KIM IL SUNG
ON THE KOREAN PEOPLE’S STRUGGLE TO APPLY THE JUCHE IDEA
Talks to the Delegation of the American Popular Revolutionary Alliance of Peru
June 30 and July 1 and 5, 1983
I would like to give a warm welcome to the delegation of the American Popular Revolutionary Alliance of Peru on a visit to our country.
Allow me to express my gratitude to you for taking the trouble to cover a long distance to visit our country.
We are meeting you today for the first time, but we feel as if we were meeting old friends for our similar political views and attitudes that are long standing.
I am very happy to meet you, Comrade General Secretary Alan, and other leading cadres of your Party like this and avail myself of this opportunity to acquaint myself with you and establish favourable relations of friendship between our two Parties.
This meeting of ours will be an important occasion in promoting the relationship between our two Parties favourably and increasing intimacy between the leaders of our two Parties.
Let me reiterate a warm welcome to your visit to our country on behalf of our Party Central Committee, the entire Korean people and on my own.
I am grateful to you, Comrade General Secretary Alan, for having said so many kind words for us.
Comrade General Secretary, you said that the masses of the people are the masters of their destiny and makers of history and, therefore, it is none other than the Latin-American people who are the masters of the struggle to achieve the liberation and independence of Latin America and also the masters of the struggle for the unity of this continent. I consider that such view and conviction of yours are excellent. I fully support your viewpoint.
The masses of the people are the masters of their destiny and makers of history. History is made and society develops through the role played by the masses. They can prevail over any imperialism and build a new society to meet their aspirations and demands in any adversity.
From the very first days of the revolution to this date we have always relied firmly on the strength of the masses in our struggle, strongly convinced that if we depend on them in our activities, we can solve any problems arising in the revolution and construction.
We relied on the strength of the masses in our armed struggle against Japanese imperialism in the past; we relied on it in repulsing the US imperialist invasion of our Republic after liberation; we relied on it in postwar reconstruction. During the Fatherland Liberation War, American imperialists reduced our country to ashes. After the war they clamoured that Korea would not be able to rise again even in 100 years. However, we grappled with postwar reconstruction, convinced that we would rise again even on the ashes as long as we had territory, the people, the people’s government and. the Party leading the people. Despite the US imperialist clamours, our country completely healed its war wounds only in a few years, and in less than 20 years after the war it rose up as a mighty socialist power. It is thanks to the great strength of the people that our country rose so quickly on the ruins left over by the war.
If the masses bring their creative ability and wisdom into full play, deeply conscious that they are the masters of the revolution and construction, there is nothing impossible for them to do. This is a priceless truth we obtained while guiding the revolutionary struggle and the work of construction.
If you insist on me letting you know our humble experience, I will do so.
I am hugely delighted to meet such wonderful comrades-in-arms as you who have common views and ideas with us.
I would like to offer my warm thanks to you, comrade head of the delegation, and other guests for expressing wholehearted agreement to the Juche idea and actively supporting our people’s struggle for the triumph of this idea.
Comrade head of the delegation, you have just now pointed out that one cannot develop one’s country independently if one depends upon imperialists and capitalists. You have grasped a highly important matter.
At present the rulers of some countries are so affected by flunkey-ism and fear of technology that they do not believe in the strength of their peoples, the strength of their nations, but pin hopes only on developed countries. They cannot build independent new societies that way.
A few years ago a delegation from a certain Asian country visited our country. I met them after they had visited a number of places in our country. The head of the delegation said that in his country even tiny factories were run by foreigners, but here in Korea all the factories, great or small, were run by the Koreans themselves; and he added that this was quite mysterious. So I told him to the following effect: The Asian people are talented and diligent by nature; still today the handicrafts made by Asians are much better than those made by Europeans, which shows the excellent ability of the Asian people; Asians became backward in recent centuries because they failed to carry out the industrial revolution; in the past the feudal systems which had suppressed social progress were so strong in Asian countries that they failed to carry out the industrial revolution while European countries were making it; if the Asians are to catch up with the countries which have already carried it out, they must first discard the tendency to rely on others, instead of believing in their own strength and the strength of their nations.
If one draws on one’s people’s strength properly, one can do anything without the help of others.
In our country we made even electric locomotives on our own by means of drawing on the strength of the people. When we were going to make our first electric locomotive, a European ambassador to our country claimed that Korea would not be able to make it, and suggested that we had better buy the electric locomotives produced by his country. But we decided to make them by our own efforts. At the time I assigned young technicians with the task of designing an electric locomotive and encouraged them and solved all problems they raised. Finally we succeeded in producing electric locomotives on our own. In our country the electrification of the railways was stepped up in a big way by using the electric locomotives of our own make.
We constructed all modernistic buildings such as this Kumsusan Assembly Hall by our own efforts by enlisting the strength of the people. At present our people’s architectural skill is very high. They developed it while building many things anew on the debris after the war.
Our experience shows that if one is to develop one’s country by one’s own efforts without relying on others, one must fast train many native cadres.
Immediately after liberation our country was very short of its own cadres as a consequence of Japanese imperialist colonial rule. There were only dozens of university graduates, and most of them had specialized in law or literature; there were few who had graduated from technological colleges. The Japanese had not imparted techniques to the Koreans. As a consequence, there were few people who were capable of managing and operating industry after liberation.
We proposed the training of our own cadres as a top priority task in the construction of a new society and exerted great efforts for this task.
In an endeavour to train our own cadres we set up a university before anything else in the teeth of every hardship. When we were trying to do this immediately following liberation, some people asked how we could build a university without any asset. We did not waver in the least, however. We brought in teachers and intellectuals from all over the country, some of the intellectuals even from the southern half of Korea. Meanwhile, our peasants had done their first farming on the land distributed to them and donated some of the rice to the state, which we used as funds to erect the buildings of the Mangyongdae Revolutionary School and the university. This Mangyongdae Revolutionary School is an institution to give education to the sons and daughters of the comrades who died while carrying out revolutionary activities with us.
After the establishment of the university we opened several more universities. Even during the Fatherland Liberation War when the country was hard pressed, we carried on the training of Korean cadres.
Thanks to our Party’s correct educational policy, our country has more than 180 institutes of higher learning today although there was none before; the number of technicians and specialists has now grown into 1,200,000, whereas there were only dozens of them right after liberation.
Intellectuals play an important role in the revolutionary struggle and the work of construction. Since we have a huge army of 1,200,000 intellectuals, we can do anything once we decide to.
You asked how we authored the Juche idea and formulated it theoretically. I will explain it briefly.
Embarking on the revolutionary struggle I regarded the masses as masters of the revolution and expounded an idea that we should carry out the revolutionary struggle by our own efforts, relying on the masses. Guided by this idea we relied on the masses in the more than 20 years of hard-fought battles against Japanese imperialists, in the building of a new country after liberation and in the three-year Fatherland Liberation War against the aggressors of US imperialism, in the postwar reconstruction and also in the socialist revolution. Through different stages of the protracted revolutionary struggle we had the correctness of the Juche idea tried and tested.
Our efforts to author the Juche idea and apply it to the Korean revolution were coupled with the struggle against flunkeyism.
Flunkeyism has long historical roots in our country.
Geographically, ours is a peninsula country situated between large countries. It is surrounded by China, the Soviet Union and Japan. Across the ocean is the United States which is hostile to us.
The Koreans are a sagacious nation with a long history. Our country had a long developed culture, it was advanced in everything. You would understand this well if you should go to our history museum. Our country has beautiful mountains and rivers and abounds in natural resources. Therefore, the great countries adjacent to us had long had a covetous eye on it and tried to draw it under their influence. The US, too, had long tried to swallow Korea and spread Christianity here.
