Study of the Juche Idea

It was on July 8, 2019 that fell on the 25th anniversary of the demise of President Kim Il Sung.

President Kim Il Sung is still alive in the minds of the world people.

On that occasion, Juche idea researchers and the progressives throughout the world talked about the achievements made by President Kim Il Sung in view of human history, with fresh determination to apply them in their own lives and struggles.

In Japan, a Gathering to Reminisce President Kim Il Sung was held in Abashiri, Hokkaido from the 13rd and the 14th of July, 2019, on the auspices of the Executive Committee for Reminiscing President Kim Il Sung. It was attended by the broad masses of the people from all over Japan and some other individual countries, including Juche idea researchers and some from the Ainu.

All the participants paid one minute’s silent tribute to President Kim Il Sung at the beginning of the gathering.

Dr. Ogami Ken-ichi, secretary general of the International Institute of the Juche Idea (IIJI) made a report to the gathering entitled “Juche-oriented Cause Spreads Out to World like Wildfire, Winning Victory－on the Occasion of the 25th Anniversary of the Demise of President Kim Il Sung.” It was followed by ethnic and local music performances.

A “Lecture Meeting on the Cause of Juche” with Rector Han Tong Song at Korea University in Japan as lecturer was held in Abashiri on the following day.

After the meeting, those who had gathered from all over the country visited a Abashiri-based monument inscribed with a Tanka made by the first director general of the IIJI Board.

Gathering to Reminisce President Kim Il Sung

Dr. Ogami Ken-ichi, secretary general of the IIJI made a report to the gathering as follows:

President Kim Il Sung is still alive in the minds of the world people, of ourselves, not mentioning those of the Korean people.

His thoughts and achievements continue to remain by the efforts of the people who wish to be loyal to him. And due to the struggle of his successors, it seems things go as if he were still alive.

President Kim Il Sung, born on April 15, 1912, dedicated himself all to his nation’s independence and liberation, the struggle for independence, until his demise at 82 on July 8, 1994.

He founded the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and developed it as people’s-centred socialism of Juche.

In the early 1970s, we began to interact with Koreans living in Japan. So we got ”Kim il Sung Biography". That was the way how we came to know correctly of the DPRK and the Korean struggles led by President Kim Il Sung for the first time.

It was in the year 1975 when President Kim Il Sung received the representative of the Japan Youth Liaison Council for the Study of the Juche Idea in audience for the first time and encouraged him, saying as follows:

“Even though the flame of the Juche idea is still small, it is correct, so that it will spring into a big blaze as if a spark bursts into flame like wildfire. We have just begun this important work. So, let us march together along this honorable path. Our struggle will win a victory even if we may meet many difficulties onwards in our way.”

Those Japanese youths immigrated into various places and conducted actively the study and dissemination of the Juche idea among the broad masses of people on a nationwide scale. Then, they finally achieved organizing the units of the Japan Youth Liaison Council for the Study of the Juche Idea in all the 47 prefectures of the country in March 1977.

In With an aim to learn from the thought and work of General Secretary Kim Jong Il who would carry forward and develop the cause of President Kim Il Sung, the Japanese National Liaison Council of Societies for the Study of Kim Jong Il Works was founded in February 1994. Then after, the Japanese National Liaison Council for the Study of Kimilsung-Kimjongilism was founded in Tokyo in February 2014.

In order to learn from Chairman Kim Jong Un, a new leader who formulated Kimilsung-Kimjongilism and put forward the people-first doctrine, a Society for the Study of Kim Jong Un Works was set up duly in December 2017.

Furthermore, with a thought that those who study the Juche idea should conduct their activities for those who are in need in Japan, those Juche idea researchers have set up and operated medical facilities, nursery schools and nursing homes for the elderly.

About the study and dissemination of the Juche idea in the world, an International Seminar on the Juche Idea was held in Lima, the capital of Peru in 1975 for the first time of this kind on a continental scale of Latin America. It was followed by an International Symposium in Madagascar with its President Didier Ratsiraka in September 1976.

It was on April 9, 1978 when the International Institute of the Juche Idea (IIJI) was inaugurated duly in Tokyo. The important responsibility as the first director general of the IIJI was assumed by Prof. Yasui Kaoru, a well-known international jurist who had been at the head of the movement to ban atomic bombs and hydrogen bombs.

Knowing that he was dying of cancer, and deciding to withdraw from his work of the Japan-DPRK Solidarity Committee of Social Scientists, Prof. Yasui Kaoru visited the DPRK in September 1977 to give his final greetings to President Kim Il Sung. Nevertheless, before him there had emerged a demand of Juche idea researchers throughout the world to place the IIJI in Tokyo.

