Patriotic and revolutionary family of the Great Leader
When members of the family said farewell to my grandfather and grandmother and left the house, they would walk out through the brushwood gate in high spirits, saying that they would return after liberating the country.
But I was the only one who returned.
My father, who devoted his whole life to the independence movement, died under a foreign sky at the age of 31. A man of 31 is in the prime of his life.
My grandmother came from home after his funeral. Even now I can see her before my eyes as she wept at the side of her son’s grave in the village of Yangdicun , Fusong, Manchuria .
Six years later my mother, too, passed away, in Antu, without seeing the day of national independence.
My younger brother Chol Ju who joined a guerrilla unit after our mother’s death and fought the enemy was killed in battle. Because he fell on the battlefield his body was never recovered.
A few years later, my youngest uncle who had been sentenced to long years in prison and was serving his term in Mapho gaol died from cruel torture. Our family received notice that they should recover his body but could not do so because they had no money. So, my uncle’s ashes were committed to the earth in the prison cemetery.
Thus, over a period of 20 years many of the strong, healthy sons of our family turned to ashes and lay scattered in foreign lands.
When I returned home after liberation, my grandmother hugged me outside the brushwood gate and pounded me on my chest, saying: “How have you come back alone? Where did you leave your father and mother? Did you not want to return with them?” With her heart bursting with such deep grief, what was my agony as I walked through the brushwood gate of my old home alone without bringing with me even the bones of my parents who were dead and lying in a far-off foreign land? After that, whenever I passed through the gate of someone else’s home, I would wonder how many members of the family had gone out through that gate and how many of them had returned. All the gates in this country have a story about tearful partings and are associated with a longing for those who have not returned and the heart-rending pain of loss. Tens of thousands of fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters of this country gave their lives on the altar of national liberation. It took our people as long as 36 years to win back their country, crossing a sea of blood, tears and sighs and braving storms of shells and bullets. It was 36 years of bloody war which cost us too high a price. But if it were not for this bloody war and sacrifices, how could we ever imagine our country as it is today? This century of ours would still be a century of misery and suffering with the disgraceful slavery continuing.
- Revolutionary comrades
Capitalists say they take great pleasure in making money, but I took the greatest pleasure and interest in making comrades. How can we compare the happiness a man feels when he has won a comrade to the delight a man feels when he has obtained a piece of gold! Thus my struggle to win comrades started at Hwasong Uisuk School . Since then I have devoted my whole life to gaining comrades.
- His revolutionary studies in Jilin
I spent a little more than three years in Jilin . Jilin is a place dear to me, with vivid memories from one period of my life. In this city I came to understand Marxism-Leninism as a scientific theory, and with the help of this theory came to a deeper realization of the practical truth for the independence of Korea and the people’s well-being. My quick comprehension of the essence of the new ideology was due to my sorrow and indignation as a son of a stateless people. The intolerable misery and distress of our nation led me to early maturity. I accepted the fate of my suffering country and compatriots as my own. This brought me a great sense of duty to the nation.
In the days I spent in Jilin my world view was established and strengthened, and it provided me with a lifelong ideological and moral foundation. My accumulation of knowledge and experience in Jilin enabled me to build the framework of an independent revolutionary thought in the future.
Study is a basic process for the self-culture of revolutionaries and represents an essential mental endeavor that must never be suspended even for a single day in laying the groundwork for achieving social progress and reform. Proceeding from the lesson learned in the process of pursuing progressive ideologies in Jilin , I emphasize even now that study is the first duty of a revolutionary.
- “Go among the people!”
We made every possible effort to make the masses revolutionary. We did so because we had broken with the old way of thinking that the masses were only ignorant and uncivilized people who needed enlightenment; we held the view that the people were our teachers and the main motive force behind the revolution, and we made this view our absolute belief.
With this point of view we went among the people.
“Go among the people!”
From that time on this became my motto throughout my life.
