SOCIALISM IS A SCIENCE

Twenty years have passed since Chairman Kim Jong Il made public a treatise Socialism Is a Science on November, 1994.

Around that time the world’s socialist movement suffered serious setbacks. In 1989 socialism collapsed in succession in several Eastern European countries, followed in 1991 by the disintegration of the Soviet Union which was the first socialist state of the world and had remained a socialist power for 70 years. This occasioned ideological confusion and vacillation among many people who aspired after socialism. Claiming that the ideal of socialism was itself invalid renegades from socialism tried to justify their betrayal. And mouthpieces of the imperialists lost no time to declare the end of socialism. Socialism stood at a crossroads whether it would or not perish once and for all.

At this critical juncture Chairman Kim Jong Il made public the work so as to bring about a fresh upswing of the socialist movement and illumine the way for its ultimate victory.

Saying that the crumbling of socialism in various countries did not mean the failure of socialism as science but the bankruptcy of opportunism which had corrupted socialism, he clarified the scientific accuracy of socialism in an all-round way.

First of all, he threw a fresh light on the inevitability of socialism.

According to the work, socialism is an ideal and revolutionary banner of the masses of the people fighting for independence. The failure to attain the masses’ independence in the preceding societies was because all these societies were based on individualism. Society, based on private ownership and its product, individualism, inevitably splits into hostile classes, produces class antagonism and social inequality, and is accompanied by the exploitation and oppression of the masses of the people by a small ruling class. In order to realize the masses’ independence, a society based on individualism must be replaced by a society based on collectivism, by socialism. This is an inevitable process of the development of history.

The work pointed out the essential superiority of Korean style of socialism which demonstrates its might as a bulwark of socialism and proved the scientific accuracy and invincibility of socialism.

The Korean style of socialism is a socialism which is based on the Juche-oriented view of and attitude to man and the masses of the people.

The Juche idea established a new view of and attitude to man that man is a social being with independence, creativity and consciousness as his essential qualities and that these qualities make him the only master and transformer of the world and the most valuable and powerful being. Proceeding from this, the Korean style of socialism could make everything serve the people and solve all the problems by raising their creativity and spiritual strength.

The Juche idea also established a new view of and attitude to the masses of the people that the masses of the people mean a united social community which centres on the working people, due to their common demand for independence and creative activity and that the masses of the people should naturally occupy the position of masters of society and fulfill their responsibility and role as such. This view made the Korean style of socialism a people-centred socialism in which the masses of the people are the masters of everything and everything serves them.

The work also clarified scientific ways for building socialism successfully.

It stressed the inevitable need to administer the politics of love and trust, that is, benevolent politics in order to be successful in socialist construction. A fundamental issue in this regard is to hold up a genuine leader who unfailingly loves the people and build the ruling party as a motherly party.

Chairman Kim Jong Il declared in the work that for its scientific accuracy and truth, man-centred socialism, socialism centred on the people, is sure to be victorious.

Over the past 20 years the work has fully displayed its validity and vitality.

In the closing years of the last century the Korean people emerged victorious in fierce showdown with imperialists who sought the complete termination of socialism in the world. They owed their brilliant victories in the grim campaign to defend socialism to their own unbreakable faith in socialism and confidence in its sure victory.

Full of this faith and confidence, they are now vigorously advancing towards the lofty objective of building a thriving socialist country, resolutely frustrating the tenacious moves of allied imperialist forces against socialism.

Their undaunted advance has instilled many people around the world with hope for and confidence in socialism and given the international socialist movement a new lease of life. Entering the 21^st century many countries in Latin America, once called a quite backyard of the US, are inclined to socialism.

All this shows how absurd was the imperialists’ and their mouthpieces’ much-vaunted theory of the “end of socialism” and proves that socialism is a science and a truth and it is an immutable law of history that mankind advances to socialism.

Socialism is a science and is sure to emerge victorious.        

 MUSIC PRODIGIES OF KOREA

Child prodigies from the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea are now bringing into the limelight of the international community. Some of them are introduced below.

INBORN GENIUS

Ma Sin A, who is studying at the central musical institute under the Tchaikovsky State Conservatory of Russia, began to read the Korean alphabet when she was only two years old and liked singing songs very much.

When she entered a kindergarten she sang We Are the Happiest in the World. Her singing in perfect tune and distinctive voice attracted the kindergarten teachers. While receiving professional education in piano at the kindergarten, Ma displayed her talent in reproducing a musical score or a song as it was once she saw or heard it.

At six she arranged a piece of piano music in her style and played it charmingly, amazing the experts who predicted that Ma, a genius in art, would soon achieve her reputation as a music prodigy thanks to her inborn sensibility, techniques and arrangement ability.

Their prediction proved true in international contests.

She won admiration of many experts in international contests for her clever and polished techniques and renditions. At the 9^th Rakhmaninov International Piano Contest held in Velikie Novogorod, Russia, in April 2014, she played compulsory pieces so excellently that jurors and the audience all gave her a big hand and compliments. A professor from the Russian Tchaikovsky Moscow State Conservatory and other experts praised Ma for charmingly playing difficult pieces, young as she was, and said she had a very promising future.

BOY BORN TO PLAY PIANO

Choe Jang Hung, studying music in Beijing, China, is a taciturn boy with little smile at ordinary times, but he is quite a different boy in character and taste before the piano.

It happened when he was a kindergarten pupil. One day his kindergarten headmistress and teachers were about to go home when they heard the piano sounds. Puzzled, they went to a room and there they marveled what they saw. Choe was playing the piano skillfully and elegantly under the instructions of his class teacher. The boy was unaware of holidays and Sundays when he was playing the piano. 

When he won the top prize at the 20^th International Chopin Juvenile Piano Contest, the jurors unanimously praised him that he had mastery of piano.

CALM AND CORRECT GIRL

Choe Ji Ye is appreciated as an optimistic and passionate yet a calm and correct student in every respect at the Vienna Conservatory in Austria.

She attends her piano lectures with tremendous concentration and after lectures makes energetic efforts to master the playing techniques she learned within that day. Before the piano she always takes a calm and composed posture and plays the piano correctly as noted in the musical scores.

She once performed A Bumper Harvest in the Chongsan Plain, a famous Korean music, in an artistry presentation held as a routine in her kindergarten. The piece was too difficult and incomprehensible for a child. Her class teacher and even the examiners watched her in apprehension. However, when the girl executed the rendition and that in a very calm posture and correctly, all of them gave an exclamation.

She demonstrated her calmness and correctness in international contests, too.

Her composed and correct performance in playing the complicated and difficult compulsories in the 2013-2014 Henle Piano Contest won her the first prize.

CRADLE OF MUSIC PRODIGIES

Ma Sin A, Choe Jang Hung and Choe Ji Ye were all educated at the Kyongsang Kindergarten in Pyongyang, the capital city of the DPRK. The kindergarten plays an important role in the early musical education system unique to the DPRK.

Kim Hyang Suk taught those three children and other talented ones in musical art.

She said: “The early musical education system in our country is a cradle of child prodigies. Whenever I took my pupils to international piano contests, I always keenly felt the superiority and vitality of our educational system. In the future I will develop continuously educational methods and playing techniques to bring up more music prodigies.”