Kim Il Sung’s Political Creed
President Kim Il Sung (1912-1994), founding f ather of socialist Korea , devoted his whole life to the people. His political creed was “The people are my God.”
Kim Il Sung put forth the Korean people as the masters of the country and society.
In the past, the Korean people suffered the sorrow of a ruined nation under the military occupation of Japan (1905-1945). The Japanese imperialists reduced the Korean people to colonial slaves and cold-bloodedly massacred them; more than 8.4 million young and middle-aged Koreans were drafted to battle sites and drudgery; 200,000 Korean women were forced into sexual slavery as “comfort women” for Japanese soldiers. Over a million innocent Korean people were miserably killed. Japan indiscriminately plundered Korea of the latter’s abundant natural resources, grain, livestock and other products, banned Koreans from using their own language, spoken and written, and even forced them to change their names into Japanese ones.
At the critical crossroads of life and death for the Korean nation, Kim Il Sung inspired the entire nation to turn out in the armed resistance against Japanese imperialists. He organized the 15-year-long bloody anti-Japanese war, leading it to the liberation of the country and rescued the Korean people from colonial slavery.
In the liberated country, he promulgated the laws on agrarian reform, on the nationalization of major industries, on sex equality, on labor and others, making the people genuine masters of land, factories and their own destiny. Furthermore, he had democratic elections hold in Korea for the first time in its history, getting the ordinary people to take part in state and political affairs. The People’s Assembly of North Korea , the first supreme organ of state power established in February 1947, was composed of 237 deputies in total, among whom 52 were workers, 62 were peasants, 31 were businessmen, tradesmen, handicraftsmen and religious people, and not a few intellectuals and women. The present Supreme People’s Assembly of the DPRK is also represented by representatives of all walks of life, including workers and peasants, who play important roles in policy-making of the state.
President Kim Il Sung always regarded people as his best teachers.
When he was working out the Ten-point Program of the Association for the Restoration of the Fatherland, envisaging the bright future of liberated Korea in the days of anti-Japanese armed struggle, and such significant pieces of legislation as agrarian reform to be introduced after country’s liberation, he always paid heed to the opinions of the broad sections of the masses of people, saying they are the wisest, and codified their opinions in the legislation.
He adhered to this standpoint in developing the country’s economy and culture.
In December 1956, the steel-making industry of Korea was faced with a heavy task of producing 10,000 more tons of steel. Officials of the then Kangson Steel Plant, bearing the brunt of the task, were at a loss to find its solution. The President went to the plant and met the workers there, explaining the difficult situation of the country and encouraging them to increased production. The workers in hearty response to his appeal made a firm determination to produce without fail 10,000 more tons of steel, and presented a series of solutions. Kim Il Sung found out from their simple talks an excellent way of increased steel production. Thus, the workers worked a miracle of rolling 120,000 tons of steel using a blooming mill with a 60,000-ton capacity. In the course of this, the torch of Chollima Movement was kindled and spread all over the country, developing Korea , once a backward agricultural state, into a powerful socialist industrial one in a short period of only 14 years.
The President found out ways of developing the country’s overall agriculture among the people. Always saying that peasants are teachers in farming, he discussed farming affairs with old peasants, and even personally cultivated at his residence several crops. In this course, he created new methods of farming, including that of observing the principle of cultivating the right crop in the right place and at right time, so as to develop agriculture to suit actual conditions of the country.
It is not fortuitous that he always said in his lifetime that it was his hobby, if there were one, to go among the people and enjoy listening to their opinions, because they are the most excellent teachers.
President Kim Il Sung devoted his whole life to the people.
People’s well-being was precisely his. This was why, he, at the advanced age of 80s, visited the houses of ordinary people, and inquired about whether they were well supplied with staple and subsidiary foods and whether they were experiencing any other difficulties, regarding it as one of greatest personal matters to free them from any worries. In every nook and corner of the country, there are houses, dormitories, shops, factories and farms visited by the President.
It is said that President Kim Il Sung traveled the distance of 578,000km, equivalent that of 14 and half rounds of the earth, during his life from the days of building a new Korea after liberation, giving field guidance at over 20,600 units on more than 8,650 days in all. Some 2,530 days of them were Sundays, holidays and even his birth anniversary.
Kim Il Sung wrote in his reminiscences With the Century:
“‘The people are my God’ has been my constant view and motto, the principle of Juche, which calls for drawing on the strength of the masses who are the masters of the revolution and construction, is my political creed. This has been the axiom that has led me to devote my whole life to the people.”
