KIM JONG UN
LET US FURTHER INTENSIFY THE WORK OF THE WOMEN’S UNION UNDER THE BANNER OF MODELLING THE WHOLE SOCIETY ON KIMILSUNGISM-KIMJONGILISM
Letter to Those Attending the Sixth Congress of the Democratic Women’s Union of Korea
November 17, Juche 105 (2016)
In this stirring period, when an all-people general offensive is being waged to carry out ahead of schedule the ambitious objectives for building a powerful socialist country advanced at the Seventh Congress of the Workers’ Party of Korea, and remarkable achievements are being recorded in succession in the 200-day campaign of loyalty, the Sixth Congress of the Democratic Women’s Union of Korea is being held.
I sincerely congratulate this congress and extend warm greetings to all those attending it, as well as to officials and members of the women’s union and other women across the country, who are sharing the intentions of our Party and keeping in step with it.
This congress will be an historic occasion in demonstrating the indomitable will and revolutionary mettle of Korea’s women, who are ready to fight resolutely for the final victory of the revolutionary cause of Juche following the Party, and in raising the work of the women’s union to a new high as required by the times and the developing revolution.
The women’s movement in Korea is a Juche-oriented movement which was pioneered by the great Comrade Kim Il Sung and which followed the proud road of development under the leadership of Comrades Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il.
With a deep insight into the importance of the women’s issue in accomplishing the revolutionary cause, Comrade Kim Il Sung originated the Juche-oriented women’s movement and created its glorious tradition in the flames of the anti-Japanese revolutionary struggle. After the liberation of the country, he founded the women’s union before other working people’s organizations, indicated the road ahead of it in every period and at every stage of the revolution and construction, and wisely led it so that it could creditably perform its role as a transmission belt for and reliable assistant to the Party. By proclaiming the Law on Sex Equality, he brought about epoch-making changes in the status of women and transformed them into a powerful force capable of turning one of the two wheels of the revolution.
Comrade Kim Jong Il energetically led the work of defending and honouring Comrade Kim Il Sung’s ideas on and exploits in the Juche-oriented women’s movement. He developed the women’s union into a revolutionary and militant organization which faithfully supports the Party’s leadership and, by administering the politics of prioritizing and respecting women, led them to make an active contribution to the sacred struggle for achieving the victory of the socialist cause while leading a dignified and happy life.
Under the wise guidance of the great leaders the women’s union and women nationwide created a history resplendent with victory and glory, carrying forward the traditions of the Juche-oriented women’s movement.
In the grim decades of the revolution, the Korean women held up Comrades Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il as their leaders and fathers and resolutely defended them; they defied death to carry out the lines and policies advanced by them in any adversity. Loyalty to the Party and the leaders was an element of the unshakeable revolutionary faith, conscience, will and practice of Korea’s women.
In the days of the anti-Japanese revolutionary struggle our women waged a bloody struggle with weapons in hand to liberate their country. In the days of the fierce Fatherland Liberation War they fought do-or-die battles on the frontline and in the rear to defend their country against the imperialist aggression, displaying unparalleled bravery and a self-sacrificing spirit. Cherishing ardent patriotism, they have performed brilliant feats in developing and successfully advancing socialism and building a powerful socialist country. Our women who are simple-hearted and strong in their sense of honour, have given full play to their ennobling traits and spirit of devoted struggle, dedicating their all for the sake of society and their communities and their revolutionary comrades, and exalted the brilliance of our great socialist family.
Organizations of the women’s union and its members, in hearty response to the Party’s call, are playing a major role in the 200-day campaign aimed at glorifying this year, when the Seventh Congress of the Workers’ Party of Korea was held, as a year of victory. The women’s union members have turned out at the rehabilitation sites in the flood-hit northern area where a miracle of turning misfortune into blessing is being wrought to the wonder of the world; they are raising the militant atmosphere there to a crescendo by performing women’s union shock brigade campaign, artistic motivation activities and various other praiseworthy deeds.
Our women’s union members and other women are truly excellent and praiseworthy. Unstained loyalty to the Party and the leaders, a spirit of devoted service to the country and fellow people and an ennobling sense of moral obligation–these are the ideological and spiritual features of our women, and it is a source of great pride for our Party and people to have a large contingent of such excellent women revolutionaries.
