A conference of Mallima movement pioneers will soon be held. This makes me recall the life of my mother [Kil Hwak Sil] once a leader of the Thrice Chollima Workteam. She was born in May 1937 as a third daughter of a poor peasant family in Pakchon County (at that time), North Phyongan Province. Her family was so poor that its members had to put on the only clothes they had in turn when each of them was to go out. Moreover, my grandfather was disabled, so her family was in a woeful state. Months after the country’s liberation (August 1945) her family received a field distributed by the State, and they gradually became better off. She and her brothers and sisters turned out in the
building of a new country, in order to repay the benefit of the country even a bit.
Two years after the end of the Fatherland Liberation War (June 1950–July 1953), my mother followed her maternal uncle to Pyongyang.Thinking of the miserable past days when she could hardly go out without her clothes, she began to work at the then Pyongyang Silk Mill with the determination to contribute to silk production. She had little knowledge, and she was small in stature. But she worked hard. Soon afterwards, she became a highly skilled worker and then a workteam leader. She often recalled the days when she was working as the workteam leader. At the time her workteam consisted of over 70 workers, and 80 percent of them were war orphans. And they were different in personality and hobby. This often caused troubles in her work.
One day one of the workteam members was absent from work. So she visited her lodging after work and found her seriously ill. She told my mother that she had a good stomach for eggs. Then she left on a trip without any plan even though it was late at night. It was hardly possible to get eggs for it was not long after the end of the abovementioned war and the people were not so well off. She had no other choice but to go to a suburb of the city. She found an old couple’s house. Impressed by the fact that she walked tens of miles at night for the sake of her workteam member, the couple gave her ten eggs free. Later the woman followed my mother like her own sister, and she became famous as a model worker by effecting an innovation in producing silk thread.
Then, on the occasion of a plenary meeting of the Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea held in December 1956, there was launched a drive for a great leap forward at socialist construction sites and a Chollima workteam campaign in every workplace under the slogan “One for all and all for one!”, reflecting our people’s intention to advance faster than others. My mother worked hard and devoted all her efforts to settlement of problems arising among its members in order to make her workteam a collective in which all helped and led one another. In July 1959 her workteam No. 4 of silk reeling workshop No. 2 became the first Chollima workteam of the mill. Later she took two backward workteams in her charge and developed them into Chollima workteams by employing advanced technology-based working methods including that of multimachine operation. The workteams would overfulfil their annual plan by 10-20 percent. In recognition of her services, the State conferred on her high decorations including Kim Il Sung Order, the highest honour for the citizens of the country, and the title of Labour Hero.
Not only my mother but also almost all other workers became Chollima riders, and the mill’s production results rose to a high level. Following in the steps of my mother’s generation, work- ers of our mill are performing labour exploits in the van of the grand march for creation of Mallima speed to carry out the decision of the Seventh Congress of the Workers’ Party of Korea. There is an increase in the number of those who fulfil their annual production plan through the campaigns for collective innovation including a multi-spindle, multi-machine tending campaign. Our workers will celebrate the aforesaid conference with increased production of silk thread.
