President Kim Il Sung Is Alive In Mind of Humankind

People's Leader

President Kim Il Sung (1912-1994), father of socialist Korea, is the people's leader.

"Go among the People"

As he wrote in his reminiscences With the Century, President Kim Il Sung regarded the slogan "Go among the People!" as his lifelong motto from the first days when he embarked on the road of struggle for the country and the people during Japan's military occupation of Korea(1905-1945).

Already in his early days of revolutionary activities he authored the Juche idea, which asserts that the master of the revolution and construction is the masses of the people and they are also the driving force of the revolution and construction, and, on the basis of this, put forward the Juche-oriented line of the Korean revolution.

As he placed absolute trust in the inexhaustible strength of the masses he founded the Anti-Japanese People's Guerrilla Army (the predecessor of the Korean People's Army) on April 25, 1932, and organized and led the anti-Japanese armed struggle for over a decade with neither the backing of the state nor the support of a regular army. He always taught the guerrillas that as fish cannot live without water, so the guerrillas cannot live without the people, a dictum which became their most important motto. Enjoying the devoted affection and assistance of the people, the guerrillas defeated the Japanese imperialists and achieved the historic cause of national liberation (August 15, 1945).

In the Korean war (1950-1953) started by the United States the Korean army and people inflicted a defeat on the US imperialists, who had been boasting of being the "strongest" in the world, for the first time in their history. After the war the Americans clamored that Korea would never rise again even after 100 years, but the Korean people finished the postwar rehabilitation in less than three years and carried out the gigantic task of industrialization in only 14 years, thus building up the country into a socialist power, independent in politics, self-supporting in the economy and self-reliant in defence. All these miraculous achievements were accomplished by the leadership of the President, who, cherishing the idea of "The people are my God," gave the fullest play to the inexhaustible strength of the people.

His journey for the people was associated with many legendary tales,
Saying that he must visit every place where there are people, he continued his trip of on-the- spot guidance, personally pushing his car stuck in the mud. When visiting a farm, he stepped into a wet paddy field to feel the depth of tilled soil; when visiting a mine, he said that he would rather not come than not meet the miners down at the face and walked down the narrow passage of a pit under the dim light of a hand-lamp despite the exposure to water drippings from the ceiling.

In his lifetime the President often said to the officials that going among the people is to take the elixir of life, while not doing so is to come in for poison.

It is therefore not without reason that while answering the questions raised by a journalist delegation from CNN International in April 1994, in the last period of his life, he said it was his hobby to mix with the people and talk with them.

Benevolent Father of the People

After visiting the DPRK and witnessing its reality in which blood ties between the leader and the people have been forged, Takeo Takagi, adviser to the editorial board of the Japanese newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun, wrote in his travelogue:

"The DPRK is, indeed, a country where the leader and the people are united harmoniously. Even a father and his offsprings can never be attached to each other like this. Everywhere I saw people following their President and shedding tears of gratitude for his benevolence."

President Kim Il Sung was such benevolent father of the people that he established in the country a unique people-centred socialist system, in which people are masters of everything and everything serves them.

One year when he came back from his field guidance tour to a local area, the President saw that a project was about to begin for paving the road in the compound of the Kumsusan Assembly Hall where he was attending to his office. No sooner had he witnessed it than he summoned the officials concerned and told them to stop the project immediately. He said that he felt sorry to see people feel inconveniences in their life, so he was walking even along the paddy ridges to make them better off although it was too much for his old age. He then continued that if they had known his mind, they must have proposed paving the road to a school in a mountainous village instead.

It happened in June 1994 when Kim Il Sung was on a voyage with the former US President Jimmy Carter, who was visiting the DPRK, and had a friendly conversation with him. As the liner was making its way out of Pyongyang, Kim Il Sung told one of his suite to have the ship slowed down. Seeing his American guest wondering why, he said, pointing to some anglers at one side of the river, that if the liner ruffled the water at a fast speed, it may bother the anglers, adding that they would better sail a bit slower for the anglers' convenience.

That is why the Korean people keep eternal memory of President Kim Il Sung and hold him in high esteem although years go by.

