Kim Jong Il’s Songun-based leadership

August 25, 1960 is the day when Kim Jong Il began his Songun-based leadership by inspecting Seoul Ryu Kyoug Su 105 Guards Tank Division of the KPA(Korean People’s Army).

The start of his Songun-based leadership was an event of great significance in the history of the Korean revolution.

The Korean revolution was pioneered by Kim Il Sung (1912-1994), the founding father of socialist Korea. In the early days of his revolutionary struggle to liberate Korea from the Japanese military occupation (1905-1945), he created the Songun idea together with the Juche idea, founded the Korean People’s Revolutionary Army (later developed as the KPA) on April 25, 1932, and led the 15-year-long arduous anti-Japanese armed struggle to victory, thus rescuing the Korean people from the bitter fate of a ruined nation. After the liberation of the country (August 1945), he held fast to the line of giving priority to arms, to military affairs. This enabled the Korean people to inflict a serious defeat on the US aggressors in the Korean War (1950-1953) for the first time in the history of the United States which had been boasting of being the “mightiest” in the world, and to safeguard the dignity and sovereignty of their country.

Kim Jong Il was born during the bloody anti-Japanese armed struggle and grew up listening to the gun reports as lullaby. During the Korean war he cultivated the mettle and wisdom as befit a brilliant commander beside the operation table of the Supreme Headquarters. In this course, he keenly realized the truth that the destiny and dignity of a nation, as well as peace, are guaranteed by force of arms. Proceeding from this, he left the first imprint of his Songun-based leadership on August 25,1960, and thus provided a decisive guarantee for carrying forward the history and traditions of the cause of Songun-based revolution.

Under his Songun-based leadership, the KPA has developed into invincible armed forces.

With the primary effort always directed to strengthening the KPA, he paid special attention to establishing the system of the leadership of the Workers’ Party of Korea over the army, and increased its political and ideological preparedness. He consolidated the foundation of Songun politics by establishing the system of the leadership of the Workers’ Party of Korea over the army, and increased its political and ideological might to the maximum by advancing and carrying out the program of modeling the entire army on the Juche idea. Thus, the KPA, imbued with the spirit of defending the leader with lives, has developed into an army with strong faith and firm determination to lay down their lives without hesitation for the motherland and fellow people. It is his unshakable strategy in army building to strengthen and develop the KPA into a perfect army prepared not only in the political and ideological aspects but also in the military and technical aspects. He has long since attached a great importance to the military and technical development of the KPA, and taken a series of measures to arm it firmly with unique tactics and strategy as required by modern warfare and Korea’s natural and topographical conditions and improve its military and technical preparedness. Now all its men and services are prepared in both physical and technical aspects, and all the branches of arms and services are equipped with the state-of-the-art military hardware of high striking power and manoeuvrability. The much-vaunted US military and technical “superiority”, like air-striking, long-distance strike and electronic warfare is powerless in front of the KPA’s unique art of warfare and technical equipment. Korea is now possessed of a war deterrent which no force can challenge.

On the strength of Kim Jong Il’s Songun-based leadership, socialist Korea has been able to follow the road filled with victory.

The 1990s has a great significance in the history of his Songun-based leadership.

At the time, when imperialist forces, availing themselves of the collapse of socialism in several countries, were directing the spearhead of anti-socialist attack against Korea, he formulated the principles of Songun that the army is just the Party, the state and the people, and advanced Songun politics as the basic mode of socialist politics. In Korea, the army is in charge of both national defense and important and yet difficult fields of the socialist economic construction. The indomitable and ennobling spirit displayed by the soldiers in this course constitutes a good ideological and moral example for all the people to follow. The Korean people and soldiers, who frustrated the isolate- and-stifle offensive of the United States, a so-called “superpower”, and safeguarded the dignity and sovereignty of the country and Korean-style socialism , are now striving to effect a new revolutionary upsurge to widely open the gate of a great, prosperous and powerful nation in 2012, the centenary birth anniversary of Kim Il Sung.

Socialist Korea will surely win victory after victory under Kim Jong Il’s Sungun-based leadership.