Crucial Readings From the COMINTERN Archives: Lenin Exposes the Fraud of “Bourgeois Democracy” and Its Fake-Left Defenders

We are very pleased to present to our readers the following speech given by the great revolutionary leader Vladimir Lenin to the First Congress of the Communist International, held in revolutionary Moscow in 1919.

Of course, the bribed historians in the employ of the capitalist class have spent the past century publishing lies about what the COMINTERN under Lenin was and what it represented; and have never ceased to publish slanders of the most monstrous kind about it.  In fact, the COMINTERN was created by the greatest  leaders of the working class up to their time in order to study, collate and publicize the hard-earned lessons learned by every failed and successful workers and peasants revolution – lessons written in the blood of the workers and peasants – so as to educate future worker and peasant leaders about the kinds of bloody treachery they could expect from their exploiters in the course of the various stages of their revolutionary struggles, and to thereby help future revolutions proceed with a minimum of sacrifice of the worker and peasant masses.

In this speech, the greatest theoretician of the Third International, Lenin, explains in layman’s terms the utter fraud of bourgeois “democracy” and the abject betrayal of every workers “leader” who worships it and who inculcates in the minds of workers and peasants a love of this totally fake form of democracy while at the same time attacking the establishment of a revolutionary “dictatorship of the proletariat” which is ESSENTIAL to the survival of any revolutionary socialist workers government that has successfully, temporarily overthrown a capitalist ruling class.  

This speech represents, politically, one of the political high-water-marks of the workers movement historically and as such should be required reading for every class-conscious worker and peasant on this planet; and it is a primary example of why truth-telling Lenin is so reviled by every shameless, bribed apologist for the exploitative, racist and misogynist mass-murdering capitalist class in the world.  Enjoy!

This speech can be found in the excellently-translated “THE COMMUNIST INTERNATIONAL, 1919-1943: DOCUMENTS SELECTED AND EDITED BY JANE DEGRAS; VOLUME I: 1919-1922

— IWPCHI

THESES ON BOURGEOIS DEMOCRACY AND PROLETARIAN
DICTATORSHIP ADOPTED BY THE FIRST COMINTERN CONGRESS

4 March 1919 Protokoll, i, p. 115

[These theses, written by Lenin, were adopted by the congress without discussion. In introducing them, as in his other speeches at the congress, Lenin expressed the belief, shared by the other delegates, that the capitalist world was rapidly approaching its end, and that the working class everywhere was moving towards revolution (he likened the shop stewards movement in England to the Soviets).  Unless the proletariat seized power, the problems created by the imperialist war and its aftermath could not be solved. The chief danger lay in the attempt of the reformist socialist parties to hold the workers back, and win them for a policy of bourgeois reconstruction and Wilsonian reforms, by appealing to their loyalty to the old socialist organizations, and their attachment to democratic procedures.

The main emphasis of the congress was not on the struggle against capitalism, but on the struggle against the right wing in the labour movement. Speaking three years later, at the June 1922 meeting of the Executive Committee of the Communist International (ECCI), Zinoviev said: ‘We were splitters when the Comintern began its work. At that time we could not act otherwise. We had to split the old socialist parties, rescue the best revolutionary elements of the working class, form a rallying point for communist parties in every country. . . . The split was historically necessary; it was a great step forward, a means of winning the masses.’]

1. The growth of the revolutionary movement of the proletariat in all countries
has provoked the bourgeoisie and their agents in the workers’ organizations to
convulsive efforts to find theoretical arguments in defence of the rule of the
exploiters. Among these, particular emphasis is placed on the rejection of
dictatorship and the defence of democracy. The falseness and hypocrisy of this
argument, repeated in a thousand forms in the capitalist press and at the February 1919 Berne conference of the yellow international, is however clear to anyone who is unwilling to commit treachery to the principles of socialism.

2. In the first place, the argument uses abstract concepts of ‘democracy’ and
‘dictatorship’, without specifying what class is in question. Putting the question in this way, outside or above the class standpoint, as though it were valid as a
standpoint of the entire people, is downright mockery of the basic theory of
socialism, namely the theory of the class struggle, which is still recognized in words, it is true, by the socialists who have gone over to the camp of the bourgeoisie, but judging by their deeds is forgotten. For in no civilized capitalist country is there ‘democracy in the abstract’, there is only bourgeois democracy, and the question is one not of ‘dictatorship in the abstract’, but of the dictatorship of the oppressed class, that is, of the proletariat, over the oppressors and exploiters, that is, the bourgeoisie, in order to overcome the resistance put up by the exploiters in the effort to maintain their rule.

3. History teaches us that an oppressed class has never and can never come to
power without passing through a period of dictatorship, that is, without the conquest of political power and the forcible suppression of the most desperate and frenzied resistance, that shrinks from no crime, which is always put up by the exploiters. The bourgeoisie, whose rule is now defended by socialists who express hostility to ‘dictatorship in general’ and stand up body and soul for ‘democracy in general’, won their power in the civilized countries by a series of revolts, civil wars, the forcible suppression of monarchical rule, of the feudal lords and slave-owners, and of their attempts at restoration. Thousands and millions of times, in their books and pamphlets, their congress resolutions and speeches, socialists in every country have explained to the people the class character of these bourgeois revolutions. That is why the present defence of ‘bourgeois democracy’ in speeches about ‘democracy’, and the present outcry against the proletarian dictatorship in the clamour about ‘dictatorship’, is an outright betrayal of socialism, objectively a going over to the camp of the bourgeoisie, a denial of the right of the proletariat to its political revolution, a defence of bourgeois reformism, and this precisely at the historical moment when bourgeois reformism has gone to pieces throughout the world and
when the war has created a revolutionary situation.

4. By recognizing the class character of bourgeois democracy, of bourgeois
parliamentarianism, all socialists have articulated the ideas expressed with the
greatest scientific precision by Marx and Engels when they said that even the most democratic bourgeois republic is nothing but the instrument by which the
bourgeoisie oppress the working class, by which a handful of capitalists keeps the working masses under. There is not a single revolutionary or a single Marxist among those who now raise such an outcry against dictatorship and advocate democracy who has not loudly and solemnly sworn to the workers that he acknowledges this basic truth of socialism; but now, when ferment and movement have started among the revolutionary proletariat, aimed at breaking this machine of oppression and fighting for the dictatorship of the proletariat, these traitors to socialism present the case as though the bourgeoisie had made a gift of ‘pure democracy’ to the workers, as though the bourgeoisie renounced resistance and were ready to submit to a workers’ majority, as though in
the democratic republic there were no State apparatus for the oppression of labour by capital.

5. The Paris Commune, which everyone who wanted to be considered a socialist
extolled in words, for they knew that the working masses had a great and genuine sympathy with it, proved particularly clearly the historical conditioning and limited value of bourgeois parliamentarianism and bourgeois democracy, which are highly progressive institutions in comparison with the Middle Ages, but which in the epoch of proletarian revolution inevitably require to be changed from the ground up. It was Marx himself, who placed the highest value on the historical significance of the Commune, who in his analysis of it demonstrated the exploiting character of bourgeois democracy and bourgeois parliamentarianism, under which the oppressed class is given the right, once in several years, to decide which deputy of the possessing classes shall represent and betray the people in Parliament. It is now, when the Soviet movement which is seizing the entire world is carrying forward before all eyes the cause of the Commune, that the traitors to socialism forget the practical experience and the concrete lessons of the Paris Commune and repeat the old bourgeois rubbish about ‘democracy in general’. The Commune was not a parliamentary institution.

6. The significance of the Commune consists further in this, that it made an
attempt to destroy and utterly root out the bourgeois State machine, the apparatus of officials, court, army, and police, and to replace it by the self-governing mass organization of workers without any separation of legislative and executive powers. All bourgeois democratic republics of our time, including the German, which the traitors to socialism, making a mockery of truth, call proletarian, retain this bourgeois State apparatus. That proves once more, and clearly and unmistakably, that the outcry in defence of ‘democracy’ is nothing but defence of the bourgeoisie and their privileges of exploitation.

7. ‘Freedom of assembly’ can be used as an example of the demand for ‘pure
democracy’. Every class-conscious worker who has not broken with his class grasps immediately that it would be monstrous to promise the exploiters freedom of assembly in times and situations in which they are resisting their overthrow and defending their privileges. Neither in England in 1649, nor in France in 1793, did the revolutionary bourgeoisie guarantee freedom of assembly to the royalists and nobility when these summoned alien troops to the country and ‘assembled’ to organize an attempt at restoration. If the bourgeoisie of today, who have long since become reactionary, demand that the proletariat shall guarantee in advance that ‘freedom of assembly’ shall be assured to the exploiters regardless of the resistance the capitalists put up to their expropriation, the workers will only laugh at such bourgeois hypocrisy.

On the other hand the workers know very well that even in the most democratic
bourgeois republic ‘freedom of assembly’ is an empty phrase, for the rich have the best public and private buildings at their disposal, have also enough leisure for meetings, and enjoy the protection of the bourgeois apparatus of power. The
proletariat of town and country, as well as the small peasants, that is the
overwhelming majority of the population, have neither the first nor the second nor the third. So long as this is true, ‘equality’, that is, ‘pure democracy’, is a deception.  To win real equality, to make a reality of democracy for the workers, the exploiters must first be deprived of all public and private mansions, the workers must be given leisure and their freedom of assembly defended by armed workers and not by the offspring of the nobility or officers from capitalist circles in command of an intimidated rank and file.  Only after such changes is it possible to speak of ‘freedom of assembly’, of equality, without mocking the workers, the labouring people, the poor. But nobody can bring these changes about except the vanguard of the working people, the proletariat, by overthrowing the exploiters, the bourgeoisie.

8. ‘Freedom of the press’ is another leading watchword of ‘pure democracy’. But
the workers know, and the socialists of all countries have admitted it a million times, that this freedom is deceptive so long as the best printing works and the biggest paper supplies are in capitalist hands, and so long as capital retains its power over the press, a power which throughout the world is expressed more clearly, sharply, and cynically, the more developed the democracy and the republican regime, as for example in America. To win real equality and real democracy for the working masses, for the workers and peasants, the capitalists must first be deprived of the possibility of getting writers in their service, of buying up publishing houses and bribing newspapers. And for that it is necessary to throw off the yoke of capital, to overthrow the exploiters and to crush their resistance. The capitalists have always given the name of freedom to the freedom of the rich to make profits and the freedom of the poor to die of hunger. The capitalists give the name of freedom of the press to the freedom of the rich to bribe the press, the freedom to use wealth to create and distort so-called public opinion. The defenders of ‘pure democracy’ reveal themselves once more as defenders of the dirty and corrupt system of the rule of the rich over the means of mass education, as deceivers of the people who with fine sounding but thoroughly false phrases divert them from the concrete historical task
of liberating the press from capital. Real freedom and equality will be found in the system the communists establish, in which there will be no opportunity to get rich at the expense of others, no objective possibility of subjecting the press, directly or indirectly, to the power of money, where nothing will prevent the workers (or any large group of workers) from having and employing equal rights to use the presses and paper belonging to society.

9. The history of the 19th and 20th centuries showed us, even before the war,
what this much-praised ‘pure democracy’ really means under capitalism. Marxists have always maintained that the more developed, the more ‘pure’ democracy is, the more openly, sharply, and ruthlessly does the class struggle proceed, the more clearly does the oppression of capital and the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie come to light. The Dreyfus affair in republican France, the bloody collisions between striking workers and the mercenaries armed by the capitalists in the free and democratic republic of America, these and a thousand similar facts disclose the truth which the bourgeoisie try in vain to conceal, namely that in reality terror and a bourgeois dictatorship rule the most democratic republic, and come openly to the surface whenever it seems to the exploiters that the power of capital is endangered.

10. The imperialist war of 1914-18 exposed the true character of bourgeois
democracy, once and for all, even to the backward workers, even in the freest
republics, as the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. To enrich a group of German and English millionaires and milliardaires, dozens of millions of men were killed and the military dictatorship of the bourgeoisie established in the freest republics. This military dictatorship still exists in the Entente countries even after the defeat of Germany. It was the war, more than anything else, that opened the eyes of working people, tore the false tinsel from bourgeois democracy, and revealed to the people the whole pit of speculation and greed for profits during the war and in connexion with the war. The bourgeoisie waged this war in the name of freedom and equality; in the name of freedom and equality the war contractors enormously increased their wealth. No efforts of the yellow Berne international will succeed in concealing from the masses the exploiting character of bourgeois freedom, bourgeois equality, and bourgeois democracy, now finally exposed.

11. In Europe where capitalism has been most highly developed,
that is, in Germany, the first months of full republican freedom which followed the downfall of imperialist Germany, showed the German worker and the entire world the real class-content of the bourgeois democratic republic. The murder of Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg is an event of world-historical significance not only because the best people and leaders of the truly proletarian communist
international perished tragically, but also because it finally showed up the class
character of the leading European State, of, it can be said without exaggeration, the leading State in the world. If prisoners, that is, people who have been taken under protection by the State power, can be murdered with impunity by officers and capitalists under a government of social-patriots, the democratic republic in which this can happen is a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. Those who express indignation over the murder of Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg but
do not understand this truth only demonstrate their obtuseness or their hypocrisy. In one of the freest and most advanced republics of the world, in the German republic, there is freedom to kill the imprisoned leaders of the proletariat and to go unpunished. And it cannot be otherwise so long as capitalism remains, for the development of democracy does not blunt but sharpens the class struggle, which has now, as a result of the war and its consequences, reached boiling-point.  All over the civilized world bolsheviks are being deported, persecuted, imprisoned; in Switzerland, one of the freest bourgeois republics, and in America, there are pogroms against the bolsheviks. From the standpoint of ‘democracy in general’, or ‘pure democracy’, it is simply ludicrous that progressive, civilized, democratic countries, armed to the teeth, should fear the presence of a few dozen people from backward, hungry, ruined Russia, described as savages and criminals in millions of copies of bourgeois newspapers. It is obvious that a social system which can give rise to such glaring contradictions is in reality a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie.

12. In such a state of affairs the dictatorship of the proletariat is not merely
wholly justified, as a means of overwhelming the exploiters and overcoming their
resistance, but quite essential for the mass of workers as their only protection against the bourgeois dictatorship which led to the war and is getting ready for new wars.  The chief thing which the socialists do not understand, a failure which reflects their intellectual shortsightedness, their dependence on bourgeois prejudices, their political treachery to the proletariat, is that when, in capitalist society, the class struggle on which it rests becomes more acute, there is nothing between dictatorship of the bourgeoisie and dictatorship of the proletariat. The dream of another, third way is the reactionary lament of the petty bourgeoisie. Proof of this can be found in the experience of more than a hundred years of bourgeois democracy and the workers’ movement in all advanced countries, and particularly the experience of the last five years. The same proof is furnished by economic theory, by the entire content of Marxism, which analyses the economic necessity of bourgeois dictatorship in every commodity economy, a dictatorship which can be abolished by none other than the class which through the development of capitalism itself develops and grows, becomes more organized and powerful, that is, by the class of proletarians.

13. The second theoretical and political mistake of the socialists is their failure to
understand that the forms of democracy have inevitably changed in the centuries
since it first appeared in the Ancient World, as one ruling class gave way to another.  In the republics of Ancient Greece, in the medieval cities, in advanced capitalist States, democracy has different forms and varying scope. It would be the greatest nonsense to assume that the most profound revolution in mankind’s history, the first transference of power from the hands of the exploiting minority to the hands of the exploited majority, could take place within the framework of the old bourgeois parliamentary democracy, without the greatest changes, without the creation of new forms of democracy, new institutions, new conditions for their use, etc.

14. The dictatorship of the proletariat is like the dictatorship of other classes in
that, like any dictatorship, it originates in the necessity of suppressing by force the resistance of the class which is losing its political power. The fundamental
difference between the proletarian dictatorship and the dictatorship of other classes, that of the large landowners in the Middle Ages and that of the bourgeoisie in all civilized capitalist countries, consists in this, that while the dictatorship of the large landowners and the bourgeoisie forcibly suppresses the resistance of the overwhelming majority of the population, namely the working masses, the dictatorship of the proletariat is the forcible suppression of the resistance of the exploiters, that is, of the minority of the population, the large landowners and capitalists.  From this it follows further that the dictatorship of the proletariat must inevitably involve not only a change in the forms and institutions of democracy, but change of a kind which results in an extension of actual democratic usages, on a scale never before known in the world, to the working classes whom capitalism enslaved.  And in fact the forms taken by the dictatorship of the proletariat, which have already been worked out, that is, the Soviet power in Russia, the workers’ councils in Germany, the shop stewards’ committees, and other analogues of Soviet institutions in other countries, all these make a reality of democratic rights and privileges for the working classes, that is, for the overwhelming majority of the population; they mean that it becomes really possible to use these rights and privileges in a way and on a
scale that was never even approximately possible in the best democratic bourgeois republic.

