Following is the full text of the speech:
Dear citizens of Songchon County,
Officers and men of the construction regiments at all levels that were organized along with the Regional Development 20×10 Policy, the first of its kind in the history of our nation building, and presented their first creations to the country and people,
Officials of various promotion committees, relevant units and South Phyongan Province who have waged a vigorous struggle throughout the year after assuming an important mission of leading the great historic cause of transforming regions,
Comrades,
We have finally completed the first year’s construction projects amid the whole country’s concern, for which we all broke ground in February last with an ardent, cherished desire after the blasting that signalled the beginning of the historic revolution for regional development. Now they have materialized as a wealth of Songchon County.
At the historic place, where the start of our Party’s ten-year revolution was declared, we are holding the inauguration ceremony of its first result after ten months. This is a significant event confirming the real meaning and prospect of our work.
To think that we have now been able to provide new, modern factories to the locals in this region, I feel a little relieved of what I have always been sorry about before the regional people.
Availing myself of this meaningful opportunity, I, on behalf of the Party and the government of the Republic, extend warm gratitude to officers and men of the construction regiment who, with ardent patriotism and loyalty, wrote the first proud page of the regional development history in the new era, bringing about a new appearance of Songchon, and all other soldier-builders.
I also express deep thanks to the officials and working people of relevant units and other supporters, who contributed to today’s inauguration with unstained devotion and a high sense of responsibility.
Comrades,
With the start of the new year to come, scores of regional-industry factories will be inaugurated simultaneously in nearly 20 cities and counties throughout the country, as here in Songchon County.
This inspiring reality means that the task for the first year in implementing our Party’s regional development policy, a revolutionary line which it proactively studied and has pushed ahead with to transform the living environment of the regional people, will be carried out.
This year, which can be called the starting point of the ten-year revolution and an epitome of its success, we have set up new entities in various regions of the country, thus bringing to the people a definite awareness that the regions are changing, and securing a dynamic force with which to implement more scientifically and correctly the regional development policy based on many-sided and rich experiences.
Construction regiments at various levels, the vanguard corps of the regional industry revolution, have greatly enhanced their efficiency, and well-regulated national guidance and supply systems have been established. This is also an important achievement and guarantee that has opened a wonderful prospect for achieving regional transformation in a multi-stage, three-dimensional and offensive way.
The successes we have achieved in a year are not a few, but this cannot be a reason for us to congratulate ourselves or raise a cheer for them now.
The overall regional industry is on the decline as it is now, not because in the past decades we had no policy or line on regional development or we failed to expend efforts and funds.
Then, why did the regional industry policy fail to be implemented until now, over six decades after the Changsong Joint Conference?
Leading cadres of the Party and state, including members of the central leadership of the Party, and relevant officials of the central and regional organs are here today to discuss on the spot the issue of developing the regional industry. I think that, availing ourselves of this opportunity, we should make an analysis of the reasons lest we repeat the painful mistakes in the future.
The main reason is, first, that the work of developing the regional industry was conducted without clear-cut goals, stage-by-stage plans, exact standards and scientific methodology.
The regional industry is an industrial realm pioneered by our country.
When an undertaking has to follow an untrodden path, it should be conducted with a clear goal and milestones, but the undertakings of the past for implementing the regional development policy were done in a very sporadic and spontaneous way.
To cite as an example the construction of factories that are elementary and general in the regional economy. The projects were conducted by respective regions without clear-cut goals and standards, i.e., what kinds of factories should be built in how many cities and counties, and by when and on what standards they should be built; this being the case, such a deviation as being obsessed with how to increase their number could not be overcome, and worse still, the abnormal result was that there were no factories badly needed for the living of the local populations, and unnecessary factories came into being.
The work system, whereby reporting the number of factories built by avoiding as much as possible those that demanded much effort was not called to account, and the convention, whereby reporting the result of supplying the people with whatever goods was highly commended, are reflected on the appearance of the regional-industry factories of the past and the people’s negative attitude towards the regional industry.
In the past some cities and counties, like Usi and Yonthan counties, achieved some successes in developing their regional industry; on the contrary, some regions are on an indescribably low level. This prolonged extreme imbalance caused by the coexistence of such regions is ascribed to the fact that the regional-industry policy was implemented without any clear standards and principles.
As the regional-industry factories varied considerably in scale, form and production line and the levels of their operation differed greatly from one another, it brought about a result that ran counter to the intention of the policy on improving the people’s living standards in all regions.
Strictly speaking, the regional-industry policy of the past days was dependent on the attitude of the officials of relevant fields and regions to Party policy and their abilities, and on the economic potentials of the cities and counties.
After the Changsong Joint Conference, construction of regional-industry factories continued to expand, their number reaching nearly 4000 by 1980; however, not to mention the appearance of the buildings and their technical levels, there were only a few factories, which could make the most of the economic and geographical conditions and potentials of the relevant regions, and the number of varieties and kinds of goods, which the regional people really demanded, could be counted on the fingers of one hand.
Once there were a number of regional-industry factories here in Songchon County, including foodstuff, daily-necessities, garment, building-materials, pharmaceutical and farm-machine factories. The local people, who have lived here, know better than others their actual situation in those days, I think.
Consequently, the regional industry projects, despite the scores of years of their history, have failed to bring the people as much benefit as had been expected.
Another reason should be identified in the fact that the drive to implement the regional-industry policy has not been conducted in a powerful way as an undertaking involving the Party and state.
Developing the regional industry is a gigantic and complex undertaking related to improving the living standards of all the regional populations and developing the economy in the over 200 cities and counties; as such the state’s responsibility and role are essential to this.
There are a number of matters to be tackled by the state in this respect, including establishing a well-regulated guidance system for coordinated control and promotion of the projects, providing the cities and counties with conditions for securing their own funds in addition to state investment and the centrally-run industry’s support, and properly adjusting and distributing raw-materials bases for them.
Nevertheless, when its progress up to now is considered, the regional industry can be said to have virtually been under the responsibility of regions.
Take for instance the matter of putting the production lines at regional-industry factories on a mechanized and automatic basis, an important task put forward at the Joint Conference. Except for some of those that were on the priority list, they have furnished the factories mostly with the extra products or scrap equipment from the centrally-run industrial establishments; and in many cases they have been obsessed with how to enlist the locally available manpower and funds under the pretext of mass-based movements.
It is self-evident that the regional industry, dependent on the supply of extra resources of the centrally-run one and on its backward economic and technical forces, can hardly rid itself of its deep-rooted backwardness and will lag behind the times.
Changsong County has been called the native place of the new history of regional industry, and its regional-industry factories have enjoyed more support from the centrally-run industry than any others. Even these factories are too outdated to talk about modernization of equipment as they have not been provided with investment and technical assistance on a regular basis. Such being the situation, the other regions’ conditions are beyond description.
With Changsong County put forward as a model to be emulated across the country, there came a documentary and even a song about its changes to introduce it widely. But the point is how much actual benefit the factories have brought to the regional people.
Even when it was clear that the regional-industry factories had become completely inefficient due to the overall economic situation of the country and there was no hope for them to be revived by the efforts of the regions alone, the economic organs in the government, on the pretext of the prevailing situation and conditions, engrossed themselves in an unrealistic, empty talk of building some model regional-industry factories and renovating others on a yearly basis.
To make matters worse, the national organ in charge of supervising the regional industry has been merged with or separated from other ones a dozen times, causing disorder and chaos in the state control and management over the regional economy. In the course of this, not a few of the buildings and equipment of the regional-industry factories have been lost, while their economic efficiency has fallen drastically.
Along with this failure to provide proper state investment and coordinated guidance, which are essential elements, units affiliated with ministries, national agencies, armed forces organs and other establishments of special importance have occupied those places and resources favourable for the cities and counties to boost their incomes, leaving them in reduced spaces for their economic activities. Consequently, the regional industry has experienced difficulty in developing by itself and the regional people have lost their enthusiasm in creative production activities.
