The respected fatherly Marshal Kim Jong Un sent a letter "March Towards the Future of a Powerful Country under the Unfurled Flag of the Korean Children's Union" to those attending the Ninth Congress of the Korean Children's Union on December 27.

The full text of the letter is as follows:

The Korean Children's Union, which is renowned as the sole revolutionary children's organization in the world, has convened its congress for the ninth time. 

First of all, I extend warm congratulations to you, who are attending this meaningful meeting amidst special concern and unqualified blessing of the people across the country as representatives of the Korean Children's Union that is dignified in its name, in its history and in its traditions. 

My tenderest feeling also goes to all other KCU members in the country, who are filled with a great hope and renewed determination with their minds turned to the venue of this congress.

I offer  thanks  to  the KCU  school  instructors and  its sub-branch  teachers who are  leading and  taking meticulous  care  of  our KCU members, who will  carry  forward  our  revolution, with the feeling  of  the Workers' Party of Korea, and warm encouragement to the officials in the sector of education of youth and students  and  parents  of  the  KCU  members,  who  are  making  unsparing  efforts  to  train  the  sons  and daughters of their country to be genuine persons. 

The 100th year is approaching after the founding of the Saenal Children's Union at the dawn of the Korean revolution and over 70 years have passed after the founding of the KCU on the untrodden road of building a new country, but there has been no change in the revolutionary nature and original features of the KCU as a Juche-oriented revolutionary organization of children.

There have been many children's organizations in the world, which wrote their dignified histories under revolutionary slogans, but the KCU is the only one that vigorously adds lustre to its glorious history and traditions still today, carrying forward its red bloodline.

No adversity of the  times has been able  to get out of order  the ranks of  the young revolutionaries of Korea, who are advancing only  along  the  road  indicated  by  the Workers'  Party  of Korea  as  they are growing up in its embrace. 

This  is  a  source  of  pride  of  our  Party,  our  state  and  our  people as well as honour for the KCU members. 

It seems like only yesterday when the KCU members, who came from various parts of the country, were unfolding the proud stories of their schools, sharing experiences in their KCU life and vigorously renewing their determinations at the Eighth Congress of the KCU, but they have already become youth league members and you are standing in their places. 

In our country all children go through the days in the KCU, but it is not a fortune and honour common to everyone to attend a large gathering of the KCU members which is held at an interval of several years. 

Each  of  you,  delegates, was  approved  by  all  your  classmates  and  positively  recommended  by  your KCU organizations because you were exemplary in studies and organizational life.

It is something which you would be proud of all your lives that you, selected as exemplary members from among millions of KCU members, have decided important issues related with the development of your organization by yourselves. 

I am pleased about this more than anything else, and want you, laudable and vivacious delegates, to be envied by all the others and looked up to by the whole country. 

Our people, delighted to be greeting the dawn of a new year hearing the laughter and singing of the dear KCU members after successfully winding up this year's struggle which was arduous at every step, are warmly congratulating you on this congress.

What is most important for a revolutionary party is to build a dignified and powerful country where its coming generations will lead an honourable life for 50, nay 500 years, with having no reason to grovel to others.

Our people are stoutly defending the red flag of socialism, making the most powerful weapons in the world  in  the  face  of  harsh  trials  and  continuously  building  power  stations,  factories,  new  streets  and villages. 

They are doing this solely for bringing a bright laughter and happiest life to all the generations to come and handing over to them an eternally powerful country which can ensure their well-being.

Such a powerful socialist country is approaching KCU members. 

Our Party and people will redouble their efforts and unfailingly build a country in which you will live a cheerful, valiant, abundant and happy life free from any worry. 

The masters of this powerful and thriving country are none other than KCU members. 

They  should  always  strive  to prepare  themselves  to  be  pillars, who will  firmly  defend  this precious powerful socialist country and shoulder its future dependably. 

Their days in the KCU are the most priceless days in their lives. 

It is the first step that decides the whole course of man's life. 

For this reason, you can become excellent persons only when you cultivate beautiful dreams and hopes and lay firm foundations of the correct world outlook during your days in the KCU. 

On  the  day  when  anyone  joins  the  ranks  of  the  KCU,  wearing  a  red  neckerchief,  he  starts  his socio-political life, learns one by one things that are essential to his growth together with knowledge, and cultivates features appropriate to a genuine human being. 

