Workers Party of Korea celebrated in London

by New Worker correspondent

Leslie Larkum and Michael Chant

Comrades from several different organisations came together last Saturday in South London to celebrate the formation of the Workers Party of Korea on October 10th  at a social organised by the Friends of Korea.

Youg Ho Thae, minister at the DPRK embassy, explained the history of the formation of the Workers Party of Korea, which was directly descended from the Down With Imperialism Union by the young, patriotic student leader Kim Il Sung in October 1926.

During the anti-Japanese war there was a communist party cell in each guerrilla unit. It was only practically possible to establish the Communist Party of North Korea after the North was liberated in 1945.

After the defeat of the Japanese in 1945 country Kim il Sung raised the question of forming a unified communist movement, and following the foundation of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea in September 1948 the communist parties of north and south came together to form the Workers Party of Korea on  October 10 that year.

Comrade Thae pointed out that “since World War 2 the country which had used chemical weapons more than any other is the US, which has the largest stockpile of these weapons in the world. Even now, tens of thousands of children are being born in Vietnam with terrible deformities”.

He added that the deadline for the US to eliminate these weapons under the Chemical Weapons Convention was this year, “but now Washington has said this would not be possible for another 10 or 12 years”.

Speaking on behalf of the Revolutionary Communist Party of Britain (ML), Michael Chant told the meeting that the Korean communists led by Kim Il Sung had worked to solve the problems faced by the Korean people step by step, and made the people the decision-makers.

The formation of the Workers Party of Korea by Kim Il Sung as the mass party of the Korean people, he said, “has enabled the people to unite with one will to develop the country”.

Dermot Hudson of the Korean Friendship Association recalled that the song used as the anthem of the Korean People’s Army, the Red Flag, was written by a British socialist, and that as a song identified with the DPRK it is still illegal to sing it in south Korea.

He said “the Workers Party of Korea is surging forward under the banner of Songun leadership of dear respected leaders Kim Jong Il”, with new housing and leisure facilities and long-range rockets”.

The Workers Party of Korea is continuing the struggles against dogmatism, factionalism, revisionism and “raising the banner of socialism high in Korea and in Asia”, he said.

Bringing greetings from the NCP, Theo Russell said 10th  October  was an important day for communists the world over, when “a new party of the toiling masses was formed on Korean soil, the Workers Party of Korea”.

He said the party had made unique contributions to the international movement: the Juche idea which had unleashed the enormous creative energy of the masses, and the concept of self-reliance and the Songun army first policy, which are admired by small nations around the world attempting to resist imperialist bullying and diktat.

The meeting was followed by music provided by Michael Chant and Lesley Larkum, who performed Let us love our motherland, Arirang, and the national anthem of the DPRK on the violin and keyboard.

• Celebrating the 68th anniversary of the WPK (Workers Weekly)

FREE RO SU HUI NOW!

By New Worker correspondent

Last year a veteran south Korean peace activist was jailed by the south Korean puppet regime after he returned from a visit to the north. Ro Su Hui was sentenced to four years in prison under south Korea’s draconian anti-communist “National Security Law” and last week pickets were again outside the south Korean embassy in London to demand his release.

NCP leader Andy Brooks joined other friends of the Korean people at the protest organised by the International Campaign for the Release of Ro Su Hui and the UK Korean Friendship Association.

 Dermot Hudson, the secretary of the international campaign, read out demands for Ro Su Hui’s release throughout the picket as well as messages of support from the Swiss Korea Committee and other groups. Dermot said: " we are here today to protest against the jailing of Mr Ro Su Hui and also the recent arrest of Mr Lee Seok Ki an assemblyman from the Unified Progressive Party.

We strongly denounce the south Korean so-called authorities (in reality a gang of fascist puppets who grovel to the American imperialists) for the 4 year jail sentence imposed on vice -chairman Mr Ro Su Hui .

This is an outrageous and despotic act against Mr Ro who had simply campaigned for peace and reunification. All he did was to visit the northern half of his own country, this should not be considered a crime.

