Kim Jong Un delivers the 2015 New Year’s Day Address from a room at the WPK Central Committee #1 Office Building (Photo: KCNA)
On January 1, 2015 (Thursday), Kim Jong Un (Kim Cho’ng-u’n) delivered his annual New Year’s Address. Based on DPRK state media reporting, KJU delivered his speech from a room at the Workers’ Party of Korea [WPK; KWP] Central Committee Office Building #1 in central Pyongyang (where his main executive office is located). Below is the official translation provided by the Korean Central News Agency of KJU’s speech.
Dear comrades!
Having seen out 2014, a year in which we clearly demonstrated the spirit and might of the great DPRK that advances by leaps and bounds with confidence in victory, we are seeing in the hope-filled new year 2015.
Reflecting the boundless loyalty of all the service personnel and people, I would like to pay the highest tribute and offer New Year greetings to President Kim Il Sung (Kim Il-so’ng) and General Kim Jong Il (Kim Cho’ng-il), the eternal leaders of our people and the sun of Chuch’e.
I extend New Year greetings to the service personnel and people who are striving with devotion for the dignity and prosperity of the country with revolutionary faith and patriotic enthusiasm, and I wish the families throughout the country would overflow with warm affection and our lovely children would have a brighter future.
My New Year greetings go also to the compatriots in the south and abroad who are fighting for national concord and reunification and to the progressive peoples of the world and other foreign friends who aspire after independence and peace.
Last year was a year of brilliant triumph in which the foundations for hastening final victory on all fronts of building a thriving nation were consolidated firmly and the invincible might of the DPRK was demonstrated under the leadership of the Party.
Last year the harmonious whole of the Party and the masses of the people was solidified and the purity and might of the revolutionary ranks strengthened.
The ardent yearning of our service personnel and people for the President and the General became intenser as the days went by and they fully manifested their passionate loyalty and pure sense of moral obligation to translate into reality the great leaders’ plans and wishes. Our Party’s politics of love for the people and younger generation and its policy of attaching importance to science and education were embodied in reality and thereby the people’s trust in the Party deepened and our single-hearted unity hardened. Amid the drive for carrying on education in revolutionary traditions through the study tour of the revolutionary battle sites in the Mt. Paektu area, the entire army and the whole society came to pulsate with the spirit and mettle of Paektu and bubble with the conviction and will to carry through the sacred revolutionary cause of Chuch’e.
Last year the fighting efficiency of the People’s Army was increased remarkably and national defence capability was built up.
As the army conducted political and ideological work in a positive manner and stoked the flames of training under combat conditions, all its officers and men and units of services and arms became strong in ideas and faith and prepared as an invincible army capable of discharging operational and combat missions proficiently in any circumstances and conditions. Iron military discipline was established in the entire army and unprecedented successes were made in the improvement of soldiers’ living. The defence industry sector developed and completed various means of military strike of our style to make a tangible contribution to the qualitative growth of the revolutionary armed forces.
Last year we made great progress in the building of a socialist economic giant and civilized nation by the joint operation of the army and people.
DPRK Premier Pak Pong Ju (3rd L) and Vice Premier and State Planning Commission Chairman Ro Tu Chol (L, partly obscured) tour construction at Wisong Scientists’ Street in July 2014 (Photo: KCNA).
Even in the difficult situation and adverse conditions last year, an upswing was brought about in production in different sectors including agriculture, fishery and chemical and coal-mining industries, opening up bright prospects for the building of an economic giant and improvement of the people’s living standards. The construction sector kindled the fierce flames for creating the Korean speed to build many monumental structures that serve as standards and models of Chuch’e-oriented architecture including the Wisong Scientists Dwelling District, apartment houses for lecturers of Kim Ch’aek University of Technology, Yo’np’ung Scientists Holiday Camp and October 8 Factory, thereby actually demonstrating the looks of the DPRK that is realizing its beautiful ideals. The service personnel who engaged in the building of a thriving country achieved breakthroughs in production, construction and modernization and created excellent model units in the spirit of devotedly implementing the Party’s policies and the spirit of match-for-a-hundred combatants.