Kim Il Sung, Eternal President of the DPRK

The Korean people hold Kim Il Sung (1912-1994) as the eternal President of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

Founding Father of Socialist Korea

Kim Il Sung is the founding father of socialist Korea, which is now being recognized by the international community as being powerful in politico-ideological, military, and scientific and technological aspects.

In the period of the armed struggle to liberate the country from the Japanese military occupation (1905-1945), he advanced an original line of building a people's government and established people's revolutionary governments of a new type in guerrilla bases:
The experiences and exploits accumulated in this period served as valuable foundations for the establishment of a people's government and its activities after Korea's liberation (August15, 1945).

In such works as On Building the Party, State and Armed Forces in the Liberated Homeland, On Progressive Democracy and On the Building of New Korea and the National United Front, which he published soon after the country's liberation, he put forward an original political line, the line of founding a democratic people's republic to meet the character and task of the Korean revolution and the desire of the Korean people:

On September 9, 1948, the founding of the DPRK, the first democratic state for people in the East, was proclaimed, an event signifying that the Korean people, who had been forced into a tragic fate of a stateless nation for decades, became dignified citizens of an independent, sovereign state.

Kim Il Sung set independence, self-sufficiency and self-defence as the fundamental principles in the building of an independent, sovereign state, and adhered to them in the whole course of leading the Republic.

He maintained an independent approach to all the issues arising in state building, leading the Korean revolution under the uplifted banner of the Juche idea.

He adopted .the type of a government, the line of building a state and the policies for democratic reforms in the Korean style; and carried out the socialist revolution with a creative stand as suited to the aspiration and demand of the Korean people and the actual conditions of the country.

Advancing the line of building an independent national economy, he ensured that all sectors of the national economy including industry and agriculture relied on domestic labour and technology, and that industrial bases for national defence were built up and their production lines updated to turn out any modern military hardware.

He established a people-centred socialist system on the land of Korea, where people are masters of everything and everything serves them, and provided them with all social and political conditions for fully exercising their tights as masters of the state.
He set it as the basic principle for the activities of the ruling party and the government to serve the people, and bad their desires and will embodied fully in state policies.

Forever will shine the achievements of Kim Il Sung who built a genuine country for people and the people-centred socialist system by dint of his original idea of state building and seasoned and sophisticated leadership.

The President's History Continues

Kim Il Sung's ideology and cause are carried forward by his faithful successor Kim Jong Il.

After his death (July. 8, 1994) the President's official residence, the Kumsusan Assembly Hall, was renovated to be the supreme sanctuary of Juche, and at the First Session of the Tenth Supreme People's Assembly of the DPRK held in September 1998 it was codified in the constitution that Kim Il Sung is the eternal President of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Kim Jong Il has devoted himself heart and soul to carrying forward his predecessor's ideology and cause.

He formulated Songun politics as the basic political mode of socialism by developing the Songun idea, which the President bad created together with the Juche idea, to meet the new requirements of the present era, and has administered it on a full scale. Thanks to his Songun politics, socialist Korea could withstand the worst difficulties it had faced at the close of the last century.

Putting forth a grand blueprint for building a powerful socialist nation as wished by President Kim Il Sung, he is working indefatigably for its implementation. The amazing successes achieved of late by the Korean people under his energetic leadership have paved the way for realizing this plan; a large number of monumental structures have sprung up, 1arg-scale nature-remaking projects are under way and: advances in the development of cutting-edge technology have boosted production by the national economy.

The DPRK manufactured and launched artificial earth satellites and acquired nuclear capability, which had been monopolies of some advanced nations, thus demonstrating its dignity throughout the world.

The reality of the DPRK clearly testifies that President Kim Il Sung's ideology and cause are being carried forward- by Kim Jong Il who is determined to brilliantly materialize his predecessor's wishes.

The revolutionary history of President Kim Il Sung will continue.

Statesman Possessed of Love for People

Thousands of years have passed since the word politics was coined, and its interpretation has been different with the times, countries and statesmen; however, it has been commonly construed as the governing of people.

