Korean friends rally in Spain

Alejandro gives delegates a tour

by New Worker correspondent

Korean solidarity activists from all round the world gathered in Spain for the annual international meeting of the Korean Friendship Association in November. A British delegation headed by Dermot Hudson, the chair of the UK KFA, joined delegates from many other countries for the conference in the historic city of Tarragona in the autonomous region of Catalonia that kicked off on 12th November, the anniversary of the foundation of the KFA in 2000.
    KFA officials and members from Britain, Germany, Spain, Switzerland and the USA took part in the meeting as well a delegation of the Russian based International Solidarity Group with the DPRK. The meeting was nearly double the size of the KFA International meeting in Barcelona last year and several times the size of some previous meetings.
    Opening the meeting Alejandro Cao De Benos , the KFA President, said that the CIA, FBI, Interpol and MI6 could not defeat him and KFA. The FBI had tried to frame Alejandro on false charges but this had failed. But still cannot travel abroad due to the fascist Spanish authorities, the grandchildren and great grandchildren of the Spanish fascist dictator Franco, confiscating his passport. Alejandro's lawyers are fighting for the restoration of his passport and his right to travel.
    A message of greetings to the meeting from the DPRK Embassy in Spain was read out by comrade Alejandro Dermot Hudson, chairman of KFA UK read out the message from the Korea -Europe Cultural Exchange Promotion Agency of the DPR Korea which praised the work of KFA noting that KFA are the true friends of the DPRK and are expanding their ranks all the time.
    A message was also received from comrade Park Soo Churl the head of the Pyongyang Mission of the Anti-Imperialist National Democratic Front of south Korea which said in part that "Today the DPRK enjoys the greatest heyday demonstrating its prestige as a powerful country throughout the world thanks to the outstanding leaders.
    The 80 years-long history of the DPRK reflects the dignity of a party that reaches the highest level, national strength that is displayed throughout the world and the rosy future of a nation is guaranteed only when a nation is led by a great leader he said.
    The central theme of the meeting was the leadership of Kim Jong Un. In his keynote address Alejandro stressed that former socialist countries collapsed because they had failed to create a correct leadership system but the DPRK created an excellent leadership system. Today the DPRK is forging ahead under the leadership of Kim Jong Un. The progress in the DPRK is in sharp contrast to the corrupt and declining capitalist world .
    Or as Dermot Hudson pointed out in his speech "the DPRK was able to defeat Covid 19 within 3 months and basically by relying on its own resources as it rejected the fake humanitarian aid of world imperialism and the south Korean puppets . No other country has done this. In some countries Covid 19 still prevails after nearly three years since its first outbreak".
    The conference concluded with a commitment to redouble the work to build solidarity and friendship with the Korean people. And the next day Alejandro, who said that he had once declined an offer of a post in the Catalan regional government, took the delegates on a guided tour of old Tarragona including the famous Roman amphitheatre .

Picketing Broadcasting House!

by New Worker correspondent

NCP leader Andy Brooks joined other Korean solidarity activists protesting against the BBC bias at a picket outside Broadcasting House in central London on Saturday. The Korean Friendship Association (KFA) had called the protest to highlight the appalling bias of the BBC in its coverage of news from Korea that invariably reflects the lies of the American lie-machine and those of its south Korean puppets.
    Discussions were held with passers-by and the media during the 90-minute protest that also called on people to stop funding the state broadcasting network by cancelling their BBC licence fees.
    Dermot Hudson, KFA chair, said: “Recently there was an incident in the West Sea of Korea in which a south Korean puppet warship intruded into the territorial waters of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) basically invading the DPRK and violating its sovereignty but the BBC falsely reported that the DPRK had infiltrated south Korean waters and fired at south Korea…
    “The BBC not only pumps out false propaganda against the DPRK but it is also a regime change agency. We should never forget the role of the BBC World Service in the past in undermining and destroying socialism in the USSR and former socialist countries. Now the BBC is trying to do the same with the DPRK and beaming its lies into the country. We must defend People's Korea from regime change, from all attempts to force 'reform' or 'opening-up' on People's Korea.
    “We, the Korean Friendship Association of the UK, believe in defending People's Korea with No Ifs or Buts.
    “We believe the BBC should stop lying about the DPRK and instead produce fair, accurate and objective material about People's Korea.
    “We say don't pay your licence fee because if you do you are funding the BBC's lies about People's Korea."

Democratic Korea’s Line of March

1Korean solidarity campaigners held a seminar at the NCP Party Centre on 13th August to celebrate the 77th Anniversary of the Liberation of Korea on 15th August 1945. This is the contribution by Michael Chant, the Secretary of the Friends of Korea.

