Recalling the Exploits of President KIM IL SUNG -Dr Dermot Hudson Secretary General ERCFKP , Vice-Chair OCFIPGPP and Chairman KFA UK

 

President KIM IL SUNG who passed away 30 years ago on the 8th of July 1994 was truly a great leader , in fact the greatest of great leaders . So it is fitting that we commemorate his life and his great exploits today .

 

             

 I recollect when I visited the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea in August 2017 for the 5th International Festival In Praise of the Great Persons of Mt Paektu I visited the Kumsusan Palace of the Sun where I saw the Hall of Lamentation where the tears of the Korean people actually changed the colour of the floor tiles.

 

  This led me to recall that fateful day in July 1994 when the great leader comrade KIM IL SUNG passed away . I first heard the news that the great leader comrade KIM IL SUNG had passed away on the 9th of July when I was visiting my mother's house at Winchester, Hampshire. It was announced suddenly and abruptly on the Radio . I did not believe the news reports , I thought they must be false. When I  heard the stark announcement my heart beat fast and I felt ill. I walked in my mother's garden to calm down .Later I wondered about the city thinking deeply , telling myself it was not true .After all only a few days before on Sunday the 3rd of July I had returned from People's Korea traveling via Beijing , China., We had actually left the DPRK on Saturday 2nd of July . Our visit to the DPRK had been very successful .During our visit , virtually each day we saw the great leader comrade KIM IL SUNG on the tv giving either on-the-spot guidance or meeting foreign guests . Each time he met foreign guests on tv the theme "Long live Marshal KIM IL SUNG" ! was played which gave a certain grandeur , a real sense of presence  He looked healthy and vigorous .To me it was impossible  and unimaginable that comrade KIM IL SUNG leave us  so soon.

 

   At 2am in the morning of the 8th of July comrade KIM IL SUNG passed away suddenly whilst still at work even though it was 2am in the morning . I believe he had been working on documents about the economy . When the news was announced by KCNA and DPRK TV people in the DPRK rushed  to the statues of the great leader comrade KIM IL SUNG .They were in tears and some threw themselves to the ground , how could they be separated from President KIM IL SUNG ? A lot of people in the West totally fail to understand the reverence of the Korean people for the great leader comrade KIM IL SUNG .As one Korean explained to me, they wore the badge with the image of the  President  with pride and devotion  because  without  the President there would  be no Korea . President  KIM IL SUNG  had fought the Japanese imperialists for more than a decade to win the independence of Korea and start to build a new nation.

 

 Indeed  the exploits of President KIM IL SUNG were great and manifold . In fact he was the father of  modern Korea and the founder of socialist Korea. He authored the great Juche idea , the unique and perfect revolutionary idea. It was President KIM IL SUNG who won independence for Korea by putting the national liberation struggle on a Juche basis . He was the ever-victorious iron-willed brilliant commander who vanquished the  US imperialists when they tried to invade the DPRK in the 1950s.

 

 

Moreover he was like a father to the Korean people as he established a socialist system which gave them  full employment , free education , free health care , housing and many other things that in other countries are regarded as an impossibility.  Just two years before he passed away President KIM IL SUNG issued the Decree of the Central People's Committee of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea titled "On Enforcing the Policy of Pay Raises For All Workers. technicians and office employees and of increasing the income of office workers " which was to be effective from the 1st of March ,1992.Pay for workers, office workers and technicians was to increase by 43.4 per cent !.. Social security payments for pensioners were to be increased by 50.7 per cent .! ". The scholarships of students were to rise by 33 per cent . Prices paid to farmers for rice were to be raised by 26.2 per cent and for maize by 44.8 per cent , in order to boost their income . At the same time it was decreed that there would be no increase to the prices of food rations supplied to the people . So the increases to pay and pensions were increases in real terms ..

 

President KIM IL SUNG was a true people’s leader who worked night and day for the people all his life .From 1945 to 1994 the great leader President KIM IL SUNG visited 20,600 different units or workplaces in the DPRK travelling a distance of 578 ,000 kilometres the equivalent of travelling around the world many times . He spent 8600 days giving on the spot guidance which means that almost every second day of his life was spent giving on -the spot guidance.

 

 

President KIM IL SUNG was a great internationalist fighter who sent assistance to many countries across the globe including Cuba , Vietnam , Egypt , Syria and Grenada to name just a few . He was a towering figure in the international communist movement .President KIM IL SUNG met J V Stalin , Mao Zedong , Zhou En Lai, Hua Kuo Feng, Fidel Castro , Che Guevara , Ho Chi Minh , Enver Hoxha , Erich Honecker , Gus Hall , Alvaro Cunhal , Leonid Brezhnev, Santiago Carrillo and Enrico Berlinguer. He also met leaders of third world countries and the non-aligned movement such as

Tito , Sukarno ,Norodom Sihanouk ,Sekou Toure and Robert Mugabe .

 

President KIM IL SUNG performed truly great exploits for the Korean revolution and world revolution . Today we recall them with pride and honour.

 

Glory to the memory of the great leader President KIM IL SUNG .

 

Long live respected Marshal KIM JONG UN !

 

Long live People’s Korea !