THE LEADERSHIP PHILOSOPHY OF KIM JONG IL
THE LEADERSHIP PHILOSOPHY
OF
KIM JONG IL
Jo Song Baek
Fpreign Languages Publishing House
Pyongyang, Korea
Juche88(1999)
According to the publishers, this book written by south Korean writer Jo Song Back in 1997 is the first noted one to give an account of the quintessence of the great man’s leadership philosophy.
The editorial board publishes this book in translation in different languages, hoping that it will help the world public to acquaint themselves with General Kim Jong Il who is the top leader of north Korea , although it fails to set forth the problems and elucidate them properly, in spite of the writer’s best efforts and intention.
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
1. THE PEOPLE-CENTRED HISTORICAL PRINCIPLE
1) History Is the History of Struggle for Independence
2) Man Plays the Decisive Role in the Development of Social History
3) Revolution Means the Greatest Love
4) The New and the Progressive Are Sure to Emerge Victorious in Social History
2. PEOPLE-CENTRED POLITICAL PRINCIPLE
1) People-Centred View on Politics
2) Politics of Love and Trust
3) Theory on a Political Leader
4) Philosophy on Revolution-Single-Hearted Unity
5) Live Our Own Way
3. PEOPLE-CENTRED PRINCIPLE OF ECONOMY
1) The People Are Masters of the Economy
2) Man Is Valuable, but Not Money
3) Don’t Put Calculation to the Fore for the Masses
4) Man-Centred Strategy
5) Build the Self-Sufficient Economy
4. MAN-CENTRED PRINCIPLE OF LITERATURE AND ART
1) Literature Is Humanics
2) The Labouring Masses Are the Creators and Enjoyers of Literature and Art
3) Let the Juche-Oriented Art Be Created
4) Man Is the Most Beautiful Thing in the World
5. PRINCIPLE OF LIFE FOR INDEPENDENT MAN
1) Socio-Political Integrity Is Most Precious
2) The Most Beautiful Life Is an Independent Life
3) Live One’s Whole Life for the People
4) Live Today for Tomorrow
6. MORAL PRINCIPLE OF LOVE AND TRUST
1) Human Morality Is Based on Love and Trust
2) Value Conscience and Moral Obligation
3) Respect the Forerunners of the Revolution
4) Value Comradely Love
7. MILITARY PRINCIPLE OF SELF-RELIANCE IN NATIONAL DEFENCE
1) Man Plays a Decisive Role in War
2) The War of Liberation to Counter the Aggressive War
3) Be Prepared for Self-Defence
8. PRINCIPLE OF INDEPENDENT DIPLOMACY . . 237
1) Adhere to Independence
2) Establish Juche
3) Build a World of Independence
INTRODUCTION
In the twenties of the twentieth century Lenin said, “The East has entered the age of awakening, and the era in which the East is to decide on the fate of the world is nearing.
President Kim Il Sung brought about radical change in the ideological and mental life of mankind by enunciating the Juche idea, which under the banner of independence opened a new chapter in world history. This meant a new era, in which the East is to decide on the fate of the world.
Tens of years later, in the early eighties, a New York Times article, entitled “Korea Has Given Birth to Another Hero,” announced to the world that General Kim Jong Il had appeared as the great man of world calibre to exercise great influence on the fate of the world.
Nowadays, experiencing shocking events on the globe like upheavals of the earth, mankind keenly feels that it has entered the era in which the East is to decide on the fate of the world, and that it is General Kim Jong Il who is leading history through its vicissitudes along the right course, holding the control lever of this agitated age.
History shows that mankind first created riparian civilization. Five or six thousand years ago, riparian civilizations admired by mankind developed along the Yellow River, the Indus, Tigris-Euphrates and Nile Rivers, and later came littoral civilizations, like that along the Mediterranean Sea. Following it, the Atlantic civilization prevailed for over three hundred years. In these historic days, with the appearance of great men, events took place which exerted great influence on the political, economic, cultural and other developments around the world.
It should be mentioned that among them, it is Marx, Engels and Lenin who made the greatest contribution to the world’s historic development. Unlike the other great men who contributed to the development of world civilization, Marx, Engels and Lenin were leaders of the working class who shook the world by enunciating the idea and theory on the liberation of oppressed people, and gave birth to socialism. However, today the world has entered the era of the new Pacific civilization.
In the present time called the Asian and Pacific era, the North exercises great influence on the development of the world, playing the main role. It is because the man-centred Juche idea, the climax of the development of the ideas of mankind, was enunciated by President Kim Il Sung, and today General Kim Jong Il illuminates the world with the rays of Juche and with far-sighted leadership is leading mankind along the road of Juche.
Kim Jong Il, who is leading mankind to independence and justice, standing at the centre of the age, is the distinguished great man born in our age.
Thomas Carlyle regarded sincerity as the first criterion of heroes, mentioning in his On Heroes and Hero-worship that the first characteristic feature of all heroes is sincerity, intense and genuine sincerity. Machiavelli regarded courage, conviction, high-handedness, machination, lucidity and hypocrisy as essential to them. Harold Laski said that the statesman should be possessed of a “special personality for mass consumption”. Max Bebi remarked that the qualities of a leader are zeal, a sense of responsibility and perspicacity, while Raswel said that ability for collective union is essential. Mariam in the United States said that the qualities of a hero are eloquence, courage, social sensibility, organizing ability and ability for collective union.
It is clear that these remarks stress that it is not easy to be a distinguished great man.
Some people said that the qualities essential to great men are such as the presence of mind Lenin showed in 1917, the difficult year of the Russian revolution, or the bright smile Roosevelt showed at the time of crisis in 1930, and the composure manifested in the leadership of De Gaulle, who rallied his nation again, saying, “France is no more France when she loses great enterprising function” after the defeat of France.
Of course, the greatness and distinction of a great man or a leader may be considered in different aspects and qualities peculiar to each leader.
However, the basic and decisive criterion of the greatness of a leader is the greatness of his ideas and mentality and philosophy.
In this connection, the remark of the famous English writer Risrelly of the 17th-18th century deserves notice. He rightly said, “A great man is the one who influences the spirit of the times.” Socrates said, “There are two ways to save reality. One is that a man of wisdom and aware of justice holds power, and the other is that the man in power is to become a man of wisdom possessed of the wisdom of justice.”
The remarks of Risrelly and Socrates suggest that only those great men who are possessed of a philosophy capable of influencing the spirit of the times can become distinguished leaders. In the case of the genuine popular leader, but not great men in general, the greatness of his ideas becomes the basic criterion for ascertaining his greatness.
In this light the world highly respects and reveres General
Kim Jong Il, because he leads the age with a great philosophy.
The greatness of Kim Jong Il lies in the greatness of his philosophy.
His philosophy is a man-centred philosophy filled with ardent love for man, a philosophy of human liberation run through with a thorough defence of the freedom and happiness of the people.
That Kim Jong Il has become a distinguished leader possessed of great philosophy cannot be considered apart from his historic birth.
His birthplace is Mt. Paektu, the world-famous sacred mountain of revolution. Mt. Paektu is the sacred place of revolution where President Kim Il Sung first started firing for national liberation in colonies under the uplifted banner of independence, and it is the cradle of the Juche idea.
Kim Jong Il, who is the son of President Kim Il Sung, passed his childhood and grew up on the sacred mountain Paektu where were heard the boom of gunfire for national liberation.
The historic Mt. Paektu, pervaded with President
Kim Il Sung’s man-centred Juche idea and his intense love for oppressed people, is the cradle and source which made
Kim Jong Il’s birth and growth great.
Mt. Paektu is a noted ancestral mountain, permanently capped with snow and covered with primeval forest, and is indeed a fairyland.
Born in the midst of beautiful frost-covered forests provided by nature, and baptised in the anti-Japanese revolution, Kim Jong Il took the first steps of his shining life on this historic mountain.
Mt. Paektu transmitted all its greatness, sublimity and beauty to Kim Jong Il, its son.
The idea of Mt. Paektu is the supreme idea of defending human independence and dignity, while its spirit is the indomitable revolutionary spirit of fighting to the end for this idea and ideal without the least vacillation against al adversity. The courage of Mt. Paektu is the unparalleled courage with which the greatest is created. The mettle of Mt. Paektu is the victorious mettle with which all the injustice and evils in the world are ruthlessly punished and suppressed and the world of freedom and justice is opened.
Kim Jong Il, the son of Mt. Paektu, embodies all this, and is the son of revolution.
The arduous anti-Japanese war, unprecedented in human history, the grim June 25 war against the imperialist powers of the world, and the history of the severe half-century-long anti-imperialist struggle, always made him stand at the forefront of political and military confrontation.
In these historic days he possessed the most revolutionary philosophy, indomitable will and unparalleled courage, and became the great fighter who devotes himself, body and soul, to the independence cause of the working people.
It is a historical truth that the leader possessed of correct philosophy achieves success, while the leader without it suffers failure. Scientific accuracy of leadership and success depend on what philosophy one has.
History shows that the rulers who appeared in history wanted to have their own philosophy. Some of them applied the philosophy of the famous philosophers in those days as their ruling philosophy.
The politics of ancient Rome was based on the Stoic philosophy of Zeno. Late in the sixth century, Ijodo the archbishop of Spain applied this philosophy to the epoch of Christianity.
Confucius’s ideas of “destiny” and “virtue” were used to justify the rule of the slave-owning class in those days.
The Prussian emperor applied Hegelian philosophy as his ruling philosophy. The idealistic dialectical philosophy of Hegel was designed to justify and defend the absolutist system of Prussia. Hegel embellished the state of Prussia as the “march of God on the earth”.
However, the genuine leaders of the working class led the liberation struggle of the oppressed people with the ideas they themselves created.
Marx and Engels, the first leaders of the working people, caused radical change in social history and in the leadership of people by evolving the materialist dialectical philosophy.
The Marxist materialist dialectical philosophy served the cause of liberation of the proletariat by proving the inevitability of the fall of capitalism and the certainty of the triumph of socialism and communism.
Lenin applied Marxist philosophy as the banner of the struggle for socialist revolution and socialist construction.
But even Marxist materialist philosophy could not become the correct leadership philosophy ensuring the successful leadership of the state and society, due to its limitations in spite of its scientific accuracy and revolutionary character, to say nothing of the all the idealistic philosophies which served the exploiting classes in the past.
In our age, the creation of a correct leadership philosophy conforming with historical development was posed, as an urgent requirement.
In response to this, it is President Kim Il Sung who, for the first time in history, enunciated the scientific leadership philosophy.
By evolving the man-centred Juche idea, President Kim Il Sung established the leadership theory and leadership method showing the correct way of hewing out human destiny.
Kim Jong Il developed in depth the scientific leadership idea and theory of Juche enunciated by President Kim Il Sung, and set forth the perfect leadership philosophy capable of successfully hewing out human destiny.
Kim Jong Il’s original leadership style and his distinguished leadership ability are based on his original philosophy.
The Man-First Doctrine, the Man-Centred Theory
According to Greek mythology, Prometheus is said to have given fire to man. Giving fire to man, he said, “You are the master of this fire. If you make a good use of this fire, you will become master of the world.”
But Prometheus did not bring to man the ideological and mental fire illuminating the way to shape his destiny, and did not make man the master of the world.
If man is to become the master of the world, he must be provided with the consciousness of his being the master of the world and the sense of responsibility as such, and the ideological and mental instrument enabling him to become the master of the world. But so far philosophy failed to show the way for man to become the master of the world.
Religious idealism, such as Christianity which appeared in the first century, Islam in the seventh century and Buddhism in the fifth century B.C., professed that it showed man the way of deliverance and liberation, but was nothing other than absurd preaching.
Lucius Annaeus Seneca of ancient Rome preached the need for man to submit to his destiny, saying, “Destiny takes willing persons with it and pulls along unwilling ones.” Such a fatalistic world outlook served to make people impotent, and justify the exploiter society for many centuries.
Hitler used the barbaric and brigandish philosophy of Nietzsche to justify aggression and war. The United States used the pragmatic philosophy of James and Dewy as the ruling philosophy for exploitation, plunder and world hegemony.
The philosophy of the rulers, exploiters and plunderers, without exception, is filled with distortion of human nature and the laws of history, and deception of the people.
It is Marxism which put an end to such unscientific world outlooks, and placed philosophy on a base of realism. Enunciation of dialectical materialism and historical materialism meant a revolution in philosophy, and was an historic event which opened a new era of history.
Marx created scientific philosophy, dealing a blow at all the unscientific arguments which prevailed for centuries and made it serve the reform of the world and the liberation of the people. He rightly said that philosophy is aimed not to interpret the world in different ways but to transform the world.
In his German-French Yearbook, Marx said that the proletariat regards philosophy as their mental instrument, whereas philosophy takes the proletariat as its material instrument and that philosophy cannot be realized without doing away with the proletariat, while the proletariat cannot do away with itself without realizing philosophy. This stresses that the establishment and realization of scientific philosophy is of great significance for the liberation cause of oppressed people.
However, the Marxist philosophy confined itself to clarifying the general image of the material world and the objective laws governing the change and development of the material world, but did not reveal the laws governing the transformation and change of the world, placing at the centre the man who studies philosophy. This is because Marxist philosophy has a matter-centred world outlook. This is evident, considering that concerning this Marx said in his Holy Family that matter is the main agent of all change.
Marxist philosophy regarded man only as part of the material world, and did not place him at the position of master of the world. It did not clarify scientifically that in the light of the nature and role of man, he is the most precious thing in the world, master of the world and the most developed and powerful thing. It only stressed that only when man cognizes and uses objective inevitability can he become a free being. It did not set forth the scientific methodology for real transformation of the world.
In fact, the leadership principles and method to be adhered to in the struggle to reshape nature and society cannot be drawn from the principles of materialistic dialectics. Referring to the method of leadership guided by these principles, Stalin identified it with “Russian-style revolutionary character and American-style business efficiency”. This instance alone gives a glimpse of the limitations of Marxist philosophy.
For man to shape his destiny, not only the general image governing the material world and the laws of its motion should be clarified, but what existence man himself is and what laws govern the relations between him and the world should also be elucidated. In other words, the methodology for man to cognize and transform the world should be clarified. Only then can man shape the world purposefully and become the master of his own destiny.
In this light it is of great significance for hewing out the destiny of the people to establish and realize a scientific philosophical world outlook conforming with human nature, and laws governing the developement of the world.
Kim Jong Il established a scientific man-centred philosophic world outlook, revolutionary philosophy, and applied it to state-building and the leadership of the people, and thereby achieved a shining success.
The philosophy which underlies his successful leadership not merely clarifies the world outlook, but is both a political philosophy contributing to leading history and a revolutionary philosophy which serves to realize the independence of the people and illuminates the road ahead of them.
Why, then, is philosophy both a political and a revolutionary philosophy? Because it is the philosophy of human love and the philosophy of reform and transformation, creation and innovation which brightly illuminates the way to shape human destiny. In short, his philosophy serves the people.
The essence of the philosophy of human love is the man-first doctrine and man-centred theory.
Kim Jong Il said that the philosophy of human love is to see man before everything and love him without reserve, and that human love is his general aim and the ideal of life.
His philosophy which most values man and worships and loves him has established its mission, nature and role scientifically.
Philosophy is created according to human need, and it is its mission to contribute to carving out human destiny. In this light it is quite natural and inevitable that scientific philosophy is defined and systematized as the philosophy of human love.
The idea that philosophy should become the philosophy of human love unconditionally and human love is his general aim and the ideal of life implicates the idea, will and high moral repute of Kim Jong Il as a great man and a great leader.
What, then, is the meaning of the man-first doctrine and man-centred theory?
It is a condensed expression of the principle of the Juche idea that man is the master of everything and decides everything.
The man-first doctrine and man-centred theory mean that man is the master of the world and the most precious thing in the world and that everything should be considered and treated placing man at the centre.
Man is not mere material being, but the supreme product of world development, and is the dominator of the world. Man is the only independent being in the world which dominates over other material beings and subjugates them for his benefit. Man is the most precious thing in the world because he is the master of the world.
Everything in the world is of significance and has value so long as it meets the needs and interest of man because he is the master of the world. Man has the right to make everything in the world serve him because he is the master of the world and the most precious thing in the world. This is the man-first doctrine.
Man is also the most developed and powerful thing in the world. Man therefore actively reshapes the world to serve him.
It is man who plays the decisive role in the transformation and development of the world. Therefore, for the successful transformation and development of nature and society, it is necessary to depend on man, the only creative being in the world, and activate him. This means the man-first doctrine, the man-centred theory.
The basic requirement of the man-first doctrine is that everything should be made to serve man because he is the master of the world and the most precious thing in the world, and everything should be settled believing in man and depending on his strength because man is the most developed and powerful thing in the world. Kim Jong Il leads the struggle to transform nature and society by the philosophical method based on this basic requirement. The outstanding leadership of Kim Jong Il, who boundlessly loves the people, shows them utmost favour, and goes into their midst and brings about miracles and innovation depending on them, takes the basic requirement of man-first doctrine as the leadership principle. This is the basic secret of its success.
All the successes achieved in Korea under his wise leadership are products attained as a result of realization of the man-centred theory.
In this light it is absurd that the imperialists try to attribute the economic crisis and the penury of the working people to historical inevitability, while distorting the preciousness and boundless ability of man and spreading the versions of the “crisis of mankind” and the “limits to growth”.
Papenheim of the United States distorts truth with the argument that the development of new machine technology and information technology is a factor which alienates man from himself and leads him to ruin, saying, “Alienation is the mode of our age”. This is a wrong argument which ignores the greatness of man.
In our age man is not the being which is being “alienated”, but the being which develops to be more powerful and reshapes the world to serve him more.
Today man is ceaselessly extending his sphere of domination and reasoning. The development of natural science proves this.
At present the radius of the macro vision of mankind has reached 20 billion light years and its micro vision penetrates deep into tiny particles. Mankind has already flown up to the universe, exceeding the first universe velocity. Reaching the second universe velocity, it has entered the planetary orbits. It goes into the boundless universe beyond the solar system, carrying research instruments and exceeding the third universe velocity. Man is successfully hewing out his destiny while exploring and creating new fields by developing laser engineering, cell engineering and gene engineering.
Priest Hyecho of Silla took ten years to travel to India and return home, but nowadays it takes only hours to travel from New Delhi to Seoul. Man’s creative wisdom and ability have made the world smaller. This potently proves that man is by no means alienated because of the development of modern technology, but is a powerful being which is extending its sphere of domination. These facts show that the method by which man is placed at the centre in all considerations and everything is made to serve him is the most scientific and revolutionary methodology. It serves as a guide in reshaping nature and society and leading the state and society because man is the master of the world and the most developed and powerful being in the world. Here lies the validity and great vitality of the man-first doctrine, man-centred theory practised by Kim Jong Il.
The man-centred theory is based on the scientific understanding of man.
General Kim Jong Il said, “Man is the social being with independence, creativity and consciousness.”
He remarked that when man knows himself he becomes a revolutionary, and when he does not know himself he becomes a slave. When man cognizes what he is he can do good deeds for himself and for mankind. But the right understanding about the essence of man was lacking.
Philon, a philosopher of ancient Rome, said there were 208 views on man at that time. This shows that the understanding of man became as object of philosophical controversy from ancient times, and great importance was attached to it. Different understandings of man gave birth to different political and moral views, which decided the character of a given society and mode of domination.
Debate on man was conducted for long centuries by many philosophers, ranging from Democritus, Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle of ancient slave-owning society, to Augustine and Thomas Aquinas of the Middle Ages from those in the late Renaissance period to Kant, Schelling, Hegel and Feuerbach in the German classical philosophy, but failed to reach right understanding. Therefore, in these ages it was unimaginable to plan a social form or establish a political methodology capable of realizing human nature.
Feuerbach regarded man as a biological being with body and went so far as to understand him in such a way as “Man is bread,” This provides a typical instance of this.
La Mettrie, a French materialist of the 18th century, considered all the activity of man as mechanical, saying, “Man is a machine.” Correct leadership principles or methodology cannot be drawn from such viewpoints.
Wrong and reversed understanding of human essence enabled the kings, sovereigns and other rulers who held sway over any given society to justify their rule of the people by inhuman and undemocratic methods. It inevitably allowed the rulers to take it as their mental pillar.
It is Marxist philosophy that placed the understanding of man on a scientific basis.
Marxism defined man as the sum total of social relations. Marxism did not seek the essence of man in his inherent attributes but considered it outside him, that is, in the social relations which control his existence and activity.
From the understanding that man is the sum total of social relations the conclusion can be reached that when the material-economic, social and political conditions controlling human existence are changed and developed, emancipation and development of man can be accordingly achieved.
It is Kim Jong Il who got over such limitations in understanding human essence and established the scientific understanding of man.
Independence means to become master of one’s destiny and lead a free life without being subjected to any fetters and subordination. It is his view on man that man is master of the world and the most precious being in the world because man regards independence as his lifeblood. He regards as the attributes of man creativity reshaping the world purposefully, and consciousness controling all their activity. Hence he set forth the principle that in order to love man and serve the people all the activity of the Party and the state should be oriented to prizing the independence, creativity and consciousness of man and giving them full play.
All thinking and activity of Kim Jong Il are directed to defending the independence of the people and giving full play to their creativity and consciousness. This is precisely the basic factor which decides the scientific accuracy and invincible vitality of his leadership.
The man-first doctrine, the man-centred theory, constitutes an ideological and theoretical guide of universal significance which, because of their scientific accuracy and vitality, all leaders endeavouring to build a humanistic society should follow in leading the state.
Theory on Ideology
General Kim Jong Il’s theory on ideology is the basic principle which enables his successful leadership. It is the basic requirement of the theory on ideology that all problems should be solved by the method of activating the ideological consciousness of man, because ideological consciousness plays the decisive role in the historical movement and development to reshape nature and society.
The understanding that it is most effective to activate and mobilize people by money or things in all exploiter societies, including capitalist society, was recognized as an immutable truth. It is a known fact that stimulus by money and stimulus by material wealth were used as the basic form of management of the state and companies because capitalist society is a money-centred gold-worshipping society.
But Kim Jong Il put an end to such a view and discovered a new principle of social development. This is the theory on ideology.
What, then, is the theory on ideology?
Kim Jong Il says that .we advocate the theory on ideology that the ideological consciousness of the people is basic in the revolutionary struggle and the work of construction, and all is decided by the ideological consciousness of people.
Briefly speaking, the theory on ideology means that ideas decide everything. According to the theory on ideology ideas decide the value of man and control all his activity and ideas are basic in all movements to reshape nature and society. The consciousness which reflects the needs and interests of people decides the moral traits and personality of man and controls all his activity. The value of man is assessed not by money or things, but by his ideas.
Whether he is a good man or not is not decided by his countenance or by the amount of money or wealth he has but by the level and content of his ideological consciousness and his role in society and the collective. The man with good progressive ideas is the possessor of noble personality and devotedly works for the cause of society and the collective, the motherland and the nation.
All activity of man is controlled by a certain ideological consciousness. It is a known fact that the aim, orientation and character of man’s activity are decided by the ideas he has. Likewise, the struggle to reshape nature and society is controlled by ideas. The aim and orientation of the transformation of nature and society are also decided by ideas. The tempo of social development is determined according as what ideas the people taking part in the struggle have. When the people participating in historical movement, taking pride in it, give full play to their conscious enthusiasm and creativity everything will go well. Otherwise, success cannot be expected. This proves that the success of all social movements is decided by ideas.
However, the former leaders of the working people considered the problem of ideas but failed to elucidate the decisive role of ideological consciousness in social development. It is the basic view of the classic Marxists that the economic, the mode of material production, plays the decisive role in the development of social history.
Even when they stressed the role of ideological consciousness, they were confined to the understanding that consciousness simply reacts on what is material.
In his letter to Smith, Engels remarked that the mode of material existence in social development should not be stressed unilaterally and that even though the mode of material existence is primary, it does not rule out that ideology in its turn reacts on material conditions, although it is secondary. Although Engels stressed the reaction of consciousness, he did not concede the point that the economic is the “decisive factor” in historical process in all cases.
This can be seen in the letter he sent to Bloch in 1890. He said that according to the materialistic view on history the decisive factor in historical process is eventually the production and reproduction of real. life. He affirmed that the economy is decisive in historical movement by stating that the ultimate cause of all social and political changes should not be sought in the heads of people, in their deepening consciousness of eternal truth and justice, but in the change of methods of production and exchange, not in philosophy but in the economy of the age. Engels himself repeatedly stressed the Marxist economy-decisive standpoint in his works, and Lenin followed him in that. This can be seen in that, like Marx and Engels, Lenin understood the process of development of social history as the process of natural history.
Marx and Lenin did not know what result the economy-centred view would bring in practice of building socialism because they confined themselves to evolving theoretically the understanding of what is decisive in the development of social history and did not directly lead the struggle for socialist construction.
In reality, the unilateral stress on economic construction approaching the preceding theories dogmatically caused serious consequences in the former Soviet Union and the European socialist countries. In the countries due attention was not paid to the ideological work of educating the masses and their main efforts were directed to economic construction alone. As a result the economy was depressed and eventually socialism collapsed. The ruin of socialism in European countries left the lesson before history that when the decisive role of ideological consciousness in social development is not understood and neglected, people are corrupted and degenerated ideologically, everything socialistic degenerates and eventually the socialist system itself will be ruined.
This shows the great significance of the theory on ideology developed by Kim Jong Il.
Kim Jong Il clarified that man’s decisive role in the struggle to reshape nature and society means that man’s ideological consciousness plays the decisive role, and he held fast to the principle of giving precedence to ideological revolution in all works and to political work. Briefly speaking, it is
Kim Jong Il’s idea and viewpoint that when people are equipped with progressive ideas and their ideas are enlisted, nothing is impossible.
Proceeding from this understanding, he advanced the famous proposition that “What moves the world is not money or the atomic bomb but great ideas,” and consistently put the theory on ideology into practice in the revolutionary leadership.
So the north Korean people are waging a vigorous struggle, with an indomitable revolutionary spirit, firm faith in socialism, the consciousness that they are masters of the country, and a high sense of responsibility.
There is no doubt that Kim Jong Il will arouse the north Korean people to ceaseless innovation and upsurge and successfully advance revolution by strengthening the ideological stronghold of socialism under the uplifted banner of the theory on ideolgy.
The Leader-Centred Theory
General Kim Jong Il’s leadership philosophy is also based on the leader-centred theory. It is the principle of his leadership philosophy that the destiny of the people can be successfully hewed out only when they have an outstanding leader and are led by him because the leader plays the decisive role in the transformation movement.
However, this problem of great importance was not clarified or was distorted by people with prejudice. But history proves that the outstanding leader plays the decisive role in historical development.
Historians once connected Cleopatra, the last queen of ancient Egypt, with the tide of history. They commented that if the nose of Cleopatra, who was famous for her beauty, outstanding talent, political ambition and distinguished ability, was crooked even a little, history would have progressed otherwise. This provides an example showing that the activity of great men exerted no small influence on history.
It is a fact that famous generals, kings and rulers who appeared in history exerted a certain influence on the progress of the given society in this or that way. But not all of them exerted a positive influence on the development of social history.
In an over ten year-long expedition, Julius Caesar, who was called the hero of Rome, occupied 800 castles, subjugated 300 nations, took one million men as prisoners, fighting three million strong army, and even subdued Africa. But he did only reversing acts to history by the subjugation of other nations and slaughter. He was eventually assassinated on the platform of the Assembly Hall because of his despotism. Seeing him rising on horseback after occupying Jena, Hegel praised Napoleon to the sky, “I saw the world spirit riding on horseback.” But he was not a popular leader in all cases, and not a great man who made contributions to the development of history.
Napoleon fought wars for twenty years, only to incur several million deaths, immense loss of property, and liability for reparation often milliard francs on his nation.
It is not great men in general, but the leaders who are genuine representatives and defenders of the working and other labouring people that play the decisive role in historical development.
What kind of man, then, is the leader? It was Engels who first advanced the idea of the leader. In his work Marx and Rhine Gazette (1884) he turned attention to the question of a leader of the working class, qualifying Marx as a “distinguished leader” for the first time.
However, Engels considered the question of the leader of the working people as the “question of so-called great personalities”, in other words, as the question of outstanding historical personalities, as the question of the individual. He did not draw a distinction between the question of the leader of the working class and the question of individual great men in history. This can be seen in the fact that when raising the question of the leader, he placed Caesar, Augustus, Cromwell, Thiers, Minie, Guizot and Napoleon in the same rank.
Lenin, too, posed the question of the leader but he, too, failed to reach correct understanding. In his work Urgent Tasks in Our Movement he stated that no class in history achieved domination without producing its political leaders and its progressive representatives capable of organizing and leading the movement. In his work Infantile Disorder in Communism he said, “It is common knowledge that political parties, as a rule, are run by more or less stable groups, composed of the most authoritative, influential and experienced members, who are elected to the most responsible positions, and are called leaders.”
As can be seen here, Lenin, too, did not regard the leader as the only representative of the people, and called him “leaders” and understood him as “progressive representatives”, as a “somewhat fixed group”.
Lenin understood the leader as an outstanding individual and, accordingly, failed to break with the controversy of whether the people or an individual plays the decisive role in historical development. He gave the answer that the people play the decisive role, but failed to consider the role of the leader and that of the people in an integrated way, and separated them and set one against the other.
It is evident that it is impossible for such unclear and limited understanding to advance social history successfully along the right road.
Kim Jong Il considered the question of the leader as the basic question of decisive significance relating to the development of social history and carving out the destiny of the people, and he had established a scientific understanding of this question.
General Kim Jong Il said that he invariably places the leader at the centre in all considerations and that he always advocates the leader-centred theory.
The leader-centred theory is the theory on the view on the leader and the attitude toward him.
The leader-centred theory, in essence, elucidates that the leader plays the decisive role in historical development, and that the destiny of the people can be successfully carved out when they are faithful to his leadership.
For the first time in history, he perfected the leader-centred theory, by giving systematic elucidation to the philosophical significance of the leader and the question of his position and role in historical development and transformation.
General Kim Jong Il said: “The essence of the leader in all contexts lies in his being the centre of the life of the socio-political community.”
The leader means the brain of ideology and theory and the centre of unity which gives the people ideology, strategy and tactics and unity. It is Kim Jong Il’s view that the leader is the brain of the people, the main agent of social reform, the centre of unity and cohesion, and the helmsman who organizes and commands the activity and struggle of the people in a coordinated manner.
Therefore, the leader is not an individual like great men, famous generals, sovereigns and kings who appeared in history, but the supreme representative of the people.
It is an historical truth that if the people are not under the wise leadership of a leader they cannot emerge victorious in the struggle for freedom and liberation.
Why, then, is the leadership of a leader essential to all successes’? It is above all because the wise leader elucidates the scientific idea and theory to develop society and successfully hew out the destiny of the people.
The far-sighted leader sums up and systematizes into one the requirements of the time and the reformation, and the aspirations and requirements of the people, and establishes the scientific idea and theory. The idea and theory enunciated by the leader become the light and guide illuminating the way of shaping the destiny of the people.
The leader plays the decisive role in providing the motive force of historical development. In order that social movement progresses successfully, the force in charge of the movement must be strong. The force precisely means the force of rallying the people. However, the rallying of the people does not proceed of their own accord but is effected by depending on one centre. The leader is the centre which enables the unity and cohesion of all people.
When the right leader is at the helm, the people, rallied firmly behind him, form a socio-political organism, a powerful main agent.
Only when the people are led by a leader can they have correct strategy and tactics and develop society. The wise leader leads the revolution to success by unusual wisdom and strategem in any difficult circumstance.
This proves that the leader plays the decisive role in hewing out the destiny of the people and in social development.
In this light, Kim Jong Il’s remark that victory in the revolution is inconceivable without the leader, as flowers are inconceivable without the sun, is really meaningful. The fact that the leader is the brain of ideology and theory and the centre of unity of the people is the truth proved by the revolutionary practice in north Korea.
Today the north has set up the system by which all the Party, all the country, the entire army and all the people move as one under General Kim Jong Il’s leadership, and all the affairs of the state are managed with credit. This is the result of thorough implementation of the leader-centred theory.
All this shows that the leader-centred theory is the principle underlying successful leadership, and which promotes the progress of social history and guides correctly the state and society.
The man-first doctrine, the man-centred theory and the theory on ideology are the basic principles for deciding the orientation and method of Kim Jong Il’s successful leadership, while the leader-centred theory is the basic principle for defining the decisive factor enabling his successful leadership.
The scientific accuracy and vitality of his leadership philosophy lie in that it takes as the basic principles the man-first doctrine, the man-centred theory, the theory on ideology and the leader-centred theory. General Kim Jong Il’s political philosophy, revolutionary philosophy, based on the man-first doctrine, the man-centred theory, the theory on ideology and the leader-centred theory, form an inspiring banner which always leads the people to victory and accelerates historical development.
1. THE PEOPLE-CENTRED HISTORICAL PRINCIPLE
At times history is full of suffering. The whirlwind of McCarthyism arose in the fifties, whereas recently the anti-socialist wind is hurling mud on history.
Historian Francois Fezit won popularity in the Western world by making a “new discovery”, namely “Communism is the most remote way of returning to capitalism from capitalism.” In other words, he said socialism is not historical necessity but the casual ulcer which appeared on the road of capitalist development. Gorbachev, who once played the role of the vanguard of communism, introduced capitalism in the Kremlin palace and ruined the great empire of the Soviet Union, which once seethed with red revolution. At the same time, Bush advanced the so-called “version of the new world” which said, “The present age is the age in which socialism reverses to capitalism.” This gives the impression that Hitler-style philosophy-”If you want to tell a lie, tell a whopping lie”-reverses history. But the question is whether such lies really can reverse history. The prophet Nostradamus of the 16th century surprised the world by making a good guess predicting that the French King Henri the Second would die by the sword. However, Francois Fezit, Gorbachev or Bush seemed to have made a wrong prediction about the future of history. Today’s circumstances affirm how important the correct understanding of history is for mankind.
But whatever reversible action there might be, history is to progress according to its original purpose. The original purpose of history means the will and aspirations of the people, its main agent. Nothing can check the aspirations and will of the people to live in a free and fair world. Therefore, the leader who complies with the tide of history will succeed, whereas the leader who does not do so will meet failure.
It is General Kim Jong Il who is rightly handling the rudder of history in a time of such great chaos.
He is the leader of the age who is leading history along the right course by shattering the sophistry of unscientific views on history with his scientific historical philosophy.
1) HISTORY IS THE HISTORY OF STRUGGLE FOR INDEPENDENCE
In order to be successful in leading history one should comply with its purpose and lead it. This precisely means to follow and carry out the aspirations and requirements of the people, the main agent of history.
History is the sum total of the appearance and the process of development of mankind. One looks back on history to draw lessons from it by finding out what was good and what was bad in it, and what was necessary and what was unnecessary in it. History still progresses along its orbit, but it is being distorted by those who feel uneasy about their fate and those who do not like the tide of history, which causes confusion among people and is putting a brake on the straight advance of history.
Precisely such are Fukuyama’s “version of the end of history” and Hundingtern’s “version of collusion of civilization”. But their versions are throwing people into pessimism and despair about the future. The “version of the new human machine” says that mankind is destined to be “passengers in a wreck”, distorting truth by implying the development of modern technical civilization alienates man. This is none other than a sophistry to defend the status and interests of those who are indifferent to historical development and have no future. In history there are not only straight lines, but also zigzags and success and failure. It is common knowledge that when the angle of steerage of history is correct, victorious advance is possible; otherwise one is to taste the bitterness of failure and frustration.
Here the question is what is the essence of social history and what is the right path of social history.
However, a scientific understanding of this has not yet been established. Regardless of whether social history was considered from the idealistic or materialistic viewpoint, all the views which have existed so far did not go beyond a superficial understanding considering history apart from man, its master.
For Hegel history was the process in which the “absolute idea” cognizes itself. It was his view that the “absolute idea”, which is independent and does not depend on anything, created history according to the definite stages of its development. He said that world history passed through four stages - the Eastern world, the Greek world, the Roman world and the Germanic world - as the “absolute idea” developed itself, and that these four stages accordingly correspond to the childhood, youth, adulthood and the old age of mankind.
Hegel’s view was a wrong view which considered history and the process of its development to be unreal and unscientific; it was a reversed understanding which distorted history as if it is decided by the interests of the exploiter classes. He idealized the Prussian despotic regime and praised the French bourgeois revolution of the 18th century as the “majestic sunrise” or as the “advent of a new era”, saying, “All the real are rational and all the rational are real.” This shows his class limitations.
Therefore, Hegel went so far as to debase the revolution for social development as “rash action of ignorant people”. Feuerbach was a materialist in his view on nature, but held an idealistic view on social history. This emanated from his class standpoint.
It was Marxism which established the scientific view on history.
In Manifesto of the Communist Party Marx and Engels stated that the material production and the socio-economic system emanating necessarily from it in a given historical age form the foundation of the history of the politics and the mental history of the society, and accordingly the history of mankind is the history of class struggle between the oppressed and oppressors, between the exploiter and the exploited classes in each stage of social development. Briefly speaking, Marx and Engels stated that “all the social history which existed so far is the history of class struggle.” They stressed that freemen and slaves, patricians and plebeans, lords and serfs, mill-owners and workers, briefly speaking, the oppressors and the oppressed, were in antagonistic relation with each other and fought ceaseless wars, covertly or overtly, and this history of struggle precisely presents social history. This was a correct remark from the class standpoint. But the class struggle is not the whole history of mankind.
It maybe stressed that the view of the classical Marxists who considered the history of mankind as one of class struggle was a correct one in the light of their mission, and it brought to the fore the question of the liberation of the proletariat and other oppressed people.
Marxism defined the social history of mankind as the history of change of the mode of production of material wealth. He proceeded from the materialistic view on history that material-economic conditions play the decisive role in the development of social history.
If one maintains the Marxist viewpoint regarding social history as the history of change of the mode of production of material wealth or simply as the one of class struggle, then the whole of socialist construction cannot be carried on properly. The former Soviet Union and the Eastern European socialist countries put unilateral stress on the development of the productive force and the increase of material wealth and did not put due efforts into ideological remoulding of the masses and consolidation of the politico-ideological position nor built up the solid revolutionary internal force. And they eventually failed to check penetration by imperialist ideologies and culture and their subversive machinations, which caused the tragedy of the collapse of socialism.
All these prove how important the establishment of a correct view on history is for the development of social history.
It is General Kim Jong Il who established the scientific understanding of the original purpose of history. General
Kim Jong Il said, “Human history is the history of the people’s struggle for independence.”
Proceeding from the view that independence is the essential attribute of man, he scientifically established that history is precisely the history of the struggle of the people to defend and realize their independence. This is a new discovery in history and a revolution in the understanding of history. Because it is a scientific formulation which considers history with man, its master, at the centre, and proceeds from his nature.