Our Party highly appreciates and will never forget the achievements of the women’s union members and other women who, faithfully supporting the leadership of the Party and the leaders, have added lustre to the glorious tradition of the Korean women’s movement over a long period since the dawn of the Korean revolution.
I extend warm thanks to the women’s union members and all other women who have worked with devotion for the victorious advance of the Korean revolution and the development of the women’s movement, holding the great leaders in high esteem and supporting the Party’s leadership with loyalty.
The present is a new era of the Juche revolution in which we are advancing by leaps and bounds towards final victory, holding aloft the banner of the great Kimilsungism- Kimjongilism. The historic Seventh Congress of the Workers’ Party of Korea set out strategic lines and tasks for accomplishing the cause of building a powerful socialist country in accordance with the programme of modelling the whole society on Kimilsungism-Kimjongilism.
The women’s union should strive hard to model the whole society on Kimilsungism-Kimjongilism under the Party’s leadership, thereby rendering a positive contribution to accomplishing the socialist cause, the revolutionary cause of Juche. This is a noble mission it has assumed before the times and the revolution. By carrying forward the glorious tradition of the Juche-oriented women’s movement, it should perform its honourable mission and duties with credit.
The general task facing the women’s union is to model itself on Kimilsungism-Kimjongilism.
Modelling the women’s union on Kimilsungism- Kimjongilism–this represents the comprehensive implementation of our Party’s idea of prioritizing women and the fundamental requirement for modelling the whole society on Kimilsungism- Kimjongilism. The women’s union should model itself on Kimilsungism-Kimjongilism so as to develop into a revolutionary organization that is unfailingly faithful to the Party’s ideology and cause.
It should add brilliance to the great leaders’ ideology and exploits and support the Party’s leadership with loyalty.
The kernel of the tradition of the Juche-oriented women’s movement is unfailing loyalty to the Party and the leaders. The women’s union should regard this as its lifeblood and develop into the eternal organization of the great leaders and our Party.
The great Comrades Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il are the eternal leaders of our Party and people and the benevolent fathers of our women. Women’s union members and other women should hold them up as the Sun of Juche for all ages and add eternal brilliance to their cause.
The great leaders’ idea on the women’s movement and their leadership exploits are the lasting foundation for the development of the women’s union. Women’s union officials and all other members should be fully conversant with the leaders’ idea and exploits and make them an article of their firm faith. With this idea as its guideline, the women’s union should conduct its building and activities and carry through the leaders’ instructions.
The women’s union should steadily intensify the work of establishing the Party’s unified leadership system.
This is the basic principle to be maintained in its building and activities and a permanent task facing its organizations. All women’s union members should fully equip themselves with our Party’s revolutionary ideology, achieve solid unity in ideology, purpose and moral obligation behind the Party Central Committee, and staunchly defend the Party’s lines and policies and carry them out, even at the risk of their lives. Women’s union organizations should establish revolutionary discipline and order whereby they move as one under the unified leadership of the Party Central Committee, report to it all the matters arising in the union’s work and deal with them according to its unified conclusion.
The women’s union should train its members into steadfast Kimilsungists-Kimjongilists.
A Kimilsungist-Kimjongilist is a revolutionary of the Juche type who has made the great Kimilsungism-Kimjongilism an article of his or her firm faith, who remains unfailingly loyal to the Party and the leader, and who works with devotion for victory in the revolutionary cause of Juche. Only when women, who make up half of the country’s population and have a significant role to play in bringing up the rising generation and building a powerful socialist country, are fully prepared as Kimilsungists-Kimjongilists, can the modelling of the whole society on Kimilsungism-Kimjongilism be successfully realized.
Women’s union organizations should conduct effective ideological education among their members and intensify guidance over their organizational life, with the main stress on training them into Kimilsungists-Kimjongilists.
The women’s union is a body for political and ideological education and its organizations’ basic duty is to conduct ideological education. These organizations should hold fast to ideology and always pay primary attention to ideological education.
Women’s union organizations should step up the education in Kim Jong Il’s patriotism, in revolutionary faith, in anti-imperialist and class consciousness and in socialist morality, with the focus on education in the greatness of the leaders, so that all their members cherish boundless loyalty to the Party and the leaders, ardent love for their country, the revolutionary spirit of Paektu, an unwavering conviction in socialism, steadfast anti-imperialist and class consciousness and an ennobling sense of moral obligation.
