Independence was lifelong revolutionary creed and practice of Kim Il Sung, the eternal President of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
The Origin of Independent Politics
President Kim Il Sung held fast to the principle of solving all problems in the interests of the Korean revolution, and adhered strictly to this principle in laying down political lines and adopting policies. Even now, the Korean people recall the days of the anti-Japanese armed struggle in the early 20th century when the people’s power was born in the guerrilla bases in the form of liberated zones.
At the time, the issue of political power was regarded as a matter to be taken up after the liberation of the country which was still in a state of colonial semi-feudal society, a matter actually feasible only in case of the restoration of national sovereignty. Kim Il Sung, however, saw the people’s earnest desire to have their own political power even in the guerrilla base and lead a life worthy of man, and decided to build a government first in the guerrilla base before its establishment in the liberated Korea.
He was well aware that the desire of the Korean people, who were groaning under the cruel colonial rule and burdens of all forms of feudal relations, was to have democratic freedom and equal rights such as owning their own lands and living equally in the liberated homeland, and that the form of political power should not be socialist at the outset. He concluded that the form of political power for the Korean people should be broad-scaled to embrace all people who constitute the motive force of the revolution in serious consideration of the fact that the absolute majority of the people, regardless of their property status, including workers, peasants, intellectuals, petty bourgeoisie, and even national capitalists and religious men demand the country’s independence and have vital interests in it.
According to the conception of the leader, the people’s revolutionary government came into existence with the unanimous support of the Korean people. It became the model of the people’s government to be established in the liberated homeland without losing its true nature as the people’s power. At last, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea was born in September 1948. After liberation he put forward the line of building a new Korea and the basic line of socialist economic construction giving priority to the development of heavy industry while simultaneously developing light industry and agriculture in due consideration of the Korean people’s independent requirements and interests and the need of their steadfast implementation.
The lines and policies of the Korean revolution set forth by President Kim Il Sung were mostly associated with some localities or workplaces in the country. Taedong County and Samsok District are where he set forth the policy of agrarian reform; Wonhwa-ri and other rural villages are the places where he announced the policy of agricultural cooperativization; in Changsong he set out the policy of the Workers’ Party of Korea on making the most of mountains in the mountainous area; at the Juul Flax Mill he put forward the policy of let-one-machinetool-beget-another movement; Pukchong is where he suggested the policy of laying out orchards in all areas of the country; and at a railway section of Tanchon the policy of railway electrification was proposed.