Generally speaking, the character of movement is defined by the essential attributes of those who undertake the movement materially. Therefore, the essential characteristic feature of movement should be defined on the basis of the essential attributes of man, its main agent. The main agent of social movement is the people, whose essential attribute is independence.
Independence of the people finds its expression in their requirement to become and live as the masters of nature and society and themselves. Social movement is the one to realize the requirement of the people. This means that all historical movements are the ones to realize the independence, independent demands of the people.
Viewed in the light of the process of development, human history presents the process of increase of the independent demands and creative ability of the people, the main agent of history, and the process of its real implementation.
It is quite natural that history is the history of the struggle for independence, because man takes it as his lifeblood to lead a free life without being subjected to any subjugation and restriction.
The class struggle, which is the struggle to achieve class liberation of the people, is an aspect of the struggle for independence. It is unilateral understanding to consider class struggle as the whole of the struggle for independence and social history merely as the process of class struggle.
Man is to achieve national liberation as well as class liberation and to be delivered from the shackles of nature.
This shows that it is a unilateral and limited understanding to view social history merely as the history of change of mode of production or as the history of class struggle.
Proceeding from the understanding that social history is one of the struggle for the independence of the people, Kim Jong Il has established anew original understanding of the standard of social development.
What is the standard for defining the degree of social development is of great significance in establishing correct understanding of social history.
Previously such standard was not clearly set.
According to Marxism, that standard was the degree of development of the means of production and the level of the productive force.
In his Misery of Philosophy Marx stated that “the millstone gave rise to the society where feudal lords held sway, and the steam flour mill gave birth to the society where there are industrial capitalists.” Lenin said that the productive force is the “supreme standard of social progress” and the “basic measure for social development”. This shows that Marx and Lenin sought a basic standard for defining the degree of social development in the degree of development of means of production and the productive force.
The basic error of their view is that they considered the degree of the development of a society apart from man, the people, the main agent of the development of a society. Kim Jong Il has established a new understanding that the standard for defining the degree of development of a society is how much independence, creativity and consciousness, the attributes of man, are realized and how much they are developed.
General Kim Jong Il said: “The standard of the development of a society is defined by the extent to which the people’s independence, creativity and consciousness are displayed. Social wealth increases as the people’s independent ideological consciousness and creativity improve, and social relations develop in line with this.”
It is Kim Jong Il’s view that a society where the independence, creativity and consciousness of man, the master of society, are highly developed, and where their display is ensured thoroughly and institutionally, is a developed society, and a society where they are suppressed is a backward society.
In capitalist society science and technology are developed and a great deal of material wealth is produced, but it by no means can be said to be a developed society, because it is a society where the people’s independence, creativity and consciousness are suppressed institutionally. Whether a society has the ability to develop or not is decided according to whether the independence, creativity and consciousness of man can be highly displayed.
Although capitalist society achieved progress in the development of the productive force and the production of material wealth, this does not define the degree of development of man himself. Impoverishment of mental life, deformation of material life and turning of political life into a reactionary one are the inveterate diseases of capitalist society and, accordingly, such society cannot be called a developed society.
Nowadays in capitalist countries some people make a fuss as if Rostow’s “version of the stage of economic growth” shed a new light on the history of development of a society. This is designed to prevent the people from having a correct understanding of the history of a society. The “version of the stage of economic growth” explains the process of development of a society as the process of increase of investment scale and tries to represent the process of the development of a society as the process of growth of the ambition and interests of the capitalist class with unbounded greed.
Toynbee’s “cyclic historical philosophy” does not recognize the progress of history and views human history as the simple repetition of the history of ancient Greece and ancient Rome to cover up the inevitability of the ruin of the exploiter society. He holds that in human history there existed 21 civilizations in parallel, which were isolated from each other and had no connection or continuity, and that there are no grounds for calling the Greek period of 2000 years ago the ancient age and the present age the modern age. He distorts history as if the October Revolution and appearance of socialism is attributable to Genghis Khan’s tactical error. This proves that the capitalist countries have no right aim and datum point for orientation in developing social history and leading the state; they only care for the increase of the “desire for investment” and “investment scale” of the privileged classes and are indifferent to the destiny of the working people.
Kim Jong Il put an end to the historical knowledge which was officially approved and followed for a long time. Proceeding from an original Juche-oriented view, he newly defined the essence of the social history with the people at the centre and thus scientifically elucidated the orientation of the development of history.
He has established new understanding that the process of the development of a society is precisely the process of increase of the independent demand and creative ability of the people, the masters of the society, and the process of enhancement of their position and role as masters.
He identified the process of shaping the people’s destiny with the process of development of a society and clarified the need to perform three reforms - the transformation of nature, social reform and human remoulding-in order to realize the people’s independence. The transformation of nature is the struggle to create material conditions for the people to get rid of the fetters of nature and lead an independent life. Social reform is the struggle to create the socio-political conditions for the people to get rid of class and national subordination. Human remoulding is the struggle to create the ideological and cultural conditions for the people to get rid of the fetters of the outmoded ideology and culture. Consequently, the transformation of nature, social reform and human remoulding are the three important component parts of the struggle for the people’s independence.
Only when progress is made in all three realms can man realize his independent demand and become master of the world and his destiny.
It can be said that north Korea achieved ceaseless development because it ceaselessly put efforts into enhancing the people’s independence, creativity and consciousness, basing itself on the Juche-oriented understanding of social history.
Basing himself on the Juche-oriented understanding of history, Kim Jong Il took the defence and realization of people’s independent demands and interests as the general aim and orientation of social development and fully implemented it in all activity of the Party and the state. His utter modesty and popular qualities, his efforts devoted to the people, his noble virtues and the field guidance he continuously gives to factories, farmers, miners, fishermen, and soldiers on guard in the remote mountains, are the manifestation of the noble view on history of General
Kim Jong Il, who wants to glorify history as the history of the people.
2) MAN PLAYS THE DECISIVE ROLE IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF SOCIAL HISTORY
In order to develop society and lead history along the right course, it is necessary to know what is the decisive factor which drives it. There are different factors which exert influence on the development of society. Among them is the factor which plays the decisive role. The leader who grasps and depends on this factor can achieve success, whereas the leader who does not do so and depends on the secondary factors, absolutizing them, cannot avoid failure.
The basic error of the countries where socialism collapsed is that they did not seek the decisive factor driving the development of social history in the main agent of the development of social history, but in objective material and economic factors, basing themselves on the accepted Marxist methodology.
Marxism viewed that the objective conditions, that is, the mode of production of material wealth, play the decisive role in social development. It is the Marxist view on social development to regard all the economic conditions as the decisive factor of social development. Briefly speaking, Marxism is the theory which elucidated the conditions for the class liberation of the working class based on the materialistic view of history. Viewing the process of social development as a process of natural history, Marxism advanced the theory that the relations of production develop according to the development of the productive force and the economic system, which is the sum total of production relations, constitutes the foundation of the given society and the superstructure stands on the foundation. On this basis, Marxism viewed that the mode of production of material wealth is the decisive factor that decides the character of the society and the level of social development, and that the process of social development is a process in which the conflicts of the productive force and the relations of production are settled through class struggle and the old mode of production is superseded by the new one.
Engels stated, “The ultimate cause of all social and political changes should not be sought in the heads of people, in their deepening knowledge about eternal truth and justice, but in the change of the mode of production and that of exchange, not in philosophy but in the economy”.
Clearly his economic determinism is based on the principle that social existence defines social consciousness. The materialistic view of history, that the productive force, the mode of production and the production of material wealth are the decisive factors deciding social development inevitably makes it the basic principle to attach importance to the development of the material and economic conditions in leading the revolution and construction and to put efforts into it.
If one proceeds from this viewpoint, the result will be that the leadership of the state and society lays unilateral stress on the development of the productive force and the production of great amounts of material wealth, and neglects the development of men and the enhancement of their role as masters of the society and the most basic and decisive factor in social development.
Of course, it is a known fact that economic determinism has significance because it refuted the idealistic view on the development of social history, established the materialistic view, and elucidated one of the factors of development of social history, but it cannot be the perfect view. The historical fact that the countries which built socialism on the basis of this view and on this understanding collapsed proves that the view is incomplete and dangerous in practice.
General Kim Jong Il boldly got rid of the accepted wrong view, which was regarded as immutable truth, and clarified that the working people are the main agent of social history and play the decisive role in the development of social history. Thus he provided the basic key to accelerating the development of social history along the right orbit.
General Kim Jong Il said, “It is not the objective conditions but man that plays the decisive role in the development of history.”
Social movement is the movement of man which he causes and drives. The cause of social movement and its driving force lie in man. Only when man exists, does society exist. Social movement advances by the demand of man. Therefore, if society is to be developed, man must be awakened and activated. In this sense, depending on the people’s revolutionary enthusiasm and creativity, and viewing them as the main agent of social history, are a very realistic way to develop society.
If there is an omniscient being in the world, it is the people. By the efforts and wisdom of the people everything is created in society and history progresses.
Proceeding from this understanding, Kim Jong Il grasps the process of development of social history as the process of movement of the main agent.
Marxism viewed the process of development of social history as the process of the history of nature. According to this view, since society is part of the material world, the general laws of motion of the material world act also in social history and, accordingly, the development of social history is effected as the process of the history of nature governed by objective laws. In Capital Marx said that “From my viewpoint, the development of economic formation of society is assimilable to march of nature and to its history”. Lenin expressed the same view in his works.
But Kim Jong Il advanced a view different from this. He stated that social movement has something in common with the natural movement in that it is also a motion of material and that social movement, too, is governed by the universal laws of the material world.
General Kim Jong Il, nevertheless, said, “But the social movement has its subject, whereas there is no such thing in the motion of nature. In nature the motion takes place spontaneously through the interaction of material elements which exist objectively. In contrast, the social movement is caused and developed by the volitional action and role of the subject.” Thus is established a new original view.
In fact, social movement is caused by the demand of man and is promoted by human activity. In nature change and development take place through the necessity of nature, but in society there are laws of motion which are performed purposefully by the action and role of the people. Therefore, in nature change and development take place spontaneously and are slow and slight, but in society they take place speedily and in an increasing manner in accordance with the demands of the people. By the positive role of the people the world is made to serve man all the more and the sphere of man’s control is further extended.
Transition from stone tools, the first tools mankind used, to iron tools took several hundred thousand years, but going over from the use of the millstone to the production of steam-driven flour mills took only several thousand years. The introduction of automation required only several hundred years after the use of machines in production. Spaceships were made and space flight was undertaken only tens of years after success was achieved in the manufacture of airplanes in the early 20th century. These facts prove that the change and development of the world by man proceed very rapidly and purposefully, unlike that in nature.
It is the same with the progress of the history of a society. It took several hundred thousand years for primitive society to be superseded by slave-owning society. But supersedure of slave-owning society by feudal society took only several thousand years. Feudal society went over to capitalist society after 2,000 years. Capitalism existed only for several hundred years and is replaced by socialism. This potently proves that the progress of history of a society is the process of motion effected by the volitional activity of the people, the main agent. Briefly speaking, the basic cause of the collapse of socialism in some countries which were building socialism, is that primary importance was not attached to strengthening the main agent and enhancing its role in socialist construction, failing to understand the process of progress of social history as the process of movement of the main agent.
The core and essence of Kim Jong Il’s historical philosophy is that he understood the movement of social history as the movement of the main agent which arises and develops by its positive role. The Juche-oriented view on history enabled his leadership to awaken the popular masses politically and ideologically, activate their creativity and inexhaustible strength, and accordingly develop society ceaselessly in fast tempo.
He viewed that the role of the popular masses precisely means the role of their independent ideological consciousness, and advanced the theory that idea is basic in the revolution and construction and decides everything. He said that what moves the world is not money nor atomic bombs, but idea. He saw that continuous upsurge is brought about in reshaping nature and society by the method of “ideological campaign” and “speed campaign”. Here lies the secret of Kim Jong Il’s success.
3) REVOLUTION MEANS THE GREATEST LOVE
The progress of social history is achieved through change. There cannot be social progress without reform and revolution. The whole process of human history was the process attended by ceaseless vigorous change in the realms of nature and society. It does not leave room for argument that social change plays the decisive role in the progress of history.
What, then, is the revolution which enables the progress of social history and how does it take place? Right view on this question is of very great significance for the progress of social history. Because some people do the deeds of reversing the advance of history and embellish it as revolution. The historical change affirming social progress, revolution, should contribute to creating the new and progress and development.
However, Westerners do not like the word revolution, because they understand it as something like communists beating about and overthrowing, as action attended with destruction and cruel murder. The severe class struggle which once seethed in European countries left such an impression. On such ground in south Korea revolution is called reform.
But the concept of revolution is sacred. Without revolution there cannot be any progress or development in the world.
It is General Kim Jong Il who has established the correct understanding of the concept of revolution and its original meaning, and who advances history vigorously with ceaseless revolution.
Basing himself on the understanding that the history of a society is the history of the struggle for the independence of the masses, Kim Jong Il sublimated revolution as the sacred work to bring the love of man into bloom.
Marxism considered that revolution is the basic driving force advancing social history and viewed revolution as destruction of old things and creation of new things. Studying and narrating the experience of the French revolution, Marx said, “Revolution is the locomotive of history.” Lenin viewed revolution as the destruction of the old system and establishment of a new system and, in this sense, said, “Revolution is a public holiday for the oppressed and exploited people”. According to Marxism-Leninism, revolution aims at abolishing private ownership and means class liberation of oppressed people.
Concerning this Marx said, “Any revolution assumes social character as it destroys the old society. Any revolution has political character as it overthrows the old political power. Generally speaking, revolution means political action-overthrow of the existing government and destruction of old relations.”
This understanding emanated from the essence of Marxism-Leninism, whose main gist is class struggle and the dictatorship of the proletariat and was advanced in the historical conditions of those days, which set the abolishment of private ownership and liberation of the working class and other oppressed people as the historical task.
When the understanding that revolution simply means destruction and overthrow of old things and creation of new things is applied to the history of a society, it leads to the prejudice that all social movement should be carried out by “political actions” of destruction and overthrow. But historical facts show that social progress is not achieved simply by the political action of destruction and overthrow alone.
If one absolutizes and holds fast to the established view on revolution, one may commit Leftist deviations and errors in social construction, and eventually lay a brake on the progress of history. This is potently proved by the bitter lessons in different countries.
It is Kim Jong Il who overcame such an understanding of revolution, established a new understanding, and successfully implemented it in advancing social history.
General Kim Jong Il said, “Revolution aims at bringing the love of the people into bloom. In other words, revolution is needed for the genuine love of people.” He went on to say that the revolution which realizes the independence of man can be said to be the greatest love which perfects man and that this is the philosophy of love.
Why, then, is revolution the sacred undertaking to bring the love of the people into bloom? This can be explained in two ways. One is that revolution is the undertaking to realize the independence of man. The other is that it is the undertaking to perfect man.
This understanding is a scientific one which considers revolution with man at the centre and has established its essence. Because man launches social movement to reshape nature and society in order to realize his essential and independent demand, and ceaselessly fights to liberate himself to be a free man and perfect himself. Liberation and perfection of man are the supreme aim of man and form the essential content of all social movements undertaken by the people. Man is liberated and perfected through revolution. North Korea advanced three revolutions-ideological revolution, technical revolution and cultural revolution-as the revolution to develop society. This is based on the understanding that revolution is the undertaking to bring the love of man into bloom.
Ideological revolution is the revolution to do away with outmoded ideas in the heads of people and liberate them spiritually and perfect them. Technical revolution is the revolution to liberate people from the fetters of nature. Cultural revolution is the revolution to equip the people with culture and knowledge of high level and make them morally perfect. This affirms the validity of the truth that revolution is not only a struggle assuming the violent character of smashing, punishing and overthrowing all, but is the greatest love of man which liberates and perfects man.
Dictators and usurpers of power often use the word revolution to justify their anti-historical acts.
The unlawful coup d’état cannot be revolution. The acts of murdering and suppressing honest people cannot be justified by the word revolution. The acts of dictators and those who usurp political power unlawfully are not revolution but are rash acts and reversible counterrevolution.
All the historical acts pervaded with disregard of man and misanthropy are counterrevolutionary, regardless of their form and character.
The historical movement designed for the love of man and the people is the genuine revolution.
Basing himself on the new and scientific philosophical understanding of revolution, Kim Jong Il applied the method of bringing up man and giving full play to his ideological consciousness and creativity in the social movement to reshape nature and society and re-educate people, getting rid of the deviation of absolutizing violence and dictatorship. Such philosophical understanding of revolution underlies the successful leadership of Kim Jong Il who brings up people with love and faith, builds a new society depending on them, builds up the whole society into a socio-political organism, a great family united single-heartedly, reshapes nature and society and re-educates people as required by Juche. All the changes and miracles wrought in the North were achieved as a result of implementation of this revolution philosophy, the philosophy of love.
4) THE NEW AND THE PROGRESSIVE ARE
SURE TO EMERGE VICTORIOUS
IN SOCIAL HISTORY
The progress of history is the process in which the old and the reactionary are wiped away and the new and the progressive emerge victorious. Without victory of the new over the old and of the progressive over the reactionary there can be no progress nor upward development in history. In this sense it is of great significance to make clear what is the new and the progressive in historical development, and what role they play. But the concept of the new and the old and the progressive and the reactionary was interpreted wrongly, and even now such biased understanding creates a great obstacle in the way of the advance of history. Paying deep attention to this important question related to historical development, General Kim Jong Il gave a scientific elucidation of the new and the progressive and set forth the view on their decisive triumph.
The positive attitude toward the new and the progressive and the resolute attitude toward the old and the reactionary characterize Kim Jong Il’s leadership.
History shows that the new and the progressive always emerged victorious and the old and the reactionary were brought to the judgement of history. This is because the new and the progressive met the aspiration of the people and complied with the current of history.
But in history the new and the progressive were not always affirmed and defended. The biased view on history distorted this self-evident truth.
Fully grasping the significance of correction of the biased and hardened view on history, Kim Jong Il established the Juche-oriented view on the new and the old, and the progressive and the reactionary in social history.
Due to class and epistemological limitations, the criteria of the new and the old, the progressive and the reactionary were interpreted differently, and were not clarified correctly.
Marxism put an end to all the idealistic and unscientific theories and established the view on them on the basis of materialistic dialectics, but it was unscientific because it was established from the material-centred viewpoint.
For example, Lenin defined the productive force as the supreme criterion and as the basic measure for social progress. Lenin’s view emanated from the understanding that the production of material wealth and its mode are the decisive driving force of social progress.
Marxism-Leninism saw the material superiority of socialism in that it accelerates the development of the productive force of society. Lenin viewed that the ultimate victory of socialism lies in defeating capitalism in labour productivity. But it can be seen that this view has limitations.
Society is the collective of people and, accordingly, the criterion for deciding whether society is good or bad should be set according to the interests of the people. In other words, the progressiveness of society should be judged according as how much it benefits the people. Because the people establish social relations and create social wealth. Therefore, it is quite natural to judge the progressiveness of society by the extent to which the social wealth and social relations created by people conform to and meet their independent demands.
As to the level of development of the productive force and the volume of material wealth, they are not man and not all of them serve the people in any society. However much material wealth is produced and however high the level of development of the productive force is, if the people who created them are not the masters of society and do not enjoy them, such society cannot be called a developed society, a progressive society.
Material wealth and the productive force have different use value according to the demands and interests of the people who use them.
In reality, in the countries in which the level of productive force is high and material wealth is produced in plenty the employment conditions and the living standards of the working people fall behind in comparison with those in the less developed countries.
This shows that it is scientific and natural to judge by the extent to which the independent demands and interests of the working people forming the overwhelming majority of society are met.
From the very start, the capitalist class started as the haves, while the working class started as the havenots.
Therefore, it is difficult for socialism to precede capitalism in the development of the productive force from the beginning, although it may do so ultimately. Feudal, capitalist and socialist societies all have productive force. Whether the productive force is developed more or less shows the comparative superiority, but not the absolute one. Even if the productive force in socialist society is more developed than that in capitalist society, it cannot represent the essential superiority of socialism. The absolute superiority of socialism lies in that socialism is the society which conforms to the independent nature of man and that the people with the political integrity essential to man form a socio-political organism, helping and leading each other forward, and leading a proud life befitting masters.
The reason socialism in the former Soviet Union collapsed was not because its economic or military strength was weak. The Soviet Union was the second strongest power in the world economically, and was equal or superior to the United States in military strength. This shows that the level of the productive force or economic development is by no means the factor deciding the level of development of a given society or its progressiveness.
If the progressiveness of society is simply defined by the level of the productive force and the development of the mode of production, it will lead to a grave error. Because in that case the capitalist countries in which machine technology is developed and material wealth is produced in plenty may be recognized as the most progressive countries.
But in reality the Western capitalist countries have fast-developing productive force and are high in the level of production of material wealth, but they cannot be called progressive countries. Because in these countries the privileged classes, including the capitalist class, can exercise political right and enjoy fat material civilization, while the overwhelming majority of the labouring people, including workers and peasants, do not occupy the position of master in political and economic life and their right to existence is threatened at all times.
Kim Jong Il put the biased view on social development to right and clarified the criterion for judging social phenomena correctly.
General Kim Jong Il said, “The aspirations and demands of the popular masses are the criterion for judging the truth of all social phenomena and the guide to all revolutionary activities.”
The people are interested in the development of social history because they are its masters, and it is the people who promote the development of social history. They are interested in the development of social history in order to realize independence, their lifeblood. When man realizes his independent demands, he becomes a free being. That is why the popular masses take an active part in the development of social history so as to realize their independent demands and for a free and happy society.
In what direction and how fast society develops entirely depends on the extent to which the people, its main agent, take part in it. A society which meets the independent demands of the people is a progressive society. The extent of development of a society is defined according as how fully the independent demands and interests of the people are met. A society which has a developed productive force and produces plenty of material wealth, if it does not serve the people, cannot be a developed society, a progressive society.
Basing himself on this criterion, Kim Jong Il gave a scientific formulation of the new and the old in the development of social history.
General Kim Jong Il remarked, “A new thing is that which contributes to realizing independence for the masses in the course of historical development; and an old thing is that which, on the contrary, restrains the realization of independence for the masses.”
As it is man who judges all values, so it is the people who assess social history. Human history shows that it is the masses who created and developed it. It is the masses who are interested in the development of social history, and they have the strength capable of promoting it. As there are the masses, there is history. As there is the role of the masses, there is historical development. Therefore, it is quite natural to assess social history with the masses, its main agent, at the centre. In other words, the masses have the right to assess the development of social history and their aspirations and demands precisely serve as the criterion for judging it.
What, then, are the aspirations and demands of the masses? It is their independent demands. That the masses desire to realize independence means that they desire to live independently, that is, to realize their independent demands.
Only when the masses realize their independence, can they become free beings and masters of their destiny and the world. When viewed with the independence of the masses at the centre as criterion, the conclusion is reached that what contributes and conforms to realizing independence for the masses is the new thing in social history and what restrains it is the old thing.
Basing himself on this scientific and realistic view on the new and old thing, he remarked that it is an immutable law that the new thing emerges victorious while the old thing goes to ruin. According to his view, the old may disguise itself as the new and what is dying may temporarily seem to be reviving; however, the old has no future because it is perishing; the new thing may suffer vicissitudes but the historical law that the new thing emerges victorious is immutable.
Taking the Juche-oriented understanding of the new and the old and progress and reaction as his philosophical credo,
Kim Jong Il approaches revolution, construction and development of the world. All his politics is characterized by thorough defence and realization of the new and progressive things and uncompromisingness with and thorough liquidation of the old and reactionary things, because he takes it as his philosophical credo that what defends and realizes independence for the masses is a new and progressive thing and what restrains the realization of independence for the masses is an old and reactionary thing.
Proceeding from the Juche-oriented viewpoint, Kim Jong Il attracted worldwide attention when he set forth the evident and scientific timetable for the destiny of socialism and capitalism.
General Kim Jong Il said:
“... capitalism became an old thing which ran counter to the development of history by trampling upon the masses’ desire for independence, the desire to become full-fledged masters of society, free from not only feudal fetters but also capitalist exploitation and oppression.”
He said that socialism is a new society which conforms to the independent nature of the masses and meets the demands of social development. Socialism is a new thing because it meets the independent demands and aspirations of the masses, and capitalism is an old thing because it is a society which restrains the independent demands and aspirations of the popular masses.
That socialism is a new thing and capitalism is an old thing is related to the essential nature and character of socialism and capitalism.
General Kim Jong Il said, “The path of socialism is the only way to satisfy the desire of the masses to become real masters of the state and society, free from exploitation and oppression.”
Socialism means independence. This implies that socialism is the society in which the demand of man to become the master of his own destiny and live independently is realized. That capitalism means subjugation implies that capitalism is a society in which the overwhelming majority are subjugated politically and economically by a handful of the exploiter class and the ruling class.
Let us suppose that capitalism has achieved certain development in the productive force, and in it the number of the labouring people taking part in productive labour has decreased and the number of people engaged in the tertiary industry, including management, technology and services, has increased and the law of absolute impoverishment does not act. Even in that case it is undeniable that the labouring people do not enjoy freedom or exercise rights befitting masters. Under capitalism the overwhelming majority of the labouring people are not ensured the political and economic position and rights befitting masters, and are subjugated to the privileged forces which hold sway politically and economically. In this sense, it can be said that socialism means independence and capitalism, subjugation. Socialism is a new thing because under it the man who is to be master really exercises the right to independence, while capitalism is an old thing because the man who is to be master has the right to independence trampled upon and is subjugated.
Today the Americans themselves predict the downfall of the United States. Paul Kennedy’s “version of decline of the United States” and other literature telling of the decline of the United States are flooding this and other countries. What, then, is the source of the “version of decline of the United Stales’”? Concerning this, Prof. Robert Calpin of Princeton University cites two factors. The fall of the giant called the United States is due to its intrinsic factor. Namely, the economy of the United States as reached the apex of growth because of its abnormal capitalist attributes, and now it has become difficult for it to avoid decline and stagnation. Another factor is excessive military expenditure and financial crisis. Technical progress has reached its limit because of a disregard of human welfare and zeal for the production activities of the labouring people, and the continued power of monopolies and enterprises” pursuance of maximum short-term profit are leading the economy to ruin. According to his analysis, the external factor of the decline of the United States is that the excessive military expenditure designed to effect political and military leadership resulted in giving its allies a free ride and, consequently, the conflicts between capitalist great powers were extremely aggravated and the economy of the United States expanded to the limit. In other words, the United States got off the orbit of normal political and economic development and is reduced to ruinous crisis because of the intensification of political and military reaction and the deformed and unpopular mechanism of the economy. The abnormal strategy for survival of the United States characterized by disregard of the masses and mankind is leading the country into decline. This shows that the United States represents the old and therefore has no future.
The activities of the Aum-shinri religious sect, which perpetrated the sarin gas attack in the Tokyo underground, suggest that the great economic power called Japan is corrupted from within. In 1997, the Aum-shinri sect planned to throw 12 million Tokyo citizens into a murderous nightmare, preaching that the “end of the world” will come between 1997 and 2003. Although the terrible plan of the group of the Aum-shinri religion itself is an inhumane act, it is also an explosion of resistance against the utterly corrupt capitalist Japan, which has no future, and the outcome of the psychoneurotic fit of those who are roaming in search of a way to get rid of the disturbed social climate.
Capitalist society shows off material abundance and resplendence, but in it the majority are alienated and a handful of the privileged class, the have class, lords it over. Therefore, capitalist society cannot be a just and progressive society.
In capitalist society it is not possible to eliminate inequality in material wealth, nor is it possible to remove the imbalance between the improving material life and the deteriorating mental and cultural life, and between the popular masses’ growing desire for independence and their worsening political life. In order to eliminate this inequality and imbalance and achieve harmonious development in all the material, mental and cultural and political aspects of life of the working masses, one must follow the path of socialism. However, because of their class nature, the imperialists are not only unwilling to break with capitalism, but also getting more and more reactionary, contrary to man’s inherent desire for independence.
Contrary to this, socialism is progressive because it defends independence for the labouring masses. Capitalist society is reactionary because it restrains independence for the masses.
Kim Jong Il clarified the dialectical correlation between the new and the old, and between progress and reaction in social history from the Juche standpoint and showed mankind the certainty of the victory of socialism and the inevitability of the ruin of capitalism and imperialism. This is the success of his historical philosophy, and a contribution to human history which shed a new light on the orientation and prospects of development of human history. In connection with the collapse of socialism in Eastern European countries, American economist Robert Hamil Broner stated that socialism failed only in experiment and is sure to revive. It is public opinion that the collapse of socialism is the error of the “faulty socialism”.
Kim Jong Il viewed the collapse of socialism and the revival of capitalism not as historical necessity but as a “temporary phenomenon when viewed in the light of the main tide of historical development”, as an “abnormal, passing phenomenon in the light of the general trend of human history”. This J uche-oriented view dealt a blow at the imperialists and reactionaries and the renegades of socialism who were fussing about the “end” of socialism and the “triumph” of capitalism, and serves as the inspiring banner putting spurs on the victorious historic advance to socialism, the century-old ideal of mankind.
An American political scholar said that the thaw of the North has begun, likening the Korean peninsula to the “last iceberg of the cold war”. How absurd and erroneous his view is. The socialism in the North is not the one to be melted away by the capitalist thaw, but presents the express train which consolidates itself solidly and runs fast along the right path of history. In this light Gorbachev’s reform and the attempt to revive capitalism can be said to be an unhistoric futile attempt to revive the old.
Gorbachev said that socialism did little “investment for man” and that in socialist society man was not the “real possessor of ownership”. But the facts prove the reverse. Capitalist society is a society in which the privileged classes, including the capitalist class, monopolize state power and the means of production and the overwhelming majority of the labouring people are alienated. Therefore, the capitalist class does not make an investment for workers. In capitalist society the labouring masses, including workers, cannot become the real possessors of ownership. Therefore, the capitalism which alienates the labouring masses from the position of the master of everything cannot be the new thing.
The society in which the labouring masses are made the real possessors of everything and the party and the state liberally make an investment for the popular masses is the new socialist society.
No one can check the advance of mankind and history to socialism, which is new and progressive.
The North is continuing its vigorous advance along the road of socialism, even though socialism collapsed in the Eastern European countries and the imperialists’ machinations to suffocate and isolate it go to extreme. This is because it takes General
Kim Jong Il’s scientific historical philosophy as the banner of struggle.
2. PEOPLE-CENTRED POLITICAL PRINCIPLE
General Kim Jong Il put forward a golden proposition, namely, the “Poverty of philosophy gives rise to political poverty,” saying, “The political philosophy is the compass of leadership.”
Social progress is made by politics. If politics is to play an active part for social development, it should be based on a right philosophy. The proper political philosophy is a basic promise to put successful leadership into effect.
Therefore, a leader who has a scientific and practical philosophy on politics is able to propose policies which are helpful to the progress of history and to the interests of the masses of the people, and to contribute to social development.
Some politicians who once took leading posts wanted to possess their own style of political philosophy, but even those who had a progressive stand did not have a correct political philosophy. The previous political philosophy, though various in character and advocacy, had some limitations: they argued political affairs in general, while ignorant of the people, or alienating them.
However, north Korea has a proper political philosophy, so it has made world-startling successes in building a state and pioneering the destiny of the masses. General Kim Jong Il’s leadership is successful because he has established a correct political philosophy and realized it skilfully. His is the original people-centred political philosophy.
1) PEOPLE-CENTRED VIEW ON POLITICS
The word “politics” is often interpreted as “to argue strategem” or as “to be crafty”. Politics is a very complicated social sphere. In such a sense Monroe said: “Politics cannot be mathematics, but when we say that politics involves mathematics, it means such a mathematics that 2 added to 2 does not equal 4 in any case, but comes to 22.”
Generally, in capitalist society politics, which is concerned with the minority, is said to be a social phenomenon which is done by an uncommon leadership ability, hypnotism, skillful eloquence and so on, or as something inconceivable and mystified.
In particular, many learned men regard politics as a jugglery deceiving spectators, or as acrobatics setting them to laughing, or as a new-school play moving them to tears. The art of politics is thus developed into a science of political technology.
So some people say that political science is a science on how to exercise politics, and that political technology is a science on how to make politics.
These arguments are no more than unscientific and unpractical theories, based on the methodologies of Decartes, who tried to apply mathematics to man’s affairs, or Thomas Hobbs, who strove to explain ethics with algebraic equations.
However, politics has long been interpreted in connection with the class interests of people. Lao-tzu of China said, “The man who invented politics invented evil, too.” Some others asserted that politics is “production and distribution of power”. Therefore, they insisted that economy means the production and distribution of wealth, whereas politics is the production and distribution of power.
Some others considered politics from the aspect of skill, giving their thought to a method for its realization. Hence they described politics as a theatrical stage, a politician as an actor, a platform as a stage, the national people as an audience and a speech manuscript as a scenario. Also, they regarded a politician as a man who devotes himself to struggle as well as to government and administration. Karl Schmidt stipulated ambiguously that “politics means affairs of a government.” Tanaba Sinobu linked power with politics, saying that “ruling power is the essence of politics.”
Hitler stated that “politics is a technique of using man’s weak points with a view to accomplishing one’s aim.” That is, politics is a technique of power-exercising by selected rulers, i. e. dictators, and thus justified his outrageous, fanatical policy and doings.
As mentioned above, there were different opinions on politics, but on the whole the prevalent view understood politics as a means for public domination and as power-exercising by rulers.
From understanding politics as power-conducting by rulers someone drew the conclusion that rulers’ disposition must be the artfulness of a fox plus the ferocity of a lion. It is Marxism that put the understanding of politics on a scientific basis. Marxism considered politics from an economy-centred standpoint on the basis of a dialectical materialist outlook on the world. We can know this from Lenin’s definition, “Politics, this is the intensive economy.” Namely, Lenin understood politics as the intensive expression of the economy. A phrase that politics gains advantage over the economy was found in some explanations of Marxism, but the view that economic factors play a more important role than political factors, and that the economy gains advantage over politics, was regarded as dominant and definite.
From this viewpoint Lenin defined politics as “relationship between classes” or as “struggle between classes”.
This apprehension was based on the opinion that struggle between a class which holds a dominating position economically and a class which is ruled over is a political phenomenon. Proceeding from this, Marxism-Leninism drew a conclusion that politics is precisely the proletariat’s dictatorship and the struggle for the interests of the proletariat, which was organized into a ruling class.
An understanding that domination of the ruling proletariat over the whole of society is regarded as politics, that politics was born on the basis of the economy and that politics is a struggle to realize the proletariat’s requirements and interests was a great progress in overcoming the view considering politics as a ruling means or ruling technique, but it was not a flawless answer to politics. Because there is no explanation about the masses of the people who promote the birth of politics, require it and are in charge of its exercise. When politics is regarded merely as governing, one may have a limitation in which one considers the method of politics as “taffy and whip”.
Kim Jong Il corrected all erroneous views on politics and defined the nature of politics with a new unique angle, placing people at the centre.
He stipulated politics as a social function which commands and controls all the members of society in a unified manner in accordance with the requirements of a class or social community.
Politics is a social function which is indispensible for the activity of a social group to realize its independence. The economy is a social function which realizes the production, distribution, exchange and consumption of social wealth; politics is a function which controls people’s activity in a unified manner. Politics which is exercised in conformity with the requirements and interests of the working people becomes politics for the people; one which is conducted in line with the demands and interests of the exploiting class constitutes politics for the exploiting class.
On the basis of the understanding that politics is the social function unifying and controlling the independence, creativity and consciousness of people and that it assumes a class character,
Kim Jong Il drew the conclusion that a genuine politics must be one which controls and manages society in a unified manner and in accordance with the independent requirements and interests of the masses.
This definition of politics is on a scientific basis. Because it is neither economy-centred, nor was it drawn placing a minor previleged class or rulers at the centre, but was made, centring on people.
His establishment of the original view that politics is a social function to defend and realize people’s nature, placing them at the centre, constitutes a historic accomplishment which lays a scientific foundation for the realization of a genuine popular politics.
A new establishment of Juche-orientated people-centred outlook on politics is a basic source promising successes in all the political activities of Kim Jong Il.
2) POLITICS OF LOVE AND TRUST
(1) “The Politics of Our Party Is One of Trust in and Love for the People, Benevolent Politics.”
South Korea is a country devoid of politics.
Since it has no philosophy, it lacks politics; because of lack of politics the state’s politics are neither upright nor constant, so the people are in confusion. It is natural that the newspaper Hangyore said, “Kim Yong Sam has neither philosophy nor compass in the management of government affairs. Everything is done impromptu, so people are always uneasy and raise many complaints.” To escape from this dilemma Kim Yong Sam put forward the slogan of “globalization”, but the government as well as he fails to define it properly and does not explain its contents. It is quite obvious that one cannot hope that a right politics would be born there.
Some people say the most important and popular politics in the present era, the era of quit-ideology, is “Green politics”. “Green politics” is politics for an environment campaign. According to their assertion, “Green politics” is a right politics against both socialism and capitalism because it is a politics to protect the existence of human beings.
However, it is an impractical argument to examine politics from the quit-ideological viewpoint, being ignorant of the requirements and interests of people.
What should a genuine politics become? Many people have examined this problem. Most of them insisted that a genuine politics should be a politics of good or virtue for the people.
For example, Mozi said, “The people have three kinds of worries: Those who are hungry have no food; those who shiver with cold lack clothes and toiling people cannot rest.” He added that the solution of these worries was that all people love each other without discrimination and promote each other’s interests.
However, these requirements were no more than an unfeasible desire and idle fancy in the society of the exploiting class.
Aspiring after good politics, a lot of people argued repeatedly, but could not find any type of genuine politics. McKibi divided types of politics into despotic politics, dictatorial politics, ghost-power politics, republican politics, oligarchy and democratic politics. The understanding of these political types was generally classified according to “for whom it is”. Is it for the majority or the minority? Such a criterion had a definite importance in deciding the progressiveness of political types, but failed to give rise to a genuine politics for the masses of the people, the masters of society. In the sense that politics should be something good, some people said that politics should be conducted with “water”, not with “fire” and that it should not be politics burning with fire but politics filling and moistening with water, because as all living organisms are born in a wet place, so a political organism cannot be exceptional.
Some others examined politics, dividing political types into dictatorship and democracy. They asserted that if a proper politics is to be conducted one must exercise a democratic politics in the way of “I like a berry, but you like an apple, so take an apple”, instead of a dictatorial politics like the way “Since I like a berry, you must take it, too.”
Song Si Yol, a man of the Ri Dynasty era, tried to justify that a feudal king’s government was sacred, saying that “politics is a source of all well-being”.
There were a great many assertions which justified democratic politics representing relationships of friendship and cooperation and rule by the majority, and which rejected all types of evil politics. Despite aspiring after goodness, human beings failed to find a model of a genuine politics, a proper type of politics for the masses of the people.
