By the end of upper middle school, I ended up taking honors in every subject every school term and year, and I won first prize in every study contest. In one typical foreign language study contest, I used so many political, economic and cultural terms that even the teacher had to consult a dictionary while marking my paper. Another time they displayed my winning paper after a mathematics contest. I had solved the problems in such a singular and unique fashion that even boys of higher grades copied them down in their exercise books.
I wasn’t only unusually keen on studies and reading but also on music, fine art and sports. I’d often be found on the school playground playing basketball, football, athletics or practicing heavy gymnastics, wet with perspiration. And as a lover of music, I was skilled in playing all types of instruments. I could memorize any given song instantly and managed to play it on the appropriate instrument.
After graduation I was invited to attend Moscow University, but I didn’t consider studying abroad even for a moment. Instead I enrolled in the best university in all of Korea, Pyongyang’s Kim Il Sung University. When deciding which school to attend, I remembered how Mother had desperately wished that I would follow in the Prime Minister’s footsteps one day. For me to engage in field guidance meant that I would need the competence to consistently give directions to the Party and the state. Accordingly, I decided to attend the School of Economics, majoring in political economics. This would provide the basis for such future activity—but just the basis. In addition to my classroom work I had to be involved in on-the-job training and military studies. I also decided to work at a textile manufacturing facility and spent time as a laborer for a road expansion project, since I needed specialized knowledge in every field.
It was in that vein that I approached my university work. It never even entered my mind that I would be furthering the revolution at the university itself—I was a student, and the faculty were among the most learned men in all of Korea. My first month at school, in September of 1960, showed me otherwise. There was too much to do in the present to focus yet on my future career.
I was attending a class on Korean history when the professor brought up the question of what defined a nation. “Can Koreans living in foreign countries be considered members of the Korean nation?” he asked. “According to the classics of Marxism-Leninism, there are four conditions necessary for the formation of a nation: a shared language, a shared economic life, a shared culture and a shared region of habitation. Therefore, if one of these four conditions is lacking, a group cannot be called a ‘nation.’ Do you students agree?”
My reaction was so immediate it was almost visceral. “What about our compatriots abroad? Tens of thousands of Koreans have returned here after having been kidnapped by the Japs during the colonial era. They’ve even turned their goods over to the state because of their love for this country. Were they not Korean? Many others still remain trapped in Japan. Are they not Korean?”
“Not according to the classical definition,” said the professor.
I let out a deep breath. There were few questions as important as what it meant to be Korean. Such a definition couldn’t be left to men who were long dead, and who had never even stepped foot in our country. It didn’t matter how great they were and how profound their thinking might have been. “Depending on which book you prefer,” I continued, “the Korean nation was ‘classically’ either formed under the feudal period, or during Japanese imperialist rule, or even as recently as the August 15th liberation of the fatherland. Is that what you’re saying?”
“No,” he admitted. “But that is what Marx and even Stalin would say.”
“The classics were written in the circumstances of their historical period. They were written in accordance with the actual situation in European countries, which are mainly multiracial states. They can’t give correct answers to problems arising in Korea’s contemporary revolution and construction. I’m more interested in what Marshal Kim Il Sung has to say than ‘Marx and even Stalin’!”
“And what does the Marshal have to say on this subject?” he asked.
“If a nation were to be defined by their shared economic life, then the Korean people could be divided into the ‘bourgeois nation’ of the south and the ‘socialist nation’ of the north. But we know that Korea is one nation, so economics by itself can’t define a nation. The fundamental features of a nation are the communities of bloodline, language and residence. People who aren’t of the same blood and language aren’t one nation simply because they happen to live in the same territory. Conversely, a nation can exist in different territories, and different nations can exist in one territory.
“That’s why the area common to a nation can’t ever be lost, even if it becomes occupied by foreign forces. The basic area where the Korean nation existed for five thousand years is this silk-embroidered land of three thousand ri. It was the site of the Korean nation even during the decades of colonial domination by Japan—and it won’t ever become American land, even if south Korea remains occupied by the US imperialists for decades.”
The professor nodded with approval. “I can’t argue with a single word that you’ve said,” he replied, speaking with uncommon insight.
No sooner had flunkeyism been defeated, then another dangerous trend revealed itself to me: dogmatism. Dogmatism is an inflexible way of thinking, where one imitates others blindly without considering concrete conditions and situations. I called it the “classics disease,” where a philosophy or course of action was regarded as correct simply because it had been correct at some point in the past—or because a great book put it forward as correct.
This professor was bright and knowledgeable. And, more importantly, he was truly loyal to Korea. But he could only understand what he’d been taught, and there were many other intellectuals like him. I was utterly convinced that such blind worship of the classics must be eliminated. It wasn’t just an issue with regards to things that were obvious Korean concerns, such as the definition of a nation. Korea was rebuilding her economy, industry and agriculture from scratch. Intellectually, dogmatism would be a very pernicious base upon which to construct a revolution.