As mentioned above, if we do not take a revolutionary measure for changing this irrational and disadvantageous state of affairs, we would never see the regional industry rising–this is our conclusion.
The current deplorable condition of our regional industry is partly–and more importantly–attributable to the wrong viewpoint, non-revolutionary manner of work and incompetence of our officials who are directly responsible for the development of the regional industry.
In the 1960s and 1970s, when the regional economy was in a healthy condition, there were consumer goods that were enjoying favourable comment from the public, like Nampho glassware, Sariwon Kyongamsan shoe polish and Wonsan ironware, and some kinds of light-industry goods gained access to the international market. However, as officials did not adopt an ideological approach to giving fuller, sustained play to the viability of the policy, the regional-industry factories, though having cost a lot, have lost their value gradually.
In the past officials in the economic sector made much ado about modernization and technical renovation of light-industry factories, but what was in their mind was the centrally-run industry, not the regional industry.
They used to regard it as an everyday occurrence for the regional people to get what were inferior to the products from the centrally-run establishments; they felt it all right if only they avoided criticism over their failure to fulfil their production plans, giving their primary consideration to quantity ahead of quality. Owing to their narrow-minded ideological point of view and short-sighted manner of work, many of the regional-industry factories have virtually lost their true masters, leading the regional industry to stagnation.
Worse still, in the 1990s and thereafter, when the factories were nearly shut down, officials, seized by defeatism, only complained about the poor conditions, failing to preserve the technicians and skilled workers who were the backbone of the regional industry.
For the characteristics unique to it, whereby it is based on the economic resources and geographical conditions of the relevant regions, the regional industry can play its role only when specific measures are taken for them to exploit their potentials.
For this reason, the great leader ComradeKim Il Sung emphasized, whenever he had an opportunity long ago, the need to improve the people’s living standards by making good use of mountains in mountainous regions as well as the sea in seabound regions.
In the past, however, in mountainous regions they were satisfied with simply making drinks by collecting wild fruits and in seabound regions, with simply catching fish and gathering seaweeds in the sea to supply them to the locals.
In a nutshell, a passive manner of conducting production activities and economic work by relying on the benefit from Mother Nature, instead of creating their own wealth, represented the reality of our regional industry as well as the officials’ non-revolutionary style of work.
All the officials present here should find the causes of the economic poverty of the regional industry, which is yet to shake off its age-old backwardness, not in the objective conditions but in their wrong view of the regional people and their lack of spirit of serving them, narrow-mindedness and incompetence.
This is a proper attitude our officials should acquire as they are entirely responsible for the regional people’s living and a positive attitude they should maintain in improving their own qualities in view of the past lessons.
The officials, who are in charge of the regional industry at present, should work hard lest they leave their names as incompetent and irresponsible ones in history, like their predecessors.
Comrades,
Availing myself of this opportunity, I would also like to refer to the reason why the theses on the socialist rural question, adopted at the Eighth Plenary Meeting of the Fourth Central Committee of the Party in 1964, remains yet to be implemented 60 years after its adoption.
Given the present stage and future of our revolution and socialist construction, the rural question is a key factor decisive of their victory or setback; if we fail to find a proper solution to this question, the validity of the cause, which we are going against all odds to accomplish by ourselves, and the inevitability of its triumph cannot be proven, nor can we reach the goals we are desirous of achieving.
We are now advancing towards the complete victory of socialism, and solving the rural question poses itself as a major task to be tackled in the period of transition when we should prepare for moving forward to a higher stage.
In view of class relations, socialist construction is a course through which the whole society is being assimilated to the working class, and in view of socio-economic relations, a course through which agriculture is being put on an industrial footing, the countryside transformed on an urban pattern and a single form of ownership established.
This shows that by solving the rural question once and for all, we can accomplish the tasks for the period of transition and proclaim the victory of socialism.
What is more, in the case of our country that has not gone through the normal stages of social development, the period of transition is bound to last relatively long, just because of the rural question. So, how quickly we pass through the period of transition depends on how quickly we solve the rural question.
This is the very reason why our Party set the final settlement of the rural question as a major strategic task after the victory of the socialist revolution, put forward the socialist rural theses encapsulating the direction, basic principles and ways for implementing this task, and has worked for long years to put them into effect.
Strictly speaking, however, nothing has changed in our countryside as it turns out now.
Admittedly, in the light of the socio-economic features of the countryside and its age-old backwardness, the rural question is a long-term, challenging task that can be fulfilled through a persevering struggle and unremitting efforts.
But the serious problem is that over the long period of six decades following the publication of the rural theses no substantial change or transformation has taken place across the realms of the countryside.
Worse still, as time has since passed to this day, the countryside has impoverished, the urban-rural gap widened and the living standards there declined.
This obviously means stagnating and even retreating in the effort to implement the rural theses.
With no progress being made in solving the rural question and a retrogression persisting in agricultural development, some are worried about the prospects for our countryside and even doubtful about the victory of socialism.
Such a programme as the socialist rural theses has not been published in any other country. We should think over why the theses has yet to bear fruit as they should.
The reasons for the floundering countryside and the declining regional industry are, in my view, essentially the same.
Immediately after its publication the rural theses played a significant role in pulling our countryside out of its age-old backwardness and poverty and elevating it to a stage of epoch-making transformation, and in the course of this, the country’s agricultural development attained a high level.
Notwithstanding this, as the country faced grave economic difficulties and its investment in agriculture plunged down to 3% of the national budget, the irrigation, mechanization, chemicalization and electrification of the rural economy kept backsliding. This ended up our countryside growing very weak both materially and technically.
The national irrigation system, which the state completed in the main by expending huge amounts of cement and steel, has become defunct due to the lack of regular repair and maintenance; a chronic shortage of farming machines has resulted from a drastic drop in their production; the supply of chemical fertilizers in the 2000s reduced to under one third of the level in the 1980s; and large numbers of power equipment in the rural areas have broken down or gone missing.
From the mid-1990s the material foundations of agriculture became shaky, but no fundamental measures were adopted to reverse this situation. The rural communities kept foundering because the funds and materials, which were in short supply for construction projects, were continually funnelled from the farms. Consequently, there once circulated a claim about agriculture’s support for industry, not the latter’s assistance to the former.
The after-effects of inadequate national measures were evident in the appearance of the rural communities.
Back in the 1970s and 1980s, with a rural construction corps active in each city and county and the general bureau of rural housing construction in the capital, housing projects in the rural communities went full steam ahead as a national undertaking. However, it became sluggish with the cities, counties or farms individually building houses. Worse still, no proper design was available and the supply of cement per house amounted to no more than four to five tons. So, adobe, tree branches and other local materials were used in most cases.
Also, the revamping of ri hospitals and clinics in the rural communities and their furnishing with medical equipment and fittings were not done under a master plan of the state, and this was left to the discretion of the relevant farms. As things stand, the countryside has no ri hospitals and clinics to speak of, nor has it any proper sci-tech learning spaces or welfare service facilities, such as barber’s and bathhouse. This has left farmers lagging far behind modern knowledge and civilization, some even regarding cultural activities as something exclusive to urban communities.
Because of the prolonged backwardness of the countryside, the living standards of farmers have deteriorated to the point that they cannot even afford an electric lamp; their consciousness has changed, some without any feeling of attachment to the rural areas leaving to find jobs in other sectors; and the number of agricultural technicians and experts has sharply decreased. With the rural positions declining as a whole, the state organs and the rural Party organizations and officials have done little to cope with this situation, with a short-sighted attitude of leaning on agricultural production.
Despite the annual repetitions of verbal emphasis on the consolidation of the countryside and the numerous releases of relevant documents, the central agricultural guidance organ has been ineffective in playing its inherent functions and role of taking responsibility for, and providing direction over, the long-term research into the overall development of the country’s agriculture and its technological advancement. This fact has confirmed that we cannot attain our high aim by divorcing ourselves from the reality and glossing over things.
The rural revolution programme in the new era clearly illuminates the path for us to follow in finally settling the rural question and achieving the complete victory of socialism as soon as possible.