The essence of Soviet power lies in this, that the permanent and sole foundation
of the entire State power, of the entire State apparatus, is the mass organization of those very classes which were oppressed by the capitalists, that is, the workers and semi-proletarians (peasants who do not exploit labour and who are always forced to sell at least part of their labour). The masses, who even in the most democratic bourgeois republics, where in law they had equal rights, but in fact were prevented by a thousand ways and tricks from taking part in political life and making use of democratic rights and liberties, are now drawn into continuous, unhampered, and decisive participation in the democratic administration of the State.

15. The equality of citizens, regardless of sex, religious belief, race, nationality,
which bourgeois democracy always promised everywhere but in fact never carried out, and could not carry out because of the rule of capitalism, has been made a complete reality at one stroke by the Soviet regime, or the proletarian dictatorship, for only the power of the workers, who are not interested in private property in the means of production and in the struggle for their distribution and redistribution, is able to do this.

16. The old democracy, that is, bourgeois democracy and parliamentarianism,
was so organized that it was the working classes who were most alien to the
administrative machine. The Soviet power, the proletarian dictatorship, on the other hand, is so organized that it brings the working masses close to the administrative machine. The merging of legislative and executive power in the Soviet organization of the State serves the same purpose, as does the substitution of the production unit, the workshop or factory, for the territorial constituency.

17. The army was an instrument of oppression not only under the monarchy; it is
still that in all bourgeois republics, even the most democratic. Only the Soviet
power, as the only established State organization of the very classes oppressed by
the capitalists, is in a position to abolish the dependence of the military on the
bourgeois command and really fuse the proletariat with the military, to arm the
proletariat and disarm the bourgeoisie, without which the victory of socialism is
impossible.

18. The Soviet organization of the State is designed to give the proletariat, as the
class which was most concentrated and educated by capitalism, the leading role in the State. The experience of all revolutions and all movements of enslaved classes, the experience of the world socialist movement, teaches us that only the proletariat is in a position to unite the scattered and backward strata of the working and exploited population and carry them along.

19. Only the Soviet organization of the State is able to destroy, at one stroke and
completely, the old, that is, the bourgeois apparatus of bureaucracy and judiciary, which under capitalism, even in the most democratic republics, remained and had to remain, being in fact for the workers and the working masses the greatest obstacle to making democracy effective. The Paris Commune took the first world historical step in this direction, the Soviet regime the second.

20. The abolition of State power is the goal of all socialists, including and above
all Marx. Unless this goal is reached true democracy, that is, equality and freedom, is not attainable. But only Soviet and proletarian democracy leads in fact to this goal, for it begins at once to prepare for the complete withering away of any kind of State by drawing the mass organizations of the working people into constant and unrestricted participation in State administration.

21. The complete bankruptcy of the socialists who met in Berne, the complete
absence of understanding which they showed of the new, that is, proletarian
democracy, can be seen very clearly from the following. On 10 February 1919
Branting declared the international conference of the yellow international in Berne closed. On 11 February 1919 its members in Berlin published an appeal of the ‘Independents’ to the proletariat in Freiheit. In this appeal the bourgeois character of Scheidemann’s government was admitted. It was reproached for wanting to abolish the workers’ councils, which were called ‘bearers and defenders’ of the revolution, and the proposal was made to legalize the councils, to give them statutory rights, to give them the right to veto the decisions of the National Assembly and refer the question at issue to a national referendum.
Such a proposal reflects the complete intellectual bankruptcy of the theoreticians
who defend democracy and have not understood its bourgeois character. The
ridiculous attempt to unite the system of councils, that is, the proletarian
dictatorship, with the National Assembly, that is, the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, finally exposes the mental poverty of the yellow socialists and social-democrats, and their reactionary petty-bourgeois policy, as well as their cowardly concessions to the irresistibly growing forces of the new proletarian democracy.

22. The majority of the yellow international in Berne, who condemned
Bolshevism but did not dare, for fear of the working masses, to vote formally for a resolution on these lines, acted correctly from the class standpoint. This majority is completely at one with the Russian Mensheviks and Social-Revolutionaries and with the Scheidemanns in Germany. The Russian Mensheviks and Social-Revolutionaries, who complain of persecution by the Bolsheviks, try to conceal the fact that this persecution was provoked by their participation in the civil war on the side of the bourgeoisie against the proletariat. In precisely the same way the Scheidemanns and their party in Germany took part in the civil war on the side of the bourgeoisie against the workers.  It is therefore quite natural that the majority of those attending the Yellow International in Berne should come out in favour of condemning the Bolsheviks. But that did not represent a defence of ‘pure democracy’; it was the self-defence of people who feel that in the civil war they are on the side of the bourgeoisie against the proletariat.  For these reasons the decision of the majority of the Yellow International must be described as correct from the class point of view. But the proletariat should not fear the truth, but look it straight in the face and draw the political conclusions which follow.  On the basis of these theses and having heard the reports of the delegates from various countries, the Congress of the Communist International declares that the chief tasks of the communist parties in countries where Soviet power is not yet established are:

1. To explain to the broad masses of the working class the historical meaning of
the political and practical necessity of a new proletarian democracy which must
replace bourgeois democracy and parliamentarianism.

2. To extend and build up workers’ councils in all branches of industry, in the
army and navy, and also among agricultural workers and small peasants.

3. To win an assured, conscious communist majority in the councils

US Puppet Government of South Korea Continues to Attempt to Provoke War With the DPRK

We’re republishing a brief report from the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), the main press agency of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK aka “North Korea”) regarding one of the continuous acts of military provocation that are being launched against the DPRK constantly by the puppet state of South Korea, with the permission of its colonial ruler the United States Government.

The bourgeois press of the US never stops publishing anti-DPRK propaganda attacking the beleaguered and heroic socialist country for its purely defensive military measures.  Recently, the world was treated to another barrage of inane anti-DPRK propaganda over the DPRK’s ballistic missile tests, part of their purely defensive nuclear weapons arsenal.  But what the U.S. and world public are not kept abreast of is the never-ending series of war provocations that have been threatening the people of the DPRK with nuclear annihilation multiple times a year.  We recently republished another KCNA article from the DPRK’s Research Report of the Society for the Study of International Affairs in which the long and sordid history of joint US/S. Korean military provocations that have been inflicted upon the people of the North since 1953.  This incessant, petulant bullying of the tiny DPRK by the imperialist mass murderers of the USA is n outrage, and shows just how weak the United States really believes the capitalist system is, that it feels compelled to terrorize a small nation simply because they chose to embrace socialism rather than capitalism – and then successfully defended their nation against a massive, unprovoked slaughter of 3 million North Koreans by the USA in the Korean War.

If a foreign government subjected any territory of the USA to the kind of brazen military provocation the S. Korean puppet government subjected the DPRK to on October 13th, the US Government would have gone berserk and retaliated with a massive military response.  The fact that the DPRK refrained from responding in the way the US undoubtedly would have provides strong evidence refuting the lies of the bourgeois press that say the DPRK is “run by a madman”;  instead this latest provocation again displays the rational and level-headed leadership of the DPRK.

This preface is going to be 5 times longer than the article already, so let’s just get to the report of the latest cowardly bullying of the DPRK by the military forces of the USA puppet government in Seoul, S. Korea.

Defend the DPRK!  US Hands off  the DPRK!  USA Out of the Korean Peninsula!

—— IWPCHI

************************************************

Spokesman for KPA General Staff Issues Statement

Pyongyang, October 14 (KCNA) — A spokesman for the General Staff of the Korean People’s Army (KPA) issued the following statement on Oct. 14:

According to a report on enemy movements in the front, the south Korean army conducted an artillery fire for about 10 hours near the forward defence area of the KPA Fifth Corps on Oct. 13.  [Emphasis added by IWPCHI]

Taking a serious note of this provocative action by the south Korean military in the frontline area, we took strong military countermeasures.

The KPA sends a stern warning to the south Korean military inciting military tension in the frontline area with reckless action. -0-

http://www.kcna.kp (Juche111.10.14.)

[SOURCE:  http://kcna.kp/en/article/q/59b4eb9b3cc6925359ade3537d043ec827563447d30b725313e36cefcc623456.kcmsf]

DPRK Celebrates 75th Anniversary of Revolutionary Socialist Schools For Children of Revolutionary Martyrs

This is a really beautiful article from the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK aka “North Korea”) about the revolutionary socialist schools the DPRK has set up to educate the children of revolutionary martyrs in the revolutionary ethics and dedication to the fight for socialism of their heroic ancestors. Long Live the DPRK!

Source: http://kcna.kp/en/article/q/ea3f9ae90383a5237ec3f2501099fb24.kcmsf

Respected Comrade Kim Jong Un‘s Speech at Commemoration of 75th Anniversary of Revolutionary Schools

Pyongyang, October 14 (KCNA) — The respected Comrade Kim Jong Un made a speech “Let Mangyongdae Revolutionary School and Kang Pan Sok Revolutionary School Become ‘Pedigree Farms’ for Bringing Up the Hardcore That Will Guarantee the Eternal Youthful Vigour of the Cause of Juche” at the commemoration of the 75th anniversary of the founding of Mangyongdae Revolutionary School and Kang Pan Sok Revolutionary School on October 12, Juche 111 (2022).

 

 

 

 

Following is the full text of the speech:

Dear students of the revolutionary schools,

Esteemed comrade teachers of the revolutionary schools,

Comrade graduates of the revolutionary schools who are visiting their dear “native homes” on this significant anniversary of their founding,

All the officials and staff members of the revolutionary schools,

Dear comrades,

I congratulate you who are greeting the 75th anniversary of the founding of Mangyongdae Revolutionary School and Kang Pan Sok Revolutionary School amid the blessing of our Party and all the people across the country.

I also offer hearty congratulations and greetings of encouragement to all the graduates of the schools who, deeply mindful of the firm resolve they made during their days at the schools, are making devoted efforts for the Party and the people at the posts of national defence and various fields of socialist construction at this very moment.

Availing myself of this opportunity, I pay noble tribute to the revolutionary martyrs who dedicated their precious lives to the Party, the country, the happiness of the people and the bright future of posterity, and I extend my sincere feeling to their bereaved families who are invariably devoting their pure conscience on the road of loyalty and patriotism the martyrs could not follow to the end.

Students of the revolutionary schools,

Comrade graduates of the revolutionary schools,

I can hardly repress my joy at being with you, all those faces I have always longed so much to see, here at this significant gathering at the campus of the revolutionary school in historic Mangyongdae.

The 75 years of Mangyongdae Revolutionary School and Kang Pan Sok Revolutionary School is a history in which our Party has remained infinitely faithful to the moral obligation to revolutionary martyrs and it has devoted sincerity to training reserve revolutionaries, staking its fate on the inheritance of the revolutionary cause.

The course of the development of the revolutionary schools was started on October 12, 1947 when their inauguration ceremony was held in the presence of the great leader Comrade Kim Il Sung, and actually it can be said that the course is equivalent to the history of our Republic and our regular revolutionary armed forces.

Our Juche revolution established the revolutionary schools for training its pillars before founding the state and the army. Then it put forward the indomitable revolutionaries produced there as its backbone and made them lead the development of the state and the army.

While developing into “pedigree farms” for training competent revolutionaries under the care of the Party since they were established by the leader, our revolutionary schools have made a tremendous contribution, following the sacred, protracted road of steadfastly carrying on, from one generation to the next, the lineage of the Juche revolution that was pioneered on Mt Paektu.

They have brought up a large number of faithful patriots who gave, and are giving, a strong impetus to the growth of our state and army while dedicating their all to the revolution and the people with their trust in their leader alone even in bad times. These people consist in the impregnable wall that stands around the Party. This is an imperishable exploit our revolutionary schools have performed.

Having such great homes of revolution that add eternal youthful vigour to the cause of Juche, which is making progress on the strength of the faith and indomitable spirit of true revolutionaries, is a source of great pride of our Party and people, and they constitute the assets for lasting prosperity of our state.

To train the sons and daughters of revolutionary martyrs as stout revolutionaries who will be the kernel of the hardcore of the revolutionary ranks and lead the advance and development at any field or post they are assigned to work–this is the idea our Party has consistently and invariably maintained in educating the sons and daughters of revolutionary martyrs.

As the sons and daughters of revolutionary martyrs, together with all the other people throughout the country and in the lead of them, have supported the leadership of the Party faithfully and single-heartedly, our cause has won victory after victory while keeping its red colour as it is in the face of upheavals of history.

The first-generation graduates who, wearing the uniform symbolic of the blood of the anti-Japanese forerunners, had attended the inaugural ceremony of the revolutionary school and heard the speech of the leader, made a contribution, with their own blood, to safeguarding the Supreme Headquarters and winning the great victory in the fierce Fatherland Liberation War, and played a pivotal and hardcore role admirably at important positions of the Party and the state and at other revolutionary posts during the years of socialist construction.

All the achievements the graduates of the revolutionary schools have made at the cost of their sincere efforts and blood and sweat, have, without exception, served as the solid cornerstone and fertile soil for the progress of our state and well-being of our people.

Many people among the graduates of the revolutionary schools were utterly faithful to the Party and dedicated their all unsparingly to the victory of the revolutionary cause of Juche. Typical of them are Yon Hyong Muk, Pak Song Bong, Sim Chang Wan and Kim Yong Chun.

Hyon Chol Hae was also a graduate of Mangyongdae Revolutionary School.

Among the graduates of the revolutionary school, three became the head of government of our Republic, three marshals of the Korean People’s Army, and scores of them Heroes including triple and double ones. This fact eloquently shows how great trust the Party and the leader have put in the sons and daughters of revolutionary martyrs and how great efforts they have made to train them as pillars of our state.

Our Party, regarding ideology and spirit as the greatest asset for a revolutionary, leads the revolution in such a way that the intentions and feats of parents would be exalted through their children’s lives and struggle. Thanks to this cause of inheritance which is unique to the Workers’ Party of Korea, the Juche revolution is achieving victory after victory through generations.

Thanks to the responsible efforts of our Party that is realizing its firm determination to inherit for all eternity the lineage of Mangyongdae by dint of its correct idea of training the reserves of revolutionaries and of its leadership, Mangyongdae Revolutionary School and Kang Pan Sok Revolutionary School will remain faithful for ever to their revolutionary character and mission as the essential artery of inheritance and the schools of the WPK.

Comrades,

There are still many large mountains of difficulties to scale on the road ahead of our revolution which has recorded only victory century after century and generation after generation.

We are carrying on an uncharted revolution which we must surely accomplish. As we have to hew out its way only by our own effort, the difficulties and challenges we are facing are as enormous as ever.

We have achieved remarkable successes in the new century of the Juche era, and these have raised the position and national power of our state to an unprecedented level. We have also accumulated invaluable experience in the course of surmounting successive national trials and pushing strenuously ahead with socialist construction on the strength of unbending willpower, might of revolutionary unity and extraordinary fighting efficiency.

We can certainly win victory by our own efforts. Even if we face worse hardships or any crisis in future, we should staunchly maintain self-respect and self-confidence and faithfully implement the development strategy of our style. By doing so, we can make an uninterrupted advance of socialism.

To achieve the greatest national brilliance through courageous and adroit struggle even in the worst situation, we should, above all else, turn all the fronts and posts into impregnable revolutionary positions. To this end we need competent commanding personnel and dependable hardcore force who can perform their tasks flawlessly.

It can be said that the development of our Party, state and army at present and their future depend on how the sons and daughters of revolutionary martyrs who passed or are passing through the stage of their growth into the pillars of the Juche revolution at the revolutionary schools, would work and prepare themselves.

