Kim Il Sung’s Reverence for the People

As Christians revere God, Kim Il Sung, the founder of the socialist Korea, respected the people throughout his life. For him, the people were the almighty beings and the wisest teachers.

From the first days when he embarked on the road of revolution to win back the country from the Japanese military occupation (1905-1945), he keenly felt the greatness of the people many times.

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It happened when he was waging the anti-Japanese armed struggle in a guerrilla base along the Tuman River on the side of Northeast China.

In 1934 the Japanese imperialists threw 5 000 troops, guns and even planes into the attack of the Xiaowangqing guerrilla base. However, the number of the guerrillas defending the base was smaller than one percent of the number of enemy and, moreover, they were scantily armed with rifles and light machine guns. In this critical time the people in the base helped Kim Il Sung to find a way to defend the base. They turned out in a do-or-die struggle against the Japanese troops. Encouraged by their will of resistance, he mobilized all the guerrillas and the people to the battle in defence of the base. The joint resistance struggle of the army and the people brought about a miracle of winning the battle.

As he firmly believed in the great strength of organized people, Kim Il Sung made a plan for enlisting all the people in the final offensive to destroy Japanese imperialism which was boasting of being the “leader of Asia.” According to the plan, an all-people resistance was to be waged in step with the general offensive by the Korean People’s Revolutionary Army.

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Victory in the Korean war (1950-1953) in which the DPRK repulsed aggression by the imperialist allied forces can be called a miracle he created by mobilizing the strength of the people. The inexhaustible strength of the people single-mindedly united around Kim Il Sung realized the historic task of socialist industrialization in a short period of 14 years and turned the DPRK into a powerful socialist state, independent, self-sufficient and self-reliant in defence.

Kim Il Sung devoted his all to the people.

Kim Il Sung accepted the intentions and requirements of the people as the most sacred. After the war an old man wrote a letter to him. The letter read in part: From ancient times Pyongyang has been called Ryugyong in the sense that it is a city of willows; I don’t understand why they are planting other species of trees than willows in the streets. After reading the letter, Kim Il Sung took measures of planting a large number of willows in the streets of Pyongyang. 

Shortly after Korea was liberated, there was only a few steel works that were operating. But he ordered to blow up a production process of a steel works because it was harmful to the lives and health of the workers.

When he visited the then Pyongyang Silk Mill, the workplace was full of steam as the workers were repairing pipes. Seeing this, he said: We should provide the workers with good working conditions; we will build a new factory for them. Then he convened a conference, saying that it was important to take account of the opinions of the workers, the masters of the factory. At the conference he said: We should not spare money for workers; the construction cost should be calculated after the construction of the factory was completed and everything that was needed for the workers was provided.

In order to resolve the food problem for the people, he did not mind looking round a tideland along a muddy road or visiting out-of-the-way mountainous villages.

He was always among the people and closely examined their voices, breath, eyes, expressions, speeches and behaviours, so as to catch the sentiments of the times and demands of the people and formulate new policies by reflecting them. 

All the state policies in the DPRK including the universal free medical care, compulsory education system, recuperation and relaxation system and that of providing people with dwelling houses free of charge are fruits of his political ideal of regarding the people as his God.