Respected Comrade Kim Jong Un's Concluding Speech at Ninth WPK Congress

Pyongyang, February 24 (KCNA) -- The respected Comrade Kim Jong Un made an important concluding speech at the Ninth Congress of the Workers' Party of Korea.

The full text of his concluding speech is as follows:

Dear comrade delegates,

The current Congress, the ninth in the history of our Party, has put on its agenda the crucial fighting plans for switchover of the comprehensive development stage of socialism to a fresh stage and the issues for the steady development of the Party in the face of the prevailing internal and external circumstances, and it is holding discussions of them.

Through the speeches on the information of the data and results of the work, the work of the Eighth Party Central Committee was reviewed and analyzed in detail and the principled requirements, struggle lines, strategies and tactics and main tasks were clarified for further accelerating the revolution and construction in the future.

The general analysis at this point of today of the struggle of the past five years, in particular, has given us an instructive occasion to take a due pride in the fruits of our persevering efforts and clearly understand what are the valuable experiences we should maintain and enrich in the future, the deviations we should put to rights and the lessons we should draw.

In the course of this, all the delegates must have got an overall understanding of the changes and level of development in socialist construction and Party building in the period under review and a correct estimation of the current corresponding level of development of their fields and units.

And I believe that, on learning the struggle orientation of the new five-year plan, they must have become aware of the standpoint and attitude they should take to meet the demands of the revolution and the times to lead the past five years of transformation to another five years of greater transformation, and made a solemn resolve to harden their self-confidence and renew their enthusiasm.

The current Congress has also deliberated and adopted the amended Party Rules which incorporate some articles that were decided at the plenary meetings of the Eighth Party Central Committee to be revised as required by the practical Party work, and which include new stipulations needed.

Along with this, it has formed the Ninth Party Central Committee, which will organize and lead the efforts for carrying out greater and heavier revolutionary tasks in the coming years, with the sound and excellent comrades who enjoy high reputation among the masses of the Party members and who are promising as they have been tested through practical struggle.

As a result, the current Congress has successfully reviewed the work of the Eighth Party Central Committee and handed over the responsibility for and role of leading the Party and revolutionary work as a whole to the newly elected Ninth Party Central Committee.

Comrade delegates,

At this Congress I was honored to be elected again to the highest leading position of the Workers’ Party of Korea thanks to the high and full confidence of all the delegates and other members of the Party.

We have just launched into a gigantic cause of translating the people’s ideals into reality, and I still have a long way to go to keep the promises I have made to the people on several occasions. Yet, you have entrusted me with the sacred, important responsibility again. I accept it sincerely as an expression of your complete trust in and high expectation of me as you want me to make greater efforts and more strenuous endeavor.

I make a solemn oath of invariable allegiance to the holiest mission and the heaviest responsibility I have assumed before the Party and the people to live up to the great expectation and confidence, which all the delegates and the millions of the Party members have shown me, to observe and implement the Rules and programme of the Party in a thoroughgoing way, to reliably defend the rights to development and security of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, and to work wholeheartedly to bring wellbeing to the people as soon as possible by making devoted efforts for them every minute and every second.

The newly elected Ninth Party Central Committee will be faithful to its responsible leadership role true to the high confidence and expectation of all the Party organizations and the entire membership. It will work hard to speed up the development of our great state and bring more substantial benefits to our people at an earlier date, and this will bring it a fair and square assessment of its work.

Comrade delegates,

The main schedules left for the current Congress are to work out a long-term plan of each field for the coming five years and to make a decision on its result.

The vital success of a Party congress depends on how we define our struggle orientation of the coming five years, study and discuss the goals to be attained by each field and adopt relevant decisions.

That is why we highlighted this course at the Eighth Party Congress and placed the focus on it at this Congress.

I believe that all the delegates will take a faithful and sincere approach and attitude to fulfilling the weighty missions and responsibility they have assumed for the country, the revolution and the people, and work heart and soul to generate creativity so that every item of the decisions will be an epoch-making task in the five-year struggle.

In particular, the newly-elected members of the Party central leadership should display a high sense of responsibility and prudence in adopting policy-oriented tasks as the decisions of the Party Congress will serve as the action programme to be consistently adhered to during the term of their membership.

As mentioned in the report, the new five-year plan period will become a stage for stabilizing and consolidating our economy and bringing about its gradual qualitative development.

Accordingly, in deciding on the plans for the economic branches it is necessary to properly combine two aspects of qualitatively cementing the existing foundations and forces and further developing them and to maintain this orientation in discussing the plans for other sectors.

Comrade delegates,

Today’s struggle to achieve transformations by accelerating the comprehensive development of socialism, which will include the implementation of the new five-year plan, demands that all sectors and all units step up the three revolutions–ideological, technological and cultural.

These three revolutions are our Party’s general line in building socialism.

Since its beginning, our socialist construction has been run through with the three revolutions, and it has made progress in the course of the struggle to carry out the line of the three revolutions.

As we have pushed ahead with these revolutions by prioritizing ideological remoulding, i.e., the ideological revolution, at the same time as speeding up technological upgrading and cultural transformation, the socialism of our own style has advanced forward without vacillation even in the face of severe trials.

