OUR PEOPLE’S ARMY IS AN ARMY OF THE WORKING CLASS,-KIM IL SUNG

OUR PEOPLE’S ARMY IS AN ARMY OF THE WORKING CLASS,
AN ARMY OF THE REVOLUTION; CLASS AND POLITICAL
EDUCATION SHOULD BE CONTINUOUSLY STRENGTHENED


Speech Delivered to People’s Army Unit Cadres
above the Level o Deputy Regimental Commander
for Political Affairs and the Officials of the
Local Party and Government Organs
February 8, 1963

Our People’s Army has inherited the glorious revolutionary tradi­tions of the anti-Japanese armed struggle, and it has grown and been tempered in fierce struggle against foreign imperialist aggressors headed by US imperialism. Our People’s Army is honourably defending the freedom and independence of the country and the life and property of our people from enemy encroachment, and is firmly safeguarding our Party and our revolution. The invincible might of our People’s Army stems from the fact that it is a genuine people’s army, firmly armed with the revolutionary ideas of Marxism-Leninism, and composed of the best sons and daughters of the people, led by the working class. To strengthen the People’s Army, therefore, it is necessary, first of all, to thoroughly equip all soldiers with the revolutionary spirit of our Party so that it becomes a genuine army of the revolution, of the Party and of the working class. It is important for you to ensure military training and build up defences, but most important of all is the intensification of political work among the soldiers.
The Central Committee of our Party has long since considered it essential to do good political work in the People’s Army, and, with a view to strengthening this work, it set up Party organizations in the army as early as during the war, and in recent years it has introduced the Party committee system and has taken many other important measures towards the same end.
A matter of pressing urgency in political work in the People’s Army today is to further intensify the ideological work of heightening the class consciousness of the soldiers.
By fully equipping all the soldiers with class consciousness we must turn our army into a solid class army.
If imperialism were completely overthrown throughout the world and the exploiting classes thoroughly liquidated everywhere, people’s class consciousness might not be such an important question. But it will be a long time before that happens.
Today a fierce class struggle is being waged on a world scale between the international working class and the reactionary forces of imperialism; and an acute class struggle is also going on between, revolution and counter-revolution here at home. Our People’s Army considers it its duty to combat the imperialists, landlords and capitalists and to fight for the complete liberation of our nation, in the interests of the working class and other people. If the class consciousness of our soldiers grows dull and they become ignorant of the landlords and capitalists and of the heinous nature of imperialism, our People’s Army will not be able to fight well like a revolutionary army against the enemy.
You should not think it sufficient to simply stand guard on our frontiers, preventing serious incidents; you should arm all the soldiers with the revolutionary ideas of the working class, and see to it that each of them knows the enemy and hates him and is capable of fighting him with highly-developed class consciousness.


1. ON THE NEED TO FURTHER STRENGTHEN CLASS EDUCATION AMONG THE SOLDIERS
AND THE WORKING PEOPLE
Our Party has long directed great attention to the strengthening of class education among its members and the working people, and this work is now, on the whole, going well. Yet, today we feel keenly the need for the further strengthening of this work.
Communists are all well aware of the necessity of class education for the working people.
And yet we must re-emphasize this question, because the reality of our country and the general international situation urgently require it.
Today our country is divided into north and south, and our people stand face to face with the US imperialists. The socialist revolution has triumphed only in the northern half, while south Korea, one half of the territory of our country, is still under the occupation of the US imperialists. There, the landlords and capitalists are harshly exploiting the workers and peasants, and foreign aggressors are brutally killing and insulting our compatriots.
Our Party and people should, first of all, drive the aggressive forces of imperialism out of our territory, complete the national-liberation revo­lution, and then accomplish the socialist revolution throughout the country. This is a very difficult revolutionary task.
The enemy we are confronted with is US imperialism, the ringleader of world reaction. US imperialism is not only the enemy against whom our people are fighting, but is also the enemy against which the working class, in common with peace-loving people throughout the world, are fighting. Accordingly, the question of chasing the US imperialists out of south Korea is closely linked with the common struggle of the world’s people against their policy of aggression. That is why our revolution against US imperialism assumes a protracted and arduous character.
The more arduous and protracted becomes the character of the revolution, the more fully all the Party members, working people and, particularly, the men and officers of the People’s Army whose duty it is to defend our country, need to be equipped with the revolutionary spirit of the working class.
And today there are conditions which might make us liable to forget the enemy of the revolution and relax our vigilance.
In our country those who have fought against Japanese imperialism and experienced exploitation and oppression at the hands of the landlords and capitalists in the past are now getting old, while a new generation- who neither know imperialism, landlords and capitalists nor have undergone any hardships-are growing up and emerging as masters of our society.
In former days, we were subjected to all sorts of oppression and contempt by the Japanese imperialists, and we suffered harsh exploitation at the hands of the landlords and capitalists. So we felt a strong hatred for the enemies of our nation and class, and we did not hesitate to give our lives in the battle against them.
For those of us who suffered oppression and lived in poverty before, our life today is, indeed, boundlessly happy and worthwhile. Among the division or regimental commanders present here, there must be some who once served as farm hands for others or who toiled under the lash of the capitalists. These comrades know well how miserable their past life was. They could not even think of going to school, and were subjected to indescribable maltreatment by the landlords and capitalists. This is why they have always possessed the resolute will to dedicate their lives to defending the Party which has brought them the happiness they enjoy today and to fight devotedly to safeguard the gains of our revolution from enemy attack.
A few days ago, I saw a film based on a story about Height 1211. There is a dramatic scene in which Comrade Li Chol Jun, son of a former hired hand, who suffered every manner of ill-treatment at the house of a landlord in the past, shoots down the landlord’s son who fled to the south to become a puppet army officer. The Fatherland Liberation War was an extremely fierce struggle because it was a national-liberation war against foreign aggressors and, at the same time, it was such an acute class struggle.
But nearly ten years have already passed since the cessation of hostilities against the Yankees, and our living conditions have radically changed as compared with the past. In the northern half, we knocked down the landlords and capitalists long ago, and have built a socialist system free from exploitation and oppression. In the southern half, there are still the US imperialists as well as the landlords and capitalists, whereas in our northern half there are neither imperialists who humiliate and oppress our nation nor landlords and capitalists who exploit the working people. An end has been put to centuries of backwardness and penury in our country and our working people all enjoy a happy, new socialist life.
It is under this fine socialist system that the new generation are growing up, never having gone through the hard life of the past.
There are increasing numbers of young people who did not even suffer the brutal outrages of the American scoundrels during the war, to say nothing of the oppression by the Japanese imperialists, and they are already finding their way into both the factories and the People’s Army. In fact, we cannot say that the young people of 17 to 18 years of age at present really experienced our people’s Fatherland Liberation War against the US imperialist aggressors.
Our younger generation do not really know what landlords are like, what capitalists are like and how malicious the imperialists are. For this reason, many questions which surprised us greatly are said to have been raised at the political classes which are at present being given by platoon leaders. I was told that some young soldiers are ignorant of words such as “straw sandals”, “farm rent” and “hired hand”, and that the platoon leaders have had to explain these things to them. I wonder if these young people who are ignorant of straw sandals, of landlords, capitalists, exploitation and oppression, can ever fully understand the villainous nature of imperialism, landlords and capitalists, even when they are told about it.
Further, as our living conditions improve, there appears to be a tendency among some of our youth to disdain struggle. They say they do not like war films because they are boring. They simply desire to have a good time, seeking only pleasure while avoiding all difficulties. But bravery and perseverance can be cultivated only through a vigorous struggle to overcome difficulties. However, they are not waging such a struggle: they just vegetate, so that the spirit of fortitude is waning, and a loose and indolent atmosphere is gradually pervading our youth.
You comrades gathered here say that you are indebted to the Party for your schooling because it was not before, but only after, our liberation that you could go to school. However, the new generation take for granted all the educational facilities which are provided for them, and they are not even grateful for having had the opportunity of graduating from university.
When attending school before liberation, we found ourselves in a difficult situation indeed. There were few schools and it was very hard to enter even a secondary school, to say nothing of university. At that time we had no money to buy books, and as for Marxist literature, it was very difficult even to find it. So in order to study, we borrowed books from libraries. And once a book came into our hands we read it deep into the night because we might be fined in case we failed to return it by the fixed date. When we were fortunate enough to get a Marxist book, we read it in secret, forgetting everything else.
But today, you can obtain as many Marxist-Leninist publications as you want at the bookshops and, moreover, they are very cheap. But young people today do not read much, even though heaps of good books are available to them. It seems that they want to put as little effort as possible into their studies.
If we do not educate the younger generation and just leave them alone, they will become so addicted to a soft life that they will only wish to live in tranquility and will lose the staunch combative will to make revolution in the teeth of difficulties.
If the people in our country, who are face to face with the US im­perialists, were to forget the enemy of our class and nation, and to live in indolence, it would be a very dangerous thing, tantamount to disarming themselves completely before the enemy.
The US imperialists are not likely to get out of south Korea soon. Nevertheless, the Yankees will not be able to hold on to the south for ever. Japanese imperialism was destroyed after 36 years of occupation of Korea, but things are different now from what they used to be in those days. The American scoundrels have already been occupying south Korea for 17 years. Now we can say that the day is drawing nearer when they will be driven out. Though it is hard to foretell the future with certainty, we can say that the Yankees will probably go to ruin in Korea in 10 to 20 years or so. But if we do not fight well, it may take 20-odd years or more.
Of course, 10 or 20 years is not a short period. Many things will change within that space of time.
Indeed, there is not a shadow of doubt that, in 10 to 20 years, almost all those who in the past had suffered from cruel exploitation by the landlord and capitalist classes and from national oppression by the imperialists will have grown old, while the new generation that did not experience exploitation and. oppression will have become the masters of our state and society.
Our revolution is not over and we still have much to do. If we fail to accomplish the revolutionary cause in our generation, we must leave it for the next generation to achieve. And if the younger generation forget the enemy, become shy of struggle and only like to lead a life of ease, they may not only be unable to carry forward our revolutionary cause but also could even be deprived of the achievements we have thus far made.
Further, you must not think that those who are of worker and peasant origin or went through hardships before, are all fully armed with class consciousness. If they lead a comfortable life for a long time in the absence of any ideological education, even people who are of sound class origin and have gone through hardships may virtually forget their former plight in which they were oppressed and humiliated; they may gradually become lazy and their class consciousness may be paralysed.
Therefore, in order to drive the US imperialists out of our territory, achieve the reunification of our country and carry the Korean revolution through to the end, it is necessary for us to further intensify class education among the working people. We must never feel com­placent just because the socialist system has already triumphed, the hostile classes have been liquidated and our living conditions have improved in the northern half of the Republic. We must continue to be deeply concerned with heightening the class consciousness of the working people, and especially, with firmly arming the younger genera­tion with working-class ideology.
Class education of the working people, and particularly of the new generation, is not a problem faced by the Korean communists alone. It is a matter of concern common to the communists of the world. In the countries where the revolution triumphed in only a part of their territory and not on a nationwide scale, and in the socialist countries where the revolution emerged victorious at an earlier period-under conditions in which the world revolution has not yet been accomplished and imperial­ism remains in existence-class education becomes a matter of great importance now for the international communist movement.