This is why our Party, attaching particularly great significance to the event to commemorate the 75th founding anniversary of the revolutionary schools, has arranged a grand gathering of their students and graduates here at Mangyongdae today so as to remind them once again of the demands and expectation of the country and the people.

If the sons and daughters of revolutionary martyrs brace themselves up to lead the struggle to make incessant innovations and advance at their posts and units, and thus contribute to attaining high goals for achieving the comprehensive development of socialist construction and rouse the masses by their noble examples, it will bring about a stride forward in overcoming today’s trials and advancing the revolution.

With the 75th anniversary of the founding of Mangyongdae Revolutionary School and Kang Pan Sok Revolutionary School as a watershed, we should bring about a new turn in education and edification of the sons and daughters of revolutionary martyrs.

This is the requirement of the revolution, and our Party’s and people’s high expectations of the revolutionary schools at present.

Mangyongdae Revolutionary School and Kang Pan Sok Revolutionary School are “pedigree farms” for bringing up excellent talents who will contribute to carrying out the sacred cause of making the main pillars and roots of the Juche revolution eternally strong and turning the whole revolutionary ranks into an elite force by dint of their great spiritual strength.

Bringing up hardcore reserve who will stoutly carry forward the lineage of the Juche revolution and pillars who will play a pivotal role in implementing the revolutionary cause of Juche–this is the fundamental task facing Mangyongdae Revolutionary School and Kang Pan Sok Revolutionary School.

Only when the revolutionary schools train their students to have the greatest spiritual strength by inheriting the forerunners’ fighting spirit and indomitable soul as part of their ideological and mental qualities, can the red flag of revolution never discolour and our revolutionary position be fortified into a pure integral whole which is invulnerable to any heterogeneous ideas.

The overall work of the schools should be oriented to preparing the sons and daughters of revolutionary martyrs to be reliable successors who stoutly carry forward the baton of the Juche revolution and hardcore elements who commit themselves solely to the ideas of our Party.

As I have always stressed, the revolutionary character is not inherited of its own accord.

Sons and daughters do not grow up to be revolutionaries simply because their fathers are revolutionaries, and such cases are not difficult to find in the history of the world revolutionary movement as well as that of our country.

Every element of a revolutionary’s ideological and mental qualities that range from loyalty and obligation to the leader to a true heart for the people, unshakeable faith, unyielding fortitude and humane sincerity is cultivated only through revolutionary education and studies, constant self-cultivation and practice.

The revolutionary schools should pay top priority to, and focus on, politico-ideological education.

The lineage of revolution championed by our Party is none other than ideological bloodline; to train the students of the revolutionary schools as reserve hardcore who will firmly carry forward the traditions of the forerunners’ ideology, faith and loyalty–this remains, today and tomorrow as it did yesterday, invariably essential to the education of the sons and daughters of revolutionary martyrs.

The sons and daughters of revolutionary martyrs should be exceptional in faithfulness to the Party and in their revolutionary spirit, not in origin, academic career or background, and live honourably before the collective and society by devoting themselves to the people and performing feats in the struggle.

The ideological education should be focused on making boundless loyalty to the Party the foremost “family” and school tradition of Mangyongdae Revolutionary School and Kang Pan Sok Revolutionary School, the native homes of the sons and daughters of revolutionary martyrs, and ensuring that the students’ hearts beat for ever with the blood of faith which will never be contaminated.

Our revolution, as it was in the past, is defended and is advancing steadfastly on the strength of the invariable faith of absolutely trusting and following the Party.

Before we impart scientific and technical knowledge to the students of the revolutionary schools, we should inculcate in their mind as firm faith a pure sense of moral obligation which will remain unchangeable in any adversity and a resolute determination and will to live up to the trust of the Party.

We should continue to direct great efforts to implanting in their hearts the revolutionary spirit of forerunners, the soul of revolutionaries.

Only those vanguards who embody the revolutionary spirit of fighting the enemy unto death as the inherent creed of their struggle, not chanting it by their words or songs, and those who are exemplary in all aspects including that of political awareness with which to accept and implement the ideas and policies of the Party and that of attitude with which to support the policies of the state and do their full duty, deserve the honour of being called the graduates from the revolutionary schools.

We should encourage the students to absorb as their own nourishment the history of the struggle of the anti-Japanese revolutionary forerunners and the heroic generation who won a great victory in the war, and should implant in them the ennobling spirit of the preceding generations who were boundlessly loyal to the Party and the revolution.

It is necessary to tell them in detail about the spiritual world of their fathers who glorified their lives as faithful people on the road of supporting the cause of the Party and about what they thought and how faithful they were at every moment of their struggle and life.

As I stand face to face today with you, sons and daughters of revolutionary martyrs, at the campus in Mangyongdae on this significant occasion, I am reminded again of the first-generation graduates of Mangyongdae Revolutionary School who were boundlessly loyal to the cause of the Party.

Our Party demands that great efforts be made for and proper guidance be given to the spiritual development of the sons and daughters of revolutionary martyrs so that they can all inherit the noble spirit and revolutionary traits of the loyal people of the preceding generations.

Setting it as a major target to train all the students as faithful persons like the school’s first-generation graduates, the revolutionary schools should conduct the education in loyalty and revolutionary traditions in a theoretical, substantial and intensive manner.

Revolution is unthinkable separated from patriotism.

The aim of the revolution we are making while braving trials is, in the final analysis, to achieve the prosperity of the country at the earliest possible date.

The revolutionary schools should educate their students to be mindful of the fact that patriotism is synonymous with the revolution, always keep the flag of our Republic in their minds and be firmly determined to devote their all to the great dignity and eternal prosperity of the country.

The revolutionary schools should conduct education for enhancing the class consciousness of their students in an assiduous and substantial way and without any let-up. In this way they can ensure that the students are always aware of their class origin and filled with the resolve to become fierce fighters in safeguarding our class position which was defended at the cost of the blood of the forerunners.

The revolutionary schools should further intensify education in collectivism so as to ensure that all the students, regarding the slogan “One for all and all for one!” as the standard and iron principle of their struggle and life, give full play to the communist trait of putting the interests of the collective before their own, whatever they do, and willingly devoting themselves for the good of their comrades.

They should pay close attention to preparing the students to be genuine persons who are deeply steeped in noble moral ethics.

As their students are away from their kindred at an early age, they should, on behalf of their parents, teach them even the details of etiquette they have to observe in their daily life, as well as social and public moral code.

They should be not only models for all other schools across the country in terms of education and edification, but also best schools which other educational units can learn from. In particular, they should hold it as their most important task to train reserves of military talents who will contribute to making our People’s Army a sophisticated, high-tech army.

Ten years have passed since the enforcement of the universal 12-year compulsory education system in pursuance of a policy of the Party and the state, but the general secondary education has not yet reached a satisfactory level. The revolutionary schools should become a trailblazer and set an example in putting it on the track of assured rejuvenation and leap forward.

Now that the educational conditions and environment of Mangyongdae Revolutionary School have been wonderfully renovated, it should direct efforts to improving teaching methods and quality of education.

It is important to proactively use IT and intelligent educational equipment and extensively introduce advanced teaching experiences and latest scientific and technological data of the world, so as to work out our own unique methodology of training talented people.

The revolutionary school should develop prodigy training aimed at producing a larger number of students with outstanding talents and practical abilities and reserves of military talents who are fully capable of shouldering the future of our army.

Kang Pan Sok Revolutionary School, too, should positively explore and apply innovative and effective educational methods according to the categories of education and, in particular, focus efforts on bringing the teaching of economics-related subjects closer to the developing reality, thereby training excellent reserves of women cadres who can play a major role in building the state.

It is important to intensify military education of the students of Mangyongdae Revolutionary School and Kang Pan Sok Revolutionary School.

Military education at Mangyongdae Revolutionary School should be conducted in an aggressive and dynamic way with the main stress on intensifying basic education for training the students into officers who are well versed in different services and arms.

Kang Pan Sok Revolutionary School should further enhance the quality of military education so as to improve the students’ ability to command and manage sub-units and should make exacting demands on them so that their day-to-day life can be the course of gaining experience to this end.

Mangyongdae Revolutionary School and Kang Pan Sok Revolutionary School should work out artillery and other military education programmes in a practical way and raise the intensity of military training so as to bring up their students into competent reserve officers who can contribute substantially to consolidating the revolutionary armed forces.

The students of Mangyongdae Revolutionary School are given lessons on horse riding in addition to many live firing drills and swimming practice. An important purpose in this is to bring them up into real fighters.

If the students of Mangyongdae Revolutionary School master horsemanship, marksmanship and swimming ability during their school days, it will greatly help them to prepare themselves to be versatile combatants and field commanding officers who can execute their combat tasks satisfactorily while overcoming possible warfare situations on their own initiative.

Mangyongdae Revolutionary School should make more effective use of various simulators.

It should effectively organize and guide its students’ visits to the front-line areas and participation in the military service in KPA sub-units so that these periods can serve as opportunities for them to have a good understanding of the realities of combat units and gain a valuable experience of military service.

Training students in the vibrant reality is one of major educational methods.

It is important to temper them in the thick of the reality and thus train them as steel-hard, genuine revolutionary talents rather than bring them up to be self-indulgent children.

Recently we have mobilized the students of Mangyongdae Revolutionary School for the housing construction project in the Taephyong area. This aims at helping them to understand the justness of the Party policy, foster patriotic spirit, develop strong will and spirit of overcoming difficulties and learn how to work in the reality. Then they can prepare themselves to be the pillars who will shoulder the future of the country.

By availing themselves of various occasions such as military parade, military training, grand socialist construction and the work in support of rural communities, the revolutionary schools should purposefully organize and tenaciously undertake the work for instilling in them an iron will and spiritual strength with which to advance forward without hesitation in the face of ordeals and difficulties.

Visits to the revolutionary battle sites in the Mt Paektu area should also be a process in which they cherish in their hearts the indomitable fighting spirit of the anti-Japanese guerrillas through firsthand experience, rather than books, while marching across virgin snow with leggings on, building a campfire and cooking rice with their own hands.

Due attention should be paid to education and edification for bringing up the students into well-rounded revolutionary talents.

Good ability for writing and presentation is one of the essential qualifications of a leading member of the revolution.

The revolutionary schools should encourage the students to develop a habit of writing diaries and frequently organize meetings such as book sessions and presentations of their compositions so that they can have the ability to fully express their thoughts both in writing and in speeches from childhood.

They should direct great efforts to ensuring that the students acquire rich cultural and emotional attainments with which to move the hearts of the masses and handle the atmosphere of the collective by singing, dancing and playing sports with them.

Students of the revolutionary schools,

Our Party and people hold very big and great expectations for each of you.

I am most pleased when I see the dignified appearance of you who are growing vigorously while singing your alma maters energetically and, through your bright eyes, I visualize the rosy future of our state and the admirable images of you who will play an active role as the pillars of the Party and the revolution.

You should bear in mind that even if the Party would assign you important posts in the future, you would be unable to keep them if you were poorly prepared, and should make positive efforts to prepare yourselves as military and political activists who could contribute a large share to the Party and the people with both literary and military accomplishments.

You should not idle away each of the invaluable school days, but study hard and take part in organizational life intentionally and in good faith to develop the revolutionary spirit and senses of organization and discipline.

I am well aware that the teachers of Mangyongdae Revolutionary School and Kang Pan Sok Revolutionary School make devoted efforts unknown to others while taking good care of the sons and daughters of revolutionary martyrs like their real parents and relatives would do by taking upon themselves the most difficult task of education and edification.

Comrade teachers of the revolutionary schools,

A radical improvement in education in the new era is in essence that in teachers’ qualifications.

You assume a very important responsibility and role in training the students of the revolutionary schools to be the genuine successors and reserve hardcore and backbone who will take up the baton of the Juche revolution.

While always racking your brains with a deep sense of responsibility that you are shouldering the work for the everlasting prosperity of our Party and country, an important affair of the revolution, you should devote all your inexhaustible passion, fighting spirit and clear conscience to the education and edification of students.

Without deviating even for a moment from the consciousness that you work at the revolutionary schools to which the Party attaches so much importance, you should make proactive efforts for revolutionary training and enhancement of your qualifications by setting yourselves high goals and disciplining yourselves.

The teachers of the revolutionary schools who train devoted revolutionaries and “intrepid tigers” should have a greater revolutionary spirit, make patriotic fervour part of their mental qualities, be perfect in terms of human features and possess the highest level of qualifications and capabilities as educators.

You should look after the students with parental affection.

You should pour kindred affection on students by taking care of them like the meticulous yet strict parents and the brothers and sisters who lead them with sincere feeling, so that they can grow to be human beings who are perfect in every aspect.

You should scrupulously admonish and criticize the students who commit faults with the mind of parents who bring up their beloved children sternly so that they can correct them promptly, and make increasingly exacting demand on them to strictly observe the established order and rules. In this way they can acquire in their childhood a habit of doing only what the Party tells them to do.

In order to effect a decisive turn in all work at the revolutionary schools, it is needed, first of all, to bring about an innovation in the working attitude and spirit of the Party organizations and leading officials of the schools.

The Party organizations of the schools should concentrate their Party political work on thoroughly establishing the Party’s unified command system at the schools and training all the students to be powerful revolutionary talents.

They should intensify Party guidance in order to further stoke up the flames of the Three-Revolution Red Flag Movement and make the youth league and children’s union organizations briskly conduct the movements to win the title of Honoured Red Flag Class and the July 15 Honour Student Prize.

They should establish iron discipline at the schools and intensify struggle and edification so as to prevent the infiltration of even the slightest elements alien to the Party, the revolution and socialism, which the Party condemns the most.

There should never be any small room for weed or noxious plant to take root in the revolutionary schools, flower gardens which our Party cultivates with so much effort.

It is necessary to further strengthen education and guidance for preparing the educators to be truly professional revolutionaries who are steadfast politically and ideologically and well-behaved and who possess full qualifications and abilities, and to pay close attention also to providing all the teachers with good working and living conditions so that they can devote themselves to the implementation of the Party’s policy on the education of the sons and daughters of revolutionary martyrs.

The leading officials of the revolutionary schools should always work as expected by the Party and dedicate their all to the good of the students, deeply mindful of their heavy responsibility for thoroughly applying the Party’s ideas and policies on the rearing of the sons and daughters of revolutionary martyrs and for making the Party’s warm affection and care reach the students.

Commanding personnel of the KPA should devotedly set themselves to the work of strengthening Mangyongdae Revolutionary School and Kang Pan Sok Revolutionary School with the standpoint of being the masters of the work.

Strengthening the revolutionary schools can be regarded as the first process in training cadres of the KPA.

These days, the Party emphasizes it as an important matter to build up the ranks of military and political cadres of the KPA. The commanding personnel of the KPA should fully display their sincerity to ensure that substantial achievements are made in the work of the revolutionary schools with the mind of cultivating the “pedigree farms” with much effort while sowing seeds and applying manure.

The General Political Bureau, the Ministry of National Defence and the General Staff should intensify political, policy-oriented and practical guidance over the educational work of Mangyongdae Revolutionary School and Kang Pan Sok Revolutionary School, provide them with educational conditions and their students with living conditions in a responsible manner and solve in time the problems arising in operating, maintaining and managing on a regular basis the educational facilities and equipment the Party provided with much effort and sprucing up the educational environment.

They should not only take measures for the teachers of the revolutionary schools to learn from good experience of other educational institutions, improve their qualifications as educators and broaden their visions but also establish a proper supply service system and lay perfect logistic foundations for the schools.

I stress the need for Party organizations at all levels to pay close attention also to the work with the students and graduates of the revolutionary schools and bereaved families of martyrs.

It is Party organizations’ natural duty and an important affair they must never leave out to organize and conduct diverse types of edifying work with the students of the revolutionary schools when they visit their homes during vacation, attach importance to the graduates of the schools and take care of their work and family circumstances as well as their political life while inquiring into details of them.

They should value graduates of Mangyongdae Revolutionary School and Kang Pan Sok Revolutionary School the Party has strived to train, properly conduct the work of appointing them as cadres and educate and help them to fulfill their duties.

They should keep abreast of the situations of all the bereaved families whose children attend the revolutionary schools and regularly inquire about and positively solve in time the problems arising in their work and life so as to lead them to be loyal to the Party and the revolution without any slight idle thought or deviation and have a good influence on their children as well.