View from the Taedong River of the construction of apartment buildings for faculty of Kim Ch’aek University of Technology (Photo: NKLW file photo).
One of the DPRK’s 11 gold medallists, Jang Un Hui (right) connects to PRC’s Li Qian during the women’s middleweight boxing finals on October 1, 2014 at the 17th Asian Games in Incheon, ROK (Photo: Yonhap).
Our sportspeople undauntedly fought by our own style of tactics in the 17th Asian Games and world championships to exalt the honor of the country and greatly encourage the service personnel and people who were out in the struggle to defend socialism.
All the victories and priceless successes we achieved last year are a brilliant result of the Party’s wise leadership and of the burning patriotic loyalty and self-sacrificing struggle of all the service personnel and people rallied firmly behind the Party.
I extend heartfelt thanks to all the service personnel and people who made a contribution to glorifying last year as a year of proud feats and changes by waging an unyielding struggle with a steadfast faith in the revolutionary cause of Juche and the military-first (So’ngun) revolutionary cause.
Comrades!
The new year 2015 will be a year of great significance, in which we will mark the 70th anniversaries of national liberation and founding of the Workers’ Party of Korea.
Greeting this significant year, our people are looking back with great pride and dignity upon the glorious 70-year history of our Party and homeland which have achieved shining victories under the wise leadership of the President and the General; they are full of confidence and optimism with a determination to follow the Party and achieve final victory in the Chuch’e revolution pioneered on Mt. Paektu.
This year we should display the revolutionary spirit and mettle of Paektu to scathingly thwart the challenges and manoeuvres by hostile forces and score a signal success in the struggle to defend socialism and on all fronts of building a thriving nation. By doing so, we should celebrate the 70th anniversaries of national liberation and founding of the Party as revolutionary, auspicious events.
Upholding the slogan “Let us all turn out in the general offensive to hasten final victory in the revolutionary spirit of Paektu!” all the service personnel and people should charge dynamically towards the venue of grand October celebrations. Bearing in mind the soul and mettle of Paektu, we should become honourable victors in the general offensive to exalt the dignity of our socialist country and promote its prosperity on the strength of ideology, arms and science and technology.
This year we will further consolidate our country’s invincible might as a socialist political and ideological power.
We should invariably hold up the President and the General forever as the sun of Chuch’e, staunchly championing and adding eternal brilliance to their immortal revolutionary exploits.
In this year of the 70th anniversary of the Party, which organizes and guides all victories of our people, we should set up a new milestone in improving its leadership ability and fighting efficiency.
We should steadily intensify the work of establishing the Party’s monolithic leadership system to make the whole Party share ideology with the Party Central Committee, breathe the same breath as it and keep pace with it. All Party organizations should maintain implementing the Party’s lines and policies as the major line of Party work, and carry every one of them to completion unconditionally.
We should ensure that the people-first principle runs through the whole of Party work as appropriate for its nature as a motherly party to make the climate of respecting, loving and depending on them pervade it and Party work focus on improving their living standards. All the organizations and officials of the Party should eliminate abuses of power and bureaucratism, and take warm care of the people and lead them properly to make sure that the latter trust and rely on it as they would do their mothers and throw in their lot with it.
Kim Jong Un observes multiple launch rocket system drill in Kangwo’n Province on December 29, 2014. Also in attendance are VMar Hwang Pyong So (Director of the KPA General Political Department), Gen. Kim Yong Chol (Director of the Reconnaissance General Bureau and Vice Chief of the KPA General Staff), Col. Gen. Choe Yong Ho (Commander of the KPA Air and Anti-Air Forces) and Gen. Hyon Yong Chol (Minister of the People’s Armed Forces) (Photo: KCNA).