I started my revolutionary activities by going among the people and today, too, I am continuing to make the revolution by mixing with the people. I am also reviewing my life by going among the people. If I had neglected contact with the people just once and forgotten the existence of the people even for a moment, I would not have been able to maintain the pure and genuine love for the people which I formed in my teens and become a true servant of the people.
- Armed struggles led by communists
I was convinced that an armed struggle led by communists alone could wage a thorough anti-Japanese war of resistance and be revolutionary. This was because communists alone could rally in their armed ranks workers, peasants and other broad sections of the anti-Japanese patriotic forces and lead the Korean revolution as a whole to victory, taking charge of and waging the noble war by employing scientific tactics and strategies which would accurately reflect the interests of the masses.
The Japanese imperialists we would have to overthrow were a newly-emerging military power that had, in the Sino-Japanese War and the Russo-Japanese War, easily defeated great powers with territories tens of times larger than that of Japan .
It would be no easy matter to defeat this power and win back the country.
- An ocean of people
We became convinced, while waging the anti-Japanese armed struggle after the Kalun Meeting, that the line we advanced at the meeting was just. The enemy likened us to “a drop in the ocean,” but we had an ocean of people with inexhaustible strength behind us. Whatever line we put forward, the people easily understood it and made it their own, and they aided us materially and spiritually, sending tens of thousands of their sons, daughters, brothers and sisters to join our ranks.
We could defeat the strong enemy who was armed to the teeth, fighting against him in the severe cold of up to 40 degrees below zero in Manchuria for over 15 years, because we had a mighty fortress called the people and the boundless ocean called the masses.
- The sacrifice of his family and his decisive mind to win back Korea
Three months later, uncle Hyong Gwon died in prison. It was early in 1936 and I was on the way to the Nanhutou area with the guerrilla unit, having returned from the second expeditionary campaign to north Manchuria . My uncle was 31 years old when he died.
So, by then gone were my father, my mother, my younger brother and now even my uncle. So all my family who had gone through unspeakable hardships and privations for the sake of the revolution were no more. When I received word in the mountains that my uncle had passed away, I made up my mind that I would not die but by all means survive to avenge the death of my uncle who was lying alone on a nameless hill in the homeland with his grief over the nation’s ruin unassuaged, and would win back my country, come what may.
- His reply to the Comintern’s suggestion
Thus I received the Comintern’s unreserved support for the principle of independence and the creative principle which were the lifeblood of our revolution, and for all the lines we had advanced.
Then the people from the Comintern asked me whether I would like to study at its communist college in Moscow .
I knew about the college in Moscow and that our young people who aspired after communism studied there on the recommendation of the Korean Communist Party.
I did not want to be alienated from revolutionary practice, so I replied, “I want to go and study, but at the moment I am in no position to do so.”
- Belief in victory of the revolution
A firm belief in the victory of the revolution comes into being when one realizes in theory that one has a correct revolutionary line and strategy and tactics that are capable of winning the sympathy of all the people and rousing them, as well as one’s own revolutionary force. This belief becomes firmer through the struggle.
- Launching an armed struggle against Japanese aggressors in Antu
Antu was situated in a mountain recess a long way from the railways, main roads and cities, well beyond the reach of Japanese imperialism’s evil power. Surrounded by steep mountains and thick forests, the place was a favorable location for establishing contact with the organizations in the six towns and other areas in the homeland, to say nothing of the regions of Yanji, Helong, Wangqing, Hunchun, Fusong, Dunhua and Huadian, and was very convenient for founding and training a guerrilla army and promoting the work of building party organizations. The composition of the population was also very good.
In addition, Mt. Paektu , our ancestral mountain, was nearby, and we, the people who had not forgotten our motherland even for a moment, could draw great mental comfort and inspiration from its solemn and majestic appearance. On a serene, bright day, the silvery grey peaks of Mt. Paektu were visible under the distant southwestern sky. At the sight of it in the distance, I felt my heart beating violently with a desire to take up arms and win back my country as soon as possible. Although we were going to launch an armed struggle in a foreign land, we desired to raise the sound of gunshots against Japan within sight of Mt. Paektu . This was a feeling common to us all.
