Since its foundation on the 10th of October 1945 by the great leader President KIM IL SUNG , the Workers Party of Korea(WPK ) has consistently opposed revisionism . This is because the WPK is a revolutionary party based on the Juche idea and whose historic roots are in the Down With Imperialism Union , which was founded on the 17th of October 1926 by President KIM IL SUNG , and the decades long anti-Japanese armed struggle for independence and national liberation.
Many are familiar with the polemics of the Communist Party of China and the Party of Labour of Albania against modern revisionism during the 1960s but not many people realise that the WPK also opposed modern revisionism but at the same avoiding diving into the rabbit hole of sectarianism and ultra leftism ( to use a phrase from our secretary general comrade Shaun Pickford ) .
President KIM IL SUNG first warned against revisionism in a 1949 speech ' Let Us Be More Faithful to The Principles of Marxism-Leninism and Proletarian Internationalism ' made to the meeting of the 2nd plenary meeting of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea .
When modern revisionism appeared in the international communist movement in the middle of the 1950s the Workers' Party of Korea and President KIM IL SUNG were among the first to oppose it . He linked the struggle to establish Juche with the struggle against modern revisionism saying that '"In 1955, therefore, our Party set forth the definite policy of establishing Juche, and has been persistently urging an energetic ideological struggle to carry it through ever since. The year 1955 marked a turning point in our Party's consistent struggle against dogmatism. It was also at that time, in fact, that we started our struggle against modern revisionism that had emerged within the socialist camp. Our struggle against dogmatism was thus linked up with the struggle against modern revisionism".
(KIM IL SUNG: 'On Juche in Our Revolution'; p. 471.
In his celebrated speech in December 1955 President KIM IL SUNG a faction within the WPK, on returning from a visit to the Soviet Union, had demanded that Korea should drop its slogan against US imperialism on the grounds the USSR was following the line of easing international tension. This was an early manifestation of attempts by factionalists within the WPK to spread revisionism.
When Khruschov made his terrible attack on Stalin on the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) comrade KIM IL SUNG did not go along with the clamour about the so-called 'cult of personality ' . At the 3rd Congress of the Workers' Party of Korea comrade KIM IL SUNG held in April 1956 comrade KIM IL SUNG did not denounce Stalin as wished by Khruschov or mention the so-called 'cult of personality' which is basically nothing but a bourgeois and revisionist construct '. Later in 1956 speaking to leading people in the field of art and literature president KIM IL SUNG said "Unless we fight against the obsolete ideology among writers including capitalist and revisionist ideas ,it is impossible to safeguard our Party's ideas on literature and develop socialist literature and art " (KIM IL SUNG Works Volume 10 p400 )
It was in 1956 that things reached a very critical stage. Khrushchov, the chief of the modern revisionists had made his speech to the 20th Congress of the CPSU heralding the onset of modern revisionism and the imperialists launched a fierce international anticommunist campaign. Within Korea, the Syngman Rhee puppet regime went wild, talking of a 'March North'. The DPRK had only just completed the post-war reconstruction and rehabilitation of the economy after the devastation caused by the war. The factionalists who had been lurking in the WPK seized the chance to try and overthrow the leadership with the backing of outside revisionists. Indeed the CPSU fraternal delegate to the 3rd Congress of the WPK made a veiled attack on the WPK leadership. Events came to a head in August, when the factionalists tried to stage their coup under the manipulation of the great power chauvinists and revisionists. Their aim was to deny the Party's leadership role and paralyze the dictatorship of the proletariat. They also wished to stamp out the revolutionary conditions of the WPK forged in the flames of the anti-Japanese armed struggle. They even intended to proclaim Korea a pro-American 'neutral nation'. President KIM IL SUNG relied on the masses to defeat the factionalists who were agents of the revisionists, big power chauvinists and imperialists . He appealed to steelworkers at the then Kangson Steel Plant ( Chollima Steel Complex " ) on the 28th of December 1956 pointing out that ' Taking advantage of this complex situation , the anti-Party counter-revolutionary factionalists who infiltrated into the Party have raised their heads and are making a frontal attack on the Party and revisionists and great power chauvinists are exerting pressure on us " ( KIM IL SUNG Works Vol 10 p 393).
The WPK launched internally an anti-factional, anti-revisionist struggle. Comrade KIM IL SUNG attacked factionalism and revisionism at a Party Conference on March 6 1958. Referring to factionalism, he said:
"No faction is better or worse than any other. All come from the same mould; they are all products of capitalist influence in the working class movement. And they are a poison that destroys our Party and the working class movement in Korea".
(KIM IL SUNG 'On Juche in Our Revolution', Volume 1; p. 209).
Speaking of revisionism, Comrade KIM IL SUNG said:
"The imperialists and their servants the revisionists are now spreading revisionism in opposition to Marxism-Leninism and the communist movement. . . . It has made and is making inroads into our country too, and the anti-Party groups have exported it for their own ends. . . . To reject our Party's leadership means precisely to deny the revolution and capitulate to capitalism. Therefore it is necessary not only to fight against the revisionists who reject Party leadership, but also to combat relentlessly all the unsettling elements that provide good soil for revisionism". (KIM IL SUNG'On Juche in Our Revolution', p. 213-14).
Speaking to soldiers of the 109th Army of the KPA on the 25th August 1960, Comrade KIM IL SUNG stated:"Revisionists refashion Marxism-Leninism. They laud th emselves as cleverer Marxist-Leninists than Marx or Lenin. Certain countries have this tendency. Some people insist we must peacefully co-exist with the Yankees. How can we do so without opposing US imperialism?" (KIM IL SUNG'On Juche in Our Revolution', p. 225).
