The Korean people and the progressive people the world over celebrated the centenary of the birth of President Kim Il Sung as the greatest revolutionary holiday of the Korean nation and as a grand event of mankind.

The celebrations held to mark the centenary of the birth of President Kim Il Sung were an outburst of our people’s boundless reverence for and noble moral obligation to their leader and a grand political festival during which the world’s people sang the praises of the 100-year history of Juche Korea.

Through the celebrations we demonstrated our steadfast faith and will to hold him up as the eternal leader of our Party and people, as well as the revolutionary mettle of the service personnel and people who have turned out in high spirits to achieve the final victory true to the Party’s call.

That we have held up President Kim Il Sung, whom the entire nation and the whole world respect, as our eternal leader is the source of greatest glory and pride for our people and happiness for the generations to come.

Our Party, service personnel and people should hold him up eternally as the Sun of Juche, and accomplish his sacred revolutionary cause with credit.

• 1 Kim Il Sung was the most outstanding leader of the 20th century and a peerlessly great man.

The 20th century was an era of revolutionary changes in the struggle of the masses of the people for their independence, changes unprecedented in human history, and an era of fierce struggle between the progressives and reactionaries, between socialism and imperialism. In this century full of changes, there were many renowned politicians and personages, who left traces in the shaping of the masses’ destiny and in the political history of the world, but none of them was a preeminent leader, a peerless patriot and a great revolutionary as our leader was, who, from his teens to eighties, adorned the century as a century of victory of the cause of anti-imperialist independence, the cause of socialism, by dint of unique ideology and leadership and ennobling virtue while enjoying the absolute support and trust of the people.

The 20th century was, both in name and in reality, Kim IlSung’s century resplendent with his imperishable exploits and the personalities of the great man.

Kim Il Sung was the most outstanding leader and an extraordinary veteran statesman, who left imperishable exploits for his country and people and for the times and revolution by means of profound ideas and theories, uncommon leadership ability and gigantic revolutionary practice.

He was a great leader of the people, who put forward the masses, once oppressed and exploited, as the master of history, and raised their dignity and value to the highest level possible.

His was a noble life of a people’s leader, who regarded “The people are my God” as his motto, applied it to his ideas and leadership and turned it into reality. For him, the masses of the people were always a teacher, and he was their loyal son. He began his revolutionary activities by going amongst them; the revolutionary activities were conducted always by relying on them, and they were dedicated, from beginning to end, to defending and achieving their independence. Thanks to these activities, the masses’ demand and aspiration for independence became ideas, theories, lines and policies, and the most revolutionary and scientific guidelines, which were easily understood by them and which indicated the true roads for them to take to shape their destiny, were provided.

Cherishing as his faith the revolutionary principle that the masses are the masters of the revolution and construction and they have the strength with which to propel the revolution and construction, he always went amongst the masses and enlisted their inexhaustible strength and creative wisdom in solving all the problems in conformity with their demands and interests.

His absolute trust in the people and devotion to them was the fundamental secret of the victories he achieved one after another in the revolution and construction while braving the difficulties and hardships unprecedented in history. As he placed trust in the masses and relied on them, he was able to push forward simultaneously the gigantic undertakings, like authoring a guiding ideology of the revolution, forming a vanguard organization, founding an army, awakening the masses to their ideological consciousness and organizing them, thus creating a new history of the Juche revolution and leading several stages of the difficult and complicated revolutionary struggle and the work of construction to victory without any mistake in his lines and without any failure.

The invincible socialist country that has been built on this land today and the revolutionary cause of Juche that is gaining victory after victory are precious fruits whose seeds he planted in the soil of the people and developed throughout his life. As they were led by him, the masses, once an object of history, could usher in a new era of history, the Juche era, when they are shaping their destiny by their own efforts while steering the wheel of the times and history.

Kim Il Sung was a preeminent and seasoned leader of the revolution, who wrote a new chapter of modern history and added brilliance to it by leading our revolution along the ever-victorious road under the banner of independence.

Independence was the revolutionary creed, revolutionary mode and revolutionary practice he cherished and applied all his life. Already in the first days of his revolutionary struggle, he, with an uncommon wisdom and insight, clarified the truth of the revolution that independence is the life and soul of a country and a nation as well as the masses, and that, to achieve it, sycophancy and dogmatism should be rejected and the revolution be conducted in an independent and creative way. That he held high the banner of independence for the first time, formulated it as the fundamentals and mode of the revolution and applied it was an epochal event noteworthy in the history of human ideology and the history of the revolutionary struggle of the masses.

