At the Sixth Plenary Meeting of the Eighth Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea held late in December 2022, the respected Comrade Kim Jong Un stressed the need to actively organize and properly lead the socialist patriotic movement and the revolutionary mass movement, the powerful driving force for the prosperity and the development of the state.

In retrospect, the patriotic and mass movements were conducted vigorously in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea in the past years.

In December Juche 35 (1946), the year after Korea was liberated from the Japanese military occupation (1905-1945), Kim Je Won, a peasant in Jaeryong County, donated to the country 30 straw-sacks of rice among the crops he gathered in the first year after the promulgation of the Law on Agrarian Reform. With this as a momentum, the patriotic movement of donating grains was conducted across the country. Another mass movement was launched to learn from the patriotic struggle of Kim Hoe Il and other workers at the then Jongju Engine Corps, who ensured rail transport by producing coal by their own efforts after forming a shock force, while increasing carrying capacity by repairing tens of locomotives after liberation.

The mass movements waged by the elder generations who became the masters of the country for the first time after liberation of the country originated from their single mind to make a contribution to building a new Korea by their own efforts.

In those days, the Korean people carried out their first national economic plan ahead of schedule through the general ideological mobilization movement for nation building and the emulation drive for increased production. In the course of this, they overfulfilled the total output plan of state-run industry by 2.5% and increased grain production by 170 000 tons as against the year 1946, thus laying the foundations of democracy.

They also gave full play to their patriotism during the Fatherland Liberation War (1950-1953). Upon hearing the radio address, titled, Go All Out for Victory in the War , delivered by President Kim Il Sung , all the young and middle-aged men and women across the country vied with one another to volunteer for the front. In the northern half of Korea, more than 740 000 youth and students and other working people volunteered for the Korean People’s Army in a little more than ten days after the outbreak of the war, of which women numbered over 230 000.

The KPA soldiers vigorously launched the “My Hill” movement to never yield even an inch of land to the enemy. And the movement of donating fund for arms, the plowwoman movement and other all-people patriotic movements were waged in the rear, rendering a great contribution to winning victory in the war.

After the hard-fought three-year-long war, the Korean people worked world-startling miracles through the mass patriotic movements.

The workers of the then Kangson Steel Works turned out 120 000 tons of steel by means of a blooming mill with a rated capacity of 60 000 tons under the uplifted torch of the Chollima Movement, and those of the then Kim Chaek Iron and Steel Works produced 270 000 tons of pig iron by means of a blast furnace with a capacity of 190 000 tons.

Young railway builders launched a movement for overfulfilling daily assignments by 300 per cent and thus completed in a matter of 75 days a gigantic project of laying standard-gauge railway lines between Haeju and Hasong, which would have taken three to four years by common knowledge. The builders of the capital city of Pyongyang built over 20 000 flats with the materials, funds and manpower normally only enough for building 7 000 flats, through a movement of one person finding out more than one reserve.

Their high revolutionary enthusiasm and patriotic struggle brought about a miracle of carrying out the historic task of socialist industrialization in a short period of 14 years, with the result that the DPRK was turned into a socialist state, independent in politics, self-supporting in the economy and self-reliant in national defence.

With the development of socialist construction gaining momentum, the Three-Revolution Red Flag Movement and other mass movements of new higher forms were conducted vigorously in keeping with the requirements of the revolution and the revolutionary aspiration of the masses of people, thereby giving a strong impetus to the revolution and construction.

The tradition of these movements is being carried forward still today.

In May last year when the country was faced with a sudden public health crisis, its people gave fuller play to such admirable social traits as regarding others’ pain as their own and helping and caring for one another in difficulty. During the highest-level emergency anti-epidemic period, over 71 200 medical workers and more than 1 148 000 hygiene activists were enlisted every day across the country and thousands of former public health workers volunteered for the efforts to overcome the pandemic COVID-19. A large number of people dedicated their properties without hesitation to prepare relief goods to be given to hostels, dormitories, baby homes and orphanages, and donated staple and subsidiary foods and daily necessities for the families and neighbours in difficult conditions.

Last year alone, more than 4 790 young people across the country volunteered to work in difficult and labour-consuming sectors to spend their youth on the road of patriotism for achieving national prosperity.

In hearty response to the respected Comrade Kim Jong Un ’s call for briskly launching socialist patriotic movement, the Korean people are turning out as one in the ongoing struggle to open up a turning point for national prosperity, cherishing in their mind ennobling loyalty and ardent patriotism.