As Friends of Korea said in publicising this seminar, we aim to review the achievements of the DPRK in building Korean-style socialism, demonstrating the incomparable advances since the liberation of Korea from Japanese colonial rule in 1945 and the founding of the DPRK on September 9, 1948. The seminar underscores how liberation was an act of the Korean people themselves, which the US-led powers have sought in every way from that day to this to negate. The DPRK and the Korean people have never wavered from defending their right to be and their own path of development, striving for peace and for the reunification of the Korean Peninsula.
    In the long line of march, which itself has its origins in the desire of the Korean people for dignity and independence, and a future based on the development of the Korean nation, giving rise to the legendary leader of the Korean people, Kim Il Sung, and the Down With Imperialism Union, can be seen the historical perspective, not only of the Korean people, but of peoples everywhere, striving for freedom from subjugation by big powers, particularly today that of US imperialism, and from tyranny, and attain genuine independence and control of one’s own future and destiny.
    Even before the surrender of Japan, announced on 15th August 1945, and formally signed on 2nd September, the US divided Korea by force around the 38th parallel with the aim of imposing their rule over the victorious Korean people who had contributed, second to none, to the Allied victory in the Second World War. The aim was to keep the Korean people divided and to turn the south of Korea into a US military fortress in order to wage war against China and the Soviet Union. Even though today the US state is unravelling, the US still views the Korean Peninsula as a means to attempt to dominate China and establish a bridgehead between China and Russia.
    Following the Japanese surrender, the US brutally suppressed and outlawed the Korean People’s Republic that had been proclaimed by the representatives of the whole Korean people on September 6, 1945, in Seoul. The US installed the US Military Government of Korea in the south which carried out a campaign of terror against the Korean people’s resistance to US dictate and occupation. Virulent anti-communist Syngman Rhee, who had spent most of his life in the US, was installed as the first President of the so-called Republic of Korea (ROK) in July 1948. The pro-US Rhee government continued to suppress the Korean people’s widespread resistance to US military occupation through extrajudicial killings, civilian massacres, mass incarcerations and other crimes, carried out with impunity.
    At this point, let us look at the tasks which were elaborated by Kim Il Sung immediately following liberation, as we are holding this seminar to celebrate the anniversary of August 15, 1945. They illustrate that mapping out a line of march, how to advance along it, where on this line of march the people’s forces are located – all this is crucial at each stage of nation-building, establishing and building a new society, and organising the people to defend their own interests, their well-being and strive for peace. In other words, it has never been, for the Korean people and their leadership, a matter of declaring that the socialist society is superior, and all that remains is implementation. This has been the experience of the international communist movement as a whole.
    The Works of Kim Il Sung reproduce no less than 30 speeches and reports that Kim Il Sung made between August 15 and December 31, 1945, laying the foundations of the new, democratic Korea and its line of march.
    To give just a very few examples, in the talk with political workers, titled Building of New Korea and Immediate Tasks of Communists, Kim Il Sung says, among many other guidelines based on an analysis of the situation, that “we should follow the course of liquidating the survivals of Japanese imperialism and feudalism and building a genuine democratic society. This is the very way demanded by the realities of our country and desired by the masses of people”. He urges the political workers, “You should explain and propagate our policy for nation-building unremittingly among the masses,” adding, “You should do this by rousing advanced elements to activity and setting in motion various mass media including newspapers, so that they, fully aware which is the right road for Korea to follow, forge ahead vigorously along this road.” After dealing with the tasks in founding and building a “revolutionary party of the working class”, Kim Il Sung emphasises, in relation to local government bodies, “Only when genuine people’s power is established can we use it as a weapon to smash to atoms all manoeuvres of the enemy, transform society on a democratic basis and achieve the victory of the revolution.”
    He continues, “In order to frustrate all the moves of the reactionaries, ensure success in nation-building and safeguard the security of the people reliably, the power of the broad masses should be marshalled and at the same time people’s security organisations should be formed.” And, “To carry out our historic cause of nation-building successfully at present, we should firmly unite the broad sections of the people.” Kim Il Sung was making this point when “some people have not yet shaken off the influence of the vile propaganda conducted by the Japanese imperialists against communism,” as he puts it.
    In a lecture given to students of the Pyongyang Worker-Peasant Political School, titled On Progressive Democracy, Kim Il Sung points out the importance of giving Korea the right orientation in the building of a new Korea and taking the road to progressive democracy. As he says, this is “a road that holds out the promise of grandeur and progress for the fatherland and eternal prosperity for the people”. Kim Il Sung points out six characteristic features of the democracy that the Korean people aspire to, a democracy, he says, which is “fundamentally different from that of Western capitalist countries, nor is it a slavish copy of that of a socialist country”. These features of the Korean people’s democracy, he says, are that it: is characterised by independence; is characterised by coalition; guarantees the masses of people freedom and equality; aims not only at independence and sovereignty, national unity and democratic freedom but also at the building of a prosperous country; aims at revolution as one of its major characteristic features; and, aims at peace.
