Kim Jong Il: People’s Leader

Kim Jong Il (1942-2011), eternal Chairman of the National Defence Commission of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, was a genuine people’s leader who firmly believed in his people and led his country by relying on them.

He loved his people infinitely. His love for his people found expression in his endless devotion to their wellbeing while regarding them as the most precious and almighty beings in the world and versatile teachers. People’s interests were always the starting point of his thinking and activities. Whenever a new structure was built or an undertaking was finished, he would ask first if the people liked it; whenever the people experienced a trouble, he would feel heart-broken at the thought of their inconvenience. When on a foreign tour, he would concern himself with the wellbeing of his people. A Russian presidential delegate, who had accompanied him during his visit to the Russian federation, wrote in his book: Chairman Kim Jong Il was a leader who devoted all his passion and thoughts to the happiness of his people.

Protecting and taking care of the people’s destiny on his responsibility was the acme of his love for his people. He remarkably strengthened the defence capability of his country, thus firmly safeguarding the security of the people from the nuclear threat and military aggression by the US. His raising the status of the DPRK to that of a nuclear state was a historic event that guaranteed the everlasting security of the people as well as the regional peace.

Kim Jong Il was always unconventional, simple and modest in front of the people. Always regarding himself as a son of the working people, he shared weal and woe with them; he would go to the people wearing causal wear and eating rice-balls; he went to underground faces and walked along farmroads; when he met people, he would lend an attentive an ear to them. And wherever he may go, he used to pose for a photograph with the people, standing shoulder to shoulder with them. He once accepted willingly a countrywoman’s request to name her child which was due.

With his outstanding leadership ability, Kim Jong Il pushed his way through the trials of the history and turned the DPRK into a genuine people-centred socialist country.

On one occasion he said: While capitalists believe in the money, I believe in the strength of the masses; money cannot move people’s minds, but trust can arouse the masses of the people and encourage them to display their strength to the full; this is my philosophy of strength.

These words offer a glimpse of how the unique single-hearted unity in Korea had been achieved.

Entering the 1990s, the DPRK faced temporary hardships owing to the collapse of the world socialist system, the extreme moves of the US and its followers to stifle the country and the natural disasters that hit it for several consecutive years. At that time, he got over all the difficulties on the strength of the single-hearted unity; as anti-socialist schemes by the US and its followers grew more undisguised, he led all the people to cherish a firm belief in the victory of socialism and aroused them to the struggle for defending socialism, braving the obstacles with the revolutionary spirit of self-reliance and fortitude; he himself visited factories, rural villages and construction sites, giving advices on how to break through the ordeals.

He unfolded an ambitious blueprint for building a powerful socialist country and aroused the people to the struggle. Looking far ahead into the future in the most arduous days, he gave precedence to the introduction of CNC technology into the machine-building industry. He created a climate of prioritizing science and technology throughout the country and kindled the flames of the industrial revolution in the new century, so as to put the overall economy of the country on a Juche-oriented and modern basis. He led the projects that demanded enormous investment and manpower like large-scale land realignment, gravitational waterway construction and construction of small and medium-sized power stations by enlisting the people’s high creative enthusiasm and unquenchable strength. Under his wise leadership, the Korean people braved every manner of trials and hardships and opened wide the way for building a powerful socialist country.

The noble image of Kim Jong Il as a genuine people’s leader will remain for ever in the minds of the Korean people and the progressive peoples of the whole world.