The Korean revolution was a serious political struggle, a class struggle, against imperialism, dominationism, sycophancy, dogmatism and revisionism, and an unprecedentedly complicated and arduous struggle that could not be won by means of the existing formula or methods. Free from the past, stained with sycophancy and dogmatism, Kim Il Sung, in the whole course of leading the revolution, regarded independence as its lifeline and solved all the problems arising in the revolution and construction in our own way and in conformity with the demands of our revolution, the interests of our people and the actual situation of our country. By consistently holding fast to the principle of independence, he built a powerful driving force of our revolution, smashed at every step the counterrevolutionary offensive of the imperialists and reactionaries and the interventionist schemes of the “Leftist” and Rightist opportunists, and led to victory two revolutionary wars, two rounds of reconstruction, two stages of social revolution and socialist construction. He continuously developed the relationship with foreign parties and countries also based on the principle of independence. In this way, he highly exalted the external prestige and dignity of our Party and our state, and rendered a great contribution to accomplishing the cause of anti-imperialist independence, the cause of socialism.

Through a great revolutionary practice, he proved that independence is the justice of history, the victory of the revolution and the basis of the development of fair international relations, and steered the historical current of the 20th century along the road of independence, thus opening a new chapter of history, when the masses, freed from domination and subjugation, wage the revolution of their respective countries in an independent way.

Great, indeed, was the resolution of Kim Il Sung to hold high the banner of independence in the previous century, when sycophancy, dogmatism and dominationism were prevalent; more worthy of note in the modern political history was his revolutionary practice of not giving up the principle of independence all the time but propelling the cause of our revolution with pluck in the rigorous circumstances of the world, through which the high-handedness and arbitrariness of the imperialists and dominationists were cutting a swathe.

Today independence has become a vivid symbol of his personality as a peerlessly great man and a byword of our times serving to praise his sacred revolutionary career and imperishable achievements.

Kim Il Sung was an ever-victorious, iron-willed commander and military genius who blazed a trail for our revolution and led it along the road of victory by force of arms.

The whole historical course of our people’s revolutionary struggle was beset with acute military confrontations, including the two revolutionary wars, when they had to wage a life-and-death struggle against the imperialist forces of aggression. He early advanced Juche-oriented military ideas and theories and put great emphasis on strengthening the revolutionary armed forces throughout his revolutionary career, always winning victories in the bloody fights and grave showdowns with the imperialist forces. In the revolutionary war against the Japanese imperialists and the Fatherland Liberation War he defeated the formidable imperialist enemies, who boasted of their numerical and technological edge, by dint of political and ideological, strategic and tactical superiority; the world people greatly admired and trusted him as an iron-willed commander, outstanding military strategist and symbol of victory in the anti-imperialist struggle.

In human history there has been recorded no such a leader of the type of military general as Kim Il Sung, an unparalleled commander possessed of the power of both pen and sword, who, always standing on the front line with arms of the revolution in his hands, achieved one victory after another in the showdowns with the imperialist forces by dint of his brilliant military strategy and art of command.

Kim Il Sung was a great revolutionary and a great man of ennobling personalities.

He was the great of the greatest, who has no equal in terms of personalities both as a revolutionary and as a man.

He was a great revolutionary who devoted his all to achieving the victory of the revolution with infinite loyalty to the revolutionary cause. In the long period since he embarked on the road of revolution he only thought about the revolution and dedicated himself to it, working devotedly for its victory in spite of all the conceivable sorrows and agonies he experienced. He hardly took a good rest, even at an advanced age of over 80 giving on-site guidance at factories and rural villages. The world knows no such a great revolutionary as our President who, with devotion to the revolution and his people, finished all he should do by displaying superhuman energy till the last moment of his life and passed away in his office.

He was strong in faith and will and had unsurpassed pluck. In retrospect, the imperialists persisted in bringing pressure to bear upon our Republic and making military threats against it, and our revolution was faced with severe trials in countless numbers. Each time he boldly confronted the trials with the faith and assurance that we will emerge victorious as long as there are the Party, the government, the army and the people and with the matchless courage that there is always a way out even if the heavens may crumble; in this way he turned adversity and misfortune to good account, thus winning victory after victory.

He was the supreme incarnation of revolutionary comradeship. Proceeding from the principle that the revolution means comrades and vice versa, he began his revolutionary struggle by gaining comrades, creating the most beautiful history of revolutionary comradeship. In the long period of making the revolution he took responsibility for the destiny and future of those, whoever they may be and with whom he had come into comradely relations, and protected them to the last, holding all the revolutionary soldiers in his embrace and bestowing great trust and love on them. Thanks to his ennobling comradeship, in the initial days of the Korean revolution the ranks of new-type revolutionaries rallied on the basis of comradely love and obligation were formed, and at present the whole society, with his comradeship as the foundation, has turned into a world of comrades with their leader at the centre. The sacred history of his revolutionary activities is the history of comradeship, which was opened up and recorded a series of victories by dint of comradeship.

Kim Il Sung was a great man of ennobling character and virtue. 