The fathers and mothers of you, delegates, are patriots who are still supporting the country with their honest sweat and efforts, continuing invariably the first step of life which they took with an honest mind to live up to the pledge they made in front of the KCU flag.

Holding high the slogan "Let's always be ready for the socialist motherland!", KCU members should learn hard and make unremitting efforts in their precious days which will never come back again, so as to become well-rounded,  excellent  successors  to  the  revolution  and  pillars  in  the  building  of  a  powerful country. 

A genuine KCU member required by our Party is a young revolutionary and patriot who loves most the socialist motherland which has fed and brought him up in its embrace and who cultivates his mind and abilities with which he can demonstrate its prestige on the highest level. 

Among our KCU members there are many, who, well aware of the truth that outside the embrace of their  socialist motherland  they  can  never  bring  into  full  bloom  their  hopes,  talents  and  happiness,  live faithfully  true  to  the  intention  of  the  Party  that wants  them  to  dream  of  demonstrating  their  country's prestige when  they  dream  a  dream  and  acquire workable  knowledge with which  to  build  it  in  a more brilliant way when they study. 

The  way  of  thinking  having  become  matured  for  their  ages,  they  prepare  themselves  as  sons  and daughters  faithful  to  the  Party  by  endeavouring  to  learn  about  their  leader,  the  revolution  and  their motherland, and making frequent visits to the revolutionary battlefields and historic sites voluntarily so as to  learn  the  precious  spirit  of  their  forerunners.  

Such an  ennobling  spiritual  world  of  theirs  clearly manifests  that  the  tradition  of  loyalty  the  first  generation  of  our  young  revolutionaries  created  in  the forests of Paektu is being inherited invariably. 

In  the  future,  too,  they  all  should  love  the  Party  ardently,  follow  it  to  the  end  and  fully  prepare themselves to be dependable successors and reserves for communism, who can carry forward the baton of the Korean revolution. 

What they must not forget even a moment is that the U.S. imperialists and their stooges are now looking for a chance to trample upon their dear homes and deprive them of their hopes.     

Even at this moment, the People's Army soldiers are standing in confrontation with the enemy at the posts of national defence with their guns levelled at him. 

With a bitter hatred against the enemy of the revolution and with the feeling of fighting with him, KCU members should stand in the vanguard of rendering assistance to the People's Army, and donate Sonyon tanks and cannons to it. 

And if the enemy dares to invade the country, they should fight as bravely as the children's  guards  in  the  days  of  the  Fatherland  Liberation War,  thus  demonstrating  the mettle  of  the three-million-strong Korean Children's Union.

The  criterion  of  a  young  revolutionary  and  patriot  consists  in  his  top  honour  records  of  school performance.

As it is true now, so in the future, too, it is only when KCU members have a profound knowledge that they will be able  to work  faithfully  for  the Party, perform great  feats  for  the country and win  the  fight against the enemy.

Reminding themselves every day and every minute of the slogan "Let us learn for Korea!" they should study hard to get practical knowledge and qualifications.

Every one of them should listen to their teachers carefully at class, try hard to gain even a bit more of knowledge, and hit  the  target of  top honour by  learning assiduously, devoting  their  time  to  learning.

In this way every school can produce famous young inventors, young doctors of engineering. 

They should, from their days, love reading, like to have imaginations, be good at writing, know how to present your impressions, and be well prepared to recite poems, sing songs, play sport and play musical instruments. 

The red neckerchiefs hanging over their chests represent the warm embrace of our Party  for each of them, and the KCU organizational life is a school of revolutionary education, a crucible of revolutionary training, which guides them step by step to grow up as true sons and daughters of the Party.

Cherishing the honour of being members of the KCU, which marks the beginning of political integrity in their lives, they should regard it as their sacred duty and obligation to participate in the organizational life voluntarily and faithfully.

Through  the  organizational  life  in  the KCU,  they  should  learn  the  great  intentions  of  the Party,  get awakened to their class consciousness, and equip themselves with the ideological and spiritual qualities of a laudable person, such as devotion to comrades and the collective and the spirit of loving labour.

As long as they are members of the KCU, they should always keep in mind the oath they made when they were joining the organization, and be faithful to its Rules at all times and in all places.

Valuing their organization as the most benevolent embrace and precious companion, they should love the  organization  and make  it  part  of  their  habit  to  faithfully  observe  the  organizational  discipline  and always rely on the organization. 

