Kim Jong Il (1942-2011), eternal Chairman of the National Defence Commission of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, maintained the Juche idea as his political philosophy in the revolution and construction throughout his life.
The Juche idea clarifies that man is the master of his own destiny and he has the strength with which to carve out his destiny.
In the closing years of last century socialism collapsed in several countries in succession, but the DPRK remained unperturbed; the credit should go to the line of independence maintained by Kim Jong Il. When the allied imperialist forces of the world were claiming about the “end of socialism,” he made public several works including The Historical Lesson in Building Socialism and the General Line of Our Party, Abuses of Socialism Are Intolerable and Socialism Is a Science. Through these works, the world was convinced of his faith in the truthfulness and scientific accuracy of socialism and inevitability of its triumph and his country’s unshakable will to remain unchanged on the road of its own choice.
Vishwanath, former secretary general of the International Institute of the Juche Idea, recalled the days when these works were being published, saying, “His works that declared to the whole world the scientific character of socialism were rays of the sun, a light.”
The exploit of exploits Kim Jong Il performed was that he defended socialism by administering Songun politics.
His Songun politics was a powerful political mode that made his country firmly maintain independence in the turbulent political situation of the world at the time.
With the end of the Cold War, the allied imperialist forces led by the United States, the self-acclaimed one and only superpower in the world, availed themselves of the destroyed balance of power on the planet and resorted to high-handedness and arbitrariness on the international arena; they were undisguised in their attempts to invade other countries and interfere in their internal affairs. Particularly unprecedented were their pressure and sanctions and attempts for an aggressive war against the DPRK that was steadily following the road of socialism under the unfurled banner of anti-imperialist independence.
In order to cope with the brigandish acts of the imperialists, Kim Jong Il formulated Songun politics as the basic mode of socialist politics, which requires giving precedence to military affairs over all other affairs of the state on the principle of attaching importance to arms, consolidating the driving force of the revolution with the army as the
core and main force and, by relying on it, advancing the socialist cause victoriously.
This brought about a fundamental change in the human and socialist political history.
Kim Jong Il led the struggle for defending socialism to victory by braving the difficulties; he resolutely overpowered the imperialists and crushed their outrageous pressure and challenges by responding with the tougher countermeasure of wielding a sword when the enemy were drawing a knife and levelling a cannon when they were pointing a gun.
The international community commented that the DPRK was humbling the United States while saying what it had to say on the international arena, that it was the only country that responds to the high-handed and arbitrary acts of the United States on its own terms, that the United States was on the defensive in the face of the independent Songun politics of the DPRK, and that the DPRK was leading the United States which was said to be leading the world.
In 2002 Kim Jong Il met a foreign figure on a visit to his country.
The foreigner said that the DPRK had always won victory on its own terms in the confrontation with the United States, asking him what the source of that strength was.
Kim Jong Il replied that it was the temperament of his people to confront the more fiercely the greater the pressure against them was.
Recollecting his meeting with Kim Jong Il, the foreigner wrote in an article, titled, Political Mechanics of the DPRK:
Action and reaction is the third law presented by Isaac Newton and it is a basis of the classic mechanics. On the basis of this law, a Russian scientist presented the theory of rocket and opened the era of conquering outer space; true to this law, the greater the pressure by the United States is, the greater the strength of the people of the DPRK grows and the more frequent the US nuclear threat is, the greater the country’s capability of striking becomes. This is the political mechanics of the DPRK advanced by Kim Jong Il.
The exploits performed by Kim Jong Il, a giant of independent politics, will live for ever in the hearts of the progressive people of the world.