Today, world imperialism is slipping towards decline and ruin. But imperialism still remains a dangerous force and machinates nefariously against peace, socialism and national independence everywhere in the world. We should not just believe that imperialism will be totally overthrown in a matter of a few years. To rout imperialism once and for all and accomplish the world revolution, the people of the world must still wage an arduous and protracted fight.
The longer the world revolution lasts, the more important becomes the question of the class education of the working people in the socialist countries where the revolution has triumphed earlier.
It is already 40-odd years since the socialist revolution emerged victorious in the Soviet Union and nearly 20 years since the triumph of the revolution in other socialist countries. Therefore, if can be said that the replacement of the old generation by the new is a common phenomenon taking place in all the socialist Countries. Besides, in most of the socialist countries, construction has continued in a peaceful atmosphere ever since World War II, and the material and cultural life of their peoples has markedly unproved. This entails the danger that a peaceful, comfortable life may make the people forget the revolutionary spirit they had in the past when they were fighting hard battles.
Under such circumstances, if class education is discontinued among the working people, on the grounds that the socialist revolution has triumphed on a nationwide scale, people will gradually slide into laziness and degenerate ideologically. They will end by losing their hatred for imperialism as well as their will to carry the revolution through to the end and, worse still, they will seek only their own welfare, not caring whether others are oppressed and exploited. This would mean that the peoples in triumphant socialist countries would give up the struggle for revolution and renounce the world revolution. To seek only the prosperity of one’s own country without regard for the world revolution is a manifestation of bourgeois nationalism and is fundamentally contradictory to Marxism-Leninism.
To desist from the revolutionary struggle and renounce the world revolution means to betray Marxism-Leninism and degenerate into revisionism. At that rate one could not build socialism and communism even in one’s own country.
In some socialist countries, due to the neglect of ideological work with the working people, a dissipated and indolent way of life is now in evidence among the youth. Bad tendencies-an unwillingness to work or join the army and a desire for only an idle and licentious life-have appeared among them. This lazy, dissipated and non-class way of life provides favourable soil for the growth of revisionist ideology, and under the influence of revisionism, people are degenerating all the more.
Consequently, many young people, with their class consciousness paralysed, fail to see things from a revolutionary point of view. They know little of the aggressive and brutish nature of imperialism, and are dubious about the anti-imperialist struggle, harbouring illusions about US-led imperialism.
Such ideological degeneration of the youth in some socialist countries constitutes a great danger both to building socialism and communism in their countries and to the revolutionary struggle against imperialism on a worldwide scale.
It is incumbent upon communists throughout the world to be totally loyal to the revolution of their own countries and to fight, at the same time, for the final victory of the world revolution. In each socialist country the work of class education should be energetically carried on in order to carry each country’s own revolution and the world revolution through to the end. Strengthening class education among the working people, it can be said, is an important task assigned to all communists of our era by the cause of the world revolution.
We are duty bound to crush the imperialists and their lackeys, the landlords and capitalists, in Korea, accomplish the socialist revolution throughout our country and fight, as a detachment of the international communist movement, for the ultimate triumph of the world revolution. A protracted struggle is required both for the triumph of the Korean revolution and for the triumph of the world revolution. That is why we must consistently carry on the work of class education among the working people until our revolution is crowned with final victory.
Further, the strengthening of class education among the working people has come to the fore as a still more vital necessity in connection with the emergence of revisionist ideology in the present period.
At present, revisionists are spreading all sorts of anti-Marxist, opportunist theories and widely propagating reactionary bourgeois ideologies and the corrupt bourgeois way of life, thereby paralysing the class and revolutionary consciousness of the working people and, especially, ruining the younger generation ideologically.
The modem revisionists betray the revolutionary principles of Marxism-Leninism and deny the necessity of revolutionary struggle and class struggle. Clamouring that “All men are equal; the whole world is one”, the revisionists repudiate the class outlook and preach the supra-class “outlook of mankind”, or “universal outlook”.
In the field of art, too, they draw no distinct line between the revolutionary art of the working class and the reactionary art of the bourgeoisie, and advocate the supra-class “art of mankind”. The revisionists consider that the working class ought to learn the corrupt capitalist way of life, and believe that the revolutionary working class ought to learn the foul songs and dances which the capitalists enjoy when getting drunk and taking licentious pleasures. They maintain that the class character of art is absolutely unnecessary.
Where revisionism has found its way, people are more and more bereft of love for and pride in their socialist country and are being reduced to egoists who only want a life of luxury for themselves. This means a return to the bourgeois ideology of mammonism. What sort of unselfish struggle for the state and revolution can be expected from a person who knows only money and pursues only personal pleasure? If a person chooses this path, he will not even hesitate to betray his country. One case resulting from this was that of a girl student in a certain country who was so infected with revisionist ideology that she thought it an honour to marry an American espionage agent.
One of our students got himself contaminated with revisionism while studying in a foreign country and was gradually tempted into a depraved life. It is said that he has finally arrived at a point where he feels sorry that he was born a Korean. This is of course a peculiar case. But at any rate, once people are affected and demoralized by revisionism, they will end up by rejecting their country and seeking only their own pleasure.
The revisionists are the agents of the imperialists. At present the imperialists are using the revisionists as their stooges in their manoeuvres to spread counter-revolutionary, non-class ideologies within our ranks and to soften up our camp. Therefore, in order to prevent the penetration of revisionism, further cement the ideological unity of our revolutionary ranks and carry on a successful struggle against imperialism and the landlord and capitalist classes, it is more urgent than ever that class education be intensified.


2. ON THE MAIN CONTENTS OF CLASS EDUCATION
Class education is a work of ideological education aimed at arming people with the working-class ideology. Its main object is to arouse the class consciousness of the working people so that they may combat the class enemy uncompromisingly and fight resolutely to defend the interests of their class through thick and thin.
We should thoroughly expose to the working people the malignant and insidious nature of the class enemy, cultivate in them a strong hatred for that enemy and, at the same time, convince them deeply of their class position and the justness of the revolutionary struggle, thereby inducing all working people to resolutely fight the class enemy to the end, for the good of their class, their Party and their socialist country, and for the victory of the revolutionary cause.
The question on which we should lay primary stress in class education is that of cultivating among the working people a hatred for imperialism.
Imperialism is the first target of our struggle. All imperialism is bad, and the imperialism which we have to fight-US and Japanese imperialism-is particularly bad. We must, above all, educate our soldiers and working people with the idea of hating US and Japanese imperialism.
There are countless instances of barbarities committed by the Americans and the Japanese in Korea. We should tell our soldiers and working people clearly how the US and Japanese imperialists killed, insulted and oppressed our people. We should let them know about all the atrocities that the American scoundrels perpetrated while in north Korea and are perpetrating now in south Korea. In south Korea today, when the Yankees go hunting, they shoot down Koreans who are gathering firewood and claim that they thought they were pheasants or hares; they shoot children to death, branding the victims as thieves merely for approaching the barbed wire fences; they rape Korean women and even shave off their hair; they strip Korean women naked and paint their bodies, and so on. All these represent an intolerable insult to our nation. We should inform the working people of all these facts. In this way they should be imbued with hatred for the enemy of our nation.
The Kwangju Student Incident, touched off when Japanese male students jeered at a Korean schoolgirl, led the Korean students through­out the country to rise against Japanese imperialism. We should fully expose the outrages the US imperialists are now perpetrating in south Korea and make them all known to our people.
What is most important in educating the soldiers and the working people to hate imperialism is to bring home to them its aggressive nature. We should not just tell the working people about a few cases of the imperialists slaughtering people in our country or savagely bombing our towns and villages; we should make the working people fully understand, on the basis of historical facts, that aggression and plunder emanate from the very nature of imperialism.
In the past, the imperialists gobbled up our country, and deprived it of vast amounts of resources and wealth; and also today, they have got hold of south Korea and are plundering the south Korean people, and even trying to swallow north Korea. All imperialism, without exception, is aggressive in nature, be it Japanese imperialism or US imperialism, the imperialism of yesterday or the imperialism of today.
Just as the brutish nature of a wolf cannot change, so the aggressive nature of imperialism can never change. Catch a wolf cub and raise it; the beast will still do harm to people and flee into the mountains when it grows up. If the aggressive nature of imperialism changed, it would mean that imperialism had already ceased to exist. So long as imperialism remains, its aggressive nature will remain. We should categorically reject the allegation of the revisionists that the aggressive nature of imperialism has changed.
From the first days of their contact with our country, the Japanese and US imperialists tried to swallow our country and schemed to plunder our people of their wealth. The Americans robbed our country of great quantities of gold. The gold they took away from the Unsan, Taeyudong and Suan Mines alone amounts to a tremendous figure. In many places there still remain traces of those Yankees who pottered about the high mountains and deep valleys to rob Korea of its gold. I found a Western-style house on the mountain pass of Changsong, and asked the old men there what it was. They said that it was built by an American who lived there for a year, during which time he made trips on horseback in search of gold. I suggested that it would be a good idea to maintain the house in good state so that we can show it to our future generations.
The crafty Yankees plundered Korea of a huge amount of gold, of which they spent a negligible sum to set up a few “charity hospitals” and the like, and distribute some bags of quinine to Christian converts. Besides, in order to train the spies they needed, they picked out some Koreans and sent them to study in the United States. In doing so, they proclaimed that they were benefactors and were helping Koreans.
Today also, the Americans are trying to deceive people by similar methods in south Korea. They have occupied south Korea and turned it into their colony. And yet, they assert that they are giving “aid” to the Korean people. We should fully expose the true nature of the several hundred million dollars of “aid” which they are said to give annually.
In actual fact what is plundered by the Yankees in south Korea every year is incomparably greater than what they offer in the so-called “aid”. In the first place, the Yankees maintain as mercenaries a puppet army of 700,000. If they were to station that size army of their own in Korea, it would cost them scores of times more than the amount of their “aid” to south Korea. The Americans, however, feign ignorance of the fact that they use the young and middle-aged in south Korea as cannon fodder and plunder vast resources there. On the contrary, they vociferate as if they were feeding the south Korean people. In south Korea, too, many people seem to have started realizing by now that so-called US “aid” is a means of ruining the south Korean economy and completely reducing it to an appendage of the United States.
We must also get the people fully acquainted with the fact that the Japanese and US imperialists have long since collaborated with each other for the purpose of invading Korea. Thus, basing ourselves on historical facts, we should expose the ambitions of the US and Japanese imperialists to commit renewed aggression against our country.
Of late, the US imperialists, in an endeavour to prop up their colonial rule in south Korea which is on the verge of collapse, are even manoeuvring with the military fascist clique in the south to let in the Japanese imperialists.
Men like Pak Jung Hi and Kim Jong Pil in south Korea are special agents of the United States and are also stooges of the Japanese scoundrels. They are now holding the “ROK-Japan talks” with a view to ushering in the Japanese. These traitors intend to reduce to only 300 million dollars the reparations to be given for the plunder committed by the Japanese imperialists against our people for 36 years.
Our Government has made clear its determined opposition to the “ROK-Japan talks”. A broad sector of the Japanese public as well as the working class are raising their voices to denounce the illegality of these “talks”.
We must firmly oppose the Pak Jung Hi clique bringing in Japanese imperialism, and sharpen our vigilance against the Japanese imperialists who are scheming to invade our Korea again.
