Chairman Kim Jong Il (February 16, 1942-December 17, 2011) was the father of the Korean nation who saved the destiny of the country and people and opened a broad avenue for building a powerful socialist country in the 1990s.

As before, the Korean revolution faced grave challenges in the mid-1990s, too, with the situation going from bad to worse.

The US imperialists and their followers had been hell-bent on the moves to stifle the DPRK for more than half a century in a bid to reduce it to a bridgehead for dominating Asia and the rest of the world. Availing themselves of the collapse of socialism in East European countries, they started to intensify their political and military pressure and economic sanctions on the DPRK, boisterously talking about the “end of socialism.”

The eyes of the world were on the DPRK.

In the circumstances, Kim Jong Il explained his decision to lead the revolution by holding fast to the Korean People’s Army together with the Workers’ Party of Korea, saying that it is absolutely necessary to strengthen the army as well as the Party in order to firmly defend and advance the socialist cause through thick and thin. And he added that without strengthening the People’s Army, it would be impossible to safeguard the revolutionary gains already achieved and accelerate socialist construction.

This was the only correct choice for staunchly defending the country and the revolution and leading it to victory at a time when the people were at the crossroads of whether to become an independent people, guards of independence, or be reduced back to colonial slaves of imperialists.

Once socialism is defended, economic building will not be a problem. We’d better live with the status and prestige as an independent people, even if we feel somewhat hungry, rather than filling up as a slave of imperialism. We should defend socialism by winning victory on the anti-imperialist military front, however hard it might be. This was his will and determination.

To this end, Kim Jong Il visited a KPA unit on January 1, 1995 to administer Songun politics in a comprehensive way.

As the KPA is incomparably stronger than any other social groups in terms of revolutionary spirit, fighting efficiency, organization and discipline, he put forward it as the standard-bearer in defending the socialist country and devoted all his efforts to training it into an army which is strong in ideology and faith and is modernly equipped and whose members are trained as a-match-for-a-hundred combatants.

In those days he directed utmost efforts to the development of the country’s defence industry with such a view that it is impossible to build a thriving nation and defend the security of the country and people, apart from powerful defence industry.

Thanks to the powerful arms provided by him with so much effort, the DPRK became a fortress of peace free from war, which is filled with the happy laughter of the people and the sound of booms in all fields of socialist construction.

In October 2005, when he met with commanding officers of the KPA, Kim Jong Il said with pride that we were so right to hold up the banner of Songun and thanks to Songun, we could successfully overcome the Arduous March and forced march and firmly defend Korean-style socialism from the imperialists’ anti-DPRK, anti-socialist moves.

Ryu Kyong Won