Comrade graduates of the revolutionary schools present here,

While working in different regions and sectors of the country as hardcore forces of our revolutionary and class positions, you should make more strenuous efforts, always being conscious of the Party’s trust and the people’s expectant look.

I believe that your reawakening to your duty and important responsibility as the sons and daughters of revolutionary martyrs at your dear alma mater today will ignite and trigger a new change and progress in your work and activities in the future.

You should brace yourselves with strong determination and make tenacious efforts to live up to the trust and expectations of the Party that has trained and put you forward as laudable revolutionaries and hardcore, to remain honourable before your parents who dedicated all their life to the revolution to leave traces of devotion and perform feats which will shine forever in the history of the country, to be absolutely loyal to the cause of the Party and to do more valuable things bringing substantial benefits to the people as you pledged yourselves leaving the schools.

Those who voluntarily and strictly review their struggle and life each day, asking themselves if they live as befits the children of Mangyongdae and work as befits a graduate of the revolutionary school, and display extraordinary revolutionary consciousness, fighting spirit and abilities to conceive and execute, are sure to make substantial achievements in their work to bring delight and courage to the Party.

As the hardcore and backbone of the Party and sons and daughters of the revolution, you should only think of the country and the people and never seek self-interest or fame.

The sons and daughters of revolutionary martyrs should not seek any official post or comfort, but find pride and pleasure in sincerely and perfectly fulfilling all the time their duties the Party and the revolution assigns them.

As it has always done so far, our Party will continue to protect all the graduates of Mangyongdae Revolutionary School and Kang Pan Sok Revolutionary School to the last while actively leading and putting them forward so that they infinitely devote themselves to the struggle for the victorious advance of the revolutionary cause of Juche without forgetting their origin.

Comrades,

At the present moment I further harden my resolution to dedicate my all, together with you, to the sacred struggle to accomplish our great cause and make our state and people the envy of the whole world.

To share the same bloodline, intention and feeling with you is the inexhaustible motive power that invigorates me with strength, wisdom and pride in making the revolution.

Fully convinced that the sons and daughters of revolutionary martyrs, who are the best fulcrum of our Party and symbolize the main pillars and roots of our revolution, will faithfully live up to the great expectations of the Party and the people and lead the revolutionary ranks in powerfully advancing the cause of socialism of our own style, I warmly congratulate you once again on the 75th anniversary of the founding of Mangyongdae Revolutionary School and Kang Pan Sok Revolutionary School.

Eternal glory and victory to our revolution steadily carrying forward the sacred lineage of Mangyongdae! -0-

http://www.kcna.kp (Juche111.10.14.)

조선중앙통신 Copyright © 2000-2022 by http://www.kcna.kp

New Translation of French Revolutionary Leader Jean-Paul Marat’s Defense of Women Against Unjust “Adultery” Laws

  We are pleased to publish yet another excellent essay by the great French Revolutionary leader Jean-Paul Marat – this time, his stalwart defense of women against Europe’s unjust “morality laws” that allowed men to commit adultery with impunity while punishing women with tremendous severity for the same “crime against public morals”.

  Marat – viciously attacked by bourgeois ideologists from the time of his death to the present day for being a “madman” “out for blood” of the criminal French aristocracy, was in fact a serious scientist, doctor of medicine and a staunch defender of the oppressed.  This essay was part of his “Plan de législation criminelle” [“Plan of criminal legislation”] produced for a competition organized in 1778 by the Berne [Switzerland] Economic Society to produce improved legal systems consonant with the new enlightenment philosophies of the era.  It is truly amazing how far-seeing his proposed reforms were, years before the US Constitution and Bill of Rights were even under consideration:

  “Everything that disturbs the social order must be punished. But what does this order consist of?  Equal rights, reciprocal benefits, mutual help, that is what its foundations must be: freedom, justice, peace, harmony, happiness, that is what its fruits must be. However, when I open the annals of the peoples, tyranny on the one hand, servitude on the other, are the only objects which, in any form, present themselves to my mind …..

  “Cast your eyes upon most of the peoples of the earth. What do you see there? Only vile slaves and imperious ministers. Are not the laws there the decrees of those who command? If only they respected their own work. But they silence the laws when they want to; they violate them with impunity; then, to cover themselves from all [reproach], they draw around them a sacred enclosure which one dares not approach.

  “In less arbitrary states, if those who command are not above the law, they always evade it without difficulty, and to escape punishment, they often have only to aggravate their crimes.

  “Even in countries where subjects in despair have broken the yoke under which they groaned, how many odious distinctions still exist, how many glaring abuses! The laws bend for the strong, it is only for the weak that they are inflexible; and such is the deplorable fate of the unfortunate that to the cruel feeling of the outrages done to them they must add the despair of never seeing the end of it.

  “Let there be no mistake, this disorder is forced. We are born in subjection or in independence, in opulence or in misery, in obscurity or in elevation, and in spite of the mobility of human things, there is only a very small number of individuals who leave the state in which they were placed at their birth; still they leave it most often only by intrigue, baseness, deceit or happy chance…”

  “To be just[,] the laws of society must never go against those of nature, the first of all laws.

  That even is not enough, if they do not tend to the general good…..

  “The only legitimate foundation of society is the happiness of those who compose it. Men have only come together as a body for their common interest; they have only made laws to fix their respective rights, and they have established a government only to ensure the enjoyment of these rights. If they renounced their own vengeance, it was in order to hand it over to the public arm; if they renounced natural liberty, it was in order to acquire civil liberty; if they renounced the primitive community of goods, it was in order to possess some part of it for themselves.

  “The generation that made the social pact is succeeded by the generation that confirms it. But when no measures have been taken to prevent the increase of private fortunes, one part of the subjects always becomes richer at the expense of the other. There is in the State a crowd of indigent subjects who will leave their posterity in misery.

  “On a land everywhere covered with the possessions of others and of which they cannot appropriate anything, they are thus reduced to perish from hunger. Now, holding on to society only by its disadvantages are they obliged to respect its laws? No, without doubt; if society abandons them they return to the state of nature, and when they claim by force rights that they were only able to alienate in order to secure greater advantages, any authority that opposes them is tyrannical…

“If it is necessary that, to maintain itself the society forces them to respect the established order, above all it must protect them from temptations of need. It owes them therefore a guaranteed subsistence, help in their illnesses and care in their old age, for they can only renounce their natural rights as long as society provides them a fate preferable to the state of nature.

“It is therefore only after having fulfilled its obligations to all its members in this way, that it has the right to punish those who violate its laws.”

**********************************

It is interesting to speculate as to how much Marat’s future wife Simone Évrard or other uncredited female philosophes may have influenced his section relating to the unequal enforcement of laws against infidelity and adultery, so passionately does Marat write in defense of the abuse of women at the hands of their male seducers, their husbands and the courts.  He puts forward a total denunciation of the hypocrisy of the legal systems which held women attempting to defend themselves against charges of infidelity up to public ridicule, condemned them to severe penalties, and once it had completely degraded them, left many unjustly convicted and even completely innocent women no recourse but to take up prostitution in order to support themselves and their children:

  “Who does not see that the law against licentiousness must equally bind the two sexes, and that the punishment given to offenders must be proportionate to the crime? This is not the case, however, and everywhere the legislator seems to have forgotten justice, to enter into the views of a corrupt century.

  […]

  “We have subjected them to the most austere obligations; it was necessary, they say; the debauchery of women would cause a terrible disorder in society. As if the debauchery of men did not cause any! […] As if the impunity of men was not the greatest of disorders! Let us leave these silly maxims of a corrupt century: the prejudice which favors them is shameful, but the laws which authorize them are atrocious. Cursed be forever their iniquitous empire, if they exempt a sex from being just, if they give him the right to corrupt virtue without support and if they ensure the odious privilege of tyrannizing weakness! Let us dare to protest here against their partiality: after having served crime for so long, let them finally protect innocence.”

[…]

  “Without doubt debauchery must be punished in both sexes, since it disturbs the order of society; but the punishment must be equal. Equal, I said, I am mistaken: rarely the woman is guilty (1), and rarely the man is innocent… The overflowing of the sexes always begins with the man, and no woman ever gives herself up until she has been seduced; a seducer is thus more guilty than the unfortunate woman whom he dishonors…..

  “Let us even say that in women libertinage comes almost always from hard necessity, while in the men it comes always from a vicious inclination. For every prostitute created by laziness or the love of jewelry, hunger creates a thousand; and who does not know that they all begin by being seduced?  Considering the extreme inequality of fortunes among us, the many, at the mercy of the few, find their subsistence only in servitude…”

******************************************************

From Marat’s “Plan de legislation criminelle” (1778):

  “Section V. CRIMES AGAINST MORALS.

 “Who does not see that the law against licentiousness must equally bind the two sexes, and that the punishment given to offenders must be proportionate to the crime? This is not the case, however, and everywhere the legislator seems to have forgotten justice, to enter into the views of a corrupt century.

  “It is a general observation that women are more disposed to tenderness than men: they feel the need to love earlier, and they feel it more keenly. To this inclination of nature, which, in society, would lead to great disorders if it remained unchecked, one tries from childhood to oppose [with] modesty.

  “But as everything is contradictory in our political institutions, the girls always receive in the world an education opposite to the one they have received in the paternal house. What do we not do to make them forget the lessons of wisdom? As soon as they are old enough to understand us we take it upon ourselves to exercise their imagination; we turn all their thoughts towards voluptuousness; and by a thousand enticements we seek to make their senses speak. Will their young hearts open to love?

  “Too often we have the cowardice to abuse their weakness; or if they escape our artifices, it is only by the vigilance of their mothers.

  “Has the time to form a sweet bond come at last?

  “The man has all the advantage, he chooses; the woman can only refuse; and how many foolish parents sacrifice the happiness of their daughter to ambition? Guided by a blind tenderness they tear her away from a man she esteems and cherishes, to force her to give herself to a man whom she despises and hates. Are they united? Forced to renounce from now on the object of her heart, she becomes incapable of loving another, and sees for herself only an unhappy future.

  “Happier than most, has she escaped the constraint? Her happiness is of short duration: the caresses are soon followed by marital coldness; instead of a lover, she has a master who arrogates to himself a tyrannical empire, neglects his duties, breaks his chain, and no longer believes himself bound to anything.

  “Informed of his infidelities, does she wish to complain? He does not listen to her reproaches and flees so as not to see her tears flow. Tired of complaining in vain about the inconstant one who lacks faith in her, if she imitates his example, he cries out for vengeance, he severely punishes her without mercy.

  “Who would believe her? Far from coming to the aid of a weak oppressed person the laws join a cruel oppressor; and for a fault that he commits with impunity she always loses her reputation, often her freedom, sometimes even her life. This is how, in all places, the legislator has exercised the most horrible tyranny (1) against the sex that needs protection the most.

  “Was it necessary that to so many outrages are added the barbarity of prejudice! At their feet as long as they seem to feel nothing for us we despise them as soon as they show themselves too sensitive; and to the eternal shame of our century how many are denounced for the same weaknesses which we take pride in!

(1) This tyranny is so revolting that the judges themselves seem to make a game of it: such a one, having just signed the condemnation of an adulteress, begins to write a love letter to the woman he is trying to corrupt. (Note by Marat.)

  “Next to the picture of a deceived woman let us place that of a seduced girl. That by dint of hypocritical care a man touches the heart of a young person, and that by dint of false oaths he leads her to surrender, what bitter sorrows a moment of credulity will soon cost her! she will weep for it all her life, and her tears will never erase her disgrace…

  “At least if she found some resource in public pity; but far from taking the defense of a girl indignantly seduced the world takes pleasure in publishing her frailty; and while they boo her, the coward who has deceived her does not perceive any difference in the reception he receives.  If he is rich, he continues to be proud, and he will not find it less attractive to seduce other girls, who still have their innocence.

  “After having spent a long time crying over his fault will he at last be allowed to return to the world? but this weak consolation is refused to her; she is shunned, and if she is without fortune, forced to hide, often the only thing left for her to live on is to give herself to prostitution…

  “At the sight of so many traps stretched under the feet of youth, of so many baits offered to innocence, of so much violence done to weakness, what just soul would not excuse the faults of a fragile sex that we have subjected to the harshest duties; and at the sight of the awful fate of so many victims of our perfidy, what sensitive soul would not be touched with pity!

  “But it is not pity, it is indignation that I would like to excite in hearts. What! Duplicity, deceit, hypocrisy, lies, perjury will not be blamable in men; and in women, sensitivity, credulity weakness will be forever degenerating! Instead of being their supporters, we will only know how to deceive them, and, after having been their vile corrupters, we will still be allowed to be their cowardly tyrants…

  “We have subjected them to the most austere obligations; it was necessary, they say; the debauchery of women would cause a terrible disorder in society. As if the debauchery of men did not cause any! As if men were not always half with them! As if the impunity of men was not the greatest of disorders! Let us leave these silly maxims of a corrupt century: the prejudice which favors them is shameful, but the laws which authorize them are atrocious. Cursed be forever their iniquitous empire, if they exempt a sex from being just, if they give him the right to corrupt virtue without support and if they ensure the odious privilege of tyrannizing weakness! Let us dare to protest here against their partiality: after having served crime for so long, let them finally protect innocence.

  “Without doubt debauchery must be punished in both sexes, since it disturbs the order of society; but the punishment must be equal. Equal, I said, I am mistaken: rarely the woman is guilty [I am speaking of a woman who has not yet gone astray.  (Note from Marat.)] , and rarely the man is innocent… The overflowing of the sexes always begins with the man, and no woman ever gives herself up until she has been seduced; a seducer is thus more guilty than the unfortunate woman whom he dishonors…..

  “Let us even say that in women libertinage comes almost always from hard necessity, while in the men it comes always from a vicious inclination. For every prostitute created by laziness or the love of jewelry, hunger creates a thousand; and who does not know that they all begin by being seduced?

  “Considering the extreme inequality of fortunes among us, the many, at the mercy of the few, find their subsistence only in servitude…..

  “Libertinism is horrifying, and I do not seek to justify it; however as it is almost always forced among women, the government has no right to punish them, as long as it allows them to lack the necessities of life (1a); even less does he have the right to make them bear alone the punishment for a fault they share.

  “But once they have been removed from misery and instructed in their duties, in the risks they run, and in the means to resist if they devoted themselves to this infamous state, they would become susceptible to justice…..

  “I have insisted for a long time on this article, and it was necessary; because it interests half of the human race; because the public opinion concerning it is monstrous; because the laws relating to it are barbaric, and because their injustice seems to be consecrated by the legislators of all the civilized nations.” (1b)

(1a) Marat develops his thought thus a few pages further: “To proscribe libertinism, it is little to crack down on those who indulge in it, it is necessary to remove the opportunities to indulge in it by withdrawing from indigence the women whom it reduces to putting a price on their virtue: one will thus establish in each large city a hospice where will be brought up the daughters of poor citizens; these children will be instructed in the most necessary things; one will teach them each some useful profession, and they will be provided with the means to establish themselves.”

(1b) Should we be surprised? Where does such a great unanimity of opinion on this matter come from?  From the fact that men alone have made the laws. The way to be impartial in a cause where they were judge and party.  (Note from Marat.)

SOURCE:  “Oeuvres de J P Marat (L’Ami du Peuple)”, (Decembre-Alonnier, Paris, 1869), by Paris Commune leader and martyr Auguste-Jean-Marie Vermorel.

Translation copyright 2022 by IWPCHI, using “Deep L Translator” (www.deepl.com/Translator) and the “Reverso Dictionary” (dictionary.reverso.net/french-english)

 

New Translation of French Revolutionary Leader Jean-Paul Marat’s Autobiography

We are pleased to begin publishing our own translations of some of the most significant works of the great leaders of the French Revolution:  Maximilien Robespierre and Jean-Paul Marat.  These most incorruptible and uncompromising revolutionaries of 1789 – like all great revolutionaries – have been slandered and their political works traduced by bourgeois historians and politicians throughout the capitalist world in an attempt to eradicate their memory among the workers of the world.  They are most often slandered as being nothing but bloodthirsty murderers, even by the French bourgeoisie they helped bring to power; this is primarily because they demanded the typical harsh capital punishment of that era for the murderous French aristocrats (whose ancestors had butchered countless rebellious peasants and workers over the centuries, and who had repeatedly plunged France into bloody European wars for the sole purpose of enriching themselves and their families) rather than solely on the “lower classes”.