He approached and looked after his people with a warm heart and in a simple and unceremonious manner. To the enemies, he was a tiger of Mt. Paektu, but to his men and people, a very kind-hearted and dear father. When talking to children, he became a child and to the elderly, their intimate friend; he cared for their innermost thoughts as a meticulous mother would do. When meeting workers, he held their grease-stained hands without reserve and in a rural village, had friendly talks with the peasants at the edge of a field; his speeches were often mixed with jokes, humorous and down to earth. Even though he was held in high respect and admiration by our people and progressive peoples of the world, he disallowed any special favour or privilege for himself, and always led a simple and frugal life with his people. So there was no gap between him and our people, from children to the elderly, and they admired and supported him with loyalty.

He was a holy person, magnanimous and broad-minded. His was a wide and benevolent embrace, in which all people who love their country and nation were held for care and protection. He embraced and trusted all those who love their country and nation, regarding them as his eternal companions on the road for the motherland and fellow countrymen. As he approached and embraced people with great magnanimity and benevolence, even those who had committed crimes against the nation in the past could make their life brilliant on the road for their motherland and fellow countrymen, following him as the benefactor for their revival and the father of their nation.

Having been endowed with humaneness, boundless in width and depth, he kept close ties of friendship with party and state leaders as well as a large number of prominent figures in the political, social and academic circles of various countries of the world, who aspired for independence. Anyone who had ever met him, although they had different ideologies and political views, expressed boundless admiration and respect for him as they were attracted by his noble personality. That is why he was the richest in like-minded people and friends in the world.

Indeed, Kim Il Sung was the great leader of the revolution, the benevolent father of the people and a peerlessly great man admired by everyone, whose equal had never been recorded in history.

•  2 Kim Il Sung is the eternal leader of our Party and people and the Sun of Juche who laid the foundations of lasting value for the victorious advance and accomplishment of the revolutionary cause of Juche. 

He ushered in the new era of the Juche revolution by authoring the great Juche idea, led several stages of social revolution towards a brilliant victory by embodying the idea and performed imperishable exploits in every field of the revolution and construction.

The Juche idea he authored and applied creditably into revolutionary practice is the eternal banner of victory of our revolution.

The Juche idea, a revolutionary ideology based on the integrated system of a man-centred philosophical idea, revolutionary theory and leadership method, is a perfect guiding ideology of the revolution which indicates the road for the masses to take in their struggle for independence.

The idea established a man-centred outlook on the world, with the result that it opened the way for man to shape the social history and his own destiny in an independent way with the self-consciousness that he is the master of the world and his own destiny.

Being advanced as a man-centred revolutionary theory and leadership method, it clearly indicates the way for the masses to successfully carry out the revolution and construction and brilliantly accomplish the cause of their independence under whatever complicated circumstances and conditions by relying on the revolutionary and scientific theory, strategy, tactics and method.

The great Juche idea, as it is a man-centred view of the world and revolutionary theory and method, is a revolutionary ideology, most reasonable, universal and valid, which all those who aspire after independence can easily sympathize with and accept as their own. This is evidenced by the glorious history of our revolution which has traversed a proud road of victory under the banner of the Juche idea and the reality of today when the aspiration for global independence is mounting as the days go by under the rays of the Juche idea.

The Juche idea is an encyclopaedic, revolutionary ideology representing the whole historical stages of implementing the cause of independence of the masses, the cause of socialism, and a great ideology guiding mankind to the future.

The immortal revolutionary exploits Kim Il Sungperformed while leading the revolutionary struggle and construction work victoriously under the banner of the Juche idea serve as the eternal cornerstone that provides a sure guarantee for implementing the socialist cause of Juche.

A revolutionary party, government and army are the most powerful political weapon that assures a revolutionary cause of its start, progress and victory. History shows that the destiny of the revolution, the destiny of socialism, is decided by how the party, government and army are built and how the people are prepared politically and ideologically.

As there are the Workers’ Party of Korea, a Juche-type revolutionary party which was founded and developed by Kim Il Sung, the Government of the Republic which is genuine people’s power, the invincible People’s Army and our people who were trained by him to be strong in ideas and faith, our revolution today is making vigorous progress in spite of trials and hardships beyond imagination while working miracles of history in all fields of socialist construction, as it was in the previous century. The Party firmly ensures the leader’s guidance over the revolution and construction, and leads the masses to fulfil their responsibilities and role as the masters of the revolution and construction in loyal support of the Party and the leader. Our people’s government, shouldering the responsibility for the country’s economy and the people’s living, is defending and ensuring the masses’ right to and interests in independence and guiding and managing in a unified way the efforts to build a thriving nation and improve the people’s standard of living. The People’s Army which has grown into a powerful revolutionary army of Mt. Paektu is displaying, as the hard-core unit and main force of our revolution, the honour of a performer of miracles and feats in all the challenging yet important posts of defending and building up socialism and of a creator and disseminator of Songun culture.

The sure guarantee for firmly safeguarding our socialism and achieving the prosperity of the country and nation consists in further developing the party, state and army of Kim Il Sung and giving ceaseless and full play to the infinite mental and creative strength of our people.