Etched in the 70-odd-year annals of the DPRK history is the Chollima era or a time of miraculous achievements when the Korean people, under the leadership of the great leader Comrade Kim Il Sung , brought about a great upsurge in socialist construction at the speed of Chollima (a legendary winged horse that can run 400 kilometres a day).
Kim Il Sung visited the Kangson Steel Plant (what is now the Chollima Steel Complex) on December 28, 1956.
Telling the workers at the plant about the grave trials facing the country, he said: We must bring about a great upswing in socialist construction against all odds; we lived a hard life in the past and even now we are short of many things; therefore, we must take ten steps when others take one, and we must run a hundred steps when others run ten.
In hearty response to his call, the workers created a miracle of turning out 120 000 tons of structural steel using a blooming mill with an annual rated capacity of 60 000 tons, thus kindling the torch of the Chollima movement.
The Chollima era was born like this.
The year 1958 witnessed a series of miraculous achievements amid the great Chollima upsurge.
Over 1 000 regional-industry factories mushroomed in different parts of the country, and the Haeju-Hasong railway, a project believed to take three to four years to complete, was built in no more than 75 days. In this stirring era, the working class of the country produced valuable entities of the self-supporting economy one after another, including large water pumps, Sungni-58 lorries, Chollima tractors, Pulgunbyol-58 bulldozers and Chollima excavators.
Besides, the builders of the capital city created the Pyongyang speed of building a flat in a matter of 14 minutes and built over 20 000 flats in a year with the materials and funds necessary for building 7 000 flats.
The economic boom continued in the 1960s with Phungnyon tractors, large excavators, 25-ton heavy-duty lorries, 6 000-ton press and the first electric locomotive Pulgungi-1 produced by dint of self-reliance. The great Chollima upsurge brought about eye-opening changes in the revolution and construction.
The Korean people successfully carried out the historic cause of socialist industrialization in a matter of 14 years at the speed of Chollima.
The fighting spirit and traits of the preceding generations have been further developed into the Chollima spirit in the new era, giving a strong impetus to the comprehensive prosperity and development of the DPRK.
Ham Yong Ju
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