On the Strength of Songun

August 25 is not an ordinary day for the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. On the day in 1960, Kim Jong Il (1942-2011), eternal Chairman of the DPRK National Defence Commission, started the Songun-based leadership by inspecting the Seoul Ryu Kyong Su Guards 105th Tank Division of the Korean People’s Army. 

For over half a century since then, under his Songun-based leadership, the DPRK has always safeguarded its sovereignty and dignity with honour in the ceaseless confrontation with the United States which claims to be a “superpower.” In January 1968, the US armed spy ship Pueblo - which had intruded into the territorial waters of the DPRK and which had been conducting acts of espionage - was captured by the navy of the KPA. Availing itself of the incident, the US dispatched legions of its troops to the Korean peninsula, clamouring about retaliation against the DPRK. Dark clouds of war hung over the peninsula. The world people were apprehensive about the outbreak of a new war in Korea. The government of the Soviet Union advised the Korean counterpart to release the captured ship. At this juncture, Kim Jong Il stated that he would not release the crew of the Pueblo unless the Americans submitted a letter of surrender and that since the ship was Korea’s booty, he would not return it even if they presented it. The DPRK declared to the world that it would retaliate against the “retaliation” of the US and return all-out war for “all-out war.” Utterly dispirited by the resolute countermeasures taken by the DPRK, the United States had no option but to sign its letter of apology in December that year, in which it acknowledged its hostile acts and assured that no US ships would intrude into the DPRK’s territorial waters in future. The then US President Lyndon Johnson lamented that it was the first letter of apology ever since the United States was founded. 

The same is true of ensuing incidents: The US large espionage plane EC-121 was shot down after having intruded into the territorial air space of the DPRK in April 1969; and the US soldiers committed acts of provocation against the guards of the KPA at Panmunjom along the Military Demarcation Line dividing Korea into the north and the south in August 1976, but were severely punished. In those cases too, the US made such rackets as if it would start a war at once, but was frightened by the decisive countermeasures and strong military might of the DPRK and gave up its attempts. 

The first nuclear crisis on the Korean peninsula between 1993 and 1994 was induced by the US, which falsely accused the DPRK of its nuclear issue and instigated the International Atomic Energy Agency to force the DPRK to receive its “special inspection” of the major military sites while launching war rehearsals on a large scale in South Korea. Such being the case, Kim Jong Il issued an order of the KPA Supreme Commander on declaring a state of war readiness across the country. It was followed by the publication of a statement of the DPRK government that it would withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in order to defend the supreme interests of the country. Finding itself in a dilemma by the bomb-like declarations of the counterpart, the United States was forced to come to the negotiating table and to sign the DPRK-USA Agreed Framework for solving the nuclear issue of the Korean peninsula in a peaceful way. The US President Bill Clinton sent Kim Jong Il a letter of assurance, in which he ensured the sincere implementation of the US commitments under the Agreed Framework. Afterwards, the US picked a quarrel with the DPRK in 1998 over its nuclear facilities for the peaceful purpose while making public the OPLAN 5027 for preemptive nuclear strike and intensifying pressure on it. To cope with this, the DPRK solemnly declared its stand that it had no other choice but to prepare its nuclear deterrent. The more pressure and threats the US applied, the more strongly the DPRK responded to it. The DPRK’s supertough countermeasures compelled the Clinton administration to confess its defeat. 

Entering the new century, the Bush administration, branding the DPRK as part of the “Axis of Evil” and announcing that it was a target of preemptive nuclear strike, became hell-bent on launching reckless moves of nuclear war provocation. Given the situation, the DPRK formally withdrew from the NPT and then stated its possession of nuclear weapons. It carried out missile launches and underground nuclear test, thus delivering a decisive blow to the US in its acts of arbitrariness and nuclear blackmail. The US administration could not but make public the removal of the DPRK from the list of state sponsors of terrorism. The American magazine Newsweek carried an article about striking the DPRK off the list of states sponsoring terrorism. It said that President Bush informed the US Congress of crossing out North Korea from the list, which was an event symbolic of his surrender to North Korea. 

So is the case with the DPRK’s launch of the second artificial satellite Kwangmyongsong 2 in April 2009. When the DPRK announced its launch programme, the US and other hostile forces made a huge fuss about it. Japan, having defined intercepting of Korea’s satellite as part of its national policy, deployed combat vessels in its attempt to hamper it. Nevertheless, the Korean leader had the satellite launched as planned. He took steps to severely punish not only the enemy’s intercepting bases but their strongholds if they dared intercept it. 

