People-First Principle of Kim Jong Un

The working people of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, who overfulfilled the production plan for the first half of this year by 44% under extremely difficult conditions, are scoring successes in the second half with greater stamina.

The experts’ analysis is that they are encouraged by the decisions adopted at the Third Plenary Meeting of the Eighth Central Committee of the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea (WPK) held in June.

As a matter of fact, the plenary meeting was convened to make a mid-term review of the implementation of the major Party and state policies in 2021 and decide the ways for promoting their implementation in the latter half.

The experts expected that the meeting would discuss mainly such practical measures as readjusting the economic system for the country’s sustainable development or increasing state investment in the present unfavorable conditions and environment. However, the international community was surprised at the unexpected result of the meeting.

Kim Jong Un, General Secretary of the WPK, issued a special order signed by him personally, saying that it was the core agenda item of the plenary meeting to take decisive measures for immediately solving the problems of utmost and urgent concern of the people at present.

He said there is no other more important revolutionary work for the Party and state than bringing up the children, the future of the country, to be physically strong and it is their most important policy and most earnest wish to create better conditions for bringing them up by investing even millions of tons of gold. As a result, the plenary meeting adopted a decision on providing the children across the country at the ages eligible for nurseries and kindergartens with nutritional foodstuffs like dairy products at the expense of the state.

The agenda item of the utmost concern of the Third Plenary Meeting of the Eighth Central Committee of the WPK was the people’s living standards.

It is unprecedented in the history of the WPK that a special order was issued in the name of its leader.

It is not yet known to the public what the special order is about, but if one reads the media coverage of the meeting one can guess that it is related to stabilizing and improving the people’s living standards.

Given the circumstances the DPRK is in now, it is indeed a very ambitious decision for it to provide the children with dairy products at the expense of the state.

In retrospect, important measures have been taken on several occasions in the last decade since Kim Jong Un led the state.

One of them was taken when the northern area of the northeastern North Hamgyong Province was severely damaged by strong wind and flooding in 2016.

At that time an unprecedented upsurge was being brought about in all fields of the national economy through a 200-day campaign for implementing the decisions adopted at the Seventh Congress of the WPK.

In particular, in Pyongyang, the capital city, Ryomyong Street, which could be called a model street of modern architecture, a green and energy-saving street, was under construction.

But Kim Jong Un took important measures, saying that there was no more urgent emergency and no more important work for the Party than the work of relieving the victims of the suffering.

All the human, material, and technical resources were enlisted and concentrated on the rehabilitation projects in the area.

At last 11 900 houses and more than 100 buildings for nurseries, kindergartens, schools, hospitals, and clinics were built and 15 000 houses were repaired in a short period of time, and the residents moved into the houses before the cold winter set in.

Several important measures were taken last year, too.

The measure for building a general hospital in Pyongyang before conducting other major projects was one of them.

And a measure was taken for the Central Committee of the WPK to provide grains and financial support to the people of Kaesong, a city, completely sealed off according to the state emergency epidemic prevention system to prevent the infiltration of Covid-19; a measure was taken to provide the food reserve and the strategic materials reserve of the President of the State Affairs for stabilizing the living of the people in the flood-stricken areas and for building houses for them.

Kim Jong Un personally wrote in a typhoon-stricken area an open letter to the WPK members of the capital city of Pyongyang to stand them in the vanguard of the rehabilitation projects.

All these show that the matter of Kim Jong Un’s utmost concern is the wellbeing of his people.

It is indeed a genuine feature of Kim Jong Un’s politics to believe in the people as in heaven and to audaciously brave all difficulties and hardships for their sake.