Historically speaking, many flunkeyists emerged out of the feudal rulers towards the end of the Ri dynasty, the last feudal state in Korea. At the time the flunkeyists were divided into pro-Qing (China under the Qing dynasty—Tr.), pro-Russian and pro-Japanese factions. The pro-Qing faction, with the Qing’s backing, tried to introduce the Qing’s ideology and culture into our country, and the pro-Russian faction tried to draw in the forces of Russia with Russian support and the pro-Japanese faction the forces of Japan with Japanese backing. Originally, Japan developed under the impact of our culture. But, as Japan quickly developed through the industrial revolution, there appeared among our people the tendency to look up to Japan and seek Japanese backing.
While other countries were making the industrial revolutions, our feudal rulers were engrossed in factional strife under the manipulation of great powers, and would not develop their country. At the time there were reformists2 in our country, too, who attempted to carry out bourgeois reforms and the industrial revolution, but failed under the suppression of the feudal rulers. Hence, our country could not develop and became backward; at the time our people began to have an inimical habit of unreservedly regarding everything done by the great countries, as good and fine.
After all, our country was ruined because of the flunkeyists. In 1910 it became a complete colony of Japan and was under the colonial rule of Japanese imperialists for 36 long years. After their occupation of Korea, these imperialists pursued a vicious colonial policy towards her. But the Korean people did not yield to them.
The Korean people rose in resistance to their colonial rule and struggled to liberate the nation. But factions appeared in the ranks of the anti-Japanese struggle and harmed greatly the national-liberation struggle.
Nationalists divided themselves in different groups and got engrossed in bickering, turning to big powers, instead of thinking of struggling by drawing on the forces of the popular masses. Some of them tried to achieve Korea’s independence with the backing of China, others with the help of the Soviet Union, and still others who had been to Japan for study harboured illusions about Japan and hoped her to make a “present” of Korean independence. Some people agreed to Wilson’s “doctrine of self-determination of nations” and worshipped it.
The communists who professed an anti-Japanese national-liberation struggle, too, split into various groups and engrossed themselves in factional strife, without trying to conduct the revolution by relying on the masses of the people. Each of these factions declared itself to be the “orthodox party”, visiting the Communist International to gain recognition. A revolution is an undertaking which should be done of one’s own accord, not with the recognition of somebody else. Why did they travel about to get recognition when they could naturally have won the recognition of the Communist International if they had made a successful revolution for their own country?
Viewing critically this situation of the nationalist movement and the initial communist movement in our country, I keenly felt that the struggle should be waged on the strength of our own people and that our own problems should be solved on our own responsibility. My father, too, had much revolutionary influence on me conceiving this idea.
My father was one of the forerunners of the anti-Japanese national-liberation movement in our country. In the autumn of 1917 there occurred the sensational “case of 105” in which 105 persons who had been struggling for national liberation in our country were arrested at a time by the Japanese imperialist police. Most of these arrested people were members of the Korean National Association. My father, the organizer of the Korean National Association was also arrested at the time and spent more than a year in prison. Although he was physically weak when he was released from the prison, he resumed the national-liberation movement. While he was continuing the struggle against the Japanese imperialists, he was arrested again by their police, but he ran away during his escort. He passed away in 1926 when I was 14 years old because of the aftereffects of the torture he had undergone in prison and of the frostbite at the time of his escape from the escorting police.
My father thought that it would be impossible to win national independence if the anti-Japanese national-liberation movement suffered factional strife and that national independence could be achieved only by uniting the masses of the people and fighting on their strength. He was opposed to factions in this movement and asserted unity.
After my father’s death I entered a school run by the Korean nationalists in northeast China. I studied there, but I did not like the content of nationalist education given by the school. Originally, this school was set up under the guidance of my father to train the cadres for an independence army.
I made up my mind to pave a new road of revolutionary struggle and formed the Down-with-Imperialism Union (DIU)3 with the patriotic youths of the school and started the revolutionary struggle. Later, the members of the DIU played a hard-core role in the struggle against Japanese imperialism.
After the formation of the DIU, I organized the Anti-Imperialist Youth League, the Young Communist League of Korea and many other communist youth organizations.
When I started the revolutionary struggle, some of my comrades advised me to go to Moscow and study at the university run by the Communist International. They asked this because they wanted me to give good leadership to the revolutionary movement after a greater deal of study, but I declined. I did not go to Moscow, thinking that it would be better to learn while struggling among the people than studying at Moscow. Our people, not people at Moscow or Shanghai, were my teachers.
In 1932 we organized an army against Japanese imperialism, but we had no experience in an armed struggle at the time. Nevertheless, we launched an armed struggle, acquiring and enriching our experience through the struggle. In the struggle the armed ranks grew, and the revolutionaries and young patriots became closely united. My comrades respected me and I loved them. The soldiers of the Korean People’s Revolutionary Army treasured and loved one another in this way, waging an arduous armed struggle against the Japanese imperialists for 15 long years.
We did not receive foreign aid in our fight against the Japanese imperialists. Even if we wanted some aid in the procurement of weapons, there was no one to turn to for such aid. We armed ourselves by capturing weapons from the Japanese imperialists and fought the enemy with the support of the people.
The Japanese imperialists launched intensive “punitive operations” with a large force of one million troops in an attempt to wipe out the Korean People’s Revolutionary Army, while at the same time manoeuvring in every possible way to starve the KPRA men. The enemy set up “concentration villages” and forbade the people’s free exit from the walled “villages” in order to prevent the people from approaching the KPRA units. The enemy locked up even the provisions within the walls and controlled their exit. But the people sent provisions to the KPRA units in various ways. In autumn farmers removed the vines from their potato fields pretending to harvest the potatoes and then informed these units of the fields, telling them to harvest the potatoes. The farmers also hid their harvested maize in woods and told the units to take it away. Support for our People’s Revolutionary Army came not only from workers and farmers but also from all sections of the patriotic people including intellectuals.
During the anti-Japanese armed struggle, I put up the slogan, “As fish cannot live without water, so the guerrillas cannot live without the people,” and got the KPRA fighters to have kindred relations with people. The KPRA could win victory in the long struggle against Japanese imperialism because it had close bonds with the people and enjoyed their active support.
Through the anti-Japanese revolutionary struggle we came to know well how great the people’s strength was and became convinced that the revolutionary struggle would win when it was carried on by believing in their strength and relying on it.
After the liberation of our country in 1945 we lost no time in tackling with the work to found the Party. We formed the Central Organizing Committee of the Communist Party of North Korea in October 1945 and proclaimed the founding of the Party to the world. Later we set the policy of developing the Communist Party into a mass party of the working people to meet the needs of the prevailing situation and the revolutionary development in the country, and put this policy into effect in a short time.
Right after liberation, there were not many qualified communists in our country; the working class was still young and people had no correct understanding of communism. The Japanese imperialists had long conducted a misleading propaganda against communism among our people, so quite a few of them took communists for stooges of the Soviet Union.
Under these circumstances, if the Party was to take deep roots among the broad masses of working people, it was necessary to develop the Communist Party into a mass party by widely admitting to it not only qualified communists and advanced elements of the working class but also the fine elements of the peasantry and the working intellectuals. Thus in 1946, we developed the Communist Party into the Workers’ Party to embrace all the advanced members of the working masses. Since then our Party has steadily developed as a united party of the working masses.
The emblem of our Party is inscribed with a hammer, a sickle and a brush, which stand for the workers, peasants and working intellectuals making up the Party.
In the Fatherland Liberation War, we felt even more keenly the need to hold fast to the banner of the Juche idea against dogmatism and flunkeyism.
