Around July 8 every year, the Korean people pay the greatest tribute to the great leader Comrade Kim Il Sung (April 15, 1912-July 8, 1994), founding father of socialist Korea, out of boundless yearning for him and ardent wish for his immortality.

Kim Il Sung was the leader of the people who, regarding “The people are God” as his motto throughout his life, devoted his all to them.

He once said: I embarked on the path of revolution with a determination to dedicate myself to the country and my fellow people, and ever since my love for the people has at all times been uppermost in my mind. Even in almost helpless situations when I had to eat in the wind and sleep in the open during the grim days of the anti-Japanese revolution, I strengthened my fighting spirit at the thought of our suffering nation, and when I had to endure cold and hunger by a campfire I took courage by picturing in my mind our happy people who would live in the liberated country.

In his teens he set out on the journey of the revolution and identified the key to victory in the strength of the masses of the people. Afterwards on, he, by relying on their strength, defeated Japanese imperialism to liberate his country, wisely led the fierce Fatherland Liberation War, postwar rehabilitation and socialist construction to victory and thereby built a powerful country independent, self-sufficient and self-reliant in national defence on this land.

He visited anywhere the people live and paid primary attention to their interests wherever he went and whatever he saw and planned. He found his greatest pleasure in their happiness.

Whenever officials asked him to have a rest even a little as he always racked his brains and worked into deep night for the people, he said: People often ask me to have a good rest, but I cannot do as they tell me to. I feel worth and pride in living and waging the revolution to see the people’s livelihood improving the harder I work. Serving the people is pretty toilsome, but to do so is my greatest happiness. Serving the people is my greatest pride and pleasure.

Once he visited a middle school in a region. So pleased to see the students happy in new school uniforms provided to them by the state, he said that their clothes looked better than his and took photos of them all day long.

As he was possessed of such ennobling and warm affection for the people, he ensured that the country enforced advantageous social policies like free education a long time ago and he defined it as the supreme principle of the activities of the Workers’ Party of Korea and the government of the DPRK to improve the people’s living standards.

The Korean people still hold him in high esteem as the eternal father of the nation.

Ryu Kyong Won