December is a month that sees many important anniversaries of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK ) . In a week’s time on the 17th of December it will be the solemn anniversary of the passing away of the great leader Chairman KIM JONG IL some 12 years ago , on the 24th of December it will be 106 years since Madame KIM JONG SUK , immortal anti-Japanese revolutionary heroine and indomitable communist revolutionary fighter was born and it will also be the 32nd anniversary of comrade KIM JONG IL ‘s election as the supreme commander of the Korean People’s Army . On the 30th of December it will be 12 years since respected comrade KIM JONG UN was appointed as Supreme Commander of the Korean People’s Army marking the continuity of the revolution . It should also be mentioned that it was 45 years since comrade KIM JONG IL put forward the militant revolutionary slogan “Let’s Live Our Own Way “ on the 25th of December 1978 . Lastly it is 10 years since the Korean people successfully thwarted attempts to derail the Korean revolution and restore capitalism . Hence the theme of this meeting is “People’s Korea Continuing The Revolution and Living Its Own Way “so as to simply not mark these anniversaries of the DPRK but to highlight the meaning behind them.
Chairman KIM JONG IL passed away suddenly on the 17th of December 2011 on a train whilst giving guidance to key economic sectors in the DPRK . I can remember the announcement one very cold December morning and being shocked by it and later visiting the DPRK embassy . I visited the Kumsusan Palace of the Sun, DPRK several times since 2011 and actually saw the train carriage which Chairman KIM JONG IL had passed away on . It is a very moving and emotive experience as the carriage has been arranged exactly as it was on the day he left us .Comrade KIM JONG IL had worked day and night for the people without rest .
Comrade KIM JONG IL had guided the struggle to build a great prosperous , powerful socialist nation . During the period of his revolutionary leadership comrade KIM JONG IL visited 14,290 units in the DPRK travelling a distance of 669,884 kilometres which is the equivalent of 17 times around the earth . In the period from 1995 until his demise in 2011 comrade KIM JONG IL visited 12,290 units and travelled 629 ,992 kilometres.
When Chairman KIM JONG IL took the mantle of leadership after great President KIM IL SUNG passed away in July 1994 , the DPRK faced innumerable and huge difficulties . The collapse of the USSR due to modern revisionism meant that the world socialist market disappeared , some countries tore up trade agreements and demanded settlement in dollars ! The imperialists tightened their sanctions. The DPRK was hit by a series of natural disasters from 1994 to 1997 ,at one point 80 percent of crops were wiped out and also substantial damage was done to infrastructure and the energy sector .The reptile imperialist media and so -called ‘Korea experts ‘ (bourgeois academics in the pay of south Korea and the CIA ) predicted the imminent collapse of the DPRK , even claiming that the DPRK would collapse in May 1996 .
Chairman KIM JONG IL turned the situation around . In 2011 , the DPRK was stronger than in the days of the ‘arduous march ‘ in the 1990s . Industries like the self-reliant Vinalon industry had been revived , new land had been created through the rezoning of land (which at the same time wiped out the vestiges of feudal ownership and made the restoration of capitalism in country areas impossible ) . Key industries like the steel industry (we hardly have a steel industry in the UK and it is not owned by the British by outsiders such as China and India ) were updated and upgraded .The consumer goods industry was expanded .Indeed one of the last places that comrade KIM JONG IL visited before his demise in December was the newly built Kwangbok Area Supermarket . I visited the DPRK in both 1996 and 2008 and on both occasions travelled back to Beijing on the train;it was very clear that the DPRK had overcome the difficulties of the 1990s and was on the path to prosperity. I saw abundant crops in the area around Sariwon.
It was also thanks to comrade KIM JONG IL that the DPRK emerged as a nuclear power and a satellite launching nation .The DPRK was not the DPRK of the early 1950s nor was it the old feudal Korea which was only able to produce simple rifles and whose armed forces were disarmed and liquidated by Japan .