Marat exposed the nature of the monstrous calumny heaped upon himself and his fellow revolutionaries by the treacherous French aristocracy that was at that time busy conspiring with foreign nations to invade France, drown the Revolution in blood and restore Louis XVI to the throne: “They make [it] a crime of me to have asked for the heads of traitors and conspirators.  But have I not seen these scoundrels [scoff at] the people’s vengeance [as] when they [defied] the sword of justice with impunity, and when the ministers of the law were only busy assuring their impunity?  And then where is the great crime [in having] demanded five hundred criminal heads to spare five hundred thousand innocent ones!  Is not this very calculation a trait of wisdom and humanity?”

Why do the apologists for today’s criminal capitalist classes continue to slander and vilify the great French revolutionaries?  It is because even to this day the names of Robespierre and Marat strike terror in the hearts of the most criminal elements of the bourgeoisie, raising up in their guilt-wracked imaginations the probability of their own end under the guillotine should there ever be an uprising of the capitalist system’s own sans-culottes like that which took place during the French Revolution.

These translations were accomplished using the machine translation service “Deep L Translator” (www.deepl.com/Translator) as well as the online “Reverso” French-English dictionary (dictionary.reverso.net/french-english).  We’re very impressed with the ability of the “Deep L” translator to produce a very tolerably accurate translation from French into English at the first try; we then had to manipulate it a bit to improve the quality of the translations; then in cases of questionable renderings into English we used the extensive resources of the “Reverso” dictionary to find appropriate synonyms to render the final translation into English.  We have tried to maintain as closely as possible the precise French terminology word-for-word in order to capture the original language and phrasing of the writers – with all their ambiguities and unique phrasing intact, so as to capture as closely as possible the actual speech of these 18th century writers rather than substituting modern terminology for their 18th century verbiage.

Undoubtedly there will be errors in these translations but we hope to have reduced them to a minimum; it would be appreciated if our readers would alert us to any corrections necessary.

—— IWPCHI

****************************************************

[This autobiography of Marat, in addition to the interest that it offers, is all the more precious [because] we absolutely lack documents on his youth. All that is known is that Jean-Paul Marat, Swiss of origin, was born in Boudry, in the ex-principality, now republic of Neufchatel, on 24 May, 1743. He was the son of Jean-Paul Marat, from Cagliari, in Sardinia and Louise Cabrol from Geneva. M. Bougeard [sic; in fact the name is “Bougeart” – IWPCHI], one of his last biographers, quotes his birth certificate in which the name is spelled Mara. – The very remarkable book dedicated to Marat by M. Alfred Bougeard (Marat, l’ami du peuple, 2 vol. in-8, Librairie internationale, 1860) was the object of regrettable judicial rigor. It has been seized and suppressed by judgment and the author was condemned to four months in prison.

  Fabre d’Eglantine published a Portrait de Marat from which we extract the main features:

“Marat was of the smallest stature; he was barely five feet tall. He was nevertheless strongly built, without being fat or bloated; he had broad shoulders and stomach, thin belly, short and spread thighs, arched legs, strong arms, and he waved them with vigor and grace. On a rather strong neck, he carried a head of a very pronounced character; the face was broad and bony, the nose aquiline, and even crushed; the underside of the nose prominent and advanced; the mouth medium and often tightened in one of the corners, by a frequent contraction; the thin lips, the large forehead, the eyes of yellow gray color, witty, lively, piercing, serene, naturally soft, even gracious, and of an assured look; the rare eyebrow, the leaden and withered complexion; the black beard, the brown and unkempt hair; he walked with his head high, straight and backward, with a cadenced rapidity, which undulated under a swaying of the hips; his most ordinary posture was to cross his two arms tightly over his chest. When speaking in society, he agitated himself vehemently, and almost always ended his expression with a movement of his foot, which he turned forward and struck the ground with, suddenly rising on the tip of his toes, as if to raise his small stature to the height of his opinion. The sound of his voice was manly, sonorous, a little fat and of a bright timbre; a defect of the tongue made it difficult for him to pronounce clearly the c and the s, whose pronunciation he mixed with the consonance of the g, without any other noticeable inconvenience than to have the flow a little heavy; but the feeling of his thought, the plenitude of his sentence the simplicity of his elocution and the brevity of his speech absolutely erased this heaviness in the weight of his jaw. He dressed in a careless manner; his carelessness on this point announced a complete ignorance of the propriety of fashion and taste, and one may even say the air of impropriety.” – Note by Vermorel.]

**********************************************

PORTRAIT OF THE FRIEND OF THE PEOPLE DRAWN BY HIMSELF.

  I beg the pardon of my readers if I talk to them today about myself, it is neither self-love, nor fatuity, but simply a desire to better serve the public good. How can I be accused of showing myself as I am, when the enemies of freedom keep on denigrating me, representing me as a burnt-out brain, a dreamer, a madman, or as an anthropophagus, a tiger with a taste for blood, a monster who only breathes carnage, and that to inspire fear at the hearing of my name, and to prevent the good that I would like to do, that I could do.

  Born with a sensitive soul, an imagination of fire, an ebullient, frank, tenacious character; an upright spirit, a heart open to all the exalted passions and especially to the love of glory, I have never done anything to alter or destroy these gifts of nature, and I have done everything to cultivate them.

  By an [uncommonly good fortune], I had the advantage of receiving a very careful education in my father’s house, unleashed all the vicious habits of childhood, which enervate and degrade man, to avoid all the deviations

______________________________________

 

[Page 5]

of youth, and to arrive at manhood without ever having given myself up to the ardor of passions; I was a virgin at twenty-one, and already for a long time given over to the meditation of the cabinet.

  The only passion which devoured my soul was the love of glory; but it was still only a fire smouldering under the ashes.

  It is from nature that I get the temper of my soul, but it is to my mother that I owe the development of my character; for my father never aspired to make anything other of me than a scholar.

  This respectable woman, whose loss I still mourn, cultivated my early years; she alone made to bloom in my heart philanthropy, the love of justice and of glory; precious feelings! soon they became the only passions which from then on fixed the destinies of my life. It was through my hands that she passed the help she gave to the needy, and the tone of interest she [showed] in speaking to them, inspired me with the one she had in mind.

  The love of men is the basis of the love of justice; for the idea of justice is developed no less by feeling than by reason. I had already developed my moral sense at the age of eight: at that age I could not bear the sight of the sight of ill-treatment of others; the appearance of cruelty aroused me to indignation, and always the spectacle of an injustice made my heart leap like the feeling of a personal outrage.

  During my early years, my physique was very weak, so I knew neither the petulance, nor the dizziness, nor the games of childhood. Docile and diligent, my masters obtained everything from me by gentleness. I was never chastened except once, and the resentment of an unjust humiliation made such a strong impression on me that it was impossible to bring me back under the rule of my teacher; I remained two whole days without wanting to take any food. I was then eleven years old; [one may judge the firmness of my character, at that age], by this single trait. My parents having been unable to make me bend, and the paternal authority believing itself to be compromised, I was locked up in a room; not being able to resist the indignation which suffocated me, I opened the window, and I hurled myself into the street. Fortunately the window was not high; but I did not let myself be violently injured in the fall; I still bear the scar on my forehead.

  The superficial men who reproach me for being all head, will see here that I was [that way] from the beginning; but what they may refuse to believe is that from an early age I was devoured by the love of glory, a passion which often changes object in the various periods of my life, but which has never left me for a moment. At the age of five, I would have liked to be a schoolmaster, at fifteen a teacher, author at eighteen, creative genius at twenty, as I aspire today to the glory of immolating myself for the fatherland.

  This is what nature has done to me, and the lessons of my childhood; circumstances and my reflections have done the rest.

  I was reflective at fifteen, observant at eighteen, a thinker at twenty-one. From the age of ten I contracted the habit of a studious life, the work of the mind became for me a real need, even in my illnesses; and, my sweetest pleasures, I found in meditation, in those peaceful moments when the soul contemplates with admiration the magnificence of the spectacle of nature, or when, folded up on itself, it seems to listen to itself in silence, weighing in the scales of happiness the vanity of human greatness, piercing the dark future, seeking man beyond the grave, and carrying a worried curiosity about its eternal destiny.

  Apart from the small number of years that I devoted to the practice of medicine, I have spent twenty-five of them in retirement, reading the best works of science and literature, the study of nature, in deep research and meditation. I believe I have exhausted almost all the combinations of the human mind on morals, philosophy and politics, to gather the best results. I have eight volumes of metaphysical, anatomical and physiological research on man.

  I have twenty discoveries [in] the various branches of physics; many have been published for a long time, the others are in my boxes. I have carried into my office the sincere desire to be useful to humanity, a holy respect for truth, the feeling of the limits of human wisdom, and my dominant passion, the love of glory; it is this alone that decided the choice of the subjects I treated, and which made me constantly reject any subject on which I could not promise myself to arrive at the truth, to great results and to be original. For I cannot bring myself to rework a subject already treated, nor to rehash the works of others.

  I would dare to flatter myself that I have not missed my goal, judging by the unworthy persecution that the Royal Academy of Sciences has never ceased to do to me for ten years, when it was assured that my discoveries on light overturned its work for a century and that I cared very little to enter its bosom. As Dalembert, Caritat, Leroi, Meunier, Lalande, Laplace, Monge, Cousin, Lavoisier, and the charlatans of this scientific body wanted to be alone on the chandelier, and that they held in their hands the trumpets of the fame, will you believe that they had managed to depreciate my discoveries in the whole of Europe, to raise against me all the learned societies, and to close to me all the journals, to the point of not even being able to announce the title of my works, to be forced to use a proxy to make them approve some of my productions(1)!

  I had been groaning for five years under this cowardly oppression, when the revolution was announced by the convocation of the Estates General. I glimpsed soon where things would come from, and I began to breathe in the hope of seeing humanity avenged at last, to contribute to breaking its fetters and to put myself in my place.

(1) This is what I did in 1785 with regard to a translation of Newton’s “Optics”, of which Beauzée was the editor, and which was judged worthy of the approval of the Academy. (Note from Marat.)

*****************************************

  It was still only a beautiful dream, I was on the verge of collapse; a cruel illness threatened to finish me in the grave. Not wanting to leave life without having done something for freedom, I composed l’Offrande a la Patrie [“Offering to the Fatherland”], on a bed of pain. This pamphlet was very successful; it was crowned by the patriotic society of the Caveau, and the pleasure I felt from it was the main cause of my recovery.

  Returned to life, I was no longer occupied with anything but the means of serving the cause of liberty.

  I was not long in becoming indignant at the bad faith of Necker and of his criminal efforts to conceal the double representation and to stop the reform of the government, which he had provoked.

  I did not delay either to be indignant of the lack of zeal of the deputies of the people, and of the tepidity of their efforts against the privileged orders which wanted to dissolve the Estates General. Fearing that they lacked the ways or means, I published my “Plan de constitution”, after having been for six weeks in relation with those who passed then for the warmest patriots, Chapelier, Siéyes, Rabaud, Barnave, Duport, etc., but I soon had reason to recognize that their apparent nullity had other causes than a lack of proper lighting, and I felt that it was necessary to work much more to fight the vices than the errors. This could only be done by means of a daily paper in which the language of austere truth would be heard, one would call the legislator back to principles, or one would unmask the rascals, the prevaricators, the traitors, or all the plots would be revealed, or we would expose all the traps, or we would sound the tocsin at the approach of the danger.

  So I started the Ami du Peuple [Friend of the People]; one knows the successes of this paper, the terrible blows which it delivered to the enemies of the revolution, and the cruel persecutions which it incurred to its author.

  By carrying my views on the National Assembly, I had well understood that, composed as it [the National Assembly – IWPCHI] was, in major part, of the enemies of freedom, it was impossible that it sincerely worked [towards victory]; also I showed the necessity of excluding the nobles, the prelates, the benefactors, the robins [sic]*, the financiers, the creatures of court, and the supporters of chicanery.

  Seeing them unceasingly scheming in secret to stop the constitution, waiting for the events to overthrow it, and pretending to work loyally on it only in times of crisis; I did not cease to emphasize the indispensable necessity to purge the national Senate by the proscription of these public enemies from all the jobs of confidence. And if, pushed to despair at the sight of their attacks, of their ceaselessly revived plots and at the hearing of the murders and massacres of so many patriots that had their throats slit, indignation finally tore me this sad truth that there is no liberty, safety and peace to hope for us, [if] these cowardly schemers should not be cut off from the number of the living,  it is [then] I was well convinced that their death was the only way to ensure public salvation. Truth so well felt by all the peoples who broke their fetters, that it is by the sacrifice of the enemies of liberty that they began their revolutions.

  Since I took up the pen in defense of my country, no one has ever bothered to refute my opinions; but every day a multitude of atrocious libels have been published against me. Those which the government published to counterbalance the influence of my paper, and to defame me, would not fit in the church of Notre-Dame. What did they produce? nothing, but to enrich the libellists and the printers. As for me, they did not make me lose a shadow of popularity for those who can hear me and who can read.

  I know well that my writings are not made to reassure the enemies of the fatherland: the rascals and the traitors fear nothing so much as to be unmasked. Also the number of the villains who have sworn my doom is prodigious. Forced to cover their resentments, their base vengeance,

*[Translator’s note: I have no idea what this means. False “Robin Hoods”? – IWPCHI]

*****************************************

their thirst for my blood, the mantle of love for humanity, of respect for the laws, they vomit from morning to night, against me, a thousand atrocious and ridiculous impostures. The only ones that have found dupes, and that they do not tire of repeating, is that I am a broken brain, a splenetic madman, or a bloodthirsty monster, or a bribed villain. I would not deign to reject these absurd slanders, if a great number of my colleagues, misled by scoundrels, were not expecting a victorious answer from me.

  I can give it to them.

  Let them read the writings that I published at the beginning of the revolution, the “Offering to the fatherland“, my “Plan of Constitution“, my “Code of Criminal Legislation“, and the first hundred issues of the “Friend of the People“, and that they tell me in which work, renowned for wisdom and philanthropy, they find more care, prudence, moderation, love of men, freedom and justice.

  They make [it] a crime of me to have asked for the heads of traitors and conspirators.  But have I [not] seen these scoundrels [scoff at] the people’s vengeance [as] when they [defied] the sword of justice with impunity, and when the ministers of the law were only busy assuring their impunity?  And then where is the great crime [in having] demanded five hundred criminal heads to spare five hundred thousand innocent ones!  Is not this very calculation a trait of wisdom and humanity?

  They accuse me of being a sold-out villain.  But I could have made millions simply by selling my silence, and I am in misery; I have lost by the revolution my estate, the remains of my fortune, and I still have 2,000 ecus in debts left to me by the rascals to whom I had given my trust, who abused my name and robbed me. I revealed my soul entirely to those of my honest colleagues who seem to ask only to know me thoroughly, to get closer to me, and to work at last for the good of the people too long forgotten by the cruel dissensions which reign in the assembly. I am ready for all the condescensions which do not compromise public safety, the rights and interests of the nation, I only require from them good faith; let them say the word, and I am ready to consult with them on the means to ensure the freedom, the peace and the happiness of the nation. I demand nothing more than to put down the whip of censorship for the rule of the legislator; but if, abusing my confidence, they only wanted to chain my pen, let them know that it would only be for a moment, I would hasten to mark them with the seal of opprobrium, and they would be my first victims, because I will never consent to deceive the people.

(Journal de la République Francaise, No. 98, 14 January 1793).

SOURCE:  “Oeuvres de J P Marat, (L’Ami du Peuple) [Works of J P Marat, (the Friend of the People)]” by socialist Paris Commune leader and martyr Auguste-Jean-Marie Vermorel, Paris, 1869.

This translation copyright 2022 by IWPCHI.

 

Introducing the IWPCHI Online Revolutionary Trotskyist Library

We are pleased to announce that we are initiating an online library of links to free, revolutionary works from leaders of revolutionary movements from the American Revolution to the Vietnamese Revolution.  You can access the Library through the link prominently displayed under the masthead of our homepage.