    Very soon, in the north of Korea, the Korean people mobilised under the leadership of Kim Il Sung and following his guidance, were able to found the DPRK in 1948. They took control of their future and began to build a modern socialist society on the basis of self-reliance. President Kim Il Sung and the Workers’ Party of Korea, founded as the Communist Party of North Korea in 1945, also provided political and practical leadership to the Korean people’s aspiration for a reunified Korea.
    However, it was following the south Korean elections of May 29, 1950, when the Syngman Rhee government suffered a major electoral setback and the forces for reunification were gaining momentum, that the US imperialists provoked and launched the Korean War on June 25, 1950, to block the independent reunification of Korea.
    It is fitting to mention that it was on July 27, 1953, that the heroic forces of the Korean People’s Army, with the profound fraternal assistance of the forces of the Chinese People’s Volunteer Army, achieved victory by forcing the US imperialists and their allies to come north of the 38th parallel to sign the Armistice Agreement that ended the fighting in the Fatherland Liberation War. The signing of the Armistice Agreement also signalled the first military defeat of the US following the Second World War - a humiliation which has haunted the US imperialists ever since, and for which it has yet to forgive the DPRK and the Korean people.
    It should be mentioned that the people of the DPRK this year, on the anniversary of the historic date of July 27th , held a grand celebration in Pyongyang at which respected leader Kim Jong Un delivered an important speech.
    Victory Day, he explained “is not merely a celebration day for commemorating and looking back to the chapter of resistance in the heroic era. The day serves as a valuable and significant occasion for us to judge whether we can proudly say before the embodiment and witnesses of history, who brought about the greatest victory in the harshest and grimmest annals, that our current struggle is an inheritance of the great tradition and to renew confidence and courage, passion and mettle.”
    Kim Jong Un pointed out the significance of what has been achieved since then, saying, “Our Republic has firmly safeguarded socialism and built up formidable self-defensive strategic potentials in the fierce confrontation with the United States, which spanned nearly 70 years after the war.” Referring to the achievements since the historic defeat of the US imperialists, he said these are “even greater than the victory in the Fatherland Liberation War”.
    Speaking about the present era, where the US continues colluding with hostile elements in south Korea to block the Korean people’s striving for peaceful reunification and independence, Kim Jong Un sent a “serious warning to the south Korean conservative regime and its hawks that run amuck”, who think that based on military might the entire Korean Peninsula is theirs and who “stand in the van of implementing the US hostile policy towards the DPRK”. He said that if the south Korean regime and military think about confronting the DPRK militarily and that “they can neutralise or destroy some parts of our military forces pre-emptively by resorting to some special military means and methods, they are grossly mistaken!”. Such a dangerous attempt will be stopped and the aggressive forces destroyed, he stated.
    As Kim Il Sung had stated back in 1945, “The building of an independent and sovereign democratic state is in full accord with the specific realities of Korea and the will of our people. Only by building such a state can we make our country rich, strong, enlightened and bring prosperity to our nation.”
    It is clear that this line of march elaborated by President Kim Il Sung has been traversed since liberation by the people of the DPRK for 77 years, all the while - under his leadership, under the leadership of Kim Jong Il and now under the respected leadership of Kim Jong Un and the Workers’ Party of Korea - characterising and resolving the tasks and issues of nation-building and building Korean-style socialism at each juncture. Friends of Korea can only warmly endorse the words of Kim Jong Un in his characterisation of the incomparable achievements of the present era.
    The United States, with Britain in close alliance, is flailing about, seeking to order and divide the world. The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is exemplary in confronting this world crisis, and its stand of internationalism also underpins its firm stand in promoting and safeguarding peace. The DPRK is not about to submit to the nuclear blackmail of the US. For its part, the US today is only concerned about the destruction of what it cannot control. It cannot be forgotten that the United States is the only country to have used nuclear weapons. This was a war crime of immense proportions. And the use of nuclear weapons was the option favoured by General MacArthur to obliterate the Korean resistance led by Kim Il Sung and to wipe out the Chinese volunteers who joined that resistance. They were not used, in part because the US military and presidency could not agree on also using nuclear weapons against China. Instead, the US carried out carpet bombing of civilians and infrastructure in Korea and used chemical and biological weapons.
    It is certain beyond any shadow of a doubt that the DPRK will continue to advance along the path of building a prosperous socialist country with the people’s rights and well-being at the centre of considerations. The future is in the hands of all the people, especially the youth, as shown by the ceremony in which the national flag of the DPRK was handed over to young people at a meeting of the youth and students with war veterans.