After liberation we sent many students to foreign countries to build a new Korea and called back home quite a few Koreans who had been active abroad. Flunkeyism and dogmatism found expression among them. Those who had studied abroad as well as those who had returned home from abroad preferred foreign things to ours, trying to copy foreign things mechanically. When fighting the enemy during the war, they proposed to apply foreign methods, without taking into consideration the specific situation of our country. We were opposed to such a tendency. At the time of the Second World War, hundreds of tanks were employed at a time to attack the enemy in wide plains of Europe, but such a tactic did not conform to our country’s terrains. Our country had not many tanks, and even if we had had many, we could not have used many of them at a time to attack the enemy in our terrain conditions. Our country has few plains but many mountains.
As the Supreme Commander of the Korean People’s Army at the time, I stressed that we had to fight by Korean tactics to conform with our terrains, instead of employing foreign tactics. We developed the guerrilla tactics created in the anti-Japanese armed struggle to meet the needs of a regular war and worked out various new tactics suitable for our specific situation.
I would like to cite an example to illustrate the seriousness of dogmatism and flunkeyism during the wartime.
Once I visited a rest centre of the People’s Army during the war and there I saw a picture of a bear crawling in the Siberian forest covered with white snow. Of course, that picture was fine. But it was of little value in educating People’s Army soldiers. I told the officials who accompanied me: The picture will not have a good influence on People’s Army soldiers in their rest centre, although the matter would be different if it was on international art exhibition. We are not fighting in a foreign land; we are fighting a bloody war just in our land against the US imperialists. So we must hang up even a piece of picture necessary for imbuing People’s Army soldiers with love for their native land and for each tree and each plant of grass in the country. What is the use of hanging up a picture of bear crawling through the Siberian forest? Our country has beautiful seas and scenic Mts. Kumgang and Myohyang; then isn’t it good for the soldiers’ education if we put up pictures of beautiful scenery of our country?
The Koreans will have to live in Korea and not in a far-off foreign country even after communism has emerged victorious throughout the world. It is important, therefore, to educate the people to love always their country. It was particularly urgent to imbue the people and soldiers with ardent love for the country in the days of the Fatherland Liberation War.
On my return from the rest centre I stressed the importance of equipping all Party members and people firmly with our Party’s revolutionary ideas and the patriotic spirit.
In the Fatherland Liberation War our Party repudiated dogmatism and flunkeyism and educated the entire people and People’s Army soldiers in patriotism and worked out various tactics suitable for our conditions, which enabled us to defeat the US imperialists equipped with modern arms, with our backward ones.
The necessity of opposing flunkeyism and establishing Juche in our country posed as a more urgent problem in the postwar period. Therefore, I made a speech to Party propagandists and agitators in 1955 on thoroughly establishing Juche in ideological work. At that time, I told them that of course we should not become narrow-minded nationalists but we should not forget our country and nation and that in drawing a picture we should do for the benefit of our people and in singing a piece of song we should sing one they like. From then on we put a strong emphasis on the question of establishing Juche.
After the war we established Juche in all domains of the revolution and construction and did everything in our own way. As for the cooperativization of private fanning, too, we did it not in a foreign way but in our own way, to suit the actual conditions in our country. As a result, our agricultural cooperative movement was carried out quickly and smoothly.
When we cooperativized agriculture I told the officials: We should learn from good foreign experience, but chew it and see whether or not it suits the specific situation of our country and the interests of our revolution; if it is acceptable to our “stomach” we should swallow it, but if not, we should spit it out. Even afterwards, we stressed that of things foreign we should accept those which our people demand and should not those which they do not demand and that even in case of adopting them we should not adopt them mechanically but assimilate them to suit the actual conditions of our country. We have always educated our officials and working people in the Juche idea in this way.
As we established Juche and did all work in our own way in the past, everything went off satisfactorily in our country.
Still today we resolve all problems in our own way, on the basis of the Juche idea. We develop industry in the Juche-oriented way and carry out construction in the Juche-oriented way. We are also developing agriculture in the Juche-oriented way to suit the specific situation of our country.
Many of our agricultural specialists studied abroad in the past. But we made sure that they did not apply the farming methods they had acquired to the reality of our country as they were, because there were differences between the actual conditions of our farming areas and those of other countries. The foreign farming methods they studied do not suit our specific situation. If we introduce the farming methods which do not fit in with our situation we cannot farm well.
Once our universities of agriculture taught students with the text books used at foreign agricultural universities which were translated into Korean. But, today we teach our students with new textbooks written to meet the requirements of the Juche farming method.
If you see the performances by our artists you will realize that we sing songs in our own way and also develop operas in our own way.
True, the world has many fine musical works such as Tchaikovsky’s. But, however fine they may be, foreign pieces do not well suit the feelings of our people. Our people like the art national in form and socialist in content. We oppose both the tendencies to ignore our own things and copy foreign things mechanically and restore the obsolete things of the past as they are. We adhere to the principle of developing literature and art national in form and socialist in content.
In a word, Juche industry, Juche agriculture, Juche construction and Juche literature and art are quickly developing in our country today.
If we are guided by the Juche idea, everything goes off well.
Comrade head of the delegation, you said that the Juche idea is not a mechanical copy of Marxism but its creative development which suits the reality of today. I think you are right.
In fact, we did not apply Marxism to our reality as it is. If one applies it mechanically, one cannot win the revolutionary struggle.
Marx advanced his revolutionary theories on the basis of the analysis of capitalist society while working in developed capitalist countries like Germany and England. He considered that revolution would break out continuously in the major capitalist countries of Europe and predicted that communism would triumph soon on a worldwide scale. But there is not a single country where communism has been realized, though over a century has passed since Marx and Engels made public The Communist Manifesto. Capitalism still remains in England.
Capitalists are very cunning. They leave no stone unturned to maintain their position. They rear labour aristocrats among the working class and put them up to disorganize the ranks of the working-class movement. Here lies one of the major reasons why revolution does not break out in the developed capitalist countries now.
We should not consider that once the ranks of the working class increase, a revolution will break out of itself, nor should we consider that we can make revolution only with the working class. In former colonial and semi-colonial countries which did not go through the normal stage of capitalist development, workers are not so many, whereas the peasants and handicraftsmen form the overwhelming majority of the population. In these countries the revolution can emerge victorious when even the peasants and handicraftsmen are organized.
Shortly after liberation the workers were not so many and the peasantry occupied 80 per cent of our nation’s population. Therefore, we regarded the peasantry as the motive power of our revolution like the workers and rallied them behind the Party. In some countries intellectuals were not regarded as part of the motive power of the revolution, because they belonged to the propertied classes. But we recognized their important role in the revolutionary struggle and rallied them around the Party. Once the anti-Party factionalists opposed our Party’s policy with regard to intellectuals. However, we shattered their moves and carried out this policy.
We rallied workers, peasants, working intellectuals and handicraftsmen and carried out the revolutionary struggle and the work of construction. Our brilliant achievements in the revolution and construction substantiate the correctness of our Party’s policy.
Marx’s works do not specify the method of the revolution for each country. Communists in each country should use their own brains to seek the means and ways for accomplishing the revolution to meet the interests of their people and the actual conditions of their country. The party of a country knows well about the national reality. You know better than anybody else about the Peruvian revolution, and we about the Korean revolution. As for the theoretical and practical problems arising in the revolution and construction of each country, its party can offer the correctest conclusion.
There can be no immutable formula in making revolution. There are formulas in mathematics, but not in making revolution. If there is any formula that must be observed in revolution, it is that one should think everything with one’s own brains and deal with it by one’s own efforts. There can be no other formula. We reached this conclusion through our protracted revolutionary struggle.
He who takes a dogmatic attitude towards Marxism and foreign experience is not a genuine Marxist. He is a bogus Marxist.
In the past, there were sham Marxists in our country, too. They set foot on Korean soil but kept their heads in foreign countries.
