By Andy Brooks
Our
Party joined millions of Koreans and millions of communists all over the world
last week in recalling the outstanding achievements of dear leader Kim Jong Il
on the occasion of the 4th anniversary of his passing.
Four years have passed since the loss of
dear leader Kim Jong Il, who dedicated his life to the revolutionary movement
that was founded by Kim Il Sung, and the young militants around him, to fight
the Japanese colonialists and build a modern communist party that would lead
the Korean workers and peasants to a new life under socialism. Building a
guerrilla army that took on the might of the Japanese Empire, great leader Kim
Il Sung mobilised the masses in a struggle that ended in victory in 1945 and
the establishment of a people’s government in the north of the country.
The Workers’ Party of Korea, with Kim Il
Sung at the helm, led the battle for land reform, education and socialist
construction in the 1950s and 1960s, and then pushed forward on the engineering,
technical and scientific fronts to build a modern socialist republic where
every individual worker is master of his or her own life. The DPRK stood
shoulder-to-shoulder with the peoples of the Third World struggling to break
the chains of colonialism, and gave technical and economic aid to their new
republics to defend their freedom and independence.
From an early age Kim Jong Il worked side
by side with Kim Il Sung, and when Kim Il Sung passed away Kim Jong Il told the
Korean people and the world that they could “expect no change from him”.
Under his leadership the Workers’ Party of
Korea won even more great victories. Natural disasters were overcome.
Imperialist diplomatic isolation was broken and the intrigues of US imperialism
were exposed. Scientists in Democratic Korea mastered the secrets of the atom
to guarantee the DPRK’s defence and energy needs, and now Korean rockets reach
for the stars.
The tragedy of Korea is that it has been
divided since the Second World War and that division is entirely due to the
United States, which has propped up a puppet regime in south Korea to maintain
American imperialism’s military, strategic and economic dominance of north-east
Asia and the Pacific Rim.
A monstrous concrete wall divides Korea.
Tens of thousands of American troops remain are stationed in the south, backed
by a US nuclear armada that threatens the DPRK and its neighbours. The
communist movement is outlawed in the south and contacts with the north are
tightly controlled by the repressive regime.
The Democratic Korean government has
worked tirelessly to end the partition of the country. It has called on the
United States to normalise relations with the DPRK. A proposal for the
re-unification of Korea based on the principle of “one country – two systems” –
similar to the one that led to the peaceful return of Hong Kong and Macau to
the People’s Republic of China – remains on the table.
Democratic Korea threatens no one, but the
imperialist campaign to demonise and isolate the people’s government continues
as a smokescreen to cover US plans to dominate the entire Pacific basin.
Following in Kim Il Sung’s footsteps, Kim
Jong Il led the Workers Party of Korea into the 21st century to build a strong
and prosperous democratic republic. Kim Jong Il was a leading Marxist thinker
who made an important contribution to modern communist theory, as well as an
astute statesman who led the Korean people through thick and thin to overcome
natural disasters, imperialist blockade and diplomatic isolation.
Kim Jong Il made an immense contribution
to Marxist-Leninist theory and ideology. In his 1982 work On the Juché Idea, Kim Jong Il brought together and systematised
the Juché theory; his 1994 thesis Socialism
is a Science affirmed that socialism would eventually become the economic
system of the entire world because it is the only form of society in which
people can be truly free.
Kim
Jong Il worked tirelessly to ease tension on the Korean peninsula to pave the
way towards the peaceful reunification of Korea whilst at the same time
ensuring the DPRK’s defence against the threats and provocations of US
imperialism and its lackeys.
On
15th June 2000 Chairman Kim Jong Il of the National Defence Commission of the
Democratic People's Republic of Korea and President Kim Dae Jung of south Korea
signed the historic North–South Joint Declaration. This was an historic landmark in the struggle
of the Korean people to reunify their homeland that had forcibly been divided
by the US imperialists following World War Two. The Declaration opened up a new
era for independence, peace, reconciliation and reunification on the Korean
peninsula until the US-sponsored anti-national, anti-communist and
retrogressive Lee Myung Bak clique in the south began to sabotage its spirit
and principles.
But US imperialism cannot forgive the DPRK
for being the first country following the Second World War to defeat it on the
battlefield, setting an example for all people fighting for independence and
self-determination. Its revenge seeking against the DPRK continues unabated to
this day.
The intrigues of the US and their south
Korean lackeys are becoming increasingly dangerous as they work together to try
to isolate the DPRK and the movement for national reunification. This includes
jailing peace campaigners like Ro Su Hui under the fascist National Security
Law, and carrying out endless provocations such as the joint US–south Korean
military exercises aimed at invading the DPRK and bringing the Korean peninsula
ever closer to a cataclysmic nuclear war.
The
DPRK has had no alternative but to develop a nuclear deterrent to defend its
socialist system. At the same time it has pledged that it will never be the
first to use nuclear weapons, and it has also vowed never to threaten the use
of nuclear weapons nor allow
the
transfer of nuclear technology to other countries.
Kim Jong Il was a great leader of the
Korean people who devoted his entire life to serving the Korean people in the
cause of building a human-centred society, a cause that is one espoused by the
democratic and anti-imperialist forces the world over.
We believe that the will of the Korean
masses, expressed in concrete terms
by
their vanguard party, the Workers’ Party of Korea now led by Kim Jong Un, and
following in the footsteps of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il, will overcome all
obstacles to fulfil the revolutionary tasks that faced the Korean people when
they began their long march to socialism in the struggle against Japanese
imperialism.
