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.