Today 15th of April is the 111th anniversary of the birth of President KIM IL SUNG, the founding father of People’s Korea. We are here to celebrate this anniversary not simply because of the great achievements made by President KIM IL SUNG throughout his life but as a gesture of solidarity with the state which President KIM IL SUNG founded, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK ) and its struggle against US and world imperialism. Although the mainstream media have taken the DPRK out of the news, it is in fact on the frontline against imperialism. The Korean peninsula is the place where imperialism and socialism confront each other at gunpoint.
The purpose of my presentation is not to give a biographical account of President KIM IL SUNG’s life and revolutionary - after all, there are many wonderful books that can do that a 100 times better than I can -but to focus on the struggle of the DPRK led by President KIM IL SUNG against US imperialism. This is of particular significance this year because in July it will be the 70th anniversary of the victory of the Korean people in the great Fatherland Liberation War against the US imperialists, which is known as the Korean War in the West.
Anti-imperialism characterised the whole life of President KIM IL SUNG The baton passed to the young KIM IL SUNG who organised the fight against Japanese imperialism. Instead of using the old failed methods for achieving independence such as petitions, non-violence and so , President KIM IL SUNG took the road of revolutionary anti-imperialist struggle. He rejected flunkeyism towards big powers and national reformism and instead rallied the new generation of youths and students.
In October 1926, some 97 years ago he founded the Down With Imperialism Union(DIU). a communist revolutionary and anti-imperialist organisation declaring that "Irreconcilable contradictions exist between the imperialists and people in the colonies and these contradictions are sharpening with the passage of time. Because these contradictions are antagonistic they cannot be settled by any kind of 'compromise ' and will only be solved when imperialism is overthrown".
Thus President KIM IL SUNG raised the banner of anti-imperialism, rejecting compromise with imperialism. The DIU was based on a hardcore of revolutionary youths and students. He went on to form the Anti-Imperialist Youth League and later the Anti-Japanese People's Guerilla Army(later Korean People's Revolutionary Army ) in April 1932. He stressed "In order to guarantee success in the Korean revolution, we must, first of all, organize and wage an armed struggle against the Japanese imperialists. President KIM IL SUNG led the heroic guerrillas of the AJPGA in an uncompromising and death-defying anti-imperialist struggle to shatter the chains of Japanese imperialism. The Japs were smited by the Korean People's Revolutionary Army at the battles of Pochonbo and Musan. Korea was liberated from Japanese imperialist rule on the 15th of August 1945. This not only shattered the chains of Japanese imperialism giving the Korean people a new life but also greatly inspired the people of the colonies in their anti-imperialist national liberation struggles. The World Cultural Congress in Havana, Cuba in 1968 praised the anti-Japanese armed struggle led by the great leader President KIM IL SUNG as an example to be followed by the third-world people in their struggle against imperialism.
Korea was liberated from Japanese imperialist rule in 1945 however the southern part was occupied by the US imperialist army and the country was divided.The US established a brutal reactionary puppet regime in south Korea . President KIM IL SUNG strongly argued against and opposed the division of Korea. He sought to build a united front against Korea’s division and against US imperialism. At the same time, he denounced the sophistries of those who painted US imperialism in the colours of a 'liberator' and a 'friend' of the oppressed peoples. In 1949 addressing a meeting of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea President KIM IL SUNG warned against illusions about imperialism,particularly US imperialism pointing out that "From every point of view-the history of America and the deeds of American troops
stationed in south Korea-we must have no illusions about the US “
In June 1950 the south Korean puppets under the direction of the US imperialists provoked the Korean War or Fatherland Liberation War which lasted three years . President KIM IL SUNG defined the nature of the war as follows ; “The Fatherland Liberation War waged by our people was a fierce ,anti-imperialist , anti-US struggle against the allied forces of world reaction headed by US imperialism and a bitter class struggle against the enemies of the people”
President KIM IL SUNG led the Korean people in the life and death struggle against the US imperialists in the great Fatherland Liberation War. The victory was achieved on the 27th of July 1953.US General Mark Clark signing the Armistice Agreement confessed that the US had actually been defeated..The U.S. News and World Report said that the losses the U.S. forces suffered were more than two times those Americans sustained in five big wars, i.e. independence war, the 1812 war, the Mexico war, the U.S.-Spain war and the Philippine war. The US imperialist's defeat in the Fatherland Liberation War opened up a new era of anti-US, anti-imperialist struggle throughout the world.
In the late 1950s and early 1960s, some socialist countries under the baton of modern revisionism wanted to compromise with US imperialism and preached eternal peaceful co-existence with imperialism. In an article written for Tricontinental magazine, the organ of the Organization of the Asian, African and Latin American Peoples President KIM IL SUNG wrote that ;
“ It is wrong to try to avoid the struggle against imperialism under the pretext that independence and revolution are important, but that peace is still more precious. Is it not true that the line of seeking unprincipled compromise with imperialism only tends to encourage its aggressive actions and increase the danger of war? Peace secured by slavish submission is not peace. Genuine peace cannot be achieved unless a struggle is waged against those who break the peace, unless the slave’s peace is rejected and the oppressors’ rule overthrown. We are opposed to the line of compromise with imperialism. At the same time, we cannot tolerate the practice of only denouncing imperialism but, in actual fact, being afraid to fight it. This is a line of compromise in an inverted form. Both have nothing to do with a genuine anti-imperialist struggle and only help the imperialist policy of aggression and war.”