Chairman KIM JONG IL was the successor to the revolutionary cause of Juche pioneered by the great leader President KIM IL SUNG . He ensured that the WPK became the party of the great leader comrade KIM IL SUNG defending the monolithic unity of the Workers' Party of Korea, smashing the attempts of modern revisionists, opportunists ,factionalists and great power chauvinists to defile the revolutionary constancy of Juche. When the imperialist reactionaries and renegades of socialism sneered at socialism , demanding that the DPRK "open up" and "reform" he declared "Expect No Change from Me !
Respected Marshal KIM JONG UN took the baton of leadership from Chairman KIM JONG IL, when the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Workers Party of Korea on the 30th of December 2011 . Earlier the daily newspaper of the Workers Party of Korea ‘ Rodong Sinmun ‘ had urged comrade KIM JONG UN to take over the Supreme Commandership of the Korean People’s Korea.
Respected KIM JONG UN continued the revolution that had been started by the great President KIM IL SUNG and carried forward by Chairman KIM JONG IL. Supreme Commander Marshal KIM JONG UN visited the historic Seoul Ryu Kyong Su Guards no 105 tank division of the Korean People's Army on the 1st of January 2012, this is the unit where the great leader comrade KIM JONG IL began his Songun revolutionary leadership (and is also the first tank unit to go into Seoul during the liberation of south Korea during the Fatherland Liberation war). In his first public speech titled “Let Us March Forward Dynamically Towards Final Victory, Holding Higher the Banner of Songun” on the 15th of April 2012 which I witnessed in person, Marshal KIM JONG UN declared 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, indicated by President Kim Il Sung and General Kim Jong Il.”
Respected Marshal KIM JONG UN made sure the Korean revolution continued along the road of Juche , the road of Songun that had been charted out by President KIM IL SUNG and Chairman KIM JONG IL ,without any concession or deflection . It was Marshal KIM JONG UN who put forward the brilliant policy of developing the nuclear force and economy in parallel or Pyongyjin which was a modern adaption of the line of building the economy and national defence simultaneously that had been put forward by President KIM IL SUNG in 1962.
In December 2013, ten years ago , the Workers Party of Korea under the leadership of respected Marshal KIM JONG UN liquidated the modern factionalist clique who schemed to derail the Korean revolution and restore capitalism in the DPRK .
Respected Marshal KIM JONG UN has carried out the idea of ‘ Let Us Live Our Own Way ‘ which was originally put forward by comrade KIM JONG IL on the 24th of December 1978 in a speech titled “ "LET US INCREASE THE PARTY'S FIGHTING EFFICIENCY AND BRING ABOUT A FRESH TURN IN THE BUILDING OF SOCIALISM “ . At the time the DPRK faced intense pressure from the US imperialists and modern revisionists and peculiar and strange events took place in a neighbouring country to the DPRK so the slogan "Let Us Live Our Own Way “ was put forward . As Comrade KIM JONG IL explained "It is only when one displays a great revolutionary spirit of self-reliance that one can have faith in one's own strength, exploit the internal resources of one's country to the maximum and conduct the revolution and construction with success. Experience shows that only when one gives full play to the revolutionary spirit of self-reliance can one surmount every manner of difficulty and ordeal.
Even though the anti-Japanese guerrillas received no assistance from a regular army or from a state in the past, they, by displaying to a high degree the revolutionary spirit of self-reliance, overcame manifold difficulties and hardships, defeated the brigandish Japanese imperialists and accomplished the noble cause of national liberation. In the period after the Korean War our party members and working people rehabilitated the devastated economy by our efforts and transformed our country into a powerful socialist industrial state in a short span of time.
The situation we are in today demands that we display to a high degree the revolutionary spirit of self-reliance. At present no country is willing to help another nor is any country in a position to help another, even should she want to"
Today the DPRK lives according to the principle “ Let Us Live Our Own Way “ . Back in 2018 some of the mainstream and so-called experts said that the DPRK would open a McDonalds and a KFC and would join the International Monetary Fund, none of which has happened . Instead the Workers Party of Korea is leading the Korean people to struggle against anti-socialist and non-socialist ideas and to reject alien lifestyles .
Although Chairman KIM JONG IL passed away to our deep regret 12 years ago, the revolution continues and the DPRK lives its own way as he would have wished.
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