Following the proclamation of this programme at the Fourth Plenary Meeting of the Eighth Party Central Committee held in December 2021, the national drive gained momentum to put the country’s agriculture on a definite upward trajectory and achieve a leap forward in the development of the socialist countryside. This drive has produced significant successes in a short span of time.
The most precious of the successes is that our agricultural workers are witnessing the countryside undergoing transformation, and that they have become convinced, while experiencing first-hand the vitality of the Party’s policy on changing the grain production structure, that they can transform their villages and communities by their own efforts.
The change taking place in their awareness in no more than one to two years represents a revolution, as well as a successful promotion of the rural revolution programme onto a new high, constituting the most decisive factor that will enable a faster rate of transformations and improvements.
An in-depth analysis of the course of struggle we have followed so far, however, indicates that there are not a few problems that need to be put to rights without delay.
Encouraging the agricultural workers to buckle down to farming with a strong desire is an important task in ensuring that they take charge of the rural revolution as befitting its masters, and boosting agricultural production.
But practices of infringing upon their interests contrary to the Party’s policies persist in the rural communities, with the result that their enthusiasm for production is waning.
Such practices as taking from the farmers’ shares without hesitation on the pretext of carrying out various construction projects and policy-oriented tasks are yet to be eliminated, resulting in serious complaints arising among many of them. In this situation, how can we convey the Party’s ideas to them and call on them to display patriotism?
The leading officials in the agricultural sector and Party organizations in the countryside should refrain from making empty talks that they are reforming the ideological consciousness of the agricultural workers, but accurately calculate the daily work-points and make distributions so that the farmers can be fully convinced that farming well makes the country prosper and themselves better off. And judicial and procuratorial organs should take decisive steps to eradicate all illegal practices that infringe upon the farmers’ interests.
In order to consolidate the material and technical foundations of the rural economy and achieve substantial results in agricultural development, our Party and government have attached great importance to readjusting and reinforcing the irrigation systems and supplying the rural communities with modern and efficient farm machines, chemical fertilizers and other farming materials and are pushing forward with the work on a preferential basis even in the difficult conditions and environment.
As part of it, after the rural revolution programme in the new era was advanced, farm machines have been supplied in large numbers to the rural communities; but the actual rate of their utilization is low.
Last year not a few farm machines the nonmilitary industrial enterprises manufactured and sent to the countryside were so poor in performance and went out of order so frequently that they were not used properly in farming. If we fail in finding solutions to such problems, substantial assistance to the countryside would be inconceivable, no matter how huge investments by the state might be, and it would be little different from pouring water into a bottomless pot.
The farm machine-building units and relevant research institutions should keep making vigorous efforts to raise the quality of farm machines, be proactive in developing and introducing efficient ones that suit the conditions of our countryside, and conduct a rigorous inspection of their qualities, so that farm machines helpful to the farmers in their work and conducive to agricultural production can be sent to the rural communities.
Transforming the appearance and environment of the countryside is an important task of the rural revolution programme, and the rural housing construction for its implementation is now in full swing on a nationwide scale.
New residential districts boasting socialist rural civilization are springing up one after another, providing the agricultural workers with a cultured environment and presenting new looks of the regions undergoing transformation, and not only the rural inhabitants but also other people throughout the country are welcoming it and actively supporting our Party’s policy of rural construction.
However, in some parts construction of the rural houses, an important political undertaking, has been conducted in a slipshod manner, misleading the people’s view of Party policy and hindering the implementation of the rural revolution programme.
It has been reported that among the newly-built rural houses are some which look flawless outwardly but were given poor finishing touches inside, some others where the invisible systems for electric wiring and heating were installed so carelessly that they had to be redone by the dwellers after they moved into them, and still others whose roofs leak because of the failure to observe the construction rules.
If these phenomena continue to be prevalent in the future, the yearly supply of 10 000 tons of cement to each one of the cities and counties thanks to the crucial decision of the Party and state would be of no significance, and, worse still, it might give rise to a serious political issue of causing the people to doubt the validity of the Party’s lines and policies.
Senior officials of cities and counties and all other officials involved in rural housing construction should carefully review their work and adopt revolutionary measures for preventing such wrong practices from being repeated.
If we fail to correct these trivial deviations revealed in the first step on the course of implementing the rural revolution programme, the programme, however great, might remain another historical record.
We should make every stride in the effort to pioneer the gigantic cause of comprehensive development in a responsible and steady manner and accomplish without fail the sacred duty entrusted to us by the times and the revolution.
In realizing our Party’s ideals of comprehensive development, the regional development policy and the rural revolution programme are related to each other in an organic way.
In order for the regional development policy in the new era to display its proper vitality in a sustained way through the settlement of such problems as ensuring sufficient supply of raw materials for regional-industry factories and increasing the purchasing power of the rural population, it is essential for the policy to be carried out simultaneously with the rural revolution programme; and only when the countryside is transformed in a revolutionary way, can the regions be transformed.
We will not repeat the wrong customs and practices of indulging in idle talks.
The undertakings we are now pressing on with are fundamentally different from those conducted in the previous days when exaggerating the achievements made in the implementation of the tasks put forward by the Changsong Joint Conference and the rural theses could go unpunished.
On the basis of our Party’s plan of regional development corresponding to the period of comprehensive development of socialism and an overall analysis of the lessons of the past, the regional development policy and the rural revolution programme in the new era elucidate revolutionary and scientific ways for their implementation. They contain nothing that is ambiguous, unfeasible, unrealistic or unprofitable.
The Party and state are vigorously pushing forward with the implementation of the policy and programme, with the Party Central Committee keeping a direct grip and planning and commanding it and the state providing all the conditions on a preferential basis and carrying the burden of full responsibility for doing so.
At the same time, the work of taking relevant economic and technical measures for cities and counties to develop their own fund-securing capacities is being conducted on a nationwide scale.
If we carry out all the policy-oriented tasks without fail and in a perfect way with firm faith and confidence in the Party’s policies, this will surely lead to positive and gratifying results.
The point of vital importance is that we should present distinct entities every year at any cost and whatever the circumstances.
To translate ideals into reality through perseverance and perfect practice irrespective of the given conditions, is the sacred mission and fighting stamina of us, revolutionaries, who have assumed for ourselves the formidable and challenging revolutionary task for comprehensive development.
Comrades,
The great decade should see 20 cities and counties undergoing transformation every year without fail and unconditionally.
We should make bigger and more correct strides of advance, attaching greater importance to the lessons and prospects rather than the immediately visible successes.
Availing myself of this opportunity, I would like to emphasize some tasks for achieving correct results as we have intended in the new year’s work for implementing the regional development policy.
We should push ahead with construction for the implementation of the policy in a revolutionary way.
As was already declared, our Party decided to carry out the construction of three essential projects of building public health facilities, cultural complexes and grain management facilities, along with the construction of regional-industry factories, in order to radically raise the efficiency of regional development and provide the regional people across the country with a material and cultural life that would improve in a sustained way.
At present, the work of newly building or renovating educational establishments in cities and counties across the country is underway. If the three projects are implemented in addition to this work, all the regions will be able to provide the people with a much better life, based on a sustainable development environment that relies not only on the light industry foundations but on modern civilization and technology, and, furthermore, this will bring about great progress in realizing the comprehensive national development programme with the advancement of science, education and public health as the core motive force.
The backwardness of the regions and the rural communities will never disappear of its own accord simply because the regional people lead a rich life in modern and cultured houses.
We should bring about a turn in the realm of their consciousness by transforming their ideas and transferring knowledge to them.
Rejuvenating the regions and urbanizing the rural communities do not simply imply their architectural aesthetic aspect.
Our aspiration to make the countryside modernized and civilized is mainly aimed at making the rural forces progressive and transforming them on a working-class pattern in keeping with the level of those in urban areas and achieving successes in the technical revolution as early as possible.
It conforms not only with our Party’s line on building up the cities and counties but with our ideals to build a state that develops, based on solid politico-ideological foundations, by dint of science and technology and on the strength of advanced civilization.
