About the 25th anniversary of the publication of ' On Preserving the Juche character and national character of the revolution and construction' by comrade KIM JONG IL-special article Dr Dermot Hudson

                                                         

A quarter of a century has passed since the publication of the work ‘' On Preserving the Juche character and national character of the revolution and construction' by the great leader comrade KIM JONG IL  on the 19th of June 1997.However, it seems like only yesterday  . The publication of the work at the time was like a breath of fresh air and it clarified many important questions .

   In the work comrade KIM JONG IL declared that the DPRK would 

“ firmly keep the Juche character and national character of the revolution and construction and fight staunchly along the road of Juche.”

 This was a decisive rebuff to those who wanted to impose ‘reform ‘ and 'opening up ‘ on People’s Korea . It was similar to comrade KIM JONG IL’s militant declaration ‘Expect No Change from Me ‘ It can be argued that it was a development of it . 

In those days and even now the imperialists were trying to push globalisation and force it on the peoples of the world . Comrade KIM JONG IL  strongly denounced globalisation in unequivocal  terms saying that “The imperialists have cooked up the trend of a “monolithic world” for the purpose of reducing the whole world to the Western-style “free world” and subjugating and assimilating all nations to themselves.All countries and nations must see clearly the danger of the imperialist policy of obliterating nations which is pursued in the name of the trend towards a “monolithic” world and must intensify the struggle to defeat the dominationist manoeuvres of the imperialists."

These words contained a great truth. The imperialists , dominationists and globalists were trying to impose not only a so-called ‘new world order’ but to totally Americanize the world, obliterating national cultures and destroying national economies .This was presented i the mainstream media of the imperialist countries as some kind of fait du accompli or natural process but   Comrade KIM JONG IL saw through globalisation and what really was behind it . At the same time he fully recognised the severe dangers posed by the imperialists desire to obliterate nations and called for an intensification of the struggle against the dominationist moves of the imperialists . This shows the remarkable clarity of comrade KIM JONG Il as well as his principled stand against globalisation 

At the same time  some dogmatists and sycophants towards big powers came out with preposterous arguments that supposedly ‘cannot build socialism in a small country ‘ .They believed socialism could only be successfully built in a big country , even though experience shows  the complete opposite and that big countries betray socialism . In countries like Britain the counter-revolutionary and reactionary idea of Trotskyism ,which rejected the concept of building socialism within one country and eschewed independence , held sway in many left wing circles creating a great deal of confusion . Comrade KIM JONG IL refutes various anti-independence , anti -Juche and big power chauvinist arguments by saying that “ In the past the great-power chauvinists slandered the maintenance of Juche by our Party and people in the revolution and construction as “nationalism” and “isolationism” and exerted pressure upon us.However, we fought them without compromise in order to save the destiny of the country, nation and socialism. Even when they were deprived of their country and had to fight the arduous revolutionary war in a foreign land against the Japanese, the Korean communists established Juche to the letter with an unshakable standpoint and attitude that they were the masters of the Korean revolution. During the difficult years of post-war rehabilitation and socialist construction, they also resolutely rejected the pressure and arbitrariness of the great-power chauvinists who meddled in our internal affairs and forced an “integrated economy”. If the Korean communists had not maintained their own lines and conviction that the Korean revolutionaries should carry out the Korean revolution, they would have failed to liberate their country.If we had abandoned the policy of building an independent national economy and entered the ‘CMEA’ unable to bear the pressure of the great-power chauvinists during socialist construction after the war, it would have been impossible for us to build the socialist state which is independent, self-sustenant and capable of self-reliant defence.While rejecting great-power chauvinism which put down the Juche character, our Party and people conducted a tireless, fierce struggle to overcome flunkeyism which flattered and yielded to the great power.We thus removed any room for great-power chauvinism to set foot, eradicated the idea of dependence on outside forces which was handed down through history and thoroughly established the standpoint and attitude as the masters of the revolution in our country.”

   The above passage proves the validity of Juche-based socialism and of fully upholding the Juche character and national character of socialism . It perfectly explains the superiority  of Juche -based socialism through the DPRK’s own experience of building socialism independently by fully upholding the Juche character and national character . It refutes those who prattle about ‘integrated economy ‘ and that socialism can only be built in big countries .

  Reading ‘On Preserving the Juche character and national character of the revolution and construction’  , I became  more impressed and fascinated by it . It is a must read for all communists , socialists anti-capitalists and anti-globalisation activists.

Dr Dermot Hudson ,

Chairman British Group for the Study of the Juche Idea 

Chairman KFA UK

President of the Association for the Study of Songun Politics UK