We should hold fast to ideology as the Party’s powerful weapon and make an ideological offensive to consolidate the ideological position of our revolution rock-solid. We should promote education in the greatness of the leaders, Kim Jong Il’s (Kim Cho’ng-il) patriotism, faith, anti-imperialist and class consciousness and morality to train all Party members, service personnel and other working people into staunch fighters of the military-first (So’ngun) revolution and make them raise the fierce flames of patriotic loyalty, creation and innovation at all posts in national defence and for building a thriving nation.
This year we should further demonstrate our country’s might as a military power by bringing about a fresh turn in building revolutionary armed forces and enhancing its defence capability.
Artillery training exercise conducted by the Ung Islet Defense Detachment (Photo: Rodong Sinmun).
The People’s Army should thoroughly establish the Party’s monolithic command system across the entire army and vigorously conduct the movement of winning the titles of O Chung Hup-led 7th Regiment and Guards Unit. Thus it should implement to the letter the Party’s four-point strategic line and three major tasks for increasing military strength. It should effect a turnaround in improving the quality of training by eliminating formalism and stereotyped patterns in combat and political training and updating its contents and methods. It should maintain full combat readiness so that it can repulse any provocation by the enemy in one stroke. By bringing about a radical turn in its supply service, it should provide soldiers with better living conditions and make all its battalions and companies elite combat ranks and their dear villages and homes that adjoin the yard of the office of the Party Central Committee. In the future, too, it should be a pioneer and example in the struggle to implement the Party’s ideas and safeguard its policies in pursuance of its plan for building a thriving nation.
In line with the requirements of the prevailing situation, the officers and men of the Korean People’s Internal Security Forces should sharpen the sword for defending the leader, system and people, and members of the Worker-Peasant Red Guards and the Young Red Guards should conduct combat and political training in a real-war atmosphere, thereby beefing up their combat efficiency and getting fully prepared for an all-people resistance so that they can defend their own provinces, counties and villages by themselves.
By carrying out the Party’s line of promoting the two fronts simultaneously, the defense industry sector should step up the efforts to make the munitions production Chuch’e-oriented, modern and scientific and proactively develop and perfect powerful cutting-edge military hardware of our own style.
View of what appears to be the KN-08 road mobile intercontinental ballistic missile on a TEL (Photo: NKLW file photo).
This year we should give definite precedence to science and technology and effect an upswing in building a socialist economic giant and civilized nation.
It is a determination and will of our Party to rapidly develop all sectors and build a people’s paradise by dint of science and technology. The front of science should forcefully rush ahead in the vanguard of a thriving socialist country building, thereby foiling the enemy’s pernicious moves for sanctions and encouraging all the economic sectors to make rapid headway on the strength of the high-running spirit of independence and of science and technology. The scientific research sector should wage a brisk drive for going beyond the cutting edge to produce many valuable findings conducive to developing the economy, increasing defence capability and improving the people’s living standards. Regarding science and technology as their lifeline, all sectors and all units should step up modernization and introduction of information technology in our style, raise the scientific and technological level of officials and working people and vigorously carry on all undertakings by relying on science and technology.
Kim Jong Un visits a revolutionary history exhibition at the State Academy of Sciences (Photo: NKLW file photo).
We should make maximum use of the existing foundations and all potentials of the self-supporting economy, so as to bring about a turn in improving the people’s living standards and building an economic giant.
In this significant year we should bring about an upturn in improving the people’s living standards.
We should resolve the food problem of the people and improve their dietary life on a higher level with agricultural production, animal husbandry and fishing as the main thrusts.
