What Demand of the Times Does the Juche Idea Reflect?

The Juche idea emerged as the reflection of the demand of the Juche age, a new era in history that is fundamentally different from all of the preceding ages.

President Kim Il Sung said:

The present era is the era of independence when the oppressed and humiliated people have emerged as masters of the world and are carving out their destiny independently and creatively.

During the whole period of thousands of years long hostile class society, the working masses were deprived of the position as master by a handful of ruling classes, exploiting classes, being subjected to exploitation without rights.

In the early part of the 20th century the October Socialist Revolution registered victory in Russia and the revolutionary struggles of the working class against domination of capital were sharply intensified in European capitalist countries. And the people in Asian countries, who had suffered the colonial exploitation and oppression of imperialists in the past, rose up in the national liberation struggle in colonial countries.

All of these stirring events on the international arena at that time showed that a radical change was taking place in the position and role of the masses who had been only the object of history in the past.

A new era in history, the Juche age demanded urgently that the broad masses who emerged as masters of history seize their own destiny in their own hands and carve it out in an independent and creative manner unprecedentedly.

In our country, to meet this basic demand of revolutionary practice in a new age was a particularly important matter because of the peculiarities of historical development and the complexity and arduousness of the revolution.

In the past, flunkeyism was fostered and factional strife was severe in our country because of the corrupt and incompetent feudal rulers in the Ri Dynasty and, as a result our country was ruined. Nevertheless, the nationalists and self-styled Marxists in the 1920’s followed the evil practices of flunkeyism and factional strife. They did not try to carry out the revolution by their own initiative but dreamed of achieving independence by depending on foreign forces. At that time, those who were allegedly engaged in the communist movement formed their own party groups and called frequently at the Comintern to gain its recognition. And they endeavored to imitate mechanically the established theories and experience of others, without taking into consideration of the historical conditions and specific realities in our country where a colonial and semi-feudal society was in existence. In this way, flunkeyism and dogmatism were very serious obstacles in the way of revolution.

The Korean revolution which opened the age of Juche was a difficult and complex revolution which had to fulfill the tasks of the anti-imperialist national-liberation revolution against the formidable Japanese imperialists and the tasks of the anti-feudal, democratic revolution simultaneously. It was an arduous revolution which had to hew out an untrodden path.

Such circumstances demanded more urgently that the Korean people choose the road of revolution in reliance on their own independent conviction and judgment and open up the path ahead of revolution on the basis of their own strength and in an independent and creative way.

Just at this moment, the great leader Comrade Kim Il Sung, still in his teens, gained a wise insight into the demand of the coming new age before anyone else and created a new revolutionary idea, the Juche idea that reflected the demand most correctly.

The Juche idea was created as a correct reflection of the demand of a new age in history, the Juche age. For this reason, it became the most scientific revolutionary idea which enables the popular masses to carve out their own destiny independently and creatively.