Such people may try hard to profess themselves to be Marxists, but they are mere phrasemongers. They are fond of fooling people with revolutionary words. In the past, whenever they made speeches, the phony Marxists in our country used many words people could not understand, such as “hegemony”, “proletariat” and “intelligentsia”, pretending to know much. So I severely criticized them.
People neither listen to such empty talks of bogus communists nor follow them.
You say that you are now organizing the masses in keeping with the specific conditions of Peru. If you do so, everything will go well. I think you are right in doing so.
Now, on the policies pursued by our Party today and the situation of our country.
Our Party has so far been guided by the Juche idea in its struggle, and won great victories in the revolution and construction. The Juche idea has now become the firm faith of our people.
Proceeding from this reality of our country, we set out the task of modelling the whole of society on the Juche idea at the Sixth Party Congress.
Modelling the whole society on the Juche idea means building a communist society by maintaining this idea as a guideline and applying it.
In order to build communism we must thoroughly transform men and society as required by the Juche idea and capture both the ideological and material fortresses of communism. By capturing the material fortress alone we cannot build communist society. It is men who build socialism and communism. Therefore, without remoulding their ideological consciousness through a vigorous struggle to capture the ideological fortress, we cannot take the material fortress, either. Likewise, when we conduct economic construction well to seize the material fortress we can successfully capture the ideological fortress, too. That is why we adhere firmly to the principle of occupying both the ideological and material fortresses in the building of communism.
In order to capture these fortresses we must carry out the ideological, technical and cultural revolutions. Only when we push forward these three revolutions and occupy the two fortresses, can we build communism.
The most important of the three revolutions is the ideological revolution.
The ideological revolution is a revolution to educate and remould all people to be communists. We should not exclude those people with bad social backgrounds in the ideological revolution. Attaining the goal of communism advanced by Marx and Engels is no easy job. Communist society is a developed society where all people work according to their ability and receive distribution according to their needs. To build communist society we must educate and remould not only people with good social backgrounds but all the rest of members of society into communist men.
To turn people communist we must revolutionize and working-classize them.
When people are hard pressed they have high revolutionary zeal and work well. But when they are well-off their revolutionary zeal cools off gradually and they do not work hard. Therefore, to make them continue with the revolutionary struggle well we must vigorously endeavour to revolutionize and working-classize them.
To revolutionize and working-classize people we must arm them firmly with independent ideological consciousness and the collectivist spirit of working and living, one for all and all for one. Thus we will get all members of society, whether engaged in mental or physical labour, to work honestly for the country and the people.
In the past period our Party has intensified the education of the working people in the Juche idea and collectivism. The result is that today all our working people clearly understand their duties and work in good faith for the country and the people, for society and collective.
To revolutionize and working-classize all members of society it is important to have them lead their lives in definite organizations.
Organizational life is a powerful means for the ideological remoulding of people. Through their organizational lives people enhance their collectivist spirit and sense of discipline, strengthen solidarity and acquire consciousness of fulfilling their revolutionary duties. Therefore, only through intensified organizational life can we revolutionize and working-classize people.
We must also get women to take part in organizational life. It is difficult for husbands to educate their wives. But their organizations can educate women well. If women do not stay at home but go out into the world, work and participate in organizational life, they will have opportunities to be criticized and educated there, so as to be revolutionized and working-classized. If women get educated through organizational life, they respect their husbands more deeply and manage their homes more meticulously and, in the end, their families become more harmonious.
Organizational life is essential to school children, too.
Once I visited a primary school. I asked a 9 year-old pupil if she had been criticized while leading Children’s Union organizational life. She said that she had been criticized at a CU meeting for having failed to sharpen her pencils at home and write down well what her teacher said. I asked her how she had felt when she was criticized by her classmates. She replied that she had felt very bad. She said that she feared the criticism at the CU organization more than that of her teacher and that from then on she had never failed to sharpen many pencils at home for her classwork at school. That day I talked with another pupil. She said that she had been bad at mathematics but got good marks with the help of her CU organization. The organization had assigned the task of helping her to two pupils good at mathematics.
In our country today all members of society lead organizational lives in definite bodies; Children’s Union members in their CU organizations, members of the League of Socialist Working Youth in their LSWY organizations, trade union members in their trade union organizations, Women’s Union members in their WU organizations, members of the Union of Agricultural Working People in their UAWP organizations and Party members in their Party organizations.
In this way, we step up the revolutionization and working-classization of the whole society by way of constantly educating all its members and intensifying organizational lives among them.
Also important in the three revolutions is the technical revolution.
This revolution is, in plain terms, a revolution to free from back-breaking labour working people who have been liberated from the oppression of capitalists and landlords, and develop the productive forces to steadily promote the people’s material welfare.
The main goal of the rural technical revolution is to eliminate the distinctions between agricultural and industrial labour and make the farmers work eight hours a day like workers. It is important to free peasants from arduous labour. We are carrying out the rural technical revolution forcefully to eliminate the distinctions between agricultural and industrial labour and thus enable all the peasants to work eight hours, study eight hours and rest eight hours a day.
We are also actively introducing mechanization and automation in production processes so as to eliminate heat-affected and harmful work and facilitate transport, loading and unloading and other exhausting work.
The technical revolution is a revolutionary task to be carried out over a long period of time. We intend to eliminate the difference of mental and physical work by thoroughly carrying out the technical revolution.
The cultural revolution is an important component of the three revolutions.
Only when people possess rich cultural and intellectual attainments, can they work better and become more courteous and virtuous.
We have so far directed much effort to the carrying out of the cultural revolution and registered signal successes in all fields of cultural development. In our country 3.5 million children are now growing at nurseries and kindergartens and those studying at schools of all levels from primary school to university total 5 millions. If all these children and students are put together, their number reaches 8.5 millions. This accounts for one half of our population. In our country many people study under a study-while-working system, along with those learning in regular schools. So people of many countries of the world call our country a “land of education”.
Our country has 1.2 million technicians and specialists, or one out of every seven of the total working population. This is a very high ratio by world standards.
Our people’s cultural and intellectual level is now very high. They can judge merits and demerits in foreign culture. As their cultural level is high, neither drunkard nor thief is to be found in our country.
Our Party’s important policy in the cultural revolution today is to raise the cultural and intellectual attainments of all our people to those of the university graduate, that is, to intellectualize the whole of society. The intellectualization of the whole society is an essential requisite for eliminating the distinctions between mental and physical labour.
I published the Theses on Socialist Education in 1977. If we intellectualize the whole of society by fully putting into effect the theses, our country will develop still more rapidly.
You asked about our educational system. In our country there is a study-while-working system along with the regular educational system. The study-while-working system includes university-level and junior factory colleges. These university-level factory colleges are in large factories and enterprises. The workers go there to study after the day’s work.
They differ little from regular universities. Every day working people go there and study for four hours after working at their factories for eight hours.
Graduates of these factory colleges obtain qualifications for engineer. Their level is as high as that of regular university graduates. The level of graduates of factory colleges in large machine or chemical factories is very high, because they studied, while having practical training directly at production sites.
Today in our country economic construction is well forward.
The Sixth Congress of our Party put forward the ten long-term objectives of socialist economic construction for the 1980s. At the end of the 80s we will turn out 100,000 million kwh of electricity, 120 million tons of coal, 15 million tons of steel, 1.5 million tons of nonferrous metals, 20 million tons of cement, 7 million tons of chemical fertilizers, 1,500 million metres of fabrics, 5 million tons of seafoods and 15 million tons of grain in a year and reclaim 300,000 hectares of tideland within the next 10 years. When these objectives are reached, our country will rank well among the advanced countries of the world in economic progress.
We have ample conditions for attaining these long-term objectives. We have the firm foundations of the independent national economy. Our independent national economy has tremendous potentialities. If we had no solid economic foundations we would dare not think of setting such high long-term objectives.
