"Electric Arc Furnace" of the 21st Century Demolished

The respected Comrade Kim Jong Un said:

"General Kim Jong Il was a peerless patriot; he loved his country and fellow people more ardently than anybody else did, and he devoted his whole life to achieving the prosperity of the country and the happiness of the people. Thus he performed imperishable exploits that are etched in the history of the country."

The great General was on his forced march of field guidance even in the hottest period of summer for the sake of the country and people during his lifetime.

On August 9, Juche 96 (2007)—it was midsummer when heavy rain and sultry weather continued almost every day— the great General gave field guidance to a machine factory which was playing a leading role in the production of mining machines needed in the Tanchon area.

Arriving at the factory he first looked round the monument inscribed with on-site instructions of the great Leader. Then he went to the room dedicated to the history of the factory to learn in detail about its history, production capacity and products. Then he stepped to the production sites.

Stopping in front of the building of the large-machine processing workshop, he felt rather unhappy. But as they were too excited at his visit to their factory, the managers of the factory could not notice it and led him into the shop floor. Just before walking out of the building after looking round the shop floor of the aforesaid workshop and the youth machine-building workshop the great General stopped suddenly and looked up at the ceiling of the building again.

He asked when the building was built. Hearing from a factory manager that it was built in Juche 46 (1957) the great General said: It looks like an old building, old-fashioned and untidy. And it is too high and has too many windows. If factory buildings have too many windows, it would be difficult to control the heat.

Originally at the time when the factory had been built 50 years before, the officials in charge of its construction took into consideration the productive feature alone that the shop floor had to be bright as they would have to do processing with machine tools. So, they designed the building in such a way that windows accounted for two-thirds of the area of the walls, and constructed the ceiling of the building in two tiers high enough to install an overhead crane, which was a stereotyped structure of a building where machines were produced. As a result, the building had many small windows and its ceiling was so high that in summer workers sweated in the greenhouse-like shop floor—even without their jackets on. On the contrary, the heating was barely provided in winter, so they had to stand the cold while working.

Yet, the managers of the factory paid little attention to it as they thought that it was unavoidable with the buildings of machine factories. Though they had tried to renovate the equipment and buildings of the factory along modern lines in the new century, none of them had had an idea of changing the structure of the buildings radically.

Now feeling remorseful that they had hardly been aware of the noble intention of the great General who paid attention to the health of workers wherever he went, the managers could not hold up their head.

The great General said: You should remove the trusses of the factory buildings and lower the height of walls before fixing heat-insulating materials on them. You should set the roof in such a way as to befit a modern machine factory. You should set modern illuminations, too, as well as new equipment. In this way you will also be able to provide the workers with favourable working conditions in the cold season of winter.

Then, the great General said in a serious voice that that sort of building was referred to as "electric arc furnace."

The story of "electric arc furnace" came soon after Korea's liberation from the Japanese imperialists' military occupation on August 15, 1945. When even a gram of steel counted for the building of a new country, the great leader Comrade Kim Il Sung, the leader of the new Korea, ordered the demolition of an electric arc furnace, declaring that no matter how precious steel was the workers' lives could not be bartered for the steel. Blowing off the furnace was a significant event heralding the advent of a new world where the masses of the working people are the master; it was a historic declaration of the truth of the Juche idea that man is the most valuable being in the world.

Now there at the local factory the great General reiterated the great Leader's great idea of giving priority to man.

Before leaving the factory the great General told the managers not to demolish the factory buildings rashly simply because he asked them to renovate them, but make a good design and build nice buildings in such a significant way as to provide a convenient working condition to the workers while meeting the requirement of the new century.

After his departure the buildings of the factory, which made the great General feel sorry and which he referred to as the "electric arc furnace" of the 21st century, were completely destroyed. And a modern factory went up on the spot thanks to the great care and concern of the great General.