Songun Policy Pushes Revolution and Construction

A thriving nation which is very often on the lips of the Koreans is the country whose state power is strong, where everything is prosperous and the people live free from worries.

This was the country President Kim Il Sung wanted to build in his lifetime.

Since his sudden demise in July 1994 the DPRK had to overcome manifold hardships, called the “Arduous March” and forced march.

At this critical juncture leader Kim Jong Il administered Songun politics to provide a springboard to a thriving nation.

In 1994 the US integrated the separate annual joint military exercises Ulji and Focus Lens against the DPRK into Ulji Focus Lens and made public the north-targeted war scenario code-named OPLAN 5027.

The western media spread a rumor that the DPRK would collapse in May 1996.

But it was a miscalculation.

Kim Jong Il went to a military post in the wood of young pine trees on January 1 1996 and continued inspection tours to the army units.

Songun politics is a political mode that regards the military affairs as top priority of the state and defends the country, revolution and socialism and pushes the socialist construction as a whole with the army as the mainstay.

He proposed launching the O Jung Hup-led Seventh Regiment Movement in the army units. The soldiers in the regiment had risked their lives to defend the command of the revolution during the anti-Japanese war in the 1930s.

He also led the army to take the lead in the socialist economic construction.

In hearty response to his call, soldiers made spectacular achievements by being engaged in building power stations, realigning the farmlands and undertaking major economic projects, chanting “Undertake both national defence and socialist construction by ourselves!”.

It is his unique working method to create a positive example in the hard times and generalize it in other sectors to effect a surge.

He made several trips to Jagang Province which was suffering worse than other provinces, encouraging the provincial population to adopt the Kanggye Spirit.

Soon the whole country turned out to surmount a host of difficulties like the Jagang people did.

Songun politics unheard-of in the history has brought about the eye-opening reality.

In Juche 87(1998) scientists put the DPRK on the map by inserting home-made satellite Kwangmyongsong 1 into orbit.

The following year saw a rise in annual average gross industrial output, an 11% increase over the previous year.

Westerners said the isolation of north Korea was a thing in the past.

At the outset of 2000 Italy forged diplomatic ties with the DPRK and later Great Britain, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain and other countries followed suit.

At the turn of the new century Rodongsinmun, Josoninmingun and Chongnyonjonwi, leading newspapers of the DPRK, published a joint editorial calling on the entire army and people to turn out in the all-out construction of a socialist thriving nation.

The main point of the editorial was that they could surely build a thriving nation in the foreseeable future when concentrating all efforts on the economy as the country was already in the status of a power in terms of ideological, political and military might.

 While pushing the drive to strengthen the country’s political and military power, Kim Jong Il worked energetically to promote the economic development.

He visited the Songjin Steel Complex to inspire the workers to stand at the forefront of the campaign to bring about a surge.

At other industrial establishments he told the workers to take their cue from those in Songjin. The flame kindled at Songjin spread into the power, metal, machine-building and other industrial sectors.

He showed the way to update the economy: much needed and profitable projects should be upgraded one after another and, on the basis of it, other projects modernized, improving the level of technological facilities.

Attaching importance to science and technology is one of his political priorities.

Early in Juche 88(1999), the year of turning point in the building of a thriving nation, he visited the Academy of Sciences .

On the day of electing deputies to provincial, city and county people's assemblies he met professors and doctors, the candidates, at the Hamhung branch of the Academy and told them to work harder for more scientific achievements.

Thanks to his seasoned leadership remarkable progress has been made in the economic development over the past decade since the torch of revolutionary upsurge was lit at Songgang.

The Samsu Power Station, Orangchon Power Station No. 1 and other large power plants and hundreds of minor power stations have gone online.

The metal industry has upgraded facilities and expanded production capacity to use locally available fuel and raw materials extensively.

Machine-tool factories in Kusong and Huichon have developed into leading producers of numerically controlled machine tools.

The surging enthusiasm for making more has produced modern industrial establishments, the Youth Hero Motorway, Kwangmyongsong Salt Works, Kaechon-Lake Taesong Waterway and other structures of lasting value.

Scientists and technicians have registered significant results in basic core technologies including information technology, nanotechnology and bioengineering.

The Korean people are now full of confidence in their future.

Their immediate target is to open the gate to the thriving socialist nation in Juche 101(2012) that marks the centenary of President Kim Il Sung.