Banner of overall national unity

President Kim Il Sung published work Let Us Achieve the Great Unity of Our Nation on August 1 1991, which reflects his steadfast conviction and will to achieve the independent and peaceful reunification of the country on the strength of the united efforts of the Korean nation.

At the time the cold war came to an end and the US got more insolent and rampant throughout the world. Riding the waves of such an international situation the anti-reunification forces in south Korea clamoured for "unification under liberal democracy" and challenged the nation's zeal for reunification which was fired by the successful holding of the Pan-national Rally for the Peace and Reunification of the Fatherland and the inauguration of the Pan-national Alliance for Korea's Reunification.

Against this background the President published the work and upheld the banner of great national unity.

In the work he defined the idea and theory of great unity for the country's reunification and specified tasks, fundamental principles and ways to achieve great national unity. They included the matters of uniting all the Koreans in the spirit of patriotism and national independence, placing the common national interests above anything else and subordinating everything to national reunification, widely encouraging contacts and visits and promoting dialogue among the fellow countrymen in the north, south and abroad, strengthening nationwide solidarity in the struggle for national reunification and organizationally rallying all political parties, organizations and compatriots of all strata in the north, south and abroad that are struggling for the reunification of the country.

The work provided all the Korean people with a powerful ideological and spiritual weapon for independently carving out the destiny of the nation as it mirrored the essence and characters of the cause of Korea's reunification, the aspiration of the nation and demand of the times.

It is a matter of vital importance for the accomplishment of the cause of the country's reunification to decide whom to trust and on which to rely to push ahead with the reunification movement. If the nation which is keenly interested in reunification is not considered to be the driving force of the reunification cause, the outsiders will interfere in it and make the issue more complicated.

In the work the President noted that the driving force of national reunification is the entire Korean nation and put forward the idea and theory of great unity of the nation on the basis of the idea that great national unity is the essence of the country's reunification, thus laying the perfect ideological, theoretical and methodological groundwork for the Korean nation to launch the reunification movement independently as master of its destiny. The work is of great significance in that it gives scientific solutions to all the problems arising in translating the country's independence, the lifeblood of the reunification movement, into reality of national unity.

The idea and theory of great national unity indicated in this work are based on the rich historical experience of the President. He discovered the principle of the Juche idea in the early period of his revolutionary activities and, on the basis of this, regarded the people as the driving force of the revolution and registered victory after victory by relying on them. The President, whose lifetime motto was to constantly believe in and rely on the combined strength of the people to achieve victory in the revolution and construction, set the spirit of patriotism and national independence as the basis of unity and clarified all the principles and tasks for achieving unity in the work. As a result, the Korean people took active part in the struggle for the country's reunification with patriotic conscience.

In the 1990s the pan-national rally for peace and reunification of the country, a meeting of great national unity, became an annual event and solidarity and unity of the pro-reunification patriotic forces got intensified in spite of the opposition of the anti-reunification forces at home and abroad. The June 15 North-South Joint Declaration and October 4 Declaration were adopted and the cause of Korea's reunification turned into a by-our-nation-itself cause. Facts prove clearly the validity and vitality of the idea and line of great national unity of the President.

However desperate the anti-reunification forces are in their manoeuvres to hamper the progress of the reunification movement, the historic cause of the country's reunification, the desire of all the Koreans, will surely be achieved if the President's idea and line of great national unity are held fast to.

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