Some would say it is challenging for us to promote the current projects alone, but we should launch into the new struggle without hesitation and produce perfect results without fail in construction, which could be called a breakthrough for the implementation of the regional development policy.
What is most important in construction in the new year is to thoroughly ensure the quality of structures.
The regional construction we are conducting should never be something for the sake of publicity. When the projects are brought to completion, they should lead to the change of the whole country and bring benefits to the populations in the relevant regions.
This year, deviations were revealed in some construction projects, delaying the progress of the whole process and causing confusion, as they were conducted in a way of competition and with impatience in disregard of the quality indexes. In the course of putting them to rights, we have redefined the concepts of quality and speed.
In construction, quality takes precedence over speed and quality is its lifeblood.
Our ideals, spirit of service and traces of strenuous efforts should be manifested in the perfect quality of all our creations.
In order to implement the real purpose of regional construction as well as to finish the tasks for a given year in time as scheduled, it is imperative to give priority without fail to ensuring quality.
The construction regiments at all levels that are in direct charge of construction and relevant units should press ahead with the mass movement for a skilled worker to train several skilled workers in a year, the work of making construction equipment modernized and standardized and the work of radically enhancing supervision and control over construction as the main link in the whole chain of their efforts for improving quality.
It is necessary to attach importance to specialization in all processes of construction, rely on scientific accuracy and ensure profitability.
The lessons and experiences gained in the course of building regional-industry factories this year show that the subjective and unrealistic way of thinking and judgment constitute the main factor that arrests our advance.
From the stage of making preparations for their construction, architects, experts in relevant sectors and officials of the units that will operate them should strengthen consultation and cooperation so as to remove irrational elements and present scientific and optimal proposals.
In particular, the design sector should make a careful study to the last for presenting various designs, effective and accurate, for regional construction next year in conformity with both the purposes and functional features of buildings and equipment and the legal standards, and display a high sense of responsibility.
The project schedules and equipment assembly processes should not be decided upon according to an individual’s subjective point of view or opinion, but collective discussions should be held to make them as appropriate as possible and fully consistent with the construction rules.
It is needed to make vigorous efforts to ensure the domestic production of building equipment, materials and goods.
Regional development should be thoroughly based on self-development and self-sustenance, and this principle should be embodied first in regional construction.
If we are to push forward with regional construction at will in the future, irrespective of the objective conditions, and ensure full operation of the regional-industry factories, we should produce and supply quality building equipment, materials and goods by ourselves in every way possible.
We plan to take into full account the equipment needed for the regional-industry factories every year and build a general factory for their production next year.
By doing so, we can ensure the speed and quality in the building of equipment and raise the proportion of the indigenous ones.
In this way, we should make proactive efforts to create our own modern perfume and pigment industries and other advanced and viable industries in relevant sectors, thus laying durable and solid foundations for developing the regional industry by ourselves.
Along with this, the building-materials production units should work hard to improve the quality of their products, including finishing materials, and increase their variety, thus providing a sure guarantee for the success of regional construction.
We should adhere to the principle of focusing on construction in backward regions.
Our Party’s original intention in transforming regions materially and culturally is to shore up, first and foremost, the cities and counties which are located in out-of-the-way mountains and where the locals’ living standards are among the lowest.
Of course, if the construction workforce moves to the adjoining cities or counties or anywhere else with favourable conditions, their projects will proceed smoothly. However, this does not accord with our Party’s policy.
Just as good, nourishing food is given first to the weakest child in a family, assistance and benefits should be rendered primarily to the locals in difficult areas.
Modern regional-industry factories and cultural and public health facilities should be built in the country’s most backward and infertile regions before any others; if these regions are short of raw materials and have unfavourable conditions for business operation, the state should increase its assistance to them.
A strong push should be given for the regular operation of the newly-built regional-industry factories.
As I have stressed several times, this is a key factor that is decisive of success or failure in implementing the regional development policy.
The great revolutionary work, on which our Party and people have focused with a single mind, will demonstrate its practical veracity from the beginning of the new year through the operation of the regional-industry factories.
Currently, national measures are in place for providing these factories with essential raw materials, and arrangements have been made for teachers and researchers of central institutions, as well as highly-skilled workers of industrial establishments in the capital city, to go down to the cities and counties and give a helping hand in switching on those factories.
The cities and counties should make sure that the new factories consult these experts about the technical problems that arise in their trial operation and find effective solutions to them, conduct a strict quality test of their trial products and roll out only those that meet all necessary indexes.
The non-permanent promotion committees and the relevant sectors should conduct a rigorous review of how the cities and counties are building up their bases for raw materials and throw their full weight behind this work. On the other hand, they should draw up realistic plans to provide raw materials to the cities and counties where there is a vague possibility of creating such bases, so that the supply of raw materials is prioritized over the construction of regional-industry factories.
Whether or not the new regional-industry factories maintain regular production to satisfy the local demands depends entirely on the qualifications of the senior officials of the cities and counties concerned.
Chief secretaries of city and county Party committees, bearing in mind that our Party and people do not need any symbolic factories, should carry out on their own responsibility the policy-oriented tasks that have been put forward in relation to the operation of new regional-industry factories. In this way they can help these factories become solid buttresses and valuable assets for the improvement of the local living standards from the day of their commissioning.
In particular, they should be conscious that if they fail to train talented personnel, who make up the most essential and strategic resource for the development of the regional industry, they might have to stand empty-handed before the people, and they should apply themselves to training core technicians and expanding the ranks of skilled workers.
This Songchon County is a renowned source of tobacco in our country, and it has long been famous for silk and medicinal chestnut. While sustaining its peculiar features and tapping its potentialities, it should make the most of its traffic advantages to effectively develop and utilize such local resources for cultural tourism as the shores of the Piryu River and the Songchon Hot Spring. This will offer further possibility for securing funds necessary for operating its regional-industry factories.
Other cities and counties, too, should make proactive efforts to make full use of their unique economic resources and potentials and develop and utilize them to their best effect. By doing so, they can steadily increase their leverage for economic development.
The relevant units should work to guarantee the supply of electric power and take other practical steps to provide all necessary conditions for the full-capacity operation of regional-industry factories.
Comrades,
To make the capital envious of the regions, to make regional rejuvenation represent the progress and development of our state and to make the true image of our style of socialism mirrored on the ideal appearance of the regions–this is our Party’s plan for the new era.
Our Party will expand the historic regional development policy and the rural revolution programme in the new era so that our people can benefit from them even after a hundred years, and it will adopt bolder measures for further regional transformation.
The everlasting wellbeing of the people is a source of all honour and dignity for our Party.
“We serve the people!” and “Everything for the improvement of the people’s livelihood!”–these will remain for ever as the slogans representing the intrinsic nature and invariable duty of the Workers’ Party of Korea.
Commanding officers of the People’s Army and officers and men of the construction regiments at all levels,
I am convinced that next year, too, our army will leave its proud footprints on another 20 cities and counties in the country.
Our Party regards you not merely as part of the construction workforce but as the vanguard detachment in implementing the historic cause, the first of its kind after the founding of the state. And it hopes that in the course of carrying out these construction projects all of you will become staunch champions and advocates of the Party’s policies and artists of transformation and defenders of happiness who can creditably fulfill the tasks entrusted to you by it, whatever they may be and whenever.
I hope that staking the honour of the era and the reputation of our army, you will work more courageously to achieve one new success after another in promoting regional construction and thus live up to the precious trust of your country and fellow people.
The exploits performed by our heroic service personnel will be etched in every part of this land, and they will shine for all ages along with our people’s wellbeing.
Leading cadres of the Party and government and officials of regional Party committees and administrative and economic organs,
Regional transformation is the most sacred and just cause, and devotion to this great revolutionary undertaking is a source of our boundless pride and honour.
History is exhorting us to accelerate this cause and our people are looking forward to its realization.
Let us work with greater courage to bring forward the day when our people, our beloved children in particular, will lead a cultured and rich life in their prospering native places that have been transformed beyond recognition.