Mr Ro was subjected to brutal treatment when he crossed back into south Korea and was held without trial for more than 6 months in south Korea. Mr Ro is is over the age of 65 and he is suffering from cancer. This is a most inhuman act of the south Korean regime”.

            Protesters leafleted passers-by while others read out statements and maintained a barrage of slogans throughout the afternoon demonstration, including a lively rendering of  "south Korea is a fascist regime " to the tune of the Beatles’ "Yellow Submarine"!

• Video of the picket

An afternoon for Korea

By New Worker correspondent

FRIENDS of the Korean revolution returned to the historic Lucas Arms in north London on Saturday for a further celebration of the foundation of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. Academics and school students joined Korean solidarity workers to take part in the meeting called by the British Juché Idea Study Group at the Kings Cross pub, which has been a working class venue for many years and was the place where the Committee to Defeat Revisionism for Communist Unity was founded to challenge the leadership of the old Communist Party of Great Britain in 1963.

             Dermot Hudson opened the meeting by saying that the 65^th anniversary of the DPRK was proudly celebrated by the successful Worker-Peasant Red Guard parade in the DPRK on September. He also paid tribute to Madame Kim Jong Suk the mother of Korea who passed away 64 years ago on the 22^nd September.

                  Shaun Pickford, the secretary general of the group, was unable to travel into London as his father is gravely ill. But he sent a paper that stressed the remarkable achievements of Democratic Korea over the past 65 years, including free medical care, free housing, no taxation and other benefits of the DPRK's social system. In the DPRK there is the tradition of collectivism throughout society, the spirit of single-hearted unity.

Dermot then followed with a contribution on the Juché and Songun politics that had transformed the DPR Korea into a modern socialist republic. And this was taken up Dr Hugh Goodacre, a senior lecturer in economics who explained the deep significance of anniversary of the foundation within the context of the Juché Idea. He said that in the DPRK the people are the masters of the state.  The great leader President Kim Il Sung was a great man of the people, Hugh said, who mixed with workers and farmers and even shook the ink-stained hands of academics!

Dr Goodacre, who is an accomplished linguist, demonstrated his talents by singing the national anthem of the DPRK in Korean to the applause of the audience and the meeting ended in informal discussion and a buffet.

Visiting Democratic People's Republic of Korea. Centre of Unity and Peace

Sixty-Five Fighting Years!

By New Worker correspondent

ON THE 9^th SEPTEMBER 1948 the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea was established in the free northern part of the Korean peninsula that had once been part of the Japanese Empire. In the DPRK it is a public holiday and hundreds of thousands of Koreans packed Kim Il Sung Square in Pyongyang for a spectacular military and civilian parade through the capital.

It’s a special day for Koreans on both sides of the divided country and amongst the overseas Korean community because on that day in 1948 the Korean people expressed their democratic will through popular power and immediately took the first steps towards building a new socialist life for the workers and peasants who had fought to free themselves from the Japanese yoke that had enslaved them for many decades.

 It’s also special day for communists all over the world who showed their solidarity with Democratic Korea. London was no exception. Communists and Korean solidarity activists joined diplomats, journalists and business-people at a lunch-time reception at the DPRK embassy that was opened by DPRK ambassador Hyong Hak Bong last week.

Andy Brooks, Hyong Hak Bong and Michael Chant at the reception

 The leaders of the NCP and the RCPB (ML), Andy Brooks and Michael Chant, were there along with veteran London communist Monty Goldman from the CPB, who was jailed for two months for protesting against the Korean War, as well as Daphne Liddle, the joint editor of the New Worker, and Dermot Hudson from the Korean Friendship Association.

And Comrade Hyong Hak Bong returned to south London as guest of honour at a meeting and social to honour the 65^th anniversary of the founding of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea that was opened by Andy Brooks, who chairs the Friends of Korea, in south London on Sunday.

The event, at the south London headquarters of the RCPB (ML) kicked off with a spirited rendition of the DPRK national anthem and the Song of Kim Il Sung by the violinist Leslie Larkum, who has recently visited Democratic Korea. This was followed by the screening of a documentary covering the recent visit of a RCPB (ML) delegation to Democratic Korea produced by one of their own comrades.

