President KIM IL SUNG and self-reliance Keynote address at e-seminar. August 9th, 2025. By Christer Lundgren-chairman Sweden -Korea Friendship Association and Chairman ERCFKP

                                                                 

President KIM IL SUNG and self-reliance

Keynote address at e-seminar. August 9th, 2025.

By Christer Lundgren

                                                               

President KIM IL SUNG and Self-reliance

Keynote address at e-seminar August 9th, 2025.

Soon we are going to celebrate the 80th anniversary of the Liberation of Korea.

This is a meaningful day when the Korean people and world progressive people are looking back with great emotion to the sacred revolutionary life and achievements of President Kim Il Sung, the greatest venerated leader of the nation and the great master of independent politics.

President Kim Il Sung was the eternal leader of the Korean people, a peerless patriot who contributed immeasurably to the sovereign independence of the nation and the cause of socialism, and also to the road for realizing global independence.

He blazed a new path for the Korean revolution under the banner of independence and opened up a new era of building a prosperous nation through the struggle of self-reliance.

Self-reliance is the revolutionary idea cherished by the President, a fundamental aspect of his life and a precious heritage and eternal treasure handed down to the Korean people by the peerlessly great man.

Self-reliance means to establish Juche everywhere.

President Kim Il Sung felt that submission to the stronger and reliance on foreign powers is the main reason for national ruin. He therefore put forward the idea of the country’s independence by the efforts of the Korean nation itself, and led the arduous Anti-Japanese War to victory, putting an end to the history of humiliation of the Korean nation.

His immortal exploits for bringing about the liberation of Korea are being handed down through centuries.

The accomplishment of the historic cause of Korea’s liberation was the brilliant result of the President’s idea of national independence and self-reliance, and the victory in the Anti-Japanese War served as a springboard that enabled the building of Juche Korea and the road of development to be built with independence and by self-reliance. 

The road to the building of a country after liberation was a hard one for the liberated Korean people. The economy was backward and the treasury was exhausted by the Japanese imperialists.

However, President Kim Il Sung, with the will to build a new country by dint of the idea of achieving wealth and power by its own efforts and the strength of the Korean people themselves, advanced through an untrodden path for building the country.  

Thanks to his line of building an independent and sovereign state and his energetic leadership, the historic cause of building the party and the country was achieved 

and the Korean people became the masters of the creation of a new life and the development of the national economy.  

When the US imperialists attacked the young Democratic People’s Republic of Korea by force, the country was turned into heaps of ashes. After the war, hardly a brick remained on top of another. 

The reconstruction of the country was not the result of aid or the help of a great country, but of the power of the people united under the spirit of defending sovereign independence and self-determination.

This strength of their own efforts showed the mettle of the Korean People to the US imperialists, who said that Korea could not rise again even in a hundred years. 

By raising the legendary Chollima, in a short period of 14 years they performed a miracle, successfully carrying out the historic task of socialist industrialization 

and brought the great heyday of the Worker’s Party.

Thanks to President Kim Il Sung’s foresight and patriotic leadership to defend the country by setting forth the original line of building an independent national economy and firmly consolidating the material and technical foundations of the country, Korea built a powerful self-supporting economy standing and developing on its own feet, completely casting off the yoke of others, serving its own people and relying on its own strength, technology and resources.     

When the country was in an unprecedentedly arduous period, self-reliance rooted in the Juche idea enabled the Korean people to vigorously accelerate socialist construction 

by relying on a powerful self-supporting economic foundation, and opened up a turning point in the building of a great country. 

If the Korean people had given up the principle of their own strength by yielding to the pressure of outside forces, socialism of independence, self-sufficiency and self-reliance would not have been born on the earth, and the name of the country, along with the collapse of the world socialist system, would have lost its fame.

Thus, the spirit of self-reliance created during the anti-Japanese revolutionary struggle is the proud tradition of the Korean revolution, the banner of victory and the life and dignity of Korea.

As self-reliance was taken as the lifeblood and motive force of the Korean revolution, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea could successfully overcome the immediate dangers and difficulties, which was decisive for the existence of the state, and continuously bring about national historic events, that firmly guarantee the independent dignity and strategic position of the Republic, achieving remarkable successes in socialist construction.  

Today the Korean people, under the leadership of the respected comrade Kim Jong Un, is vigorously establishing a self-reliant defence capability of the country and comprehensively developing socialism, regarding self-reliance as Juche Korea’s characteristic national custom. 

Self-reliance, here lays the real character of the people’s Korea, enhancing national prestige and glory to the whole world, and high dignity and a bright future of Juche-oriented socialism.

Admires by the progressive people of the world, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is making a leap forward towards a powerful socialist country, creating brilliant miracles and exploits day by day.  

A powerful sovereign state with firm independent policy, determinedly advancing on the road that they have chosen following their own idea and will, a self-reliant powerful state with the solid material and technical foundation and potential to develop their economy sustainably and prospectively.

As the world sees and praises, the people’s Korea is a powerful country with its own capacity, a dignified country where all citizens acquire the spirit of self-reliance and achieve independent prosperity. 

The Korean people have walked a long way from the beginning of the revolution to today, never departing from the way of developing by their own strength, and never slowing down or stopping on their way.

The Korean people remains firm in their faith to defend the dignity of the country and defeat imperialism to achieve prosperity, wealth and power through self-reliance.

Having victoriously overcome all trials and difficulties by her own strength, Korea continues to carry forward her brilliant tradition for the future.