KIM JONG UN
Message of Congratulations to the Participants in the Youth Day Celebration
Conference and Other Young People across the Country
August 28 is the Youth Day, the revolutionary holiday of the young people of Korea.
From the remote front line, I extend warm congratulations and militant greetings to all the participants in the Youth Day Celebration Conference and other young men and women across the country, who are greeting the Youth Day in the first year of the new century of the Juche era with a feeling of boundless jubilation and excitement.
The current events held in celebration of the Youth Day are a grand political festival that demonstrates the patriotic loyalty and stout mettle of our young people, who are adding lustre to the proud history and tradition of the youth movement of Korea which has won victory after victory on the strength of the idea of our Workers’ Party of Korea of giving prominence to young people and are advancing straight forward towards final victory under the Party’s leadership.
Celebrating the Youth Day in a grand fashion amidst the concern and blessings of the whole country in the rapidly-changing times and in the touch-and-go situation is of great significance in encouraging to a fresh heroic struggle the millions of young people who have turned out for the fight for defending their country and in the efforts for building a thriving country.
Our Youth Day is the eternal holiday of the Korean young people, which was instituted and exalted by the great Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il.
The great Kim Il Sung, 85 years ago, formed the Young Communist League of Korea by embracing young revolutionaries of a new type, rallied behind the genuine vanguard organization young people of the miserable colony, who had been wandering about not knowing which road they had to follow, and trained them to be fighters spreading flames of struggle all over the world and breaking the chains of colonial slavery in the sacred patriotic struggle for the country and nation.
General Kim Jong Il, with an aim to exalt forever the meaningful day when the Korean youth movement originated and to hand down the precious tradition of the Juche-oriented youth movement to posterity, designated the day as the Youth Day.
President Kim Il Sung and General Kim Jong Il, who always paid close attention to training our young people to be stout successors to the revolution, followed the unique policy of giving prominence to young people and loving them throughout the periods of their revolutionary leadership, and achieved imperishable exploits of perfectly solving the youth problem for the first time in history.
Whenever the country and the revolution were faced with important tasks, they, with trust in our young people, raised them as the main force in the van of the most difficult and challenging sectors and led them to display to the full their unquenchable strength and wisdom.
The great Generalissimos’ infinite affection for and trust in the young people find expression in the glorious name of Kim Il Sung Socialist Youth League, the torch of the revolution they handed over to the young people, the meaningfully-instituted Youth Day and the monumental edifices named after youth.
In the history of our country spanning 5 000 years, there have always been young people and some of them earned fame; but never has there been an era of worthwhile youth like today, when all young men and women, cherishing the high honour of being young vanguard of the Party, perform feats for their country and fellow people.
The generation of Kim Hyok and Cha Kwang Su, who shouted, “Long live the great Hanbyol!” and the generation of Ri Su Bok and Jo Kun Sil, who dedicated without hesitation their youth and lives for the sake of the one and only motherland, performed undying exploits in the war for liberating the country and in the war for defending it, displaying the honour of being members of the Young Communist League and the Democratic Youth League.
Recorded in the biographies of the heroes etched in the history of the country are the priceless, devoted efforts of the young people in the Chollima era, who volunteered to work in mountains, on seas and at new development sites in response to the Party’s call, and of the young people in the Songun era, who demonstrated their unyielding mettle on the first line of the grave struggle for defending socialism.
There are still many young people in the world, who, being pushed to the fringe of history, are forsaken as troublemakers in society, but our young people, enjoying the unstinted affection and trust of the Party and the people, are displaying the strength of the most viable force that opens the bright future of their country and their nation.
It is a source of great pride and glory for our Party and people to have such a legion of excellent young people, their reliable successors.
The Korean youth movement is, indeed, the glorious youth movement of Kim Il Sungand Kim Jong Il, which was started and developed by the great leaders.
I feel proud of and highly appreciate our young people, who are now demonstrating to the full the heroic mettle and wisdom of the Korean youth in the building of a thriving country, singing the song of struggle and unity as in the days when the birth of the Young Communist League was proclaimed in the presence of Kim Il Sung and holding aloft the torch of the revolution handed over to them by Kim Jong Il.
