75 Glorious Years of Struggle for Independence and the Well-being of the Korean People

SOON we spend 75th anniversary of the Workers' Party of Korea. WPK has a glorious history. Under the leadership of the WPK, has been built a society on the Korean Peninsula which perfectly reflects the basic needs of the people. Theoretical work made by President Kim Il Sung, General Secretary Kim Jong Il and Chairman     Kim Jong Un, has guided both Koreans and progressive people in the world on struggle for independence.

WPK was founded by leadership of President Kim Il Sung on 10th October 1945. On that time Kim Il Sung outlined importance the founding of the Party and the role of the Party. He wrote:

“The Korean communist party must in no way be an organization for only a few. It must be a mass political party which is deeply rooted among the workers, peasants and other working masses” [Kim Il Sung 1945 On founding the party, state and armed forces in the liberated homeland.  Kim Il Sung Complete works, Vol 2, p. 5, Pyongyang 2011.]… Without maintaining kindred ties with the broad masses, the Party cannot become a genuine revolutionary organization. [id p. 6] .

Further, Kim Il Sung continued:

“To build the democratic people’s republic we must first, under the leadership of the working class, form a democratic national united front embracing various strata of the democratic forces, such as the broad masses of peasant, intellectuals and conscientious native capitalists"[id p. 10].

This action plan, presented by Kim Il Sung 75 years ago, is still relevant in many other countries. There is widespread dissatisfaction in Western countries to the problems raised from globalization and neoliberal economic policies. However, we do not have a common understanding of the situation or a common front against neo-liberalism to change it. In Finland, for example, the Communist movement is divided into several small parties with minor ideological differences. These are parties for only a few as Kim Il Sung warned. The connection between party and the masses has been broken. This means that working for independence is very difficult in the Western countries. It requires a lot of groundwork.

We should be able to contribute to found a democratic national front against neoliberalism, together with other progressive organizations, from a national perspective. In this work, knowledge of the strategy and tactics of the WPK provides a good model how this issue can be systematically promoted. The work done by Leaders and the WPK for the development of the theory of socialism is very important.

After the collapse of socialism in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe pressure against the DPRK increased. Imperialist forces tried by all means to destroy the Korean socialism. Disappearance of old allies and serious natural disasters weakened at the same time the economy of the DPRK.

These difficult times showed, that the strength of DPRK is Korean style socialism, KimIlSungism-KimJongIlism. The DPRK has built since the founding by solving systematic guiding principles of Juche idea: The independent stand must be maintained, the creative method should be applied and the main stress should be placed on ideology.

Because of these guiding principles the DPRK was not dependent on the great powers, the people's ideological consciousness was good and defense was strong enough. Socialism was also developed continuously by creative method. Thanks to these guiding principles, the DPRK survived the challenges of the 1990s and was able to continue building a strong socialist state.

In Korean peninsula KimIlSungism-KimJongIlism was developed all the time, taking into account the internal development of Korean socialism, the active and creative role of the masses, and the development of the outside world. In Western Europe, many communist grouping adhere to Marxism-Leninism and are supporter of that ideology dogmatically. A few researches are done today of dialectical and historical materialism, for example.

Thus, Marxism-Leninism is not suitable as a common ideology when we want to promote the issue of the independence of nations. This requires the theory developed for the whole time relative to the surrounding world. Such a theory is KimIlSungism-KimJongIlism.

We live in an age of globalization, which is characteristic of the reactionary, anti-people economic policies all over the world. This development began as early as the 1970s and has continued and expanded to our days. On the time of globalization, capital and goods move freely between countries. In each country, competitiveness will be improved in order to save jobs.

In Finland we often talks about competitiveness in relation to Germany. In practice, this means that wages and other achievements done by working class will be weakened in Finland, which will improve Finland's competitiveness. Similarly, capitalists in Germany will weaken wages and working conditions to improve Germany's competitiveness. As a result of this spiral, wages and working conditions are deteriorating across Europe. The big capital gets increasingly larger proportion of the added value made by workers. In this way, globalization is reflected to the daily life of every worker.

European nations have not been independent for a long time. There is no national decision-making in economic matters any more. Kim Jong Il has written:

“Since the popular masses are the masters of their own destiny they must be the masters of their economic life. Whether they become the masters of their economic life of not depends upon the economic system of the society, system of ownership in particular“[Kim Jong Il 1991: Our socialism centered on the masses shall not perish. In work Kim Jong Il: For the victory of the socialist cause, p 91. Pyongyang 1999.]

I have said many times before, that a common ideology plays an important role in the work for independence. The WPK has had excellent leaders throughout its history. President Kim Il Sung developed the Juche idea, Secretary General Kim Jong Il reaffirmed the idea of independence by developing the Songun idea and Songun politics. Chairman Kim Jong Un has taken independence to a qualitatively new level by strengthening the country’s defense and Korean socialism.

The leaders are analyzed sharply right and timely changes in the world as well as the conditions for the construction of socialism at home land in their works. Because of this work, we have a huge theoretical library at our disposal that we can apply in our work in our own countries. Nowhere in the world has not been done so comprehensive analysis over the past 75 years as in the DPRK. This kind of research for independence in Western countries is extremely difficult, because research funding, media etc. are supervised by the bourgeoisie.

To the end I will raise some points about corona pandemic.

We are now living in very exceptional times due to the global Corona pandemic. Corona has caused major problems to the working people all over the world. One million people have died to COVID-19.

The imperialists take advantage of all exceptional situations to improve their powers. This has also happened during the Corona pandemic. For example, in Western Europe owners of companies has required reducing salary and working conditions.

I will take the example of Finland. In Finland international paper company made a decision two months ago, to close large paper mill. The closure is due to declining demand for paper. In connection with the closure, the mill's CEO announced that it would be impossible to produce paper profitably in Finland because wages are too high. That plant made a profit all the time, but not enough in the opinion of the big capital.

The problems caused by coronaviruses have been great, although experts have been warning of the possibility of a global pandemic for years.

The fact is that globalization has increased the risk of a pandemic and globalization prevents precaution of the nations to this kind of risks. At that time of globalization the supply chains of the companies are very long. This means that in a crisis trade of raw materials and goods is hampered. The self-sufficiency of nations has been scrapped. This has made the world sensitive to disturbance and now we are paying off of that situation.

Capitalism prefers short-term profits. In addition, the tax system favors people belonging to the highest income groups. With declining tax revenues, public finances are in trouble.

All this is the result of a policy which is strengthening globalization. This policy will also further increase the probability of a global pandemic or other significant risk like environmental risk.

The development described above is confirmed by the example of the DPRK. The DPRK has been building a socialist economy for 75 years under the leadership of the Workers Party of Korea. The basic principles have been economic and political independence. The DPRK has developed to a strong, independent socialist state.

Because of the corona situation in February 2020, the DPRK closed its borders firmly and prevented the spread of the coronavirus epidemic to the country. A long-standing independent policy has led the DPRK to respond well to the challenges posed by the exceptional situation.

This shows that a counterforce can be built to globalization. All of us progressive people need to study more and more the Juche idea and the experience of construction of Korean socialism and give all our support to the DPRK’s policy.

In this way, we will promote global peace and work for promoting the independence of the people in other parts of the world.