Indeed, Chairman Kim Jong Il was a peerlessly brilliant commander, who always won victory in the confrontation with the US in the latter half of the 20th century and the early 21st century by dint of Songun, defeating the successive US presidents and concurrent commanders in chief of the armed forces of the US – Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, Bush Senior, Bill Clinton, Bush Junior, and Barack Obama. Kim Jong Il once said that a powerful military strength supported him when he was taking on the US, a self-styled “sole superpower” in the world, with courage and pluck, and that as he had a powerful army and munitions industry he was at ease and did what he wanted to do. His words still have a lingering effect on the international society. 

 

Immortal Exploits in Songun-Based Revolutionary Leadership

On August 25th 1960, Kim Jong Il - eternal leader of socialist Korea - started his Songun-based revolutionary leadership. Since then, his half-a-century-long leadership ushered in a new era of prosperity unprecedented in the Korean history spanning some 5,000 years. 

Kim Jong Il’s Songun leadership built up the country as a military power. It was a century ago that Korea was reduced to the Japanese imperialist colony (1905-1945) for its weak military strength. It must be this grim lesson of history that impelled him to launch political activities with guidance over the Korean People’s Army. 

Kim Jong Il paid primary attention to the thoroughgoing politico-ideological preparedness of the service personnel in his Songun-based leadership. The principal factor in the victory in a war is not the latest military hardware, but the soldier masses that handle them - this was his steadfast viewpoint. He ensured that the political organs in the army enhanced their role to intensify ideological education of the service personnel and set forth militant slogans for them. He saw to it that they emulated the examples of the anti-Japanese revolutionary fighters who fought for national liberation, battle heroes of the Fatherland Liberation War (1950-1953) and those who sacrificed themselves for the country and people. Whenever he inspected the army units he showed deep concern regarding the newspapers, magazines and books read by the soldiers. 

Kim Jong Il put emphasis on strengthening the military capabilities of the People’s Army. He ensured that all the service personnel trained hard to be physically strong, well-trained in the use of their weapons and to possess excellent marksmanship. He taught them original strategies and tactics while inspecting their military drills. 

He exerted great efforts into developing self-reliant defence industry capable of manufacturing any state-of-the-art military equipment as it wished. From the mid-1990s Kim Jong Il held higher the banner of Songun and redoubled his effort to strengthening the military capabilities. The US-led imperialist allied forces went to the extreme of anti-DPRK manoeuvres, taking advantage of the collapse of socialist countries. To cope with them, he made energetic inspection tours of the army units for military buildup. He inspected over 5,200 units of the ministry of armed forces from the day of the start of his Songun-based revolutionary leadership until the last days of his life, and among them the units he visited from 1995 to December 2011 numbered 2,492. 

Under his wise leadership, the Korean People’s Army has developed into an invincible army fully prepared for both defence and attack and also possessed of a powerful nuclear deterrent. Kim Jong Il turned Korea into a political and ideological power of the single-hearted unity by dint of his Songun-based revolutionary leadership. He put forward the People’s Army as a pillar, main force, of the socialist cause. He ensured that the entire people modelled after the revolutionary soldier spirit displayed by the service personnel of the People’s Army. Accordingly the identity of the army and the people in ideology, viewpoint and fighting spirit reached a higher level and so much consolidated was the traditional single-minded unity of the Korean community. 

Kim Jong Il made all of the people further cherish their confidence in socialism through consistent enforcement of such socialist policies as free education and medical treatment, though the country was undergoing severe economic difficulties due to the economic blockade of the imperialist allied forces in the closing years of the last century. Living up to the motto “The people are my God” throughout his life, he worked heart and soul to improve the people’s standard of living. 

Human history has not yet recorded a people’s leader but him, who passed away on the road of field guidance for the well-being of his people. His Songun-based revolutionary leadership made it possible for the army and people in Korea to achieve their single-hearted unity around the Party. Kim Jong Il ushered in a new era of prosperity of building a thriving nation by his Songun-based revolutionary leadership. In August 1998 Korea launched its first earth satellite Kwangmyongsong 1 which was made entirely by their own efforts and technology. It was a clear signal that Korea set about building a prosperous and powerful nation. It was his ideal to establish a thriving socialist country with strong national power in which everything prospers and its people live happily with nothing to envy in the world. 

For its materialization he set forth a line of economic construction in the Songun era that priority is given to the development of defence industry while simultaneously developing light industry and agriculture. The line brought about eye-opening economic development in Korea. An iron-making system without using coking coal and scrap iron was established and the magnesite industry made Juche-based. The machine-building industry broke through the cutting edge and mass-produced CNC machine tools. The modernized fibre and fertilizer industries fed with domestic fuel and
raw materials are greatly paying off. Radical progress is also made in light industry and agriculture. Gene engineering, bioengineering, information technology, nano technology and other cutting-edge technologies are making brisk headway. Farms of sturgeon, salmon, eel and terrapin mushroomed in all parts of the country. All other sectors including education, public health and physical culture and sports underwent marked developments, while the cities and villages being turned into socialist fairylands for the people to live in splendour. Kim Jong Il’s Songun-based revolutionary leadership is now being carried forward by supreme leader Kim Jong Un.

