Course brilliant with the spirit of defending the leader with lives
Kim Jong Suk, who is praised as an anti-Japanese heroine, defended General Kim Il Sung with her body as a shield in several battles including the one in Dashahe in summer of 1940, and her merits take special position in the history of army building. Among the anti-Japanese fighters there are numerous loyalists such as Ri Kwon Jaeng who shielded the General with his own body from the enemy bullet, and Ma Tong Hui who died by cutting his tongue himself for the safety of the headquarters when he was arrested by the enemy. During the “Arduous March” from December 1938 to March 1939, the most difficult period in the anti-Japanese armed struggle, the 7th regiment led by O Jung Hup decoyed the enemy by disguising itself as the headquarters, and when the enemy did not pursue it, the regiment would go back to strike the enemy in order to prevent them from pursuing the headquarters.
The anti-Japanese revolutionary fighters, the first generation of the KPA, held up the banner of defending the leader with their lives, for they had the firm faith that the victory of revolution could not be thought of apart from the leader, who was the brain and heart of revolution, and that the most important mission and sacred duty of the revolutionary army was to defend the leader with their lives. This faith was the nucleus of the ideological and spiritual power of the KPRA, and the important factor in defeating the strong Japanese imperialists to accomplish the cause of national liberation.
The spirit of defending the leader with lives created by the anti-Japanese revolutionary fighters became a valuable tradition of the KPA that has developed into a regular army after national liberation (August 1945).
During the Fatherland Liberation War (Korean war from 1950 to 1953) against the armed invasion of the United States, the People’s Army soldiers fought against the enemy with the slogan “For the Party and the leader!” with the faith that the motherland was the embrace of General Kim Il Sung and that defending the General with their lives was the way of defending the motherland. Going for a life-and-death battle and blocking the enemy’s gun muzzle with the body, they shouted. “Long live General Kim Il Sung!” The mercenaries of the US could be no match for those men of strong spirit. Therefore, the newly-born DPRK miraculously defeated the US which boasted of its being the “Strongest” in the world, not knowing a defeat after its founding. After the war, the spirit of defending the leader with lives was the invariable essential quality of the KPA. When the situation was complicated at home and abroad, the KPA officers and men raised the slogan, “Let us defend the Party Central Committee headed by respected Comrade Kim Il Sung at the cost of our lives!”
As it had the army filled with the spirit of defending the leader with lives, socialist Korea is strong. This is the secret of how socialist Korea stood firm in the political earthquakes of the world when socialism collapsed in several countries as their armies stood for “neutrality” and even worse, turned its rifles at the leadership of the state.
In the Songun era opened by the leader Kim Jong Il the spirit of defending the leader with lives reached a higher stage. In the latter half of the 1990s, the Korean people had undergone the “Arduous March” to defend socialism under the several hardships, which was reminiscent of the hardest event during the past anti-Japanese armed struggle. At that time, the KPA officers and men held up the slogan, “Defend the supreme headquarters of the revolution headed by the great Comrade Kim Jong Il at the cost of our lives!” In the People’s Army units, the “O Jung Hup 7th Regiment Movement” was carried on to follow the examples of the fighters who had highly displayed the spirit of defending the leader with lives in the past. The heroes in the Songun era such as Kil Yong Jo who died a heroic death with his burning plane for the safety of the supreme headquarters were produced. That the KPA defends the leader with lives does not mean only the defense of personal safety of the leader. It contains the defense of the leader’s political authority at the cost of their lives and implementation of the leader’s thought and intention.
During the anti-Japanese armed struggle, the KPRA soldiers had an absolute belief in the ideology of General Kim Il Sung, and supported his leadership with loyalty. It has become a precious example for the KPA officers and men. In the postwar years, the seditious elements lurking in the army opposed the idea of “a-match-for-a-hundred-foes” put forward by President Kim Il Sung. The KPA soldiers parted from them ideologically and engraved the slogan of “a-match-for-a-hundred-foes” on a natural rock face, thus displaying the strong faith of the People’s Army that defended the leader’s ideological and leadership authority with their lives.
True to General Kim Il Sung’s instruction that nothing is impossible when one is determined, the KPRA soldiers made the “Yanji bomb” with empty hands to fight the enemy, and at the times of bloody and fierce battles, they carried out his orders in time to prepare the foods and make the military uniforms during the period of the anti-Japanese armed struggle. During the Fatherland Liberation War, the KPA soldiers displayed the peerless self-sacrifice and mass heroism to carry out the General’s operational idea and order. As indicated by the arrow drawn on the operational map, they made a forced march beyond imagination overnight to cut off the enemy’s retreat so they could surround and annihilate the “invincible division” of the US. Upholding his instruction not to yield an inch of the land to the enemy, they defended the heights of the country at the cost of their lives.
Today, the KPA is carrying out the instruction of the leader Kim Jong Il to increase the fighting efficiency, and making miraculous achievements in building a great prosperous powerful nation. The slogan, “Let us undertake both national defense and socialist construction!” implies their do-or-die sprit of loyalty upholding the leader’s Songun politics and thoroughly implementing his idea and intention. Now a large -scale land realignment has been realized which befits a great prosperous powerful nation and will be faultless even in the distant future, and modern factories and monumental edifices that meet the demand of the new century are built one after another. This is the expression of the KPA soldiers’ spirit of implementing the ideas and orders of the leader at the cost of their lives.
