socialist camp in the 1950s . In the USSR a revisionist coup d'etat took place in which Beria was eliminated by Khruschov and later Malenkov , Molotov and Kaganovich were ousted from power . Khruschov once fully in power slandered JV Stalin who had led the USSR for several decades . Khruschov proclaimed peaceful co-existence with imperialism and grovelled to the Yankee imperialists . He also declared that the USSR was a ‘state of the whole people’ and gave up the dictatorship of the proletariat . Capitalist and imperialist ideas made inroads into the USSR and other socialist countries . The international communist movement became split and some non-ruling communist parties went into terminal decline .

                                                                         

President KIM IL SUNG had always opposed opportunism and national reformism in the days of the anti-Japanese armed struggle. When modern revisionism appeared he opposed it strongly .Comrade KIM IL SUNG in his famous and celebrated work 'On Eliminating Dogmatism and Formalism and Establishing Juche in Ideological Work' (December 23rd, 1955), pointed out that a faction within the WPK, on returning from a visit to the Soviet Union, had demanded that Korea should drop its slogan against US imperialism on the grounds the USSR was following the line of easing international tension. This was an early manifestation of attempts by factionalists within the WPK to spread revisionism.

It was in 1956 that things reached a very critical stage. Khrushchov, the chief of the modern revisionists had made his speech to the 20th Congress of the CPSU heralding the onset of modern revisionism and the imperialists launched a fierce international anticommunist campaign. Within Korea, the Syngman Rhee puppet regime went wild, talking of a 'March North'. The DPRK had only just completed the post-war reconstruction and rehabilitation of the economy after the devastation caused by the war. The factionalists who had been lurking in the WPK seized the chance to try and overthrow the leadership with the backing of outside revisionists. Indeed the CPSU fraternal delegate to the 3rd Congress of the WPK  made a veiled attack on the WPK leadership. Events came to a head in August, when the factionalists tried to stage their coup under the manipulation of the great power chauvinists and revisionists. Their aim was to deny the Party's leadership role and paralyse the dictatorship of the proletariat. They also wished to stamp out the revolutionary conditions of the WPK forged in the flames of the anti-Japanese armed struggle. They even intended to proclaim Korea a pro-American 'neutral nation'. However, Comrade KIM IL SUNG led the people to smash the anti-Party counter-revolutionary factional clique. The working people rallied around President KIM IL SUNG and the Workers Party of Korea with steelworkers demanding that the factionalists be sent to them so they could throw them in the furnace  !.

President KIM IL SUNG very strongly denounced revisionism saying that :

   The imperialists and their servants, the revisionists are now spreading revisionism in opposition to Marxism-Leninism and the communist movement. . . . It has made and is making inroads into our country too, and the anti-Party groups have exported it for their own ends. . . . To reject our Party's leadership means precisely to deny the revolution and capitulate to capitalism. Therefore it is necessary not only to fight against the revisionists who reject Party leadership, but also to combat relentlessly all the unsettling elements that provide good soil for revisionism". (KIM IL SUNG' On Juche in Our Revolution', p. 213-14).

Speaking to soldiers of the 109th Army of the KPA on the 25th August 1960, Comrade

  KIM IL SUNG stated:

"Revisionists refashion Marxism-Leninism. They laud themselves as cleverer Marxist-Leninists than Marx or Lenin. Certain countries have this tendency. Some people insist we must peacefully co-exist with the Yankees. How can we do so without opposing US imperialism?" (KIM IL SUNG 'On Juche in Our Revolution', p. 225).

In the early 60s, Comrade KIM IL SUNG made the struggle of the WPK against modern revisionism a major priority in the Party. He attacked modern revisionism at the 4th Congress. At the March 8 1962 3rd plenary meeting of the CC, Comrade KIM IL SUNG defined the strengthening of the struggle against revisionism as a key task in Party work. He also with great clarity elucidated the true nature of modern revisionism:

"The sources of revisionism are acceptance of domestic bourgeois influence and surrender to external imperialist pressure. Both old revisionism and modern revisionism are one and the same in essence and in aims. Both deny the basic principles of Marxism and call for a renunciation of the revolutionary struggle on the pretext that times have changed".