They should conduct intensive education among their members and other women and wage a dynamic struggle to frustrate the imperialists’ schemes for ideological and cultural infiltration and to eliminate non-socialist practices. The capitalist, bourgeois ideology and culture and alien lifestyle the imperialists are spreading are a dangerous poison that undermines the socialist system from within by debasing and degenerating the people ideologically and morally. Women’s union organizations should prevent this poison from infiltrating us and intensify the education and struggle geared to removing, at the first sign, the root cause of an unnatural lifestyle and non-socialist practices of all hues from among women’s union members and other women.
Women’s union organizations should radically improve the forms and methods of ideological education. By comprehensively applying the anti-Japanese guerrillas’ method of ideological work, they can adopt various forms and methods in conducting ideological education, with the main emphasis on explanation, persuasion and influencing through positive examples, in line with the requirements of the stirring era and the characteristics of women. To meet the demands of the precisely-targeted method of ideological work set by the Party, they should identify the major targets and enlist all means of information and motivation work in launching a focused ideological offensive.
The women’s union should build up bases for the education of its members, conduct regular and effective education by means of them and efficiently operate the system of information and motivation work that has been set in place within its organizations. It should ensure that its senior expositors, expositors in primary organizations and expositors’ groups in the women’s union perform their role with credit. It should also see to it that the journal Joson Nyosong and other publications are responsive to Party policy and publish articles to suit the requirements of its members and other women and their aesthetic appreciation, and thus make a contribution to educating them.
Women’s union organizations should intensify the organizational life of their members.
These organizations can be called the blood vessels that link their members’ socio-political integrity with the Party. They should make sure that their members treasure their organizations and participate in an organizational life voluntarily and faithfully, cherishing the dignity of and pride in being members of the women’s union guided by the Workers’ Party of Korea. They should ensure that their members work and live at all times by relying on their organizations and carry out the decisions and individual assignments given by them in a responsible manner. They should make exacting demands on their members so that they work and live in compliance with the Rules of the union and the regulations of union life.
The women’s union should encourage its members to make a tangible contribution to building a powerful socialist country.
To build a powerful socialist country is a sacred, patriotic cause for achieving its prosperity and the well-being of all the generations to come, and it should be a struggle involving all the patriotic-minded people who are determined to throw themselves into this cause. Women’s union members and other women, by carrying forward the heroic fighting spirit displayed by the preceding generations, should devote their strength, wisdom and enthusiasm to building a powerful socialist country.
The women’s union shock brigade movement that is now in full swing in several sectors of socialist construction is a mass movement of loyal women geared to rendering service to building a powerful socialist country and improving the people’s standard of living; it is a praiseworthy, patriotic movement. Women’s union organizations should continue to conduct the shock brigade movement briskly as a reflection of the voluntary and revolutionary zeal of their members and their concrete situations. They should organize various other good-conduct movements among their members, including a silk-raising movement; they should raise the strong wind of a socialist emulation drive to create a model unit and launch vigorous campaigns in which one overtakes and learns from others and swaps experience with them.
Women’s union members and other women should turn out in the economy drive with ardent patriotism and an attitude befitting the masters of the country’s economy. They should make economical use of every watt of electricity, every drop of water and every grain of rice in the interests of the country and of building it into an economic giant, and they should wage a struggle against all practices of extravagance, useless formalities and waste that run counter to the requirements and climate of the era.
Women’s union organizations should make careful arrangements to encourage housewives to enter society.
This is necessary to ease the labour shortage, but it is of greater importance in helping all women to enjoy an honourable life in the worthwhile struggle for the sake of their country and fellow people in the present era of Mallima where advances are being made by leaps and bounds. Women’s union organizations should work with housewives in an effective way so that all women of working age can do their share by actively volunteering to work at the sites where a powerful socialist country is being built.
By actively conducting motivation work, including artistic activities, women’s union organizations can make the whole country seethe with revolutionary enthusiasm, and by drumming up support for increased production, they can give powerful impetus to the struggle to achieve the high objectives of the five-year strategy for national economic development at the earliest date possible.
National defence is a duty of citizens, and nothing is more honourable than to defend the country. A genuine life, harmonious family and happy existence for women and the rising generation cannot be guaranteed if they have no country of their own. Many women in several other countries are now suffering from misfortune and pain owing to the imperialists’ aggression and intervention; this miserable reality testifies to the fact that arms are the guarantee of the security of a country and a people and women’s dignity. Our women and other people have lived in peace for decades without experiencing the holocaust of war. This is attributable entirely to Songun politics.
