President's Desire :: Weekly Blitz

President Kim Il Sung regarded "The people are my God!" as his lifelong motto and devoted his whole life to making his socialist country more prosperous and enabling the people to live as happily as anybody else in the world. The Korean people have long wished to live in a tile-roofed house, dressed in silks and eating rice with meat soup to go with it. The President applied his mind to realizing the centuries-old desire of the people throughout his life and devoted his all to the end. He established the socialist, independent national economy and thus laid a solid foundation for providing the people with rich and civilized life using the domestic resources.

The building of an independent national economy in Korea was a complicated and difficult process. When the country was liberated from the Japanese imperialists' military occupation in August 1945, its economy was more than deplorable. Worse still, it was devastated in the three-year-long war (1950–1953) started by the US imperialists. Though the country set to the construction of the independent national economy on the ruins, everything—funds, materials and technology—was lacking.

Based on his scientific analysis of requirements of the law that governs socialist economic development and the specific conditions of the country, the President set it as the basic policy in building an independent national economy to develop heavy industry on a preferential basis while promoting light industry and agriculture simultaneously, and aroused the people to its implementation.

It is wholly thanks to the President's policy of self-reliance that the Korean people laid the foundation of the independent national economy and converted their country, once a backward agrarian country, into a socialist industrial state in a short span of time on the war debris. The independent and modernly-equipped heavy and light industries and the advanced rural economy built by the Koreans' own efforts under the leadership of the President in the past are the foundation for the people's affluent and civilized life.

The President defined the improvement of the people's living standard as the supreme principle of state activities, and saw to it that every line and policy of the Party and the state represented the independent desire and needs of the popular masses for the material and cultural welfare. The result was the proclamation of the agrarian reform law, the law on the nationalization of major industries, the labour law and the law on sex equality. The light industry policy of developing medium- and small-sized local industries side by side with the large-sized central industry was also a realization of the President's idea that was focused on the demands of the people for consumer goods. Such popular policies as the free medical care system and free compulsory education system established by the President and administered by the Workers' Party of Korea and the state invariably are all in compliance with the principle of affording the people genuine enjoyment of socialist benefits.

The popular policies that enable all the working people to enjoy the benefit of free medical care to their heart's content on an equal footing have been in force since national liberation. Though he was busy with performing the historic task of building a new country at the time, the President put forth the policy of protecting and promoting the health of the working people of all strata by enforcing the free medical care system, and paid deep attention to its successful enforcement. The state's medical care for the people did not let up even in the wartime of 1950–1953. The Cabinet adopted a resolution on enforcing the free medical care system in the wartime when the destiny of the nation was at stake. The nationwide system has been in force for decades now. The system is substantially ensured by the rational and proportionate distribution of health institutions and prophylactic policy of the WPK. The state bears all charges for free medical care.

Another point is that all people are entitled to learn to their heart's content to realize their hope and develop talent under the universal free compulsory education system.

The President established the socialist system, under which the state puts forward the masses of the people as the most valuable and takes good care of their living so that they hold the position as the master of everything and play the role as such. He always gave top priority to the people's interests and spared nothing for their realization. He would say that the worth of building socialism should be felt not in production at factories, but in the people's standard of living, and devoted his all to bringing the advantages of the socialist system into full play.

The President's desire is now developing into reality thanks to the leader Kim Jong Il. He mapped out a grand plan of building a great, prosperous and powerful nation, whose national power is strong and where everything prospers and the people live as happily as anyone else in the world, and is wisely leading the Korean people to its realization.

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