Since the Sixth Party Congress we have taken one measure after another at plenary meetings of the Party Central Committee to carry out these long-term tasks.
We first discussed great transformations of nature to reclaim tideland and acquire new land at a plenary meeting of the Party Central Committee and are working energetically to reclaim 300.000 hectares of tideland.
Our country lacks in arable land. Out of our total cultivated area only 1.5 million hectares, excluding the orchards, industrial crop areas and slope fields in highlands, is capable of raising crops safely at the moment. Last year we yielded 9.5 million tons of grain on this cultivated land of 1.5 million hectares.
Today our per-hectare crop yield has reached a very high level. Our per-hectare rice yield is the highest in the world. We produce 7.2 tons of rice per hectare. When the farming method is improved in future the yield will be still higher.
If we are to increase the grain output remarkably, we should steadily improve our farming method, at the same time as expanding the acreage of the arable land. That is why we decided to reclaim 300,000 hectares of tideland. This will enlarge the cultivated land as much and alter the map of our country.
The land acquired through the reclamation of tideland is very fertile. We will be able to gather in even ten tons of rice from each hectare of the paddy fields reclaimed. The ten tons per hectare will make it possible to produce 3,000,000 tons of rice on 300,000 hectares of tideland. If tideland is developed into paddy fields, it will be convenient to mechanize farming.
It will be no big problem to reclaim 300,000 hectares of tideland in our country.
At the moment we reclaim tideland by building dams on the zero line, and if we build them further out where the depth is 2 to 3 metres, we will reclaim 500,000-600,000 hectares of tideland, instead of 300,000 hectares. At present a certain country walls off the sea at the depth of 80 metres to acquire new land and, in comparison with this, it is nothing to do it at the depth of 2 to 3 metres. We are going to reclaim 300,000 hectares of tideland at the first stage and more in the future, after having accumulated experience.
What is important in utilizing the reclaimed tideland for farming is to solve the water problem. To this end we are building the Nampho Barrage.
The Nampho Barrage is colossal in scale. Perhaps, there is no such a large barrage in the world. I was told that not long ago the diplomatic corps in our country visited the construction site of the Nampho Barrage. They were amazed to see it, saying that such a large barrage can be built in Korea and nowhere else. It will stop the seawater going up the Taedong River and keep its lower reaches filled with water, which will be sent to the rice fields of the tideland. The construction of the Nampho Barrage will be completed in 1985.
We have already built two barrages on the Taedong River, one being the Mirim Barrage and the other the Ponghwa Barrage. And now we are constructing another two barrages further up the Ponghwa Barrage. When these five barrages are all completed, large ships will sail up and down the Taedong River.
At the Hamhung Plenary Meeting of our Party Central Committee held in August last year, we discussed the problem of attaining the goal of 1.5 million tons of nonferrous metals. In an eager response to the decision of the plenary meeting our working people are now striving hard to hit this goal.
South Hamgyong and Ryanggang Provinces play an important role in attaining the goal. Recently we built in South Hamgyong Province a new plant capable of dressing 10 million tons of nonferrous metal ores. This is one of the world’s largest ore-dressing plants. We built it for ourselves in a matter of one year. We are trying it out now, and it works well. We are going to put it into commission on the occasion of the 35th anniversary of the founding of the Republic. Construction of such a large, modern ore-dressing plant in a single year is a demonstration of the enormous capabilities of our working class and the might of our industry.
Nonferrous metals are our important source of foreign currency. We plan to increase the output of lead, zinc, copper, gold, silver and other nonferrous metals in the future to meet their domestic demands and export the surplus to earn foreign currency.
The Seventh Plenary Meeting of the Sixth Central Committee of our Party held some time ago discussed the problem of attaining the production goals of 1,500 million metres of fabrics and of chemicals.
From now on we will make great efforts to hit the target of chemicals in accordance with the decision of this meeting.
What is important in attaining this goal is to increase fibre production. If we are to produce 1.500 million metres of fabrics, we need 270,000 tons of fibres. But our country with a limited area of cultivated land cannot afford to plant cotton in a big way, so we have to solve the fibre problem by an industrial method.
For the solution of this problem we are developing the vinalon industry.
Vinalon is an excellent chemical fibre invented in our country. It is tougher than cotton wool. Principal raw materials for it are limestone and anthracite, both of which are abundant in our country. Limestone and anthracite are very useful and valuable resources. These are our treasures, so to speak.
The doctor who invented vinalon in our country is working now as director of the Hamhung branch of the Academy of Sciences. Originally a south Korean, he went to Japan before liberation, where he made researches in vinalon, and returned to south Korea after liberation. Meanwhile, the Seoul “regime” in south Korea, an instrument of the United States, did not want to develop national industry, engrossed in introducing American capital. The inventor of vinalon brought the matter of developing the vinalon industry to the south Korean puppet authorities more than once, but the puppet government turned down his suggestion. Through the agency of democrats in south Korea he sent to us a letter saying that he would come over to our Republic, to serve the country and the people because the government of our Republic was patriotic, whereas the south Korean “regime” was a puppet regime. So we brought him and his family. Even under the difficult circumstances of war we provided him with all possible conditions for successful researches. We offered him the necessary research funds, bought him laboratory equipment and, after the war, built even a pilot plant for him. Drawing on the success in his researches in vinalon, we built a large, modern vinalon factory in Hamhung.
In our country there is a vinalon factory with the capacity of 50,000 tons, and we are now planning to build a bigger one with the capacity of 100,000 tons.
Our country has a factory which produces fibre from reed. Its production capacity at the moment is 10,000 tons but we intend to increase it to 20,000 tons in the future.
If we produce 270,000 tons of fibres at some time in the future, we will be able to attain the goal of 1,500 million metres of fabrics without difficulty. This much amount will mean 83 metres of cloth for everyone in our country. This is a very high level.
We plan to build a synthetic rubber factory with a capacity of tens of thousands of tons on the basis of the achievements in our scientists’ researches. We are consuming as much rubber every year. In our country rubber is used mainly to make conveyer belts, motorcar tires and various packings. We intend to construct a synthetic rubber factory with that capacity at first and, if successful, to increase it.
We are also planning to build another process of manufacturing tens of thousands of tons of vinyl chloride.
From next year we will build a new chemical fertilizer factory with a capacity of several hundred thousand tons in keeping with the decision of the Seventh Plenary Meeting of the Sixth Central Committee of our Party. We intend to construct this factory, too, with our own efforts and techniques. It is not very difficult to build a chemical fertilizer factory. Synthesis towers, compressors and pipes are needed for its construction. We imported compressors before because we could not produce them, but now we are making them as well as synthesis towers by ourselves. Therefore, we can easily build it by our own efforts.
We are struggling to hit the target of 15 million tons of steel, and its prospects are bright.
We will make more vigorous efforts from next year to raise the steel output to a 10 million-ton level at the first stage. We can do it. Our country has large deposits of iron ores. Moreover, recently our scientists invented the method of manufacturing iron with domestic fuel.
We have so far produced iron with imported coking coal. If we were to continue to rely on coking coal alone, we would not be able to develop the iron industry on a large scale. So I emphasized time and again to our scientists the need to study the method of turning out iron with domestic fuel. At first they did not get down to the research work, saying that it would be impossible to produce iron with our own fuel. So I told them: the iron industry used coking coal as fuel because it had been developed first in those countries abounding in coking coal, but if our country with no deposits of coking coal had been the first to develop the iron industry by the industrial revolution, it would not have used coking coal in iron production; the method of using coking coal as fuel cannot be the only way to produce iron; and if the researches in the Juche-oriented method of iron production were to succeed, we must first wipe out flunkeyism. After that, our scientists displayed their creativity and thus invented the method of turning out iron by using the fuel which is inexhaustible in our country. Now we can say that we have definite prospects for attaining the goal of 15 million tons of steel.