Women’s union organizations should ensure that their members are fully equipped with the Party’s idea and line on attaching importance to military affairs, remain alert and ready for action at all times, and become today’s “Namgang village women” in the all-out resistance to defend their socialist country from the imperialists’ aggression.
Women’s union members should love the service personnel as they would their own kith and kin and render wholehearted aid to the People’s Army. The wives of service personnel should become reliable revolutionary comrades-in-arms of their husbands and look after the rank-and-file soldiers with the hearts of their sisters and mothers as befits revolutionaries of the Songun era and cooks for the Supreme Headquarters. Women’s union members and other women should regard it as a revolutionary tradition of their families and a source of their pride to place their sons and daughters at the posts of national defence by preparing them fully ideologically, mentally and physically; they should pay close concern to the life of war veterans, honoured disabled soldiers, families of fallen soldiers and families of service personnel, and take warm care of them.
Women’s union members and other women should fully discharge their heavy responsibilities and role in educating the rising generation to be dependable pillars of Juche Korea.
No one can replace the mothers in educating the rising generation who will take charge of the country’s future. The dear, kindly word mother carries social respect and high expectations for women who regard every manner of toil for the next generation as a pleasure and devote their love and affection to them. Neither family nor society nor the future of a country can exist without women.
Women’s union members and other women should be the roots and foundations in applying the Party’s love for the rising generation, the future of the nation.
Women’s union organizations should improve the living environment at nurseries and kindergartens and the conditions for nursing and educating the children there so as to meet the demands of the new century, and provide them with an effective upbringing and education. The nurses and teachers at baby homes and orphanages should care for the children as their own mothers would do and help them cultivate ennobling moral traits, creativity, independence and a collectivist spirit, so that they develop into pillars who will shoulder the future of the country.
Women’s union members and other women should educate their sons and daughters well. Fully aware of the mission and responsibility of being a mother, they should educate their children with all sincerity and with great efforts. Mothers should ensure that every word they speak and every moment of their life serves as a course for educating their sons and daughters, so as to bring them up as successors to the revolution and masters of the future and make theirs a revolutionary family of soldiers, scientists and patriots. In order to bring up their children well, mothers themselves should possess ennobling human and revolutionary qualities, profound knowledge and high cultural attainments. It is a key matter that has a bearing on the future of the country and nation that women give birth to many children and bring them up well. So, women should be encouraged to give birth to many children.
Women’s union members and other women should play the role of pioneer in establishing a socialist way of life and moral discipline throughout society.
The foundation of a social life in socialism is collectivism, and the foundation of collectivism is love for human beings. Women’s union members and other women should observe the collectivist way of life in which everyone loves her comrades, blood relatives and fellow people and works with devotion for society and her community, helping one another and leading one another forward.
Women’s union members and other women should lead an optimistic and cultured way of life. When women are full of laughter and optimism, our society will become brighter. They should take an active part in mass-based cultural, artistic and sporting activities so as to establish a lively atmosphere across society, and make their attire and personal appearance beautiful and smart as required by modern aesthetic sensibilities and our national sentiments. As the people in charge of domestic affairs, women should arrange their family life in a civilized way, such as by keeping their house clean inside and out and ensuring that their family enjoy a healthy diet.
Women’s union members and other women should turn their villages and streets into a socialist paradise. Women’s union organizations should push ahead with this work in combination with the movement for winning the title of Loyal July 11 Red Flag Dong and People’s Neighbourhood Unit.
It is important to establish moral discipline among women’s union members and other women. If this is not done, their families and the rising generation, as well as they themselves, may degenerate ideologically and morally. They should respect their revolutionary forerunners, teachers and seniors and fulfill the moral obligation and responsibility they have assumed before their families and society as wives and daughters-in-law. They should always act politely and observe public morality and social order on a voluntary basis and in an exemplary fashion.
The women’s union should struggle for the independent reunification of the country and global independence.
To achieve the country’s reunification is the supreme national task which must be carried out in our generation. The women’s union and women should push ahead one of the two wheels of the national reunification movement, upholding the three charters for national reunification. They should render active support and encouragement to the south Korean women in their struggle for anti-US independence, social democracy and national reunification, as well as to the overseas Korean women in their patriotic struggle for democratic national rights and the independent reunification of their motherland.
