Always among the people-Marta Grelak -Warsaw Juche Idea Study Group of Poland

Soon, on the 19th of June, the Korean people will proudly celebrate the 60th anniversary of the start

of work of the great Leader Chairman Kim Jong Il at the Central Committee of the Workers' Party

of Korea. Friends of Korea, progressives of the world who admire the DPRK for always advancing

along the road of independence and justice and for having the most amazing strength in the world

with which it does wonders in spite of any difficulties and roadblocks thrown up by hostile forces,

will celebrate together with Koreans. 

The day six decades ago, the 19th of June 1964, is a date of enormous significance, as the

achievements Chairman Kim Jong Il made during decades of his self-sacrificing work for the

development of the WPK and the Korean revolution, for defending the happiness of his beloved

country and people, were epochal and immortal. His glorious legacy will last forever.

The approaching extremely important anniversary makes us, friends of Korea, think of his brilliant

achievements and life and recollect his great personality and love for the Korean people. 

Everyone who knows the history of the DPRK is well aware that Chairman Kim Jong Il's great

exploits are so numerous that it is impossible to even mention any significant part of them in a short

text. To cite just a few examples: He elevated the Juche idea authored by the great leader President

Kim Il Sung as the invariable guiding ideology of the Workers' Party of Korea and developed the

WPK into an ideologically integrated whole. He also developed the Party into one with a firm mass

foundation and a genuine motherly party that serves the people with devotion. Under his leadership

various impressive, large-scale infrastructure and agricultural projects were realized to improve

living standards of the people and the DPRK became a nuclear weapons state, as well as a satellite

manufacturing and launching state. And through his unique Songun politics, he safeguarded the

country's sovereignty and dignity, overcoming harsh trials and laying the foundations for a powerful

socialist country.

Reasons to admire him are countless, but let’s talk now about one of them, which is a very beautiful

and moving one. It is that he was a genuine people's leader who loved and valued the people most

and always mixed with them.

As a child he saw his father great leader Kim Il Sung and his mother Kim Jong Suk always going

among the people and sharing weal and woe with them. And since his childhood he took the same

path as his parents.

Since his childhood he led a simple life. During his school years, despite being the Premier's son, he

wore very modest clothes and darned socks, carried with him to school discoloured wrapper instead

of a school bag and was deeply involved not only in his studies, but also usual duties as cleaning the

classroom etc. When he was an university student, he worked at the Pyongyang Textile Machinery

Manufactory. He worked diligently, during lunch breaks he played volleyball with the workers, and

going back home he took a crowded bus together with them. He participated in construction work

with his fellow students, organized them into the teams and himself worked more than he was

assigned.

Once in 1961, while he and his fellow students were taking part in a project to widen the road, an

elder woman arrived to collect pieces of coal found at the site. He arranged for an excavator to dig

up the coal and move it to a safe place so that people could collect it and then personally shoveled

some into her bucket. She was surprised when she later learned his identity and said "You did such

menial work for an ordinary old woman." But he, holding her two hands, replied, "I am also a son

of the people. How can I mind doing such menial work if it is for them? There is nothing more

worthwhile in the world than working for the people."

And working for the people remained the most important thing for him all his life.

On the 19th of June he started his work at the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea.

Since then he successively held many posts, starting from section chief of the WPK CC. After many

years, he became the supreme leader of the state and Party. Through the whole time that Chairman

Kim Jong Il led the WPK, he built it into a party that forms a harmonious whole with the masses of

the people and devotedly serves them. He saw the people as the most precious beings in the world

and also his mentors, so he listened to their opinions. Regarding "The people are my God" as his

motto all his life, he always went among the people and dedicated himself entirely to their wellbeing, brilliantly carrying forward the noble cause of President Kim Il Sung.

In his lifetime he made ceaseless journey of field guidance, visiting the people he loved so much

and taking care of them. Whenever he went to new service facilities or examined new products, the

first question he asked was always whether people liked them. Inspecting factories, farms and

military units across the country he took joy in being among ordinary workers, farmers, and soldiers

and devoted his all to safeguarding their interests and security and bringing them development and

happiness.

And while devoting himself for the people, he was surprising everyone with his noble modest and

unceremonious traits.

Once in 1975, when he visited the Komdok Mine, the accompanying officials asked him to change

his clothes, saying the ones he was wearing were wrinkled and shrunk a little. But he said: What is

the use for a working man to be dressed splendidly? I am going to meet the workers and I have to

wear ordinary clothes if I am to get along with them.

He always wore only casual clothes and ate simple meals like rice-balls, but at the same time he

paid deep attention to making his people well-off.

The distance he covered in his continuous journey for the good of the people is at least 669 844

kilometers, what is equivalent to a travel around the earth nearly 17 times.

Thinking of Chairman Kim Jong Il's brilliant achievements and noble life devoted to the people, I

would like to express my deepest admiration and wholeheartedly pay the highest tribute to him.

Today the DPRK is continuously achieving new victories and successes and pursuing politics of

love for the people as at the helm of the Workers' Party of Korea and the state stands the respected

Marshal Kim Jong Un. He is another great leader and another peerlessly great man and he is

perfectly carrying forward the great cause of his predecessors, President Kim Il Sung and

Chairman Kim Jong Il and has the same beautiful love for the people and always finds himself

among them. 

After personally witnessing the bright reality of the DPRK during my several visits to the country,

including the latest one in April this year, I am absolutely sure that thanks to respected Marshal

Kim Jong Un's wise and outstanding leadership the WPK will always be people's caring mother

and the future of Koreans will be very beautiful and rosy.

Marta Grelak