Letter of Congratulations Sent by General Secretary Kim Jong Un to Young People

Letter of Congratulations To the Trustworthy Young People Who Volunteered to Work in the Difficult and Challenging Sectors of Socialist Construction

In the stirring period, when a dynamic struggle is being waged for the rejuvenation of our great state, our excellent young men and women volunteered to work in the difficult and challenging sectors of socialist construction, instilling a firmer confidence and greater fighting spirit in all other people and demonstrating far and wide the revolutionary character and fighting mettle of the Korean youth, who go through fire and water in response to the call of the Workers' Party of Korea.

With an ardent affection for and unshakable conviction in socialism, you have turned out to work bravely for the revolution, defying trials and sacrifice; I highly appreciate your laudable patriotic deeds, and extend warm congratulations and militant greetings to our young people.

My warm thanks go to the excellent parents and teachers, who supported the laudable determinations of their beloved children and students and encouraged them without hesitation, and to the organizations and officials of the youth league, who helped these young people's valuable decisions turn into patriotic minds and inspired them.

I also would like to extend warm congratulations to all other young people across the country, who have greeted Youth Day while demonstrating the stout mettle of the Korean youth with hot blood and soaring passion in every corner of the country.

Though your native homes and the dreams you nurtured in your minds are different, you, with the same dream and ideal of supporting the Party's intention, have settled in the workplaces, to which others do not dare to go, and in other places strange to you; you are a great pride of socialist Korea and source of its great strength, as well as young patriots of our era, beloved of your country and fellow people.

Your deeds are an expression of your thoroughgoing faith to share your destiny for ever with socialism, your ardent love for your state and your outlook on beautiful life of finding the honour and worth of life on the road of working for the Party and revolution.

Amid the remarkably soaring enthusiasm for volunteering by young people in response to the call of the times and their motherland in practice, not in words, the ranks of young people who volunteered to the difficult and challenging sectors have increased rapidly after the Eighth Congress of the Party; this fact showcases the wonderful ideological and spiritual state of our current young men and women.

Young people around the world are flowing into their capital and other cities in pursuance of their avarice and personal pleasure.  Only the Korean young people who have grown up under the embrace of the socialist motherland unhesitatingly volunteer to exchange their cards of capital citizenship with notes of dispatch to coal mines, cooperative farms, grand construction sites and islands far from cities.

Our Party identifies, in your beautiful and laudable spiritual world, the patriotic soul and revolutionary spirit which remain unchanged and yet alive no matter how many generations have been replaced.

You volunteered for the posts at which, you knew, you would have to suffer extraordinary hardships away from your dear homes, brightly illumined cities and beloved families. Your lofty spirit is a splendid inheritance of the ennobling spirit of the anti-Japanese revolutionary fighters who fought shedding blood in the blizzard-swept wilderness after parting with their families.

The red blood of the anti-Japanese forerunners who pioneered the revolution under the leadership of Comrade Kim Il Sung is now running through the veins of the rising generations, and this clearly proves that the lineage of the revolutionary cause of Juche which started in Mt Paektu is being stoutly inherited.

The enemies are now trembling with terror at this powerful current and spirit.

The imperialists' anti-DPRK attempt to degenerate and undermine the ranks of our young people by means of vicious sanctions and pressure and tenacious ideological and cultural infiltration has vanished like bubbles in the face of this strong current.

It is a wild goose chase to try to pull down the bulwark of socialism by breaking away our younger generations from the revolution.

The revolutionary advance made by you, hot-blooded young people, is heightening the morale of the ranks of the general onward march as the days go by and injecting confidence in sure victory and youthful vigour into the whole country.

To look back, every upsurge of our revolution has begun with the sweeping enthusiasm of the young people for volunteering, and this enthusiasm has always given rise to a revolutionary and patriotic zeal, resulting in a stirring era.

Thanks to the boundless loyalty and devoted passion of the young people, who had settled down on the rugged mountains and wild sea and shed valuable sweat true to the appeal of the Party that had called young people to the mountains, seas and development areas, monumental edifices of the era mushroomed in the desolate areas and a great heyday of the legendary Chollima era and WPK era opened on this land.

Young people courageously volunteered to work on the first lines designated by the Party and revolution when the country was going through trials and demanding another leap forward, and performed undying exploits, shaking the land and sky; these legendary tales are never a thing of the past, living only in memory; they now serve as a driving force that encourage our revolution to advance vigorously.

A state with a huge army of young people, who stoutly carry forward the revolutionary spirit and fighting stamina created by their preceding generations, advances by leaps and bounds full of youthful vigour without knowing any senility for ever.