At the time some countries had abandoned the anti-imperialist struggle on the pretext that peace was more important than independence and revolution but President KIM IL SUNG strongly opposed this and exposed as revisionists those who advocated capitulation to imperialism. He argued for a consistent anti-US, anti-imperialist line pointing out that "US Imperialism is the most barbarous and shameless aggressor of modern times, the main force of aggression and war, the ringleader of world reaction, the bulwark of modern colonialism,the strangler of national liberation and independence and disrupter of world peace"
President KIM IL SUNG wrote many works arguing for anti-imperialist, anti-US struggle such as "Let Us Intensify the anti-US, anti-imperialist Struggle" , "The Great Anti-Imperialist Revolutionary Cause of the Asian, African and Latin American peoples is Invincible" and many other works. President KIM IL SUNG wrote that "We small nations must unite and counter US imperialism’s strategy of swallowing us up one by one, by each one of us chopping off its head and limbs. This is the strategy small countries must employ to defeat US imperialism."
President KIM IL SUNG made the DPRK into a fortress of militant anti-imperialism and totally opposed the line of compromise with imperialism. The DPRK dealt hammer blows to the aggressive US imperialists by capturing the USS Pueblo in January 1968 and by shooting down the EC121 spy plane in April 1969. The USS Pueblo is still in the hands of the DPRK 55 years later, it can be seen moored outside the Victorious Fatherland Liberation War Museum in Pyongyang as can a piece of the spy plane EC121.
President KIM IL SUNG, a man of action and deed, made sure that the DPRK gave massive practical assistance to the people fighting against US and world imperialism. When the Caribbean crisis erupted in October 1962 the staff of the DPRK embassy in Havana armed themselves ready to fight against the US imperialists side by side with the Korean people. The DPRK dispatched air force pilots of the Korean People's Army to fight in the Vietnamese people's war of liberation against the US imperialists and also dispatched pilots to fight with the Egyptian people against the Israeli-Zionist aggressors in the 1973 Middle East War. The KPA Air Force also assisted Syria. The DPRK gave a generous amount of assistance to the People's Revolutionary Government of Grenada which included 2 boats and 50 RPG launchers.
Significantly the DPRK reached out to revolutionary movements within the USA itself. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, close ties were forged between the DPRK and the Black Panther Party. Delegations of the Black Panthers visited the DPRK.
President KIM IL SUNG also greatly encouraged the struggle of south Korean revolutionaries. He defined the south Korean revolution as being both a national liberation revolution against US imperialism and a people’s democratic revolution. He urged south Korean revolutionaries to form their own party. In March 1964 a preparatory committee for founding the Revolutionary Party for Reunification was formed and in August 1969 the Revolutionary Party for Reunification announced its formation to the world. South Korean revolutionaries carried out many kinds of different struggles including armed struggle. Today the Revolutionary Party for Reunification has become the Anti-Imperialist National Democratic Front of south Korea.
Although the international situation in the late 1980s and early 1990s became tortuously complex, the great leader President KIM IL SUNG continued to uphold the anti-imperialist banner. Some socialist countries got sucked into the moves of the imperialists to destroy socialism but President KIM IL SUNG warned against the moves of the imperialists led by the US imperialists to disarm and stifle the socialist countries saying the world revolutionary people " must not tolerate the imperialists’ armed intervention and military aggression against other countries.
Peace must be won through a principled struggle against the imperialists’ moves for an arms build-up and against their war policy, and not by begging them for it or by unilateral concessions."
This decisively rejected the nonsense being prattled by some under the guise of 'universal human values' that socialist countries should give up the anti-imperialist struggle and capitulate to imperialism. People's Korea became k known as a beacon of shining anti-imperialist struggle and a country steadfast in the socialist principle.
President KIM IL SUNG continued to meet many anti-imperialist fighters and revolutionaries. He had the Pyongyang Declaration 'Let Us Defend and Advance the Cause of Socialism ' adopted in April 1992. Right up to the end of his life. Right up to the last moments of his life President KIM IL SUNG upheld militant anti-imperialism and chastised those who turned away from the struggle against imperialism. On the 30th of June 1994, he told the head of the Workers' Party of Belgium that "those of a certain country are tolerating the Americans looking down on them, and afraid of them, failing to launch any struggle against imperialism and for socialism".
Thus President KIM IL SUNG's life from beginning to end was one of principled and constant struggle against imperialism and for independence. The anti-imperialist cause of President KIM IL SUNG is today continued by dear respected Marshal KIM JONG UN, a man who never minces words and is steadfast in the battle against US imperialism.
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