January 1, Juche 104 (2015)

    Dear comrades!

    Having seen out 2014, a year in which we clearly demonstrated the spirit and might of the great DPRK that is advancing by leaps and bounds with confidence in victory, we are seeing in the hope-filled new year 2015.

    Reflecting the boundless loyalty of all our service personnel and people, I would like to pay the highest tribute and offer New Year greetings to President Kim Il Sung and General Kim Jong Il , the eternal leaders of our people and the sun of Juche.

    I extend New Year greetings to all our 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 that homes throughout the country will overflow with warm affection and our lovely children will 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 our 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 the 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 more intense 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, the younger generation in particular, and its policy of attaching importance to science and education were embodied in the reality and thereby the people’s trust in the Party deepened and our single-hearted unity hardened. Amid the drive for conducting education in our revolutionary traditions through study tours 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 over with the conviction and will to carry through the sacred revolutionary cause of Juche.

    Last year the fighting efficiency of the People’s Army was increased significantly and our national defence capability was strengthened.

    The army conducted political and ideological work in a positive manner and stoked the flames of training under combat conditions, and as a result all its officers and men and the units of its arms and services became strong in ideas and faith and readied as an invincible army capable of discharging its operational and combat missions proficiently in any circumstances and conditions. Iron military discipline was established throughout the army and unprecedented successes were achieved in improving the soldiers’ living conditions. The defence industry sector developed and produced various new and unique means of delivering a military strike, thus making 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 through the joint operation of the army and people.

    Even in the difficult situation and adverse conditions last year, an upswing was brought about in production in different sectors including agriculture, fishery and the chemical and coal-mining industries, opening up bright prospects for building an economic giant and improving the people’s living standards. The construction sector kindled the fierce flames of creating the Korean speed to build many monumental structures that serve as standards and models of Juche-oriented architecture, including the Wisong Scientists Dwelling District, apartment houses for the teachers of Kim Chaek University of Technology, the Yonphung Scientists Holiday Camp and the October 8 Factory, thereby demonstrating that the DPRK 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 a-match-for-a-hundred combatants.

    Our sportspeople competed undauntedly using our own style of tactics in the 17^th Asian Games and world championships, thus exalting the honour of the country and greatly encouraging the service personnel and people 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 developments by waging an unyielding struggle with a steadfast faith in the revolutionary cause of Juche and the revolutionary cause of Songun.

    Comrades!

    The new year 2015 will be a year of great significance, in which we will mark the 70^th anniversaries of national liberation and of the founding of the Workers’ Party of Korea.

    Greeting this significant year, our people are looking back with great pride and dignity on 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 Juche revolution pioneered on Mt Paektu.

    This year we should display the revolutionary spirit and mettle of Paektu so as to thwart with determination the challenges and manoeuvres by the hostile forces and score signal success in the struggle to defend socialism on all the fronts of building a thriving nation. By doing so, we should celebrate the 70^th anniversaries of national liberation and of the 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 march dynamically to the venue of the grand October celebrations. Bearing in mind the spirit 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 for ever as the sun of Juche, staunchly championing and adding eternal brilliance to their immortal revolutionary exploits.

    In this year of the 70^th anniversary of the Party, which organizes and guides all the 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 so as to ensure that the whole Party shares the same ideology with the Party Central Committee, breathes the same breath as it and keeps pace with it. All Party organizations should maintain the implementation of 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 mother party, so as to make the climate of respecting, loving and depending on them pervade it and Party work focus on improving their living standards. All Party organizations and officials 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.

    We should hold fast to ideology as a powerful weapon of the Party and conduct an ideological offensive to consolidate the ideological position of our revolution rock-solid. We should promote education in the leaders’ greatness, Kim Jong Il ’s patriotism, revolutionary faith, anti-imperialism and class consciousness and morality so as to train all Party members, service personnel and other working people into staunch fighters of the Songun revolution and encourage them to 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.

