The 76-year history of the Workers’ Party of Korea is the course of achieving the integral whole between the Party and the masses of the people and performing miracles by dint of its might.
The Japanese imperialists totally destroyed all the meager industrial facilities in Korea right before its defeat in the Second World War. However, the Korean people turned out as one in nation building in hearty response to President Kim Il Sung’s appeal for contributing positively to the work of building the state, let those with strength give their strength; let those with knowledge give their knowledge; and let those with money give their money.
As a result, the then Hwanghae Iron Works and other industrial establishments underwent restoration and agricultural production markedly increased in less than two years, while the anti-illiteracy campaign embracing all the people effected a great change in their ideological and cultural life.
The people’s trust in the Party was further cemented during the Fatherland Liberation War, which was in effect a confrontation between rifle and atomic bomb.
It happened late at night of one day in mid-October 1950 when the Korean People’s Army was making a strategic, temporary retreat during the war.
When General Kim Il Sung went to an area near the Chongchon River to acquaint himself with the retreat of KPA units and civilians at night, he heard a cowbell ringing in the darkness and asked where the cart was from and where it was going to.
The old owner of the cart answered that he was from Poptong in Kangwon Province and was heading north to see General Kim Il Sung. Kim Il Sung asked him again why he was going to see the General in this chaotic situation in wartime.
Then the old man replied that they could survive and win the war only when they went to where the General was.
The WPK became more convinced of the validity of its cause from such trust of the people and achieved the great victory in the Fatherland Liberation War on the strength of unity with the people.
The great revolutionary upswing recorded as the Chollima upsurge in the annals of the Korean revolution was also brought about with the people’s support for and trust in the Party.
Workers in Kangson performed a miracle of producing 120 000 tons of steel billets from a blooming mill with an annual capacity of 60 000 tons under the complicated situations at home and abroad in December 1956 by cherishing the belief that only when they faithfully followed the leadership of the Party could they eliminate factionalism and foil the enemy’s every aggressive manoeuvre. And by taking their cue from the success, all other workers across the country brought about a surge in production.
Slogans “Single-hearted unity” which was coined in the 1980s and “When the Party is determined, we can do anything!” which appeared afterwards epitomize the Koreans’ faith that victory will come only when they trust the WPK and follow the road indicated by it.
The slogans were engraved more deeply in their hearts in the 1990s when socialism suffered setbacks in the international arena owing to the vicious manoeuvres of the imperialists and renegades of socialism and are being carried on generation after generation.
The Korean people are now out in the struggle to implement the decisions of the Eighth WPK Congress and win a fresh victory of socialism with absolute trust in the Party.
By Ri Sung Ik PT