President Kim Il Sung (1912-1994), founder of socialist Korea, was the first statesman in mankind's history to view politics as an embodiment of love for and trust in people and translate it into reality.

He authored the Juche idea, thereby ushering in a new era of human love in the world history of politics. The Juche idea is based on the philosophical principle that man is the master of everything and decides everything. In other words, it holds people as the most precious and powerful being in the world. The President kept this idea as the philosophy of his politics and consistently reflected it in practice.

There was a steel plant in the northeastern part of Korea, which had a technologically backward electric furnace equipped with inadequate safety devices during the military occupation of the country by Japan (1905-19.45). Korean smelters toiled and moiled under the whip of. Japanese foremen and many of them lost their lives at work. Immediately after liberation of the country, the electric furnace was one of the few means of steel production available in it as the defeated Japanese had destroyed almost all iron and steel works. Despite constant threats to their lives, the smelters remained at the furnace to do their share in building a new country.

Learning of the fact, Kim Il Sung said that iron and steel, however precious they may be, could not be bartered for the lives of the workers, and had the furnace blasted.
Here is another moving story. One day Kim Il Sung was reported on the discovery of large deposits of gold in the area of Mt. Myohyang, one of the famous mountains in Korea. But he refused to give a green light to the mining project, saying that it may damage the beautiful scenery of the resort for people. Countless are the measures he took for people's health and happiness.

Today the DPRK is guided by the Juche idea that is recognized by the world as the best humanitarian idea, and its people-oriented policies including free medical care and free compulsory educations and the abolition of all kinds of taxes, are admired even by developed countries.

The scope and depth of Kim Il Sung's politics of love for people was beyond measure.
After Kim Il Sung's death (July 8, 1994) a photograph was found in his safe, the one he posed for with one of his comrades who had died over 40 years previously. He had kept it in the safe for those years, watching it time and again in recollection of the comrade.

He regarded it as a moral obligation to his deceased comrades to take good care of their children. Though the country was in a difficult situation soon after its liberation, he took steps to locate every one of the bereaved children and build a school for them. Later, when they were grown up to be officials of the Party and the state, he took them on his field guidance trips to teach them in person how to work.

He considered the differences in political view, religious belief and property status trivial for the great cause for the country and nation. He placed trust in and showed loving care for those who were determined to devote their all to the county and nation, and led them to become faithful servants for people. As can be seen in his reminiscences With the Century, he was related intimately with broad strata of people capitalists and men of religion, not to mention workers and peasants. His politics of love and trust was so all-embracing that many of the intellectuals of propertied class origin rendered unreserved services without the slightest vacillation to building a new country after the liberation of their country, to building it into a socialist state where the masses of working people would live happily.

Kim Il Sung's world of human love went beyond the bounds of his country.
It is well known worldwide how he showed affection to the family of Zhang Weihua, a close friend of his during the anti-Japanese revolutionary struggle to liberate Korea. A son of a rich Chinese in northeast China, Zhang was an internationalist who sacrificed his life without hesitation for Kim Il Sung's safety. Despite the lapse of many decades since then, the Chinese lived in his memory. When he managed to locate Zhang's bereaved children, Kim Il Sung invited them to Korea in his name many a time and showed fatherly care for them. He also had a stone with the inscription of his autograph erected at their father's tomb. The descendants of Zhang still recall the days they spent with the President, calling him their uncle or great-uncle.

Many leaders and celebrities of the world hold President Kim Il Sung in high reverence for his great human love. Norodom Sihanouk, great king of Cambodia, praised Kim Il Sung as the Sun for his noble humanity, and Francisco da Costa Gomes, former president of Portugal, said Kim Il Sung was a great man who moved the world by dint of his virtues. Francois Mitterrand, former president of France; Shin Kanemaru, former deputy prime minister of Japan; Billy Graham, US evangelist; and Luiser Rinser, German writer, and other foreigners praised him as the incarnation of human love.

Mangyongdae

Mangyongdae is the place where President Kim Il Sung, founder of socialist Korea and the Juche idea, was born on April 15, 1912.