The great cause of comprehensive development, too, can be carried out much faster and more effectively only when the Party’s guidance and the state’s leading role are strengthened in conducting the three revolutions, and only when the masses of the people are involved in these revolutions with an attitude befitting masters.

The reality shows that changes in working conditions and living environment will not naturally lead to the improvement of the people’s ideological consciousness, technical standards and cultural attainments.

To cite a simple example, less than one year after new modern production and service facilities were built under the concern of the Party and the state, they are not managed and operated as properly as they should be, and the guidance and control over these facilities are neglected; such serious dereliction of duty, irresponsibility and other ingrained maladies of seeking only immediate gains instead of treasuring the products of Party policy are rearing their ugly heads again.

These facilities are the precious creations we have achieved with so much effort, so it is necessary to manage and operate them so well that they can become useful assets conducive to the development of our socialist society. This is a revolutionary task that is no less important and crucial than our extensive construction work.

A revolution does not simply mean physical transformation or the creation of material wealth. It is essentially aimed at remoulding the people’s ideological consciousness and training them as powerful beings with a high level of creativity.

We should be effective in conducting the three revolutions to free the people from the fetters of the outdated ideas, heighten their voluntary enthusiasm, and improve their technical standards and cultural attainments; otherwise, all our assets, however many, will evidently come to nothing soon.

We should push forward with the three revolutions also to educate all the people and prepare them to be new masters of the new era so that the viewpoint and work style of voluntarily striving to fulfil one’s basic duty will prevail across our society.

In particular, it is an urgent task to intensify the ideological revolution aimed at remodeling the officials and working people on a revolutionary pattern and assimilating them to the working class.

The successful advance of our socialist construction is inconceivable separated from the work of transforming people, the masters of society, along revolutionary and working-class lines.

Therefore, it is important for Party and working people’s organizations and power organs to organize and conduct all their activities with a view to accomplishing the three revolutions, especially with a focus on awakening and training people ideologically and spiritually.

They should work to meet the Party’s demand that the officials and working people possess revolutionary ideological consciousness and the collectivist spirit and work style of the working class as their mental attributes; they should do so purposefully as demanded by the present reality.

They should set forth new tasks as required by the developing times in all the ideological, technological and cultural fields, and adopt an innovative approach towards transforming nature, people and society. This is just the way to make continuous advance in our socialist construction.

The report on the work of the Eighth Party Central Committee highlighted the necessity of properly meeting the requirements of the times for comprehensive development in socialist construction.

Let me briefly summarize once again the requirements of the new era, which are largely divided into five categories:

To ensure complete unity of action and establish firm discipline in socialist construction as a whole;

To get rid of outdated forms and patterns, conservatism and empiricism, and make sustained efforts to create something new and innovative;

To adopt a scientific, far-sighted and cost-effective approach towards our work, and give priority to specialist qualifications;

To drastically improve the methods and styles of providing guidance over production and construction, and enhance officials’ leadership abilities; and

To thoroughly apply the ideology-first principle and the people-first principle.

This is a law-governed requirement of the times, when improving and innovating all the work in accordance with the era of comprehensive development has arisen as a practical matter; it is also an urgent task that devolves on us in view of the serious lessons we gained in the past five years of struggle.

The state and social life, every branch and unit of the economic field in particular, is seething with the spirit of advance in the new era, but backward remnants still coexist with them--this is the reality that we are all aware of.

We should not leave the old and outdated remnants as they are, but be braver in overcoming and eliminating those backwardness and evil practices.

The three revolutions are, in essence, a struggle to eliminate everything obsolete and create the new in the ideological, technological and cultural fields; therefore, the requirement of the times of comprehensive development should naturally be met in the course of implementing the three revolutions.

We should dynamically push ahead with socialist construction in our way of advance.

We worked out short-term strategies and plans and implemented them in a responsible manner and, with this as a solid foundation, expanded and consolidated the successes--this is the experience we gained in the period of the Eighth Party Central Committee.

Continuously formulating a plan every five years and implementing it steadily as we do now constitutes a stage, a course, which we must go through in building up the national strength and finally building an ideal society.

When every field attains its goal by going through such course, we will greatly increase on a solid basis the strength of the country on the level we are desirous of.

After ten and 20 years from now, we will greet the 90th and 100th founding anniversaries of our Party, and if we steadily push forward with our work for the development of the state and improvement of the people’s wellbeing in the current way of struggle, we can surely transform the whole country and improve the living standards of all the people. When the days come, our Party will feel due pride in having remained faithful to its mission and duty as a genuine people’s party.

Comrade delegates,

Just like we did in the past five-year struggle in which we pioneered the era of comprehensive development of socialism, we will completely rely on our internal force, the great might of our people, in the new upcoming five-year struggle.

As we have lifted the ideals of "The people are god," single-hearted unity and self-reliance as the banner of struggle and advance during the eighth term of the Party Central Committee, the Party Central Committee will invariably be faithful to the three ideals during its ninth term.

Our ideals, goals and advancing speed will ceaselessly change and develop, but those ideals peculiar to the Korean revolution will remain unchanged and their inexhaustible might will confidently propel our socialist construction towards a bright future.

No challenge or change in situation can delay or check our advance.

Let all of us struggle vigorously to bring earlier the day when our people’s ideals and long-cherished desires will come true by redoubling our enthusiasm and fighting spirit, full of confidence in the future of the socialist