Salute the Heroic Korean People on 77 Years of Liberation!

Korea’s Road to Freedom (2)

Korean solidarity campaigners held a seminar at the NCP Party Centre on 13th August to commemorate the 77th anniversary of the liberation of Korea and the outstanding achievements of the Korean communists who freed the country from Japanese colonialism and then beat back the American invaders and their lackeys during the Korean war. This is the contribution from Dermot Hudson, the Chair of the Korean Friendship Association (UK).

by Dermot Hudson


Before I refer to the anniversary of Korea’s liberation, I would like to mention two very significant things.
    Firstly, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK} has achieved victory over COVID‑19, which was eliminated in the DPRK 100 days after it broke out and 91 days after the DPRK switched over to a top-level emergency anti-epidemic system. The fatality rate was very low, probably the lowest in the world.
    This was a great victory that only People's Korea, guided by the great Juche Idea and led by the Workers Party of Korea (WPK) and respected Marshal Kim Jong Un, could achieve. To put things into context, so-called advanced countries such as Britain, the USA and Japan after over two years are still reporting cases of Covid. South Korea recorded 128,000 new cases and 58 deaths in the last day (at the time of writing), with over 21 million people in total infected.
    The DPRK's victory was achieved through self-reliance and without outside help. The DPRK correctly rejected the fake 'humanitarian aid' of imperialism and vaccines of the big capitalist pharmaceutical monopolies of the imperialist world who seek only profit. It was also because the WPK and the people's government took measures so quickly and resolutely. In the Western world some governments failed to act quickly against COVID‑19.
    As Kim Jong Un wisely pointed out: "In other words, the invaluable victory we have achieved is the victory of our Party's anti-epidemic policy, the victory of our state's crisis management strategy, the victory of our people's fortitude and single-hearted unity unique to them, the great victory brought about by the superiority of our style of socialist system." This is indeed true. The victory against Covid in People's Korea is due to the single-hearted unity of the people around the Party and the leader, and the superiority of the socialist system.
    We salute the victory of People's Korea in the anti-pandemic war and believe it to be a great example for the world.
    Secondly, a leading member of the WPK, Kim Yo Jong, made a significant speech in which she denounced the south Korean puppets for deliberately spreading COVID‑19 into the DPRK using balloons. This is a crime against humanity committed by the so-called defectors and south Korean puppets, for which they must pay. I think we have a duty in this country to expose this crime as widely as we can.
    In just under two days, the Korean people will mark the 77th anniversary of Korea’s liberation.
On 15th August 1945 Korea was liberated from the grim and oppressive fascist rule of Japanese imperialism thanks to the 20-year-long armed struggle conducted under the leadership of the great leader Kim Il Sung.
    The anti-Japanese People's Guerrilla Army led by Kim Il Sung had neither a state base nor rear to rely on. The armed struggle of the anti-Japanese guerrillas was a self-reliant one that embodied the Juche Idea and the Songun ‘Army First’ Idea. Kim Il Sung cast aside the idea of relying on big powers for salvation and instead conducted an independent struggle, based on Juche, against Japanese imperialism, fully relying on the masses of the people.
    The anti-Japanese armed struggle fully proved in practice the truth of Songun – that independence is achieved by the force of arms. During the anti-Japanese armed struggle the great leader generalissimo Kim Il Sung, adhering firmly to the line of Songun, rejected illusions of the national reformists and opportunists that independence could be achieved by peaceful means or by begging for it.
    Some people like to say that the liberation of Korea was due to the Soviet Union or the Soviet Union and China. They like to portray People’s Korea as a creation of another country. To this, two things can be said.
    Firstly, that the USSR only entered the war on the 9th August 1945, whereas the anti-Japanese armed struggle had been waged since 1930 when Kim Il Sung formed the Korean Revolutionary Army and later the Anti-Japanese People’s Guerrilla Army.
    Secondly, as a friend of mine from KFA Greece said, how did the USSR and China succeed in their revolutions? It was because of the efforts of the people in those countries, so it is the same for Korea.
    The Juche-oriented guerrilla tactics of Kim Il Sung and the indomitable struggle of the Anti-Japanese People's Guerrilla Army (later the Korean People's Revolutionary Army) tore the guts out of Japanese imperialism, defeating the million-strong Kwantung army of Japanese imperialism, which was finally expelled from the land of Korea.
    The defeat of Japanese imperialism, one of the main forces and shock brigades of international fascism, made a great contribution to the victory of the worldwide anti-fascist forces. The victorious liberation struggle of the Korean people was an inspiration for the peoples of the colonial countries fighting for their independence and liberation. The 1968 World Cultural Congress in Havana adopted a document praising the anti-Japanese armed struggle waged under the leadership of Kim Il Sung.
    With the victory of the Korean People's Revolutionary Army, the Korean people finally gained their emancipation from the cruel shackles of Japanese colonialism and greeted a new life of independence, a life of hope for the future.
    After liberation the agrarian reform that eliminated feudalism and landlordism and gave land to the peasants was carried out. Subsequently the laws on sexual equality that liberated women and the nationalisation of basic industries were also enacted.
    After liberation, under the leadership of Kim Il Sung, the people of Korea built a new, thriving country of independence under the banner of self-reliance, a country which even in the words of enemies has "undiluted sovereignty”.
    Today, People's Korea, the land of Juche, pulsates with independence and creativity under the leadership of respected comrade Kim Jong Un, who carries forward the great line of independence developed by Kim Il Sung.
    Can I also take this opportunity to denounce the hostile policy of the British government towards the DPRK.
    On 30th June 2022 the British government, including the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office, and the office of the Prime Minister, issued a lengthy document entitled UK-Republic of Korea bilateral framework for closer co-operation that is aimed at giving more British support to the south Korean puppet fascist regime and provoking the DPRK. A hidden agenda behind the document is regime change in People’s Korea.
    Britain has always played a reactionary and imperialistic role in Korea. In the 1900s Britain connived at Japan’s colonial occupation of Korea. Later, Britain sent troops to fight against the Korean people during the Korean War. Shamefully, British troops acted as cannon fodder and mercenaries for US imperialism and its destructive and barbaric war against the Korean people. After the Korean war Britain gave huge amounts of aid (from the taxes paid by British working people) to the south Korean puppets; and British Leyland, the then state-owned motor company, assisted the motor industry in south Korea.
    The bilateral framework document refers to south Korea as being a “free and open society”. Nothing could be further from the truth!
    South Korea is a despotic fascist regime that operates the “National Security Law”, which is based on old Japanese colonial laws and prohibits sympathy for the DPRK or communist or leftist activities. In the past, south Korea murdered the leaders of the Revolutionary Party for Reunification, the Strategic Liberation Party and the People’s Revolutionary Party. South Korea still has political prisoners, including several “long-term unconverted prisoners”. South Korea is dominated by the Jaebols (big capitalist corporations) and a society in which there is a big gap between the rich and poor, as typified by the film Parasite.
    The document refers to the “complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearisation” of the DPRK, basically repeating a tired old mantra. Of course, lurking behind this is the hidden aim of overthrowing the socialist system in the DPRK and colonising the northern half of Korea. Moreover, it is taking issue with the DPRK’s legitimate right to self-defence and is a denial of the DPRK’s sovereignty.
    The document also refers to “human rights” and the DPRK “opening up” to the so-called “humanitarian aid” of imperialism. This is yet another ploy to create ‘regime change’ in the DPRK and overthrow the socialist system. The DPRK does not need any ‘humanitarian aid’ from south Korea or Britain or imperialism.
    There is also talk of upgrading the existing ‘Free Trade Agreement’ between Britain and south Korea. This will only result in more cheap, substandard south Korean goods being dumped in Britain. It will also mean some British monopoly capitalist firms exploiting cheap labour in south Korea.
    KFA UK rejects the UK-Republic of Korea bilateral framework for closer co-operation. It is both a mechanism for denying the sovereignty of the DPRK and overthrowing the socialist system of the DPRK, and at the same time propping up the totally reactionary, fascistic and decadent colonial regime in south Korea.
    KFA UK believes that Britain should break with old and discredited policies towards the Korean peninsula, and instead promote co-operation based on genuine friendship, mutual benefit and independence with the DPRK, the truly authentic state on the Korean peninsula.

