It is, in a word, that all people should love and help each other on equal terms and in a comradely manner.
Leader Kim Jong Il said:
“Within the community all its members must regard their moral duty to be to love and help each other on equal terms and in a comradely manner.”
Unlike the relationship between the community and individuals, the relationship between individuals is an equal relationship. There can be no question of the interests of one individual being more valuable than those of another. Within the community all its members should regard their moral duty to be to love and help each other on equal terms and in a comradely manner.
It is, first of all, important to treasure and to be loyal to the revolutionary comradeship and ethics between comrades.
Only those who treasure and love their comrades wholeheartedly and treat them honestly can be faithful to the Party and the leader. Those that love their comrades and observe revolutionary ethics can be loyal to the Party and the leader even in the days of harsh trials decisive to life and death while those that don’t so in their personal life can’t be loyal to the Party and the leader even in the peaceful days.
Comradely love should be warm, sincere and highly principled. If those connive at their comrade’s error, instead of trying hard to help them to correct it, while saying that they love him, they cannot have sincere love for the comrade and are unfaithful to comrades.
Therefore, revolutionaries should treat comrades fairly on the principle of being loyal to the Party and the leader and at the same time have warm comradeship, loving and trusting sincerely and sharing joy and sorrow with one another.
Comradely love and revolutionary ethics should also permeate the relationship between superiors and subordinates. This relationship in socialist society is no way a relationship between dominator and the dominated; it is the relationship between comrades who are performing their duties to the revolution. Therefore, the subordinate should respect and help his superior, regarding him as a precious comrade; the superior should take good care of his subordinates and lead them, displaying a higher sense of responsibility. This is the comradely love and revolutionary ethics to be kept in the relationship between superiors and subordinates.
What is important is also that paternal love between family members should be treasured and it should be true comradely love.
The relationships between family members can be distinguished from other social relations in that they are based on kinship. However, family members’ relationships are part of social relations, so they are governed by the moral principles common to the given society.
One should respect the love of kinship between husband and wife, between parents and children and among brothers and sisters and help it to become a true comradely love. A person who does not love his parents, spouse and children cannot love his country and the people. Revolutionaries are not inhuman people who care for nothing but the revolution, ignoring even their families, but men of men who love their families truly. This, however, does not imply that the love of kinship among family members should be regarded as absolute. Since comradely relations are more important than ties of kinship, the love of kinship among family members should always be subordinated to comradely love.
Paternal love among family members should be turned into the love of comradely love sharing life and death on the road of revolution. It is a true ethics for revolutionaries to render them comradely assistance in every possible way so that they all work faithfully for the revolution, while loving their families intensely.
Observing morality in love between men and women is of great importance in ensuring sound family and social lives. The relations between the sexes should be developed on the basis of true love and become comradely relations in which the two people respect each other’s personal dignity, trust each other and help each other sincerely.
It is also important to express one’s respect and friendship in one’s word or behavior and to ensure that a social climate is established of treating the people politely in social public life, for example, giving polite assistance to elderly people, children, mothers with babies, and the disabled.
