111th Anniversary of the Birth of President Kim Il Sung
April 15, 1912

Significance of the Personality, Life and Work of President Kim Il Sung

April 15, 1912 – July 8, 1994

April 15 marks the 111th anniversary of the birth of the great leader of the Korean people, President Kim Il Sung. This occasion is celebrated in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) as the Day of the Sun, where many celebrations, educational activities such as seminars and visits to historic landmarks take place to pay tribute to Kim Il Sung’s life and work.

Kim Il Sung passed away 29 years ago, on July 8, 1994. In the period since then, the people of the DPRK have accomplished truly remarkable things based on Kim Il Sung’s nation-building project conceived during the guerrilla war to defeat the Japanese occupation of Korea. From its inception, this nation-building project has been people-centred, self-reliant and inclined towards building equal and friendly relations with the peoples of all countries. Despite the most brutal on-going attempts to crush and eradicate the DPRK by the U.S. imperialists and the countries which submit to their dictate, which includes Canada, the people of the DPRK have steadfastly marched forward by adhering to the path delineated by the Workers’ Party of Korea (WPK) under the leadership of Kim Il Sung. Their deeds bring out the profound significance of the personality, life and work of Kim Il Sung. It is in the very existence of the DPRK and in the life of its people, a life of persistent and heroic struggle and successes, that the memory of President Kim Il Sung finds its richest tribute.

The people of the DPRK proudly say that “The great leader Comrade Kim Il Sung will always be with us!” Such things can be said because the reality makes it so. It is a reality of step-wise construction of a new socialist society, of which Kim Il Sung was the architect, which was born in the struggle of the Korean people against imperialist domination, enslavement and exploitation.

Both during his life and since he passed away, the Korean people have militantly participated in contributing to and leading in the further mapping out of the lines and policies of the Workers’ Party of Korea. This strengthening of the leadership of the Party in the revolutionary cause of the Korean working class and people also stands as a tribute to the memory of Kim Il Sung.

In this period of retrogression and retreat of revolution, world reaction is demanding that the world’s people submit to their dictate. In this situation, the steadfast struggle of the DPRK is a source of inspiration for the peoples of the world, as they fight and resist the pressures of retrogression and the brutal anti-social offensive of the international financial oligarchy and prepare for that inevitable day when revolution will again flow.

While the U.S. imperialists and their puppet regime in south Korea sink to ever lower depths in their attempts to maintain the division of the Korean nation, the just positions and program for the Unity of the Whole Nation for the Reunification of Korea, originally worked out by Kim Il Sung, stands ever more loftily over the self-serving aim of the imperialists. They desperately hope that their vicious encirclement of the DPRK will force the Korean people to their knees. Time and time again they have failed to achieve this aim.

So too, despite disinformation of all kinds, the world’s people can see that on the Korean Peninsula, it is the U.S. imperialists and their allies, including Canada, who have created a climate and terrain for war. Since the Korean War which ended in 1953, they refuse to sign a permanent peace treaty. Today as never before, they are using the threat of invasion and annihilation war as a instrument of negotiations which the DPRK will never accept. Far from succumbing to such threats, it is the continued defence and advancement of the just demand of the Korean people, led by the WPK and its leadership, for an end to the state of war, that offers the only course for peace and stability in the region.

It is well-known that when Kim Il Sung passed away, the imperialists had great hope that their nefarious plans for Korea would now be victorious. Their hope was that the revolutionary struggle and leadership of the Korean people would die with Kim Il Sung and that this would add to their counter-revolutionary arsenal to impose their control and domination over the peoples of Asia and the world.

Far from it, Kim Il Sung’s revolutionary leadership was firmly rooted, as reflected in the leadership, writings and deeds of Kim Jong Il and the determination of the WPK and people to carry forward his ideas and plans in the reality facing the people and the country at each point. The works of Kim Jong Il upheld the guidelines and principles put forward by President Kim Il Sung, such as Respecting the Forerunners of the Revolution Is a Noble Moral Obligation of Revolutionaries, which stood as a sharp rebuke to world reaction, showing their hopes to be in vain. Kim Jong Il also contributed all-sidedly to the further development of a prosperous Korea capable of defending itself. This included ever greater projects to increase industrial and agricultural output and raise the standards of living of the working people, as well as making contributions which further enhanced the people’s revolutionary culture and humanized the natural and social environments.

Following the guidelines that one historical period only requires one nation-building project to settle scores with the conscience and reality of the past, Kim Jong Il’s contribution took the people forward along the path of anti-imperialist struggle for peace, freedom and democracy on the basis of strengthening their new socialist society. So too today, the leadership of Kim Jong Un and the WPK further elaborate the nation-building plan originally put forward for this historical period by Kim Il Sung, further opening bright prospects and enabling the contributions of the Korean people to open society’s path to progress and achieve their cherished goal of national reunification and peace.

On the occasion of the anniversary of the birth of President Kim Il Sung, the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) sent revolutionary greetings to Kim Jong Un, General Secretary of the Workers’ Party of Korea, and the Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea, its membership and the entire Korean people. The Party expressed great admiration for Kim Il Sung and the achievements of the Korean people, and stands with the Korean people and with all the revolutionary and progressive forces in the world in demanding that the U.S. imperialists sign a peace treaty and lift sanctions against the DPRK and that Canada stop conciliating with the United States in its preparations for war and respect the norms of diplomatic relations.

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