Racial discrimination and misanthropy are ideas inherent to the imperialists. We remember clearly how the Japanese looked down upon Koreans and brutally slaughtered them in the past. The rabid racial discrimination of the Yankees is widely known to the world. They regard the whites as a superior race, and believe that the yellow and the black races ought to be dominated and maltreated by the whites. We should thoroughly reveal the history of atrocities committed by the Americans in insulting and murdering Koreans and the criminal acts they have committed and are still committing against the peoples of Asia, Africa and Latin America.
In this way, we should see to it that all our people profoundly hate Japanese and US imperialism and that not only our generation but also our future generations remember the aggressive nature of imperialism.
Besides, we should make our soldiers and working people fully acquainted with the evil nature of the landlords and capitalists. Today, landlords and capitalists still remain in south Korea, and they con­tinue to exploit the workers and peasants ruthlessly. In north Ko­rea the landlord and capitalist system had ceased to exist-but the former landlords and capitalists, though overthrown, are still alive today.
The younger generation have no idea of landlords, but the former landlords have never forgotten their confiscated land. Although 17 years have already elapsed since the landlords’ estates were confiscated they still keep the property records. They say that one of them, helped about by his grandson, points out to the young grandson all the lands he has been deprived of and tells him that he must do everything to regain the lands when the time comes, even after the grandfather’s death. In Pyongyang, of late, a 71 year-old erstwhile landlord, who had kept grumbling and complaining, turned against us despite the fact that, thanks to the solicitude of the state, all of his sons had gone to school and had even graduated from university. The members of his people’s neighbourhood unit made every effort to educate him but it was all in vain, and finally, it is said, they had no other choice but to expel him from the unit, entrusting his re-education to his sons. I think this is an instructive instance which shows that the true nature of the landlords does not change. Just as the true nature of imperialism is actually unchangeable, so is the true nature of the landlords and capitalists.
The landlords have not forgotten that we expropriated their lands- so how can we forget the landlords? We should continue to hate landlords and capitalists and fight them to the end. It is necessary for us to produce many films and dramas exposing the criminal acts of exploitation and pillage by the landlords and capitalists, and also to write more novels based on similar subjects. Our youngsters should be made to see and read all these films and novels so that they can fully understand how their parents were exploited and oppressed by the landlords and capitalists in the past.
And it would be good for the army to occasionally invite and hold round-table discussions with some of the old country folks who in the past eked out a scanty living as farm hands and became better off after liberation. Through such round-table discussions we should make our soldiers fully aware of how miserable the plight of our peasants was, and how cruel the exploitation by the Japanese and the landlords was in former days.
Another very important thing in class education is to bring home to the soldiers and working people the corruptness of the capitalist system and the superiority of the socialist system.
Exploiting classes like landlords and capitalists are inseparable from their exploiting system. We should hate not only individual landlords and capitalists but the exploiting classes as a whole, and should fight against the exploiting system itself, in which they rule the roost.
To have a full grasp of the class essence of the capitalists, one must be well informed about their system. We should help the working people to fully understand that the capitalist system and the landlord and bourgeois way of life are bad, whereas the socialist system and our people’s way of life are good.
Capitalist society is a society where a handful of the privileged classes, including the landlords and capitalists, oppress and exploit the toiling masses. State power and the wealth of society are exclusively in the hands of these privileged classes. The toiling masses are starved and ragged. If they fall ill, they cannot afford medical treatment. Although humiliated and oppressed, they are powerless to defend their human rights.
Under the socialist system, on the contrary, the popular masses are masters of everything. In socialist society, no one is subjected to exploitation or oppression. Everyone works and lives equally well, people study and develop together. Although they may not be in a position to live in luxury like the landlords and capitalists, they all live free from worry about food and clothing, are entitled to work and study, and receive medical care. Moreover, under the socialist system, all the people are united and work conscientiously, so that they develop the society rapidly and show great vigour in the fight against foreign aggressors.
In conveying the superiority of our system, it is very effective to compare the northern half with the southern half of our country.
A contrast between the superiority of the socialist system and the corrupt, reactionary nature of the capitalist system is manifested most strikingly in the diametrically opposed situations in north and south Korea. Our struggle today is, in fact, an acute struggle between two entirely opposite social systems, established in north and south Korea, a struggle between the classes that support the socialist system and the classes that support the capitalist system. We are striving to get people to choose for themselves between the two systems. It is therefore very important to prove fully the advantages of socialism over capitalism, by making comparisons between the social systems in north and south Korea.
In south Korea, the landlords and capitalists continue to exercise their authority and to live in affluence, while the workers and peasants lead a wretched life. Since power is not in their hands, the workers and peasants, far from being protected by the state, are simply oppressed. The police beat, arrest and imprison workers and peasants, and subject large numbers of toiling people and youths to forced labour and pressgang them into the puppet army as cannon fodder for the Yankees. There are over 6 million unemployed and underemployed, and hundreds of thousands of child beggars are roaming the streets, but the rulers do nothing whatsoever for them. They arrest, imprison and slaughter at random those who advocate the rights of the people, and herd people off to desolate and distant lands in South America across the Pacific. We should thoroughly expose the criminal emigration scheme of the south Korean rulers who banish innocent south Korean people to faraway places so that they may never return, under the pretext that poverty is caused by a shortage of land, while they lay waste hundreds of thousands of chongbo of cultivable land.
North Korea is inhabited by Koreans, just as is the south, but the situation is entirely different here: all the landlords and capitalists have been eliminated in the northern half and the exploiters and oppressors have all been liquidated. The state is now run by the people themselves; all of the factories and farms are owned by the people, who manage and operate them for themselves. Everyone works, studies and lives free from worry about food, clothing and housing.
In south Korea, countless people go about begging with cans in their hands, many dying under bridges from cold and hunger. We, however, now all eat hearty meals though they be boiled rice and maize, half-and-half, and there is no one who lacks shelter or who has to sleep under bridges.
In south Korea today, large numbers of children and young persons cannot go to school, and students even sell their blood so as to be able to pay their school expenses. But in the northern half, all pupils and students-who account for one-fourth of the population-study at schools free of charge; and everyone is even provided with conditions for receiving higher education.
As everyone has an occupation and works in our society, our enemies are carrying on a malicious propaganda campaign, alleging that north Koreans are subjected to forced labour. Contrary to their expectations, however, this sort of propaganda will backfire-so that, in fact, the Koreans in the south will long to be in north Korea.
An espionage agent, who had infiltrated into north Korea and fled to the south, slanderously claimed that the streets in the north were like a living hell in the daytime with not a soul to be seen because everyone had been dragged off for forced labour. Such a crude lie can deceive no one, nor can it evoke the sympathy of the south Korean people. If the south Korean people, who are jobless and languishing in hunger and poverty, hear this, they would say they would prefer to get any job, even if it did mean forced labour. What pride can anyone have in streets filled, even in the daytime, with parasites who live without working and with the unemployed and beggars wandering about with no job to do and nothing to eat? And what good is it to have many yelling hawkers urging people to buy some product? Only madmen could be against eliminating such things and having everyone working and living well.
A few years ago, an airliner flew over here from south Korea. A stewardess from the plane gave her impressions of the streets of Pyongyang, saying that the cosmetics and other luxuries in the shops were not worth mentioning and that there was only plenty of ordinary fabrics suitable for plain people and of mass consumption goods. These remarks, too, can be construed differently from opposite class positions. When they hear the words, the landlords and capitalists may consider that north Korea is a poor society since it lacks toilet articles and luxuries. As for the working people in south Korea, they may think life in north Korea ideal for working people and say: “It doesn’t matter if we have no cosmetics and luxuries. So long as there are plenty of the goods that the working people need, that’s enough.”
The bourgeoisie like to talk about freedom. Their freedom, however, is the freedom for the landlords and capitalists to exploit the working people and the freedom for the workers and peasants to be badly-clothed and hunger-stricken.
I was told that some of the south Korean reporters who come to Panmunjom extol bourgeois freedom. When our correspondents asked them what freedom they had after all, a south Korean counterpart reportedly answered: “You all go to office at eight in the morning and work, but we don’t do that. Once we write a good story and make money, we drink or take a rest at home for days. And no one is bothered about it. What is this if not freedom?” This fellow, however, shuts his eyes to the fact that in south Korea now great numbers of people, unable to earn a living, are going hungry, far from loafing for two days on one day’s earning. He does not care whether others are starved or frozen to death, whether the country goes to ruin or not; he only wants to make a good living for himself. What a mean idea! It is most disgraceful to idle away time at home, drinking wine, instead of concerning oneself with the community, the state and the sufferings of one’s fellow country­men.
The freedom to eat the bread of idleness as long as one has money in
one’s pocket is a freedom for the rich bourgeois exploiter class, not for the working people. Genuine freedom for the working people lies, above all, in extricating themselves from exploitation and oppression by the landlords and capitalists, and in all being able to work, not for the good of the exploiters but for their own sake and for the sake of their country and society.
The capitalists talk about human rights, but in capitalist society the working people actually have no right to work, no right to live, no right to receive medical care, no right to study. Only socialist society ensures genuine freedom and rights for all the working people to work and live happily together.
A brief glance over one aspect of capitalist society may fascinate some with the pomp of bourgeois life. The streets blazing with varicoloured lights and shops stacked with luxurious and flashy goods may give an impression that everything is prospering and thriving. In contrast, our shops, which fulfil their function as supply organs for the working people, are not concentrated in any one place but are distributed evenly in each district, and their goods are all ordinary ones. People fresh from capitalist countries may think that our towns are much less splendid than capitalist ones. But everything that is sumptuous and brilliant in capitalist society is designed for the rich capitalists, not for the poor workers. People who fail to observe things from the class point of view may see only the flamboyant side of capitalist society, which has nothing to do with the working people, and be fascinated by it.
We should always draw comparisons between capitalism and so­cialism from the class point of view, and thoroughly convince our soldiers and working people of the superiority of the socialist system. Only then will they love their system, make devoted efforts to further strengthen and develop it, defend it and their socialist homeland from enemy invasion and fight on with firm confidence in the justness and victory of the cause of socialism.
In the army, too, when political lessons are given, it is advisable to dwell on the south Korean situation a great deal, not only stressing the socialist construction in the northern half. You should give the soldiers a good analytical explanation as to how the landlords levy farm rent in south Korea; why south Korea, once called the granary of Korea, has bad harvests all the time and why millions of starving peasants subsist on grass roots and tree bark year after year, whereas mountainous north Korea gathers good crops every year and has sufficient provisions; why in south Korea the number of unemployed is constantly on the increase and even university graduates cannot get employment and in the end find them­selves in the miserable situation of the jobless A-frame carrier, while the northern half is concerned about its manpower shortage; and so on.
We must also make the soldiers understand clearly that the funda­mental cause of the miseries and sufferings of the south Korean people lies in the colonial, predatory policy of US imperialism and of its reactionary ruling system.
In the pre-liberation days when we were struggling against the Japanese imperialists, we taught the guerrillas in detail how the Japanese were bleeding the Koreans white and how the landlords were exploiting the peasants. We explained to them how much the landlords collected in farm rent, how the Japanese deprived the Koreans of their lands, how they levied taxes, and even what the monopoly system was.