In the early 60s, Comrade KIM IL SUNG made the struggle of the WPK against modern revisionism a major priority in the Party. He attacked modern revisionism at the 4th Congress. At the March 8 1962 3rd plenary meeting of the CC, Comrade KIM IL SUNG defined the strengthening of the struggle against revisionism as a key task in Party work. He also with great clarity elucidated the true nature of modern revisionism:
"The sources of revisionism are acceptance of domestic bourgeois influence and surrender to external imperialist pressure. Both old revisionism and modern revisionism are one and the same in essence and in aims. Both deny the basic principles of Marxism and call for a renunciation of the revolutionary struggle on the pretext that times have changed".
(KIM IL SUNG'On Juche in Our Revolution', Volume 1: p. 317).
When the US imperialists provoked the Caribbean Crisis ( or Cuban Missile Crisis ) and the USSR capitulated to the blackmail of the USA , the DPRK was critical of this . Comrade KIM JONG IL wrote that " The modern revisionists yielded to the US imperialists ,promising that they would withdraw their missile bases as well as all weapons they had deployed in Cuba " (KIM JONG IL Selected Works Vol 1 p 239)
Around the same time, the WPK daily newspaper RODONG SINMUN (Labour Daily) carried several articles attacking revisionism -- notable the article 'Let Us Uphold National Liberation' in 1964, and 'Let Us Defend the Socialist Camp', published in October 1963. These articles were translated into different languages and disseminated outside Korea.
Comrade KIM JONG IL who had began working at the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea in June 1964 was a determined anti-revisionist. Whilst studying at the august and venerable KIM IL SUNG university wrote many works exposing modern revisionism such as "The Characteristics of Modern imperialism and Its Aggressive Nature.""On the Appearance of Modern Revisionism " and " On the Reactionary Nature of Modern Revisionism and Our Party's Revolutionary Stand in the Anti-revisionist Struggle"
In the late 1970s comrade KIM JONG IL hit out again at revisionism in his speech " Let Us Increase the Party's Fighting Efficiency and Bring about a Fresh Turn in the Building of Socialism " ( 25th December 1978 )which put the strategic slogan "Let Us Live our own way ! ", he said that " Revisionism is a reflection of the capitalist ideology that has cropped up in the communist movement and is the most dangerous counter-revolutionary ideological trend ". Later in his 1981 speech "On Further Improving Party Ideological Work " ,comrade KIM JONG IL called for combating revisionist and bourgeois ideology .
During the 1980s a new, more toxic and extreme form of modern revisionism known as perestroika and glasnost appeared in the Soviet Union . President KIM IL SUNG again hit out against revisionism. Speaking at the 1st Session of the 8th Supreme Peoples Assembly in December 1986 he said that "The people's government must guard against the poisonous ideas of capitalism and revisionism and resolutely fight against all attempts to infringe upon the socialist system"
(KIM IL SUNG: 'Works', Volume 40; p. 216).
Comrade KIM IL SUNG put forward the concept of the complete victory of socialism, which struck a blow against the revisionists and resolute blow against perestroika.
During a talk to senior officials of the Economic Sector on the 3rd of January 1987, Comrade Kim Il Sung made the following analysis of the DPRK's position vis a vis the socialist world:
"Modern revisionism which has appeared in the international communist movement is also creating a lot of difficulties for our revolution. On the pretext of 'reforming' and 'reorganising' socialism, the modern revisionists are following the road to capitalism and abandoning internationalist principles. It is, therefore, difficult for us to expect from them co-operation based on internationalism in the building of socialism. What is worse, they are applying economic pressure on us because we do not follow their wrong, revisionist policy".
Comrade KIM JONG IL in his seminal work "Fundamentals of Revolutionary Party Building " reaffirmed his principled opposition to revisionism saying that "The idea which is directly antagonistic to the socialist idea is the bourgeois idea, but the bourgeois idea cannot prevent the attraction of the socialist idea. The bourgeois idea, that reflects the avaricious demands of the exploiter classes, cannot conceal its reactionary nature, no matter what hypocrisy is used to embellish it. It is natural that the working masses should accept the socialist idea which reflects their demand for independence instead of the bourgeois idea which reflects the demands of the exploiter classes that infringe upon their independence. Therefore, the imperialists and capitalists have used revisionism, which is the revision of the socialist idea, to cater to their desires, as an ideological instrument. As it was in the past, so at present, too, revisionism is the main threat to the accomplishment of the socialist cause. Being the reflection of the bourgeois idea which emerged in the communist movement, revisionism has prevented revolutionary transition to socialism in capitalist countries and has been used by the imperialists as their ideological instrument in their strategy of "peaceful transition", by opening the road to the return to capitalism in socialist countries. But no matter how careful?y modern revisionism may disguise itself, we must identify its reactionary nature and categorically oppose and reject it.".
In practical terms the WPK had the 'Pyongyang Declaration ' Let US Defend and advance the cause of socialism " made public in April 1992 and it was adopted by many revolutionary parties . Several anti-revisionist parties visited the DPRK and the WPK gave support to them The DPRK hosted the late Nina Andreeva leader of the anti-revisionist All Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks and she gave a lecture at KIM IL SUNG University .
Because the WPK was and is guided the indestructible Juche Idea and led by great comrades KIM IL SUNG and KIM JONG IL it kept to an independent stand and was not swayed by outsiders or pushed around by big powers . The WPK shines as a great anti-revisionist party .
Dr Dermot Hudson
Chairman British Group for the Study of the Juche Idea,
Chairman UK Korean Friendship Association
President Association for the Study of Songun Politics.
Chairman British Solidarity Committee for Peace and Reunification on the Korean Peninsula.
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