The genuine politics which humankind hoped for was found by General Kim Jong Il. That is a benevolent politics, the politics of love and trust.
General Kim Jong Il said:
“Our Party’s politics is a benevolent one in that it is the politics of love for the people and trust in them.”
The politics of love and trust means politics of loving the people and trusting in them. Love for and trust in the people are the kernel of the masses-centred politics and also its basis.
The politics of General Kim Jong Il proceeds from the affection for and trust in the people and is underlain by them. The social function which pours affection on the people and gives trust to them is the benevolent politics, the masses-centred politics.
Love and trust constitute the essential nature of politics in the socialist society where the masses of the people have become the masters of politics and not the objects of politics. The politics of the exploiting classes was one oppressing, exploiting, betraying and disliking the people. The essential advantage of the politics of love and trust lies in helping the people who had once been the object of politics to become the masters of politics and in transforming politics into one for the people.
What then, is the essential characteristic of the benevolent politics of Kim Jong Il? It is boundless love for and full trust in the people.
Loving the people means valuing and firmly defending their independence and dignity, their life, and serving them devotedly. Since people are the most precious beings in the world and also the masters of this world, the thorough defending of their dignity and serving them with devotion are precisely the politics of love. So, the politics of love values man’s political life and offers incessant favours to the people to provide them with a happy material life. To subordinate everything to the people and devotedly serve them are the essentials of love for the people.
Bismarck earned ill repute worldwide because of his “policy of iron and blood”. He exercised a bloody, oppressive politics, asserting that politics to the masses should be “iron and blood” (force and oppression), and there could be no other way. Emperors and monarchs exercised without exception a cruel politics full of enmity to the people.
What does trusting in the people mean? It means regarding the masses as the performers of a struggle to realize their independence and relying on them, acknowledging them as the driving force of historical development. Such trust in the people is based on a scientific understanding that the people are the main agent of history, and also the most powerful and wisest beings.
Since the people are the main agent of history and also the strongest existence promoting the development of history, it is completely natural to trust in and depend on them. That’s why to conduct the politics of trusting in and relying on the people is a scientific and proper way of politics.
Hegel considered the masses to be an “immaterial mass” or “something spontaneous, unreasonable, barbarous and dreadful”, and the Prussian empire made this view the basis of its politics.
At the same time Hegel regarded revolution as a “rash action of the ignorant” or “rash behaviour of children”, and insulted the German people who rose in struggle against Prussian despotism. The ruling classes of ancient Egypt shouted, “Let the masses yield. Quench flames from them.” Showing their open enmity to the people in this way, they repressed their righteous struggle.
Pinochet of Chile even drove people who were suspected of collaboration with a socialist campaign into a playground and machine-gunned them.
History shows that the wrong viewpoint toward and understanding of the people were the starting point of politics by reactionary ruling classes, and also the reasons the reactionaries of history were bitterly defeated. The historical end of Mussolini is connected with his fascist philosophy. In his answer to a question on the utilitarianism of James raised by a reporter in April of 1926, he said: “I often applied the utilitarianism advocated by William James to my political success. I learned a faith in action and a strong will in life and struggle from James. Due to this, fascism achieved a great many successes.” Mussolini became a dictatorial tyrant because he made utilitarianism his political philosophy and was registered in history as a demon. To him, the people were the object of dictatorship.
It is an historical truth that the politics of loving and relying on the masses of the people is a just politics for the people and for promoting the development of history.
In a word, the politics of love and trust is the politics of defence of the independence of the masses and of favour to them. At the same time it is the politics of relying on them, based on trust in their creativity.
The emergence of this kind of politics is the birth of the most scientific politics, and also constitutes a radical turn in the history of politics.
Since the love-and-trust politics is based on man’s real nature and the position and role of the masses of the people, the politics of a genuine leader must be a politics of loving, trusting and relying on the people, and he must make it the basic method of politics. If a politics is ignorant of the basic demand of love-and-trust politics, it cannot be a proper politics.
The essential nature, advantage and vitality of the love-and-trust politics lie in that it defends thoroughly the independence and creativity of the masses and realizes them, and that it helps the masses to hold the position as masters of society and play the role as such.
Basing himself on his understanding that love and trust are the basic way of masses-centred politics and also constitute its essential contents, Kim Jong Il put forward the idea that the Party and state, the means for realization of politics, must not be a power organ but a defender, a protector of the independence and creativity of the people and a server giving affection and trust to them. He leads all activities of the Party and state in accordance with this idea.
Proceeding from its purpose, the love-and-trust politics requires applying a method of giving trust and affection to the people for its realization.
The leadership method of leading officials to work well by going among the people, enlightening them and uniting with them, instead of slighting them and giving orders and instructions to them, is none other than the method of benevolent politics. Therefore benevolent politics does not permit authority, arbitrariness, bureaucracy, the way secret-inspectors-general do and the like.
Robespierre desired a “republic of virtue” but did not realize it, because he rejected the demands of the poor people in urban and rural areas, in particular those of workers, while asserting the maintenance of anti-worker laws and observance of the highest salary system. In practice he did not stand by the side of the people and did not get rid of a class such as the bourgeoisie.
Proceeding from the masses-centred standpoint, General
Kim Jong Il said that “The institutes of the Party and state, when domineering and practising bureaucracy over the people, are like a person taking a poisonous drug.” He took a strict step in order that officials do not reveal all sorts of anti-popular practices and saw to it that a politics which attaches great importance to the people holds sway over the entire society.
On the basis of scientific elucidation on the real nature and advantages of benevolent politics, Kim Jong Il put forward a slogan “Let us build a new society with the strength of trust and love!”
The slogan comprises the general purpose and orientation of his politics.
It is doubtless that the politics of Kim Jong Il, who builds up the masses-centred socialism with the strength of trust in and love for the people, will be successful.
(2) “I Believe You. Believe Me, You, Too.”
When they talk about great men, historians often relate their own personal features with politics, because their personality and leadership art exert great influence upon politics. So, their philosophical creed has ever been a particularly important point of argument, for it characterizes their relationship with the people.
Rulers’ relations with people were anti-people and deceptive.
How were those of Genghis Khan, the conqueror of the world? He made a young man, who had helped him steal eight horses, his friend and loved him earnestly. That young man was General Bordge, a famous general whom Genghis Khan placed his greatest faith in. He also renamed the enemy’s general Zirgon Defe (arrow), trusting him and nominated him as a famous general.
This shows that Genghis Khan treated his men with trust. However, his trust in his men was designed to meet his desire for pillage, and was also an untrue trust to realize his inhuman, unjust individual ambition. He carried out aggressive wars in the widest regions of the world in history and his army was merciless in looting, destroying and killing people. In consideration of this fact, we can see through his “trust” in his men. An invader who aims at destruction, pillage and conquest cannot have a genuine trust. Hitler shamelessly forced his men to believe him. When he organized a new government he demanded that his men should trust him. He said to them, “Here are four bullets. Three of them are for me to shoot you three, my collaborators, when you betray me and one bullet is for shooting myself.”
At that time his man Karl whispered something to Russo. At this Hitler said to him in a threatening tone, “You cannot speak without my permission.” And then he announced to the public that the three men were determined to cooperate with him. Such was Hitler’s “view on comrades”. He had no comrades, and the relationship between his subjects and him was one of threat and blackmail, of order and obedience. A commander cannot gain comrades by menace and deception, or by coercion and blackmail. Hitler was, in the long run, betrayed by the persons close to him and fell to ruin.
Because he was a dictator, Caesar of Rome was killed by Brutus, whom the former believed so confidently. The historical facts show that only a genuine people’s leader who loves the people earnestly and devotes his all to them can possess a true faith in human beings, a comradely trust with which he shares life and death with them.
What is the trust of General Kim Jong Il like? It is a trust of depending on the people, believing them like Heaven and relying on them. Therefore, he wins the absolute support and trust of the people. So, his trust is the loftiest and truest one.
General Kim Jong Il said, “Napoleon said, ‘You believe me, and I also believe you.’ However, I say, ‘I believe you. Believe me, you, too.’ This is my philosophical faith.”
This is an intensive expression of his philosophy of trust as a people’s leader who is distinguished from the famous generals and rulers in history.
As all the former rulers had done, so Napoleon, too, was a reactionary ruler who ignored the people and lorded it over them. When Paris was occupied by the Allied Forces, he was banished to the island of Elba, in April of 1814. On March 1, 1815 he escaped and landed in the mainland leading about 1,000 soldiers to overthrow the Bourbon Dynasty. When some of the government army which was dispatched to check the advance of his troops surrendered to him, Napoleon shouted to them, “As long as you believe me, I also believe you.”
Kim Jong Il’s trust is the Juche-orientated faith that since people are the most precious and strongest beings in the world, one must unconditionally love them and rely on them. Namely, by virtue of his trust in and devotion to the people he wins this absolute support and faith of the people.
His philosophical creed to trust has two aspects of meaning.
He has a prior trust in the people.
A genuine leader appears among the people. He makes it a lifelong mission to learn wisdom from the people and fight for their independence. There cannot be a leader who is ignorant of the requirements and interests of the people, and such a man cannot be called a people’s leader. So, the extending of trust to the people from a leader becomes an intrinsic quality of a people’s leader.
Kim Jong Il’s trust is invariable and not hypocritical; it is the most sincere and eternal one. His trust in the people and vice versa are based on a lofty aspiration for building up an ideal society free from exploitation and oppression-the people-centred society-and on the steady will to sharing life and death with each other in the struggle to realize that desire.
Making President Kim Il Sung’s credo that “The people are my God” the motto of his life, Kim Jong Il always loves the people fervently and trusts them invariably.
Because of his sincere trust in his revolutionary comrades and the people, the latter worship him like the Heaven, trust him, and entirely entrust their destinies to him.
There is no gap between General Kim Jong Il and the masses and nothing in the world can break a unity and solidarity between the General and the people, based on this trust.
Kim Jong Il, with the philosophy of trust, is always among his comrades and people and shares life and death, and joys and sorrows with them.
Thanks to such personality, he has many comrades. It also forms north Korean society into a firm combination of trust and love.
In north Korea the people say “We are blessed with great leaders” and the leaders say “We are blessed with the great people”. These words are the products of the philosophy of love and trust and also confirm the acme of love and trust between General Kim Jong Il and the people.
(3) “Our Own Philosophy”
The General Kim Jong Il’s political philosophy of love and trust is a political methodology which is applicable to the work with people of a checkered political career and to the fight against the enemy. It is common knowledge that political action for the independence of the people is carried on through their unity and cooperation and at the same time through the struggle against the forces who go against them or vacillate in the revolution. It is natural that if our army exists the enemy’s army does, too, and that where there is a struggle to create a new thing, there is an old thing hindering it.
The struggle of the masses to realize their independence accompanies the struggle against vacillators and reactionary elements opposing it. For this reason, the methodology for the struggle opposing them is a fundamental problem for the victory in the revolution.
The main means to liquidate reactionaries going against history and the people is revolutionary violent power.
However, General Kim Jong Il conceived a new philosophy in the struggle against the enemy. It is the “our own philosophy” he applies to the revolution.
General Kim Jong Il said:
“We will answer with our own philosophy ‘when one believes in and governs 10,000 people, one enemy spy among them will reveal himself of his own accord” the vicious philosophy of Japanese imperialists ‘if we kill one hundred people, we are sure to kill one communist.’”
Hatred for and killing of people are the characters intrinsic to imperialists, reactionaries of history. Enmity, slaughtering, exploitation and oppression are the way of their existence. The exploiting classes and imperialists, who have limitless greed and interests, cannot have any good consciousness, goodness or justness. For their interests they kill mercilessly and plunder other people as they want and unleash aggressive war against other nations without hesitation. If there are people opposing their interests, they massacre one hundred or one thousand innocent people.
There are many historical records showing that invaders and conquerors killed numerous innocent people en masse with the purpose of maintaining and consolidating their positions.
During the Japanese rule imperialists burnt down villages and massacred inhabitants en masse under the pretext of searching for Korean patriots who rose up in the anti-Japanese salvation struggle. Such outrages were revealed in aggressive war carried out by imperialists. This is the typical manifestation of wolf-like philosophy advocated by imperialists.
Kim Jong Il set “our own philosophy” against their wolf-like philosophy and put into effect the tactics of dissolving the enemy and gaining him by applying our-style philosophy. That is the philosophy that “when one trusts and governs 10,000 people, one enemy spy among them will reveal himself.” This new political philosophy has a principle that since those who are going against history and the people are a minority, if the soldiers of an imperialist state were awakened to their class status, justness and truth, it is possible to win many of them over to the side of the masses, to the side of revolution. Struggle against the enemy or war is at any rate confrontation with people. Now that all the soldiers who are involved in an unjust war are not reactionaries serving the exploiting classes, if they are trusted in and enlightened to truth they can be led to the road of justice. This is Kim Jong Il’s unique way of politics and art of leadership.
Applying “our own philosophy” to the leading of the masses, he has trusted boldly in even the people who had committed crimes against the nation in the past or those who had taken the wrong road of life, and won them over to the revolutionary side and sails in the same boat with them. To entrust a matter to people, believing in them, and make revolution with them-this is his leadership.
Today in north Korea, wholehearted unity has been achieved, the leader and the people are united as one, and the Party has won the absolute support and faith of the people. Herein lies one of the secrets of this.
Indeed, “our own philosophy” is the revolutionary leadership philosophy, which places faith on even the people who had been the objects of revolution or those who vacillated between revolution and counterrevolution and awakens them with truth and thus makes it possible to isolate a handful of hostile elements while winning over more people to the side of revolution.
Herein lies the key of all victories of General Kim Jong Il in ensuring the qualitative and quantitative consolidation of the independent internal forces of the revolution and the decisive supremacy of the revolutionary forces.
3) THEORY ON A POLITICAL LEADER
Even today, Spartacus who was killed on the Apollia battlefield with 60,000 slaves remains in the memory of history. Because he was the leader of the first slave rebellion who fought against slavery. People began to understand the importance of a leader through his struggle. In fact history and politics are inconceivable apart from a leader. In view of this, it is of particular importance that General Kim Jong Il makes the theory on a political leader a part of his political philosophy.
Politics and a leader are inseparable, because politics is conducted by a leader.
Minich, an Italian patriot, said: “Democracy means a system in which all people develop under the leadership of the best and wisest man.” This hints that only when there appears a good leader, is a good politics possible.
A progressive politics can be exercised only by a progressive leader. However, even people of a progressive view on politics had an erroneous opinion on a leader.
Obviously, there had ever been no proper philosophy of a leader.
Mencius said, “A ruler is a man who uses his wit and the people are those who put forth their strength. The man using his wit controls others and the men putting forth their strength are dominated by others; the rulers live on things received from others and the ruled must feed others. This is a law of the world.” This was a wrong outlook on a leader, for it is ignorant of the masses of the people while attaching great importance to dominators.
In the case of even a man who regarded progressive politics as democracy, his outlook on a leader was wrong. For example, Gelzen, a law-philosopher, stated that the idea of democracy is “the negation of a leader”. His assertion is a very harmful argument, which denies leaders in general and considers social development while separating the role of politics from that of a leader. We cannot deny leaders in general. Those who reign over the people cannot be regarded in the same light as a genuine leader who strives for the people. Furthermore, the role of a leader championing the demands and interests of the people is very important in the struggle for the independence of the people. In this sense Kim Jong Il elucidated that if the masses are to hold the position as the main agent of history and play their role as such to the full, a leader must be united with the masses.
The denying of a leader is proper when we speak of a ruler who serves a small number of the exploiting classes and anti-people privileged strata, rejecting the demands and interests of the masses.
In the Western world it is often said that today is an “era destitute of a leader”. Because many state heads or Presidents have degenerated politically, morally and economically and so led the people and countries to ruin.
Viewed historically, governors who served the exploiting classes and ignored the people’s interests were all denied by the people and history. An English proverb says, “Politicians are the persons who brag that they would build a bridge even where there is no river.” This is ridicule on the rulers of the exploiting society.
When a leader deviates from the standpoint of defending the interests of the people and affirming them, he is already not a leader and his politics is corrupt and degenerate. When greeting a good, far-sighted leader, the people can hew out their destiny and the prosperity of their country and nation can be guaranteed.
It is by virtue of Gandhi that the Indian people were liberated from the colonial rule of British imperialism. Drawing on the analysis of the then Indian situation, he made clear the reasons for domination of India by the British imperialism, and led the anti-British struggle to a right course. Gandhi said: “It is owing to Western materialism, not to Great Britain, that our India has become like this. India is dominated by modern civilization such as railways and telephones, not by English men.” This remark served as a guiding principle in defining the orientation and way of the anti-British struggle. This proves that one must not deny the leader’s role in general and that “denial of a leader” does not mean democracy and progress.
What, then, is the essential of the theory on a leader
Kim Jong Il put forward? That is, what man or woman can be a genuine leader who is supported and loved by the people, and what should the people’s leader do?
Kim Jong Il advanced the idea that the most essential thing for a genuine leader is to love the people and devote his all to them.
General Kim Jong Il said:
“In order to realize genuinely benevolent politics in socialist society, a political leader who unfailingly loves the people must come forward. A political leader of socialism should be a master in leadership but, first of all, he must be a man of virtue who loves the people boundlessly.”
His opinion is that an incompetent political leader of socialism may bring about a delay in the development of socialist society, but one who lacks virtue may betray the people and even lead socialism to ruin.
The main personal qualities that a genuine leader should acquire are boundless love for the people and the virtue of devoting his all to them.
Kim Jong Il said that love for human beings and concern- for the people’s living are a touchstone for appreciating the true worth of a revolutionary or a politician.
If the people are to carve out their destiny successfully, defend the sovereignty of their country and nation and make them prosperous, they must have a genuine leader of virtue at the helm.
Today north Korea has been developed into the people-centred society where the people lead a happy life. It is entirely because the people have the great President Kim Il Sung and the respected General Kim Jong Il, the people’s genuine leaders, at the helm. Since President Kim Il Sung created the Juche idea centred on the masses and exercised the politics of “People are my God”, being always among the people, north Korea has been converted into a people’s paradise.
In north Korea General Kim Jong Il is precisely the father of the people and the saviour of their fate. It is the sagacious General Kim Jong Il who emerged among the people, exists for them, and leads them to independence and prosperity.
His motto is that if it is for the people one must pluck even a star from the sky and make flowers bloom even on a rock.
Ever thinking and acting for the people his speculation and effort for the people go on day and night. Rice-balls are the meal of Kim Jong Il, who devotes his all to the people; a nap is his rest.
His philosophical apprehension that boundless love for the people and lofty virtue are the main marks of a genuine leader and also his essential feature is a scientific view.
Another gist of his philosophy on a leader is that if one wants to become a leader and enjoy the people’s support and confidence, one must have the personality and qualifications that befit a popular leader, and fulfil the responsibility and role as such.
The top leader of the party and state does not necessarily mean a leader who enjoys the support and respect of the people. Radcell said that “power produces what one desires.” This is an erroneous view, which considers a leader to be power. One who holds the highest position by means of power or fraud cannot enjoy the support of the people. Appearance and talent are not essential criteria of a leader.
It is often said that the nickname of a leader is “decider”. The reason is because he is in a position to solve many problems quickly and correctly. However, more decisive and essential qualifications are the ability of initiating a new ideology and a theory by reflecting the independent aspirations, demands and interests of the people, and also the ability of formulating politics and leadership art which unite and lead the masses. Of course, it is needless to say that a leader can acquire these qualifications and abilities only when he attaches importance to the people.
The true prestige of a leader is ensured by his devotion to the people and his leadership art.
Mozi said a top ruler gives the people “rain and sunlight”. A ruler who lords it over the people and oppresses them cannot become a popular leader giving the people rain and sunlight. Only a leader who stands by the side of the people and loves them sincerely can offer rain and sunlight to them.
Historians praised Agamemnon, a hero in the Trojan War, for sacrificing his only daughter Ipukenia in hope of the safe sailing of the expeditionary fleet, and Epta, a hero of Israel, for sacrificing his daughter to God to ensure his victorious battle. In other words, they commend that Agamemnon and Epta were heroes who unhesitatingly sacrificed even their kith and kin for their country.
However, sacrificing his or her daughter for victory in battle cannot be a decisive factor defining the disposition of a hero or a leader. A hero can be called a leader who enjoys the respect of the people when he devotes his soul and heart to them with the spirit of loving the people and the country and a high sense of responsibility for their destiny.
Since Kim Jong Il is a son of the people and a benevolent father, he shares weal and woe with them and ensures them a happy life. His minute care for them gets rid of the hue of worry from their faces.
He is ceaselessly anxious about the details of the life of the people, and devotes his ardor to their worthwhile life and hopeful future. He and the people form a harmonious whole.
The rulers, who revel only in their riches and honours, cannot enjoy the support of the people nor hold a position of leading the nation. During his 20-year reign Marcos of the Philippines, who was ousted in 1986 by a popular uprising, embezzled about 2,000 million dollars, two-thirds of 3,000 million dollars of US aid. After he fled, 2,300 pairs of shoes of Imelda, his wife, were found in the basement of the President’s palace. Later it also turned out that he secretly deposited 475 million dollars in a Swiss bank. Under his tyranny the Philippine people were in distress because of the disparity between rich and poor.
When Anastisio Somoza, a military dictator of Nicaragua who was in power for 12 years under the auspices of the United States, was expelled in 1979, he embezzled 220 million dollars of the people and deposited it in a US bank.
Chlord Melo, the former President of Brazil who was condemned for corruption, squandered 2,500,000 dollars to build his garden.
Ex-President of Venezuela Carlos Andru Peres was also ousted, and suspected of embezzlement. Those who turn against the people and indulge in extravagance can never exercise a proper politics nor become popular leaders.
The authority of a leader is ensured by love for the people and leadership uniting them.
The cap Nehru always put on was that of a prisoner, as India was under the domination of Britain. Even after release from jail he did not take off his cap, because he thought that he was no more than a prisoner of Britain, irrespective of being in or out of jail. His tacitern carriage was a sign of hope for the Indian people in the anti-British struggle. It served as a factor rousing the Indian people.
The qualifications and personality of a genuine leader are formed and hardened when they are based on trust in the people. When having a viewpoint that the people are the main agent of history, the motive force of its progress and the most precious and powerful beings a leader becomes modest before the people and has a simple disposition. At the same time he can solve everything, relying on their strength.
Hitler wrote in his note My Struggle: “The masses lack apprehension and forget easily. They only wait for a dominator and even if given a liberty, they are at a loss as to what to do with it.” In this way he ignored the masses and absolutized the will of a “superman”. He miscalculated that his absolute power could become a decisive factor to realize domination of the Aryan nation over the world and, in the long run, committed serious historical errors in the Second World War, which caused 50,000,000 casualties, and he was ruined. The myth about “Hitler, the leader” of Goebbels ended in this way.
The personality of a popular leader is modesty and humility before the people, which find expression in respecting them. The personality and qualifications of a popular leader are given to him not coercively but of their own accord when he makes boundless love for and trust in the people his political philosophy, his faith.
Because General Kim Jong Il appeared from among the people and grew up among them, his characters are popular; his outstanding leadership and unrivaled nerve and will have been formed, based on absolute confidence and trust in the people. It is his creed that if there is something almighty in the world, it is the people.
Kim Jong Il mentioned that if someone questions him whose side he is on, he would answer he is on the side of the people. At the same time he stressed that he is a “positive supporter of the people”.
Love and service for the masses are his motto, desire and supreme aim. He was born for them, belongs to them, shares his destiny with them, and is the general commander of the people. This is why he says that the motto of life is that if the people so demand, one must have flowers bloom on a rock and pluck even a star from the sky.
The sublime figure of the General is seen at factories, rural villages, fishing villages, mines and sentry posts of military men throughout the year-”That is the very model of a popular leader!” He went to the pit of a mine where underground water dropped down to encourage the workers and sincerely advised that how great the task they may be given they must go back home to sleep. His meticulous affection is fatherly love, the highest true love.
Kim Jong Il has inherited the old patriotic and people-loving family tradition of devoting their life to the people and country handed down from generation to generation. His ideas, leadership, personality and virtue-all these are permeated with his limitless love for the people.
Since he belongs to the people, he enjoys their absolute support and confidence and has the unparalleled honour of being “blessed with the people.”
No one believes in those who turn against the people and history and fancy themselves as a leader of the people. When Nelson Rockefeller ran for election as governor of the State of New York, it was widely propagated that he was fond of beer. Why did they do so? Since in the United States beer is known as a popular drink, they intended to make Rockefeller, a millionaire, accessable to the common people through the means of beer.
Khurshchev, a political fraud, who led the USSR to ruin, picked his teeth with his fingers at diplomatic negotiations. He made no efforts to do away with this habit, because it was used as evidence of his popularity. Conclusively speaking, the personality, qualifications and competency of a leader are not given coercively to him, but are formed, hardened and displayed on the basis of his outlook on the world and his political faith.
Kim Jong Il has established a new-style philosophy on a leader, based on the man-centred Juche-orientated outlook on the world, thereby giving a correct answer to a fundamental problem, and making it possible to successfully realize a genuine politics for the people.
The success of Kim Jong Il’s politics is underlain by the Juche-orientated philosophy on a leader.
4) PHILOSOPHY ON REVOLUTION-SINGLE-HEARTED UNITY
A leader in general desires a great unity of the people. However, not every leader can realize it.
The rulers who champion the interests of the exploiter classes cannot bring about national unity. In capitalist society based on individualism the unity of the people cannot be materialized in principle, and it is not realized of its own accord simply because socialism was established.
Looking back on history, there had never been an example of the people’s unity being realized by rulers.
However, north Korea brought about the single-hearted unity of the entire people, the whole of society. This is a marvelous reality. The whole of society has been united with one mind, centring on the leader; the leader and the people have the same ideology and will, breathe the same breath and walk at the same pace. The reality of north Korea, where the integrity of society has been put into effect, raises admiration among the people of the world.
What, then, has brought about this single-hearted unity? It is none other than the revolutionary philosophy of single-hearted unity advocated by General Kim Jong Il.
Single-hearted unity is the philosophy that constitutes the nucleus of Kim Jong Il’s politics. He defined single-hearted unity as the revolutionary philosophy of the Workers’ Party of Korea and the mainstay of revolution, and has made a steady effort to realize it from the beginning of his leading the Party and state.
Single-hearted unity means that the whole of society, the entire people, firmly unite with one ideology and will and one aspiration and purpose. The essence of single-hearted unity is that the people unite with the same ideology and will under one common purpose and aspiration to realize independence, and that a leader and the people work together having the same ideology and aim.
What is, then, the basic principle to bring about single-hearted unity? It is the principle of unity and solidarity.
Kim Jong Il says that his political philosophy is the principle of unity and solidarity. This principle underlies single-hearted solidarity.
Arguing unity, Kant absolutized the “ideal unity of upper strata” by an “enlightened lord”, instead of “unity of lower strata” by the working people. The “unity of upper strata” meant the unity of dominating classes to maintain Prussian despotism, checking the revolutionary advance of the working people against the exploiter classes. Regarding the working people as an “ignorant group”, Hegel totally rejected harmony or cooperation with the working people.
Marxist philosophy criticized the idealistic philosophy of Germany and overcame its limitations and, on the basis of this, initiated dialectical materialism, but did not give a correct answer to the source of development. It viewed the source of development as contradictions.
At the same time Marxist philosophy considered that development of things is made through struggle to solve the contradictions in the things themselves. Lenin said, “Development is the struggle between opponents.” And Stalin said, “Struggle between opponents, that is, struggle between the old and the new, that between being expired and being generated and that between being perished and being developed, constitute the content of development, that is, the content of transition from quantitative change to qualitative change.”
From this understanding of development, Marxism-Leninism regarded the unity of opponents as relative, and struggle between opponents as absolute. The understanding that unity is relative and struggle is absolute reflects the characteristic features of the development of motion of things and phenomena which exist objectively in nature, but, in all cases, it does not become a perfect apprehension of the movement and development of the world.
If the law of contradiction or the law of unity and struggle between opponents are applied to social phenomena as they are, great confusion may be created.
Historical experience shows that if the law of contradiction or the principle of relativeness of unity and of absoluteness of struggle is applied to society, a Leftist error may be committed, the unity and solidarity of the people, the main agent of history, cannot be realized and continuous and rapid progress of society cannot be expected. In a few former socialist countries social confusion was caused, the face of socialism clouded and, in the long run, socialism collapsed. One of the major reasons for this is the absolutization of the law of contradiction and the dogmatic application of the principle of the relativeness of unity and of the absoluteness of struggle to the activity of the party and state. This is a bitter lesson.
To overcome such irrationality, the French philosopher Mishel Cerus advocated a “third philosophy of exclusion and coordination”. However, it also could not serve as a philosophical methodology helpful to social development because it was not based on a scientific principle.
Kim Jong Il cast light on the law of the development of social history and, on the basis of this, advanced the principle that unity and solidarity are the motive force accelerating socio-historical development, thereby laying down the foundation to solidify the main agent of social history. Since social history is made to progress by the role of the people, its main agent, the more the people’s force increases, the faster is socio-historical progress. The process of the development of society is precisely the process of the enhancing of the popular masses’ position and role.
In order to increase the strength of the people, it is essential to unite it into one, instead of dispersing it. It is true that the interests of various classes and strata differ from each other. However, if one absolutizes it and maintains ceaseless friction and confrontation, social unity cannot be formed.
In order to realize their requirements, the popular masses, which constitute the majority, even in capitalist society must unite as one.
When the creative ability and strength of the masses of the people are dispersed, social reform and historical advance are delayed. Unity and solidarity are immediately the power and source of victory.
Without the unity and solidarity of the masses, the successful progress of or victory in social movement cannot be hoped for.
Basing himself on this principle, Kim Jong Il advanced the idea of single-hearted unity and put it into effect successfully.
The philosophy of single-hearted unity is the one to adhere to in the struggle to build the solid main agent of social history, the main agent of change. Single-hearted unity is the way of existence of the main agent of history.
Single-hearted unity is formed with two aspects: one is ideological unity and the other, moral and dutiful unity. It is formed when all people are united with the same aspirations and ideology to realize their independence and the same invariable will desirous of joining their efforts and wisdom without flinching in the struggle for their independence. Also, it is solidified when it is based on good consciousness and faithfulness, with which people love and sincerely help each other in the efforts to realize their independence.
Ideological and conscious unity is the mental factor of single-hearted unity; moral and dutiful unity is the moral factor. Purposeful and conscious unity, the unity based on conscientious awareness, makes single-hearted unity pure and solidified. In view of this, single-hearted unity is the most powerful driving force for social development.
Kim Jong Il illumined that single-hearted unity is not realized of its own accord, but is ensured by the solidity of its centre which is capable of realizing it.
The centre of single-hearted unity is none other than a leader. As every thing and phenomenon has its nucleus and unites, centring on it, so the single-hearted unity of society is formed and consolidated only when there emerges a leader who constitutes its nucleus or centre. If the centre is not strong but sways, single-hearted unity cannot be realized successfully nor solidified. Therefore, the solidity and might of single-hearted unity depend on the greatness and leadership ability of the leader.
Herein lies the secret of the outstanding leadership of
Kim Jong Il, who defined single-hearted unity as the Party’s revolutionary philosophy, the mainstay for change, realized the single-hearted unity of the Party and the whole of society and steadily solidified it, thereby pushing forward the revolution and construction continuously, in fast tempo.
The revolutionary philosophy of single-hearted unity is the source of the distinguished leadership of Kim Jong Il, who is building up an ideal community where all people help and lead Toward each other and live harmoniously, and the masses are loved and valued.
5) LIVE OUR OWN WAY
The Finnish newspaper Niheter wrote that “North Korea is the most go-ahead country in the world” and added that it is the common recognition of the world. In reality north Korea has its own opinion and holds fast to it in state-building, foreign policy and all other spheres. That is why it steadily advances along the path it chose confidently and without vacillation in the whirlwind of the world.
North Korea is the highlight of the world as the “Kingdom of independence”, and has become the world’s model in state-building and the management of affairs of state.
The Korean nation was originally an independent nation. The might of Tangun’s Korea was the envy of neighbouring countries. Koguryo was renowned in the world as a great strong country which maintained a high sense of independence for more than 1,000 years. The spirit of independence and constant armament of Koguryo was the pride of the Korean nation.
But Silla in the 7th century and the Ri Dynasty in the 15th century left the shameful history of ruining the country by worshipping great powers and selling the country. Kim Yu Sin, Kim Chun Chu and other flunkeys of Silla ruined Koguryo and Paekje, states of the same race, by introducing foreign forces. Later the country was swallowed up by Japan with the help of Ri Wan Yong, Song Pyong Jun and other pro-Japanese elements, and suffered the shame of being reduced to a colony for more than 40 years.
Before the tragedy of statelessness due to flunkeyism and contry-selling receded, the southern part of the country was held by the Yankees as a colony for more than half a century and reduced to a stage of flunkeyism and country-selling. As a result, things national were all lost and people there are forced into slavery. The thought of such actuality pains me deeply.
How, then, do matters stand with north Korea? It has become a strong prosperous country which boasts of independence before the world and inspires pride in the Korean nation. What, then, is the origin of the proud national dignity of north Korea? It derives from General Kim Jong Il’s philosophy of leadership. It is the philosophy which advocates, “Live our own way.”
General Kim Jong Il taught, “Live, fight and create our own way!”
It is Kim Jong Il’s philosophy of state leadership to settle all affairs our own way. Living our own way means to live and act true to our principles, settle all affairs in the interests of our own country and people, and solve all problems set before the country by our own efforts. In other words, living our way implies acquitting oneself with our own efforts to meet the demands and interests of our own country, nation and people, and to suit the specific conditions of our own country.
The philosophy of “living our own way” requires that the state be built and managed proceeding from the standpoint centred on our own country and nation. The idea of living our own way is the philosophy of leadership which is universally applicable to party- and state-building, and to all activity of the party and state, namely, politics, the economy, culture, arts, military affairs, diplomacy and all other affairs.
Putting up the slogan, “Live our own way!”, Kim Jong Il said that it is the universal principle to be applied not only in the management of the state but also in the way of thinking and activity of individual nationals.
This philosophy is the scientific philosophy which is based on the principle that independence is the life and soul of the country and nation, and that the destiny of the people is shaped with the country and nation as a unit.
As independence is the life and soul of man, so independence is the life and soul of the country and nation. As man strives to think and live freely, becoming the master of his own destiny, so the nation endeavours to shape its own destiny by its own efforts, becoming the master of its own destiny. Living one’s own way is the nature of man and that of the nation. It is the original mode of existence and struggle of man to shape his own destiny by his own efforts to meet his demands and interests and to suit his conditions. It is the same with the way of shaping the destiny of the country and nation.
Kim Jong Il defined the basic mode of human existence, and that of existence and development of the nation, as the mode of activity of the party, state and all citizens. Therefore, the philosophy advocating “living one’s own way” is the scientific leadership philosophy which satisfies the principle of existence of man, nation and the state.
Kim Jong Il not only expounded the basic principle underlying the philosophy advocating “living our own way”, but also clarified that it is the philosophy of leadership which enables the Korean nation to exist and develop in its specific conditions. At the same time, he stressed that it is more urgently required in consideration of the fact that Korea is a peninsula country sandwiched between great powers.
One day at a meeting with cadres Kim Jong Il made a meaningful remark, “In the case of our country sandwiched in between great powers it is more important to abide by independence. ‘Soviet clothes’ do not fit our Koreans nor do ‘American clothes’. Our Korean clothes most fit our Koreans.” It was a famous remark condensing the main substance of the philosophy which advocates “living our own way.”
The Korean people have lived in the territory of Korea from generation to generation and in the future, too, the Tangun nation will live there. In future, too, they will have to live by their own efforts without depending on others. Therefore, it is irrefutable truth that they should do everything in the Korean way.
The Korean people nod their heads up and down when they agree, whereas the Tibetian race living near the Himalaya Mountains shake their heads left and right as a sign of approval. Each nation has its unique traditions and mode of life. Therefore, his remark that “Soviet clothes” and “American clothes” do not fit the body of the Koreans but only “Korean clothes” fit, is valuable teaching to guide all thoughts and behaviour of the Korean nation in building and management of the state and its diplomacy.
Kim Jong Il judges everything, and tells right from wrong, in the Korean way. He creates everything which is needed by the Korean way.
When in his youth Kim Jong Il went to a university of world standard on a visit to a. certain country, a cadre of that country advised him to study in that university of his country. At this he resolutely replied, “No. I will study in Kim Il Sung University.” This is a well known anecdote. This was a manifestation of his firm spirit of independence. His independent viewpoint and way of thinking centred on his country and nation developed to the philosophy advocating “living our own way”, and contributed to building an independent powerful country.
The clothes Kim Jong Il made were not “Soviet clothes” or “American clothes”, but were always “Korean clothes”. He most hates “clothes” which do not fit the constitution of the Koreans. He leads the Party and the state with the idea of and in the spirit of making “Korean clothes”.
One day explaining to the cadres the philosophy of “living our own way”, he stressed, “Others’ way does not agree with our constitution and taste. I most hate to live off others, imitate others, play up to others or look toward others’ ways.”
In the light of his idea, to live off others, imitate others and play up to others is flunkeyism and dogmatism and the loss of the Juche character.
Flunkeyism and dogmatism are the enemy of Juche, the spirit of independence. They are the common inherent nature of those who have lost the awareness and the sense of responsibility that they are masters of their own destiny and those who have the servile spirit of submitting to foreign forces. The successive flunkeyists of Korea tried to live off others, imitate others and play up to others, and eventually ruined the country and nation.
“Our own way” means the way of thinking, life and creation which makes it possible to make good “Korean clothes” in the Korean way with our own efforts, true to our principles and to fit the constitution of the Korean people.
If the “others’ way” is followed, it will make “Soviet clothes” or “American clothes”, which do not fit the constitution of Koreans. The “Soviet clothes” or “American clothes” which are made in the “others’ way” may fit the people of those countries, but do not fit Koreans and are not needed.
North Korea could defend socialism centred on the masses and protect the interests of the country and nation even when socialism collapsed in the Eastern European countries because it lived “its own way”, not the “others’ way”.
The spirit, will, mode of life and struggle of “our own way” have become the way of leadership in building and management of the state. Because of this north Korea is renowned in the world as a powerful, independent country.
“Our own way” precisely means Kim Jong Il’s way. There is no doubt that north Korea will become eternally rich and strong and prosperous by Kim Jong Il’s way characterized by “our own way”.
3. PEOPLE-CENTRED PRINCIPLE OF ECONOMY
The politicians and mass media in the Western countries are in the habit of saying that capitalist society ensures economic prosperity and welfare for all people.
