opinion

More than 1 500 fairyland villages have been built across the DPRK, which is vibrant with activities to implement the programme for effecting drastic development of the rural areas in the new era, over the past three years to meet the modern aesthetic tastes and requirements of Korean-style socialism and highlight the specific features of relevant regions.

With the joyful scenes of agricultural workers moving into new houses provided by the Party and the state free of charge unfolding all the year round every year, the countryside has undergone tremendous changes.

The Fourth Plenary Meeting of the Eighth Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea held in December 2021 was recorded in history as a historic meeting which announced the programme for a rural revolution to provide a new turning point in Korean-style socialist rural development.

In his historic report titled, “Let Us Open up a New Great Era of Our-style Socialist Rural Development”, delivered at the plenary meeting, WPK General Secretary Kim Jong Un clarified the goals of socialist rural construction, the immediate central tasks, and the mid-term and long-term strategies for rural development to be held fast to by the Party and state.

The work specified the task of building rural villages in the mountainous, flat and coastal areas in such a way as to preserve their regional features and ensuring modernity, cultural traits and political principles in rural construction, that of strengthening the design and construction forces and providing necessary construction equipment, that of giving priority to housing construction, that of establishing a powerful guidance system of the Party and state over rural construction, that of providing major materials by the state, that of setting up the finishing building materials production bases in the regions and others.

In particular, it was adopted as a policy to supply cement badly needed for rural construction to all cities and counties in advance and preferentially.

This crucial measure, which was taken by the Party and state for the construction of farmhouses at a time when they were faced with huge fighting tasks for the overall national rejuvenation, gave great excitement and joy to the agricultural workers.

But it was not an easy job to boldly remove centuries-old backwardness and build modern ideal villages by constructing farmhouses.

It was an unprecedentedly huge, mid- and long-term undertaking to be carried out in such circumstances where the severest difficulties in the 70-odd-year history of the DPRK stood in the way of its advance and the country pushed ahead with projects to bring about great changes for the comprehensive development of socialism simultaneously.

But it was the unshakeable will and noble intention of General Secretary Kim Jong Un that the Korean revolution to build genuine people-centred socialism and communism, in which all the people enjoy a rich and civilized material and cultural life to their heart’s content, should not be a revolution to fill in the documents and that we should do and bring earlier everything we can in our generation. 

He always stood at the forefront of the campaign for building rural dwelling houses waged fiercely throughout the country.

He gave detailed guidance while inspecting thousands of designs and mock-ups for the rural housing construction and took all necessary measures ranging from the organization of city and county construction brigade to the supply, transport and storage of construction equipment, materials and cement for rural construction.

He set the rural housing construction as a crucial strategic plan to which the WPK attaches the greatest importance and which it intends to carry out without fail and gave meticulous guidance as to the improvement of quality of construction, supervision, finishing of the interior of buildings, landscaping, construction of joint stables and housekeeping.

He made untiring efforts to drastically improve the appearance and environment of the countryside, pointing to such detailed issues that rural housing construction should begin from the remotest mountainous farms and those with the most unfavourable conditions, many fruit trees and trees of good species that suit the regional natural features should be planted in and around the villages and farmhouses, the roads in the villages should be built and paved in good quality, the rural construction should include not only dwelling houses but also public and production buildings such as educational buildings and service amenities and dwelling houses should be built in various styles every year to suit the regional topographical features.　

The solid and reliable foundations have been laid steadily for stepping up the construction of farmhouses decisively in the future.

The rural construction policy was legally guaranteed and a well-regulated system of the Party and state for it was established as the law on city and county development was adopted at the Fifth Session of the 14th Supreme People’s Assembly, the law on socialist rural development at the Seventh Session of the 14th Supreme People’s Assembly and the law on the supply of cement for city and county construction at the 19th Plenary Session of the 14th Supreme People’s Assembly.

The central headquarters for rural construction and the regional headquarters were organized all at once and the architectural design, construction guidance and construction forces of the regions built up.

The construction equipment and tools exhibitions were held in provinces with full preparations to generalize the successes and experience gained in the past and the proportion of mechanization in construction grew remarkably in the construction units.

The material and technical foundations of the building-materials industry, the arsenal for regional construction, were strengthened a level higher to take a step forward in realizing the domestic production of finishing building materials and attaining self-sufficiency in them.

More than 800 finishing building materials production bases were newly built and expanded across the country and the capacity expansion, readjustment and reinforcement projects went full steam ahead at the production units.

Timely measures were taken to supply materials needed for the construction of farmhouses.

The slogan "For the new victory of socialist rural construction!" put forward by the Party served as the banner of advance towards the rural development, strongly encouraging the struggle for the construction of rural dwelling houses.

The rural housing construction did not stop even a moment despite the unprecedented public health crisis since the founding of the country.

The scientific and technological capability was steadily expanded, bringing about a significant improvement in the quality of products.

The mass technical innovation drive was vigorously waged and construction methods were widely introduced to improve the stability and quality of structures throughout the country.

Projects were positively undertaken to landscape the newly-built rural villages so as to make the modern socialist fairyland villages more beautiful.

The spirit of patriotism was fully displayed in the new era of rural development, during which people and nature change beyond recognition.

The commanding officers and members of the elite battalions of Party members from Pyongyang and the regions are now building a people's paradise in the Paektu area.

A great number of officials and working people conducted vigorous motivational activities at construction sites and rendered material aid and moral support to them, providing construction materials and supplies.

Service personnel of the Korean People’s Army, who are defending the country, also promoted army-people cooperation while rendering sincere assistance to the construction of farmhouses.

New modern and decent farmhouses of various styles have mushroomed over the past three years since the publication of the rural revolution programme in the new era, giving the agricultural workers great joy and happiness of moving into new houses every day. And a large number of new modern houses are now waiting for their owners.