I wish the people in Songchon County good health and happiness.
Dear citizens of Songchon County,
Officers and men of the construction regiments at all levels that were organized along with the Regional Development 20×10 Policy, the first of its kind in the history of our nation building, and presented their first creations to the country and people,
Officials of various promotion committees, relevant units and South Phyongan Province who have waged a vigorous struggle throughout the year after assuming an important mission of leading the great historic cause of transforming regions,
Comrades,
We have finally completed the first year’s construction projects amid the whole country’s concern, for which we all broke ground in February last with an ardent, cherished desire after the blasting that signalled the beginning of the historic revolution for regional development. Now they have materialized as a wealth of Songchon County.
At the historic place, where the start of our Party’s ten-year revolution was declared, we are holding the inauguration ceremony of its first result after ten months. This is a significant event confirming the real meaning and prospect of our work.
To think that we have now been able to provide new, modern factories to the locals in this region, I feel a little relieved of what I have always been sorry about before the regional people.
Availing myself of this meaningful opportunity, I, on behalf of the Party and the government of the Republic, extend warm gratitude to officers and men of the construction regiment who, with ardent patriotism and loyalty, wrote the first proud page of the regional development history in the new era, bringing about a new appearance of Songchon, and all other soldier-builders.
I also express deep thanks to the officials and working people of relevant units and other supporters, who contributed to today’s inauguration with unstained devotion and a high sense of responsibility.
Comrades,
With the start of the new year to come, scores of regional-industry factories will be inaugurated simultaneously in nearly 20 cities and counties throughout the country, as here in Songchon County.
This inspiring reality means that the task for the first year in implementing our Party’s regional development policy, a revolutionary line which it proactively studied and has pushed ahead with to transform the living environment of the regional people, will be carried out.
This year, which can be called the starting point of the ten-year revolution and an epitome of its success, we have set up new entities in various regions of the country, thus bringing to the people a definite awareness that the regions are changing, and securing a dynamic force with which to implement more scientifically and correctly the regional development policy based on many-sided and rich experiences.
Construction regiments at various levels, the vanguard corps of the regional industry revolution, have greatly enhanced their efficiency, and well-regulated national guidance and supply systems have been established. This is also an important achievement and guarantee that has opened a wonderful prospect for achieving regional transformation in a multi-stage, three-dimensional and offensive way.
The successes we have achieved in a year are not a few, but this cannot be a reason for us to congratulate ourselves or raise a cheer for them now.
The overall regional industry is on the decline as it is now, not because in the past decades we had no policy or line on regional development or we failed to expend efforts and funds.
Then, why did the regional industry policy fail to be implemented until now, over six decades after the Changsong Joint Conference?
Leading cadres of the Party and state, including members of the central leadership of the Party, and relevant officials of the central and regional organs are here today to discuss on the spot the issue of developing the regional industry. I think that, availing ourselves of this opportunity, we should make an analysis of the reasons lest we repeat the painful mistakes in the future.
The main reason is, first, that the work of developing the regional industry was conducted without clear-cut goals, stage-by-stage plans, exact standards and scientific methodology.
The regional industry is an industrial realm pioneered by our country.
When an undertaking has to follow an untrodden path, it should be conducted with a clear goal and milestones, but the undertakings of the past for implementing the regional development policy were done in a very sporadic and spontaneous way.
To cite as an example the construction of factories that are elementary and general in the regional economy. The projects were conducted by respective regions without clear-cut goals and standards, i.e., what kinds of factories should be built in how many cities and counties, and by when and on what standards they should be built; this being the case, such a deviation as being obsessed with how to increase their number could not be overcome, and worse still, the abnormal result was that there were no factories badly needed for the living of the local populations, and unnecessary factories came into being.
The work system, whereby reporting the number of factories built by avoiding as much as possible those that demanded much effort was not called to account, and the convention, whereby reporting the result of supplying the people with whatever goods was highly commended, are reflected on the appearance of the regional-industry factories of the past and the people’s negative attitude towards the regional industry.
In the past some cities and counties, like Usi and Yonthan counties, achieved some successes in developing their regional industry; on the contrary, some regions are on an indescribably low level. This prolonged extreme imbalance caused by the coexistence of such regions is ascribed to the fact that the regional-industry policy was implemented without any clear standards and principles.
As the regional-industry factories varied considerably in scale, form and production line and the levels of their operation differed greatly from one another, it brought about a result that ran counter to the intention of the policy on improving the people’s living standards in all regions.
Strictly speaking, the regional-industry policy of the past days was dependent on the attitude of the officials of relevant fields and regions to Party policy and their abilities, and on the economic potentials of the cities and counties.
After the Changsong Joint Conference, construction of regional-industry factories continued to expand, their number reaching nearly 4000 by 1980; however, not to mention the appearance of the buildings and their technical levels, there were only a few factories, which could make the most of the economic and geographical conditions and potentials of the relevant regions, and the number of varieties and kinds of goods, which the regional people really demanded, could be counted on the fingers of one hand.
Once there were a number of regional-industry factories here in Songchon County, including foodstuff, daily-necessities, garment, building-materials, pharmaceutical and farm-machine factories. The local people, who have lived here, know better than others their actual situation in those days, I think.
Consequently, the regional industry projects, despite the scores of years of their history, have failed to bring the people as much benefit as had been expected.
Another reason should be identified in the fact that the drive to implement the regional-industry policy has not been conducted in a powerful way as an undertaking involving the Party and state.
Developing the regional industry is a gigantic and complex undertaking related to improving the living standards of all the regional populations and developing the economy in the over 200 cities and counties; as such the state’s responsibility and role are essential to this.
There are a number of matters to be tackled by the state in this respect, including establishing a well-regulated guidance system for coordinated control and promotion of the projects, providing the cities and counties with conditions for securing their own funds in addition to state investment and the centrally-run industry’s support, and properly adjusting and distributing raw-materials bases for them.
Nevertheless, when its progress up to now is considered, the regional industry can be said to have virtually been under the responsibility of regions.
Take for instance the matter of putting the production lines at regional-industry factories on a mechanized and automatic basis, an important task put forward at the Joint Conference. Except for some of those that were on the priority list, they have furnished the factories mostly with the extra products or scrap equipment from the centrally-run industrial establishments; and in many cases they have been obsessed with how to enlist the locally available manpower and funds under the pretext of mass-based movements.
It is self-evident that the regional industry, dependent on the supply of extra resources of the centrally-run one and on its backward economic and technical forces, can hardly rid itself of its deep-rooted backwardness and will lag behind the times.
Changsong County has been called the native place of the new history of regional industry, and its regional-industry factories have enjoyed more support from the centrally-run industry than any others. Even these factories are too outdated to talk about modernization of equipment as they have not been provided with investment and technical assistance on a regular basis. Such being the situation, the other regions’ conditions are beyond description.
With Changsong County put forward as a model to be emulated across the country, there came a documentary and even a song about its changes to introduce it widely. But the point is how much actual benefit the factories have brought to the regional people.
Even when it was clear that the regional-industry factories had become completely inefficient due to the overall economic situation of the country and there was no hope for them to be revived by the efforts of the regions alone, the economic organs in the government, on the pretext of the prevailing situation and conditions, engrossed themselves in an unrealistic, empty talk of building some model regional-industry factories and renovating others on a yearly basis.
To make matters worse, the national organ in charge of supervising the regional industry has been merged with or separated from other ones a dozen times, causing disorder and chaos in the state control and management over the regional economy. In the course of this, not a few of the buildings and equipment of the regional-industry factories have been lost, while their economic efficiency has fallen drastically.
Along with this failure to provide proper state investment and coordinated guidance, which are essential elements, units affiliated with ministries, national agencies, armed forces organs and other establishments of special importance have occupied those places and resources favourable for the cities and counties to boost their incomes, leaving them in reduced spaces for their economic activities. Consequently, the regional industry has experienced difficulty in developing by itself and the regional people have lost their enthusiasm in creative production activities.