Down with the south Korean puppet fascist regime!

Hands off People’s Korea!

Korea’s road to freedom (1)

by New Worker correspondent

Korean solidarity campaigners returned to the Sid French library at the NCP Party Centre last weekend for a seminar that focused on the 77th anniversary of the liberation of Korea and the outstanding achievements of the Korean communists who freed the country from Japanese colonialism and then went on to lead the people’s government that beat back the American invaders and their lackeys during the Korean war.
    NCP leader Andy Brooks, who chaired the Friends of Korea event, welcomed everyone to the meeting and then introduced the two main speakers – Michael Chant, the secretary of the Committee and Dermot Hudson, the Chair of the Korean Friendship Association.
    They both highlighted the immense achievements of the Workers Party of Korea over the past 70-odd years. Michael Chant stressed that the liberation of Korea on 15th August 1945 was not the gift of the Americans who claim that it was all down to their atomic bomb attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki but an act of the Korean people themselves who took up arms under the leadership of Kim Il Sung in the 1930s in the long march to end the brutal Japanese occupation.
    And as Dermot Hudson said “the defeat of Japanese imperialism, one of the main forces and shock brigade of international fascism , by the partisans of the Korean People's Revolutionary Army led by the great leader Kim Il Sung made a great contribution to the victory of the worldwide anti-fascist forces”. This sparked off a deeper look at Korean-style socialism.
    Kim Il Sung not only grasped Marxism-Leninism but he applied it to the concrete conditions of the Korean people. He knew that once the masses realised their own strength they would become unstoppable. He knew that serving the people was the be-all and end-all for Korean communists and for the Workers’ Party of Korea that he launched in 1945. He developed Korean-style socialism and the Juché idea – which elevates the philosophical principles of Marxism-Leninism as well as its economic theories and focuses on the development of each individual worker, who can only be truly free as part of the collective will of the masses.
    In the Western world Juché is often described as “self-reliance” but it is much more than that. Kim Il Sung said that working people could only become genuinely emancipated if they stood on their own feet. But the Juché idea doesn’t negate proletarian internationalism. The Soviet Union, People’s China and the people’s democracies of eastern Europe all closed ranks behind DPR Korea during the Korean war and likewise Democratic Korea has given concrete support to Egypt, Syria, Zimbabwe and many other Third World countries struggling against neo-colonialism.
    The seminar reviewed the achievements of the DPRK in building Korean-style socialism, demonstrating the incomparable advances since the liberation of Korea from Japanese colonial rule in 1945 and the founding of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea on 9th September 1948. Following the foot-steps of Kim Il Sung and his successor Kim Jong Il the Workers Party of Korea with Kim Jong Un at the helm continues to defend the Korean people’s own path of development, striving for peace and for the reunification of the Korean Peninsula.

Stand by Democratic Korea!

by New Worker correspondent

NCP leader Andy Brooks joined Korean solidarity activists outside the new American embassy in Nine Elms on Saturday to demand an end to US imperialism’s occupation of south Korea. Called by the Korean Friendship Association (KFA) the protest called for an end to the imperialist sanctions regime against the DPR Korea and called for a halt to the annual US war-games in south Korea. KFA Chair Dermot Hudson denounced the Pacific Dragon and Ulji Freedom Shield exercises saying that the "Ulji Freedom Shield has nothing to do with freedom but everything to do with regime change; thereby extending the corrupt fascist rule of the south Korean puppets to the northern half of Korea and with establishing US imperialist colonial rule over the whole of the Korean peninsula and achieving the US domination of Asia and the Pacific".

Solidarity in the West Country

by New Worker correspondent

Korean solidarity activists returned to Taunton last month for a seminar at the Memorial Hall in Taunton on 28th May. Alan Bolon who has worked hard building the Korean Friendship Association’s presence in the West spoke on the role of the Workers Party of Korea and KFA Chair Dermot Hudson addressed the meeting on the subject of "Defending People's Korea -exposing the lies of the mainstream media”. The guest of honour was the head of the KFA in the Netherlands who had travelled to the UK to strengthen the work of both associations on international Korean solidarity campaigns.

Down with the BBC!