Day of Songun in the DPRK

August 25 is the Day of Songun in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. The day was instituted to commemorate August 25, 1960, when Kim Jong Il (1942-2011), eternal Chairman of the National Defence Commission of the DPRK, started Songun-based revolutionary leadership with the inspection of the Seoul Ryu Kyong Su Guards 105th Tank Division of the Korean People’s Army. The inspection was a significant declaration of the motto of the man, who would later lead his country and people, and the mode of his politics. 

From that day until the last days of his life, he inspected over 5,200 units in the military field. He inspected the 105th Tank Division, symbol of his Songun-based revolutionary leadership, for over 20 times. In those days he built up the KPA into invincible armed forces and consolidated the country’s military capabilities to the maximum with the KPA as the core, thus providing a sure guarantee for the victory of the cause of socialism. 

Always attaching great importance to consolidating the politico-ideological, military and technical capabilities of the KPA, he energetically led the work of building up the KPA into invincible armed forces on the road of his Songun-based revolutionary leadership. Directing primary efforts to training the commanding personnel and staff officers of the army he also ensured that all the soldiers were fully prepared to be reliable defenders of the socialist cause, a-match-for-a-hundred combatants. When visiting units and sub-units of various services, arms and corps, he acquainted himself with their preparedness for combat and clarified the ways and means for solving in an original way the strategic and tactical problems arising in modern warfare. As he led the KPA by dint of his Juche-oriented military ideas and theories, unexcelled military insight and judgment and profound military knowledge, it could be remarkably developed into the ranks of combatants each of whom is a match for a hundred foes. 

Kim Jong Il also paid close attention to modernizing the military hardware of the KPA. In line with the demands of the rapidly-developing modern military science and technology, he gave ceaseless guidance to the defence industry of the country to modernize the KPA’s military hardware. He inspected many munitions factories so as to ensure that they put production on a normal footing whatever the adversity and turned out sophisticated military hardware of various types. This enabled the KPA to develop into invincible armed forces possessed of all the strategic as well as tactical weapons necessary for attack and defence on the ground, on the sea and in the air. 

The KPA, developed into an elite force in the politico-ideological, strategic, tactical, military and technical aspects under the guidance of Kim Jong Il, have always emerged victorious in the uninterrupted showdown with the US-led imperialist forces. As the Pueblo incident in January 1968, the EC-121 incident in April 1969 and the Panmunjom incident in August 1976 showed, the US, which committed one provocation after another against the DPRK, could not avoid merciless punishment by the KPA on the sea, in the air and on the ground. 

Around the end of the last century, when socialism was imploding in several countries, the KPA, as a steadfast advocate and reliable defender of the socialist cause, frustrated the anti-socialist offensives by the allied imperialist forces. Having defended socialism in the most trying international situation under the unfurled banner of Songun, Kim Jong Il ushered in an era of building a thriving socialist country. He led the service personnel and people to the effort for building such a country in the spirit of being victors in the battle of defending socialism. He encouraged the service personnel to stand in the van of this effort holding the slogan, “Let us take upon ourselves both national defence and socialist construction!” Encouraged, the service personnel performed heroic feats in socialist construction braving difficulties and hardships through audacious offensive. Naming the spirit they displayed the revolutionary soldier spirit, Kim Jong Il enlisted all the people to making great innovations and leaps in all the sectors of the building of a thriving country by learning after the spirit. 

As a result, the DPRK could open a grandiose era of building a thriving country amidst the vicious schemes of the imperialists to stifle it; all the crop fields were realigned into large-sized, standardized ones as befit those of a socialist state, the economy began to be reactivated and many factories and enterprises were renovated; the whole country seethed with the enthusiasm for introducing CNC technology and, stoking up the industrial revolution of the new century, the DPRK advanced vigorously to achieve the status of a scientific and technological power, an economic giant. 

The eye-opening reality in the DPRK, which is ever-victorious by dint of single-hearted unity, formidable by dint of self-reliant national defence and achieving prosperity by dint of the industrial revolution of the new century, is unthinkable separated from Kim Jong Il’s exploits in the leadership of the Songun revolution. Kim Jong Il’s exploits of having laid eternal foundation for the prosperity of his country and nation through outstanding and seasoned Songun-based leadership will shine forever together with the Day of Songun.