Always among the people-Marta Grelak , Warsaw Group for the Study of the Juche Idea

Soon, on the 19th of June, the Korean people will proudly celebrate the 60th anniversary of the start of

work of the great Leader Chairman Kim Jong Il at the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea.

Friends of Korea, progressives of the world who admire the DPRK for always advancing along the road

of independence and justice and for having the most amazing strength in the world with which it does

wonders in spite of any difficulties and roadblocks thrown up by hostile forces, will celebrate together

with Koreans.

The day six decades ago, the 19th of June 1964, is a date of enormous significance, as the achievements

Chairman Kim Jong Il made during decades of his self-sacrificing work for the development of the WPK

and the Korean revolution, for defending the happiness of his beloved country and people, were epochal

and immortal. His glorious legacy will last forever.

The approaching extremely important anniversary makes us, friends of Korea, think of his brilliant

achievements and life and recollect his great personality and love for the Korean people.

Everyone who knows the history of the DPRK is well aware that Chairman Kim Jong Il's great exploits

are so numerous that it is impossible to even mention any significant part of them in a short text. To cite

just a few examples: He elevated the Juche idea authored by the great leader President Kim Il Sung as the

invariable guiding ideology of the Workers' Party of Korea and developed the WPK into an ideologically

integrated whole. He also developed the Party into one with a firm mass foundation and a genuine

motherly party that serves the people with devotion. Under his leadership various impressive, large-scale

infrastructure and agricultural projects were realized to improve living standards of the people and the

DPRK became a nuclear weapons state, as well as a satellite manufacturing and launching state. And

through his unique Songun politics, he safeguarded the country's sovereignty and dignity, overcoming

harsh trials and laying the foundations for a powerful socialist country.

Reasons to admire him are countless, but let’s talk now about one of them, which is a very beautiful and

moving one. It is that he was a genuine people's leader who loved and valued the people most and always

mixed with them.

As a child he saw his father great leader Kim Il Sung and his mother Kim Jong Suk always going among

the people and sharing weal and woe with them. And since his childhood he took the same path as his

parents.

Since his childhood he led a simple life. During his school years, despite being the Premier's son, he wore

very modest clothes and darned socks, carried with him to school discoloured wrapper instead of a school

bag and was deeply involved not only in his studies, but also usual duties as cleaning the classroom etc.

When he was an university student, he worked at the Pyongyang Textile Machinery Manufactory. He

worked diligently, during lunch breaks he played volleyball with the workers, and going back home he

took a crowded bus together with them. He participated in construction work with his fellow students,

organized them into the teams and himself worked more than he was assigned.

Once in 1961, while he and his fellow students were taking part in a project to widen the road, an elder

woman arrived to collect pieces of coal found at the site. He arranged for an excavator to dig up the coal

and move it to a safe place so that people could collect it and then personally shoveled some into her

bucket. She was surprised when she later learned his identity and said "You did such menial work for an

ordinary old woman." But he, holding her two hands, replied, "I am also a son of the people. How can I

mind doing such menial work if it is for them? There is nothing more worthwhile in the world than

working for the people."

And working for the people remained the most important thing for him all his life.

On the 19th of June he started his work at the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea. Since

then he successively held many posts, starting from section chief of the WPK CC. After many years, he

became the supreme leader of the state and Party. Through the whole time that Chairman Kim Jong Il led

the WPK, he built it into a party that forms a harmonious whole with the masses of the people and

devotedly serves them. He saw the people as the most precious beings in the world and also his mentors,

so he listened to their opinions. Regarding "The people are my God" as his motto all his life, he always

went among the people and dedicated himself entirely to their well-being, brilliantly carrying forward the

noble cause of President Kim Il Sung.

In his lifetime he made ceaseless journey of field guidance, visiting the people he loved so much and

taking care of them. Whenever he went to new service facilities or examined new products, the first

question he asked was always whether people liked them. Inspecting factories, farms and military units

across the country he took joy in being among ordinary workers, farmers, and soldiers and devoted his all

to safeguarding their interests and security and bringing them development and happiness.

And while devoting himself for the people, he was surprising everyone with his noble modest and

unceremonious traits.

Once in 1975, when he visited the Komdok Mine, the accompanying officials asked him to change his

clothes, saying the ones he was wearing were wrinkled and shrunk a little. But he said “What is the use

for a working man to be dressed splendidly? I am going to meet the workers and I have to wear ordinary

clothes if I am to get along with them”.

He always wore only casual clothes and ate simple meals like rice-balls, but at the same time he paid deep

attention to making his people well-off.

The distance he covered in his continuous journey for the good of the people is at least 669 844

kilometers, what is equivalent to a travel around the earth nearly 17 times.

Thinking of Chairman Kim Jong Il's brilliant achievements and noble life devoted to the people, I would

like to express my deepest admiration and wholeheartedly pay the highest tribute to him.

Today the DPRK is continuously achieving new victories and successes and pursuing politics of love for

the people as at the helm of the Workers' Party of Korea and the state stands the respected Marshal Kim

Jong Un. He is another great leader and another peerlessly great man and he is perfectly carrying forward

the great cause of his predecessors, President Kim Il Sung and Chairman Kim Jong Il and has the same

beautiful love for the people and always finds himself among them.

After personally witnessing the bright reality of the DPRK during my several visits to the country,

including the latest one in April this year, I am absolutely sure that thanks to respected Marshal Kim Jong

Un's wise and outstanding leadership the WPK will always be people's caring mother and the future of

Koreans will be very beautiful and rosy.

Marta Grelak