The agricultural sector should overcome unfavourable natural conditions and overfulfil the cereals production plan by actively introducing scientific farming methods including water-saving farming, supplying sufficient amounts of farming materials and organizing and guiding production in conformity with actual conditions. We should put the production at stockbreeding and fish-farming bases, greenhouses and mushroom production bases built across the country on a regular footing and ensure that the people benefit from them. True to the Party’s plan, we should dynamically speed up the building of the stockbreeding bases in the Sep’o area and make steady preparations for livestock production and their operation. By emulating the working spirit of the People’s Army which made a new history of “sea of gold,” the fishing sector should drastically bolster up the fishing industry and land a huge haul, thus supplying a large amount of fish to enrich the people’s diet.
(Photo: Rodong Sinmun)
Fully aware of the responsibility and mission it assumes for the people, the light industry sector should work out a strategy for fending for itself and put production at central and local light-industry factories on normal track, so as to supply our people, including students and children, with larger amounts and various kinds of quality consumer goods, school things and children’s food.
We should direct great efforts to relieving the shortage of electricity, a major source of power of the national economy, and strive to shore up its vanguard sectors and key industries.
We should increase coal and electricity production in the mettle displayed in bringing about innovations in the coal-mining industry and thermal power stations last year and meet the immediate demand for electricity by waging a campaign to economize on electricity to the maximum, while taking realistic measures to resolve the electricity problem in a prospective way. We should develop metal, chemical and other basic industries and brace rail transport by relying on our own technology and resources and thus ensure that all other economic sectors smoothly progress full of vigour. We should foster external economic relations in a multilateral way and accelerate the projects for economic development zones including the Wo’nsan-Mt. Ku’mgang international tourist zone.
DPRK Premier Pak Pong Ju tours Pukch’ang Thermal Power Complex (Photo: NKLW file photo).
We should raise a stronger wind of creating the Korean speed in the construction sector so as to build power stations, factories, educational and cultural establishments and dwelling houses as befit the monumental edifices in the era of the Workers’ Party. By completing with credit the major construction projects, including the multi-tier power stations on the Ch’o’ngch’o’n River, Kosan Fruit Farm and Mirae Scientists Street, we should splendidly adorn the venue of grand October celebrations.
The whole Party, the entire army and all the people should, as they carried out rehabilitation after the war, turn out in the campaign to restore the mountains of the country so as to turn them into “mountains of gold” thickly wooded with trees. All the sectors should invariably push ahead with the work of afforesting and landscaping the whole country and turning it into orchard, and build Pyongyang, provinces, cities, county seats, workplaces and villages in a more cultured way and maintain and manage them on a regular basis.
All the economic sectors and units should make positive efforts to increase production, improve the quality of goods and enhance their competitive edge by working out proper strategies for business operation and enterprise management and tapping all possible reserves and potentialities. All the factories and enterprises should wage a dynamic struggle to get rid of the proclivity to import and ensure the domestic production of raw and other materials and equipment, while sprucing themselves up by taking their cue from the model units put forward by the Party.
The Cabinet and other state organs for economic guidance should make proactive efforts to establish the economic management method of our style as demanded by the reality so that all the economic organs and enterprises can conduct their business activities creatively on their own initiative. Party organizations at all levels should throw their full weight behind the work of improving economic management in order to make sure that it is done as intended by the Party.
A vigorous spur should be given to the building of a civilized socialist nation.
We should bring about a radical improvement in education in the new century by arousing state and social interest in the role of officials in this sector and educational work, thereby making fresh progress in making all the people well versed in science and technology and developing ours into a talented nation.
The whole country should bubble with enthusiasm for sports and our sportspeople should fly higher the flag of the Republic at international games to open up bright prospects for building a sporting power.
The sector of art and literature should do away with stagnation and produce larger numbers of contemporary masterpieces which inspire the masses to further efforts, and the public health sector should improve the hygienic and anti-epidemic work and preventive and curative medical care and boost pharmaceutical production.
We should make sure that national sentiments and noble and beautiful lifestyle prevail across society, and press on with national heritage conservation as a patriotic undertaking involving the whole country and all the people.