Our soldiers should be thoroughly acquainted with the situation in south Korea as well as in north Korea. Only then will it be possible for them to have a deeper understanding of the superiorly of the socialist system and greater determination to safeguard the revolutionary gains. And only in this way will our soldiers come to hate the US imperialists and their lackeys, the landlords and capitalists, and increase their rev­olutionary enthusiasm to overthrow the US imperialist aggressors, the landlords and capitalists in south Korea at an early date and to make our south Korean compatriots as well-off as we are.
Class education of the working people is a fundamental class struggle in the realm of ideology. Without waging an uncompromising battle against the ideology of the hostile classes, it is impossible to equip our soldiers and working people with the working-class ideology, the rev­olutionary ideas of Marxism-Leninism. Therefore, we must wage a powerful struggle against all types of reactionary bourgeois ideas, anti-Marxist-Leninist ideas and opportunist ideas. At the present time particularly, when revisionism has raised its head internationally, it is of great significance in class education to expose the reactionary nature of revisionism.
The modem revisionists, with a view to paralysing the class consciousness of the masses, deny the class struggle and the proletarian dictatorship, preach class collaboration and bourgeois liberalism and obscure the fundamental difference between the capitalist system and the socialist system.
While beautifying imperialism and alleging that the aggressive nature of imperialism has changed, they call for a halt to the anti-imperialist struggle and oppose the liberation struggle of the oppressed nations and exploited peoples.
On the question of war and peace, too, the modern revisionists have put forward a pernicious “theory”. Peace can be won only through the struggle of the broad popular masses against the imperialist policies of aggression and war. However, the revisionists pin their hopes on the “reasonableness” of the imperialists and beg them for peace while repressing the anti-imperialist struggle of the masses of the people. They are compromising with imperialism and capitulating to the imperialists’ policy of war blackmail, while spreading war-phobia and bourgeois pacifism.
Revisionism is bourgeois ideology which has penetrated the working-class movement. The revisionists, renegades of the revolution, craftily using Marxist-Leninist propositions in camouflaging their reactionary nature, actually preach bourgeois ideology and serve the interests of the imperialists and the reactionary classes.
Modem revisionism is exerting an extremely harmful influence upon the struggle of the masses for peace, national independence and socialism. Where revisionism finds its way, the class consciousness of the masses grows blunt and they degenerate ideologically, thereby becoming unable to carry on the revolutionary struggle.
So, at present we cannot successfully give the working people a class education or mobilize them for the victory of the revolution other than in conjunction with the struggle against revisionism. We should fully lay bare the non-class and reactionary nature of the revisionists so that all the working people can draw a distinction for themselves between socialism and capitalism and between Marxism-Leninism and revisionism. We should thus see to it that all our Party members and working people, holding aloft the revolutionary banner of Marxism-Leninism, the banner of struggle against imperialism and for national liberation and socialism, fight on resolutely for the triumph of the revolutionary cause.
Another important thing in class education is to firmly arm our soldiers and working people with the ideas of socialist patriotism.
We must learn not only to hate the enemy but also to love our friends. Love of one’s own class and people and the ardent love of one’s own Party and country is one of the loftiest characteristics inherent in the working class.
Nothing is dearer to us than our country. Our people have felt in their bones how miserable is the colonial slavery of a stateless nation.
The true mother of all people is their native country. We cannot live nor be happy, apart from our country. Only by virtue of the prosperity and well-being of the homeland is it possible for us to take the road to happiness. All the finest sons and daughters of our people were ardent patriots before anything else. It was also for the restoration of our country that the Korean communists fought against the Japanese imperialists before liberation, braving hardships and tribulations.
Li Su Bok, a hero who displayed unprecedented valour in the Fatherland Liberation War of our people against the invasion of the US imperialists, said that he had to devote his life to the interests of his own country. This is the feeling of real patriots. All our soldiers and working people should possess this patriotic spirit. Patriotism is all the more indispensable for us who have to drive out the US imperialist aggressors and accomplish the national-liberation revolution.
However, as our people had long lived in colonial slavery without their own state, quite a few of them are not proud of their country and nation and, accordingly, they lack in love for their people and fatherland. So, in many cases, some people become transformed into Japanese when they are in Japan, into Russians in Russia and into Americans in America.
True, our people retain much of the flunkeyism which has been handed down historically and lack a sense of national pride. However, our big defect is that we have so far failed to give the working people a thoroughgoing education in patriotism. As a result, some even seem to think the working class does not have to be patriotic, while others think that socialist patriotism and proletarian internationalism conflict with each other.
Socialist patriotism and proletarian internationalism constitute an inseparable whole. Some people betray their country under the sign of internationalism, which is very wrong.
Fundamentally speaking, proletarian internationalism is inter­nationalism between independent nations, between states, and inter­nationalism is inconceivable apart from nations and states. To hold that one needs neither state nor nation, but only internationalism, is not an internationalist stand but that of a ruined people who have forgotten their own country and nation and depend on others.
Needless to say, it will be another matter after imperialism is completely overthrown and socialism and communism emerge victorious throughout the world in the future, and the boundaries of nations vanish and states cease to exist. Then the question of patriotism will never arise and its relationship to internationalism will pose no problem.
However, while frontiers continue to exist and people have their respective countries and live on a national basis like today, one cannot forget one’s country and nation.
It would be meaningless for Korean communists to talk about revolution apart from the Korean nation and the 3,000 ri of Korean soil.
Those who were born in Korea are duty bound to make revolution and build socialism and communism in Korea. The Korean revolution is the internationalist duty devolving on the Korean people. For this reason, only when the Korean people satisfactorily carry out the Korean revolution as their first priority, will they be performing their inter­nationalist duty faithfully. Everything we have must be subordinated to the fulfilment of the Korean revolution. Moreover, inasmuch as we are still at the stage of revolution in which we must accomplish the national-liberation revolution throughout the country, it is essential to enhance the national pride of our people.
The question to which we should pay particular attention in educating the working people in patriotism is that of making them fully understand the great importance of national Chajusong. The Party is demanding that Juche be established in all domains, and special emphasis should be laid on political Chajusong and economic self-sufficiency.
From the outset, communists make it their rudimentary task to fight for the liquidation of all kinds of subjugation and for the attainment of independence. He who denies political Chajusong and preaches flunkey-ism is not a communist.
The man who lacks political Chajusong will practise revisionism if others do it, accept dogmatism if others fall into it, or capitulationism, if others do so. How can anyone who keeps swaying with the wind ever become a real communist responsibly leading the revolution of his country?
A person who simply follows in the wake of others, without political Chajusong, is out of his senses. Such a stupid man can neither love his country and people, nor do anything in a creative way to suit his own actual situation. The man who thus lacks the spirit of independence works not for the good of his people but to curry favour with others. Therefore, this sort of man may eventually play into the hands of the great-power chauvinists who try to subjugate other countries, and he may go so far as to degenerate into a traitor who sells out the interests of his own people.
Without economic self-sufficiency, no political Chajusong can be ensured. A state can be fully independent and sovereign only when it has political Chajusong and economic self-sufficiency. Above all, it is of prime importance for us Korean communists to turn our country into a state which has complete political Chajusong and economic self-sufficiency. Only political Chajusong and economic self-sufficiency will enable us to solve our country’s problems on our own.
It should be a fundamental principle that the problems of a country should be solved by its own people. It would be very stupid and mistaken to think of winning independence by relying on others and of living well on the favours of others. The Korean revolution must be accomplished by the efforts of the Korean people themselves and the Korean question must be solved by the Korean people themselves.
We must show the people in the southern half that political Chajusong and economic self-sufficiency have been firmly established in the northern half, and must continue to inspire them to take the path of political Chajusong and economic self-sufficiency, without relying on the United States or Japan. Some of the south Korean people still maintain that the reunification of the country should be accomplished by the United Nations. We are fundamentally opposed to this. Why should we ask for the help of the United Nations to solve the question of Korean reunification instead of settling it among us Koreans? To do so would mean disbelief in our own strength and would be an insult to our nation. There remain quite a few people who are not ashamed of relying on external forces because flunkeyism has been a powerful influence in our country from the past.
In the last days of the feudal society of the Li dynasty the situation of our country was particularly appalling. People were not concerned with saving the country by their own efforts; on the contrary, different factions did their utmost to get the assistance of foreign powers in order to achieve their partisan ends whenever an opportunity arose. So some secured the backing of Russia, others the backing of Japan and still others the backing of Qing-each group got the backing of a foreign power. This vice found expression even after the August 15 liberation. The factionalists played the same old game in 1956. All the anti-Party factionalists came out against our Party, each with the backing of a big power.
Today the idea of reliance on external forces which remains in the minds of some south Korean people offers a big obstacle to the reunification of our country. Therefore, we must energetically instill the idea of political Chajusong in the south Korean people and youth.
Of late, south Korean youth have begun to insist that economic self-sufficiency is necessary to secure political Chajusong. This is a very good sign. Certainly, economic self-sufficiency is unthinkable under US imperialist colonial rule, and if such ideas continue to grow among the south Korean youth, a powerful struggle may break out against the US imperialists and their lackeys. Especially, if we north Korean people oppose UN supervision or foreign supervision and continue to strongly demand reunification by the Korean people themselves, the south Korean youth will definitely rise in response to this.
We are now building socialism in the northern half, but we must remember that our country still remains divided. So if we were to conduct educational work in exactly the same way as in the countries where the revolution has triumphed on a nationwide scale, it would simply not suit our reality. How can we forget the question of national independence and sovereignty when we have not yet liberated the more than 20 million south Korean people? If we were to confine ourselves to the building of socialism in the northern half alone, we could just sit idle, singing the praises of socialism. But we must never do this, for we are making revolution. We “ must carry the national-liberation revolution to the end and accomplish the socialist revolution across the country, come what may. For this, we should strengthen education in patriotism and lay a great emphasis on the question of national liberation and on the independence and sovereignty of the country. Otherwise, we will not be able to carry through the revolutionary tasks entrusted to the Korean communists and the Korean people. Herein lies the very reason that education in patriotism should hold a particularly important place in class education in our country today.
Another important thing in educating our soldiers and working people in the revolutionary spirit is to strengthen their confidence in the victory of the revolution and cultivate in them a spirit of looking forward to the future.
Faith in the victory of the revolution is all the more essential in our country. When the revolutionary struggle assumes a difficult and protracted character, those whose belief in the revolution is unstable may become weary and vacillate. It should, therefore, be driven home to the entire population that the revolution will definitely triumph.
If our present revolutionary cause were not to emerge victorious, people would become disappointed and dispirited and few would continue to devote themselves heart and soul to the cause, no matter how just and good it is. But if they are certain that the revolution will ultimately triumph, they will devote their all to the struggle, even though final victory may not be realized in their lifetime. It is precisely because of their firm conviction of the victory of the revolution that true communists are able to fight on heroically for the triumph of the revolution, fearing no enemy, however mighty, and courageously overcoming all difficulties and trials.
The downfall of imperialism and the victory of socialism is an inexorable law of history. Historical facts prove that imperialism is doomed to ruin even though it appears to be strong. Japanese imperialism was ruined, the German and Italian imperialisms were also crushed. American imperialism, too, will yet go to ruin. Already there are clear signs that US imperialism is declining. We must make it thoroughly known to our working people that imperialism will be destroyed, that all forces of reaction will be destroyed and that socialism is certain to emerge victorious. We must thus encourage everyone to fight to the end for the accomplishment of the revolution, with firm confidence in its triumph.