The iron production method worked out by our scientists is superior to that of using coking coal. Producing iron with domestic fuel can reduce the production cost much lower than the cost of using imported coking coal. Science is something mysterious when one is ignorant of it, but not when one is familiar with it.
Our cement industry is also in a good situation. Since our country abounds in good-quality raw materials for cement, we will be quite able to hit the target of 20 million tons of cement.
You asked me about the sizes of our cement factories. There are many large, modern ones as well as many small ones in our country. The former alone produces several million tons of quality cement every year, and a large amount of it is exported. Cement turned out by small factories in local areas is used in the localities. A certain county is producing cement by itself to build rural modern houses. It is no problem to build cement factories in our country.
I hear that this year fish is not caught well in Peru, affected by abnormal weather, but our country is now landing large quantities of sardines. Because of the warm current, large shoals of fish which like the warm water are gathering in our waters.
We land millions of tons of fish every year, and prospects are bright for the development of fisheries, too.
Considering the present general situation in our country, I think, the ten long-term objectives for socialist economic construction will be attained for sure within the set time. Perhaps, nearly all the objectives will be achieved by 1988.
We plan to reach basically the major ones of the objectives by 1985 and hold the Seventh Congress of our Party in 1986.
You asked me if we in Korea, too, are affected by the capitalist economic crisis. Our country is immune to this crisis. I think perhaps ours is the only country in the world which is not affected by it. There has never been a price rise in our country. It is constant and stable today just as it was ten years ago.
If the repercussions of the capitalist economic crisis have ever been felt at all in this part of the world, it was only when the prices of machines and equipment went up in consequence of the rise in the world price of oil, for our country imported some machines and equipment. But that was not a big problem.
Since we import oil from foreign countries, we are advancing in the direction of developing industries which depend on domestic raw materials, instead of those using much oil.
A certain country imports oil to produce chemical fibres and plastic goods and operate power stations, too. It is true that the construction of an oil power station would require less money and time. In the past when oil was cheap, some of our officials, too, suggested for the construction of oil power stations. But I did not agree to the proposal. If we had built oil power stations in our country which cannot produce oil and failed to import it for some reasons, we would have suspended the operation of many factories and enterprises. Therefore, I objected the idea of building oil power stations.
We ensured that the power industry was developed by using water resources and coal abundant in our country, rather than oil. That is why the power output in our country is not affected by the world oil price, no matter how high it is.
We worked to base our industry on Juche, with the result that our national economy continues to make a stable growth, unaffected by the worldwide economic upheavals.
You said you would like to learn from our experience in farming. Our country is now at its highest farming season. Rice-transplanting is already over and weeding is now under way. In our country this year’s promise of the crops is fine as a whole. Both rice and maize have grown well. As we completed irrigation a long time ago in our country, we can safely do farming without suffering damage even from a long spell of drought.
Our country cultivates rice and maize on a large scale.
Maize is a good, high-yield crop. The method of cultivating maize may be different from country to country because of the differences in their natural and geographical conditions. It may be planted in humus-cake nurseries before it is bedded out or directly sown in the fields, according to the specific conditions of a country.
We do not plant maize directly. If we were to sow it directly, we would have to plant an early-ripening strain in view of the climate in our country. This would mean low per-hectare yields. So we cultivate maize by planting it in humus-cake nurseries before transplanting. Maize seedlings grown in humus cakes bear good fruit and are highly productive.
The humus-cake method of raising maize seedlings may appear to require more manpower than the direct sowing, but this is not really the case. The former requires weeding once or twice less than the latter, so it does not need much more manpower.
If maize farming is to be successful, the first filial generation should be sown, the number of plants per phyong increased, a suitable amount of fertilizers applied, and the maize fields irrigated. This crop requires plenty of fertilizers and water. Usually it needs 60 to 65 per cent of the moisture of the field, but in the earing season it demands 80 to 85 per cent. Only when plenty of moisture is ensured during the development of ears can they grow larger.
I was not a specialist in agriculture or industry at the outset. But I had to learn farming and industry in order to guide socialist construction. Without knowledge one cannot guide others. The people always require correct leadership. Only when this requirement is met, can the people create new things without letup. Since they trusted me and elected me President, I should work faithfully for them and strive to guide them in a correct way.
You talk a lot about my frequent on-the-spot guidance. Well, if one is to guide people correctly, one should go into reality. If one coops oneself up in one’s office, divorced from reality, one may fall into subjectivism and bureaucracy. These are a harmful style of work that should be warned against, among others, within a ruling party. Subjectivism is a source that gives rise to bureaucracy.
I always strongly warn our officials that subjectivism and bureaucracy are most dangerous in guiding the revolution and construction.
If one wants to avoid falling into subjectivism, one should go among the popular masses including workers, farmers and intellectuals and listen to their voices. Only then can one map out a policy to meet the demands of the people, and also find out many things.
When I waged the anti-Japanese armed struggle I used to go down to KPRA units and listen to the soldiers’ voices; after liberation, too, I would often go to factories and farming and fishing villages to hear the voices of people in all walks of life; and I do so still now.
Now, I would like to touch on the south Korean situation and the reunification question of our country.
South Korea is not an independent state, it is a complete colony of the United States. It is a lie that Americans say south Korea is an independent state. The United States has occupied south Korea for 38 years by force of arms and lords it over.
The United States is now keeping over 40,000 troops of its own in south Korea and holds all commanding powers over the south Korean puppet army. The US imperialists call their army in south Korea and the south Korean puppet troops the “Korea-US Combined Forces”, whose commander is an American. It is also Americans who dismiss and appoint the south Korean “president”. If the man who holds the “presidency” of the puppet regime is not to their liking, the US imperialists kill him to be replaced by another.
To camouflage their forces stationed in south Korea the US imperialists formerly called them the “UN forces”. As a result of the dynamic struggle the Korean people and the world’s progressive people waged to take the “UN forces’” helmets off the US occupation forces in south Korea and drive them out, a resolution was adopted a few years ago at the UN General Assembly to dissolve the “UN forces” command in south Korea and withdraw all foreign troops from there. Nevertheless, the United States is working to continue its military occupation of south Korea under the pretext of the fictitious “threat of southward invasion” from the north. The US Congress is clamouring that there is a danger of “southward invasion” because the military forces of north Korea are stronger than those of south Korea. But this is a lie to mislead the people around the world.
We have already made it clear more than once that we will not “invade the south”. As you have seen on your current visit to our country, we have built a great deal and are still continuing to build. We do not want to get these buildings destroyed in war. Our people want peace, not war.
The comparison of military strength in the north and the south of Korea enables you to see clearly that we will not “invade the south”. At the moment in south Korea there are stationed more than 40,000 American troops plus 700,000 south Korean puppet troops, and there are more than 1,000 nuclear weapons deployed. However, the numerical strength of our People’s Army is but one half of that of the south Korean puppet army. As for military equipment, the US troops in south Korea and the south Korean puppet army are armed with up-to-date American weapons, whereas our People’s Army is equipped with arms of our own make.
All the facts testify that the American authorities’ clamours about the “threat of aggression from the north” are totally unfounded, they are a sheer lie.
The US imperialists do not want Korea’s reunification. They are manoeuvring to divide Korea into two just as Germany is divided into east and west, and are launching a propaganda campaign to justify their scheme. But there is no reason why our country should remain divided into “two Koreas”.
Politically, the Korean question differs in nature from that of Germany. Germany is a vanquished nation in World War II which she had provoked. But our country is neither a provoker of a war of aggression nor a vanquished country. Korea had been a colony of Japanese imperialism till the end of the Second World War and in the meantime the Korean people had waged a forceful national-liberation struggle against Japan. Even after the reunification Korea will not invade other countries or menace the surrounding nations. No nation will be threatened by one Korea. Neither China nor the Soviet Union nor Japan will be threatened by our country.