In order to successfully carry out the enormous tasks for this year all the officials, Party members, service personnel and other working people should live and work in the revolutionary spirit of Paektu, the spirit of the blizzards of Paektu.
(Photo: Rodong Sinmun)
The spirit is, in essence, an unyielding offensive spirit of braving obstacles and difficulties and a staunch fighting spirit of rising up no matter how often one may fall and fighting it out. The hearts of all our service personnel and people should beat with the confidence in victory and indomitable spirit cherished by the anti-Japanese revolutionary forerunners who fought death-defyingly for their country and people and won victory against all odds. All the officials, Party members and other working people should enter the venue of grand October celebrations proudly with gifts they have prepared by dint of the revolutionary spirit of Paektu and through creative struggle.
The whole country should overflow with the spirit of patriotic devotion with which to hold dear and add brilliance to our own things.
Holding dear and adding brilliance to our own things is just the Korean-nation-first spirit and the genuine patriotism that exalts the dignity of our country, our motherland, and hastens its prosperity. We should value and add luster to all the assets the preceding generations of the revolution created on this land at the cost of their blood and sweat under the guidance of the Party and the leaders, and create and develop everything in our own way with a high sense of national pride and by relying on our strength, technology and resources.
Officials, leading participants in the revolution, should be the standard-bearers and vanguard fighters in the ongoing general offensive.
They should faithfully serve the country and people for their prosperity and well-being with a noble outlook on patriotism and firm preparedness for devoted service and, shouldering heavy burdens by themselves, make redoubled efforts in the van of the masses. With a full understanding of the Party’s ideas and intentions, officials should go deep among the masses and rouse them to carry through its lines and policies unconditionally at the cost of their lives. They should be fully accountable to the Party and the state for the work in their sectors and units, eliminate defeatism, self-preservation and expediency and do everything in an innovative and scientific way.
Seventy years have passed since our nation was divided by outside forces.
In those decades the world has made a tremendous advance and the times have undergone dramatic changes, but our nation has not yet achieved reunification, suffering the pain of division. It is a deplorable fact known to everyone and it is lamentable to everyone. No longer can we bear and tolerate the tragedy of national division that has continued century after century.
Last year we put forward crucial proposals for improved inter-Korean relations and national reunification and made sincere efforts for their implementation. Our efforts, however, could not bear due fruit owing to the obstructive moves by the anti-reunification forces within and without; instead the north-south relations have been on a headlong rush to aggravation.
However complicated the situation may be and whatever obstacles and difficulties may stand in our way, we should unfailingly achieve national reunification, a lifetime wish of the President and the General and the greatest desire of the nation, and build a dignified and prosperous reunified country on this land.
“Let the whole nation join efforts to open up a broad avenue to independent reunification in this year of the 70th anniversary of national liberation!”-this is the slogan of struggle the entire Korean nation should hold up.
We should remove the danger of war, ease the tension and create a peaceful environment on the Korean peninsula.
The large-scale war games ceaselessly held every year in south Korea are the root cause of the escalating tension on the peninsula and the danger of nuclear war facing our nation. It is needless to say that there can be neither trustworthy dialog nor improved inter-Korean relations in such a gruesome atmosphere in which war drills are staged against the dialog partner.
To cling to nuclear war drills against the fellow countrymen in collusion with aggressive outside forces is an extremely dangerous act of inviting calamity.
We will resolutely react against and mete out punishment to any acts of provocation and war moves that infringe upon the sovereignty and dignity of our country.
The south Korean authorities should discontinue all war moves including the reckless military exercises they conduct with foreign forces and choose to ease the tension on the Korean peninsula and create a peaceful environment.
The United States, the very one that divided our nation into two and has imposed the suffering of national division upon it for 70 years, should desist from pursuing the anachronistic policy hostile towards the DPRK and reckless acts of aggression and boldly make a policy switch.