A few weeks later, matters finally came to a head in my philosophy class. One of the most profound Marxist concepts is the law of contradictions. As the professor told the class, this law held that everything in the world developed through contradictions. All the other students were thrilled by their newfound exposure to philosophy—the “science of sciences”—and how it exposed the world’s secrets. They were charmed to learn what, in a philosophical sense, moved the world. Their precious, innocent eyes burned with inquisitiveness. Unfortunately they were so excited that they were accepting the principles exactly as taught, without any argument.
I appreciated the youthful energy of my peers, but I was already familiar with the subject at hand and recognized the imprecisions for myself. I needed to make sure that my fellow students’ vision wasn’t blurred with the fog of dogmatism. I needed to be the bright light that would clear up their fog.
I called my classmates over after the lesson. “The law of contradictions is very important,” I told them. “But the proposition that everything in the world always develops through contradictions is highly dubious. Certainly, everything consists of conflicting factors, and those factors bring about change. But after socialism is established, is social progress still caused by contradictions? Is there still a struggle between conflicting factors? Of course not. In our socialist society, revolution and construction are made by the masses, closely united behind the revolutionary party.”
The students had been so intrigued by the lecture that I could see them trying to reconcile what I said with what they’d just learned. They struggled to either apply the law of contradictions to the reality of Korea, or else they tried to cram the changing facts of reality into a dogmatic framework. Obviously it couldn’t be done. It was like trying to study a pear tree to figure out where apples come from. The students simply did
n’t have the philosophical framework to correctly analyze the greatness of the Marshal’s Juche idea—which meant they couldn’t fully appreciate the great successful results of the Korean revolution, which meant they couldn’t fully understand the Party’s Juche policies.
It was absolutely maddening, especially in Korea. In other socialist countries, their emblem was a hammer and sickle symbolizing workers and peasants. But the Workers’ Party of Korea had added a writing brush to the usual emblem, representing intellectuals. Unlike elsewhere, the WPK wasn’t a party serving only a certain class. Our Party very strongly believed in the men of the mind and constantly made that clear.
Unfortunately, it seemed as if that respect for the intellectual was a bit premature. When I tried to discuss the matter of dogmatism with the faculty, I learned that they were in an even worse state than my peers. While the students were a “blank slate” when it came to philosophy, the faculty had their heads full of outdated notions. Their thinking was wholly unsuited to the new Juche era that the Marshal was leading Korea into.
I was convinced that I was the only one who could bring right thinking to Kim Il Sung University. But in order to do that I needed to become an expert in virtually every field of knowledge that concerned political economy, including learning philosophy inside and out. My work was cut out for me. I realized that it would be impossible for anyone to explore the depths of every branch of science. But if I correctly grasped the main points of each field, then I would be able to extrapolate and deduce whatever else I needed to know.
In a sense, I needed to become an intellectual detective, tracking down solutions while ignoring dead ends and misdirection. It was urgently important to select and read all the books which were of special importance in their respective fields. To do this I developed a new method of reading. Once I began to read a book, I read it through at one sitting no matter what the length. I also read very quickly, mastering a speed-reading method of digesting several lines at a time.
Day and night, I read the Marshal’s works on the Juche idea and made it the sole criterion for the rest of my thinking. But in order to understand the origins of the Marshal’s works, I studied the Marxism-Leninism that inspired him. And in order to master Marxism-Leninism, I studied the bourgeois philosophers which the founders of Marxism-Leninism read so critically. I enjoyed reading the classical German philosophy which culminated in Kant and Hegel—and I was put off by the many fallacies preached by the English economists and the French Utopian socialists.
I went through every classical book authored in the past and, one by one, found their shortcomings. I also made extensive study of every domain of ideological theory. I read up on the scientific and technical achievements gained by mankind from philosophy, and from political economy, and from history, and from literature, and from military affairs and art. When studying philosophy, I read books of general principles representing the thoughts of different periods. This enabled me to correctly grasp the fundamental questions of every philosophy from ancient times up until the present day. In this way, I very quickly learned the nature and results of every science in the East and the West from every point in time.
It’s true that my natural ability and superhuman effort were important factors in achieving my goal of learning. But more important was my strong sense of mission. I wanted to give my outstanding ability full reign in contributing to the development of the fatherland. I desperately wanted to get at the truth in all branches of learning, to better serve the masses one day.
After all my study, I concluded that, in fact, Marxism-Leninism was wholly correct. It was an indictment of the inhuman nature of capitalism, and it put the working class on the stage of history. It was an inspiration, a call to drive bourgeois exploiters and plunderers to destruction. Yes, Marxism-Leninism was wholly correct—but only under the historical conditions under which it had been founded.