However, what is the actual situation? In the Western capitalist countries which are said to be developed the number of the unemployed amounts to 35 million, and according to official satisfies, the average rate of unemployment is over 10 per cent, the highest after the crisis of the 30s. In the United States, which is professed to be the “land of bliss for all people”, four million homeless people are living on the street, on park benches, under bridges or in subway stations. The population living in penury is 40 million in the United States, 8 million in Germany, 7 million in Italy and 5 million in England. Such being the situation, can the Western countries be said to be societies where welfare is ensured for all the people? This shows that the development of the economy can not be assessed only by the output value of consumer goods or by the extent of development of the productive forces. It is the right view on the economy to define the degree of development according to by whom the economy is managed, for whom the economy exists, and how the produced material wealth is apportioned. Considering that one billion people, accounting for about twenty per cent of the world population, still suffer from penury, the operation of the economy for the people is an important issue.
In this light, we are attracted by the development of the north Korean economy, which serves the masses on the basis of self-sustenance.
North Korea has built up a powerful independent economy that serves the people, although a colonial economy was forced upon it by the Japanese imperialists for over 40 years, and it was reduced to naught by June 25 war in 1950. It is ceaselessly growing despite of the blockade of over half a century by the imperialists.
What, then, has made the economy of north Korea an animated and powerful one? It is General Kim Jong Il’s original philosophy of the economy, the philosophy of the people-centred self-sustenant economy.
1) THE PEOPLE ARE MASTERS OF THE ECONOMY
In his writing “Oh, How Lamentable It Is!” an ancient Korean poet, Kim Si Sup exclaimed, “The nobility aspires to a life of luxury in a gorgeous house, whereas the peasants go hungry in rags all their life, and the nobles skin and bleed the people white.” It reflects reproof of the feudal nobility and the common aspiration for a society where people are well fed.
But this pent-up grudge of people handed down from generation to generation in the world is not settled even now, when the 20th century is closing and the injustice of “the rich getting ever richer and the poor poorer” is still heavily pressuring many people. Man cannot become master of the economy and enjoy its fruit without removing the mechanism by which the economy that is indispensable for human existence rather alienates people.
Originally, the economy and man were in close relation. The economy started from the activity by which man changed natural materials into things that would directly satisfy his needs.
Economic activity is directed to obtaining what is necessary for the existence and development of man.
The economy did not always serve man, although it was the product of the demands and activity of man. The economy started from the production of consumer goods, in the original sense, that belonged to the labouring masses, but in exploitative society it resulted in alienating the masses.
Walras is said to be the founder of modern economics, and Marx, the founder of political economy. They failed to give answers to the fundamental problems, such as for whom the economy should be built and managed and on what principles.
Marxist political economy has made a great contribution to the development of economics and the development of human thought by clarifying the inevitability of the downfall of capitalism and the historical necessity of the triumph of socialism on the basis of the laws governing the birth of capital and its motion. Abolition of private ownership was the matter of the greatest concern for Marx. Setting this task is necessary and natural in that age.
General Kim Jong Il went beyond the existing view on the economy, and established new economic principles which clarify the essence of the economy and its development, placing the people at the centre in keeping with the demands of our age, in which the popular masses are the masters of history.
What, then, is his view on the economy?
General Kim Jong Il said:
“People ceaselessly endeavour to transform nature. They distribute, exchange and consume the products obtained as a result of this. People satisfy their demand for materials in the process of economic life.”
Man’s independent demand is to lead a free life, not only socially and politically, but also materially. Hence human activity covers the sphere of the economy.
The economy is effected not only through the interaction between man and nature, but also by mutual action between people. Man puts forth definite demands for the economy and positively deals with it. Therefore, it is necessary to consider the economy placing man at the centre, and the process of economic development in the light of human activity.
Marx laid main stress on viewing the economy as the sphere of production, distribution and consumption of goods, and as the most important factor for human existence. In this sense, Marx said that “If a nation does not work even for some weeks, to say nothing of a year, they may starve.”
The limitation of Marx’s view on the economy is that although he stressed the importance of the economy, he failed to correctly clarify the essence of the economy and the laws governing economic development that place man, the main agent for it, at the centre.
If one considers only material process in disregard of human activity on the plea that one studies the process of reproduction of material wealth, one cannot correctly clarify the laws governing the economic process, and economics cannot fulfill its mission as the instrument of social and economic reform and development. This is because neither economic relations nor economic motion can be effected apart from man and his activity.
Kim Jong Il elucidated the limitations of Marxist economics and said that the main factor controlling all the economic process is man and, consequently, the political economy should be studied and developed with man at the centre. His original view on the economy is that he does not consider the economy merely as the sphere of production of goods but as the sphere of creative human activity to harness nature. This means a revolution in the understanding of the economy.
Basing himself on the Juche-orientated view on the economy, Kim Jong Il established a new scientific understanding of the masters of the economy.
General Kim Jong Il said:
“Since the popular masses are the masters of their own destiny, they must be the masters of their economic life.”
It is the principle of Kim Jong Il’s economic philosophy that man is the master of the economy.
That the masses are the masters of the economy means that they are makers and enjoyers of material wealth.
That the masses become the masters of the economy means that they create material wealth, becoming the owners of the means of production and owning the material wealth produced.
Kim Jong Il established a new original understanding that the masses are the masters of the economy as well as the masters of politics, and consequently it is necessary to enhance the role of the masses, in order to develop the economy.
What, then, is the economic principle that the masses are the masters of the economy?
It means, first of all, that the masses are the owners of the means of production. Ownership of the means of production is a fundamental issue as to whether the masses are the masters of the economy or not. It is because the class which owns the means of production exercises the rights of ownership economically.
In capitalist society the capitalist class behave as masters in economic life because they own the means of production.
At present less than ten monopolies in Japan control the economy of the country, and “50 families”, in England. In the United States, about 20 rich men control two-thirds of industry, and billionaires accounting for less than 0.002 per cent of the population hold 45 per cent of the total wealth of the United States. This is an example showing that the capitalist economy is in the hands of a handful of the privileged class.
Therefore, the masses must be made the owners of the means of the production if they are to be the masters of the economy. In order to make them the masters of the economy, it is also necessary to make them the masters of economic management. They are most interested in economic development and have wisdom and are capable of developing the economy. Therefore, in order to develop the economy, it is necessary to make them its real owners and to give full scope to their creativity and ability.
Today, in the Western capitalist countries, “humanization of labour” is pursued, but it is an impractical argument. Economists reached the conclusion that because the management of enterprises in capitalist society is undertaken by company directors and their managerial staff, the workers are only their tools.
It is absurd to expect voluntary and creative participation on the part of the masses, because they are alienated from the position of the owners of the means of production.
If the masses are to be the masters of the economy, they must be made owners of the material wealth they produce. The progressive character of the economy is defined according as how the produced material wealth is distributed. It is well known that the labouring people, the direct producers, cannot possess the material wealth they produce and that it falls into the hands of the minority, the priviliged class and exploiters. Therefore, in south Korea the phenomenon of the rich getting richer and the poor poorer is becoming more pronounced as the days go by.
As was reported, a certain south Korean assemblyman arranged a sumptuous wedding ceremony and invited 1,500 guests to receive “congratulatory money”. They came driving over 700 cars and occupied the whole parking lot. Some came by plane.
Recently, in the United States the real income of the rich strata accounting for one per cent of the population has increased by 74 per cent, whereas that of the poor strata decreased by 9.3 per cent. This proves the anti-popular character of the capitalist economy.
Although the United States is said to have the most developed economy, the streets of Washington and Los Angeles swarm with beggars. According to official data, in the United States, which is professed to be the “land of bliss for all people”, there are more than eight million beggars. Billionaire Bill Ketch in his forties leads a luxurious life, employing hundreds of servants, in a handsome house in the suburbs of Seattle furnished with a big swimming pool, a game house, a playground, a library, a cinema, a big banquet hall and an underground parking lot.
This shows that the capitalist economy alienates the majority of the masses and is for a handful of privileged people. For this reason, this country is known in the world as the “poor country of abundance”. According to a questionnaire investigation conducted by The Times and C.N.N., 69 per cent of respondents are said to have complained “It is too hard to make a living and I find it difficult to pursue other values of life.”
All this potently shows that however high the levels of the development of the productive force and production of material wealth may be, if it is not intended for the popular masses, such an economy can not be said to be a developed economy.
Kim Jong Il takes as the basis of the economic construction and development the principle that the popular masses are the masters of the economy, and sees to it that the economy of north Korea thoroughly serves the people. Thus, in north Korea the masses have become the owners of the means of production and own the material wealth produced.
In north Korea the goods necessary for food, clothing and housing have been produced abundantly and are supplied to the labouring people evenly, although luxury goods are not plentiful. Take the housing problem for example: Unlike in south Korea in north Korea there are no homeless people. In north Korea the state provides the working people with housing free of charge.
In the world congress on the housing problem held in Istanbul it was announced that more than 500 million people are homeless. When this is taken into consideration, it is really admirable that the policy of north Korea solved its housing problem.
Great credit is due to Kim Jong Il, who made the economy serve the masses and let them exercise the right as its masters. In north Korea under his leadership the principle of placing the masses at the centre and depending on them is thoroughly implemented throughout the process of drawing up the economic plan and carrying it out, and the economy is ceaselessly and rapidly developing, with full play given to the responsibility and creativity of all labouring people. Herein lies the bright prospects of the north Korean economy.
There is no doubt that the people-centred economic policy of Kim Jong Il will provide the north Korean people with a harmonious and worthwhile life. The people-centred view on the economy is the fundamental principle which defines the orientation of development of the north Korean economy.
2) MAN IS VALUABLE, BUT NOT MONEY
The ancient Greek poet Alkei said, “Money makes man.” If it is true, he should be said to be the founder of mammonism. If money makes man as he said, money must be respected as the creator of man. But people say that nothing is more mean than money. Originally, the economy and money were in close relation with each other. Money is an important medium of economic activity, covering production, distribution and consumption. The problem is that excessive stress is laid on the important role of money in the economic operation due to its functional character, whereas the value of man, the master of the economy, is neglected.
At present in capitalist society money is worshipped and the view on value by which man is regarded as an appendage to money holds sway.
That is why Rousseau said, “No one should be so poor as to be sold for money nor be so rich as to buy people with money.” He hoped that people would not lose human goodness and virtues because of money. But now the money-centred view on value is rapidly spreading in the world, and there is being created the terrible situation where the people are ever more reduced to being an appendage to money.
In these circumstances, it is of great significance for sound human education and genuine economic development to clarify the relation between man and money. General Kim Jong Il gave the right answer to this urgent question of sound economic development.
What, then, is his philosophy concerning the relation between man and money? In a word, it is that it is not money but man that is valuable
Kim Jong Il said that “Money can exist only when there are people. We should know how to love man. Man is the most valuable thing, not money.” This is the man-centred view on the economy.
This idea clarifies the fundamental principle of economic management concerning what positions man and money hold in economic life and economic construction; to which should more importance be attached, man or money; what stress should be laid on in economic management, and how money should be spent for people.
Money, currency, is an economic means and is an indispensible factor in economic life. The natural economy began along with the appearance of mankind. Nature was transformed and the products were produced by man, and there was formed the relation of mutual accommodation between people which gave rise to the currency relation. Namely, currency appeared by necessity as the means of equivalent exchange when people carried on transactions with other people with their surplus products.
Currency is a special commodity which is exchangeable with any other commodity of equivalent value. It incorporates the desire of its possessor, the commodity producer, to obtain the commodities of equivalent value he needs. Hence, it performs the function of measurement of value as well as circulation. It is nothing more than that. But money came to act as a factor which is opposed to man due to the reversed understanding and selfish desire of those who use it, although it performs its proper function.
With the appearance of the relation of exploitation money was used by the haves as the means for satisfying their unbounded selfish desires, and at the highest stage of capitalist development it gave rise to financial oligarchy. In other words, the dictatorship of money which controls the economy of the country began in the imperialist countries.
With the emergence of capitalism, the value of personality was changed into exchange value, and mammonism came to prevail in human life and the realms of politics, the economy and culture.
The concentration and accumulation of capital caused the unbounded exploitation of the working masses and gave rise to inflation and economic crisis. In other words, money began to control man.
Man makes and uses money in accordance with his needs. When viewed in the light of aim and means, man is the aim and money is the means. Man makes and uses money, proceeding from the needs for his independent life. It is not that man is needed for money and serves as the means for money.
However, in capitalist society this stark truth is distorted by the capitalist class in pursuance of their unbounded selfish desires, and the reversed mechanism by which the man-made money alienates man prevails.
That is why the song Friend! Give Me a Penny, was popular in the United States from 1929 to 1930.
Las Vegas in the State of Nevada of the United States is a famous gamblers’ city, where money dominates and degenerates people. There corrupt and degenerate people are running wild for money. It is a city where money is idolized and because of this everything human is perishing.
Kim Jong Il put an end to all the distorted views on money and its use and established a new and original man-centred view on currency. According to his view, money exists only when there are people, and man is most valuable beyond comparison, not money.
As Kim Jong Il said, only when there are people can money exist. Man made money to meet his needs and uses it to meet the demands of an independent life. Money is valuable as long as it serves as a means for exchange and transaction. However, it should not be sanctified for this reason.
It is people owning money who judge how much money is needed, how much money is to be spent, and for what. Money has value in that it performs the function of measurement and is a means of circulation, but it is of no value apart from man.
In capitalist society money is idolized, whereas in socialist society, in which the state entirely secures the lives of the labouring masses, assuming full responsibility for them, money does not serve as a means of accumulation of wealth and attainment of ambition, but as a means to provide convenience to the working people in their life and as a lever of state and economic management.
In man-centred socialist society there is no political and economic foundation on which money is idolized, and it is not allowed institutionally.
In capitalist society, where the law of the struggle for existence and the law of the rich getting richer and the poor poorer are in force, the value of a man is assessed by the amount of money he possesses, whereas in socialist society those who live for money or idolize it are regarded as mean fellows. In socialist society, where the people have become the masters of the state and the productive means, they take pride in devotedly working for the country and the well-being of the people, but not for money.
Proceeding from this view, Kim Jong Il consistently maintains the policy of not sparing money for the popular masses.
He consistently makes it a rule to give up or do away with projects harmful to the masses, however profitable they may be. Learning that an outmoded factory furnace, which cost an enormous amount of money, did harm to the health of the workers, Kim Jong Il boldly had it destroyed.
When the life of a worker was endangered in an accident in a factory, he had him cured by sending valuable medicine costing a great amount of money. An airplane was used and famous professors and doctors of medicine were enlisted to save his life. If all these were taken into consideration, the cost would have amounted to an astronomical figure. According to his economic calculation, the health of the worker can not be bartered for any amount of money, and there is no need to calculate.
In north Korea the policy of valuing man and not sparing money for man has been established institutionally.
How do matters now stand in south Korea? Successive Presidents, becoming thieves, embezzled enormous amounts of money and ruined the people’s living. It is absurd to speak about “rapid growth” or the “land of bliss for the whole nation” in the corrupt and diseased south Korea, where the Presidents misappropriate huge amounts of money and deceive the people.
If there are “rapid growth” and a “land of bliss for the whole nation” in a society in which man is ignored and money is worshipped, they are the “rapid growth” and the “land of bliss” for those having vested rights, and who live in splendor exacting heavy taxes from the people. The accident of Songsu Bridge, the gas explosion accident in the Taegu underground and the collapse of the Samphung Department Store which took place in succession in this land are the inevitable outcome of the climate of south Korea, in which anything is done for money without hesitation.
The politics of south Korea is plutocracy. Successive rulers pursued plutocracy.
The English proverb “When money speaks, politics closes its mouth” holds true in today’s south Korea.
Desiring a genuine life in the climate of mammonism is the same as expecting a rose to bloom in a dust bin.
It is the task facing south Korea to remove the climate of evil in which money controls man and build a genuine society in which man controls money and it entirely serves man.
2) DON’T PUT CALCULATION TO THE FORE FOR THE MASSES
The economy means calculation. For the development of the economy, proper balance must be kept between investment and production. For this purpose a scientific method of calculation must be used. This is because only when a proper balance is maintained between production and distribution, and between investment and effectiveness, is it possible to ensure enlarged reproduction and ceaseless growth of production. However, there is no method of calculation and method of investment which is equally applicable to any society. The method of estimation may be chosen in accordance with the interests and demands of those who manage the economy.
The principle of economic management applied in capitalist society is to attain the maximum effectiveness with the minimum input. What underlies the development of the capitalist economy is the activation of “competitiveness”. It is the principle of capitalist economic management that there is no need to hesitate if it makes one win in competition, regardless of the influence upon the people. Therefore, the method of economic estimation and calculation is chosen with a view to winning in competition and to produce as much as possible with the minimum input.
So far this principle of investment has been regarded as a universal principle essential to economic construction and management. Of course, it is true that proper calculation is important for economic development. However, investment should not be made simply to meet the requirements of the calculation.
General Kim Jong Il resolutely rejected the established method of inhuman calculation.
What, then, is the arithmetic and the method of calculation applied by him?
It is the people-centred arithmetic and method of calculation.
Kim Jong Il said that “People often say ‘one should not do business which does not pay’. But for the people one should do even business which does not pay. If it can provide people with a happy life, one should do it, even spending treasury funds without stinting. ‘Don’t put calculation to the fore for the people’. This is my arithmetic and the method of calculation of our Party.”
A long time has elapsed since the appearance of arithmetic and the history of the economy began, but there was not devised the method of calculation by which investment involving enormous amounts of money should be made without stint for the masses and without putting calculation to the fore.
It was taken for granted that investment is done on the basis of estimation, and that arithmetic and calculation are needed for proper estimation.
However, Kim Jong Il broke the established practices and advanced a new idea that investment and estimation, arithmetic and calculation should be done with man, that is, the masses, at the centre. Namely, he who values man and loves the masses created the man-centred method of calculation and estimation. The man-centred method of calculation and arithmetic are based on the motto of Kim Jong Il.
The love of the labouring masses is his motto.
He enunciated the philosophy of human love whose gist is the man-first doctrine and man-centred doctrine and, implementing it, makes it the supreme rule in economic management to show unreserved love and solicitude to the labouring people. It is the principle that man should be the first consideration and proper estimation should be made for the people.
One year when it was suggested that a project which was expected to be undertaken would not pay because of its large size, Kim Jong Il reproached the officials in charge, saying, “In socialist society man is more valuable than money or materials. Investment must be made if the people require, even though economic calculation would not justify it. It is the superiority of our socialist system that even a fortune in gold should not be spared if it is for good of the people, and everything should be subordinated to them.”
Kim Jong Il’s thorough man-centred view gave rise to a new man-centred method of calculation and investment.
Money or goods are needed for man and for the happy life of the masses. Therefore, even a fortune in gold must be invested even though it does not pay. This people-centred method of calculation hints at many things.
Schools were built for three or four pupils on a beacon island and in remote mountainous areas, and the state sends commuter trains and buses for some children, in accordance with this method of calculation.
The state sent a car for three children in a remote mountain village, built a TV relay tower, and appropriated a large amount of money and equipment for a few inhabitants in this mountain village. When the lives of ordinary inhabitants were endangered, the state saved them, sending them several million dollars worth of medicine. Such is north Korea.
Kim Jong Il saw to it that an up-to-date dental hospital was built buying modern dental equipment at the expense of several hundred million dollars for the workers of the chemical industrial regions in Hamhung. When he learned that such equipment was used only for treatment of billionaires and Presidents in foreign countries, he said that the set of equipment should be bought without putting calculation to the fore because the workers in this country are kings.
When the Changgwang Health Complex was built in Pyongyang, in his report presented to Kim Jong Il the official in charge of the project suggested using the used water after purification, like in foreign countries, because several thousand tons of water is to be used a day. At this, Kim Jong Il said it should be made a rule to replace all the used water with fresh water, instead of using the used water after purification, even if it costs a large amount of money, since it is designed for the people. He pointed to the need to lay a water pipe from the Taedong River to the Changgwang Health Complex, and not to worry about the cost.
Kim Jong Il stated that man is the most precious and powerful being in the world, although the bourgeoisie regard man as a means for the production of commodities, as a paltry being possessed of work power which is bought and sold as a commodity, and as an impotent being controlled by money. Hence it is the inherent demand of the economy to subordinate it to man.
It is the principle to be adhered to in economic development and management to subordinate the economy to the people, since the economy presupposes the existence of man and it is developed by the masses.
According to the method of calculation of Kim Jong Il, investment must be made if the popular masses require it, even when it does not satisfy economic estimation and costs a hundred million dollars. It is the most excellent method of calculation which is of universal significance.
4) MAN-CENTRED STRATEGY
General Kim Jong Il created a new strategy of economic construction by implementing the man-centred economic principle in economic construction. Since economic construction is the struggle to transform nature and create material wealth, there must be a strategy inherent to it.
He regarded the struggle to transform nature as an important sphere of the struggle to realize the independence of man, and created a new strategy for economic construction to transform nature.
When Kim Jong Il guided the automation of the Hwanghae Iron Complex, he said that money is not a consideration if the workers can be liberated from arduous and heavy labour, and pointed to the need to maintain the principle of making man the first consideration. He stated that our automation strategy is a man-centred one, whereas the capitalists adhere to a money-centred strategy in automation.
The man-centred strategy is the original strategy of economic construction Kim Jong Il created and is implementing. It aims at liberating man completely by carrying out technical revolution and is intended to effect technical transformation in favour of the independent and creative labour of the people.
Technical revolution is not for the sake of technical revolution. It is the revolution to completely free the workers, emancipated from political fetters, from the shackles of nature. Therefore, technical revolution should be carried out to meet the interests of man and in his favour.
Technical renovation or technical rationalization in capitalist society is not for the workers and aims at pursuing the interests of the capitalist class as far as possible. It goes without saying that they do not make big investments for the workers. For them technical rationalization and technical renovation are a means to make more money.
Capitalists renovate technique and rationalize facilities to win in the ceaseless competition for profit and economic war. Technical renovation and technical rationalization of machines are none other than a method to earn more profit by producing more products per hour. Therefore, technical renovation and technical rationalization in capitalist society all the more bind workers to arduous labour, and result in dismissal of workers. Briefly speaking, capitalists renovate or rationalize technique for maximum profit.
In this sense, Kim Jong Il qualified technical renovation in capitalist society as the “money-centred strategy” and warned people about the inhuman and reactionary character of the “money-centred strategy”.
The money-centred strategy ignores man and drives him to death, whereas the man-centred strategy defends man and hastens humane emancipation.
General Kim Jong Il decided to make north Korea a “kingdom of automation” for complete human emancipation, and for this purpose created the man-centred strategy.
The man-centred strategy is the product of the man-centred economic philosophy of Kim Jong Il and the methodology of economic guidance he consistently maintains in guiding economic construction.
In north Korea under the leadership of General Kim Jong Il, major bases of heavy industry and industrial establishments, including the Hwanghae Iron Complex, the Kim Chaek Iron and Steel Complex, and the Sangwon Cement Complex have been modernized and automated so that convenience was provided to the workers and more material wealth was produced and supplied to them. It is Kim Jong Il’s idea and will that if an industrial project is harmful to the workers, even though it has the prospect of yielding a great profit, it should be given up or destroyed.
General Kim Jong Il said, “The aim of our automation is to lighten the arduous labour of the people as far as possible and make them work, moving their bodies to such an extent as to stimulate the appetite but not harm their health. This is the requirement of the Juche-orientated strategy of automation and the man-centred strategy”.
Later he sent the automatic cameras which had been used in the Pyongyang Grand Theatre and the wireless telephones which were used for filming to the Hwanghae Iron Complex for automation. He visited the complex on several occasions and gave guidance to the work of automation there. Thus, he had the workers relieved completely from hard labour and made them engage in merry and worthwhile labour in a modernized factory.
The remarkable reality of north Korea contrasts strongly with south Korea, with its backward industrial structure which ceaselessly causes industrial disasters and casualties and is riddled with corruption. The industrial disasters which take place one after another in south Korea claim a heavy toll of workers and drive the people to utter unrest. The money-centred strategy which values money more than man is an evil strategy which causes defective construction and drives the workers to death by arduous labour and environmental pollution.
The man-centred strategy is the strategy of economic construction of Kim Jong Il, who values man and strongly loves the popular masses, and an all-round strategy which ceaselessly promotes rapid economic growth.
5) BUILD THE SELF-SUFFICIENT ECONOMY
Galbraith of the United States published The Affluent Society 200 years after Adam Smith made public The Wealth of Nations . Smith evolved classic economic theory with a view to making England a rich country, whereas Galbraith put forth the theory of turning poor nations into rich nations with the aim of making underdeveloped countries rich. Both of them aimed to meet the demands of the nations of the great powers and make them rich.
Galbraith attributed the poverty of underdeveloped countries to lack of capital, overpopulation and the low level of education. This view was developed into a “theory on the development of the underdeveloped countries”.
It is his argument that the way for the underdeveloped countries to get rid of the evil cycle of poverty is to accumulate capital, and for this purpose it is necessary to introduce the capital of the developed countries.
The “theory on the development of the underdeveloped countries” is aimed at rearranging the neo-colonial economic order of the world by exporting surplus capital to the underdeveloped countries. Can the newly-emerging countries boost their economies with the help of surplus capital from the developed capitalist countries? They can hardly do so. The current world situation shows that the developing countries are all the more being reduced to a miserable plight due to the economic plunder of the imperialists and colonialists.
What, then, is the way for the countries which inherited the colonial economy of the past, or the developing countries on the path of new birth, to develop a stable economy? It is General
Kim Jong Il who gave a clear answer to this question and propounded the philosophy ensuring the development of the economy. Carrying forward the intention of President
Kim Il Sung, who had built a strong country of independence and self-sufficiency, he maintains the principle of Juche in economic construction.
Build a self-sufficient economy. This is the basic idea constituting the core of the economic philosophy of Kim Jong Il, and its basic requirement. The economy of north Korea is strong because it is based on self-sufficiency. North Korea is developing its economy stably, unaffected by the protracted blockade of the imperialist powers, including the United States, because she has a self-sufficient economy. According to Kim Jong Il’s view on the economy, it is the natural demand of the independent sovereign state to build a self-sufficient economy.
General Kim Jong Il said, “In order to implement the principle of economic self-sufficiency, one must build an independent national economy.”
Building an economy of self-sufficiency is the basic requirement for the people to consolidate the country’s sovereignty, hold their own ground politically and ideologically without depending on others, and build up self-reliant defence of the country.
What, then, is the philosophy of self-sufficient economy of Kim Jong Il based on? It is the principle of existence of the country and nation. The life and soul of the country and nation is independence. The country and nation exist and develop as an independent entity. The existence and development of the country and nation are effected through the process of realizing the demand to live independently, with independent vitality. The country and nation cannot exist or develop if it has no ability to maintain self-reliance. Therefore, for the country to be independent, it should defend its sovereignty politically and be self-sufficient economically.
It is natural that each country and nation builds its independent and self-sufficient economy, since the destiny of the people is shaped with the country and the nation as the unit. That is why building an independent economy is the basic form of existence of the independent sovereign state and the independent nation.
What, then, does the building of an independent national economy mean? It means building an economy which is free from dependence on others and which stands on its own feet, an economy which serves one’s own people and develops on the strength of the resources of one’s own country and by the efforts of one’s own people. Such an economy makes it possible to develop the productive force quickly by utilizing the nation’s natural resources in a rational and integrated way, improve the people’s living standard continuously, strengthen the nation’s material and technical foundation, and increase the nation’s political, economic and military power. It also ensures the exercise of complete sovereignty and equality in political and economic affairs, in international relations, and makes it possible to contribute to the independent development of the world.
It is vital to build an independent national economy, particularly in those countries which were backward economically and technically because of imperialist domination and plunder in the past. Only when these countries build an independent national economy will they be able to repel the new colonial policy of the imperialists, free themselves completely from their domination and exploitation, and wipe out national inequality. Briefly speaking, the line of building an independent national economy advanced by Kim Jong Il is a practical line to lead the life of the nation by its own strength and wisdom.
The line of building an independent national economy has nothing in common with a closed economy and isolation. The line makes it possible to strengthen the national entity and independence, and, on this basis, presupposes mutual accommodation with foreign countries. The line requires that the country meets necessities for national existence mainly with home products, and makes up other needs, and deficiency and scarcity, through exchange on the principle of mutual accommodation.
By implementing this economic line, north Korea produces lorries, electric locomotives, large vessels and TVs and other necessities on its own, and fully satisfies the daily increasing demands of the people, to say nothing of modern high technology. This shows that the line of building an independent national economy meets the essential and legitimate demand for economic construction of an independent sovereign state and the masses.
The principle underlying the line of building an independent national economy is self-reliance.
General Kim Jong Il said:
“Self-reliance is the revolutionary spirit and a principle of struggle of the communists in carrying out the revolution by their own initiative.”
Self-reliance is the spirit and principle of rising by one’s own strength. Living by one’s own effort is the inherent mode of human existence and activity. Independence, the essential attribute of man, implies identity and self-reliance. It is the mode of human existence to realize one’s own independent demand by one’s own effort. Self-reliance signifies a high degree of responsibility and initiative to live and make revolution using one’s own strength. Briefly speaking, it is the revolutionary spirit and the principle of struggle to shape one’s own destiny with one’s own strength. Self-reliance is the universal principle to be applied in the economic construction of the country.
As man shapes his own destiny by his own strength, so the country and nation should satisfy its own independent, material and economic demand on the principle of self-reliance without depending on others. Dependence on others is not the mode of existence of independent man, but is the slavish one. If the country and nation want to manage their economic life by depending on others, it implies the loss of raison d’etre as an independent sovereign state and as an independent nation. Therefore, each country must build the economy by enlisting the efforts of its own people and its resources and depending on its own financial resources and technology on the principle of self-reliance. Only then is it possible to develop the economy quickly on one’s own initiative, overcome all difficulties and lead the country to prosperity.
Viewed in this light, it is really admirable that north Korea has developed its economy in a diversified and integrated way so as to produce heavy and light industrial goods and agricultural products on its own, making the country rich and powerful and improving the people’s living standard. The politico-ideological might and the powerful defence capability of north Korea were attained on the basis of the powerful independent national economy guided by the methodology of self-reliance.
Today north Korea is a powerful country capable of producing anything through its own effort if it has a mind to do.
Kim Jong Il’s philosophy of self-sufficient economy is, because of its validity and vitality, the philosophy of economic guidance of universal significance to serve as a guide in economic construction.
It is admirable that the north Korean people are proudly building up economic potential for national independence and self-sufficiency, while bravely overcoming the economic blockade of the imperialists.
When we view the south Korean economy in this light, we are disappointed and worried about the life of the nation. It is because it is in a miserable state, losing Juche character and independence.
If man makes it the mode of existence to practise flunkeyism and depend on others, he becomes a slave. If a nation takes to flunkeyism and dependence on others, it will perish. The south Korean economy depended on foreign forces from the beginning and still is not free from the mechanism of dependence on foreign countries.
The dependence of the south Korean economy, which is qualified as a “pop-ricecake economy” or as a “bubble economy”, is becoming more pronounced. At the end of 1996, its debt to foreign countries amounted to 100 billion dollars. Considering its area, population and the scale of the economy, south Korea is a “debtor country” burdened with the largest quantity of foreign debt in the world. This is because Kim Yong Sam’s government gave the green light to the introduction of foreign capital under the pretext of globalization, and the government and comprador capitalists accepted randomly foreign loans and investment. Kim Yong Sam’s government opened 98 per cent of south Korea’s industries and 90 per cent of its agriculture, timber and fishing industries to foreign countries. In 1995, the trade deficit was 10,061,000,000 dollars, which exerted a great evil influence on the domestic economy and incurred a great disaster in the people’s life. As a result, 14,000 large and small enterprises went bankrupt in 1995.
Today, south Korea has to import over 70 per cent of its food. Self-sufficiency in food is expected to fall below 25 per cent in 2000. This proves that dependence on foreign forces leads to subordination and ruin of the country, while self-reliance ensures national prosperity. Basing himself on the principle of human survival and national survival, General Kim Jong Il put forward the famous idea, “The person who lives on his own strength will be prosperous while one who depends on others will be ruined” and, taking it as his motto, guides the economy.
Today, this idea has become the ideological and mental nutrition instilling vitality into the independent and self-reliant mode of life and struggle of the north Korean people, and the basic principle applied in the economic construction of the country.
Kim Jong Il awakens the north Korean people to the truth that “A lump of metal in one’s house is better than a nugget of gold in another’s” and wisely leads so that all the labouring people build up their household without looking towards others for help, and work hard to build a self-sufficient economy with a high sense of responsibility befitting the masters.
Today the United States and other imperialist great powers are increasing the dependence of the countries in Africa, the Middle and Near East and America and other regions of the world under the guise of “aid” and “loan”, with a view to found and extend multinational enterprises. This brings the necessity and validity of the line of building an independent economy into bold relief.
The gap between the south and the north is widening with the passage of time, and the noose set around the neck of the developing countries by the great powers is tightening. This clearly shows that dependence on foreign forces leads to national ruin. Economic dependence incurs political dependence and the ruin of the country and nation.
It is doubtless that north Korea will continue to make strenuous efforts and advance vigorously along the path of self-reliance it opted for, while facing all sorts of challenge and blockade with the strategy of self-reliance.
4. MAN-CENTRED PRINCIPLE OF
LITERATURE AND ART
The literature and art of the Renaissance opposed the feudal system and the centuries-old fetters and despotism of Catholicism, its pillar, satirizing the affected way of life of the feudal nobility and the scandalous life of priests veiled in asceticism, advocated free development of individuality, and pursued the aspiration for a new era. Thus it brought about a new golden age of literature and art.
With the development of capitalist relations attempts were made to bring about the free development of literature and art, but they were not oriented to genuine literature and art for the masses and degenerated into decadent popularity-hunting due to the prevalence of a social trend which turned personal value into exchange value.
The founding of Marxism marked another milestone in the history of literature and art. This means a revolutionary turn to proletarian literature and art serving the cause of liberation of the working masses. But proletarian literature and art failed to enter the right orbit, in spite of its revolutionary character.
Collapse of socialism in some countries emasculated the revolutionary literature and art of the proletariat and incurred the tragedy of corrupting and degenerating literature and art.
General Kim Jong Il enunciated and implemented the original man-centred literature and art philosophy and brought about the golden age of genuine literature and art serving the masses.
1) LITERATURE IS HUMANICS
Definition of the essence of literature presents the original premise related to the orientation and principle of literature and art. But there were different views on the essence of literature and the tendency of considering it as a form and method of reflecting the objective world prevailed.
Concerning the essence of literature, General Kim Jong Il said that literature is humanics; the essence of literature as humanics lies in that it portrays living man and serves man.
Kim Jong Il defined literature as humanics. This means that it delineates a living man and serves man. Unlike other sciences, the essence of literature lies in that it directly portrays and serves man.
Literature as humanics has two aspects. One aspect is that it is to portray the living man shaping his own destiny but not the abstract and unreal man. The other is that literature is to inspire people to noble and beautiful causes by depicting the genuine man. The man literature is to portray and serve is the working masses. In this sense Kim Jong Il said that the essence of literature lies in that it depicts man and life and serves the popular masses truly. According to his view on literature, literature is to portray and serve the labouring masses, the main agent of social history, who regard independence as their lifeblood and fight to shape their destiny, but not God, emperors or rulers.
Of course, in the past many people said that literature is humanics. But they failed to clarify the basic and essential questions of why literature is humanics, what the basic questions of humanics are, what its essential content is, why man is to be portrayed, what kind of man he should be, and how to portray him.
They failed to correctly elucidate the essence of literature as humanics mainly because their world outlook was based on materialist dialectics and they failed to cognize correctly the essence of man to be placed at the centre of literature. Proceeding from the reflection theory based on materialist dialectics, they did not go beyond the view that it is natural that literature reflecting reality portrays man, the object of reflection. From the reflection theory it is possible to reveal the injustice and contradictions of reality, and depict the struggle to do away with them, but it is impossible to describe the true image of man shaping his own destiny.
For literature to serve man, it should describe how man realizes his essential demands and shapes his destiny on the basis of the scientific understanding of man’s essence. In this sense the idea that literature should portray the living man and serve man can be said to be a scientific one.
The formulation that literature is humanics is based on the scientific man-centred philosophical principle. Literature should portray and serve man, the most precious thing in the world and its master, because man is master of everything and decides everything.
Another principle underlying literature as humanics is that man is a social being with independence as his lifeblood.
Man fights to become master of the world and his destiny because man is a being with independence as his lifeblood. Hence arises the necessity for literature to portray how man prizes independence and fights to glorify it.
Basing himself on the scientific understanding of the essence of literature, General Kim Jong Il clarified the content and essential demand of the Juche-oriented humanics.
General Kim Jong Il said:
“We need a humanics, literature, which gives prominence to the principle of independence, the development of independent individuals, and which creates the image of the truly typical man of the new era, thereby contributing to the transformation of the whole of society in accordance with the concept of Juche.”
Juche-oriented humanics gives an artistic answer to the question of defence of human independence and the question of independent man. In other words, it contributes to elucidating the essence of man with independence as his lifeblood and the question of man emanating from it.
One of the important requirements to be filled by Juche-oriented humanics is to put to the fore the questions of independence and of independent man, and create a model of true man.
That literature puts to the fore the questions of independence and of independent man means that it clarifies the question of the people, who fight to defend and glorify independence, their lifeblood. Literature whose mission it is to serve man should clarify how man prizes, defends and glorifies independence, his lifeblood, because independence is his lifeblood.
In whatever way literature may treat the question of man from different classes and strata, it boils down to the question of realizing his independent demands and shaping his destiny. It is true literature that portrays how man endeavours to become master of the world and his destiny and lead a free life. Consequently, for literature to become true humanics serving man, it should portray the man who values and glorifies independence. When literature gives vivid portrayal of the process of growth of man’s independent ideological consciousness and creative ability and the process of development of his revolutionary world outlook, it becomes the true literature serving man.
According to Kim Jong Il’s view, for literature to portray independent man, it should place the working masses at the centre.
General Kim Jong Il said;
“The method of seeing and describing people from the conceptual viewpoint of Juche consists in giving an accurate artistic picture of the popular masses, who are performing their role as masters of the revolution and construction.”
According to his view on literature, it should portray man placing the labouring masses at the centre, instead of abstract man in general, and tell how the working masses play the role as masters in reshaping nature and society.
History shows that, as well as material wealth, all ideological and spiritual wealth was created by the labouring masses and that they always played the decisive role in shattering the old and the reactionary and creating the new and the progressive. Therefore, for literature to carry out its mission, it should place the labouring masses, the main agent and driving force of history, at the centre, instead of emperors, kings, landlords, capitalists and other representatives of the ruling class, and portray the life of the working masses instead of that of the ruling class. The life of the working masses is the most beautiful and noble. Therefore, the literature that portrays the beautiful and noble life of the working masses, placing them at the centre, is the nicest and noblest literature.