As mentioned above, if we do not take a revolutionary measure for changing this irrational and disadvantageous state of affairs, we would never see the regional industry rising–this is our conclusion.
The current deplorable condition of our regional industry is partly–and more importantly–attributable to the wrong viewpoint, non-revolutionary manner of work and incompetence of our officials who are directly responsible for the development of the regional industry.
In the 1960s and 1970s, when the regional economy was in a healthy condition, there were consumer goods that were enjoying favourable comment from the public, like Nampho glassware, Sariwon Kyongamsan shoe polish and Wonsan ironware, and some kinds of light-industry goods gained access to the international market. However, as officials did not adopt an ideological approach to giving fuller, sustained play to the viability of the policy, the regional-industry factories, though having cost a lot, have lost their value gradually.
In the past officials in the economic sector made much ado about modernization and technical renovation of light-industry factories, but what was in their mind was the centrally-run industry, not the regional industry.
They used to regard it as an everyday occurrence for the regional people to get what were inferior to the products from the centrally-run establishments; they felt it all right if only they avoided criticism over their failure to fulfil their production plans, giving their primary consideration to quantity ahead of quality. Owing to their narrow-minded ideological point of view and short-sighted manner of work, many of the regional-industry factories have virtually lost their true masters, leading the regional industry to stagnation.
Worse still, in the 1990s and thereafter, when the factories were nearly shut down, officials, seized by defeatism, only complained about the poor conditions, failing to preserve the technicians and skilled workers who were the backbone of the regional industry.
For the characteristics unique to it, whereby it is based on the economic resources and geographical conditions of the relevant regions, the regional industry can play its role only when specific measures are taken for them to exploit their potentials.
For this reason, the great leader Comrade
In the past, however, in mountainous regions they were satisfied with simply making drinks by collecting wild fruits and in seabound regions, with simply catching fish and gathering seaweeds in the sea to supply them to the locals.
In a nutshell, a passive manner of conducting production activities and economic work by relying on the benefit from Mother Nature, instead of creating their own wealth, represented the reality of our regional industry as well as the officials’ non-revolutionary style of work.
All the officials present here should find the causes of the economic poverty of the regional industry, which is yet to shake off its age-old backwardness, not in the objective conditions but in their wrong view of the regional people and their lack of spirit of serving them, narrow-mindedness and incompetence.
This is a proper attitude our officials should acquire as they are entirely responsible for the regional people’s living and a positive attitude they should maintain in improving their own qualities in view of the past lessons.
The officials, who are in charge of the regional industry at present, should work hard lest they leave their names as incompetent and irresponsible ones in history, like their predecessors.
Comrades,
Availing myself of this opportunity, I would also like to refer to the reason why the theses on the socialist rural question, adopted at the Eighth Plenary Meeting of the Fourth Central Committee of the Party in 1964, remains yet to be implemented 60 years after its adoption.
Given the present stage and future of our revolution and socialist construction, the rural question is a key factor decisive of their victory or setback; if we fail to find a proper solution to this question, the validity of the cause, which we are going against all odds to accomplish by ourselves, and the inevitability of its triumph cannot be proven, nor can we reach the goals we are desirous of achieving.
We are now advancing towards the complete victory of socialism, and solving the rural question poses itself as a major task to be tackled in the period of transition when we should prepare for moving forward to a higher stage.
In view of class relations, socialist construction is a course through which the whole society is being assimilated to the working class, and in view of socio-economic relations, a course through which agriculture is being put on an industrial footing, the countryside transformed on an urban pattern and a single form of ownership established.
This shows that by solving the rural question once and for all, we can accomplish the tasks for the period of transition and proclaim the victory of socialism.
What is more, in the case of our country that has not gone through the normal stages of social development, the period of transition is bound to last relatively long, just because of the rural question. So, how quickly we pass through the period of transition depends on how quickly we solve the rural question.
This is the very reason why our Party set the final settlement of the rural question as a major strategic task after the victory of the socialist revolution, put forward the socialist rural theses encapsulating the direction, basic principles and ways for implementing this task, and has worked for long years to put them into effect.
Strictly speaking, however, nothing has changed in our countryside as it turns out now.
Admittedly, in the light of the socio-economic features of the countryside and its age-old backwardness, the rural question is a long-term, challenging task that can be fulfilled through a persevering struggle and unremitting efforts.
But the serious problem is that over the long period of six decades following the publication of the rural theses no substantial change or transformation has taken place across the realms of the countryside.
Worse still, as time has since passed to this day, the countryside has impoverished, the urban-rural gap widened and the living standards there declined.
This obviously means stagnating and even retreating in the effort to implement the rural theses.
With no progress being made in solving the rural question and a retrogression persisting in agricultural development, some are worried about the prospects for our countryside and even doubtful about the victory of socialism.
Such a programme as the socialist rural theses has not been published in any other country. We should think over why the theses has yet to bear fruit as they should.
The reasons for the floundering countryside and the declining regional industry are, in my view, essentially the same.
Immediately after its publication the rural theses played a significant role in pulling our countryside out of its age-old backwardness and poverty and elevating it to a stage of epoch-making transformation, and in the course of this, the country’s agricultural development attained a high level.
Notwithstanding this, as the country faced grave economic difficulties and its investment in agriculture plunged down to 3% of the national budget, the irrigation, mechanization, chemicalization and electrification of the rural economy kept backsliding. This ended up our countryside growing very weak both materially and technically.
The national irrigation system, which the state completed in the main by expending huge amounts of cement and steel, has become defunct due to the lack of regular repair and maintenance; a chronic shortage of farming machines has resulted from a drastic drop in their production; the supply of chemical fertilizers in the 2000s reduced to under one third of the level in the 1980s; and large numbers of power equipment in the rural areas have broken down or gone missing.
From the mid-1990s the material foundations of agriculture became shaky, but no fundamental measures were adopted to reverse this situation. The rural communities kept foundering because the funds and materials, which were in short supply for construction projects, were continually funnelled from the farms. Consequently, there once circulated a claim about agriculture’s support for industry, not the latter’s assistance to the former.
The after-effects of inadequate national measures were evident in the appearance of the rural communities.
Back in the 1970s and 1980s, with a rural construction corps active in each city and county and the general bureau of rural housing construction in the capital, housing projects in the rural communities went full steam ahead as a national undertaking. However, it became sluggish with the cities, counties or farms individually building houses. Worse still, no proper design was available and the supply of cement per house amounted to no more than four to five tons. So, adobe, tree branches and other local materials were used in most cases.
Also, the revamping of ri hospitals and clinics in the rural communities and their furnishing with medical equipment and fittings were not done under a master plan of the state, and this was left to the discretion of the relevant farms. As things stand, the countryside has no ri hospitals and clinics to speak of, nor has it any proper sci-tech learning spaces or welfare service facilities, such as barber’s and bathhouse. This has left farmers lagging far behind modern knowledge and civilization, some even regarding cultural activities as something exclusive to urban communities.
Because of the prolonged backwardness of the countryside, the living standards of farmers have deteriorated to the point that they cannot even afford an electric lamp; their consciousness has changed, some without any feeling of attachment to the rural areas leaving to find jobs in other sectors; and the number of agricultural technicians and experts has sharply decreased. With the rural positions declining as a whole, the state organs and the rural Party organizations and officials have done little to cope with this situation, with a short-sighted attitude of leaning on agricultural production.
Despite the annual repetitions of verbal emphasis on the consolidation of the countryside and the numerous releases of relevant documents, the central agricultural guidance organ has been ineffective in playing its inherent functions and role of taking responsibility for, and providing direction over, the long-term research into the overall development of the country’s agriculture and its technological advancement. This fact has confirmed that we cannot attain our high aim by divorcing ourselves from the reality and glossing over things.
The rural revolution programme in the new era clearly illuminates the path for us to follow in finally settling the rural question and achieving the complete victory of socialism as soon as possible.
