Revolutionary obligation to Zhang Wei-hua, an internationalist martyr

The revolutionary obligation of President Kim Il Sung to Zhang Wei-hua, an internationalist martyr, is unprecedentedly pure and noble.

President Kim Il Sung said:

"My friendship with Zhang Wei-hua has continued even after his death.

Zhang passed away, but I have never forgotten him even for one moment. The fragrance of his personality penetrated my mind more deeply as the days went by."

Zhang Wei-hua could live in luxury by forsaking the revolution, but he volunteered to die a heroic death on the 2nd of October, 1937, for President Kim Il Sung, for the Headquarters of the Korean revolution and the common cause of the Korean people, forsaking his dear parents, wife and children as well as his long-cherished dreams. At that time he had not reached 25 years of age.

With his revolutionary obligation, President Kim Il Sung always remembered him and showed all his love and affection to Zhang Wei-Hua's younger generation.

After the anti-Japanese war, President Kim Il Sung always remembered his parents, wife and children, saying that Zhang Wei-hua was the first man recalled from countless Chinese comrades and benefactors. In particular, when the flames of the civil war swept the whole of Manchuria after the unconditional surrender of the Japan, he worried about the fate of Zhang's bereaved family, who might have been regarded as a target of dictatorship and unfairly punished. Although Zhang Wei-hua was a revolutionary martyr who had rendered distinguished serves for the revolution, he had worked mostly underground, so he wondered if the masses would recognize him, a rich man's son, as a communist.

In spite of the complicated process of building of a new Korea, the great war against the Americans and the work carried out to lay the foundations of socialism, he eagerly waited for a chance to meet them.

When the visitors' group from the DPRK was to visit anti-Japanese battlefields in Manchuria, President Kim Il Sung met Pak Yong Sun, the head of the group and told to inquire into the whereabouts of the family of Zhang Wei-hua.

He told Pak Yong Sun that over twenty years has passed since Zhang Wei-hua, the owner of the Xiongdi Photo Studio, who supplied cloth and money to us when the children were suffering from illness and shivering with cold in the secret camp in Maanshan, died, but he had not even sent his regards to Zhang's family, and asked Pak to remember him to Zhang's bereaved family and give his regards to them on his behalf. He continued that Zhang Wei-hua was Chinese, but he was virtually Korean or a Korean revolutionary, and his distinguished services occupy an honorable place both in his history of Chinese communist movement and in the annals of the anti-Japanese revolution of Korea and asked that he had to discover where the bereaved family of Zhang Wei-hua lived, even if they moved to another place from Fusong, with the aid of the Chinese public security organs. After that he waited anxiously for news from Fusong.

Reported from Pak Yong Sun that after Zhang Wei-hua's father died in 1954 and after his death, Zhang Wei-hua's wife lived a frugal life in the old house in Fusong with her son Zhang Jin-quan and his daughter Zhang Jin-lu, and after receiving Zhang Jin-quan's letter, he felt that his affection for him, which he had quelled for more than 20 years, gushed out.

His revolutionary obligation to Zhang Wei-hua developed into a new phase in the course of meeting his bereaved children several times.

In May 1984, more than 20 years after receiving a letter from Zhang Jin-quan, passing through Northeast China by train on his way, President Kim Il Sung said that Zhang Wei-hua's family were said to be still living in Fusong, which was only a hundred miles from here so he wanted to send them a gift as a token of his best wishes. A few days later the Chinese officials concerned conveyed his gift to Zhang's family.

After returning home, he received the second letter from Zhang Jin-quan and invited him to Pyongyang.

He met Zhang Jin-quan, Zhang Jin-lu and Zhang Qi party on their way to the DPRK. Gazing at them in a bid to find a resemblance to Zhang Wei-hua and his wife, who had been deceased, in their demeanor, he said in Chinese words without diplomatic customs, "I welcome you!" and held them together in his arms as he had done when he met Zhang Wei-hua.

At the welcome banquet, he told Zhang Jin-Quan and his party that he did not need a congratulatory address, as they were one family members, and to raise the glasses for the health of those present at the banquet and for the friendship between Korea and China. He told them that Zhang Jin-Quan's grandfather helped the independence movement of Korea and his father helped the Korean communist movement, speaking highly of their distinguished services of the Zhang family.

When Zhang Jin-quan and his party presented the gift on behalf of the Fusong people and family members, in return he gave each of them a gold watch. And also he made sure that Zhang Jin-quan had a check-up in Pyongyang and had his ruined molar teeth replaced with gold false teeth.

After that, he met Zhang Jin-quan and his company in Sinuiju, a frontier city for the second time. At that time, he gave a luncheon again for them on their way back home and gave them each a camera, hoping them to follow the example of Zhang Wei-hua who had devoted his all to the revolution, running a photo studio.

Bidding farewell to them, he said that they should work well and become excellent communist party members, and he warmly said "You grew up as fatherless children. From now on I am your father."

Under the loving care of President Kim Il Sung, Zhang Jin-quan visited the DPRK in 1987 with his wife, son and grandchildren. During his company's sojourn in the DPRK, President Kim Il Sung provided them with a plane for their exclusive use and special train, as well as many attendants.

In April 1992, too, he met Zhang Jin-quan and his party who came to the DPRK to celebrate his 80th birthday. The more frequent their visits became, the deeper and warmer the friendship between President Kim Il Sung and Zhang Wei-hua's descendants grew.

Learning that Zhang Jin-quan was planning to set up a new tombstone on the occasion of the 55th anniversary of his father's death, President Kim Il Sung said that he would erect a monument in his own name at the tomb of Zhang Wei-hua. On the monument he inscribed his significant autograph that the revolutionary exploits of the martyr Zhang Wei-hua constitute a brilliant symbol of the friendship between the Korean and Chinese peoples and that his noble revolutionary spirit and services to the revolution will live on forever in the people's mind.

Later on he did not grudge any time for the descendants of Zhang Wei-hua, saying how he could fulfill all his obligations to Zhang Wei-hua, who sacrificed his life for him, by setting up even thousands of monuments to him,.

In his reminiscences "With the Century", President Kim Il Sung said he wanted to visit the graveyard of Zhang Wei-hua, but he was afraid that it might remain a mere desire. He even said that, if he failed to accomplish his desire, he hope to visit the tomb of his old comrade-in-arms in his dreams.

His noble revolutionary obligation to Zhang Wei-hua, an internationalist soldier, continued with the passage of time even after his demise.