The heroines of the revolutionary operas Sea of Blood and The Flower Girl, which were created to be masterpieces under General Kim Jong Il’s energetic guidance, are all ordinary country women who were oppressed and exploited under Japanese colonial rule. They were awakened politically to win back genuine human rights and freedom and took the road of revolution. These operas made a great impression on people because they depicted the ardent aspirations of the people after independence. It is the task of literature to represent how man endeavours to become master of his destiny and the world and lead a free and harmonious life.
The literature which eggs people on to degradation, despair, hatred, plunder and queer tastes cannot be said to be literature in the true sense of the word.
Modernist and postmodernist literature is a negative factor which corrupts literature and art and degradates people because of its essence and the ambiguity of its claim.
Modernist literature and art deform and destroy even the form of literature and art, while pursuing the “refined taste” and an affected “beauty” alone. Modernism is characterized by the playful use of incomprehensible language on the plea of expressing “modern beauty”, contraposition of the theme and the object of depiction, disorderly arrangement of lines and colours, and destruction of musical rhythm. Considering that modernism pervaded with naturalism, Freudianism, existentialism and eroticism is a harmful ideological trend which is no use in human life and in shaping the destiny of the popular masses, enunciation of the Juche-oriented literary and art philosophy can be said to be a contribution to the development of progressive literature and art.
2) THE LABOURING MASSES ARE THE
CREATORS AND ENJOYERS OF
LITERATURE AND ART
In south Korea 1996 was announced as the “Year of Literature” and the slogan “Let us enjoy literature together with people” was put up.
Where can true literature be found and how can it be enjoyed in south Korea, where people are trampled upon and spiritual culture is ruined? For the people to enjoy literature, it itself should be true literature for the people.
South Korean literature and art do not ennoble people’s ideological and spiritual life but serve as ideological and spiritual venom which degenerates people and eggs them on to queer tastes and the pursuit of their base instincts. Ma Kwang Su’s zealous advocacy of open sex and free love is openly flooding the press. Ma Kwang Su’ novel Merry Sara and his poem Let’s Go to Jangmi Hotel trifle with the masses and cause much ado in society. The play Destiny eggs people on to corruption and degradation. Yankee art and Japanese art are in vogue, and the whole of south Korea is being turned into a stage for foreign art.
However, in the North, literature and art which are oriented to beautiful, noble, sound and vital true human love are at their zenith.
It is because the people are the masters of literature and art.
General Kim Jong Il advanced the idea of the main agent of literature and art for the first time in history and implemented it in leading literature and art.
The masses are the main agent of literature and art because they are their creators and enjoyers.
Literature and art have a several thousand-year-long history, but the labouring masses were not put to the fore as the main agent of literature and art.
Of course, in the past there were Chartist literature and literature of the Paris Commune. The literature and art of this sort reflected the people’s struggle against capitalist exploitation, but it was not based on the original nature and principle of literature and art and only appeared as a trend prevailing in the age. On the other hand, genre literature and folk literature openly turned away from man in reality and naturalism, superrealism, Freudianism, Dadaism and modernism were inhuman and anti-popular trends which ignored the independent and creative nature of man and preached despair, sorrow, degradation and licence. Briefly speaking, these did not represent the true man and did not reflect the worthwhile life of the masses, the main agent of history. The popular masses were not treated as the heroes of the real world but as the target of strange interests.
In south Korea literature and art are extremely decadent. A medley of bourgeois literature and art holds sway in south Korea and acts as the germ of horrible infectious disease which degenerates the masses ideologically and mentally. The works praised to the sky among novels, plays, movies, pieces of art and music are not directed to contributing to the just, moral ideals and aspirations of the true man but egg people on to moral degradation, misanthropy and the struggle for existence. Sex, murder, destruction, despair and death are commonly chosen as the themes of literary and art works, and queer and crazy action literature is flooding south Korea, which is leading the young people to a dangerous abyss. It is a harmful act threatening the sound spiritual and cultural life of the people of this country to encourage bourgeois literature and art, which lack substance and are ambiguous in their message, while propagandizing modernism and post-modernism.
In order to create true literature and art, one should have the attitude and standpoint of being amidst the people and breathing the same breath with the people. Literature and art detached from the people, from their demands and interests, have no meaning, however good they are, however they are embellished. Viewed in this light, the Marxist view on literature and art can be said to have marked a turning-point in the development of literature and art.
Marxism stressed that literature and art should embody party spirit and working-class spirit, but gave no theoretical elucidation of the creators and enjoyers of literature and art. This is because Marxism directed its main attention to clarifying that literature and art should reflect real life as it is, and that it should serve the cause of liberation of the proletariat.
Basing himself on the principle that the labouring masses are the main agent of social history, Kim Jong Il established anew understanding that the labouring masses are creators and enjoyers of literature and art as well as producers of material wealth.
History shows that the labouring masses produced all the spiritual as well as material wealth but were not its enjoyers. In the exploiter society the labouring masses produced material and spiritual wealth not for themselves but for the exploiter class, and all the products were taken away by the exploiter class, the ruling class. The famous palaces, temples and churches in European countries which aroused the admiration, of the world were built by the working masses but they were turned away and the privileged class enjoyed them in their stead. The beautiful music, art and dance created by the popular masses were used as instruments of enjoyment for the privileged class.
Kim Jong Il decided to put an end to suffering in the history of literature and art. Proceeding from the noble idea to make the labouring masses, the creators of literature and art, be the possessors thereof, he advanced the idea that the labouring masses are both creators and enjoyers of literature and art.
The labouring masses who are creators of literature and art have the right to enjoy them. But it has been supposed so far that with the division of labour into mental labour and physical labour, philosophy, literature, art and other spiritual wealth are mainly created by those who take part in mental labour.
But Kim Jong Il dealt a blow at this understanding and established a new understanding that the labouring masses are the creators and enjoyers of literature and art.
The idea of Kim Jong Il, who made the labouring masses the masters of literature and art, can be clearly seen in his view on the law-governed development of socialist culture.
In 1975 Kim Jong Il gave field guidance to the Komdok Mine. Then he visited the thousand metres deep underground working face where miners worked, although those who accompanied him tried to dissuade him. He said that a new culture of the working class should be created in this mine and the like, where the workers live and work, since the present age is the age of the working class and the socialist cultural life filled with revolutionary romance will be brought into full bloom among them. He went on to say that “Some people suppose it natural that miners’ villages lag behind cities in culture. This emanated from the old ideological viewpoint.
“Socialist culture is none other than the culture of the working class. It is the culture which is created by the working class and serves it. In our society, revolutionary culture ought to be created in the big collective of workers like those in Komdok. Thus the new culture created among factory workers and miners should be spread to cities and the countryside. This can be said to be the law-governed process of cultural development in socialist society, in which the working class has become master.”
The idea of disseminating the culture created among the big collective of workers to cities and the countryside is a revolutionary idea which shed a new light on the law-governed process of development of socialist culture.
He elucidated the law-governed process of creation and development of the working-class-centred new culture because he regards the working class as the revolutionary core detachment and places it at the centre in all considerations.
Culture developed through centuries but people took it for granted that the culture which newly appeared and developed was created in cities and spread to the backward countryside and remote mountain areas, and regarded this as an immutable law.
But Kim Jong Il clarified that it is a law-governed process that in the socialist society where the working class is master the culture of the working class should be created in the factories and mines in which workers are concentrated and then copied by the whole of society. Thus he made socialist literature and art the sound revolutionary literature and art for the working class, and the working class the creators and enjoyers of literature and art both nominally and virtually.
Enjoying General Kim Jong Il’s warm love and under his care all the labouring people, including workers and farmers, in the North study modern art to their hearts’ content in art establishments across the country without paying a penny. Under his solicitude the popular art which reflects the beautiful life of workers and farmers is created by them at their work place and enriches the spiritual and cultural life of the people. Not only in factories, mines, collieries and fishing grounds, but also in remote mountain villages were built cultural halls, where workers and farmers are giving full play to their artistic talent.
3) LET THE JUCHE-ORIENTED ART BE CREATED
Let the Juche-oriented art be created! This is the basic principle General Kim Jong Il holds fast to in leading literature and art.
This means to create man-centred, nation-centred art. In other words, it implies to create art which defends the independence of man and conforms to the characteristic features of the nation.
It is the Juche-oriented art that contributes to the independent and creative life of man and is created to satisfy the sentiments of the nation and conform to its characteristic features.
North Korean literature and art are blooming into true literature and art which are for the people and enrich the age because they thoroughly embody the Juche character.
Review of today’s art of south Korea shows that there is no man nor nation in it. Briefly speaking, south Korean art is a medley art in which there is no man nor subject.
The idea of creating Juche-oriented art is of great significance in the light of today’s ruined art of south Korea, which pursues art for art’s sake, propagating “quit-ideology” and “post-modernism”.
Kim Jong Il’s idea of developing Juche-oriented music is specially charming.
Socrates said to those who came to him to study philosophy, “If you really want to study philosophy, be acquainted with music.”
This must mean that philosophy and music are in close relation and that only when there is correct philosophy can beautiful music be created.
In this sense, Kim Jong Il’s view on music is specially enticing and successful because it is based on the man-centred philosophy.
General Kim Jong Il said:
“Works of music that sings of nature and pure beauty are of no great significance in the struggle of the masses.
Even when singing of nature, music must reflect people’s independent and creative attitude towards nature; even when representing beauty, it must show man’s innate beauty that makes him what he is, the ennobling beauty of the thoughts and feeling of true people that fight for independence.”
According to Kim Jong Il’s Juche-oriented view on music, music should not be naturalistic, but should beautify man and contribute to his independent and creative life.
Music is created and enjoyed by man. Therefore, music must serve man. Music which is for man reflects the independent and creative life of man who reshapes nature and society and becomes the music which gives strength and courage to the man who fights to realize independence.
Naturalist and sentimental music is of no value, with whatever beautiful melody and rhythm it is composed, because it does not describe the beauty of man and makes man degenerate and powerless.
Kim Jong Il made it possible to find the true music and orientation and way of its composition by putting forth the view that music must be for man and beautify him.
His view on music that music must be for man while singing of man deserves special notice.
Kim Jong Il said that song should be composed to cater to the sentiments of the people, be good to hear and easy to sing.
Proceeding from this view. Kim Jong Il even had one piece of music and a set of melodies chosen and composed, making it a rule to take as criteria whether they meet the demands, feelings and sentiments of the people, and whether they are easy for them to sing and understand. He remarked that famous music is the music which is popular among people and which they like to sing, and saw to it that even in composing orchestral music songs which people like to sing are composed, instead of songs which are only understandable for specialists and hard for people to understand. He thereby overcame the tendency of art-for-art’s sake. He saw that opera music which is easy for people to understand, good to listen and easy to sing was composed and chosen.
One February day in 1969 he met composers and asked them who is the most famous composer in the world. They mentioned without hesitation the name of the most famous composer in Europe. Then he said, only some specialists who worship European music appreciate the music of the Western musicians; even the songs composed by world-famous composers are not excellent pieces of music if people do not recognize and do not like them; those who composed these pieces of music cannot be called good composers. This is a manifestation of his people-centred view on music.
The north Korean songs are easy for the working people to understand and sing, and when new songs appear the whole nation come to sing them. It is because they are underlain with the people’s spirit. North Korea is the paradise of mass music, so to speak.
It also deserves special notice in his view on music that the nation-based stand is held fast to in composing music.
Kim Jong Il stated that we should not imitate the music of other countries which does not cater to the sentiment of our people, but should develop our own creatively from our own standpoint.
In developing music he holds fast to the principle of developing our own music creatively from our own stand, so that it caters to the sentiments of our nation and our people, instead of imitating the music of others and other countries.
It is quite natural and necessary to compose music to meet national demand from one’s own stand, since each country or nation has its own national tradition, sentiment, and aesthetic demand. Therefore, north Korea sees to it that music is developed creatively to cater to the sentiment of the Korean nation, while keeping alive the Juche character and opposing imitation. Hence in the North pieces of music pervaded with national sentiment are composed and new modern national musical instruments are made and used.
The revolutionary operas Sea of Blood and The Mower Girl the Phibada Opera Troupe and the Mansudae Art Troupe of north Korea performed touring different countries caused a great sensation because they kept alive the Juche character of the nation and were in harmony with contemporary aesthetic sense. The European people were charmed by the melody of the original orchestral music flowing from the orchestra pit.
Kim Jong Il is developing fine art from the Juche-oriented stand as well.
The main substance of Kim Jong Il’s view on fine art is that fine art should reflect the life of the people.
General Kim Jong Il said:
“Socialist fine art is popular fine art with a working-class nature which reflects the life of the popular masses to meet their desires and demands.”
According to his view on fine art, the popular fine art of working-class character which reflects the life of the people to meet their aspirations and demands is true fine art. Fine art which does not portray the life of the people and does not reflect their aspirations and demands is of no significance and of no value. The people are masters and enjoyers of fine art. Hence it is quite natural that it should portray the people and reflect their aspirations and demands.
But so far all the fine art did not place the people at the centre. The fine art which served the exploiter class in the past was oriented to embellishing the life of a handful of the ruling class. Such fine art without exception shunned and slighted the life of the people and served to embellish religious legend, and the life of the feudal lords and the bourgeoisie.
The Romanesque fine art which prevailed in Europe in the 11th-12th century threw people into terror and made them yield to religious faith because of its rich religious colouring. The Rococo fine art which appeared in the 18th century made for drawing nude pictures aesthetically to cater to the taste of aristocrats. The Baroque fine art of the 16th-mid-18th century served to idealize emperors and religious personalities with excessive luxury and falsely overdraw them. The revue which appeared as a form of stage art gave a sad picture of the life of the common poor people who were oppressed and maltreated and was used as adornments for cabarets and restaurants for the haves, aristocrats and the bourgeoisie. Corrupt and decadent fin-de-siecle fine art is now running wild. Pictures of the life of people of those days were drawn by some progressive artists, but they failed to show the essence of the life and struggle of the masses, the main agent of history.
Kim Jong Il stressed that Juche-oriented fine art should truly reflect the life and sentiments of the labouring masses, putting them to the fore, and become an instrument to give strength and courage to several millions of the masses in their independent and creative life.
The most beautiful and noble life in the world is that of the people who incessantly create the new and the progressive. Therefore, true fine art should portray the true image of the labouring masses, the main agent and makers of history.
Proceeding from the thorough people-centred standpoint,
Kim Jong Il saw that fine art served the masses by portraying the beautiful features of the masses to satisfy their sentiments and taste.
The basic requirement of Kim Jong Il’s Juche-oriented view on fine art is to develop fine art, attaching importance to Korean painting.
General Kim Jong Il said:
“We must develop fine art laying stress on Korean painting, which has a long tradition and fine artistic features.”
Korean painting has been drawn by the Korean nation on this land and is a form of art which was made traditional through generations. Korean painting is peculiar to the Korean nation and is liked by the Korean people. Korean painting is widely recognized as an excellent style of art which is richly pervaded with the sentiments of the Korean nation and gives a vivid portrayal of reality. Korean painting, drawn with clear, terse and fine strokes, is a vigorous, beautiful and noble style of painting.
Kim Jong Il who boundlessly loves his nation and prizes its national heritage stressed that other styles of fine art should be based on Korean painting.
Only when fine art is developed with Korean painting as the basis can the fine art of Korean style distinguished by the national character be created and other styles of fine art be developed to satisfy the sentiments of the Korean nation. North Korean fine art is developing to be a fine art which is meaningful, rich in message and liked by the nation.
Basing himself on the man-centred philosophy of literature and art, he has brought about innovation in all fields of dance, opera, cinema, drama and others, to say nothing of music and fine art. The birth of Juche-oriented art, which gives a romantic and emotion-filled picture of the life of the working masses who are vigorously advancing and taking pride in being masters of their destiny and the world, is entirely attributable to General Kim Jong Il.
3) MAN IS THE MOST BEAUTIFUL
THING IN THE WORLD
General Kim Jong Il is the creator of beauty who shapes man, nature and society beautifully.
What, then, is the philosophy of beauty of Kim Jong Il, who creates the most beautiful things in the world? It is none other than the Juche-oriented philosophy of beauty.
His philosophy of beauty pursues the beautiful with man at the centre, and hence it is the original man-centred view on aesthetics, which clarifies the aesthetic character of reality and the law-governed process of the aesthetic conception of reality. The Juche-oriented aesthetic view is a scientific philosophy of beauty which sheds new light on the essence of the beautiful and the law-governed process of its creation, taking the independent nature of man and the aspirations and demands of the people as criteria.
Former thinkers’ views on the essence of beauty mainly concerned whether beauty is of matter existing in the objective world or is a subjective thing existing in the world of ideas.
Idealist aesthetics regarded the essence of the beautiful as the manifestation of the “absolute idea” or “God” and as the product of man’s subjective will, and sought the source of beauty in the consciousness of man or in the supernatural spiritual entity, not in the material world. These unscientific views which reflected the interests of the ruling class in those days were refuted by materialistic aesthetics.
Materialistic aesthetics, including the primitive aesthetic view in the ancient society from which it originated, tried to give correct elucidation of the essence of beauty, regarding matter and phenomena existing in objective reality as the beautiful. However, it did not go beyond recognizing the objective character of beauty and failed to correctly clarify its essence.
The former materialistic aesthetics sought the essence of beauty in the individual attributes of matter and phenomena. Quite a few people took equilibrium and harmony of people, unity of the whole and part, and integrity as comprising the essence of beauty. Some people maintained that intricate curved lines have beauty. These views had the common shortcoming of exaggerating and distorting the natural attributes given mainly to the structure of matter and phenomena and to the exterior of man and material body to be the essence of beauty.
Later a new view on the essence of beauty appeared, together with the understanding that the beautiful is in life. But this led to the irrationality of attributing the essence of beauty to the biological attributes of matter and to abstracting beauty as panhuman. It was the historical limitations of the former materialistic aesthetics that it defined the individual attribute as essence without seeing the essential attributes of all beautiful matter and phenomena, or confined the beautiful to some part of the objective world.
Marxist aesthetics regarded man and social development as beautiful. But it did not connect the beautiful with the essential attributes of man while understanding man as the sum total of social relations and considering the beautiful in relation to man. Hence it could not give scientific elucidation of the position and role of man, the recognizer and creator of beauty. Briefly speaking, Marxist aesthetics did not clarify the essence of beauty and the criteria of beauty.
What, then, is Kim Jong Il’s view on the essence of beauty?
General Kim Jong Il said:
“Beauty means matter or phenomena which meet man’s independent needs and desires and are grasped by him through his feelings.”
The beautiful is the satisfaction of the aspirations and demands of man, that is, the reflection of his desire and interests to live independently.
According to his view, matter and phenomena which meet the demand and interests of man to lead a free and happy life are beautiful; on the contrary, that which does not satisfy the independent demands, aspirations and interests of man is not beautiful; because matter and phenomena are grasped as beautiful when they meet the demands and interests of man; there cannot be aesthetic phenomena apart from the demands and interests of man; the beautiful is connected with man.
Man establishes relations with the world while living in it and assumes his emotional attitude toward it in the light of his demands. In this process man establishes aesthetic relations with objective matter and phenomena. While establishing relations with the world, man acquires the aesthetic notion of definite characters of matter and phenomena and perfects the concept of beauty. Then man becomes the master of the world and his destiny, and the matter and phenomena grasped emotionally to meet man’s demand and interests to lead a free and happy life becoming the master of his own destiny and the world are beautiful. Objectively existing matter and phenomena cannot be said to be valuable and beautiful if they do not meet the independent demands and sentiment of man, even if they have a certain character and raison d’etre. Because it is man who causes aesthetic demand and engages in aesthetic appreciation. It is man who wants and uses the beautiful. Man is the most valuable and the strongest in the world. Therefore, it is quite natural to judge what is beautiful, by proceeding from the demands and interests of man, master of the world.
According to Kim Jong Il’s view, it is the people who appreciate aesthetics and set up criteria for aesthetic appreciation.
He stated that it is the masses who distinguish the most beautiful from among the beautiful. In addition he said that the aspirations and demands of the people are the only yardstick for telling the beautiful from the not beautiful. It is the people who appreciate the beautiful, and their aspirations and demands serve as the criteria for appreciating the beautiful. The people have the right to own the good and the beautiful existing in the world because they are masters of the world, and hence they demand to appreciate the beauty and value of all that exists in the objective world.
The people’s demand and aspiration for the world is their independent demand and aspiration to become masters of the world and their own destiny and to lead a free life. Therefore, the people’s aspirations and demands serve as criteria for telling the beautiful from the not beautiful. There can be no other criteria. Therefore, the demand of the people who are appreciators of the aesthetics, that is, the demand and aspiration of the people to live independently, are the criteria for aesthetic appreciation. The people are the creators and enjoyers of all that is beautiful.
Proceeding from this understanding, Kim Jong Il had drawn the conclusion that what the masses say is good is good and that what they say is beautiful is beautiful.
Basing himself on the scientific understanding of the essence of beauty, he clarified where and what is the beautiful.
According to his view, man, the masses, are the most beautiful things in the world.
This view constitutes the pivotal part of his philosophy of beauty.
Why, then, is man, the working masses, the most beautiful? Man is a powerful being capable of creating all the beautiful in the world. Man is the appreciator of aesthetics and creator of beauty. Therefore, man is the creator of all the beautiful and its embodiment. Consequently, man is the most beautiful being in the world. This does not mean abstract man in general but the masses who create the beautiful and the great by their creative labour.
In any age of history the masses are the wisest and most creative social collective, and constitute the overwhelming majority of society.
History shows that the exploiter class, the ruling class, was the unproductive force which ate the bread of idleness, while the masses were the social collective which produced the most beautiful and noble spiritual and material wealth by their sincere efforts. The masses who have produced the most beautiful ought to be enjoyers of all the beautiful. The masses are the representatives of the most beautiful because they are the most creative and wisest social collective in the world. Kim Jong Il’s view that the most beautiful thing in the world is man, the masses, is the philosophical essence of the great idea and lofty virtues of Kim Jong Il, who praises the independence of man and loves the popular masses.
The inhuman and anti-popular classes and forces which ignore the dignity of man and oppress, maltreat and despise the masses are the meanest and detestable beings because they betray the most beautiful in the world.
Kim Jong Il not only established the Juche-oriented understanding of the beautiful but also gave a perfect elucidation of what is beautiful in man and nature.
What, then, is the beautiful in man? It means the beauty of the idea and moral qualities man has.
General Kim Jong Il said:
“A man’s true beauty is not in his physical appearance but in his noble ideological and moral traits.”
According to his view, the beauty of man does not lie in his looks but in his ideas and moral qualities.
Man is the most precious being because, unlike other material beings, he has ideological consciousness and leads life purposefully. Only man has ideological and spiritual qualities. Therefore, when the value and beauty of man are appreciated, the attributes that only man has, what constitutes the essence of man, must be taken as criteria and how much these qualities are manifested must be mainly considered. Viewed in this light, it is scientific to appreciate the value of man taking as criteria his inherent ideas and mental and moral qualities, but not his looks and exterior.
Man’s personality and the worth of his activity are decided by the ideas and mental and moral qualities he has. The man with misanthropic and corrupt and decadent ideas is liable to commit inhuman and immoral deeds and, consequently, is a despicable being. On the contrary, the man who loves man, motherland and nation, and the people, is a possessor of good qualities with which he works devotedly for society and the collective, the country and nation, and thus is respected by all as a man on a high level of beauty and nobility. Briefly speaking, the man who prizes and respects the independence of man and devotedly works for the independent demand and interests of the masses is the most beautiful man. The man who is not clean mentally and morally and inhuman and unjust in his ideals and practice cannot be called a beautiful man, whatever good looks he has and however finely he is dressed. Man’s looks, figure and attire are beautiful when they are in harmony with his inner world. The true beauty of man is found in the man who is harmoniously developed both mentally and physically. For man to be a really beautiful being, he must have humanity and considerateness.
Kim Jong Il cultivated people to be the most beautiful beings by establishing the philosophical view on the features of the most beautiful man, on the beauty of man.
What, then, is the beauty of nature? What are the criteria for judging the beauty of nature?
He held fast to the Juche-oriented stand of considering the beauty and value of nature with man at the centre.
General Kim Jong Il said:
“In art the beauty of nature only acquires meaning when it serves the meaningful depiction of human life.”
Matter and phenomena in the objective world have priceless value and are beautiful when they meet the independent demands and aspirations of man. The beautiful is the qualitative qualification of matter and phenomena which is revealed in relation with man and, consequently, is appreciated only when it meets the independent demands and aspirations of man.
The essential characteristic of beautiful matter and phenomena is that it arouses aesthetic sentiment in man. The beautiful is felt to be beautiful only through man’s subjective emotion, although it is matter and phenomena which exist objectively. Matter and phenomena can be beautiful only when they become the object of experience of aesthetic sentiment.
The beauty of nature has significance and value only when it meets the independent demands and aspirations of man who experiences it, and is useful to him and helps show human life meaningfully.
Proceeding from this standpoint, Kim Jong Il always appreciates the beauty of nature.
When we bear in mind that he considers the cotton flower to be the most beautiful flower, we can get a glimpse of his unbounded profound inner world.
When he visited Wonphung-ri in Anju County on September 22, 1969, he asked those who accompanied him what flower is the most beautiful and then said, “Of course, people like aromatic flowers. As you said, it is a fact that people like the rose because it is beautiful and aromatic. But there is a flower better than the rose. It is the cotton flower. I like the cotton flower.”
Why, then, does he love the cotton flower? Concerning this he remarked:
“The cotton flower does not exhibit itself before people, although it does such a laudable thing. It does not fully open and only looks down on the earth, as if ashamed.
“I like the cotton flower more because it does not show off, even though it does a great deed.”
He loves the cotton flower because, although it does not look beautiful, it gives people warm cotton, directly contributes to improving people’s livelihood.
What a worthwhile and noble world of beauty it is! The noble world of beauty of he who takes as the criteria of beauty value and usefulness for man, the masses, but not looks or its biological aroma. This is a philosophy of beauty never known before in the history of aesthetic ideas.
Proceeding from the Juche-oriented viewpont, Kim Jong Il appreciates the beauty of nature and helps reshape nature beautifully to meet the independent demands and aspirations of man.
One early morning he saw the sunrise in Pyongyang together with cadres and said:
“Sunrise in Pyongyang is always good to look at. People say that the view of the sunrise from Chongsokjong is majestic, but there is no man there. The sunrise in Pyongyang is more brilliant because there are creative people there.”
What a meaningful remark! This is the manifestation of his thorough man-centred aesthetic view, appreciating the beauty of nature with the people at the centre. According to his aesthetic idea, man and the working people must be at the centre of the beauty of nature, and nature is meaningful, valuable and beautiful only when it gives joy to people and serves them. His aesthetic idea is embodied in the grand remaking of nature and the worthwhile construction work he leads.
Opening a new history of Juche architecture, Kim Jong Il stated that the beauty of architecture, too, is a beauty which is combined with the noble sentiments of man, who takes independence as lifeblood, and with the lofty ideals of man who aspires for independence.
Today, Pyongyang is a world-class city, with beautiful and majestic buildings. This is the result of the application of his great aesthetic idea in architecture. He saw to it that design and construction were carried out to meet the demands and interests of the masses, and that all the useful and grand buildings serve the masses. All the large buildings built under his guidance were erected to meet the demands and interests of the people and to be convenient for them and bear the noble name of “people”. People’s Palace of Culture, Grand People’s Study House. ... There is no end to the love and solicitude of he who creates the most beautiful for the people.
By enunciating and implementing his noble philosophy of beauty, Kim Jong Il turned human relations into the most beautiful ones, and has built up society to be the society of love in which human love is coming into full bloom with the passage of time.
His philosophy of beauty serves as a valuable ideological sword capable of shaping man, nature and society beautifully.
5. PRINCIPLE OF LIFE FOR
INDEPENDENT MAN
Everyone wants to lead a worthwhile life, but it does not come to everyone of its own accord. A worthwhile life comes into bloom only in an excellent social atmosphere and under the right leadership and meticulous care of a leader.
In north Korea, where there is no despair, grief, egoism, depravity, corruption or deception, there is seen a beautiful life for all the people, who honestly work for the society and collective, the country and nation.
It is because General Kim Jong Il has established a scientific principle of life and, taking it as mental nutrition, beautifies and enriches the land for a genuine human life.
The principle of life clarified by Kim Jong Il is the principle of genuine life which ennobles its value to the highest on the basis of the independent nature of the human being.
1) SOCIO-POLITICAL INTEGRITY IS
MOST PRECIOUS
Perhaps nothing is more controversial than the question “What is life?” Zhuangzi of China likened life to the “dream of a butterfly”, while Robespierre demanded to give up one’s life and boldly choose death, insisting that death does not mean “eternal sleep”, but the “beginning of immortality”.
To summarize opinions on life in south Korea, it can be said that most of them are nihilistic or praise individual human life. Although the definition of life differs from man to man, debates on life in south Korea do not go beyond Freudianism, existentialism and pragmatism and are a repetition of those in the Western countries or present easy-going and irresponsible arguments which urge preservation of individual physical life and pursuit of interests to suit the irrational actuality of south Korea. It is questionable why the view on life which preaches disregard of the conflicting and irrational reality should be emphasized. A scientific view on life should be thoroughly established in order to implant the genuine meaning of life in the minds of the people and show them the right path of life.
What, then, is life?
On close scrutiny, human life means living activity, that is, the ceaseless struggle to shape one’s destiny. Human life precisely means human activity to maintain one’s existence, develop oneself and shape one’s destiny. Human life is the philosophical category defined as life or living.
What is basic and the point of departure in defining the meaning of human life is life. So living activity precisely means real life. The character and content of life are decided according as what is human life. Therefore, if man is to lead a genuine life, he should, above all, have the right view on life and endeavour to lead a true human life.
What, then, is human life? So far as people understood human life, they confined it merely to physical life and in most cases they stressed that human life is precious beyond comparison with animal life.
Human life is so precious that the famous Dr. Schweitzer of France devoted his whole life to protecting the lives of the negroes who led an exposed life in nature in the primeval forests of Africa. All his life was “worship of life”. It is Dr. Schweitzer’s motto that man should have a life worthy of man and it should be protected unconditionally and the lives of negroes should be protected, instead of them being defiled and killed.
Some people value human life while others mercilessly trample upon and trifle with it.
Hitler was a flagrant destroyer of human life. He said, “Life is preserved when that of others but one’s own is killed in the struggle. He who is strong or competent wins in the struggle, while he who is powerless and weak loses. Man lives and dominates over animal life due to a most cruel struggle but not due to the principle of humanity. If one is to live, one should fight.” For Hitler life was something inhuman which does not belong to humanity and is preserved by killing the lives of others but not one’s own. Briefly speaking, Hitler’s view on life is a beastly one. Hitler cruelly suppressed the lives of all other races except the “Aryan race” because he had such bestial view on life. His atrocious view on life was based on the Nietzschean philosophy of life, namely, “life is a will of power”. According to it, life will be possessed by the strong and be trampled upon and eaten up by beasts.
In order to give correct exposition of what is life, it should not be sought outside of man, nor merely be considered from the standpoint that man is a biological organism.
However, in the past the view on human life was idealistic and it was considered as something mysterious. In primitive society there occurred hylozoism, by which life is equated with “spirit”, and as long as “spirit” dwells in man, animals and trees, they have life. In religion life was understood as a thing supramaterial and supranatural which is granted by “God”.
Plato equated life with “spirit” and called it psyche (that which moves oneself). Aristotle understood life as the aim and result of motion. Schopenhauer said that life is will, namely, that will constitutes the basis of all existence and is the motive force of life. Proceeding from the idealistic viewpoint, Bergson said that life is “simple maintenance”.
Religion and idealism mystified life as an immaterial, mental phenomenon, while materialism considered it a material phenomenon. Democritus considered life as composed of the minutest atoms.
Basing himself on the success science had achieved in the elucidation of the substance of life, Engels defined life as the mode of existence of protein. As the mode of existence of protein, as he considered, life means living organism in general. Williams qualified human life as a “vehicle of a gene”. In essence, it is the same as understanding life as the mode of existence of biological organisms. Of course, human life can be treated from the scientific viewpoint, because man is a biological being. But the meaning of the human being and his value do not lie in that he is a biological being, but in that he is a social being. Therefore, in considering human life, life as a social being must be treated, not life as a biological being which is maintained by eating and excretion.
Seen from such viewpoint, Kim Jong Il’s view on life is of great significance. He clarified that the value of man lies in that he is a social being, not in that he is a biological being, and that man, a social being, has a life unique to him.
What, then, is the life of man as a social being?
General Kim Jong Il said:
“Independence is the life and soul of man, the social being.”
Independence is the life and soul of man. Independence is the attribute to live independently without being subjected or shackled. That man lives means that man has the attribute to live as the master of the world and of his own destiny. When one is not the master of the world and of his own destiny, and lives shackled by or adapted to outside conditions or factors, one is not independent. Animals and plants live in compliance with or in adaptation to the environment, whereas man strives to lead a free life by transforming and controling the environment instead of complying with or adapting to it. Man without independence is as good as dead. That is why independence is the life and soul of man. Independence is the essential attribute which enables man to exist and develop as such, and is the intrinsic nature which qualifies man qualitatively.
When man becomes a social being, he acquires independence, the attributes which enable him to exist and develop as such. When man is a biological body which leads an individual life, he is subordinated or restricted by the environment and cannot get rid of such mode of existence.
Man acquires the attribute to lead a free life, becoming the master of the world and of his own destiny, without being shackled or subordinated only when he becomes a social being. In this sense, independence, which is the life and soul of man, becomes the life and soul of man as a social being.
The life of man as a social being is a social integrity, that is, socio-political integrity.
General Kim Jong Il said:
“Physical life is a man’s life as an organic body, whereas socio-political integrity is a man’s life as a social being. Socio-political integrity is the life which is unique to man as a social being.”
According to Kim Jong Il’s view on life, man has socio-political integrity, as well as a physical life, and the most essential life which makes man as such is sociopolitical integrity. Of course, we cannot deny or ignore physical integrity in the existence and development of man. However, because man is the being, which lives, unlike animals or plants, forming social relations, he has a life unique to him. Socio-political integrity is the life of man as a social being which lives forming social relations. Viewed from the standpoint that independence is the life and soul of man, socio-political integrity unique to man precisely means socio-political independence. Sociopolitical integrity which enables man to maintain dignity as a social being and play his role as such is the essential and basic life that makes man as such. For man, physical life is valuable, but his socio-political integrity, that is, socio-political independence, is more valuable. If man only seeks to satisfy the needs of his physical life, then such life cannot be said to be life worthy of man, no matter how affluent the material life he enjoys.
Basing himself on this Juche-orientated view on life,
Kim Jong Il brings up the people to be possessors of a noble and beautiful life, and who value socio-political integrity more than physical life.
Unlike in south Korea, the north Korean people enjoy a priceless life worthy of man while valuing socio-political integrity, instead of living only for a physical life which satisfies lust for goods. This is because Kim Jong Il implanted the correct view on life in their minds.
He is the creator and defender of a true life who gave a new life to man.
2) THE MOST BEAUTIFUL LIFE IS
AN INDEPENDENT LIFE
John Stuart Mill said, “To be a hungry man is better than to be a well-fed pig.” His remark implies that man should lead a life worthy of man instead of the animal life which the pig leads.
What, then, is the genuine life worthy of man? Debate about it went on for centuries, but it was not correctly elucidated in accordance with human nature. In most cases in exploiter society the life worthy of man was interpreted to meet the interests of the ruling class.
The rulers and plunderers without exception described human life as beastly, and actively preached as if hatred of others, slaughter and plunder are the nature of human life. Hitler was typical of them.
Claiming that “War is life,” he said, “All fighting is war. War is the source of all things. War and violence are the simplest approval of living and life and are the apex of the achievements of man.” For Hitler life precisely meant war, and war was the highest achievement man can attain. Hitler’s fanatic lust for conquest to dominate the world made him view human life as ferocious and murderous.
However, history showed that Hitler’s view on life is an inhuman and unjust one, which eventually leads to one’s death and ruin. It is said that the Roman Emperor Nero, a brutal tyrant, took pleasure in killing even his mother and wife, and recited a poem as he looked at the flames which burned down two-thirds of Rome. Here we get a glimpse of the inhuman view on life of rulers and fanatics. There also is the despairing view on life along with the fanatic and beastly view on life. Heidegger said, “Death is as good as living.” Sartre zealously preached the futility of human life, claiming that human life leads to death. Schopenhauer depicted human life as mean, regarding man as the like of an animal wandering about a vast plain in search of food to maintain his life.
Today the American philosophy of life is pragmatism. The successive rulers of the United States have committed invasion and plunder of other countries and nations, taking the “frontier spirit” and the philosophy that “what is beneficial is truth” as their view on life. It is well known that genuine human life cannot bloom and the atmosphere of a beautiful and noble life worthy of man cannot be established where a brigandish, beastly, decadent and pessimistic view on life prevails.
One of the reasons why the Soviet Union, which once boasted of being a powerful great power, collapsed and, following it, Eastern European socialist countries ceased their existence, is that in these countries the sound outlook on life of the people was contaminated with bourgeois venom along with ideological degeneration. The view on life of the Russians of the Soviet period was really excellent.
Ostrovski said that “the most beautiful thing in the life of man is that everything created by him still serves the people even after his death.” It was highly appreciated in the life of the Soviet people.
Soviet patriotism which had made the people strong was corroded by the bourgeois individualistic view on life. As a result, Russia, which had been strong, collapsed like a sand castle.
General Kim Jong Il critically examined and summed up all the views on life that were recorded in history and gave a scientific elucidation of the essence and gist of the true view on life on the basis of his scientific understanding of the independent nature of man.
Thus he clearly indicated the right course of life man should follow.
The essential contents of the view on life of General
Kim Jong Il are: firstly, the elucidation of the essence of life worthy of man; secondly, the elucidation that the genuine view on life is the collectivistic view on life; and thirdly, the elucidation of the value of life.
Concerning the true life, Kim Jong Il said, “True life lies in the struggle of the people to create the new, progressive and beautiful. Life in this struggle is the most noble and beautiful. Life in the struggle to sweep away all the outdated, conservative and reactionary and create the new and progressive is not only noble in its orientation, but is also militant, romantic and beautiful in its progress.”
The most beautiful life is the life to implement the independent demands of man, that is, independent life. Independent life means to live independently as the master of the world and of one’s own destiny, free from any subordination and fetters.
Independent life has two meanings. One of them is to live independently with an aspiration and demand for living freely, becoming the master of one’s own destiny, and the other is the life of implementing one’s own demand to live independently through creative struggle. The life with the right of the master of one’s own destiny and the life of playing the role of the master of one’s own destiny are independent and creative in character, and, because of this, such human life is the beautiful life.