There is a wealth of online material we’ve been working with and have recently discovered on the Internet and we feel it is our duty to provide the same free access to all these works as we’re enjoying.  Our preference is for first editions of Revolutionary classics, from Tom Paine’s “Common Sense” to the works of  revolutionary Trotskyists.  While we will provide some links to the best “works” of Stalinist and Maoist leaders, we will focus on genuine revolutionary Marxism/Leninism/Trotskyism that is not tainted by the ideologically weak and even counter-revolutionary Stalinist renegades from Marxism/Leninism.  Likewise, we will eschew publication of most work of the classical exponents of the anarchist movement, as we consider anarchist “philosophy” to be thoroughly counter-revolutionary.

There is so much material available that it staggers the mind; rare documents that still have never been translated into English are available in Russian, German and French; and online machine translation engines are getting so good that they can render a pretty fair translation of any document instantly.  This is a great time to be a student, historian or scholar of Marxism/Leninism/Trotskyism!

We welcome your suggestions, comments and criticisms as we develop what we hope will become a valuable resource for everyone from youth just learning about socialism to scholars seeking rare documents on the Web.

Happy reading!

—- IWPCHI

Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea): Law on DPRK’s Policy on Nuclear Forces Promulgated

We are pleased to republish the recently updated law of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK, aka North Korea) regarding their official position on the use of nuclear weapons.  The bourgeois press endlessly publishes rabid anti-communist propaganda trying to demonstrate that the DPRK is a nation run by madmen and poses an existential threat to the entire world because of their small nuclear arsenal, while completely ignoring the fact that it is the mass-murdering capitalist class of the USA – the only nation in world history that has actually used nuclear weapons – with their massive nuclear arsenal, that threatens the DPRK and in fact the entire world with annihilation.  As we write this, it is not the DPRK that is threatening to plunge the world into a nuclear WWIII, but the USA, with its extremely cynical and murderous manipulation of the conflict between Ukraine and Russia that threatens such a global disaster!  This document from the DPRK demonstrates the level-headed thinking of their Communist Party’s leadership on this very important question, and can be compared quite favorably to the stated policy of the US military, which has for decades asserted that it can fight and “bounce back” from a nuclear war, so long as “only” 150,000,000 US citizens or less die in the conflict!

The “threat” that the DPRK poses to the US capitalist class and its capitalist allies exists in the fact that despite 70 years of attempts to drown the North Korean revolution, first in blood and then through murderous economic sanctions that would have long ago destroyed a similarly poor capitalist nation-state, thanks to the DPRK’s heroic dedication to the building of a planned socialist economy, it continues to defy all attempts of US imperialism to bring it to its knees.  This proves once again the viability and indeed the superiority of a planned socialist economic system over the capitalist system – and it is this living, breathing fact embodied in the DPRK that poses the “threat” to U.S. imperialism.  The US is afraid that the example set by the DPRK will be seen as a ray of hope for the billions of struggling workers around the world, who have been forced to suffer for generations, at the hands of western capitalist powers, the kind of hideous poverty unheard of in the socialist nations of the world. 

The DPRK has every right to defend itself by any and all means necessary, including with nuclear weapons, against any attempt by the US capitalist class and its puppets in Japan and South Korea to overthrow its socialist government!  Long Live the DPRK!

—– IWPCHI

[N.B.:  the text of the following document comes from the English-language website of the Korean Central News Agency, the official news agency of the DPRK.  It can be found by clicking on this link.]

 

_______________________________________________________

Law on DPRK’s Policy on Nuclear Forces Promulgated

Pyongyang, September 9 (KCNA) — The law of the Supreme People’s Assembly of the DPRK on the state policy on the nuclear forces was promulgated on September 8.

According to the law, the DPRK, as a responsible nuclear weapons state, opposes all forms of wars including nuclear war and aspires to build a peaceful world in which the international justice is realized.

The nuclear forces of the DPRK are a powerful means for defending the sovereignty, territorial integrity and fundamental interests of the state, preventing a war on the Korean peninsula and in Northeast Asia and ensuring the strategic stability of the world.

The nuclear posture of the DPRK is guaranteed by the reliable, effective and matured nuclear deterrence, defensive and responsible nuclear forces policy and flexible and purposeful strategy for using nuclear weapons capable of actively coping with any existing and developing nuclear threats in future.

The opening of the DPRK’s policy on the nuclear forces and legal stipulation of the use of nuclear weapons are aimed to reduce the danger of a nuclear war to the maximum by preventing misjudge among nuclear weapons states and misuse of nuclear weapons.

The Supreme People’s Assembly of the DPRK decides as follows in order to make the nuclear forces, the backbone of the state defence capacity, and discharge their heavy mission in a responsible manner.

Mission of Nuclear Forces

The nuclear forces of the DPRK shall be a main force of the state defence which safeguards the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the country and the lives and safety of the people from outside military threat, aggression and attack.

1) The nuclear forces of the DPRK shall regard it as their main mission to deter a war by making hostile forces have a clear understanding of the fact that the military confrontation with the DPRK brings about ruin and give up attempts at aggression and attack.

2) The nuclear forces of the DPRK shall carry out an operational mission for repulsing hostile forces’ aggression and attack and achieving decisive victory of war in case its deterrence fails.

2. Constitution of Nuclear Forces

The nuclear forces of the DPRK shall be composed of different kinds of nuclear warheads, delivery means, command and control system and all the personnel, equipment and facilities for the system’s operating and updating.

Command and Control of Nuclear Forces

The nuclear forces of the DPRK shall obey the monolithic command of the president of the State Affairs of the DPRK.

The president of the State Affairs of the DPRK shall have all decisive powers concerning nuclear weapons.

The state nuclear forces command organization composed of members appointed by the president of the State Affairs of the DPRK shall assist the president of the State Affairs of the DPRK in the whole course from decision concerning nuclear weapons to execution.

In case the command and control system over the state nuclear forces is placed in danger owing to an attack by hostile forces, a nuclear strike shall be launched automatically and immediately to destroy the hostile forces including the starting point of provocation and the command according to the operation plan decided in advance.

Execution of Decision on Use of Nuclear Weapons

The nuclear forces of the DPRK shall immediately execute an order of using nuclear weapons.

Principle of Using Nuclear Weapons

The DPRK shall regard it as its main principle to use nuclear weapons as the last means in order to cope with outside aggression and attack seriously threatening the security of the country and the people.

The DPRK shall neither threaten non-nuclear weapons states with its nuclear weapons nor use nuclear weapons against them unless they join aggression or attack against the DPRK in collusion with other nuclear weapons states.

Conditions of Using Nuclear Weapons

The DPRK can use nuclear weapons in the following cases:

In case an attack by nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction was launched or drew near is judged

In case a nuclear or non-nuclear attack by hostile forces on the state leadership and the command organization of the state’s nuclear forces was launched or drew near is judged

In case a fatal military attack against important strategic objects of the state was launched or drew near is judged

In case the need for operation for preventing the expansion and protraction of a war and taking the initiative in the war in contingency is inevitably raised.

In other case an inevitable situation in which it is compelled to correspond with catastrophic crisis to the existence of the state and safety of the people by only nuclear weapons is created.

7. Regular readiness of nuclear forces

The nuclear forces of the DPRK shall be regularly ready for action so that if an order to use nuclear weapons is issued, it can immediately execute it in any conditions and circumstances.

8. Safe maintenance, management and protection of nuclear weapons

1) The DPRK shall establish a thorough and safe system of storing and managing nuclear weapons to make sure that all the processes such as storage and management, the assessment of their lifespan and performance and their updating and dismantlement are conducted in conformity with administrative and technical regulations and legal procedures, and shall guarantee its implementation.

2) The DPRK shall take thorough protective steps for fear that nuclear weapons, technology and equipment concerned, nuclear substances, etc. will leak out.

9. Qualitative and quantitative increasing and upgrading of nuclear forces

1) The DPRK shall constantly assess outside nuclear threats and the change in the posture of international nuclear forces and correspondingly upgrade and beef up its nuclear forces in a qualitative and quantitative way in response to it.

2) The DPRK shall regularly update its strategy of using nuclear weapons according to different situations to enable its nuclear forces to reliably perform their mission.

10. Non-proliferation

The DPRK, as a responsible nuclear weapons state, shall neither deploy nuclear weapons in the territory of other countries nor share them and not transfer nuclear weapons, technology and equipment concerned and weapon-grade nuclear substances.

11. Others

1) The Law of the Supreme People’s Assembly of the DPRK “On further consolidating the position of the self-defence nuclear weapons state” adopted on April 1, 2013 shall be invalid.

2) Relevant organs will take technical measures to execute the law.

3) None of the articles of the law shall be interpreted to restrain or limit the exercise of the DPRK’s just right to self-defense. -0-

http://www.kcna.kp (Juche111.9.9.)

 

Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea): Full Text of Kim Jong Un Speech On Nuclear Weapons Policy

We are pleased to present to our readers a very significant policy speech given by Kim Jong Un, the General Secretary of the Korean Workers Party and President of State Affairs.  In this speech, he clearly warns the United States that he and his government are prepared to defend the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK, known in the US as “North Korea”), including the use of nuclear weapons if the DPRK is faced with an invasion from the USA, the South Korean puppet regime of the US, or both.

The context of the speech is important.  As we wrote in the previous article to this one, the United States has engaged in decades of deadly provocations against the Korean workers state in the form of constant “war games” in preparation for initiating an attempt to overthrow the DPRK and restore capitalist exploitation to North Korea.  However, in the past several years, the United States has started to openly proclaim its intention to “decapitate” the leadership of the DPRK in a massive attack from South Korea which may include the use of nuclear weapons to destroy the defensive underground bunkers which the workers of the DPRK constructed to survive the massive bombing campaign the US launched against them in the Korean War, killing an estimated  3 million North Koreans.  In response, North Korea has – in spite of crushing US sanctions that have caused immense suffering for the workers of the DPRK –  embarked on a crash program to develop a nuclear arsenal capable of defending their country.  We wholeheartedly agree with this heroic attempt by North Korea to defend itself from the psychotic warmongers of the US imperialist capitalist class and their murderous gangster regime in Washington.  The US government is the #1 terrorist threat in the world today!  Defend the DPRK!  End All Sanctions Against the DPRK Immediately! US Out of  the Korean Peninsula Now! 

This speech is one of the most revolutionary socialist speeches I’ve ever seen from any Stalinist leader, ever.  Kim Jong Un very logically lays out the truth about why the DPRK is compelled to embark on the construction and deployment of a small but effective nuclear arsenal capable not only of defending the DPRK from attack from South Korea but also to reach the territory of the United States in the event of an all-out attack on the DPRK.  He warns the bloodthirsty mass-murdering US government that it would be a deadly miscalculation to assume that the socialist DPRK would never actually launch its nuclear arsenal. 

Will the madmen and women of the rapidly disintegrating US capitalist regime hear this message?  It’s impossible to tell; hell-bent on maintaining their increasingly tenuous position as the sole superpower in the world while threatening to launch simultaneous wars against the second- and third most powerful nuclear armed nations – capitalist Russia and Socialist China, the US capitalist class and their blood-soaked political flunkies in Washington are capable of anything.

The only way to prevent the rampaging mass-murderers of the US government from launching a nuclear World War Three – in which millions of US cities and their populations WILL BE DESTROYED is if the working class of the USA immediately organizes a revolutionary socialist workers party to lead the struggle to overthrow the most murderous capitalist class in world history – the US capitalist class – permanently disarming these maniacs before they either intentionally or accidentally plunge the world into a nuclear Armageddon. This is the goal of our political activism: to build just such a party.  Time is running out for the workers of the USA to step up and fight to stop “our” government from launching WWIII.  What are you waiting for?  Dump the Republicrats and build a workers party!  Fight for a revolutionary socialist workers government!  Fight for a socialist future –  because there is literally NO FUTURE for the working class under the capitalist system!

—- IWPCHI

**********************************

[SOURCE:  Korean Central News Agency (DPRK): http://kcna.kp/en/article/q/15f336993bdcb97a22f50fa590e6bc72.kcmsf]

KCNA | Article | Respected Comrade Kim Jong Un Makes Policy Speech at Seventh Session of the 14th SPA of DPRK

Korean Central News Agency

48 – 61 minutes

Pyongyang, September 10 (KCNA) — The respected Comrade Kim Jong Un made a policy speech at the Seventh Session of the 14th Supreme People’s Assembly of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea on September 8.

Following is the full text of the policy speech:

Dear comrade Deputies,

Esteemed Chairman of the Standing Committee and Deputy Speaker of the Supreme People’s Assembly,

Dear observers,

This Seventh Session of the 14th Supreme People’s Assembly, convened in the lead-up to this anniversary of the founding of our glorious country, has provided legal weapons which are of great significance in implementing the major policies of the Party and the government.

In particular, the adoption of a law related with the policy of the nation’s nuclear forces in accordance with the unanimous will of all the Korean people is a noteworthy event that proclaimed at home and abroad that we have come to possess by law a war deterrent as a means for defending the state.

Thus achieved is another important historic cause of establishing a political and institutional mechanism for definitely guaranteeing the eternal security of our state and people as well as the distant future.

Recognizing that the policy of the nuclear forces was instituted as a law in a historic period, very important in view of the current situation of our revolution, the trend of developments and the mission of the nuclear forces of our Republic, I feel grateful that all the Deputies adopted with unanimous approval the most important law at a most important moment.

I also extend warm encouragement and greetings to Deputies who, as representatives of the people, are devoting all their efforts, wisdom and passion for consolidating the state power rock-solid and accomplishing the struggle objectives advanced at the Eighth Congress of the Workers’ Party of Korea.

Comrades,

The higher the stage of socialist construction for achieving the independence of the masses reaches, the greater the challenge and resistance by the imperialists become.

As long as imperialism, whose inherent nature and means of existence is aggression and plunder, exists, the source of war cannot be rooted out, and antagonism and struggle between socialism, which aspires after independence and peace, and imperialism is unavoidable in the development of history.

Therefore, it is a crucial and vital requirement in achieving a steady development and prosperity of socialism that conditions and an environment that allow no aggressive threat be created; to this end, we should possess an absolute strength with which we can definitely overwhelm the enemy.

Our Republic, as a citadel of the anti-imperialist struggle and a fortress of socialism, resolutely promoted the construction of a self-reliant national defence capability according to its own timetable in the face of intervention and pressures by the hostile forces of all hues. By doing so, it put an end to the era when the US imperialists unilaterally imposed nuclear threat.

And today it has accomplished the historic cause of making a permanent legal confirmation of the law of the policy of the nuclear forces.

This is a clearer demonstration of the independent determination of the government of the Republic and its will to defend the sovereignty and interests of the state.

Our nuclear weapons are a means for containment and ultimate weapon that our Republic, which from the early days of its birth had been under the nuclear threat by the United States, the first country to use nuclear weapons and the largest nuclear power in the world, possessed by waging an arduous and bloody struggle for scores of years so as to reliably defend its dignity and security and completely remove the danger of a nuclear war.

With an absurd sophistry that our nuclear weapons and our strengthening of the self-defence capability pose a serious threat to global peace and the security in the region, the United States is now obsessed with spreading a rumour in the international arena aimed at demonizing the government of our Republic; it is also tenaciously resorting to the harshest-ever sanctions and blockade and political and military offensive to bring us under its control psychologically and physically even by enlisting all its vassal forces.

What the United States tries to achieve is not merely to remove our nuclear weapons; its final objective is to overthrow our government some day by inducing us to abandon the nuclear weapons and further give up our capability of exercising the right to self-defence or by making the capability inferior to its own.

Through unheard-of sanctions and blockade, it is attempting to make us think about the cost of our option for the nuclear weapons and induce and incite complaint among our people about their Party and government by creating a harsh environment for us and by making us feel worn out and uncertain and threatened with regard to the environment for a stable development of our state; in this way they are trying to lead us but to give up the nuclear weapons of our own accord.

But never.

It is the enemy’s misjudgement and miscalculation.

Let them impose sanctions for 100, nay 1 000 days or even ten or 100 years.

It is not we that would give up the right to self-defence, on which the country’s right to existence and the security of the future of the state and the people depend, so as to escape or make a detour even a moment around the difficulties we are experiencing now; we can never give up the nuclear weapons however harsh the circumstances are in the political and military situations the United States has created on the Korean peninsula and moreover as we have to contain the United States, our nuclear enemy state, in a far-sighted way.

Our people are well aware of the many historical events in the 20th century and 21st century, in which some countries saw and are seeing their last days and tragic ends as a result of wrong choices they made unable to bear the US imperialists’ stereotyped preaching and sophistry, sanctions and pressure, and military threat.