Today our motherland has started a historic march for final victory in the building of a thriving country.
Our great motherland, a powerful Paektusan nation, calls its proud sons and daughters who are seething with youthful vigour.
Young people of today are a dignified generation that has surmounted severe ordeals enjoying the benefits of the Party’s policy of giving prominence to young people, a stout vanguard tempered in the crucible of Songun.
Our Party expects that all young people would give fuller play to the valour, sense of unity and fighting power of the Korean youth in national defence and the current campaign for building of a thriving country as befits the indomitable young vanguard who grew up in the embrace of the great Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il, by inheriting the heroic fighting spirit of their revolutionary forerunners and seniors.
Our young people are the point-men in the general onward march, who vigorously advance straight forward following the Party.
The main mission of the point-men is to dynamically open up the way for the advance of the main ranks with the most thoroughgoing ideological spirit, with vehement charging ability and at lightning speed.
If hot-blooded young people march forward in elated spirits blowing bugles and beating drums, the whole nation will become ebullient, the hot wind of leap forward will sweep across the country and the prosperous morrow will be brought closer.
Today’s struggle for final victory is a sacred patriotic one for building, by applying the great Kim Jong Il’s patriotism, a dignified and powerful country which fears nothing in the world and a paradise in which all people enjoy the benefits of socialism.
The strength of the millions of young people whose hearts burn with the great Kim Jong Il’s patriotism is inexhaustible, and its explosive force is limitless.
The building of a thriving country is unthinkable apart from national defence.
Our young people must defend their socialist country unto death by inheriting the heroic fighting spirit of the defenders of the country in the 1950s.
The history of the great victorious war shows that the greater one’s trust in and love of the country is, the braver one becomes in the fight for defending it.
While recently inspecting the first-line units that are in direct confrontation with the enemy, I felt keenly again how excellent our young soldiers are, who safeguard the defence lines of the country in trenches.
Now the reckless aggressive moves of the US imperialists and other reactionaries against our country have gone to the extreme.
Should the enemy drop even one spark on our territory, our revolutionary armed forces which have inherited the tradition of great victory, never missing the golden chance, will immediately deal an annihilating counterblow to completely destroy the aggressors and achieve the historic cause of national reunification.
The service personnel of the People’s Army must load the powerful arms of the mighty revolutionary Paektusan army with surging hatred for the enemy and set the sights on the objects of strike; when a decisive battle has to be fought, they must become fierce tigers in the sacred war for national reunification and perform proud exploits.
If the enemy recklessly blows war clouds over us, young men and women across the country must take arms in their hands in place of hammers, sickles or pens, and turn out for an all-people war, as the defenders of the country in the 1950s did, to annihilate the aggressors at one stroke and staunchly defend their streets, villages and schools.
Burning their hearts with the will to annihilate the enemy, our brave young people should dynamically make breakthroughs for advance at all the sites of building a thriving country.
Our Party is planning new projects for national prosperity, believing in the great patriotic enthusiasm, limitless mental strength and inexhaustible courage of our young people who have cherished Kim Jong Il’s patriotism and apply it in their everyday life.
“We will go through fire and water in response to the Party’s call!”–this is the patriotic cry emanating from the hearts of the millions of young people.
Hot-blooded young people should have the merit of organizing any work in a big way and performing world-shaking feats, like moving mountains and filling up rough sea at one go, with soaring ambition and aim.
Now our young people are devoting their precious youth without reserve in several major projects including the construction of the Paektusan Songun Youth Power Station and reconstruction of the Northern Railways which the Party has entrusted solely to them; they are truly admirable and laudable.
I want to seat them on golden cushions and pluck stars from the sky for them so that the world would envy them.
By making fresh miracles and innovations in difficult and challenging sectors of the building of a thriving country, young people should become heroes who exalt the brilliance of their country and their era.
