Opinion

Chairman Kim Jong Il visited the Seoul Ryu Kyong Su Guards 105th Tank Division of the Korean People's Army on August 25 63 years ago.

While inspecting KPA units since the day when he started guidance over the revolutionary armed forces, he opened up a new era of bolstering up the armed forces and advanced the socialist cause of Juche along the road of victory on the strength of arms.

He said that the KPA should hasten the final victory of the Korean revolution by holding higher the slogan “Let us defend with our very lives the Party Central Committee headed by the respected Comrade Kim Il Sung!”

He set forth the line of modelling the whole army on Kimilsungism and as he energetically led the struggle to implement it, he implanted the revolutionary outlook on the leader in the hearts of all the KPA service personnel and thoroughly established the revolutionary discipline and order in the KPA whereby important issues of principle arising in army building and activities are reported to the Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea and dealt with according to the conclusion of its Central Committee.

He always paid attention to giving full play to the political and ideological advantages, the source of the mightiness and invincibility of the KPA, and kindled the fierce flames of the Movement for Winning the Title of O Jung Hup-led 7th Regiment throughout the army. Under his energetic guidance, the Korean revolutionary armed forces could firmly preserve their character and nature of staunchly defending the leader and reliably guaranteeing the cause of the Party militarily.

He developed the KPA into an invincible army fully prepared not only politically and ideologically but also in military technique.

In order to make the KPA an elite combat force reliably defending the security of the country and the safety of the people, he ensured that every training ground of it was filled with the spirit of a-match-for-a-hundred combatants and the will to annihilate the enemy and as he visited the outposts for defending the country including Chol Pass, Mt Osong and Cho Island he turned the whole country into an impregnable fortress.

He paid great attention to making material and technical preparations for coping with war at any moment in conformity with the conditions of the country which was building socialism in constant confrontation with the US imperialists and energetically led the struggle to make the defence industry Juche-oriented and modern.

Thanks to the patriotic will of Kim Jong Il who prioritized the development of the defence industry, the Korean defence industry developed into a modern and self-supporting one producing any kind of military hardware at will and the DPRK emerged as a world military power and a full-fledged nuclear weapons state.

He also led the KPA to become the standard-bearer making a breakthrough for advance in major sites of socialist construction, not only as the driving force of national defence.

He initiated large-scale construction projects for bringing about a radical change in the appearance of the country with trust in the KPA and put it forward in the vanguard of the march for a great upswing in economic construction and the improvement of the people's living standards. As a result, in such trying periods of the Arduous March and the forced march, the KPA struggled not only as the architect of the people’s joy but also as the pacesetter and model instilling in the people the revolutionary ideas and spirit and fighting spirit.

Today when the KPA’s absolute might and invincible spirit, the political and ideological traits peculiar to it and the power of great army-people unity are being demonstrated to the full, the Korean people celebrate August 25 while recollecting once again the immortal leadership exploits performed by Kim Jong Il for that.