Situated at the confluence of the Taedong, flowing across Pyongyang, the capital of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, and its tributary, the Sunhwa, Mangyongdae is famed for its beautiful scenery from olden times. The area is surrounded by several hills, the highest one named Mangyong (Ten thousand views) Hill because one can enjoy a bird's-eye view of the exquisite landscape, and the village at its foot is called Mangyongdae.

In Mangyongdae the President's native home, a low-roofed and straw-thatched one, is preserved in its original state.

Visitors are surprised to see the house, too modest and humble as compared with the President's worldwide fame and great personality. Originally it had been a house for the keeper of a hill and grave for a landlord in Pyongyang. As the family was too poor to afford even such a house, the President's great-grandfather became the landlord's grave keeper and moved there.

At this house, humble as it was, lived ardent patriots who devoted all to the country and nation through generations.

Kim Ung U, great-grandfather of Kim Il Sung, took the lead in sinking General Sherman and repelling Shenandoah, US aggressor ships which intruded into Korea in the mid-19^th century. The President's grandparents supported with all their might the revolutionary activities of their sons and grandsons though they eked out a meager living as tenant peasants.

The house is also the native home of his father Kim Hyong Jik, an outstanding leader of the anti-Japanese national liberation movement in Korea, his uncle Kim Hyong Gwon, and younger brother Kim Chol Ju, who sacrificed themselves for the revolutionary struggle for the country's independence. His mother Kang Pan Sok, an outstanding leader of the women's movement in Korea, lived at the house for a while.

In the house are preserved a desk and an inkstone used by Kim Il Sung in his school days, chests of drawers, a brazier, tableware, an A-frame carrier, plow and other farm implements, a loom, a spinning wheel and a rush mat. There is also a misshapen water jar which leaves a strong impression on visitors. The President's family was so poor in those days that they were even unable to buy a perfectly shaped water jar indispensable to the livelihood of the Korean people.

Though they lived in poverty, the grandparents and parents of the President educated him to inherit the patriotic tradition of the Mangyongdae family, who were prepared to lay down their lives without hesitation for the country and nation. The swinging site and the spring near the President's birthplace tell the story of those days. The wrestling ground, the study site and warship rock (on which he played at soldiers) where Kim Il Sung fostered hatred for Japanese imperialism and the spirit of patriotism are still preserved.

Kim Il Sung left home, following his father who had embarked on the road of national independence. In March 1923, when he was 11 years old, he made a journey on foot from the northeastern part of China to Mangyongdae to learn better the realities of his native country, travelling 250 km all alone. In January 1925, while studying in the homeland, he was told that his father had been arrested by the Japanese police again, and left Mangyongdae, resolutely pledging that he would never return to the motherland before he won hack the country.

He came back to Mangyongdae after 20 years. He had organized and led the arduous armed struggle to defeat the Japanese imperialist aggressors, and liberated the country (August 15, 1945). After his triumphal return, he had first visited the Kangson Steel Plant (now the Chollima Steel Complex) for the building of a new Korea, although the road leading to the plant also led to his old home. Only after he had founded the Workers' Party of Korea (October 10, 1945), the guiding force of Korean society, and extended greetings of triumphal return to people at the historic Pyongyang mass rally (October 14,1945), he entered the brushwood gate of his native home.

His grandmother rushed into the courtyard barefoot and hugged him, saying why he had returned home alone, leaving behind his father and mother. Many members of this family had left this house to liberate the country, but Kim Il Sung was the only one who returned.

Since then, President Kim Il Sung, whenever he saw the brushwood gate of someone else's home during his on-the-spot guidance, would wonder how many members of the family had gone out through that gate and how many of them had returned. .
Now Mangyongdae is the holy land of revolution for the Korean people and the world progressives who adhere to the Juche idea and aspire after independence. Koreans at home and abroad and foreigners visit the place to recollect the great career of the President and plant beautiful flowers and trees.

More than 120 million people have visited Mangyongdae for the past 60-odd years.

Related Topics: Special Supplement receive the latest by email: subscribe to weekly blitz's free mailing list