 By New Worker correspondent

NCP leader Andy Brooks joined other Korean solidarity campaigners outside BBC headquarters in London last weekend to protest at the ongoing bias of the state-owned broadcaster.
    The protest picket outside Broadcasting House called by the Korean Friendship Association highlighted “the continual ideological attack by the media representatives of world imperialism of which the BBC is part of. This tax-payer funded entity has lied and distorted the truth for decades. It lied about the Iraq war, it lied about imperialism’s attack on Yugoslavia, it lied about Syria’s war against imperialist backed terrorists, it is lying about the situation in Ukraine. They cannot be trusted…simple as that”.
    KFA Chair Dermot Hudson Chairman of KFA said: “The BBC, which is known to progressive people as the British Brainwashing Corporation has consistently lied about the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK). Its coverage of the DPRK is one sided and exaggerated to say the least. On several occasions BBC reporters have used tricks and subterfuges to enter the DPRK .
    “The BBC has taken upon itself the role of a shock brigade in the propaganda war against People’s Korea. The BBC is a state broadcaster closely linked to British imperialism and US imperialism... what is disgusting is that not only does the BBC lie about People’s Korea but it expects us to pay for its lies in the form of the BBC licence fee” and concluded “We, the Korean Friendship Association of the UK,believe in defending People’s Korea with no ifs or buts”.

A pillar of the communist movement

by Andy Brooks

Kim Il Sung at a victory rally in October 1945

The New Communist Party joined millions of Koreans and millions more throughout the world communist movement in celebrating the life and times of Kim Il Sung this week. The great leader of the Korean revolution was born on 15th April 1912 and his birthday has long been celebrated as the Day of the Sun in Democratic Korea and by everyone who stands by the DPR Korea .
    Kim Il Sung’s life spanned most of the 20th century. He led the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea for nearly 50 years. He was giant of the international communist movement and an international statesman of great renown. During his life he met Stalin, Mao Zedong, Ché Guevara, Tito, Fidel Castro, Ho Chi Minh, Hafez al Assad and Sukarno and many other Third World leaders as well as western politicians including former US president Jimmy Carter.
    Kim Il Sung dedicated his life to the emancipation of the Korean people, which he did until his last breath in 1994. He was a fighter, a thinker and a leader who developed and advanced Marxist-Leninist theory and led the struggle against Japanese colonialism and US aggression.
    Kim Il Sung was an outstanding communist whose name will forever be remembered as the founder of the modern Korean communist movement that began amongst the patriotic youth of Korea when he was a student in the 1920s.
    Kim Il Sung founded the communist movement that liberated the country from Japanese colonialism, defeated the might of US-led imperialism in the Korean War and led the drive to build the modern, socialist republic that exists today in the north of the divided peninsula.
    Kim Il Sung was a great commander in war and a great leader in peace. He led the people’s government in the north of Korea, so brutally partitioned by imperialism, that led the people in the mass struggle to build a new life after they had won their freedom in 1945.
    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 60s and then pushed forward on the engineering, technical and scientific fronts to raise living standards and the quality of life for the millions of workers and peasants who had fought for a better tomorrow.
    Kim Il Sung not only grasped Marxism-Leninism but he applied it to the concrete conditions of the Korean people. He knew that once the masses realised their own strength they would become unstoppable. He knew that serving the people was the be-all and end-all for the Korean communists. He developed Korean style socialism and the Juché idea – which elevates the philosophical principles of Marxism-Leninism as well as its economic theories – and focuses on the development of each individual worker, who can only be truly free as part of the collective will of the masses.
    Kim Il Sung sadly passed away in 1994 but his successors are following his footsteps and now with Kim Jong Un at the helm the Korean people are marching into the 21st century to build a modern socialist republic, where every individual worker is master of his or her destiny.

Remembering a great Korean

 

Andy Brooks speaking

by New Worker correspondent

Friends of Korea gathered last weekend to celebrate the 110th anniversary of the birth of great leader Kim Il Sung, at a meeting at the Chadswell Centre called by the Korean Friendship Association (KFA).
    The meeting began with the Song of General Kim Il Sung and an introduction by Dermot Hudson, the KFA Chair, on the importance of the life of the Korean revolutionary leader who led the guerrilla movement that fought the Japanese imperialism which occupied the Korean peninsula until their defeat in 1945, and later beat back the American horde and their lackeys during the Korean war in the 1950s.
    NCP leader Andy Brooks recalled the time he met Kim Il Sung in 1990 when the New Communist Party established fraternal relations with the Workers Party of Korea (WPK). Keith Bennett, a veteran Korean solidarity campaigner, spoke about Kim Il Sung’s life-long work with national non-aligned countries and the world communist movement.
    Messages were received from the London embassy of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and the RCPB (ML), and the meeting ended with the showing of a film about the life of the Korean leader.

Solidarity at the Casa

Peter Hendy speaking

by New Worker correspondent

Korean solidarity campaigners held their first public meeting in Liverpool for nearly five years when they returned to the Casa Bar to hear Dermot Hudson and Peter Hendy talk about the developments on the Korean peninsula last month. Despite the cold and windy weather and attention being focussed on the Ukraine crisis people still came to the meeting called by the Korean Friendship Association on 24th February.
    Peter opened the meeting by reminding people of the intense hostility by the US towards the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK ) which included wqr and sanctions while Dermot talked about the work of the KFA in building solidarity with Democratic Korea at home and abroad.
    The bar is run by the Community Advice Service Association (CASA) – a membership based organisation set-up by the former Liverpool dockers following their epic 28 month long struggle of the Liverpool dockers who were sacked when they refused to cross a picket line in 1995.

