Leader and People

Chairman Kim Jong Il always found himself among the people to share bitters and sweets with them.

It was on July 1, Juche 64 (1975) when he visited the then Komdok Mine, a nonferrous metal producer situated in the deep valley of Machon Pass. After acquainting himself with the progress of development of the mine and production at the time, he suggested going into the pits where miners were working. Then officials dissuaded him from doing so, as the passages in the working face deep underground were rough and water dripped from the ceiling at some sections.

But he went into the working face wearing a bush-clover helmet, saying that he should go wherever workers were, no matter how far and rough their workplace might be.

The Chairman always led a frugal life like ordinary people, regarding himself as a son of the people. And as his attire was also modest like them, people would often fail to recognize him.

During his revolutionary activities at Kim Il Sung University, he took part in the project for widening the road between Wasan-dong and Ryongsong in Pyongyang. In those days he used to take public bus like other people to go to the project site and carried earth on a shoulder pole like other students. One day he helped an old woman digging up coal at the site lest it should be buried, saying he was also a son of the people.

And at a petrol station in Pyongyang, he dissuaded his driver from driving the car to the front of a queue, saying as others were waiting for their turn, so we should do so and we should also keep legal order of society and the people.

He was a benevolent father of the people who mixed with the people unceremoniously, acceded to their unreserved requests and formulated the Party’s lines and policies by reflecting their opinions and demands.

He would get knee to knee with farmers to learn about farming in rural areas and visit families who had moved into new houses to acquaint himself with their living conditions. When he met an old woman and her family who were all road keepers on a pass, he had a friendly chat with them.

Wherever he went, he first asked officials about the demands and interests of the people.

At the Hwanghae Iron and Steel Complex, he went first to the workers’ hostel, saying that he should meet smelters before seeing molten iron. And seeing small water drops forming on the ceiling at a newly-built factory, he told officials not to let workers work at such damp place and saw to it that the building work was done afresh.

His footprints of devotion to the people are seen in every place where the people are from mines and forestry workers’ villages in the northern tip of the country to tidal flats and cooperative farms on the west coast and small fishing ports on the east coast.

As he mixed with the people throughout his life and devoted his all to them, the Koreans miss him so much, calling him “benevolent father” and “the people’s leader.”

2022-02-16