Life contrary to the independent life is the flunkeyist, subordinate and slavish life. The life one leads at the expense of others, or becoming a slave to them, is not the life inherent to man. The life of those who consider it satisfactory to be well fed and be better off even if they become the slaves of others, and their country is reduced to the colony of other country, is not the life worthy of man, but is an animal life such as a dog’s or pig’s. The life of the flunkeyists and traitors to the nation who fawn upon foreign forces and sell the country to them, is an inhuman and mean life.
The flunkeyist and submissive life of those who live off foreign forces and only seek an easy and comfortable life for themselves, kowtowing to foreign forces, cannot be said to be a life worthy of man. Genuine life is not the life lived for physical life, but is the life devoted to the society and collective, the country and nation, and having sociopolitical integrity as a social being. Such life is the life through which one discharges one’s duty as a social being.
In its character the genuine life of man is the struggle to sweep away all the outdated, conservative and reactionary and to create the new, progressive and beautiful. The outmoded, conservative and reactionary all go against the independent and creative nature of man. Therefore, if man is to implement his own independent demand and aspiration, he should struggle against all the obsolete, conservative and reactionary. The new, progressive and beautiful are created through the struggle to overcome and clear away the obsolete, conservative and reactionary. Only then can man realize his demand and aspiration for a free, creative and happy life. Therefore, the struggle to oppose all the inhuman and unjust and create the human and just constitutes the essence of human life.
Struggle to create the new, progressive and beautiful is, in essence, to remould nature and reform society. Only by remoulding nature and reforming society can he realize his independent demand. Through the ceaseless struggle to remould nature and society, the obsolete, conservative and stale are overcome and swept away, and all the new, progressive and beautiful are created. Therefore, if man is to lead a life worthy of man, he should not eat the bread of idleness, become degenerate or commit plunder and aggression, but instead conduct vigorous activity to remould nature and society ceaselessly to meet his independent demands and make them serve him. The struggle to oppose the obsolete, conservative and reactionary and create the new, progressive and beautiful is the most beautiful and genuine life, agreeing with the independent nature of man.
In the actuality of south Korea a genuine human life lies in the struggle to put an end to the domination and interference of foreign forces and win back the lost national independence, and in the struggle to oppose the fascist dictatorship and win independence for the people. Because it is the struggle for the country and nation, and the people.
The heroine of Orleans, Joan of Arc laid down her life to defend her country at the tender age of 16. People highly praise her life because she unhesitatingly devoted her beautiful youth for the country. The great writer, Victor Hugo went to the front to fight the Prussian aggressor army at the age of 68. How worthy their lives were!
Today, it is urgently required of the south Korean people, and should be highly appreciated, to fight the interference and domination of the United States. Because the destiny of this country and nation and the people can be shaped rightly only when an end is put to the colonial domination of the United States. As far as the United States is entrenched in our country and continues to interfere in its internal affairs, we cannot be the genuine masters of our country and enjoy a life worthy of man.
The patriotic martyrs who laid down their young lives in the struggle against the United States and for independence will shine forever in the history of our country. We should not forget that they still live in our hearts.
Nietzsche defamed the struggle of the working class for a new society as the manifestation of the weakness of “poorly organized slaves” and as the “movement of the slave race”. He said, “I call you to war because human nature is murderous spirit”. It is designed to check the just struggle of the working people, including workers and peasants, and reflects the interests of the bellicose bourgeoisie. However, we cannot give up the struggle against inhuman things nor rest satisfied with an indolent and easy-going life, because we are men.
Basing himself on the scientific understanding of the essence and contents of genuine human life, Kim Jong Il established the classic understanding that the genuine outlook on life is the collectivist outlook on life, not the individualist outlook on life.
General Kim Jong Il said:
“The individualist outlook on life regards one’s own personal comfort and pleasure as one’s ultimate goal, whereas the collectivist outlook on life fuses one’s destiny into that of the collective, and finds the true worth and happiness of life in struggling for the good of the community.” According to
Kim Jong Il’s outlook on life, the genuine life is collectivist in character. This view is the scientific one based on a correct understanding of human nature and the characteristic feature of the mode of existence of man. It is because man, unlike the animals which live detached and individually, is a being which can live only socially and whose proper mode of existence is unity and cooperation. Unlike animals and plants, which live adapted to or obedient to the environment, through unity and cooperation man can dominate and transform the environment to meet his demands. Man checks the terrible disasters and hazards of nature and changes them in his favour owing to unity and cooperation. People can harness nature and reform society only when they give full play to their collective wisdom and efforts. Robinson Crusoe could build a ship, grow grains and raise domestic animals, even on an isolated island, because he was a social being. Therefore, man’s mode of existence is originally collectivist.
Advocacy of the individualist outlook on life itself is the defamation of human nature and degradation of human life. Karl Jaspers said, “As the social I, I am not myself. Although I exist in it simultaneously at any time, my social I does not coincide with you.” It is designed to advocate strenuously the individualist outlook on life.
If the “social I” does not exist, I should live only for myself and everything for society and the collective would be unnecessary.
Freudianism, existentialism, pragmatism and all other pseudo bourgeois theories only emphasize “I” and “individual”, which only reflects the interests of the bourgeois exploiting class, which is degenerate and has no future. The exploiting classes and the ruling class fear the revolutionary advance of masses which rise in collective unity against what is obsolete, conservative and reactionary. It is because the haves who attain enrichment and prosperity through the unlimited plunder and exploitation of the masses need advocacy of the individualist outlook on life to justify their mode of existence.
They enjoy the mental and material wealth created by the efforts of the social collective, but, nevertheless, negate it. It is nonsense. Feuerbach, nevertheless, tried to philosophize the individualist outlook on life. For him man is precisely an individual. This can be seen in that he considers man with emphasis on the body and that he maintains that the body constitutes the essence of man. Feuerbach considered the essence of man as biological individual and as thoroughly individual being, saying, “ I am always thoroughly an individual being from the head to the toes”. It is the philosophical basis of individualism. Individualism is the acme of modern bourgeois philosophy. Smith takes individualism and egoism formed in society as a rule in the mutual relations of people. “Give me what I need. Then you will receive what you need, from me”, Smith said. This shows that he regarded man as a natural being and as a purely individual being, and interpreted society as a mechanical congregation of individuals and individualism and egoism as the motive force of social life.
The individualist outlook on life is an inhuman one which preaches the reduction of man to beast.
Today. Americans face the danger of being shot when they leave their home, for five million weapons which may be shot at any moment are permanently carried by people in the United States. They have the right to freely carry weapons for self-defence. So today security companies gain prosperity and, for instance, in New York twenty thousand people serve with one hundred security companies. In the United States a robbery takes place every 49 seconds, and a murder every 22 minutes. In the United States, where individualism has reached its extreme, people cannot live without anxiety.
As man is not an isolated being, and lives as a member of the society and collective, he cannot live only for himself. The value of life is assessed according as what contribution he makes to the society and collective and neighbourhood, but not to himself. The life of the man who lived only for himself, detached from society and the collective, has no value. The life of such a man is meaningless because he made no contribution to society and the collective, and left nothing.
The bourgeois outlook by which the value of man is assessed by wealth and fame and the degree of “voluntariness” of individualist activity is harmful venom which corrupts and sickens people and further rots and degenerates society. Many virtues of people who devotedly worked for society and mankind, rather than for themselves, are recorded in history. The great inventor Edison said, “If my work gives more pleasure to the world, I am satisfied.” The mathematician of ancient Greece, Archimedes drew a circle, concentrating his mind on it even when the sword was put at his neck. Although Balzac knew that he would soon die after suffering a heart attack, he desperately worked to do what he ought to do, fighting against death. Thus he published 96 novels. They embodied the outlook on life of devoting oneself to the good of others, though they failed to grasp the truth of the collectivist outlook on life. Their outlook on life forms a striking contrast with the individualist outlook on life of billionaires, who monopolize social wealth and trifle with society and the masses. During his visit to Europe, Einstein, who evoked the admiration of the world, received an invitation of Queen Elizabeth and went to her on foot, carrying a wornout suit case. When she wrote a poem in his praise and presented it to him, he is said to have begun to solve physics problems on the back of the sheet of paper on which the poem was written. This is an episode reflecting the true and simple outlook on life of some famous scientists. They had no desire for fame or selfishness; their lives were devoted to scientific invention. Indeed, their outlook on life and value is beautiful and superior beyond comparison with the decadent outlook on life of the bourgeoisie, whose mode of existence is individualism.
Genuine human life is in the struggle for others, society and the collective, rather than for oneself. According to the genuine collectivist outlook on life, collective life is more precious than the life of the individual and human life does not end with the end of the individual life, but lasts for ever together with the collective. The life which made more contribution to the country and nation and to the independence of the working people is more valuable. Only those who lead such a valuable life can feel the real worth of life. Herein lies the value of the genuine life, the value of man.
Kim Jong Il based himself on the superiority of the collectivist outlook on life over the individualist outlook on life and brought it home to the masses, and thus built a society where the most beautiful life worthy of man is in full bloom. Today the outlook on the value of the noble life which not only serves oneself but also comrades and society, even if it means self-sacrifice, a beautiful life devoted to the country and nation, the society and collective, prevails among the north Korean people.
3) LIVE ONE’S WHOLE LIFE FOR THE PEOPLE
Genuine human life is a clean and sincere life with regard to one’s country and people. Nothing is more despicable than the life of those who betrayed their people and went against history. How the world scorned Gorbachev when he was awarded the “Nobel Peace Prize” and received several ten thousand dollars because he brought about the collapse of the Soviet Union. He again became the target of bitter public criticism when it was exposed some time later that he took a bribe of one hundred thousand dollars from Roh Tae Woo of south Korea, who was standing trial for murder and illicit accumulation of wealth.
Gorbachev, who won official commendation and was given money in return for dismemberment of the Soviet Union and betrayal of his friends, ceased to be human and lost his value as a man.
Khrushchev laid the foundation for his power after removing Beria, Malenkov, Molotov and Kaganovich, and pushed the Soviet Union to the abyss of revisionism. His son Sergei Khrushchev is now receiving an American education at Brown University, getting a “scholarship” thanks to his father who betrayed his country and nation. Is this a life worthy of man?
General Kim Jong Il clarified that a genuine life is the life with socio-political integrity and, at the same time, the collectivist life, and established the understanding that such a life devoted to the masses is the most beautiful and noble life.
He said that it is our outlook on life to serve the people and devote our whole life to them.
Serve the people, devote your whole life to the people. This is the outlook on life of Kim Jong Il. The idea that the outlook on life of devotedly serving the people is the genuine outlook on life derives from the scientific understanding of the people.
According to his view, who, then, are the people? They are the overwhelming majority of the nation who value their independence and dignity and fight for them. It does not mean the exploiting and ruling classes and influential forces, but the people who support the country by creating mental and material wealth by their honest labour.
The people means the labouring masses who are building a new society by their honest labour and struggle, and the collective of people who have the same ideology and purpose, including us. The people are the representatives of independence and the progressive and new in any society.
The people means the social collective with creativity. In any society the labouring masses, who constitute the overwhelming majority of society, create mental and material wealth. The people are always wise and creative, and their strength is infinite. Without the people there can be no creation nor the struggle for the new. Therefore, to be more concrete, living for society and the collective means living for the people. The people are the most precious and the strongest beings in the world because they are the embodiment and representatives of independence and creativity. When human life is devoted to the people, who are the most precious and the strongest beings in the world, it becomes the most beautiful and most valuable.
Viewed in this light, Kim Jong Il’s outlook on life is seen to be a masses-centred outlook on life.
The kernel of his outlook on life is to see the aim and orientation and value of life in devoted service to the people.
Here we see the noble virtue of he who always lives amidst and works for the people.
Kim Jong Il has thoroughly embodied the great President
Kim Il Sung’s noble thought and virtues and idea of “The people are my God”. He has devoted his whole life to the people, and devotedly works for the people.
That the labouring people are the most precious, most beautiful, the wisest and the strongest beings in the world is the root of the philosophical faith of he who takes devoted service to the people as the outlook on life. Proceeding from this philosophical faith, he clarified the main requirement of the popular masses-centred outlook on life to the cadres and officials of the Party and the state and all the people.
The slogan “Serve the people!” put forward by General
Kim Jong Il is a revolutionary slogan which requires all the officials and the people to have the outlook on life of devoting themselves for the people. This slogan implicates his outlook on life of loving the country, the people and the nation.
Lording it over the people, slighting them, bureaucratism and abusing authority are not allowed. Exercise of authority and bureaucratism is the mode of existence and attitude of the ruling and exploiting classes estranged from the people. Exercise of authority and bureaucratism is like taking poison.
When all work for the people and share life and death and sweet and bitter with them in single-hearted unity, they can lead a genuine life serving the people.
General Kim Jong Il requires that officials always care for the political and material life of the people, and ceaselessly work so that the people lead richer and happier lives.
Heroine Jong Chun Sil was raised by Kim Jong Il. He lauded her as an excellent woman who takes it as her genuine outlook on life to devotedly work for the people. She is the director of the Commerical Management Office in Jonchon County of Jagang Province. She opened up one hundred and some hectares of land and raised a large number of animals and offered the whole yield from them to improve the lives of the inhabitants of that mountainous county. The labour and effort of the tens of years she devoted to improving the lives of the county population are beyond description. President Kim Il Sung always took good care of and praised her because she did not spare labour and effort for the people, not for herself. Due to her noble patriotism and selfless devotion to the people, she became a beautiful human being who is respected and followed by all the north Korean people.
Kim Jong Il initiated the movement to imitate heroine Jong Chun Sil and leads this movement in order to make the people genuine patriots working devotedly for the people and leading a noble life. Therefore, the movement is a meaningful movement which makes all cadres, officials and all other people seek the real worth of life in the struggle for the people. The outlook on life which advocates living and struggling for the people one’s whole life, devoting zeal and wisdom to the people’s welfare, not personal comfort, is now deeply rooted among the north Korean people.
4) LIVE TODAY FOR TOMORROW
General Kim Jong Il’s outlook on life is beautiful and noble in its orientation and practice. The main character and vitality of his outlook on life lie in that it is oriented to the future and creating the future. The way the north Korean people courageously struggle full of confidence and optimism, braving all difficulties, greatly inspires people who are seized with pessimism and despair, losing hope for the future. According to an official report, over 22,400 persons in Japan committed suicide in 1995. The increase of suicide from year to year in Japan, which boasts of being a great economic power, is attributable to the despairing and pessimistic view on life of the Japanese people.
Considering that south Korea has the highest suicide rate in the world, it is easy to guess what the outlook on life of the south Korean people is.
Every beautiful and lofty ideal of man can be realized only in the life and struggle oriented to the future. However, not all people devote their lives to tomorrow and the future.
Socrates was punished with death on the charge that he degenerated the youths of Athens by saying, “Philosophy means comparison with death.” It by no means implies that the slave owning class of those days inspired the Greek people to a romantic life oriented to the future. The exploiting class maintained that today’s life and the life oriented to the future were only for the exploiters, and the exploited and oppressed labouring masses had no future.
The life of mankind, in essence, is eternal. The life of individual man has a time limit, but the life of mankind is endless. In this sense, the life of man and the life of mankind are oriented to the future and are eternal. If all people live only for their generation, there will be no tomorrow and history will end. But mankind has ceaselessly created and struggled for the future from the beginning of its appearance. The future is pioneered through today’s struggle.
Until the mid-1950s, space science observed and explained space by using telescopes and radar on the earth. But today it has entered the stage of investigating and using the secrets of space, sending thousands of artificial astronomical bodies into not only the space surrounding the earth but also to the moon and other planets. Now mankind stands at the threshold of conquest of space, a most “fantastic event”. Before long people will take their place in space and live and work there. Great advances and success in the conquest of space in 30 years after the flight of the first man-made satellite into space inspire a strong hope for future in the minds of the people. But for the lives of the hard-working scholars who cherished the future, mankind would not have tasted the joy of looking forward to the conquest of space.
But, there are spread numerous vile versions which preach giving up hope for the future. The “version of thermal extinction of the universe” appeared long ago, and the “version of eschatology” spread recently by religious idealists, induced people to give up life or become pessimistic and degenerate. Those who came forth with the version of “new human machine” loudly talk about the “alienation of man” by modern technology and cry that in our age mankind has become a “passenger in a wrecked ship”. This is none other than an unscientific temptation which reflects the anxiety of the exploiting and ruling classes, which have no future.
History ceaselessly creates new things and the future, linking the past, the present, and the future. Man works hard to create and struggle for a new world.
In the vigorous current of history there appeared an abnormal trend, which caused a foul wind to blow on the earth. It is none other than the version of the “end of socialism”. The collapse of socialism in the Soviet Union and the Eastern European countries is an undeniable reality. But this by no means implies that the current of history is reversed. The frustration of socialism and the revival of capitalism in some countries, when viewed in the light of historical development, is only a temporary phenomenon. If it is exaggerated and absolutized, people will give up the ideal of socialism, which is new, and stop creating a new and progressive history, for they will be tempted by the illusion promoted by an inhuman capitalism where the individualist way of life holds sway and the law of “the rich getting ever richer and the poor ever poorer” is in force. When people give up aspiration for new things and the future, their life will lack vitality and cause despair and further drive history and mankind to catastrophe. Reality shows what a terrible disaster the ideological and mental degeneration of the people who have given up the future is incurring.
Our age requires a revolutionary and militant outlook on life, and a philosophy of life which will inspire new hope and confidence and vitality in the people braving today’s vicissitudes. It is General Kim Jong Il who gave an answer to this request of history.
What is his outlook on life? It is not to live today for today, but live today for tomorrow. This philosophy is a scientific philosophy of life which embodies the independent nature of man and the law governing the development of human history. It is a militant outlook on life which reflects a creative attitude toward the people’s life oriented to the future.
The independent demand of man is oriented to the future and presupposes a strong practice. The demand of man to live independently as master of the world and his own destiny is not smoothly satisfied at once, but is realized through the struggle to ceaselessly remould nature and society. Man ceaselessly continues to develop himself while cognizing and reshaping the world, and through this process of continuous and dialectical development, he makes the world serve him more. The success of cognition and transformation achieved through human activity provides a precondition for greater success in the future. The process of domination of the world by man is the process of accumulation of the kernels of truth and the successes of practice and the process in which they are consolidated and extended, linking the past to the present and the present to the future.
If man forgets that history progresses not only along straight line but also in zigzags, or absolutizes a small link of its chain and gives up advance and creation, or is frustrated by today’s failure or is engaged only in affairs for today and ignores the preparation for tomorrow, then he will not develop and history will not progress. Kim Jong Il put forward the philosophy which advocates not living today for today, but living today for tomorrow, so that people find and lead a genuine life in the tide of history advancing vigorously along the path of independence.
This philosophy requires that people live with confidence in victory and in the future when independence is realized, and that they do not yield to or be frustrated by today’s temporary difficulties and trials but, braving them, continue revolution and advance ceaselessly. It requires that people bravely advance with the conviction that a wonderful reality will come into bloom tomorrow, even though there are shortages and abnormal things today.
The philosophical outlook on life of Kim Jong Il advanced the motto of life and struggle that the hopeful tomorrow and future should be created and brought about earlier through today’s worthwhile struggle. It is the revolutionary philosophy which shows all the people of our age how to live and struggle.
This philosophy instills a high sense of moral responsibility for handing down excellent things to posterity. Man lives not only for the present generation but also for the next generation. Animals or plants give birth to their posterity through their blind mode of existence, but do not leave a heritage or the necessities of life. It is man who hands down mental and material heritage for existence to his posterity. This by no means implies that every man does so. “Let’s eat and drink our fill today, because we will die tomorrow.”-this is the existentialist outlook on life. Many people practise this way of life. There are numerous study institutes like the “futurology society” and the “21st century committee” on the earth, but all of them without exception preach despair about the future society and decadence.
Kim Jong Il’s philosophy, which advocates living today for tomorrow, is a precious idea which awakens the preceding generation to a high sense of responsibility for creating and handing down an excellent future to posterity and inspires people to practice oriented to the future. When people become aware that today’s struggle beset with difficulties is the struggle to hand down beautiful happiness to posterity and feel responsibility for it, they will devote their lives to the worthwhile struggle to create the future overcoming difficulties, even though they find today’s actuality hard.
Kim Jong Il educates north Koreans with this philosophical outlook on life and guides the revolution and construction in this spirit. It is attributable to this that north Korea vigorously advances along the path of socialism it opted for with indomitable will and faith in victory, even in the face of the ceaseless aggressive moves and blockade of the allied force of the imperialists, including the United States and the south Korean authorities.
This philosophical outlook on life makes people lead the most stout, brave, beautiful and enthusiastic life, and serves as a strong ideological instrument to inspire them to create a new world of independence.
6. MORAL PRINCIPLE OF LOVE
AND TRUST
The greatness of General Kim Jong Il’s leadership can be seen in his building north Korean society into an ideal one in which the most beautiful morality is in full bloom. Today the world admires the leadership of Kim Jong Il, who has built up the whole country into a good human society where beautiful human morality and a sense of moral obligation hold sway, the leader and the masses constitute an integral whole and all the people live in harmony.
Originally nothing is harder than the work of perfecting people morally and beautifying a society, for morality and moral obligation are observed when based on conscience and a society can only be beautified when the relations of morality and moral fidelity are in force. But the morality essential for man has been contaminated through the existence of exploitative society for centuries, and is now getting worse and worse.
South Korea is the country in which the destruction of morals is at its worst. In south Korea those who perform righteous deeds for the country and nation are being punished as heretics who committed anti-state deeds, and those who want democracy and fight for national reunification are being labelled as immoral men.The climate of south Korea, in which money and power trample upon human morality, and conscience and justice are mocked and criticized, is an evil thing which degenerates human morality. In south Korea successive rulers are thrown into prison branded as immoral and mean fellows who deceived the nation and sold the country, and have become the target of criticism and the sneers of the world’s people. It is quite natural that true morality worthy of man can never be found in such a land. With the appearance of Kim Yong Sam’s government, destruction of morals in this country was brought to an extreme. Aristotle said that some are born destined to be subjects and some to be rulers, and that slaves should never want moral liberty. Such an inhumane concept of morality led the exploiting society to corruption.
Rousseau said that the way to recover morality from corruption is for man to return from a “civilized man” to a “natural man”, but man’s return to nature is not succeeded by the recovery of morality. Since capitalism fosters individualism and egoism every day and every time, the recovery of morality which is ruined and building a morally ideal society present a more difficult problem.
However, Kim Jong Il has succeeded in establishing human morality in north Korea on the basis of his original man-centred philosophy of ethics.
1) HUMAN MORALITY IS BASED ON
LOVE AND TRUST
As a gardener should know the physiology of flowers to cultivate a beautiful flower garden, so a leader should establish right principles of morality to build a morally ideal society. Only true principles of morality and ethics make it possible to lead people to beautiful moral behaviour and attain harmony and unity in society.
Although Confucius advanced principles of Confucian morality and advocated a moral society based on it, it was quite impossible to realize it. Confucius’s idea of “equity” plausibly advocated moral obligations to be observed between people, but it was a deception to preach the maintenance of the caste order, in which the lowest are peasants, merchants, handicraftsmen and slaves and other men of low birth, and in which the highest are kings, high-ranking feudal officials, scholars and the nobility, on the plea that its violation would incur disaster and trouble.
It is a well-known fact that the feudal Confucian morality and the bourgeois morality have been used to justify oppression and exploitation of the people and suppress their resistence. Lenin was opposed to the bourgeois ethics which obscured the class character of morality, and advanced communist ethics. He said, “When people tell us about morality, we say, ‘For communists the whole of ethics lies in the discipline of the united collective and in the conscious mass struggle against exploiters.’ We do not believe in eternal morality and expose all kinds of deceptive sophistry about ethics. Ethics is to serve to improve human society and liberate labour from exploitation.”
Lenin dealt a blow at the wrong view of the bourgeoisie, who clamoured that communists had neither morality nor ethics on the strength of an erroneous super-class concept of morality and ethics, and emphasized the superiority of communist morality over bourgeois morality.
Lenin put it forth as an important requirement of communist morality to remove egoistic and private-ownership mentality from people’s minds and cultivate in them the spirit of collectivism, the communist attitude toward labour, and the spirit of valuing social ownership.
Kim Jong Il said that true morality is a universal morality to be observed by all the people who defend independence and creativity, the key social attributes of man. In other words, according to his view, true human morality is the standard of conscious behaviour designed to value and defend independence and creativity, the key social attributes of man. Becoming a moral man means to be a being who values the independence and creativity of man, and behaves in accordance with them. Truly moral behaviour means respect for and defence of man’s independence and creativity.
What, then, is the basis of true morality? Proceeding from the nature of man. General Kim Jong Il clarified the basis of human morality in two aspects. One of them is recognition of the independence of man.
General Kim Jong Il said:
“As a matter of principle, comradely love presupposes that one regards another person as an independent being and recognizes his independence. Comradely love cannot exist between the dominator and the dominated.”
For moral relations to be established between people, a right attitude toward the other party should be assumed, because morality is the universal standard to be observed mutually between people. Moral relations precisely mean relations of mutual respect and trust. Without respect for the other party, any relations of morality and moral obligation cannot be established.
Recognition of and respect for man’s independence make it possible to form moral relations between people and develop the relations of helping each other. Recognition of and respect for the other party’s independence constitute the basis of true moral relations. When one ignores and does not recognize the other party, relations of morality and moral obligation cannot be formed. Independence is an attribute to live as master of one’s own destiny free from any subjugation. Man becomes a precious being because he takes independence as his lifeblood, hence he values relations with other people.
It is moral to recognize the independence of others while valuing one’s independence. When such relations are formed, it is possible to develop moral relations of respecting and taking care of each other.
Relations of morality and moral obligation cannot exist between the ruler and the ruled. The ruler does not recognize independence of the ruled. Oppression of the exploited by the exploiting class itself means nonrecognition and disregard of the personality or dignity of the other party. Respect for and defence of people’s independence are the substance of morality and ethics and their supreme manifestation.
Love and trust are the basis of true human morality.
General Kim Jong Il said:
“Love for and trust in people are the basis of genuine human relations, the basis of human morality. Promoting the benefit of others rather than of oneself and working with devotion for one’s society and collective are an expression of a person’s noble morality.”
Morality is the universal standard of behaviour to be observed in society, whereas love and trust serve as the basis for deciding the character and substance of morality. Recognition of independence is a prerequisite for moral relations between people, while love and trust concern true morality.
When we say that love and trust are the basis for human morality, it means that true moral relations cannot be established among people without love and trust. True morality means giving love and having faith in each other.
To love man means to value and defend his political integrity and care for people’s life. To trust man means regarding him as a being who is most powerful in the world, as a friend and as a comrade who can share purpose and action in the struggle to shape one’s destiny. Therefore, love and trust are the moral basis for making human relations really beautiful, trustful and stable. Morality and moral obligation without love and trust cannot exist nor be true. The feeling of love and trust and their manifestation in action alone can make duties and obligations to be fulfilled between people moral and conscientious ones, not practical ones.
Nietzsche said that true morality should be controlled by instinct of life and that instinct of life isjust a “lust for existence” and a “lust for power”, a desire to become stronger and subjugate others. Supposing that instinct of life is a “lust for existence” and a “lust for power”, human relations to be formed by such an instinct will be relations in which one subjugates, kills and plunders others. It is advocacy of inhuman and barbarous acts. Proceeding from the view that true morality should be controlled by the instinct of life, Nietzsche maintained that the morality which presupposes considerateness and sympathy for others and suppression of one’s instinct is inhuman.
His contention that sympathy and considerateness for others present an anti-human morality which suppresses one’s own instinct is nonrecognition of morality itself and is none other than an act of making human relations beastly ones. His view on morality gave birth to rabid and inhuman Nazism. When human relations are not based on independence, love and trust, human society goes to ruin and man degenerates. Such immoral relations give rise to people deceiving each other and being deceived in economic life as well as in political life, and foster exploitation, plunder, hatred and betrayal.
The United States professes itself to be a law-governed country. But it suggests that it is a country where human ethics is at its worst and strong control by law is in force. It is known to be a kingdom of lawyers. Enormous lawsuit expenses are incurred in legal procedures. In the United States there are as many as 800,000 lawyers, accounting for 70 per cent of the qualified lawyers in the world. In other words, the United States is a “lawsuit-oriented” country.
Why has the United States become a “lawsuit-oriented” country? Because it is a country where human conscience and morality have disappeared and the plunderous law by which people deceive each other and are deceived, seized with individualism and selfishness, is in force.
The United States has become a kingdom of lawyers because people deceive each other, the company and the state, and one company deceives the other and practices of impudent deception prevail in the country.
True moral relations are formed in a social collective where people share one thought and purpose.
Human relations in a socio-political collective which shares the same destiny are completely equal and independent ones and are the relations of comradely love with which people help each other with devotion. Therefore true morality gives full rein to the independence of individuals and contributes to strengthening the unity and cohesion of a collective. A society where such morality is in force is a really just society, where people are united with comradely love and in harmony.
In north Korea human morality is in full bloom. It is attributable to Kim Jong Il, who enunciated and implemented the idea of truly human morality based on independence, love and trust.
2) VALUE CONSCIENCE
AND MORAL OBLIGATION
Man is said to live with conscience and the sense of moral obligation. He who lacks conscience and the sense of moral obligation cannot be said to be man. When people know the value of conscience and the sense of moral obligation, they can live following their purpose and build a beautiful world of morality.
General Kim Jong Il remarked that perfection of a society precisely means the perfection of man, its master, and that perfection of man implies his moral perfection. He put forth a new outlook on ethics and morality, namely, that for people to be perfected morally they should have a thorough sense of conscience and moral obligation.
A developed society precisely means a moral society in which the sense of conscience and moral obligation prevails.
When we look into the United States, which professes itself to be a “mature society”, we can confirm the practices of negating human morality.
When young Americans join the army, they are given a pamphlet, on the first page of which is written: “You must be a heartless and skilled killer.” In the book What Is a Soldier? , which is distributed to American soldiers there is written: “The state pays 30,000 dollars to you. You can pay it back by killing the man facing you.” This is the image of the United States, which boasts of having a modern civilization. In other words, the United States makes people killers and eggs them on to merciless slaughter. The American people are indoctrinated with such an inhuman, barbarous view on morality. They say, however, that America is a model of a “mature democratic society” and a developed country in which human rights are at the highest level and are making a fuss about “human rights” in other countries.
To build a really matur e democratic society, one should seek a society where human dignity is alive and human conscience and a sense of moral obligation are valued.
A true human world is a world where morality and a sense of moral obligation hold sway. The country with a high level of morality and a sense of moral obligation is the country which is the most beautiful and developed in the world.
Thinking about building a true human society, Kim Jong Il advanced the valuable idea that adherence to conscience and a sense of moral obligation is a basic requirement for moral perfection.
Live with conscience and a sense of moral obligation. This is his teaching.
Conscience and a sense of moral obligation are virtues inherent to man and a source of mental power leading people to conscious and beautiful acts. He who lacks conscience and a sense of moral obligation, even if he has progressive ideas, cannot have a noble personality and be a true man.
Even in the old society, conscientious people prized conscience and a sense of moral obligation, and appreciated man’s value by them. Behaviour which goes against morality and a sense of moral fidelity was regarded as a deed unworthy of man. There can never be true morality in the exploiter society. Conscientious and moral relations cannot be formed between exploiters and the exploited. Hypocrisy is the nature of the exploiter classes and moral corruption is an inevitable product of bourgeois society.
Kierkegaard said, “I have two faces, like Janus. One face weeps and the other laughs.” His remark can be said to reveal the moral hypocrisy and two-facedness of the exploiter classes.
Pascal said, “All men, by nature, hate each other and love and longing, in essence, are none other than hatred.” His remark shows his class limitations. His contention is a sophistry to justify the exploitation and oppression of the working people by exploiters and the haves.
There are people who have a more impudent view on ethics than the barbarous one of Kierkegaard and Nietzsche. They are Japanese politicians.
As is known, Japanese politicians do not recognize that the sexual slavery the Japanese army practised during the Second World War was morally wrong. The members of the Japanese Cabinet say that the state cannot make compensation or an apology because it was the “commercial transactions” of the comfort women for Japanese army, who were forcibly commandeered into the comfort teams, and that the state did not intervene in this. Okuno, the former Minister of Justice, went so far as to make an absurd remark that the Pacific War was a war for self-defence. This shows that Japanese politicians are hooligans without the slightest sense of conscience and morality.
Of course, it might be meaningless to expect that insolent and inhuman people like Japanese politicians have conscience or morality.
As stressed above, only really righteous people have a true sense of conscience and moral obligation. Only those who hold man dear and value independence can live in the world of conscience and the sense of moral obligation.
Conscience and a sense of moral obligation can be true only when they are based on independence, man’s attribute, and on love and trust. Man behaves conscientiously in the struggle for independence because he values independence like his lifeblood. Man behaves in accordance with a sense of moral obligation because he needs cooperation with other people in the struggle to realize his independent demands.
By making people know the value of the sense of conscience and moral obligation and developing it throughout society,
Kim Jong Il has made the integral whole unity of the leader, Party and the masses be true and stable and a vital driving force which accelerates social development.
There goes a saying, “Even the crooked wormwood grows straight in a hemp field.” In the world of conscience and moral obligation provided by him the north Korean people are being perfected as moral men who live with the sense of conscience and moral obligation.
They have the clean sense of conscience and moral obligation. Their sense of conscience and moral obligation are characterized by loyalty to the leader and the country that showed them how to lead a life and brought happiness to them. Their life and activity are pervaded with the clean sense of conscience and moral obligation to repay the love and solicitude shown to them.
The loyalty and filial piety of the north Korean people to President Kim Il Sung are of the highest order.
North Korean people regard it as a matter of conscience and moral obligation to be loyal to President Kim Il Sung. Because he is a hero and benevolent father of the nation who won back their lost country, and built a country where people are masters and ensured that they lead a life worthy of man.
Their loyalty and filial devotion to General Kim Jong Il are manifested at the highest in their loftiness and beauty.
The north Korean people unanimously hold him in high esteem and follow him because he is just like President Kim Il Sung, and is exerting all his efforts to defend the country and serve the people following the best wishes President Kim Il Sung left in his lifetime.
They consider it as a matter of conscience and obligation to share life and death with Kim Jong Il, thinking of the noble efforts he is making to defend the country and the people, holding high the red flag of revolution in the grim situation wherein the world imperialist powers are continuously making vicious aggressive machinations and enforcing blockades.
They regard it as their duty to work strenuously and honestly to contribute even a bit to the grateful country where they were born and brought up.
As the benevolent father of the people, Kim Jong Il looks into great and small affairs of every family and shows careful concern for them. He shows concern for the birth of triplets in a remote mountain village, sends birthday spreads to old workers in the small mines and collieries on their 60th birthdays and to all the old people across the country who greet their 100th birthday. He is a warmhearted person with the sense of moral obligation who extends his gratitude to girls who married disabled soldiers, and reads the letters of the children who are doing well at calligraphing and sends reply letters to them, like a considerate father.
The north Korean people’s loyalty to General Kim Jong Il derives just from this, so their loyalty is clear, true and beautiful beyond all comparison.
The People’s Army men Kim Chol Jin, Kim Kyong Chol and Jong Kwang Son who drifted into the territorial waters of south Korea in an unexpected accident returned back to the North after putting up a stubborn struggle without the slightest vacillation in the face of the persistent pressure, appeasement and deception of the army authorities of south Korea. This shows the state of mind of the north Korean people who live with the sense of conscience and moral obligation. When they did not use the honorific title of General before the name of Kim Jong Il in the course of interrogation, Kim Chol Jin strongly resisted them and finally made them yield and apologize, and returned to the embrace of General Kim Jong Il, the Supreme Commander.
Watching on TV how loudly soldiers Kim Chol Jin, Kim Kyong Chol and Jong Kwang Son cried “Long live the respected Supreme Commander General Kim Jong Il!” on crossing the ceasefire line, the south Korean people were overwhelmed by the noble mentality of the People’s Army men, who support and follow General Kim Jong Il with a clean sense of conscience and moral obligation.
Kim Jong Il is a benevolent leader who devotedly works for the people with a clean sense of conscience and moral obligation and is supported and respected by the people who have a clean sense of conscience and moral obligation.
Kim Jong Il is making man completed morally, with a sense of conscience and moral obligation, and consolidates the single-hearted unity and integrated whole of society with a sense of loyalty and filialduty. His leadership ability presents a great driving force which brings beautiful human love into full bloom as never known in history.
3) RESPECT THE FORERUNNERS OF
THE REVOLUTION
In Europe a strange racket is now being kicked up slandering and ignoring the services of the leaders of the proletariat who were respected and praised so highly because of their great services to the socialist cause for the oppressed masses. Availing themselves of the occasion, imperialists and bourgeois theoreticians who are hostile to socialism are launching a big campaign to stress the “unscientific character” of the ideas and theories of Marx, Lenin, Stalin and negate their services. They went so far as to openly make a personal attack on them without hesitation.
The world’s people watch such abnormal practices with an eye of moral justice and warn that such futile attempts will get what they deserve.
Who, then, are conducting and instigating such unreasonable and immoral acts of abusing the leaders and revolutionary forerunners of the working class? They are Gorbachev and other quack politicians who once held the leadership of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union thanks to the former leaders of the working class. Synchronized with their betrayal, the Western countries are now flooded with “theories” which try to prove that Marx and Lenin were “false prophets” and that their socialist and communist theory was an “unfeasible wild dream”.
Today’s situation poses it before history as an urgent requirement of the times, allowing no delay to establish a correct attitude toward the former leaders of the working class and revolutionary forerunners. But people remained on-lookers or kept silent about it.
At this the great General Kim Jong Il resolutely decided to restore ethics from degeneration with a truly human philosophy of ethics. He pointed to the need to respect revolutionary forerunners and announced that to respect revolutionary forerunners is a noble moral obligation for true communists.
Respect revolutionary forerunners! This is a great task of revolutionary ethics he set before the times and history.
His idea of respecting revolutionary predecessors is based on a new scientific elucidation of the mutual relations between revolution and morality.
He considered the question of morality and moral obligation not merely as the question of perfecting man’s personality and realizing social harmony but as a fundamental question related to the fate of revolution.
General Kim Jong Il said:
“To respect revolutionary pioneers is the demand of the revolution and the noble moral obligation of revolutionaries.”
Ethics is clearly manifested not only in the relations between people but in the relations with seniors. A sense of moral obligation is specially required in the relations between seniors and juniors. It is commonly taken for granted that relations between the master and the disciples and between seniors and juniors should be relations of respect and moral obligation of the disciples and juniors for the master and the seniors. This demand of ethics is easily accepted and carried out in human life. But General Kim Jong Il considered the question of ethics toward revolutionary forerunners not merely as a question of ethics to be observed between senior and junior, but also as a question of great significance which is related to the destiny of revolution.
