DPRK: New Year editorial

Last year we splendidly celebrated the 60th anniversaries of the party and the country’s liberation in a great festival of victors in the Songun [Korean socialist] revolution, fully demonstrating the political and ideological might of our revolutionary ranks. …

Fresh progress was made in agricultural production by concentrating and mobilising nationwide efforts in farming. The Taean Friendship Glass Factory, the Paekma-Cholsan Waterway and other structures of lasting value in the Songun era were built in all parts of the country and a large number of projects of great importance in economic construction and the improvement of the people’s living standards were reconstructed or updated. We resolutely foiled the US moves to isolate and stifle the country by maintaining a tougher stance, firmly defending our ideology, system and cause. …

New Year Juche 95 (2006) is a year of general offensive that will make a great leap forward in the building of a great prosperous powerful socialist nation on the basis of the proud victory and achievements in the Songun revolution. …

We must fully display the might of the political and ideological position of Korean-style socialism.

The unshakeable creed and the revolutionary mettle of our people who regard socialism as their lifeblood should be demonstrated to the full. It is necessary to have transparent anti-US class awareness and consolidate the working-class position of socialism as an iron wall and eternally glorify the gains of revolution defended in a do-or-die spirit on the road of Songun.

It is necessary to prepare all the party members and the working people to be staunch revolutionary fighters who are thoroughly equipped with the Songun philosophy and the Songun revolutionary line of our party and who have acquired the revolutionary soldier spirit as their lifeblood by decisively strengthening education in the Juche idea and the Songun idea. [Juche is the Korean term for the socialist philosophy formulated by Comrade Kim Il Sung to accord with Korean culture and traditions.]

We must strengthen the military might of Korean-style socialism in every way.

Ours is invincible socialism with a strong military foundation, and national defence is the most important matter in building a great prosperous powerful nation. Whatever the situation, the principled stand of our party and state giving top priority to the military remains unchanged. The People’s Army is the core of the self-reliant defence capability and the pillar of socialism.

The People’s Army must become the first adherents of the Songun idea and must be the first to defend and implement Songun politics. All service personnel should become fighters of the calibre of Ri Su Bok and Kang Ho Yong [two famous Korean liberation heroes] in the era of Songun, readily dedicating their precious lives to the fight for their motherland in the staunch spirit of defending socialism and ardent patriotism.

They should be in perfect combat preparedness to destroy the aggressors at a stroke if the enemy troops invade an inch of the airspace, land and waters of our country. …

A radical turn should be brought about in socialist economic construction and the improvement of the people’s living standards. ….

Agriculture should be put forward as the main front of the economic construction this year, too, and all forces should be mobilised and concentrated on farming once again.

The whole country must turn out as one on the agricultural front, true to the vital instructions of President Kim Il Sung who said that “Rice means socialism”. Labour forces, equipment and materials needed in the agricultural sector should be provided preferentially without any reservation. It is important to buckle down to this job in a revolutionary way, as the People’s Army does, so as to make fresh progress in implementing the party’s policies of bringing about innovations in seed production, potato and soya bean cultivation and two-crop-a-year farming.

The officials and other working people in the field of agriculture should do the farm work tenaciously as befitting the master responsible for the nation’s rice supply while all helpers should sincerely assist the countryside just as they did last year.

Workers in the power industry should ease the shortage of electricity, fully conscious of the heavy responsibility they have assumed in the building of a great and prosperous powerful nation. Nationwide efforts should be put into the coal industry, and efforts should be concentrated on major coal mines with rich deposits and favourable mining conditions so as to boost coal output. The metal industry should positively apply the Juche-oriented steel production method and boost the production of iron and steel. The railway transport sector should organise and manage transportation scrupulously and in a revolutionary manner and establish a strict military discipline that will enable it to satisfy the growing demands for transport. All sectors of the national economy, such as the mining, machine-building, chemical and building-materials industries and forestry, should first solve basic problems while consolidating material and technological foundations to effect a fresh upsurge in production.

Light industry should positively update production processes to turn out quality consumer goods en masse. All the people should turn out in land and environment conservation to ensure our country remains a socialist land of beautiful scenery that is good to live in. …

It is one of the major targets in the building of a great prosperous powerful nation to develop socialist culture in the Songun era by boldly bringing about innovation in all fields of cultural construction.

The joint editorial refers to the tasks facing the fields of education, science and technology, public health and literature and art. It goes on: The young people should exalt infinitely the idea of youth movement … in this significant year of the 60th anniversary of the Kim Il Sung Socialist Youth League. The key to sure victory lies in steadily maintaining socialist principles. …

‘Let us vigorously advance the patriotic movement for independent reunification, peace against war and great national unity under the banner of “by our nation itself!”’ – this is the slogan to be held up in this year’s movement for national reunification.

We should solve all the problems arising in accomplishing the cause of reunification by placing the dignity and interests of the nation above anything else, in line with requirements of the idea of ‘by our nation itself’. The spirit of giving top priority to the nation and the nation-first manner should prevail, and the hurricane of independent reunification should sweep the way forward everywhere Koreans live. The grand celebration of 15 June, the day of the publication of the North-South Joint Declaration, as the ‘day of by our nation itself’ should be made a tradition.

All the Koreans in the north and the south and abroad must resolutely reject the US intervention and domination with inter-Korean cooperation and must never tolerate the treacherous acts of anti-reunification forces that are conspiring with foreign forces.

We should launch a dynamic campaign against war and for peace.

The entire nation should firmly defend peace and security on the Korean Peninsula by turning out in the resolute struggle to foil US attempts to launch another war. We must remove the root cause of war completely from this land by launching a nationwide campaign to drive out all US troops. An atmosphere of promoting national reconciliation and unity should be heightened continuously and solidarity should be promoted further between reunification-oriented organisations. …

The cause of our revolution is the cause of justice and invincibility for successfully shaping the destiny of the motherland and the nation and realising global independence. We will, in the future too, make a positive contribution to building a new world – independent, peaceful and friendly – holding aloft the banner of anti-imperialist independence and socialism.

KCNA, 2 January 2006