Furthermore, our youth should be educated to love not only the socialist system, already established, but also communism, to be built in the future.
We must not rest content with the present state of affairs. If we do, we cannot develop or make progress. We should always set our goals higher and higher and struggle to attain them. Uninterrupted struggle and continued advance will enable us to complete our revolution and build a paradise of communism.
Those who look forward to the future, who always set high goals for themselves and strive to achieve them, are capable of living more frugally and more militantly, always leading a cheerful and active life. So education in looking forward to the future is of great importance in establishing a revolutionary mode of life among the working people.
The work of arming our soldiers and working people with the revolutionary spirit of the working class must always be conducted in close combination with education in the Party’s policies and in the rev­olutionary traditions.
In order to carry out our country’s revolution with a mind of our own, it is necessary for us to equip ourselves fully with our Party’s policies and our revolutionary traditions. The policies of our Party are a creative application of Marxism-Leninism to the specific conditions of Korea and are the guide for our action. Our revolutionary traditions are the indomitable fighting spirit and the priceless experiences and achievements gained by the Korean communists in the course of their protracted, heroic struggle to carve out the road to victory for the Korean revolution, under the banner of Marxism-Leninism. If we are fully armed with our Party’s policies and revolutionary traditions, we will be able to adhere to our revolutionary position and wage an uninterrupted, resolute revolutionary struggle in all adversities and ordeals, without losing the spirit of Juche. Neither revisionism, dogmatism nor flunkeyism can ever infect those who are armed with the Party policies and revolutionary traditions. Only such people can be said to be true Korean revolutionaries in whom the ideological system of the Party is firmly established. We must train all our soldiers and working people to be revolutionaries of this sort.
This means that our soldiers and working people must be well acquainted, first of all, with the objectives and tasks of the revolution and know the methods of revolutionary struggle and its future prospects. We should explain to the soldiers and working people what the basic tasks of the Seven-Year Plan are as well as how rich and strong our country will become, how well-off our people will be and what great significance it will have in relieving the plight of the south Korean people when it is fulfilled. They should also be made to realize fully how we are building socialism. All these matters are explicitly stated in the report to the Fourth Congress of our Party. All our soldiers and working people should be induced to make a deep study of the Party documents and become well informed of the Party’s policies put forward in each period of the revolution, and of the intentions of the Party Central Committee. Thus, we should see that all people think and act as the Party Central Committee does, and fight to carry out the Party’s policies through thick and thin.
We must expect an arduous struggle in the future, too. We should follow the examples of the heroic struggle of our revolutionary forerun­ners and assimilate and develop their fighting spirit. In this way, we should see that everyone fights for the reunification and independence of our country and for the final victory of the Korean revolution with the same revolutionary spirit and unflagging fighting will that the anti-Japanese guerrillas displayed in the deep forests of Mt. Paekdu.
Along with class education, it is necessary to strengthen communist moral education still further. So far our Party has paid a great deal of attention to communist moral education, and has already achieved considerable success. The communist pattern of work and life has begun to take root among our working masses and there are many examples of people fighting devotedly for their comrades and collectives. Many glowing and impressive accounts of communist deeds have been coming forth from among the workers and peasants, and from intellectuals like teachers and doctors, whose level of consciousness is relatively high.
But we cannot rest content with the successes already achieved: there still are many shortcomings in the work of communist moral education.
Quite a few people still do not love the collective, do not love labour and do not cherish and protect state property or common property.
Even in our society, if people are left alone, without moral education, hopeless egoists may appear. If people become selfish, they will be wild with a desire for a life of plenty, just for themselves, not caring even about their parents, brothers and sisters, relatives, friends and comrades-just as in capitalist society. What is the good of living this way? Since we intend to build a communist society and get everyone to live equally well, we cannot allow anyone to become an egoist like that.
The survivals of obsolete ideas and old habits of life, which have come down through thousands of years, cannot disappear of their own accord in a brief period, just because a new socialist system has been set up. The complete eradication of outdated moral concepts and habits of life from among the working people, requires a long, persevering struggle and positive education for the building up of a new, communist morality.
However, we have failed to successfully conduct communist moral education among the working people in a systematic way. For an effective moral education, social and home education should be conducted well, and should be properly combined with school education.
In the future, communist moral education should be the subject of textbooks, booklets and articles in magazines; and we should also produce many films and dramas on the theme of moral education.
Education in communist morality should be intensified in the People’s Army, too.
Most important of all here is to have the traditional virtue of unity between officers and men further developed in the army. In the past, among the anti-Japanese guerrillas, commanding officers and soldiers shared sleeping quarters and meals, joys and sorrows with each other. At that time the commanders did not have a family life and they took care of their men at all times, living together with them.
At present, however, the officers have a family life, and do not share” sleeping quarters or meals with the soldiers. This is right and necessary, of course: there should be differences between the officers, who will serve the army all through their lives, and the soldiers, who will go back into society after three or four years of military service.
However, we should be deeply conscious of the risk that, since they do not share sleeping quarters and meals with the soldiers, the officers could become estranged from the life of their men, which would then make it difficult to ensure unity between men and officers. As a matter of fact, if officers do not go among the soldiers and live with them constantly, they will be unable to have a good grasp of the mentality of the soldiers, and a gap could open between them.
If we do not manage to give a full communist moral education to the officers, in conjunction with education in the revolutionary traditions, they will not be concerned about the life their men lead, while themselves living a comfortable life in a well-heated home with meals served by their wives: and they will only seek a still more comfortable life. As the saying goes: “Put a man on a horse, and he will demand a footman.” And they will, in the long run, come to hate even walking, and they will want a car;
once they get a car, they will want a bigger one so as to stretch out their legs comfortably in it. Then they can no longer make revolution.
If you want to make revolution, you must discard the egoistic idea of living well only for yourselves. A revolutionary must be ready to sacrifice his private life.
Officers must organize their daily life in the spirit of always sharing the sweet and the bitter with the soldiers and, make conscious efforts not to become estranged from their men. Whenever you enjoy a special delicacy, you must think of your soldiers; when it rains, or when your troops camp out or are on an arduous march, you must not go home to sleep but stay with your men.
Officers should be strictly prohibited from following such pernicious practices as having their men chop firewood or carry water for them to make their family life more comfortable. This is little less than the behaviour of officers in a privileged caste. There are very acute contradic­tions between officers and men in an imperialist army, where officers exercise such privileges. We must take all precautions against the slightest expression of such evil tendencies in our revolutionary army.
In the revolutionary army, officers and men are all comrades who share life and death, sweet and bitter, for the sake of the revolution. Superiors should love and help subordinates, and the latter should respect and defend the former, thus ensuring firm unity between them. Officers must always love their men as their own brothers and show day-to-day concern for their daily life; the divisional commander should give assistance to the regimental commander, the regimental commander to the battalion commander, the battalion commander to the company commander and the company commander to the platoon leader. The unity between officers and men must be maintained in this way. It is very important to ensure unity between officers and men so that our army will become the army of our Party, a class army and a revolutionary army. Only in this way will our army always overcome difficulties through unity and be assured of victory under all circumstances.
Also, soldiers should be educated in the spirit of taking good care of weapons and economizing on ammunition. Without weapons and ammunition you cannot fight the enemy. We should know how the anti-Japanese guerrillas treasured their weapons.
Only when our soldiers are educated in the spirit of taking good care of weapons and saving ammunition, will they manage state and coopera­tive farm property well and display patriotic devotion in socialist construction in the future, when they are given assignments to work at factories or cooperative farms.
I visited units in the forward area this time to see how they are getting along and found that the living conditions of the soldiers are not bad. What we have to do now is to fully equip them all with the revolutionary communist spirit by strengthening their class education and communist moral education. Most important today in strengthening the fighting capacity of our army is to conduct this political and ideological work among the soldiers in a thoroughgoing manner.
3. ON ENHANCING THE ROLE OF LITERATURE AND ART IN CLASS EDUCATION
I should like to express some views on how to make better use of various educational media, literary and art works in particular, in class education.
We have a lot of educational media-newspapers, magazines, novels, plays, films and so on. However, none of the numerous educational media plays its part properly today.
We have at our disposal a wealth of good materials for the education of our working people. A proper comparison in explaining the diametri­cally different realities of north and south, for instance, will enable the working people to get a profound understanding of the advantages of the socialist system. However, we are not attending to this work well.
Besides, we have many splendid achievements to our credit: there are too many praiseworthy things to enumerate-the great successes our people have scored in socialist construction, the peerless heroism which they are displaying, and the hosts of fine communist stories which are being created among the working masses, etc. But we fail to give proper publicity to them.
This is why everyone who visits our country, whether he is a foreigner or a young person from south Korea, comments that we are understating Our actual achievements in our propaganda. It is true that our propaganda is below par.
Why do we fail to make the best use of our excellent achievements in our propaganda? The main reason is that such work is left to a few writers and journalists, and the broad masses are not actively enlisted in it.
As I have said time and again, it is wrong to make writing something mysterious. There is nothing mysterious about literature and art. Anyone who has graduated from middle school can write about what he feels and thinks.
A great many middle school graduates can be found in the countryside, too, not to speak of towns, and still more in the army. There are ever so many people who are able to write. It is advisable to get all of them to write what they have seen and felt. Then you can collect then-writings and have highly qualified writers pick out good stories and give them a bit of artistic polish. That is all there is to it.
This method can be applied also to scenario and play writing.
Generally, the cultural level of our working people is not low today.
We also have a good many professional writers and composers. Nothing is impossible for us if we mobilize all our forces.
When we were waging the anti-Japanese armed struggle, we had neither writers nor composers, but we nevertheless staged dramas, made up songs and put out magazines and pamphlets.
We got together and had discussions about writing a play or composing a piece of music. And yet, the masses warmly acclaimed our plays, and many young people who were moved by them vied with each other to join the guerrillas. From this experience it is at least evident that our plays captivated the hearts of the audience.
Magazines, pamphlets and the like were also put out by primary school graduates or at best by middle school graduates.
True, some crudeness was unavoidable in these works, but they were enough to educate the masses effectively.
There is nothing extraordinary about literature or art. The essential thing is to depict the truth. A certain degree of clumsiness does not matter so long as the masses can understand well.
As for magazines, I think the design of Chollima is agreeable. It would be better to increase the staff of reporters and correspondents for this sort of magazine, and to induce many people in each village, factory and school to write about different things that take place in town and country, and to send their writings to the magazine.
At first they may be not good at writing, of course. But it is advisable that even though poorly written, their writings should be published, after having been given a good polishing. This encouragement will stimulate and help them to write a better article next time. Their qualifications will also improve as a result of doing this repeatedly.
We should thus induce workers and farmers, workteam leaders and managerial personnel to write, and the chairmen of county Party committees and of county people’s committees, too.
Scenarios and dramas must be created on a mass scale. When many people are drawn into creative work, a variety of talent may emerge and this will, in turn, stimulate such work on a mass scale.
This will make it possible to obtain plenty of good material. If there are outstanding items among them, journalists or writers may go to the authors to help perfect them.
