Kim Il Sung Seen by a Japanese

Kim Il Sung (1912-1994), eternal President of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, met as head of state in his lifetime leaders and political and social figures of many countries of the world, numbering over 70 000 in total. Among them was Kimi Shinohara, member of the Kim Il Sung’s Works Study Group of Japan.

Man Born for the People

Shinohara, teacher at a public school, had tried his best, with his own ideals and ambition, to lead his students along the road of justice in the Japanese society, where precedence is given to individual needs rather than those of the collective, and to the money rather than human dignity.

When he visited the DPRK, he had a chance to witness the reality of the country, where the Juche idea had been applied in a comprehensive way. The Juche idea, based on the man-centred philosophical principle, was demonstrating its vitality everywhere he went. He was particularly impressed by the Pyongyang Maternity Hospital and the Grand People’s Study House, the like of which in the United States, Japan and other countries pursued gaining profits. Looking round these facilities, he became well aware of free medical service, free education and other people-oriented policies pursued in the socialist country. He was all the more moved as he learned that such monumental edifices were built thanks to President Kim Il Sung’s ennobling outlook on the people.

In an impression he wrote after visiting the DPRK, Shinohara wrote that President Kim Il Sung was a man born for the people and a peerlessly great man, who devoted his whole life for the well-being of his people and their happiness.

Man Living in the Hearts of Mankind

During his second visit to the DPRK after the demise of President Kim Il Sung (July 8, 1994), Shinohara devoted much time to learning in depth and width the immortal exploits the President had performed in his lifetime for the times, the history and the Korean people.

He learned that the President had liberated his country on August 15, 1945 from Japan’s military occupation (1905-1945), founded the Workers’ Party of Korea and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, defended the independence and sovereignty of his country against aggression by the United States, turned his backward country into a socialist power, independent, self-supporting and self-reliant in national defence.

In fact, the DPRK was a ground of confrontation between socialism and imperialism and between the progressive and the reactionary; it was also a target of attack by the US-led allied imperialist forces.

However, as it had been led by Kim Il Sung, a guardian of justice, the country could keep the red flag of socialism flying and advance vigorously along the road of independence unperturbed in the face of the tenacious pressure imposed by the imperialists in the political, economic, military and all other fields.

In the DPRK he saw many foreigners as well as the Korean people visiting the then Kumsusan Memorial Palace, where Kim Il Sung is preserved in his lifetime appearance, and a straw-thatched house in Mangyongdae, where he was born, out of their yearning for the late President.

Concluding his impression, the Japanese teacher wrote: Though President Kim Il Sung passed away, the exploits he performed and the virtues he possessed were so great that his image and name are etched in the hearts of the Korean people and the world progressive people.