In the morning when he was going to be received by President Kim Il Sung, Prof. Yasui Kaoru composed the following Tanka and wrote it down on the page of a book written by himself entitled “Eigo-no-danpen (Tr: Fragments of Eternity)” and gave it to me with his determination to take the responsibility of the director general of the IIJI Board as he came to note that youngsters to be trusted in were with him. The Tanka reads:

“This dream cultivated throughout my life will be entrusted to our youth and then forward, I will keep watching over them.”

The first director general of the IIJI Board Prof. Yasui Kaoru was followed successively by Prof. Hans R. Klecatsky, international jurist from Austria; Prof. Inoue Shuhachi, economist at Rikkyo University, Japan; Dr. Vishwanath, journalist from India; and then the current one, Prof. Ramon Jimenez Lopez, scholar from Mexico who has experienced deputy of the Mexican National Chamber of Deputies.

A National Seminar on the Juche Idea was held at the Hall of the National Chamber of Deputies, Mexico in February 2019 with the attendance of some 450 in all. Those Juche idea researchers from Mexico have been very active in the MORENA (National Regeneration Movement), and working hard to apply this idea to the Mexican society in such a way as some of whom like youths and women take the position of deputies of the National Chamber of Deputies.

Now, on June 29, this year, the Board meeting of the Asian Regional Institute of the Juche Idea (ARIJI) along with an Asian regional seminar was held in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia.

President Kim Il Sung’s sublime thoughts and his love and affection towards the people extending to the world people including Juche idea researchers are still alive in the minds of us all.

In this regard, I have been awarded various decorations such as International Kim Il Sung Prize and International Kim Jong Il Prize by now. They were not thoughtful attention toward an individual but none other than President Kim Il Sung’s, General Secretary Kim Jong Il’s, and Chairman Kim Jong Un’s love for and trust in the Juche idea researchers in the world including Japan.

Nowadays, Chairman Kim Jong Un is taking the lead in world politics, so that I am convinced that pending issues shall be solved steadily and peacefully by dint of his political diplomacy.

The cause of Juche carved out by President Kim Il Sung, which was carried foreword by General Secretary Kim Jong Il, which has been developed on a higher level by Chairman Kim Jong Un, shall spread out to the world like wildfire, and win an ultimate victory.

Lecture Meeting on Cause of Juche

A “Lecture Meeting on Cause of Juche” held in Abashiri on July 14 was attended by Juche idea researchers from all over Japan.

Rector Han Tong Song at Korea University in Japan, who is also director of the IIJI Board, gave his lecture entitled “Independence of the Korean Peninsula in view of the Juche Idea.” His lecture was composed two contents: “Panmunjom Summit Meeting between the DPRK and the US in View of the Theory of Global Independence” and “The Juche Idea and Its Application to the DPRK.”

The international influence of the DPRK and the Juche idea has become greater than ever before. I am sure that the 3rd summit meeting between the DPRK and the US at Panmunjom became a good chance to advance toward the independence of the Korean Peninsula.

After the Hanoi summit talks between the DPRK and the US, Chairman Kim Jong Un said aloud that they must frustrate the hostile forces’ sanctions by cultivating their own strength of self-sufficiency and self-reliance. Similarly, he actively engaged in summit diplomacy with Russia and China, the neighboring nations of the DPRK. Furthermore, he cultivated a relationship of trust with President Donald Trump. I believe that all these things made it possible to realize the summit meeting between the DPRK and the US at Panmunjom. It can be said that with the decisions of politicians’ history advances all at once.

“Recently the DPRK revised its constitution and specified in it Kimilsung-Kimjongilism as its guiding idea.

“The slogan ‘Everything for the people and everything by relying on them!’　 includes the determination of the Party to fill the whole Party with the spirit of love for and trust in the people. Chairman Kim Jong Un stresses ‘Making selfless, devoted efforts for the good of the people is the mode of existence and source of invincible might of the Workers’ Party of Korea.’ ”

The rector also introduced specifically how Chairman Kim Jong Un goes deeply among the people.

The lecture meeting went well as a meaningful gathering by providing an opportunity to understand the leadership and activities of Chairman Kim Jong Un who is putting into practice the people first doctrine.

Visit to Tanka Monument of First Director General of IIJI Board

Those Juche idea researchers all over Japan visited the Tanka monument of Prof. Yasui Kaoru, the first director general of the IIJI Board on the afternoon of July 14.

Mr. Ishii Ponpe, an Ainu, held an Ainu’s ritual service, the icharpa solemnly in honor of those concerned.

Thus, through a series of gatherings, those who attended them became more determined to carry forward the wish of Prof. Yasui Kaoru, who entrusted in the next generation his will to promote the study and dissemination of the Juche idea.