- Important teachings of his parents
If my father could be compared to a teacher who implanted in me the indomitable revolutionary spirit of fighting through the generations and achieving national liberation, my mother was a kind teacher who taught me that a man who has embarked on the revolution should strive to the end to achieve his set aim without being swayed by temporary sentiments or whims.
- No blockade will succeed against the people rising at the risk of their lives
Once a people rise as a single unity to combat injustice at the risk of their lives, no blockade or scorched-earth operation will succeed against such a people. This is a convincing lesson demonstrated by the history of the international communist movement….
The United States , Japan and other modern imperialist states are now blockading our country in the political, economic and military spheres. But the Korean communists have a sufficient amount of vitamins of the Juche type with which to frustrate that blockade. The attempt to conquer the Workers’ Party of Korea, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and the Korean people by military means or to stifle them politically and economically is a wild daydream, like an attempt to break a rock with an egg-After the evacuation of the guerrilla zones, small units and political workers actively infiltrated into the homeland.
- The revolutionary spirit of Paektu
The conviction of sure victory, an unbreakable fighting spirit, the revolutionary spirit of self-reliance and fortitude, devotion and self-sacrificing spirit—these qualities are now called in our country the “revolutionary spirit of Paektu”.
We emerged victorious in every battle with the enemy at all times and in all places, because we were full of confidence in victory, and maintained an indefatigable fighting and self-sacrificing spirit without losing our composure and hope, even in confrontation with an enemy force, which was dozens of times stronger in number.
- The 1990s and faith and will of world revolutionaries
The 1990s is a decade in which faith and will are more valuable than gold. The times in which we are living demand that not only the people but also the Party and state put their iron faith in socialism and communism, defending our beliefs and our system from the tenacious policy of siege and reactionary ideological offensive pursued by the allied imperialist forces, and that with our diamond-hard will, we break through the difficulties that prevail.
In several countries where the faith, won at the cost of the blood of the revolutionary forerunners, has been forsaken and where socialism, a creation of that faith, has been abandoned, the people’s livelihood is now in dire distress and all forms of social evils, immorality and depravity are rampant. History always receives due payment from those who have abandoned their faith.
Our country has become a powerful one that does not sway with every storm and stress. This is due to me strong faith of our Party and our people. A party of vigorous faith does not become degenerate; a state with a steady faith does not fall; and a people with unshakeable faith does not disintegrate.
We have so far had a hard climb; we might be forced to make an even steeper climb in future.
Nevertheless, our people are completely unafraid. Only a nation that advances steadily, firm in its beliefs, can successfully scale the peak to the age of independence.
- Revolutionary optimism
Revolutionaries have an optimistic view of the future. They set greater store by tomorrow than today, and give their lives when in full bloom for the good of tomorrow without hesitation. They are indomitable fighters.
I speak to you here today with special emphasis on revolutionary optimism because the situation at home and abroad now requires it more urgently than ever before.
Because of the imperialists’ clamor for sanctions since the collapse of socialism in several countries, our people are undergoing serious difficulties in many ways. We are faced with grave challenges in all fields of political, military, economic and cultural life. It may be said that we are in a hair-trigger confrontation with the enemy, in a situation more strained than in a war.
These difficulties, however, cannot last a hundred or two hundred years or indefinitely. These are temporary difficulties, and are bound to be overcome.
You comrades must work hard with an optimistic view of the future and in the spirit of self-reliance and fortitude to resolve today’s difficulties as soon as possible and promote the country’s advance.
The core of today’s optimism is a strong belief that we can emerge victorious as long as we have younger people like Comrade Kim Jong Il. We are perfectly optimistic about the future because Comrade Kim Jong Il is giving leadership to the revolution.
I would like to emphasize again: Believe in Comrade Kim Jong Il, and everything will be all right. The future of Korea and the 21st century exists in the mettle of Comrade Kim Jong Il.
History will prove this without fail.