All young people, regarding their workplaces as positions for attack, should make the flames of Hamnam blaze higher and wage a vigorous campaign for increased production with the traits and mettle of the Korean youth, who like making a revolution and who love working, so as to do a large share in fulfilling the national economic plan.
It is our young people who ought to stand in the vanguard of the effort to push back the frontiers of science and technology for the industrial revolution in the new century.
Cutting-edge science and technology is Height 1211 in the building of an economic giant.
Today our Party expects that all young people would think and study and race against time with burning patriotic passion so as to speed up the development of cutting-edge science and technology.
The fact that young researchers played the core role among the teams for the development of Ryonha machines and artificial satellites, which are the pride of the nation, shows that our young people who received Juche-oriented education have remarkable abilities.
Young people should hold aloft the slogan “Let us open up a shortcut to final victory by breaking through the cutting edge!” and briskly wage a brains warfare, a technological warfare, with a global vision and self-respect due to a great nation, so as to become the pioneers and champions of cutting-edge science and technology and preeminent talented people.
Infiltration of reactionary ideology and culture and psychological warfare are the major methods employed by the enemy at present in their schemes for aggression, and their principal target is young people.
The imperialists’ foolish methods, however, will cut no ice with our young people who are equipped with the most revolutionary ideology and awakened to their class consciousness.
They should become excellent young people of the Songun era who love our own ways and things, are possessed of beautiful and ennobling moral qualities, and strive hard to do good things more for the benefit of society and the collective.
However difficult and challenging their charge may be, they should take the leading role wherever they are and brim over with joy and optimism, singing loudly, dancing merrily and playing exciting sports games.
The youth league organizations are the engine that leads the ranks of young people on the general onward march.
The current work of the youth league should be focused on giving full play to the inexhaustible strength of the large contingent of young people by firmly arming every one of them with the great Kim Jong Il’s patriotism.
The youth league organizations should build up all the primary organizations into units that are as steel-strong as the organizations of the Young Communist League which demonstrated their might in the flames of the anti-Japanese struggle, and push forward all their undertakings in a novel and bold way as suited to the characteristics of young people.
Our Party has placed young people in the vanguard of the grand onward march, not merely to step up production and construction at a faster pace; its main objective is to train all of them into staunch revolutionaries and patriotic fighters tempered in the practical struggle.
Officials of the youth league organizations, keeping in mind that each and every young man or woman is a precious comrade-in-arms of our Party which regards him or her as being worth his or her weight in gold, should become reliable political workers and enthusiastic commanders who inspire their charges to further efforts for creation and innovation.
I feel confident as there are the reliable ranks of our young people, the main force that would wage the revolution with me till the day of its final victory.
Our young people will be recorded in the history of the country as honourable defenders of their socialist motherland, proud builders of a thriving country and its full-fledged masters.
Giving prominence to young people is the permanent strategic line of our Party and revolution.
A revolution that gives prominence to young people who are sensitive to the new, are quite enterprising and love justice and truth will always overflow with vigour and vitality and surely emerge victorious.
Our Party will brilliantly carry forward the outstanding policy of giving prominence to young people pursued by the great Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il and, by relying on their strength, hasten the final victory of the historic cause of national reunification and the building of a thriving country.
I extend warm congratulations once again to our proud young vanguard, who demonstrated the unshakable conviction and will of the successors to the Juche cause and the Songun cause, running with the torches of the revolution from Mt. Paektu, the sacred mountain of revolution, and Mt. Osong, the mountain symbolic of Songun, to Pyongyang where the great Generalissimos lie in state, as well as other young people across the country.
Fresh victory and glory will always be in store for our young people who are advancing singing aloud March of the Korean Youth.
I am in firm belief that our reliable young men and women will redouble their efforts for the final victory of the great cause of Kimilsungism-Kimjongilism, following the red flag of the Party, and thus perform with credit their noble mission and duty before the times and revolution, the motherland and people.
Kim Jong Un
First Secretary of the Workers’ Party of Korea
August 27, Juche 101 (2012)