The north and the south should refrain from seeking confrontation of systems while absolutizing their own ideologies and systems but achieve great national unity true to the principle of By Our Nation Itself to satisfactorily resolve the reunification issue in conformity with the common interests of the nation.
If they try to force their ideologies and systems upon each other, they will never settle the national reunification issue in a peaceful way, only bringing confrontation and war.
Though the people-centred socialist system of our own style is the most advantageous, we do not force it on south Korea and have never done so.
The south Korean authorities should neither seek “unification of systems” that incites distrust and conflict between the north and the south nor insult the other side’s system and make impure solicitation to do harm to their fellow countrymen, traveling here and there.
The north and the south, as they had already agreed, should resolve the national reunification issue in the common interests of the nation transcending the differences in ideology and system.
They should briskly hold dialogue, negotiations and exchanges and make contact to relink the severed ties and blood vessels of the nation and bring about a great turn in inter-Korean relations.
It is the unanimous desire of the fellow countrymen for both sides to stop fighting and pave a new way for reunification by concerted efforts. They should no longer waste time and energy over pointless arguments and trifling matters but write a new chapter in the history of inter-Korean relations.
Nothing is impossible if our nation shares one purpose and joins efforts. On the road for reunification the north and the south had got such charter and great programme for reunification as the July 4 Joint Statement, the historic June 15 Joint Declaration and the October 4 Declaration, thus demonstrating to the whole world the nation’s determination and mettle to reunify the country.
We think that it is possible to resume the suspended high-level contacts and hold sectoral talks if the south Korean authorities are sincere in their stand towards improving inter-Korean relations through dialog.
And there is no reason why we should not hold a summit meeting if the atmosphere and environment for it are created.
In the future, too, we will make every effort to substantially promote dialog and negotiations.
The entire Korean nation should turn out together in the nationwide movement for the country’s reunification so as to glorify this year as a landmark in opening up a broad avenue to independent reunification.
Last year, in the international arena, hostilities and bloodshed persisted in several countries and regions due to the imperialists’ outrageous arbitrariness and undisguised infringement upon their sovereignty, which posed a serious threat to global peace and security.
Especially, owing to the United States’ extremely hostile policy aimed at isolating and suffocating our Republic, the bulwark of socialism and fortress of independence and justice, the vicious cycle of tension never ceased and the danger of war grew further on the Korean peninsula.
The United States and its vassal forces are resorting to the despicable “human rights” racket as they were foiled in their attempt to destroy our self-defensive nuclear deterrent and stifle our Republic by force.
The present situation, in which high-handedness based on strength is rampant and justice and truth are trampled ruthlessly in the international arena, eloquently demonstrates that we were just in our efforts to firmly consolidate our self-reliant defence capability with the nuclear deterrent as its backbone and safeguard our national sovereignty, the lifeblood of the country, under the unfurled military-first (So’ngun)
As long as the enemy persists in its moves to stifle our socialist system, we will consistently adhere to the military-first (So’ngun) politics and the line of promoting the two fronts simultaneously and firmly defend the sovereignty of the country and the dignity of the nation, no matter how the international situation and the structure of relations of our surrounding countries may change. On the basis of the revolutionary principles and independent stand, we will expand and develop foreign relations in a multilateral and positive way, giving top priority to the dignity and interests of the country.
Our Party and the government of our Republic will solidify in every respect the bond and solidarity with the world’s progressive peoples who love peace and aspire after independence and justice, and strive to develop good neighbourly relations with all the countries that respect our national sovereignty and are friendly to us.
No force in the world can check the advance of our army and people who are rushing forward like the blizzards of Mount Paektu filled with rock-firm revolutionary faith and mettle of invincibility under the leadership of the great Party, and final victory undoubtedly belongs to us.
Let us all staunchly strive to glorify this significant year as a year of great victories and revolutionary, auspicious events, rallied more closely behind the Party and singing aloud the march of final victory.
Greeting the hope-filled new year 2015, I wish all the families across the country happiness.
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