(KIM IL SUNG' On Juche in Our Revolution', Volume 1: p. 317).

Around this time, the WPK daily newspaper RODONG SINMUN (Labour Daily) carried several articles attacking revisionism -- notably the article 'Let Us Uphold National Liberation' in 1964, and 'Let Us Defend the Socialist Camp', published in October 1963. These articles were translated into different languages and disseminated outside Korea.

President KIM IL SUNG saw the struggle against modern revisionism as being bound up with the struggle to achieve Juche . He later wrote that “"In 1955, therefore, our Party set forth the definite policy of establishing Juche, and has been persistently urging an energetic ideological struggle to carry it through ever since. The year 1955 marked a turning point in our Party's consistent struggle against dogmatism. It was also at that time, in fact, that we started our struggle against modern revisionism that had emerged within the socialist camp. Our struggle against dogmatism was thus linked up with the struggle against modern revisionism".

(KIM IL SUNG: 'On Juche in Our Revolution'; p. 471

                   

 President KIM IL SUNG  even in the last decade of his life never wavered in the struggle against revisionism and never played it down .In the 1980s an abnormal situation arose in the socialist countries as the Soviet Union under Gorbachov adopted "perestroika " and "glasnost " and many socialist countries went in for reform' and 'restructuring'. This caused confusion, distress and disillusionment amongst communists. Comrade KIM IL SUNG, the great leader of the Korean revolution, was one of the first leaders in the socialist world to see through it and attack it. In December 1986, speaking to the Supreme People's Assembly, he stressed:

"The people's government must guard against the poisonous ideas of capitalism and revisionism and resolutely fight against all attempts to infringe upon the socialist system".

(KIM IL SUNG: 'Works', Volume 40; p. 216).

Comrade KIM IL SUNG put forward the concept of the complete victory of socialism, which struck a blow against the revisionists.

During a talk to senior officials of the Economic Sector on the 3rd of January 1987, Comrade Kim Il Sung made the following analysis of the DPRK's position vis a vis the socialist world:

"Modern revisionism which has appeared in the international communist movement is also creating a lot of difficulties for our revolution. On the pretext of 'reforming' and 'reorganising' socialism, the modern revisionists are following the road to capitalism and abandoning internationalist principles. It is, therefore, difficult for us to expect from them co-operation based on internationalism in the building of socialism. What is worse, they are applying economic pressure on us because we do not follow their wrong, revisionist policy".

(KIM IL SUNG: 'Works', Volume 40; p. 231).

Speaking to officials from the chemical industry on March 20 1987, Comrade Kim Il Sung also stated:

 "The officials should strongly oppose revisionism and reformism and establish the revolutionary habit of living our way. . . . We must always live our own way, without having any illusions about the revisionist and reformist policies which are pursued in some countries. In particular, the officials in responsible positions, the backbone of our Party, must not vacillate in the least. There will be no failure if we live our own style".

(KIM IL SUNG: 'Works', Volume 8; p. 274).

Thus, the slogan 'Let Us Live Our Own Way!' was put forward in the 1980s as a means of combating revisionism. Moreover, Comrade KIM IL SUNG, with wisdom and clarity stated:

"If the officials are to be completely rid of revisionism and reformism, and live in their own style; they must be firmly armed with the Juche idea of our Party". (Ibid.; p. 274).

After the collapse of the USSR due to modern revisionism , President KIM IL SUNG met leaders of many anti-revisionist parties. In different speeches and articles he denounced revisionism .

Let us remember a great anti-revisionist leader , President KIM IL SUNG on the day of his birth !

Dr Dermot Hudson

Chairman British Group for the Study of the Juche Idea

Chairman Korean Friendship Association UK 

Official Delegate KFA for UK

Hon Secretary general International Central Committee for Songun Study