March 5 is the day when the Law on Agrarian Reform was promulgated to realize the centuries-old desire of the Korean peasants for the first time in the 5 000-year history of the nation.

Today the DPRK farmers are filled with the great joy and excitement of greeting a golden new era of the socialist countryside in all parts of the country from the outskirts of the capital city to vast flat areas and remote mountainous regions under the guidance of the Workers’ Party of Korea.

This is a fruition of the devotion of the WPK which made strenuous efforts to realize the centuries-old desire of the peasants and provide them with a happy life.

After the liberation of Korea, it was the most earnest desire of the Korean peasants, who had never been able to do farming on their own land to their heart’s content.

Reading the ardent desire of the peasants, President Kim Il Sung set the agrarian reform as the primary task in carrying out all the democratic reforms.

Though he was busy building a new country, he completed the provisions of the Law on Agrarian Reform one by one while meeting peasants to learn in detail about the actual conditions of the rural areas and the demand of the peasants. On this basis, he promulgated the law on March 5 1946.

Under his wise guidance, the agrarian reform was carried out in a little over 20 days with the result that more than one million hectares of land were distributed to over 720 000 households of poor and hired peasants free of charge, thus realizing the long-cherished desire of the peasants and heralding the beginning of the history of genuine new spring in the country.

The agrarian reform in the country was a great event which enabled the peasants to become eternal owners of land and rooted out the feudal relations of land ownership, the source of exploitation and oppression.

Later, the President indicated the way to solve the socialist rural question for the first time in history for the peasants and established the Juche farming method, thus providing a sure guarantee for the development of agriculture.

His plan for socialist rural construction was successfully implemented by Chairman Kim Jong Il.

The Chairman wrote many works, including On Thoroughly Implementing Our Party’s Policy on Agricultural Revolution, to scientifically elucidate the theoretical and practical problems arising in socialist rural construction, and put forward the original policies of agricultural revolution, including those of seed revolution and double cropping, to arouse the people across the country for the implementation of the policies, thus ensuring that great progress was made in the development of the country’s agriculture.

The respected Comrade Kim Jong Un, who is translating the far-reaching plan and desire of the President and the Chairman into a brilliant reality, ushered in a great new era of rural revolution and rural development for the progress and change in the socialist countryside.

At the historic Eighth Congress of the WPK, he put forward a great programme of struggle to lead the Korean style of socialist construction to a fresh victory, and pointed to the need to channel efforts into the socialist rural construction, holding aloft the slogan “Forward towards fresh victory!” so as to achieve cultural progress peculiar to rural areas, a new development of a Korean style.

At the Seventh Plenary Meeting of the Eighth Central Committee of the WPK, he said that the WPK has attached importance to the rural question as a strategic one which should be settled without fail in accomplishing the cause of building socialism and communism and has consistently paid close attention to its correct solution, and clarified the plan to vigorously usher in a new era of the rural development as required by the stage of the overall development of socialist construction.

Thanks to his far-reaching plan, the socialist countryside is undergoing a complete change.

In three years since he set forth the programme for the rural revolution in the new era, dwelling houses for more than 87 000 families mushroomed in over 1 500 rural villages across the country, making the villages fascinating and filling the farmers with the joy of leading a new life.

And a gigantic irrigation project was carried out, successes were made in grain production thanks to the enthusiasm for scientific farming, and drastic changes were made in the people’s ideological and mental aspects as well as in mountains and streams.

Thanks to the wise leadership of the Workers’ Party of Korea, the socialist countryside in the DPRK has turned into a paradise good to work and live in since the Law on Agrarian Reform was promulgated, and the agricultural workers across the country will enjoy a happy life to their heart’s content in the richer and more civilized ideal villages under socialism in the future.