I rejected dogmatism in learning and upheld creativity—and I deduced that Marxism-Leninism was not a dogma but a creative theory. It had been necessary to creatively apply its principles to develop a new system meeting the new requirements of the new revolution. And that was precisely what Prime Minister Kim Il Sung had done.
The Korean revolution had started under the conditions of a colony, something which the Marxist founding fathers didn’t choose to study. Ours was an entirely new type of revolution, an anti-imperialist, anti-feudal democratic revolution. It was an untrodden road that had to be traversed under its own guiding idea and in its own way—a road lit by the light of the Juche idea.
As a consequence of my erudition, the officials and teaching staff made it a point to ask me about their methods at every opportunity. But, in a sense, it had been easier for me to read every important classical book than it was to persuade the faculty to change their thinking. Books don’t argue. Books aren’t trapped by their old-fashioned views. Some of the faculty seemed to have their minds stuck fifty or even one hundred years in the past. Establishing a true creative attitude in academics was no mean feat. I urged the faculty to rewrite the textbooks from a Juche-oriented standpoint in order to meet the requirements of the revolution. “Dogmatism,” I explained, “can only be overcome when the teaching material incorporates the Juche idea and uses it to elucidate each respective subject.”
The art textbooks were a perfect example, since they were especially influenced by the classics. If the art students drew Western faces, then their drawings of Korean faces would look like those of Western people. Even if a plaster cast of a Greek was technically suitable as a model, it was still the cast of a person who differed from a Korean in feelings and attitudes to life, someone who a Korean artist couldn’t deeply understand. Painters can only draw objects that they understand well. The art textbooks needed to use Korean examples as the basis of their learning. It was as simple as that, but as complex and nuanced as that, too.
I wouldn’t always be around to guide the faculty and students in the correct direction. I wanted to make sure that everyone came to the same conclusions that I did via the same process that I had. So as I was sitting with one of the professors one day, I came up with a great way to maximize the educational methods of our students. “What if we launched a movement to encourage the pupils to read?” I suggested.
“I think that’s a wonderful idea,” said the professor.
“What do you think of having them read ten thousand pages a year?”
He looked at me with wide eyes. “Ten thousand pages! That’s a bit too bold and audacious, don’t you think?”
“Not really,” I insisted. “Think about it. A year is made up of 365 days. Let’s take that as three hundred days, so that we have a margin. If a student reads a little more than thirty pages a day, he’ll easily be able to read ten thousand pages a year—with the main emphasis on the Marshal’s works, of course. By the time he graduates from university, he’ll have gained a deep and comprehensive understanding of Prime Minister Kim Il Sung’s revolutionary thought.”
“Ten thousand pages...” the professor repeated, in awe of my plan. It turned out that both of us were right. My plan was bold and audacious—but it was also feasible. What I couldn’t foresee was how terribly popular my plan would become. It first began as an initiative in my department. Swiftly it turned into a university-wide movement, and then a national effort at all the colleges and universities throughout the DPRK. Within a year, every university student was annually reading ten thousand pages of Prime Minister Kim Il Sung’s works. I was very gratified to see such enthusiasm for learning the Marshal’s ideas in the halls of education. Unfortunately, things were elsewhere moving in a very dangerous direction.
On April 19, 1960 matters came to a boil in south Korea. After over a decade of oppression by the US imperialists and the Syngman Rhee puppet clique, the students and other people engaged in a nationwide uprising. At first the madman tried to blame this “April 19 Revolution” on the Workers’ Party of Korea. But the pro-democracy movement was too obviousl
y something that crossed all political boundaries.
Rhee was finally driven from office. Immediately after his resignation, Rhee’s strongest ally—the “Vice President”-elect—committed suicide with his entire family. As angry protestors converged on the Blue House (the home of the south Korean “President”), Rhee was flown to safety by his Yankee masters. It was yet more proof that the American bastards’ fascist strongmen never actually enjoy the support of their own nation. While Rhee’s downfall seemed like good news, I knew perfectly well that the Americans would never allow a new parliament to stand. Soon, I predicted, they’d simply replace Rhee with another one of their fascistic cronies.
As dubious as these southern events were, it was what was happening in the Soviet Union that truly broke my heart. Khrushchev had praised Stalin as an “immortal genius” while the Premier had been alive. He claimed to be Stalin’s faithful disciple, and cheered for him louder than anybody else in Russia. Now, Khrushchev began to do everything he could to demean Stalin’s name—yes, to demean the same man who had defeated Hitler and made the world safe for the democratic peoples of the world.
Stalin was now regarded as a “tyrant” and a “cruel dictator.” Khrushchev’s gang began to rewrite history, mocking Stalin’s achievements and opposing his so-called “personality cult.” They began to strike Stalin’s name from many of the edifices that he’d constructed: factories, enterprises, rural communes and even streets. Word had it they were even considering removing his body from Lenin’s tomb.
Dear Reader: The Unauthorized Autobiography of Kim Jong Il Page 10