Following the proclamation of this programme at the Fourth Plenary Meeting of the Eighth Party Central Committee held in December 2021, the national drive gained momentum to put the country’s agriculture on a definite upward trajectory and achieve a leap forward in the development of the socialist countryside. This drive has produced significant successes in a short span of time.
The most precious of the successes is that our agricultural workers are witnessing the countryside undergoing transformation, and that they have become convinced, while experiencing first-hand the vitality of the Party’s policy on changing the grain production structure, that they can transform their villages and communities by their own efforts.
The change taking place in their awareness in no more than one to two years represents a revolution, as well as a successful promotion of the rural revolution programme onto a new high, constituting the most decisive factor that will enable a faster rate of transformations and improvements.
An in-depth analysis of the course of struggle we have followed so far, however, indicates that there are not a few problems that need to be put to rights without delay.
Encouraging the agricultural workers to buckle down to farming with a strong desire is an important task in ensuring that they take charge of the rural revolution as befitting its masters, and boosting agricultural production.
But practices of infringing upon their interests contrary to the Party’s policies persist in the rural communities, with the result that their enthusiasm for production is waning.
Such practices as taking from the farmers’ shares without hesitation on the pretext of carrying out various construction projects and policy-oriented tasks are yet to be eliminated, resulting in serious complaints arising among many of them. In this situation, how can we convey the Party’s ideas to them and call on them to display patriotism?
The leading officials in the agricultural sector and Party organizations in the countryside should refrain from making empty talks that they are reforming the ideological consciousness of the agricultural workers, but accurately calculate the daily work-points and make distributions so that the farmers can be fully convinced that farming well makes the country prosper and themselves better off. And judicial and procuratorial organs should take decisive steps to eradicate all illegal practices that infringe upon the farmers’ interests.
In order to consolidate the material and technical foundations of the rural economy and achieve substantial results in agricultural development, our Party and government have attached great importance to readjusting and reinforcing the irrigation systems and supplying the rural communities with modern and efficient farm machines, chemical fertilizers and other farming materials and are pushing forward with the work on a preferential basis even in the difficult conditions and environment.
As part of it, after the rural revolution programme in the new era was advanced, farm machines have been supplied in large numbers to the rural communities; but the actual rate of their utilization is low.
Last year not a few farm machines the nonmilitary industrial enterprises manufactured and sent to the countryside were so poor in performance and went out of order so frequently that they were not used properly in farming. If we fail in finding solutions to such problems, substantial assistance to the countryside would be inconceivable, no matter how huge investments by the state might be, and it would be little different from pouring water into a bottomless pot.
The farm machine-building units and relevant research institutions should keep making vigorous efforts to raise the quality of farm machines, be proactive in developing and introducing efficient ones that suit the conditions of our countryside, and conduct a rigorous inspection of their qualities, so that farm machines helpful to the farmers in their work and conducive to agricultural production can be sent to the rural communities.
Transforming the appearance and environment of the countryside is an important task of the rural revolution programme, and the rural housing construction for its implementation is now in full swing on a nationwide scale.
New residential districts boasting socialist rural civilization are springing up one after another, providing the agricultural workers with a cultured environment and presenting new looks of the regions undergoing transformation, and not only the rural inhabitants but also other people throughout the country are welcoming it and actively supporting our Party’s policy of rural construction.
However, in some parts construction of the rural houses, an important political undertaking, has been conducted in a slipshod manner, misleading the people’s view of Party policy and hindering the implementation of the rural revolution programme.
It has been reported that among the newly-built rural houses are some which look flawless outwardly but were given poor finishing touches inside, some others where the invisible systems for electric wiring and heating were installed so carelessly that they had to be redone by the dwellers after they moved into them, and still others whose roofs leak because of the failure to observe the construction rules.
If these phenomena continue to be prevalent in the future, the yearly supply of 10 000 tons of cement to each one of the cities and counties thanks to the crucial decision of the Party and state would be of no significance, and, worse still, it might give rise to a serious political issue of causing the people to doubt the validity of the Party’s lines and policies.
Senior officials of cities and counties and all other officials involved in rural housing construction should carefully review their work and adopt revolutionary measures for preventing such wrong practices from being repeated.
If we fail to correct these trivial deviations revealed in the first step on the course of implementing the rural revolution programme, the programme, however great, might remain another historical record.
We should make every stride in the effort to pioneer the gigantic cause of comprehensive development in a responsible and steady manner and accomplish without fail the sacred duty entrusted to us by the times and the revolution.
In realizing our Party’s ideals of comprehensive development, the regional development policy and the rural revolution programme are related to each other in an organic way.
In order for the regional development policy in the new era to display its proper vitality in a sustained way through the settlement of such problems as ensuring sufficient supply of raw materials for regional-industry factories and increasing the purchasing power of the rural population, it is essential for the policy to be carried out simultaneously with the rural revolution programme; and only when the countryside is transformed in a revolutionary way, can the regions be transformed.
We will not repeat the wrong customs and practices of indulging in idle talks.
The undertakings we are now pressing on with are fundamentally different from those conducted in the previous days when exaggerating the achievements made in the implementation of the tasks put forward by the Changsong Joint Conference and the rural theses could go unpunished.
On the basis of our Party’s plan of regional development corresponding to the period of comprehensive development of socialism and an overall analysis of the lessons of the past, the regional development policy and the rural revolution programme in the new era elucidate revolutionary and scientific ways for their implementation. They contain nothing that is ambiguous, unfeasible, unrealistic or unprofitable.
The Party and state are vigorously pushing forward with the implementation of the policy and programme, with the Party Central Committee keeping a direct grip and planning and commanding it and the state providing all the conditions on a preferential basis and carrying the burden of full responsibility for doing so.
At the same time, the work of taking relevant economic and technical measures for cities and counties to develop their own fund-securing capacities is being conducted on a nationwide scale.
If we carry out all the policy-oriented tasks without fail and in a perfect way with firm faith and confidence in the Party’s policies, this will surely lead to positive and gratifying results.
The point of vital importance is that we should present distinct entities every year at any cost and whatever the circumstances.
To translate ideals into reality through perseverance and perfect practice irrespective of the given conditions, is the sacred mission and fighting stamina of us, revolutionaries, who have assumed for ourselves the formidable and challenging revolutionary task for comprehensive development.
Comrades,
The great decade should see 20 cities and counties undergoing transformation every year without fail and unconditionally.
We should make bigger and more correct strides of advance, attaching greater importance to the lessons and prospects rather than the immediately visible successes.
Availing myself of this opportunity, I would like to emphasize some tasks for achieving correct results as we have intended in the new year’s work for implementing the regional development policy.
We should push ahead with construction for the implementation of the policy in a revolutionary way.
As was already declared, our Party decided to carry out the construction of three essential projects of building public health facilities, cultural complexes and grain management facilities, along with the construction of regional-industry factories, in order to radically raise the efficiency of regional development and provide the regional people across the country with a material and cultural life that would improve in a sustained way.
At present, the work of newly building or renovating educational establishments in cities and counties across the country is underway. If the three projects are implemented in addition to this work, all the regions will be able to provide the people with a much better life, based on a sustainable development environment that relies not only on the light industry foundations but on modern civilization and technology, and, furthermore, this will bring about great progress in realizing the comprehensive national development programme with the advancement of science, education and public health as the core motive force.
The backwardness of the regions and the rural communities will never disappear of its own accord simply because the regional people lead a rich life in modern and cultured houses.
We should bring about a turn in the realm of their consciousness by transforming their ideas and transferring knowledge to them.
Rejuvenating the regions and urbanizing the rural communities do not simply imply their architectural aesthetic aspect.
Our aspiration to make the countryside modernized and civilized is mainly aimed at making the rural forces progressive and transforming them on a working-class pattern in keeping with the level of those in urban areas and achieving successes in the technical revolution as early as possible.
It conforms not only with our Party’s line on building up the cities and counties but with our ideals to build a state that develops, based on solid politico-ideological foundations, by dint of science and technology and on the strength of advanced civilization.