Our generation will not pursue an immediately visible improved environment for the economic life at the cost of giving up the nuclear weapons, which guarantee the security of the government of our Republic and the coming generations, to find our own comfort and to escape today’s difficulties unable to bear the enemy’s deceitful preaching and tenacious pressure, nor will we change our choice even if it would mean experiencing great difficulties.

In this way, we should remain as the greatest and iron-willed generation in the history of our Republic’s development.

The United States can never and ever realize their ambition with regard to our state or make our people change their choice.

Whose side on earth is the time on?

It is the enemy who feel hard-pressed now; we do not feel hard-pressed, and we are fully able to live by our own efforts and in our own way even in these circumstances.

In direct proportion to the increase of the period of suffering imposed on our people by the US’s brutal hostile policy against us, our absolute strength is continuing to be built up at exponential speed and the security threat they have to face is increasing in direct proportion.

The nuclear forces of our Republic will responsibly perform their important mission to contain grave political and military provocations against our state by the United States and its vassal forces and to put their prospective threats under control, and today this was clarified in a law of the state.

As our Republic values most its independence and self-respect and the destiny of its people, never forgives hostile acts that may do harm to them and means what it says, it could take such an audacious political decision as codifying the policy of the nation’s nuclear forces in a law.

The world will clearly realize once again what is a truly independent powerful country and a state of justice in modern days, when pursuit of hegemony is more rampant, and how mighty is the unquenchable spirit of our Republic dealing squarely with the United States, the empire of evil.

Comrades,

Looking back the arduous and protracted journey that our revolution has made so far since it started out with two pistols, all the events of history condensed in it tug at my heartstrings.

The successes achieved are really great, and they are felt weightier and more valuable as they are a fruition of the unstinted support and encouragement from all the people, their precious sweat and blood, and their indescribable painstaking efforts.

To tell the truth, we had to build up the nuclear forces of our Republic and make its combat preparedness perfect while standing face-to-face with the allied imperialist forces single-handedly and coping with their most inhumane and outrageous moves of sanctions and suffocation. It was a do-or-die battle we had to fight in the face of untold sufferings and trials.

It meant that our beloved children and all other people had to tighten their belts still further and suffer from greater hunger, and that all our dear families had to undergo appalling difficulties in life.

Although it was an unavoidable choice we had to make to win a greater victory, it was an untrodden path on which we had to be prepared to suffer unbearable loss and the result of which we were little sure of.

Nevertheless, our people rendered absolute support to our Party for the cause, which it started with the trust in them alone, making single-hearted and all-out efforts for it despite all manner of hardships.

Obviously our scientists and technicians made tangible contributions to the accomplishment of the historic cause of building the nation’s nuclear forces; yet, but for our people, who remained fully convinced of the victory without any yielding to such intolerable and uninterrupted sufferings, we could not have followed to the end the road of possessing nuclear weapons, nor could our Republic have greeted today when the policy of the nuclear forces was codified in a law.

Our people, by overcoming all sorts of trials by dint of their unique, strenuous fortitude and patriotism, have finally raised the glory and dignity of our state up to such a height as no one would ever dispute it.

On behalf of the Party and government, I extend my heartfelt thanks to our people throughout the country.

Comrades,

The legalization of the policy of the nuclear forces in accordance with the unanimous desire and iron will of all the people is of tremendous significance.

With this, the position of our state as a nuclear nation has become irreversible.

If our nuclear policy is to be changed now, the world has to be changed, and so should the political and military environment on the Korean peninsula.

There will never be such a thing as our abandonment of the nuclear weapons or denuclearization first, nor will there be any negotiations to this end or bargaining chip in these processes.

The nuclear weapons represent our nation’s dignity and honour; they mean the absolute might of our Republic and a source of the great pride of the Korean people.

As long as there exist nuclear weapons and remains imperialism on the earth, and as long as the United States and its vassal forces refuse to stop their anti-DPRK manoeuvrings, our journey of building up the nuclear forces will not come to an end.

Our Republic’s nuclear forces represent the destiny of the country and the people and their lasting prestige–this is our steadfast stand.

We have drawn the line of no retreat regarding our nuclear weapons so that there will be no longer any bargaining over them. Herein lies the great importance of the legalization of the policy of the nuclear forces.

The event has made the peace-loving stand of the government of our Republic and our policy of the nation’s nuclear forces more transparent and justifiable.

It is a desire of humanity to live in a peaceful world free from aggression and war.

Yet, peace does not come of its own accord simply because they are desirous of it; it is something that we can achieve and defend only when we are strong enough to contain the imperialist tyranny.

Our Republic’s legalization of the policy of the nuclear forces constitutes a righteous blow to the imperialists who are violating and disrupting the right to independence and peace.

Our Republic’s nuclear forces exist and will come into use to defend our territory, people and self-respect and global peace and security from the imperialist tyranny, and not to pursue intervention in the internal affairs of other nations or hegemony. Accordingly, they in no way pose any threat to those nations and peoples that are friendly to us and desirous of peace.

For their inherent characteristics, the standards and principles of management, operation and other matters related with nuclear weapons should be clearly stipulated by law.

Otherwise, they might fall into an uncontrollable state to be misused for other purpose, or employed in pursuance of any unjustifiable interests, driving humanity into a horrible nuclear holocaust at any moment.

The current law on the policy of our Republic’s nuclear forces clearly stipulates detailed provisions, such as the mission and composition of the nuclear forces, control and command over them, principles and conditions for their use, and their safe maintenance and protection.

Such being the case, the law fully accords with the desire of humanity for justice and peace, and there is no room for anyone to pick a quarrel with, or question, our nuclear forces in the future.

The legal weapon, provided to reliably guarantee the historic advance towards the comprehensive development of our own style of socialism, constitutes, together with the proud victories and successes achieved this year, an epoch-making occasion in remarkably raising the fighting spirit of all the people.

This year the government of our Republic has been faced with the heavy task of building a high road to fulfilling the five-year plan set out by the Eighth Party Congress.

Every part of the efforts to carry it out has encountered unprecedented trials and ordeals, but our struggle has been more courageous and progressive, and has borne more valuable fruits.

We overcame the threatening public health crisis, the first of its kind since the founding of our state, in a short span of time by waging a tenacious struggle based on single-hearted unity, the unity of one mind and one body, and defended the security of the state and the people by turning the whole country back to the state of cleanness–this is a great victory we have achieved this year.

In the face of the doubts of the whole world, we displayed to the full the politico-ideological might and superiority of the socialist system by bringing the unprecedented anti-epidemic war to a victorious conclusion at the earliest date possible, and this instilled greater confidence and pride in the people across the country and actively encouraged them to make more dynamic efforts for socialist construction.

In addition to the most serious epidemic crisis, natural disasters hit the country. However, all the people have redoubled their efforts with no sign of pessimism, disappointment, fear and despair, persistently pushing ahead with this year’s formidable struggle tasks including the immediate farming work and major construction projects. These are also miraculous achievements in which we ought to take pride.

Such key industrial sectors as the metallurgical, chemical, electric- power, coal-mining industries and rail transport, the buttresses of our self-supporting economy, and several other sectors directly related to improving the people’s standard of living have scored laudable successes in fulfilling their production plans by waging an offensive struggle.

Unified guidance and management of the overall state affairs including the economic work is being further intensified with the socialist character being restored, and long-range projects are being designed and pressed forward with an eye to decades in the future, laying foundations and assets for the country’s economic development and promotion of the people’s wellbeing.

Sci-tech research has been decisively turned into that for solving the practical problems in accordance with pragmatic plans and objectives, the country’s education is developing in a balanced way and with orientation towards training practically competent talents, the public health sector has gained valuable experience with which to deal with any type of epidemic and other public health crisis, and other meaningful progress has been made this year in developing socialist culture.

The victories and successes we have achieved this year clearly testify to the fact that our Republic is vigorously advancing towards comprehensive development and prosperity without any sign of stagnation, marking time and frustration, overcoming the subjective and objective challenges in all sectors.

Comrades,

Our Republic, holding higher the banner of independence and justice, has assumed a heavy duty for the times and history, and this demands a more vigorous struggle and advance and a greater victory.

It is without doubt that all the reactionary forces, shocked at our Republic’s political measure of legalizing the policy of the nuclear forces, will surely turn out to be ever more desperate and relentless.

The challenges and obstacles lurking in our way ahead will never be removed unless the hostile forces get out of their deeply-ingrained and instinctive delusion that some day they might completely disarm us of the nuclear armaments and make our system collapse by employing such stereotyped tricks as threats and intimidation, sanctions and allurement.

The world will watch with keen interest how our people’s choice of building a powerful socialist country will be kept, how the DPRK will carry out its determination and what other amazing miracles will be worked on this land.

To grow stronger in the face of trials and to steadily develop and advance by building on the successes already gained is our Republic’s unique trait which has been proven in the course it has followed.

As this immutable law dictates, we should continue to grow stronger in the future, too, and accomplish the struggle tasks we set out to do in an unconditional and perfect manner with no alteration on the road of our choice.

Today the government of our Republic is faced with the task of thoroughly maintaining and implementing the Party’s lines and policies to achieve fresh innovations and development befitting the prestige of our state in every field.

To enhance our ultimate strength into infinity and make our armed forces more invincible by giving top priority and importance to building up the national defence capability–this is the primary revolutionary task facing the government of our Republic.

In view of the geopolitical features and strategic position of our country and the prevailing situation created before our revolution, the absolute military supremacy of our state over the aggressive forces of imperialism poses as an indispensable requirement.

The United States, which felt a great fear it would face in the near future after witnessing the defence development in some sectors we have opened to the public in recent years, is now continuing to cling to the heinous moves of sanctions and blockade and, at the same time, committing a grave intimidation-oriented sabre-rattling while hurling its nuclear strike weapons on a large scale around the Korean peninsula.

The present south Korean regime, too, is trumpeting about the strengthening of the south Korea-US combined defence posture by improving the executive ability of the south Korea-US “extended deterrence” and the enhancing of “deterrence” and “reaction capability” by building what they call “Korean-style three-axis system,” asserting the brigandish logic of containing us to make up for its army’s military inferiority; it is stepping up dangerous military manoeuvrings and modernization of armaments which further aggravate the military tension in the region.

Such serious circumstances show that the military situation around our state has assumed a protracted nature, going from bad to worse, and, accordingly, we should be thoroughly prepared for them.

However, the situation aggravated by the enemy’s moves has provided excellent conditions and environment for us to develop our military forces more rapidly and, more importantly, justness for strengthening our self-defence capability and inevitable justification for building it up on a priority basis.

The Ministry of National Defence and the defence industry of the Republic will take the prevailing situation as the most favourable opportunity to build up the military capability.

Our defence industry should correctly adhere to the planned orientation of its development true to the idea of defence development strategy put forward by the Party Congress, and speed up full steam the development of military hardware of a new generation for modern warfare.

Most importantly, it is imperative to steadily expand the space for the operation of tactical nukes and diversify their application means on a higher stage so as to enhance the combat reliability and efficiency of operational application of our nuclear forces, thus making the nuclear combat posture consolidated in every way.

It is also necessary to steadily step up the deployment of cutting-edge strategic and tactical weapon systems for combat and direct all efforts to remarkably strengthening the war deterrent of the country.

We should further strengthen the politico-ideological might unique to our state and give fullest play to it in all sectors.

All our people are firmly united with one ideology and will and with noble virtues and human feeling, and make devoted efforts for the prosperity of their country–this is the advantage unique to our country and the motive force that brings about all great miracles on this land.

The might of single-hearted unity–the invincible might of our style of socialism and the most powerful weapon of our state–should be further consolidated in ideology, purpose and moral obligation.

We must thoroughly apply the people-first politics of our Party in the overall state affairs and intensify the activities of state power to ensure that all the people take an active part in the political affairs as masters of the state and society.

We should instil in all the members of society the pride and dignity that our ideology, our system, our culture and our lifestyle are the best, and inspire them to continue to give full play to the collectivist spirit, communist virtues and beautiful traits of our society.

Our country will always prosper without any vacillation when all the people remain faithful to their civic duties while putting the interests of the state and the collective first in their consideration and live and work as genuine socialist working people who devote their patriotic mind for the development and prosperity of their country.

We should direct great efforts to preparing all the people and service personnel of the People’s Army to be vanguard class fighters and combatants who firmly safeguard their socialist country with a steadfast viewpoint on the archenemy and other enemies, and thus consolidate our politico-ideological position and class position.

The government of the Republic should dynamically push forward the struggle for implementing the five-year plan for national economic development and follow up the success in the next stage.

The most important revolutionary task facing the government is to definitely consolidate the foundations for achieving the comprehensive development of our own style of socialism and satisfactorily solve such urgent problems concerning the improvement of the people’s living standards as the problems of food and consumer goods by implementing the five-year plan without fail.

The five-year plan is aimed at advancing towards sustained economic growth and remarkable improvement of the people’s living standards on the basis of the economic situation of the country and the actual feasibilities.

When the five-year plan is implemented, the overall national economy will be put on a growth orbit with its work system, the ties among its sectors and its self-supporting foundations being readjusted and reinforced, and substantial changes will be brought about in solving the problems of food, clothing and housing for the people.

Actually, according to the strategy of readjustment and reinforcement, the lifeline and integrity of the country’s economy have been further strengthened, many irrationalities rectified in the economic management, and normalization of production, renovation of production lines and provision of domestic raw and other materials actively promoted over the past one year and eight months. In particular, a vigorous drive for building 50 000 flats in Pyongyang and for provincial construction and rural construction was launched, opening up a bright prospect for solving the housing problem.

As was clarified at the Eighth Party Congress, the GDP would increase by more than 40 percent and the production of consumer goods by more than 30 percent by the end of 2025 as compared to 2020. This shows that carrying out the five-year plan will provide a guarantee for giving an impetus to economic development of the country and the improvement of the people’s living standards and for marching confidently towards a more gigantic struggle of the next stage.

Although the economic difficulties facing us now are severe, the government of the Republic, which has taken responsibility for the destiny and livelihood of the people, should set a correct orientation of struggle for implementing the five-year plan and execute it forcefully, and thereby achieve good results without fail.

The Cabinet, as the country’s economic headquarters, should properly regulate economic construction and development in the direction of strictly supervising the overall economic work and pushing ahead with the work as a whole.

As the Cabinet is dealing with the overall economic work of the country, it is important for it to efficiently plan and direct the undertakings for developing the national economy as a whole in a simultaneous and balanced way.

…

The Cabinet should focus on the key sectors which are the cornerstone of the country’s economy, and at the same time be concerned about, responsible for and take care of other economic sectors and the people’s livelihood as a whole.

The system and order of placing the country’s economic work under the control of the Cabinet are getting stronger. To keep with this, the Cabinet should take a proper control of the overall production and other economic activities, ensure an organic link and cooperation among economic sectors, and take practical and timely measures for boosting the sectors that are lagging behind or backward. In this way it can ensure balance, smoothness and efficiency of the country’s economic work.

It should put major and sustained efforts into agricultural production and the development of light industry so as to settle the problems of food and consumer goods in the near future.

All the economic policies of our Party and government are geared to providing the people with an affluent life with nothing to envy by fully satisfying their material and economic needs.

The socialist construction we are pressing on with is, to all intents and purposes, a struggle for building an ideal society the people are desirous of and dream about. Therefore, the more the struggle is intensified, the more substantial results it should beget for the benefit of the people.

If we fail to properly solve even elementary problems arising in the people’s living, making the people have a hard time on and on, then our effort for economic work would be futile, no matter how hard we try for it.

What is most urgent in stabilizing and improving the people’s living is to solve the problems of food and consumer goods.

During the five-year plan period, we should hit the national target of grain production without fail to supply the people with enough food, and increase production in light industry both in quality and quantity to solve the problems of daily necessaries and basic foodstuffs satisfactorily.

An important task to this end is to put farming on a stable footing, increase its productivity, change the structure of grain production and improve grain procurement and food supply.

As farming conditions and environment are expected to turn more unfavourable, it is necessary to take measures to cope with them.

Scientific and technological measures like the seed revolution should be taken as the main link in the whole chain of farming so as to have a high and stable harvest without being affected by any change in the climatic conditions. The whole country should be mobilized to provide labour assistance to the countryside, and sufficient amounts of materials supplied to meet the demands of the yearly farming.