The U.S. Should Not Shake International Peace and Stability

 by Ri Ji Song

Researcher, Society for International Politics Study
Democratic People’s Republic of Korea

The greatest danger the world is now faced with is high-handedness and arbitrariness of the United States and its vassal forces that are shaking international peace and stability at the basis.
    The US unilateral and unfair cold war mentality and its bloc-forming external policy make the structure of international relations be transformed into the one of a new cold war, and they strain politico-military situations with each passing day and continue to spawn new knotty problems in different parts of the world.
    In retrospect, the outbreak of the two rounds of the World Wars which brought horrendous calamities and pains of loss originates from the greed of imperialism, and the wars, big and small, on earth in the last century are related, without exception, to the moves of the imperialists to interfere in the internal affairs of others.
    In particular, the air raid conducted by NATO against Yugoslavia at the end of last century served as an occasion of bringing to light the extent of the U.S. and Western hypocrisy in their much-touted global peace and stability, territorial integrity and safeguarding of sovereignty as well as of exposing in all its nakedness who is the real destroyer of international peace and stability.
    The Iraqi war, the Afghan War and other “colour revolutions” which brought the tragedy of 21th century clearly substantiate the fact that the U.S. and the West would seek their policies of hegemony by fair means or foul.
    The present international order is that it has become an immutable law that seeds of discord are sown in every region and country where the U.S. intervenes, and that the relations between the states deteriorate.
    The root cause of the Ukrainian crisis also lies in the high-handedness and arbitrariness of the U.S. which has held on solely to the unilateral sanction and pressure while pursuing only global hegemony and military supremacy in disregard of the legitimate demand of Russia for its security.
    It is not without reason that the international media and experts comment that the contributing factor to the Ukrainian crisis is the imbalance of power in Europe due to the unilateral expansion of NATO and its threat as well as the grave threat to the national security of Russia.
    The U.S embellishes its own interference in internal affairs of others as “righteous” for peace and stability of the world, but it denounces for no good reason self-defensive measures taken by other countries to ensure their own national security as “injustice” and “provocation” - this is just the arrogance of the U.S. style and its double standard.
    Gone are the days when the U.S. used to reign supreme. The U.S., seeing through the trend of the present times, should no longer resort to high-handedness and arbitrariness that disturb international peace and stability.

26th February 2022

DPRK Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Ukraine

28th February 2022

The spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) gave the following answer to the question put by KCNA on February 28, as the U.S. piles up sanctions and pressure against Russia with the Ukrainian crisis as a momentum.
    As it became known, the situation of Ukraine is now drawing the attention of the international society.
The root cause of the Ukraine crisis totally lies in the hegemonic policy of the U.S. and the West which indulge themselves in high-handedness and arbitrariness towards other countries.
    The U.S. and the West, in defiance of Russia's reasonable and just demand to provide it with legal guarantee for security, have systematically undermined the security environment of Europe by becoming more blatant in their attempts to deploy attack weapon system while defiantly pursuing NATO's eastward expansion.
    The U.S and the West, having devastated Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya, are mouthing phrases about "respect for sovereignty" and "territorial integrity" over the Ukrainian situation which was detonated by themselves. That does not stand to reason at all.
    The greatest danger the world faces now is high-handedness and arbitrariness by the U.S. and its followers that are shaking international peace and stability at the basis.
       The reality proves positive once again that peace would never settle on the world at any time as long as there remains the unilateral and double-dealing policy of the U.S. which threatens peace and security of the sovereign state.

Heroes of the Korean War!

