Songun Idea with Deep Roots

Today the Democratic People's Republic of Korea is winning victory after victory on the strength of Songun politics. The Songun idea was founded by Kim Il Sung in the early 1930s on the basis of the analysis of the lessons learned from the failed anti-Japanese national liberation movement of Korea.

The two pistols he inherited from his father Kim Hyong Jik, an indomitable revolutionary fighter and an outstanding leader of the anti-Japanese national liberation movement in Korea, formed the ideological and spiritual root that nourished the will of Songun and the Songun idea in his mind. While spearheading the anti-Japanese national liberation movement for years, Kim Hyong Jik concluded that the armed enemy should be dealt with by arms in hand. Kim Il Sung inherited no fortune from his father. If anything, it was a revolutionary idea that he had to regain the lost country even at the cost of his life and an idea that he had to adopt a gun-priority- policy in order to win the struggle. The meaning of the two pistols became the origin of the Songun idea that Kim Il Sung formulated later and valuable ideological and spiritual assets of the Korean revolution.

In October 1926 he organized the Down-with-Imperialism Union (DIU), the militant vanguard of the revolution for national liberation and class emancipation, under the idea of anti-imperialism, liberation and independence, and put forth its fighting programme. In the inauguration meeting he stated that there exists an incompatibly hostile contradiction between the imperialists and the people of colonial countries and that the contradiction can never be dissolved by means of compromise as it assumes hostility. It will pass only when the imperialists are defeated, he concluded. The defeat-the-imperialists statement set in the programme presupposed they should fight by employing revolutionary violence, that is, armed struggle. This later developed into the cream of the Songun idea.

Guided by the meaning of the two pistols and the programme of the DIU, the President conducted energetic ideological and theoretical studies and practical activities to formulate the Songun idea. A historic event in this regard was the meeting of the leading personnel of the Young Communist League and the Anti-Imperialist Youth League held at Kalun (China) from late June to early July 1930. At the meeting Kim Il Sung produced the Songun idea, along with the Juche idea.

Then he began his Songun-based revolutionary leadership by organizing the Anti-Japanese People's Guerrilla Army (AJPGA) on April 25, 1932. The founding of the guerrilla army meant the proclamation of an all-out war of resistance against the Japanese imperialists under the banner of Songun. Now the commander of the guerrillas put primary efforts into building revolutionary armed forces and continuously expanding and strengthening them. Relying on them, he accomplished the historic cause of national liberation.

After the liberation of the country in August 1945, Kim Il Sung carried on the Songun revolutionary leadership whereby he addressed national government on the principle of giving priority to army building. He founded the Workers' Party of Korea and the DPRK only after he formed the revolutionary armed forces, and put the development of the war industry ahead of the reconstruction of civilian industry.

As the President of the DPRK, Kim Il Sung pushed ahead with the socialist construction on the principle of giving priority to military affairs. A typical example is the strategic policy of simultaneously carrying on economic construction and defence building. In the early 1960s modern revisionists that appeared in the international communist movement clamoured for peaceful coexistence and arms reduction, intimidated by the imperialists' manoeuvres to provoke a new war, and asserted that tanks should be melted to make plows. At the time the Korean leader put forth the strategic policy of simultaneously carrying on economic construction and defence building, and saw that spurs were put to strengthening the defence potential under the slogan of "A gun in one hand and a hammer or a sickle in the other!" At the 21^st Plenum of the 6^th WPK Central Committee he chaired at the close of his life, the President made an earnest instruction to keep developing the war industry, saying that neglecting the defence industry would result in the nation's falling into the colonial slavery of the imperialists again.

Kim Il Sung's Songun idea and his exploits of Songun revolutionary leadership are successfully carried forward by Kim Jong Il. He began his Songun revolutionary leadership by inspecting the Seoul Ryu Kyong Su 105 Guards Tank Division of the Korean People's Army in August 1960. Committed to the heavy responsibility of the KPA Supreme Commander and the chairman of the DPRK National Defence Commission, he is energetically leading the revolution and construction by basing himself on the Songun revolutionary leadership. He published such works as Our Party's Songun Politics Is a Powerful Mode of Socialist Politics and The Songun-based Revolutionary Line Is a Great Revolutionary Line of Our Era and an Ever-victorious Banner of Our Revolution, in which he developed the Songun idea—created by Kim Il Sung—as required by the reality.

He makes sure that all problems arising in the revolution and construction are solved to meet the requirements of Songun politics on the principle of the Songun idea. Thanks to his leadership priority is given to military affairs in state administration; the greatest effort goes into the strengthening of defence capacity in any circumstances; the soldiers and the civilians share the same intention and fighting spirit based on the revolutionary soldier spirit; the socialist construction is going ahead with the People's Army as the main driving force.

Kim Jong Il's Songun-based revolutionary leadership has safeguarded the people-centred socialist system of Korea and is now advancing the cause of building a powerful nation. His leadership is the lifeline of the Korean revolution and the source of all victories and miracles of the Korean people.

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