If they have an aversion to their organization's guidance and control, and if they alienate themselves from their organization, it immediately means their loss of the qualification of the KCU membership and deviation from the straight course of their life.

They  should  take  an  active  part  in  the  organizational  life  by  carrying  out  the  organizational assignments  in  time  and  offering  creative  opinions;  they  should  train  themselves  in  the  course  of accepting the organizational criticism thankfully and implementing the organizational decisions. 

Through this  course of  cultivation  and  training,  they  should be model members of  the youth  league and,  further,  have  the  honour  of  becoming  a member  of  the Workers' Party  of Korea, who  thinks  and behaves according only to the Party's intentions and devotes his wisdom and enthusiasm for the good of the motherland. 

For KCU members, moral traits are no less important than academic performance. 

Those, who lack morality and are poor in manners, are forsaken as beings of no use even if they are talented. 

KCU members should steadily acquire the qualities of respecting their parents, teachers and seniors, loving their friends, volunteering to do difficult tasks and giving up good things for others. 

They should make the moral traits as part of their mental qualities in their daily lives, like being polite in  their  speech,  dressing  neatly, willingly  observing  social  order  and  public  decency,  and  valuing  and using with care the assets of the country and society. 

Abilities and good traits are twin pillars of personality, neither of which should tilt. 

The  Box  Telling  Beautiful  Minds,  which  KCU  members  are  using,  is  small,  but  I  treasure  their beautiful minds in it more than thousand tons of gold. 

The praiseworthy act of unhesitatingly plunging oneself into a rapid stream to save drowning younger kids, a warm heart of giving one's pencils  to others and helping  those who are falling behind  in school, the  beautiful  stories  of  carefully  making  medicine  envelopes  to  help  the  local  pharmacies  busy  with anti-epidemic work, and all the other stories told by the boxes are truly touching, and the pure minds of publicizing others' good deeds are most precious. 

I want our KCU members to help and lead one another forward like this in cherishing ennobling moral traits. 

They should voluntarily do good deeds to make a contribution to the country's economic development and become young information workers and young political activists who greatly encourage their parents in the building of a powerful socialist country. 

I believe that all the KCU members will prove themselves worthy of the trust and affection of the Party and the expectations of their parents and teachers by becoming true sons and daughters of the socialist country, who study hard, take an active part in their organizational life and have ennobling moral traits. 

The Ninth Congress of the Korean Children's Union has invited many officials of the youth league and in the sectors related to educating youth and students, KCU school instructors and its sub-branch teachers. 

Your  responsibilities  and  roles  of  rightly  leading  every  step  of KCU members  in  their  growth  are directly linked to the future of our Party and revolution, the future of our country. 

No matter  how  successfully we  are  carrying  out  the  revolution,  the  failure  in  educating  youth  and students will lead to the severing of the lineage of the revolution and render the valuable gains won at the cost of our blood and sweat worthless. 

You, the first teachers of the rising generations and their political guardians, carry on your shoulders the heavy burden of the education of youth and students, which our Party puts forward as a policy of top priority and as an important strategic task. 

I highly appreciate your efforts for firmly defending the important revolutionary post assigned to you by the Party and making yourselves the foundation for the sound growth of KCU members. 

And availing myself of this opportunity, I would like to emphasize some issues related to bringing up our beloved KCU members with greater success. 

The present new generation is growing while seeing and hearing many new things, so their thinking is different from that of their predecessors and the difference of its level is wide according to age group.

The method of the edification of KCU members should be different from when they have  just  joined their  organization  to  when  they  are  about  to  join  the  youth  league,  from  primary-school  age  to junior-middle-school age, and from one region to another. 

Edification of youth and students can be said to be an important area of study. 

However, methodology is not explored for conducting their edification in a scientific way according to the law-governed nature of their cognitive development and their characteristic features, and instead the tendency to cling to outdated forms and methods persists. 

As a result, genuine education to the true sense of the word is not given. 

We should overcome the tendency to conduct their edification for form's sake and in a haphazard and stereotyped  manner,  and  actively  explore  new  methods  suited  to  the  level  of  our  schoolchildren's consciousness, their psychological characteristics and actual conditions. 

To this end, we should first lay out research bases for the edification of students in such a substantial way as to make them pay off in reality and operate them in an effective way. 

Our KCU members are young in age, but not in mind. 

We should strictly guard against the cramming method in the edification of KCU members and rely on heuristic methods. 

