Illustrious Leader in the 20th Century

President Kim Il Sung of the DPRK (1912-1994), founding father of socialist Korea, passed away on July 8, 1994. 

Nearly 20 years have passed, but progressive mankind cherishes the memory of the President as the distinguished leader who represented the 20th century. Kim Il Sung was a great thinker and theoretician who authored the Juche idea and Songun idea, ushering in an era of independence and ensuring the victorious advance for the cause of global independence. 

In his early teens he set out on the road of struggle to liberate his country and people from the Japanese military occupation and created the Juche idea and Songun idea in the course of blazing the trail for the Korean revolution. Under the banner of these ideas he organized and led the 15-year anti-Japanese armed struggle and achieved the historic cause of Korea’s liberation. 

After liberation he founded the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the first democratic and people-oriented country in the East, and inflicted on the United States, which had been boasting of being the “strongest” in the world, a disastrous defeat in the Korean war (1950-1953), for the first time in its history. 

In the postwar period, he developed the DPRK into a powerful socialist country independent, self-sufficient and self-reliant in defence. The reality of Korea which adorned the 20th century with victory and glory eloquently proved the correctness, truthfulness and invincible vitality of the Juche idea and Songun idea. The ideas have rapidly been disseminated across the world. 

By regarding them as a treasured sword for ensuring victory in carrying out their cause for independence, the progressive mankind marched full of confidence towards a bright future in the era of independence. Kim Il Sung was also an outstanding leader who, under the unfurled banner of anti-imperialist independence, led the cause of global independence to victory throughout his life. In the violent turmoil of the 20th century he took the helm of independence and illuminated the way for the cause of global independence against imperialism. 

He published many works including Let Us Intensify the Anti-imperialist, Anti-US Struggle, The Great Anti-Imperialist Revolutionary Cause of the Asian, African and Latin-American Peoples Is Invincible, The Peoples of the Third World Advancing under the Uplifted Banner of Independence Will Certainly Win Their Revolutionary Cause, For the Development of the Non-aligned Movement, Preventing War and Preserving Peace Are the Burning Tasks of Mankind and For a Free and Peaceful New World, in which he indicated fundamental principles, ways and methods for accomplishing the cause. 

He rendered active support and encouragement to the countries and peoples in their struggle against imperialism and for independence. During the great anti-Japanese war for liberating  Korea, he assisted the Chinese revolution at the cost of blood and safeguarded the Soviet Union  with arms. He was in the vanguard of the worldwide solidarity movement to defend the Cuban revolution when the Cuban Missile Crisis broke out in the early 1960s. His deep concern and wholehearted assistance were also given to Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Algeria, Angola, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Namibia and other countries aspiring after independence and opposing imperialism. 

Stirred up by his encouragement and support, peoples in many colonial countries could achieve the cause of national liberation, make a dynamic advance towards the building of a new society, and win victory in the war to repulse the imperialists’ aggression. Thanks to his close attention and energetic activities the non-aligned movement foiled the machinations of the imperialists and dominationists to divide and ruin it and made continuous efforts to strengthen and develop itself. 

Kim Il Sung was a veteran statesman of the world who enjoyed high respect and reverence for his noble personality. As head of state, he visited foreign countries on 54 occasions travelling over 520,000 km and met more than 70,000 heads of state, and party, and other political and public figures. 

Everyone who met him was so moved by his ennobling personality that they praised him highly as the greatest man. Among them were Stalin, Mao Zedong, Ho Chi Minh, Fidel Castro, Sukarno and Tito, famous people of the 20th century. The former US president Jimmy Carter said that President Kim Il Sung was as great as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln, the most illustrious early US presidents, all combined. Other well-known Western politicians, including Mitterrand of France and Shin Kanemaru of Japan were also greatly fascinated by his personality. Hans Klekazky, an Austrian politician, said that there had never been and would never be such a world-famous leader as President Kim Il Sung in the West and the East.