From the historical viewpoint, too, there is no ground to justify our country’s division into “two Koreas”. The Koreans are a single nation of the same blood who have lived on the same land, sharing the same culture and using the same language for several thousand years. Therefore, the Korean nation must by no means be divided into two.
At the Sixth Party Congress we put forward a new proposal for national reunification in order to frustrate the US imperialist scheme for “two Koreas” and to reunify the country as soon as possible.
The new proposal is intended to reunify the country by founding a Confederal Republic through the establishment of a unified national government on condition that the social systems existing in the north and the south of Korea are left as they are, a government in which the two sides are represented on an equal footing and under which they exercise regional autonomy respectively with equal rights and duties.
Advancing at the Sixth Party Congress the proposal for establishing the Democratic Confederal Republic of Koryo and the ten-point policy to be pursued by the unified state, we explicitly said that the DCRK should be a neutral state. In other words, we clarified that the DCRK should become not a satellite of any country but a completely independent and sovereign state, a non-aligned nation which will not rely on any external forces. That our country will not be a satellite of any country after its reunification means that it will neither be a satellite of China and the Soviet Union nor that of the United States and Japan. It is most advisable for our country surrounded by great countries to become a neutral state after its reunification.
More than 20 years have passed since we put forward the proposal for accelerating national reunification through the establishment of a north-south Confederation and it is nearly three years since we set forth a new proposal to reunify the country by founding the DCRK at the Sixth Party Congress. But our country is not yet reunified.
We must check the division of our country into “two Koreas” by all means and achieve national reunification. Should we fail and hand down the divided country to posterity, we would be committing a crime against history and the generations to come.
What is important in reunifying our country is to replace the Armistice Agreement with a peace agreement and force the US imperialists to withdraw from south Korea. If the Americans conclude a peace agreement with us and withdraw from south Korea, the Korean people will be able to reunify the country peacefully by their own efforts. Therefore, we have proposed to the United States more than once that negotiations be held to replace the Armistice Agreement with a peace agreement. The US authorities, however, have not yet accepted our proposal for negotiations.
The US imperialists keep working to partition our country into “two Koreas”, but of no avail. All the Korean people are vigorously struggling to check and frustrate the “two Koreas” schemes of US imperialists and achieve national reunification.
The Revolutionary Party for Reunification and democratic parties, university students and other young people, workers, peasants and democrats in south Korea all desire the peaceful reunification of the country and actively support our proposal for national reunification. The only opponents of national reunification are those who lead the military fascist dictatorial regime in south Korea. They are pro-American stooges trained by US imperialists.
At present south Korean people are being awakened gradually. Democrats and other south Koreans want to lead independent lives free from the US imperialist yoke and oppose the fascist repression of the puppet government. In particular, with the Juche idea being disseminated widely among youth and students and other south Korean people, their consciousness of national independence and anti-US sentiment are mounting rapidly.
In the past south Korean youth and students took a wrong view of our Republic because of false American propaganda, but they have now realized that our Republic holds fast to independence and that only the Government of the Republic is a genuine people’s power which serves the whole of the Korean nation.
Youth and students and other south Korean people are not opposed to our Republic, but struggling against the United States and the military fascist regime in south Korea. Whenever the south Korean people turn out in the anti-US, anti-fascist struggle, the Americans repress them. It is none other than the Americans that suppressed the large-scale mass uprising which flared up in Kwangju in May 1980. At that time, Wickham, the commander of the “Korea-US Combined Forces”, got the south Korean puppet army to repress brutally the patriotic people and youth and students who rose in revolt.
In spite of the severe repression by the US imperialists and their lackeys, the struggle of the youth, students and other south Koreans keeps blazing up fiercely. Of late, the south Korean youth and students’ struggle takes place almost every day. If south Korean people are more awakened in the future, the US imperialists and their lackeys will hardly stand.
The active support and encouragement of the friends and progressive people the world over is of great significance in accomplishing our people’s cause of national reunification. The World Conference of Journalists against Imperialism and for Friendship and Peace is going on now in Pyongyang and the participants in the meeting are unanimously supporting the reunification of Korea.
We will fight on vigorously to reunify the divided country in accordance with the new policy on national reunification advanced at the Sixth Party Congress.
Of course, it will take us some time to realize Korea’s reunification, since the US imperialists occupy south Korea and tenaciously work to create “two Koreas”. But the entire Korean people in the north and the south are intensifying their struggle daily for the independent, peaceful reunification of the country and the world’s progressive people are conducting a more vigorous struggle to check and frustrate the US moves towards “two Koreas”. Our people are sure to accomplish the cause of national reunification, positively supported and encouraged by the world’s people.
Next, I would like to dwell on the international situation.
Today the international situation is very complex.
At present capitalist countries, particularly the developed capitalist countries, are undergoing serious economic crises, including those of fuel and raw materials. The economic crisis in the US, Japan and the developed European countries has lasted for a long time. Because of the serious economic crisis unemployment is increasing and the people are getting worse off in the capitalist countries. It is said that now in the US there are a great many unemployed. It is said that in Japan, too, prices continue to rise and the army of unemployed is on the increase.
History shows that whenever capitalist countries were in an economic crisis, scrambles occurred on a worldwide scale and a global war broke out. The outbreak of both the First and Second World Wars was due to the economic crisis in the capitalist countries. Whenever imperialists undergo an economic crisis, they try to find a way out in an aggressive war.
Now, America’s Reagan government follows the policy of confrontation which aggravates the international tensions in order to get out of the serious, chronic economic crisis. Owing to the imperialist manoeuvres, the international situation is getting extremely tense, peace and security are being wrecked in many parts of the world, and the danger of a new world war is growing as the days go by. This danger exists in Europe, in the Middle East, in Asia and Southern Africa. But today’s situation is different from that when the First or Second World War broke out.
After the Second World War many countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America freed themselves from imperialist colonial rule and realized national independence. There are many countries which attained their national independence, liberating themselves from the colonial rule of either Britain, France, Italy, the Netherlands or Portugal. This is precisely the difference between the international situations at the time of the outbreak of the Second World War and at present.
As I have said, the present international situation urgently demands the realization of global independence.
To put it in easy terms, global independence means that all countries of the world advance thoroughly on the road of independence, without being subjugated or enslaved to any great powers or dominationist forces. Under the present circumstances there can be many difficulties in making the whole world independent. But only when the whole world is independent, can a new global war be prevented. Great powers do not want to fight among themselves. Even if a war breaks out among them, such a war will be lukewarm and will not last long, if every country adheres to independence by refusing to move under the baton of imperialists and big powers or take anybody’s side. If they find no countries following them, the big powers will have to fight among themselves and give up fighting when they are worn out.
What is important in achieving global independence is to realize the independence in Europe where are concentrated developed countries.
At present, a vigorous anti-war, anti-nuclear peace movement is under way in Europe to oppose the production and deployment of neutron weapons and nuclear war. It is also interesting to note that in recent years Socialist Parties and Social Democratic Parties have come into power one after another in many European countries including France.
I met cadres of Socialist Parties and Social Democratic Parties from many European countries who visited our country and told them about the problem of making Europe independent. They all recognized the urgent necessity of European independence.
After taking power Socialist Parties and Social Democratic Parties in many European countries have held views different from America’s on a series of international questions and do not blindly follow the US policy. It is quite welcome.
We hope to see a completely independent Europe. In other words, we hope the European countries will pursue independent policies against war, instead of seeking a war policy in the wake of great powers.
It would be more welcome if the capitalist countries in Europe, while implementing independent policies, respond to the demands of the developing countries, the third world countries, for the establishment of a new international economic order. The European capitalist countries would easily tide over the present economic crisis and give a great help to the developing and third world countries in their efforts to build independent national economies, if they strove to establish a new fair international economic order together with the latter.