We should not attempt to cram anything into the heads of students, but help them get the capability of distinguishing right from wrong, let them present their own opinions fully and support what are positive while encouraging them to sincerely repent of their mistakes. 

In the course of this, we can make all kinds of edification acceptable to them.

It  is  a  principle  to  start  education with  that  in morality  and  collectivism, which  students  can  easily understand even when they are on a low stage in terms of knowledge and consciousness, and then move on to that in loyalty, patriotism and class awareness.   

When the mind of valuing their friends and collective and the sound moral traits become part of their mental qualities in their childhood, the spirit of loyalty, patriotism and class awareness will develop.

Now  that  educational  conditions  and  environment  have  improved with  radical  changes  having  been brought  about  in  education  in  recent  years,  application  of modern means  and  information  technology, including  video  presentations  which  appeal  to  the mentality  of  children  preferring  video materials  to audio ones, are likely to enhance the effect of edification.

As fertile soil produces good fruits, so KCU organizations should be strong if they are to train their members as stout persons. 

The key to the consolidation of KCU organizations is to improve the qualifications and the sense of responsibility of KCU school instructors who design, plan and conduct KCU activities. 

The Party regards KCU school instructors as ranking teachers and has great expectations of their roles.   

The work of the KCU school instructors is something worth trying during one's youth. 

They may  experience many  troubles  or mental  sufferings while  doing  their work,  but  they  should become  standard-bearers  leading  sub-branch  organizations  and  their  members  with  a  resolve  to  take responsibility for the KCU organizations of their schools.   

In  a  family  parents  are guardians  of  their  children, whereas  at  a  school KCU  school  instructors  are guardians of its students. 

If all the KCU school instructors fulfil their duties with a high sense of responsibility in their important positions, our Party can feel relieved about the ideological and mental state of our students. 

Strengthening its sub-branch organizations is a hallmark of the consolidation of the KCU. 

KCU  activities  are  conducted with  its  sub-branch organization  as  the base,  and  the decisions  of  the KCU organization are also implemented with it as the main unit. 

Sub-branch teachers should be genuine mentors and parents of their students and show and teach them only what are correct. 

And they should enhance the role of activists of sub-branch organizations and make the student groups work properly. 

When all the sub-branch organizations win the title of Honoured Red-Flag Class competitively, KCU members  will  grow  up  to  be  the  pillars  of  the  country,  who  are  knowledgeable,  morally  sound  and physically  strong,  and  the  sub-branch organizations  and  the KCU  as  a whole will be  strengthened  that much.     

To strengthen the KCU, it is necessary to decisively improve the role of the youth league. 

The Party has entrusted guidance over the KCU entirely to the youth league.   

But  the KCU work  is  overlooked  in  the  youth  league work,  resulting  in  some  of  its  organizations failing to play their proper role.   

For the youth league, guidance over KCU organizations is the work for training its own successors and stout ranks of future young people. 

The KCU work is all part and parcel of the youth league work. 

The youth league should not confine its work to the role of mechanically transmitting the Party's ideas and policies to KCU organizations and of assigning education work and grasping their results, but guide these organizations in such a substantial manner as to help them produce development-oriented results. 

It should  improve  the qualifications of KCU school  instructors and provide  them with good working conditions  so  that  they  can  work  at  full  capacity.  

And it should organize the work of creating new standards and models continuously by regions and by the level of schools and generalizing them, so that the KCU organizations at schools can work independently, creatively and briskly. 

In particular, at the present stage it should direct primary and concentrated attention to finding knotty problems in the KCU work and taking measures to deal with them. 

There are quite a few problems to be immediately solved so as to run the KCU organization well and improve its activities as required by the changing times and developing reality. 

It  can  be  strengthened  to  be  an  organization  in  the  true  sense  of  the  word  only  when  the  knotty problems are solved, such as perfecting the guidance system over its organizations, building up the ranks of  the KCU  school  instructors  and  enhancing  their  sense  of  dignity,  supplying  publications  and  other educational materials to its organizations in time and in sufficient amounts and organizing socio-political activities, do-good-deeds movement, camping and visits in a substantial way. 

The Central Committee of the youth league should not maintain the status quo, being engrossed in the work like guidance of extracurricular education for which a well-knit system has already been  in place, but  should organize  its work  in  an  audacious  and  innovative way  and  solve  the problems by  reporting even to the Party Central Committee all those, whose solution is beyond its power.  

