On the occasion of the election of Kim Jong Il to the Chairman of the National Defence Commission of the DPR Korea (9th April 1993)

It is a common sense that an army is considered a consuming unit in every country and its role is also confined to such purpose as the national defence and relief operations. But the Korean People's Army (KPA) in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea differs greatly from the armies in many countries around the world. To say nothing of the national defence, the KPA plays a leading role in all fields of the spiritual and cultural life and the economic construction, bringing great benefits to the people.
The KPA has helped the Korean people become strong and rich in spiritual power. A typical example is the revolutionary soldier spirit.
In the closing years of the last century the KPA soldiers set about the construction of the Anbyon Youth Power Station under orders of Supreme Commander Kim Jong Il of the KPA. It was a difficult project unprecedented in its volume and conditions. At that time, the imperialists stepped up the extreme economic sanctions against this country, taking advantage of collapse of socialism in some countries.
Worse still, consecutive natural disasters drove it to severe economic hardships, rendering the project virtually impossible. But the servicepersons in the DPRK completed the construction project by displaying the spirit of defending their supreme commander at the very cost of their lives and carrying through his orders and instructions without fail and the heroic self-sacrificing spirit of offering themselves for the sake of the country, the people and their comrades.
When many industrial establishments of the country were forced to shut down owing to power and material shortages and the people had to tighten their belts due to food shortage, they performed feats, instilling firm faith and great courage into the mind of the people.
The Korean people, too, built by themselves medium and small power stations in different parts of the country by displaying the revolutionary soldier spirit and thus tided over severe economic difficulties. They even provided themselves with a springboard for building a great, prosperous and powerful nation.
In the course of this they were confirmed in their belief that they would surely overcome any difficulties and hardships and emerge victorious when they follow their leader with single-minded devotion, believe in their strength and implement the plans and intentions of their leader to the letter.
The KPA's mode of optimistic cultural life found its way into the whole society, inspiring the people to lead a rich cultural life, singing and dancing merrily at workshop and home under the slogan of "Let us go the thorny path cheerfully!" The fact that the Korean people, in the wake of the KPA servicepersons, built such a scenic spot and pleasure resort as Mts. Chilbo and Kuwol splendidly in the grimmest period fully reveals their optimistic spirit
In general, an army is tailed with an epithet of "war and destruction," but the KPA has become a synonym for creation and construction.,
The KPA has long rendered great services to the economic construction of the country. The servicepersons developed many mines and coal mines and built power stations, factories, enterprises, schools, hospitals and theatres, thus making contributions to the development of the country. They built the Pyongyang Metro in the deepest underground in the world and the 8-km-Iong West Sea Barrage, one of the leading structures in the world.
They are now making breakthroughs on the main fronts of building a thriving nation, erecting model structures of the times by introducing cutting-edge technologies. In 2009 alone they successfully built an indoor swimming pool at Kim Il Sung University, a soil-type pollution-free. greenhouse at Wonsan University of Agriculture, the Nyongwon Power Station, the Sinchang Fish Farm for sturgeon breeding, the Taedonggang Tile Factory, Majon Hotel and others, equipped with frontier scientific achievements and boasting of the finest architecture.Supreme Commander Kim Jong Il looked round them and spoke highly of their labour feats.
In particular, the soldier-builders in the project of the Huichon Power Station created the "Huichon Speed," a new speed for a great 'upsurge, and thus imbued the people with confidence that they are fully capable of hitting the goal to fling open the gate to a thriving nation in 2012 which marks the centenary of birth of President Kim II Sung, father of socialist Korea.
The said project is the largest in construction scale and volume among those which have been built in recent two decades, a gigantic project that will take more than ten years in view of an established concept. But the servicepersons, with a target date by 2012, built cofferdam and temporary drainage way in the very year of the groundbreaking, the first of its kind in the history of building hydropower stations, and finished the digging of the foundation for the dam and started its concrete placing.
They pushed forward the construction in a three-dimensional way, introducing a cable bridge-type belt conveyor and a fresh construction method by means of various concrete prefabs, with the result that they wrought a miracle of carrying out in only five months colossal amount of works which would take five years.
Kim Jong Il visited the construction site in September 2009 and highly appreciated the heroic struggle of the KPA soldiers there, noting that it is the wealth and prosperity only for the Workers' Party of Korea and the Korean people to have such servicepersons.

National Chairman
Nigeria National Committee on the Study of Juche Idea