    The People’s Army should thoroughly establish the Party’s monolithic command system throughout it and vigorously conduct the movement of winning the titles of O Jung Hup-led 7^th Regiment and Guards Unit. Thus it should implement to the letter the Party’s four-point strategic line and three major tasks for increasing our 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 at a single stroke. By bringing about a radical turn in its supply services, 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 are linked to the yard of the office of the Party Central Committee. In the future, too, it should be a pioneer and model 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 strengthening their combat efficiency and becoming fully prepared for 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 defence industry sector should step up the efforts to make munitions production Juche-oriented, modern and scientific and proactively develop and perfect powerful cutting-edge military hardware of our own style.

    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 the determination and will of our Party rapidly to develop all sectors and build a people’s paradise by dint of science and technology. The science front should march ahead in the vanguard of building a thriving socialist country, thereby foiling the enemy’s pernicious moves for sanctions and encouraging all economic sectors to make rapid headway on the strength of the noble spirit of independence and of science and technology. The scientific research sector should wage a brisk drive for going beyond the cutting edge in order to produce many valuable breakthroughs conducive to developing the economy, increasing our defence capability and improving the people’s living standards. Regarding science and technology as their lifeblood, all sectors and all units should step up their modernization and the introduction of information technology of our own style, raise the scientific and technological level of officials and working people and vigorously carry out all undertakings by relying on science and technology.

    We should make maximum use of the existing foundations and whole potential of our 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 for the people and improve their diet with crop farming, animal husbandry and fishing as the main thrusts.

    The agricultural sector should overcome the 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 the actual conditions. We should put production at stockbreeding and fish-farming bases, greenhouses and mushroom production bases 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 base in the Sepho area and make steady preparations for livestock production and its operation. By emulating the working spirit of the People’s Army which created a new history of the “gold sea,” the fishing sector should drastically bolster the fishing industry and land a huge haul, thus supplying a large amount of fish to enrich the people’s diet.

    Fully aware of the responsibility and mission it has assumed before 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 a normal track, so as to supply our people, especially the 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 for the national economy, and strive to shore up its vanguard sectors and key industries.

    We should increase coal and electricity production with the same mettle as was 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 it to the maximum, while taking realistic measures to resolve the electricity problem on a planned basis. We should develop the metal, chemical and other basic industries and strengthen rail transport by relying on our own technology and resources, and thus ensure that all other economic sectors make smooth progress, full of vigour. We should foster external economic relations in a multilateral way and accelerate the projects for economic development zones, including the Wonsan-Mt Kumgang international tourism zone.

    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 houses befitting monumental edifices of the era of the Workers’ Party. By completing with credit the major construction projects, including the multi-tier power stations on the Chongchon River, the Kosan Fruit Farm and the Mirae Scientists Street, we can splendidly adorn the venue of the 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 forests of the country so as to turn all the mountains into “gold mountains” that are thickly wooded with trees. All sectors should invariably push ahead with the work of afforesting and landscaping the whole country and turning it into orchards, and build Pyongyang, and the provinces, cities, county seats, workplaces and villages in a more cultured way and maintain and manage them properly.

    All 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 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 renovating themselves by taking their cue from the model units put forward by the Party.

    The Cabinet and other state economic guidance organs should make proactive efforts to establish the economic management method of our own style as demanded by the reality so that all 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 impetus 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 enhancing the role of the officials in this sector and rousing state and social interest in educational work, thereby achieving 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 over with enthusiasm for sports, and our sportspeople should fly higher the flag of the Republic at international competitions so as to open up bright prospects for building a sports 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 hygienic and anti-epidemic work and preventive and curative medical care and boost pharmaceuticals production.

    We should make sure that national sentiments and a noble and beautiful lifestyle pervade society, and press on with national heritage conservation as a patriotic undertaking involving the whole country and all the people.

    In order to carry out the enormous tasks for this year successfully all 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.

    This spirit is, in essence, an unyielding offensive spirit of braving obstacles and difficulties and a staunch fighting spirit of rising again no matter how often one may fall, and continuing the fight. 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 in defiance of death for their country and people and emerged victorious against all the odds. All officials, Party members and other working people should enter the venue of the grand October celebrations proudly with gifts they have prepared by dint of the revolutionary spirit of Paektu and through a creative struggle.