Why do we consider the play A Red Agitator to be a good piece? Because it gives a good portrayal of a stirring event taking place in our countryside as it really is. People like Li Sin Ja are to be found not only in Rihyon-ri but in many other places, too. If a lot of people write about such laudable happenings taking place around them, and professional writers and artists produce their works on that basis, they can produce as many first-rate works as are desired. Our literary and art works must always be based on such live sources.
We must find many good stories by enlisting masses of people who have a vocation for writing, and publish them in the newspapers or work them up into literary pieces to educate the working masses.
Next, let me tell you about how to deal with subjects based on the revolutionary traditions in novels, films and plays.
In the light of the present situation of our country, it is natural that literature and art should take many of their themes from our rev­olutionary traditions and war experiences. But these subjects must be dealt with in such a way as to suit the feelings of our young people of today.
At present, the young people find our films on the theme of the revolutionary traditions or war to be too stiff and boring. This means that these films are not properly attuned to our life of today.
So, I say our comrades do not know how to administer medicine effectively. People are unwilling to take a bitter medicine, however good for them it may be. A bitter medicine should be sugar-coated before it is administered. The point is that you do not know how to sugar-coat skilfully.
When you make a war film, you should not present only battle scenes from start to finish: you should reduce the number of such scenes, and link them as much as possible with scenes of today; and you should also strive to make your works rich in emotion so as to meet the feelings of young people.
Suppose you make a film based on the battle of Height 1211. You can start it with a soldier’s reminiscences of a hero who fought well on Height 1211, and properly associate the hero’s life in the past with his present life. In this way, you can produce an interesting film. You might also show the hero’s childhood; what education he received from his parents in his early days, how he studied at school, how he kept on good terms with his friends, and what sort of girl he fell in love with. You can further describe how bravely the hero fought the enemy on Height 1211 after joining the army, and what the soldier himself was doing at that time and what impressions he got from the hero’s struggle; you can also portray how actively he is participating in the building of socialism at present, how he fares today and how his heroic friend and his parents are getting along and so on, thereby introducing topics of today’s life. Thus, it is possible to deal with both past and present, introduce valour and heroism in battle and give a good description of life’s emotions as well.
But the film entitled Defenders of Height 1211 which was put out recently is nothing but fighting from beginning to end.
By contrast, the film Under the Bright Sun is a fine piece. It gives a true portrayal not only of the revolutionary struggle of the anti-Japanese guerrillas but also of today’s struggle for socialist construction and the people’s happy life under the socialist system. True, the sequences of the recollection of former times seem a little long, but, it is, in my opinion, anyway a good work, suited to our present-day life.
We must bring about a great improvement in film production.
Films are a very important means of mass education. But our cinematographic art is in a very backward state today.
It has been several years since the February 8 Film Studio was set up but it has not produced any war film worth mentioning.
We are to blame, of course, for having failed to educate writers and artists properly, but the chief reason is that script writing has been shrouded in mystery. You are gravely mistaken if you think only certain professionals can write scenarios. Anyone can write an excellent piece, if he just goes among the people and depicts the truth. The fault lies with writers and artists who make a mystery of literature and art and who do not delve deeply into real life.
We have been producing films for years now, yet we have not had a film dealing with the working class. Our country has thousands of factories and a heroic working class. There are no end of examples of the valiant struggle of the workers that can be described. But no film has ever appeared depicting the working class.
One day I saw a Soviet feature film Bright Path together with some writers and artists, and then consulted them as to what had to be done in the future to improve motion picture work in our country. The film was about a woman, a former maid at an inn, who distinguished herself as a weaver, bringing about an innovation at the time of the Stakhanov Movement and in time became a Deputy to the Soviet. It depicts the struggle, of the working class well and has healthy music that gives courage to the audience.
So, I told our writers and artists that they, too, should make films that way.
How many examples there are of the heroic struggle of the working class in our country, where the Chollima Movement is being unfolded! What we have built on the debris during the postwar years has not come all by itself: it is the result of the heroic struggle waged by our working class which displayed extraordinary patriotic devotion.
Our working class fought well, indeed. In order to save their factories from the enemy’s bombing, they dismantled machines and carried them on their backs across mountains and rivers; they fought hard battles for postwar reconstruction, under conditions of great austerity.
But when told to depict something reminiscent of the past, you merely show scenes of utter destruction caused by desperate bombing by the American imperialists. Why do you present desolate scenes of ruin only, instead of the heroic battles of our working class? Only those who are ignorant of the people’s struggle can do that.
As I said once last year, documentary films, too, are poorly made.
In our documentary films today there appear spool after spool of fine landscapes with flowing waters and towering rocks like Mt. Kumgang and Mt. Chilbo, but few of them depict how people work, struggle and learn at factories, schools, hospitals and other places. That is why I once said:
“You shoot too many waterfalls. Do you think of living on the waterfalls of Mt. Kumgang?”
Also appearing quite often in documentary films are meeting halls. These halls are usually shown in the first sequences of documentary films. We have had enough of meeting halls. Why do you always do this? What is the use of screening the platform of a meeting in every documentary, or of filming leading dignitaries delivering speeches or awarding prizes? The audiences will lose interest in such films because similar scenes are being constantly repeated.
Documentary films ought to show people labouring heroically at factories, farms and fishing ports. Such scenes can make a real newsreel. If a newsreel just presents the same men you always see and the all-too-familiar conference halls, how can it be worthy of its name?
As for the conference halls, shoot them a couple of times a year when there are meetings of special importance like a people’s assembly or a Party congress. That is enough. How can you film all the activists’ meetings which are held almost everyday?
A newsreel is supposed to show lifelike scenes of the struggle as it actually develops, and present them when they are still fresh. It must show how people are working all over the country-at factories and farm villages, schools and hospitals. Only then will it be attuned to our feelings, reflect the superiority of the socialist system and, accordingly, enjoy popularity with the audience and have an educative value. Our cinema is too backward. We must rapidly raise the level of both feature films and documentaries so that they vividly reflect our life.
To raise the level of our literary and art works, writers and artists must delve more deeply into real life.
We have a bad practice of awarding prizes too often. Prizes are awarded whenever a work is created or a piece of music is composed fairly well. And the rest, that receive no prize, are regarded as rejects.
Of course, I have no objection to awarding many prizes. But I think we had better work a little more, and only then receive an award. We should be a bit more modest and make more serious efforts to improve our work. Getting together for drinking is not the right thing to do when you win a prize for your work. That could lead to dissipation and ruin.
We must work harder to intensify class education and communist moral education, propagate the Party’s policies and show the heroic struggle of the people. We must produce many better works.
Besides, in order to keep our people better informed of the actual situation in south Korea it would be desirable to publish an illustrated magazine with plenty of photographs showing the realities of south Korea. This is the way we must induce people to feel sympathy for the hard lot of our south Korean compatriots, to hate the US imperialists and their stooges and to resolve to accelerate socialist construction in the northern half, live a frugal life and fight persistently to carry our revolution through to the end.
If we continually strive to enhance the role of the educational media such as the radio, newspapers, magazines, novels, dramas and films, and if we impart class education and communist moral education according to the requirements of our reality, we will register greater successes in this work.


4. ON STRENGTHENING PARTY WORK
IN THE ARMY


Now I should like to touch briefly on Party work in the army. Those who think that Party work generally means holding meetings, admitting new members into the Party and penalizing those who make errors are grossly mistaken.
The essential element of Party work is work with cadres and rousing the Party organizations to action. Party work is, above all, work with the people who make up the Party. Most important in work with these people is work with cadres. We can say that Party work is going well when work with cadres is done well. Cadres in the army mean the officers. The Party committees must give top priority to doing a good job in work with officers.
Work with cadres can be performed either through private conver­sations or collectively at a meeting. If the commander, deputy commander for political affairs, and the chief of staff of the regiment and other executive committee members of the regimental Party committee coordi­nate their efforts in buckling down to work with cadres, they can get to know all the cadres in the regiment like the palms of their hands.
But you are not doing your work with cadres regularly; if all you do is to have a talk with them whenever there is some trouble. That is not doing a good job of keeping in constant touch with cadres, studying their merits and demerits and educating them. You cannot have a grasp of the actual conditions of the cadres if you only see them at meetings or simply issue orders or receive reports.
When you meet and talk with the cadres often, you will surely discover their good and bad points and come to grips with various questions which call for solution. In the case of comrades who have a low political level, the problem of raising it will come to the fore; with comrades whose cultural level is low or who are loose in their moral conduct, the problem arises of enhancing their cultural level or setting their moral life on the right track; and with those who have insufficient knowledge of military affairs, the problem of elevating their level of practical know-how comes up.
I am holding a meeting with you now, but with this meeting alone I can hardly get a full grasp of the actual conditions of your units. It is of course impossible for me to talk with every one of you personally. I, for my part, have cadres with whom I have to work every day. I do my routine work chiefly with the vice-chairmen and department directors of the Party Central Committee, vice-premiers and ministers of the Cabinet, re­sponsible officials of various social organizations, and with high-ranking generals in the army. In the course of my conversations with them, I discover quite a few problems.
A little while ago a deputy regimental commander for political affairs told us that he held talks with eight persons a month. That is too few. He ought to talk with about 20 persons. He can have talks with at least one person a day, while attending to other business.
You might send for the man you want to talk with, but you can also go down to a unit and have talks with your comrades while living with them or helping them in their work, or take advantage of their presence at a meeting.
Your private conversation could cover any problems ranging from their political and ideological life, their army life in the unit and their cultural life, down to their personal life. If a comrade’s weak point is political knowledge you might recommend books on politics to him, and if his cultural level is low you could advise him to read some novels or poems. And then you could tell him to relate the knowledge he has obtained from books to his own work, so as to check up on whether he has a proper understanding of the contents of the books. In this way you will be able to give our cadres a class education, education in the revolutionary traditions and education in Party policies, too, in a more concrete way.
Work with cadres can also be done by having the executive committee hear a report by a given comrade on his work. This type of work should be accomplished by understanding the actual work of the cadres, by giving them good advice and helping them to work better, instead of digging into the faults of comrades who have committed serious errors and scolding them at a meeting. At present the overwhelming majority of our cadres are all hard-working, good people. Their only drawback is that they have insufficient qualifications and do not know how to do their work properly. That is why work with cadres should be done with the main emphasis on the educational work aimed at teaching them work methods and improving their qualifications.
You must not think that political work with cadres is done exclusively by the divisional political department chief or the deputy regimental commander for political affairs. It should be carried out by divisional and regimental commanders and by all Party committee members.
Our experience tells us that it is of paramount importance to educate people through private talks and meetings. In the old days, when we were engaged in guerrilla warfare, we used to go down to the units, carrying our bundles with us, and march together with the men, and we broached some questions among the guerrillas during rest periods so as to do propaganda and educate them. Since we were always having talks with individual guerrillas, we had a full grasp of the strong and weak points, character and even hobbies of each comrade. So, even when a comrade committed an error, we could offer him criticism suited to his level and character. This led those criticized to accept it without taking offence and to correct their errors readily.