Some would say it is challenging for us to promote the current projects alone, but we should launch into the new struggle without hesitation and produce perfect results without fail in construction, which could be called a breakthrough for the implementation of the regional development policy.
What is most important in construction in the new year is to thoroughly ensure the quality of structures.
The regional construction we are conducting should never be something for the sake of publicity. When the projects are brought to completion, they should lead to the change of the whole country and bring benefits to the populations in the relevant regions.
This year, deviations were revealed in some construction projects, delaying the progress of the whole process and causing confusion, as they were conducted in a way of competition and with impatience in disregard of the quality indexes. In the course of putting them to rights, we have redefined the concepts of quality and speed.
In construction, quality takes precedence over speed and quality is its lifeblood.
Our ideals, spirit of service and traces of strenuous efforts should be manifested in the perfect quality of all our creations.
In order to implement the real purpose of regional construction as well as to finish the tasks for a given year in time as scheduled, it is imperative to give priority without fail to ensuring quality.
The construction regiments at all levels that are in direct charge of construction and relevant units should press ahead with the mass movement for a skilled worker to train several skilled workers in a year, the work of making construction equipment modernized and standardized and the work of radically enhancing supervision and control over construction as the main link in the whole chain of their efforts for improving quality.
It is necessary to attach importance to specialization in all processes of construction, rely on scientific accuracy and ensure profitability.
The lessons and experiences gained in the course of building regional-industry factories this year show that the subjective and unrealistic way of thinking and judgment constitute the main factor that arrests our advance.
From the stage of making preparations for their construction, architects, experts in relevant sectors and officials of the units that will operate them should strengthen consultation and cooperation so as to remove irrational elements and present scientific and optimal proposals.
In particular, the design sector should make a careful study to the last for presenting various designs, effective and accurate, for regional construction next year in conformity with both the purposes and functional features of buildings and equipment and the legal standards, and display a high sense of responsibility.
The project schedules and equipment assembly processes should not be decided upon according to an individual’s subjective point of view or opinion, but collective discussions should be held to make them as appropriate as possible and fully consistent with the construction rules.
It is needed to make vigorous efforts to ensure the domestic production of building equipment, materials and goods.
Regional development should be thoroughly based on self-development and self-sustenance, and this principle should be embodied first in regional construction.
If we are to push forward with regional construction at will in the future, irrespective of the objective conditions, and ensure full operation of the regional-industry factories, we should produce and supply quality building equipment, materials and goods by ourselves in every way possible.
We plan to take into full account the equipment needed for the regional-industry factories every year and build a general factory for their production next year.
By doing so, we can ensure the speed and quality in the building of equipment and raise the proportion of the indigenous ones.
In this way, we should make proactive efforts to create our own modern perfume and pigment industries and other advanced and viable industries in relevant sectors, thus laying durable and solid foundations for developing the regional industry by ourselves.
Along with this, the building-materials production units should work hard to improve the quality of their products, including finishing materials, and increase their variety, thus providing a sure guarantee for the success of regional construction.
We should adhere to the principle of focusing on construction in backward regions.
Our Party’s original intention in transforming regions materially and culturally is to shore up, first and foremost, the cities and counties which are located in out-of-the-way mountains and where the locals’ living standards are among the lowest.
Of course, if the construction workforce moves to the adjoining cities or counties or anywhere else with favourable conditions, their projects will proceed smoothly. However, this does not accord with our Party’s policy.
Just as good, nourishing food is given first to the weakest child in a family, assistance and benefits should be rendered primarily to the locals in difficult areas.
Modern regional-industry factories and cultural and public health facilities should be built in the country’s most backward and infertile regions before any others; if these regions are short of raw materials and have unfavourable conditions for business operation, the state should increase its assistance to them.
A strong push should be given for the regular operation of the newly-built regional-industry factories.
As I have stressed several times, this is a key factor that is decisive of success or failure in implementing the regional development policy.
The great revolutionary work, on which our Party and people have focused with a single mind, will demonstrate its practical veracity from the beginning of the new year through the operation of the regional-industry factories.
Currently, national measures are in place for providing these factories with essential raw materials, and arrangements have been made for teachers and researchers of central institutions, as well as highly-skilled workers of industrial establishments in the capital city, to go down to the cities and counties and give a helping hand in switching on those factories.
The cities and counties should make sure that the new factories consult these experts about the technical problems that arise in their trial operation and find effective solutions to them, conduct a strict quality test of their trial products and roll out only those that meet all necessary indexes.
The non-permanent promotion committees and the relevant sectors should conduct a rigorous review of how the cities and counties are building up their bases for raw materials and throw their full weight behind this work. On the other hand, they should draw up realistic plans to provide raw materials to the cities and counties where there is a vague possibility of creating such bases, so that the supply of raw materials is prioritized over the construction of regional-industry factories.
Whether or not the new regional-industry factories maintain regular production to satisfy the local demands depends entirely on the qualifications of the senior officials of the cities and counties concerned.
Chief secretaries of city and county Party committees, bearing in mind that our Party and people do not need any symbolic factories, should carry out on their own responsibility the policy-oriented tasks that have been put forward in relation to the operation of new regional-industry factories. In this way they can help these factories become solid buttresses and valuable assets for the improvement of the local living standards from the day of their commissioning.
In particular, they should be conscious that if they fail to train talented personnel, who make up the most essential and strategic resource for the development of the regional industry, they might have to stand empty-handed before the people, and they should apply themselves to training core technicians and expanding the ranks of skilled workers.
This Songchon County is a renowned source of tobacco in our country, and it has long been famous for silk and medicinal chestnut. While sustaining its peculiar features and tapping its potentialities, it should make the most of its traffic advantages to effectively develop and utilize such local resources for cultural tourism as the shores of the Piryu River and the Songchon Hot Spring. This will offer further possibility for securing funds necessary for operating its regional-industry factories.
Other cities and counties, too, should make proactive efforts to make full use of their unique economic resources and potentials and develop and utilize them to their best effect. By doing so, they can steadily increase their leverage for economic development.
The relevant units should work to guarantee the supply of electric power and take other practical steps to provide all necessary conditions for the full-capacity operation of regional-industry factories.
Comrades,
To make the capital envious of the regions, to make regional rejuvenation represent the progress and development of our state and to make the true image of our style of socialism mirrored on the ideal appearance of the regions–this is our Party’s plan for the new era.
Our Party will expand the historic regional development policy and the rural revolution programme in the new era so that our people can benefit from them even after a hundred years, and it will adopt bolder measures for further regional transformation.
The everlasting wellbeing of the people is a source of all honour and dignity for our Party.
“We serve the people!” and “Everything for the improvement of the people’s livelihood!”–these will remain for ever as the slogans representing the intrinsic nature and invariable duty of the Workers’ Party of Korea.
Commanding officers of the People’s Army and officers and men of the construction regiments at all levels,
I am convinced that next year, too, our army will leave its proud footprints on another 20 cities and counties in the country.
Our Party regards you not merely as part of the construction workforce but as the vanguard detachment in implementing the historic cause, the first of its kind after the founding of the state. And it hopes that in the course of carrying out these construction projects all of you will become staunch champions and advocates of the Party’s policies and artists of transformation and defenders of happiness who can creditably fulfill the tasks entrusted to you by it, whatever they may be and whenever.
I hope that staking the honour of the era and the reputation of our army, you will work more courageously to achieve one new success after another in promoting regional construction and thus live up to the precious trust of your country and fellow people.
The exploits performed by our heroic service personnel will be etched in every part of this land, and they will shine for all ages along with our people’s wellbeing.
Leading cadres of the Party and government and officials of regional Party committees and administrative and economic organs,
Regional transformation is the most sacred and just cause, and devotion to this great revolutionary undertaking is a source of our boundless pride and honour.
History is exhorting us to accelerate this cause and our people are looking forward to its realization.
Let us work with greater courage to bring forward the day when our people, our beloved children in particular, will lead a cultured and rich life in their prospering native places that have been transformed beyond recognition.
I wish the people in Songchon County good health and happiness.