Officials, in particular, should regard unfavourable climatic conditions as a fait accompli, conduct an overall examination of agricultural production and, in line with this, give guidance over farming in a scientific and planned way.

An important way to reduce the imbalance in agricultural production and increase its stability is to rehabilitate the irrigation facilities and bring them to perfection.

The whole country should turn out in the effort to carry out the project of rebuilding the irrigation facilities without fail in two or three years by restoring or readjusting what have been destroyed or aged and by installing more where necessary.

The area of cultivation of wheat and its output have begun to increase this year; in the future, they should be increased year after year. Along with this, the work of properly storing and processing the crop should be conducted in parallel so that the policy of the Party and government for improving the people’s diet can prove its worth in reality.

…

The effort for rural rejuvenation should be stepped up under the banner of the rural revolution programme in the new era.

Rural rejuvenation precisely means the solving of the socialist rural question and the struggle to defend socialism.

As is clarified in the rural revolution programme in the new era, the first and foremost task in this regard is to enlighten the agricultural workers.

Only when the level of consciousness of the agricultural workers, masters of the rural revolution, is raised, can they have a clear understanding of the rural revolution programme in the new era, play the core and leading role in implementing it and contribute positively to further developing the socialist countryside as required by the rapidly-changing times.

In order to widen the range of the ideological consciousness of the agricultural workers, it is necessary to inject progressive and modern natures into the rural areas.

We should energetically push ahead with the work of upgrading the agricultural production environment including putting agricultural production on a scientific, modern and IT footing and mechanizing farm work on a high level. By doing this, we can not only bring about a change in the ideological consciousness of the agricultural workers but also transform all the rural communities into rich ones.

We should map out correct plans for rural construction with the main emphasis on housing construction and in accordance with the local and geographical characteristics. And we should carry them out step by step so that the rapid rejuvenation of our country’s rural communities can be noticeable and be enjoyed by the farmers.

We should boost the country’s fishing industry so as to supply the people with more fish.

The fishing industry should extensively and steadily conduct various fish farming activities including releasing fry and cage-net fish farming in all rivers and lakes, at the same time as undertaking sea fishing and sea culture briskly.

What is important here is to carry on scientific and regular investigation into the state of the conservation and propagation of the aquatic resources and, based on this, increase aquatic production in a planned manner.

We need to give a spur to effecting a revolution in light industry so as to solve the problem of consumer goods.

…

Improving the quality of consumer goods is the seed and basic orientation of the revolution in light industry.

If we, bent on fulfilling the immediate plans, continue to produce low-quality consumer goods in disregard of the demand and desires of the people who are becoming more cultured day after day, light industry of the country will drift into a vicious cycle and its development can never be expected.

The light industry sector should help its scientists, technicians and workers to widen their horizons and steadily raise their technical level and skills, and make exacting demands upon ensuring the quality of the raw and other materials, modernizing production lines and quality control work. In this way, it should fully guarantee the quality of consumer goods with the people’s appraisal as the standard.

By bolstering up the regional industries across the country, we should usher in a new era, in which regions are transformed and develop by themselves.

If the regional-industry factories in all cities and counties play their proper role, they can solve a number of problems in developing the country’s economy and improving people’s living standards.

Having renovated its regional-industry factories, Kimhwa County is meeting its local demands with its own raw material sources. We should powerfully push ahead with the work of expanding this practical experience to all the cities and counties across the country.

With regard to this, the state should establish a promoting committee so that it can take responsibility for renovating the regional-industry factories in cities and counties, including their designing and execution of their building, and push ahead with the projects.

Since the current capacity of cities and counties is weak, we, after the factories have been renovated, should take measures for securing raw materials for them and making initial investment in them until they can stand on their own feet.

The regional-industry factories should focus on improving the quality of their products and thus make a substantial contribution to improving the local people’s livelihood. And they should ensure expanded re-production so that they can operate by their own efforts.

In implementing the five-year plan for national economic development, key industries should continue to fly the banner and lead the national economy as a whole.

Key industries are the cornerstone and mainstay in our self-supporting economy; only when these sectors bring about an upsurge in production, can the overall national economy rise up and a bright view of the economic development of the next stage can be created.

For this reason, the Party and the government have already disbursed a large sum of money on bolstering up the metal and chemical industries, and intend to take more economic and practical measures needed for renovating the electric-power industry and various other key industries, expanding their capacity and putting their production on a normal track.

The metal, chemical and other key industrial sectors should carry out their production plans under any circumstances and without delay as they perseveringly implement the plans pertaining to the strategy of readjustment and reinforcement, so as to build up a more powerful motive force and potentialities for the growth and development of the national economy.

In particular, the management of labour, equipment and technology should be performed on a regular basis according to well-thought-out plans in order to prevent economic loss caused by different kinds of equipment-related accidents, and a closer connection between production and consumption should be built up from the standpoint of the state so as to enable the key industrial sectors to work without a hitch.

All sectors and units of the national economy should make a tangible contribution to the national economic development and the improvement of the people’s livelihood by improving the management of business and enterprises in a way that they can maximize profits while saving labour, energy, materials, sites and others as much as possible, starting from the viewpoint that economy is precisely increased production and patriotism.

It is needed to work out plans for long-range undertakings of great significance in the economic development of the country and the improvement of the people’s living standards, make scrupulous arrangements for them and push ahead with them in a planned way and stage by stage.

To be bent on the present production for reasons of economic difficulties of the country is just self-preservation and retreat and an expression of giving up revolution.

Genuine patriots are just those who fight on by making it a principle to plan, make arrangements for and perform any undertakings, be they big or small, so that our descendants can enjoy their benefits to the full even in the distant future.

If it is really for the good of the people and the prosperity of the country, we should set ourselves lofty ideals and goals and at the same time persistently push on with the struggle to achieve them.

It is necessary to keep channelling big efforts in the future into projects for providing our people with better and excellent living conditions, including the construction of 50 000 flats in Pyongyang and large-scale greenhouse farms.

In order for us to continue to undertake ambitious construction projects with determination in the future, too, we should build large-capacity building-materials production bases in Pyongyang and local areas and produce and supply good quality building materials like finishing materials by ourselves.

Through the struggle to continuously conduct long-range and grand construction operations and successfully complete them, we should demonstrate the development aspects of our state where the people’s long-cherished desires are fulfilled successfully one after another and its rosy future.

It is needed to make scientific calculations and accurate action plans for long-term economic projects including the construction of a large canal linking the East and West Seas of Korea and, once they are launched, national efforts should be directed to bringing success without fail.

The important affairs the government of the Republic should push ahead with at present are land administration and disaster prevention.

The heavy human casualties and material damage caused by the influence of disastrous abnormal climate that is getting ever serious are a difficult worldwide problem at present, and disasters happen also in our country every year.

The conservation of rivers is as good as the control of weather conditions and river improvement is an intermediate- and long-range undertaking.

At present, river improvement work is being limited to river dredging and the building of retaining walls along the riverside. It should be conducted according to intermediate- and long-range plans, in other words, a scientific river improvement strategy.

We should put water management on a scientific basis by making an accurate assessment of the water adjusting capacity of rivers and streams of the country, creating buffer points based on the judgment and perfecting the water management system.

…

It is necessary to keep putting big efforts into building the national disaster prevention capacity for minimizing damage from natural phenomena and, for the present, all the provinces, cities and counties should possess sufficient forces, equipment and materials needed for rescuing people in case of flood.

We should push ahead more powerfully on a nationwide scale with the protection and management of land and environment including the forest restoration campaign, afforestation for erosion control, dike projects for tide-water control and road reconstruction.

Comrades,

It is a consistent policy of the government of the Republic to attach importance to education, science and technology, and public health and direct efforts to the development of them.

At present, we badly need more than ever before a larger number of talents, practically competent talents, and scientific and technological achievements conducive to solving problems arising in reality.

The government of the Republic should put forward the talents strategy, the strategy of sci-tech development, as the core strategy for the overall rejuvenation of the state and powerfully spur the implementation of the strategy.

At present the country’s education fails to follow the developing global trend and meet the requirements of the times in terms of qualitative level.

Education fails to be aimed at training competent talents with practical ability and is confined to the one for education’s sake, or for evaluation of marks, and therefore it is of little help to national development.

The education sector should properly select subjects to enable students to spend time and energy in acquiring more practical knowledge applicable to practice and decisively improve the quality of the universal 12-year compulsory education to enhance the ability of students pre-eminently beyond comparison.

Kim Chaek University of Technology and other technical colleges should steadily raise the level of education up to the world standard in order to graduate all their students as competent and prominent scientific and technological talents.

National efforts should continuously be directed to providing all teachers and students in Pyongyang and local areas with perfect conditions for education, practice and study.

The level and role of science and technology should be increased and the resources of technical talents be effectively promoted and managed.

…

As the development of science and technology requires the preparation of means of research and talents, nationwide attention should constantly be paid to the matter and substantial measures be taken to settle it.

As I emphasize time and again, the scientific research sector should strictly guard against the attitude of making up the numbers of research achievements alone, and present proper sci-tech results, even a few in number, capable of actually shoring up the economy of the country in a year.

All sectors and units should regularly learn about and substantially review the operation of sci-tech learning spaces, the important bases for making all the people well versed in science and technology, and steadily intensify the dissemination of science and technology to activate the mass technical innovation drive.

…

It is necessary to properly ensure that sci-tech achievements are shared, absorbed and informed, good conditions are provided for gaining access to sci-tech data and excellent units, scientists and technicians are given preferential treatment and appraisal to make the climate of attaching importance to science and technology pervades the whole society.

Medical service should continuously be improved to protect and promote the life and health of our people.

Through the recent public health crisis the present state of our public health sector was evaluated in an all-round way and the urgency of increasing its level and capacity was proved all the more.

Urgent problems in medical service should be resolved first from the standpoint that the life and health of the people are a top priority.

Since the country is unable to produce all medical supplies by itself, the medical supplies needed for the medical treatment of the people and the promotion of their health should fully be provided even by importing them.

Along with this, the establishment and modernization of pharmaceutical, medical appliances and medical supplies factories should actively be pushed so as to domestically produce and supply various medicines including essential medical supplies and it is necessary to press on in a planned way with the work to renovate provincial, city and county hospitals and bring pharmacies up to standard.

It is necessary to ensure that all doctors and nurses in the public health sector acquire qualifications as defenders of human lives and communist traits.

They should be encouraged to positively emulate the spiritual world of self-sacrificing devotion displayed by the medical workers who moved the people during the recent struggle to exterminate the malignant virus; in this way we can ensure that excellent medical workers, who have cherished the word devotion deep in their hearts, can be seen everywhere in the country.

Efforts should be put into developing medical science and technology onto the world’s advanced level and a people-oriented, advanced and efficient medical care system be perfected.

The building of the national anti-epidemic capacity should be stepped up.

This is a national issue of paramount importance that can never be delayed even for a moment as there are various possibilities of continued outbreaks of malignant infectious diseases both at present and in the future.

It is important to carry out the tasks put forward at the Fifth Plenary Meeting of the Eighth Party Central Committee and the National Meeting of Reviewing the Emergency Anti-epidemic Work in connection with the building of the state’s anti-epidemic capacity while examining them on a case-by-case basis.

In particular, the state should constantly watch the volatile epidemic situation beyond the country and the characteristics of the disease with alertness, and pay attention to developing the capacity to promptly detect and control the disease once it enters its territory.

…

Recently, the World Health Organization and public health institutions of different countries have been warning that it is needed to get thoroughly prepared to cope with dangerous influenza as well as the spread of COVID-19 this winter.

And our epidemic prevention experts are of the opinion that the antibody titre which was formed among our people as they suffered from the malignant epidemic last May and June would fall around October.

Therefore, while administering vaccination in a responsible way, we should recommend that all residents wear masks for the protection of their own health from November.

…

Comrades,

The present international situation shows that the contradictions between justice and injustice and between the progressive and the reactionary, especially the power structure surrounding the Korean peninsula, have become obvious and the change from a unipolar world advocated by the US into a multipolar world is being accelerated significantly.

Our Republic will develop foreign relations proactively in line with the development trend of the current international situation and its position as a powerful independent country.

The field of external affairs should invariably hold fast as the foremost mission of the diplomacy of the Republic to the defence of the dignity of our Party, the enhancement of national prestige and the championing of national interests and settle issues arising in international relations in the interests of our revolution.

It should develop external relations in a many-sided way as it further expands and develops friendly and cooperative relations with neighbouring countries and collaborates with all countries and nations opposing and rejecting the imperialists’ aggression and interference, domination and subordination and aspiring after independence and justice, regardless of differences in ideology and system.

Along with this, it should try to find a way of making diplomatic efforts for developing multifaceted exchanges and cooperation with capitalist countries that respect our country and are friendly to it.

In order to build on today’s proud victory to achieve a greater victory in socialist construction by carrying out the aforementioned tasks facing the government of the Republic, we should thoroughly establish the Party’s unified leadership system in state building and activities.

The government of the Republic should organize and guide all affairs with the lines and policies of the Party as absolute criteria and definitely orient its activities to carrying out the Party’s policies.

All government agencies should establish a revolutionary habit of accepting and implementing the decisions and instructions of the Party unconditionally without any slight excuse or pretext and make it an iron rule which is inviolable in any circumstances to report all problems to the Party and deal with them in accordance with its conclusion.

The functions and role of the people’s power organs should be enhanced.

The work of power organs embracing all domains of social life is very complicated and enormous, and their duty and role are important as much.

All power organs should perform their duty faithfully, fully aware of their mission of representing the dignified administrative power of the Republic in their regions and being in charge of the people’s life.

They should take full charge of the policies and instructions of the Party and government for their regions and units, map out plans and give guidance in a responsible way to thoroughly implement them and positively create conditions and environment which enable institutions, enterprises, cooperative organizations and residents to conduct their work and activities smoothly and effectively.

They should make devoted efforts to ensure that all children and families enjoy the benefits of the people-oriented policies of the Party and government evenly and without exception, always learn about problems relating to the people’s living including the matters of drinking water and fuel and take careful measures in advance lest they should suffer from any slight inconvenience or trouble.

Officials who are leading members of the revolution should have extraordinary ideological preparedness and determination and make strenuous efforts all alike.

In our society, officials should become servants in the true sense of the word.

The word official is not something related to any honour or authority, and the worth of existence of officials is unthinkable separated from their natural mission of serving the people.

If officials enjoy a comfortable and luxurious life, it is not socialism at all and it brings greater trouble to the people.

All officials should never forget that their positions require them to shoulder heavier burdens and work harder for the Party and revolution, and the country and people and should be boundlessly faithful to their duties always feeling oppressive and an acute sense of responsibility without taking their eyes off even for a moment.

When there is a new job to be done, they should not evade it or take a stopgap measure, but take the lead in it as they work out a detailed plan, command the work and throw themselves to it with the trait of setting personal examples to bring about good results.

They should heighten a sense of responsibility and increase their role in work, constantly cultivate their mind and morality to live honourably before the Party and people and become truly necessary officials who know nothing but the revolution and work and can fulfil their duties flawlessly.

…

Comrade Deputies,

We will soon greet the 74th anniversary of the founding of the glorious Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

On the occasion of this meaningful day, our Republic brilliantly engraved on its proud history another megaevent that demonstrates more clearly the prestige of the dignified and independent powerful country.

We should brave and break through severer ordeals and adversities as our noble ideal and our sacred cause rise to a higher stage of success and victory.

Today our struggle is accompanied by unprecedentedly extreme difficulties and we do not know what kind of challenge may face us next.

But our Republic is obviously progressing without the slightest hesitation and vacillation and will continuously advance and grow stronger in the future, too.

It is because our cause, our ideology and our line all represent justice and truth and we have the great might of firm single-minded unity of the Party and the people which nobody can break.

Comrades,

The victory is surely on our side and the more we exert ourselves, the faster the victory will come.

For the eternal prosperity of our Republic, our beloved mother,

For the promotion of the well-being of our great people,

For the victorious advance of our own style of socialism,

Let us all advance more dynamically, closely rallied behind the Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea with one mind and purpose.

Long live the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea! -0-

 

http://www.kcna.kp (Juche111.9.10.)