If we work with cadres in this manner we will prevent them from making mistakes and build our ranks solidly. We did not carry on work with cadres in this way before, and as a result, we were unaware that the anti-Party factionalists were spoiling lots of people and we could not prevent them from doing harm. If we do not pay proper attention to the work with cadres, much the same thing could happen again in the future.
Our cadres are the priceless wealth of the state. In the years of the Fatherland Liberation War they fought bravely, without hesitating to give their lives, and safeguarded our Party and country, and they fought devotedly in the postwar years as well, to strengthen and develop our People’s Army. We should give active assistance to these cadres so that they unite around the Party as firmly as ever and achieve splendid results in their work, avoiding errors. Meanwhile, we must always give class education and education in the revolutionary traditions to the new, young cadres, so that all of them inherit the glorious traditions of our People’s Army and develop into excellent military cadres, totally loyal to the Party and the revolution.
Another important thing in Party work is to keep the Party organizations constantly on the go. It is necessary always to see whether the Party cells and Party committees hold meetings in time to consider essential matters, whether they have dealt with them correctly, how they organize studies for the Party members and how they conduct mass education and so on; and to supervise the Party organizations at all levels so that they ensure a proper organizational life for the Party members according to the principles set forth in the Party Rules.
When the ranks of cadres are firmly built and the Party organizations do their work normally, then all the Party members will be roused to activity, and when this happens all the soldiers will be roused to activity. Therefore, the Party committees in the army should make every effort to normalize the work with cadres and the work of keeping Party organi­zations in action.
5. ON STRENGTHENING THE TIES WITH THE LOCAL POPULATION
Now, one of the most essential problems in strengthening our People’s Army is its work with the local population.
As you all know, “As fish cannot live without water, so the guerrillas cannot live without the people” was the motto of the anti-Japanese guerrillas. This motto, in the last analysis, emphasizes the importance of the mass line. In the army, the commanders cannot live without their men, while the army as a whole cannot live without the people.
However strong the army may be, it can never show its strength unless it is supported by the local population. This is as true under our present regime as in conditions of guerrilla warfare. If the people in the areas where the army is stationed are badly off or not well-disposed towards our government and army, it will greatly affect the morale of the soldiers and will also be very disadvantageous in the fight against the enemy. Therefore, the People’s Army must always maintain close ties with the local population and actively help them to achieve a comfortable living standard.
There are two most important questions to be solved in work with the local people. One is to help them to live decently, and the other is to awaken their class consciousness.
To do this work well it is necessary, first of all, to have a correct grasp of the actual conditions in the areas where army units are stationed. The political department of the regiment, at least, as well as of the division, must have full knowledge of the general conditions in the county where its units are stationed, and must acquaint itself with the concrete situation in the ri where the troops are quartered. In order to grasp the local situation, it is necessary, above all, to know the local Party organizations well. You should know in detail what sort of man the ri Party committee chairman is, what the makeup of the ri Party committee is, what kind of people the cooperative farm management board chairman and workteam leaders are, what the composition of the population is, what shortcomings they have in their work and so on.
After having become completely familiar with the actual situation in the locality, you must take measures to help the local Party organizations. Up to now the People’s Army has assisted the local population in various ways. It has given them a helping hand with work, as well as technical and economic assistance. This is, of course, necessary. But this sort of help alone is not enough to solve the basic problems. People in some individual villages in the mountain areas are badly off, primarily because of unsatisfactory Party work, though this is also partly attributable to a shortage of manpower or other unfavourable material conditions. Until Party work is set on the right course, no amount of material and technical assistance will do any more good than pouring water into a bottomless pot-there will be no end to it.
The People’s Army should, first of all, render political assistance to local Party organizations, so that they may perform their work well. It isa good thing that you attend Party meetings to help the organizations and that you explain and disseminate the Party’s policies among the masses. The army has many qualified lecturers and many comrades experienced in Party organizational work. If these political forces in the units are mobilized to assist the ri Party organizations in their work, it will help greatly to improve the work of these organizations.
Some suppose that, because the forward areas are mostly mountain­ous, the people there are not well-off, but that is not true. As far as the natural conditions are concerned, those of Changsong and Pyokdong are more unfavourable than here. And yet, people over there are all well-off now. When we visited a unit yesterday we had a talk with a soldier from Changsong. According to him, his family in Changsong received 2.5 tons of grain and 2,500 won in cash, whereas here in this farm village the average share per household amounted to some 1.6 tons of grain and 100 won in cash. The soldier also said that the natural conditions here are not less favourable than in Changsong.
Needless to say, it is not that the Changsong people were well-off from the outset. It took us four or five years to get them to develop the prosperous life they lead today.
When I visited Changsong for the first time in 1955, the living conditions of the local people there were terrible. For a year or two I tried different methods of shoring up the work of the county and improving the livelihood of the people, but failed to solve the problem.
Therefore, the Party deemed it necessary to improve the work of the county Party organization first of all, selected an excellent cadre for the chairmanship of the county Party committee, and built up the county Party committee with fine comrades, before pushing the work ahead energetically.
As in all other work, a very important question in county work is that the county Party committee chairman and other cadres in the county themselves set an example in implementing the Party’s policies. The chairman of the Changsong County Party Committee had remarkable executive capacity, though he spoke little. He personally went out to direct Party-cell meetings, delivered lectures to the masses and took the lead in carrying loads on his back at the construction sites of locally-run factories. Since the county Party committee chairman came out at dawn to work with an A-frame carrier on his back, not only did vice-chairmen and section heads of the county Party committee do the same, but even the nurses from the hospital came out. In this way they built levees to ward off floods and erected houses and factories. They were active in gathering and processing large quantities of wild fruit and extensively developed stockbreeding by making use of the mountainside. Farmers each got a hundred won in cash just for the wild berries or haws they collected, and earned another hundred won with a calf they raised to sell. In doing so, they set a fine example of putting into practice the Party slogan: “In mountainous areas make proper use of the mountains!” and thereby proved that people in the mountains can live as well as those on the plains.
This area abounds with mountains and grass but I could not find a single sheep or cow in the valleys. Farmers here seem to be relying only on tiny tracts of land at the foot of the mountains, without turning the mountains themselves to good account. Worse, the officials of the Party and government organs here fail to do proper political work among the peasants, with the result that farming is unsatisfactory. This is why people are still badly off.
You are communists who are ready to fight for the revolution at the risk of your lives. It would be quite absurd if you could not even lead your neighbours properly. A genuine revolutionary army should not only be able to fight the enemy proficiently but also know how to conduct political work well among the people. The anti-Japanese guerrillas were very brave fighters when fighting the enemy arms in hand, and all of them were excellent political workers among the local people.
Those who are not fully aware of the real state of things may think that the Changsong people have become well-off because the central authorities gave them plenty of things. But we did not give them anything special. If we gave them anything, it was the handful of competent cadres whom we assigned to work with them. We helped the people in Changsong mainly with their Party work.
The basic problem cannot be solved so long as you confine yourselves to helping people by providing them with some manpower, as you now do. We must help people politically and revolutionarily. By helping them in their Party work, we must induce all the local people to actively implement the Party’s policies on their own initiative, and to do their best to build up their localities in a beautiful way, and raise their living standard.
The Party’s policy for improving the living conditions of the people in the mountain areas has been set forth clearly. It is necessary to extensively develop local industry, stockbreeding, fruit growing and the like by making effective use of the experiences gained by Changsong and Pukchong. If the people come to take an interest in their work and are roused to action in that way, all problems will be solved.
Now, as soon as the people in Changsong hear about a newly issued Party resolution or directive, they willingly come to visit the Party and government bodies to inquire about its contents. Everything will go smoothly if everyone becomes thus sensitive to Party policies. We must see to it that people are awakened on their own and achieve a prosperous life by their own efforts. If we do good political work, the people here, too, will come to lead as plentiful a life as the people in Changsong.
It is necessary to improve the living standards of the local population in the forward areas rapidly, in two or three years, and unite them more closely around the Party.
At the first stage, we must start with the work of bringing the Party’s policies home to them. If people come to understand the Party’s policies and put them into practice, their living conditions will also improve and their unity will naturally be consolidated still more.
The vicinities of the zones where the People’s Army troops are stationed must thus be built up properly. Only then can you enlist the aid of the masses and confront the enemy without any preoccupations.
The method to be adopted for political work is now set forth explicitly in the Party’s documents. They explain everything lucidly-how to get a grasp of the actual conditions of the masses, how to propagate the Party’s policies, how to carry on work with the families of former “peace maintenance corps” members, with the families of those who went south and other groups with complex backgrounds, and how to fight against scoundrels. All you need to do is study and understand them more thoroughly and give effective help to the local Party organizations.
Bad people may be found even among local Party officials. In such cases you should submit your opinions to higher-level Party bodies. It is also necessary to stimulate the county Party committees and the provincial Party committees incessantly so that they are obliged to do their work with the people in the forward areas.
When the local Party organizations and the People’s Army join efforts and energetically carry on political work in this way, the work in the forward areas will rapidly improve, the people there will become well-off, and your rear will truly be consolidated.
6. ON MILITARY AND OTHER PROBLEMS
Now, I should like to say a few words on military problems. So far you have done a great deal of work. You have carried out a lot of defence construction and the ranks of cadres have been built up properly. The morale of the soldiers is high; you have enough reserves of the necessary materials, and everything is in full combat readiness. Both men and officers lead a good life.
My personal inspection this time has further convinced me that you really have a good life, though I had already formed a general idea of it from the reports of the Defence Minister and the General Political Bureau Director. Your life seems quite different from what I saw in 1954 when I visited Panmun County.
However, we should not be complacent with the results we have already achieved. We must conduct combat training more effectively and make consistent efforts to further perfect our combat readiness.
We must remember that most of our recruits lack actual combat experience, and we must also take into consideration the fact that new types of weapons are coming out one after another and, accordingly, constant changes are taking place in tactics as well. We must acquire a thorough mastery of the new kinds of weapons and continue to study defence tactics against the new weapons which the enemy has shipped in.
The People’s Army is entrusted with the weighty responsibility of defending our country for the Party and the people. You must be thoroughly prepared in all respects so as to be completely able to smash any enemy and must equip yourselves more fully with new, continually-developing military science and technology.
You must not tell yourselves that you can beat the enemy hands down just because you had been as far as the Rakdong River area and fought the Yankees over three years, or think you do not need to learn any more because you have fought since the days of the anti-Japanese guerrilla struggle. We should try to read just one more book in order to acquire a knowledge of the latest military science and technology.
You should make a study of the enemy’s weapons and strategy and tactics, too. We can defeat the enemy if we know him well.
In modern warfare it is important to make better use of artillery, tanks and the like and ensure higher mobility. We must, therefore, ensure that each of the arms raises its technical and skill levels, and that everyone constantly improves his marksmanship to become a crack shot.
We should never miss the target, so as not to waste precious shells. If the enemy scores a single hit out of a hundred, we should not miss once in a hundred shots.
All our weapons and war materials belong to the people. Those who do not value and take care of the people’s property are not patriots.
Today our people are performing two difficult tasks simultaneously. We are effecting all-round industrialization while at the same time carrying out the great work of increasing the nation’s defence capabilities. Thanks to our advanced social system and our Party’s correct policies we are successfully carrying on these two difficult tasks by our own efforts. These two tasks should be carried out simultaneously. In fact, if we had not established a powerful industry, we could not have the great defence capabilities we now possess. And if we had not increased the country’s defence capabilities, our people would not be able to build socialism today with a sense of security.