The communist society, which the hot-blooded young revolutionaries pictured in their minds today 94 years ago at the beginning of the Korean revolution, is not a thing of a distant future, but will turn into reality without fail thanks to the unflinching struggle of the patriotic young people boundlessly loyal to the call of the WPK.

Now we are in the severest-ever trials since the founding of our state, and are overcoming the unprecedented difficulties with an indomitable spiritual strength.

In this situation, the news that our young people volunteered, in groups and one after another, to work on the major fronts of socialist construction is more encouraging than that hundreds of thousands, nay millions, of tons of steel and fertilizer or tens of thousands of sets of machine have been produced.

What delighted me most is that the young people, who had been lagging behind others, reached an excellent decision to devote themselves to their motherland as befits members of the Socialist Patriotic Youth League that has been rallied on the strength of patriotism, and made a new start of their lives by volunteering to work at the difficult and challenging sectors.

When the youthful hearts burning with patriotism fire millions of others' and the fire burns up all sorts of feeble and impure elements that remain and are hindering our advance, the timetabled victory of the Korean revolution will be hastened that much.

The Party expects that you will further heighten the patriotic zeal and fighting spirit that are running high at the moment to become standard-bearers and fighters who achieve breakthroughs in the vanguard of the advancing ranks.

Many difficulties and trials may lie on the road you have to follow from now on.

Of course, you must have set out on this road with a mental preparation to brave difficulties; whenever you vacillate even for a moment, you should invariably follow the road of patriotism to the end, recalling the pledges you made on the day when you volunteered and reflecting yourselves on the spiritual world of your preceding generations.

When all of you transform the whole country including the remote villages on the communist lines by turning the outposts of socialist construction into theatres of struggle and feats and demonstrating the mettle of the youth shock brigade and youth death-defying corps, the speed of advance of our revolution will be further accelerated and our politico-ideological and class position will be further consolidated.

I am in belief that all the young people, who volunteered to work in the difficult and challenging sectors and are unsparingly devoting their loyal and patriotic sweats at early ages in order to ease the anxiety and agony of the Party and the state as much as they can, will exalt their honour of being heroic youth who are loved by their collectives and comrades as treasures of their workplaces and artists of great feats and who will remain in the memory of their motherland and fellow people.

As a saying goes that suffering borne in youth is more precious than gold, the worthwhile traces of our young people who devoted their youth, accepting trials with pleasure, in the difficult and challenging sectors will be their most valuable life-long wealth that cannot be bartered with anything else and a precious asset which they can proudly hand down to the coming generations.

Recently, the youth league officials are putting the main emphasis on the league's internal work and ideological education as intended by the Party, and are bringing about a turn in the spirit and manner of their work. As a result, visible changes are taking place in the political consciousness and mental state of our young people.

Youth league organizations and officials should further enhance the atmosphere of the positive begetting another positive by drawing on this experience, and conduct the work with the sentiments and feelings of young people in a substantial way. In this way, they can prepare the ranks of our youth into a collective of steadfast patriots, into a reliable special detachment of our Party, who work with devotion for the prosperity of our socialist motherland.

It is a firm determination of our Party to take each and every young man and woman born on this land to the communist society.

Party organizations should channel their particular efforts into the work with young people, regarding the work of the youth league as part of Party work, so that all the young people can display their youthful wisdom and courage in the struggle for fresh victory in socialist construction.

Party organizations should take maternal care of the work and life of the young people who volunteered to their relevant areas and units, and lead them to live with honour at every step on the road of loyalty to the Party.

They should also hold the families, which sent their children to the difficult and challenging sectors, as patriotic families, and take good care of them.

The millions of young people are a firm cornerstone, which our Party relies on at any time, and a strong force that demonstrates a more formidable strength the harder the times are.

The cause of our Party will win victory after victory by dint of the ardent loyalty of our proud and trustworthy young people and of the full support and trust of all other people.

My earnest request is that you, in good health at new workplaces in strange localities, should add brilliance to your beautiful life by creating new innovations and performing uninterrupted feats without betraying the expectations of your parents, siblings, teachers, organizations and comrades.

I wish a bright future of our beloved young people.

Let us all struggle dynamically for the fresh victory of our revolution and the bright future of our great state.

I firmly believe that you will fully demonstrate to the whole world the heroic mettle of the Korean youth as befits true sons and daughters of the motherly Party.

Kim Jong Un
General Secretary of the Workers' Party of Korea

August 28, Juche 110 (2021)