The revolutionary forerunners are those who first opened up the path of struggle for the independence of the masses and liberation of the country and nation and fought faithfully following the path, and thus rendered valuable historic services.
They are the anti-Japanese patriotic martyrs who fought for the liberation of the country and nation when the country was reduced to a colony of Japan and those who inherited their precious traditions to bring glory to those days.
Viewed in this light, respecting revolutionary seniors boils down to giving prominence to the revolutionary predecessors, and to defending, and developing their ideas and achievements.
The noble revolutionary ideas of the revolutionary elders and the achievements they gained through arduous struggle are the precious revolutionary gains and valuable assets for inheriting and accomplishing the revolutionary cause. Only when the generation which took over the relay baton of revolution defends and develops the ideas and achievements of revolutionary forerunners can the revolutionary cause be advanced through the generations and finally realized.
Respect for revolutionary seniors is essential because the struggle for independence of the people does not end within one generation, but should be continued over a long period from generation to generation.
Disregard of revolutionary forerunners implies to shun carrying forward revolution and ignoring all their achievements.
The collapse of the Eastern European socialist countries shows how important and serious the question of respecting revolutionary forerunners is. In the past in some socialist countries the opportunists and quack politicians who were in leading positions in the party and state tried to defile the revolutionary forerunners and denigrate their contributions. They also committed other treacherous acts, which sullied their honour and the image of socialism and eventually brought the socialist system itself to ruin. This proves that the standpoint on and attitude toward revolutionary seniors present a very important question related to the fate of revolution and the development of the socialist movement.
Fundamentally, respect for revolutionary predecessors is a revolutionary moral obligation devolving on true men, revolutionaries. Relations between revolutionary seniors and juniors are comradely relations between revolutionaries who fight together on the path of revolution, although there is a difference in seniority between those who took part in the revolution earlier and those who did so later. The relations between parents and children are blood relations giving physical life, whereas relations between revolutionaries are the relations of revolutionary comrades who share the same purpose and life and death.
It is the moral character of true revolutionaries to regard it as a noble duty and honor to conceive ardent love for revolutionary comrades and be loyal to revolutionary obligation to comrades. Therefore, it is a most shameful act to betray revolutionary comrades and disobey conscience and moral obligation in relations with comrades.
The noblest moral obligation devolving on revolutionaries is to respect the revolutionary seniors who first opened up the path of revolution for the country and nation and performed great exploits on the path of revolution before their death. The revolutionary fighters who fought the sacred anti-Japanese war shouted, “Love the future!” in do-or-die battles, or at the last moment of their lives on the gallows, because they loved the coming generations. In the light of human ethics and moral obligation for the next generation, it is quite natural not to forget patriotic martyrs who laid down their lives in the sacred struggle against dictatorial regimes and for independence, democracy and national reunification. One should continue their great cause.
Kim Jong Il saw to it that our people appreciate and respect the historic figures, once renounced in our nation’s history, in an impartial manner. In north Korea the tomb of Tangun, the founder of ancient Korea, was unearthed and rebuilt majestically. The tombs of King Tongmyong, the founder of Koguryo, a powerful ancient state, and of Wang Kon, the founder of Koryo, were restored splendidly. This is attributable to the patriotic idea and wise leadership of Kim Jong Il, who has fully inherited President Kim Il Sung’s noble idea of respecting the ancestors of the nation. Unlike in north Korea, in south Korea ancestors, anti-Japanese meritorious champions and other righteous patriotic martyrs are defamed and slandered without hesitation. The pro-Japanese elements who betrayed the country and nation are praised as patriots, the flunkeyists who stood in the van of treachery to the country are respected, and other perverse acts are committed, encouraged by the government authorities.
Kim Jong Il advanced a new ethics concerning respecting the revolutionary seniors and the idea that loyalty to the leader of the revolution is the highest manifestation of revolutionary moral fidelity.
General Kim Jong Il said:
“The highest representative of revolutionary elders is the leader, and loyalty to the leader is the highest expression of the sense of revolutionary obligation.”
The leader of the people, including the working class, is the guiding intellect and the supreme leader of the revolution. The masses make history, but they can hold the position of true masters of their destiny as independent makers of history, and fulfil their role as such, only when they receive the guidance of a prominent leader. This is because the leader puts forward scientific revolutionary ideas, strategy and tactics, inspires the masses with revolutionary consciousness, organizes them, and guides the revolutionary struggle to victory. Under the leadership of the leader, the struggle of the masses for independence is pioneered and advances victoriously and eventually achieves success. This shows that the cause of independence for the masses is the cause of the leader, and inheriting the ideas and achievements of the revolutionary predecessors means inheriting the leader’s revolutionary ideas and achievements. Respect for revolutionary predecessors finds typical expression in loyalty to the leader.
Being loyal to the leader through all generations is the duty of revolutionaries, true men, and the highest expression of the sense of revolutionary obligation.
Viewed in this light, defaming and finding fault with the leader, while qualifying it as a personality cult to be loyal to the leader and carry forward his cause, cannot be said to be the behaviour of people with a healthy way of thinking.
Historically, in opposing the socialist cause, imperialists and renegades from the revolution have directed their attack on the leaders of the working class and the revolutionaries of preceding generations. This is because the socialist cause was pioneered and has triumphed thanks to the guidance of the leader and the self-sacrificing struggle of the revolutionaries of the preceding generations, and because the dignity of socialism is associated with their honour.
History shows how mean is the treachery to the leaders of the revolution. After Marx’s death, Bernstein and other revisionists of the Second International defamed him, and revised and betrayed his ideas and achievements. Trotsky and other opportunists slandered and opposed Lenin, his ideas and achievements. Such treachery openly took place on the land of Soviet Russia, where the revolution emerged victorious.
When he held the reins of power Khrushchev, who became the head of the Soviet Union thanks to Stalin, found fault with Stalin, his mentor.
Gorbachev, who became the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union thanks to his predecessors, betrayed the tradition of Lenin and the socialist Soviet Union, yielded to imperialism, and committed the great crime of destroying socialism and reviving capitalism. When Stalin was alive, Khrushchev said that he respected him as his mentor and that he was his “faithful disciple”, and pledged loyalty to him, flattering him. When he came to Stalin, this careerist used to wear Ukrainian dress to appear as an honest man. Less than 20 minutes had passed after Stalin’s death when Khrushchev thought of occupying his position, standing by his body and giving a wide berth to those who took a stand against him. Commenting on Khrushchev carrying Stalin’s coffin on his shoulder on his funeral day, foreign news said, “There was something unusual about his eyes and mouth. He followed suit, but as if he was reluctant to carry the coffin on his shoulder.” When he seized power, he changed his attitude and began to find fault with Stalin. He struck out his name off factories, enterprises, cities and streets. He removed his bronze statues and monuments, and went so far as to take out his remains laid out in the Red Square and burned them to ashes. Later he made Stalin’s son change his name, deprived him of liberty, and made him a non-person. He deprived Stalin’s daughter of her Soviet Union citizenship and expelled her.
When he became General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Gorbachev pledged with tears in his eyes that “We will carry out the line of the Leninist party.” At the 27th congress of the CPSU held in February of 1986, he laid down in the Party program that the “Soviet people will build a communist society under the banner of Marxism-Leninism.” But he betrayed it, slandering socialism and committed the treacherous act dismembering the powerful Soviet Union and restoring capitalism. Socialism in the Soviet Union began to be derailed from its orbit and fall to pieces, ruined from within and eventually destroyed by the modern revisionists, who were careerists and plotters.
General Kim Jong Il denounced before history and mankind the moral inferiority and treacherous crimes of these Philistines on the basis of principles of justice and morality. Witnessing that those who occupied the highest position of the communist party thanks to the leaders of the preceding generations, and who impudently held high the banner of Marxism-Leninism, found fault with and slandered the ideas and exploits of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin, the world people greatly admire the noble ethics of General Kim Jong Il, who respects revolutionary predecessors. As he regards respect for revolutionary seniors as a moral credo, Kim Jong Il bitterly grieved over the death of the great President Kim Il Sung, who is respected and adored highly by mankind, and had the Kumsusan Memorial Palace erected as the most sacred place in which to keep posterity informed of his achievements and have him immortalized as an unsetting sun.
The Kumsusan Memorial Palace presents the acme of General Kim Jong Il’s philosophy on ethics, and the best crystallization of the noble virtues of Kim Jong Il, the incarnation of morality and moral obligation. It is a historic palace, which shows his priceless noble ethics to the public.
Kim Jong Il is a great man who has inherited and carried forward the idea and achievements of the respected President
Kim Il Sung.
After President Kim Il Sung’s death, he declared to the world “Don’t expect any change from me!”
It is his idea and will to inherit President Kim Il Sung’s intention purely, and to be infinitely loyal and dutiful to him.
His noble idea of respecting revolutionary predecessors and his high respect for the leaders of the preceding generations show that he is a true man of men and a great saint of saints.
3) VALUE COMRADELY LOVE
The essence of General Kim Jong Il’s philosophy of ethics is that it is necessary to value comradely love as a moral obligation.
Kim Jong Il said:
“Within the community all its members must regard it their moral duty to love and help each other on equal terms and in a comradely manner.”
According to his outlook on ethics, truly human relations should be relations of comradely love, as well as relations of conscience and moral obligation. Comradely love, this is a precious nutritive substance which he has newly established and infused into human ethics.
He put forward the precious idea that true morality should be based on comradely love and only then can truly human moral relations be formed.
Love is a beautiful noble sentiment deriving from human nature. As man is a social being whose way of existence is cooperation, it is natural that there arises a desire to give and take between them, and people act accordingly. Such a desire and behaviour precisely means love. Feuerbach tried to evolve a “new religion” whose gist is love between “you” and “I”, but it was none other than an appeal to supraclass love. The love advocated by Freudianism is an inferior, corrupt and inhuman love which bases itself on beastly sexual instinct.
Comradely love is the most beautiful and noble. Comradely love is the love those who share the same ideas, aim and purpose conceive for each other. It is not the love based on blood relations, the love aiming at personal benefit, nor the false love designed for treachery. Comradely love is the unswerving and selfless love which presupposes sharing the same fate.
The mind the people who are united through community of their ideas and ideals, aims and aspirations and destiny conceive for each other, and their behaviour deriving from it, constitute the main content of comradely love. Therefore, comradely love is most beautiful and noble in character and orientation.
Engels’ love for Marx, the leader of the working class of the preceding generation, was particular. Engels highly praised and supported his comrades-in-arms, saying that Marx was a distinguished leader who discovered the law governing the development of human history and regarded emancipation of the proletariat as his lifelong mission. After Marx’s death, Engels put away all his work and worked for over ten years on the second and third volumes of the Capital, Marx’s posthumous manuscript, and published them. Thus he erected the “greatest monument” (According to Lenin) to his friend. Although Engels advanced really valuable ideas and theories through a great deal of joint work with Marx, he, nevertheless, was modest enough to say, “As we see, the discovery which has made a radical change in historical science is mainly Marx’s exploit, and I did quite a little part of it. When Marx was alive, I played the second violin.” Concerning this, Lenin said, “Relations between the two men were more excellent than all the other moving tales about human friendship. The love those who share the ideas and purposes conceive for each other is comradely love.
We learn the acme of the most beautiful comradely love in the world from the noble life of President Kim Il Sung.
Kim Il Sung’s love for Kim Chaek was the noblest on the highest level, although there are many stories about comradely love.
There was a safe which President Kim Il Sung much valued and used in his lifetime. When it was opened after his death, there was found a photograph for which he posed together with Kim Chaek. He was the comrade-in-arms who had fought together with President Kim Il Sung from the period of the anti-Japanese revolutionary struggle and helped him during the arduous struggle after liberation. As he held him so dear, President Kim Il Sung kept the photograph in the safe for half a century, though he had already passed away.
The safe contained comradely love, but not a large amount of money or a lump of gold. It shows how President Kim Il Sung held love for comrades dear.
Comradely love is a great transcending personal desire and selfishness. If it is tainted with the slightest speck of selfishness, it is no more comradely love.
Adam Smith said, “Give me what I need and you will have what you need.” This provides an example showing how mean bourgeois human relations based on individualism are.
According to General Kim Jong Il’s view, comradely love should be most beautiful and clean and only then can human relations be true.
Proceeding from the view that comradely love is the most beautiful and true human love, he advanced the idea that all human relations, that is, relations between superior and inferior, relations in a family and relations between men and women, should be formed on the basis of comradely love, and he made every effort to realize it.
He taught that comradely love and moral obligation should be manifested in the relations between superiors and inferiors. Viewed in the light of truly human relations, relations between superiors and inferiors must never be relations of ruling and being ruled. In socialist society relations between superiors and inferiors are not the relations of the dominator and the dominated, but the relations between comrades who pursue the same aim.
People are given different assignments in the struggle to realize independence and shape their destiny. The relations between them are not the hierarchical relations of action of physical power. Therefore, the inferior should respect and help the superior as a precious comrade who fulfils a more important duty, and the superior should take care of and lead his subordinates with a high sense of responsibility. All people are in independent and equal relations with each other in the course of fulfilling social duties. Between the people who take part in the struggle to realize one and the same purpose with the same right and same qualification there can never be higher or lower people, and the relations of contempt and maltreatment cannot exist.
As society advances, the effect of power, in its original sense, gradually decreases and the effect of ethics ceaselessly increases. Hence, it necessarily follows that the relations between the superior and the inferior should be relations of comradely love.
When they are not such, there cannot exist truly human relations. The existentialist Ortega said that society is composed of two moral entities, the elite and the masses, and that it is inevitable that society is divided into commanders and subordinates. Nietzsche remarked that man is a being who has an instinctive demand to seek power and to dominate others from his early years. He tried to justify relations of domination and subjugation on the plea that “there exists only the desire to get stronger” and that “man is a being who endeavours to get power.” Such argument is nothing other than a sophistry to justify the relations of domination and subjugation that exist in exploitative society. It is a well-known fact that in capitalist society the ruling class is using such an unscientific and perverse argument to justify their unlimited power and rule.
General Kim Jong Il always regards himself as a common person and talks and discusses state affairs open-heartedly with junior officials.
One day when he met officials, Kim Jong Il said, “Man must not fawn upon the powerful. As I always say, it is wrong if you follow me because I am the Secretary of Organizational Affairs. You should follow the man Kim Jong Il. I am opposed to you following me because of my position. If a man follows the person in high official position it means fawning upon the powerful.” He went on to say that the man who fawns upon the powerful flatters the one who is in a high position, but does not care at all for the one who is degraded to a lower position.
His idea that one should not follow authority and fawn upon the powerful incorporates the priceless credo that relations between the superior and the inferior should be formed on the basis of comradely love.
In his remark that they should follow him not because of his authority, but the man Kim Jong Il, we can see his unbounded modesty and the immeasurable high nobility of his popular virtue. Basing himself on this idea and purpose, he carries out people-centred politics and leads the Party and state in north Korea.
Relations in a family should also be formed on the basis of comradely love. Family relations are distinguished from other social relations in that they are based on blood ties. But as they are also social relations, common moral principles in a given society are applicable between family members. But, what is most important is that real love formed between husband and wife, between parents and child, and between brother and sister in family life should be valued and be made true comradely love.
It is a primary human duty to love and respect the parents who gave birth to one and brought one up. He who does not love his parents, wife and children can never love the country and nation and the people. But one must not absolutize love between the members of a family. As sociopolitical integrity is more precious than physical life and comradely relations are more important than blood ties, the love between family members must develop into comradely love. A true man must not only love his family members warmly, but help them in a comradely manner to fight faithfully for the country and the people.
All kinds of misery in capitalist society, where the ethics of human relations are destroyed and individualism and the principle of struggle for existence are applied even among family members, make one feel more keenly the significance of the idea that relations between family members should be formed on the basis of true comradely love.
Observance of ethics in the relations between man and woman is of great significance in leading a sound family and social life.
Kim Jong Il said that relations between man and woman should be formed on the basis of true love and be comradely relations of respecting each other’s personality, and trusting and helping each other in real earnest.
When relations between man and woman are used for sexual flirtation, and are not based on a beautiful and noble purpose, they cannot be true and stable human relations.
For love between man and woman to be true, it must be based on comradely love. When their minds unite and they share the same aim and purpose for the country and people, and they help and care for each other, relations between man and woman become the relations of truly beautiful love and stable relations of eternal constancy.
When relations between man and woman are not truly human relations, society gets corrupted.
Today 40 per cent of American children are born out of wedlock. The fact that one of four unmarried women is a mother shows how serious the crisis of ethics between man and woman is in America. American Doctor Brejinsky said the “American crisis of the 21st century is a crisis of ethics and, to be more concrete, family breakdown.”
General Kim Jong Il advanced the idea that for relations between man and woman to be really beautiful human relations, they must be the relations of treasuring and loving each other in a comradely manner. So today in north Korea the relations between man and woman have become the most beautiful and true.
In north Korea disabled soldiers, who would be maltreated and slighted in south Korea, marry beautiful girls to found happy families and become a foundation stone to support the country. This gives a deep impression to the south Korean people, who are accustomed to see betrayal of true love.
South Korea, which is characterized by the prevalence of such immoral acts as sexual flirtation and rape, a high rate of divorce and the daily occurrence of the deplorable misery of wife beating and killing husband and vice versa, is a land devoid of true love.
Kim Jong Il has turned the whole country into a land of truly comradely love and shows invariable concern for it. The north Korean people all regard his embrace as the warmth of the sun, are united in one family of the sun, and make comradely love prevail. As the blessing of the sun is eternal, in north Korea human love will be in full bloom for ever.
7. MILITARY PRINCIPLE OF SELF-RELIANCE IN NATIONAL DEFENCE
General Kim Jong Il is strong because he has an ever-victorious military philosophy and commands an invincible army which is equipped with this philosophy and well trained.
A book published by the Ministry of Finance of Russia in 1890 says, “The character of the Korean army is that it is terribly strong when led by an excellent commander.” Having witnessed the war on the Korean peninsula early in the 1950s, Australian journalist Burchett wrote, “The Korean People’s Army won in the war against a formidable enemy because, firstly, it has a great leader.”
This is true. In the past, Korea underwent innumerable hardships because of foreign invasion. One of its main causes is that she had no distinguished national leader capable of repelling foreign invasion. Finally the nation had the distinguished military commander President Kim Il Sung as the saviour of the nation, with the result that she was freed from the yoke of Japanese colonization and could repel the invasion of the world imperialist powers and defend the sovereignty of the country and nation in the June 25 war.
The Korean People’s Army has become an invincible army capable of defending the nation because it has Kim Jong Il, a distinguished general, as its Supreme Commander. General
Kim Jong Il has brought the fighting capacity of the People’s Army onto the highest plane by his wise leadership, and is making full combat preparations to counter a possible attack by the enemy.
What, then, is his ever-victorious military philosophy? It is the man-centred military philosophy, which requires defending people’s independence and depending on their creativity, and is the philosophy of self-defence enabling one’s country to bring its defence capacity to such a high plane as to repulse any powerful enemy at one stroke.
1) MAN PLAYS A DECISIVE ROLE IN WAR
Although the world is said to have entered the age of detente, dark war clouds are still hanging over the earth and the flames of war are not extinguished everywhere in the world. This proves that as long as imperialist aggressive forces remain, every nation should not neglect in the least military preparations to defend itself.
What, then, is the secret of winning in the war to defend oneself? It is a matter of greatest concern for all the military strategists of the world.
What, then, is the military principle and strategy of the United States? Briefly speaking, it is the doctrine of “power supremacy.”
During the Second World War, the United States produced as many as 262,000 military airplanes, advocating the doctrine of “air supremacy”, and has pursued a strategy for the domination of the world. But now it is preaching the doctrine of “omnipotence of nuclear weapons”. “Control of the air” and “multiforce strike” are still its military theory. Victories in the Second World War, in which A-bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and in the Gulf War by air force and missile strikes, encouraged the United States to hold supreme the doctrine of the “omnipotence of weapons”. The advocates of the “supremacy of nuclear war capability” openly speak that “military power is the A-bomb and the nuclear missile.”
The doctrine of the “omnipotence of weapons” is a military doctrine common in imperialist countries. England defeated the “Invincible Armada” of Spain in the 16th century and then seized command of the sea in Europe, defeating the naval fleet of Napoleon in the early 19th century. From then on her military strategists began to conceive the idea that having an excellent naval fleet, she could control the sea and dominate the world. At last they clung to the doctrine of “naval supremacy”. On the eve of the Second World War, Japan and England concentrated their all energies on the construction of war vessels and thus, England and Japan together had 13 of the 19 aircraft carriers afloat in those days.
The military strategy of fascist Germany was that tank supremacy is essential for domination of the world. Advocating the “doctrine of tank supremacy”, Hitler tried to win the war by tank warfare by mass-producing medium-size tanks. Germany conquered Poland in only 15 days and France in a month by tank force. This made a great impression on different countries, and during the Second World War the Soviet Union produced 100,000 tanks and armoured cars, and England 15,000. As a result, the battlefield became the battlefield of hundreds of thousands of tanks. But German tank corps were routed by the Soviet army in the Soviet-German War.
The Italian General Julie Due advocated the doctrine of air warfare. He stated that the country which holds the control of the air maintains decisive supremacy in the war, and that the intrusion of man into the so-called third-dimensional world called air brought about a change in the outcome of war and warfare. Briefly speaking, the military doctrines of the imperialists are military doctrines of weapon supremacy, such as doctrines of warship supremacy, tank supremacy, airplane supremacy and the omnipotence of nuclear weapons.
Clausewitz stated, “The mental ability of an army depends on development of weapons, victory is ultimately decided by new weapons and new military technology gives rise to new military ideology.” This statement gives clear expression to the character of the military doctrines and tactics of imperialist armies.
Exposing the immoral and reactionary nature of imperialist wars, Lenin said, “Since two thieves are fighting, let both of them be ruined.” But he could not advance military principles to defeat them because he had not gone through imperialist wars.
What, then, is the military principle of General Kim Jong Il? Briefly speaking, it is the Juche-based military principle, according to which it is not weapons but the people, the masses of soldiers, that plays the decisive role in a revolutionary war. Classic Marxists-Leninists divided the factors of victory in a war mainly into permanent and temporary ones, and regarded the former as the decisive ones. They did not see that the decisive factor for victory in war is subjective factors, of them men, to be exact, their politico-ideological factors. Stalin set forth the view that the quality of divisions is of decisive significance in war. But he did not raise the question of essential significance for strengthening the quality of divisions.
General Kim Jong Il clarified the question of the decisive factor for victory in war by elucidating the military principle centring on man.
What, then, is the decisive factor for victory in war clarified by him? Briefly speaking, it is subjective factors.
One is the internal factor of the country which participates in war, that is, its internal forces, and the other is the human factor, that is, people, the masses of soldiers, that plays the decisive role from among both human and material factors affecting the war.
Kim Jong Il said that the decisive factor affecting victory in war is the internal forces of the country pursuing the war, and outside assistance plays only a supplementary role, that aid from outside cannot satisfy the enormous military demands required by the modern war and that in history there is no instance of winning war with the aid from outside alone.
Internal forces are the decisive factor for victory in war because it is the country which wages the war. The war against foreign invasion is not forced by anyone, but derives from vital demands and interests of the country itself as it tries to defend national sovereignty and dignity, and the strength capable of repelling foreign invasion lies within the country. As it is man’s nature to defend himself, so defence of sovereignty and dignity is an inherent nature of a country and nation. Each country and nation wages a righteous war to cope with foreign invasion, proceeding from the need to defend its sovereignty.
The war to defend the sovereignty of the country and nation is the vehement manifestation of the high sense of responsibility befitting the master and the will of the members constituting the nation and their positive military action. It is well known that victory cannot be won in a revolutionary war without the positive efforts of the internal forces participating in it. It is wrong to think that any outside forces can stand for or defend the sovereignty of the country and nation. Originally each country and nation has the revolutionary ability and strength to defend its sovereignty. The people of the country have, more than any other people, the sense of responsibility for the defence of their country and they have the strength to defend it.
Of course, as each country exists among other countries in the world, when it is invaded unreasonably by any foreign force, its neighbouring countries can give it political and material assistance and extend solidarity with it. However, the country fighting the war cannot entirely depend on other countries for all things necessary for its defence. External aid only plays a supplementary role.
Reality shows that external assistance cannot fully satisfy the enormous military demands required by modern wars. Only when the internal forces are strong can outside aid be effective.
All this shows that the decisive factor affecting victory in the revolutionary war is the internal factor. As the fate of a country is shaped by the country itself, so the fate of a war is to be shaped by the internal force of the country. Only then can victory be won in the war. This is a law.
Basing himself on the Juche-based military principle that the internal factor is decisive for victory in the revolutionary war,
Kim Jong Il put forward and carried through the military line of self-defence. As a result, north Korea has become a military power capable of defeating any formidable enemy.
Another Juche-based military principle clarified by him is that the human factor, that is, man, plays the decisive role in war.
Kim Jong Il stated that there are human and material factors affecting victory in war; among them the factor which plays the decisive role is the human factor, that is, man; it is man who makes and handles arms.
Both human and material factors affect the war. Material factors mean military material means, including technical means of combat and all the material and economic means used in the conduct of war. Not only military means but also material and economic means are used in war.
It is not the material factor but the human factor that plays the decisive role in war, for it is man who both produces and uses material means, including arms and other technical means of combat.
It is people, the mass of soldiers, who take a vital interest in the war and directly fight it, that play the leading and decisive role in the modern war. It is people who cognize the law of war scientifically and use it directly, prepare the material resources necessary for war, and enlist and use them effectively.
The masses of soldiers are the basic element of the armed force and the performers of war. The combat capability of the army and victory or defeat in war depend on how they are prepared. Since war is waged by people, at present as in the past, if those who are fighting the war have no faith in victory, lose fighting spirit and do not give full play to their wisdom, modern weapons, even if they have them, are of no use.
To be more concrete, man’s decisive role in war means the role of his ideological consciousness. War can be won or lost, depending on the ideological preparedness and will of the people who take part in the war. In this sense, it can be said that the political and ideological factor is the basic factor deciding the other factors affecting victory in war, and is the first of all factors.
However, the famous generals and militarists who were renowned in history regarded soldiers merely as human material. Today almost all militarists regard armymen as an appendage to weapons.
The view on training which is prevalent among military circles throughout the world is based on the weapon-centred doctrine.
Today most of the militarists of the world are concerned about adapting soldiers effectively to arms and equipment and technical means of combat.
Unlike them, General Kim Jong Il regards the masses of soldiers as masters of the revolutionary armed force and direct performers of the revolutionary war and, on the basis of this, has established a soldier-centred view on training. According to his view, combat training should be conducted with the stress laid on preparing soldiers well and making them fulfil their responsibility and role as direct handlers of modern weapons and technical means of combat, because soldiers are the main element of the armed force and the motive force of the revolutionary war.
The armymen who are prepared politically and ideologically participate in the war voluntarily and purposefully with confidence in the justness of their cause, and so can put forth inexhaustible mental and physical strength, even if they are equipped with technically backward weapons.
Basing himself on the military principle that the political and ideological factor, that is, man, plays the decisive role in a war, General Kim Jong Il has built up the People’s Army of north Korea to be an invincible army. The spirit of defending the leader at any cost, ardent love of the country and the sacrificing spirit of the People’s Army men are the strong power capable of defeating any formidable enemy in the world at one stroke.
He strengthens the might of the army on the basis of the political-and-ideological-readiness-first doctrine, not by the doctrine of the omnipotence of weapons, and regards the masses of soldiers as the decisive factor affecting victory in war. This is the core of General Kim Jong Il’s military philosophy and the source of the might of the People’s Army whose every member is the equal of a hundred foes.
2) THE WAR OF LIBERATION TO COUNTER
THE AGGRESSIVE WAR
North Korea has gone through two wars, the war against the 1,000,000 strong Japanese army, which boasted of being the “invincible Imperial Army”, and the June 25 war against the United States and 15 allied countries.
Victory in the two wars against imperialism was won under the wise leadership of President Kim Il Sung, a seasoned and experienced great military strategist. It is his revolutionary view on war that one must be resolute toward the unjust imperialist aggressive war and deal it a decisive blow. Today north Korea adheres to the revolutionary view on war.
Roosevelt insulted the Korean people, qualifying them as an impotent nation which cannot hold up even a finger for the defence of their country. On September 6, 1945, an advance unit of the US army landed on Kimpho airport and 45,000 of two divisions under the command of Hodge, the commander of the US 24th Army, landed in Inchon and occupied Seoul on the 9th. From then occupation of the Korean peninsula by the US army began. During the strained military confrontation of over half a century north Korea waged a three-year war, and still confronts the United States, the great military power.
The United States is said to be able to swallow up any country if it has a mind to. But why does it not decide to attack north Korea? It is because it is afraid of its strong military power and the extraordinary military strategy of its famous leaders. North Korea has the precious military tradition and experience of winning victory in the two wars against the imperialists, and has at the helm the Supreme Commander Kim Jong Il, a military genius who is admired by the whole world. So north Korea is confident in self-defence and is filled with an ever-victorious spirit.
Today, north Korea bravely confronts the threats and blackmail of the United States and other imperialist powers. This is ascribable to the revolutionary view on war set forth by General Kim Jong Il.
His revolutionary outlook on war calls for merciless punishment of and retaliation against aggressors.
It is his iron-firm faith and military will to mercilessly punish and retaliate against inhuman and unjust violence and root out the source of aggressive wars.
General Kim Jong Il said:
“The best way to preserve national independence and peace and win the revolutionary cause is to counter the imperialist war of aggression with the war of liberation, answer the counterrevolutionary violence of reaction with revolutionary violence, and always meet the imperialist moves of aggression and war in full preparedness.”
Seeing the instigator of the aggressive war and counterrevolutionary violence in imperialism, Kim Jong Il firmly maintains the view that one should be prepared for just war as long as imperialism exists, and that one should not want nor fear war nor beg peace from the imperialists.
North Korea defends its national dignity and the sovereignty of the country and is advancing vigorously along the path of socialism it opted for in the face of ceaseless aggressive wars and blockade by the imperialist great powers. This is entirely ascribable to Kim Jong Il’s revolutionary view on war and his unbounded boldness.
North Korea has been in continuous war with the strong armed forces of the imperialists for 43 years, ever since its victory in the 1,120-day war in the 1950s. According to data published by north Korea, provocations by south Korea amounted to 435,000 in only ten years, from 1985 to 1995. This meant 5 military provocations per hour on an average. But north Korea always emerges victorious in the war.
When the situation of strained military confrontation was created on the Korean peninsula with the appearance of the so-called “nuclear threat” in 1993, General Kim Jong Il issued the order of the Supreme Commander in which he proclaimed a state of quasi-war and roused the whole country, all the people and the entire army to the just and sacred war against imperialist aggressive forces. At that time in north Korea, in a little more than ten days, young people enough to form 150 divisions, in addition to the existing divisions, volunteered to join the army. Seeing this fact alone, the world’s people admired the unparalleled boldness and commanding art of General Kim Jong Il against the aggressive wars.
Dwelling on “permanent peace”, Kant once advocated that the standing army should be abolished. But today’s reality proves that peace is not secured by the abolition of the standing army but, on the contrary, by the strengthening of the armed force.
Human history records over 14,500 wars, big and small. The historical time ratio of war to peace is four to one. In a sense, it is not an exaggeration to say that human history is a history of wars. There were over 150 armed conflicts and local wars in the world in half a century after the Second World War. A review of the history of so many different wars shows that there is one truth which is valid in all wars. It is that the outcome of war entirely depends on the leader who leads the army and the people fighting the war.
The history of mankind, which was plagued by wars that incurred innumerable disasters on mankind, made all people conceive an earnest desire to live in the world without wars. But it is evident that as long as inhuman and unjust forces and factors remain, the just war against them will not disappear. Quite a few people like Karl Schmidt emphasize “preservation of war”. In 1530, the Spaniard Francesco Pizarro, leading 186 soldiers, conquered the Inca Empire on the highlands of the Andes Mountains, arrested the emperor, imprisoned and executed a great number of people, and thus ruined the empire. This fact alone makes one keenly feel that military affairs should be developed to defend one’s own country, and there must be a brilliant commander to lead army to victory. The Japanese militarists advocated conquest of Korea in the period from the last years of the Tokugawa shogunate to the early years of the “Meiji Restoration”, and provoked the warship Unyo incident in 1875, making preparations to conquer Korea. This historical fact awakened the Korean people. The colonial slavery imposed after 1905 came to an end through the righteous anti-Japanese armed struggle. Different forms of struggle of the Korean nation against the colonial rule of the Japanese imperialists provided the historic lesson that the just war against injustice is necessary, and victory in this war requires a right military philosophy, a right war philosophy, and a distinguished general to lead it to victory.
As military affairs were so important, Marx, who dedicated- his whole life to the emancipation of the proletariat, called Engels “my minister of defence”. Engels paid deep attention to military affairs in the thirties, and published tens of treatises on the subject; he was thus called a “general” by his friends.
Victory in war requires a brilliant commander, who should show a high sense of responsibility and devotion for war. Only then can the masses of soldiers gain supremacy over the enemy and win victory with confidence in victory, marvelous strategy and tactics and strength.
The last words of the patriotic General Ri Sun Sin, struck by an enemy bullet while fighting against over 500 enemy warships in Roryangjin, were “Put a shield before me. I fear that the enemy might see me die.” At his last moment, he instructed his men, “Since the battle is at its height, don’t tell of my death.” The last request of Ri Sun Sin, who defended the country with his devotion, clearly shows the personality of patriotic general and the importance of the position and responsibility of a military commander.
Describing wars as being moral, Hegel said that the supreme significance of war lies in making people retain moral veracity and preventing people’s minds from being affected by corruption, which ensues necessarily as an effect of peace.
He justified the aggressive war of Prussia by denying the class character of war and interpreting the war in general as being moral.
Mozi pointed to the need to draw a distinction between the war to invade an innocent country and the war obeying Providence. According to him, it was not aggression but punishment that King Tang inflicted on King Jie of the Xia and King Zhou Wu, King Zhou of the Yin. Namely, it means that because it was a war obeying Providence, one should not oppose it. Mozi’s view on war, which connected Providence with the validity of war, was primitive.
Criticising the wrong view of the bourgeois theoreticians who were mainly engaged in negating the aggressive and predatory character of imperialist wars. Lenin stated, “All wars are nothing but continuation of the policy by violent means which the belligerent states and their ruling classes pursued for a long time till the war, sometimes for tens of years.” Lenin said that politics gives rise to war. Criticising the wrong view of the opportunists who seperated imperialist wars from the reactionary politics of imperialism, he clarified that war was a continuation and extension of politics by special means of violence. Proceeding from this view, he considered that politics before the war, the politics which caused the war, should be clarified to explain the essence of war. He defined war as imperialist war if it derives from imperialist policy, and, differently from this, war as war for national liberation if it ensues from a policy for national liberation. He remarked that all the wars between imperialist powers are aggressive wars, viewed from either side, and hence, concerning these wars Marxists should adhere to the principle “As two thieves are fighting, let both of them be ruined.”
To summarize Lenin’s view on war, it is that the source of war is imperialism and that war is the companion of imperialism. Hence, criticising the reactionary and harmful character of the demand for “disarmament”, he stated that the proletariat can destroy all kinds of weapons after disarming the bourgeoisie and undoubtedly will do so. This can be said to show his principled and steadfast standpoint concerning war.
General Kim Jong Il established a new view on war and its character, going beyond the Marxist view that the source of war is imperialism and proceeding from the demand of independence, the life and soul of the country and nation, and of the function of an independent sovereign state.
As independence is the life and soul of the country and nation, the character of a war is decided according as who encroaches upon whose independence, and what are social systems established in the belligerent countries.
He said that the character of war is not decided according as who first attacked or who defended. According to his view, all the wars which a certain class or state wages to encroach upon the independence of another country and nation, to oppress and exploit that nation, or to suppress the masses of the working people, are unjust wars. By contrast, all the wars which are waged to oppose national and class oppression and exploitation and defend the independence of the country and nation and the popular masses are just wars.
Basing himself on this view on the character of war,
Kim Jong Il said that it is natural to counter the unjust war for self-defence, and clarified the revolutionary principle to be adhered to in coping with imperialist wars.
What, then, is the principle General Kim Jong Il firmly maintains to counter aggressive wars? It is, first of all, not to beg for peace from the imperialists.
In the Supreme Commander’s Order No. 0034, issued in 1993, General Kim Jong Il stated that our people, who value the independence of the nation and the peace of the country, do not want war, but do not beg for peace, having their dignity trampled upon. The order also announced that it would not be tolerated that the enemy touches even an inch of land or a blade of grass of the Republic.
The idea of not wanting war nor begging for peace is based on a profound philosophical understanding of human independence.
Independence, the life and soul of man, is opposed to all kinds of restriction and domination. Independence means the inclination to lead a free life and, at the same time, incorporates the aspiration and will to lead a peaceful and happy life. The inclination to live freely requires peaceful and equal relations between people and does not tolerate the use of force. Those who want to live freely do not need war. Likewise, peace is an intrinsic requirement for the country and nation which values independence. War is not compatible with independence. What conclusion follows from this? We do not want war, but should assume a resolute attitude toward aggressive war when the sovereignty of the country and nation is endangered. The conclusion follows that even though peace is precious, one should not beg for peace and have the sovereignty and dignity of the country and nation, its life and soul, trampled upon.
Proceeding from this principled standpoint, General
Kim Jong Il always resolutely counters imperialist aggressive wars. It is his military faith and will that peace must be won by struggle, not by begging, compromising or grovelling and that it is guaranteed by bayonet.
His unshakable military faith and will is very important and precious. North Korea, a small country, defends its sovereignty and dignity and is continuing peaceful construction, unaffected by the pressure and military offensive of the United States and its allies. This is entirely attributable to his firm revolutionary view on war and iron will and boldness allowing no compromise with unjustice.
His philosophy of war is to answer retaliation with retaliation and all-out war with all-out war.
Basing himself on the firm view on war that the war to defend the independence of the country and nation is a just war. General Kim Jong Il takes it as a basic principle to fight resolutely all kinds of unjust aggressive wars.
It is his faith and will to be resolute and not to allow retreat or hesitation in the revolutionary war for the defence of the independence of the country and nation.
The war strategy of answering retaliation with retaliation and all-out war with all-out war is a revolutionary war strategy based on the just character of war and strong self-defensive armed forces. The strategy of retaliation and all-out war cannot be carried into effect without preparing the firm self-defensive armed forces capable of countering the enemy’s retaliation and all-out war.