The Working People's Organization Department of the Party Central Committee should intensify Party guidance over the edification of youth and students so that any vacuum and deviation are not revealed in the  KCU  work,  and  all  other  departments  such  as  the  Organizational  Leadership  Department,  the Information  and Publicity Department  and  the Science  and Education Department  should  purposefully pay attention to the KCU work with the awareness of being its masters and regarding it as an undertaking that has a bearing on the destiny of the country. 

Edification of youth and students can be more effective only when it is conducted in close combination with the educational work.   

There  is  a  tendency  among  some  officials  in  the  education  sector  to  confine  themselves  only  to transferring knowledge, putting edification of students aside; this cannot be called an attitude appropriate to a genuine educator who brings up the future of the country.   

Education separated from edification is sure to produce lame ducks. 

In  the  training  of  the  new  generations  there  cannot  be  education  separated  from  edification  nor edification separated  from education, and  revolutionary  talents  required by our Party are, above all,  the persons prepared politically, ideologically and morally. 

Everybody engaged in the educational work, whatever they do and whatever they teach at whatever post, should be loyal to their duty as educator regarding edification of students as their principal task. 

It  is  important  to discover  the methodology  for making  edification  run  through  in  the whole  school life,  ranging  from  going  to  school,  receiving  lesson,  conducting  extracurricular  activities  to  leaving school, and apply  it to suit specific conditions by  intensifying the three-way consultation of headmaster, Party  cell  secretary  and  KCU  instructor  of  school  and  promoting  coordination  between  the  school's teaching administration and KCU organization. 

Nobody can take the place of parents in the edification of students. 

It cannot be said that parents have ensured the continuity of the lineage simply because they gave birth to their children, and that they have fully discharged the responsibility they have assumed for society and the next generation as parents simply because they are responsible and faithful in their jobs.   

The parents, however busy they may be, should direct a major effort to family education by keeping regular contact with educators so as to implant in their children for what and how they should live. 

In this way they can make sure that the lineage of the revolution and the tradition of patriotism are firmly carried forward. 

The whole country should become a master in the edification of students. 

Party organizations and working people's organizations at factories, enterprises and farms, too, should attach importance to the edification of their employees' children, always show concern on it with a stand of taking responsibility for them together with their parents. 

In particular, Women's Union organizations should give active help to mothers so that they can discharge their responsibility as the first educator of their children. 

We should produce every suit of school uniform and every item of school things with sincerity so that the students can cultivate the mind of holding our things dear and preferring to use them. 

And we should create and broadcast every media presentation, first taking into consideration the effect it would give to the children's spiritual growth, and everybody should not look away when they see children committing mistakes but explain to them their shortcomings with patience. 

We should make it part of the Party's and state's traits to attach importance to the KCU work and take loving care of KCU members throughout the Party, country and society.   

Before  the  people  and  above  the  people whom  our  Party  believes  in  as  in  heaven  there  stand  our children. 

Taking all pains for the younger generations who should grow more stoutly and more vivaciously–this is not a suffering but happiness and honour for us. 

The top-priority policy of our Party and state is always one for the younger generations, and it will be an invariable principle of the WPK and an eternal policy of our state. 

When we see the bright and cheerful appearances of KCU members we feel greater pride and dignity in  waging  the  revolution,  and  when  we  hear  them  singing  March  of  the  Children's  Union,  we  feel encouraged.  

Our state is strong not merely because it has nuclear weapons. 

Our  Korea  is  strong  because  successors  and  reserves  like  KCU  members  grow  up  staunchly  and dependably, always adding freshness and vigour to the ranks of the revolutionaries. 

You are now wearing a red neckerchief as a KCU member but tomorrow you will have a medal of hero or a medallion of doctor on your chest and rise to fame as pillars of our powerful country. 

And by the time when  you  have  become  its  active  masters,  our  country  will  shine  its  glory  as  a  more  beautiful  and powerful one all over the world. 

The eternal glory of our great state is calling KCU members. 

The  energetic  strides  of  three million KCU members  represent  the  valiant  spirit  of  socialist Korea which is achieving one progress after another and one victory after another. 

The future of our Korea is bright as it will advance by dint of their greater ambitions and ideals, strong minds and wisdom. 

March  courageously  towards  the  dawning  future  under  the  unfurled  flag  of  the Korean  Children's Union!