Comrades heard lively eye-witness reports from comrades who took part in the recent 60^th anniversary celebration in the DPRK of the Korean people’s victory in the Fatherland Liberation War in July. Michael Chant, Leslie Larkum and Dermot Hudson painted a vivid picture of Democratic Korea which is led by Kim Jong Un and guided by Marxism-Leninism and the Juché Idea and also determined to struggle for reunification and defend its socialist path.

Comrade Hyong Hak Bong addresses the meeting

 And a 16-year-old student who was also in Pyongyang in July told us about his impressions of the socialist capital and his struggle to tell the truth at school about the reality of the DPRK today.

Other friends of Korea, like John McLeod of the Socialist Labour Party and Theo Russell of the NCP, who have also been to north Korea, joined in a general discussion that ended with an appeal from Hyong Hak Bong for everyone to go to the DPRK, if they can, and see for the new life for the Korean people with their own eyes. 

• Korea -- A Day to Remember  
• Joyous 65th anniversary of the founding of the DPRK 

Eyewitness Korea

Andy Brooks makes his point

 by  New Worker

  correspondent

THE KOREAN people marked the 60^th anniversary of the defeat of US imperialism and its lackeys with a great parade through Pyongyang last month. And last Saturday friends and comrades gathered in central London to hear an eye-witness account of the commemorations and peace marches held in the DPR Korea to mark the end of the Korean War.

Dermot Hudson, who spent a week in the DPR Korea, told the meeting of his impressions when he joined hundreds of thousands of Korean workers to see the great demonstration of Democratic Korea’s defence forces on 27^th July. He also took part in the reunification march and visited Panmunjom on the ceasefire line where the Americans were forced to accept an armistice.

Dermot from the Juché Idea Study Group said: "The situation in the DPRK is extremely good. Pyongyang is alive with massive construction work everywhere including many new apartment blocks. Since I last visited the DPRK in September 2012 many new cultural-leisure facilities such as the Ryugyong Health Complex have opened. On our way to Kaesong and Sinchon we could see crops growing in the fields well. There were maize plants as tall as a person. The rice looked lush and green, the beautiful rice paddies seemed to stretch for miles."

            Dermot’s   report was followed by an opening on the Korean War by Shaun Pickford and an intervention by NCP leader Andy Brooks on Korean friendship and the Juché  Idea. A question and answer session, which soon developed into a general discussion, took up the rest of an afternoon getting to know Democratic Korea and standing by the Korean people, who daily defy the threats and sanctions of US-led imperialism.

            The meeting was organised by the UK Korean Friendship Association (KFA) which regularly organises solidarity meetings and protest pickets in London throughout the year. The KFA also works side by side with the NCP, RCPB (ML), Socialist Labour Party (SLP) and the European Regional Society for the Study of the Juché Idea on the Friends of Korea committee which also holds regular events in London.

Kim Il Sung – a great Korean revolutionary

By New Worker correspondent

Ambassador Hyon Hak Bong speaking

KIM IL SUNG was the greatest Korean who has ever lived and an outstanding communist revolutionary and thinker. That was how NCP leader Andy Brooks put it at a reception held last Sunday at the HQ of the RCPB (ML) to mark the 19^th anniversary of the passing of President Kim Il Sung and the 50^th anniversary of the Korean people’s victory in the Korean War.

            The reception at the John Buckle Centre in south London was hosted by the Preparatory Committee (Britain) to celebrate the Korean People’s Victory in the Korean War and was an initiative of the long-standing Friends of Korea committee.

             The guest of honour was Hyon Hak Bong, Ambassador at the Embassy of the DPRK, who made a short presentation outlining the current situation of the Korean peninsula. Other speakers included Michael Chant of the RCPB (ML) who chaired the formal part of the event, together with  Andy Brooks, Dermot Hudson of the UK Korean Friendship Association and John McLeod from the Socialist Labour Party (SLP).

            Other friends and comrades, including SLP President Andrew Jordan, used the opportunity to get first-hand information on Democratic Korea from the Korean comrades over drinks and Korean food which came later.

• Workers' Weekly report