Chairman Kim Jong Il said.
“As ideological consciousness determines all actions of man, priority should be given to the work of remoulding his ideology in order to dynamically accelerate the revolution and construction.”
To give priority to ideological remoulding means giving precedence to the undertaking of developing the people into genuine social beings by remoulding their ideological consciousness.
Priority should be given to ideological remoulding, because it is the main in developing the people into genuine social beings.
People not only transform nature and society but also reform themselves. Changes and development of objective conditions in society give influence upon the ideological remoulding of the people. However, objective conditions do not bring changes to the people’s ideological consciousness of their own accord. Ideological consciousness is consciousness that reflected man’s demand and interests and has relative solidity.
In order to build socialism, it is necessary not only to develop the productive forces and change the social relations but also to transform people into comprehensively developed beings.
If we are to train people to be harmoniously developed social beings, we must equip them with socialist ideology and advanced scientific and technical knowledge and help them to acquire a high cultural level. Therefore, arming the people with socialist ideology is first important.
Remoulding of man is, in essence, ideological remoulding. Man’s thinking defines his worth and quality and, accordingly, ideological remodeling is first important in the remoulding of man.
Priority should be given to ideological remoulding, also because ideological remoulding is more difficult than the change of people’s conditions for material life or the enhancement of their cultural and technical standards.
Man’s thinking depends on his socio-economic position and the conditions of material life. However, it does not change by itself with the change of his socio-economic position and the material conditions for social life. Remnants of outdated ideas are very conservative and tenacious. In particular, under the situation that we confront with imperialism, ideological remoulding is accompanied by acute class struggle.
Unlike the changes in material conditions for social life, change in man’s ideological consciousness is not much visible. Man’s ideological consciousness is invisible and its level is unable to be calculated. Development level of ideological consciousness is different according to people and contents of individual’s ideological consciousness are very complicated.
Under such conditions, it is important to direct bigger efforts to ideological remoulding and priority should be given to it.
Priority should be given to ideological remoulding, also because it is a serious revolution.
Ideological remoulding is to eliminate remnants of the old society in the realm of man’s ideological consciousness once and for all and arm all working people with independent ideology. It constitutes in the basic form of class struggle in socialist society where the exploiting class were liquidated. In order to remould people to be the comprehensively-developed ones, it is important to fight against the reactionary ideological and cultural infiltration by the imperialists and, at the same time, continue to carry through the ideological revolution to eliminate the obsolete ideological remnants persisting in the minds of the people and equip them with the independent idea, the idea of socialism.
