Line of Simultaneously Developing Economic Construction and Defense Upbuilding

The Fifth Plenary Meeting of the Fourth Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea, held in December 1962, set forth the line of simultaneously developing economic construction and defence upbuilding so as to successfully propel socialist construction while reliably defending the gains of the revolution against the imperialists’ aggressive manoeuvres.

At that time the United States orchestrated the Cuban Missile Crisis, escalated the war in Vietnam and stepped up preparations to unleash another war against the DPRK by reinforcing armed forces in south Korea. This precipitated a touch-and-go situation in the Korean peninsula.

The above line reflected the requirements of this tense situation.

Simultaneously developing economic construction and defence upbuilding means promoting economic construction and defence upbuilding in parallel without neglecting either of them.

This was an original line that made it possible to resolve the problem of combining socialist economic construction with defence upbuilding on the principle of giving priority to national defence, and a revolutionary line that enabled the Korean people both to defend the gains of the revolution and to advance socialist construction successfully by relying on their own efforts.