Precious Guideline on Having the Juche-oriented Understanding of the Revolutionary Traditions

Chairman Kim Jong Il said:

"The revolutionary traditions we should carry forward are the glorious traditions established by the great leader Comrade Kim Il Sung in the period of the anti-Japanese revolutionary struggle."

The issue of the revolutionary traditions is crucial to the destiny of the Party and the revolution. The prospects and outcome of the revolutionary cause pioneered by the leader depend on how to understand and carry forward the revolutionary traditions.

Seeing through the importance of the revolutionary traditions in carrying forward the revolutionary cause, Chairman Kim Jong Il paid deep attention to getting students to correctly understand the revolutionary traditions during the early days when he carried out the revolutionary activities at Kim Il Sung University.

At that time, various materials of education in revolutionary traditions, such as the reminiscences of the anti-Japanese revolutionary veterans, were published and disseminated and the work of arming people with the glorious revolutionary traditions of the Workers' Party of Korea was in full swing, so the phrase revolutionary tradition was frequently on students' and other people's lips. However, nobody had a correct understanding of the concept revolutionary traditions.

Knowing the real situation, the Chairman gave students precious instructions on how to have a correct understanding of the revolutionary traditions one day in October, Juche 49(1960).

He said that the concept of tradition did not merely mean something that was handed down through the generations, but something created in history and carried forward by being inherited. He added that traditions by being inherited could be classified largely into two categories–national traditions and revolutionary traditions, so if they were not strictly distinguished to suit its essential meaning, the nature of the glorious revolutionary traditions of the WPK could not be identified and what was worse, its purity might not be ensured. Then he pointed out that the traditions of the revolutionary struggle of the working class connoted a wealth linking the historical origins of the revolutionary struggle with the lifeline of the revolution. He stressed that the revolutionary traditions to be carried forward by the working class was established by their leader who blazed the trail of revolution and was developed and enriched in the course of a struggle that advanced under his guidance.

Saying that the revolutionary traditions established by President Kim Il Sung during the period of the anti-Japanese revolutionary struggle was rich and profound in their content as it was established in an unprecedentedly arduous and bloody struggle and it was an invaluable treasure of Korean revolution, he instructed that there could be no other revolutionary traditions for the WPK than the revolutionary traditions established by President Kim Il Sung and incorporating things which had nothing to do with the history of the revolutionary activities of the leader in the revolutionary traditions of the WPK was tantamount to mixing the Party's revolutionary traditions with a hotch-potch of things, which would tarnish the purity of the revolutionary traditions.

He went on to say that in the past the anti-Party factionalists promoted such traditions of all hues as those of Uiryol Corps and the Union of Independence trying to blemish the purity of the WPK's revolutionary traditions and realize their factional ambition. He instructed that people should not forget such lessons of history and that they should regard the revolutionary traditions established by President Kim Il Sung as the only revolutionary traditions to be carried forward and staunchly defended and held fast to.

Listening to the Chairman's instructions, students could have the Juche-oriented understanding of the revolutionary traditions and hold fast to the firm stand to carry forward the glorious revolutionary traditions of the WPK with credit.