On May 1, Juche 111 (2022), the respected Comrade Kim Jong Un had photos taken with the university students and working youth in the capital city of Pyongyang who had contributed to the successful military parade for celebrating the 90th founding anniversary of the Korean People’s Revolutionary Army.

The number of photos carried on Rodong Sinmun was as many as 20.

Those photos tell a touching story.

On the afternoon of April 30, General Secretary Kim Jong Un called a senior official of the Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea on the phone and told him his intention to have a photo session with the young people who formed the background ranks in the military parade. He added that there was no such a photo session in the past and it would become a good occasion for praising our young people and encouraging and firing them with enthusiasm for the revolution, patriotism and struggle.

A few days before, he had photos taken with not only commanding officers and soldiers who took part in the military parade and participants in the celebrations but also with members of the Radio-Television Broadcasting Committee of the DPRK who broadcast the news of the military parade at the highest possible level.

Some hours later, he called the senior official again and said that he would have a photo session with the youth the following day and highly appreciate them for contributing to the military parade. And he personally set the venue of the photo session, saying the young people would be more pleased to have photos taken at Kim Il Sung Square where the celebration event took place.

He told the official to bring all the tens of thousands of the young participants in the event, the majority of whom were students, to the photo session and gave detailed instructions as to the make-up of persons on the photographing stands and position of shooting. As it was several days after the military parade, the participants in the event had dispersed in different areas. Therefore, arrangements were made to gather all of them all through that night.

On May 1 the General Secretary came to the venue of shooting with a broad smile on his face and warmly waved back to the cheering young people. Every time he moved to a new shooting stand he asked officials which university they were from and who they were and warmly encouraged young people as he held up his fist high. That day, he moved as many as 20 times to have photos taken through morning and afternoon.

The rosy future of Korean-style socialism belongs to the youth and it is the sacred patriotic cause that should be brought earlier by themselves, he said. And he expressed his deep trust and expectation that the youth and students would become dependable pillars who contribute a large share in the struggle for the country’s prosperity by studying hard with the inexhaustible ardour and revolutionary mettle they displayed in the celebration event in the square.