Owing to its revolutionary character, this strategy makes it possible to solidly prepare the army and the people for the just national liberation war politically and ideologically, and militarily and technically and materially. It is a revolutionary war strategy which makes it possible to frustrate the possible aggressive schemes of the enemy at one stroke and win the decisive victory.
Hitler said that the “best way of defence is attack”. His assertion is nothing other than an attempt to justify the attack of aggressive character as the best defence. For Hitler niether “defence” nor attack could be just. On the plea that “the best defence” is attack he made attacks on other countries. Because of his war philosophy he ended in defeat and death.
It is a principle that the war having the character of national liberation counters retaliation with retaliation and all-out war with all-out war on the basis of a strong armed force, and only then can victory be won.
General Kim Jong Il always won with this philosophy of war.
During the “Phanmunjom incident” in August 1976, the chiefs of the US military authorities threatened north Korea militarily, clamouring for military counter-measures. Then, having received a report containing summarized data for the enemy’s movements from an official of the Ministry of the People’s Armed Forces, the General resolutely said: “What does it matter if the enemy concentrates its armed forces? If they come on us, let’s fight staunchily.”
During the Pueblo incident, too, the United States concentrated its huge armed forces against north Korea and Washington threatened, but north Korea fully prepared for attack to counter the US challenge.
When a danger of war was created on the Korean peninsula in March 1993 because of the fictitious “nuclear issue”, General
Kim Jong Il proclaimed a state of quasi-war to counter the US provocation and finally made a declaration about withdrawing from the NPT, which flabbergasted the reactionaries of the world. The north Korean army made full combat preparations to cope with the enemy’s aggression. Then he confronted the enemy’s possible aggression with full confidence and decided to smash entirely the enemy if it attacked.
Briefly speaking, to value peace but not to beg for it, and to secure it through struggle, not permitting the enemy to touch even one blade of grass or one tree of the country with impunity, and to answer the enemy’s retaliation with retaliation and his all-out war with all-out war - this is his revolutionary view on war and his philosophy of war.
The military strategists of the Pentagon probably know this well.
3) BE PREPARED FOR SELF-DEFENCE
According to geopolitical military theory, war is liable to break out constantly between sea forces (island and coast) and land forces (continent). But it is not always so. Viewed from the viewpoint of geopolitical military theory, the Korean peninsula can be regarded as belonging to sea forces. But in reality Korea never forced war on land forces. Rather she suffered constant invasion from the continent and an island country.
As soon as rejoicing over the August 15, 1945 liberation came, the United States illegally occupied the southern part of the Korean peninsula, and, straddling it for more than half a century, has deployed nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction on a large scale, and is sending forth the smell of gunpowder toward the north. Even in this situation north Korea firmly defends socialism, exercising its sovereignty fully in confrontation with the United States and the forces following it. The might of north Korea is based on strong military strength and the People’s Army and all the people’s high spirit of valuing military affairs. The entire people value military affairs, and the people’s armed forces with a high sense of responsibility are fully prepared for combat to counter possible aggression. What guiding philosophy underlies such a strong defence capability? It is nothing other than the military philosophy of self-defence.
General Kim Jong Il said:
“Self-reliance in defence is a fundamental principle of an independent sovereign state.”
Self-reliance in defence is General Kim Jong Il’s military philosophy. Briefly speaking, it means that the country undertakes its defence with its own efforts. Namely, adherence to the principle of self-reliance in defence means defending one’s country with one’s own efforts.
It is an indispensible requirement for the existence of an independent sovereign state to defend its sovereignty with its own efforts. As it is man’s nature to defend oneself, so is it an intrinsic requirement for a country to defend itself.
As man should shape his destiny with his own efforts, so a country should shape its own destiny, assume responsibility for it, and undertake its defence with its own efforts. The country with no self-defensive armed forces cannot be said to be a completely independent sovereign state. From this follows the conclusion that self-reliance in defence is a basic principle for building an independent sovereign state.
The basic factor in defence of the country is its own efforts. Only when its internal strength is prepared, can the assistance from outside prove its worth. Therefore, one should, above all, depend on the strength of one’s people and one’s own defence capability in defending the country.
By implementing the philosophy of self-reliance in defence thoroughly, north Korea has become a military power which values the army and gives priority to military affairs.
According to the judgement of the world public, if north Korea had not powerful self-defensive capability, the United States, Japan and other imperialist powers would have committed a military adventure against it.
Nixon openly proclaimed his power politics, saying “Peace needs force. As long as there are those who threaten the basic interests of ours and our allies by force of arms, we must have a strong power. If the United States is weak, latent aggressors are naturally tempted to make a dangerous miscalculation.”
In reality the United States does not give up its former policy for armament expansion, in spite of aggravation of its economic situation, a new detente in the world economy, and other changes in the internal and external situation. Huge war industry complexes oppose abolition of the policy for armament expansion. The conservative, hard-line Right-wing military circles within war industry complexes, bureaucrats, and monopoly capitalists who have obtained economic profits through expansion of armaments, strongly oppose arms reduction which would decrease their profits. It is evident that the United States will never give up the use of military power, because arms reduction might decrease the capability for world domination of the United States, which has maintained her political and military influence on the strength of military power.
A high school textbook in the United States still describes the “disturbances by foreigners in 1871” as her exploration of Korea and justifies her occupation of Korea. Japan, too, is watching for a chance to reinvade Korea. Passionate Japanese poet Ishigawa Takuboku, in the early 20th century wrote this in opposition to military invasion and the use of force:
At the sight of the map of Korea,
Blacked with Indian ink,
My heart aches.
However, descendants of Samurai do not abandon the old dream of the “Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere”.
Japan is appropriating huge funds for war preparations, increasing military expenditures by 2.58 per cent in the fiscal year 1996.
All these facts potently prove that Kim Jong Il’s military philosophy of self-defence is a most revolutionary military philosophy. It makes the people capable of defending the sovereignty and dignity of the country with their own efforts in the present world where military supremacy holds sway.
It is specially notable in Kim Jong Il’s military thought on self-defence that he set forth the practical tasks and ways for implementing self-reliance in defence. He said that for self-reliance in defence it is necessary: First, to build self-defensive armed forces; second, to establish a defence system involving the entire people and the whole country; third, to give full play to the political and ideological superiority of the people’s armed forces; fourth, to build a national defence industry of one’s own; fifth, to reinforce the rear. These five tasks are the basic ways to carry through the line of self-reliance in defence. When these tasks are combined organically and are carried out in an integrated manner, thus displaying a strong power, the country can defend itself with its own efforts.
Having putting forward these five tasks, General Kim Jong Il firmly built up the self-defensive armed forces with excellent sons and daughters of the working people, and established a solid defence system involving all the people and the whole country by making the entire army a cadre army, modernizing the whole army, arming all the people, and turning the whole country into a fortress. By preparing the whole army politically and ideologically and constantly enhancing their political and ideological level, he brought the political and ideological superiority of the people’s armed force onto the highest plane. He built and developed the national defence industry into a powerful self-reliant one.
Kim Jong Il put forward the policy of building a powerful self-reliant defence industry and led it wisely, with the result that north Korea’s defence industry has become a powerful self-reliant defence industry capable of producing and supplying all the best high-technological and conventional weapons needed for modern war.
Today the United States supplies 90 per cent of the weapons used in the disputed regions of the world. Its enormous war industry is aimed at world domination.
The United States and Russia still control 97 per cent of the nuclear weapons in the world. There are still 45,100 nuclear warheads in the world. This is equivalent to about 1.7 tons of gunpowder per head of the world population.
This proves the brilliant wisdom and wise leadership of General Kim Jong Il, who put forth the idea that each country should build a national defence industry of its own for its defence and, on this basis, built and developed a powerful defence industry.
By building up powerful self-defence capability, Kim Jong Il provided a military guarantee for defeating any aggressive army at one stroke.
In order to strengthen the People’s Army and increase its fighting capacity, he defined Juche character, politico-ideological preparedness, combat readiness and scientific character as four principles of military training and put up the slogan “Let one soldier equal one hundred foes,” thus clarifying the target for the fighting capacity of the People’s Army.
Having advanced the line of self-reliance in defence, he put forward original policies to bring it onto a higher plane for victory in a modern war and gave energetic guidance to realize it.
Gaining a scientific insight into the process of modern warfare, he clearly defined its characteristic features and advanced a new military strategy for victory in it.
His idea of making full preparation for an electronic war is of particular significance in preparing combat capability and in understanding of modern warfare.
Considering the experience in the recent Gulf War, military strategists around the world set forth different views that the airplane is a basic mobile and strike means, that it is necessary to reinforce the missile intercept system decisively in modern warfare, and that it is necessary to have rapid deployment of armed forces. However, he put forward the original military strategy that to conduct an electronic war well is the key to the victory in modern warfare.
About two million men of the armed forces of belligerent countries took part in the Persian Gulf War. That is, 80 divisions, 82 brigades, 4 independent regiments, 25 independent battalions, 10,500 tanks, 3,000 fighter planes, about 200 battleships, and over 12,500 guns were mobilized. The world public supposed that this war would be a protracted one. But Kim Jong Il asserted that the war would be a short war. The war ended in 43 days, as he predicted.
Then, at the time of the Persian Gulf War, the US army started a powerful electronic jamming system four to six hours beforehand which exerted influence on the whole Iraqi front, 1,300 kilometers in depth, and thus paralyzed the command system of the Iraqi army. This was the main factor which enabled the US army and the armed forces of many other countries to decisively prevail over the Iraqi army.
This proves the validity of General Kim Jong Il’s idea of preparations for electronic warfare. It is well known that the electronic warfare capability of north Korea’s armed forces is on a very high level, and capable of waging a modern war successfully.
The up-to-date combat and technical equipment displayed at a military parade held recently in north Korea shows that the modern arms and equipment of the People’s Army is on the highest level.
It is no empty talk that north Korea, which is fully prepared for self-defence, gives a serious warning to the American extreme Rightist warmongers.
8. PRINCIPLE OF INDEPENDENT
DIPLOMACY
The former US President Carter, who visited Pyongyang in June 1994, said to journalists, “North Korea is a very particular country having its own political philosophy. It is very unproductive to take sanctions against north Korea.”
In the face of any pressure and challenge, north Korea regards the defence of its sovereignty and national dignity as the highest principle.
When argument for domination is rampant in the imperialist powers, and is getting louder than ever before with the collapse of socialist countries, north Korea is advancing vigorously along the path of people-centred socialism it opted for without frustration or vacillation. It is entirely attributable to General Kim Jong Il’s original philosophy of diplomacy.
What, then, is it? To put it briefly, it is independent diplomacy.
1) ADHERE TO INDEPENDENCE
Today there are over 170 sovereign countries on the earth. They co-exist with different countries as independent entities regardless of their size and level of development. But today’s world is not peaceful, and relations between states are not free and equal.
The law of the jungle is harrassing small and weak countries and developing countries, and is causing unrest in the world. The world order is still controlled by the great powers. Taking advantage of the collapse of socialist countries, the United States and other imperialist powers are stepping up power diplomacy. The situation poses before each country the important task of establishing its own correct diplomatic strategy.
Originally, diplomacy is pursued in the interaction of the internal and international situation of the state, and its concrete content and method are decided by the policy of the country. However, today diplomacy is not based on respect for the other party, and has lost its original egalitarian character due to the abnormal and open arbitrary acts of threat and blackmail and use of force.
Briefly speaking. General Kim Jong Il’s philosophy of diplomacy is independent diplomacy. In other words, adhere to independence-this is the core and basic principle of his philosophy of diplomacy.
He said that independence and revolutionary principles should be thoroughly adhered to in foreign activities.
As diplomacy is mutual relations and interactions between states, so independence is its basis, because independence is the life and soul of the country and nation.
Kim Jong Il made clear that independence is the life and soul of the country and nation, and gave a scientific elucidation of the basis and principle of diplomacy.
That independence is the life and soul of the country and nation means that it is the basic character deciding the existence and development of the country and nation.
The country and nation can exist and develop as independent entities because it takes independence as its lifeblood. If the country and nation loses independence, it loses its raison d’etre as an independent entity. Therefore independence is the basis of mutual relations between states.
The Middle East countries advocate Arab nationalism (OPEC). It can be said that they proceed from the principle of independence.
Basing himself on the scientific principle that independence is the life and soul of a country and nation, Kim Jong Il set forth the principle that the relations between countries and nations should be the relations of independence.
General Kim Jong Il said:
“Independence is the life and soul for every country and people, and no relations of domination and submission, order and obedience could be permitted between them.”
Maintenance of independence is a basic principle to be adhered to in diplomacy. Since independence is the life and soul of the nation and mankind, the principle of defending one’s independence and respecting the independence of the other party should be observed in the relation between states and nations. If one holds one’s own independence supreme and tramples upon the independence of others, or, on the contrary, if one worships and obeys others while losing one’s independence, such relations cannot be said to be equal and normal ones. Therefore every country and nation should oppose not only violation of one’s independence but also encroachment on and suppression of other’s independence. Only then, can it be said that one has the true standpoint of defending independence. If the principle of independence is not observed between countries, such abnormal situations as dispute and war may occur.
Norwegian peace scholar Johan Kaltung attributed the main cause of disputes between states to the change of order and phase in the international structure. Each country’s power and international phase are not constant, but change with the passage of time, and disputes between states occur when they do not recognise such change of phase, he maintained. Of course, there is some truth in what he said. But the basic cause of disputes and wars between nations lies in that each country and people do not recognise or respect other’s independence, not in the change of power or phase of countries. If each country and nation not only defends its sovereignty but also respects other’s independence, no dispute nor war will occur, however strong national power may be and however the phase of the country may change.
There are big and small countries, and developed and underdeveloped countries, but there should not be dominating countries and dominated countries, countries which give order and countries which obey. Therefore, the relations between all countries and peoples should be those of independence. Only then can the relations between states, peoples and parties be truly equal and sound. This is precisely the basic requirement of
Kim Jong Il’s philosophy of independent diplomacy.
Clarifying the basic principle of diplomatic relations based on independence, Kim Jong Il has ensured that the principle of independence be adhered to thoroughly in foreign relations in all cases, and he does not tolerate the slightest encroachment on the independence of the country and nation.
In his Presidential message Nixon said, “The American people are hot-tempered and make it a rule to attend to their own affairs. Rather than to tell others what to do, they like to manage their own affairs by themselves. This character of the American people is reflected in our foreign policy as well. The foreign policy of the United States promises that security and progress cannot be expected without the leadership and assistance of the United States, which is the richest and stablest country.” Thus he openly stated that the foreign policy of the United States is domination over other countries and intervention in their affairs.
Viewed from the historical viewpoint, the Trumanism of 1947 and the Marshall Plan were such. The brigandish foreign policy of the United States is forced upon the southern part of the Korean peninsula. The policy of the United States to stifle, isolate and blockade north Korea has reached its climax.
However, the high-handed and brigandish diplomacy of the United States has had no effect on north Korea and cannot be implemented, because north Korea takes the philosophy of independent diplomacy as an invariable principle.
Recently north Korea was confronted with a serious situation due to the threat and blackmail of the imperialist powers related to the “nuclear issue”. But it did not mind it in the least, for it had the principle of independence. The country never yielded to the unjustifiable pressure of the UN Atomic Energy Agency controlled by the United States, nor permitted a forcible nuclear inspection. When the pressure became more pronounced it took the defensive measure of withdrawing from the NPT, which astounded the imperialist community. It was the stand and attitude of north Korea to do all in its power at its own discretion to defend its sovereignty. When the question of concluding a peace treaty with the United States was not brought to settlement, it took the defensive step of nullifying the control measures in the demilitarized zone laid down in the armistice agreement. It did this because the US army and the south Korean army created a dangerous situation by deploying weapons and armymen in the demilitarized zone in violation of the armistice agreement from long ago. North Korea announced practical self-defense measures because the United States neglected its repeated warnings. The United States yielded, having nothing to say. In this connection south Korea appealed to the UN about north Korea’s violation of the armistice agreement, but it rejected it. This was recognition of the validity of north Korea’s self-defence measures.
What was at that time the statement of the spokesman of the Foreign Ministry of the north? It said that it would do what it should do regardless of any resolution the UN might adopt concerning abolition of the demilitarized zone by north Korea. What a fair, dignified measure it was! North Korea spoke no empty word and exercised its sovereign right.
At that time the Voice of America warned the Clinton administration, “It does not know well how bold and firm the Supreme Commander General Kim Jong Il is in defending the sovereignty of the nation.” This was recognition of the famous independent diplomacy of General Kim Jong Il.
I feel frustrated when I think of the weak-kneed diplomacy of south Korea, which grovels before the United States and curries favour with Washington.
When the result of the Korea-US talks was announced, Kim Yong Sam deplored his alienation from the United States and said nervously, “I can believe no one.” Concerning this, the newspaper Hangyorye said, “It is quite pitiful to think that the diplomacy of south Korea suffers from the poverty of philosophy, inconsistency and lack of independence.” The newspaper Sindong-A commented, “As was expected, the result of the Korea-US talks means the diplomatic isolation and failure of the foreign policy of Kim Yong Sam’s government. The greatest of many failures of his government is the failure of his foreign policy.” In this connection, the comment of a military commentator is interesting. In the Weekly Hanguk (No. 5 for 1994) he wrote, “The ability shown by north Korea, south Korea and the United States in the nuclear game can be assessed by subjective marking. If the score of north Korea is counted to be 150 marks, then that of the United States is 100 marks. But that of south Korea will be 30 marks at most.” It is not sure how correct the marking is, but the appraisal is that it is clear that north Korea defeated the United States badly in the Korea-US negotiation, and deserted south Korea. As he said, during the Korea-US negotiation, “The Foreign Minister of south Korea busily carried only an empty suitcase with him.”
This fact alone shows the validity of Kim Jong Il’s independent diplomacy.
The south Korean people are accustomed to calling the indigenous dog a mongrel in comparison with foreign ones. They did not utter a word of complaint, even when high-ranking US officials strutted about the government building with search dogs. The former US Defence Minister Schlesinger paid a courtesy call to the Blue House, with a pipe in his mouth. Even when the em-bassador of the United States in south Korea defamed the south Korean people as “field mice”, no one dared to make a complaint.
Kim Yong Sam’s diplomacy reveals the miserable state of south Korea’s diplomacy, which does not know how to take care of national dignity and prestige. In June 1996 he invited the Japanese Prime Minister Hashimoto and had talks with him on Jej u Island. In an attempt to increase his popularity, Kim Yong Sam spoke about the promise of the “advent of the new era of cooperation” with Japan and said that he decided to “establish a cooperation system” to isolate north Korea.
How did matters stand? After his return to Japan, Hashimoto told to those who asked him about the talks, “I remember nothing but having a drink.”
Basing himself on the principle of independence, Kim Jong Il said that friendship should be promoted on the basis of the principle of independence.
General Kim Jong Il said, “Friendship is necessary for the sake of independence, and genuine friendship can be ensured only when we maintain an independent stand.”
His view on friendship is based on independence. Friendship means peaceful amity, solidarity and unity between countries and between parties. International relations which are not based on force and are not hostile are friendly. Friendship presupposes the development of sound relations of mutual benefit between countries and between parties. Friendship can only be true when it is based on independence. Friendship is necessary for the sake of independence.
When one loses independence, or tramples upon other’s independence, there cannot be friendship. When each country values and respects the independence of the other party, the relations of friendship and mutual benefit can be formed. A country establishes friendly relation with other countries to defend its own sovereignty, while respecting the sovereignty of other countries. There can be no friendship without independence. Friendship which is not oriented to independence has no significance. Therefore, friendship between countries should be based on independence and be independent.
There can be no friendship based on the policy of strength. Friendship which is not independent is nothing but deception. The friendship the United States and other great powers speak of is a false “friendship” which presupposes infringement upon and deprivation of sovereignty of other countries. It cannot be said to be friendship in its original sense.
North Korea’s policy toward Japan shows a model of the independent foreign policy of Kim Jong Il. What was the attitude of north Korea when Japan proposed to establish a friendly relationship with preconditions, while not atoning for its past and making no apology nor reparations?
It does not matter whether a friendly relationship is established with Japan or not. If Japan has a mind to normalize diplomatic relations, she may do it; if she has no mind to, she may not. We have lived without diplomatic relations with Japan until now, and will live in the future, too. We will never beg for a friendly relationship. But we will extort a settlement for the past from her and apology for it. Thorough reparations should be made. We will not tolerate that Japan is hastening preparations for aggressive war, spreading the “version of threat”, while blaming us. If Japan runs wild, carried away by war mania, chiming in with the United States and south Korea, we will never sit idle. We will deliver decisive retaliation. This is the policy towards Japan of north Korea led by General Kim Jong Il. It is open, stunning diplomacy.
North Korea adheres to the principle of independence, regardless of any great power. South Korea is a colony under the control of the United States, whereas north Korea has the United States under its thumb. It is known to the world that north Korea is the only country which is not swayed by the hegemony of the United States, which is based on “civilized egoism” and a policy of threat. The principle of “civilized egoism” adopted by the United States in its foreign policy is the principle of American-style behaviour. It is the alpha and omega in deciding its foreign policy. The United States applies it in its foreign policy, maintaining that it can act freely in its interests in any situation.
It is the US diplomacy that for its interests it can have its own way at any time or in any place, and dominate any country and nation. That is why the world guards against American-style “civilized egoism” and “pragmatic egoism” in the guise of friendship. However, the south Korean diplomacy is not aware of it and is indifferent to it. South Korea is blind to the ulterior design of the United States because of its absolute worship of and dependence on the United States. South Korea, which is deprived of its sovereignty, is crying for “companion relations” or “ally’s relations”, which is evocative of the prostitute boasting of her chastity.
Kim Jong Il neither wants nor tolerates blind, obedient and submissive friendship. However precious friendship may be, he does not want it if it means being deprived of independence or trampled upon. Only independent and Juche-based friendship is acceptable to Kim Jong Il.
The principle of independence advanced by him serves as a universal principle for improving and developing the international relations of our times. No country in the world wants to have its sovereignty infringed upon or agrees with the argument for domination by the great powers.
France, Germany, England and other European countries do not want to tolerate the domination of the United States as in the past, but try to control Europe independently. The Middle and Near East issue and the issue of Bosnia-Herzegovina show that the European countries pursue their independent foreign policy and no more follow the baton of the United States.
Recently the United States passed the Helms-Boton Act and the Tamato Act in an attempt to strangulate Cuba, and tried to force them on its fellow countries, but France, England, Germany and other countries rejected its demand.
The peoples of Libya, Iran and other Middle and Near East countries, Indonesia. Malaysia and other Southeast Asian countries are taking a firm stand against the United States’ cultural penetration and interference in their internal affairs.
Its pressure and sanctions have no such effect on Japan, which is regarded as a strategic ally, as in the past. Anti-American sentiment of the Japanese people related to the Okinawa issue is rising high, and there is not likely to be concession in the issue of the use of Okinawa and other US army bases in Japan. This shows that Kim Jong Il’s philosophy of independent diplomacy has universal significance and meets the nature of the country and people and the demand of the times.
2) ESTABLISH JUCHE
Establish Juche-this is the principled requirement of General Kim Jong Il’s philosophy of independent diplomacy.
It is his idea of diplomacy that each country and nation should stand its own ground as an independent entity because it holds independence as its life and soul.
Establishing Juche in diplomacy means that each country defends and realizes thoroughly its interests and demands in foreign relations and introduces things foreign, if any, at its own discretion to suit the specific conditions of the country. Establishing Juche means to establish relations with other countries to suit the interests and reality of the country.
Kim Jong Il said that our Party’s diplomacy should be Juche-oriented and not be inclined to either side.
The principle of Juche in diplomacy necessarily follows from the principle that independence is the life and soul of the country and nation. All countries should shape their destiny sovereignly because independence is their life and soul. Each country has the right and duty to realize its independent demands in foreign activities because it established relations with foreign countries in accordance with its own demands as an independent party. Adhering to an independent stand is the exercise of the right of an independent sovereign state.
Therefore each country should settle all the problems arising in diplomatic relations by its own judgement and in accordance with its demands and interests. Only then, can the people of each country defend their interests and realize their purpose and demands.
The people of each country should never tolerate pressure and interference from outside. Failure to settle one’s own affairs at one’s discretion and being pressed or shackled by others means deprivation of one’s right as the master. To act against one’s own interests and following another’s intentions means giving up one’s right as the master.
If one yields to the pressure and interference of others, or acts following the conducting baton of others, principles and consistency cannot be maintained and the country will eventually be ruined. The state of the Eastern European socialist countries shows that lack of independence in foreign relations incurs disastrous results. At the 27th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union held in 1986, Gorbachev announced a “new way of thinking” as the philosophy of leadership, and started a full scale restructuring of the Soviet Union.
According to the “new way of thinking” it is necessary to pursue the “value of all mankind” transcending the bounds of state relationship, because there exists the relation of interdependence in the world today. He insisted that pursuit of the “value of all mankind” should be made a principle in international relations because it is the old way of thinking to regard international relations only from the angle of class struggle. In its essence, pursuit of the “value of all mankind” advocated by Gorbachev meant surrender to imperialism and desertion of the interests of the powerful Soviet Union.
As a result, there took place such miserable things as the once strong Soviet Union breaking up and the Eastern European socialist countries, which lacked independence collapsed one after another. Loss of independence fostered flunkeyism, and eventually led to surrender and submission to imperialism. This proved that maintenance of independence in international relations is the basic factor which makes it possible to defend the sovereignty and dignity of the country and nation.
Pointing to the need to establish Juche, General Kim Jong Il set forth an original diplomatic strategy that one should conduct foreign activities in one’s own way to implement the principle of independence.
Conduct of foreign activity in one’s own way is basically required to maintain national ground and realize national interests. There can be no universal and stereotyped activity pattern applicable to all countries, because each of them is at a different historical stage and the national sentiment and ways of living differ from each other. Therefore, one should not take a flunkeyist or dogmatic stand or standpoint in the relation with other countries on the plea of filling each other’s needs.
Other countries’ customs and experience reflect only their socio-historical conditions and national characters. They contain things both useful and not useful for one’s country, and things both suitable and unsuitable for one’s reality. Therefore one should introduce only things beneficial to one. However, when one introduces good things of others, one should not swallow them whole but introduce them only after reforming them to suit the reality of one’s country.
One should not have illusions about big and developed countries. They do not always take the right path and their things are not all suited to the reality of one’s own country.
One should develop friendly relations with big countries, but should not follow them blindly and give up one’s independence.
If one lends one’s ears to what others say or worships foreign things and depends on the strength of others without independence, one will have not something of one’s own and will eventually ruin the country and nation.
That diplomacy lacking independence leads a country to ruin can be seen in the fact that Korea yielded to the Japanese imperialists and had the “protectorate treaty” forced upon it by Japan.
When the treaty was concluded forcibly by Japan, Jang Ji Yon published I Weep Loudly on This Day in the newspaper Hwangsong and gave vent to his resentment at the traitors to the nation reducing Korea to a Japanese colony and making 20 million fellow countrymen slaves of the Japanese. The loss of independence on that day is repeated in south Korea today.
The United States' diplomacy is strong-arm diplomacy. Successive Presidents of the United States made other countries yield to it on the strength of its strong-arm diplomacy based on superiority of strength, and practised it to pursue its interests.
George Washington said, “Why should we abandon our own to defend the standpoint of a foreign country? Why should we connect our fortune with some European country and mix our peace and prosperity in the soil of ambition, competition, interest, mood and caprice of Europe? It is our real policy not to form a permanent alliance with any part of the outside world.” This is the very nature of American diplomacy. American diplomacy is to form an alliance when it is advantageous, and give it up when it is unnecessary and unfavorable.
The egoistic craftiness of US diplomacy revealed itself during the Second World War. While watching the progress of the war, the United States realized its ambition, joining the superior party after consideration of the balance of force in the war. An example of this is the story Roosevelt told to his son in 1942.
“Think of a football game. Suppose we are players on the bench. At present Russia is running. China is also running. England, too, is running though not so much as they do. What should we do?... What is the winner usually called? A nimble guy?” “I understand what you mean,” his son said. Roosevelt continued, “We must enter the ground so that we win before the game proceeds too far and our players get tired. Then we are brisk. If we enter in time, our players will not get too exhausted.” When the two forces got exhausted through battle, the United States joined and benefitted. This is the strategy of American diplomacy.
The diplomacy of the United States is insincere, ambitious and crafty.
Its diplomacy toward south Korea is domineering and strong-arm.
South Korean diplomacy is an appendage to the US strategy for the domination of the world. The diplomacy of south Korea cannot be independent because it is under the colonial rule of the United States. South Korea can establish relations with other countries only when it pleases the humour of the United States and gets its approval, and it must not infringe upon US interests.
Viewed in this light, it is a well-known fact that it is very important in defending the country’s interests and enhancing its dignity to establish Juche in diplomacy and conduct foreign activity in one’s own way.
Conducting foreign activity in one’s own way means to do it to meet the demands and interests of one’s own country. Making decisions in one’s own way implies to decide foreign policy and its orientation on the basis of the judgement of one’s own country. To act in one’s own way signifies to conduct foreign activity creatively in accordance with the traditions and customs of one’s own country.
Only when one interprets, decides and acts in the style of one’s own country, can one implement the principle of Juche character in foreign relations.
General Kim Jong Il stated that as north Korea is sandwiched between great powers, it is particularly important to maintain independence and Juche in international relations.
Even though the situation surrounding the country is difficult, north Korea is advancing vigorously along the path of people-centred socialism, which it opted for, while defending the sovereignty and dignity of the country and nation. This is entirely attributable to General Kim Jong Il’s strategy of Juche-based diplomacy.
2) BUILD A WORLD OF INDEPENDENCE
In the 60s the “21st Century’s Committee”, the “Futurology Society” and the like were formed in different countries and the look of the world of the 21st century is still being discussed. Although they differ in substance and character, these institutes expressed their anxiety about mankind’s fate in the next century. In most cases they warned that mankind is greatly endangered by the alienation of human beings and the destruction of the ecological environment due to the development of science and technology. But the question is whether it is the greatest danger facing the earth. The greatest menace is the high-handedness of imperialism and dominationism on the earth and its extreme manifestation.
Without checking the high-handedness of domination-ist predatory forces there cannot be peace on the earth, and mankind cannot enjoy happiness and peace.
Then, what world should mankind build?
Basing himself on the principle that the life of human community is independence, General Kim Jong Il set forth a blueprint of the diplomatic strategy which the whole world should jointly pursue.
The general aim of this strategy is to make the world independent. According to his view, it is the natural current of historical development to call for independence and follow the road of independence, and the present and future entirely belong to the masses aspiring for independence.
General Kim Jong Il’s view on building an independent world is based on a scientific understanding of the fate of mankind.
General Kim Jong Il said;
“Human fates are interrelated. We must fight not only for our people but also for the prosperity of mankind.”
According to Kim Jong Il’s view, the common life of mankind is independence, and because of this the destiny of mankind is linked into one, so all the peoples of the world should fight not only for their own country and people, but also for the common prosperity of mankind.
Viewed in this light, Kim Jong Il’s idea of building an independent and peaceful world is really precious.
Seeing out the 20th century seething with disturbances, mankind hopes that all human aspirations will be realized in the 21st century. Among them, the most ardent desire is to live in a peaceful and free world. Some people say that the world has entered the age of relaxation, but it cannot be asserted only in that way.
The imperialist forces menacing relaxation still exist and the United States, professing itself to be the only superpower, is stretching its tentacles of domination and interference everywhere in the world. As a result, even now the earth is the battlefield of the great powers, and in such a dangerous situation that no one can tell when war may break out.
Fascist Germany and Japan were once the main evil in the world. The Japanese imperialists zealously pursued the so-called “assimilation policy”, justifying the advocacy of the Japanese being a “race of high ability” on the basis of the mysterious “doctrine of the divine right”. The ghost is now reviving of the defeated Japanese militarists who preached the expansion of the “Yamato nation”, embellishing the Japanese race, a mongrel race, and descendants of a “holy race” of God.
The United States is entering the stage of a new strategy for world domination. It is watching for a chance to become the overlord of the uni-polar world. Once Rousseau emphasized the dominating role of the United States, referring to “psychological superiority” and the “traditional pride” of the American nation, and Bogaus said that the American nation has “the mission of leading” the world. Today the United States is translating this into practice.
American historian Frederic Turner said, “It is a quick-tempered prophet who says that the expansion of American life has ended. Movement is a prevalent aspect of American life. It will require a broader sphere of activity for the energy of the United States.” His remark revealed the United States’ ambition to dominate the world. It is American life and ambition to expand ceaselessly with all efforts and secure a wider sphere of activity.
Balance of forces as a basic concept of US strategy means the ability to turn the balance offerees between the countries in international relations in its favour, taking advantage of the antagonism between them. It enables the mediator country to increase its military potential most effectively without exerting great effort. According to this strategy, the United States is expa000nding the sphere of its interests and influence, acting as a “great mediator” between European and Asian countries, which are competing with one another. The crafty diplomatic offensive the United States is making in the Middle and Near East, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Africa and Asia clearly shows the United States’ attempt to dominate the world.
The Monroe doctrine put forward by Monroe in the 1820s preached “America for Americans” in name but was “America for the United States” in substance. This ambition of the United States has not changed.
General Kim Jong Il put forward before the world a strategy for establishing a new world order based on independence to promote sincere reconciliation and friendship between countries and build a free, equal and prosperous world in the situation that the dominationist and imperialist forces exist in the world. It is precisely his idea and strategy of making the whole world independent.
General Kim Jong Il said:
“An independent world is a world which is free from domination, subjugation, intervention and pressure, and in which all countries and nations exercise complete sovereignty as masters of their destiny.”
The independent world conceived by General Kim Jong Il is a world which is free from aggression and war, exploitation and oppression, and in which all countries and peoples enjoy an independent, equal and peaceful life. The independent world is a world which is free from imperialism, dominationism, and colonialism, and in which all countries and nations exercise complete sovereignty.
Building an independent world means to make international relations democratic and establish a new world order in which all countries and peoples co-exist and prosper together on the basis of the principle of democracy. It is his intention to remove the source of all evils causing aggression and war, exploitation and plunder in the world, and build a world where all countries and nations live in harmony in friendly, equal and peaceful relations with each other on the basis of independence.
Kim Jong Il set it as the general aim and strategic task of foreign activity to create a new independent world which reflects the noble ideals and aspirations of mankind and accords with the law of historical development, and exerts all his energy for its realization. His idea is that it is a historical necessity to make the world independent to realize the independence of mankind, because the common life of mankind is independence. This is quite natural.
When all countries in the world maintain independence, they can check the arbitrariness of imperialism and dominationism.
The word “expansion” which is recently in vogue in the diplomatic circles of the United States implies the United States should exercise its strength and pressure to defend and expand freedom in regions which are thousands of miles away. Today, the United States is more openly extending its sphere of influence in Asia. It is clearly revealed in the revival and further development of the Japan-US security system.
In his memoirs Nixon wrote, “The defeat of communists in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe in the 20th century is only the first step toward the victory of freedom in the whole world in the 21st century. The victory of freedom can be secured only when the United States newly elucidates and promises the basic principles in her foreign and home policies and make new commitments.” This revealed the ambition of the United States to dominate and subdue the world through its “expansionist” diplomacy. Here, the principle of its domestic and foreign policies means “expansionist” diplomacy. The victory of freedom in the world in the 21st century which the United States aims at implies worldwide domination by liberal democracy. It is doubtless that such diplomacy of the United States will incur terrible disasters.
Japan is now openly and zealously undertaking military adventures, including sending troops overseas, with a view to playing a leading role politically and militarily in the world in conformity with her position as a great economic power.
The books entitled Japan Can Say No, The Plan of Reformation of Japan by Ojawa Ichiro and the like have been popular in Japan recently, because they openly suggest the “international contribution” of Japan and the Self-Defence Corps of Japan in disregard of the clauses of the Constitution. Japan went to the stage of discussing “Japan-US security strategy” with the United States. Japan is clearly again nursing the dream of establishing the “Greater Asia Co-prosperity Sphere” in Asia.
The only way to check the expansion of the sphere of influence of the imperialist powers, which is getting more pronounced on a worldwide scale, and defend the sovereignty of all countries, is to make the world independent. If all countries not only oppose encroachment upon their sovereignty, but also do not infringe on the sovereignty of other countries, there will not be aggression, domination, subordination and plunder on a worldwide scale.
Economic inequality in the world can be removed only under the banner of independence. Today the difference between the rich north and the poor south is getting wider day by day. If the rich Northern Hemisphere does not prevent the Southern Hemisphere from escaping poverty, the latter’s misfortunes will surely exert influence upon the former. Therefore in order to remove economic misery from the world it is necessary to do away with the misery in the third world countries. This is possible only when an end is put to the unfair world economic order and a fair one is set up under the banner of independence. Only when economic cooperation and ties and the principle of filling each other’s needs based on independence are realized, can there be economic equality and economic peace in the world and can the equal and peaceful progress of all countries and peoples be expected.
All this proves that the principle of independence is the only sure guarantee for building a peaceful and happy world.
When the banner of independence is upheld, it is possible on a worldwide scale to remove such an acute military confrontation and prevent war in the world, ban nuclear tests, bring about universal disarmament, smash the old world economic order and set up a fair new one. Only when, under the banner of independence, all countries defend their sovereignty, dignity and respect and defend the sovereignty of other countries, can all kinds of injustice and evils be removed from the earth and a new independent world come into being.
In this way General Kim Jong Il put before history a correct diplomatic program for building a fair and peaceful world by declaring that the world should be made independent.
He put forward the program for making the whole world independent, and, for the purpose, advanced the strategy of struggle to unite all the anti-imperialist independent forces in order to oppose the imperialist and dominationist forces which are checking the realization of the independence of each country and nation and the common independence of mankind. When united forces of the imperialists try to deprive the masses and countries of their independence it is essential in building an independent world for the anti-imperialist independent forces to strengthen international unity and solidarity and fight the imperialists with united force. Hence, he pointed to the need to form an anti-imperialist united front involving socialist forces, the communist movement, national liberation movement, democratic movement, non-alignment movement, and all other progressive forces and peace-loving forces of the world, attack imperialism collectively and liquidate imperialism and dominationism completely.
“Let the world people defending independence unite!” this is the slogan General Kim Jong Il adheres to in his foreign activity and the general orientation and strategy for the foreign activity of north Korea. It is the consistent diplomatic strategy of north Korea to unite with all the countries and nations which defend independence in disregard of differences in political and religious beliefs, ideas and systems, and complete the cause of anti-imperialism and independence. Today north Korea is developing the relations of friendship and cooperation with each country defending independence and extending the ranks of supporters and sympathizers to it in the worldwide scale.
By virtue of General Kim Jong Il’s diplomacy of independence, Juche-oriented diplomacy, the diplomacy of the world is entering a new orbit; under the banner of independence mankind is vigorously stepping up building a new independent world.