Patriotic Devotion of Korean Peasants

The promulgation of the agrarian reform law in March Juche 35 (1946) after Korea’s liberation from Japan’s military occupation, realized the long-cherished desire of the Korean peasants, who had been longing for tilling their own lands.

Under the uplifted slogan of “Let us greet the first spring of liberated Korea with increased production and don’t let even an inch of land lie idle!” the peasants waged vigorous struggle for increased grain production.

That year they reaped a bumper harvest.

They, who did farming to their heart’s content on their own land for the first time in their life, shed tears of joy before the rice sacks piled up high in the yard.

Kim Je Won, a peasant from the Namuri Plain in Jaeryong County, was the first to donate 30 sacks of rice reaped from the land the country gave him free of charge.

Following him, the patriotic campaign for donating rice started and developed into a mass-based one. By early January 1947, over 18 700 peasants were involved in the campaign.

An article from the Rodong Sinmun dated January 5, Juche 36 (1947) said as follows: The patriotic devotion commenced by Kim Je Won, a peasant from the Namuri Plain in Jaeryong County, kindled the fierce flames in the minds of the peasants who are tilling their own lands, and they are waging the patriotic campaign for donating rice all across the northern half of Korea. Over 300 exemplary peasants in Sojong Sub-county of Pongsan County, just across a river, gathered at the meeting room of the sub-county people’s committee at 7 o’clock on the evening of December 27 last year. In the meeting they put forward the slogan, reading, “When there is the Namuri Plain, there is also the Thosong Plain. Let us follow Kim Je Won….

The donated rice reflected the patriotic devotion of the peasants as well as the greatest foundations for the nation-building.

Receiving the news that the donated rice was used for the construction projects of Kim Il Sung University and a school for the bereaved children of revolutionaries, patriotic zeal of the people was enhanced further.

Peasants in Jaeryong and Anak counties of Hwanghae Province donated large amounts of rice and money for the construction projects, and 20 people in Hamju County, South Hamgyong Province, who reclaimed wild land, held a meeting and decided to donate 80 sacks of rice as the fund for the university construction. Those who reclaimed Osudae in South Hamgyong Province sent 100 sacks of potato, and a peasant in Kwanin Sub-county, Ryonchon County of Kangwon Province and those in Sinsang Sub-county, Jongphyong County of South Hamgyong Province donated 60 sacks of rice and 40 mal (mal is a Korean measuring unit-Tr.) of rice respectively.

Thanks to the patriotic devotion of Kim Je Won and other people across the country, new buildings of Kim Il Sung University and Mangyongdae Revolutionary School were splendidly erected.

2022-08-11