Holding aloft the banner of independence, peace and friendship, the women’s union should strengthen its international unity and solidarity with the world’s progressive women and their organizations that aspire after independence, and give encouragement to other women across the world in their just struggle for their dignity and rights and global peace and security.
In strengthening the women’s union work, it is important to build up its organizations and improve their militant functions and role.
The guidance organs of women’s union organizations at all levels should be staffed with able officials and hardcore and active members of the women’s union who are loyal to the Party and steeled and tested in the practical struggle; their committees’ function of collective guidance should be improved, and the sense of responsibility and role of their members enhanced.
The primary organizations of the women’s union should increase their fighting efficiency. As its lowest-echelon organizations, they are bases for their members’ organizational life. The women’s union should form its primary organizations according to the principles of its Rules and in conformity with the specific conditions at relevant units, and direct close attention to guidance for improving their role, thus making them all militant bodies that are strong in organization and discipline.
The women’s union should step up the movement for winning the titles of Model Primary Organization and Model Primary Committee so as to increase the number of holders of these titles, and it should be effective in its re-assessment of them to make this serve as an important occasion for strengthening its organizations.
The Central Committee of the DWUK is the General Staff that plans and directs the union’s work in a unified way under the banner of modelling the whole society on Kimilsungism-Kimjongilism. It should plan and guide all its work in conformity with the intentions of the Party’s policies. Officials of the Central Committee of the DWUK should always cherish the trust and expectations of the Party and carry out their tasks in a responsible manner.
A well-regulated system of work and strict discipline should be established within the women’s union.
The women’s union should establish in a well-regulated way the work system by which its organizations at all levels carry out its decisions on implementing the Party’s policies and report the results promptly, as well as the guidance system by which its organizations go down to the organizations at lower echelons on a regular basis, keep up-to-date with their work, take steps as appropriate and help them in an effective manner. And it should establish the discipline of all its work being conducted as required by the Rules of the union and work guidelines.
A change should be brought about in the work style and attitude of the officials of the women’s union.
Women’s union officials are our Party’s assistants, as well as political workers and standard-bearers in the ranks of the women’s union. All women’s union officials should cultivate the trait of defying death to implement the Party’s policies as well as the spirit of self-reliance and self-development and a creative and enterprising work style, and they should give free rein to the assiduous, meticulous, untiring and diligent way of work as demanded by the present times in which the revolutionary cause of Juche is advancing to final victory.
Party guidance over the work of the women’s union should be intensified.
Our Party attaches great importance to the women’s union and pays close attention to its work. The fundamental principles of Party guidance over its work are to ensure that its organizations conduct all their work and activities in line with the Party’s ideas and intentions. Party organizations should turn Party guidance over women’s union work into their own task, convey the Party’s policies and directives to women’s union organizations promptly and correctly, and control and direct their implementation. In this way they can get women’s union organizations and officials to have a correct understanding of the Party’s policies and intentions and make proactive efforts to carry them out.
It is important to enhance the independence of women’s union organizations and officials. Party organizations should actively push them to the fore, assign tasks to them and make a proper assessment of their performance so that they can carry on their work vigorously on their own initiative, full of pride, self-confidence and passion.
Party organizations should show deep concern for building up the ranks of women’s union officials and improving their qualifications. Party organizations at all levels should make themselves familiar with the problems arising in building up their ranks and adopt prompt measures, and carry on the work of improving their political and practical qualifications and training future women’s union officials in a planned way.
Party organizations should provide women’s union organizations and officials with proper conditions for working and living. They should make sure that there is no practice of imposing burdensome tasks on women’s union organizations willy-nilly, disregarding the characteristics and conditions of the women’s union.
The whole Party and all society need to give full play to the trait of respecting and loving women and actively helping the women’s union in its work.
At present the Party and people are putting great trust in and have high expectations of the women’s union. When the women’s union grows in strength and when its members and other women turn out vigorously, our revolutionary cause will advance with greater vitality.
I firmly believe that all the organizations, officials and members of the women’s union will fulfil their honourable responsibilities and duties in the struggle for the victorious advance of the Korean women’s movement and for the accomplishment of the revolutionary cause of Juche, holding aloft the banner of modelling the whole society on Kimilsungism-Kimjongilism.
I wish all our women including women’s union members, who are blooming as the beautiful flowers of our country, of life and of their families in the socialist flower garden of Juche, glory and happiness.