by Keith Bennett

The Battle at Lake Changjin, directed by Chen Kaige, Tsui Hark and Dante Lam, premiered at the Beijing International Film Festival on 21st September 2021 and was released in China on 30th September. As part of its international distribution it has been showing at selected cinemas all over the world. With a budget of some $200 million it is the most expensive Chinese film ever made. The acclaim with which it has been received however, has also made it the highest grossing film of 2021, the highest grossing film in Chinese history and the highest grossing non-English language film.
    At just two minutes under three hours in length, the film is a revolutionary epic, with the main action centred around the Changjin Lake area of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) in the bitterly cold winter of 1950, shortly after the Chinese People’s Volunteer Army (CPVA) intervened to help the Korean people during the conflict the Chinese call the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea.
    Confronted with the harshest natural and climatic conditions, forced to survive on starvation rations and faced with an enemy that was better trained, better equipped, better fed, better armed and with complete mastery of the skies, the Chinese troops “fearing neither hardship nor death”, to use the well-known Chinese expression, continued to forge ahead in the most courageous and ingenious of ways. Armed with the element of surprise, and although making the ultimate sacrifice, by successfully blowing up the Shuimen Bridge they scored the most decisive victory, ultimately ensuring the achievement of China’s objectives in the war.
    A great strength of the film is how it weaves into a seamless whole the grand politics of national leadership and vital decisions of war and peace with the lives, sentiments and aspirations of the masses of poor and working people, those whom Chairman Mao always insisted were the real heroes. We see Mao addressing his comrades and arguing his case. We see him absorbed in contemplation. We see his close comradely relations with the CPVA commander Peng Dehuai (something that tragically was not to survive the later twists and turns of the revolution), and we see the interplay between Mao Zedong, his son Mao Anying and Peng.
    Already a seasoned revolutionary in his own right, Anying is determined to be amongst the first to volunteer for the Korean front. Peng tries his best to dissuade him. He doesn’t want the Chairman to be left without his son. But Anying cannot accept that his family should not make the same sacrifices that countless other families throughout China would make. It is Mao Zedong who tells Peng to “let him go”, not because he doesn’t love his son, but because he loves all the sons and daughters of the Chinese working people – something that recalls Stalin’s attitude when his son was held a prisoner of war by the Nazis and which reputedly originally inspired the title of Arthur Miller’s 1946 play All my Sons.
    This interplay may be said to constitute a bridge to the depiction of the mass of Chinese people in war and revolution. The film begins with People’s Liberation Army soldier Wu Qianli returning to join his illiterate parents and younger brother in their home village in Zhejiang province and carrying an urn containing the ashes of his other brother Wu Baili, who has fallen as a revolutionary martyr. Although Qianli will return to the army, he assures his worried mother, who has already lost one son, that the war is over and there are no more battles to be fought. As a result of land reform, the family have been given a modest amount of land as their own and Qianli’s great dream and plan is to build there a home fit for his parents to live in.
    He has scarcely reached home however, before he is called to leave at once for Korea. Again relating the vital questions of international politics to the daily concerns and needs of the people, the point is made that those who have at last gained their own home and land must now fight to repel those who would come and take it away. In a separate scene, Mao opines that the country has only just been liberated. There is so much to do to build a new China. He doesn’t want to fight another war at this time. But if, he presciently observes, this war brings China decades or even a century of peace, then it will be worth it. Moreover, Mao observes, by sending its military forces to Taiwan, the USA has already committed aggression against China.
    Later, in the terrible conditions of battle, the soldiers console themselves with the thought that their sacrifice will mean that their children will not need to endure the horrors of conflict. They will enjoy a better life in peace. For this reviewer, it was a touching vindication of that to be able watch the film in a cinema in London’s West End, with an audience otherwise made up of young students from China.
    Much of the film’s human story is centred on the relationship between Wu Qianli and his younger brother Wu Wanli. Wanli’s brother is a people’s army soldier and a revolutionary martyr, whilst, at least initially, he is a mischievous, somewhat ill-disciplined but in reality quite naïve peasant boy, who starts out by thinking that war is some kind of adventure or game.
    Qianli is horrified that Wanli has sneaked away to enlist together with him. Wanli’s progression from naïve teenager to heroic soldier and revolutionary, and not just in a military sense, but for example in learning to write a self-criticism, in a sense recalls the evolution of Pavel Korchagin in the classic Soviet novel How the Steel was Tempered. Towards the end, it is noted that the Wan in Wanli means ten thousand, indicating that his example will be followed by countless revolutionary successors.
    The developing relationship between Qianli and some of his closest comrades on the one hand, and Wanli on the other, plays out against the lives and interactions of the company as a whole. The good-natured ribbing conceals but also highlights and nurtures a deep camaraderie characterised by a willingness to sacrifice for others, both for the person next to you and for the wider cause, a profound humanism and a genuine comradely love. The resulting political synthesis of revolutionary heroism and class hatred, of patriotism and proletarian internationalism, becomes the living embodiment of Chairman Mao’s great call to Resist America, Aid Korea, Safeguard the Motherland and Defend our Homes.
    The film provides a vivid, intense and at times harrowing depiction of just what it means to fight with next to nothing against almost insuperable and apparently hopeless odds – in exposed terrain at the mercy of US bombers and in temperatures that often fall to more than minus 40 degrees Celsius, compounded by a lack of food and adequate warm clothing. And to triumph in the face of such adversity. There is a poignant contrast between the lavish Thanksgiving dinner enjoyed by the US troops at their base with the Chinese volunteers attempting to ward off starvation with a handful of small, rotten and undercooked or raw potatoes – sharing with each other what very little they had. But no amount of roast turkey with all the trimmings can obscure the dawning realisation that Douglas MacArthur’s boast, seen towards the start of the film, of victory by Thanksgiving and home by Christmas was not going to materialise.
    `The note of caution raised at the start, that behind Kim Il Sung stood Mao Zedong and Stalin, was arrogantly dismissed with chauvinistic deprecation of peasant fighters. But the history of the 20th Century is in major part a history of Asian peasants fighting and defeating US imperialism and its stooges – in China, Korea, Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. They were often equipped with the most rudimentary of weapons – but they were also equipped with the most advanced revolutionary science of Marxism-Leninism and the leadership of a communist party. Of course, both the fact that China chose to make this film at this time, and the fact of its phenomenal box office success, is not unrelated to the New Cold War unleashed by imperialism against China and other socialist and anti-imperialist countries – a cold war that, just as it did in Korea in 1950, can all too easily become an outright military conflict. For Asian workers and peasants in power, however, the days of fighting with rudimentary weapons are over. People’s China and Democratic Korea are both proud nuclear powers, ready and able to defend their independence, sovereignty and socialist gains, as Malcolm X memorably put it, “by any means necessary”.
    It should not be the job of a reviewer to say too much about a film’s ending but suffice to mention that even a US commander is finally moved to salute the courage of the CPVA troops and to opine that it is impossible to prevail against men with such a degree of motivation. This symbolism brought to mind the words of Comrade Fidel Castro, speaking about Bobby Sands and his fellow hunger strikers in the north of Ireland: “Let tyrants tremble before men who are prepared to face death after more than 60 days without food.”

The Battle at Lake Changjin is currently freely available on YouTube and Vimeo.