The KPA that advances under the banner of defending the leader with lives will always be victorious and glorious on its way ahead. ========= Arms and Socialism
The international community shows a greater interest in the Songun policy of Korea as the days drift by.
The Songun policy, in a word, embodies the idea of laying stress on military affairs. It is a unique method of socialist politics that amount to increasing military affairs, thus defending national sovereignty and vigorously accelerating socialist construction as a whole with the army as the pillar of the country and the driving force of revolution.
Around the 1990s a sudden change took place in the political structure of the world, and many countries aspiring after independent development met with a serious challenge. The reactionary forces of imperialism, the United States in particular, were engrossed in invasion and war more frenziedly than ever to realize their ambition for world domination, adopting strong-arm tactics, tyrannizing over other countries and flagrantly violating their sovereignty by force of their military strength. Moreover, the US-led Western forces exerted their utmost to smother the strongly anti-imperialist and independent socialist Korea. Unprecedented political and military pressure and economic blockade and sanctions were imposed on Korea. The Korean people had to fight do-or-die battles to defend the destiny of the country and socialism. In the mid-1990s called the days of “arduous march” in the history of the Republic Kim Jong Il, Chairman of the National Defense Commission of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, was firmly convinced that the destiny of the people and the future of socialism depended on arms, and that difficulties could be surmounted and socialism led to victory by relying not on the working class but on the army, and started on his Songun leadership. While priority was given to the army to tide over the bitter trials, the philosophy that the army is one and the same with the Party, the state and the people was founded, and the Songun principle that the cause of socialism can be achieved victoriously only by the pivotal and leading role of the army was laid down. Now Songun politics was completely established as a system of political mode.
Chairman Kim Jong Il set up not the working class but the army as the driving force of revolution and the pillar of the country from a new viewpoint of the position and role of the revolutionary army.
Because it is charged with the most serious and fiercest anti-imperialist military front in socialist society, the revolutionary army becomes a model and a pivotal force for all social classes, strata or collectives in regard to revolutionary nature, organization, unity and fighting power. The army also functions as the pillar of the Party and the state, and takes the lead in training all members of society into genuine revolutionaries and transforming society along socialist lines.
The Party and the government are guides and political weapons for advancing the socialist cause, whereas the army is the pillar and main force of the revolution sustaining the Party and the state. Unless they are supported by the army, the Party and the government cannot be maintained and the destiny of the country and the people are in danger. Only the Party and the government backed up by the army can function as the general staff of the revolution and represent the interests of the people, and victoriously advance the cause of socialism in any storm and stress. The process of development of socialist society can be said to be the process of perfection of man and social relations. The soldiers of the revolutionary army make a habit of espousing collectivism, the intrinsic nature of socialism, and fully develops the ideology, spirit, morality and other ideo-spiritual qualities of an impendent man. Therefore, the revolutionary army plays a lead role in accelerating the socialist transformation of ideology and completing the socials relations based on revolutionary comradeship and moral duty.
The truth that only when the principle of Songun is upheld and the army is strong, victory is possible in accomplishing the cause of socialism, has been proved more clearly in Korea in the process of defending socialism and conducting socialist construction over the last decade.
The army has become invincible in Korea under the Songun policy. In Korea, unlike in countries that go in for the “depolarization” of the armed forces, the army has grown into a formidable army true to its mission as the army of the Party and the revolution and perfect in political and ideological aspects. Under the slogan “We can live on without toffees but cannot do without bullets”, the Korean people have given top priority to building up a powerful military force, and consequently come to have a strong revolutionary army fully prepared both militarily and technologically.
Because it boasts a strong army like this, Korea has been able to shatter every pressure offensive made by the US on the plea of the “nuclear issue”, and defend its socialism. Today, too, it counters the “sole superpower’s” hard line with a tougher policy. If the army of Korea is weak, the US would have doubtlessly unleashed a war on the Korean peninsula, and seized it as it had done in Afghanistan and Iraq.
The Songun policy is intended not merely to counter the military dominationism of the imperialist. It has remarkably strengthened the unity and cohesion of the whole society in Korea.
Socialism is a society that develops by dint of the united might of the popular masses, and the might of socialism is exactly that of single-hearted unity. Under the Songun policy the Korean People’s Army has grown up into an army strong in thoughts and faith, and the revolutionary spirit, fighting morale, way of work and life and other military traits created by the KPA soldiers have rapidly spread through society, with the result that the oneness of the army and the people have risen to a new high. The army and the people have become one social-political organism, and share the same fate with each other, firmly united round their leader and the Party. This is the present image of Korean society. No force in the world can prevail over them.
The Songun policy has become the key to open up bright prospects also for economic construction. Under the policy the KPA functions not only as the defender of the country and peace but also as the builder of the people’s welfare, leading the entire people and energetically propelling socialist construction. The army solves difficult and momentous problems of the economic sector, thus making a breakthrough in economic growth.
Learning from their revolutionary spirit, fighting morale and way of work, all people work with invincible fortitude, scoring surprising successes in production and construction. It was affirmed in the West that Korea would not be able to rise again from its worst economic crisis, but Korea has not only taken a dramatic turn for economic recovery and development by the united efforts of the soldiers and the people but also are dynamically marching forward towards the construction of a great prosperous powerful socialist nation. Today the Koreans regard arms as their lifeline and socialism. All of them, therefore, love arms, support the Songun policy, and remain true to it.