Another important thing in achieving global independence is to realize the independence of the third world countries.
The voice for independence is now ringing even more strongly from among the newly-emerging peoples in Asia, Africa and Latin America. I have met state leaders and many other people from a number of Asian and African countries, who all want to take the road of independence.
You must be well acquainted with the Latin-American situation. It seems to me that since the Falkland incident anti-US sentiments have mounted in many Latin-American countries and their tendency to independence has increased. We hope all Latin-American countries to advance independently. If they get independent, the US will be finally isolated in that part of the world. A Korean saying has it that a general without an army is no general. This means that one cannot be a general by himself. The US would be quite powerless, if it goes alone.
In order to advance along the road of independence, the third world countries should build self-reliant national economies by carrying out the economic revolution.
They would not be able to safeguard their political independence already won unless they built self-supporting national economies and attained economic independence. A country which failed to attain economic independence cannot, in fact, be regarded as a full-fledged independent and sovereign country, though it has its president and parliament. If shackled to great countries economically because of failure to achieve economic emancipation and independence, it would be subordinated to those countries politically, too, and lose its say on the international arena. A country shackled to great countries economically has no alternative but to follow their dictates. Otherwise, it would receive their pressure in one way or another.
At present quite a few third world countries have no economic potential enough to guarantee their political independence. This is the biggest problem. We consider that only when they build independent national economies and achieve economic independence, will the third world countries be able to free their peoples from the backwardness, poverty, hunger and diseases left over by imperialists and safeguard the political independence they have already won.
The most important problem the third world countries must solve immediately in attaining economic independence is to develop agriculture so as to be self-sufficient in food.
You have said that many Latin-American countries import most of necessary foods from the US and that they should begin with solving agricultural problems in order to throw off the US economic shackles. You are right there. At present the US is deliberately pursuing the policy of preventing the Latin-American countries’ investments in agricultural development and of forcing them to buy American cereals.
Only when they develop agriculture and solve the food problem, will the third world countries be able to put an end to their economic subjugation to imperialists and extricate their peoples from hunger and poverty.
A few years ago an African President visited our country. He asked me how to free people from hunger and poverty. I informed him of our experience in fully solving the food problem by developing agriculture under the slogan that rice is socialism.
The developing countries, the third world countries, should realize the South-South cooperation in order to achieve economic independence through the building of independent national economies.
The third world countries should not pin their hopes on imperialists and developed countries but should join hands to seek means of living. Imperialists will never make a gift of economic emancipation to the third world countries.
Developing countries have demanded the establishment of a new international economic order, but developed countries have refused to comply.
Several years ago the North-South Summit Conference of 22 Countries was held in Cancun, Mexico. The conference could achieve no success because of the unjustified attitude taken by the developed capitalist countries which try to maintain the unfair old international economic order. The summit conferences of non-aligned states have had repeated discussions on establishing a new international economic order. However, the declarations adopted at the conferences remain declarations and few measures have been implemented.
In his lifetime Tito visited our country at his advanced age of 85. At that time, I talked with him on the problem of strengthening and developing the non-aligned movement, and I said: developed countries will not make a gift of a new international economic order to developing countries; therefore, exchange and cooperation should be developed among non-aligned countries; then the developed countries might comply with developing countries’ demand for a new international economic order.
At the Seventh Summit Conference of Non-aligned Countries held in New Delhi some time ago, the head of our delegation asserted that non-aligned countries should take initiative to adopt practical steps for convening a South-South summit conference to conduct the South-South cooperation briskly. We will continue to strive for this cooperation.
We believe the South-South cooperation will be quite possible. Generally speaking, it is decades since the third world countries achieved national independence, and they have been building a new society. So each of them has more than one or two useful techniques and experiences and has laid definite economic foundations. If they strengthen economic cooperation and exchange the good experiences and techniques among themselves relying on the economic foundations already laid, they will be able to develop their economies quickly even without the help of developed countries.
Developing countries and third world countries will first be able to realize exchange and cooperation in the agricultural sphere.
Agricultural development does not require very high techniques. If third world countries interchange their techniques among themselves, they can solve many problems in developing agriculture.
At the moment the US and other developed capitalist countries sell the first filial generation of maize to developing countries at high prices. If the latter effect exchange among themselves, they may not have to buy the expensive seeds from the former. Our country produces and plants such seeds and we can impart this technique to other countries. If developing countries exchange and cooperate in the field of agriculture in this way, they will be able to develop agriculture and be self-sufficient in food.
The third world countries can also cooperate with each other in the industrial field. In this field I think it necessary that we should strengthen cooperation starting from light industry which is of vital importance in raising the people’s living standard. In the fishing industry, too, the third world countries can cooperate and exchange.
It is not bad to exchange technicians among these countries. At present, if they want to invite a technician from a developed capitalist country, they must pay him more than 1,000 dollars a month, provide him with a nice dwelling and car and grant him a leave every year. But if they exchange their technicians, they need pay a person only 100-200 dollars a month and just provide him with meals.
At present, groups of our agricultural technicians and specialists are in Guinea, Tanzania and other African countries, rendering help in agriculture and the training of agro-technical personnel. All of them ask for nothing more than the same board as given the peoples of the host countries.
It is good for the third world countries to exchange technical specifications among themselves. If they want to buy blueprints for irrigation projects or machines from developed capitalist countries, they will have to pay much money. But, if they exchange these technical specifications among themselves, they need not pay much money.
The third world countries can cooperate with each other not only in the economic field but also in the educational field. They can jointly build schools, share experiences in educational methods and cooperate in the training of native cadres.
In the field of health these countries can also exchange various techniques such as pharmaceutical techniques and experience. When cooperation and exchange are realized in this field, the peoples in these countries can be free from diseases sooner.
In our country, by embodying the Juche idea, we have realized independence in politics and achieved self-reliance in the economy and also in national defence. Our experience shows that in order to build a completely independent and sovereign state, it is very important to build self-reliant defence capabilities, at the same time as realizing political independence and achieving economic self-reliance.
It is also necessary for the third world countries to cooperate with each other in building self-reliant defences.
At present, the price of weapons is set arbitrarily by the seller. Developed countries are making a lot of money through sales of weapons. When the US and some other developed countries are asked by small countries for weapons, they do not comply with the latter’s requests promptly. In case they sell, they get exorbitant prices. But they vociferate as if they are granting them a great favour. When the third world countries join efforts to produce weapons for themselves, they need not take off their hats to bow down to developed countries, while paying masses of gold for the weapons.
We have developed the munitions industry and produced a considerable amount of weapons needed to defend the country. Our experience tells that small countries can manufacture weapons for themselves to increase their defence capabilities.
Not only our country but other countries have experience in the manufacture of weapons. There are many third world countries which have this experience. If they cooperate with each other, they will make necessary conventional weapons with credit, if not sophisticated ones requiring high techniques. When the whole world is made independent, sophisticated weapons will become useless.
We will always help the third world peoples in their struggle towards independence.
This much about the general situation in our country and the international situation.
The visit to our country of your Party delegation headed by you, Comrade General Secretary, will contribute greatly to bringing the relations between our two Parties closer and promoting the friendly relations between the two peoples.
I am convinced that your Party under the leadership of you Comrade General Secretary will emerge victorious in the struggle to build Peru into an independent people’s country.
I am very happy to have such fine comrades-in-arms like you in the Latin-American country of Peru. Let us join hands firmly as comrades, comrades-in-arms and friends, and fight together for the sake of the two peoples and all the oppressed people throughout the world, for the prevention of another world war and for global independence.
I hope that our two Parties will have closer relations and more mutual visits.
I wish you to visit our country again.