    The whole country should overflow with the spirit of patriotic devotion with which to hold dear and add brilliance to the things of our own.

    Holding dear and adding brilliance to the things of our own is just the Korean-nation-first spirit and genuine patriotism that exalts the dignity of our country, our motherland, and hastens its prosperity. We should value and add lustre to all the assets the preceding generations of the revolution created on this land at the cost of their sweat and blood, 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, the leading participants in the revolution, should be the standard-bearers and vanguard fighters in the ongoing general offensive.

    They should faithfully serve the country’s and people’s prosperity and well-being with a noble outlook on patriotism and firm preparedness to conduct devoted service and, shouldering the heavy burden by themselves, redouble their efforts in the vanguard 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, even 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 tremendous advances and the times have undergone dramatic changes, but our nation has not yet achieved reunification, and is still suffering the pain of division. This is a deplorable fact known to everyone and is lamentable to everyone. We can no longer bear and tolerate the tragedy of national division that has continued from one century into the next.

    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, 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, without fail, achieve national reunification, the 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 the efforts to open up a broad avenue to independent reunification in this year of the 70^th 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 held every year in south Korea are the root cause of the escalating tension on the peninsula and of the threat of nuclear war facing our nation. Needless to say, there can be neither trustworthy dialogue nor improved inter-Korean relations in such a threatening atmosphere in which war drills are staged against a dialogue partner.

    To cling to nuclear war drills against the fellow countrymen in collusion with aggressive outside forces is an extremely dangerous act that invites calamity.

    We will resolutely react against and punish all acts of provocation and war moves that infringe on the sovereignty and dignity of our country.

    The south Korean authorities should discontinue all the war moves, including the reckless military exercises they conduct with foreign forces, and instead ease the tension and create a peaceful environment on the Korean peninsula.

    The United States, which is responsible for dividing our nation into two and has imposed the suffering of national division on it for 70 years, should desist from pursuing its anachronistic policy of hostility to the DPRK and its reckless acts of aggression, and make a bold policy switch.

    The north and the south should refrain from seeking confrontation of systems by championing their own ideologies and systems, and instead achieve great national unity true to the principle of By Our Nation Itself, thus satisfactorily resolving the reunification issue in conformity with the common interests of the nation.

    If they try to force their ideologies and systems on each other, they will never settle the national reunification issue in a peaceful way, and only bring about confrontation and war.

    Though the people-centred socialist system of our own style is the most advantageous, we do not try to force it on south Korea and have never done so.

    The south Korean authorities should neither seek the “unification of systems” that incites distrust and conflict between the north and the south nor insult the other side’s system and travel around soliciting others to do harm to their fellow countrymen.

    The north and the south, as they have already agreed, should resolve the national reunification issue in the common interests of the nation, transcending the differences in ideology and system.

    They should hold brisk dialogue, negotiations and exchanges and make contact with the aim of relinking the severed ties and blood vessels of the nation, and thus bring about a great turn in inter-Korean relations.

    It is the unanimous desire of all fellow countrymen for the two sides to stop fighting and pave a new path to reunification through a concerted effort. 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 makes a combined effort. On the road to reunification the north and the south have already agreed upon such a 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 about improving inter-Korean relations through dialogue.

    And there is no reason why we should not hold a summit if the atmosphere and environment for it are created.

    In the future, too, we will make every effort to promote substantial dialogue 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 arbitrary actions and undisguised infringement on their sovereignty, posing 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 continued 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, having been foiled in their attempts 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 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 banner of Songun.

    As long as the enemy persists in its moves to stifle our socialist system, we will consistently adhere to Songun 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 relations among our surrounding countries may change. On the basis of our 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 their bonds 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 Paektu filled with rock-firm revolutionary faith and mettle of being invincible, under the leadership of the great Party, and final victory undoubtedly belongs to us.

    Let us all resolutely 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 as we march to final victory.

    Greeting the hope-filled new year 2015, I wish all the families across the country happiness.