TEN YEARS OF LEADING THE PEOPLE -special article by Dr Dermot Hudson

                                                              

This April sees not only the 110th anniversary of the birth of the great leader President KIM IL SUNG and the 90th anniversary of the foundation of the Korean People’s Army as the Korean People’s Revolutionary Army but it will also be the 10th anniversary of respected Marshal KIM JONG UN becoming Supreme leader of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK ) when he was elected to the top posts of the Party and state in April 2012 . Marshal KIM JONG UN has proved himself to be an extremely capable and dynamic leader who is both a defender of the people’s interests and also a defender of the independence of the country .

  Some of us remember the first public speech of respected Marshal KIM JONG UN that was made at the military parade on April 15 2012 in KIM IL SUNG Square . To me there were two very important points  within the speech 

Firstly , Marshal KIM JONG UN pledged that “The permanent strategy of our revolution and its final victory lie in going straight along the road of independence, the road of Songun, the road of socialism"

And that “ It is the  firm determination of our Party to ensure that our people , who are the best in the world and who have remained faithful to the Party in the face of all manner of difficulties ,do not have to tighten their belts again but enjoy all the benefits of socialism ‘ .

 At the time the imperialist mainstream media misinterpreted the second quotation because they have no understanding whatsoever of socialism and do not realise that improving living standards is fundamental to socialism and is an intrinsic feature of people-centred , Juche-based socialism . In fact the DPRK did not adopt ‘reform ‘ and ‘opening up ‘ but under the leadership of respected Marshal KIM JONG UN , who strongly stressed self-reliance and self-development first , People’s Korea kept to the road of Juche , self-reliance ,independence and socialism . This not only disappointed the imperialists but angered them considerably so they waged an intense slander and psychological warfare campaign which defamed Marshal KIM JONG UN and the socialist system of People’s Korea.

  Respected Marshal KIM JONG UN has shown himself to be an extremely astute and shrewd leader . On the one hand in order to prevent a catastrophic war he held summits with the then US president Trump and with 3 summits with the south Korean chief executive . These events were also misunderstood by some at different ends of the political spectrum .On the other hand , the DPRK did not dismantle a single ICBM or nuclear weapon and it did not open a McDonalds in Pyongyang. It rejected the so-called ‘Libyan model ‘ of unilateral disarmament  . In January this year (2022) the 6th Political Bureau of the 8th Central Committee of the Workers Party of Korea was held and decided that national defence should be bolstered and to “resume temporarily suspended activities .”

On the 24th of March the Hwasongpho 17 new type ICBM blasted off from Pyongyang International Airport ,soaring high into the sky , under the guidance of respected Marshal KIM JONG UN .

                                    

Under the leadership of respected Marshal KIM JONG UN there has been rapid development in all fields and the DPRK has achieved many great things . The DPRK successfully concluded the line of building the economy and nuclear force in parallel , the line of Pyongjin and became a nuclear power of Juche and an ICBM power .

The economy of the DPRK  has grown rapidly under the banner of self-reliance and under the guidance of supreme leader Marshal KIM JONG UN  . The DPRK domestically produced its own tube train, trolleybus , double decker bus , light plane and new type tractor .

Great achievements have been registered in the field of construction .Whole new streets in Pyongyang housing tens of thousand of families have sprung up one after the other ; Changjon Street, Unha Scientists Street , Mirae Scientists Street , Ryomyong Street and very soon a new residential district will be commissioned in Pothong District . Housing construction is not just in Pyongyang ; a whole new city  has been constructed at Samjiyon in the far north of the DPRK and housing built in rural villages . When floods occurred in 2015, 2016  and 2020, respected Marshal KIM JONG UN made sure that new homes were constructed rapidly to replace the destroyed ones.

None of this was done in ideal conditions . The DPRK has had to face the most severe sanctions from the US imperialists and the UN . Moreover there have been constant military pressure and provocations from the US imperialists and south Korean puppets . On top of all this the world has been gripped by the global pandemic health crisis of Covid 19 . The DPRK correctly closed its borders  back in January 2020 . So the DPRK has survived more than 2 years with the border closed when some countries would not last a few days . Thanks to the wise measures taken by the DPRK under the leadership of respected Marshal KIM JONG UN , People’s Korea has not had a single case of Covid 19 or a death from Covid 19 . Moreover the DPRK has rejected the fake ‘humanitarian aid ‘ of imperialism which would be used to destroy socialism and colonise the country .

Lastly ,mention should be made of respected Marshal KIM JONG UN  initiation of a campaign against anti-socialist and non-socialist behaviours . In 2019 Marshal KIM JONG UN declared that ‘ Establishing socialist lifestyle and morality is a serious political struggle and an acute class struggle to defend and glorify our idea and social system’ and later in that year the campaign against anti-socialist and non-socialist behaviour began in earnest which was further reinforced at the 8th Congress of the WPK in January 2021 and at plenary meetings of the WPK .Bourgeois and imperialist ideology are  insidious toxins that destroy socialism . They can be an invisible and silent enemy that stealthily infiltrates into a socialist country just like a disease entering the body . Indeed you could compare imperialist and bourgeois ideology and culture to Covid 19.Marshal KIM JONG UN has ensured that the DPRK has not fallen into the trap that some former socialist countries fell into .

We salute the 10 years of respected Marshal KIM JONG UN ‘s supreme leadership  !

Dr Dermot Hudson

Chairman British Group for the Study of the Juche Idea 

Chairman Korean Friendship Association of the UK

Official Delegate Korean Friendship Association UK

President Association for the Study of Songun Politics UK

Chairman British Solidarity Committee for Peace and Reunification on the Korean Peninsula.

Hon Secretary General of the International Central Committee for Songun Study