In proportion to population, our country has the largest army among the socialist countries. While undertaking economic construction on a large scale, we allocate a huge amount of materials and forces to the construction of the nation’s defences. A colossal amount of steel and cement has been invested in the tunnels you have driven. With the same equipment and material we could build huge numbers of factories and dwellings. It is therefore necessary to cherish and take good care of the tunnels and all the other military installations we have built, and to economize on arms, ammunition and other war materials to the max­imum. Only then will it be possible for us to build up our national economy and defences on a larger scale.
From olden times a strong man who distinguished himself in battle has been called a “match for a hundred”, which means that one man can beat a hundred foes. If we do our training better and strengthen our defences, it is possible for us to become a “match for a hundred”.
We are not in a position to expand the army at present: we are already short of manpower. Further expansion of the army would hinder the construction of the national economy.
Therefore, the only correct way is to strengthen our positions by making the best use of our existing military personnel, conduct military training better and equip all the soldiers fully with the revolutionary spirit, so that each of them can handle a hundred foes. If defence construction is carried out more adequately and all our soldiers become crack shots and arm themselves with an indomitable fighting spirit, it is quite easy to make everyone a match for a hundred.
Only when you increase your fighting capacity and make our defence line impregnable can our people continue to advance in the saddle of Chollima in socialist construction. That will amount to putting into effect the Party’s slogan that both socialist construction and national defence must be ensured properly, with a hammer and sickle in one hand, and a rifle in the other.
Only if we build socialism better and increase our strength still further can the question of national reunification be solved at an early date.
Two things are essential for the solution of the question of the revolution in the southern half of our country. One is that we build socialism more successfully in the northern half and turn our rev­olutionary position into an impregnable fortress; and the other is that the people in the southern half themselves be encouraged to rise up. The revolution in the southern half cannot be accomplished unless the people there rise up themselves.
Certainly, this does not mean that we are going to leave the revolution in the southern half to the south Korean people only. It is the common duty of the entire Korean people to drive out the US imperialists and to reunify our country. We must therefore continue to wage a stubborn struggle to bring our revolution to final completion. We must not forget our south Korean compatriots; we must strengthen our revolutionary forces.
However, it is impossible to accomplish the revolution in the southern half without the struggle of the people in the south, no matter what else may be done. This we keenly felt during the first southward march.
Pak Hon Yong, a spy on the American payroll, bragged that south Korea had 200,000 Party members and that in Seoul alone there were as many as 60,000. But in actual fact, this guy, in league with the Yankees, totally destroyed our Party in south Korea. Although we advanced as far as the Rakdong River area, no revolt broke out in south Korea. Pusan is located a stone’s throw from Taegu, and if only a few thousand workers in Pusan had risen to hold a demonstration, the question would have been different. If some people in the southern half had risen in revolt, we would have definitely liberated even Pusan and the American troops would not have been able to land.
Therefore, it is most important to awaken the people in the southern half and induce them to participate in the revolutionary struggle,
It will be some time before all the people wake up. The south Korean people are constantly being trained and aroused by hunger and poverty. People are aroused only after they have been deceived time and again and undergone bitter hardships personally.
When Syngman Rhee was ousted, I met the students of the Songdo University of Political Economy, who were very excited, for most of them were from the southern half. They were overwhelmed with joy, exclaiming in unison: “Everything is settled now, isn’t it. Premier?” At that time I spoke to them in this way: “When Syngman Rhee is toppled there will appear a Syngman ‘Chang’. When Syngman ‘Chang’ is overthrown, a Syngman ‘Pak’ will appear. By this process of repetition, the people in the southern half will be fully aroused and will eventually rise up against the enemy. Only then will the problem of the revolution in the southern half be solved and will you be able to return to your native places.”
In fact, Syngman “Chang” was installed after Syngman Rhee was ousted. When Chang Myon was in power, repression eased somewhat, and people started rising. At the time the question of reunification seemed to be really ripening into solution. But it is not so simple as long as the Yankees are there. Scared by the move of the south Korean young people to rush up to Panmunjom to meet the youth of the north, the Yankees instigated their spies to overthrow the Chang Myon “regime”, and installed the military gangsters in office. Sooner or later these military gangs, too, will be thrown out. But it is a foregone conclusion that yet another scoundrel will assume power in their stead. Do not think that everything will be over when Pak Jung Hi is ousted. The point is that the people should be aroused. All young people should be aroused, the workers and peasants should be aroused, and, further, the “National Defence Army” soldiers should be aroused. They are now being gradually aroused. We must actively help them to wake up quickly.
If the young people of the south come and see at least Pyongyang, how soon they will be aroused! If we build socialism successfully, show the south Korean people the happy life of the people in the northern half and conduct tireless educational work in order to arouse them, all the south Korean people will come over to our side. Then the Yankees will find no way out, and the question of the revolution in the southern half will be solved once and for all.
The Chinese people, too, had long suffered from infighting among the warlords. Wu Feifu, Zhang Zuolin, Feng Yuxiang and many other warlords assumed power and were ousted one after another. This was repeated over and over again, and in the process the people came to open their eyes, followed the Chinese Communist Party to expel Jiang Jieshi and, in the long run, accomplished the revolution.
Subjective desire alone is not enough to carry out the revolution. Victory in the revolution presupposes the maturity of all objective conditions. For the triumph of the revolution in the southern half of our country it is necessary to further strengthen the revolutionary forces in the northern half, and it is especially important to arouse the people in the south. Just as the young people of the south rose up and beat down Syngman Rhee, so must all the south Korean people rise against US imperialism.
If we conduct proper work also with the puppet soldiers in the southern half, it is possible to win them over to the fold of the people, to the fold of the revolution. The puppet army officers may be sons of landlords and capitalists, but the rank and file are all sons and daughters of workers and peasants. If they are awakened to class consciousness, they may level their guns at the American scoundrels.
We must continue to intensify work with the enemy troops. It is no secret that a revolutionary army does political work among the enemy troops. Once the army turns to the side of the revolution, the ruling classes are ruined inevitably. Therefore, it is very important to work with the enemy troops, aiming to convert the puppet army to the side of the people.
It seems that you have not yet fully understood that the revolution in the southern half requires the awakening of the south Korean people and, chiefly, their struggle. It is, of course, no easy job to educate the enemy troops to come over to our side. This should be done strenuously under a detailed plan over a prolonged period. You must not give up after a few unsuccessful attempts.
Preparations are necessary for a revolution. From now on you should untiringly conduct work with the “National Defence Army” and make ample preparations. Such preparations may seem insignificant right now, but they will become a big asset as they accumulate.
The revolution in the southern half is also related in a large measure to the international situation. A struggle against the US imperialists should take place everywhere in the world, driving them into blind alleys. First of all, the Asian peoples must all unite and drive the Yankees out of Asia. US imperialism is being isolated from the people more and more, and the day of its defeat is drawing near.
Today the general international situation is favourable to our revolution. In the international arena the forces of socialism are much stronger than the forces of imperialism. Furthermore, the national-liberation movement in the colonies is growing steadily. Contradictions are being further aggravated within the imperialist camp. France is opposed to the United States and a deep-going antagonism is also being created between Britain and France. The situation is disadvantageous for the imperialists while it is advantageous for us.
The same is true regarding the situation in south Korea. Today the US imperialists occupying south Korea, and their lackeys, the military fascist clique, have reached a dead end: the military rulers are at loggerheads with one another, and even groups of the former Democratic Party and Liberal Party have come out against Pak Jung Hi.
All this tells us that there are prospects that the south Korean revolution will continue to develop in the future.
We should prepare ourselves well; but not because of the situation being in any way unfavourable for us, or because there is any great danger of war. When our Party adopted its resolution on increasing our defensive might it aimed at arming the entire people, turning the whole country into a fortress and thus preventing our enemies from venturing to provoke us. We strengthen the defensive power of the country not so much to cope with a war that might be launched by the enemy as to make good preparations for coming to the aid of the south Korean revolution when required by the growth of the revolutionary forces in south Korea and by the intensification of the people’s struggle, and as to deter the enemy from daring to set off a war.
Enemies always look for a weak point, and once they spot it, they attack. It is in the nature of imperialism to attack the weak. If we doze off without vigilance or loaf about all the time, the enemy may raid us. Therefore, we must increase our defence capabilities, be alert, mobilized and always in full combat readiness.
The Yankees hate Cuba like a thorn in their flesh and Kennedy, the rascal, is still looking for a chance to invade Cuba. But the Cuban people led by Premier Fidel Castro have resolved to fight to the last man and have categorically rejected on-the-spot inspection by the Yankees.
Today Cuba has a large number of militiamen besides the regular army. Because Cuba had been a colony of the United States, she must know the Yankees better and harbour an even deeper hatred for them. We saw at the time of the recent crisis how the whole people rose up, shouldering rifles with a determination to fight. The saleswomen wore revolvers while at work, and the factory workers all carried automatic rifles, ready to fight the enemy at any moment. When everyone is thus mobilized, even the Yankees are impotent. So they failed in their attempt to invade Cuba after all.
The most essential thing is unity. There is nothing to fear so long as the whole Party and the entire people are united.
Needless to say, Cuba finds herself in a far more difficult situation than we are. She is just a short distance away from the enemy but far away from the socialist camp. Nevertheless, thanks to the heroic struggle of the Cuban people, Cuba will be there to stay. As was announced by our Party, the Cuban people, under the leadership of Comrade Fidel Castro, started the armed struggle with seven rifles when the Yankees had atomic bombs, and finally overthrew the US puppet regime by their own efforts, bringing about the triumph of the revolution. If only the Cuban people remain knitted closely together, they will continue to safeguard their revolution.
It is really wonderful that Cuba has accomplished the socialist revolution under the very nose of the United States and has held out already for four years. In the past, when the Spanish revolution occurred, the Soviet Union and many other countries dispatched volunteers, but the revolution was frustrated by the fascists in the end. Now things are not as they used to be. It is obvious now that a revolution can be won anywhere if the people fight in unity. The Latin-American peoples are valiantly rising in the revolutionary struggle, following the example of Cuba. In the future more people will rise against imperialism in all parts of the world.
The present situation is very favourable for revolution. My only and greatest worry is lest you should slacken your vigilance and get weary, since you have been confronted with the enemy for a long time. Because of the protracted armistice in our country you might tend to feel weary. You must guard against this. It is also necessary to prevent the penetration of revisionism. Revisionism undermines our unity and dampens the fighting spirit of the people.
The enemy will not dare attack us if we are all united ideologically and keep ourselves in hair-trigger readiness for action. We must never relax; and we must prepare to assist the south Korean people in their struggle.
Our people have attained great successes both in increasing the nation’s defence potential and in building socialism. Today both our forward and rear areas have been consolidated and the morale of our people is very high. We can say with confidence that we have laid firm foundations on which to achieve a greater victory.
Making an inspection tour of the forward areas on the occasion of the 15th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Army, I have been very much gratified to see what you have done. I will report to the Party Central Committee that the men and officers of our People’s Army in the forward areas are in high spirits and that you are all reliably guarding the defence line of the fatherland. I wish you ever greater successes in your work. We will continue to win as in the past.